by Karuna Riazi
“This was sweetness and light?” Winnie hollered indignantly.
The MasterMind put her hand on her hip and smirked. “Those Machi Men could have stood a few more kilos in the shins. You’re welcome.”
Winnie’s skin was starting to work its way toward an angry flush, so Ahmad stepped in front, crossing his arms in solidarity with his bedraggled classmate.
“If you’re going to give us a villain monologue, at least make it useful,” he said. “So we’ve finished this level. What’s next? Don’t we get a cool rundown of stats in the sky and things we’ve earned? A grumpy Moogle to haggle with over health potions and speed boosters?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” The MasterMind lifted her hand and snapped her fingers. Lightning crackled across the static sky and then, in large yellow letters, words flashed.
TUTORIAL COMPLETE!
BONUS TIME—0:05
“You may want to step out of the way for this one if you plan to keep going,” the MasterMind warned.
Ahmad puzzled over that, but Winnie’s eyes widened and she grasped his arm. “Duck!”
She tugged him out of the way moments before a large sack of coins nailed the spot he’d stood in moments before. It was only another second before other items followed: an oversized, jingling set of keys that flickered for a moment, exposing bright pixels and silver current, a snaking mess of cables, what looked to be a CD case that shattered as it hit the ground, and a large puzzle piece like the one Madame Nasirah had shown them before.
Ahmad and Winnie stared at the pile, as above it, the letters giddily spun and jostled each other to reveal:
REWARDS!
X1 KEYS
X1 CABLES
X1 DUFF DRUM COLLECTION CD
“What is all this?” Winnie asked. “Do we really need all this for the next challenge?”
The MasterMind gave another one of those irksome smirks. “I got bored with that CD. You’re welcome.”
Vijay Bhai knelt and gathered up the shattered jewel case. “That was a classic,” he muttered angrily. “Kids these days.”
Ahmad couldn’t pay attention, though. He grabbed Winnie by the arm as new holographic words flashed in the air before them: YOU’VE EARNED A PUZZLE PIECE! ONLY—the letters faded into static for a moment—TO GO!
For a moment, the MasterMind’s triumphant expression fell.
“It wasn’t supposed to do that,” she muttered. Her hoverboard lowered, and she waved a hand toward the letters so that they faded.
“Well, there you go,” she said as Winnie fell to her knees and reverently gathered up the puzzle piece. She flashed it at Ahmad, who gasped.
It was larger than he expected and didn’t look like what he imagined when he thought of a puzzle piece at all, or even the example that Madame Nasirah had conjured up for them. It was marble-carved, shaped like a monkey’s head with the eye of the animal formed by an inlaid stone.
“Hey, um, do we get a user’s manual along with this?” demanded Winnie, spinning around to face the MasterMind. But the girl, hoverboard under her arm, was already halfway into what appeared to be another flying car—one that was definitely a Ferrari compared to the rickety rickshaw model they had briefly used—sleek and stunning with a silver sheen.
“Good luck! You’ll need all you can get!” she called, and then the little craft zoomed off.
Great. Just great.
“Now what?” Ahmad demanded impatiently, but Winnie seized his arm.
“Um, Ahmad?”
“What is it?”
He looked up.
“Oh,” he said weakly. “Great.”
Their mouse friend was back. And he brought company with him: a whole lot of his kin.
“Oh gosh,” Winnie said weakly as the mice gathered about them, jostling and rolling their eyes at one another and smoothing their whiskers. “This is my mom’s worst nightmare. Not mine, though,” she added hastily as one stepped closer. “I like mice.”
“How do you feel about lizards?” Vijay Bhai asked cheerfully. If it had been any other moment, Ahmad would have shot him a glare. Not the time.
“Okay, okay, back up. Let’s not crowd the future champions!” To Ahmad and Winnie’s relief, T.T. brushed through the crowd and rushed up to them.
“Sorry, but can you pick up the pace?” T.T. said shrilly. “Look, you guys need to focus. I don’t know what the MasterMind told you, but I assure you she’s downplaying her own talent to keep you underestimating her—and you should never underestimate a girl.”
Winnie nodded in agreement.
“The Architect is a spoiled brat, bloated on his own power and used to doing the bare minimum to keep it. The MasterMind is pampered and proud, but has a nice set of teeth she keeps hidden. If you tempt her, she’ll turn on you and bite. Hard.”
“We know,” Ahmad broke in. “We’ve been keeping track of time too.”
T.T. raised a furry brow and pointed up at the sky. Ahmad and Winnie craned their heads up. Right on the borderline of the sky underneath a pixelated crescent was the countdown clock, its numbers churning back so rapidly that Ahmad could hardly make out what time it was.
Ahmad groaned.
“Great. I can hardly make it through a quiz at school in one period and now we have to be timed on this.”
“Okay, but you do finish it,” Winnie pointed out. “Just like you finish games. You’re with me, too, remember? I’m always the first person finished.”
“No need to brag about it,” Ahmad muttered. He knew that very well. The sight of her prim head bent happily over a book as he continued to labor through a state test was familiar, and always gave him that same sting of resentment.
“And we’re going to help you,” T.T. chimed in. “Consider us your cheering squad. We’re new to the job, certainly, but that gives us character!”
“New to the job?” Winnie asked.
“Paheli didn’t really . . . welcome residents of our nature in the past,” one of the mice said sheepishly. “The fact that we’re here now is only because so many updates, upgrades, and upheavals have worn tunnels through the city’s fortifications.”
“Meaning,” another mouse said pertly, “that under all the fluff and fancy cars, Paheli is rotting. And the Architect can’t do as much about it as he used to.”
Before Ahmad could begin to reply, the mice were nudging them along to the steering. They paused, though, and turned expectantly toward Ahmad. They stared. He stared back.
“Oh.” He reached into his bag. Ahmad passed out chenna murki to much excited squeaking and thanks. But he worried that he would run out quick, and wondered if the sweet snack was all that would keep these squeaky sidekicks on Team Ahmad and Winnie.
“All right, go ahead and steer,” T.T. said.
Ahmad hesitated, before jumping nearly out of his skin as the sky lit up. It took a moment for him to realize what they were seeing were projected images of what was happening elsewhere in the city: both cities, the one that lived and the one that waited, frozen, for their triumphant return. It was like a wider, brighter—and well, sadder—version of the Bat Signal.
New York was still, even as the dying sun cast golden light over the buildings and frozen inhabitants. Paheli, though it bustled and hummed with raised voices and moving feet, was almost frantic to prove that it was still alive. People cast their eyes about and hurried on. Merchants’ calls for business echoed with desperation.
Ahmad clenched his jaw, as Vijay Bhai settled in behind him and Winnie turned on the boat.
“Full speed ahead, for our city and our families!” she called out.
And off they went.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AHMAD WASN’T A BIG fan of going fast and without brakes.
Winnie, though, decidedly was.
“All right!” she cheered, plowing the boat through a chain of golden coins floating in air as they jetted over the river. “Another ten points!”
Since it was on their route and not a deterre
nce to where they needed to go—or where they thought they needed to go, anyway—Winnie was determined to win. Every obstacle she managed to drag the boat through or flung by with a narrow yank on the wheel showered the floor with gold coins.
By the time they had churned to sweet stillness, Ahmad was queasy and staggered out of the boat, barely taking note of Winnie’s disappointment.
“The coins turned into trading cards of the Architect!” She fanned them out, scowling at them as the images smirked and preened. Ahmad glanced briefly. The boy depicted on them was more or less his age, but also older in a way. Perhaps it was the bottomless dark of his eyes, or the bruise-like circles around them.
Ahmad shuddered and looked away.
“Let’s give Ahmad a moment to breathe,” T.T. chirruped as he bounded out of the back of the boat. “It is odd that the Minaret hasn’t flared again, but I suppose the MasterMind and the Architect are cooking up another new trick. We’ll have to be ready for it.”
“Before we leap straight into strategy, can I call for a first aid field trip?” Winnie held up her finger ruefully. Ahmad hissed in sympathy at the angry red cut across it. “The sharp edges of those Machi Men were no joke!”
T.T. nodded. “Might as well. You can see more of the city, too.”
The first stop was one of the main streets, apparently, for shopping: broad with large archways, rooftop gardens spilling over like Rapunzel’s hair down buildings where people milled in and out, carrying items under their arms like richly etched teapots and sacks of fine spices.
They found a seller that offered bolts of lush gauze woven by spiders with uncomfortably cunning, human eyes. Apparently, Band-Aids weren’t a thing.
“Healthier for you than anything woven or spun elsewhere,” the woman chattered cheerfully as Winnie cautiously extended her hand. “You’ll hardly see a scar afterward.”
“But will the nightmares be worth it?” Ahmad couldn’t help but blurt out. Winnie elbowed him in the side.
“Stop it. You’re making me nervous.”
Ahmad stepped back. He was still haunted by a bad dream from back when he was probably five and six: a horrendous, looming montage of metallic mandibles, sticky webs, and needle-thin legs tapping across stone.
It didn’t comfort him at all that the spiders’ gaze never left him, even as the one chosen out of those hanging down from the shop’s awning carefully wound strands around Winnie’s wounded finger.
Vijay Bhai, too, had backed away, whistling tonelessly under his breath as he poked at a screen advertising digitally printed tapestries and customized bedsheets.
Winnie, though, was enchanted.
“This place is incredible,” she said in awe. “I wish our spiders at home were this cool.”
“I’m glad they aren’t,” Ahmad interjected. He was relieved when they moved on.
“I don’t remember any of this,” Vijay Bhai remarked idly as they strode on. “Where are the dollar carts of samosas and the man who sold wishing lamps?”
That reminded Ahmad, and he tugged on his uncle’s arm to make him stop. “You never did tell me why you know so much about Paheli.”
Vijay Bhai didn’t look him in the face, still staring upward toward the plexiglass balconies and digital billboards. “I’ve spent some time here, in the past.”
“Wait, really? As a player? When? How?”
“So does that mean you won the game?” Winnie interjected eagerly.
“Unfortunately, no.” Vijay Bhai’s mouth twisted bitterly. “My experience . . . well, let’s say it was less of a pleasurable trip and more of a forced stay.”
“So you were trapped in here?” Ahmad asked. He tried to picture Vijay Bhai surviving in Paheli, and just couldn’t see it. To describe Vijay Bhai as bad with technology was an understatement. Even Ma understood what YouTube was, how to log in to her e-mail, and she could definitely tell you about a few popular shows on TV.
Vijay Bhai, though—forget YouTube, he was still wrapping his mind around the Internet, and personal computers. It took him a month to figure out how to hail a taxi, and the smallest excursion, like going to Starbucks or the local library, was treated with the same excitement as a vacation overseas.
Picturing him in this world of floating crosswalks and flying cars was impossible.
“It wasn’t anything like this,” Vijay Bhai said, waving his arm at their surroundings. “Back then, my best friend and I settled down to play a game that involved sand and simple tokens. We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. I didn’t know how much of my life that one decision would take away from me.”
Winnie seemed spellbound. “How much did it take?”
Even T.T., who had gotten distracted by a wide wheel of cheese suspended in a holographic display case, glanced up at Vijay Bhai to hear his reply.
“Years,” Vijay Bhai said softly. “My whole youth, really. And the world moved on without me.”
Ahmad was caught by another, small detail. “Your best friend—but wait, wasn’t that Aunt Zohra? My aunt Zohra was in here too?”
Vijay Bhai gave him a long, searching look. “You were too young, weren’t you?” he said softly, almost as though speaking to himself. “And yet, the memory of Paheli did stay with you in some ways. I should have known, with all the sketchbooks you’ve filled and the questions you sometimes asked. I should have told you sooner, maybe. I should have been like Zohra and expected it to start again.”
Ahmad’s mind teemed with questions, and he had no idea where to even begin. Before he could ask more, though, Vijay Bhai briskly clapped his hands together.
“No use for regrets, though. Now we need to make sure this game stops once and for all. You both need to win, and I need to reacquaint myself with Paheli in order to help you. T.T., I don’t suppose you know what happened to my balloons after I left here?”
“Balloons?” Winnie asked, confused.
Vijay Bhai smiled. “In my day, I was an aeronaut. The skies of Paheli were my domain and my only friend.”
“You—you are the Aeronaut? He is still spoken about!” T.T. squeaked proudly, bowing down a bit, graciously. “Even the new coding couldn’t take away Vijay’s reputation in Paheli! Unfortunately, though, I think the balloons might have been erased. I don’t know for sure, though.”
“Is there anyone else from the old game here?” Vijay Bhai asked. “Madame Nasirah, or perhaps Titus Salt, the old man-of-all-trades who kept up the game’s mechanisms?”
“We’ve met Madame Nasirah!” Ahmad said excitedly. “Did you know her, too?”
“Very well,” Vijay Bhai said.
T.T.’s whiskers twitched in thought. “You know, I’ve heard talk that Titus Salt might still haunt one of these alleyways. We haven’t seen a lot of him since that MasterMind settled in here, and of course, before she arrived, there wasn’t much room or holes for us to wiggle into at all.”
“We’ll just have to keep an eye out for him as we keep walking,” Vijay Bhai decided, and they continued on.
Ahmad remembered some places from his own daydreams, which was a relief. There was a corner of the marketplace devoted to ancient clocks. Not just the European grandfather type, but gold-plated sundials and even a classic water clock from Egypt, featuring a little clay man pouring water between his fingers into a marked barrel on the back of a solemn elephant. As the kids watched, enchanted, the elephant shook its head slowly from side to side.
“That one is more of a display,” the seller told them. “Nowadays, these are the best sellers.”
He tapped his fingers lightly on a round disk, and they startled backward as holographic numbers scrolled upward toward the sky, bumping into one another before settling down to note the time.
“You can personalize as you wish,” the seller continued mildly. “Some of our customers like it peaceful, like this, and others reprogram the numbers to do brief, entertaining presentations as the hour passes.”
“If I had a clock like that, I think it would be
more distracting than helpful,” Winnie hissed to Ahmad.
Most of Paheli’s gadgetry seemed to fall under that description: shiny and distracting, but not always in the best way. T.T. made a point of steering them around the waiting cars at the base of the beautiful, glittering funicular rail.
“It doesn’t always take you where you need to go,” he explained to the wistful kids. “And the last thing we need is to be taken entirely out of the city reaches and have to find our way back.”
They wandered down a marbled set of stairs that led up to a rooftop tea shop where Ahmad had absently drawn in small biscuits and abandoned trays of tea on one sketch. It was bigger than he had even imagined though, with an airy balcony holding tables and chairs, and a buffet that held raisin-speckled rice, tender chicken, and individually potted rice puddings. “It just melts in your mouth,” mumbled Winnie happily as she sampled the sweets. “This place is better than Disney World.”
Ahmad, though, wasn’t so sure.
In every store, everyone smiled and had repetitive conversations, pointing at items they apparently had no intention of buying. They lifted empty pots experimentally in their hands and accepted boxes of mithai, and then returned to their previous positions without protest or question.
“No one seems to have a proper home here,” Winnie pointed out.
“Or a proper life,” Ahmad added, watching as a woman adjusted her scarf for the fifth time in a row.
People drifted into doorways and leaned against the wood grain, looking lost and never venturing inside. They pressed their hands up against the beautiful glass windows, but the shopkeepers looked over their heads in Winnie and Ahmad’s direction, their smiles desperate and as sickly sweet as their wares—apparently not aware of their would-be customers’ plight, or unable to help even if they were.
“The code doesn’t allow for life,” T.T. said bitterly. “The MasterMind apparently found it excessive to develop living quarters for creations that are more or less pixels.”