by Abhisek Basu
“It’s okay, uncle. He’s just a friend,” Natalie said.
“A friend? I’ve never heard or seen this friend before. And you should be warming up right now-” her uncle said.
“I just need five more minutes. Can you-” Natalie was cut off mid-way as Evan started speaking.
“No, it’s okay. You have a big match ahead and you should focus on that,” he said and walked towards the door. “It was nice to meet you, Mr-”
“Richard White, coach and proud uncle of the World Champion,” he said and went for a handshake..
Evan looked down at the extended hand and didn’t move. Natalie understood why he couldn’t just shake her uncle’s hand. All augmented PAs had abnormally cold skin which instantly gave them away. Luckily, Evan seemed to be smart about it.
He joined his hands together and bowed, which made her uncle take a step back from him.
“I better get going,” Evan said, leaving the room, and then turning back one last time at Natalie, raising a thumb and saying, “All the best for the match, Natalie.”
Natalie saw him smiling and then raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes up for a second before taking off. She wanted to stop him, ask him more questions and specifically, questions about what she had to do, now that she was on Earth, but he was gone.
“What a weird lad, eh?” her uncle said. Natalie, seeing her uncle, her constant coach and only family she had left after so long, couldn’t wait anymore. She ran over to him and embraced him.
Her uncle didn’t pull away. He stood standing with his arms beside him. Then he awkwardly raised his arms to embrace her.
“Are you okay? Is everything alright?” he said.
“I’ve just missed you,” Natalie said, still holding on to him.
“Well, I was just gone for ten minutes, kiddo,” he said. Natalie pulled back, wiped the solitary tear from her left eye.
“Right, yeah. Sorry about that,” Natalie said. Her uncle still looked at her with suspicion.
“Do you remember the time I went to Alaska for a year and Eric found another coach for you?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Natalie said and raised her eyebrow, “What about it?”
“When I came back, you just fired that guy and we started training as if nothing happened. If you didn’t miss me enough to hug me then, there must be something wrong. Tell me what’s wrong. Did the guy who was just here say or do anything?”
“No uncle. It’s okay.”
“Are you sure? If anything’s wrong, you can tell me.”
“Nothing’s wrong, uncle,” Natalie said. She took a deep breath, realizing how much those three weeks had changed her. She wasn’t the same person anymore.
“Okay. Good. I just talked to Hillary’s coach. Hillary was there too. They’ve agreed to the plan. Take out Chang first and beat her down enough. Then go one on one with her. So, you won’t have to worry about them teaming up anymore. It’ll be two on one till she’s down on the mat. Then you’ll fight her knowing Chang’s knocked out and it’ll be a fair fight that you have to win. Is that clear?” her uncle said. He spoke so fast that Natalie was still left silent.
“I don’t want to wrestle,” Natalie said under her breath.
“You don’t want to? What? Your match starts in a few minutes, Natalie. Now’s not a time to re-schedule,” her uncle said.
“I don’t want to wrestle anymore,” Natalie said, looking into his eyes, “I’m done with this. I have larger things to take care of.”
“Are you out of your mind? You trained for 12 hours daily for this night. Your reputation, respect and most importantly, your title is at stake!” her uncle said.
“I don’t care,” Natalie said. “I have more important things to do.”
“More important than being the world champion?” her uncle asked.
“Yes,” Natalie said. She was about to walk by her uncle when he closed the door.
“Now listen here, kiddo. I don’t know what has gotten into you, but you’re not going to throw this away,” he said, raising his voice. “There are millions of people watching and waiting for this. Millions of your fans are waiting to see you fight your best. Millions of little girls looking up to you, thousands of amateur fighters looking up to their role model- you’re not going to throw this all away based on a whim. In a few minutes, the door is going to get knocked, and you’re going to go out there- if not for everyone else but for me, the person who has worked hard alongside you every step of the way and you’re going to walk out wearing that belt on your waist. You’re going to walk out the winner that you are. Okay?” he said, shouting each word as loudly as he could.
Natalie didn’t have any option but to do what he was saying. He was right. If she didn’t go out there and give her best fight, all the lives that depended on her, everyone they employed, all her supporters, everyone who ever counted on her and was looking forward to her win- would feel dejected and lost. Three weeks ago, that was all that mattered to her. But now, she knew that things were different. She nodded. One of the backstage crew knocked on the door to signal that it was time.
“Look at me,” her uncle said, staring into Natalie’s eyes and walking closer to him, “Go out there and win this. Gang up and defeat Chang. After that, I’ll personally help you with whatever you have on your mind. But for now, you’re still the world champion. Go out there and make sure the title stays with us.”
Natalie tightened her gloves. Thoughts about Tholos, about Travis, Ian and everything stayed floating around in her mind no matter how much she tried to push them away. She got up, ready to go out, when her uncle stopped her.
“What is that? You can’t go into the match wearing that,” her uncle shouted, pointing towards her neck. Natalie looked down and saw that she was wearing a silver chain with a round key hanging near her chest. She had never seen the key before.
“Let’s get that off,” her uncle said and walked towards her, placed his hands on the chain and immediately recoiled, cursing and shaking his arm. “God damn! What the hell is that?”
Natalie, seeing her uncle’s reaction, thought twice about touching the chain again. Then she grabbed, but felt nothing that would warrant such a reaction. “It’s like electricity or something. Remove that. It’ll get you disqualified,” her uncle said as Natalie closely eyed the key attached to the chain. It was a thick metal key with minute grooves all over its surface, shiny and curved, looking ancient and modern at the same time. She unclasped the chain and tied it around on her hair, the only safe place that she could think of.
A knock on the door signified that it was time.
Her music started playing, an upbeat metal track that always put her in the mood to fight, and she knew that all she had to do was win the fight as fast as possible. After that, she would have enough time to figure out what had happened, what the key was supposed to do, and make sense of it all.
As she walked out, the crowd cheered. In the ring, she saw Hillary and Chang waiting for her. Her uncle was behind her, hoisting up her championship belt. She turned around briefly to glance up at the golden belt in his hands- a belt that, after all the things she went through, didn’t mean anything to her anymore.
Chapter 2
Josh was breathing slowly, practicing the art of calming his mind and body as a digital magnetoencephalographic tracker behind him tracked his brainwaves. The large screen showed a steady line flowing across endlessly, a line that should have been filled with spikes and dips if a normal person’s brain waves were being tracked.
The steady line changed and a sharp spike registered on the screen as the door to his office was knocked on. “Unless it is very important, I must not be disturbed,” Josh had said, like he always did, to all his subordinates when he receded to the calm retreat inside his office. Needless to say, his concentration on thinking about nothing, a feat which requires enormous practice in and of itself, was abruptly broken and he wasn’t too happy about that.
Josh pressed a button on his des
k, and the door unlocked itself. Lewis, one of his first and most trusted recruits, a tall, thin man who used to have a beard, but voluntarily shaved it off when he joined the organization, walked in with a look of excitement on his face.
“Lewis, do you remember what I said about not disturbing me while I’m meditating?” Josh asked before he could get him to speak.
“You’d want to see this,” he said and held up a tic drive, a small data storage device that resembled the shape of a tictac.
“Those things used to be much larger back in my grandfather’s day,” Josh said as Lewis threw the tic drive at him. Catching it, and placing it on the AR computer, Josh waited as the decryption process began.
“I know, sir. I still have one of those pen drives, but that doesn’t work anymore.”
“What is this supposed to be?” Josh asked, staring at the projected screen in front of him.
“Do you remember saying that the timing of Operation Hostage seems off and might not match up to the timing we expect?” Lewis asked.
“Yes,” Josh said, trying to understand what he meant.
“Well, the timing, as they say, is perfect. That tic drive contains the entire Tholos feed of your opponent. She won, completed her journey, and is currently on Earth,” Lewis said.
“Wait, it’s a ‘she’?” Josh asked.
“Yes, and someone quite famous already, if I may say that. If you watch combat sports, you’ll know her name,” Lewis said, smiling at Josh.
“Now, now. Let me watch it. Don’t spoil everything. How is everything at Quanti Valley?”
“We’ve sent drones to inspect some anomalies, sir,” Lewis said. “And I have been reading up on some conspiracy theories put out by CELIA over the last several years. There is one thing that I can’t just get over-”
“What’s that?” Josh said with a slight grin on his face. He knew Lewis had this habit of reading whatever there was and using that information later in useful situations.
“Well, MindHaven’s founder Nakamoto, if that was even his real name, has been dead for like fifty years. Yet, there are still sightings of him.”
“Have you read the theory that says that he artificially cloned himself in the cryptographic cloud and now exists as an immortal being playing golf on empty fields?”
“Sir, you’ve read that? I was just wondering. If it’s true and he exists, he might be the only person who knows more about MindHaven than any of us. He’s just the guy who brought the Quantum Revolution, and he was rich and smart enough to do what is being said about him-”
“Lewis, do you know what it says about our people when they write crap like that?”
Lewis couldn’t help but show his smile seeing Josh’s wide smile. “What?”
“That we’re terribly racist. All Asian people look the same to us, and some white teenager saw an Asian guy playing golf and went to the web to write his theory about that. The cryptographic cloud, for it to work, the person has to know the hash code, which worked 50 percent of the time, and be willing to kill himself. Do you seriously think that one of the richest people at that time would kill himself and take that kind of risk?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, sir. But still, if it’s true-”
“It’s not. The public groups of CELIA mostly consist of libertarians who have had way too much time on their hands. It’s the actual group that’s tapping us that we should be worried about.”
“I’m looking over the team that’s feeding them randomised information from our database. They are being primed well.”
“Feed them a couple of truths, Lewis. That’s how they’ll trust and think they have the upper hand,” Josh said and then he smiled. “How’s our hostage doing? Feeling at home?”
“He is, sir. He has rather enjoyed talking with cat avatars of the Philippines,” Lewis said. “Also, our hackers have requested for more Quantum Veros to fuel their algorithm.”
“Get them whatever they need. We need our next feed to broadcast on every streaming channel out there,” Josh said, and a chiming alarm started on his AR phone, which was carefully placed near a wall beside his door. Josh never kept his AR phone in his pocket. The impulse to check it constantly had always been too distracting. Lewis immediately reached for it and brought it to Josh.
Josh pressed some buttons on it, and a projection popped up. David had a volunteer with him near the site. “Sir, he wanted to talk to you once before doing it.”
Josh nodded. The screen changed to a man in handcuffs, beaten and battered, holding a knife in his hands. He saw Josh and started laughing heartily. He shouted, “You! My saviour! This life is for you!”
Josh smiled as the man slit his throat. David panned the camera to show his body break down and melt into the earth, as if the soil was absorbing the dead. Josh nodded to David as he turned the camera towards him. David nodded back.
“Anything else?” Josh asked, throwing his AR phone towards Lewis.
“Yes. Three of the contractual workers claim their augmented PAs stopped working for an hour yesterday, exactly like you said they would. It’s trending right now on the higher web. Almost every third person in Quanti Valley had their virtual PAs or augmented PAs malfunction for an hour.”
“I’ve heard. The last time that happened was when I came back,” Josh said.
“Yes, sir,” Lewis said and nodded. “It’s all happening on time.”
“Good. Good. Get all the third world dictators on the line and order them to wire the funds,” Josh said. And right when he said this, he noticed a slight shift in the body language of Lewis. He could notice his muscles tightening and nerves near his neck stand out. Josh had gotten used to noticing these subtle and yet accurate cues from the body language of anyone he met, and with practice, he knew what it all meant. Lewis turned around and was about to leave when Josh called him back.
“What are you afraid of, Lewis?” Josh asked as he turned around to face him again.
“Sir, do you think we can trust these people? They have nuclear warheads and other energy weapons of mass destruction. I mean, what can we do after all this? If the plan is to topple them and free their people, they will put up a fight. And when they do, we…” Lewis stopped speaking as Josh stood up from his seat.
He walked towards Lewis, noticing the rather obvious cues of his heart racing and beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He was a nice man, hardworking and loyal, and yet too afraid and unambitious, anxious about the future and afraid to seize it.
“Lewis. You have seen what I’m capable of doing without any of my supernatural powers or abilities. This empire that I have created from scratch, this is just from what’s in here,” Josh said and tapped his forehead. “Now imagine what I can do with the powers which are promised. Sure, betraying those evil dictators will involve sacrificing a few lives, slaughtering a hundred soldiers, maybe even thousands, but I promise you- there will be no mistakes from my side. I have a plan and the plan has worked so far. This is a calculated risk with enormous rewards, and I plan to use it to make the world a better place. To do that, we need their funds now, and because of that, one day- we’ll return that favor by killing them or imprisoning them- forever saving them from going down in history as a successful villain. So have faith and don’t question our leverage. Remember, they are doing this because they want to, because they see in us a risky opportunity that no one has promised them yet. They trust us, because we have delivered our promises so far. When we won’t, they won’t see it coming. They won’t even know what hit them.”
Lewis smiled, calm again and eyes sparkling with hope. “I’ll get right to it, sir.”
“Go. And run the feed again. We’ve yet to get the White House to act,” Josh said.
Lewis nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. Josh walked back to his chair and stared at the projected screen. The decryption was complete, and before his eyes were three video files, each of varied sizes. He placed a finger on the control panel of his desk, slid his finge
r down as the brightness of the lights in his office dimmed, and then rested his back on the leather cushions of his chair. He was about to double click on the first video file, when he thought about Lewis and what he said to him.
Everything he said was the truth. But if his calculations and assumptions about the human mind were correct, Lewis wouldn’t get to see him killing and imprisoning the third world dictators, oil mafias or rich mobsters. He wouldn’t get to see how Josh would use his powers and make the world a better, safer place to live in.
Because, by then, if his opponent makes the choice that he expects her to make, Lewis will be dead.
Chapter 3
Natalie looked at Chang in the left corner of the ring. Hillary was on the right corner. Chang’s trainer massaged her shoulders and talked into her ears, while Hillary’s trainer kept shouting to her, hyping her up. Natalie wanted to get it over with as fast as she could. The fight didn’t matter to her anymore, and though she knew that she had to win it, she also knew that she wouldn’t get the satisfaction of being victorious, a satisfaction that she once used to crave. Thoughts about Tholos still plagued her mind; but she remembered her uncle’s advice- take out Chang first and then Hillary. Hillary smiled at Natalie from her corner as soon as the bell rang. The referee moved out of the center of the ring.
Chang stepped forward, not knowing who to attack first. Hillary nodded at Natalie again, signalling her to join her as she stepped towards Chang. Natalie didn’t move.
Chang took a step away from Hillary and danced around the ring, circling Natalie as she tried to make up her mind.
“What are you doing? Attack Chang!” her uncle shouted from the ropes, a shout loud enough to rile Chang up, but Natalie pretended to not hear him. Chang started walking towards Natalie, but she dodged her, sidestepping her and away from Hillary.