Turbulence (8 page)

On summer days like today, though, the sun-drenched open area of the cafe is usually fairly empty. Only people with actual work or those waiting for be-there-in-five lunch companions are present, sweating stolidly under red umbrellas, wishing the breeze from the large standing fans actually reached them.

Vir arrives, looking for his mysterious phone friend. Only three tables are occupied, featuring a giggling gang of four girls having a
Sex and the City
conversation, a young couple — a somnolent young man and an attractive woman typing on a laptop — and a pot-bellied businessman-type sweating profusely as he leers at the girls. There’s a pause in all the conversations as Vir walks in, stumbling a little as he tries not to break the gate. Vir radiates so much charisma that even the waiters, famous for their ability to ignore anything short of a fully-fledged assault, turn and stare. He looks around. The businessman, he decides, is the likeliest candidate. He’s about to approach him when his phone rings.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says. “Superman. Nice of you to drop by.”

Vir is puzzled: none of the people at any of the tables are on the phone. He looks inside, beyond the glass doors to the inner section of the cafe. All of the people with phones to their ears are female.

“Don’t call me Superman,” he says. “Where are you?”

“You were supposed to come alone.”

“I am alone. And
you
were supposed to bring at least yourself. Where are you, in the restaurant? I thought we were going to meet here.”

“The restaurant is probably full of your spies. Lunch is off. In fact, unless you get rid of your boy across the road, the meeting’s off. Don’t play games with me, Vir.”

“What boy?”

“You forget I know what everyone on that flight looks like. You shouldn’t have brought one of them to be your lookout.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? Turn around. Look, on the wall between the road and the seafront. Ugly guy, pink shirt, shiny trousers. Not the best outfit for shadowing people, no?”

Vir looks across the street and spots a dark, hatchet-faced man sitting on the wall, licking an orange ice-lolly, watching the sea and the sunproof lovers on the rocks in front of him. Vir frowns.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know him,” the voice on the phone says.

“No, I know him. His name’s —”

“Mukesh. He’s supposed to be missing. One of yours.”

“I don’t know why he’s here.”

“To help you capture us, obviously. In case one super-strong flying man isn’t enough. It’s flattering that you think I’m more dangerous than a Pakistani nuclear plant, of course, but really, this wasn’t smart.”

“I haven’t even talked to my people since our conversation. His presence here has nothing to do with me.”

“I’m supposed to just believe you? I don’t think this is going to work. Shame.”

“Listen. Maybe we should meet somewhere else. I don’t want him to see me either.”

“Too late for that. Don’t hang up. I want to hear what you say.”

The hatchet-faced man has spotted Vir. He gasps and drops his ice-lolly. Growling in exasperation, Vir strides out of the cafe, and the girl gang sighs in disappointment. Mukesh slides off the wall and stands, hand on hip, until Vir reaches him.

“What are you doing here?” Vir asks.

“I should ask you that, man. Where the hell have you been? We thought you were dead!” Mukesh replies.

“I’ll report to base tomorrow. Until then, no one knows I’m here, okay? I’m following up something on my own.”

Mukesh’s mouth twists into an approximation of a smile. He sticks his tongue out: long, forked and snake-like, rendered somewhat less fearsome by an ice-lolly orange coating.

“I don’t think that works, man,” he says. “You failed your mission, no? Jai’s not going to be happy. I think you should talk to him now.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, soldier,” Vir snaps. “Now get out of here. I have work.”

“I’m not your soldier any more, man. Things have changed
a little bit. You talk to Jai. Or maybe I should.”

Vir steps forward, puts a friendly hand on Mukesh’s shoulder and presses slightly. Mukesh flinches in pain, and his muscles convulse. Green scales appear along his cheekbones and neck. His eyes turn yellow.

“I think you’ve forgotten who I am and what I can do,” Vir says. He steps back, releasing Mukesh, and Mukesh’s features slide back towards normal. “Get out of here for the next two hours. I don’t owe you any explanations.”

Mukesh steps back, smiling, and his canines lengthen into long fangs.

“I’ve often wondered exactly how thick your skin is, Vir,” he says in a strangely deep voice. “Maybe I’ll get to find out soon.”

“Maybe you will. And keep your face under control, you idiot. People are watching.”

“They’re going to be watching a lot more soon. Wait and watch, man.”

“And if Jai finds out you saw me before I tell him, I’ll come looking for you. Got it?”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Mukesh grumbles, and shambles off.

Vir stands and watches while he gets into a car and drives off towards Juhu. Then he puts the phone back to his ear.

“Where are you?” he snaps.

“Just come back to the cafe and sit down.” The caller disconnects.

Two minutes later, a short, shapely woman in a tiny dress swings the cafe’s gate open and sashays in, her heels tapping loudly in time to all male hearts in the vicinity. She draws up a chair and sits across from a stunned Vir.

“Sorry I’m late, darling,” she trills, “but my hairdresser took a very long time. What do you think?”

She pulls her huge sunglasses up on her head and runs a hand through her inch-long hair.

“Very nice,” Vir says politely. “Who are you?”

“I’ve been trying to think of a good answer to that for a while. I was going to say Multiple Woman, but apparently there’s already a Multiple Man. So I’m going with Ms Quantum for now. But it’s a bit of a silly name, no? Do you have a superhero name, or is it just Vir? It does mean brave, so you’ve got a head start there. Still, you should have a secret identity, no?”

“It’s just Vir.”

“Nice. You know what else I wanted? A costume. Like a proper superhero costume, except you can’t wear a bodysuit in Mumbai in this weather, you’d stink and melt. And I don’t really have the figure for it anyway. Apparently there are lots of superhero chicks who wear next to nothing, but that wouldn’t be very practical either, no? Like, I’d look okay, but I couldn’t fight with anyone. Of course I can’t fight anyway, so that doesn’t matter.”

“Yes. Let’s get to business, please. Where is he?”

“Oh, he’s around. But see, here’s the thing. He just got access codes to all of China’s nuclear weapons, and if he doesn’t fill in a password once every fifteen minutes, they’re going to launch. And they’re going to land in Kashmir, on your little secret underground jail at Udhampur. And the password keeps changing every time, so even if you, say, forced it out of him, it wouldn’t help, darling. Your super-science project, whatever it is, would be destroyed, and a war would start with China. So you’re going to be nice to him, right?”

“I don’t like being threatened,” Vir says. “And I can see you’re bluffing.”

“Well, we don’t want to find out, do we?”

“Nuclear protocols don’t work like that. There are lots of stages, and not all of them are online.”

“Are you sure?”

“This is a waste of my time,” Vir says, standing up.

“All right, all right,” a young man says from the next table. “Sit down, Vir. I’m Aman, and this is Tia. Hello.”

Vir sits and looks at the woman with the laptop at Aman’s table. His eyes widen as he realises it’s Tia again, only with longer hair and a less spectacular outfit.

Aman moves across to Vir’s table and sticks out a hand. Vir shakes it briefly, his eyes not leaving Tia.

“Are they —” he begins.

“No, we’re the same person,” says the Tia-at-Vir’s-table. The other Tia rises, waves sweetly at Vir, and leaves with the computer. Vir’s eyes follow her as she crosses the road and gets into a small red car.

“I’m over here,” Tia says. “So, Aman, Vir wanted to get straight to business.”

“It’s only a matter of time before Mukesh comes back with help, so there’s no time for fun and games,” Vir says. “You both have powers that could be very important. But we think you also have a disease that makes your bodies unstable — we were all infected on the plane and you’re in danger. You need to come with me right now.”

“Crap,” Aman says.

“I think what Aman means is that we’re concerned about our fellow passengers disappearing and then re-appearing dead,” Tia says. “We know about your Kashmir facility — we’ve even got some blurry photos of your roof — and we definitely don’t want to go anywhere near it.”

“You know as well as I do that something’s gone wrong, and people have been lying to you,” Aman says. “So don’t give us your official line.”

“You really don’t get to tell me how to conduct myself,” Vir says. “In fact, I don’t see any reason not to take both of you to Kashmir right now and talk to you under conditions more suited to me. And to my superior officers.”

“The same superior officer who sent you to die? Squadron Leader Jai Mathur? The same Jai Snake-Eyes back there was talking about?” Aman says.

“You’re beginning to make me angry.”

Vir and Aman stare hard at each other, and Tia giggles.

“Boys,” she says. “Calm down.”

“Order?” asks a waiter, materialising out of nowhere with a menu.

Tia orders three coffees and then, when the waiter is gone, turns back to the men with a winning smile.

“We’re here because we’re scared, Vir,” Tia says. “People are dying like flies. That couple in Bangalore, all those foreigners who left the country. And so many others are missing. Can you blame us for lying low?”

“No,” Vir admits. “I haven’t really been following the news. I’ve been flying around like a maniac since all of this started.”

“Let’s talk about your Kashmir base,” Aman says. “How many of us are you holding there?”

“We’re not holding anyone against their will as far as I know,” Vir replies. “I haven’t been there too many times. I’ve
mostly been tracking down rogue powered people who were cleared by the tests but then found their powers and started committing crimes. You have no idea how big this is, and what it means for our country.”

“So you really don’t know what’s going on at the base?” Aman says.

“They’ve been running extensive tests on the subjects. There are some amazing powers there, but we’ve had to keep it all very quiet. I’m sure you understand why. I’m really not at liberty to talk about it.”

“You mean you won’t tell us the truth. You’re trying to see how many of these powers you can convert into weapons for the Indian military,” Aman says.

“If we were, could you blame us? We’ve been handed an incredible variety of strategic military assets. And if you joined us, Aman, with your powers, just think what we could accomplish.”

“Don’t go Darth Vader on me. It sounds very stupid. Vir, we know you’re here because you suspect your superior officers, and whoever else is running this operation, of trying to get you killed. Because you think that they might be eliminating powered prisoners who won’t co-operate. About half the passengers on the plane weren’t Indian — what happened to them?”

Vir says nothing.

“What happened to all the Brits?” Aman persists. “They haven’t been sent back to England. They haven’t been seen here in weeks. There aren’t any records of their even being tested. What did you do with the foreigners?”

“I don’t know, all right?” Vir clenches his fists. “They’re not at the base. It’s only Indians there.”

“Where are they, then?”

“They were removed.”

“Killed?”

“Transferred. I don’t know where they were taken. It wasn’t my decision.”

“Why didn’t you ask? Didn’t you care?”

“I didn’t think about it! I don’t question the orders of my superiors. That’s how we function.”

“Do you know how many journalists, how many embassy officials worldwide are trying to track them?”

“Lots, I suppose.”

“Yes, ‘lots’ is accurate. Now I don’t know what you did with them, but you can’t just make over a hundred people just disappear any more.”

Vir smirks. “You don’t know very much about the world, do you?”

“Not like this, Vir. I know you military people don’t really see human life the way the rest of us do —”

“Be careful.”

“Not you, sorry. Look, I’ve been covering a lot of trails, deleting a lot of emails, messing with a lot of records — visas, travel documents. But people have started making connections. The British Embassy has been asking a lot of questions, and no one here has any idea what the answers might be. A few detectives and a few journalists are already in India, following stories. I’ve been leading a lot of people down empty paths and spreading false rumours.”

“That was you?”

“Yes. And, believe me, I’m not doing this to help out. I know you’re still tracking a lot of the people who slipped through the first round of tests, thanks to my efforts, and that’s the only
part of this whole thing that I’m happy about.”

“Glad to hear that. Powered rogues running wild, endangering civilians, and you’re proud,” Vir says.

“Taking them to a prison where they’ll probably be killed or conscripted isn’t the answer. You should be worried about the people you’ve already killed. The first sign of any evidence, there’s going to be a huge media uproar. International scandal. And this isn’t a government conspiracy. Whatever you’re doing at that base, it’s not state-sanctioned.”

“So you said. But that’s impossible,” Vir says.

“You know at some level that Aman is telling the truth,” Tia says. “They tried to get rid of you because they thought you might be a problem later.”

“No. That just — no.”

Coffee arrives. Aman finishes his in one gulp. He burns his tongue and pants a bit before continuing.

“Vir, you’re
here,
despite your training. You’ve got to be honest with us and take one more step. There’s something very terrible going on, and you’re a part of it. They must have been worried about how you’d react when you found out what was really going on, otherwise why would they want to sacrifice a power like yours?”