Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) (6 page)

“I’ll leave you here,” Aanandi said. “They won’t be long.”

“Any advice? Handy tips for dealing with them?”

“Be honest. Don’t lie. Smile. Be yourself.”

“Oh, shit. I’m doomed.”

“You’ll be fine.” She gave my shoulder an encouraging rub. “Don’t forget, they want you, Zak. You’re not auditioning. They’re the ones who need to be schmoozing you, not the other way round. You’re in the driving seat.”

I was alone with the Rothko view and the whisper of the air conditioning for several minutes. Then three men filed into the room via a side door, not the one Aanandi and I had used.

I recognised the first of them straight away: Dick Lombard, Australia’s pre-eminent media mogul and only one of the best known and most reviled faces on the planet. Lombard owned television stations, movie studios, internet giants and publishing companies on every populated continent, and was famous for his trenchant opinions, which were right-wing bordering on neo-Nazi. To his supporters he was the “Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” To his opponents, a far greater proportion of humankind, he was Satan from Down Under, a capitalist Beelzebub born and baked in the infernal heat of the Outback, a rapacious Antipodean Beast who would not be sated until he had bought up every last media outlet in the world and controlled the flow of information into every single household.

He was a hulking presence in the flesh, far taller than I’d have given him credit for, with a lantern jaw and weathered leathery skin. He had been raised on a cattle station, destined to spend his life as a jackaroo rounding up livestock on horseback, until both his parents died within months of each other and he decided to sell the farm and buy a local radio station with the proceeds. That was forty years and countless hostile takeovers ago, but there was still a squint in those eyes that spoke of red dust vistas and searing sunshine.

Lombard took point. He greeted me with one of the firmest handshakes I’d ever experienced, pumping my arm like he was cranking the motor of a vintage automobile as he said, “G’day, mate. Glad you could make it. I realise we didn’t give you much of a choice, but it’s appreciated anyway. Dick Lombard, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

“And allow me to introduce my partners – not partners in the civil-ceremony sense of the word, I hasten to add; I’m no fudge packer. Scrawny Yid-looking bloke with the flash clobber and the rimless glasses is R. J. Krieger. From Texas, believe it or not. And he swears he isn’t Jewish but I know a Red Sea pedestrian when I see one. Look at that nose.”

Krieger’s handshake was firm, but, mercifully, it was nowhere near as metacarpal-grindingly painful as Lombard’s.

“Howdy,” he said, in a deep cowboy voice that could not have suited him less. His suit was a thing of sleek grey beauty, his shirt and tie sheerest silk. “Pleased to meetcha.”

“And the brown chap’s Vignesh Bhatnagar,” said Lombard. “Don’t be fooled by that chubby cherubic little face of his. Looks all meek and mild, like he should be giving sermons and diddling choirboys on the sly, but he’s a merchant of death.”

Bhatnagar heaved a rueful sigh, clearly used to his colleague’s blunt humour, if not amused by it.

“Hello, Zak,” he said in cultured Oxbridge tones with the faintest trace of an Indian accent. “Try to ignore Dick’s casual racism and homophobia. He means nothing by it. He’s harmless. It’s just Dick being a, well, a dick.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh or not, so to be on the safe side I didn’t. Krieger did, while Lombard himself let out a low chuckle which sounded not dissimilar to a growl.

“Old joke, Vignesh mate,” he said. “Old joke. Heard it a million times.”

“Doesn’t make it any less funny. Or true.”

“Maybe not to a curry-eating turban-botherer like you. He sounds sophisticated, Zak, but he’s only a couple of generations away from shitting beside the railway track and wiping his arse with his bare hand.”

“And you’re only a couple of generations away from deported convicts,” said Bhatnagar. “Let’s not get into ancestry, eh?”

“I’m a self-made man,” said Lombard, puffing himself up. “Where I come from has nothing to do with where I’ve –”

“Perhaps, guys,” said Krieger, putting himself between the two of them, “we could save this for another time. We’re
all
self-made men, okay?”

“You aren’t,” said Lombard. “Your daddy was in oil.”

“And he gambled away every penny he earned, leaving his family dead broke with nothing except debt.”

“Still sent you to boarding school and Harvard. You had advantages.”

“Whatever. I’m just concerned that we’re giving Mr Bramwell the wrong impression, bickering like this not two minutes after we came in. Zak, pay us no mind, y’hear? Just a bunch of middle-aged rich guys joshing around. We’re here for
you
. It’s you we’re interested in, you we’ve brought five thousand miles to see us.”

“No, if you lot want to keep tongue lashing each other to see who’s got the biggest dick, you go right ahead,” is what I shouldn’t have said but somehow did. I don’t know what came over me. I think I was trying to ingratiate myself with them, be one of the boys.

At any rate, an awkward silence fell, and I couldn’t help but feel that with that single sentence I had just done myself out of what promised to be a fairly lucrative commission. All for a cheap quip about fellatio. Talk about blowing your chance.

Then Lombard laughed, and the other two chimed in, and I sensed I’d got away with it. I even thought I had gone up in their estimation a little.

“So you’ll be wondering,” Lombard said, “what am I doing here and what the hell do these three larrikins want with me?”

“Something like that,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong, the trip was exciting. Four bullyboys dragging me into a car. Outer space. Nearly getting turned into a fireball by a Pakistani warplane. Thrill a minute. But what it’s all in aid of – that’s the big question, isn’t it? And why me?”

“Put simply,” said Krieger, “we need someone to draw for us.”

“Draw? Draw what?”

“My older son’s into comic books,” said Lombard. “Dick Junior. He’s bloody college age and he still reads the damn things, though apparently that’s ‘cool’ these days.”

“Comics aren’t just for kids!” I said brightly.
²

The three of them looked at me like I was some kind of fucking weirdo – as they had every right to.

“Yes, well,” said Lombard, “Dick Junior tells me you’re one of the top doodlers in the biz. Raves about your stuff, he does.”

“As a humble ‘doodler,’ all I can say is your son has impeccable taste.”

“We need you for a project, Zak,” said Bhatnagar. “We need your input. Your design brain. Your artist’s eye.”

“Colour me intrigued.”

“We’re prepared to reward you.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Handsomely.”

“Even better.”

“Enough to cover what’s left on your mortgage and leave you financially secure thereafter.”

“Enough to...?”

How did they know how much my mortgage was? And then I thought,
According to Aanandi they know everything there is to know about me, so why not that?
And then I thought,
They’re talking about a shitload of cash, aren’t they?

“But time is pressing,” Bhatnagar went on. “You’d have to be able to start more or less straight away.”

“Like today straight away?”

“If possible.”

“But...”

“We’ve got you all the equipment you’ll need,” said Krieger. “We’ve a studio ready for you. Desk, drawing board, pens, brushes, a computer, all top spec. Phenomenal natural light.”

“But I have sort of a deadline I need to meet,” I said. “I’m in the middle of something already.”

“We can sort that for you,” said Lombard. “Just so happens I own the company that owns the company that’s going to publish your next series. Tell me who to phone directly to get you an indefinite extension on the deadline. All ridgy-didge, no problem.”

“We’re really keen that you can do this for us,” said Bhatnagar. “I know it’s short notice, and I’m sorry, but we’ve had to shorten a deadline of our own. Certain parties are getting interested in us. Too interested. We’re drawing unwelcome attention from various quarters, and we’re having to bring things in well ahead of our planned schedule, so that we’re not pre-empted in any way.”

“What do you mean, pre-empted?”

“I can’t explain. Not ’til I know you’re onside and part of the team. There are things we have to keep secret – even if they’re no longer as secret as we would like right now.”

“Anything to do with what happened last night?” I asked, cunningly putting two and two together. Not that it was that tricky a piece of arithmetic. “The Mirage and the two men in that ‘chariot’?”

“Very much so. But that’s just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. This is something big, Zak. One of the biggest somethings there’s ever been. The repercussions will be immense, the consequences world-changing. We’d like you in on it. Would you like to be in?”

“Give me a clue. Just a hint. What’s going to sell it to me?”

The three members of the Trinity Syndicate exchanged glances.

“In a word,” said Lombard, “superheroes.”

“You what?”

“You heard. Real-life superheroes.”

“A super team, to be precise,” said Krieger.

“Like in the comic books,” said Bhatnagar, “but in the flesh.”

“Powers. Armour. Weaponry. The works,” said Lombard.

“And we’d like you to design them for us,” said Krieger. “Come up with the costumes, the accessories, the colour scheme, the insignia. Work out how they should look.”

“Me?” I said.

“You’re the go-to guy, that’s what everyone in your line of work says. You’ve done revamps of some of the classic characters and generated several brand new ones. This is right in your wheelhouse, son.”

“What do you say?” said Bhatnagar. “Interested?”

“Have you offered this to anyone else?” I asked. “Frank Quitely? Alex Ross? Dave Gibbons? Jim Lee? Come on, you must have.”

“You’re the only one, Zak,” said Lombard. “Top of the list. First refusal.”

“Well, shit. I don’t know. This is so sudden. Right out of the blue. Superheroes? Really?”

They nodded in unison.

“Can I see?”

“Thought you might say that,” said Krieger. “What do you reckon, Dick, Vignesh? A demonstration for Mr Bramwell? No harm in that, surely.”

“Wasn’t last night good enough?” said Lombard.

“Ah, but Zak hardly saw anything,” said Bhatnagar. “It was dark, and over in no time. Right, Zak?”

I shrugged. “I’m not even sure what I saw. Did one of the planes blow up? What happened to the other one?”

“Best you don’t ask,” said Krieger.

“But if you downed their planes, isn’t that like an act of war? Won’t there be reprisals?”

“Let’s just call it a diplomatic incident and leave it at that. We’ve been up half the night making phone calls, soothing brows. The lid’s back on the pot – for now.”

“It’s a risk, showing him anything more,” Lombard said. “Can we trust him? What’s to stop him blabbing?”

“Zak knows we know where he lives,” said Bhatnagar. “Besides, he tested well in the psych evaluations.”

“I have?” I said. “When did I do those?”

“You didn’t sit any actual tests. We worked up a full personality profile based solely on your online presence and records, especially your activity on social networks. You scored highly in the compliance section.”

“Meaning I’m a pushover.”

“More or less.”

I didn’t have the balls to argue with that. Which proved that the psych evaluation was pretty much on the money.

“Whatever happens, you’re not leaving this island without signing a confidentiality agreement,” said Krieger. “And believe me, the clauses in that are tight enough to make your eyes water.”

Lombard pondered, then decided. “Ah, what the hell, why not? Doubting Thomas here needs proof? Let’s give it to him.” He yoked an arm around my shoulders and hugged me to him as though we were drinking buddies at the pub – although it felt somewhat like a headlock as well. “I have a good feeling about you, Zakko mate. I think you’re going to be one of us. You’re going to fit right in.”

¹
Like Jesus. Or Superman after Doomsday killed him.

²
It was the slogan that used to appear on DC’s direct-market covers in the 1980s in place of the UPC symbol.