Resistance (19 page)

“We should have a vote.”

* * *

The bus comes to a lurching halt. The boys race up to the driver. Norio gets up and looks around, but sees nothing. The boys seem to be having some kind of argument with the driver. Norio picks up his revolver and stands up.

“Don’t worry,” calls the driver. “Sit down.”

“What’s going on?” asks Norio.

The driver indicates the boys. “They are saying big trouble ahead. Saying we are turning around.”

“That’s what they said on the highway. I thought this road was safe.”

“Sher Sena land. Big trouble. Bad people. Tiger boys.”

“That’s fine,” says Norio. “Keep going.”

But the boys turn away, and start arguing with the driver again in Hindi. Norio walks down the aisle, gun held lightly in his right hand.

“You can leave if you want,” he says to the boys. “I just need the driver.”

One of the boys pats his AK-47. “Security,” he says. Norio doesn’t like his smile.

In the distance, ahead of them, a song starts playing. It’s loud, thumping, a recent K-pop hit. The boys shuffle around and look out of the bus. One swears loudly.

“Call Centre Mafia,” he growls.

Norio looks too, half expecting an army of cubicles on trucks, and gangsters with earphones and American accents, but the Call Centre Mafia is just a convoy of white delivery vans, approaching the bus with alarming speed. The lead van’s sliding door is open, and a man leans out of it. In his hands is a grenade launcher.

“Out!” screams the driver.

The boys and the driver race towards the door, scramble out, and run into what looks like an abandoned market. Norio simply dives out of the nearest window. He lands on the road and rolls, gun out and pointed at the lead van.

The Call Centre Mafia vans reach the bus. Other van doors are open too, and an array of guns point out of them. The grenade-launcher-toting man in the lead van scans the abandoned school bus, and raises his weapon. Norio dives off the road into the ditch.

The vans pass on. One of the gunmen shoots idly, smashing all the windows of the bus. Norio hears waves of laughter through the music.

Norio stays down until he sees his rag-tag army emerge from the market and head swiftly towards the bus. He gets up, then, and shakes dirt and glass from his clothes.

“Oye. You. Japan.”

Norio looks up. Four rifles point at him.

“Danger boss. Give more money,” says the driver.

Norio tosses him his wallet. The driver smiles. The boys file into the bus.

Norio sighs, and takes a step forward.

“Hello? Hero? Where you are going?” asks the driver.

“To the mall,” says Norio. “We had an agreement.”

The driver laughs.

“First time in India?” he asks.

“I am a powerful man,” says Norio. “Cheating me is a very bad idea.”

“Bad idea? Good idea if we take gun? Take phone? Take life also?” the driver asks. Norio shakes his head.

“Bye bye Japan. Now tell thank you.”

Norio thanks him, and watches as the school bus drives away. He stands alone in the sun, wondering when he’d signed up to be microwaved. He’s fired hundreds of people, shot or otherwise injured several others, but never in his life has he felt this unpopular.

* * *

Baku, Oni and Raiju hadn’t even pretended to think about it, they’d voted him out. He hadn’t expected Azusa to reprimand them, as she’d always kept up the pretence of team equality. And then she’d spoken. Voting him out as well. He’d stared at her, blinking in disbelief, all his attention focused on suppressing a squeal of indignation. The rest of the team had been stunned as well.

“Don’t you work together in real life? Isn’t he your husband or boss or something?” Oni had asked.

“On this team we are equals,” she had said. “I believe Goryo has other priorities at this time in any case. We will consider this vote cancelled if he chooses to stand down voluntarily. We already have a replacement lined up.”

“Get out,” Norio had said, as quietly and firmly as he could. “All of you.”

A few extremely tense moments had passed, with Raiju and Baku clearly considering violence. Fortunately for them, they had abandoned the idea and left the base. Azusa had gone with them. Norio had stood alone, staring at the mechas glowing quietly at ARMOR station. He’d walked up to each one, stroked each ghost-machine head. He’d wished, once again, that Sundar had designed a giant mecha capable of being operated by a single pilot, but ARMOR needed at least three people to work. He had considered, for quite some time, the idea of just taking off with the Goryo mecha, of giving its flight capabilities a real challenge, but that was clearly a bad idea, no matter how many angles he considered. An unauthorised flight across China was always fraught with danger, and Goryo did not have the speed or strength to withstand Chinese surface-to-air weapons or, more significantly, Chinese supers. And an underwater and overland voyage would have been too long and complicated. Especially because he had no idea where Kalki was, or even how to find him. A ghost-mecha floating around the wild suburbs of Gurgaon, stopping occasionally to ask the locals for directions to a mad blue horse-headed super-god, might have drawn a certain amount of attention.

Norio had patted the ghost-mecha’s head, bade it goodbye, and walked to the delivery pod, waving the lights out as he left, wondering if he would ever see ARMOR again. Behind him, the eyes of mecha-bots glowed defiantly and then dimmed, one by one, into darkness.

* * *

Above him, the sun is a blinding, unrelenting ball of light. Norio can feel heat washing over him, can see the edges of the potholes in the road melting and shimmering. Time has lost all meaning: he feels as if he’s been walking the streets of Gurgaon for years. His eyes sting with dust. He’s tried resting in shadows wherever he finds them, but stillness only makes the heat worse. His NutriPacs are still on the bus, no doubt being consumed with great delight by his former companions. His steps are getting shorter. A few feet behind him, two dogs skulk by a wall, watching, waiting for him to drop, their low growls a constant reminder that he has to keep moving. He’s waved his gun at them a couple of times. They’ve fled, but always returned.

He hears the sound of car engines behind him, and dashes for cover.

This gang evidently believes in style. They’re driving smart, well maintained and strangely clean luxury sedans. But these aren’t just high-end cars, a gun turret sits on each roof, along with a swivelling chain gun manned by a suit-clad gangster. Norio has no time to worry about how they’re dealing with the heat, a volley of bullets carves out deep grooves on the wall in front of him, sending him scurrying back onto the road. More gunshots send gravel flying near Norio’s feet. He dives and rolls, pulling his gun out. But before he can fire, three cars surround him, cannons in every direction. He drops his gun and raises his hands.

The gangsters emerge from their vehicles. They’re clearly based in one of the local malls: they’re all dressed in designer clothes; though the fact that they’re also carrying bejewelled ladies’ handbags indicates that they’re probably not fashion experts. Several men surround Norio, most have guns, and the rest carry exotic bladed weapons that weren’t available in malls the last time Norio visited one. The leader, thus designated by what appears to be diamond-studded sunglasses, stands in front of Norio, holding a golden gun to his head.

“Listen to me,” says Norio, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“No,” says the leader, smiling.

“Are you human?” asks Norio.

The gangsters look puzzled.

“Yes, you are. Then listen. This is the most important thing you’ll ever hear.”

The gang stands around him, brandishing their weapons, waiting for a signal from their leader.

“Say say,” says the leader, looking vaguely interested.

“I’m one of the richest men in the world,” says Norio. “And I’m here to change everything. To end all this.”

He gestures at the broken buildings around them.

“What ya. Boring,” says the leader.

The gang jeers at Norio. Someone prods him with a rifle barrel.

“There’s no reason for you to believe me, or trust me,” says Norio, finding his voice again. “But if you kill me, all hope ends. Listen. Who is your biggest enemy?”

“Sher,” says the leader.

“Yes. Sher. And others like him. All supers. And in time, the supers will take all you have, and you and your children will be their slaves.”

“You are stopping Sher?” asks the leader, clearly curious despite himself.

“I have a plan,” says Norio. “And you’re a part of it. Because you’re going to work for me. You’ll be powerful. More importantly, you’ll be rich.”

The gang considers this for a while. They turn to their leader.

“We just take all your money and kill you, no? Then also rich,” he says.

“This is your chance to bring humans back into the game,” says Norio. “If you miss it, the supers take everything. But you have a choice. Wealth, power, fame on the one hand. Death and destruction on the other.”

“Big plan, boss. Full masala. Interesting,” says the leader.

Norio extends his hand. “Do we have a deal?”

The leader grasps his hand and grins.

“No,” he says.

Norio doesn’t know who hit him on the back of the head at this point. Or why he thinks he hears, in the distance, a tiger roaring. But he is knocked out immediately, so there isn’t time to get into any of this.

* * *

He’d gone to one of his secret Ginza flats very late that night, after a long private sulk in a large central Tokyo beer hall filled with businessmen drowning their sorrows and diving stocks. He’d not planned to spend any time at home, only to stop to pick up his suitcase and head off to his private airport, but he’d found Azusa waiting for him.

They’d circled each other in his fancy living room for a few minutes. He’d poured himself another drink; she’d waited demurely next to the glow-fish aquarium, looking unflinchingly at him.

“You don’t need to hand in your resignation,” he had said finally. “I understand why you betrayed me. There’s nothing else to say.”

“Don’t go,” she’d said. “You took your shot against the supers, and you failed. There’s no shame in that. You have your honour.”

“This isn’t about me, or my family,” he’d replied. “Azusa, you’ve known me longer, and better, than anyone else alive. If you don’t see why I must do this, there’s nothing left to say.”

“Don’t go,” she’d said again. “I understand your hatred of supers, and I will help you fight them. But not now. Now you need to disappear again. They won’t hunt you for long, they have a new crisis coming up every minute. You’ll come back with a bigger plan, a better one. But running off to India to find Kalki is not the answer.”

“You looked at the lists with me. It’s our best shot.”

Azusa had sighed. “All the years I’ve known you,” she’d said, “I’ve never seen you as a person who wanted to do anything but take the world forward. To the future. Yes, the world we lived in before supers was wonderful – for you. Yes, I can see how you’d hate being irrelevant, and want to do something about it. But I don’t understand why you want to end it all. Because supers make the world better, Norio. They take it forward. Whether you like them or not.”

Norio had stared at her. “What do you think I’m going to do with Kalki?” he’d asked.

“You’re going to ask him to remove superpowers from the world,” she’d said.

He’d laughed. It had started out fake, and then grown embarrassing, and he’d stopped.

“You don’t know me at all,” he’d said.

“And you don’t know what you’re doing,” Azusa had snapped. “You think you’re going to find Kalki from Aman’s list? Sher has him. His army stays on the move. You don’t have the slightest idea where to find him.”

“I’ll ask around.”

“You’ll get killed.”

“Then help me,” he’d said, grasping her shoulders. “Not as an employee, or a teammate. Help me as a friend. Find him for me.”

“No,” she’d said, and drawn away.

He’d shrugged, and tossed a bag over his shoulder.

“Goodbye, then,” he’d said. “I might never see you again.”

“Goodbye.”

He’d turned at the door. “I’ve been in love with you for a few years now,” he’d said. “Just thought you should know.”

He’d never seen her cry before.

“I’ve always loved you too,” she’d said, wiping away her tears defiantly. “But you don’t. Or you won’t when you find out who I really am.”

They’d stared at each other across the room for what had seemed like hours.

“Who are you?” he’d asked, wondering whether or not to look for a weapon.

“I’m a super.”

It is a while before Norio can speak. “How long have you known?” he asks finally.

“Eight years.”

“What’s your power?”

“I find people. It’s how I always found you.”

“And how did you find Aman?”

“I can track people after I meet them. It feels like I can smell them, but that can’t be true. Whatever it is, I just know where they are in the world. I tracked you to find Tia in her submarine. Once I met her, I tracked her back to Aman’s island. If we’d ever managed to make a kaiju turn around, I could have found the King.”

He hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry, so he’d settled for making a noise like a soda bottle opening.

“I should go,” she’d said.

“Yes, you should. You should come to India, and save the world with me.”

She’d shook her head. “Let’s not talk about this any more. If this is really the last time we meet, then I’d like to see you smile before you leave.”

And he had been smiling, but not because she’d asked. It was because he’d been filled with joy and hope, and he couldn’t remember when he’d last felt that way.

He’d told her what his plan was. And he’d seen her eyes light up, and fear and excitement blossom in her eyes.

“Do you think it’s possible?” she’d asked. “Can he really do that?”

“According to Aman’s files, he can do anything. He grants wishes.”

“Then yes. It’s the right thing to do. But why didn’t you just tell me this at the beginning?”