Parchment

Rita and Hank strolled along the narrow pathway overlooking a valley with a canopy of dense ombrophilous trees. The evening was bright and sun drenched them with orangish glow. It was as perfect setting as Rita had imagined. The relapse had been bad and the scars on her hands constantly reminded Hank of the nightmare-in-a-shell that walked with him.

He loved her, at least that was what he thought as his heart began to race every time he thought of her. The angel that wore white dress at the party-this would always be Hank’s mental picture of Rita.

Rita started to cry silently, like a gazillion times she had cried before. She understood life as being a constant war against the existing universe one had to endure every minute alive. Her heart did not accept it. and instead injected the need for what she cannot have. This gave rise to an eternal sadness. Every time she began to drink she felt the need to go back to her senior year, to be around with her eight friends who did not know what prejudice, gossip or kiss-ass meant. It had been a perfect year. She had lived every moment for itself, so much that even during the night of graduation it did not sink in that the fun-years had come to an end. The next morning when the hangover began to cede, she rolled up her legs, hugged them and cried.

“Come on, not again. You wanted to have this moment, and it can’t be more perfect than this, so why cry?” Hank asked releasing their hold.

“I don’t wanna die, I want to marry you and have a huge family, but when I think of other girls having babies, it disgusts me how lame they are. Pimping their own narcissistic photos to get lame likes, discussing how their next profile picture should be every freaking time they’re alive. I just want to kill those bitches”, her only acquaintance with the outside world didn’t get along well with her emotions.

“So why do you login to Facebook? Why do you even care?”

“Cos the lame bitches should never be popular”, the anger in her eyes shone red.

“You sound fascist you know?”

Hank had a long history of speaking his mind out. The night when her daddy died, she sat on her front yard when Hank arrived. After trying to console her, assuring her that he would rest in peace with other angels that was not so well received by the religion-hating girlfriend, he had said that she could view the one bright side — no one can ground her if she comes home after midnight. It started a six month hiatus that even the most beautiful bouquets of roses and white lilies could not end.

“So I am a bi-polar, a recurring sadist … and now fascist. What else am I Hank?”

“Rita I am not going to continue that conversation. You need to calm down and relax. We are going to enjoy this moment and then head out to Bob’s, you know I have reserved the pool side table, just like you love it”

“Shut up and answer me”, she began to yell.

“No! You are not a fascist, I said you sounded fascist, it’s just a rhetorical observation”.

A long pause followed while Rita continued her stare at a ‘sincerely ignoring eye contact’ Hank.

“I said you are not a fascist. There is no one to care about the world like you. Even Gandhi would be belittled if you had the communicative power to spread your thoughts about politics. I love the way you love nature, I love your lust for peace, I love how you never gave a damn when your bff called you an addict whore. You are strong inside, know that. Its just you are the most sensitive person I have ever come across. You need to let out your feeling…”

“and write a book? Yeah right, that’s for geniuses like King or loser moms who can write poetically about cooking a cake. Not for me,” the hungry tiger inside her jumped out.

“You don’t even have to get it published. Write about how America should change. Write about how you envision your country India in another ten years. Write about why you hate your mum, or even sometimes me”.

Another long pause followed by a coy smile in her eyes.

“I do hate you most of the time, but you are the only one who speaks my language, so I can’t live without you, you know? The first moment I find another guy who understands me even a little much more, you are fired my boy”.

Her smile was contagious and Hank caught it.

Hank noticed Rita’s face carried the smile on for a while before discovering her gaze at something behind him. A wild set of colorful flowers grew at the end of the slope. She started walking towards it, he followed.

“Look at these, orange pheasant’s eye and bright bluebottle. Just the two of them, together. Like us.”

Although Hank grew tired of repeatedly having to see Rita’s hands bleeding and visits to the emergency rooms, it was moments like these that made him feel alive and gave strength to continue producing music after failing continuously.

“You know I killed Laila yesterday”.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean that I killed Laila yesterday. That feline was constantly disturbing my cooking, I hit her head with the pan and she died there. I buried her in the backyard and planted red rose over it”.

“You are sometimes very disturbing, Rita. She was a cat for Christ’s sake. Just don’t open your mouth about this to anyone else, or risk being sued by that animal welfare organization.”

He still couldn’t digest the news.
“What on Earth did she do wrong? She was just a cat that did what other cats do. You loved her. Now that she is gone, don’t you miss her?”

“Apart from the every polluting hair and the smell I did not miss anything today,” her voice contained utmost apathy.

“You used to sleep cuddling her. What happened to the ‘pet keeps me sane’ theology of yours?” Hank’s voice rose.

“Wow, are you the blue cross guy!! I liked playing and cuddling it, but never liked taking care of it. Would have been great if my neighbor was a baby sitter, or in this case a cat sitter,” her laugh did not meet with positive reciprocation.

“I don’t know what to say. You are evil or you are plain mad Rita, you know that? Grow up, you are not in school anymore. Responsibility and family values are part of being an adult. You act like a bullying child often”.

A long pause followed while her eyes got drenched with warm tears.

“I cant love you without thinking what’s gonna blow up next Rita. I can’t live happily with you. Your baggage is too heavy for me. You need to consult a shrink or someone. You are stupid, and your brain clock is stuck at being sixteen. That night when you bullied Ester and seeing her cry while other girls laughed and cheered at what you did made you this. God, I even feel the romantic quotes you say about your love for me are just to keep me tied to you. You fake them don’t you? You evil bitch!”.

Unable to hold on to herself Rita ran towards Hank, hugging him she started crying aloud.

“Sorry Hank, I now understand what I’ve done. How miserable am I? I don’t know why I did that. Help me Hank, I’ll do whatever you ask me to, but never say that I fake our love. You need me to see a shrink? I’ll do it, I’ll stop coke. I won’t even smoke cigarettes. Please tell me you forgive me and take back what you just said. Or I’ll kill myself.”

“Shut up, don’t say that. You are everything to me”, each time Hank’s head fought with his heart, the victor was always the latter.

“I’ll look up online for a good doctor for you. I’ll stay with you and get a job in the suburbs, just assure me you’ll write everyday about whatever you feel.”

She closed his mouth with her right hand and said “I’ll do them and more. Come and live with me. We will be happy together. I know it. Having you will calm me.”

She let go of his mouth and caught his left hand and started walking towards their original course. The horizon had almost eaten the entire sun as it shone a big beautiful orange balloon.

Rita started, “Mighty orange emperor always running, searching for dark chocolate that treads right behind him, the blackest night”.

“Wow, that’s brilliant. You see you should start writing a book especially poetry, you can start about the Sun.”

“The Sun? Like I said, it always keeps searching for the darkness of the night, not knowing that the night gets killed by its own presence. How stupid is that?”.

Hank felt Rita’s life was the same, she was bomb that killed her own joys. He knew that it was no use talking to her. Any assuring thought Hank gave would be met with aloof and disconnected loathe.

“Whatever”

“What whatever? You don’t feel the Sun is stupid?”, it was Rita’s trademark argumentative voice.

“No, it’s an all powerful God that keeps the drama on Earth alive.”

“You and your God theory. You can’t live your life without sucking up to something above you, can you? You love feeling weak and unable to feel responsible for what happ..”, Hank closed her mouth with his right hand.

“Shut up Rita. Again, I need this evening to be good.”

“You shut up. What sort of a person are you? Not believing in yourself but blaming something else for what you do? Why do you even eat? Ask that God of yours for food throughout your life. Let me see if he gives you keys to a huge fucking store bin full of money.”

Hank released her grip and started to walk away.

“Why aren’t you saying something?”, Rita’s companion from the dark side started taking over her.

“Why? Because you are screwed up.”, Hank couldn’t hold in the words. A moment passed and he continued, “I am going to my place now and I don’t want to see you anymore. You need to go get locked inside a prison and throw away the key. You are worse than the worst genocidal maniac.”

“Oh yeah? And I am no good for you? Haha you leave me and you won’t find anyone as ‘cool’ as you want her. Your bald head and fried-chicken filled belly will make any girl run away”, she stood yelling at the ignoring soon-to-be-ex boyfriend of hers.

“Nothing is better than nonsense”, Hank said with a volume just enough that she could hear but which denoted he wanted to keep it to himself.

“What did you say?”

She ran to him.

It all happened immediately.

The next moment she sat by the edge of the slope, holding her legs and crying at what she had done.

Everything was a blur, she pulling Hank by his hands, he slapping her. It was blank after that. The body of the only soul that could communicate to the tortured soul of hers lay some fifty feet down.

It came back in bits and pieces –the moment she pulled him hard and his leg hit a small rock.

What happened after that?

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a blur, a dim lit room and a sound. Drops of water dripping down from something. It took me more than five seconds to even deduce that. The pain on either side of my head was killing me, ‘is this what mum told migraines were?’  I thought. Was she suffering from this every day? Poor mum. Anyway, like what every person on Rimmi does when they wake up in a place they don’t know, I tried remembering the events that I could remember last, the house trembling down from a bomb hit. Oh yes, the War.

It was a bright day when I and papa brought in a goat-intestines and some chicken for lunch. Papa always stressed that we have a good meal even during that unpleasant day when the neighbor city of Siera was being bombed. He said that the war was due to the fact that us- tanned, thin, shorter and not yet computer-friendly nation had learned the ways of the paler, and that, we tried to get invited for the coffee after they had ate the hors d’oeuvres, the entrees and cakes. We wanted to be just like them, to have great T.V shows like the Dr.Igloo M.D and the series Buddies, and to be capable of producing movies like the blue-men story of Many Lives. We wanted to taste great pasta from Italy, coffee from Columbia and rotis from India. We wanted to drive McLarans and Zondas like they do. Is that really a bad thing to ask? We had something they did not, and instead of giving us their movies, McLarens and Zondas they were bombing us.

Coming again to that bright day, we walked towards my home, me carrying the chicken and my father the goat-intestines and some vegetables. I loved mushrooms but they were available only once a year. They needed to be what papa said ‘import’ from other country, when the other country accepted to make us ‘import’. I was flying with happiness when I learned a new word that day, but came down to Earth on the hot, hotter and hottest July when I heard that Siera won’t get mushrooms for a year or two. I don’t like onions; they make my mouth smell bad. Even my sister Pinky next won’t play with me, even if I accept to play Barbie, that doll with one leg and half burned hair. How anyone could like dressing that ugly doll up is not for me to know, but she liked it, but when I eat onions she won’t accept to play even dress-up-Barbie.

So as we turned around to my street a thousand granules of sand hit my face, an empty bag made of jute hit my father. He pulled me quickly towards the home nearby, and with one kick, I tell you, one kick that opened the thick door of that house. It was like I was seeing He-Man in front of my eyes, the one who destroys Skeletor and frees the Oracle.

After entering inside, he shut the door and said

“Son, this is what we call War. After Siera, the taller guys want to rob us of everything. Listen to what I am about to say now”,

For which I replied even when we heard a loud noise in the middle of my sentence, which papa called a bomb, I had never heard a bomb before that,

“Papa, we don’t have anything useful, no mushrooms, only Onions and that Misba Chicken that I am bored. Let us give them the chicken and ask them to leave.” boom. “Pinky will be waiting for me”.

“Listen to me son, Pinky will be waiting to play with you, but it might not be today, might not be this month. Do you remember asking me what I was doing going away from you and your mother every two days?”

“Yes papa, you said you were about to make Rimmi a better world. You said that we would get McLarens and Zondas, and we could eat”, boom, “ good Rotis because of what you were doing”.

There was sound outside, just like the sound of rain, like thousand droplets falling around the house, but it was July. We won’t have rain until November and it rains only one or two days a year. I later came to know it was granules of sand when the house next to us was bombed.

“Yes beta, but right now, these people who dislike Zondas and McLarens coming inside our country, they dislike me for helping our Friends from far away to import those Zondas. So listen”, and the sound of rain again, “to me carefully”,

“Yes papa, are they bad people? Do they hate mushrooms”, a motor vehicle sounded loud horn and a loud thud, it should have hit into a home nearby, I saw many motor vehicles when we ran inside, ”like I hate onions?”

“Yes son, they do. They also hate McLarans, Zondas and the TV show Buddies. They want us to watch only cock fights every day, you are bored of them right?”

His eyes were sad, or angry, I don’t know what, but they caused his eyes to water, that was what he told when he hit my friend Miki a week before, when that idiot Miki burned a bright red silk scarf. Actually Miki hit on the candle that fell over the scarf. But that scarf was a present from papa to mama for staying together and not going separate like many of our far away Friends did, for ten years. I liked Miki although I knew him only for ten months, I wonder how much papa likes mama, and he has been with her for ten years. I would want to be with mama for a hundred years.

“Yes papa, I need to watch movies like Many Lives every week and I want to go on that tora-tora every day. I liked that giant-wheel also but tora-tora is my favorite”.

“Ok, then listen to me, these bad people will need to talk to me. They might take me in their jeep. They want to learn how I am helping our far away friends and why we like McLarens and Zondas.” Boom. The house shook, a bomb had fallen on back rooms. I could see the sun, the bright all-powerful. “So if they take me, you need to go to mama and ask her to talk to uncle Hadik and tell her that my stories, the stories I need our far away Friends to read, are under the water. Ok?”

Before I could agree, he unchained his watch, the Casio watch that does not have any batteries. He said it got power from our own bodies, and I, playing under the Sun every day, could charge it fully every day. So I can have it for another hundred years as long as I will be with my lovely mama.

“Ok papa.” He handed it over to me, it was big and round and white inside, and the hands were black. It made me look beautiful just like papa. Papa always said we should not have more than what we needed, because other papas in some other continents did not have even one grain of food to give to their loving sons like me. But he already had his iePhone that he touched every night. He could see the time in it and he still had the watch, but I did not want to question his own principle, or he will become sad or angry and water will come out of his eyes and he might beat me like he beat Miki.

Just then the wall over which we were leaning on was squashed by a bomb. We were thrown away. I cried his name, he cried back saying the bad men wanted to talk to him and that I should run away to mama and tell what he told me. I agreed and told him I that he should do whatever it takes to get the McLarens and Zondas in Rimmi. He agreed and I know for sure he will do anything he agrees. He got me my favorite white mushrooms the year before just because I asked him, and he travelled four hundred towns away to get it, that was when he came back with that small iePhone.

I was still lying down and I did not have my papa or my loving mama or Miki or Pinky. The sound of water drops became very loud. My face was unclean, something red flew down from my left ear. It had the same color as Kissan ketchup we added to noodles. I hoped it was not blood because if blood came out it could make me very tired. That was what happened when little Pinky was born. Blood came out of mama’s stomach and she was tired for next three days. I asked why papa did not hit the man with white coat when he cut mama’s stomach, as papa’s eyes was filled with water that time. But he said it was great help that white coat man did to us. He took Pinky from inside my mama and gave her to us. I could do that too, I was able to hide big lambs inside the pillows and cover it up when Miki searched for it and when he failed I would take the lamb out and give it to him. Miki always would tell that I am powerful boy when I did that, and I like hearing him say that. But when I did the same with mama’s golden ring, she had searched for it for two days as I had gone with papa to meet uncle Hadik. When I came back and gave it to her she slapped me hard and I had water in my eyes. She said it was her lovely mama’s and I should never play with it. Like Pinky, I couldn’t understand mama sometimes, girls were mysterious, and there after I always played that game with Miki only.

So my mama had pain for three days after Pinky was born, would I have pain for three days too? Hers was stomach and mine was in my ear. I sat there looking around, the home where papa left me. The roof was missing, and there were thousands of granules of sand around me. I tried to shout but there were many bricks over me. I needed to move the brick that sat over my mouth, and for that I needed to move my hand. Both my hands had many bricks sitting over them, so I became very scared. My legs too had many bricks over them. Mama always told me to look on the ‘bright side’, so I usually looked at the direction at which the all-powerful Sun was looking at, as it was the bright-side. But she hit me on the head and said that bright side meant goodness in anything. Girls, I know, they say one thing and mean something else. But I agreed at that time even though I did not understand her, just like how my papa did when he disliked the food. But it was many days later that she told me that if I play cricket and win the match, but I had blood on my feet, I should not cry because blood did not like to be inside me, but I should be happy with my team as we beat the other team. I liked it, it was just like beating Miki over that lamb-hide game.

So to look on the bright side- although it became dark outside, I was happy that no bricks liked to sit over my eyes, or I would have to play hide and seek game that I played with Miki but only the first part where I closed my eyes before Miki went and hid somewhere. Poor Miki and his loud breadth, I could catch him anytime. He told that the air inside him hated him so much that when it came out, it made a sound, very similar to the sound when air comes inside to my home after we closed all the windows during a storm outside. The sound of air from the tiny holes in our windows, much like whistle that papa does to mama with a smile on his face every morning, and mama smiles back at him. Papa told that Miki’s body was growing slowly than me and that after some years air will like to go outside of him too with smile and not hate,  but I did not like it as it will make it hard for me to find him during hide-and-seek.

So as the sound of the water dropping made me get migraine I sat there, being a bed to the bricks over me, and looked at the beautiful moon. It was completely grown that night. It was round as the special Indian roti mama gave me a year before. Mama loved the moon when it was fully grown and would take us up to the terrace and feed us with food from her hands inside our mouths. Papa would tell stories about He-Man and Spiderman. I saw a spider once and placed it on my palm and asked it to bite me, so I can jump from one house to another, Miki will never be able to catch me in hide-and-seek. But when I did that, my palm became very red like the Kissan ketchup. I showed it to my mama and water filled her eyes. But this time she did not hit like papa, she kissed my palm. Girls, they are different, but if this is what all girls did when water filled their eyes, I would like to be with a girl like how papa was with mama, I would have a mama to my loving son. Then my mama will kiss my papa when water fills her eyes and my loving son’s mama will kiss me.

After some time, the moon walked very much to its right. I got bored. I wanted to go home and eat and sleep. I became hungry too. Mama said she would make the kheema, I loved her mutton kheema and was thinking of giving all the chicken to Pinky and eating more mutton that day. My stomach started to ask me for food loudly, just like when my papa’s jeep sounded whenever it asked for petrol. I then remembered what mama said when I want the time to run fast. It was not running now, and it was sleeping. Mama said that I needed to wake time up, and to do that I should listen to my inside, and if I ‘concentrated’, that was my first complex English word mama taught me, much I would be able to hear my soul. I should then continue hearing my soul while I think of doing what I liked, which was to eat kheema now. I started to ‘concentrate’. It was very silent but I started to hear something very low, like how our Timmy heard my papa’s jeep even before we could. She would be sleeping sadly till then, and after she starts hearing the jeep she would rise up her tail and start running around the house like how I ran when the spider bit me. She did it every day and mama told that she had deep ears that she could hear very low sound of papa’s jeep that I cannot.

It was like that, very low sound. But just like my papa’s jeep, it started to become noisy. It had two thuds and sometime between and again two thuds, like the sound that my papa’s shoes made when he climbed up the stair to wake me up. I hoped my room was still there, not like the house I lay in, the one that caught the bomb and lost its terrace.

I began thinking of what I wanted to happen that night. The sound inside me started increasing steadily. I wanted my papa’s beautiful jeep help my papa and mama reach me. Then my mama should come running towards me and remove the bricks over me to give them another bed to sleep. Then water coming out of her eyes when she kisses and hugs me. Then we go home in the jeep and Miki and Pinky sitting there around the dining table. And just for that day my mama allowing me to eat without cleaning the sand over me, to eat a very delicious kheema with that butter and some bread with the yellow cheese. Then me and Miki and Pinky playing hide-and-seek till the black clock with broken big hand that was always moving here and there, showed nine when Pinky had to sleep. Then me and Miki playing the lamb game and he telling me that I was strong. Then Miki staying with me that night when papa told me all the spiderman stories, he left the story the night before with the green lizard about to attack spiderman from that tower and spiderman was quickly swinging over all bridges and homes to tie up the lizard, like how we tied up Timmy. I have never seen a lizard bigger than my palm but I have never seen a man swinging over houses either. So spiderman’s world should be different. I would like to visit there someday and ask what spider bit him, so I can find one and become spiderman in Rimmi itself, so when the all-powerful Sun was very angry and hot I could go to faraway place where my papa’s Friends were.

I continued thinking, about the orange juice that I would drink the next morning with Miki. It was just then the sound of jeep joined the sound of my soul. My soul started fighting with the sound of jeep for who could be louder and faster. They both became louder with every thud. The jeep stopped outside, and I thought papa and mama came, but the sound of the jeep was not the same as the beautiful jeep that papa had. I didn’t care who came to help me find another bed for the bricks as long as I get a kiss that night from mama. I needed to tell her how I was able to hear my soul which was very loud then. My hands started to shake like what mama says, ‘it got life of its own’, just like every new rose flower did. The bricks above my right hand fell away. I said sorry to those bricks and to the other ones that I took off from my mouth, and my stomach and my legs and my left hand. I slowly started to get up when my left leg pained very much. The white pant was filled with red color, which might have been from the bricks or blood. I hoped it was not blood as I wanted to play that night instead of sleep. Just then mama and uncle Hadik came.

“Oh beta, I’ve found you at last.” And her eyes started to get water.

“Why didn’t you come faster mama, I am very hungry now”.

“Sorry beta, I had to give medicine to Pinky as her leg got injured and had to put her to sleep.”

She pulled me up and hugged be tightly as I curled my legs around her stomach. She began kissing me very much that her lips became red, from the bricks or blood I didn’t know.

“Mama, where is papa? He said some bad men needed to talk to him.”

“I don’t know beta, but I think he went to meet his friends.”

“Oh his Friends from far away? Bad papa, he said he will take me when he goes there. Did he hit all bad men like He-Man hit all Skeletor’s men?”

“Yes beta he did, he is our He-Man.”

“Mama, he told something about his stories and that they were under water. He also gave me his watch.”

Uncle Hadik quickly came up to me and removed my watch, I tried to fight him off saying it’s a gift from my papa and I will hold on to it until I met him again but mama told me to give to him so Uncle Hadik can take us to papa.

“Mama, Can I ask you one thing?”

The jeep ran fast between the red bricks that were sleeping over many others, those bricks needed bed so badly.

“Can you make me kheema? I am very hungry”.

Note to reader : I asked uncle Hadik to write this so you can read it, and he was so helpful, he taught all the additional words like ‘deduce’ and ‘principle’ and ‘computer’. He is with us now, sleeps in the shed with our cows, and mama said he has spoken to our Friends from far away so they could take us to papa. I can’t wait to meet papa and give him his watch back. I hope he has mushrooms for me so mama can make nice pepper mushroom curry.

© Copyright 2012  Arun Srinivasan

Agni’s Story

“So you mean to say you don’t have the id or a name or even a clan” Soldier we are a home of peace, we do not help anyone in war and so what I am doing is strictly against the wishes of the head of this home”, Nami said in a brash tone.

Agni was sleeping in his room a floor above when the bell rang. Her mother was quick to send away homeless passerbys but it was more than ten minutes and he hadn’t heard the security systems toggled again.

“I agree Madam. This is not about you helping a soldier or taking sides in a war, this is bigger than that. This is huge, huge enough to rewrite history”.

Nami listened to the rest of what Naseer said. Agni lay awake in his bed trying to think what could be transpiring between his mother and the soldier that they did not rest for another two hours.

The next morning Naseer was woken up by a hard shake from Shiva.

“Who are you? What is your name? Where are you from? Do you have an ID? Do you have a weapon?” Shiva went on bombarding him with questions with a mid-range rifle pointed at Naseer.

“I don”t have an ID, I.. I lost everything when my ship exploded. I was chased by Beltronix. I am from the Ortizian province and I am not going to hurt anyone in this house. I needed to talk to Agni and so teleported here”.

“Teleported? War crap, we all know it cannot be done. Don”t fool me soldier. Please leave my home or I will set the alarm for the imperial army. There has been a search for an Ortizian priest. I would give you up as the priest and claim the bounty”.

“I am the Ortizian priest who the Army is searching for”.

Shiva couldn”t believe what he was hearing. A priest from Ortiz who was feared to be one of the best fighters in the Universe was in front of his eyes. The Army placard read that this priest was responsible for destroying the North air-ship in the war, one with the Chemical wind guns. It was also rumored that he was the second mate of Chancellor”s wife Sheela and that he was planning to atomize the entire Beltronix army that day if only his ship hadn”t been struck by the sulfur wind.

“I am sorry to bother you Shiva, I have to talk to Agni. I am here on a very important mission. I won”t hurt you or your family or anyone from your clan in return for the shelter and safety your family provided me last dark horza”, his reference to the night as dark horza confused Shiva as the White Men from the Northern states were the only ones who spoke that way.

“sorry last night in your slang” completed Naseer.

“I know what dark horza is”, Shiva said to a surprised look from Naseer on how a farmer family could understand his slang.

“Ok good. But what do you want to ask the boy? He is just nine cycles old” he said, conversing in the Northern slang, that translated to roughly five years.

“Yes he is, I know he is nine cycles old, but he has a talent for reading the nature. He is the last one who can, and we desperately need his help to stop Beltronix from striking the Gomez province, failure to do so may bring down the entire World as you know it”

“Read the nature? All you White men talk are about reading the nature, about force in peace Luna crap. I won’t allow my son to be used for a military coup or whatever you are planning to”.

“I don’t know how you have the knowledge about the White men from the North, but all I am asking you is to trust me just this minor cycle and allow me to read Agni’s force field. I will prove you that I am true. I will prove you that all the White Men from the North are peace loving people without any sense of deceit”.

“I know about your clan”.

“How?”

“Because I am one of you”.

Shiva went on to explain that his fourth grandfather had migrated to a peripheral state two centuries before and that he was a soldier in the clan. He went on to explain what had happened to his third grandfather and how all his offsprings lost their special abilities.

“The law of offspring does not imply total shutoffs anywhere. It is known that one of the successors will carry on the thread that has the power of the clan in a dormant way. I know it is in Agni”.

“Ok. Then let us check it through our chemicals” replied Shiva.

“No, what you don”t know is that sometimes the chemical test subsides the thread’s power. I have physical tests that would help us”.

Agni was ordered to stay away from the Ortizian priest. All the glimpse he could get was the priest meditating during fore-noon and when he was doing some sort of a research in their holo-terminal that was connected to the information sphere.

Late that night, when the colony was still resting, Shiva, Agni and Naseer started  walking towards the holy lake. Naseer was summarizing what he was going to ask Agni to do. They reached the lake after an hour.

The sky was beautifully painted with three colors sharing the area equally. This was the hour of equilibrium. The red sky in the south denoting the ending of the day, the blue sky on the entire northern side displaying the beautiful day that went by and the green sky on the east and west denoting the colder season of the current cycle.

Naseer began “Do you know the full S-kick Agni? The karate offense movement?”

“No, never heard of any kick” replied Agni with the eyes filled with intense anxiety.

“All I want you to do is to concentrate on a point”, and he removed a black stick like instrument with a golden trident on its top end. The instrument that he called the priest’s label Gyra, was used to find the nature of force in a certain place.

“When I wave this, a glowing ball will appear over the holy water. There would appear a spherical structure of a certain color. All you need to do is to try and read an image the ball encapsulates”.

Agni understood what he meant but still was not completely in the moment since what he said contained two words he never heard of before. He nodded.

Naseer waved the Gyra over his head, closed his eyes and started reciting something silently. The force around the Gyra obtained a color in the spectrum that was visible to the three of them. He pointed it toward the center of the lake and the water began to whirl. The air above the whirl glowed white and the force appeared very strong. After two minutes the force turned blue denoting the strength of the positive field and started taking a spherical shape. Rays of orange and red radiated through pores on the surface of the sphere. A strong glow appeared in the center of the sphere that was brighter than anything the two locals have seen in their bodily life. The sphere was rotating around its central axis. Naseer  was happy to see the path of the rotation since anti-holographic movement would denote an impeding loss to one of the members.
“Agni, are you able to look at the central glow. What do you see?”

“A bright orange glow and some image that appears to be carved on it”

“Orange? You sure you are seeing Orange?” Shiva asked with a smile.

“Yes Orange, and yes, there appears to be an image of a Mother with something pointed towards someone else”

“Ok, try to construct the image inside your mind. Take your time” Shiva said catching Agni’s hands.

“It is someone with sharp teeth appearing to lose their body. No, wait, it is a baby, like the new additions to my school”

“Mother pointing something toward the baby, does that object resemble what I have in my hands, the three sharp edges?”

“Yes sir, it is the same instrument you are holding, but it is red”

Shiva knew what to infer from Agni’s site, it was the mother killing her own son. He knew from the story of first kingdom that his father had told him. The mother always arises to kill her offspring in dire situations to maintain the equilibrium of the force. It hasn”t been done since the first war. And the color of her Gyra being red meant she was furious toward her child and did not have any sadness or negative force in the process.

“My eyes are hurting, it is getting crushed, aah.. my eyes are burning. Please help me father, please help”, Agni started shouting and Shiva could feel the heat Agni felt when he caught his  hand.

“Close your eyes now, and think of your mother. Think of hugging your mother” shouted Naseer amidst the loud wind that blew toward the center of the lake. Agni closed his eyes, pulled his hands away from Naseer’s hold and clenched his fists tightly. His skin became red from the heat and he was thrown by the wind toward the holy water. The wind stopped flowing and the glow faded away the moment he landed in the water. Shiva and Naseer ran towards Agni and pulled him out of the water. His body was still hot and the holy water had turned the skin back to normalcy.

Agni opened his eyes and it turned to light green. Shiva and Naseer were amazed at what they were seeing. A small ray emanated from his eyes.

“What is happening to me? I am seeing colors everywhere, you are red, my father is white, and, and” he started looking around as though he was seeing for the first time. “The trees are different. What happened to my eyes? Please help” and Agni started to cry kneeling and holding Shiva’s legs.

“Everything that happened in the last ten minutes showed me how powerful you are Agni. You saw what happened here didn’t you Shiva?”, Naseer spoke facing away from Agni.

“I know what has happened. I was able to see them myself. What he saw could be seen only by the white priests, only by the most powerful ones. I never knew my lineage still carried  that thread” replied Shiva with a sense of amazement.

“I am very afraid of what would happen to Agni when the Imperial guards identify what he is capable of, and from the glow in his eyes, it would be easy to spot”.

“Don’t worry, no one will be able to see that glow except two of us and his mother. This is because, since we were in his force when Agni transformed, we got connected to his field. He has telepathic ability and much more, and his inner mood will be given away  from the color of his eyes”.

“He has telepathic powers? What else could he do? Teleportation?” Shiva said with fear in his eyes.

“He could have that. All I know now is that he can do things that normal humans can”t. With your permission I would like to stay close to him and identify his traits. I should teach him many things, like controlling his emotions, power and to see if he has teleportation powers”.

After much thought Shiva called upon Agni and started walking back to his home. Naseer closely followed them, waiting for a reply. After they reached, Shiva walked upstairs and opened the guest room that was opposite to Agni’s. Naseer followed him in.

“You can stay here. We will talk more tomorrow. Just make sure when you connect to information highway to not do stupid things like giving away your identity. We will be held captive for helping you”.

“I am aware of the eves-dropping methods the Balmore comm department does sir. Although I don”t agree to it, I can see their position, and also will take care not to do anything that will bring harm to Agni”.

“To Agni? Then what about me and Nami?”, Shiva climbed down the stairs with more questions like that.

As the day came to an end, a lonely soul that had been watching, hiding behind the woods, at the meta-physical stuff that happened that night, started walking.

‘Chancellor should be warned, he should know of this immediately’, it thought.

Nitin continued searching for the documents, the code to send to Nasir. He stopped the thought of the gravity of the situation from enveloping his objective. The code, white line over blue declaration, Ptorma in shambles, war, chancellor missing, having passed through a previously unknown portal. Panic was the order of the day, but not for Nitin, not for a self-made man with life threatening experiences enough to fill an epic.

He went around the next block, it should have been the food storage building, the one that preserved little grains and legumes that Balmore’s technologically altered seeds grew into. There was a patch of grass, with a small manhole at the right corner of the free space. He walked over. It was neighbored by a smaller round cover, a level one passage. He slowly pulled up the cover, collection of wires of different colors on either ends showed up. He should not disturb them, they would be connected to the auto-destruct bomb. Not if someone was already in there. He placed the cover on the ground, the keypad showed up. Nitin did not know the level – 1 combination, the controllers and managers had that privilege. He took out the phone and checked the connectivity, down just as he had expected. Nothing could be expected at a town at that state. T connections did not have a chance when something so huge and important as the age old history itself was lost.

Nitin tried various combinations he could muster. The address/number of the chancellor’s house, the government’s postal code, everything. No joy. It was another nerve wrenching fifteen minutes before he sat down accepting a momentary defeat. He started forming a mental plan of things to do as his eyes met the violet berries, the tasty ones that had been his companion during the dark and testing sixty four hours when his contemporary life lost a fight inside the woods.

—————————————————————

Day became darker as Nitin stopped his walk abruptly and looked around. All that had directed him were patches of land that seemed to have been trodden before and now grass filled the land completely. The river was at least half a kilometer to his right. Fear inside him grew hand in hand with the night that was almost upon him. He knew the woods were not known for wild animals but couldn’t be so sure. Dearth of light always played a frightening game. His path now became completely random and he reached a small stream. His shoes started to sink in the wet sand as he halted and looked around. Lilies and Gossamers filled the land. Exhaustion from continuous walking made him forget hunger, although there would be nothing to help if he even did. The wild berries that were abundant were known to cause severe itching. He looked around and found a spot where the canopy was thicker. Overcome with exhaustion he threw his bag down and lied on the grass. Crescent moon was almost at the helm and the Polaris shone bright. He needed a guide and it was the only friend he had now. Sleep saved him before he could comprehend the severity of the situation.

Nitin was running away from the line of fire as the bullets flew on either side when he heard the shake. It would be a giant to have footsteps so loud. Before he could escape his legs failed to touch the ground as the cliff ended. The free fall should be at least a thousand feet as his heart beat so fast that the instant he touched the ground, he got up in shock. It was still dark and the moon shone bright, but his solitude has been breached was breached.

He got up slowly and without making a sound, started to walk to his left to get behind a tree. It was pure assumption that he was walking away from the source of the sound. Dim moonlight didn’t help him either as the lilies seemed to act as an audience for the dual between him and the nameless adversary. He stood with his back upon the tree, the noise grew louder. Nitin felt the scabbard on his belt above his right thigh. Quietness filled the scene so much that he could hear clearly as the enemy advanced. There were more than two footsteps. It cannot be a human being. He removed the Ka-bar from its black leather holder and waited, the enemy advanced, a step at a time. It sounded as though it was sniffing at the tree just behind him. Snoopy would’ve been a great help against an antagonist that could be its match.

He slowed down his heart beat and watched, every second dilated to an hour, with his persisting need to show himself against the rival, only to control his mind at the last instant. It should’ve been just around the tree that Nitin, in a blink, turned around raising his right hand that held the sharp and shiny wide blade of his army grade Ka-bar. All he could see was two white eyes and snorting sound as it jumped upon him. He swung his right hand hard piercing it in a deadly blow. The speed of the enemy was so great that he was thrown to his left. The hit was perfect and the wild boar lay lifeless. Nitin could not believe what shared his space in this night.

The next five hours was spent dozing off only to wake up immediately, all that he thought of was the fierce eyes of the heavy boar. A back to life experience grew as the east was painted blue with the coming of twilight. Nitin got up and went over to the stream. The water was so pure and cold and clear enough to see his reflection. He picked up a couple of gulps and drank to the delight of his inner organs. He walked back and rested on a smooth rock. The sudden addition to his digestive system gave rise to an enormous hunger. He could not help it, the berries right in front of him were bright violet. He plucked a handful, looked at him for a second wishing he could be alive after tasting it. The hunger was ravenous that he thrust them all. They were juicy, a bit bitter and sweet at the same time. He swallowed it in, and stood motionless, waiting for an answer, a life continued or a trip to the unknown.

Minutes past. He silent stream continued carrying the water and sheltering life. Nothing happened. It was a blessing. He drank a few more gulps of water from the stream, collected berries as much as he can fill the bag with and started his stroll hoping to end his primeval interlude.

—————————————————————

Nitin continued typing in combinations of code, trying to get inside the level – 1 secure area. What was it doing at the center of a temple town? More questions came upon as he continued trying to find a way inside.

Just as he tried a new code sirens went off. The Beltronix attack started again. He was puzzled at why the small temple town would be attacked again, after all it’s in shambles already. Copters started to land and as he again towards the keypad, to his shock the lid snapped. A hand from inside caught his left arm and another held a Uzi.

“Identify yourself” was the voice from inside.

“Nitin, special ops” .

“Throw me your badge”.

He took his ID and threw it inside the hole. Someone picked it up and went through it.

“Nitin? Dude, is that you?” a middle aged man with thinning grey hair and spectacles showed his face up. It was Nasir.

“Come inside you idiot, Belt’s SWAT is marching in”.

“Nasir? Wow, ok, why is the SWAT coming in?” he continued as he started climbing inside. Nasir closed the man hole.

“Wait, my driver”.

“No, sorry, he would’ve already been killed now”.

He knew, the SWAT, the one that had most advanced hand combat weaponry, field surveyors that could pick up heat through any thick walls, anything but the level -1 shielded basements.

“Can’t they find us?”

“You think so?”. He started giving operations to a black backgrounded screen in a terminal.

“I did not camoflauge it because I knew whoever finds this would be from Balmore’s.”

Nitin saw the land above the lid move, rectangular patches arranging itself in a smooth way that after it stopped, anything that gave away the level - 1 clearance entry point was lost. It was pure engineering.

—————————————————–

Dash reached the helipad at 3 in the afternoon. Wiping off the dust on his helmet, he inserted the level 1 clearance card into the slot and entered into the hangar. A guard about fourty years of age ran toward him when he parked his bike.

“Sir, would you please stop and show me some ID?” Dash continued walking.

“I need to know who you are and why you came here,” he had a limp when he ran toward Dash.

“Dash, level 1 clearance,” is all he needed to answer. The guard receded a few steps and allowed Dash to come out of the parking zone. The surface was metallic that amplified the noise his every footstep created. He was used to this place. Yet the middle aged man could not recognize him.

Dash entered the D-16 zones. They were hidden from the radar and sonic waves by double shields. There it was, the black panthers, the helicopters that could fly as fast as a subsonic airplanes and could lift vertically upward just from about anywhere. It  needed a flat surface of just about three meters by two to sit comfortably. The wingspan was a bit wider, measuring 7 meters in length. The black theme over the entire structure gave it a stealthy stance.

Dash climbed over the one napping in D2 and started operating the lift off procedures. First the outer shield of the hanger opened, and through it’s halfway the inner shield began to spread out. Then the ceiling of the hanger started to open and within ten seconds the wings started to sing a tune of power. It took another minute for the take off as the onlooker was filled with awe at how seamless Dash operated one of the meanest war fighters. The enormity of each of the payloads came into perspective only after the helicopter lifted to higher above the ground.

Nobody can tell how the borderlines across countries safeguarded to the inch. Is it that accurate that the people on either side don’t share anything common, and that a clearance is required to pass from one side to another? One morning the ground had a sprawling town with beautiful lakes. The boat factories, the yacht builders, clubs and casinos sprawled in the Area-7. Two factions that in no way represented the free souls of the place decided they cannot stand each other. They start dividing the area to control under each of them. Area 7 could not be decided through talks. The three lakes not only were tourist hotspots but the casino culture that had sprung up brought in money that neither of them wanted to lose. After lease agreements and revenue sharing talks ended in disagreement, it was decided that Area-7 would be divided. Fences were laid, electricity passed through them. Checkpoints and border forces were put in effect. Lake Nairobi and Barbados came under Balmore’s control while Lake Winnie was held by Cutta. Dash flew directly over the check points. No body was on the other line to ask him to stop. No one was alive. He entered Cutta.

The whole surface of the land seemed to change after the check point. A dusty western look in Balmore’s side changed to an ominous dark and destroyed one in Cutta. It was a smaller independent state still controlled by the extremist factions that had fought with Balmore a decade earlier. Now, with Beltronix’s strike, they weren’t exempted either. The piece of land that was circumscribed by Area-7 in the South and Ptorma in the North. The Black Panthers took just over seven minutes to cross the entire state and enter Ptorma. The city was completely in ruins. Temples, markets and along with them, rich history of the place has been brought to ground. Dash steered the copter toward a specific area near the Temple of Modern Society and landed in the middle of the fallen land.

Nitin’s story

It had been three hours since Nitin started walking. The sky, being overcast, did not help him for directions. The ponderosa pines on the far side of the river grew in a perfect mesh that was too orderly to be natural. To his right was a twenty meter fall down a slope before the river started. He had been controlling thirst for a while now as he knew the walk down to the river was one way. He tried to remember what mother had taught him for situations like these.

“One: do not allow any helpless thoughts to seep in,

two: never rest more than five minutes and

three: be careful of the water”

——————————————-
It was his last night before leaving home for Army schooling. The Prime Minster of Balmore had ordered that one child from every family, be it girl or a boy to join the Army. Constant threats from neighboring countries and his fear mongering aides made sure the economy was built around war. The textile industry flourished from supplying army clothing, the mining flourished supplying raw materials for the army’s uniforms, the communications industry gained from making tactical weaponry. The only industry left out was the transport, as the situation was not so positive for leisurely travel. Also as the young sons and daughters of many a home left them for good, the culture took a turn towards joint family and colonized living.

“Gloria can you please stop scaring the young boy and let him have fun for one more night?” Dad always wanted Nitin to learn the life himself.

“I am trying to give some pointers here, help me if you can or shut up and go ahead with your soccer betting”, mum was tensed, it was the first time her youngest child won’t sleep in the same home as her. The hologram went on showing current season statistics of every football club.

“Mum, why didn’t you send Dev and Ani to army? Why me?” the bright round big blue eyes asked with a soft ignorance that melted her.

“They are not lucky my dear, you have the chance to serve for the country, you will have a happy life after this is finished. A job, a car, a free travel pass, a subsidized expenditure, you won’t have to toil in the mines like your daddy, the best thing is you will never have to smell like him”, and they both laughed giving way to disdain from upstairs.

Dev and Anita were not the softer types as like Nitin was. The eldest son always had the knack of picking up fights with the neighbors, and Anita would do nothing but lock her lips with Sunny. The good for nothing street Italian was her only priority. It had been more than a month since she had eloped with him. They had come home late one night, and Sunny being the brash guy he was, offered full on foul mouthing to Marek’s questions. With the gardening shovel in his hand, he attempted to break his head.

Gloria spent every night curling inside her quilt crying until her brain would tire away to sleep. She almost decided to leave Marek with her youngest son one night, when coincidentally they got a call from James, the assistant general of internal police and their neighbor during their newly married life. Marek had pestered James every day and night till then, and Gloria started to believe that he cared about the family. How could she have known before as he worked at least a hundred hours a week in the mines?

Dev, on the other hand had hit an elder boy with his cricket bat so hard that he went into a coma. Dev was arrested and let off after six months for good behavior and great psych evaluations. He spent those lonely days reading. Each of them was about the old nation of India and it’s history and about world politics. His idol was old nation’s freedom fighter Chandra Bose while he profoundly respected Martin Luther King and Gandhi for their perseverance in achieving what war could not. He continued believing in violence, “why should we beg for freedom for our own land?” he would ask. He supported conservativeness and liked what he read about the right wingers. He believed self pride alone can make a country achieve anything. He wanted to rule Balmore one day.

Although Gloria tried to talk to him about Gandhi and about why his path to freedom was correct, he would retaliate with the idea that passive aggressive nature of the freedom fight had made Indians feel weak about themselves. According to him, it had weakened their self respect to a level so low that their society started making fun of itself. The glamor and glitz of foreign life started to peep in, making everything original, a history. He showed her how almost the entire nation morphed into something unrecognizable within seventy years after it’s freedom.

One night during a dinner debate his father had become so furious as to his foul mouth against the old Indian lifestyle that he almost threw the plate at him. That was the last time Dev ate with his family.

—————————————-

The Army school was everything Nitin had assumed it would be, and more. Nitin’s baby-face became the comedy of his class. His self confidence took a down turn every passing minute with the class the first day.

“How do you like this place?” Kirthi asked just when he tucked himself to bed. She was taller for her age, being fifteen should could measure at least six feet, he thought.

“I hate it”, his frown showed the intensity of the thought.

She turned to his side, the slender face with hair all over it became visible.

“Yes, you will, almost everyone made fun when you introduced yourself, that round boy who resembled a pit-bull included”

“Yeah”, his eyes started to become watery.

“Let me tell you one thing, whatever you do never in front of the class. No commander who reads your history then will include you. What would happen if you don’t fight in a war? You will never return home.”

“Well yeah, I know that, but I am not a child you know? I’ve even fought with an elder boy and hit him so hard he was hospitalized for over a week”.

She stared at him intensely.

“Well.. no he wasn’t, he was just a seven years old little guy, and he kicked me in the stomach hard”. She had a hard time controlling her laughter.

“Here, make sure you read at least a chapter every night” she gave him three books.

“What are these?”

“This is Illiad, an epic about a country called Greece, nearly three thousand years old, this is Mahabharata -the famed Indian epic, and this is Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s autobiography”

“Hitler? The genocidal maniac? Isn’t this book banned?”

“Yes it is, but don’t worry sweetheart, it isn’t all about killing. The thoughts and personality that made a monster would sure give you ideas that could be modified for a…. better you” she giggled.

He stared expressionless.

“Ok, sorry that I called you sweetheart.”

He smiled and started to read Illiad. It was the start of a new life, a life that started searching for a meaning, that started forming ideals and resolutions which mattered.

For the next one month, Kirthi became his only contact for speech. She liked his innocence, and he liked… her. They would study in the evenings together and debate about world leaders, about how  any country could have enough greed to invade others,  about how a world could have enough anger to have civil wars, how a world could be sectional to have religious wars.

They ate, studied and worked out together. During basket ball sessions, Kirthi went to the extent of changing from being a forward and became a defender to help him score baskets. They went on trekking expeditions by themselves in the hills nearby. Her personality fueled his morphing into an adult. She became more than a friend, she was his guardian angel, he thought.

Just a week before the first year ended Nitin was woken up rudely. It was the hostel warden. The first attack from Beltronix had taken out his entire birth city. The port city of Piraeus was in ruins.

He fell into his bed allowing the news to sink in when Kirthi asked the warden if she could accompany him. She would miss the final tests and would delay her graduation by six months, but it did not stand a chance against helping Nitin at that dark hour.

A special hovercraft waited to take him back to Piraeus. Six hours later they were in the King’s road. The streets were crowded with police and National security guards. Firefighters tried to put out buildings ablaze in the city textile market. West end was totally destroyed. The red police ribbons prevented anyone from entering the destroyed buildings. Streets were all that was left for the surviving members of the local families.  Kirthi pulled him towards her and hugged him tight, it was the first time he felt her cry. They walked north.

Nitin’s house was not exempted from disaster. The second floor was totally missing while he could see the bright orange curtains of his parents bedroom on the first floor flying in the wind. He felt numb, belief was not something his mind wanted to agree with. He tried to tell himself that it was just a terrible dream, one which he would get up in the morning from and finish his final tests and go home for the holidays. Real emotions started to take over when he saw snoopy run towards him. He picked the white Labrador up as it started licking all over his face. He immediately fell on his knees and started to cry. The overwhelming reality was unbearable to the soft heart.

Kirthi wanted to search to see if anyone were alive, caught up in the rubble inside. Instantly she bent under the ribbon and ran towards the house. Someone inside a radioactive suit tried to come in her path only to be met with her curled right fist. After a couple of hours, she came out dark and dirty and held something in her right hand. It was a picture of his family.

She became it’s only living member.
————————————-

Nitin continued walking as darkness slowly enveloped the day.

Nash and Morgan continued starring at the screens. Agni sat in a dim lit dusty room his legs tied. He felt a sharp pain on his concentration points as his thoughts roamed outside.

Ricci was headed towards the torture facility. Then a man pale, middle aged sat in front of a screen.

A sharp pain entered his inner head and he started to hear ambient noises. The sclera in both his eyes turned blue, the opacity of walls around  started to reduce. Agni’s eyesight began to unscramble the data connections beyond the walls. The information highway was filled with data of every move that happened, every word that was spoke and every action committed. Agni’s gift was that he could unscramble any datum plume to extract what he needed.

“This is Nash, you hear me? If you can, nod your head”. Agni nodded.

“Good. We work for Beltronix. I don’t think I have to brief that you are under the maximum security zone in Belt.”

“Yes I know that, now what on God’s name do you want?”

“Haha, I don’t want anything Agni, I need something.”

“Oh ok, correcting the grammar amidst war. Is this your poetry?” he held his head up, and the receiver of the message sat behind that wall. Nash was taken aback.

“I did not believe when they briefed me about you. So you and I are more alike than I assumed? Can you connect into megasphere?”

Agni’s mind still wandered, where is the torture chamber. What was the color of the soil, deep red? That doesn’t give away much, most of Beltronix is deep red. Towers, electric lines, somewhere where electricity still got transmitted electricity through wire lines? That is not normal!

“Is this what you call megasphere? This is even worse than the oldest of networks in Balmore. Upgrade to something before trying to intimidate me”.

Its was a singspiel, Nash’s conversation getting in the way of his thoughts. Agni started to turn his head up with pain, the muscles in his hands and legs started to twitch. He closed his fists and started to yell. His eyeballs pushed against the lids, the nerves on his throat wanted to tear-down the skin. He continued so loud the security outside the center could hear it.

“Never talk crap to me” Nash said.

Agni continued yelling, his face now was awash with sweat. Blood started to ooze out of is nose and the gums in his mouth. He continued yelling. The holographic screens Nash and Morgan viewed started to flicker, the lights dimmed and the door started to vibrate. After nearly half a minute Agni’s face turned down and everything became quiet. Nash breathing turned normal. Agni turned up and opened is eyes. It was dark red. The walls were entirely transparent.

He swiveled up and focussed on the lamp, the lights went off, he turned and looked at the holograph, it blanked, and next was the door, it shut.

“Now, let’s cut to the chase and come to a civilized discussion, can we?” Agni said.

“Yes”, Nash felt uneasy.

“So, what do you want from us three? Especially Ricci as you have taken her to a torture chamber? God she is a steadfast secretary for His Highness the Chancellor. She doesn’t know anything ” Agni asked.

“I don’t know it, above my security grade”.

“If you can tell me where she is kept-the chamber where electricity still got fed in lines, you get to keep your life. If not the truck outside will be all that I’d need.”

Nash turned around and opened his window, the air was pungent. Bio-cleansing sprays were in full action that morning. He looked down at the security, whistled and made an action.

“You know I can connect you to the system and pull out the damn thing myself, don’t you?” Blood still oozed out of his nostrils.

“If you can, why are you wasting your time. Go ahead and do it.”

The screaming started again but this time it was shorter, only to be interrupted by a sudden thud. The security guard turned at the camera and raised his right thumb up.

Agni opened his eyes, a room drenched in white. It should be the health centers, he thought. His lower jaw was circum-covered with plasters. It was heavy, there should be more than one layer. He felt thirsty and tried to lift his chest up.

“No master, you should not.” It was a lady, she was bald. She was covered in a long white cloth in a complex fashion that exposed only her face and toes.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“I am the health blesser and you are in the Apex center. You had lost a lot of blood when you came in. The skin below your mouth, your entire lower jaw was torn. We had to micro fuse it for more than three hours to get your face together”

He touched under his left ear.

“Oh that birth-star, it was beautiful.”

Agni was surprised that she knew what it was.

“You bet we did, it was the first time we’ve seen the seven headed star.”

“Did anyone else see it? Did they store it somewhere?” His face ached miserably. Every muscle cried for rest.

“It’s not for me to know.”

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Nitin looked out at the great forest that lay to his left. His thoughts were full of everything that transpired in the last two days. The first invasion, the news of his highness the Chancellor missing, the bombing of temple city of Sinai and Ptorma and finally the morning, where they contacted Agni and Chancellor only to watch them drop into an invisible portal no body in the tower were aware of. The priest was right.

It was less than two hundred days that the head priest Visayu predicted the war. Chancellor was infuriated. His skepticism and angst at the Temple overtook any rationale thoughts over the possibilities of a war. He wanted to jail Visayu. It was the first commandment and according to Balmoreans no social theme held more importance than freedom of speech.

‘Although what Visayu had said is blasphemous and poisonous considering it may irk Belt and strain our relationship with them, I grant Visayu his freedom to live. Our sanity holds true due to freedom of speech and I will not be responsible to mute it.’ He had orated that night. How would he explain the events that transpired the last seven days to the people? Would he apologize to Visayu and recognize his power of prediction or will he shut the priest up for good? They have to win the war first. They have to bring back the chancellor into Balmore first. They have to re-construct Ptorma and Sinai first. There were many firsts to be taken care of before he could concern himself about the his post-war image.

The jeep entered Ptorma through a broken check-point, the one that took forever to register the biometrics of new entrants. Ptorma always pushed back technological advancements, a secular and spiritual colony would never accept the one cancer that was the cause of the first war. They rode through an avenue of rubble, a beautiful place brought down to broken buildings. Every demolished temple made Nitin’s heart heavier. It had been more than two decades he ran away from the spiritual congregation, although he could not stand their lifestyle he knew they were the ones who brought sanity, as little as it was, to the dying civilization. The towers, the buildings, the hospitals and even the prayer grounds were destroyed. The Red army failed to recognize the first war code-to not hurt civilians. Every rule in the treaty between Balmore and Belt was broken, even the punctuation in it was falsified by the Red army.

The jeep came to a screeching halt before the control towers. Any search should begin at the center of the city and Nitin- a man of regularity and steadfastness, was not ready to break the code even at that dark hour. He climbed down from the jeep and entered what was left of the tower. The glowing white mortar was patinated with the red of the human flesh. Bodies lay disfigured everywhere. Some missing limbs, some the legs. Faces without eyes, nose and mouth, the horror never ended. Nitin went down and puked as he entered the building site. Wiping his mouth up, he and the driver quickly climbed one floor up through the wreck. They started searching every room, starting from the periphery going toward the center, the operation every official learn’t. He took the left sides and his driver the right. After thirty minutes they exited the building without joy.

Nitin continued deleting each government building off the list throughout the afternoon. He was not someone who gives up. The first summer of his army school saw him realize his potential when he had walked sixty four hours straight without sleep or food or rest during a scout camp after getting lost in the woods. Anyone who knew Nitin would never forget his mettle.