Chawlgirl Rising

Chawlgirl Rising

a novel by

T.K. Young

Copyright 2017 T.K. Young

Part I

Chapter 1

Lucas

Location: Airspace above Jaipur, India

The Year 2118

Once on his orphanage’s flickering tablet Lucas had found images of India’s jade jungles, women wrapped in glowing saffron, the cobalt veins of rivers that coursed with the murmurs of the gods. Now as his shuttle roared toward yet another city’s erasure that riot of vanished color haunted his mind. He wondered if it would make the relocations easier if he carried no memories, felt nothing for those he’d leave to die.

There wasn’t enough water to produce enough food. There wasn’t enough fuel to desalinate more water. And when the Energy Ministry identified a city that could no longer be sustained by the Hegemony’s dwindling resources it sent Lucas and his fellow control officers to staunch the bleeding.

Fifty kilometers to target, Karam called from the co-pilot’s station.

Bring up the visual, Lucas said from his jump seat in the shuttle’s cabin.

Jaipur’s scrawl flickered in Lucas’s eyepiece. Stuffed between a ring of mountains, the city’s outskirts were a mass of raw-boned concrete pierced by neo-mughal minarets. Further ahead, the setting sun throbbed between its skyscrapers like a spilled vein. A funnel of ash wept from the city’s center, obscuring the water tower with the failed valve that had prevented the Ministry’s traders from remotely withdrawing the tank’s precious d-sal.

How many people are still down there? Lucas asked.

At least two million, his analyst answered. And Luke, most of the relocation trains have already left.

So they already know they won’t be saved. Jesus.

One minute to target, the pilot’s artificially generated voice whispered through Lucas’s ear piece.

Bring us lower, Lucas said.

His pilot, an implant, throttled the shuttle into a long glide toward the water tower. Slumped unconscious in his seat, the boy controlled the craft’s onboard computers with his mind. Pus leaked from the electronics glittering against the pilot’s bare scalp, and he reeked of months unwashed. Only the slight flutter of his chest and the sweat pooling in the brown hollow of the boy’s throat showed he still lived. Implantation was a cruel fate to choose, but agreeing to meld your mind with the Hegemony’s computer systems was one of the only ways to guarantee your place in the relocation lotteries. And if the relocations didn’t work, if even forced labor was not enough to increase the Hegemony’s food and water production, then every citizen in Asia would face far worse.

The shuttle roared past photovoltaic windows clogged with tan film, wind turbines that chopped the air above mummified rooftop gardens. These desperate attempts at renewable energy hadn’t been enough to pump more than a few thousand liters of d-sal the hundreds of kilometers from the coast, and Lucas had come to reclaim even that pitiful supply. He told himself that his duty was a mercy, lessening the burden on other cities that could still sustain themselves. This was the mantra that hardened him against despair.

Thirty seconds to target, the pilot said.

Black smoke clouded the shuttle windows. Lucas touched the bracelet that wrapped his forearm, felt the tingle of its processors drawing current from his muscle tissue. His eyepiece extrapolated a view based on the shuttle’s current course, showing the water tower’s blue bulb thrust above seared parkland and dry reservoirs. Before the planet’s warming the tower would have looked out on an oasis of green and growing things in the middle of the bustling city. Now the land surrounding the tower was what the Hindus called shmashana, the bed of corpses.

Cremation fires roared everywhere Lucas looked. Rows of shrouded bodies lay waiting for their turn on the pyres while naked figures smeared with gray ash roamed the ranks of the dead and dying. These were the Aghori, the followers of Shiva. The ascetics shuffled through the chawls and alleyways of the Hegemony’s cities, collecting the bodies of those who succumbed, performing the unclean antyesti funeral rituals, lighting the fires that sent the dead skyward along rivers of cloud. They’d given their lives to death, and death sustained them. To Lucas they were the most vile symptom of the world’s cancer; if he was to turn executioner, it would be of these men who called themselves holy.

The shuttle broke into a patch of clear sky. Lucas zoomed in on the water tower’s base, studying the thicket of piping erected by water pirates who’d overpowered the contingent of Hegemony Guardsmen ordered to protect the tower until he could arrive. Those who found no place in the relocation lotteries turned desperate, murderous. The people said that energy control officers existed merely to make sure the Hegemony’s citizens obeyed the law while they died of thirst or starvation, and they were not wrong.

The pump house looks clear, Lucas said. I don’t see anyone moving.

That’s strange, Karam said. What would have scared off the pirates?

Set us down as close as possible, Lucas ordered.

Confirmed.

Something’s not right here Luke, Karam said.

Nothing ever is anymore.

Karam flipped his eyepiece against his forehead and twisted back to face Lucas. The analyst was a squat, powerful man with a Nepali’s barreled chest. Clay pockmarks covered his brown skin, and his sad eyes met Lucas’s from under a thinning smear of black hair.

Luke thermal imaging counts at least three thousand citizens still alive in the park, the analyst said. Once they realize what’s happening you’re not going to have much time before they reach you.

From his jump seat, Lucas checked the pistol at his hip, the knife sheathed against his spine. He closed his eyes, feeling the cabin’s thick heat, the deck throb against his boots, the thumb-greased tablet he’d once cradled in childhood. Then he tapped out a pill from the vial he carried in his breast pocket and chewed. A long time ago he’d sworn an oath to protect his adopted country at all costs, and that duty was the only salvation that remained. One more life among the loss of millions would matter little.

The d-sal in that tower can keep a lot of people alive somewhere else, Lucas said. Set us down.

∞

Nithin

Jaipur

Nithin watched as the Hegemony shuttle sagged to the ground like some kind of rusted insect come to spread its disease. A fevered ache burned everywhere in him, as if in these last moments his wrecked body wanted only to join the legions of dead surrounding him and cast itself alight. But he would not succumb, not yet.

A control officer burst from the shuttle into the crumbling twilight, sprinting toward where Nithin crouched at the base of the water tower. A man who believed, as Nithin himself once had, that he did the right thing.

Come, Nithin called. It is time. But he received no answer from his sister, and when he turned to check she was no longer behind him. Where have you gone? he cried and limped out from the water tower’s shade. Shakti!

He found the girl surrounded by Aghori halfway down the tower’s hillside. They were stroking his sister’s skin with ash worm fingers, tottering on legs of sinew and swollen joints as they guided her away from him. The sadhus stank of death and lies, and Nithin drew his knife as he ran for them.

She is not your god! he screamed.

∞

Lucas

The air reeked of charcoal and rendered offal. Lucas skidded through the ashes, the soles of his boots melting in the savage heat that bled from the reservoir’s concrete. The water tower stood on a small rise, sixty meters tall and topped with a tattered green and blue flag bearing the Hegemony’s ashoka chakra insignia. Pirates had trampled the chain link fencing protecting the tower’s pump house, bludgeoned or shot the overwhelmed Guardsmen, and began drilling their piping into the tower’s base. But then, with trillions of liters of d-sal in their grasp, they’d fled.

Lucas drew his pistol and scanned the grounds. Half-finished welds squealed in the breeze. Flies chewed at the soldiers’ corpses.

This happened hours ago, he said to Karam. The microphone in Lucas’s bracelet captured his voice and broadcast the question to the shuttle. What would have made them run?

Luke, Karam’s voice filled his earpiece. Citizens headed in our direction. We’ve got maybe three minutes.

Lucas glanced back at the shuttle below him on the hill. Its tilt thrusters bunched on the dry earth, ready to fling the ungainly craft skyward at any moment.

Copy, Lucas said. I’m going in.

Failed attempts to force entry scarred the pump house’s iron doors. Graffiti covered the building, screaming Down with the Hegemony! Equal consumption for all! in Hindi and Kannada and English. Sweating, Lucas held his bracelet up to the building’s access scanner. A cracked display panel flashed to life and displayed a flickering code. Lucas tapped his bracelet.

This is Energy Control Officer Lucas Seraph, Action Authorization ID 208416, to Ministry Control. Requesting access to Energy Control Junction 0412. Entry code 749731.

A moment of electronic static, and then a voice from hundreds of kilometers away in the Spire whispered through his earpiece.

The action is confirmed.

The door groaned open, showering Lucas with rust. Gasping, he slipped into the pump house’s unbearable heat. Feeble lights flickered on as the door clanged shut behind him. Drenched in sweat, Lucas made his way down an iron staircase that spiraled into a cramped underground control room. Computer terminals and manual release valves studded the walls. He found the pump house’s access scanner set below a small corner monitor and lifted his bracelet. The monitor flashed and a keypad appeared. He typed in the diagnostic code that every control officer memorized when they joined the Ministry.

Luke, Karam’s voice crackled through his earpiece. Thermals show at least four hundred on approach. We can’t stay here.

Something’s wrong… Lucas said as he studied the diagnostic’s results.

The tower’s system showed no mechanical failures. Its valves were all functioning normally. But why hadn’t the facility responded to the Spire’s remote commands and emptied its reserves? Lucas pulled up the facility’s logs, found the traders’ transfer requests. Each one had been overridden somehow, which meant…

He shoved away from the flickering monitor.

Karam it’s a trap, Lucas called. You need to get out of here!

A burst of static flooded his earpiece.

Karam do you copy?

But there was no response.

Scanning the valves jutting from the wall, Lucas found the pipe labeled return in Hindi and grasped the ring’s simmering metal. He twisted with all his force but the valve wouldn’t budge. He tried again, heaving against the rusted grips, but his sweat-slicked hands lost their hold and it was no use.

There had to be a tool, something he could use for leverage. He tore open a locker wedged against the far wall, found only a bucket stuffed with ancient magazines. There was nothing underneath the computers, nothing beneath the staircase. Finally, he found a wrench propped behind an intake pipe. Wedging the tool between the return valve’s spokes and bracing his shoulder underneath it, he squatted and drove himself against the heavy spanner again and again until the valve’s seal finally cracked and spun loose.

The pump house lights flashed a deep red. Pressure moaned through the pipes like the howl of the wounded earth itself. And as the deafening roar of trillions of liters rushing away from Jaipur filled his ears, Lucas ran back to the terminal and entered the shutdown code that would prevent any water from ever reaching the city again. The system accepted his command, and he turned for the shaking staircase.

Tower 0412 is reserve positive, he shouted as he climbed. Karam if you can hear me I’m coming out. But I hope to god you didn’t wait for me!

∞

Nithin

You cannot cry, Nithin said. Squatting in front of her, he slipped his knife back into his belt and then took his sister’s arm. Not ever, do you understand?

He tried to pull Shakti back toward the water tower but she resisted, instead watching one of the dying Aghori as the man grasped and released palmfuls of dirt in some final reflex.

I can still feel their minds, Shakti said.

That is being the old part of you, he hissed. "That is not being real…choti behen look at me!"

He grasped his sister’s shoulders, studying what remained of her. Shakti’s bindi glimmered pitifully from the center of her forehead, while her large ears and two overlapping front teeth jutted from her narrow face. Age and starvation and disease could no longer touch her; she was just as she’d been when he’d taken her to Rama Setu twenty five years ago. The only difference was the depth in her eyes, the confusion and hurt his own desperation had imprinted upon her.

You’re not being like the holy men, Nithin said. They would use you, make you something you’re not. Do you understand?

But the voices say that...

Nithin slapped his sister hard across the face. Then he jerked Shakti back toward the water tower.

The voices come from your head, not the gods, Nithin said. He peered back through the thick haze toward where the dying sadhu still gathered fistfuls of earth. "The Aghori lie like everyone else. You must master the voices Shakti, or we have no hope at all."

∞

Lucas

The pump house door squealed shut behind him, and Lucas ran into the arms of the doomed. Hundreds of mourners surrounded the water tower, blocking any chance of escape.

"Sahib be giving us d-sal please!" they cried to him through cracked lips.

Are you the relocation? Are we saved?

"Please babaji take us with you!"

Sores and vitiligo puckered their skin. Ragged kameez hung from their matchstick limbs. Many wore no shoes, trailing bloody footprints as they shuffled over the razor wire, but he could not help them. During the first relocation the Ministry had learned that control officers who carried food and water were targets after they’d tracked a missing officer’s bracelet to a cannibal butcher hidden in one of the chawls.

Karam do you copy? Lucas said.

"Ferengi, white man! You have d-sal. You do!"

"And rice, chana. We must have food!"

Evening winds peppered Lucas’s face with ash and grit. The fading sun had drained all color from the sky. He couldn’t raise Karam, couldn’t see if the shuttle remained in the empty reservoir behind the crowd. Swollen eyes and twisted bodies filled his view.

All of you will need to go to the railway station to check your place in the relocation lottery, Lucas called. Every citizen may choose between farming in Nepal, mining in Jharia, or working along the coasts at the d-sal plants and kelp factories.

He’d memorized the words long ago but could put no feeling in them; most who faced him were beyond listening. A scoliotic woman crawled at his feet, scooping handfuls of dirt into her mouth. Beside her a father held up a small body smeared with the green paste of dysentery.

Please, the man cried. Please my son is sick.

The relocations take only the high gentry! a man in a stained mundu called from the crowd. If you leave we’ll starve!

The Hegemony Guard is standing by at the relocation staging areas, Lucas shouted. I can promise you that…

The promises of the Ministry are nothing! an angry voice snarled. A gaunt man wearing the rags of a coal miner’s jumpsuit was shoving his way through the crowd to reach Lucas. Rivers of pale sweat ran down the man’s emaciated skull, and he swayed as if he held himself upright through sheer willpower.

Electronics jutting out from the man’s shagged hair flickered a dull amber. Like the shuttle pilot, this man was implanted. And suddenly Lucas realized he was facing the man who’d set the trap.

You tampered with the water tower’s programming, Lucas said. You tried to keep the d-sal here.

Yes, the man answered.

Why?

So that one like you would come and take my sister back with you.

The man pulled a teenaged girl beside him. His sister wore what had once been a beautiful red sari trimmed with gold brocade and a bindi in the center of her forehead. She seemed better fed than the others, though nervous fear pinched her narrow face.

You’ve served the Hegemony, Lucas said to her brother. You know I can’t do that.

I served lies! the implant roared. Here, let her show you. The man pushed within arm’s reach of Lucas, revealing a bloody knife at his waist. Lucas drew his pistol in reflex, and an angry exclamation rippled through the mourners.

Stay back, Lucas ordered. The Guard will process everyone’s relocation assignment in order. I promise you that you won’t be forgotten.

Tell them the lottery is complete, the implant’s eyes bored into Lucas. Tell them their fate has been sealed.

If you abandon your position in the lottery it’s your choice, Lucas answered.

I had no choice! the implant screamed. But you, you kill for them without knowing why.

The relocations have to be done, Lucas said. There’s no other way.

"You must listen, the implant hissed. The man’s sister tried to shrink away from his grip but he jerked her forward. It will all end soon. My sister is the only one that matters. She is the embodiment of everything. Please! Take her with you!"

As the man’s shaking arm reached for Lucas, the girl seemed to shimmer with heat mirage. Lucas retreated slowly, keeping his pistol trained on the implant’s bloodshot eyes, until the pump house’s cinder block scraped against his shoulders.

Keep your distance! Lucas cried. All of you.

You must know what it is you do, the implant said. You must see. The man drew his knife, opened his sister’s hand and sliced her palm. She will show you the truth of what we are, the implant said. He pushed his sister’s bloody hand toward Lucas. She will show everyone.

Sweat pumped down Lucas’s face. His pistol felt weightless, inevitable. Ash rained down and clung to his skin. His duty was to destroy the hope of these few so that others could live. And he’d perform that duty until he fell because it was all that remained of him.

The implant’s knife flashed in the twisting light of the cremation fires.

Please, the girl cried in English. Please.

Lucas’s finger tightened on the trigger. And his pistol roared like the last wail of madness at the end of the world.

Chapter 2

Shakti

Jaipur

Nithin slipped from Shakti’s grasp into a forest of limbs. The mob at the water tower churned in every direction, wanting to flee, to fight, to tear the legs from the control officer who dangled like a marionette from the shuttle that had lifted him to safety after he’d shot Nithin. Their voices battered her as she pushed and shoved to keep the crowd from trampling her brother.

Get back! Shakti cried as she knelt beside Nithin. Please get away!

Nithin seized her hand. She met his desperate gaze, felt his grip weaken with each pulse that sprayed from the wound at his throat.

I will help! she said. She pressed her cut hand against his mangled flesh and closed her eyes.

NO! her brother bellowed. Then with the last of his strength he pulled her ear against his lips. You must…follow… he gasped.

She drew back, pressed her forehead to his. The heat from his skin was nearly unbearable.

Follow what brother? Where?

Nithin’s eyes held her for a final moment, then rolled into his skull. A wet groan escaped his lips. His implant darkened, and his body stilled.

Please Shakti sobbed. Please I don’t know what you want me to do.

She closed her eyes and tried desperately to listen for his soul but heard only the void. After desperate flights through dozens of cities, after the constant suffering her brother had forced her to endure in the name of their search, in the end he’d chosen to abandon her. This last act of cowardice infuriated her.

No! she screamed and pounded his chest. No you will not do this!

Nithin’s body jerked in her grasp. Her eyes flew open.

A man with a missing index finger and blistered feet was wrestling with Nithin’s ragged boots. Snarling, Shakti grasped for the shoe thief but the man slapped her hand away. Heat filled Shakti’s mind. Her skin warmed. She drew Nithin’s knife just as a death-gray arm clamped down and stayed her wrist.

No teacher, the Aghori standing beside her said. You must not walk revenge’s path.

Two men from the crowd seized the would-be thief. Shakti glared at the man’s uneven cheekbones, the twist of his ribs. Her brother’s tortured spirit had fled from this plane. No further pain would return him.

Let him go, she finally said.

The mutilated man unleashed a joyous sob, pulled off her brother’s shoes, and scrabbled away through the thinning crowd.

An evening breeze cooled her skin. More of the Aghori appeared out of the dimness, gathering her brother’s body and lifting him high overhead before turning toward the fires. The man who’d stayed her arm helped her to her feet. She was shivering now, her eyes raw.

Come teacher, the sadhu said. It is fit for you to be giving your brother his final rights.

Nithin didn’t believe in your customs, she said.

"Few do. But your sacrifice will be a great example for the people as the kali yuga brings this turn of existence’s wheel to an end," he answered.

They will all of them use you a voice said in her mind.

She pulled the Aghori to a stop. The cataract film of the sadhu’s gaze turned toward her. His face was a wrinkled, foreign thing wrecked by decades of staring into flame. The man smiled from behind a beard knotted into a birds nest tangle of gray filth.

None of us can stand against Shiva’s will, he wheezed. Even one such as you. You’ll learn this, in time.

The man spoke as if he knew her, but she was a spirit adrift in the world. Nithin had been the only one who’d understood her, and there had been questions that even he would not answer. In the end, all he’d wanted was death and now death’s servants had come to claim her.

Leave me be! Shakti cried. Punching the holy man backward, she twisted from his grasp and fled from the shmashana into the city’s warren. The Aghori watched her go as the smoke of their fires joined the dying sky.

Should we pursue her uncle? one asked.

No, the other answered. She will return to us. She knows no other way.

∞

Shakti sprinted past blocks of crumbling apartments, abandoned Marutis with their petrol caps black-eyed and staring, the bones of a dray ox still yoked to its looted cart. Jaipurians lay in doorways, draped themselves on balconies, squatted in the gutters to collect what waste water they could. The few with energy to move swiveled their heads to watch her rushing through the street covered in blood and ash. An omen, one said. The teacher comes as if from war.

You must be cleansed, a caring voice in Shakti’s mind insisted. Wipe him away.

Children crowded the entrance to the apartment building she’d shared with Nithin, kicking bare feet at the cockroaches scuttling over the chawl’s threshold. Their slack faces lifted to her.

Teacher have you brought food? a boy with ash streaking his face asked.

Shakti stumbled to a stop. From somewhere above her, the sound of weeping. Nithin had prevented her from talking to anyone whom he hadn’t first vetted. But now she could help at least these few, and drew her brother’s knife.

You cannot! a stern voice snapped.

The knife wavered in her hand. Roaches boiled over the children’s listless feet.

No one else will come for us, the boy said.

She felt the dull hollow of their hunger in her own mind, forced herself toward the boy.

We have no time for this.

Shakti jerked still. The knife returned to her waist, and she pounded up the crumbling steps and into the stairwell’s festering heat.

You cannot help everyone, the stern voice said. It lectured in a voice of machines, and sounded much like Nithin’s own.

But why not? she begged. What am I?

Linoleum clung like tar to her sandals. The voices’ only answer was to compel her to climb, and she passed landing after landing until the children’s voices faded.

The apartment her brother had chosen for them was on the tenth level. She undid the nylon knot that held their kholi door closed, took the wash bucket they kept next to the entrance and ran with it to the floor’s toilet at the end of the hall.

When she twisted the fouled tub’s tap, a sucking groan came from behind the wall. The pipes shuddered, and a few centimeters of gritty liquid the color of rotten lemons splashed into the bucket. She studied the reeking sewage. It would not make her sick. Nothing did. Working the drape of her sari loose, Shakti dipped the cloth in the liquid, closed her eyes, and swept Nithin’s blood from her face.

"Acharya? a voice asked from behind her. Teacher?" She turned and saw Ramir leaning against the filthy tile at the washroom’s entrance. Her neighbor was a thin Sikh who no longer bothered to wind his unraveling turban. Hunger had hollowed his cheeks, speckled his arms with blisters. His beard had fallen out in patches and wide gaps shown between his teeth.

What is it Ramir?

Teacher the Hegemony turned off the water. There is none left.

I…I was there. I saw.

Where is Nithin?

Gone to the sky.

Ramir’s sandals squeaked as he stepped onto the tile.

My sorrows. Teacher did he leave any food?

We have as little as you.

But you eat well.

Do not let him see, the stern voice said.

I eat the same rations as you, she lied.

His toes crossed another line of grout. The garbled squeal of megaphones floated through the washroom’s barred window, followed by the bitter crowd’s roar.

I have seen you eat the plaster, Ramir said. I have seen you eat the roaches.

The voices had made her eat those things. They’d been testing her.

Your hunger clouds your mind, Shakti said. How could I eat as you say?

"The Aghori have told us you are the gods’ avatar, he said. Why have you come if not to teach us to survive?"

Shakti backed into the last shower stall. It held rusted window bars, a dry drain, a rotten curtain half-dragging from its rod.

Ramir I am like you! she cried. You must believe me!

Every believer in the city talks of your abilities. What have we done that you’d spurn us your aid?

He loomed over her at the edge of the stall, held back by a last thread of conscience. A Sikh was nonviolent, a Sikh held himself to a higher karma. But then she heard his flesh’s unbearable hunger overpower his mind.

Shakti drew Nithin’s knife. The blade had kept them safe everywhere they’d fled since…since she could remember, but Ramir’s eyes hardened at the threat.

No more lies, Ramir said as he rushed her. You’ll feed me!

Great heat exploded within her. Her knife plunged into Ramir’s throat with impossible speed, slid through his larynx, then pulled out and punched into his concave stomach before his second step landed. The man who’d watched cricket with Nithin in their kholi during happier times fell twitching and gurgling, his life’s blood dribbling thick into the disused drain.

Gasping, Shakti stumbled out of the stall and leaned against the bathroom wall. She shuddered as the energy withdrew from her, sliding down the tile to the floor where she gathered her legs to her chest. Then she buried her face in her knees and wept.

Nithin had chosen to die rather than stay with her. He’d never told her why they’d moved so often, scraping through the Hegemony for food and shelter like animals. He’d never told her what good he thought they could do. He’d told her only that they had to keep searching because she was different and then he’d left her utterly alone.

What am I? she demanded from the voices.

Flies buzzed through the window, ducked down to taste Ramir’s dying stream. Outside the crowd grew closer. She heard the growl of an engine and the cries from hundreds of throats.

What do you want me to do? she cried.

Jaipur’s relocation has begun, a megaphone blared through the broken window. Please be making your way to the railway station.

Escape, a voice whispered in her ear. And she felt her legs lift her once more.

∞

She doesn’t scan, the Hegemony Guardsman called to his subedar.

How can she not be scanning? the sergeant barked as he stomped toward Shakti. Everyone scans.

Shakti stood at the head of a long line of Jaipurians squeezed between razor wire barriers that the Guard had erected to protect the railway station from the mobs of those who would not be chosen in the relocation lottery. The wealthy, able to pay their own way and obtain travel permits, would have left for more fertile Hegemony cities along the coast or in the north long ago. And while some citizens behind her dragged bulging suitcases, liters of d-sal, backpacks stuffed with tins of beans and rice, many others had little more than their sweat-drenched clothing and the hope that the Hegemony’s randomized computer selection would rescue them from starvation.

The sergeant’s moustache gleamed with moisture when he reached her. Betel leaf reddened his teeth. She’d known she wouldn’t scan but she’d had to come. Nithin had told her she had to follow.

Where were you living? the subedar asked her.

Kathputhli, she said.

The subedar glared at his subordinate.

"She’s a being chawlgirl from the slums you chowd. Get her out of here."

Shakti slapped her palm against the Guardsman’s bracelet a second time. The sergeant grabbed her wrist, but to his surprise couldn’t break her grip on the startled soldier.

You shouldn’t touch me, she said. No one should.

No? The sergeant seized the nape of her neck, forced her head back. You aren’t being very pretty, he growled. And you’re having not even a rupee to your name. But you cleaned your face, dressed up nice for me. Maybe we could be coming to an agreement.

Shakti’s heart beat a nervous blister at her throat. She felt the drugged tingle of desire between the soldier’s bloodened eyes.

Hurt him, a voice urged. And once more the hot surge rose within her.

They cannot know, another voice responded.

What are you doing? a woman’s voice called from the line. Why are you keeping us waiting?

The subedar’s glazed eyes rolled toward the woman who’d scolded him, lingered on her chest. He released Shakti, then sauntered down the line and spat a red jet of saliva at the other woman’s feet.

Are you challenging the manner in which I am choosing to execute your relocation? the subedar growled.

The woman wore a glittering sari and bracelet’s sparkling at her wrist. Two boys in shorts and bare chests pulled suitcases behind her, and she met the man’s gaze without fear even as the other citizens stepped away from her. Once perhaps she would have considered herself important, but the relocations claimed all.

Of course not officer.

Did you hear that? the subedar smirked. I’m being promoted. Give me your hand.

The woman rested her palm on the sergeant’s bracelet. It flashed once, then returned a red glow.

"I’m being very sorry Ms…Changthanwangsa, but you do not seem to have been selected for relocation at this time."

What…what do you mean? the woman asked. The boys beside her dropped their burdens and melted back into the crowd. A pair of Guardsmen jogged forward, seized the woman, and began pulling her away. What am I supposed to do?

You can always walk to Ahmedabad, the sergeant chuckled as he turned back to Shakti. It’s 700 kilometers if the raiders don’t get you.

But please! the woman cried. I’ll do anything!

The sergeant stopped, glancing back.

Hold her, he called to his Guardsmen. Then his head swiveled toward Shakti. His smile was a raw wound; his breath reeked of the paan’s peppered sourness.

And what about you little chawlgirl? he asked. Would you do anything to survive?

Shakti met the soldier’s filmed eyes. Ash streaked the sky above her. Her muscles quivered with hot anticipation.

I will kill him too, she said. I will do anything.

It is not yet time to reveal yourself, a voice answered.

Sir... the Guardsman held up his bracelet, showing Shakti’s relocation approval glowing green on his wrist.

Well well, the sergeant shrugged. "Load the lucky chawlgirl up. I’m going to take this maal here for a more thorough questioning."

Sir she has no record… the Guardsman began.

She’s one girl. What can she do? Get her on the train.

∞

The railway station’s putrid air echoed with sobs and orders and muffled announcements. Guardsmen stood in front of the shuttered ticket counters, urging the crowd forward under flickering lights. Shakti rushed through the station with the others who’d been cleared, praying that no one from the slums would stop her, recognize her, beg her for what she could not give.

She kept her head down, letting her dark hair fall in front of her face. When she saw an abandoned blanket at the edge of the ramp that led down to the platform, she pushed through the crowd and wrapped the rough wool around her shoulders to hide her clothing. She slowed her pace and became just another traveler hoping for a better life in the algae plantations or the Himalayan farms.

And yet, somehow, the Aghori found her.

A group of the sadhus had been waiting on the ramps that led below the station to the platform. They pushed their way against the throng of passengers toward Shakti, chanting in a language she did not know. Their hollow eyes locked on hers, and the meaning of their words sprang into her mind from some deeper place.

Release the holy fire, the sadhus chanted. Release the holy fire.

Shakti froze, terrified. The Aghori had painted orange circles on their foreheads that seemed to glow against their ashen faces. She felt herself swaying while she stared at the patterns, caught between her brother’s warnings and her desire to understand their source.

Why do they do this? she asked. What am I?

But Nithin had died in the dirt and a man with bleeding feet had stolen his trainers. No one living remained to answer her.

A fist smashed into the first holy man’s nose. The man stumbled, fell, and the spell was broken. Guardsmen in sodden olive had fought through the crowd to reach the Aghori. The sadhus were filth to the Guard as they’d been to Nithin, and Shakti scurried down the ramp past them while rifle butts pummeled naked flesh.

A last train hunched on the platform underneath the station. Just as Shakti reached its level, a piercing moan erupted from the engine’s whistle. Desperate not to be left behind, the Jaipurians threw down their luggage and ran. People clambered onto the train’s roof, clung to the ladders, leaped for the couplings between the cars. Guardsmen fired their rifles overhead to try and keep order but it was no use. The locomotive groaned forward, and panic set in.

Shakti ducked under one soldier’s grasp, sidestepped another who’d tangled with a man and his suitcase, and then ran. She leaped a woman clutching a gash in her head and rushed past a man who was tearing a valise full of d-sal from a child.

This fear and pain was what Nithin had wanted her to follow. He’d thought she could do something for them, and she remembered in some dim part of herself that she’d once known how. But the engine’s wheels were screaming against the tracks. The train was gathering speed, and the Jaipurians’ terror and suffering was threatening to paralyze her.

Please I can’t, Shakti begged the voices.

You must.

But it’s too far.

The engine reached the tunnel that led out of the city. Bodies, unable to squeeze low enough to avoid the tunnel’s roof, spilled on either side of the tracks. Once more the hot swelling filled her, and Shakti sprinted.

You must and you will.

The blanket slipped from her shoulders. Her legs pumped faster and faster. Then, propelled by the voices, Shakti reached the platform’s edge and hurtled into the air.

∞

For a moment she was weightless, infinite. Then her sandals hit the carriage gangway. She skidded over the worn metal until one of the Jaipurians clinging to the railing outside the car caught her wrist. Surprise filled his face at the heat that radiated from her skin.

That was a five meter jump, he said, shocked.

They cannot know.

Instead of answering, she let go of his wrist and pushed through the other startled passengers on the gangway into the carriage. The Hegemony had removed the seats, expecting the Jaipurians to stand like livestock until they reached their destination. Scores of lean faces turned to see who this last passenger was that had caused the commotion. And when the car rattled into the tunnel’s darkness they saw the soft glow of her skin that the station’s lights had hidden.

"The avatar. The avatar of Mahadevi is with us!" a woman cried.

No, Shakti said. "No I am from the chawls."

Men and women called her name, grasped at her sari, forced her back toward the exit.

I am not who you think! she cried.

Leave her alone! a voice yelled from behind her. A boy shoved between her and the crowd, swatting at the other passengers with a handmade machete. He was slim, nearly her height, with bagged trousers below a blue-striped t-shirt stained with ash and dust.

But she will help us! a woman cried.

Back, back! he cried. She will do what she wants!

His machete buzzed back and forth, but the weapon was rusted and clearly dull, its grip wrapped in electrical tape. No doubt some of the citizens carried more deadly weapons, and she could feel their minds turning against him. Nithin had been right, they only wanted to use her.

We are going to the farms, Shakti called to them. We’re being relocated. The Hegemony has saved us.

At her words, the crowd stilled. Sobs of relief and laughter broke through the swaying car.

Yes! the boy said. "Yes that’s right! Soon we’ll have daal, and Laal Maas, and churma…"

The faces were smiling now, nodding. A few of the passengers reached forward to touch Shakti, stooping to touch her feet before returning to their places. When they’d finally quieted the boy took Shakti’s hand and lead her to a corner of the car sheltered by a wall of luggage. There she found a hunched man seated awkwardly on his valise.

My name is Makul, the boy said. This is my father Quadray. We will protect you. Do you need food? D-sal? We have a little.

Makul offered her a dented thermos and a wrapped sun bar. But she only shook her head as she sank down beside the old man. She was exhausted, and could not stop the images of Nithin and Ramir and the Aghori from replaying in her mind.

What you said was being smart, the boy said.

I’m not who they think I am, she said.

Makul frowned. His eyebrows pinched upward above his nose, giving his wide face a look of permanent concern.

Who else would you be being, the boy said. "We all saw…pita, father are you ok?"

Quadray had doubled over, fighting a wracking cough. A ridge of worry knotted Makul’s forehead. He knelt and rubbed his father’s back,