Ian McDonald - River of Gods

“I do not doubt they are deeply involved in the Kalki affair,” says Mr. Nandha.

As the elevator climbs through the rain Mr. Nandha surveys his city. The lightning has moved west, fading flickers light up the towers and projects, the fat white parklands and freeways of Ranapur, the huddle of old Kashi turned in on itself and the scimitar-curve of the river cutting through it all. Mr. Nandha thinks: We are all patterns of light, harmonics of music, frozen energy gathered out of the ur-licht into time, for a time, then released. And then behind the fierce joy of that understanding comes a dreadful sickness in his stomach. Mr. Nandha lurches against the glass walls of the elevator A keen, sharp, thin dread drives irrefusably into his heart. He has no name for it, he has never experienced sensation like this before but he knows what it is. Something terrible has happened. The most terrible thing he can imagine, and beyond. It is not a premonition. This is an echo of a happening event. The worst thing in the world has just gone down.

He almost calls home. His hand shapes the ’hoek mudra, then the universe resumes its normal perspectives, time restarts, and it was only a feeling, only a failing of body and will.

This case demands the greatest determination and dedication. He must be firm, correct, inspiring. Mr. Nandha straightens his cuffs, combs down his hair.

Morva: Fiscal. “The hotel is booked through a Bank of Bharat, Varanasi account,” Morva says. Mr. Nandha approves that Morva wears a suit to work, more so that he has a spare, in case. “I’ll need bank authorisation to get the complete details but this card has been on its travels.” He hands Mr. Nandha a list of transactions. Varanasi. Mumbai railway station. A hotel in a place called Thekkady in Kerala. Bangalore airport. Patna airport.

“Nothing before two months?”

“Not on this card.”

“Can you find out the card limit?”

Morva taps the botom line. Mt. Nandha reads it twice. He blinks once.

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen.”

“How quickly can you get me into that account?”

“I doubt it’ll be anything before business hours.”

“Try,” says Mr. Nandha, giving his coinvestigator a pat on the back as he leaves. Mukul Dev: Investigations.

“Look at this!” Mukul is five months out of postgrad and still wide-eyed at the cool of it all. Hey, girls, I’m a Krishna Cop . “Our girl’s a media babe!” The video sequence is raw, chaotically shot, worse lit. Moving bodies, most in combats. Fire gleaming off curved metal surfaces.

“This is the attack on the train,” Mr. Nandha says. It is already as ancient and irrelevant as the Raj.

“Yes, sir; it’s army helmet cam footage. This is the sequence.”

It is hard to make out any detail in the chaos of fire and flight but he sees Thomas Lull in his ludicrous garb run towards the camera and out of shot while Bharati soldiers take firing positions. He makes out a line of movement against the longer, darker line of the burning train. Mr. Nandha shudders. He knows the scuttling scurrying of antipersonnel robots from his wars with Dataraja Anreddy. Then he sees a figure in grey go down before the charging line and raise a hand. The robots cease. Mukul waves a stop sign and the picture freezes.

“This was not in the news reports.”

“Are you surprised?”

“Good work,” Mr. Nandha says standing up. He signs an open-channel mudra. “Everyone to the conference room in thirty minutes.” Acceptance chimes go off inside his skull as he leaves Mukul’s office.

Oh-three-thirty, Mr. Nandha reads from the timer patch in the corner of his vision as his investigation unit enter the conference room and takes seats around the oval table. Mr. Nandha can smell the exhaustion in the overlit room. He looks for a receptacle for his Ayurvedic tea bag, tuts in disappointment to find there is none.

“Mr. Morva, any progress?”

“One of my aeais threw up an unusual purchase; custom-grown protein chips from AFG at Bangalore; what is unusual is the shipping docket; that unlicensed surgery in the Patna FTZ.”

In his peripheral vision Mr. Nandha notices Sampath Dasgupta, a junior constable, start at something on his palmer screen and show it to Shanti Nene his neighbour.

Madhvi Prasad: “More on her identity too. Ajmer Rao is the adoptive daughter of Sukrit and Devi Paramchans, also from Bangalore. Here’s the odd bit, they show up in all the civic registers and revenue databases and public records but if you go to the Karnataka Central DNA database, there’s nothing there. They would have been registered at birth. I’m trying to locate her natural parents; this is guesswork, but I don’t think she’s come here for no reason.”

Mr. Nandha: “She could be trying to contact them. We could preempt that by searching her hotel for a DNA sample and making that contact ourselves. Good.” The ripple of disturbance is spreading along the right side of the table. “Is this something I should be aware of?”

Sampath Dasgupta: “Mr. Nandha, the Prime Minister has been assassinated. Sajida Rana is dead.”

Shock rolls around the table. Hands reach for palmers, gesture up newschannels on ’hoeks. Murmurs rise to a loud chatter to a blare of voices. Mr. Nandha waits until he hears the seeds of abatement. He raps the table loudly with his tea glass.

“Your attention please.” He has to ask for it twice before the room is quiet again. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, now if we could resume our meeting?”

Sampath Dasgupta erupts.

“Mr. Nandha, this is our Prime Minister.”

“I am aware of that, Mr. Dasgupta.”

“Our Prime Minister has been assassinated by a mob of karsevaks.”

“And we will continue to do our job, Mr. Dasgupta, as we are tasked by our government, to keep this country safe from the menace of unlicensed aeais.”

Dasgupta shakes his head in disbelief. Mr. Nandha sees that he has been challenged and he must act swiftly and assertively to maintain his authority.

“It is clear to me that Odeco, this female Ajmer Rao, and the Kalki aeai are all connected, perhaps even Professor Thomas Lull and his former assistant Dr. Lisa Durnau, in a most serious conspiracy. Madhvi, obtain a search warrant for the Amar Mahal Hotel. I will issue a petition for Ajmer Rao’s immediate arrest. Mukul, please have a file sent to all police offices in Varanasi and Patna.”

“You may be a bit late with that,” Ram Lalli interrupts. Mr. Nandha would rebuke him but his right hand is up to his ear, taking a call. “The police have put out a fugitive bulletin. Ajmer Rao has just escaped from custody at Rajghat. They’re still holding Thomas Lull.”

“What is this?” Mr. Nandha demands.

“The police pulled her in at the National Archive. Looks like she was one jump ahead of us.”

“The police?” Mr. Nandha could vomit. He is suspended over void. This, he thinks, is the Fall of Everything he felt in the glass elevator. “When did this happen?”

“They lifted her at about nineteen thirty.”

“Why were we not informed? What do they think we are, babus filling in forms?” Ram Lath says, “The entire network for Rajghat District went down.”

“Mr. Lalli, to the Rajghat police,” Mr. Nandha commands. “I am assuming full responsibility for this case. Inform them this is a Ministry matter now.”

“Boss.” Vik lifts a hand, staying Mr. Nandha at the door. “You got to see this. Your biochips? I think I know where they ended up.”

An image clicks up over the timer in the corner of Mr. Nandha’s eye. He has seen these blue skull-ghosts before: quantum resonance detector images of the biochip debris Mr. Nandha’s India-attack had left inside of Anreddy’s head had been key evidence in convicting him. Even as Maha of Datarajas, Anreddy had never worn an array like this. Every fold, every convolution and evolution, every chasma and stria and thelium is crusted with biochip jewels.