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  He was about to back off, when four more men suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. They looked to be carbon copies of the one the woman had already dispatched-large, well built, and dressed in black. Two of them took out curved blades and lunged at the woman. Aaditya wasn't sure what to do, the woman certainly looked like she could take care of herself, yet he didn't want to just walk away, leaving her facing these four new attackers. His choice was made for him when one of the men saw him and rushed at him.

  Aaditya was in great physical shape, having been an athlete for most of his school years, and had a Brown Belt in Karate to boot. As his attacker came closer and reached out to grab Aaditya, he side-stepped, took the man's wrist, and using the larger man's momentum against him, sent him sprawling to the ground. Aaditya turned to see that the woman had sent one attacker down, but was now trading blows with her other attacker, a blade in her own hand. The two of them moved in a deadly rhythm, circling each other, looking for an opening, striking and blocking with lightning speed. Aaditya would have kept watching, but he now had big problems of his own. Two big problems.

  Two men, including the one he had sent down, were now running towards him. As tough as he thought he was, he wasn't sure he could take on both of these giants, and not having any way of backing off now, he decided to use surprise to his advantage and struck first. His feet couldn't move as fast as they once could, and he certainly was limited in his ability to kick, but he moved towards the nearer man, and landed a series of two quick punches-one to the solar plexus that winded the big man, and as he doubled over, a second blow to the temple that sent the man staggering back. Aaditya had put most of his strength into the blows and was shocked when the man stood up a split second later and grinned at him, baring a mouth full of yellowed and deformed teeth.

  Now I'm in deep shit.

  The second man struck out at Aaditya with a punch. He saw it coming and blocked it, his right hand coming down in an arc to deflect the momentum of the man's blow, and followed through with a kick to the shin. The blow jarred Aaditya's right leg and sent pain shooting through his body, but the metal and carbon fibre artificial leg did much more damage than his real leg would ever have. The man grabbed his shin and staggered down on one knee. Before Aaditya could do anything else, total pandemonium erupted around him.

  He felt a gust of wind blow around him, and sand being blown across his face, before he heard the humming noise behind him. It was no louder than a vacuum cleaner, but when he turned to look, he saw a large flying vehicle land just next to the lake. He could not make out too many details in the dark, but it was easily as large as a fighter jet, and seemed to be white in colour. It had a raised canopy, and a nose that was split and curved upwards, like a bull's horns. As the vehicle landed on the sand, the canopy slid open, and a man jumped out.

  He was tall, perhaps as tall as the four men in black Aaditya and the woman had been grappling with, but while they looked like gym-buffed bodybuilders, this man was all lean muscle. He wore a striped bodysuit, and as he came closer, Aaditya thought they looked like tiger stripes. His hair was matted, almost in dreadlocks and he carried what looked like a small trident in his hand.

  If the woman had looked like she could dish out violence, this newcomer took it to a whole new level. He rolled on the ground, evading a blow from one attacker and casually slashed him in the back with the trident, sending him down, and even before he had fully gotten up from the roll, he had implanted the trident in another man's stomach. In no more than a couple of seconds, he had killed or maimed two of the giants, and stood facing the remaining two, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

  'Want to dance, dear daityas?'

  The two men rushed at him, blades glistening in the dark. The woman intercepted one, sliding on the ground, her legs wrapping around his, sending him down as she gracefully rolled on to one knee, and brought her blade down in one smooth move. When Aaditya looked up, he saw that the last man in black was also down, lying at the feet of the man with matted hair. He felt a surge of panic as the man walked towards him now, bloodied trident in hand, but the woman came between them, gently shaking her head. The two of them entered the flying vehicle and in an instant, it had taken off and disappeared from view.

  Aaditya moved to a corner of the grounds and slumped behind a fallen oak tree. Getting into the odd scrape in school was one thing. The violence he had witnessed was of a totally different nature. Sitting there among six dead or dying men, he fumbled for his phone, wondering if he should call the police.

  What would he tell them? How could he explain what he had just witnessed? That was when he saw the glowing cylinder lying a few feet away from him. He picked it up gingerly and was about to take a closer look when he heard another flying vehicle approach. It was a different ship, black in colour and shaped like a saucer. One of the men writhing on the ground seemed to be in contact with the pilot and said, presumably into some communication system, 'They got away. We need help.'

  If help was what they were looking for, they did not get it. Some sort of beam flashed from the ship, and one by one, the men lying on the ground were incinerated, reduced to ash in an instant.

  Aaditya lay hiding behind the tree, not daring to breathe. When he heard the sound of the ship receding, and got up to see a clear sky, he ran faster than he had in years to his bike and sped home.

  ***

  Aaditya breathed freely only when he was back home. He saw on his phone that he had four missed calls from Supriya, but she was the last thing on his mind right now. He went into the bathroom, standing under the shower for what seemed to be an eternity, trying to calm himself down and to come to grips with what he had just seen. It was clearly not a gang fight, gangs did not arrive on the scene in flying vehicles. What the hell had he seen? He changed and dumped his dust-covered clothes, remembering to take out the old squadron patch.

  That was when he saw the cylinder in his trouser pocket. He had totally forgotten about it in the chaos, and now he took a closer look. It was perhaps eight inches long and an inch in diameter. It was totally transparent, and what was most striking was the viscous liquid it contained. Milky white and thick, the liquid occupied about half of the cylinder. Aaditya put it on his bedside table, figuring that whatever the cylinder was, it was by no means the weirdest thing he had witnessed tonight.

  Aaditya had all but given up drinking after his accident, but now he felt like he needed a stiff drink. Not having anything stronger than Coke at home, he poured himself a large glass of that and downed it in one gulp. When he put the glass down, he saw that his hands were shaking badly. He sat down on the sofa, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. His arms hurt from the fight, and his right leg was in a world of pain from the kick he had delivered. He had already decided that he was not going to call the police, figuring that he wasn't even sure what he would report.

  He called Sam, and then disconnected before the call was answered. What would he tell? He realized that the best way was to just move on, to not get involved any further in whatever had happened that night. And he knew of only one way of truly taking his mind off things.

  He walked to his study table, and booted up his computer. Then he bent down, detached the prosthetic leg and put it beside him, rubbing the sore stump.

  He put in his favorite flight sim, and then logged on to multiplayer mode using his handle IndianBader.

  Only a few people got it, but it was a name Aaditya loved. His handle had been inspired by Douglas Bader, a Royal Air Force pilot who had lost both his legs in an accident, and then with two prosthetic legs, had gone on to be one of the most decorated fighter aces in the Second World War. Aaditya would not get a chance to emulate him in real life, but here, in his virtual playground, he ruled the skies. Part of it was sheer practice, since he had been playing for years, but part of it was what his father had told him. Some fighter pilots just had it. Call it instinct, call it luck-the ability to sense what to do a split second before others. A spl
it second difference that often spelt the difference between life and death. After half an hour of flying and a half dozen air battles won, IndianBader had once again topped the leaderboards, and Aaditya took a break to grab another drink. He lost count of how many sorties he took off on, but reckoned it was at least one too many, and that it was already way past his usual bedtime. While that meant he would have a terrible time waking up in time for college the next morning, at least it helped him forget what he had just been through.

  Almost.

  When he got back to his computer and logged on to one of his favorite aviation forums, as luck would have had it, the most recent discussion thread was about aircraft that had gone missing while chasing UFOs. The last post read, 'Hey X-Files freaks, there are no UFOs, so just get back to reality.'

  When he woke up in the morning, he would blame the stress he had been under, but maybe he just needed to unburden himself, and so he had posted a message in reply. It said: I don't know about UFOs or aliens, but there are flying vehicles whose origin we cannot be sure of. I know because I saw two of them tonight. And I know these were not meteors or military planes, since I saw them from less than fifty feet away. I've grown up around fighters, and as I've been on this forum for years now, you guys know by now that I don't bullshit. And what I saw tonight was no military jet we know of.

  He of course left out any mention of the fighting or the dead bodies, but went on to describe the first vehicle. He then logged off and went to bed.

  The next morning Aaditya woke up with a bad headache and wondered if it had all been a terrible dream. Unable to contain his curiosity, he booted up his computer, knowing he would be late for college again. He wanted to check what others had made of his comments on the forum. When he logged on, he saw that his post had disappeared, and if anyone had responded to it, there was no sign of it either. He was secretly relieved. He had written the comment when he had been very freaked out. Now in the sober reality of day, he was glad people would not see his ravings about UFOs and write him off as another alien-chasing nutcase.

  The morning went by in a blur of lectures and classes, and for once, he was glad to be in college. Sometimes being too busy to worry about things was good. Of course, there was one piece of unfinished business he had not forgotten about. He had not seen Supriya around all day, and so he called her just after noon, wondering if she would ever know what a supreme sacrifice he was making in giving up his gaming time to talk to her.

  She did not answer, and Aaditya wondered if she was pissed with him. He couldn't blame her. From her standpoint, he had hung up on her mid-conversation and then not bothered to call her or answer her calls and messages.

  Figuring out that she was either too busy or too pissed off to talk to him, Aaditya whipped out his PSP and was soon lost in a sortie. He had just evaded a missile and shot down two fighters and was on the tail of the bomber, downing which was the chief objective of this particular mission, when he was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.

  'Sam, I had the frigging bomber in my sights, man!'

  He heard a cough followed by a voice that most decidedly did not belong to Sam.

  'I'm sorry to have interrupted your sortie, Mr Ghosh, but I did want to meet you urgently.'

  Aaditya whirled around to find himself face to face with the principal, Dr Bakshi.

  Oh shit! First he was caught gaming in class and now he had just sworn at the principal. Could things get any worse? Dr Bakshi sat down next to Aaditya at the foot of the stairs overlooking the basketball court. Actually, Aaditya was a bit relieved that it was in fact the principal and not Donkey or one of his other professors. Dr Bakshi was known to be quite chilled out, and thought nothing of hanging out with his students to get to know what was on their minds. What he said next though totally stumped Aaditya.

  'You, Mr Ghosh, are a man of hidden talents.'

  Aaditya had no idea what he was talking about. The principal must have thought he was being modest.

  'Don't worry, it's great to show initiative like this, and if you have connections that you can use to get us such major sponsors for our college festival, we'd be only too happy to oblige.'

  Aaditya was getting more and more confused and alarmed that there had been some misunderstanding.

  'Dr Bakshi, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and if something has gone wrong, it's not something I meant to do.'

  Now it was the principal's turn to look baffled.

  'I assumed you knew the guy since he came in saying his company was willing to put down such a large sponsorship because you had approached them.'

  'Which guy?'

  Now Dr Bakshi told him that he had got a call that morning from someone claiming to be Vice President, Corporate Communications for a firm called DSI.

  'DSI? Never heard of them.'

  The principal scratched his head, realizing that what he had thought was an easy new source of sponsorship was now getting more complicated.

  'I hadn't either, but then he told me that they are a privately held conglomerate, with interests in many industries. I checked their website and it seemed very impressive. He said that they wanted to sponsor our college festival, including refurbishing the auditorium. All they wanted was some promotional activity and branding in college, which was obviously cool with me.'

  So far, it did not sound very unusual. Aaditya knew that when festival season came around, the college would be canvassing for such sponsors. The unusual thing was where he fit into all this.

  'Its great we have a new sponsor, but what does it have to do with me?'

  'He mentioned that he wanted to meet only you. He asked for you by name and said that he wanted to thank you. That's why I assumed you knew him or something.'

  'Sir, I have never heard of the company before, but what did he say his name was? Maybe he is connected to me in some way.'

  'Ask him yourself.'

  Aaditya started in surprise.

  'He's here?'

  'Yes. He's waiting in my visiting room, and says he wants to meet you.'

  'Shit!'

  Dr Bakshi smiled.

  'Now that you've started attracting sponsors with your celebrity status, go and charm a few more rupees out of them.'

  Aaditya looked to be on the verge of panic.

  'Who is this guy and why does he want to meet me? What's his name?'

  'Here's his card. As for the rest, I'm afraid I know as little as you.'

  Aaditya looked at the gold embroidered card the principal had just handed him.

  The name printed on the card was N.Muni. Wondering what was going on, Aaditya set out to meet this mysterious sponsor.

  THREE

  Admittedly, Aaditya was still a fresher and yet to see his first college festival, but he had never imagined a corporate sponsor could look the way this one did. Even before he entered the room, he saw the man sitting at the table through the partially open blinds. He had long hair that was tied in a thick ponytail, he seemed to be in his forties, thin to the point of being gaunt. He wore jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt. As Aaditya entered the room, he noticed something even more odd. The man had a long black case next to him. From its shape it looked like it contained either a guitar or some other similar musical instrument. All in all, this sponsor who had insisted on meeting Aaditya looked more like an aging rock star than a Vice President of any corporation.

  When Aaditya greeted him, to his surprise, the man stood up and folded his hands in greeting.

  An aging rock star who believes in traditional values.

  This new sponsor seemed to get weirder and more interesting by the minute, but weird or not, he was a potential big contributor to the college, so Aaditya got down to business.

  'Mr Muni, it's a pleasure to meet you. I was told you wanted to specifically meet me, so please do let me know how I may be of assistance.'

  The man looked Aaditya over, then he smiled back and nodded.

  'Yes, you are indeed the one I was told
helped my colleagues.'

  Aaditya had no idea what he was referring to. He had never had anything to do with the organization Mr Muni claimed to belong to, and while some of the senior students may have approached companies for sponsorships for the festival, as a fresher, Aaditya had nothing to do with it. He began to guess that it may just be a case of mistaken identity and tried to clear it up.

  'Mr Muni, I'm afraid I don't have much background on your organization but I guess someone from our college must have approached one of your colleagues for a sponsorship. I'm not sure where my name came in, but I would be more than happy to help in any way possible or perhaps get you in touch with one of the students on the organizing committee for the festival.'

  'We are a global entity with diversified interests, and as for how you could help us, I would prefer to talk outside the college.'

  That was a strange request, but considering how unconventional this Mr Muni had been so far, Aaditya agreed to play along.

  'Where would you like to meet?'

  Mr Muni got up, gathering his case as he replied. 'Let us talk over a coffee.'

  So far Aaditya had remained pretty detached from what happened in college, other than hanging out with Sam and iPod, but now that the principal himself was involved, he didn't want to screw this up and cost the college lots of money in potential funds. So he readily agreed, and followed Mr Muni's taxi on his bike. For some reason, Mr Muni seemed to want to meet at Connaught Place. This was fine with Aaditya. Once the meeting was over, he could loiter at some bookstores before going home. As things turned out, Mr Muni led Aaditya to Oxford Bookstore, and they were soon seated at the café.

  'I love the smell of new books. So invigorating, so inspiring. What will you have?' Mr Muni asked politely.