VORTAL: SHOCKWAVE – Excerpt#5

5

In Which Vhy Tries To Tell Vir About Mikey And The Vortal, Viveka Is Mistaken For The Enemy, Vhy Is Confronted By The Duplicate Mikey, & Viveka Becomes A Prisoner Of War

5.1 Vir

When I came out of Sarla’s hospital room, Vhy was waiting for me. I put my arm around him and hugged him tightly. I could smell Pantene shampoo on his hair- the same brand I used- and Chiclets on his breath. When I released him, I saw his eyes were wet and shiny. He was only 17 after all and he had never experienced a major illness or death in our immediate family—thank God. This was probably very hard for him.

“Bete,” I said gently. “Don’t worry, she’s going to be fine.”

“Papa,” he said. He was the only one who preferred to call me Papa, not Dad. Somehow, I liked it. I had always called my father Papa till the day he died and he had called his father the same.

“Papa,” he said again, and I could see him swallowing hard, as if making a major effort to speak. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Bete, it’s late now. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? I’m going to be here until your Jogi-mama and Sundri-mami arrive. They’re already on the flight from Delhi. You can come in the morning on your way to college, your mother should be conscious by then. We can talk after you see her.”

“No, Papa, it’s important. We have to talk right now.”

I looked at him curiously. Vhy was the dreamer, the most carefree and happy-go-lucky of my three kids. Viveka was the sensible, motivated one. Mikey was the eccentric, rebellious one. Vhy usually became passionate only about movies. He was a junior Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Wachowski Brothers, all rolled into one. He had seen The Matrix 17 times on its first release, God knows how many times on DVD since then. It was his Bible.

With a tinge of concern, I said, “Bete, what is it? Some problem?”

He looked around. Then, without pointing directly at them, he indicated Mikey and Mrs. Mudgal, still seated in the waiting area by the nurse’s desk. His voice was low and urgent as if he didn’t want his voice to carry down the dead-silent hospital corridor.

“Papa, it’s Mikey.”

“What about Mikey, bete?”

He hesitated for a moment. “He’s changed.”

I frowned. “What do you mean, changed?”

“I mean, it’s like…” he stopped, then started up again, “it’s like he’s not Mikey anymore. Not our Mikey. Like he’s someone else.”

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I’d put it on silent mode to avoid being disturbed while in the hospital, but Anant had told me he would be calling me after he spoke to another couple of specialists about another minor operation Sarla might need.

I was reaching for it when Vaibhav caught my hand and looked at me with an expression of sheer desperation. “Papa, listen to me. I’m telling you, Mikey, our Mikey, he’s gone. That guy sitting over there, he’s someone else. Our Mikey’s been Switched.”

“Switched,” I repeated tonelessly, not sure how to react to this extraordinary accusation. “You mean…”

“I mean, he’s been replaced. And a duplicate put in his place. That duplicate.”

I looked at Mikey, talking quietly, soberly with Mrs. Mudgal. I had seen him calm her down earlier, when she had started to get upset again. He had handled phone calls for me, helped pass on messages to and from the doctors and nurses, got us all snacks and coffee when we needed it…he was behaving so well, I had meant to take him aside later and give him a little hug, to show him how proud I was of how well he was standing up to this crisis.

“Vaibhav, bete, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

He looked frustrated. “It’s the computer.”

I stared at him blankly. “The computer?” What did a computer have to do with anything?

He went on, growing more agitated as he continued talking in a hoarse whisper, still desperate not to be heard by his own brother. “Yes, Mikey’s comp. The other night, I was with—“

He stopped and rubbed his forehead, pinching the skin tightly the way he did when he got upset sometimes. “He was in his room, logged on to some kind of weird internet site. Then he disappeared. Vanished from his chair.”

I blinked. “You were sitting in Mikey’s room and you were both browsing some internet site and then he disappeared?”

“No, I wasn’t there. He was alone in his room. And he just disappeared. Vanished. Poof. Like in a movie.”

“I don’t understand. If you weren’t with him, if he was alone in his room, how could you see him disappear? Did he tell you this? He must have been pulling your leg, bete.”

He looked down for a moment, exasperated. Even as a little boy, Vhy had never blown up or lost his temper right away; he tended to turn his anger inwards. He was doing that now, I could see, struggling with his frustration. I wanted to help him, but didn’t know how. The cell phone in my pocket stopped vibrating. Whoever it was, it must have been urgent, or they wouldn’t have let it ring that long. The crisis over the thrill ride animation had still been cresting when I’d left office. I hadn’t spoken to anyone there since.

Vhy looked up at me again. “The door was open. Someone looked in and saw him sitting there. Then I looked in and he wasn’t there, he was gone. Then I turned my back for a second, just a second, and poof, he was back in his chair again. I’m not making this up, papa. It really happened. Just last night! And today, all this is going on.”

I tried not to sigh visibly. I didn’t know how to deal with this…whatever it was. I tried to be as patient as possible. “Who someone?”

He stared at me uncomprehendingly.

“Vhy, you said Someone looked in and saw him sitting there. I’m asking you, who someone?”

He looked away again, this time I thought I saw a flash of what looked like embarrassment cross his face. What was he embarrassed about? The fact that he was talking gibberish when his mother was in a serious condition in the ICU? I had never known Vaibhav to behave like this before, but he was definitely not himself!

“It doesn’t matter who, papa,” he said. “The point is, Mikey was Switched somehow. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I saw it happen. He vanished, then ten minutes later he was back. But like the way he is now, changed completely. Not the real Mikey. I told Viveka about it, but she didn’t believe me. Now, it’s happened to her too. The maid told me Viveka was in Mikey’s room when Mom went to speak to her, just before the attack took place. Viveka must have been using Mikey’s comp for some reason and the same thing that happened to Mikey happened to her too. She’s not the real Viveka anymore. She’s been Switched too.”

I stared at him. Long and hard. I hadn’t seen Vhy so intense and anxious since the night he’d had a high fever before his ICSE Maths finals, a year and a half ago.

“Vaibhav,” I said, puzzled. “What are you talking about? What is this whole story for? Why are you telling me all these things? And now? Is this the place, or the time? Come, on bete, get a hold on yourself. Your mother needs us to pull together, to stay in control. I’m depending on you and you’re telling me all these stories!”

He sighed with typical adolescent exasperation. I wondered for a moment—just a fleeting moment—if he was on drugs or something. But I dismissed the thought instantly: I knew my children too well. Still, something was definitely wrong with Vaibhav and the only other thing I could think of was that the sudden shock of what had happened had affected him somehow. Maybe…just maybe…I shouldn’t have given him so much freedom, allowed him to watch so many movies without restriction. Maybe, at this time of sudden stress, his movie-addicted mind was unable to cope, and was therefore trying to retreat into some fantastical movie-ish explanation for the very real things that had happened.

“Papa,” he said with a tone of desperation. “You’ve got to believe me. Both Mikey and Viveka have been Switched. They’re not our Mikey and Viveka anymore. That’s why Mom was attacked. By the other Viveka.”

I was trying to think of what to say in response to that when, to my relief, I saw the lift at the far end of the corridor open and Anant emerged. He was looking at his cell phone and then he looked up as he came down the corridor and when he saw me, he shut his cell phone.

He was frowning when he came up. “Vir, I was calling you just now but there was no answer.”

“Sorry, Anant, Vaibhav just needed to talk to me for a moment,” I said apologetically, trying not to sound irritated with Vhy.

Anant nodded at Vaibhav perfunctorily. “Hello, Vaibhav.” He looked at me, “Vir, I have to go home and get some sleep. Major surgery tomorrow and it can’t be postponed. I’ve checked with Dr. Patel again. He’s keeping a constant watch on her, so there’s nothing to worry about. I need you to just chat with him for a moment to discuss the plastic surgery I suggested earlier. If you do it within the first 72 hours, it’s best. That way, there’ll be virtually no visible scars.”

I nodded. “Sure. You’re going up again? Then I’ll come with you.”

I looked at Vhy. “Vaibhav, bete. We’re all tired. I need to speak to Dr. Patel about your Mom having another minor operation. Take my suggestion, go home, eat something—I told the maid to keep dinner ready. And get a good night’s sleep. You’re tired. It’ll do you good. Sleep well. And we’ll talk in the morning, okay?”

He looked at me with an expression that was part-puppy dog who had been kicked and part-Forrest Gump. He seemed about to say something, then glanced at his tau standing next to us, waiting impatiently, and just nodded. I thought of saying something else to him but I couldn’t think of anything. His extraordinary story had left me completely wordless.

Then, he just turned and walked away, not in the direction of the lift which would take him downstairs to the hospital lobby, but the other direction. He walked past the waiting room and I saw Mikey look up and give him a vulnerable look that was wholly unlike our usually sullen and withdrawn Mikey; it told me how much the sudden shock of Sarla’s incident had affected our youngest as well. He was clearly calling out for some brotherly help. But Vaibhav just walked past, ignoring Mikey completely, and went through the door marked Exit. He was taking the staircase. And we were on the 14^th floor.

“Vir?” Anant said. “Can we go now? Patel’s waiting for you before he goes on his rounds.”

I thought of going after Vaibhav, of sitting down with him and trying to figure out what was troubling him so much that he had to make up such elaborate stories. Was it the classic attention-seeking device? Or perhaps it wasn’t an attempt to get attention at all, perhaps he had seen something unusual, but his overactive movie-filled imagination had interpreted it as much more than what it was.

But I couldn’t deal with it right now. There were more important things to be done. And I still had to figure out what to do about Viveka—Where was she? What had happened to her? Why had she attacked her mother? I was worried sick about her. I was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, struggling to deal with it one thing at a time. I just didn’t have the mental space to deal with Vhy’s bizarre story.

“Okay,” I said to Anant. “Let’s go talk to Dr. Patel.”

5.2 Viveka

The crossbow in the man’s hand wavered slightly as I cried out. I thought he was going to shoot me in reflex and my body tensed at the thought of that metal bolt piercing my flesh.

He cursed in the same tapori bhaasha, using Marathi and Gujarati swear words combined in a uniquely Bollywood mixture.

“Girl, control yourself. You almost tasted the steel of my bow just now.”

I raised my arms again, anxious not to anger him. “I’m sorry. I just…. I was just…. I mean, I couldn’t help it. When I saw your face…”

He frowned suspiciously, keeping the crossbow aimed at my chest. “What about my face? What’s wrong with it?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. How do you tell a man from another world, an alternate Bombay as this obviously was, that he’s the spitting image of a Hindi film star in our world? That too, a very major megastar. Right down to the last bicep in his muscular arms and the lean hard line of his jaw. I almost expected him to start dancing that familiar step, the one where Hrithik presses his hands outwards and jerks his body, and sing, “Ek pal ka jeena…” Because that’s who he was: the spitting image of Bollywood’s current badshah, Hrithik Roshan.

“Don’t play games with me, girl,” he snarled. “I’ve had a very nasty day. And it’s going to get far worse, thanks to your pardesi associates down there.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the battlefield below, indicating the larger forces coming from the North. I stole a quick glance. The army was still massed in lines stretching as far as I could see in this dusky light. They were clearly waiting…but for what? Then I remembered a scene I’d seen in some film—don’t ask me which, okay, I’m not a movie cyclopaedia like Vhy—where the larger army waits for the smaller force to surrender. Some American Civil war saga.

As I glanced down, I saw a horse rider bearing a white flag riding from the ranks of the South army towards the North army. He looked very small and forlorn, but there was no mistaking that white flag—he was a herald, seeking to offer terms of surrender. I hoped his offer was accepted: I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if that great North army actually attacked the measly South one.

Then I realized what this duplicate Hrithik Roshan had just said in his pidgin Bambaiya bhasha.

“Wait a sec,” I said. “You think I’m with those people down there? No way! I’m on my own here. I’m not even from this world.”

“Not from this world,” he repeated slowly. “You speak oddly, girl. Which area of the North are you from? Jogeshwari? Vasai?” He looked me up and down again. “You must be one of those Pawai princesses. I’ve heard tell they will–”

“Look, I just told you, I’m not from the North or the South. I’m from elsewhere. Besides, you’re the one who speaks oddly. What sort of language is that anyway?”

He looked as if I had just insulted his mother. “This is Tapori. The language of my land.”

He used his free arm to indicate our surroundings. “You Northerners come here, invade our land, destroy our homes and now you insult my language too. Tapori is the greatest language in the seven islands. It is the language in which all the great epics were composed.” He sneered like the second, tough-guy Hrithik in ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hai’, the one who takes revenge on the bad guys for killing the first nice, sweet-boy Hrithik before the interval. “But what would you know about such things, a common barbarian like you!”

Barbarian? me? If he hadn’t had a crossbow in his hand, I would have picked up a rock and slugged him. I settled for putting a hand on my hip, and pointed a finger at him. “Tapori? Is that what you call it? Well, at least you picked a good name. It’s tapori Hindi, that’s for sure.”

He looked at me up and down. As my initial shock at being caught and then at recognizing his famous face wore off slightly, I began to feel afraid again. I was in a strange, hostile land, captured by an armed man who regarded me as an enemy. I had no idea what he might do to me.

“Turn around,” he commanded.

I did as he asked, feeling his eyes move over my body as intimately as a hand on bare skin. Suddenly, I felt almost naked in the cut-off jean shorts. Why the hell wasn’t I dressed in something less revealing than these flimsy shorts? That was simple: I was supposed to be working on my PC at home, not transported against my will to a strange world and taken prisoner by an armed stranger with a crossbow.

“You wear strange garb too,” he said. “I have never seen a Northerner in such garments before. Not even a princess of Pawai. Is it your custom to be as unclad as a common rundi? Or perhaps that is your profession?”

I wanted to slap him for saying I was dressed like a whore. But he was too far away. And it would have been pointless. Besides, he was right. Even in the USA, I hadn’t dressed like this out of doors. It was only because I was working alone in the privacy of my own bedroom that I’d slipped into these shorts and the tee shirt to be more comfortable. Damn. If I’d known I was going to be judged by some filmstar-lookalike in another dimension, I would have worn my boringly conservative churidar-kurta.

He peered at my cut-offs in a way that made me hold my breath with anxious anticipation. I relaxed only slightly when I realized he was trying to read the designer label.

“Pepe,” I said, trying to help. “And the tee shirt’s from Columbia, New York. I did a post-grad course in filmmaking there, after passing out of Michigan U.”

He tried to repeat the unfamiliar words. When he tried to say “Pepe”, it came out sounding like the Punjabi “Papey”. I couldn’t help laughing.

His face darkened with anger. The crossbow rose an inch higher, pointing at my throat. I stopped laughing.

“Silence, girl! We’ll soon see how you laugh when I take you back to my camp for questioning. We know how to deal with pardesi spies like you.”

I held up my hands appeasingly. “Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. It’s just that this whole situation is so bizarre.”

He put his free hand to his mouth and whistled three loud, sharp tones. Instantly, a horse came riding back out of the smoky dimness. It came within three yards of him and stopped, waiting. So that’s how he had tricked me earlier: I had heard the horse riding away and it hadn’t occurred to me that the rider had stayed behind! Smart move.

“Hey,” I said in English. “That’s one hell of a neat trick. That horse really responds to you.”

“Girl,” he said curtly. “Stop your barbarian chatter, and get on the horse. I would make you run, but it is too far, and I must be back before the battle commences. Move now!”

“Achcha, baba, I’m getting on,” I said, using Bambaiya Hindi again—or Tapori, as he called it with such pathetic pride. “But if you’re going to order me around, at least use my name. I’m Viveka. Everybody calls me Viv for short.”

“Viveka,” he said, looking at me suspiciously as if revealing my name might be some new trick on my part.

“And you are?”

It didn’t really matter what his name was, but I couldn’t resist asking. I had to know if he had the same name as his filmi counterpart back in our world. If he was the spitting image of a Hindi film superstar in my world, maybe his name was similar too. It would help me figure out how similar or dissimilar things were between the two worlds.

It was eerily similar. Not the exact same name, but close enough to send a shiver up my spine.

“Rikit,” he said gruffly. “Rikit Raushan, son of Rankesh Raushan of Mahim Island. Now, get on that horse before I put a bolt through your unclad leg.”

5.3 Vhy

I reached home feeling frustrated and angry with myself. I should have made Dad listen to me somehow. But he was so worried about Mom. And there were things to be done at the hospital. I didn’t blame him for not believing me—for looking at me like I was some attention-deficit South Mumbai rich delinquent, even though at the time I was so mad as hell, I had felt like shouting and kicking the walls while going down the hospital stairs. No, it wasn’t Dad’s fault at all, from any point of view.

Besides, I knew how freaked-out my story sounded: “Papa, Mikey and Viveka were sucked into some kind of internet vortal and came out as different people.”

But it was the truth. I knew it. Ruchi knew it too. We had seen what we had seen. There had to be a way to convince Dad. Before something else happened.

The maid was still in a state of shock. She was trembling when she opened the door and her eyes looked like she had been crying nonstop. I felt really bad for her. She must have got the shock of her life, seeing Viveka attack Mom like that. Just the thought of it made me feel like someone had shoved a fistful of ice down the back of my shirt. Your sister attacking your mom, slashing her badly enough to put her in hospital. Badly enough to need an emergency operation and plastic surgery.

I tried to control my own feelings and stayed calm long enough to give the maid the night off. She almost sobbed with relief, saying “Thank you, baba, thank you, hah? Mein kal subah-subah aati hoon,” and was out the door in, like, ten minutes. I wondered if she would be back in the morning, then realized I was too tired to deal with one more thing right now.

Then I collapsed on a couch in the living room and zombied-out totally. Like, I lay there for an hour or maybe a year, totally blank. Too much had happened too fast. Was it just yesterday that Ruchi and I were sitting in my bedroom watching ‘Eyes Wide Shut’? Just last night that we saw Mikey disappear at his comp? Then saw him reappear again out of thin air? It seemed like another lifetime.

When I came to my senses again, I got the scare of my life.

Mikey was standing there beside the couch, looking down at me with this really really weird expression on his face.

It shouldn’t have scared me. After all, hey, this was my younger brother, good ole Mikey Hard Rock maniac. Pizza-lover extraordinaire, tech nerd and net junkie, lone wolf and social outlaw.

Except that it wasn’t really him. This was the other Mikey. The one who had come back through the Vortal. Just like Viveka had this morning. The duplicate Mikey.

And if the duplicate Viveka had been vicious enough to put my mom in the hospital, then what might this duplicate Mikey do to me?

He grinned just then, as if reading my thoughts and leaned closer. Close enough to bite.

5.4 Viveka

You don’t argue with a strange ruffian pointing a loaded weapon at you. Even if he does look like Hrithik Roshan in ‘Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai’. I did as he told me. I went to the horse, put my foot in the stirrup and was about to get on when suddenly a sound burst out.

It was the sound of a man screaming. And it was coming from below, from the wadi on the east side of Pali Hill.

Both Rikit Raushan—that name was just too weirdly similar—and I turned to look. The two armies were massed below, facing one another, the Northern one still outnumbering the Southern by at least five times as far as I could tell.

The screaming was coming from the man with a white flag I had seen earlier. When I had last seen him, he was riding toward the Northern army, evidently bringing an offer of peace.

It seemed the Northerners didn’t care much for his offer. Because he was riding back now in the direction of the South, minus one arm. The arm, still holding the pole with the white flag, lay on the ground several metres behind him, the white cloth splashed with bloodstains that were visible even from here.

Rikit Raushan sucked in his breath as he came up beside me, watching the drama unfold.

“Barbarians,” he said. “Attacking an unarmed man bearing a flag of truce. I told the General not to waste time parleying with them.”

We watched the armless rider, clutching his shoulder to try and staunch the blood gushing from it, staining the rump of his horse and leaving a dark scarlet trail on the ground as he rode. He hadn’t reached even halfway back to his own lines when a javelin came whistling through the air behind him, arcing high in an Olympian trajectory. It struck him squarely between the shoulder blades, driving his face down into the mane of his horse.

His horse rode even faster. The momentum jostled him out of the saddle and he hung sideways, hanging from one stirrup. He must have been dead before he reached safety.

Rikit Raushan bristled with rage beside me. “Cowards!” he yelled. “Let’s see how you fare against a man bearing steel!”

He unsheathed a sword and raised it in the air. For a moment, I thought he would charge down the hillside and take on that army single-handedly. Now he reminded me of yet another Hindi film. I had recently seen ‘Fiza’—my mom had dragged me along to keep her company since my dad never saw Hindi films—and it was eerie to see the same jutting jaw, the biceps rippling with tension, the light-coloured eyes burning with fury. The real Hrithik Roshan had only been acting in that film, but his counterpart in this world was demonstrating real passion, real emotion.

It took a great effort on his part to not go charging down the hillside, but I saw him control himself and turn away. Seeing that display of self-control gave me a glimmer of hope. I used the moment to try to appeal to his better sense.

“Listen,” I said, trying to sound as sincere as possible—or as sincere as anyone can sound when speaking in pidgin Bambaiya Tapori bhasha. “You must believe me. I am not a spy. I don’t even know why you people are fighting. I’m here by mistake and all I want is to find my brother and go home again. I have nothing to do with this war of yours.”

He wasn’t listening. Below, the Northern army was sounding trumpets and preparing its first assault, even before the murdered peace-rider had reached the Southern lines.

Even I was silenced for a moment as the entire Northern army gave out one mighty roar and charged forward in a massive charge. It was an awesome sight, even seen from a kilometre away on top of this hill and I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to actually face those charging hordes. I shuddered. What sort of hellish place had I come to?

“They attack without a parley,” he said beside me, his voice choked with anger. “They butcher our peace-rider. And they mean to leave us no quarter.”

He turned to me, his sword still in his hand. “The Northern barbarians. They outnumber us six to one and will not stop until our homelands are awash in the blood of our innocent women and children. By killing the bearer of the white flag they have announced that they will take no prisoners.”

He put the point of the sword to my throat, eyes blazing. They were the exact same shade and tint as that of his counterpart back in my world. “Then why should we?”

5.5 Vhy

The sight of Mikey, the fake Mikey, bending over me while I slept, grinning down at me in the darkness was scarier than any nightmare.

I almost fell off the couch, clutching at the corner of the coffee table to keep my balance. My heart yammered like the soundtrack in a bad horror film.

The duplicate Mikey backed away at once, until he was standing in the shadows by the wall unit.

That was worse, ‘cause now I couldn’t see his face clearly. And he just stood there silently looking down at me. Like one of those two lions in that movie that Bill Goldman wrote, based on a true story he came across while on a holiday to Africa with his wife, ‘The Ghost and The Darkness’. I felt the hairs on the back of my hand standing on end with anticipation. It felt like something was about to happen; something really bad.

I felt like screaming and running from the house. Like getting away from this spooky guy who used to be my kid brother. But I remembered Mom lying unconscious in a bundle of bandages in that ICU bed, and Viveka who had suddenly turned into a vicious animalistic creature, attacking Mom, leaving her hurt badly enough to need operations and ICUs, and then leaping over a 12-foot wall like Jack Nicholson in ‘Wolf’, if the witnesses were to be believed.

I forced myself to calm down. I took three deep breaths like Van Damme takes in one of his martial arts action movies before he starts his main climax fight, and, getting up from the couch, I walked over to the light switches, forcing myself to move slowly.

Mikey should have blinked when I switched the lights on. Instead he just stood there, staring directly at me. It took me a moment to adjust to the brightness even though I’d been prepared for it, and I reminded myself once again that this person standing there was not my brother. Hell, he might not even be like us normal people.

While my rods and cones did their thing, he moved towards me. I felt he didn’t even move like the old Mikey. The differences were subtle enough that Dad and Mom and Viveka hadn’t noticed them at breakfast this morning, but knowing what I knew, everything he did screamed ‘phony’ to me. Or, as Ruch would have put it, ‘Snatcher’.

My head was woozy and my eyes felt gritty. I must have fallen asleep without realizing it. I glanced at the wall clock and was shocked at how long I’d slept, and at the fact that Dad wasn’t home yet. But the fake Mikey was still standing there and I was still more than a little bit spooked at the sight of him staring at me like a scientist at a lab specimen.

“What?” I said challengingly, the way I would have said it to a guy who was rubbernecking Ruchi a bit too interestedly at a movie hall. “What?”

He shook his head, looking away. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just seeing if you were fast asleep or just resting.”

I didn’t believe him. I was sure he had been trying to do much more than just see if I was awake. Much worse.

“I’m awake now,” I said. “What’s hassling you?

He was silent for a moment. I lost my patience. “Come on, dude,” I said. “Speak up. What’s your glitch?”

“Vaibhav,” the duplicate Mikey said. “I need to talk to you. About what happened this morning.”

There was another shred of proof: the real Mikey would never have said something like that. He’d have come directly to the point, sub-vocally muttering whatever he had to say, throwing in a lot of hardrock lingo. He would have said something like: “Vhy, man, I need to open a channel with youse. Can we, like, connect?”

I walked to the living room toilet and slid the door open. I left it open as I went in and splashed water on my face. It gave me a few seconds more to come completely awake. “About what?” I said, toweling my face.

He had walked over to the open door while I was washing my face. I could feel him watching me even with my face buried in the towel. “Everything,” he said. “Mom and Viveka. What happened this morning.”

The mention of the attack turned my face hot, as if the water I’d just splashed had been burning hot, not thanda-thanda nal ka paani.

“What about it?” I said cautiously, coming out of the bathroom and glancing either way quickly. I didn’t know what his game was, but I made sure to keep a safe distance from him, just in case he was leading up to a reprisal of Viveka’s attack. Correction: The duplicate Viveka’s attack.

“It’s my fault,” he said.

I blinked at him. Like Govinda in one of his corny comedies, wagging his eyelashes with exaggerated surprise. Except that my surprise was genuine.

“It all happened because of me,” he went on. “I’m responsible for it all, Vaibhav. I caused the whole thing to happen. By opening that stupid Vortal.”

5.6 Viveka

Rikit Raushan’s sword was at my throat.

I could see the naked hatred in his eyes and feel the pinprick of the sword bite into my flesh. He had placed it at a point just beside my artery. I could feel it pulsing against the cold steel of the blade. One flick of his wrist and I would be as good as dead—I doubted there were any hospitals in this world, or doctors on call. The image of the poor peace-rider’s life-blood pumping out from his hacked-off stump flashed in my mind and I swallowed involuntarily. The sword bit deeper into my skin.

“Please,” I said softly, because even speaking made the swordpoint seem closer. “You have to believe me. I’m not from this place at all. I’m from another world altogether.”

I said it in Hindi. Not the ‘tapori’ he spoke but decent North Indian Hindi like my father and mother spoke. The word ‘world’ came out as ‘desh’, which was close enough.

“So,” he said with a tone of bitter triumph. “You admit you’re a pardesi, Northern spy!”

“No!” I said. As loudly as I could manage with a sword pressed to my throat. “I’m not from the North. I’m from right here.” I tried to gesture with my hand. “This was my house. I mean, the place where my house used to stand.”

He grimaced disbelievingly. “You’re a poor liar, spy. The only house that stood here was a lookout point for our fauj. That’s why the Northerners blasted it with their cannons before this invasion. And your own lying tongue betrays you. Only a Northerner would speak your bastardised version of shudh Tapori.”

“It’s your ‘tapori’ bhaasha that’s bastardized,” I said angrily. “I’m speaking shudh Hindi.”

He laughed and shifted the sword from left hand to right in one smooth motion. The man was obviously an expert warrior and horseman, besides his uncanny resemblance to the hottest new superstar in Hindi films. But right now, he viewed me only as a vamp.

“Enough banter,” he said. “I am needed back at my camp to report on the positions of your Northern army. I have no time to waste on your foolish lies.”

“So you’re the spy,” I told him. “And the coward who’s so eager to murder an unarmed woman.”

That shook him. I saw his eyes grow wider and angrier. The swordpoint pressed harder against me, piercing my skin. I felt blood trickling down the front of my tee shirt and shut my own eyes instinctively.

Instead of the stabbing pain I expected, I felt the sword withdrawing. When I opened my eyes again, I saw him sheathing it and turning toward the horse. He pulled a coiled rope off the saddle and came back.

“Come on,” he said brusquely. “We’ll see if you talk as boldly when you’re being questioned by my lieutenants.”

He briskly tied my hands behind my back and pushed me toward the horse. Putting my foot into the stirrup, he shoved me up. Then he got on behind me, clutching the reins with one hand and pressing me forward with the other hand. His hand brushing my bare thigh made me feel underdressed and vulnerable, but there was little point in complaining. He wasn’t even aware that he’d touched me. Besides, I was just glad to be alive.

He urged the horse forward and we began to ride, steadily increasing speed.

We rode a path down the side of Pali Hill, heading toward what would have been Carter Road in my world. Behind and to our left, the sound of the battle rose as the two warring armies clashed with a terrible roar of voices and weapons.

VORTAL: SHOCKWAVE is a complete fantasy adventure in one book, as well as the first of a series, The Vortal Codex. It is also directly related to my Ramayana Series, Gods of War series, and other series. Signed copies of the limited edition large paperback are available at Rs 400 per copy, delivery by courier free anywhere in India.

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Nov 29, 2009 | Ashok | Comments Off