An feels giddy.
He slams the clutch, puts the car in the third, and grinds forward.
He meets the men. The sound is sickening, lovely, unusual. Yells of defiance turn to screams of pain and terror, but still the men press in on him. The Defender rides over a body. Faces mash into his windows, their flesh going flat and pink and brown and white against the glass. A pair of men grabs the door handles and tries in vain to work them open. The car slows a little. An drops it into second gear. The men beat the car and grab at it and jump on top of it. The car rocks side to side as An jogs the wheel, pinning men on the sides between the car and buildings, blood smearing across the hood and then the windshield. Some men with the kepler masks get caught and crumple under the rear wheels. The car is a four-wheel-drive beast. He lets out a little laugh. He flicks the wipers. Bad idea—the blood smears and obscures his view. The car moves forward more slowly now, the men treating it like a drum, but it’s useless. It’s too heavy for them to topple and they can’t get in or breach its armor. An is sure that he’ll make it out and get away.
But then a giant man jumps from a low building onto the hood. He turns and sits on the roof, facing out, his feet planted wide. An peers through the arcs of blood swiped across the glass and sees that he’s almost reached the street where the grenade went off. A burned-out car, a few bodies, a dying cow. A strangely dressed woman—cropped hair, a stick tied to her back—darts across the street. A matted stray dog limps from left to right. The grenade cleared a path and if he can get there then he should be able to gain some speed and get away and then, once he’s three kilometers distant, poof! His bomb will detonate and that will be the end of the mob and the end of this safe house and the end of this dank little corner of Kolkata, India.
But then, BAM! An is rattled. The man on the hood has swung a heavy maul into the windshield. The bulletproof glass holds. The men outside whoop and yell and—blink SHIVERSHIVERblink—An’s heart nearly stops as a trio of men heave a thick metal bar across the end of the alleyway and bolt it into place. It’s a meter off the ground, and there’s no way he’ll be able to drive over it.
An pulls the car to within five meters of the barricade and stops.
SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkSHIVER.
“This can’t be it, Chiyoko, can it? Do we abandon the car?” He turns left and right and looks into the cargo area for ideas. His equipment, his weapons, the sword. His vest.
It would be a waste to use that now.
The street.
The barricade.
“We have to at least try.”
BAM! The maul again and the car shakes.
BAM! Again. A small spiderweb in the glass. A chink in the armor.
An puts the car in reverse and guns it. The mauler falls onto his hands and knees, his weapon sliding off the hood to the ground. The mob at the back folds under the car as it rides over them. More mashing. More popping. The mauler looks over his shoulder, stares right at An. Anger, menace, stupidity. An slams the brake and the mauler slides up the hood and into the windshield, his legs bunching under him. An grabs the rifle and sticks it back into the hinged flap, and he fires directly into the mauler’s thigh and buttocks. The mauler rolls to the side in agony. An puts the car in first and it jumps forward and the mauler tumbles off the hood.
Clutch, second, gas, clutch, third, gas. He’s up to 55 kph in no time, the men flying away from the car, gunshots hitting the rear window. He takes the wheel with both blinkblinkblink both hands and peers at the barricade. Will it hold? Will it buckle? Will he make it?
An squints, readying for impact. And then—what is that? A head sailing through the air?
Whatever it is, it rolls under the barricade, and then another head-like ball, and then, at the last second before impact, the barricade is unlocked and the grille slams into it and the bar swings violently away and into the street. He hits the brakes. The car swerves and stops. The street ahead is clear enough for him to complete his getaway. But before he leaves he looks back down the alley, full of bodies living and dying and dead. What is left of the mob comes for him.
But another comes for him too. The woman with the cropped hair. She’s wiry and fast and strong. A stick—no, a sword—in her hand.
And her face.
Her face.
It looks like Chiyoko’s, except 20 or 30 years older.
SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVERblink SHIVERSHIVERSHIVER SHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVERblink SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVER blink
BAM! BAM! BAM!
“Go, go, go!” the woman yells in Mandarin. She stands on the running board, right next to An on the outside of the car, slapping her hand on the roof. “Go! They’ll kill us!”
“Who are you?”
“I am Nori Ko. I am Mu. I knew Chiyoko. I can help you. Now, we have to go!”
And An’s heart fills and he feels light and free and he wonders how many has he killed today and how many more will die when the bomb goes off and ChiyokoChiyokoChiyokoNoriKoNoriKoChiyoko and he feels free and light and An’s heart fills.
He drives. Half a kilometer later he stops. He lets her in. “Watch,” he says, and she says nothing. He drives some more and a short while later the sky behind them lights up, and they are free.
MACCABEE ADLAI, LITTLE ALICE CHOPRA
Road SH 2, Joypur Forest, West Bengal, India
Maccabee runs a straight razor over his bare scalp. He swishes the blade in a copper bowl half-filled with a stew of water and black stubble and soap. Next to the bowl is a pair of scissors covered by a pile of thick hair. He squints at his reflection in a clouded mirror that’s propped against the wall. He’s never shaved his head before and he likes the way it feels. The smoothness, the lightness. Also, with his bruises and his crooked nose and his physique, the baldness makes him look like a real badass.
Which of course he is.
“What do you think, Sky Key?”
The girl sits next to him. She leans into his side. Her body is warm, and he feels comforted by it. He wonders if she is comforted in turn.
Probably not.
Her legs are tucked up and her arms are wrapped over her knees. She doesn’t answer his question. He briefly touches her hair. It’s thick and soft, the hair of a girl who’s been well cared for.
If he’s going to get her to the end, he’ll have to take good care of her too.
He passes her a bowl of rice and lentils, a stiff circle of dal balanced on top. “Here. Have some more food.”
She digs in with her bare hands and eats. Her appetite is strong and, so far, insatiable.
They are in an abandoned roadside hut 130 kilometers west and north of Kolkata. It’s midmorning. The landscape outside is lush and verdant. Jungle surrounds the hut, but fields of jute and potatoes lie less than a kilometer to the north. Sporadic cars and buses pass on the road, but other than that there are no signs of people here.
Which is good. Early that morning he and Sky Key wandered through a shopping center west of Kolkata buying supplies. Rice, soap, candles, batteries, towels, a sewing kit, a small butane camp stove with