Gulp!

Chapter XX2

2005-02-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

Midnight Madanmohan couldn’t feel his legs anymore. Squatting on the little ledge under the fourth floor windowsill, he had re-read all the messages from his ubercranium’s mailbag in the last two hours.
He peeped, spotted Bob and Tuco, MAD’s chief operative, rapt in attention as a man dressed in military livery, read out from a notebook.

The radium needles on Midnight’s Rolex would meet in less than 15 minutes. “Well, it’s time to interrupt Bob’s little soiree. The hour’s approaching,” Midnight mumbled as he loaded his peashooter with the cereal clip. 13 minutes to go. This was Midnight’s biggest solo project ever. After this, he had promised himself, he would start recruiting.

He invoked the spirit of his grandfather Kamraj Dennis - an Indian American biotechnologist who headed the CODE’s biochemical research projects. Dennis, before he disappeared, was working on CODE’s ‘breakfast’ project. His team had developed cornflakes that were dried on an ultraviolet film of the mashed Cicare, a highly toxic wild berry that thrives in Amazonian wilderness.

The breakfast was to be part of a Citadel Intelligence's arsenal in political assassinations. A flake fired from a peashooter would offload the highly toxic Cicare that would then swim through the bloodstream destroying everything on its way. Death came swiftly and left no trace. Only the smell of popcorn.

The project never took off, Dennis disappeared and no amount of Citadel Intelligence ferreting traced the 'breakfast papers'. Till Midnight, a small-time felon based out of Coimbatore, received it by an anonymous speed post. Only a message was scrawled thus on the first page of the papers:

“By midnight, under moonlight,
When vampires roam, the killer’s cappuccino will foam.”

Midnight, to this day, maintains that the message took the blinkers off his mind’s eye. In the years since, the Internet had made him a celebrity, his website cerealkiller.com (After Hybrid's famous reference to Midnight after the latter cleaned up a CHETA area nest at former's behest) was often inundated with fan postings and requests for internship. eBay now sold Midnight memorabilia – key chains, jackets, Zippos, cereal bowls.

If Murder Inc. ever went public; Midnight would make a killing on from his ESOPS.

However, it was the sobriquet ‘Midnight’ that gave him his mystique. The job would always be done at the stroke of midnight (Reader note 6: All times are local).

And now as Bob stifled a yawn as his security advisers wrapped up their daily briefing and his little cuckoo clock announced the hour, the athletic frame of Midnight stepped in from the window, the peashooter ready.

The nozzle cut a silent arc in the cigar smoke-filled room and Bob watched his Security Council drop dead, a cornflake for every council’s jugular.

“You are lucky your dead dont bleed,” said Bob, mildly amused. "My carpet would have been ruined. That wouldn't have been funny for you.“

Midnight now looked around. He could have been in a photo studio, just like the ones he had seen around Coimbatore Municipal bus stand. “Looks like you've got the family tree in here,” he gestured to the rows of poster-sized portraits on all four walls. An etching of the family insignia dominated the ceiling.

“30O years and all the bastards did was a little more than fill up this wall,” Bob sighed.

“Well, at least they left you Kraal to rule,” offered Midnight. “Now, let’s get your whiny ass outta here. There’s not much time. I’ve got the amphibian docked at the jetty.”

****

Two hours later, Basha heaved himself over Bob’s window, chopper between his teeth. He stepped over the Kraal’s security council and read the little post-it note on Bob’s pillow -“Po da Dai”. Meanwhile, Pappachan savaged the Queen-sized bed searching for popcorn.

Chapter XXI

2005-02-17T00:45:00.000-08:00

The chihuahua is a fragile genetic anamoly, which unlike most of its canine cousins, will try very hard and yet not be able to lick its own balls. Nobody's quite sure if the salty succour of its own crotch would indeed help keep its eyeballs from popping out. In Pappachan's case, the large protruding eyes were permanently focused on its master, Basha's crotch. And it didn't help having to make sure its feet fell in line while keeping pace with the master going ding dong up the valley side, not with sand from the beach working up a cocktail drenched in sweat right at the point of its y-fronts.

'Yelp, hic, rrrr...'

'Bhu hu hu ha haa haw haw'

Master and chihuahua stop dead in their tracks, cringing at the beastly, wolfish laugh that hit them from a point high above in this vast nothingness, agitatedly poking at their (own) crotches at the same time. At some point in the evolution of the Chetas and the creation of Kraal, the dogs had gotten their own bitty transmitters and responders implanted - the scientists couldn't figure a better place than in the dogs' crotches to implant these chips. In the matter of a reflex, Pappachan yelps out an SOS to cousin Stinkerbell.

'Yelp, bow wooo wow - bhu hu hu ha haa haw haw - yelp'

Aeons away, Stinkerbell had just fought with her lady, who wouldn't let her hump the Video trolley. Things were sure getting out of hand, and someone in Kraal must have an itch in his crotch. - J.S.

Chapter XX

2005-02-15T07:35:00.000-08:00

She had decided that its going to be a quiet evening - she had had enough of the loud clubs and crowded bars. Besides, it was about time she dug into that Crianza she had picked up on her trip.

It was not for the want of trying, but Aloysia was having trouble making the big breakthrough. Everytime she thought she had found her ticket to greatness, she soon realised that someone else had been there before. The frustration, the desperation. She sat there, staring at her fishbowl as her tropical fish kissed the glassy insides.

And as if one of them wanted to tell her a secret, she leant towards the bowl...And suddenly, it occured to her. "If there is no problem big enough, I will create one. And then solve it"...Brilliant...Foolproof...

She opened up her journal. "Dear Journal, Today I thought of the plan. The plan to take over the world" she wrote, in a rather unexaggerated manner.

She sat back in her lounger and detailed the plan out.
First, she would create a web page, an anonymous one, and plant it on the Scientific Kraalian site. She would then hire Rufus, the Search Engine Optimisation expert, to nuke cyberspace and make sure she got a high rating. This page was going to be it.

What if it was proved beyond doubt that men were not from Mars and women were indeed not from Venus, but infact that both descended from the same sub-species, say the Rasamopithicus from far off Bendhakaal galaxy? Then, by Amendment 19 of the Constitution of Kraal - all intra-planteray conjugation would be strictly illegal.
And since the male Kraalian sperm had mutated to travel through latex, and the females cannot be on pills because that would prevent them from drinking - there was just one option left : Abstinence.

And this is where she came in.
Three and two seater couches with intermediate arm rests. Bucket seats at the rears of automobiles. Beds with electric partitions. She would patent them all. She would be rich.

There seemed to be only one hole in her argument. Alcohol. Gulp! - V.V.

CHAPTER XIX

2005-02-13T23:05:00.000-08:00

beep
beep
beep
beep
beep

"fuckin' alarm", said Tittoo as he slammed the snooze button. Hard.

In less than 20 minutes, he had shaved, showered, and eaten his weekly dose of fortified plasmoiodomethylprotein pills, referred to as PIMP by the latest pharmaceutical ad jingles. He would now be able to go several days without food. Normal human beings who had adopted PIMP as an alternative to cooked food would last 2-3 days before fatigue was writ on their faces, but Tittoo Unnikrishnan was special. With years of mental and physical training, he had pushed himself to a limit others could only dream of.

It was the most important day of his life. Now came the moment he had been trained for since he was 7 years old. As he splashed strong after-shave on his face (to neutralise the colour of the chemo-receptors implanted at several locations on his face so they were rendered impossible to detect), he said to himself "if I do survive this mission, I'll find the sonovabitch who designed the 9 minute snooze alarm and shove my alarm clock up..."

His thought was abruptly interrupted by a terse sounding ring on his telephone. He immediately forgot about the fact that he was eternally pissed that his alarm clock didn't give him a round number of minutes to sleep, like 10 minutes.

"Is it time?", he said.
"Not yet. Leave in 34 minutes...", said the voice at the other end. "And don't call me until the job is done."
"Fine", said Tittoo as he hung up the phone.
"Bastard...", said Mario, as he listened to see if Tittoo had really ended the call. "Bastard, but he'll do the job like no one can"

13 minutes later, Tittoo dialed a number from the unlisted phone that sat underneath his bed. He exchanged a few terse words and hung up.

***

Mario's fingers typed faster than they ever had.

Fat Bastard: Boss
Stan Da Man: What's it now, you goat brained wart?
Fat Bastard: We have Titan on board. He's ready to execute.
Stan Da Man: Hmm... Titan.
Fat Bastard: I've asked him to leave 34 minutes from now.
Stan Da Man: Fine. And don't piss me off no more, you slut.

***

Tittoo spent the next 21 minutes reflecting. This was probably the last chance he'd get to spend quiet time by himself. The past 24 years had gone by fast and his memory was just a blur. But he remembered every minute detail about the year before that. The year he turned 7. He used to be known as Tittoo Unnikrishnan to his friends. Now, the few people who knew he existed simply knew him as Titan. Like a machine. Manufactured to exacting standards. Designed to perform. Useless if broken, abandoned if there's a malfunction.

"Abraham"

"Yes sir"

"Arockyanathan"

"Yes sir"

"Babykutty"

"Present sir"

"Cherian"

"Yes sir"

...

"Unnnikrishnan"

"Yes sir"

He still remembered the bloody roll call. He wondered where most of the boys were today, whether they were alive, and what names they went by. He recalled the good times he and his best friend Rudra Rejimon shared together. They were a part of an inner circle of boys in his school, whose age and expressionless faces belied what their brilliant diabolical minds were capable of. They called themselves the Cybernetic Hazardous Ethereal Terror Agents. CHETA for short. They decided they'd rule the world when their time came. They had a good thing going. Until Tittoo was whisked away from the school with the inadequate explanation that he was to receive a special kind of education.

Tittoo wondered where the rest of the boys were. The CHETAs. He knew about the whereabouts of one of them, who today, was an important cog in the complex CHETA machinery. He had just spoken to him and informed him about what Bob wanted him to do. Tittoo had been trained by Bob's men. He was on contract to do as Mario instructed him to. But his soul still belonged to the boys... aah, the boys. - R.S.

Chapter XVIII

2005-02-12T00:39:00.000-08:00

Basha cringed as he waded through the shallow red waters and into the beach of Bhoot Kraal. Pappachan, his pet chihuahua, was in tow. Basha had set foot on the land of the infidel. He tried to remember when he had last cringed. He cupped his balls and grimaced as he recalled the time when the imam had circumcised him with coconut fiber reinforced steel wool. The imam's deft, practiced, and rather gleeful swish n’ shimmy was countered by Basha crudely and equally gleefully hacking him with a blunt and rusted butcher’s knife. That was his first gig. He then restricted himself to butchering animals and the odd pesky Christian missionary and was all set to accept a plum job as chimney-sweep in the Gulf States when the Borivlian Chetas enticed him with five 12-yr old virgins and hired him as their hitman. His most recent gig was the three bongs he set off at Shankar’s joint to kill Nick. And now it was time to strike in the very heart of the infidel.
But first....prayers. If one might overlook the small matter of Basha being a cold-blooded killer and pedophile, one would find in him a believer and devout Muslim. He looked around for the sun but none was available in the green skies of Kraal. “Vhat bleddi!” he muttered and pulled out a little compass which spun around in circles. He spun round and round in the opposite direction and then slapped the compass a few times until the needle settled. A checkered green and blue lungi was promptly spread out in the prescribed direction and Basha knelt down in the center and mumbled his prayers:
“Lai ila Lai ila Laila
Laila O laila lai ila.."
The fog in his head cleared and a beguiling calm descended as he pictured himself sitting atop the Devil’s stone pillars in Mecca and smoking a hookah as a bevy of Shakeela lookalikes bent down provocatively in slow motion and hurled apples, also in slow-motion, towards him.
"Fuck it," he decided. He would pray his ass off when he returned to Borivli. Pappachan lolled his tongue and bounded around enthusiastically when he saw his master reach into his knapsack and pull out a hookah. Basha assembled the hookah with a series of deft maneuvers, lit the mixture of krush, northern lights marijuana and inbred parthenium and watched the fumes filter through the thorium-enriched water. He took a long, smooth drag and chuckled in amazement as Pappachan outdid him with a longer, smoother drag.
"Allah be praised!" he exclaimed as man and dog enjoyed one of Allah's finer creations over the next hour. Finally, Basha dismantled the hookah and fed the bulb of thorium-enriched water to Pappachan who lapped it up in a flash. His yellow skin gleaming through the red netted sleeveless vest, and lungi fluttering in the gentle sea-breeze, Basha packed his stuff and set off towards the palace of The Supreme Everything of Kraal.
"I'm gumming to get you Boab," he whispered.
Pappachan stayed back at the beach and furiously scooped out two holes. After crapping in one and burping in the other, it flipped a few turtles over and humped a few trees before joining Basha on his long hike to the palace. - R.A

CHAPTER XVII

2005-02-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

The Kasinos here operated on silver chips. Stan thought that the place looked like ferris wheels within ferris wheels. Stan started razing E street, twenty blocks away from where he stood, with his processor plugged into one of those Joker Poker machines. His juices were ready for Aloysia. He was ready for that one last reverse spin before he cut her cord. Of course, Aloysia knew he was headed towards priesthood. She rapid guessed when they broke off a randy liplock, with Stan squirming like an eel. “It’s not like I have to be celibate or anything…” but she was already sniffing some crystals. Saving the world with a few chips in his bag should be easy. The fall of 27 automatons – one molten mass that would drip off Kraal. His juices were ready for Aloysia. The café racer that he ripped off Cyclops was quaking - the adjustable shocks massaged his balls. Cyclops’ shiny head lay in the middle of the street without a home. He’s fallen out of the orb anyway, so Stan needn’t ride like a sophomore. “Wank the Lord,” screamed Stan, “The father, the son and the holy fucking ghost.” A fuchsia phantasm whipped itself into a cloud and Stan smelt sickly cotton candy. Soaked in enflurane. – L

CHAPTER XVI

2005-02-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Frankie Tarzini was in charge of the Arabian Sea wing of the KETTLE (Kraal-Earth Shuttle). He was the bastard son of Sonny Tarzini. Sonny was a small-time goon in the Sicilain mafiosi who dared to mingle with the ‘Sabre’, Don Luigi Sabratarre. More precisely, he mingled rather passionately with Salmonella, the Sabre’s mistress, and was forced to flee Sicily in a Parsi pickle boat headed for Mumbai, The Pestonji. The agent at the Mafiosi Relocation Service had taken advantage of Sonny’s rather rudimentary knowledge of the English alphabet to convince him that he was actually boarding an American pasta delivery boat, The Pesto. Not one to be cowed down by such minor geographical glitches, Sonny cut his mustard rather well in Mumbai and soon became the undisputed king of the olive oil business in the region. Undisputed, that is, until the Chetas arrived on the scene with their Krush and their coconut oil and seriously weakened the Tarzini stranglehold. An uneasy truce was brokered between the two families until Sonny broke the peace by ordering a hit on Ooman. The Tarzinis bore the brunt of the Chetan vendetta spree and surviving members sought refuge with Thomas Hybrid, the maverick scientist and renegade Cheta. He put them in charge of his latest brainbitch (Reader Note 5: Hybrid fondly referred to his inventions as his ‘bitches’), the Kettle, and in return they pledged their allegiance to the Out-of -Towners. Frankie was Salmonella’s son due to Sonny. Being an illegitimate son, he was kept out of the coveted Mediterranean Sea Kettle Service and had to settle for the dangerous Arabian Sea sector, perilously close to the Borivlian Chetas.
Stan had to dive deeper than usual to get to the Kettle air pocket in the sea floor. “Damn blast these tsunamis,” he muttered as he entered the air pocket and knocked on a door that read:
Frankie ‘Taxi’ Tarzini
“Yo Frankie! It’s me Stan. Open up!”
“You talkin’ to me?”
“Yes you blubbering idiot! Open the door.”
The door opened and a balding man wearing a yellow polo tee that barely concealed his well-rounded paunch surveyed Stan for a moment.
“Stan. My man! How you doin’ ? Come ‘ere. Come ‘ere, gimme a hug.”
Stan held his breath as Frankie’s paunch came crashing into his midriff.
“You look beautiful. Jus’ beautiful. ‘ere, gimme a kiss.”
Stan cringed as Pauli planted a wet sloppy smackaroo under his right ear and then his left.
“You pucker up like that again and I’ll gouge your eyes out, you dashed guniea! Now get me to Kraal. Quick! Something’s come up. Have you heard anything?”
“I heard things.”
“Don’t use that wiseass shit on me. Pray fucking tell me what happened.”
“What happened? Badabing badabop badaboom. Someone set off a coupla bongs at Shankar’s joint.”
“And Nick? Have you heard from him?”
“I’ve sent Pauli to find him. He should be back any moment.”
“And who the devil is Pauli?”
“Relax. Don’t worry about Pauli. Pauli’s allright. He’s my consiglere. ‘ere, lemme make you some nice pasta while we wait for Pauli.”
Stan watched as Frankie sauntered up to the stove and dunked a handful of shrimp into a grimy pot after biting the tails off.
“It’s all in the garlic I tell you. Gimme some good garlic and some nice Sicilian extra-virgin olive oil and I’ll…” His rambling was cut short by Pauli who entered and placed a parcel wrapped in banana leaves in front of Stan. Stan opened the leaves and found some dead fish and grated coconut.
“What the flying fuck is this?”
“It’s an old Irritynurazhanganasseryian message. It means Nick sleeps with the fishes.”
“I’ve heard enough,” said Stan as he sat in the teleporting chair and waited for Pauli to wire him up. He grabbed Pauli by the collar and yanked him close. “You keep your eyes and ears open. If something comes up you inform me right away. Capiche paisan?”
“Capiche”
Pauli flicked a switch. In an instant Stan would be teleported to Kraal. – R.A

CHAPTER XV

2005-02-10T07:47:00.000-08:00

It was the second day of the Rolling Stones concert at the island with no name, deep in the Indian Ocean, and all web-links led there. Display-drivers, network-adaptors, and even worms, all jostled for bandwidth, as pretty much the entire universe of rock fans tuned in. (Reader Note 4: It is little wonder that the Rolling Stones are still alive and will be too, for a while. Robert Johnson can eat his heart out; these guys had actually sold their livers and gall bladders to the Devil himself. There is an internet legend doing the rounds that Mick Jagger threw in a couple of inches of experienced rock-vocalist dick too. And they even corroborated Johnson’s claim (In ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou? (Paramount, 2001) that the Devil is a white man. This they did in a 2017 interview with Mojo.) Among the many avid fans hooked on to the broadcast was none other than the yet-elusive Stan. After he’d camouflaged all his tracer programs and cookies, he found himself a cosy corner on the Worli-Bandra sea-rail, and didn’t budge for the next week, knowing well that they would never look in there. The last he heard of the situation was that Operation Bongo might be activated, and not knowing at all what that meant, he had informed Mario to keep all systems on go. The concert started soon after, and he didn’t really care what happened now. He was happy, a soft mellow overpowering Keith Richards kind of happy. Then, he looked askance at his usual processing unit, lying on the seat next to him, and saw the light blinking furiously. They must have gone mad trying to get in touch. Suddenly, his own alternative gamma-cranium buzzed! But how could it, he wondered, no one but Mario knew this handle of his. And Mario, of course was too lazy and too stupid to even worry. He logged in...

Stan Da Man: Yo Mario, whassup dude?
Fat Bastard (Mario): Emergency, boss... emergency!
Stan Da Man: Yeah?
Fat Bastard: Yep boss, they’ve asked to activate Operation Bongo.
Stan Da Man: So go ahead and do it, bozo.
Fat Bastard: But boss...
Stan Da Man: Don’t ‘if’ and ‘but’ me, mo’fucker, just do whatever you have to.
Stan Da Man: And don’t bug me for every little thing!
Fat Bastard: What about the cyber-nukes?
Stan Da Man: What cyber-nukes?
Fat Bastard: The one we need to activate, along with my boys.
Stan Da Man: No one told me about no frikkin cyber-nukes!
Fat Bastard: But you told me to get it all moving for Op Bongo, didn’t you know about the nukes? All eleven of them
Stan Da Man: Fuckin hell!
Fat Bastard: They’re good to go, anyway... just gimme the word. All I need is the password
Stan Da Man: Who has the password, Einstein?
Fat Bastard: You do, boss, you do
Stan Da Man: And who’s Da Man? Huh?
Fat Bastard: You are... You Da Man
Stan Da Man: So go fuck yourself and don’t bug me no more... I’ll ping you when I need to. And don’t talk to ANYONE, understand?
Fat Bastard: Roger that.
Stan Da Man: Over and fucking out, freak.
Fat Bastard: Yessir, Boss.

Stan logged off, beads of acrid sweat streaming down his face and back. Cyber-nukes! He thought. No way. Even Bob wouldn’t dream of nuking all of cyber space. It had to be that evil witch Aloysia, sweet little Aloysia (sweet my arse, he thought). He logged off the concert broadcast (what the heck, he’d see them the next decade anyway), fitted his original issue gamma-cranium (which was by now buzzing with missed pings) and packed up his hacked alternative processor unit. He decided that he’d have to save the world now. He strapped his bum bag on, walked to the edge of the speeding craft, and executed a perfect swan dive into the cold waters of the Arabian Sea with practiced ease. – D.H

CHAPTER XIV

2005-02-10T07:46:00.000-08:00

Now Manya, she was something else. Conceived on the third night of the waning moon in the month of Ashaada, she was always going to be a minx. But it was not that which made her special, it was her ability to memorize phonebooks. Entire phonebooks, and rattle their contents out alphabetically ordered on pin code. She even tried getting into the Guinness Journal, but only managed to get an honorable mention. It irritates her every time she thinks about the inventor of the motorized pogo-stick. She’s an intelligent girl though, makes complete use of her talents. Her first boyfriend worked at the local coffee shop, which had placed a half-page ad in the Yellow Pages. She’s now caffeinated for life, in a state of a perpetual buzz. Then there was the caddy, who gave her stolen golf balls, which were later used for her fake bosoms from her first serious relationship – with the plastic surgeon. The dimples on her cheek seemed to go well with the ones on her breast. She had contemplated taking them out when they broke up, but she met Tom. He liked them, in his own weird dimpled way. And what was she going to get from him? She didn’t know yet, or maybe she did but just wouldn’t tell. And what was he going to get from her – that’s another story isn’t it? – V.V.

CHAPTER XIII

2005-02-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

Rudra, as Tom was known to his mates on SlashAndGash.org, had decided to home from work today. After having ironed out the last global constraint violation, he looked around. Darkness, the kind he liked; darkness, but for the light coming from his screen. The screen of his new PowerRegister – that work of art, tear-drop shaped. It came in different feels, but he had found an instant liking for the Bathtub Blues. Darkness – the kind that sometimes gives you nostalgic flashbacks; a violent feeling of wanting to be back; a craving for the old. “I could try the thought-to-text feature,” he thought. He made a mental list of people he hadn’t paged in a while. And as he refined his list, mail windows opened and closed. He opened his drawer and pulled out a bottle of triple distilled arrack, even as he remembered exactly why he hadn’t bothered pinging these people. “Oh well,” he sighed, as he poured himself a strong one – as if he could pour it any other way. “Macha, it’s been a while…” He topped up his glass and downed it, to cleanse his mind after having thought of that bastard. Its not that bad, he won’t have to mail him for a while now. The words for the next one took a little while longer. “Hiya, where have you been?” The cursor blinked. He took another sip. “It’s the same old same here.” He sipped, the cursor blinked a little while longer. “Send message without substance?” the dialog box asked. “Yes of course you dimwit” he said, and thought. It just got harder with every glass, but the photograph of him on holiday on the cubicle wall did look better. “Man, that bitch sure was something,” he said out loud, as he looked at the warped image through the bottle. His stomach churned, partly because of the drink and partly because of the loneliness that had come over him. He had just sent out more mails than he had over the last three forthnights (Reader Note 3: A “forthnight” is a period of time lasting two earth-weeks followed by one night of heavy drinking). “I’m sure there is something about alcohol-soaked synapses that prevents thinking,” he thought, as he Googled the MetaMedLine database. Naada. “Mmm… someone must patent that,” he thought. Little did he know that his grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren after that, would have to pay Value Reduced Tax over bar-counters far, far away for this one thought of his. Two days later, his suitably inebriated lawyer decided to file for the patent. – V.V.

CHAPTER XII

2005-02-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

Stan couldn’t be found. They looked everywhere – in the chambers, the chutes, the greased corridors, above the devilfish chandeliers, under the ladies’ beds… the Supreme Everything Of Kraal had no face to show – not in an ashamed ‘go away leave me alone’ sort of way, more like an ‘I’m right up to here in facial hair, whathfuck d’you think I’m buried under?’ manner. Bob had nothing to lose, really (OK, he could do with a razor, but that wasn’t going to kill him). In fact, ever since the revolt of The Order of Chetas, not even Aloysia had a wink of sleep; no rest, no time out, no make-out, no make-up, nothing. And they weren’t going to tell her about the handle-bar tracing its course above and around her soft upper lip, how could they? Aloysia, after all, was going to save Kraal. And with Bob cradled in her lap right now, checking off a list that had ‘Make Aloysia heir’ as its last bulleted point, there was simply too little to speak about, and that much more to get all confused over. “Here now,” slammed Hybrid, jabbing a weedy yellowed nicotine-stained fingernail into his display monitor, “we got lovebirds in Kraal!” “Hear, hear,” chirped Manya, her bosom heaving like islands in a tsunami. “What was that? I said, here! What you echoing like a juvenile parakeet for?” “I hear you Tom, that’s what I said, can’t you hear clear?” “What are you, blinking Bernard Shaw trapped in larkin’ Lewis Carol? Here, me, imbecile,” Tom muttered back. Manya wasn’t listening, or even hearing any word of Thomas’ diarrhoeic discourse – a loose thread fluttering in her blouse held all her attention. It was a plucky thread, this one. “I’ve got a handful here, Tom,” she offered wanly. “I don’t care what your hands are full of, or your head for that matter – get down hear now,” Tom shrieked back. The one thing he was interested in was what was in Manya’s blouse, and she knew that. After all, Thomas Hybrid was never one to be left out of the loop. He made sure of that. Manya never understood the complications to do with a loop – she yanked the loose thread off her top and plonked right into the midriff of a yelping Tom. The Sneak-O-Peek monitor was flashing messages from inside the heart of Kraal’s lord-n-master bedroom; Tom only felt that much more secure. If he could only get Manya to stop swaying like palm trees in a storm and settle down like a good ripe date. Unknown to the lovebirds, two pairs of lovebirds, in fact, Manya’s oscillations had another intruder in a muddle. With his right appendage engaged in cradling the craggy confines of his underpants, and his headset flickering like a lights-out night out in a park, Mario sat swaying to counter the rhythm of Manya’s. Thomas and he were buddies at some point, and they never ceased to stab the other’s back, most often just for fun. It was all harmless – at some point. In between the swinging reception on his grand mystic overlord monitors, Mario leaned over for another swig from the bottle, and forever missed the moment. All he saw when he looked back up at the display was Aloysia, seeming all bathed in goat’s blood (whatever happened to milk), standing over a sheepish and very red Bob, with a razor blade in hand. And Manya, shaking with Thomas’ head lodged somewhere between her neck and her navel. – J.S.

CHAPTER XI

2005-02-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

Mario sat aimlessly, scratching his balls with one hand, twirling his monkey wrench (Version 34.2 Beta) with the other. He never went anywhere without his wrench, that most faithful of summertime companions. His parents had, after all, named him after a plumber. He was watching, as he always did in the morning, retro cinema on the government channel. Today’s video was the fourth in Frank Miller’s sin City series, ‘Sin City: A Dame With No Name (2010, Columbia). He tapped his temple violently with the wrench; the reception on his in-built display was so bad these days. He’d have to get an upgrade, by Kraal. He looked around his pad aimlessly, counting (once again for his obsessive-compulsive heart-chip) his minions lying around, albeit switched off. He felt proud of his 27 faithful and intelligent automatons all good-to-go at his command. Oh, ok, activated, if you must. Activated, Schmactivated. Terror was terror, and no one knew it better than Mario and his team. He chuckled at his own genius. They didn’t know of his existence – they thought he was the 28th automaton. Including the Supreme Everything of Kraal, Bob, who was stupider than he looked, a difficult task at worst. Only Stan knew, and Stan didn’t care. Suddenly his display flickered out. He smacked his wrench hard on his head, but that didn’t help. He’d have to go upstairs and check the dish again. Really, these substandard Chinese imports, he cursed silently. As he moved to get up, the inbox screamed “Bloody Murder!!” He reminded himself to change his new-mail-alert from ‘Bloody Murder!!’ back to ‘You Got Mail,’ like in the retro cinema. Maybe with a cheery tune also. He opened the e-mail, scratching his ear vigorously to make the display stand still. He should drink less, he thought, considering the bad state of affairs his built-in display unit was in. Operation Bongo?! Operation Bongo was like code Dark Sepia, to be activated only in times of extreme urgency. What on Kraal would have happened to make Stan ask him to review the command code for Operation Bongo. Mario hoped this was just a regulation check, as he quickly browsed through the folders searching for the Operation Bongo executable file. So much flickering! Fix display unit, drink less, he reminded himself again. – D.H.

CHAPTER X

2005-02-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

Manya waited for a whole minute before she rung the door bell again. He was inside and she knew it. She firmed her breasts giving him time. ‘Voila’ she said swaying her hips to the left as the door opened. He considered her as he coughed up the tar of last night’s binge. It was a brightly lit room, the kind of room a hangover hates. She walked in, her heels tock-tocking off the marble. Hybrid looked at her, his uber-cranium wishing to stir her inside out. She laid her gloved hand on him and he felt the stirring begin, like the distant howl of an air-raid. He reached into her skin… turning it into small handfuls of misty cloud cake…cream and honey that he smeared all over the vast bosom she carried with aplomb. Later, Hybrid puffed on his THC pipe and looked up at the stain on the ceiling. “His noble highness could use you now,” she said, looking at him dispassionately as she swayed one leg, waist down making small arcs on the sheets. Hybrid was quiet, for a while, he was running into the stain on the ceiling, hands and legs pumping in motion as he ran with a purpose into the depths that beckoned with open arms and the colors danced around, jingling in unison, swirling, like cigar smoke caressing the chandelier. He reached out and grabbed a dark yellow fabric and three nymphs fell out in tandem stepping in and out, with laughing eyes and swaying arms they bandied around the blackness and the stars opened out below. He looked at her… “Eh?” “His noble highness needs you now…” The fool thought Hybrid to himself as he eased himself into another reverie… more nymphs, beaded strings around their bare waists… mid riffs and beads cutting through the air, working up a breeze of their own… and milking the conscience of the mundane. Harps floated and plucked at by weightless hands, the maidens heaved and breathed in the THC he exhaled. His pipe empty, Hybrid looked up at the ceiling again. What was that stain doing there? He stepped on the table (and admiring his agility in that move) to take a closer look. A Bug! A bug sized camera placed by the… “Bloody Pigs!” he said, and stormed out of the door. The B6 roared up, a salute to the mission at hand. He tossed his weapon in the rear as he gave the engine another pinch before he let her go. He had waited patiently, being one of them and not being with them was tough but the Chetas had gone too far this time. His blood pushing against his veins, the stormy ocean against the dykes... he leaned back into the seat, letting the force takeover and caught his smile on the rear view. A nymph pranced across the windshield. – A.K.

Chapter IX

2005-02-10T05:20:00.000-08:00

Bob stood on the red grass and took in the expansive stretch of green sky. The air smelt sweet and fresh. Behind him, a massive purple structure that looked like a cross between the once famous Taj Mahal, and a bad nightmare took up a substantial part of the mountainside. But it was no ordinary purple structure. It was, in fact, the official residence of the Supreme Everything of Kraal – Bob. A rustle behind him made him turn around. “Hail Bob, the wise and almighty ruler of Kraal!” cried out a feminine voice as the figure before him bent low in respect. “Rise Aloysia and speak!” said Bob in the correct manner becoming of his position as Supreme Everything Of Kraal. “Master, we have word that The Order of Chetas have arisen and returned in vengeance. They got to Nick and Pat before we could warn them,” she announced in sombre tones. “What? Both of them? No!” he cried in dismay. She nodded in affirmative and bent her head in a sign of sympathy. Bob cursed and ranted before pulling himself together. “What about Stan? He is the only one who knew the key to the blueprint of B6/B7. The only guy to know the exact compositional ratio of the organic protein and electromagnetic solvent in the Trap!” said Bob desperately. “We’ve been unable to trace Stan. He is not responding to our Google alerts. Maybe he is incommunicado for security reasons. The code may have been compromised. And er…Master. Regarding the compositional ratio?” ventured Aloysia in a soft voice. “Yes, what about it girl?” barked Bob in impatience. “It’s 6.853 to 3.147. They teach us that in grade 4 now,” she said respectfully. “Eh? What? Really? Oh. I suppose it doesn’t matter then. But by Kraal, we have to find Stan! He is the only one who knows how to switch on my Generation 3, Mark 10, Revision 2.12 electric shaver,” said Bob in a helpless voice, scratching his beard. Aloysia let the silence drift for a few seconds before saying, “Master, we have word from Hybrid too. Thomas Hybrid. He has been unable to obtain a B6/B7 because the Indian Govt. denied him a driving license to drive one. Apparently, he hasn’t yet worked out the complex traffic policies of the country.” Bob nodded moodily. “The moron!” he thought to himself savagely. He once had great faith in Hybrid primarily because they both shared the same taste in vodka. But maybe all was not lost yet. “Aloysia, the return of the Chetas can mean only one thing. That they know of our plans. Or, at the very least that they have an inkling of it,” said Bob. “Indeed master. The Ministry of Attack and Defend seems to think so to. They believe that the message the Chetas left at the scene of Nick’s murder is a warning to us. We haven’t deciphered it yet, but our leading symbiologist Va Dinci thinks it has got something to do with Theory of Relativity and cocktails. He doesn’t know exactly what though,” offered Aloysia. Bob nodded absently. He didn’t care much for MAD anyway. They were liable to jeopardise everything by issuing some nonsense vote of action involving attacking Earth with 1.2 million tons of bird droppings unless he acted first – and fast! “All right then. Get in touch with Hybrid. Tell him to find Stan; Activate Mario, and initiate Operation Bongo. He will know what to do,” barked Bob and dismissed Aloysia with a flick of his right hand. Then he rolled in the grass for an hour. – A.N.

CHAPTER VIII

2005-02-10T02:13:00.000-08:00

Pat was too excited to sleep. The early morning cackle of taxi drivers outside his third floor hotel room was beginning to get to him. To Pat, Mumbai were two different cities that he alternately loved and hated. Mumbai by Night could charm his pants off, but Daytime Mumbai made his stomach churn mildly on most days. Now as he sat up in bed and drained out the last of the Bushmill’s whiskey, he stared at the suitcase on the floor and the three Bongs nestled in it. The Bong, like its Czech ancestor Semtex had for years now been popular with terrorists all over the world. But Pat was no terrorist; he was a used cars dealer from Elissim, the new capital of the Allied States. In two hours, he had to ensure that the suitcase did what it was sent here to do, blow a football field-size crater in suburban Borivli. If all went well, the Allied States would have struck their deadliest blow yet to General Hybrid’s army. The Summer Congress of the Order of the Chetas, the annual gathering of the Order’s provincial prefects, was to begin in an hour at the Chetas’ Borivli settlement. A retaliatory strike for the time General took over the Citadel, the old capital of Sdaehraw, the country now known to the Galaxy’s districts as the Allied States. “Hybrid’s will be broken when he finds out his secret little family his destroyed,” the Front decided. Hybrid’s marauding army had to be slowed down; a few strategic blows would do the trick. The Gamma altercraniums of the Frontmen ensured that none could set foot in India. The Gamma versions had been phased out five years ago in an attempt to maintain the country’s technology edge. The Front’s prime enforcer, Nick, knew only man who could do the job: the only trustworthy Front sympathizer with the Beta altercranium, compatible with the Indian Government-ratified Ether System – Pat, MBA, Irish, friend.” Pat tried to call Nick. No response. “What the hell…” he muttered to himself and pulled out another bottle of Bushmills. Nick was probably drunk himself; he concluded and proceeded to finish his third bottle in the 24 hours that he had been in the city. Six hours later, when the housekeeping boy used the spare key to let himself in, he found Pat, in a pool of puke, dead. – N.N.

CHAPTER VII

2005-02-10T02:12:00.000-08:00

The first Bong exploded exactly three minutes past 8pm local time, at the very moment that Nick’s expression turned from butt pink to pale yellow to a perplexed purple and maniacal maroon. Nobody quite realized the colors fluxing on Nick’s face – his swarthy grimace blotted against the smoke and shadow caricatures fanning out against the clammy walls of Shankar’s bitty hole in the wall. The explosion had thrown the ceiling off, as one half of its inhabitants scrambled for a last sip of their spirits and dashed towards the outer corridor that opened out into the yawning mouth of the sleepy lagoon. A quarter of the other half, who’d already downed double their usual quota, were frozen in their seats and stools – their sprightly spirit watered down to motionlessness, as the spirits in them trickled little passages winding down to the waterfront. Nick himself had no clue about the polychromatic clot on his forehead – he’d tried to sink that last sip before darting off to safety – only, his glass was empty. This was a definite problem for the gamma version fitted in his cranium – the weary wooziness that results from a thirst unquenched would reflexively bring all conscious attempts down to a grinding halt. What was left of Nick’s bleary-eyed self was purely sub-conscious. As the smoke began to rise wearily off the creaky panels of the deck, crawling all over the ceiling and descending back into the room’s confines like drunken clouds in a blind storm, nobody realized when Nick hit the deck and began licking drops off the old floorboards. Of course nobody realized, as the second and third Bongs went off in quick succession. As it turned out later, there was only one person in that breakdown bar who’d resisted the pounding deafening roar. The Borivlian Cheta had in fact stepped on Nick’s probing fingers, as he silently stepped into the night. A beaming pearly white set of teeth came afire in his jaundiced skin, as he looked up at the shining Orgy Inducer in the night sky. It was a thought that harked back to the age of satellites and planets, when most inhabitants of the vast residential settlement on District Earth were suddenly taken in by an infernal plague of overpowering emotionality. Nobody wept then, there was no one left to weep – as almost every inhabitant of that distant community sank like stonehearted rocks, and drowned in their own sorrow. Thomas Hybrid had escaped that fate – unusually smart for the species he came from, Grandpa Tom had mastered the art of drowning one’s sorrows in alcohol. That magnificent art saved his rubbery neck. The Borivlian Cheta scoffed a fragment of a Ha! Finally, good use would come off that 12 cylinder B6/B7 Armoured Limousine, he thought – just what they needed at the turf club. He considered for a moment echoing that glorious credo of their magnificent Order, and with a twig began etching out the words on the bar’s dripping walls – Taan Snehikinavan Wora… when the lights went out. Wait a second, there were no lights, unless – the giant Orgy Inducer in the sky had just disappeared! Vanished!! Wiped out from the sky with no trace!! There was barely a nanosecond for the Cheta to flick open the Galaxies Gazer on his wrist watch (yea, they never replaced those). Nobody realized it either – Earth, the entire district, had just been bleeped blobbed bubbled bounced bumped and bundled off the cosmic radar. – J.S.

CHAPTER VI

2005-02-10T02:10:00.000-08:00

Nick turned to the voice and recognized him. A Borivlian Cheta. It was a miracle he hadn’t been spotted yet; yellowish skin (caused by exposure to radiation from Atom Borivli, the now defunct nuclear sub-station), those pale eyes, and that unmistakable accent. What was he still doing here? Nick was trying hard now to concentrate? The Gamma altercranium had this recurrent bug that was never fixed. When blood supply to the brain increased, the circuitry malfunctioned, so most Gamma users avoided alcohol, caffeine and cigarettes. Not Nick. He would rather go with a short circuit than orphan a bottle of Jack Daniels. He insisted that it only got him a little fuzzy. Thomas Hybrid had triumphantly remarked that alcohol induced Neuro Fuzzy Logic in Nick. To the Church of Proper Nouns, Hybrid was the ultimate blasphemer. Now, Nick’s sage blue eyes adjusted to the blur of yellow in front, he willed the Gamma to stand by the rest of him. The man had responded to the ancient tongue, to The Statement - Taan Snehikinavan Wora Tendi Aan, the one you love is a rogue. In 1954, a young chemistry teacher traveled from the Island with no Name to Kerela, smitten by the photographs he had found in his late wife’s travel diary. Enchanted by the land and its ‘pronounce this, you foreign kozhanga’ culture, Jonathan Benjamin finally took off his backpack in Irritynurazhanganassery; a sleepy hamlet nestled in the Western Ghats. While teaching at the Municipal Town Roundabout School, he met Oomana Cherian Josekutty, the pretty daughter of the Archbishop. In Ooman’s coconut-oiled tresses, Benjamin smelt the sweetest smell he had smelt since he had accidentally dropped a test tube of esters on his feet. Their union brought forth to the world a boy, who was named Hybrid Jonnykutty. The peculiar first name was adopted since the boy was conceived on a sack of Kerela Krush, a hybrid cross between Cannabis Sativa and lemon grass, in Jonathan’s garage lab. “What a fitting testimonial of the chemistry between me and my beautiful Oomana?” Jonathan offered as explanation to the Archbishop Josekutty. The Archbishop un-arched his eyebrows and turned away disgusted. He had his reasons - to marry off his daughter to a man of science, a bloody foreigner from a South Pacific island that he still hadn’t spotted on the map was bad enough. To have a grandson named Hybrid, after one of his son-in-law’s freak experiments, was another. However, it was only when Jonathan spoke against the church to fellow Irritynurazhanganasseryians that the Archbishop snapped. His son-in-law had already antagonized the Hindu community with his “blasphemous science lectures.” “There is only one Truth in this universe and that Truth is somewhere out there, in the paragraphs of your science book,” began all of Jonathan’s lectures. A lot of the townfolk has converted to Christianity 200 years ago when a British Franciscan Monk had come visiting. Jonathan used a heady mix of scientific lectures and Kerela Krush to win over a sizeable chunk of the townfolk. One evening as Jonathan stubbed out the last of the Krush reefers after a lecture, he was stabbed in the heart, four times. The assassin, who remains unidentified to this day, left a chilling one-line message for Jonathan’s followers on the wall of the classroom, scrawled in the tetrahydrocannabinol-enriched blood of the dead man. “Taan Snehikinavan Wora Tendi Aan.” Rather than face the wrath of an unknown enemy, Jonathan’s followers smuggled Oomana and baby Hybrid out of their beloved village. The followers, who called each other ‘Cheta’ traveled along the Konkan coast, never stopping. It was only when Jonathan spoke to Oomana in a Krush trance that the wanderers stopped and set up their first colony, an hour’s train journey from bustling Bombay. Borivli welcomed the enterprising and full-of-beans Chetas and by the time Hybrid was a teenager, the Order of the Chetas had spread across two continents. – N.N.

CHAPTER V

2005-02-10T02:09:00.000-08:00

December is the winter of Mumbai’s discontent. The wannabes have moved to Vagator and the backpackers are in Baga. While the multitudes plonk themselves down in Madgaon and the crassness descends upon Cavelossim, Shankar at this time of year is most often by himself, counting the seconds that tick menacingly around agents like Nick, who are at best vague in demeanor, hardly interesting in conversation, men of little appetite, and an utterly whacked sense of humor; right now, much to Shankar’s chagrin, Nick seemed to be laughing at something that didn’t come from out of his drink. Anytime a spare gamma brain tries messing with an old boy, the closed circuits in those 7.3 beta version alter-craniums crank into a distant mode referred to simply by the slightly tedious title, disconcerted. It turns out, the title was first coined for a man who came down here several ages back, and insisted he sing. While the crowds were in then – it wasn’t December – that man, he called himself Shaggy or something more flyblown, was thrown off the far pier for reasons best left un-described, purely as a preservation of sanity measure enforced by the new government. The setting stuck. Shankar had no idea of such cardinal legend: as Nick seemed to have sparked off twinkles in his eyes while not really looking exactly across the bar counter, the only other thing that distracted Shankar momentarily was a peculiar heaving wheezing sound outside – like that of horses. Horses? In Mumbai? In the year 2069? Before he could exclaim, Nick had risen from his stool, and begun walking towards the exit – only to flip around on his pointed buck leather heels and head right back to the counter. Over several visits to this end of the universe, if there was one thing Nick had discovered, it was that the solitude in a sprawling fort amongst the dunes and beneath the stars can be as much fun as cartwheeling off palm fronds on a baking beach. The thought didn’t matter to him much; all that mattered for the moment was that Nick was suddenly in a good mood – it turns out that was a major bug in his cranium model: that unpredictable cheeriness, it was incurable. He stepped right up to the counter, Shankar coolly waxing his cranium in the giant crystal display in the wall, and snapped, “Taan Snehikinavan Wora Tendi Aan.” The effect around the bar – for all except Nick – was numbing; nobody’d heard that strange ancient tongue in years. Well, at least, not after the coconut oil industry collapsed – what a political disaster that was – and decades have past since then! That was when a young chap named Thomas Hybrid’d come into town, and how things changed. A voice rang out from the shadows, “Cheta!” – J.S.

CHAPTER IV

2005-02-10T02:07:00.000-08:00

The Centre for Design and Energy (CoDE) was disbanded soon after the Citadel fell to the Out-of-Towners, lead by General Thomas Hybrid. (Reader note 1: Nor was Thomas a soldier who worked his way up the military bootlace nor was he some sort of cyborg. Hybrid was just a surname, General was just a title. Also, the Out-of-Towners were named after the 1970 Jack Lemmon-starrer, Hybrid’s favorite movie.) The CoDE, at the height of its inception in 2020, cracked the columns off the world scientific community pantheon with its innovations. The B6/B7 was their best work. Built from lightweight alloys, the armored limousine was what the CoDE got when they crossed a limousine with an armored car. Two collapsible 20mm gun ports, GPS system, Titanium alloy body armor that withstood grenade attacks. However, made the aforementioned cracks was the source of energy – Nervous Energy! Actually that was the working title of the project that sourced energy from the nervous system’s electrical impulses. (Reader Note 2: For the benefit of the discerning reader, the inane title ‘Nervous Energy’ was the handiwork of a Hybrid - Fredrick Benjamin Hybrid, grandfather to Thomas). Fredrick was a scientist of rare genius. He would attempt the most unfathomable experiment, just to see if it worked. Most times it did. He outdid himself when he conceived the Trap, a viscous liquid that contained an organic protein and an electromagnetic solvent that replicated and, more importantly, stored electrical impulses passing through the nervous system. There had been speculation for sometime thereon that when a Trap circuit was connected to a Van deZoff mega-amplifier; the resultant kilojoules were good enough to run a double-decker bus. Hybrid was right again. The Trap-Energy kit was first used to run the B6/B7s, which Hybrid had rather aptly monikered “LiAm.” The kit was a double-hexagonal arrangement of 12 titanium cylinders, the size of a thermos flask, that were placed under the car’s hood. Ten LiAm B6/B7s drove out of CoDE’s automotive line before the Citadel fell at the end of the Revolution. These automobiles soon found themselves in garages of warlords, rebel leaders. The only who felt bitter about not owning one of these was someone who was possibly entitled to one, Thomas Hybrid. – N.N.

CHAPTER III

2005-02-09T02:39:00.000-08:00

As was wont for members of the New Wave move-over-jetsetters-here-come-the-amphibians club of the allied elitist states, Nick instinctively ran a Google search on Shankar’s smart repartee. It was a common affair for the latter – those moments of awkward silence preceding the rapid stream of short piercing high-pitched little bleeps and blurbs, before a guest would actually respond or even nod to indicate agreement; he’d only grown accustomed to never having to converse with visitors – nobody cared to plain speak anymore, all they’d do was exchange Google search results. Lucky for Shankar, he’d gotten MetaCrawler installed in his alter-cranium, a beta 7.3 version he picked up easy at the flea market that hovers around Rajabhai tower on weekends – that story, of a natty deal struck with no more than three quarts of Defense Force absinthe rations and a crumpled pack of muddy moist Marlboros, was a legend in reserved circles of Shankar’s comrades – all bartenders, motley barkeeps, exiled from the Old Wave, now living out paltry existences concealed behind bar counters in discreet waterholes across Mumbai. These alter-craniums were the last front of the Old Wave resistance, and it seemed appropriate that they drank a lot. The beta versions had a few bugs, and absinthe knocked down with onion rinds was a ducky antidote. Nick was evidently functioning on a spare gamma version – he responded in a flash, “Die Happy? Hmm… impressum!” Nick’s glazed gaze was timeworn, but Shankar also noticed that even while his guest apparently blurted out the results of his search string, his left limb seemed to be fondling a nasty giant cylinder squeezed in between his loins. “Click Dich auf die officielle DIE HAPPY Homepage,” said Nick, cheerily. Shankar sighed at the hapless gamma version’s lassitude, pushing fluorescent tissues across the counter so Nick could wipe the Bud droplets off his cuff without seeming like a drooling baby all perplexed about itself. Nick was stuck – he couldn’t help it; after all it was pleasant to be seen chatting with a bartender, and so much better if it seemed like he were doing all the talking, even with one of ’em alter-craniums. He rattled off the new-Googled info (‘new-found’ was just so Old Wave): “Tourdates, News, Tourdiary, Backstage, Downloads, Fanshop, Fotos, Guestbook, Information!” Shankar shook his shaky head. “Arrogant fool,” he imagined; “always clicking Feeling Lucky.” Nick went on in a level tone: “Unplugged Tour 2004,” “The new album The Weight Of The Circumstances has been released!” Shankar feigned interest, as Nick spotted another suited man, evidently too drunk, stumbling through the aisle. Nick waved out, and the drunk knocked down two chairs and a lady in his attempt to wave back; “Heya big buddy! Have you got that cylinder? The damned thing won’t move with eleven cylinders – I’ve got to get that twelfth one in.” Nick’s staccato rambling had ceased; peering over the drunk’s shoulders, a wan smile spread across his weatherworn face. The acute lines of the B6/B7 Armored Limousine parked outside were gleaming in the nightlight. – J.S.

CHAPTER II

2005-02-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

The salty sea breeze also ushered in something that he had never heard before on his previous visits. The Rajabhai tower's Westminster chime was usually drowned in the cacophony of Mumbai's eternal traffic snarls.
Now, as the clock struck five, Pat moved towards the window and watched the beautiful Gothic clock tower shimmer as dawn broke over the city. "It'll all be over in another five hours," he reassured himself and drained the rest of his glass. The Irish Bushmill's whiskey went down as smoothly as it did eight hours ago.
And then the phone rang. "Is everything on schedule?," Nick's voice crackled. "Yes," Pat replied. "Why don't you go grab dinner…"
Nick hung up. It was not in his blood, to speak more than necessary. As a teenager, his counselor had spent a nerve-wracking hour trying to get Nick to tell him why he wanted to quit school. A phlegmatic Nick had only one thing to say. "I don't want to waste my time here."
He found the last spot on the jetty and eased the amphibian to rest. He cursed under his breath and ran, as it started to rain and the earth reverberated with the sound of thunder, to the diner across the street, the attaché tucked under his black Ralph Lauren jacket.
"If your chicken tikka doesn't kill me sooner, I'll be struck down by one of these friggin' thunderbolts," he laughed to the bald Indian behind the counter, who pushed him a Budweiser.
"At least you'll die happy in here," Shankar smiled wickedly. He loved it when someone felt totally helpless around his culinary expertise. "Now that's a good thing, ain't it Nick? To die happy; how many of us have that privilege?" Nick suddenly became aware of the weight in his hip pocket. – N.N.

CHAPTER I

2005-01-31T09:53:00.000-08:00

Now and again, Nick managed to pull off some good thing on the turf. He had a certain genius for happy speculation, the quick, unerring instinct of a good thing. He could not for the soul of him restrain a good thing. When he'd say 'good thing', in the course of the night, the others would for a moment feel wondrous lucky and pleased. The feeling generally lasted as long as a bottle of Jack Daniels would, among four jocks and a cook. Tom was born to be a happy fellow, if the enjoyment of the 'good things' of this world could have made him so. He wasn't much of a drinker, but a few measures made him really happy. Jack Daniels was surely one of the 'better things' of this world. On this evening, the others couldn't make it. Bob was away on a cross-country hike, Pat had business matters to attend to, and Stan, well, Stan had a wife to-be to chase. As the sleek maroon amphibian skimmed the frothy waters and slid into the private lagoon off the island with no name, Nick yanked the earphones off his i-pod, flicked open the hood of an attaché case, took a quick peek at the night sky outside, and pulled out a shiny black cylinder that went into his hip pocket as easily as the Jack Daniels slid down Tom's throat, nearly a thousand miles to the east. Tom's strangeness wasn't the result of prison camp experiences. He'd simply get too comfortable for anything like that. His little den often resembled a zoo full of oddballs, including gamblers, bums, drunks, and some ugly crackpots. Outside, hung a flaky placard, with the message ‘We're oddballs who can't be pigeonholed.’ Yet the scene wasn't always as bad. During a televised special nearly three falls ago, a correspondent from the Times had sauntered in, only to leave after downing a whole bottle of Jack. The headline of his report had read ‘The most happy fellas.’ Tom coughed a little laugh, realised how stupid it seemed to be laughing by himself, and then went on to guffaw so hard he'd rolled off the old chester, and almost into the fireplace. Luckily, he hadn't bothered starting up a fire, or there would've been quite a mess. The others weren't going to make it after all. – J.S.

Gulp! It’s Fiction-II

2005-01-31T09:52:00.000-08:00

The story began on November 6, 2004