If help was what they were looking for, they did not get it. Some sort of beam flashed from the ship, and one by one, the men lying on the ground were incinerated, reduced to ash in an instant.
Aaditya lay hiding behind the tree, not daring to breathe. When he heard the sound of the ship receding, and got up to see a clear sky, he ran faster than he had in years to his bike and sped home.
***
Aaditya breathed freely only when he was back home. He saw on his phone that he had four missed calls from Supriya, but she was the last thing on his mind right now. He went into the bathroom, standing under the shower for what seemed to be an eternity, trying to calm himself down and to come to grips with what he had just seen. It was clearly not a gang fight, gangs did not arrive on the scene in flying vehicles. What the hell had he seen? He changed and dumped his dust-covered clothes, remembering to take out the old squadron patch.
That was when he saw the cylinder in his trouser pocket. He had totally forgotten about it in the chaos, and now he took a closer look. It was perhaps eight inches long and an inch in diameter. It was totally transparent, and what was most striking was the viscous liquid it contained. Milky white and thick, the liquid occupied about half of the cylinder. Aaditya put it on his bedside table, figuring that whatever the cylinder was, it was by no means the weirdest thing he had witnessed tonight.
Aaditya had all but given up drinking after his accident, but now he felt like he needed a stiff drink. Not having anything stronger than Coke at home, he poured himself a large glass of that and downed it in one gulp. When he put the glass down, he saw that his hands were shaking badly. He sat down on the sofa, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. His arms hurt from the fight, and his right leg was in a world of pain from the kick he had delivered. He had already decided that he was not going to call the police, figuring that he wasn't even sure what he would report.
He called Sam, and then disconnected before the call was answered. What would he tell? He realized that the best way was to just move on, to not get involved any further in whatever had happened that night. And he knew of only one way of truly taking his mind off things.
He walked to his study table, and booted up his computer. Then he bent down, detached the prosthetic leg and put it beside him, rubbing the sore stump.
He put in his favorite flight sim, and then logged on to multiplayer mode using his handle
Only a few people got it, but it was a name Aaditya loved. His handle had been inspired by Douglas Bader, a Royal Air Force pilot who had lost both his legs in an accident, and then with two prosthetic legs, had gone on to be one of the most decorated fighter aces in the Second World War. Aaditya would not get a chance to emulate him in real life, but here, in his virtual playground, he ruled the skies. Part of it was sheer practice, since he had been playing for years, but part of it was what his father had told him. Some fighter pilots just had it. Call it instinct, call it luck-the ability to sense what to do a split second before others. A split second difference that often spelt the difference between life and death. After half an hour of flying and a half dozen air battles won, IndianBader had once again topped the leaderboards, and Aaditya took a break to grab another drink. He lost count of how many sorties he took off on, but reckoned it was at least one too many, and that it was already way past his usual bedtime. While that meant he would have a terrible time waking up in time for college the next morning, at least it helped him forget what he had just been through.
Almost.
When he got back to his computer and logged on to one of his favorite aviation forums, as luck would have had it, the most recent discussion thread was about aircraft that had gone missing while chasing UFOs. The last post read, 'Hey X-Files freaks, there are no UFOs, so just get back to reality.'
When he woke up in the morning, he would blame the stress he had been under, but maybe he just needed to unburden himself, and so he had posted a message in reply. It said:
He of course left out any mention of the fighting or the dead bodies, but went on to describe the first vehicle. He then logged off and went to bed.
The next morning Aaditya woke up with a bad headache and wondered if it had all been a terrible dream. Unable to contain his curiosity, he booted up his computer, knowing he would be late for college again. He wanted to check what others had made of his comments on the forum. When he logged on, he saw that his post had disappeared, and if anyone had responded to it, there was no sign of it either. He was secretly relieved. He had written the comment when he had been very freaked out. Now in the sober reality of day, he was glad people would not see his ravings about UFOs and write him off as another alien-chasing nutcase.
The morning went by in a blur of lectures and classes, and for once, he was glad to be in college. Sometimes being too busy to worry about things was good. Of course, there was one piece of unfinished business he had not forgotten about. He had not seen Supriya around all day, and so he called her just after noon, wondering if she would ever know what a supreme sacrifice he was making in giving up his gaming time to talk to her.
She did not answer, and Aaditya wondered if she was pissed with him. He couldn't blame her. From her standpoint, he had hung up on her mid-conversation and then not bothered to call her or answer her calls and messages.
Figuring out that she was either too busy or too pissed off to talk to him, Aaditya whipped out his PSP and was soon lost in a sortie. He had just evaded a missile and shot down two fighters and was on the tail of the bomber, downing which was the chief objective of this particular mission, when he was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.
'Sam, I had the frigging bomber in my sights, man!'
He heard a cough followed by a voice that most decidedly did not belong to Sam.
'I'm sorry to have interrupted your sortie, Mr Ghosh, but I did want to meet you urgently.'
Aaditya whirled around to find himself face to face with the principal, Dr Bakshi.
'You, Mr Ghosh, are a man of hidden talents.'
Aaditya had no idea what he was talking about. The principal must have thought he was being modest.
'Don't worry, it's great to show initiative like this, and if you have connections that you can use to get us such major sponsors for our college festival, we'd be only too happy to oblige.'
Aaditya was getting more and more confused and alarmed that there had been some misunderstanding.
'Dr Bakshi, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and if something has gone wrong, it's not something I meant to do.'
Now it was the principal's turn to look baffled.
'I assumed you knew the guy since he came in saying his company was willing to put down such a large sponsorship because you had approached them.'
'Which guy?'
Now Dr Bakshi told him that he had got a call that morning from someone claiming to be Vice President, Corporate Communications for a firm called DSI.
'DSI? Never heard of them.'
The principal scratched his head, realizing that what he had thought was an easy new source of sponsorship was now getting more complicated.
'I hadn't either, but then he told me that they are a privately held conglomerate, with interests in many industries. I checked their website and it seemed very impressive. He said that they wanted to sponsor our college festival, including refurbishing the auditorium. All they wanted was some promotional activity and branding in college, which was obviously cool with me.'
