covered landscape.
'What your scientists call the Tunguska Event of 1908: a gigantic explosion in remote Siberia that they still have not been able to explain. But we know only too well what caused it. A nuclear explosion 1000 times more destructive than the first human nuclear bomb dropped over Hiroshima. An explosion caused by our returning arch- enemy. Many of us perished, but several of us were aloft in our vimanas and we regrouped at this new hidden base. And our struggle resumed.'
'Who is this guy?'
Brahma motioned for the display to go away.
'Someone we once held dear. One of us. Your culture knows him by many names, Shaitan, Satan, and the Devil. I know him by the name I gave him once as a proud father. Kalki.'
SEVEN
'Aadi, we've already told you that we cannot let you fly in combat. You survived the last time you were up in a vimana, but playing video games and flying against Maya and the other Asuras are two very different things.'
'Then teach me,' Aaditya pleaded with Indra.
Once again, Indra refused. Aaditya returned to his room, and found Tanya there, who greeted him with a big hug.
'You don't give up, do you?'
Aaditya grinned. 'I may not be as strong or as fast as these Devas, but I sure as hell will prove that I'm more stubborn than any of them.'
It had been three days since Aaditya had told Brahma that he would stay. Three days since Tanya and he had spent virtually every spare minute together. Three days in which he had gone and made the same request to Indra a grand total of fifteen times. That afternoon, just after they had lunch, a message flashed on the holographic screen that served as his communicator to the Devas. The message read:
'Oh my God, maybe they have agreed to let me fly after all.'
Aaditya rushed as fast as he could, arriving slightly out of breath. He found Brahma and Indra there, together with Ganesha.
'Can I fly?'
Brahma laughed, 'No, you cannot fly.'
Seeing Aaditya's crestfallen expression, he spoke more gently, 'Aadi, the reason you cannot fly is not because I don't believe that, given the right training, you could master a vimana. We cannot spare the time or resources to train you. Kalki is intensifying his activities, and we need all our resources to understand what he's doing. But I do have an important job for you. Go with Ganesha.'
Aaditya was disappointed, yet excited at being given some work. So he followed Ganesha. The potbellied Deva seemed to always be smiling, and had a voracious appetite, picking out sweets from his pockets and munching on them as they walked.
'Do you want one?' he asked, offering a bar of chocolate to Aaditya.
'Thanks, I'm quite full. By the way, what exactly am I going to be doing?'
Ganesha motioned over his shoulder for Aaditya to follow. They entered a room where the walls were covered in holographic screens, with a seat in front of each. There was only one person in the room, a thin girl who looked like a geeky schoolgirl, with ponytails and thick glasses.
'That's Lakshmi. She's our money person.' whispered Ganesha.
'Money?'
'We need tons of it. To repair our vimanas, liquid Mercury for their propulsion, other materials for our weapons, to pay informants, you name it, it all costs money. So she runs several shell companies, trading in options and futures, and rakes in billions a year. Narada uses his contacts to get material transported to private airfields, where we pick them up. We are the biggest Fortune 500 corporation nobody knows about.'
Lakshmi just nodded as Aaditya passed her, and got back to whatever she had been doing. Ganesha asked Aaditya to sit down.
'The same holds for Kalki and his gang. So, part of our job is to track down his operations and shut them down. That's where you can help.'
'What do I do?'
Ganesha sat down on the next chair.
'Laskhmi handles the financial intelligence. I do the tactical part, trying to find out what Kalki's up to by ferreting out information, making connections, trying to get a picture of his latest mischief. You're knee deep in defence and aviation matters, and you seem to be a regular on forums where this kind of stuff gets picked up, so you have a headstart over a civilian who wouldn't known a Sukhoi 30 from a Sukhoi 27.'
If it was meant as a compliment, it sure worked, so Aaditya asked what he needed to do.
'Intelligence, my boy. Intelligence.'
Aaditya was still not clear what was expected of him, so Ganesha laid it out. Basically Aaditya was expected to go through literally thousands of pieces of information-news reports, intelligence summaries from the world's agencies that Ganesha had hacked into, even forums dedicated to conspiracy theories. He would have to keep searching for a few keywords such as 'unidentified flying objects', 'unknown attackers' and so on, and then feed the results to Ganesha.
It was mind-numbingly repetitive and Aaditya soon saw that Ganesha was several times faster than him, so he began to wonder if he was really doing something useful or if they just wanted to keep him occupied. After a while, it really got to him, so he turned to Ganesha. 'Hey, mind if I ask you something?'
'Go ahead,' responded Ganesha without even turning to face Aaditya.
'Look, I've been here two hours, and I feel kind of silly just going through this junk and forwarding it to you. Does this ever help?'
Ganesha swiveled around in his chair to respond.
'This is where the action is. Sure, the flying and blowing things up is glamorous, but without the right intelligence, we're as good as blind. You have it so easy now, with all the information flowing through the networks.'
'What do you mean?'
'Fifty years ago, Kalki used human agents he'd bribed or threatened to do his bidding. So we'd have to track them down and neutralize them. Messy work. The way we play the game now is different, but the game's the same.'
'What game?'
'Oh man, the game Kalki loves playing, and I must add, is very good at. The game of temptation. For an ambitious bastard like him, he has one big problem. Do you know what that is?'
Aaditya just nodded encouragement, wanting to learn as much as he could, as Ganesha continued, 'There's maybe fifty Asuras left. Between them and the hundreds of dimwit daityas he has, he can't really conquer the Earth all on his own. Maybe he could a hundred years ago, but not now. You have nukes and as far as his vimanas go, they are but one or two generations ahead of your latest fighters. So you know what he does?'
Once again, Aaditya figured it was a rhetorical question, so he waited for Ganesha to continue.
'He divides and conquers. He pits one nation against another, hoping you weaken your nations enough to give him a chance. And you ask if this intelligence gathering serves a purpose! Hell, sitting in this very chair, I discovered how he was leaking knowledge on rocketry to the Nazis. We put an end to that, for sure.'
Suitably educated and chastened, Aaditya got back to work. After four hours, his eyes were blurry and he desperately needed a break, so he went back to his room. Tanya was there, though it looked like she was about to leave. She greeted him with a kiss.
'Hey, sweetheart, I hope Ganesha's not working you too hard.'
