the smell of rotting food. Then he saw the bars. He realized then that he had entered a prison cell. Leslie was in a corner, turning on a small lamp that served to provide the only light in the cell.
'Where are we?'
Leslie smiled. 'This has been my home for the last five years or so, but down here one does tend to lose track of time.'
'You're a prisoner here? But Jim said that you lead the resistance here.'
'To Kalki and his demons, I am the most pliant prisoner they could hope for, but then I slip out that hole and hook up with Jim and his boys to raise some hell. Being here means that I have the ability to stay in contact with the other prisoners and also the civilians they keep as slaves outside the fort.'
Aaditya was beginning to realize that a whole lot more was going on under the surface at Kalki's fort than he had ever imagined. Leslie offered him a glass of water with a sad smile.
'I'm afraid that's all I can offer by way of hospitality.'
Then she began her story. 'When they got me, I thought I had lost my mind. But then I realized what they wanted with us military types-nuclear launch codes, details of bases, tactics and technology. It became obvious that these guys may or may not be aliens or whatever, but their plan was clearly to try and invade Earth at some point.'
'So what did you do?'
'Eventually, I told them whatever they wanted.'
Seeing the surprise and shock in Aaditya's eyes, she continued. 'Forget what you see in the movies and read in novels-every human being has a threshold beyond which they break. I fought them as long as I could, but they broke me. They broke all of us sooner or later.'
Aaditya saw the pain in her eyes and realized that he could not even begin to guess the hell she had been through.
'I lost all hope, we all did. Many of us killed ourselves, some of us lost our minds and were killed by that snake-eyed bastard for sport.'
A chill went through Aaditya's spine.
'We had no way out, nothing to look forward to, so we tried to create some semblance of normality in our miserable lives. We'd look forward to the hour a day when they'd let us out into the light. We'd wait for those few minutes when we could be out in the fields and meet the civilian slaves. They forbade us to talk to each other, but we'd just look at each other, hold hands, and cry together. That's what we had been reduced to.'
Aaditya heard Jim whispering something through the hole in the wall, and Leslie cursed under her breath. 'Damn, I almost lost track of time. The guards are due for their rounds soon. We need to hurry. Jim will get you back to where you were being kept.'
'If you had all given up, where and how did your resistance begin, and what do you know about how anyone could destroy this base?'
'Come closer.'
As Aaditya walked towards Leslie, she picked up the lamp and shone its weak beam of light at the wall.
'A man came here. He started it all. He gave us hope that we could fight back, that it was better to go down fighting than to live like animals.'
Aaditya looked closer at the wall to see what she was trying to show him. He caught his breath as he saw etched into the rock wall, the unmistakable hawk and lightning bolts of his father's squadron patch.
***
'Where the hell did you wander off to? We've been looking for you for hours.'
Aaditya was still so affected by the story he had heard from Leslie that he had scarcely noticed Maya nearly run into him. Jim had somehow managed to get him near where his room had been, and he been loitering around outside the room for a few minutes, waiting for Maya or one of the daityas to find him.
'The door just wouldn't open so I was walking around trying to find someone who could help.'
Maya smirked as if he didn't believe a word of it. He looked around for a while, making sure there was nobody else with Aaditya. Jim and his fellow guerillas had figured out all the hidden vents and pipings that the daityas either didn't know existed or had never thought a whole group of humans could be living in, under their very noses. Jim had told him that the daityas knew there were people like him around but they apparently never raised most of the incidents to Maya, afraid of the punishment they would receive for their failure in letting the humans escape. So a largely hidden and bloody battle was being waged in the shadows. Unable to spot anything suspicious, Maya gripped Aaditya hard by his arm.
'Don't think I don't know what goes on here. I know about the bloody human rats, and if any of them bumped into you, just know I will personally crush each of their skulls soon enough.'
Aaditya pretended to not know what Maya was talking about and wrenched his hand free.
'Take me to your master. I have nothing more to tell you, nor do I think I owe you any explanations. Kalki wanted me, and I would like to speak with him as soon as possible.'
Maya glared but led Aaditya to the command center where Kalki was seated, wearing the dark cloak that covered most of his face.
'So, Aaditya, I hear you've been giving Maya some anxiety with your disappearing acts. Now, tell me why you wanted to meet me.'
Kalki had a smile on his face but his red eyes showed little humour in them.
'I've thought things over, and I have decided to tell you about the Devas. But first I'd like to know what exactly happened to my father. Where did he fit into your plans and what caused his death?'
Kalki motioned for Maya to leave them alone.
'As you know by now, I was building an air force of drones to fight the Devas. I am short of pilots and the daityas, while good at muscle jobs, aren't exactly the types to master complex technology. We had a limited stock of vimanas of our own, and unlike the Devas, did not have much access to the technology and materials needed to make more.'
Aaditya took it all in, cross-tabbing it with what he had learnt from the Devas and from Leslie. As liars went, Kalki was a consummate one, using just the right mix of facts. As a fugitive, Kalki had no more access to the advanced technology that he and his crew had come with, while the Devas still got regular shipments from space. But he knew that the drones were hardly meant for fighting the Devas. They were going to be used to one day invade Earth.
'I needed experienced pilots to help us master the drones and tactics they could best use. Your father resisted me, as they all did initially, but he had the vision to understand what I was fighting for. He realized all the evils the false gods and religions of the Devas had unleashed and I could help bring about true freedom for humans: the freedom to choose their own destiny.'
Aaditya had to struggle to contain his rising anger. He had heard what had really happened. Human pilots had been tortured to give up secrets that would make Kalki's conquest easier, many pilots becoming the subject of grotesque experiments to try and create pliant zombies who would fly on Kalki's side against their own race, to make up for the small number of Asuras Kalki had with him. As Kalki kept talking about how his father had worked to help Kalki, Aaditya felt his gloom and anger lifting, replaced by a warm feeling. A feeling of intense pride and love.
His father, the gentle man who had brought him up, and had been the only family he had known. His father, the one who had watched cartoons with him, and read to him every night. His father, the one man who had dared to stand against Kalki. The one man who had sacrificed his own life so that others may live, and had created a spark that had given Leslie, Jim and others like them hope that they could live, or at least die, like human beings, not animals or slaves.
His father had indeed pretended to side with Kalki, and if not a trusted aide, then at least the way Kalki saw humans, as a favoured pet. He helped Kalki create the first drones based on advanced human fighters and even took part in trying to train the zombie pilots, a terrible experiment that killed dozens of men and women but never produced any pilot who would fly on Kalki's command.
He had come to understand Kalki's plan. Kalki had about a hundred Asuras at his command and about forty vimanas. Supplemented by the hundreds of drones, and the thousands of daityas he planned to clone to wage war
