Spark: A Novel (16 page)

After twenty minutes of driving, we left the main road and entered a neighborhood of small brick homes with sheet-metal roofs and cows wandering through the streets. I thought about asking the driver to return to my hotel, but he suddenly turned a corner and stopped. Some shacks made out of packing containers were on one side of the street and they faced a rectangular gray stone ruin about the size of a basketball court. The stepwell resembled a stone plaza with four square openings that allowed sunlight to illuminate what was underground.

No one was waiting for me, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Although I was carrying a phone, my Shadow couldn’t help me in this situation. I paid the driver, climbed out of the rickshaw, and wandered across the street to the low chain-link fence surrounding the ruin. There were no guards or ticket booths. No instructions of any kind. Trying to avoid the blaring noise of the sun, I passed through a shattered gate and encountered an old man with a twig broom. I stopped and waited for instructions, but he shrugged and waved me forward.

Sandstone stairs led downward into the well. It had a simple construction. Each stone floor was held up by rows of white stone
columns. The columns were like trees with intricately carved scrolls and filigree at the top. I followed the stairs down to the second level, descended to the third level, and then stopped. When I turned around and looked up the staircase I understood the well’s true nature. The builders had started on the surface and then built downward. This was a reverse building, a negative integer; instead of a tower that bragged and shouted at the sky, this creation burrowed into the earth.

My shoes made scuffling sounds as I followed the staircase down to the fourth level. It was cool and quiet at the base of the well, and my Spark felt restful. At the fifth and final level, I stopped and looked up. I was standing on the ground floor of what looked like a small rotunda with a white dome ceiling. Concentric circles of carved stone rings led upward to the surface, and there was a round opening at the top to let in sunlight.

I realized, almost without thinking, that this dry, abandoned well was a physical display of my Transformation. Since the accident, I had followed a stairway downward into darkness with only a small disk of sunlight to guide my journey. Now that light was directly above me and I could blot out its power with the palm of my hand.

“Mr. Underwood! Is that you?”

Looking up the staircase I saw a young Indian man on the second level, framed by the stone columns. “Yes …”

“I apologize for being late, sir. I’m your driver. I’m supposed to take you to a meeting in Gandhinagar.”

“Good. Let’s go.” Returning to the surface, I crossed the dusty road and climbed into the air-conditioned comfort of another Ambassador.

Gandhinagar turned out to be the capital of Gujarat Province. The driver explained that it was a planned city divided into thirty sectors. All the streets were wide and clean and lined with trees. Each government ministry had a large office building with a park surrounding it. There were schools and shopping malls with brightly colored billboards written in both English and Hindi.

Our car glided past an algae-filled river and turned into a driveway
that led to a tall, round office building that resembled a stack of poker chips. A large sign announced that we had reached the headquarters of the Pradhani Group. Security guards with assault rifles stood at the entrance to the building, and they spoke Hindi to my driver. One of the guards escorted me into an atrium filled with tropical plants, then motioned for me to step into an elevator. He swiped his key card past a security sensor, punched the button for the twelfth floor, and nodded good-bye.

When the elevator door opened, I stepped out into a reception area where a young Indian woman wearing a green sari and round, horn-rimmed eyeglasses was waiting for my arrival. She stood up immediately and smiled.

“Mr. Underwood?”

“That’s correct.”

“Welcome to the Pradhani Group. I’m Miss Mehta, and I want to thank you for traveling such a long way to meet our president.”

I wasn’t sure about the right response, so I stayed silent. Miss Mehta’s smile was frozen on her face for a few seconds, and then disappeared. “Was your hotel room satisfactory in New Delhi?”

“Yes.”

“And here? In Ahmedabad? Are there any problems?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Very good.” Miss Mehta picked up the telephone headset and dialed a three-digit number. “He’s here,” she said in English and waited until someone gave her a command.

“Mr. Pradhani will see you now.”

She opened a door and I followed her down a windowless hallway where the air was cool and dry. Miss Mehta stopped when we reached a steel door with a CCTV camera mounted above the frame. She pushed a wall switch and waited with her hands straight down at the sides. When the door lock clicked open my escort motioned for me to enter. I stepped into the room alone and the door shut behind me.

I was standing in a private office with gauzy white curtains covering the windows. The curtains filtered and softened the shrill sunlight
I had encountered outside the stepwell. A black steel dining room table with matching chairs was on my right. A green suede couch was on the other side of the room next to a glass coffee table.

But the furniture was only background scenery to the occupant of the room: an Indian man in his sixties sitting behind a massive desk. Rajat Pradhani wore white linen pants and a long-sleeved white linen shirt that resembled pajamas. Unlike everyone else I had met in India, he was large and heavy. His saggy face resembled a blob of yellowish cookie dough with two brown raisins for eyes.

I took a few steps forward and stood like a servant in front of the desk. Mr. Pradhani stared at me for a minute or so, and then shook his head. “I was expecting someone bigger.”

Lorcan Tate would have been angered by Mr. Pradhani’s comment. But I felt nothing. No response.

“You’re not frightening at all,” Mr. Pradhani said. “There’s nothing intimidating about your appearance. I don’t wish to be impolite, but you have a bad haircut and cheap shoes.” A slight smile appeared on his lips. “You resemble a lower-level employee from one of our American subsidiaries.”

No response.

“Can you talk, Mr. Underwood? That is your name? Correct?”

“What would you like me to say?”

“Answer my questions, immediately. No hesitations. What is your true nationality?”

“American.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

“And how many people have you killed?”

My Spark was overwhelmed with a cold, watery mixture of thought. I wasn’t angered by the question, but I knew that it was inappropriate. I shared the present moment with this Human Unit:

But as far as I knew, my previous assignments had no connection to his past life.

“Speak up! I want a number!”

“I work for the Special Services Section of the BDG bank, Mr. Pradhani. Contact my supervisor if you need to know more about me.”

“But I’m asking you
now
. It’s necessary information. If I hire a Dalit to clean my toilet, I want to know if he’s done it before.”

No response. I kept my eyes focused on a lighting sconce.

“Answer the question!” Mr. Pradhani yanked open a drawer and took out a silver-plated revolver. He stood up with effort and lurched around the desk. “My family has controlled this province
since independence. The police, the judges, and the members of Parliament are our employees.”

Mr. Pradhani’s throat made a rasping sound as he raised the revolver and pointed it at my head. “No one at your hotel knows where you went. A rickshaw driver took you to the stepwell and left you there. There is no connection between yourself and my family. That means I can kill you right now and there will be no consequences. My employees will wrap up your body and toss it into a dung pit. After a few phone calls, there will be no proof that you even arrived in this city. You will not exist. You have never existed.”

I stared at the end of the revolver barrel and felt no emotion at all. My only wish was that all the doctors and psychologists who had examined me could be in the room so that they could witness one final proof of my deadness. And what would happen when Mr. Pradhani pulled the trigger?

My Shell would be broken.

It would dissolve into fragments. While my Spark floated free.

“I’m speaking to you!” Mr. Pradhani shouted. “Are you so stupid that you don’t realize you’re about to die?”

“Perhaps I should move over to the table.”

He waved his gun. “What are you talking about?”

“If you shoot me here, my blood might stain the rug. There’s no rug over by the dining table—so it’s a more logical location.”

The expression on Mr. Pradhani’s face changed several times, but I couldn’t understand their meanings. I wondered what he would say if I took out my phone and checked my database of emotions.

Pradhani laughed and lowered the gun. “Miss Holquist said that you were
cold,
but I didn’t quite believe her. Almost every human being shows emotion when they face death. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who has really slain that tiger. If you were Indian, you could become a Sadu … a holy man.”

Pradhani returned to the desk, put down his gun, and picked up the phone. “Tea,” he said, and then waddled over to the couch. “Sit over there,” he said, motioning to an easy chair. “Sit down and we’ll have a real conversation.”

I sat down on the chair while Pradhani ripped the gold-foil wrapper off a square of chocolate and popped it into his mouth. “Do you have the flash drive with the stolen information?”

I took the flash drive out of my shirt pocket and placed it on the coffee table. Mr. Pradhani picked up the data-storage device and studied it carefully. For a moment, I thought he might swallow
it with the chocolate. “I don’t know what files are on here, but I’m sure that they could cause a great deal of trouble. This betrayal is a direct attack on our family.”

“Did Jafar Desai work for your company?”

“No! Worse than that! He’s my son-in-law. I have five children, Mr. Underwood. All four of my sons have joined our company. One is an excellent worker. Two are adequate. One is a failure. But the real problems have all been caused by my only daughter, Nalini. I spoiled her, Mr. Underwood. I will admit that. She wanted to go to university and told me that it would enable her to find a suitable husband. I foolishly consented to her attending Nehru University … a notorious left-wing institution. My daughter majored in art history. The history of what? Pretty paintings. What could possibly go wrong? And then, in her third year of study—”