Turbulence (36 page)

“Thanks,” Jai says.

Yawning cracks run up and down the platform, and up the walls around them. The roof begins to rumble.

Aman charges at Jai, but Jai leaps over him and starts running towards the platform exit. Aman hits him in the back with a pulse-blast, and Jai falls, skids and rises.

“This is fun, kid,” he says. “But let’s take it outside. No one’s watching in here.”

He’s off again, tearing towards the stairs. Aman wants to dive into the tunnel, somehow dig Vir out, but his armour ignores him and follows Jai, sprinting up the platform as chunks of plaster begin to fall from the ceiling. He chases Jai down long, curving white corridors, up a motionless escalator, over deserted ticket barriers and out into the sun at Oxford Circus.

Jai’s just a few metres ahead, standing in the middle of Oxford Street, looking around eagerly as if he’s a tourist out for a day of fun. Aman pounds him with a pulse, and Jai is thrown across the road into a Benetton shop window. He smashes into a solemn mannequin and slides along the polished shop floor, his journey into the world of fashion ending in a heap of overturned knitwear available in the Sale Up to 50% Off.

Aman calls Uzma.

“Oxford Circus,” he says. “Get Sher and Tia to the Tube station. They need to dig Vir out. He should be alive. He took a mountain. This is just a city.”

“What?” Uzma yells back. He can hear a loud throbbing behind her. “I’m in a helicopter! We’re coming! What did you say?”

“Never mind, I’ll text you,” Aman says, and disconnects.

Across the street, Jai strides out over broken glass, a brightly
coloured scarf draped rakishly over his bare muscle-bound torso. He looks like the world’s fiercest model.

Tu-do-doo,
says Aman’s armour. He sends Uzma a message, cartwheels to avoid Jai’s lunge and runs for his life down Regent Street. He has chosen this route for a very valid reason: it’s right in front of him. He doesn’t know whether he’s running himself, or whether the armour has taken over completely. Finding out would involve stopping. He hears the wail of a siren behind him, and flinches as it stops abruptly. Turning, he sees Jai leap off a police car and soar towards him. Aman sets his head down and runs, lungs threatening to burst. There’s a thump on the road some distance behind him. He hears Jai’s footsteps thumping up Regent Street in pursuit.

Aman knows he can run really fast, remembers outrunning Jai underground just a few minutes ago. He tells himself he can do it again — and then the sound of feet behind him stops and his armour swerves as Jai flies over his head. There’s a dark-blue pole up ahead with traffic lights on it. Jai catches it one-handed, spins around, sticks out a leg, pivots and Aman sees Jai’s foot arcing towards his head. His armour is too tired for more evasive manoeuvres, and Aman runs straight into the kick.

He doesn’t feel any pain, his armour soaks up the impact, whining as it powers down, and Aman shoots like a cannonball across the street, watching in fascination as the door of Hamleys Toy Shop rushes forward to welcome him.

The burglar alarm goes off as Aman smashes into the store and barrels through rows and rows of toys. He ends up sprawled in the far corner in the middle of a jungle-themed soft toy exhibit. Aman is buried in stuffed cuteness. He hears footsteps approaching and fires his pulse cannon blindly,
shooting in every direction. Shelves full of toys explode. The air is a riot of coloured fur and puffs of feathers. Soft animals and cuddly monsters fly, bounce around and are torn apart. Then the pulse cannon whirs to a stop. The armour’s done.

Aman struggles to his feet. Then his legs give way, muscles too tired to take his weight, and so he crawls across the floor, unable to see anything in a haze of cotton, fibres and miscellaneous stuffing.

He hears Jai cursing somewhere nearby. For an instant he sees a figure loom up above him, thrashing about, but then Jai stumbles over a life-sized toy gorilla and goes face first into a mountain of toys, filling the air with white fluff all over again.

Slipping, sliding, scrabbling, Aman makes it to the foot of the non-moving escalator in the middle of the store. He crawls up the steps on hands and knees as quickly as he can, while Jai, roaring like Godzilla, wreaks plush-cloud havoc in the soft toy section.

Aman’s up on the first floor by the time Jai crushes the alarm. Aman continues upwards as silently as he can. His body is threatening to quit, he has to drag himself up the stairs to the fifth floor. He makes it to the top, and smiles grimly as he sees it’s the boys’ section.

The shelves to his left are lined with film merchandise, row upon row of action figures, mostly superheroes, staring blankly out from their plastic sheaths, loudly coloured sheets of cardboard behind them advertising their many special features. Aman crawls between two rows of childhood idols. It’s getting hard to breathe. The armour feels like it’s strangling him. He doesn’t want any of this any more. He presses the buttons on his chest and sighs in relief as the black and silver plates slide off him and fold themselves neatly into briefcase form. His legs
are completely numb. The rest of his muscles throb in one solid mass of pain, his nerves appear to be melting. Aman rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling. The phone rings in his head, but he doesn’t pick it up. He wishes
he
had a shut-down button. His eyes close.

He hears footsteps on the stairs, Jai’s firm tread, and he groans.

Jai strides up to the fifth floor of Hamleys, a confident smile on his face.

“I know you’re here,” he calls. “It’s only a matter of time.” He pops out of view as his footsteps come closer. Aman rolls away from the middle of the aisle, huddling close to a row of shelves. Jai walks up the aisle next to Aman’s. The shelves are only chest-high, and Aman can feel Jai’s presence, see his shadow inches away. Then the footsteps start to move away, and Aman almost breathes again. But Jai stops, and retraces his steps.

“There you are,” he says, leaning over a counter. He walks up to Aman and stands over him, grinning. “Frankly, Aman, you don’t look so good. Where’s your costume?” He grabs Aman’s T-shirt and pulls him to his feet. Aman’s body sags.

“It’s no fun when you’re asleep,” Jai says. “Here. This is for that little monkey-dance you pulled off at the cathedral.” He twists Aman’s left arm, breaking it. Aman’s eyes bulge, he screams.

“That’s better,” Jai says. “Don’t die on me, boy. Not yet. We’ve got to go outside and put on a show. You don’t want to die in a bloody toy shop. Where’s your sense of occasion? The world is watching and Vir let me down, giving up in the tunnel like that. On your feet.” He lets Aman go, and Aman falls on a shelf and slides to the floor, dragging a few Transformers with him.

“Bloody useless civilians,” Jai says. He grabs Aman’s
broken arm and starts walking. White-hot shards of pain run across Aman’s body, but he does not have the strength to do anything other than moan as Jai drags him up the aisle and around the corner.

There’s a voice downstairs. A female voice, calling Aman. Uzma is here. Aman stirs and opens his eyes. Jai drags him back into the aisle and stuffs a toy monster in his mouth.

Aman goes online and tries to call Uzma. It’s her turn not to answer.

Jai walks back towards the stairs, and crouches behind the shelf closest to the top. It’s a good spot for an ambush, he’ll be able to strike before Uzma has time to say anything. He waits.

A tentative footstep on the bottom step. To Aman, it sounds like a gunshot.

“Aman?” Uzma calls. “Aman, you there?”

Jai tenses, ready to pounce, as someone runs up the stairs.

Summoning every last reserve of strength, Aman spits the monster out of his mouth and yells, “Don’t!”

Jai pounds the floor and yells in frustration. An instant later, he’s towering above Aman. He picks him up, hurls him against the nearest wall and charges at the stairs, where a head has just come into view. He’s a blur of speed, the perfect predator.

In his upside-down world, flying towards shelves full of action figures, Aman sees Jai’s hand move up in a scything chop, and winces as he hears Uzma scream. His back smashes into the racks on the wall. He falls to the floor, strange shapes floating inside his eyelids. Shelves full of toys tilt and fall, one after the other, like misshapen dominoes.

As Aman’s vision fades, the screams in the background fade and the world turns into a black and green sea of pain. The last
thing he sees, soaring above him, is a flurry of colourful arms and legs, of muscular bodies and outrageous costumes, stars and capes, lantern jaws and ray-guns. For a brief and glorious moment, it’s raining superheroes.

When Aman wakes, four Tias are carrying him out of Hamleys on a stretcher, bickering amicably. One squeals in excitement as he opens his eyes and looks around.

There’s an ambulance waiting on Regent Street. Two more Tias sit in front inside it. Aman looks at his broken left arm, it’s bandaged, in a sling. He rises slightly and tries to speak, but the Tias shush him. They slide him into the back of the ambulance, bumping his head only once. Then they file inside behind him and merge into one body.

“Welcome back, darling,” she says, smiling. “Thought you were dead there for a bit.”

“Uzma?” Aman croaks.

“No, I’m Tia. Has it been that long?” she asks, and hugs him. The ambulance starts to move. “Uzma’s fine. You’ve been out for an hour, by the way. A lot happened. But that’s all right — you woke up in time to catch the end.”

“Armour,” Aman says. “My armour’s in there.”

“No it’s not. Uzma took it.”

“What happened? I remember Jai jumping at Uzma right before I blacked out.”

“No, that was me coming up the stairs with Uzma on sound effects duty,” Tia says. “You’d told your online spider thingies to message us your location every minute, remember? We knew he was there. We got there just in time, too — you’re really lucky
he didn’t just rip your head off. He must be really fond of you. Vir’s alive too, by the way — Sher got him out.”

“How did you beat Jai? What happened up there at the toy shop?”

“You’ll see. Uzma told me not to tell you — she said she wants to explain it all herself. What a day, huh? I spent all the best bits sitting in cars arguing with stupid policemen, but this last bit was enough, thanks very much.”

“Where are we going?” Aman asks.

“Piccadilly Circus. We’re already there.” And Tia flings open the doors of the ambulance. Three more Tias emerge and they carry Aman out. He exits the ambulance into a cacophony: Londoners of every possible age, shape and colour throng the streets, talking loudly, taking pictures. Journalists chatter into mikes, policemen attempt to establish order, tourists gawk, pickpockets make merry. The city’s coming back to life. On each of the five streets leading to Piccadilly Circus, a massive crowd has formed. They’re walking towards the Eros fountain, and everyone is looking up at the greying sky. Aman looks up as well, and he blinks, rubs his eyes and stares in disbelief.

Jai floats high above the Anteros statue in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. There’s a sphere of white light around him, and he appears to be trapped inside it. He pounds on the wall of his bubble, but to no avail.

Anima and Vir circle the sphere in ever-changing orbits. Anima bears twin katanas, sparkling green. Her manga eyes are full of tears, visible even from the ground. Vir has a new costume, identical to the old one — there are many sportswear shops in London. The right side of his face is bruised and turning blue. Girls scream like Beatles fans as he whizzes over them. He
notices Aman on the ground, and gives him a little wave.

Uzma emerges from a huddle in the crowd and walks up to the edge of the fountain under the statue. She’s never looked more beautiful; she’s doing her Grand Entrance thing again. The crowd sighs with love and desire as she takes her place under the ball of light. She looks around theatrically, raises her arms and calls her fellow superheroes.

Anima and Vir fly earthwards, touching down gently by her side. Sher emerges from an Underground exit in tiger-man form, he lopes up to the others, growling, and the crowd scatters as he crosses the road.

“Got to go, love. See you soon,” Tia says, and she walks off towards the fountain. Seven Tias merge into one, and the crowd applauds as she sashays up to her team. She blows a kiss at Uzma, and Uzma acknowledges it with a regal smile.

A rousing cheer echoes across Piccadilly Circus as another hero emerges from a police car. It’s the mysterious warrior in black and silver armour recently seen battling Jai above, around and under London. He lines up next to the others.

Through the crowd, Aman catches Uzma’s eye. She smiles at him and looks away. Zothanpuii also emerges from the crowd, mostly unnoticed, and stands demurely behind Sher, making seven, the traditional number in these situations. Photographers form a huddle around them and go wild as the seven all look up at Jai.

Uzma stands on the fountain’s edge and addresses the crowd.

“Does this villain deserve to live?” she cries.

Aman has read about crowds speaking in chorus in books, but it obviously never happens in real life…

“NO!” London says, as one.

Uzma nods sadly, and Vir flies up under Jai’s light-prison. He carries the sphere higher and higher until he’s just a speck in the sky, the light a glowing ball the size of a lightbulb, the prisoner inside it slumped, defeated, broken. Then Vir flies away, leaving the sphere hovering, and at Uzma’s signal the black and silver warrior leaps up and fires a pulse-blast at the prison-sphere. There’s a streak of light, a collective gasp, and the battle for London and the world ends, as Aman always suspected it would, with a huge explosion.

When the fireworks are done, there’s no trace left of the light-sphere, and Jai is gone. The crowd gasps appreciatively and applauds, cheering until every throat in Piccadilly is hoarse.

A Tia walks up and takes Aman’s hand.

“You should be very proud,” she says. “All this is your doing.”

“This isn’t what I wanted at all,” he says.

“You all right?” she asks.

“Sure. Though why am I here, and not with them? And who the hell is that in my armour?”