Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

sure he liked him. "There's theNewBharatSabhaholydeerof-SarnathDoctorSampunananandcricketgroundBuddhiststupaRamnagar-FortVishwanathTempleJantarMantar ..."
         Too much too much Kyle's head was going round all the people, all the people, the one thing he never saw, never noticed from the rooftop lookout, under all the helicopters and cranes and military RAV drones, there were people.
         "River," he gasped. "The river, the big steps."
         "The ghats. The best thing. They're cool." Salim spoke to the driver in a language Kyle had never heard from his mouth before. It did not sound like Salim at all. The driver waggled his head in that way you thought was no until you learned better, and threw the phatphat around a big traffic circle with a huge pink concrete statue of Ganesh to head away from the glass towers of Ranapur into the old city. Flowers. There were garlands of yellow flowers at the elephant god's feet, little smoking smudges of incense; strange strings of chillies and limes; and a man with big dirty ash gray dreadlocks, a man with his lips locked shut with fishing hooks.
         "The man, look at the man ..." Kyle wanted to shout, but that wonder/ horror was behind him, a dozen more unfolding on every side as the phatphat hooted down ever narrower, ever darker, ever busier streets. "An elephant, there's an elephant and that's a robot and those people, what are they carrying, that's a body, that's, like, a dead man on a stretcher oh man ..." He turned to Salim. He wasn't scared now. There were no bodies behind him, squeezing him, pushing him into fear and danger. It was just people, everywhere just people, working out how to live. "Why didn't they let me see this?"
         The phatphat bounced to a stop.
         "This is where we get out, come on, come on."
         The phatphat was wedged in an alley between a clot of cycle rickshaws and a Japanese delivery truck. Nothing on wheels could pass, but still the people pressed by on either side. Another dead man passed, handed high on his stretcher over the heads of the crowd. Kyle ducked instinctively as the shadow of the corpse passed over the dome of the phatphat, then the doors flew up and he stepped out into the side of a cow. Kyle almost punched the stupid, baggy thing, but Salim grabbed him, shouted, "Don't touch the cow, the cow is special, like sacred." Shout was the only possible conversation here. Grab the only way not to get separated. Salim dragged Kyle by the wrist to a booth in a row of plastic-canopied market stalls where a bank of chill-cabinets chugged. Salim bought two Limkas and showed the stallholder a Cantonment pog, which he accepted for novelty value. Again the hand on the arm restrained Kyle.
         "You have to drink it here, there's a deposit."
         So they leaned their backs against the tin bar and watched the city pass and drank their Limkas from the bottle which would have had Kyle's mom screaming germs bacteria viruses infections and felt like two very very proper gentlemen. During a moment's lull in the street racket, Kyle heard his palmer call. He hauled it out of his pants pocket, a little ashamed because everyone had a newer better brighter cleverer smaller one than him, and saw, as if she knew what dirty thing he had done, it was his mom calling. He stared at the number, the little smiley animation, listened to the jingly tune. Then he thumbed the off button and sent them all to darkness.
         "Come on." He banged his empty bottle down on the counter. "Let's see this river, then."
         In twenty steps, he was there, so suddenly, so huge and bright Kyle forgot to breathe. The narrow alley, the throng of people opened up into painful light, light in the polluted yellow sky light from the tiers of marble steps that descended to the river and light from the river itself, wider and more dazzling than he had ever imagined, white as a river of milk. And people: the world could not hold so