Turbulence by Samit Basu Read Free Book Online Page B

and turns to Aman and Tia, and is surprised to find both of them absolutely riveted to the screen. In fact, Tia has huddled up to Aman now, they’re holding hands and completely unaware of it, like two children at a horror movie.
    “What’s wrong with you people?” Uzma demands. “Don’t tell me you believe him!”
    Aman and Tia disengage, embarrassed.
    “No, of course not,” Aman mumbles. “Sorry, every time Iee politicians like this I’m generally afraid for the country. For the world.”
    On the screen, Namrata is trying to slip past the cordon of AKWWEK politicians to get a global first exclusive sight of the alleged Baby Kalki, ignoring Rosy’s protests of “But we are showing Baby Kalki to live rally, not to single channel, sorry.”
    At a signal from the intrepid reporter, the cameraman ups his game: he’s off, treating his viewers to a video game-like live view of his jerky run through the corridors of the hospital, peppered with the occasional flailing limbs of AKWWEK party members trying to block him, until he barges in through a heavily guarded door, and there’s just a flash, a smudge of blue, a suggestion of a bright blob on a white bed surrounded by kneeling women in white saris, a hasty zoom, a blurry image of more chubby arms than a baby should have and a blue head that’s not human at all, before a burly party member cannons into the cameraman; a wild swing, a patchy white ceiling and then static fills the screen.
    So engrossed are Aman and Tia in this that they completely fail to notice Sundar Narayan wander into the room and walk right by Uzma, slumped on her sofa. They don’t know he’s there until he announces his presence by saying, “Good people, my Tia’s unconscious. Can I have another one?”
    Aman and Tia both gasp and look at Uzma, but Uzma doesn’t waste time asking questions: she springs up from the sofa and runs out of the room, ignoring Narayan’s feeble greeting and Aman and Tia’s shouts. She runs up the stairs, panting, barges into Narayan’s lab and sees, lying on the floor with an ugly bruise on her forehead and a glowing green wire hissing and spitting in her badly burned hand, another Tia.
    And when Aman, Tia-from-downstairs and the Scientist catch up with her, she’s standing, grim and angry, arms crossed, eyes flashing.
    “They’re twins,” Aman offers weakly.
    “Forget it, Aman,” Tia says. “It won’t work. You might as well tell her, she’s nice.”
    “Who are you people?” Uzma thunders. “And what the hell is going on?”

CHAPTER FOUR
    “You want the short version or the long version?” Aman asks.
    “Short.”
    “We have superpowers.”
    Uzma scans the room and considers her response, wishing she had taken self-defence classes at school.
    “She thinks we are mad,” Sundar says.
    “Show her,” Aman says.
    “Don’t be scared,” Tia says gently, and suddenly there are two Tias where there was one, a second copy stepping smoothly out of her body and moving beside it, as silently and effortlessly as a computer file. They stand, side by side, completely identical, hair, clothes, everything but the expressions on their faces — one smiles, the other looks uncertain.
    On the floor behind Uzma, the injured Tia opens her eyes and says, “So, she knows, huh? Told you we wouldn’t last a single night.”
    “Are you all right, Uzma?” Sundar enquires, extracting a chair from his junk-mountain. “Would you like some water? Would you like to sit down?”
    Uzma sits down on the floor, her eyes unable to leave the Tias. She gulps a few times, struggling to speak.
    “Superpowers,” she says eventually.
    “I know it sounds stupid,” Aman says, “but you did want the short version.”
    “You’ve already seen Sundar in action,” a Tia says. “Aman, why don’t you give her a little display?”
    Aman smiles and closes his eyes. Nothing happens. He grins widely after a while and looks at Uzma.
    “You’ve left your phone in your room,