The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, page 10
Karma came back online, because she existed everywhere, but even her voice was tinny and weak, emanating from a single drone just out of the distortion field.
“Melek Ahmar, stand down, this does not concern you,” Karma said. “Lest I deploy forces beyond even your control.”
“You’ll do fuck all,” Melek Ahmar said. “I am the Eater of Worlds. Try me, I beg you.”
“This does not concern you.” Could a machine sound exasperated?
The Lady ReGi came up behind the djinn king, almost swimming through the gelid air with exaggerated motions. Somehow she had rolled and lit a lopsided cigarette, and in between rather ineffective puffs, she whispered in his ear. Hamilcar felt a slight loosening of the pressure around his chest, and his ears popped, as time and space released their rictus grin. Pain came flooding back to his body. Melek Ahmar listened and frowned, then nodded, then looked around shrewdly, and then finally smiled.
“Karma!” His voice boomed up to the steeple. “I have a wager for you.”
“What?”
“A wager. A bet. We djinn love a good bet. Are you in?”
“Do I have a choice?” Karma somehow managed to sound tart and irritable through her one distant mouthpiece.
“Your champion over there versus mine. Duel, one on one. No fancy stuff, just blood and guts fighting to the death. The old way, you know?”
“Am I to understand you are in the corner of my traitorous sheriff?”
“Yes, we like turncoats, we do,” Melek Ahmar said. “Especially ones who betray kings. Funny thing, that, djinn don’t actually like kings much. Damned interfering high and mighty bastards, I’d get rid of the lot of them . . . We invented republicanism, did ya know that?”
“But . . . but you’re a . . .”
“Right, right, King of Mars, One of Seven, so on, but well, there you go. Life is full of ironies. Still, that’s ReGi’s bet. And if you knew how much she can nag and pester, well, it’s just easier to go along with it. Your man versus ours. Your big fella wins, we go away forever.”
“And if the traitor wins?” Karma asks.
“One boon for each of us, you cannot refuse,” ReGi said. “Anything we want, and no retaliation later on down the road. We get emissary status for life, yours or ours, whichever lasts longer. Contracts signed both here and with the Celestial Courts of the Djinn.”
“Fine, I agree, provided your wishes do not harm my core programming,” Karma said. “Release your field and I will restore functionality to the colonel and the sheriff. Although they appear slightly the worse for wear. I cannot help that.”
Melek Ahmar sucked back his power, and normal physics returned with a hesitancy that showed it had been well and truly spanked and was now not nearly as smugly certain of its seat at the table. Hamilcar lifted his head up, noticing in a detached way that his right hand was dangling most curiously from the end of his broken wrist.
Colonel Shakia got to her feet and spat blood. She lurched over to the djinn. “Thanks. I got this.”
Bhan Gurung smiled. “No, Colonel saab, rest. I’ve got this.”
She stared at the old man. “You have no augments. He’s in a fucking battle suit.”
Gurung tapped his head. “No Echo. No PMD. Nothing to go awry at the critical moment. You trust Karma? I wasn’t the one weeping blood when she turned up her juice.”
Colonel Shakia sighed. “Armpit and back of the knee. Don’t bother with the head, it’s a solid piece. Take my knife, it’s poisoned.”
“So is mine, Colonel sir.”
ReGi pushed up and kissed the Gurkha’s leathery cheek. “Good luck, Uncle Gurung. You’re a little bit scary, but I love you all the same.”
Gurung looked at her a bit confused, and then handed her a packet. “Just hold these for a minute.”
“What the hell is it?” Colonel Shakia asked.
“This?” ReGi shook the bag. “Pistachios, I think.”
Gurung didn’t swagger so much as slink his way toward the center mat, so casual that his knife wasn’t even out yet when Mr. Khunbish swung for him. Gurung wasn’t there. When the Mongolian straightened, his arm piece fell off, cut through along some invisible joint. Gurung smiled. Mr. Khunbish bulled forward for a double leg, an old wrestling move. Gurung flitted around, took one knee first and then the next, somehow appearing behind the armored giant. More pieces of hardware fell off. Two more passes, and Gurung was untouched, not even sweating, but his kukri was sweating blood, and there were deep furrows on the Mongolian’s exposed limbs, cuts that dripped dark blue liquid.
Khunbish, aware now his armor was useless, stripped off his helmet and paused for a second, bellowing hard.
“He’s sixty years old, for god’s sake, just kill the fucker!” Doje shouted. There was a manic look on his face, fear seeping in now, as the old specter of Gurung rose once again before him, all too real and much too close.
Mr. Khunbish dropped his chest plate to the ground. He clapped his hands together and the electric eel nodes along his spine burst to life, enveloping him in a nimbus of blue light. He advanced in a classic Muay Thai stance, a flaming blue giant, foot snapping out in a teep, the front push kick used like a jab, followed by a series of heavy knees and elbows, looking for the fatal grapple. Gurung stepped into this flurry of blows, unafraid, took the battering and slid into the giant’s reach, into the Thai plum, the Muay Thai neck clinch, and as those burning hands grasped him, as the stench of seared flesh wafted up, he wriggled his knife and slipped away, leaving a flaming carcass, a body slowly toppling over, throat sliced open, neck sawed in half and hanging by a gristle. Mr. Khunbish gave a strangled cry and died.
Gurung smiled, his face and body burned, cloth and skin flaking off. He reached over and wrenched the Mongolian’s head off, placing it upright gently on the floor. Then he twirled his moustache with one bloody hand, turning the tips red.
“Lucky day, Karma,” he said. “Two for one today.”
“Karma! Karma!” Doje screamed, as Bhan Gurung walked him down.
No one stopped him. Karma didn’t say a word.
Chapter Sixteen: Boons from the God-Machine
“It was never my intention to kill you,” Karma said to Hamilcar Pande. He was propped up in the command module, his broken body encased in a medical gel the chair itself had extruded. The rest of them were seated around him, a rough semicircle of bloodied victors.
Hamilcar Pande snorted. “You sold a hundred thousand people to microclime slavery.”
“Doje misrepresented the case,” Karma said. “In the Original Pact, I merely laid down conditions under which the conversion of the city would be successful. It was mathematics. My calculations indicated optimal conditions for the project. The choice was given to the leaders of the city. This was one of seven cities under consideration. I did not recommend any course of action. The algorithm simply indicated there were too many people. It was not optimal. It was the choice of you humans, Sheriff, your own parents and grandparents, to remove the unnecessary people. If you find the choice distressing, remember it is people who made it.”
“You are not conscious. You have no preference.”
“Precisely, Sheriff,” Karma said.
“Unnecessary people,” Colonel Shakia said, her face hard. “Some guy will always make that choice.”
“Yeah. Humes always kill each other, nothing new. You owe us boons, Karma,” ReGi said. “Pay up.”
“Yes,” Karma said. “One boon each. Then the three of you leave, forever. That is my condition. Ask, Lady of the Garden.”
“I think Uncle Gurung ought to go first.”
“I do not think he deserves a boon,” Karma said. “He is sitting next to two heads which he has cut off, one of whom is my number six, Doje.”
“You made a bet and lost, Karma,” ReGi said. “Be a good sport.”
“Fine,” the God-Machine said. “Ask, Bhan Gurung.”
“I got what I came for.” Bhan Gurung patted the heads next to him.
“Am I to understand you want nothing more, and will hereafter leave our city in peace?” Karma asked.
“Wait. Him. Hamilcar. I want him to be the sheriff. For real. For life.”
“What?” Karma asked.
“You need a failsafe, Karma,” Bhan Gurung said. “He’s a good failsafe. Make it for real. Make him real.”
“And what precise role are you envisaging for Mr. Pande?” Karma asked.
“I don’t know. He’ll be your conscience. He knows what to do. Let him write his own chit. That’s my boon.”
“Granted. Sheriff, you are now hereby real, at the request of Bhan Gurung. And you will never return here, Gurung?”
“I believe I have what I came for.”
“Lady?” Karma asked.
“The garden. I’m taking it.”
“What?”
“You said I can’t come back, so I’m going to take the garden. I’ve tended it all this time, it’s mine. I’m going to put it in a snow globe.”
“And what exactly will remain there once you remove it?”
“I dunno. Like a smoking ruin maybe? Oooh, maybe a black hole. Or one of those ghost universes you were talking about. Anyway, that’s your problem, since you don’t want me to come back or anything . . .”
“Fine, fine, am I to understand that if I permit you to stay here, you will consider not removing the Garden of Dreams from existence?”
“You have to give it to me,” ReGi said. “Like my own fiefdom. I want to be the Duchess of the Garden. And you can’t come in, not with any drones or surveillance or anything. One hundred percent privacy for me and my people.”
“I will give you a ninety-nine-year lease. There is no private property in the city. This will be the first and only case, kindly do not bandy it about.”
“And the duchess thing?”
“Fine, I will grant you the title of Duchess of the Garden, which will be purely ceremonial and—”
“Yay!”
“And you, sir, the Lord of Tuesday,” Karma said finally. “Do you still wish to rule the city? For I am sorely tempted to hand it all over to you and take my talents somewhere without duchesses and Gurungs.”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Melek Ahmar said hastily. “Good luck with your new duchess and your failsafe and er, that ferocious army lady. Me and Gurung are going to hit the road. Big wide world to see, eh? Been asleep for too long, and Gurung here’s been lusting after vengeance all this time. We need to live! To explore! To fornicate! All too soon, the troubadours will sing once again of Melek Ahmar the Red King and his trusty lieutenant Bhan Gurung the Taker of Heads, they will talk of the day Melek Ahmar climbed ninety-nine flights of stairs, up the tower of doom, fighting alien hordes . . .”
“Is there a boon anywhere in this story?” Karma asked. For a machine, she was becoming terribly sarcastic, Hamilcar thought.
Melek Ahmar smiled a sly smile, and for a moment, the sheriff remembered how this goat-wearing rustic had somehow turned the city upside down.
“Karma, I want you to reset the counters,” the Lord of Tuesday said. “Zeroes. I want everyone to be a zero.”
“Why?” Karma asked, aghast. “Why?”
“What, I like zeroes,” Melek Ahmar said. “They know how to party.”
Chapter Seventeen: The End
On Karma Day 14,633, everyone in the city woke up a zero.
About the Author
Photograph courtesy of the author
SAAD Z. HOSSAIN is the author of two novels, Escape from Baghdad! and Djinn City. He lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter One: The Long Release
Chapter Two: The City Below
Chapter Three: The Punic Failsafe
Chapter Four: King of Zeroes
Chapter Five: Sheriff John Brown
Chapter Six: Goat Blood Café
Chapter Seven: Djinn Kids Are the Worst
Chapter Eight: Old School
Chapter Nine: Papa Tuesday
Chapter Ten: Garden of Ridiculous Demands
Chapter Eleven: Suitors
Chapter Twelve: Why the Generals Cried
Chapter Thirteen: Supper at the Tower of Gold
Chapter Fourteen: Keys to God
Chapter Fifteen: Knife Saint
Chapter Sixteen: Boons from the God-Machine
Chapter Seventeen: The End
About the Author
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE GURKHA AND THE LORD OF TUESDAY
Copyright © 2019 by Saad Z. Hossain
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Eric Nyquist
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
A Tor.com Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10271
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-250-20910-8 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-250-20911-5 (trade paperback)
First Edition: August 2019
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Saad Z. Hossain, The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday
