The Rise of Io Read online

  Faiz brightened and barked out forceful sharp laughs. He turned to Surrett. “I like her. Where did you find her?”

  Shura kept her smile painted on her face. She was happy to let the man continue to dig his grave.

  Surrett coughed uncomfortably. “The government sent my associate here to observe, and possibly to find a way to break through our stalemate. My superiors within the administration have great need for this land. It’s for the good of India. She is assisting me in these talks. The military speaks of this as a matter of national security.”

  That was a mistake.

  Shura agreed. Surrett was trying to emphasize the inevitable nationalization of the contested area by their Land Acquisition Law, but in reality, he sounded desperate. To litigate through those channels could tie up the land for years. Failure to close a deal would also paint him as the minister who couldn’t close on his own deal without help from the central government.

  “National security, eh?” Faiz chuckled. “You haven’t used that one before.”

  “Of course,” Surrett continued. “This is most definitely a matter of national urgency. It is vital to India’s security and economic vitality that we continue construction in a timely manner. The Ministry of Planning has already blessed this expansion. The contractors have been–”

  That was another mistake.

  Faiz waved him off. “I looked into everything you’ve said, Minister. You are not telling me the whole truth. The ministry has indeed approved construction permits, but that is simply paying off the right officials to sign pieces of paper. You’re doing this for a foreign company. You’re in their pockets.” He wagged a finger at Surrett. “I looked into you, Minister. What was your stupid campaign slogan? ‘Fair and honest Kapoor, we know what he stands for’? Hah. By the way, you used two words that mean the same thing.”

  “I’m sure we can come to a working accommodation,” Surrett pressed. “We can pay you fairly for your properties or we can take them from you. Why not make a few rupees for your trouble? Otherwise, you’ll just end up with nothing.”

  The two continued their negotiations, moving on to property value, trade, and relocation costs. After twenty minutes, they got nowhere and moved on to Faiz’s business, which was being the largest slum lord in all of Crate Town. Faiz emphasized how unpopular this proposal was and how his reputation in the slums would plummet, and how he might even lose his seat on the Crate Town business council. Surrett offered to move him out of the slums altogether and even offered a generous business incentive as well as assistance with a new tax-free base of operations.

  Shura muttered under her breath. “Who does he think he is?”

  He is a businessman who knows Surrett has to play by his rules.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  It became abundantly clear to Shura an hour into these negotiations that the only way Faiz would sell his substantial share of land near the river would be if the Genjix outright bought him out, at a valuation of roughly five times its worth. The man also made it clear that he was not willing to budge from anything less than that exorbitant price.

  “After all,” he said, “if you bulldoze all of the hundreds of units that I own, where will all the people live? All of Crate Town will blame me for allowing the government to take over. You must pay for my fallen reputation as well.”

  “You’re asking five times the land value and you know it.” Surrett stood up and waved his hands wildly. “Please, see reason.”

  Faiz took out another cigar, made an exaggerated show of sniffing it, and then cut one end. He lit it and took several puffs. “Supply and demand, my friend. You want prime real estate and ask me to give up everything. First rule of business is that something is always worth what someone else is willing to pay. Otherwise, feel free to find a way to work around my neighborhood.”

  We can afford that number, but it will set a poor precedent for all the other businesses. Impossible, actually.

  Shura had had enough. She walked around to Faiz’s side of the table and looked at the large collection of framed photographs hanging on the wall. The slumlord had a big family. Most were probably extended, which was a normal practice in this part of the world. Still, there were several pictures of him, his wife, and what looked like six kids.

  “Excuse me, woman,” Faiz said. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “I’m looking at your beautiful family.” She pointed at the youngest. “How old is this precious one?”

  Faiz preened. “Little Tripti just turned three. She is the delight of my life.” He turned to Surrett. “That is why I am fighting so hard for my family. I have my darling children to look out–”

  Shura plucked the cigar out of his mouth and jammed the burning end into his neck. Faiz’s scream was bloodcurdling. He batted her arms as she grabbed his collar and slammed his head once into the table and then backward into the steel wall.

  She cupped his chin with her hand and then held the burning end of the cigar so close to his eye it burned his eyelashes. “Listen here, Faiz, you’re going to take our more than fair deal, and you will sign and vacate all these premises by the end of next week. Do you understand?”

  “What are you doing?” he cried. “Please, please, don’t. Surrett, stop this crazy bitch!”

  Shura jammed the burning cigar into his cheek just beneath the eye. “Oops, I missed. What did you call me?”

  The door burst open and his two guards ran in. One charged, sliding over the table and swinging his machete. Shura grabbed Faiz’s wrist and juked to the side at the very last moment, extending his arm. The machete sank into his bicep and he screamed even louder than before.

  Shura speared the soft underbelly of the guard’s chin, cocking his head back. She then grabbed his belt and pulled, sliding him off the table onto the floor. She gave him a swift kick to the temple and turned to engage the second guard who was charging from the other side.

  The second machete flashed horizontally at her neck. Shura stepped into the swing, past the weapon arc, and spun. The blade stuck harmlessly into the wall, and Shura and the guard traded positions. She wrestled the machete from his hand as he tried to unstick the blade, and stabbed it downward straight through his shoe and into the floor. His scream joined Faiz’s until a blow to the temple knocked him unconscious. She took a step over the two bodies toward the merchant, who had crawled into the corner, and seemed to be desperately trying to tunnel through the wall with his bare hands.

  “Please, please, don’t kill me,” Faiz cried. “I’ll take the deal. I’ll take the deal.”

  She knelt down next to him. “You’re going to take that deal we offered you, plus five percent, because you are a shrewd businessman. And if all your tenants don’t move out by the end of next week, I’ll dock twenty percent. Do you understand?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, that sounds fair. Very fair.”

  “And you’re not going to cause any more trouble. Do you know why?”

  “You’ll take another twenty percent?”

  Shura had long mastered the wicked smile. “No, I want you to be paid a fair value for your property. If you complain to the authorities or file a lawsuit or do something to cause me any more annoyance, I will take your beautiful three year-old Tripti and I will butcher her, and I will continue to do so with each of your lovely children until our agreement is made whole. And if that isn’t enough, I’ll move to your mother, father, and then your wife. The only person I will leave behind is your mother-in-law. Do you understand?”

  He nodded again. “Whatever you want. I’ll leave Crate Town. Just leave my family alone.”

  “Good.” She stood up and turned to Surrett. “Have the papers drawn up. Our friend Faiz is eager to complete this sale and collect five percent profit from this transaction. He is a shrewd businessman.”

  Thirteen

  Training

  My people thrived for billions of years in peace, until one day, one of us dare
d to wonder what was beyond the Eternal Sea, on the surface of the planet or even further out in space.

  To be honest, part of me wishes I could find that bold Quasing and smother him. If we had never reached for the stars, then perhaps I would have never been stranded on Earth.

  * * *

  Hamilton picked Ella up every morning at six for the next two weeks to bus her over to Murugan’s Mitts. The first few days were hell. She was constantly forced to do strange things like swing hammers at tires, push sleds and drag heavy pieces of iron across the room as if she were some pack animal. The worst of those exercises was when he made her swing these vicious little torture devices up and down a few million times. It was all so stupid. And hard. What was the point of lifting something up and down all the time? She could just get a job at the grocery store and stock shelves all day if she wanted dumb, boring, menial labor.

  First of all, the torture devices are called kettlebells. And second, it was not a few million times. It was three sets of ten, which equals thirty. Math is not your strong suit.

  “You shut your dirty mouth, alien.”

  Io was less than useful. Instead of helping her train, she just harped on at her constantly. The damn Quasing was more annoying than Wiry Madras back when Ella worked as a cleaning girl.

  Coach Manish was equally unhelpful. The hateful old man was an asshole, brutal and relentless. When she would struggle to lift something, he would yell at her and call her lazy and worthless, and then make her try again, but with a lighter weight. If she managed that, he would make her try the heavy weight again.

  Ella cried every day for the first week, which was something she hadn’t done since Amma died. She would take a tuk-tuk home and collapse onto her mattress, too exhausted and beaten up to do much else. Hamilton didn’t bother escorting her home. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter how she got home, as long as she was at the gym early in the morning.

  For most of the second week, she plotted her revenge. Manish had refused to return her shank, so she set out to make a new one to plunge into that old man’s back when he wasn’t looking. She spent half a night searching the construction yard for a jagged metal piece and then wrapped cloth around the wide end to form a handle. She spent the other half of that night sharpening it against a rock, imagining punching it into the coach the next time he ordered her to swing one of those dumb kettlebells again.

  You are not stabbing Manish. He is the only resource we have here. Besides, you are being compensated for your time.

  That much was true. One of Ella’s stipulations for going to that hellhole in Little Dharavi every day was payment for her time and efforts. She and Io had sat down the first evening to negotiate a stipend to cover her living expenses. She was spending most of her days in the gym; how was she supposed to support herself if she wasn’t hustling?

  At first, Ella thought it would be tough to hammer out terms that would allow her to maintain the high standard of living she was accustomed to. However, Io’s opening salvo was an amount more than twice what she usually earned on a daily basis out in the streets. Either these Prophus were stinking rich or Io sucked at negotiating. Or Ella was just poor. Probably the latter. In the end she was able to get Io to up her stipend to nearly four times what she made running cons and working odd jobs.

  When she told Hamilton to pay her the agreed upon amount, the man actually furrowed his brow and asked if that was enough. Ella spent the next few hours after that kicking herself for not being more aggressive. She hated leaving money on the table.

  You really need to stop thinking with the mindset that being a host is a source of income.

  “What, you mean I should treat this less as a job and more like a lifestyle change?”

  One that will be very short if you do not get up to speed.

  No matter how good the money was, it was almost not worth it. Ella had always run cons for money and survival, but part of what she also loved about her work was the thrill. Seeing a carefully planned job come to fruition made her feel alive. Getting away scot-free with a nice haul felt like Christmas or Diwali. She likened it to having a birthday every month.

  This wasn’t the case with exercising at stupid Manish’s stupid gym. There was no joy in getting beaten to a pulp every day. There was no sense of victory or that feeling she got after she had outsmarted an opponent. It was just pain, pain, Manish making fun of her all day, and more pain.

  Surprisingly, the old coach gave up on this arrangement before she did at the end of the third week. It also strangely came at the moment when she finally achieved a breakthrough. It involved a lot of calluses and ripped skin, and her grunting and squealing like a pig being gutted, but Ella finally managed to do one pull-up. She promptly dropped onto her ass and lay in a heap on the ground huffing and puffing.

  Melonhead actually cheered. He had spent most of the past two weeks standing off to the side making snide remarks and laughing at her weak efforts. For some reason, the more she suffered, the louder she could hear his voice echo across the gym.

  This time though, as soon as her chin rose above the bar, he actually leaped off his stool to congratulate her. He picked her up by the armpits and swung her in a circle, seemingly generally enthusiastic about this minuscule achievement.

  In many ways, overcoming this little hurdle was the small confidence boost she needed to think she wasn’t a total lost cause. For the first time, she felt like she had accomplished something here, and it made her feel great; as if she had just pulled off some elaborate con that had come together beautifully. It was a tiny feat in the grand scheme of things – she had seen one of Manish’s guys do thirty pull-ups without breaking a sweat – but this was a step in the right direction.

  “All right,” Manish, sitting on a stool off to the side, barked out. “Stop dancing around like fools. Let’s see you do another!”

  And just like that, the joy was gone.

  Her next five attempts at pull-ups weren’t even close. It seemed she had put everything she had into that one lift and now her body was spent. Manish, ever the grumpy, cruel taskmaster, shook his head and ordered her to move onto the dreaded kettlebells.

  Ella scrunched her face as she stomped toward her round black tormentors. She stole a glance at the boxing ring. At least he hadn’t made her try to box today. Every day he put her in the ring was the worst day of her life. Yesterday, the coach had had her box a fourteen year-old. It hadn’t ended well for either of them. After the boy knocked her down for the third time, she threw a stool at him, and then he chased her around the gym for five minutes. Luckily for her, running away and evading bigger people was what she did best.

  You know, eventually you are going to have to go in there and learn how to fight.

  “You’re the alien. Can’t you just order him to teach me to fight in a way where I don’t mess up my face?”

  I am pretty sure all types of fighting involve getting your face messed up.

  “Damn it!”

  Ella was struggling through a set of kettlebell swings when Manish stood up abruptly and tossed his stick near her feet. “Stop it. This is a waste of time. We’re not getting anywhere here.”

  His sudden outburst surprised Ella so much she let go of the kettlebell on the upswing. Fortunately, she couldn’t swing a heavy weight. Unfortunately, it was still an eight-kilogram piece of solid iron. The kettlebell flew through the air and bounced off the wall, narrowly missing Melonhead’s big melon head.

  “Oh my gods!” the big man yelled.

  Manish jabbed her small twig arms with his gnarled finger. “This is not working.”

  “I did a stinking pull-up today!”

  “And in two years, you will be a very strong tiny girl who can beat up other tiny people. The first time you fight a Genjix who is normal size will be your last.”

  “I’m doing the best I can.”

  Manish sighed. “I know, girl, but like they say, you can’t teach size.” He looked across the room at where she had
tossed the kettlebell. There was a small indentation in the wall from the impact. Melonhead sat there, frozen, eyes wide like full moons from his near-death experience. The coach went over to the desk and picked up a cricket ball, and tossed it to Ella. “Hit Aarav with this.”

  Ella caught the ball and hefted it in her hand. “What?”

  “Go ahead. Hit him.”

  “Wait, what?” Melonhead looked up, confused. “Don’t hit me.”

  “I don’t think I should–” she began.

  “I’ll buy you lunch if you hit him on the head,” said Manish.

  Ella wound her arm up and chucked the cricket ball at Melonhead, albeit not throwing it very hard. It would have hit him square between the eyes had he not covered up and blocked it with his arms.

  “Stop throwing things at me!” Melonhead roared.

  “That’s what you get for not getting out of the way,” Manish shouted back. He took out the shank he had confiscated from her and tossed it at her feet. “Here, hit him with that.”

  She picked it up. “It’s sharp. I’ll kill him.”

  “You can’t kill him. You don’t throw hard enough.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ella flipped the shank in her hand.

  “No, don’t,” Melonhead stammered.

  I do not suppose I need to tell you that actually killing him is probably a bad idea, do I?

  “You had better move out of the way, or I guess I’m giving the gym to your brother,” Manish called out.

  “Don’t get out of the way, Aarav,” one of the younger students piped up.

  Ella held her hands a shoulder-width apart. “This wide.” Grinning, she made a show of winding up, and then flung the shank so hard she fell off balance. Fortunately for him, Melonhead had a bad moment of analysis paralysis and didn’t budge from where he stood. Ella also had pretty good aim. The shank blurred in the air and sunk several centimeters into the plaster, approximately a shoulder-width away from his head. She turned to Manish and shrugged. “More or less.”