She paid with cash. Ever since Taneer had gone into hiding they had paid for everything with cash. Her beloved had told her that in some parts of the world cash was no longer accepted for large pur chases. To the best of his knowledge, however, that was not yet true anywhere in Asia. The bag containing her purchase slung deftly over one arm, she left the store and sauntered out into the mall's towering atrium. It was a wonderland that as a child she had not even imagined could exist, except in dreams.
Like translucent balloons, automated ads drifted through the mul iple converging halls of the mall, rising and falling from floor to floor as easily as they negotiated side passages and entryways. Electronics kept them banned from certain areas such as the children's playground and the food court. The latter was a favorite stop of hers. Growing up, she had never imagined there could be so many different kinds of food. Growing up, she had never imagined there could be so much food.
Though she could now pay for whatever kind of dish she wanted, as often as she wanted, she never left as much as a crumb on her plate. Not even when sampling such exotic cuisine as game from Africa or chili from America. Even when venturing into Starbeans, she made herself finish every last sip of coffee concoctions that were sometimes too rich for a digestive system that had evolved to cope with far simpler fare.
Employing built-in aerogel cameras, adverts designed to appeal specifically to the young, female, and middle-to-upper-class zeroed in on her repeatedly. The constant battle between manufacturers of pocket-sized ad-blockers and the designers of mobile advertisements had spurred technological leaps among both. Depahli rarely used the blocker that Taneer had bought for her. Truth be told, she enjoyed enough of the ads to allow them access. Even the ones for the omnipresent matrimonial services that allowed her to compare, fancifully of course, other prospective suitors to Taneer. Invariably, all were found wanting.
Not all the ads she walked through were gender-specific. The expensive three-dimensional one for the new Maruti Hathi 4x4 skirted the edge of acceptability. Until appropriate regulations had been put in place, mobile adverts had diverted some people to their deaths by blocking their vision or unsettling their sense of balance.
More noise than usual in front of her drew her attention. It was coming from the vicinity of the food court, her intended destination. Suddenly the milling, well-dressed crowd that had been promenading noisily in both directions surged toward her. The shouts of angry men formed a low counterpoint to the screams of women and the anxious cries of confused children.
A handful of men and women formed a tight knot that forced its way through the crowd. Most but not all of them were young. As she ducked to one side and sought shelter against the transparent polycarbonate wall that kept patrons from tumbling into the open, multistory atrium, several loud pops were distinctly audible above the noise of the crowd.
Ignoring the scattering, panicky mallers, the retreating men and women kept up a continuous running fire on their pursuers-half a dozen khaki-clad mall security personnel. Dark as an African but wearing a multihued cap over his shaved skull, one squat, mustachioed runner took a stun pellet in the right leg. Grimacing, he went down in the center of the walkway, right in front of the crouching Depahli. A moment later two of the security guards were all over him. The look on their faces was known to her. It was one she recognized all too well from her childhood. They very much wanted to beat and kick the man with the now paralyzed leg. But there were too many witnesses, and they had to settle for roughly taking him into custody.
The moving fight flowed in a steady curve around the fourth-floor level, finally petering out near the carpark exit. Security made one more arrest, but the other intruders managed to get away. All around Depahli shaken couples and families with crying children were rising to their feet. Talk of what had happened was terse and quickly put aside. After all, it was not as if such things didn't happen in Sagramanda every day.
The nature of the intruders and their offense became clear as soon as she entered the food court. McDonald's and Pizza Hut had been targets, but so had Cum-In Chicken, Flash Satay, and other non-American fast food outlets. A quick survey of those that had been vandalized and those that had been spared gave more than a subtle clue to the agenda of the attackers. All of those outlets that had been despoiled served meat. Those whose offerings were strictly vegetarian had been spared.
The attackers had been members of one of several underground but well-known radical vegan groups. Perhaps the Pushkar Commandos, she mused. Their members had been much in the news lately, ever since their fire-bomb attack on the offices of a certain national concern that had its headquarters on the east coast and specialized in the cloning and genetic engineering of avian foodstock. Having no sympathy for their aims, she deliberately and defiantly sought out an undamaged outlet that served not only meat, but beef. Bright, stinging memories of preadolescent starvation tend to trump whatever philosophies purport to discredit particular kinds of nourishment.
She ordered a double burger and fries, and to wash it all down, a Nathmull's teacola.
Sitting there, watching the crowd recover from the shock of the intrusion and temporarily free from the persistent drifting ads that were kept outside the dining area, she had time to ponder how drastically her life had changed. From a future promising nothing better than an arranged marriage to another Untouchable like herself, or worse, indentured servitude in a child sweatshop or outright sale as a lifetime servant to an abusive family, she had come to this. Sitting in the Chowringhee Mall eating American-style food, gold dangling from her ears and neck and encircling her fingers, a bag of designer clothing resting at her feet. Her perfectly made-up mouth contorted into a grimace of self-reflection, but not even that could distort her beauty. Not too many years ago she would have been abysmally grateful had someone just given her the shopping bag.
Gold, jewelry, clothing. An apartment, albeit a secret one, with a real induction stove, and a vit, and a molly player. A car, surely, was in her future, though until things were resolved her beloved insisted it was safer for the both of them to continue to rely on public transportation, where their movements would be far more difficult to track. And Taneer Buthlahee. She had him, too. Nothing would or could make her let go of any of that.
The two men did not ask permission to sit down opposite her. Like her, they were in their mid-twenties. They were fashionably dressed. Both wore gleaming wrist communicator/chronographs that reeked of money. So did their attitudes.
"I don't think I've seen in you in here before," said the first. He made it sound like a challenge.
His companion grinned, showing perfectly capped (or regenerated) white teeth. He had a very thin, movie-star mustache and was to all appearances as confident in his looks as in his money. "I know I haven't. There is no way I would forget you, if I had seen you."
She bit down into the last of the hamburger, wishing the curried ketchup were hot enough to match the heat rising inside her. But she kept her voice level. "That's all right. You can pretend."
Sudden confusion did not diminish the man's smile. "Pretend what?"
"That you've never seen me."
Now the smile did fade, though the man's companion laughed appreciatively. "Looks and wit! Where are you from, beautiful?" Resting his chin in one hand, he leaned over the table and did his best to establish unbreakable eye contact with her.