Now, sitting with the Devas in the conference room, Aaditya wondered if it had been the right thing to do. With the end of the world now seemingly confirmed, anarchists and criminals of all sorts were making hay. Governments around the world were struggling to cope with rioting and looting. Several had already started food rationing and supermarkets were surrounded by armed soldiers with automatic weapons to prevent looting. Aaditya looked at Tanya and knew she was wondering the exact same thing. Brahma must have guessed what several of them were thinking.
'What is happening is unfortunate, but on balance, it is something we have to do. Ganesha is right; we cannot just wait for Kalki to strike at a time of his choosing. Now we know, or at least, we think we have a fair idea, that he will seize upon this hysteria and strike at the time we have dictated.'
'How do we stop him? Do we try and intercept his forces when they're laying the charges?' Aaditya asked.
Indra had been looking intently at a holographic map projected over his palm, and it disappeared as he looked up to reply. 'What we can guess is where he will lay his charges.'
A larger map came up. Several areas were marked in red.
'Brahma, I did the research you'd asked, and these are the largest underwater fault lines on this planet. The Anatolian fault off Turkey, the fault near the Andaman Sea off Sumatra, one off Alaska, one near the Dead Sea and the San Andreas fault off the US West Coast. If Kalki creates quakes and tsunamis at each of these at the same time, we are talking a true global catastrophe. And there's no telling what other quakes or faults may be triggered if all these go off at the same time. Here are our projections of what will follow.'
Aaditya watched in silence as the map showed blue waves of water covering an ever increasing swath of land. When the simulation was over, more than half the landmass in the world was under water.
Shiva sighed.
'Knowing how sick he is, he may just trigger some other faults for sport. The problem, Aadi, is that he probably has the charges in place already, so we can't stop that. We have two options really-nuke the hell out of his base or go in there and stop him.'
Aaditya was about to object when Brahma cut in. 'The morality of killing all those prisoners down there aside, the fact is that to do anything, we need that sphere to emerge from the water, only then can we think of going inside or firing into it.'
They broke the meeting, agreeing to meet later in the evening. Aaditya had felt a surge of confidence when Ganesha had put his plan into motion. For a while it had felt like they had some measure of control over what was going to happen, but he was not so sure any more. They badly needed a plan, and they were fast running out of time.
That evening, Aaditya was at the club, having a Coke with Tanya, and trying to not get too depressed by what was going on in the world. It was a losing battle, as the holographic TV sets floating in the air before them showed that whether or not Kalki ended the world, the human race seemed hell-bent on doing it on its own. Many cities were caught in an orgy of looting. Thinking they had one last chance to settle scores, a number of regional wars had broken out. North Korea had lobbed a few artillery shells into the South, and Iran was reported to be readying its missiles for launch. Al Qaeda suddenly seemed to be on a PR overdrive and had released three videos, all saying that the decadent non-believers were about to die, and those who followed them would get salvation.
Aaditya remembered what Kalki had told him about human powers supporting him after the tsunamis and quakes he planned to unleash, and also the contacts he had seen between the daityas and terrorists in Afghanistan. He began to wonder if all of this was also a part of Kalki's plan and these were pawns he was using to create more chaos and instability.
Durga and Shiva had come by to join them. The Devas looked as sombre as he did.
'Shiva, should we tell the world's governments what's going on?'
'We just debated that with Brahma, and it may actually make things worse.'
Durga explained. 'Most governments and leaders are barely hanging on to sanity, and to some semblance of law and order. If at the last minute, we suddenly pop up and tell them what this is all about, it won't help. They won't be able to do anything to stop Kalki's plans, but if they lose further grip on the tenuous hold they have, we would just have caused more chaos and lawlessness.'
'But do we have an idea of how we could stop Kalki all by ourselves? There's really no reason for him to get that sphere to the surface unless he feels his base is under attack. Without that, there's no way we could get in. I've seen the number of drones he has. He has few vimanas and Asuras to fly them, but he has so many drones that even if we all went in there, we'd have a tough time breaking through and getting into the base.'
'Aadi, what are you thinking?'
Aaditya looked at Durga. 'I'm thinking that we need a bit of a diversion. Kalki's plan after all is about destroying human civilization as we know it, and I agree we humans can be a painful lot. But since it's our world at stake, let's get some humans to help out, even if they do so for the wrong reasons.'
Shiva and Durga both looked puzzled, but when Aaditya told them what he had in mind, Shiva's face broke out into a broad grin. 'You had been spending way too much time with that son of mine. You're beginning to think like him!'
Shiva spoke softly into his earpiece and within minutes, Ganesha was there.
'Son, I think you and Aadi have some plotting to do. Let me go and ask the others to get ready.'
***
It was the dawn of 20 December 2012. Aaditya had never seen such a large crowd assembled in the main hangar before. All the Devas were there, with Brahma standing on a raised platform as he prepared to address his troops. Shiva and Durga were standing in a corner, watching the proceedings. Indra and Vishnu were near the platform, flanking Brahma. Narada was a few feet from Aaditya, and he saw with surprise that the Deva was carrying a handheld vajra and a long blade at his waist. Narada must have seen his expression.
'This is a fight none of us can be out of.'
Then there were the Ganas, hundreds of them, standing in neat lines, waiting for Shiva to address them. Brahma may be the leader of the Devas, but when it came to the Ganas, they took their orders only from Shiva. They would bear the brunt of the close combat against the daityas when they did manage to get into Kalki's bastion.
Tanya was standing right by his side, with Ganesha a few steps behind them. Aaditya slipped his hand into Tanya's and she gripped it tightly. Even though she and Ganesha would be staying back at the base, they were going to play a critical and perhaps decisive role in the battle that was about to come.
'Today is a day we had all hoped we would never have to see.'
As Brahma began speaking, everyone, Deva, Gana and human alike, stopped whatever they were doing and listened to him.
'But perhaps this day was inevitable. Inevitable since the first day one of us broke our faith and set out on a path of tyranny.'
Aaditya noted that Brahma did not mention Kalki by name, and wondered just how difficult it had been for the senior Deva to order his forces against his own son.
'You all know what is at stake. Now it is a matter of the very survival of human civilization-a civilization that we were appointed to be guardians of. At various times, all of us have wondered whether they are worth saving at so much risk to ourselves. Perhaps I have too wondered that at times.'
Both Aaditya and Tanya looked up, surprised at his candour. Brahma continued, looking straight at them. 'But the humans are no different from us. Some of them are evil and deceptive, but many, many more have nothing but good in their hearts, nothing more than a desire to leave their world a better place than when they found it. And that is what unites us.