91 A Fire Without Smoke

It was raining hard when Samir, Rani, and Amrita woke up the next morning. The air was damp and cold. A tongue of water slid under the makeshift door and slowly advanced into the room, wriggling as it passed over the holes and cracks in the concrete. After they got up, they all stared for a while at that shiny, translucent tongue moving towards them slowly but surely.

Rani and Amrita prepared breakfast while Samir attacked the water with a red plastic dustpan. The three of them ate a hurried breakfast. Then they lit a fire in the middle of the room, using the firewood they'd sent in from the New World during the night. Sunil would have to wait a little before Samir made good on his promise.

It was a good moment to introduce Amrita to the New World; Rani wanted to accompany her so that she would feel safe. Samir was left on his own in the concrete box that was his home. For a while he watched Rani and Amrita sleeping on the mats. There were no signs of any distress or joy, and it quickly became boring.

He got up and checked there was no one around the house. The rain was coming down so hard it was splashing mud into the air. It was very unlikely someone would come to visit. Samir got out the metal cashbox from its hiding place. He sat down with it at the table and opened it.

They were rich! They had more money they'd ever had. They had more cash than their parents had ever had! It was more than he and Rani would have earned in a full year of working for Mr Go.

When Samir and Rani had moved into the unfinished house on the shore of Karanja Creek, Samir had taken the precaution of finding out about the house's status at the town office. It had been abandoned; its owner, a businessman, had died of natural causes, and his family was far, far away, some as far as Europe. Taxes hadn't been paid, and if they continued to be unpaid the city would seize the property, and sell it to someone else.

Samir was determined to be that person. The property included a lot of space around the house. He knew he could easily sell a few land parcels and raise enough money to finish the house. It was a good house, two floors, designed by a good architect - Samir could tell that even from the bare concrete shell.

At the town office, they had told him he could get both city mains and power connected at the snap of the fingers, provided the snap was accompanied by a hefty bribe. And so, owning that house became his dream, his secret dream - he didn't talk about it to Rani. There was too much that could go wrong in the meantime.

As he looked at the cashbox full of money, money that would become worthless in less than a week, Samir felt his dream was within reach, yet slipping away with each passing moment. He had to wait until a full hour had passed since Rani and Amrita had left for the New World: Rani had insisted on a full ten hours in Kulaba to make Amrita feel at home.

Samir spent that time making a moneybelt out of small clear plastic bags and electrician's tape; he'd stolen a roll of it from the office when he was still working for Mr Go. He put it on around his waist, made a few adjustments, put it around his waist again. He was massaging it into a shape that wouldn't show under his clothes when he became aware of someting really, really odd.

The fire they'd lit to warm the place up and dry the air a little should have gone out a long time ago. It hadn't. It was still burning, and wasn't even close to going out. Samir stared at it and became aware that it made surprisingly little smoke. It was lit in the middle of the room, and there should have been clouds of smoke inside by now. There were none. There was a faint, pleasant smell of burning wood, the occasional bluish grey wisp rising from the orange flames - and that was it.

Samir frowned. The same firewood emitted the standard amount of smoke in the New World, he was sure of it. Well, come to think of it, maybe a little less. It did also seem to burn a little longer; both Rani and him had noticed that very early on, but put it down to the timeflow difference.

And didn't the fire feel hotter than it should have felt? He was standing at least four steps away, yet it felt as if he was standing right next to it. He frowned, and experimented by moving around the flames, getting closer, then retreating. It definitely gave more warmth than a fire of that size should! It was amazing. He would have to investigate it later.

Because right here and now, he had other things to do. He shook Rani awake as soon as the full hour was up.

"How's Amrita doing over there? All right?" he asked her.

"She loves it! She's instantly made friends with Madan and Kali and I can tell she will be very good at taking care of the babies. She -"

"Rani," interrupted Samir. "I'm very happy to hear that. But I have to go and attend to some business, right away."

"In this rain?"

"It really can't wait."

"What is it?"

"I have to go to the Colonial Office. Maybe at least they'll register our mint this time."

"I really don't know why you're bothering to do that," Rani said. "We can't mint coins here. It just isn't possible."

"I know. We'll mint them in the New World."

"From what?"

"Last time I was there, Madan had found copper a few days' trip to the east. Where there is copper, there is at least some silver. We'll mint the coins in Kulaba, and send them over. Twice as much as we need, because our wonderful new government will be taking half."

"Half? I didn't know that. Really? A full fifty percent?"

"Yes. That's the price we have to pay for making our own money. It's not much different, really, from what it used to be. Rani, I really need to go. Please watch over everything here."

"I will," Rani promised him, and he left.

Her eyes followed him out of the door, then they settled on Amrita. She was sleeping very peacefully. Rani thought she could see a hint of a smile on her lips. Yes, after Mumbai the New World felt like paradise.

The only thing that troubled her in the New World was Madan's behavior. It implied ulterior motives, a secret plan. She wished Madan and Kali weren't living many miles away, back on Earth. She would have liked to meet them in the world she'd been originally born into. In her mind, she used to call it the real world. But which world was more real?

After all, everything she'd ever known or felt primarily existed in her own mind. People that had died still existed in her mind. Places that didn't exist still existed in her mind, just because she'd read about them in a book. Once her New World experiences took up more of her mindspace than the Old World, the New World would become the real world, by default.

She had already seen it happen to Krishnan, a young nephew of hers. It had taken place several years earlier. Using a combination of emotional blackmail and incessant nagging, Krishnan got presented with a game console by his parents. Within a year, he turned into an obese neurotic zombie in spite of always choosing handsome and generally positive characters in the games he played.

His parents had threatened to confiscate the console when Krishnan's school grades started slipping, so he made very sure he got very good grades - he wasn't stupid - and continued to play video games until his eyes popped. He got very good. He won a couple of amateur tournaments, and signed onto a professional e-sports team. The day before they were to take part in a major contest he died of a heart attack, at seventeen years of age.

Getting good at video games involved playing them for over a hundred hours a week. Getting good at playing video games, fast, often involved Krishnan staying up for two nights in a row. It wasn't possible to miss a night's sleep, and maintain top reflexes and focus without some help. The help involved plenty of sugar in all shapes and forms along with drugs.

A combination of sugar and crystal meth turned fatal for Krishnan's heart just as he was about to realize his dream. The world he had chosen to inhabit had killed him. It had to! All of Earth's religions, basic common sense warned against mental relocation to a new world. It ultimately meant being banished from everything reassuringly familiar and comfortable.

Rani knew she already was a different person that she'd been before the appearance of the cube. She couldn't define what that difference was, but she felt it strongly all the same. She was already looking at everything in a different way. It felt like the right way, but so had Krishnan's, to him, right before he died.

Just like Krishnan, she had begun to feel happier in the New World than in the dreary reality of her Old World existence. It truly was an existence, it wasn't a life. She'd often felt like an ant moving with a column of other ants, performing set sequences every day. The New World felt so much better. She was so much happier.

But when she looked at the mirror that hung over the wash basin, she saw she was changing just like Krishnan had changed. She already had that secret glow in her eye that signaled esoteric wisdom far beyond the reach of average humans. She hadn't gained weight, on the contrary, but there was something about her face that reminded her of Krishnan, something that couldn't be explained away by the fact that he was a relative of hers.

She hoped Samir would be back soon. She needed to talk to him. She turned away from the mirror, and looked at the sleeping Amrita.

"I wish you were here with me," she whispered.

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