Yt pushed me roughly into the corridor, then turned to fire a final e-m charge into the room. I heard a long keening wail like a cork being turned in a bottle that faded into silence. In that silence I heard for the first time the sounds. Gunfire, men shouting, men roaring, engines revving, aircraft overhead, women crying. Women wailing. And everywhere, above and below, the clicking scamper of small plastic feet.

“What’s going on?” Suddenly I was chilled and trembling with dread. “What’s happened?”

“The House of Jodhra is under attack,” Heer said.

I pulled away from yts soft grip.

“Then I have to go, I have to fight, I have to defend us. I am a weapon.”

Heer shook yts head in exasperation and with yts gun hand struck me a ringing blow on the side of my head.

“Stupid stupid! Understand! The Azads, they are killing everything! Your father, your brothers, they are killing everyone. They would have killed you, but they forgot you moved to a new room.”

“Dadaji? Arvind, Kiran?”

Heer tugged me along, still reeling, still dizzy from the blow but more dazed, more stunned by what the nute had told me. My father, my brothers...

“Mamaji?” My voice was three years old.

“Only the geneline.”

We rounded a corner. Two things happened at the same time. Heer shouted, “Down!” and as I dived for the smooth marble I glimpsed a swarm of monkey-machines bounding towards me, clinging to walls and ceiling. I covered my head and cried out with every shot as Heer fired and fired and fired until the gas-cell canister clanged to the floor.

“They hacked into them and reprogrammed them. Faithless, betraying things. Come on.” The smooth, manicured hand reached for me and I remember only shards of noise and light and dark and bodies until I found myself in the back seat of a fast German car, Heer beside me, gun cradled like a baby. I could smell hot electricity from the warm weapon. Doors slammed. Locks sealed. Engine roared.

“Where to?”

“The Hijra Mahal.”

As we accelerated through the gate more monkey-robots dropped from the naqqar khana. I heard their steel lives crack and burst beneath our wheels. One clung to the door, clawing at the window frame until the driver veered and scraped it off on a streetlight.

“Heer... “

Inside it was all starting to burst, to disintegrate into the colours and visions and sounds and glances of the night. My father my head my brothers my head my mother my family my head my head my head.

“It’s all right,” the nute said, taking my hand in yts. “You’re safe. You’re with us now.”

~ * ~