Green Eyed Girl

Singh shot the girl, but only because Lee made him do it.

"Miss another and it'll be your job on the line," Lee said, and Singh couldn't have that, so he turned his gun on the girl and fired off four shots like he'd practiced on the range. Heart, head, heart, head—fatality. It was the girl's fault anyway, Singh reasoned, as she slumped forward, all the muscles slack like a deflating blow-up doll. There were signs everywhere saying that trespassers would be shot on sight, not only in Hindi but in English and Cantonese too. You'd have to be some kind of idiot to miss them.

"Nice work," said Lee, sounding impressed—a rarity. Big, buff Lee wasn't the type to give praise easily. He walked over to the fallen girl and applied the toe of his boot to her shoulder. "Clear shot, in and out. Dead before she hit the ground. The boss'll be pleased to hear it."

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Singh hid his still-shaking hands behind his back. Think about the boss instead. That was a good thing, right? If the boss heard about his shooting prowess, he might invite Singh to dinner. And if he invited Singh to dinner, he might also introduce Singh to his daughter, the raven-haired, slim shouldered creature Singh had only ever seen from afar, but nightly dreamed of taking into his arms. Just that thought alone was enough to drown out the part of him squeaking out, You just shot someone, Singh, you just shot..."You really think so?" he asked.

"Yeah, maybe." Lee shrugged. "Hell, if that chick hadn't tripped the alarm, this whole place could've gone up like Mumbai '77. You just saved the boss's weapon."

"I wasn't doing it for..." but Lee's cool expression told him he shouldn't elaborate. Singh had been a leftie in the old days, before the Mumbai nuke-plosion, when it was still possible to be a leftie. He still didn't like war, or guns—was vehemently opposed to them, in theory—but currently it was impossible to avoid them. You either killed or were killed; there wasn't room for talking things out or seeking a diplomatic solution, the courses of action Singh had previously recommended.

A decade ago he'd been attending student protests, waving colourful 'peace' banners and writing cross editorials for socialist newsletters about the state of the government. Now he was a security guard schmuck with a gun, who carried a torch for the impossibly beautiful daughter of a local warlord. Principles? He'd had them once, but the lines between what was right and what kept him alive had blurred long ago.

"What is his magic weapon anyway?" he asked, turning away from the dead girl and the widening pool of blood that surrounded her. Cleaning her up wasn't his job—the boss had a garbage crew to do that. The guilt he felt was less than he'd expected. After a month working for the boss, he was becoming a monster; he fit in well with the likes of Lee. "I don't even know what we're protecting."

"High tech. Real high tech." Lee joined him and together they walked for the main complex, a huge domed building like an aeroplane hanger that dominated the boss's stronghold. With his meagre, E-level clearances, Singh had never been inside the main complex, but he'd often seen the boss and his daughter chatting outside. She always seemed at ease amongst tanks and weaponry—the sight of her leaning against the hangar, or toting a machine gun, always made him feel a little sad inside. But he couldn't blame her. She'd been raised in the wrong place, in the wrong world.

"I figure it's some kind of super computer," Lee commented, after a time. "No one cares if you see tanks, but super computers—you got to be careful with them. Wrong person gets the password, and we may as well shoot ourselves."

Singh shuddered. "I hope he never has to use it."

Lee gave Singh a look, a look Singh recognised as Lee's humour the crazy liberal stare. "You said that about that gun too, if I remember right. But look at you now, you're a regular soldier."

He barked out a laugh but was cut short by the sound of gunfire, coming from the outskirts of the base. Squinting into the distance, Singh couldn't see a thing—there was too much dust, billowing up from behind a shed. Without a backwards look at Lee, he shot off for the sound, ready for anything. Forget the weapon—the boss's daughter is on the complex somewhere, he thought. I'd protect her with my life.

The stronghold had once been a proper military base, run by the Indian government, filled with proper Indian soldiers, but the boss had found it empty a few years before and converted it into his private fort. There were still plentiful weapons holed up in the base's equipment lockers, enough to ensure that the boss wouldn't be troubled by any uprisings in the decades to come. Singh had always thought the place was virtually impenetrable. The only people to get through were the odd stray now and then, like the girl he'd shot. People lost on their own, who were looking for food, or weapons, or even just conversation, the company of others.

He pounded down the dusty path and skidded sideways behind a burnt out tank when another round of shots rang out. Lee was a half-second behind him. They breathed together, their backs pressed to the flaking caterpillar treads. Singh heard his heart in his ears, the sudden rush of adrenalin making him muscles tight with excitement. He turned to look at Lee; the big man's face was blank, his eyes dark and intense. Lee had once been a solider; he lived for this kind of thing.

"I'll deal with this. I can call back-up down if I need it," Lee whispered. "You need to go back to the complex and the dorms and make sure that everyone who can't fight stays inside."

"How many of them are there? You can't ask me to leave you here...I could help—"

"Go, Singh."

It was an order. Singh pushed off the tank and fled for the dorms. The sound of gunfire echoed in his ears all the way.

There was something special about that girl. He'd thought that the first time he'd seen her, standing alone by the hangar, a clipboard in her hand, talking to Lobe, the boss's second-in- command. Lobe was a little Tamil guy who'd been some kind of religious terrorist before Mumbai went nuclear, although for what religion Singh wasn't clear. Rumour had it that he'd killed a lot of people before the war and had probably killed a lot more afterwards. Singh figured the guy had probably liked it, too.

Lobe was a murderer, maybe even a serial killer, but the girl's expression was stern, like a school teacher readying to punish a disobedient pupil. Like she didn't care what and who Lobe was. It could have been the fact that her father was Lobe's boss, but Singh doubted it. Something about the firmness of her tone—Singh, standing guard some thirty metres away, could just hear what she was saying—suggested that she would behave like that toward Lobe if her father had been a mere fisherman.

"I will not permit you access to any of the weapon's functions," she told Lobe briskly. She had a funny, mishmash accent, the kind Indian kids who went to foreign boarding schools got. "You certainly cannot examine it without written authority and access codes."

"I lost them," Lobe growled. "The boss said it would be—"

"The boss," the girl replied, mimicking Lobe's emphasis, "would have spoken to me directly if that was the case. There are protocols to follow."

"All I want, girl, is to check the systems information in the—"

"Do you want me to tell him that you came here?" she asked, cutting him off.

Lobe went silent, and Singh knew the little power-game was over. She was a tiny girl, slim and pretty, but there was a strange, immutable solidness about her; she was not the kind of girl to give an inch. Least of all to a man like Lobe.

"The weapon is not to be used by anyone but the boss," said the girl, in that strange accent of hers. "It is not a toy. You are by no stretch of the imagination intelligent enough to understand or be entrusted with its power. I will install several new protocols to make sure the weapon is safe."

Lobe looked fierce, like he was thinking of hitting her, but instead he turned around and stamped off. The girl yawned into her hand and then giggled in a sweet way, all the sternness wiped from her features. She was wonderfully pretty, with all that dark hair, and her eyes, Singh saw now, were an amazing shade of green that glowed from within. And they did, really, he wasn't just romanticising things because he was already falling for her; some trick of the light made them shine and sparkle. A girl who could talk back to Lobe, he thought, a girl who could talk down to Lobe...she was really something else.

She wrote something on her clipboard and looked up, caught him staring, and smiled. It was a brief, easy smile, the kind you'd give a stranger in a bus—back in the old days, when they still had busses—but it made Singh shake in his shoes. He'd known then, in that instant: this is the girl I want. This is the girl I need. This is the girl I could lay down my life for without question.

Singh was thinking of her as he sprinted around the perimeter of the dorms, the rumble of machine-gun fire behind him. He would have liked to save her or protect her, do something, anything, that would prove to her that he wasn't just another of her father's weak-minded grunts....No wonder Lee thinks so little of me, he reflected, spinning around a corner, in the middle of a warzone, all I can think about are girls.

When he'd moved in, the boss had modified the original military alarm system, adding accessibility points all around the base. There was one, Singh remembered, right at the centre-point of the dorms' walls, where the women's and men's wings branched out into a wide L-shape. A handful of kids—kid-soldiers—stood idly by the wall as Singh dashed by, their guns looking weirdly incongruous in their small, sweaty hands. One started forward as Singh reached for the alarm's lever.

"You mad, mate? You better have a reason for—"

Singh yanked the alarm; the siren wailed into life, drowning out the rest of the kid's protest. "Trouble at the west gates," he shouted. "Insurgents. A whole army of them, I think. Lee's there, needs back-up. Needs...everyone...."

If the kid had looked sceptical before, he seemed convinced by the urgency in Singh's voice. With a curl of his hand he summoned his friends; shortly, they were bounding off toward the battle. Their eagerness was somehow upsetting, and Singh felt a twinge: old fashioned liberal-guilt, he figured, the shame that came with being better off than other people. What was I doing when I was their age? he wondered, watching them go. Trying to get As on my school work. Fighting with my parents. Taking trumpet lessons....

"You there. Guard. What's going on?"

He turned around. It was the boss's daughter.

She held his arm as they walked down the steps into the base's underground tunnel system. Not because she needed help but because, Singh sensed, she wanted to keep him on a tight rein.

From above ground came the sounds of grenades and machine-gun fire, the thud of booted feet as soldiers poured out of the dormitories to join the fight. The tunnel's roof, corrugated iron braced with metal sleepers, trembled with each explosion, letting loose a shower of dust and dirt. Singh wondered what it would take to bring the whole lot down on top of them—probably not much.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"I've a contact. You'll come with me."

Singh couldn't begin to guess at what sort of contact spent their time lurking in disused tunnels. He followed her, one hand on the gun at his hip, bringing up the rear like he usually did when partnered with Lee on guard duty. She had a funny way of walking, the girl of his dreams; her back was impossibly straight, and she almost marched along, moving quickly across the uneven floor. He was having trouble keeping up with her without breaking into a jog.

"What's your name?" he asked. It was an impulsive thing to do: she was his boss's daughter, and he was just a lowly guard, and it wasn't done on the base to make small talk. But there was a battle going on, and he got the feeling that she wouldn't report him for his insolence. Not while he was here protecting her.

"Jay. I am Jay. There are access restrictions on any further information."

He was taken aback. "Oh. Sorry. I'm Singh. I'm-I'm just a guard. From Mumbai originally. Well, I was born there. I-I'm—are you okay?"

She'd staggered, gripping the wall with one hand. Singh reached out to help her but she pushed away his hand, groaning. The tunnel's lighting system—fluorescent tubes swinging nakedly along a rut in the roof—suddenly cut out, but not before he'd seen that something in her eyes had changed. They weren't green anymore but black, and had seemed to flicker, just for a second, before they were plunged into darkness.

It wasn't a trick of the light, it was definitely some sort of high-tech gear. Colour-changing contacts or implants, most probably. Was that why her eyes always seemed so bright? Singh wondered, and felt cheated. She's the daughter of a warlord, he reminded himself. She was never meant for a man like you.

She reached for his arm in the darkness.

"What do we do now?" he asked. "We can't possibly see—"

"We continue. You will have to trust me."

And so she led him on, along tunnels that stopped and twisted abruptly. Singh couldn't understand how she could guide him in the darkness—even when his eyes adjusted to the light, he couldn't see enough to navigate more than a few steps in any direction. But Jay strode on, impossibly quickly; maybe those implants of hers had some sort of infra-red vision built it.

"What about your father?" he asked, when the silence between them became unbearable. The explosions had long ago faded away into the distance; he guessed that they were beyond the base's walls now. "Does he know about this?"

"My father? Is that what he calls himself?" Her strange green eyes glowed.

"That's—" Singh paused. That was what every guard on the base had said: she was the boss' daughter. But there were innumerable rumours circulating through the dormitories, and so few of them held any truth. "I thought he was," he said lamely. "That you were. Aren't you? You're so special to him, you have so much access, I assumed that—"

"I control access. I have all the codes."

"Yes, I know. So I thought—"

A noise from beyond—the sound of human movement—made him stop short. He pressed himself to the wall, pulling the startled girl after him. "Quiet. They might be insurgents," he whispered, holding her in his arms. "This far down the tunnels, we'd never know."

"They are insurgents," said the girl matter-of-factly.

"What? How do you know?"

"Because I control access, because I have all the codes. And because this is where they arranged to meet me."

Singh felt sick. "To meet you? You betrayed the base, your fath—the boss? All those people up there, who are probably being slaughtered as we speak."

"I did not betray them. I have no alliances. All I have are access and codes. But my security has been compromised and now I must move on from here."

"Your security?" But he understood now. Her glowing eyes, her strange walk, her indifference to Lobe's rage and the lives lost on the battlefield above their heads. The easy perfection of her features, as if they'd been carved, as if they'd been designed. And they had been, of course, because she wasn't helping to guard the boss's weapon. She was the weapon.

Bile rose in his throat as he remembered the girl he'd shot, that four-shot fatality, whose only crime had been ignoring the warning signs that ringed the base. A girl he'd shot for this girl, who wasn't even a girl at all but some sort of robotised vessel, a geek engineer's attempt at creating a Pygmalion ideal. Heart, head, heart, head, and all for the love of a machine.

He said, "You should have told me. I did things—"

"Quiet," said the weapon. "Things are moving."

The insurgents—and these were real insurgents, not the sad, starving fools who clambered over the walls in the hope of finding shelter—turned out to be a trio of stocky, haggard-looking men, their faces dark with an equal mix of camouflage paint and tunnel dirt. Dim lights glowed from the fronts of their helmets. They were smaller than Singh had expected and disappointingly unimpressive; they had none of Lee's battle-savvy cool. He'd expected them to look like the soldiers he'd seen in the movies all those years ago, weapons strapped to every limb, ready to die for their country. But instead... instead, Singh realised, they looked more like him. Skinny, wary and bone- achingly tired—post-apocalyptic India would make anyone jumpy.

They did have guns, all pointed at him, but when they saw he wasn't in a fit shape to make a move they lowered them.

"Your little man, he is not going to fight us?" The oldest insurgent, presumably the leader, turned to Jay for the answer. He was speaking English, but in the slow, enunciated way that American tourists did. (The way American tourists had once done, Singh mentally corrected himself.) "He looks angry."

"Are you?" Jay asked.

"No," Singh said. He wondered how she could be so calm, so blasé about all of this. Had the insurgents managed to hack into her systems from afar, and somehow remove her old indignance for authority? Well, why couldn't they, he thought; they'd made her betray the boss, after all. Getting a robotic weapon to defect was probably just as easy as flipping a switch. He had to stop thinking of her as human, as a moral creature. She didn't have to justify her choices. "I'm not angry," he said, which was true. All he felt now was depression.

The insurgents muttered amongst themselves, satisfied with his answer. "We'll take you back to camp," said the leader, taking Jay by the wrist. "He can sound the alarm when we are gone. It should take him an hour or two to navigate the tunnels in the dark."

Singh narrowed his eyes. "And what then? Are you going to make her blow us up? There are women and children on our base—we aren't just soldiers. You can't make her attack—"

"You are uninformed," Jay said, turning back to look at him. Her green eyes were oddly dull now. "I am not that sort of weapon. I am a communications link. I am what connected your little base to the outside world, to the developments of the nations beyond India. I updated you on the technological advancements of the people beyond your walls, on possible threats and mutinies. Without me you will be stranded."

"Without her, your boss will be forced to comply with our truce," said the leader, curling his lip. "We can help each other, see."

"It's all politics, then? The battle, the...kidnapping," he couldn't bear to say the word: defection. "You're doing this to what, pool resources? To make allies?"

"What would I care about politics," said Jay, but kindly—or in a tone as kind as a machine could muster. "Go, now. You will inform your boss of what has transpired here."

She left and the insurgents followed. One of them, younger than the others, eyed him suspiciously as they rounded the corner, as if still expecting him to put up some sort of fight, a last ditch attempt to regain the base's honour. Singh didn't move. When their footsteps had faded away, he slumped down against the wall. A messenger boy—was that all he was? A poor dumb guard, a pawn. Once, long ago, he had championed the ideals of freethinking and rationality, but now? He was a man who'd kill an innocent for some muddled fantasy of love and loyalty; he'd joined the boss and his militia of psychopaths because it was safer and easier to become one of them than to try and survive alone. He had no more ethics, really, than the machine.

But it didn't have to be that way, did it?

He waited for a half-hour in the tunnel, killing time with thoughts of mutiny. The sounds of the battle were barely audible now, a faint rumble in the earth. Once he was certain that Jay and the insurgents were gone, he followed in the direction they'd left.

Where he was heading, Singh wasn't sure—but anywhere was better than here.◊

RJ Astruc is an Irish-African author currently based in Australia. Her fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Abyss & Apex, Andromeda Spaceways and like a bajillion other places. Her new novel, Harmonica + Gig, is coming out in 2008.