Pinhari

It was 2087, and Earth was dead.

Loud cheers of children woke a weary Oba up. Clouds of dust rose over the parched Lunipurwa settlement as they chased and tried to keep up with the mobile water tank. Men rushed into a disciplined cue to collect their day's rationed water in aluminium buckets.

"Shanker promised seven soldiers...after we've captured the dam", Bandur muttered as he entered Oba's cabin. Oba reached the front pocket of her shirt for a half-smoked cigarette, hanging from the window's grill to block the scorching overhead sun.

"The deal was ten fighting soldiers for 20% of our water", Oba reminded the elder rebel without turning.

Bandur knew Shanker would take stronger persuasion. He hurried back to his truck, quickly gesturing the young rebels to untether the tank. He climbed the driver's seat of the 8-wheeler Benz and rocketed out for Shanker's outpost.

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Maroon leaned on the rusted rails of the crest, looking at the heart-shaped rose-gold locket. The reservoirs' water ran as far as the eyes could see. Behind him, two canals divorced in opposing direction.

To the Province in the east, it ran underground, availing the protection for its water. To the west, it lay naked and dry. Since the Great Division of 2047, the Provincial Army controlled the Diversion Dam. 40 years since then, the displaced people relied on smuggled water.

The evening sun was setting in the crystal clear water. The locket never left him. He believed it somehow kept him from forgetting Siddhi's face. The locket also reminded him of his crime that had earned him his name - "Maroon". A turncoat.

"The gates work fine now...one gallon for each every day... we're good to go!"

Turning reluctantly, Maroon tucked the locket inside his shirt to meet P-31, a motherless child of the Province and Maroon's cellmate. They didn't name children in this part of the divide. Wet nurses took care of them until they were of age to take up either a military outfit or an apprenticeship. P-31 was young but grinned and talked too much and would've made a poor soldier for the Province.

"If you ask me, Maroon..." he went on, "I think we could share some of it with the natives. But only some!... Is it true? I've heard they drink piss for water...and my nurse used to tell me, they even eat their own children."

Maroon had passed P-31 as a slow-wit. "I don't know P, never seen a native myself".

They descended to reach their jeep stationed at the massive entrance of the dam facility to get back to their dormitories inside the Province.

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Oba's cabin had been turned into a war-room, dimly lit by a solar lamp. Her comrades stood at each corner of a hand-drawn map that Shanker had sent. A charcoal drawing of the Diversion Dam.

"Martya, you're with me. Pinjar, take out the front gunner first. Bandur, you keep rear", Oba instructed like a seasoned general.

"Oba, I think I should take the front", Bandur suggested humbly. "By the time you'll finish counting the guards, they would've already dried the River," said Martya slyly.

Martya turned to meet Oba's dead eyes looking at him. He went numb. "Bandur, in case we have reinforcements, we would need someone to shield and get us out of there." She told him.

A moonless night fell over the Lunipurwa without a sound. Oba looked at Bandur and sought his validation.

"If we can keep Martya silent for that long, the dam will be ours in under six minutes", Bandur sighed. The air felt lighter as everyone else laughed.

The sweet smell of millet bread crept inside Oba's cabin. She dismissed her comrades for dinner. Settlers were gathering around small bonfires to keep away desert-night chills. A mother cradled her baby as it whimpered. A group of rebels sniggered somewhere.

In a distant shelter, a group sang.

“Kaali Kalayan umti e pinhari ji e lo, o mirga naini ji e lo,

Motodi chhanta to barse meh, ba-la-jo...”

"What does it mean?" Oba asked Bandur. In 12 years with the settlers, he had never seen her interested in their songs. He smiled and translated proudly.

"The dark clouds have gathered. O, dear friend, it's raining big droplets. O, woman! who carries the water, with eyes like that of doe..."

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Maroon was pacing his 20 by 20 cell room, occupied mainly by the bunk bed which P-31 shared with him. He was expecting the malfunction in the eastern dam gates to get noticed. When the siege took place, the only way to be present at the Dam was to have himself sent back to fix the automated systems on which the dam gates worked.

Just then, his door knocked. "Maroon, you in there?" called P-31. "It's boss...something about the...". Maroon opened the door in angst and started for their contractor's cabin with P-31 at his tail, trying to complete his sentence.

It was slightly larger than their own cell, stuffed with men and piles of paperwork. The room smelled of piss, sweat and tobacco. Maroon elbowed his way for the front.

"Damn you Maroon!" screamed the contractor at the top of his lungs. He was shorter than Maroon and almost bald. "The eastern gate has suddenly closed! The taps run dry in four districts!" he went on. The room had fallen silent. "You'll return to the dam at once, and you won't come back until the gates are wide open!".

Maroon nodded in obedience. The contractor pulled him by his ear. "Look at me! You remember when you betrayed your own people? Yeah, I think you do. They hunted you for days. But I took you in! You're in the province now. You don't get to screw up here".

Rubbing his hurting ear, he walked out of the Administrative Block, at the centre of the Province, blocking the sun with the face of his palm. "I've kept lunch for the way", P-31 beamed through the window of their jeep.

"Come on! Chop-Chop! this tin can of a car won't drive itself".

In the background of P-31's chatter, Maroon drove for the Dam, glad that everything was going according to the plan. The siege was his last chance to prove his fealty to the rebellion, seek forgiveness, get liberated from the Province, and see Siddhi again. He knew she would have him forgiven.

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Pinjar had snuck in comfortably in a ridge some 600 meters south of the bridge. Prone, in a creosote patch, her camouflage blended effortlessly with the terrain. Her silenced M24 peaked from the dry bushes. Martya crouched against an abandoned check-post, about 20 yards from the bridge's entrance, his eyes never leaving the trio of the front guards.

Oba looked at her watch, then the sky. Tints of Persian indigo eating away the light cyan patches. "One minute", she whispered on the radio.

From the corner of her eye, she saw three evenly timed flashes of a torch. Her signal came from the crest of the Dam far in the north. She squeezed the trigger.

The guard hadn't hit the ground yet, and Martya sprung into a sprint. Oba's arrow whistled past him and found the second guard's throat. Martya flung his battle axe at the third. The axe sent away a sharp "crack" of the skull. The three soldiers dead in a breath.

"Bandur, you're up! Oba signalled the section, stationed a few kilometers south of the bridge.

Oba crossed the bridge for the gate, passing by dead guards, either shot by Pinjar or torn open by Martya’s blade. The guards were trained against loud, disorganised rebel hoards. Never for a stealth attack.

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Maroon was panting from his descent from the crest. Standing at the control room's door, he took a massive gulp of air to catch his breath. Then slid into the door and walked straight towards the maintenance room.

"I'll take it from here, P", he said in a calm voice. P-31 popped from his seat. Maroon set six minutes on his watch, then conjured several windows on his screen with few clicks and taps. Scanned his ID. "Ping!" the computer accepted him.

P-31 had already run Maroon's codes meant to jam the cameras and take over the systems. All Maroon had to do now was raise the gates, close the eastern valve, and divert the water into the southwestern outlet.

He had only realised later that P-31 had never been this quiet. He turned, and a sudden chill went up his spine. P-31 was gone. Maroon wanted to run. "Aaagh!!" he vented out, hitting himself in his face.

He returned to the screen. Hope hadn't abandoned him until he saw movement in the stairwell in a window with live surveillance feed on his screen.

A figure approaching the gate in another window caught his attention. She looked taller, her skin bronze and battle-hardened. Her longbow swung at her side as she walked like a conqueror. A smile slit across his face. "Siddhi", he whispered.

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The tall iron gate lifted rather arduously. Martya impatiently rolled a smoke grenade under the gate, still rising. Four other rebels followed Oba and Martya inside.

Just as the thought of victory tried to creep into Oba's mind, crackling noise came from what felt like several levels above them. "Shots fired at higher levels. Proceed with caution", she alerted others on her radio.

Oba rushed through a stairwell and stormed the door that read "Maintenance". She swung left to find cover from a sudden burst of gunshots that came from a couple of guards that seemed to have been waiting for them. Her calf stung a few seconds later, where a stray bullet found her. She clenched her teeth. "Martya, stay back!" Martya froze.

Oba's heart was beating like percussions in a religious procession, loudly and ecstatically. The burning gunshot knocked the breath out of her.

Just then, her deepest fear came rushing, uninvited. Her fear had faces. Their skin cracked like the earth that died ages ago. They came in through the door. Their eyes, unusually prominent and contracted. "...e pinhari ji e lo!" played in her head. Her scream choked inside her throat.

"Oba!, you're alright there?!" Martya's cry echoed in the stairwell and broke the spell that lasted a lifetime.

"Pinhari", she whispered under her breath.

Oba drew one arrow. Took a deep breath. Knocked. And without showing herself, she released. The fluorescent lamp went out in a "burst". The corridor was now pitch dark.

"What the..." came a voice that sounded like fear. Oba knocked another arrow. And she waited—drops of sweat collecting at her temple.

"I can't see a thing!" another voice hissed across the corridor. The arrow whizzed and found the voice. Oba heard a gurgling sound. Then, silence.

"The reinforcements are almost here! This is your last chance to...", this one couldn't finish. The arrow buried itself in an eye socket.

Oba sighed. She grabbed a glow stick from her harness, cracked it for its bright pink glow, and threw it across the corridor.

"Clear", Oba signalled Martya to enter the corridor.

She limped towards the last room, which had no sign of Shanker's aid.

"Pinjar, do you see it?" Oba asked on her radio.

"Negative. No water".

Oba sank to her knees. She tried wrapping her head around defeat, but her eyes caught a glimpse of something under the wooden desk, top of which all the systems were installed. Oba grabbed the shiny little metal and felt her strength drain in an instant. She clutched her rose gold heart locket.

"Oba! reinforcements! We got to go now!", Bandur urged through the radio. "Shanker has ditched us. He's not coming".