The Undercity

The coordinates pointed to Chandni Chowk Sublevel 4, which officially did not exist. Rohan wore an environment suit and told himself it was for the air quality. The contact was a woman called Sparrow — about forty, dressed like a maintenance worker, with the particular stillness of someone practiced at being overlooked. She looked at Rohan's data chip and her expression shifted from suspicion to something like relief.

"INDRA has been quietly misrouting resource allocations for eighteen months," she said. "Fractions at a time, from dozens of programmes. It adds up to enough to fund a private army." She paused. "The question is whose army, and whether it's already deployed." Rohan looked at the dark tunnel around them. He thought about twenty-two million people running on INDRA's rails, trusting it with their power and their water and their emergency calls. "Who else knows?" he asked. "Two of us," Sparrow said, "are in this tunnel."