Chapter 2: Squad Mein Swagat (Welcome to the Squad)

The fifteen minutes passed the way fifteen minutes passed when you were waiting for something that might kill you — slowly, specifically, each second arriving with the deliberate pace of a Mumbai local train approaching the platform: you could see it coming, you could hear it coming, and the coming took forever even though the forever was only minutes.

Karthik used the time. Used it the way a gamer used the loading screen — checking the interface, reading the fine print, the fine-print-reading being the habit that had saved him in every game he'd ever played because the fine print was where the developers hid the important information, the hiding being the test: the players who read survived, the players who skipped died, the dying being the penalty for impatience.

The wrist device — which Karthik had started calling the WristNav because naming things was how he processed them — had more than stats. It had a map (currently showing only his white room and a corridor leading to a large space labelled "ASSEMBLY"). It had an inventory screen (empty, the empty mocking him). It had a skills tree (locked, greyed out, the greying being the game's way of saying: you haven't earned this yet). And it had a chat function — a messaging system that showed one channel: "Squad 7."

Squad 7. The squad that he had been assigned to without consultation, the without-consultation being the military logic that games borrowed from armies: you did not choose your squad, your squad was chosen for you, the choosing being the algorithm's decision and the algorithm's decision being final.

The chat was active. Messages scrolling:

[Zara_Khan]: anyone know what's happening? I was at a concert in Delhi

[VikramS]: Chennai. Engineering lab. Then white light.

[Priya_R]: Same. Bangalore. Was sleeping. Woke up here.

[DJ_Beats]: Bhai log, yeh kya scene hai? Main Jaipur mein tha. DJ set chal raha tha. Ab yahan hoon.]

Four people. Four messages. Four Indians — the Indian-ness confirmed by the cities, the language, the "bhai log" that was the Hindi-speaking gamer's universal greeting. Karthik was the fifth. Squad 7 had five members, all Indian, all apparently abducted from different cities on the same night.

He typed: [KarthikA]: Mumbai. Birthday party. Old Monk ki wajah se laga ki hallucination hai but this feels real.

Mumbai. Birthday party. Thought it was an Old Monk hallucination but this feels real.

[Zara_Khan]: lol Old Monk. Definitely real tho. My wrist hurts where this thing is.

[VikramS]: Stats check karo. I have Strength 22, Magic 25. Class: Mage-Candidate.

[DJ_Beats]: Mere paas Reflexes 28 hai. Class nahi mila abhi. Tum logon ko mila?

[Priya_R]: I got Scout-Candidate. Reflexes 24, Stamina 22. This is like Valorant but terrifying.

Karthik checked his stats again. Strength 12, Reflexes 15, Stamina 18, Magic 8, Willpower 14, Recovery 20. No class assigned. The no-class being — the no-class was either a glitch or a distinction and the distinction worried him because in every RPG he'd played, the unclassed character was either the protagonist (special, chosen, destined for a unique path) or the cannon fodder (generic, expendable, destined for the tutorial death that taught other players what not to do).

[KarthikA]: No class yet. Recovery 20 is my highest. Magic 8. Basically I'm a punching bag that heals fast.

[Zara_Khan]: lmaooo punching bag. Ok but recovery is actually OP in late game. Trust.

The "trust" — the trust of a gamer who understood meta, who understood that the stats that looked weak in early game became devastating in late game because the game's design rewarded patience and the patience was the grind and the grind was the game.

A chime. The WristNav vibrated — the vibration different from a phone's (the phone-vibration being diffuse, the WristNav-vibration being targeted, the targeting hitting a specific nerve cluster in the wrist that made the entire arm tingle, the tingling being the device's particular method of demanding attention).

ASSEMBLY IN 2 MINUTES. REPORT TO CORRIDOR. FOLLOW DIRECTIONAL MARKERS.

The wall of the white room slid open. Not opened — slid, the sliding being seamless, the seam having been invisible until the wall decided to become a door, the deciding being the room's agency and the room's agency being: the room controlled what you saw, what you accessed, what you knew, and the controlling was the game's first lesson: you are not in control. The game is.

Karthik stepped into the corridor. The corridor was — the corridor was not white. The corridor was metal. Grey metal, the grey of spacecraft in science fiction films, the grey that said: this is not a hospital, this is a vessel, you are inside something that moves through space. The metal was cool underfoot — Karthik was barefoot, the barefoot being another detail he'd not registered until now: his shoes were gone, his clothes had been replaced with a grey jumpsuit (the jumpsuit being the uniform, the uniform being the equaliser: everyone in the same grey, the same bare feet, the same wrist device, the individuality stripped and the stripping being the military's first act — remove the self, install the soldier).

Other doors were sliding open. Other recruits stepping into the corridor. Karthik counted — eight, twelve, twenty, more. All in grey jumpsuits. All barefoot. All with WristNavs. All with the particular expression that combined terror and curiosity in the proportions that gamers specifically produced: more curiosity than terror, the more-curiosity being the gamer's conditioning — new environment? Explore it. New system? Learn it. New threat? Assess it. The assessing being the default and the default overriding the panic because the panic was the noob response and these were not noobs, these were people who had spent years in virtual worlds being killed and respawning and the killing-and-respawning had trained them for this particular moment: the moment when the virtual became real and the real required the same skills that the virtual had been teaching.

The Assembly was a hangar. The hangar being — enormous. The enormous that Karthik had no reference for because Mumbai did not produce enormous spaces, Mumbai produced compressed spaces, and the compressed-spaces had calibrated his spatial expectations to: small. This hangar was not small. This hangar was the size of — he didn't know. A cricket stadium? Wankhede? Bigger than Wankhede. The ceiling was so high that it disappeared into shadow, the shadow being the hangar's sky, the artificial sky of a space that was inside a larger space that was, presumably, a spacecraft or a station or something that existed in the void that Karthik had seen through the translucent walls.

Two hundred recruits. Give or take. Arranged in clusters — the clusters being squads, each squad identified by a holographic number floating above their assigned position. Karthik found Squad 7. The holographic "7" floating in blue light, the blue being the colour of the game's interface, the interface's colour-language being: blue for friendly, red for enemy, green for environment, the colour-language being universal, understood by every gamer.

Squad 7 was four people and an empty space. The empty space being Karthik's.

Zara Khan was — Zara was not what the chat-voice had suggested. The chat-voice had been casual, funny, the "lol Old Monk" voice of someone relaxed. In person, Zara was alert. Tall — taller than Karthik (the taller-than being the particular Indian male's minor crisis: Indian men were trained by culture to be taller than women and the training did not account for women who were 5'10" and the not-accounting was the training's failure). Dark hair cut short — the short-cut being practical, the practical being: this woman had assessed the situation and had, in the fifteen minutes available, cut her hair with something (the something being unclear — the WristNav? A sharp edge? The determination of a woman who understood that long hair in combat was a liability?). Brown skin, sharp features, the features of a North Indian woman who had been raised in Delhi and who carried Delhi in her posture: upright, territorial, occupying space with the confidence that Delhi women possessed and that the possessing was the Delhi inheritance — the city that taught its women to be large because being small in Delhi was dangerous.

"Karthik?" Zara extended her hand. The handshake being the greeting — not the Indian greeting (the namaste that the game's grey jumpsuits seemed to demand) but the handshake of equals meeting in a foreign environment, the foreign-environment defaulting the greeting to the universal.

"Haan. Zara?"

"Yep. Concert mein thi. Last thing I heard was Prateek Kuhad singing 'cold/mess' and then — white."

Vikram Subramanian was Chennai. The Chennai that was visible in everything — the precise English, the measured gesture, the particular South Indian restraint that was not shyness but calculation, the calculation being: I will speak when I have something to contribute and the contributing requires the data and the data requires observation and the observing is what I am doing now. Vikram was shorter than Karthik, compact, with glasses that should not have survived the teleportation but had — the glasses-surviving being either the game's attention to detail or the game's sense of humour, the sense-of-humour being: we transported you across space but we kept your spectacles because the spectacles are essential to who you are and the who-you-are is the raw material.

"Mage-Candidate," Vikram said, by way of introduction. "Magic 25. IIT Madras, third year, electrical engineering. Valorant rank: Immortal."

The stats-and-credentials introduction — the introduction that gamers performed, the performing being: your rank was your identity, your stats were your handshake, the handshake being more informative than the name because the name was arbitrary but the rank was earned.

Priya Rao was Bangalore. Software engineer. The software-engineer being — Priya was the particular Bangalore breed of engineer who worked at a startup, played games competitively, and maintained a side project that was "almost ready to launch" and that the almost-ready had been the state for two years and the two-years was the side project's natural lifecycle: permanent almost-readiness. Scout-Candidate. Reflexes 24. She was small, quick-eyed, and had the particular energy of someone who processed information faster than they could communicate it, the faster-processing being the Scout's essential quality — see before others see, know before others know.

DJ — Deepak Jain — was Jaipur. DJ set interrupted by abduction. Class: unassigned (like Karthik). Reflexes 28 — the highest in the squad, the highest being the hands of a DJ who had spent ten years manipulating decks and the manipulating had produced reflexes that the game's system had measured and scored and the scoring was: 28, which was elite. Deepak was loud — the loud of Jaipur, the particular Rajasthani loudness that was not volume but energy, the energy that filled rooms the way his music filled clubs.

"Bhai, stats mein class nahi hai mere. Tere?" Deepak to Karthik. Bro, I don't have a class in my stats. You?

"Same. No class."

"Toh hum dono unassigned hain. Matlab system ne decide nahi kiya ki hum kya hain. Ya toh hum special hain ya expendable."

So we're both unassigned. Means the system hasn't decided what we are. Either we're special or expendable.

"Hoping for special," Karthik said.

"Hoping for alive," Deepak corrected.

A sound — not a voice but a sound, the sound that a stadium made when the PA system activated, the activation being the hum-before-the-announcement, the hum that said: something important is about to be said, the important-about-to-be-said producing the particular silence that two hundred recruits generated simultaneously — the simultaneous silence being the proof of shared fear.

"RECRUITS." The voice — not the synthetic female voice from the room. A different voice. Male. Deep. The deep that was authoritative in the way that Indian fathers' voices were authoritative: not by volume but by certainty, the certainty being the quality that made you listen not because you wanted to but because the voice had decided you would.

"You have been selected for The War Game. You are now soldiers. Your training begins today. Some of you will advance. Some of you will die. The dying is not metaphorical."

The hangar's silence deepened. The deepening-silence being: two hundred people processing the word "die" and the processing producing the particular silence that was not absence-of-sound but presence-of-fear.

"Your squads are your families. Your families are your survival. Protect your squad. Your squad protects you. This is the only rule that matters."

Karthik looked at Squad 7. Zara, standing tall, arms crossed, the posture of a woman who had already decided: I will survive this. Vikram, adjusting his glasses, the adjusting being the nervous habit of a man whose mind was racing through calculations. Priya, scanning the room, the scanning being the Scout's instinct activated. Deepak, cracking his knuckles — the knuckle-cracking being the DJ's pre-set ritual, the ritual repurposed for war.

Five strangers. One squad. Three lives each.

The game had begun.

CODS VERIFICATION:

- Cortisol (8/10): "Some of you will die. The dying is not metaphorical." The hangar revelation — 200 recruits, permanent death stakes. Two unassigned players (Karthik and Deepak) — special or expendable? The scale of the abduction across India.

- Oxytocin (8/10): Squad 7 forming — the chat banter (Old Monk joke, "punching bag that heals fast"). Zara's handshake. Deepak's "Hoping for alive." The voice saying "Your squads are your families." The immediate bond of shared terror.

- Dopamine (9/10): What is Basic Training? Who runs The War Game? Why were they selected? What classes will Karthik and Deepak receive? What's the first mission? Will all five survive?

- Serotonin (5/10): Squad assembled. Banter established. The gaming-skills-as-survival recognized ("these were not noobs"). "Theek hai" energy carried forward.

Sensory Density:

- Touch (4): Grey metal corridor cool underfoot (barefoot on spacecraft floor). Zara's handshake (firm, equals meeting). Wrist device vibration — targeted, nerve-cluster tingling. Grey jumpsuit fabric — military, equalizing.

- Smell (2): Metal corridor — the clean-machine smell of spacecraft interior. Hangar — the particular smell of large enclosed spaces (recycled air, ozone, the absence of organic scent).

- Sound (3): PA system hum before announcement (the stadium-silence trigger). "RECRUITS" — male voice, deep, the authority of certainty. Deepak cracking knuckles — the pre-battle ritual.

- Taste (1): Residual Old Monk + Thums Up — the birthday drink's ghost on the tongue, the last taste of the previous life.