Turbulence by Samit Basu

haven’t you?”
    “That’s your power? Phone location?” she says.
    “No, there’s a little more to it than that,” says the Tia on the floor behind Uzma and giggles. “He does things with wi-fi. He wishes it were kung fu, but he’s got wi-fi. He’s a super internet nerd.”
    “It’s a crap power, but it can be useful,” Aman says. “Now would you like the long version?”
    Uzma stands up.
    “No,” she says. “I — I’ve got to go.”
    “No. Why?” a Tia asks.
    “You’ve got superpowers. That’s — great. But I can’t afford to get mixed up in whatever it is you’re doing.”
    “But we’re all —”
    “I won’t tell anyone about you. But I’m starting out on my own in this country, and I have plans, and the police — I’ve got to go, okay? You people are lovely, but I don’t want to know any more. Let me leave now, please.”
    “You’re one of us,” Aman says.
    “Don’t be ridiculous.” Uzma starts for the door.
    “No, really. You have powers as well. We were all on the plane. You had a dream. We all did.”
    Now Uzma freezes, and her hand involuntarily flies up to her mouth.
    “Sit,” Sundar says. Uzma finds the chair this time.
    “Aman dreamt of aliens,” a Tia says. “I dreamt of talking photo albums, all with me in them, but different lives. Bob was in a giant kitchen in the sky, Sundar —”
    “I met Edison and da Vinci and a Chinese man no one understood,” Sundar says sheepishly.
    “And within a few days, strange things started happening,” Aman says. “Did the police find you?”
    Uzma nods.
    “They found all of us. Took us to strange hospitals. Ran tests. Found nothing. Sundar was awake, my brain tested normal — I got into their computers and saw — and all of Tia’s copies are perfectly unremarkable on their own.”
    “Apart from their beauty and grace,” Tia puts in.
    “Of course,” Aman says. “So they let us go. But I heard the calls they made, and I figured I was in big trouble — everyone on BA142 was in big trouble. So — moved to Mumbai, bought this house, and got these guys to join me.”
    “I don’t have a superpower,” Uzma says. “The police did come to me in Lucknow, but they were very cool. They said they didn’t need to even test me. I’m normal. I — this isn’t happening.”
    “I’ll get you some water,” a Tia says, striding towards the door.
    “A young, beautiful girl with no one to protect her getstaken to an Indian police station to have tests done on her and walks out unscathed, talking about how cool the police are. That’s not normal, Uzma,” Aman says.
    “I thought everyone in India was just very nice.”
    Uzma watches, fists clenched, as Aman, Sundar and Tia laugh heartily for several seconds.
    Aman then wipes his eyes and says, “I think your power is that people like you and are nice to you. That fits in with your wanting to be an actress. You want to be a star, right? You want people to love you.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    A Tia bursts into the room.
    “Aman, we have a problem.” The door is open behind her, and hot air rushes into the room. “Bob got hot.”
    “How?” Aman snaps.
    “She let him have some lobster,” the Tia says, pointing at the Tia in front of Uzma. “It’s a furnace outside, and Bob’s groaning.”
    “Lobster. Jesus. Why?”
    “That doesn’t matter now, does it?” Tia-near-Uzma says. “I’ll fix it. Do we have more ice-cream?”
    “Ice-cream won’t help,” Aman says. “Wait.”
    He closes his eyes and tilts his head.
    “Coconut water, oatmeal, wheat, green vegetables, radish, dal, unripe banana, black pepper, pomegranate, papaya.”
    “We got nothing,” a Tia says. “Should I just feed him some ice?”
    “Watermelon, dandelion, yogurt, soya milk,” Aman continues. “Or, yeah, ice. Get busy. And for god’s sake, close the door behind you.”
    Two more Tias emerge from the Tia-near-Uzma. Four Tiasrun out. Aman and Sundar look pointedly at