She wasn't the leader Delhi expected — but she became the one it needed. Anchal Rathod didn't look back when she ran from the metro that day. Her instincts had kicked in long before the robotic knights started shredding through metal and flesh. Sharp, calculated, unrelenting — she led her group through fire and ruin, not by shouting orders but by moving first.
This isn't the story of Shivam and his friends. This is what happened to the others — the second group who also jumped from the broken train and scattered into the chaos. They went northeast, into the industrial scars and forgotten edges of the city, chasing a whisper of something dangerous and vital: Mayapuri.
Three days later, battered but not broken, Anchal's group would reach the city in the sky — a floating fortress of wealth, vice, and illusion. But survival had never just been about reaching a destination. It was about who you dragged with you.
And Anchal Rathod had dragged four. Mansi — the short-fused, brilliant tech head who was always sniffling and always right. She kept the group's hacked comms alive, even while complaining every second. Her voice could wake the dead, and usually did every morning.
Suchitra — the shy compass of the team, silent but razor-focused. She and Mansi shared a brain when it came to circuitry and scavenged tech. Together, they kept the group's direction true, physically and digitally.
Pawan — loyal to a fault, younger than the others, always trailing just behind Anchal, carrying her load when she didn't ask, looking at her like she was made of starlight. And maybe she was. He didn't speak much, but when he did, it was usually about how to make things easier for Anchal, whether she wanted it or not.
Sumit Bose — the dumb idea machine with muscles and charm, always joking, always teasing, but useful when it counted. Especially when it came to dealing with desperate, half-crazed survivors on the ground.
His fists did the talking, unless he was teasing Pawan, which was constant. Together, they pushed through Delhi's shattered northeast — ducking under fractured flyovers, interrogating anyone still breathing, scavenging what little remained.
The landscape was broken into jagged teeth, grey and crumbling, buzzing with tension. Strange drones sometimes hovered above, scanning or listening. Once, they had to hide for six hours in the carcass of a shattered ATM booth to avoid one of the floating patrollers.
At one point, they crossed a massive trench filled with charred cars. Mansi slipped, twisting her ankle, but brushed it off with a curse and rewired her ankle brace to act as a shock absorber. "Pain is just your body lagging," she muttered, and limped on.
That night, they sheltered in a half-sunk luxury bus hanging off the edge of a collapsed flyover. Anchal didn't sleep. She sat near the broken glass window and watched the ruined city lights flicker in the distance. Pawan handed her a thermal wrap without a word. She nodded in thanks.
Sumit and Pawan had their usual spat over who carried more or fought harder. "You'd trip over your own ego," Pawan said.
"At least I have one," Sumit shot back. Anchal raised a hand. Silence followed.
She remembered what her father used to say. Be cleverer than the threat. Be faster than the fear. He had trained her after school bullies taught her the world didn't wait for kindness. He gave her first satellite phones like toys — "just in case." One of them had been passed to Shivam's group back at the metro. She kept the rest.
By the dawn of the third day, the acid rain came. Thin, oily droplets sizzling against skin and metal. They used tattered scraps and bent signage to shield themselves. Suchitra led them through an old drainage tunnel that emptied into a service zone beneath what used to be Ashok Vihar. Mansi swore it smelled like radioactive socks. Nobody disagreed.
When they finally climbed the last ridge, lungs burning and boots soaked, they saw it. Mayapuri. It wasn't a city. It was a trap wrapped in gold.
Floating 300 meters in the air, it pulsed with neon and deception — casinos, markets, silent towers draped in light. A place for the rich, the exiled, and the powerful. A place they had no business entering. "That's where we're going?" Sumit muttered.
"Yup," Mansi said flatly. "Congratulations, everyone. We're infiltrating a den of predators wearing diamond suits." "Can we even reach it?" Pawan asked. "It's floating." Anchal didn't answer right away. Her eyes traced the sky cables stretching out from collapsed towers. Hidden infrastructure. Lift points. Maybe an old loading station. "We'll find a way."
"We should contact Shivam," Suchitra added.
Anchal already had the satellite phone in her hand. Mansi climbed a nearby wrecked antenna and boosted the signal with a bent copper rod, shielding it with salvaged foil from an old energy bar wrapper. The screen flickered. Static crackled.
Anchal took a breath. "This is Anchal Rathod," she said calmly. "We've reached below Mayapuri. We'll be heading in soon. Tell Shivam and Aman...
...we'll see them on the other side."