ENTER: The city of Mumbai, formerly Bombay. The largest city in the Indian Union. A teeming mess of slums above which glittering skyscrapers soar. We flicker over the streets, jammed even at night, a riot of horns and blazing headlights. A black-yellow taxi coughs past. There is a pub, brightly-lit, and raucous. It is filled to the brim with people, mostly men. Music blares from decrepit speakers which toss out sparks once in a while. Here, a group of them playing billiards. There, a whole horde staring at a crappy TV set mounted from the ceiling broadcasting a cricket match from somewhere far, far away. And everywhere else, men sitting in tight knots, talking loudly, gesticulating, drinking, staring. And staring, in particular, at a WOMAN sitting at the bar.

The WOMAN, her face unlined, her dark hair shoulder-length, is slim. She is wearing a tight T-shirt, skinny jeans, and ballet flats, an outfit which shows off her figure. She is of a paler complexion than the dark-skinned South Indians surrounding her. North Indian, probably. Delhi? No, Gujarat, says one. Odisha, volunteers another. Every once in a while, a man plucks up the courage to approach her, encouraged by his friends, and is flatly rebuffed. She is drinking alone.

A MAN enters the pub. He is of a kind with the other men in the pub - darker, that is, than the WOMAN - but approaches her unerringly. The WOMAN turns as he approaches, stiffening in a way imperceptible to any of the onlookers. He is wearing a brown polo and a pair of khakis. A pair of sunglasses is perched atop his curls. His cheeks have been marred irreparably by some long-ago fight, leaving a kaleidoscopic mass of scar tissue to either side of his mouth. The tension in the pub rises as the other men watch him pass, their ears pressed flat to their skulls. They are in the presence of a predator.

The MAN raises his hand. Palm facing the bartender, two fingers pointing to the sky. The bartender pales at the sight of his scars.

MAN, in Marathi: A medium dry vodka martini, lemon peel. Shaken, not stirred.

He turns to the WOMAN, who isn't looking at him. He speaks in French, and the woman answers him in the same.

MAN: What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?
WOMAN, sounding bored: What are you doing here, Jack?
JACK, smiling: Why, can't a man get a drink in Mumbai without getting questioned about his motives? Women, my god.

The WOMAN rolls her eyes. JACK turns his smile on the bartender as he receives his martini with a nod and toasts the TV set as he drinks deep. When he next speaks, it's in Greek.

JACK: How are your masters doing, Hermes?
HERMES, in German: How's your leg, clown?
JACK, in Polish: Straight to German, then? Can't we have a decent conversation without resorting to baiting one another?
HERMES, in Spanish: Fine. Something neutral.
JACK, in Spanish: Fine.

They drink in silence. HERMES is drinking from a bottle of IPA.

JACK: Did you know that the IPA was invented in England? They export it to India instead of India manufacturing it.
HERMES: I didn't know that.
JACK: Yes, it's very interesting. Oh, and my leg grew back.
HERMES: Good for you.

They continue to drink in silence. A man swaggers over, having plucked up the courage to approach. He is tall and broad, and rougher-looking, too. However, he avoids looking at JACK.

MAN, in Marathi: Hello to you, my dear.

HERMES opens her mouth, but JACK beats her to it.

JACK, in Marathi: She's not interested, bhenchod.

The MAN turns to JACK, infuriated, but is stayed by the cold look in the other man's eyes. He chews his lip under his thick moustache, visibly conflicted, and squints at both of them before retiring to his seat. Once he's back at his table, he begins to speak harshly to his comrades in low tones. HERMES glances at JACK.

HERMES, in Spanish: Look what you've done.
JACK, in Spanish: Who, me? I just said what was on your mind. "My dear."

HERMES snorts and waves the bartender over to pay her tab, tipping her bottle of IPA back with her other hand.

JACK: Where are you going? I just got here.
HERMES: That is none of your business.
JACK: Nonsense.

As HERMES thrusts a wad of crisp ₹2000 bills in the bartender's direction, JACK mimics her, paying off his tab as well. As she rises, he rises. Their departure does not go unnoticed, especially not by the MAN who was so rudely rebuffed just a few minutes earlier. They step out into the balmy Mumbai night, blending effortlessly into the crowded thoroughfares. JACK continues to speak, hollering at the top of his lungs in Latin to make himself heard.

JACK: So, where to next?
HERMES, in Latin: I'm not even supposed to be talking to you.
JACK: Remember Budapest? Now, that was a conversation to remember.
HERMES: You're a randy old goat, Jack.
JACK: And you aren't, Hermes?

They break out of the thoroughfare and slip into a dank, dimly-lit alley. JACK's loafers splash messily through a puddle of muddy rainwater. A distant, techno-infused beat echoes from a nearby pub. HERMES begins to pull away from JACK, visibly preparing to teleport away, at which point a shout rings out from behind them.

MAN, shouting, audibly drunk: HEY!

They turn around. The MAN from the bar is standing there. He is wearing sunglasses, despite it being almost midnight. He is flanked by around two dozen other men, well-built. They are brandishing metallic rods, or truncheons, or clubs; it is difficult to tell. There is violence in their postures. JACK smiles.

JACK, to Hermes: Stop me if you've heard this before, but there was once a woman sitting on a Delhi bus.
HERMES: You're disgusting.
JACK: I haven't even finished the joke.
HERMES: I could just leave you here, you know. You'd survive. Cockroaches are like that.
JACK: Come now, Hermes. When was the last time you got into a proper brawl? None of this cloak-and-dagger bull. None of this - swanning around in opera houses in a form-fitting red dress, seducing heads of state. I'm sure there's a time and place for that, but people get restless. Lord knows I do.

The men are drawing closer to them. As if on cue, HERMES slips behind JACK, using his body to shield her from the approaching mob, and disappears. Within seconds, she reappears. She is barefoot. JACK glances over his shoulder.

JACK: Just the shoes? I was expecting you to reappear naked.
HERMES: Please. I have a dozen outfits just like this. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Her voice has not changed appreciably in tone or timbre, but there is a new tension to the way she holds herself. Fear or anticipation? What do you think?

JACK, raising his voice: Alright, which of you bastards wants to go first?

With a roar, the men surge forwards. JACK steps forwards smartly, darting between their wild swings, and ducks under another swipe before slamming his fist into someone's crotch, the fabric warping around his hand as it reduces the other man's gonads to pulp. Blood splatters across the floor, but he's already moved on, tugging his assailant's metallic rod from nerveless fingers and twirling it in his hands like it's little more than a tree-branch. His moves are precise and carefully calculated; within the first five seconds, he's brained another man and shattered the ribs of a third. The thugs, still hopped-up on liquid courage and peer pressure, hesitate for only a second.

JACK: Time's a-wasting, my swarthy lower-caste friends.

He glances over his shoulder, only to see that HERMES has disappeared. When he turns back, there is a minor commotion at the back of the throng, where one of the thugs have been impaled on a spike of bone. Taking advantage of his assailants' momentary discomfiture, JACK lunges forward again, laughing. Femurs fracture; spines crack; JACK shoves his club clean through another man, pulping his liver, and pulls it out to lick at the blood. HERMES has hemmed them in from the other direction, her hands flickering between bony spikes and prehensile tendrils as her skull twists and creaks, jaw unfurling into a many-toothed abomination as she crushes a man's head between her jaws, grey-matter staining her T-shirt.

JACK, raising his voice: What, no banter?

HERMES' tentacles resolve temporarily into a massive, half-formed hand, giving JACK the finger. JACK laughs, sending a pair of pigeons flying, and sinks his teeth into another man's neck, tearing out his larynx before spitting it to the side and pulling his head clean off. A few of the men lose their nerve and start to run, slipping past HERMES in the hope that she ignores their flight. Instead, the back of her T-shirt ruptures into a mass of pustulent tentacles, looping around their necks and crushing their windpipes. The remaining stragglers try to move in the other direction, past JACK, but he's quick, and they end up on the ground, one way or another, their corpses thudding wetly atop the pile that has grown between HERMES and JACK.

JACK, breathing heavily: Well.

The alley is silent. HERMES is once again human, although the back of her T-shirt is a mess of ragged tatters. Both of them are covered in blood, grey-matter and various other bodily fluids. JACK looks HERMES in the eye.

JACK: You know, I don't believe I've ever been this aroused in all the time that I've known you.
HERMES, quietly: Not even in Bloemfontein?
JACK: I'm trying to fuck you, Hermes. Stop questioning my motives.

As JACK tears off his polo and sends his khakis fluttering to the ground, HERMES' body flickers out of her clothes, which fall to the floor in an unceremonious heap. The two of them clamber towards one another from across the pile of corpses.

JACK: Efficient little trick, that. Though I would've preferred to see you in lingerie.
HERMES: Brat.

Their bodies intertwine. JACK's cock bursts the bounds of his briefs, bending outward in an arc that's almost a foot in length.

HERMES: I see we're taking the traditional route.
JACK: I'm still sore from Petrograd.

HERMES giggles. They fall into a familiar rhythm near-instantly, the alley filled with HERMES' unsteady breathing and the sound of air escaping through JACK's scars as he thrusts vigorously, his mutated cock swallowed up by her uncanny physiology. An interminable amount of time later, it's over. JACK's nose fills with the smell of dead flesh as he tilts backwards, resplendent in the post-coital haze.

JACK: I'm off.
HERMES: Mm.

When JACK next turns to look at HERMES, she's disappeared. He exhales, steals a cigarette and a lighter from one of the dead thugs, and smokes it until he hears a shriek from the end of the alley. He glances to his left, seeing the silhouette of a woman, hands raised to her mouth, and stubs out his cigarette before shrinking into a white-throated needletail and disappearing into the night.

CUT TO: The city of Mumbai, formerly Bombay. The largest city in the Indian Union. A teeming mess of slums above which glittering skyscrapers soar. We flicker over the streets, jammed even at night, a riot of horns and blazing headlights. A crappy police-car coughs past, its siren flickering in and out of audibility, before rolling to a stop. A pair of overweight policemen emerge from within and wander into the depths of a nameless alley before skidding to a halt and scratching at their moustaches in confusion. Above, a white-throated needletail rises into the air, borne aloft on the wind, its altitude rising at an incredible rate. It clips the top of a skyscraper and is gone.