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  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t know, it seems funny that there is a castle in this world without walls. Anyway, here we are.’

  ‘Well, the bike hasn’t stalled thus far, that’s a relief,’ SRK observed.

  The bike coughed dryly and came to an abrupt halt. ‘You have a golden tongue,’ Valaneni observed acidly. ‘Just as well, we need to go by foot from here or they’ll hear us.’

  ‘Are you sure we haven’t run out of fuel?’ SRK asked.

  Valaneni shook the bike. SRK heard the fuel sloshing inside the tank. He did not say anything more. The place was beginning to creep him out.

  After hiding the motorcycle under the bushes by the roadside, they set off on foot on a narrow path adjoining the road. Presently they were outside the Surya memorial grounds. It was a vast piece of land, almost twice the size of a cricket field. There was a twenty-foot wire mesh fence around it on all sides. In the centre was a Gothic building.

  There was nothing foreboding about the place except that it was eerie, given the circumstances in which they were. Also, there was a sense of dread. A void in the gut, like something terrible was about to happen. SRK had this feeling that something was watching him. A predator maybe. Like a lion or a leopard.

  Something about Gudem was not right. What could it be? A nameless, faceless presence that touched him deep inside activating danger signals in the most primal part of his brain. This could be it. The first ever scientifically proven paranormal contact in the history of mankind would for ever be his discovery.

  The scientist pulled out his magnetic field sensor and switched it on. Instead of the low hum that they heard at the bar, the device emitted a wild screech, so loud that the friends practically jumped out of their skins. SRK quickly switched off the sensor. But he was too late.

  ‘Who goes there? Hey, who is that?’ a loud voice from somewhere to their left demanded.

  ‘Run,’ said Valaneni.

  He followed his own counsel and ran like a deer back the way they had come. So much for beating the crap out of the villagers, thought SRK wryly, as he set off after his friend.

  Their flight was short-lived.

  Fire torch bearing men headed towards them from four different directions until they were surrounded. In all there were eight men that SRK could count. They were all built like oxen. Strong, sturdy, unshaven faces stared cruelly at the duo. Firelight added deeper shadows to their countenance.

  ‘I-It’s me, Valaneni,’ the young man identified himself timidly. His usual bustle and swagger were gone.

  ‘It’s you again. Haven’t you had enough? If your grandfather wasn’t who he was, you’d be dead by now,’ one of the villagers spat at Valaneni.

  ‘Who’s the other one, he looks new?’ another man asked.

  Valaneni wiped his sweaty palms on his pants nervously.

  ‘He doesn’t know anything. I brought him here to show him the memorial ground. Please...don’t hurt him...he’s getting married.’

  SRK cleared his throat. ‘Now look here, we didn’t do anything wrong. We just…‘

  ‘Shut up,’ the man growled. Like a hungry lion. It brooked no interference. ‘It’s your first time here, so we’ll leave you for now. If we see you here again or this fucking trouble maker, you’ll die here. Do you understand?’

  ‘You can’t tal…‘

  ‘Do you understand, you little shit?’ this from a burly man, his eyes flaring with rage. He towered over the tall scientist.

  ‘Yes sir, I understand,’ SRK said.

  ‘Get lost before I change my mind.’

  CHAPTER 6

  VALANENI cleared his throat, the first sound he made after their escape from the Village of Gudem close to an hour earlier.

  ‘Why the fuck did that thing scream like that? What was wrong with it?’

  ‘Well,’ said SRK quietly, ‘that’s what it’s supposed to do when it comes across a magnetic or electrical field that we can’t explain. This could well be the first time this thing actually did what it’s supposed to do. The readings, as much as I am able to make out, are way off the charts.’

  Valaneni gulped. ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘I don’t know. This is by far the most important thing that’s happened in my life.’

  ‘Bigger than S2?’

  ‘Yeah, way bigger.’

  ‘Then you follow this through and let me marry her,’ Valaneni said.

  ‘What?’

  He roared with laughter. ‘God Sathi, I can just imagine the look on your face.’

  ‘Was that a joke? Man, its sick!’

  The laughter died down as abruptly as it had commenced.

  ‘Seriously, forget it after tonight. You don’t know these people. They are worse than animals. You take your test results and get your promotions and stuff but don’t ever go back there. It’s dangerous,’ Valaneni warned.

  SRK did not say anything. He got into the house as he used to in the old days. He climbed the wall, opened the bathroom window, and popped in. He got the wall part right but it was the window that told him he was way out of touch. Back in his room, SRK switched on the laptop and pulled out the USB wire from his backpack. He attached one end to the laptop and the other to the device. Almost immediately, an application opened up and the information in the device started to download.

  As the downloading was on, SRK called Sheila Pitambar.

  ‘Good evening Ma’am,’ he said.

  ‘What time is it?’ a sultry voice asked him from the other end of the line.

  ‘It’s two in the morning, ma’am.’

  SRK heard a chuff, like she had difficulty breathing.

  ‘Tell me you’ve haven’t called to extend your holiday.’

  ‘No ma’am, I am sending you some data right now. Please do check it and come back to me. I might have hit upon something here.’

  There was silence at the other end for a while.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  SRK told his boss everything.

  After she had listened to him without any interruptions, Sheila asked him if he was all right.

  ‘I am fine ma’am.’

  ‘Good, keep it that way. Don’t go back. Let’s examine the evidence. If it’s worth anything at all, we’ll talk about it. Repeat, do not go back there again. Do you understand Sathi?’

  ‘Yes ma’am, I do.’

  The line went dead. She had not as much as wished him on his engagement nor asked him about his fiancée. So be it. There are times you listen to your boss and there are times when you do not. SRK figured this was one of those times when he could afford to ignore her. She was too far away to do anything.

  The next night found him again on the road to Gudem, this time alone, backpack slung over his back. He was on a rented motorcycle, a Bajaj Pulsar, 150cc. SRK was much more careful this time. He got off the bike well ahead of the village and, after he had duly hidden it from view, he started the walk towards the memorial grounds in almost near total darkness.

  Except for the buzz of the nightlife, the flap-flap of bats above him and the occasional hoot of an owl, it was an eerily silent night. Yet again, a feeling of foreboding overtook him. A primal alarm warning him of danger ahead. A sixth sense, long dormant in the human species, was going berserk. SRK had half a mind to turn back to the bike. Every instinct screamed for him to head back to Eluru.

  He pressed on.

  He climbed the fence cordoning off the grounds noiselessly and landed lightly onto the grounds. He sat on his haunches for a while, and looked for signs of guards heading his way. After a twenty second wait, he raced across the grounds, the only sound was of his sneakers on the soft earth. He reached the hall, a huge structure, like an imposing old church.

  He tried the door and found it unlocked. If there was a demon lurking about, the least the villagers could do was lock the frigging doors, he thought. On the other hand, a door, however sturdy, could not hold a demon back. Thus the open door only meant that the villagers had nothing
to fear from the hall. If that was the case, why did the device screech? Was it a malfunction? Was all of it a waste of time? Well, SRK thought, he would know soon enough.

  He sneaked into the building. He pulled a torch light from his pack and switched it on. Almost immediately, he noticed movement in the peripheries, just beyond his torch light. SRK swung the torch around and found...nothing. He could hear something skittering in the darkness. A soft rustle. The darkness was so complete he just was not able to see what it was. Most probably a sewer rat. Nothing more.

  He swallowed. There was a strange stench about the place. Like sulphur burning. Like the doorway to Hell. All that was missing was a demon guarding the door.

  He trained his torch around the place. The hall was a large structure with a tiled roof. On both sides were long windows that almost reached the ceiling. The cross ventilation and the light would keep the hall bright and airy during the day. A long table occupied the left side of the hall and on the right some ancient, dust ridden, wooden chairs were piled onto the wall. There was nothing else except the door at the other end, probably leading to another room.

  He started towards the door, at the same time pulling out his device. He felt rather than saw the movement. Like a wave in still waters. A streak of black, darker than the night just beyond his torch.

  White pain seared his back.

  SRK screamed as he lurched around. His shirt was torn to shreds and strips of flesh from his back fell to the ground like they were carved out with a knife. He stumbled-ran towards the door leading to the grounds.

  Whack!

  SRK fell to the ground.

  The right side of his head was caved in, parts of his brain plastered on the floor. Something overshadowed the dead scientist, watching for signs of life. After a while faint moonlight filtered into the hall. An ebony shadow flickered in the moonlight and swept over the body. SRK disappeared, clothes, skin, blood and bones. Even his electromagnetic reading device was gone.

  Like he was never there.

  FRAGMENT-B

  SHEILA

  CHAPTER 7

  THE prayer cabinet was hooked to the wall with a couple of nails. It had photographs of dead people in it rather than portraits of deities. Three photographs to be exact.

  One was Sheila’s husband Alok Pitambar, deceased, 25th of May, 2005.

  The other two were her parents, Rupendra Bhai, her father, and Kamala Behn, her mother, both deceased, 26th November, 2008.

  They were the three people who meant the world to Sheila, taken away rudely, cruelly. One by the power of nature and the others by wanton acts of madmen. Every day she spoke to them silently for a minute.

  For that one moment each day, Sheila’s armour was down and the hurt overwhelmed her. Like stepping into a burning pyre. Then the armour came back again, invisible, cold, sure, protecting her from the fire.

  She lived in Gurgaon, at least 20 klicks from the council and she drove to work each day. Her Suzuki Swift hatchback rolled into the red and white CSIR building’s parking lot. Sheila worked in the council but her team was deputed to RAW for a project which she found intriguing sometimes and disturbing at other times. However, it was not the project preying on her mind that Monday morning.

  Sheila had not heard from SRK for more than a week. He ought to have reported for duty. Repeated calls on his mobile phone met with the same result, out of coverage area. Even worse, his parents, prominent residents of Eluru town, were not available. The house was reportedly locked and they seemed to have taken off without warning. Sheila could not help thinking that it had to do with the information that SRK had sent her.

  Either his magnetic sensor had gone completely haywire or the electromagnetic readings were, simply put, phenomenal. She awaited yet another test result that day, the twentieth they’d attempted, and all of them showed the same readings. If the sensor was right, this was what they called an ‘Event Horizon’ in their quest for paranormal activity. It was the ‘Point of No Return’.

  In theories of general relativity, an event horizon is a boundary in space time. Like a wall. Events within cannot affect a person outside that wall. Was SRK within the wall? Had it affected him? In what way? Is that why he was not responding to her calls? Was he hurt or...perhaps, even dead? The more she thought of it, the more Sheila found it disturbing.

  The kind of power the reading was throwing up was unbelievable, to put it mildly. If it was true, either something was ready to crack the world into two or if harnessed, India would be the super power. The most powerful country in the world.

  Literally.

  Janvi, Sheetal, and Priyanka were waiting for her on the fifth floor when Sheila exited the elevator. There was no idle chatter between them. They stood solemn faced, wished her good morning and got a curt nod in return.

  The council was nothing like a typical central government owned enterprise. In fact, it was not even an enterprise, it was almost a college campus. Only five percent of all their research yielded result, if they could tinker with the numbers a bit, yet it was enough to keep them going. The foursome walked into their office, carved out of one half of the fifth floor. Their official flirtation with the defence department earned them the exclusivity of secrecy, retina scan door locks, spy cams, the works.

  ‘Are the test results in yet?’ Sheila asked. She spoke softly. Her seductively throaty voice only added to the general mystery and attraction that clung to her.

  ‘Yes ma’am, it’s on your table,’ Janvi said. She had learnt some time ago that giving a direct and crisp answer was the best possible way to deal with Sheila. She did not like addendums and references. If for instance Janvi had added that the test results were mind boggling, Sheila would have cut her short with a stinging stare or with the flick of a finger.

  ‘I’ll go through them. Is there any news from Major Kant about SRK?’

  ‘No ma’am, the Major isn’t in yet.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes in my cabin.’

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ all three of them said in perfect unison.

  Sheila’s five foot nine inch, lithe frame slid around the desk, she landed gracefully onto her seat and perched her reading glasses on the tip of her sharp, slightly aquiline nose. Her eyes were predominantly brown and yet, there was violet there somewhere, a deeper tinge that glittered darkly. She pursed her full lips and placing the tips of her fingers on her chin, as she usually did when she intended to focus on an issue, the scientist started to read a slim stapled report on her desk.

  The report was freshly printed out. It had no headings, dates, reference details or signatures. Therefore, it could not be deemed as an official report. Instead the scientists could pass it off as just research or reference notes. This action ensured that they did not need to disclose it to Sheila’s boss, the Defence Minister, or her army counterpart, Major Kishan Kant, who shared work space with the scientists.

  Most of the work of the CSIR was featured around innovating new technology to augment the growth of social standards, addressing environmental concerns and economic consequences of imbalanced industrial growth. However, a large segment of funding went into research on quantum science, physics and other scientific pursuits keeping in view long term goals.

  Sheila’s work in quantum physics and her Ph.D. had attracted the military establishment’s attention. The defence department had invested considerable amount of money in understanding the functions of the atom and the role it could play in the future in structuring weaponry. Advanced research on indigenously developed laser energy to stop missile attacks and microwave weapons to jam enemy electronic devices for the Indian Navy, a ‘la-Star Wars’ style futuristic munition, was one of the most highly invested projects in CSIR.

  However, the role of paranormal behaviour and metaphysics in her study group and its station in military strategies was beyond Sheila’s pail of knowledge and understanding.

  All that Sheila knew was that the Home Minister wanted it. She was thankful enough that SRK found it interesting
and was more than willing to spend his time whizzing across the country to investigate reported paranormal activities.

  Sheila was half way through the report when there was a polite knock on the door. Her three team members were standing to a side and Major Kant filled the small door frame.

  The Major was a stunning man. He was just above six feet with broad, evidently muscular shoulders that were rippling through his khaki coat. He had long legs and a face that was all square jaw, narrow eyes and a sharp nose that had lost some of its sharpness during his rather active military career. A scar ran down his left arm, from the shoulder down to his forefinger, and another thin scar adorned his face just above his left eyebrow. He threw a contrite smile at her. Sheila picked up the signals quickly, in the blink of an eye.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s about your colleague, Satyanarayana...sorry I can’t, for the life of me, pronounce his full name. They found his motorcycle. At least parts of it. It was dismantled and buried in different places in and around a village in Andhra Pradesh, Gudem, I believe it is called.’

  ‘What about him, dammit?’ Sheila barked.

  ‘The police are questioning the villagers who, they say are a rowdy lot. There’s a general reluctance in that area to go anywhere near those villagers. They are apparently close knit and very protective. Unofficially, the police are sure that he was murdered by the villagers. There are other rumours as well.’

  ‘Murdered? Rumours? What, for god’s sake?’

  ‘Apparently there is a local legend of some sort and the villagers are pretty protective of it. Some local God or deity! The details are pretty sketchy thus far. The police think that Satyanarayana was part of a ritual killing.’

  ‘A ritual killing? Major, we must get to the bottom of things, he is one of ours,’ Sheila said in a low undertone. The nerves on her neck were standing out delectably. That only added to the air of seduction around her.

  ‘I need something to go on with Sheila. If I had a copy of the report Satyanarayana sent you, I can push things around and take over the investigation.’