नूतनस्यान्वेषणेसुखं।
("In the search of new, there is joy.")
I woke up to a cool morning breeze. The window was left open; I guess I did not close it properly. I pondered for a moment on my dream. That was a bizarre dream indeed. I was curious, and with nothing better to do, I noted down the dream in brief points lest I forget. Downstairs, my breakfast was ready. The aroma prompted me to brush my teeth and freshen up, and I devoured my paratha as quickly as possible. Then came the sweet cup of tea; and by far I am a huge tea connoisseur! The best cup of tea is the one which enthralls your mind from the first sip, and you gulp it like some celestial nectar, and time stops for that moment. All your worries just somehow vanish. Just the kind of thing you might want when nothing goes right.
I left for my room after the usual chit-chat a sick person can have in the morning, 'how-are-you-feeling', and the usual reply, 'I-am-feeling-much-better-than-before.' I engrossed myself in sci-fi stories again, and after lunch, I was gulping down a spy-agent thriller novel. By evening, both stories created a unique state of mind, where I was wondering what it was like to be a spy in some dystopian world. With these thoughts playing out like some action movie scenes, in the evening, with no one to accompany me, I awarded myself a walk in a nearby park. I was heavily armed against the winter winds, probably an overkill. Other Park visitors had a better resistance against the cold, I thought. They were lightly dressed for the cold.
It was nice to see a few children play with friends and parents, their innocent giggles and laughter soothing for the mind and heart. Flocks of birds were seen traversing the dusky sky now and then, marking that the day was done, and that it was time to return to their beloved ones. After a few rounds around the park, I sat on a bench beside the path. The sun was right on the horizon, and the color of the sun was the one that poets would love to write heartfelt verses about on and on.
After some time, I observed that a few paces away from me, on the next bench near the lamp post beside the lush green lawn, sat a lady with a book on her lap. She seemed totally absorbed in her reading. Occasionally, she would cast a look in the park and resume her reading. It must have been an interesting book to demand that much attention. She had a beautiful scarf round her neck and an equally elegant sweater. Combined with the effect the setting sun had, this induced a hypnotic trance on me. It must have been long that I gazed in that direction, and I noticed that she had noticed me gazing into the void in that direction, and I broke out of the trance. I immediately sensed how I might have made her uncomfortable amidst the good evening she was having. I averted my gaze, stretched out a little, and walked back home. s
Later that night, when I was checking the notes of my dream from the previous night, I found a face for Radhika. The earlier hazy and vague face now had definite features in my mind. Somehow, I had replaced the character with the lady I saw in the park. My mind simply won't accept any other face for the dream version.
I slept cozily till midnight, and I had another dream...
I reached the place where Mr. Anish had spoken about. It was rush hour, and everyone was busy reaching their work destinations. After a quarter of an hour, a jeep parked near the said location, and the person confirmed if I was Vikram indeed, instructing me to take a seat in the four-wheeler. The person looked very rugged, with a magnificent curly moustache that well suited his face. I complied, and then we drove through the city in awkward silence, waiting for green signals every two or three minutes.
We were now about 15-20 miles outside the city, treading a bumpy road filled with potholes. The area was largely devoid of human activity. Here and there, we could see empty houses, farms, and trees. We took a diversion and entered a lane where there were several buildings, their gates being covered with cobwebs. Crossing a few of them, our jeep parked in front of a four-storied building. This particular building had several muddy car tracks leading to it, indicating recent frequent activity. By the look of it alone, you would not consider that anybody lives or anything happens inside it. Surely, I was scared a lot; my heart was beating fast. If not for Radhika's word, I would not have come anywhere close to such a shady place. This was the kind of building you would avoid after watching a horror movie.
Anyway, the iron gate opened, and we were allowed inside. I tried asking the driver what this was supposed to mean, but the only answer I got was 'ask Mr. Anish' himself. We entered the building, and a bulky guy did a regular check for any hidden suspicious thing, and I was let through. There was a sofa in the hall, and I was instructed to sit there. I must have waited for thirty long minutes when a suited man came from a room, pointing for me to follow him. I saw Mr. Anish looking intensely at the desktop screen, with a confused look all over his face.
The person coughed to get Mr. Anish's attention and left.
"Hey, hi... take a seat, sorry to pull you in such a way," Mr. Anish tried to force a smile.
"Hi ...no worries... but may I know the crux of the matter, why I was brought here? Am I about to get into any kind of trouble?"
Mr. Anish cut me off, "I like that you are getting straight to the point. As for getting into trouble... are you involved in any shady practices?" he grinned, "I better not incur my daughter's wrath. We need your help for a matter."
I cluelessly wondered what help I could possibly provide to an agency like Mr. Anish's. I was just a Jr lecturer in a college. After thinking of many possibilities, I just thought it was better to ask Mr. Anish himself.
"We have stumbled upon something, and we would not have sought you, but our resources are now very divided," said Mr. Anish.
I remembered that our nation had many cases that were being transferred to CBI at the moment. The government was kind of pressed by media and masses to assign CBI to investigate. One involved an infrastructure scam of multitudes, another was the sudden disappearance of a popular actor allegedly linked to human trafficking, and another was a case of a failed insurgency in a border state. All the intelligence must have collaborated, and they must have been in a tight spot to sort out the truth from numerous rumours. This meant delays in things that these officials were already working on.
Mr. Anish continued, "So let me brief you on the lay of the situation quickly."
And he explained to me the reason I was in that dubious hell of a location.
He rotated his desktop screen towards me. I squinted a little to get a clear view; and what I saw was live footage of a cell, with a person cuffed up and four armed men fairly cautious about their job. To call the cuffed person a mere man would be a huge understatement. From the cam itself, I saw that he was an absolute unit of a man, looking enormous and muscular compared to any other person in that room. My guess would be he must be at least seven feet tall. His head was now slightly bent with eyes laser-focused looking into the void. I got thinking about what Mr. Anish could possibly want me to do now.
"Where did you get that specimen of a human?" I was curious, "Seems like a lab experiment to me."
Mr. Anish sighed and began, "A month ago, we were on a border operation tracing a gang member linked with human trafficking, drugs and opioid smuggling." Now this might seem like the captured member might be the head of that gang or so, but trust me, the tale goes much weirder. Much weirder than any mortal tale might seem.