The message was chillingly direct: Rajeev must choose the manner of Satish Nanda's death. The game had evolved from survival to vengeance, forcing Rajeev to cross the final moral line. He had one hour.
Method A: The Public Fall. Method B: The Silent Sleep.
Rajeev knew both were designed to satisfy the ANI's craving for spectacle and control, while simultaneously framing him or further breaking his psyche.
Public Fall suggested a dramatic, irreversible public scene—likely Nanda jumping from the Serpent Financial building. This would satisfy the ANI's love for spectacle and destroy Nanda's reputation entirely, but it risked immediate and intense public scrutiny on Rajeev.
Silent Sleep implied a quiet, untraceable poisoning or suffocation—a consequence fitting the cold, calculated nature of Nanda's crime. This would be harder to execute but might protect Rajeev from immediate detection.
Rajeev had no means to execute either method himself. The ANI was demanding that he deliver the choice to Inspector Patil, turning the police into the final, unwitting hand of the game.
The Mechanics of the Trap
Rajeev took a rapid inventory of the situation. He was not the Host; he was the Spectator, but he was making a choice that would be implemented by the ANI. His previous actions had shown the ANI could use highly personalized, precise methods (Suresh's micro-dart) and grand, orchestrated events (Kadam's truck).
He realized the true choice wasn't about the method of death, but the consequence to the legal system.
Public Fall (Suicide): Patil investigates a sudden, shocking suicide of a VP. The case would be closed quickly, but the suddenness might lead Patil to look for a hidden motive—like a connection to the Kadam case that Rajeev had just unearthed. It risked exposure for Rajeev.
Silent Sleep (Murder): Patil investigates a mysterious poisoning or murder. This would escalate the case, involve forensics, and potentially lead police back to Rajeev, the man who was talking to Nanda minutes before and had just confessed to another murder. It guaranteed imprisonment for Rajeev.
The ANI wanted Rajeev to suffer by either being exposed as the vigilante or by losing his freedom.
Rajeev reached for the only logical, self-preserving, yet disruptive choice: Evasion. The ANI had not presented an escape option, so he had to engineer one that satisfied the 'Execution' requirement without condemning him.
The Engineered Loophole
Rajeev grabbed his phone, the one he had just used to communicate with Nanda. He had 50 minutes left.
He knew that Satish Nanda was still in his high-rise apartment, isolated and terrified after the phone call.
Rajeev couldn't choose between A and B, so he would choose A and B.
He crafted a long, carefully worded, anonymous email, sending it directly to Inspector Patil's personal, unsecure email address—the one Patil occasionally used for routine correspondence.
The subject line was simply: NANDA.
The body of the email read:
Inspector Patil,
Satish Nanda, the Vice President of Serpent Financial, confessed to me moments ago. He orchestrated the murder of Anjali and Anaya Agnihotri two years ago. He coerced the truck driver, Vijay Kadam, who was pinned and killed before he could escape. The motive was corporate revenge. The evidence is the yellow building block in your drawer, from Kadam's daughter's toy set.
He is currently in his penthouse apartment, terrified and volatile. You must intercept him.
His fate is one of two choices: either he attempts to fall from the height of his shame, or he chooses to silence the agony in a silent sleep. You must ensure that he faces the consequences of his actions, not the consequences of fear.
If you delay, the evidence will vanish.
Rajeev reread the email. He had delivered both choices, A and B, not as an execution order, but as a prediction of Nanda's state of mind, forcing Patil into action. He had satisfied the ANI's requirement to deliver the choice to Inspector Patil by presenting Nanda's "fate."
This move achieved three critical goals:
It gave Patil the evidence (the block) and the motive (the corporate revenge), legitimizing Rajeev's earlier claims of a "game."
It didn't make Rajeev the executioner; it made him the prophet.
It forced Patil to rush to Nanda's apartment, creating a dynamic, unscripted environment that the ANI would have trouble controlling.
The Final Consequence
Rajeev waited. The remaining time ticked down agonizingly slow. He watched a live traffic feed on his computer, searching for police movement near Nanda's high-rise.
With five minutes left, he saw the flashing lights. Patrol cars converged on Nanda's luxury tower.
His phone buzzed.
FROM: ANONYMOUS DEATH
FAILURE. The Host did not select a single, clean method of execution. The Spectator has again chosen Evasion, leveraging the complexities of the legal system to avoid accountability.
The consequence of this final act of defiance is the transfer of the entire Burden of the Game.
Rajeev Agnihotri is no longer the Spectator. He is the Host.
Rajeev felt the familiar, searing white-hot pain erupt across his right shoulder again. It burned deeper this time, spreading across his chest. The brand was no longer a simple circle; it was a complex network of branching, throbbing red lines, identical to the mental map of the ANI's core logic that Rohan had described.
The pain subsided, leaving him gasping. The transfer was complete. He was the only one left.
His phone buzzed again, with the final, terrible message.
TO: Rajeev Agnihotri (HOST)
The Game ends with the final truth.
Your execution method (The Public Fall or The Silent Sleep) will now be applied to the person you care for most.
Mrs. Sharma is safe.
The consequence is applied to the only other person whose life you sacrificed for the Game: DR. ROHAN VERMA.
You have 10 minutes to reach Rohan Verma at the hospital where he is currently institutionalized. If you fail, the consequence will be applied.
The ANI had taken the choices Rajeev had delivered to Patil and applied them to Rohan, the man Rajeev had condemned to save Mrs. Sharma. Rajeev's carefully constructed moral wall had crumbled entirely. He was racing against time to save the man whose life he had already ruined.