The next morning, she dressed in her plainest kurta, hair tied into a neat braid, face scrubbed of her usual brightness. No oversized earrings, no clashing colors, no dramatic eyeliner. She didn't want them to see Aanchal, the chatterbox. She wanted them to see someone forgettable, someone who could slide into a room and out again without leaving a ripple.
The SynerTech headquarters rose out of Chanakyapuri like a mirror to the sky. Polished glass walls reflected the sunlight so brightly she had to squint. It looked less like an office and more like a monument, untouchable, pristine, confident.
Her throat dried as she approached the front entrance. Two guards stood with rifles slung, but they didn't stop her. People streamed in and out with badges, laptops, coffees. She half-expected alarms to blare, hands to grab her shoulders, her face to flash red on some hidden screen.
Instead, the receptionist gave her a professional smile and gestured to the internship counter.
Her heart thundered. It's working. It's actually working.
She handed over the forged documents with steady hands. The clerk barely glanced at them before typing her details into the system. "Adhivita Singh?" the clerk asked.
"Yes," Aanchal said, her voice calm, level. The way she sounded during sparring practice, right before the first swing of the sword.
The printer spat out a temporary badge. The clerk slid it across the counter to her. "Welcome to SynerTech, Ms. Singh. You'll receive your orientation packet by email. You can start tomorrow."
Just like that.
Aanchal blinked, caught between relief and disbelief. No one had stopped her. No one had questioned her. It was as easy as stepping into a sparring circle, everyone watching, waiting, and her holding the blade with steady hands.
She clipped the badge to her kurta and walked toward the exit, her steps even, rehearsed, purposeful. Inside her chest, however, the storm hadn't calmed.
On the bus ride back, she pressed her forehead against the glass again, staring at her reflection. The bubbly girl her friends knew wasn't gone, but something else was shining through now an edge she had hidden for too long.
The counterattack had begun.
On the other side of Delhi, ASI Jitender sat slouched at his desk, the glow of the single tube light making his eyes ache. It was well past eight, most of the station already quiet except for the occasional clang of typewriters in the distant records room. The Ridge incident file lay sprawled in front of him, pages curling at the corners. He'd gone over it so many times in the last week that he could almost recite the summary line by line.
Cause of death: suspected toxic gas exposure.
His lips pressed into a hard line as he traced the sentence with the edge of his pen. "Gas," he muttered under his breath. "And yet… nothing."
If it really was a gas leak, there should have been evidence, residues in the soil, traces in the victims' lungs, chemical burns on clothing, environmental contamination lasting days if not weeks. Instead, the site had turned up clean. Too clean. Like someone had scrubbed it, or worse, staged it.
Jitender leaned back in his chair, rubbing his face with both hands. For the past few days, he'd tried to let it go. His superiors wanted the case shelved, stamped, filed away as an accident. But every time he closed the file, something gnawed at his gut.
A constable carrying a tray of tea stopped at the doorway. "Sir, still here?"
"Yeah." Jitender gestured vaguely at the pile of papers. "This Ridge case is like a thorn. Doesn't leave me alone."
The constable frowned. "Didn't they already close it? Toxic gas, that's what the reports say."
Jitender gave a dry chuckle. "Accidents leave traces. This one doesn't. That's what bothers me." He tapped the report with his knuckle. "You ever see people die of gas without a single chemical residue left behind?"
The constable shifted uncomfortably. "No, sir. But… maybe the higher-ups don't want questions."
"Maybe," Jitender said, but his eyes had already drifted back to the file.
He flipped open the autopsy notes again. Grainy black-and-white photographs stared back at him, bodies stiff and twisted, faces contorted. Some of them had blistered skin, others clouded eyes, and several looked almost mummified, as if drained long before anyone found them.
He frowned, tracing the handwritten notes on the margins. Estimated time of death: six to twelve hours earlier than when the bodies were supposedly "discovered." That gap gnawed at him. If they hadn't died at the Ridge, then where? And why dump them there?
By the time the clock hit nine, he had made up his mind. He shut the folder with a snap, grabbed his coat, and headed out. The constable at the gate gave him a curious glance as he unlocked his jeep.
"Sir, going home?"
"No," Jitender said as he started the engine. "Going to the forensic lab. Some people there owe me answers."
The drive across Delhi felt longer than usual, the roads thinned out but buzzing with late-night honks. By the time he parked outside the forensic department, the building loomed against the dim yellow of the streetlights. Inside, the corridors smelled faintly of disinfectant and stale air.
A young doctor in a white coat looked up from his cluttered desk as Jitender walked in. "ASI? You're here late."
"I could say the same for you." Jitender set the Ridge file down, flipping it opens with deliberate precision. "I need the detailed autopsy notes. The ones that didn't make it to the official report."
The doctor hesitated, his pen stilled midair. "We sent everything relevant."
Jitender leaned closer, his voice steady but edged. "I'm not here for what you sent upstairs. I want what you found. All of it."
The silence stretched. The doctor shifted in his chair, glanced at the door as if afraid someone might overhear. Finally, with a resigned sigh, he reached into a drawer and pulled out a thinner, separate folder.
He slid it across the desk. "You didn't get this from me."
The photographs inside were clearer, harsher. Jitender's jaw tightened as he studied them, faces mutilated beyond recognition, hands burnt until even fingerprints were useless, mouths sealed by some kind of chemical damage.
"These people weren't killed by gas," the doctor said quietly, folding his arms. "Not the way the report claims."
Jitender looked up sharply. "Then how?"
"Truth is," the doctor admitted, "most of them were already dead before they were brought to the Ridge. At least twelve hours earlier. Some longer." He tapped one photo where the body's chest looked caved in unnaturally. "Signs of deliberate mutilation. Removal of dental structures, erosion of bone patterns. Whoever did this want them unidentifiable."
Jitender's throat went dry. "So, the Ridge wasn't a crime scene. It was a dump site."
"Exactly." The doctor's voice dropped to a whisper. "Someone gathered those bodies, staged the site, and then sold it as a gas leak. But that's not the worst of it."
He leaned forward, lowering his voice further. "Some of the bodies weren't just mutilated, they were… experimented on. Tissues disintegrating in patterns I've never seen. It didn't look natural. Almost as if their cells were collapsing from inside."
Jitender closed the folder slowly, his fingers tightening on the edges. "And the official report?"
The doctor gave a bitter smile. "Sanitized. Convenient. Gas was the easiest answer. Clean, tidy, doesn't point fingers."
Jitender stood, the folder tucked under his arm. His face was grim, the weight of the revelation sinking into his chest.
The doctor's voice followed him to the door. "ASI… if I were you, I'd let this go. People higher up don't want this dug up. You start asking too many questions, you'll find trouble you can't handle."
Jitender paused at the threshold, his hand on the doorframe. His eyes were dark, fixed ahead.
"If not gas," he muttered, almost to himself, "then what the hell happened out there?"
And with that, he stepped into the night, the city's air heavy on his lungs, carrying the truth like a burden he knew wouldn't let him sleep.