The warehouse had gone quiet again. Professor Rajni Deswal sat on the far side of the room, her silhouette half-lit by the blue glow of the humming monitors. She wasn’t restrained, but the way Anchal Rathod’s team had positioned themselves, between her and the exit, made it clear she wasn’t free to walk out either.

  She hadn’t asked to. After dropping her bombshell about Shivam and “living links,” she had gone silent, arms folded, eyes fixed somewhere on the concrete floor as if she were waiting for them to decide what came next.

  A few meters away, the PI team huddled together, keeping their voices low. The tension among them was thick enough to cut.

  “This is insane,” Mansi muttered, snapping her laptop open on a stack of crates. The glow reflected against her glasses as her fingers flew across the keys. “A gas leak experiment? Living links to another world? Do we even realize how crazy all this sounds?”

  Sumit leaned against the wall, his arms crossed tightly. “Crazy or not, she knew too much. About the Ridge incident, about Kairav, about us. Especially us. Nobody outside this circle knows what happened to us on the other world.” His eyes darted to the woman across the room. “So, either she’s telling the truth, or someone planted her.”

  Pawan, still nursing his bruised shoulder from their scuffle earlier, nodded grimly. “That’s what bothers me. If she worked with SynerTech this long, what’s stopping her from working with them now? For all we know, this whole act could be another setup. Gain our trust, get close, and then… slit our throats when it matters most.”

  Suchitra, who had been pacing in slow circles, stopped and spoke quietly but firmly. “She didn’t strike me as a liar. Defensive, yes. Guarded. But not someone spinning stories. You saw her face when she talked about the Ridge. That wasn’t performance.”

  Anchal, standing in the middle of the group, listened without interrupting, her eyes flicking between her teammates. The lines of suspicion were carved deep into all of them.

  “Let’s assume, just for a second, she’s telling the truth,” Suchitra continued. “If what she says about weaponizing Noctirum is real, we’re sitting on a bomb that makes everything else look small.”

  “And if she’s lying?” Sumit shot back. “Then she’s the bomb.”

  That left them in silence again, each staring at the floor, the walls, anywhere but each other. The faint hum of the computers filled the gap.

  Mansi finally sighed and shook her head. “Either way, she wants Shivam. That’s the part I don’t like. Why him? Why is every road we take suddenly circling back to him?” She tapped something into her laptop, the keys clacking in sharp rhythm. “I’m running a background check, university records, employment history, funding trails. If Rajni really is who she says she is, there’ll be traces online. People don’t just disappear from the system unless someone wants them gone.”

  Anchal’s gaze flicked to Rajni again. The woman hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even looked their way in several minutes. Almost like she was deliberately giving them space to argue.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Even if the check comes clean,” Pawan muttered, “we’re not just going to hand her Shivam on a platter.”

  “No one said we would,” Anchal replied evenly. “But we can’t ignore what she said either. If there’s even a chance she’s right, we need to know.”

  Sumit exhaled sharply, pushing himself off the wall. “Fine. Don’t trust her. Keep her under watch. But let’s not kid ourselves. If she’s telling the truth, then sooner or later…” He glanced toward Rajni, then back at the group. “We’re going to have to bring Shivam in. Because she won’t say everything without him.”

  That made the group go quiet again. Even Mansi stopped typing for a second, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. The unspoken weight of the decision pressed down on all of them, Shivam, already carrying more than his share, might be the key Rajni was holding out for.

  Mansi broke the silence, her tone clipped but focused. “Background first. Answers later. Until I dig something up, she doesn’t get an inch closer to him.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and bent back to the screen, the pale glow painting her face in cold determination.

  Across the room, Rajni finally lifted her head, eyes glinting faintly in the monitor light. Almost as if she knew exactly what they were whispering about.

  The SynerTech headquarters loomed like a fortress even in daylight, but at night it seemed alive, each window glowed like a watchful eye, each security patrol synchronized to the minute. Aanchal adjusted the collar of her stolen blazer, her disguise complete: the soft scarf, the clipped posture, and most importantly, the mask of Adhivita Vyer. She had spent weeks observing the woman, her stride, her clipped accent, even the way she tapped her nails when impatient.

  The keycard weighed heavy in her pocket. She had lifted it off her superior earlier that day, copying its code with Mansi’s gadget before slipping it back. Now, under the humming neon lights of the marble lobby, she crossed the floor like she belonged there.

  The first hurdle was the lift.

  She slid the card into the scanner. For a moment, the panel blinked red. Her throat tightened. Then, beep. The light turned green, and the hidden buttons lit up across the sleek control panel. Most were labeled with numbers she knew, floors already mapped. But at the bottom, separated by a thin glowing line, was a single option: L-10.

  Aanchal’s finger hovered. The lift hummed as the doors shut, sealing her in silence.

  As the cabin descended, she noticed the difference immediately. This wasn’t the same polished hum of the office elevators. The air felt heavier here, the metal vibrating under her shoes with a low, resonant thrum. The digital screen flickered as it counted down past the basement levels, B1, B2, B5… then nothing. Blank red. The descent stretched longer than she expected, her ears popping as the pressure changed.

  When the doors opened, the air that met her was different, dense, sterilized, tinged with the faint metallic bite of chemicals.

  Level 10 stretched before her.

  The lab was vast, carved into bedrock. Fluorescent lights bathed everything in sterile white, but shadows lingered in corners where heavy machines loomed. Thick glass partitions divided the space into zones. One chamber glowed faintly with a shifting, smoke-like substance swirling inside, a gas that bent the light unnaturally, refracting it into dull blues and greens. Scientists in lab coats and NBC suits stood around it, tablets in hand, murmuring observations. A heavy reinforced frame surrounded the chamber, bolted with enough steel to withstand an explosion.

  Everywhere she looked, experiments were alive. Rows of computer stations blinked with complex data streams. Robotic arms extended into sealed units, handling glowing crystals of Noctirum the way one might handle radioactive uranium. The hum of air filtration was constant, oppressive, reminding her that the very air here wasn’t safe without layers of protection.

  She moved cautiously, her heels echoing too loudly on the concrete. A rack of NBC suits stood against the wall. She grabbed one, tugging it over her clothes. The heavy helmet clicked into place, muffling the world into a dull buzz. The reflective visor gave her cover. She slipped into the flow of white-suited scientists, copying their calm, mechanical pace.