Cold was slowly seeping into the air of the town of Dehradun. Dr. Ahluwalia and Sophia were having coffee at his house. They had been making plans to take a break and visit some other destinations. Sophia had been urging him to apply for leave and come with her for a few days to Bali. He had finally agreed to do so. When he applied for leave, his senior called him up.

‘I was going to suggest it to you anyways. We have been worried about you recently. You have been absent in a few meetings, maybe you are busy working on this project. The minister has been asking for scaling up IMAGED. The data centre has been sending in strange patterns to me, asking for clarification,’ Anusha passed him a bundle of papers which had daily reports of the data collected by the DEAL supercomputer for IMAGED. On every page there was a table with patterns and graphs. Even though the people who got connected could understand what the other person was trying to convey, the supercomputer stored it in the form of neural signals. Hence somebody with the knowledge of the technology used in IMAGED and neural networks could decode what the data was trying to say. The only person in the country who could do that was Dr. Ahluwalia himself.

‘Before you go I need you to tell me what all this is about. Once you decode these signals in English language, submit your report and take a few days leave.’

This kind of an attitude angered Dr. Ahluwalia. He had never had a leave from his work in DEAL for years. But he kept quiet and came out with a copy of the data. In the evening, he talked about his dilemma with Sophia.

 She had been with him for 6 months now, meeting him for the first time at a coffee shop in the central market at Indra Nagar. It started with a casual talk about the weather and technology. Dr. Ahluwalia was fond of gadgets and Sophia had the latest iPhone release, which she easily let Mr Ahluwalia use and play with. There was an exchange of numbers. Next day she was at his house with her latest BMW model. She took him for a ride around the town of Dehradun, and Dr. Ahluwalia, who was fond of cars, but had never had one simply because as far as he could remember, had lived close to his place of work wherever he had been since leaving home. At IIT kharagpur, he was still a student riding a bicycle. At MIT, he rented a house close to his lab, so he could walk. At DEAL, he lived on the housing at the DEAL premises. His mind could never persuade him to buy one because he did not need it.

‘I can teach you how to drive it. But you would need to promise me one thing,’ she had said, ‘You will take me out for dinner at the best place in Dehradun once you take your first ride.’

‘Done,’ he said.

From then on, there was the motor training, dinner and personal conversations. He came to know that she was in Dehradun for a few months on work and would head back to Delhi.

‘I have never met anybody like you,’ she had said, ‘you feel so out of the world.’

‘People say that about me,’ he blushed.

He was unaware about the rules of this game and like a true hunter, Sophia had realized it early. But it was taking longer than usual. When a woman like Sophia spent time with you, there was hardly a man in the world who would not think of taking her to bed. If there was one, it had to be Dr. Ahluwalia. He had a pocket book of excuses, and at any hint of a physical intimacy, he could immediately take out one from it. ‘I have work, can’t stay without working for a day.’ ‘I don’t wish to bother you with your engagements.’ ‘I feel dizzy, if I do not get up on time.’ Once he even tried to evade it by saying, ‘I have a girlfriend outside of town, this will be disloyalty to her.’ She knew it very well that none of it was true.

In March 2022, Sophia had come to Dehradun to take out the secrets of IMAGED from Dr. Ahluwalia. Sophia, the most popular call girl in the political circles of Delhi understood these kinds of operations very well. Using girls to entice men of power and resource is one of the oldest trick in the trade. And the monetary gain in this job was very high.

What she did not know was what IMAGED was. The first three weeks with Dr Ahluwalia had produced nothing substantial. He never mentioned his work with Sophia, and she was looking for an opportunity to talk to him about it. The opportunity came in the final week of April 2022, when she paid a surprise visit to his house.

‘What is all this?’ She was staring at the table where a collection of wires was kept. Both the maid and Dr. Ahluwalia had something covering their heads. They looked like aliens. A smile spread over Sophia’s face whereas the maid looked embarrassed on seeing her. Dr. Ahluwalia explained.

‘This is a part of my work. She is my caretaker and also helps me out with this sometimes,’ he spoke as the maid went into the other room. She came out in two minutes without the head gear and asked for leave, instructing him about the food kept in the kitchen. Dr. Ahluwalia nodded his head.

That day she was shown what IMAGED was all about. He asked her to stay in the other room after fixing the head gear on her. Both of them could converse freely, make the other person move their parts of body and read thoughts in each other’s mind. Sophia was amazed by this. She would smile most of the times, and laugh sometimes like a child introduced to a wonder. They started playing little games with each other. Slowly the interaction took a romantic turn and Sophia started urging him on with sexual innuendos. He followed it up with his own version of romantic couplets in Hindi, which he then had to translate in English. He showed her the virtual connect feature. She was taken aback initially but then brought him close to her mind. Sophia was well versed in this kind of a conversation and she led him further into it by using seduction techniques. She just loved what was happening. Both of them had removed their clothes separately and were deeply engrossed in the act of lovemaking. In a matter of an hour, she had achieved the two things that she had wanted: to get to know about IMAGED and to seduce Dr. Ahluwalia.

The bond between Dr. Ahluwalia and Sophia had grown strong since then. After a few days, she asked him to let her keep the head gear all the time so that she could be with her love. He gave her an even better idea. Instead of using a head gear, he could have her imaged.

He explained the wireless facility to Sophia. No head gear was needed if they were imaged wirelessly. This way she could stay in touch with him and also do her work normally without attracting any attention. In a fit of excitement, she gave him accent without pondering to think about the consequences. He did this in a small operation which hardly took a minute. He made her read a special paper for twenty seconds and this was enough to image her unique DNA signature.

Abideh knew no bounds of excitement after hearing this. The possibility of connecting two people just by imaging them for a minute opened up boundless possibilities. She decided to get more girls into this job. An agent got her two tall, beautiful and young girls from Russia who could speak English. It was July 2022. They were flown to Dehradun, where they met Abideh, who gave them an extremely lucrative offer. They were codenamed RSA-1 and RSA-2.

In August 2022, Dr. Ahluwalia was called by Anusha for an update on the work he had been assigned.

‘I need a few more days for decoding the data,’ said Dr. Ahluwalia.

‘How many more days do you need? The data centre people are after me. They want an expert who can do it for them. I had already warned you not to take so much work upon yourself. You should train somebody in IMAGED.’

Dr. Ahluwalia thought he had had enough of this shit. DEAL had secured a hefty contract on the basis of the work he had done for so long. The money which would come from the government was meant for the development of the labs, but he knew where some of it went. Anusha had been a beneficiary of the funds, that too without adding much to the research.

‘I will train somebody when the right time comes. The technology is still under development phase.’

‘This is a vague answer. You know I do not like vague answers.’

‘This is as good as I can give you right now. And as for these codes, I know these are not important. So I am not going to decode them.’

Anusha stared at him. Dr. Ahluwalia had never shown a hint of disagreement before. His work ethic and commitment had been perfect. But since the presentation, he had been behaving strangely. He would come and go as he pleased, staying away from lab for long duration of times. His communication with his colleagues had decreased tremendously, in fact most of them had said that they haven’t had an opportunity to talk to him since the presentation. Anusha knew that it was some time before any contract could be signed for IMAGED. Elections were round the corner which meant that politicians were busy planning about them and in any case, government contracts took time to be completed with all their formalities. She wrote a mail to Dr. Ahluwalia, asking him clearly to decode and send the English translations to the Data Centre within a week, marking a copy to the head of the data centre. As she had expected, the reply came in the negative. She then officially circulated it in the Department that Dr. Ahluwalia had been asked to go on an indefinite leave on account of his health problems and mishandling of sensitive information. A mail was promptly sent to Dr. Ahluwalia to stay home and take medical help before further orders are dispatched to him.

Two weeks after that, it was in the papers about Dr. Ahluwalia being missing. The FIR had been filed by his maid, but the information in the papers about him being on an indefinite leave from DEAL, was unknown to her.

Anusha did not know what to do about it. She was reluctant in helping the police because it could involve giving information about IMAGED, which was impossible. She decided that DEAL will stay away from this and hoped that Dr. Ahluwalia is safe and would return back soon. But she did inform the higher authorities about the development of events, hoping that somebody would pick it up on an urgent basis. If Ahluwalia did not return, it would mean a big loss for the organization and maybe for the country.

*

The room was dark, when Dr. Ahluwalia woke up. It smelled of jasmine, his favourite smell. Sophia was sitting there smiling at him.

‘Where are we? What happened?’ He asked her.

‘Darling, you fell unconscious and I had to bring you here. It’s not far away from your house.’

‘This is strange. Let us go back now that I am fine.’

‘No. We are not going back soon. We are staying here as long as I want,’ she smiled and called for food on the landline phone.

In a few days, he realized that he was under house arrest. He was not allowed to go outside. Two men were always guarding the exit door. Anything he wanted, he had to order through the landline phone. It was a two-room apartment. The facilities were meticulously arranged with all that he liked, including free supply of his favourite scotch. Only Sophia could have done all this, he thought to himself. Dr. Ahluwalia did not protest much, as he thought it was a two or three day break.

Dehradun was too close to DEAL. Abideh feared that Dr. Ahluwalia may get away if kept here for long. She had decided to set up a group of people in Mussoourie. A haveli like house in the red light district was bought. Dr. Ahluwalia was given one of the rooms. He had to be transferred in an unconscious state, as he had been continuously refusing to cooperate with Sophia, asserting that he had to go back home. Two bodyguards used to guard his room in this haveli as well. Anything he needed was brought for him including books and research papers. But he was not allowed to go out or communicate with the outside world in any way. The house was big enough to house twenty to twenty-five people. Abideh had decided to target more people using this technology. She had an immediate need to connect three businessmen for getting them out of the coal auction race, as they had refused to join the cartel ring. Dr. Ahluwalia made the necessary preparations. He created special codes for six people: three for the business heads of the companies and three for the call-girls to be connected to them.

The first company head to be targeted was Mr. Anubhuti Sharma of Coal India Limited. CIL was the largest coal miner in India and had big interests in the coal fields of Jharkhand. But recently, in the era of privatisation, CIL had been branded as a low quality coal supplier. Other private players who sold imported coal in India were favoured by power companies and other users of coal. As the new chairman of CIL, Mr. Sharma had promised to diversify coal production and scout mines in countries like Africa and Australia. His intention was to improve the coal quality supplied by CIL.

Abideh had knowledge of this. She scanned Mr. Sharma by sending him a greeting card on his birthday in the name of a high ranking politician. Mr. Sharma read the card in a state of joy as his DNA signature was scanned and saved in IMAGED. She then instructed the agent connected to Mr. Sharma to feed the idea that the coal mines in recent auctions contained low quality coal. And that CIL should quit the coal mining auction. For two days, the agent read the sentences written on a sheet of paper in her mind in order to feed it to Mr. Sharma’s mind. On the third day, Mr. Sharma who had started believing that the upcoming auction mines were of low quality decided not to be bid for the mines. After this, he was disconnected from IMAGED.

The second company to be targeted was Mr. Jagannath Mishra, MD of Tata Power. Tata Power had bid for the mines to acquire coal for its plants in Jamshedpur. Mr. Mishra, even though at such a high position was an extremely religious and superstitious man. He did Pooja everyday and visited the temples with his family on every weekend. He was scanned by inviting him to an Aarti of one of the temples of Mumbai. The invitation card was sent to his office and when he read it, he got scanned. Mr. Mishra, Abideh knew, was a big bhakt of Hindu god, Lord Krishna. Her instruction to the agent connected to Mr. Mishra was: Put is in his mind that Lord Krishna does not want him to bid for the mines. The agent did this repeatedly and after a week Tata Power had withdrawn from the coal auction.

The third company Abideh targeted was Vishveshrya Aluminum Limited. It was headed by Amit Lokhandwala. The company had plans to foray into the coal mining business after its successful venture into aluminum. Mr. Lokhandawala was scanned by a letter sent to him by a consultancy firm proposing collaboration in energy business. Abideh did not have an easy task with him as compared to the other two companies. Mr. Lokhandwala was ambitious man who made his moves carefully. Abideh used a two pronged strategy to dissuade him from venturing into the coal mining business. She first of all asked the agent to feed him that coal mining was not going to be as successful a sector for his company as Aluminum. Secondly she asked her to feed him threatening message that venturing into coal mining could have dire consequences for his company. The agent kept feeding this into the mind of Mr. Lokhandawala. As with the other two, this trick worked and Vishveshwarya Alumunium withdrew from the coal auctions.

Dr. Ahluwalia was still not aware of the use his technology was being put to. Sophia served him well winding him in a web of lies and stories. He, like a true researcher, kept himself engaged in finding the logical fallacies in her stories rather than discarding them all together and staging an outright rebellion or hatching a plan to get out of the place.