"Why are all his servers down?"

"I have no idea", said Peter with his head hung low.

"Then figure it out", saying that Vikram shattered the glass of water which was placed on his desk. He was way too furious right now. Now it was a matter of his pride. In no way, he could let Raymond win this competition.

Unable to resist his anger and curiosity, he called up Akira.

********* Out of Range.

Then he tried to call up Raymond.

********* Out of Range.

"Where the hell are they right now?", Vikram said and tried to straddle across the length of the room. Then turning towards Peter he asked,

"You sure they all are in office today?"

"Yes, sir. A hundred and one percent. I had myself pulled the security footage from the main gate to check upon them. They are all in the office".

"Then why are they unreachable?"

He tried sending a mail to Akira's office email but that also failed and that was the end of his patience limit.

He picked up his car keys and drove for Brooklyn.

---

[Scene at the War Room]

Knock Knock

"Come in".

The receptionist entered inside and said,

"Mr.Vikram is here at the reception. He said it's urgent".

"That's ok. I will receive him now".

Saying that Raymond got up from his seat but then he saw Akira also getting up all worried.

He looked at her and said,

"Stay, I will manage", before walking out of the room.

He reached the reception and greeted Vikram, who clearly looked all disturbed.

"Hello, Raymond. Everything ok here? I was unable to contact you and Akira as well. The landline is also not working. I tried sending email to you but that also bounced. What's going on?".

"Oh, that's because all our servers have been switched off, including our internal SMTP e-mail server. Was there anything urgent that brought you here? You could have sent your assistant instead of you coming here all the way".

"But why?", Vikram asked, cutting his explanation.

"Security concerns, if I must say", saying that Raymond glanced at him with his look filled with nothing but suspicion.

"I see", Vikram said and sighed.

"So coming to the point, what brings you here?".

"I just wanted to wish you good luck before you left. We are more than business partners right? Since Akira is family, you are family too", saying that Vikram tried to pull a fake smile on his face.

"Well, that's really generous of you to say that. But if you do not have anything else important to say or ask, then I would like to go back to work. We still have two trial runs pending and I have just little over three hours to complete that".

"Oh yeah sure thing. Where is Akira by the way?"

"Oh, she is also busy with the final trial runs. When I got to know that you have arrived, I specifically asked her to accompany me to say hello to you. But she was so engrossed that she said no".

"Really? So busy that she said no?"

"Yup, one hell of a dedicated girl I must say", and saying that Raymond smiled and took a turn and walked back towards the war room.

Vikram stood there all stupified, for this time he had realized that Raymond was clearly light years ahead of him with his planning and forecast. He had definitely underestimated his opponent.

He kept looking in his direction all dejected and depleted of any energy to fight back.

But the thing that hurt him the most was the absence of Akira.

She didn't even come to receive him even after knowing that he was there. He couldn't believe that things between them have come to this.

It was like as if no matter which way he took, it always was a dead end.