Ayush Kumble

I was standing in front of the monitor screens, dedicatedly keeping a watch over the happenings of the building. My eyes suddenly fell on the footage where Mr. Kartik was walking up the stairs with deep thoughts in his mind. “Must have suffered a huge loss due to us,” I thought about that man who was before me a minute ago. “I needa take care of those newbies after my shift today.” Suddenly, a man knocked on the door and my eyes shifted rightwards towards the door. One of the other four men walked towards the gate slowly and then opened the door casually. He was a new man here and he was in front of the two who joined with him. Suddenly, I saw that his eyes were wide in shock. “I came for the deal,” That man said.

“S-Sir…” That boy squeaked. He was confused and didn’t know what to do anymore.

“I’ve seventy grand for today’s footage, kiddo. So, gotta make it quick this time.”

I walked a step forward and then noticed that he was an old man with a white beard. I was unable to see his whole face above his white beard, because his hoodie and the shadow of his hoodie covered most of the part of his face. So, I advanced towards him with a sense of superiority. “Sir,” I said as I walked towards him. “I’m the security head here, sir.”

“Oh, very well, kiddo,” He replied. “I’ve always wanted to meet you. These dickheads don’t provide good quality footage, so I wanted to meet you directly.” He pointed at the canvas luggage bag and then said, “I got seventy grand, kiddo. I’m no ordinary folk, ‘kay? I can give you more if you want, for the video footage for rest of the week. So, whaddya say?”

I looked at the bag, and then at the man. “But, why are you hiding your face, huh?”

That man replied, “Actually, I want no one to recognize me.” He moved his head forward and whispered in my ears, “I work here too, kiddo.”

“Under which name, mister?” I asked him.

“Can’t tell. So, deal or no deal?”

“Deal, if you tell me your name,” I crossed my arms. “I’d like that money, but info for info.”

“Pretty smart, huh,” He had a wide grin on his face. His teeth full of cavity were visible, and I was noting it all down in my head. “See, don’t play smart with me. I work for The Suiciders. We can kill you anytime and show that it’s a suicide. You must have known about that case by now, right?” I nodded. “Ah!” He smiled and laughed. “Then what’s with the delay? Take the money and give the footage.”

“A lot of folks come and go, mister,” I said in superiority. I was determined not to give him any footage.

With this reply, his grand grin disappeared and he asked in surprise, “Huh? So you won’t give me the footage?”

“No.”

Suddenly, he had his grin again and laughed. He was acting a little too overdramatic and I was getting irritated of him. He touched my face and said, “Now, who’s gonna save your wife and three children?”

My eyes bulged out in shock. “Wha--” Before I could have said something else, he turned back and waved me goodbye. “Say your prayers to save your family, kiddo! Their time is limited!”

“Hey! Wait!”

“It’s too late to wait, baby!” He danced and went away. I saw him walking up the stairway. I was frightened. I thought, “No… Nothing should happen to my family!”

Manuel Levi

Kritika rubbed her chin. “So that’s what you heard last night.” She was also surprised like me. We both stood inside an old room with walls of rock and white-wash which had completely come off.

“It’s troubling, right?”

“Indeed. Our division needs Inspector Khandelwal to win this case, but how is that gonna happen if they got a mole in the police HQ?

“The moles need to be taken care of, and we needa do everything in our might to win this.”

“The troubling part is…” She said, “… we can’t even get regular updates like Vikram. Moreover, we would even need some contact with Inspector himself to help him here from inside.”

“Maybe,” I told her as the bulb of my mind suddenly fired up. “Maybe we can leave some message to him in our next killings!”

“No,” Kritika replied. “We need his information to help him out. It’d be of no use until he sends us messages back with his problems in the case.”

“Oh, so we need both the sides to communicate, right?”

“Yep,” Kritika commented, “But it’d be better if we gain information from Vikram rather than the Inspector. The information arrives here somehow, and that’s why Vikram knows about the investigation, right?”

“Maybe we can, you know, have one of our men behind his back all the time, someone who can follow him without leaving a trace.”

“No, because if that ‘someone’ gets caught--”

“Don’t think pessimistic, Kriti.”

“I’m being realistic, Levi.”

“Hey!” Someone came in running from the door in the middle of our conversation. “When did the investigation against our group start?!”

“How do you know?” Kritika asked him.

“‘Cuz I overheard Mr. Vikram saying something like we lost some deal at the Delhi Police HQ, and some keywords like ‘can lose’, and most importantly, ‘The Suiciders Defense Group’!”