Death and Dishonor

by Abhimanyu Saxena

Prateek grunted and smashed the third slab with all his might. It broke down into two pieces, and one piece flew to a good distance before crashing down on the floor.

  “Excellent, this project will eradicate all the crimes in the city and make this a better place to live. This concludes the super-strength display.”

  The crowd erupted with cheers and applause. It lasted for a couple of minutes, and Devraj basked in all the glory. “The last display tonight will be of the Shield Glass, which can be used efficiently in the Police search. Prateek, come here please.”

  He moved slowly towards Devraj. The two black cat commandoes were on the mark, in case anything unusual happens.

  “Find Mukesh Bhatia,” he ordered.

  Prateek looked around the hall, and the glass covering his eyes started grinding digits and algorithms in red. Once the result was processed, it turned green. The colors were only visible to Prateek; all of the others just saw him moving his head. Within a minute, Prateek pointed his finger towards the right side of the crowd.

  “Mukesh Bhatia spotted. He is standing at the right corner in the front row.”

  The spotlight covered Mukesh’s puzzled face as he couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. Devraj took the center stage once again.

  “Friends, you have seen it all. I urge you to come forward with your funding and donations so that this vision becomes the reality that we all have hoped for. Lastly, on this stage, for the very first time, I would try to get a solution to one of the biggest threats this city has ever witnessed – Arjun Rathore.”

  The crowd gasped, they had not expected this. Heck, even Pratap and Ajeet didn’t know what was going on now.

  “The Police have tried their best but have not caught him yet. He has always managed to escape and hide. Well, not anymore. Let’s use the Shield to find out his exact location.”

  Ajeet started sweating. He hoped that Moti would have taken care of Arjun till now.

  “Prateek, is Arjun Rathore alive?” asked Devraj curiously.

  Prateek looked a little uncomfortable. However, he replied within half a minute. “He is alive.”

  Devraj scoffed and gave an angry glare at his nephew. Ajeet took out his mobile and started dialing Moti’s number.

  “Where is Arjun Rathore?” Devraj continued.

  This was the million-dollar question. Everyone had their eyes fixed on Prateek, who was scanning the entire city for Arjun’s whereabouts. After a minute, the result was processed. He jolted his index finger towards the crowd immediately.

  “Arjun Rathore spotted.”

  ANOMALY

  It was half past six in the evening and cars were flooding the infamous Shangri-La hotel at Ashoka Road in the Connaught circus. The valet coordinator standing behind his podium shouted at a bunch of other guys and me, “Look alive, people. We will have a swarm coming in now.”

  A guy with a sweet Bentley stopped to a halt in front of me. Within a second, I knew that it was my cue as the coordinator shouted with a what-the-fuck hand gesture, “New guy! You are up.”

  “Sir, good evening! May I?” I asked politely to the guy in a teal suit and a golden tie, who got out of the car. He responded with a frown, looked once at the car and then back at me.

  “I should get this back in a better condition than now. You will keep that in mind, won’t you?” He said, handing me the key.

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered, rolling my eyes. I sat down in the car and drove it into the other parking entrance not cordoned off for the ministers and Delta associates.

  So why did a former cop and fugitive take up a job as a valet suddenly? Let’s rewind a bit as I owe an explanation.

  When I started researching the hotel after I got to know from Moti that Ajeet would be here, I got way more than what I had bargained for. Ajeet had set up a sweet deal for himself. He would be in the middle of a hundred cops to protect him, while he sends the big oaf to take care of me.

  Well, it didn’t go as quietly as he had planned and there I was, rushing back to the bunker. I hoped to find something there that would get me inside the hotel with my wanted face. Luckily, as Akshay excelled in a career of thievery and grifting which required a little bit of disguise from time to time, I did manage to find a small kit in his stash.

  I had to wash and mend myself off first otherwise I would have been bleeding out of my disguise, all thanks to Moti. The hard part was hiding my facial scars though, once the bleeding had stopped. Not knowing what I was doing, I started applying stuff on them which would hide them better.

  After about half an hour, I had managed to make myself a mighty fair man with a fake beard and mustache glued to my stubble. It seemed authentic maybe, but the point was that I was unrecognizable. And just like that, an intern valet got sent by the valet company to assist with the pressure tonight who was ready to take his first car for a spin down the parking lot. It had been some time and I was glad that my face was still holding whatever funny I did to it. I had parked the van in a spot across the street.

  I stopped the car at a free spot and killed the engine. I took out one of his business cards from the stack on the dashboard and called the number.

  The guy picked up and said, “Hello, who is it?”

  “Sir, I am your valet-” I started.

  “What is it?” he asked, then after a pause, “What the fuck did you do with my car?”

  “I swear I didn’t do anything, sir, but you need to come and take a look,” I said in a panicked voice, “There’s smoke coming out of the hood. It’s bad, sir. It’s really bad!”

  “Wow! I hadn’t even made it past security, you swine!” his voice was shaking in anger. “You wait there for me. I will teach you a lesson. Which level are you on?”

  He cut the call after muttering to himself. I saw him coming and hid out of sight.

  He reached his car and began locating the fake smoke. He started looking around for me, and I came out of the nearest pillar and smacked him hard on the back of his head.

  I lay him in the back seat of the car after I had changed into his tux. It was a little loose for me, but I managed to carry it off somehow. I found the invitation envelope with the card inside the hidden pocket of his blazer.

  I took the lift to the second floor where I had got to know that the event was happening in a party hall. I was stopped just outside the lift by two hotel guards frisking me and asking if I was here for the event. I showed them my pass. There was a lot of foot traffic on the floor with more than a decent number of police officers not ignoring the ones trying to be subtle in their civvies.

  Pratap might be in charge of the security of the event seeing that he was now in charge of my case, and the more than standard security was in place due to me. I was glad though that Pratap was handling it because he may turn a blind eye to me when I escape tonight.

  There were two entrances to the giant rectangular party hall, one of which was along the length of it. It was near to the second elevator which I supposed would have been used by Devraj and other VVIPs to get in. I saw that it was secure that way because there wasn’t much room for walking from the elevator to the entrance. The one along the width had the whole floor to it and was open for the other guests.

  I went through the metal detectors after which I was frisked again, this time by cops. My cover still holding on for dear life, my pass was checked, and I was given a white band with a curious symbol. The union of Devraj’s party and the company that my wife used to work at. Going past that disturbing thought, I was let inside.

  The hall was very lively at this point. It was ringing with constant chatter and laughter with the rich people boasting about the luxuries they had attained from their business empires. Some were expressing their eagerness about the event, rumors about it that they had heard about what might be unveiling.

  My eyes cut through the crowd and saw Devraj, talking with guests some of whom had small briefcases. I did not know much about that man barring one meeting which was led by Ajeet. Speaking o
f the devil, Ajeet was also with them. He started laughing at some comment, and it brought me back to tonight’s main agenda. I whispered to myself, “Let’s mingle.”

  ~*~

  “Arjun Rathore spotted,” Prateek was pointing straight at me. The crowd gasped, and there were some sudden whispers among them.

  “Arjun?”

  “He is here?”

  “Where?”

  “Oh my god!”

  They scattered and turned their heads to find me as I shifted quickly among them to my right. Prateek looked confused as he was unable to locate me again in the crowd now. I quickly went behind a man taller than me. Prateek kept looking back at the last location that he had spotted me while browsing around the crowd.

  I tried to locate Ajeet. He was still at the right-hand corner of the stage standing with Pratap, showing subtle signs of panic.

  I showed my face again from the crowd as Prateek started moving along the length of the stage. Devraj and the others on the stage stayed alert, curiously viewing what Prateek was going to do next. He stopped to a halt when he spotted me in the crowd and said, “I see you again.”

  The crowd scattered again from my position with hushed voices. It made it easy in the dimly lit room for me to quickly evade from behind the tall man and move to a new position behind somebody. The tall guy now standing in the lone spot had his hands up in the air as everyone was looking at him.

  He said out loud, “Whoa! Do I look like the wanted guy in the news?”

  “No, I am sorry, sir,” Prateek replied, “I did see him, but he has somehow vanished.”

  Prateek couldn’t believe that he had lost Arjun again from his sight. Stupid live tracking, but even if he shed all this gear, he still had years of training so why was he going out of his form. He felt a little dizzy and also a bit hot in his gear. It was making him uncomfortable.

  Devraj said to the crowd, “Don’t worry, my friends. We all know that it is disturbing that the murderer has been located here. But I assure you, we are in good hands.”

  Then he turned to Prateek and said, “Prateek! Are you sure that you saw him? In this crowd?”

  Prateek nodded, and Devraj whispered to Aurobindo, “Is he really sure? This is a pretty secure place, and I made sure of it.” He turned to Raghav and whispered, “Are you sure those optics aren’t acting funny? This isn’t exactly what I expected of tonight, you know.”

  They shook their heads assuring everything technical was functioning correctly. Aurobindo then whispered to Raghav, “What the hell is happening here?”

  Raghav sighed looking at his PDA and whispered back, “The optics are set to fixed-point tracking. In that way, it will only keep track of the target when it is constantly registering it with facial recognition. This is actually a secondary feature to identify static targets for sniping or tracking over close quarters. This is why we didn’t mention that and just described the key features. He knows how to switch to live tracking; I am not sure why isn’t he doing it. Shall I tell him or something?”

  Aurobindo replied, “No, let him figure it out. You wouldn’t be guiding him forever, right? He should know.”

  Prateek moved to the other side of the stage, and the crowd started to concentrate on the opposite side. He jumped off from the stage and landed with a loud clunk in front of them, startling some of them. He felt that he could get a better view if he gets closer to them.

  I was behind a nice lady this time when I decided that I would peek again to get his attention. If he was getting a lock on me through facial recognition, somehow he kept losing me when I hid which could be an issue with his glasses. I made a plan to annoy him until I can think of a way to get Ajeet away from here. I was expecting him to do something more than just use his dud of a locator to play hide and seek with me. Everyone had so much faith in him; they weren’t even attempting to evacuate people, even the VVIPs. I had to do something to make them lose trust in him and at the same time, really believe that I was there so that there could be some real panic which leads to evacuation.

  Raghav’s PDA beeped, he looked at it and then whispered to Aurobindo, “He just switched the tracker to live, now the next register will set the hostile to live tracking, if he even exists here.”

  Aurobindo nodded.

  Here goes nothing! I peeked from behind the woman, and he spotted me, shouting out and advancing towards the crowd with his hands pointing at her who screamed alarmingly, “Me? Wha-?”

  I quickly pretended that I had dropped something and was going to pick it up, I shifted behind another woman. He saw me do this, but repeated the wrong words, “No, that lady over there!”

  “Watch where you’re pointing, you stupid robot!” the woman shouted back.

  “I am sorry, I- I meant behind them,” he said, quickly attempting to correct his mistake, then he stopped short in front of the crowd and looked at the stage, saying, “I really saw the fugitive behind them.”

  The ladies checked behind them, but I had already moved, they replied, “There is no fugitive behind us. Take those damn glasses off and see!”

  Pratap hurried over to Devraj and whispered, “If Arjun is really here we need to evacuate you all right now.”

  Ajeet also followed and joined Pratap as Devraj said, “There is no need. I don’t think Arjun is here.”

  He went ahead on the edge of the stage and addressed the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, I think this has been enough of a demonstration for today. I am sorry for this hoax information which unnerved you all. Let us just get ourselves some drinks, get something to eat, and we can call it a nigh-”

  “No!” Prateek interrupted loudly. Some people started whispering about how rude he was in interrupting the CM-elect while he continued firmly, “Arjun is here, I am sure of it.”

  He took his service weapon out of the side holster of his armor to which the officers in the room also followed suit and the two NSG commandos quickly climbed the stage and surrounded Devraj for protection.

  Prateek said loudly, “I need lights; someone give me lights now.”

  “Sir, this one too? He is showing signs of agitation,” one of the assistants whispered to Aurobindo, “His heart rate is spiking momentarily too.”

  “It is nothing to worry about,” he whispered back, “At this moment, there could be a serial killer here. This type of behavior is normal in this scenario.”

  The man who was in charge of the technicians informed one of them to do the same. He stood there, shaking in fear and said, “Sir, is the killer really here?”

  The man replied with gritted teeth, “Will you just do what you are asked to do right now?”

  Prateek’s mind was racing so much that it hurt. He was unable to understand why was he losing focus suddenly. People were counting on him, and he was letting them down. He was suddenly feeling very hot inside his suit, and he wished someone would check that. He had to catch hold of Arjun now before he hurts someone.

  The technician rushed to the switch-board to turn on more lights. However, in all tension, he turned them all off.

  There was a wave of panic again as the darkness engulfed them and Prateek shouted, “What? You want to play games? I can play with darkness,” there was a pause, then he let out a cry in frustration.

  Raghav said in a panic, “He just switched them to thermal instead of night vision. He wouldn’t be able to see shit unless he needs to kill everybody.”

  He realized a second later that he had said this out loud and everyone heard him. The crowd scattered again screaming in panic, and I rushed towards the stage to get to Ajeet through the little that I could see from the moonlight coming in through the windows.

  I saw Pratap, Ajeet and the commandos shield the important people on the stage, armed and ready. Prateek shouted, “Nobody can leave until I check everybody,” and there were sudden beeps in two parts of the room and the sliding doors shut and their biometrics was showing a red light.

  Raghav said, “He just locked down the hall.”
<
br />   Devraj shouted at Raghav, “Turn him off or something. He is unnecessarily creating a scene.”

  Raghav replied, frowning, “He is not a robot!”

  Aurobindo whispered to his assistants, “Prep the tranqs.”

  Someone turned on all the lights in the hall until it was brightly lit and people spotted me beside the stage. Some of the cops started shooting at me as they continued shielding Devraj and the others and I ducked somewhere behind the stage.

  The firing stopped though as they all turned their attention to Prateek. I peeked from behind the stage and saw him pointing his weapon at my exact position, but there was an officer between us.

  Pratap shouted, “Prateek! Stand down.”

  It was like he didn’t even hear Pratap’s words and said, “There you are,” and fired. The bullet went through the officer’s hip, and I ducked right on time to see it hit the wall. This time, the gunshots drowned the screaming of the people as everyone started pumping Prateek with bullets. I peeked again to see that Prateek was on the ground on one knee and panting heavily as though he was hyperventilating as the bullets hit his armor dropping like flies without any impact. Pratap and the commandos escorted Devraj and the others off the stage from the right side and began proceeding cautiously to the entrance along the length.

  Pratap ordered in his comms, “All officers on other floors, make sure everybody stays in their rooms and no soul should wander the corridors. Get to work right now and stay alert. I might need backup.”

  Prateek calmed suddenly then let out a battle cry which shook everyone’s insides. Suddenly, he seemed unrecognizable. His eyes were blood red, he was whiter than my makeup and shaking with rage. Someone had shot his gun out of his hand which was a good sign. He turned and faced the crowd of the guests huddled on the opposite width of the room.

  Aurobindo pushed his assistants and said, “We have a code red, tranq him now and prep to take him with us.”

  I looked at his abandoned gun on the floor a few meters away from him. If I could get my hands on it, I could probably mess up the electronics locking the gate. The gun looked a bit advanced and could do the job, but I have to be quick about it. I didn’t want him to harm someone innocent again. To my horror, he ran towards the guests like a madman and started trampling them with his titanium armor.