The mystery surrounding Amballore House, the inaccessibility of the estate to the public, and the tragic end of the home buyers were national news, not merely local news that could be shoved under a rug. The bureau attracted national attention, and there was widespread expectation that they would come up with some evidence to explain away the apparently unsolvable mysteries.
The bureau was systematically collecting evidence and painstakingly working in the background, biding their time. They were confident that one day they would be able to come up with some solid, untarnished evidence that would resolve the mysteries once and for all.
Vareed and Eli, because they were residents of Amballore House, were the natural suspects of the swimming pool massacre that took place in 1958. They became Amballore House residents in 1958. The mansion was occupied by Vareed’s parents in 1956, the year when the honeymooner’s disappearance took place. They were the natural suspects of the disappearance.
Can septuagenarians commit crimes of such shockingly vicious nature? The bureau members played out in their own minds how the honeymoon tragedy could have unraveled. Their imagination came up with this little episode of the tragic night:
The honeymoon couple was met by an elderly couple in their midseventies who looked friendly (Vareed’s parents). They claimed that they were their distant relatives in need of a night’s stay in such an unfriendly territory as Amballore House and its surroundings. The young couple took pity on them and offered them accommodation.
Both the couples had their bedrooms upstairs connected by a common balcony overlooking the well just underneath and a swimming pool in a distance. As midnight approached, the elderly couple got up and tiptoed into young couple’s bedroom, breaking the door open using some blunt instrument, such as an ax.
The terrified honeymooners jumped out of bed, thinking they were being attacked by midnight robbers. No sooner did they call out for their elderly relatives to wake up and rescue them than they realized that the elders were the robbers! But by then it was too late. They were captured by old couple, who carried them to the pauper’s graveyard and buried them alive.
Judas Toddy Club’s patrons speculated that extraterrestrials (including Vareed and Eli) used the futuristic mansion, Amballore House, to perpetrate crimes. All theories put forward were pure figments of imagination, without the benefit of evidence to boot. Amballore Times readers were of the opinion, judging from letters to the editor, that these hyperkinetic theories were the aftermath of a high dose of kallu’s alcohol content that took over the Judas Toddy Club patrons’ reasoning faculties. But some granted them the benefit of the doubt. They argued that the drunkards might be blindsided by an overdose of imagination, but some truth might be lurking somewhere in their argument.
Unlike in the case of the honeymoon tragedy, the second tragedy that wiped out the teenage group had live witnesses. The parents of the teenage boy, who bought the property, were reported to be still alive, even though the trauma of the incident drove them insane, and consequently, they were consigned to the madhouse along Hell’s Highway.
Psychologists have claimed that a mental disorder, at times, was a clever ploy of the mind to stave off suicide induced by unbearable sorrow. The big healer, time, over a course of time, releases one from pangs of sorrow, and then the afflicted will come out of the cocoon of mental disorder, enabling that person to courageously face the painful memories. The investigators found some hope in this scenario.
The investigators maintained that if and when middle-aged couple would come out of the self-imposed isolation, it would have a dramatic effect on the investigation, offering the bureau live witnesses to testify to what happened on the night of the teenagers’ massacre.
This might lead to the discovery of the culprits behind honeymooners’ disappearance.
The bureau’s lawyers refused to rely upon supernatural events to build a case against the perpetrators. The legal argument was to disengage extraterrestrials from the homicide case. If not, they worried that the judge would throw out the case on the very first day. The judge would very well warn the prosecution to neither waste its time nor make a mockery of the legal process by dragging aliens to his court room. The defense would not have it easy either, because of the gruesome nature of the multiple homicides.
Maybe the only hope for prosecution was circumstantial evidence, because of the serious absence of hard-core evidence. Circumstantial evidence would lead to a process of elimination, meaning it could throw out many a conjecture and scenario, choosing the most plausible of many probable events that could explain the mysteries. The force of circumstantial evidence could be so strong that it could filter down to one and only one possible scenario that was a defense in itself. It could also warrant the existence of extraterrestrials, if need be.
This would be the prosecution’s argument if the judge taunted them and prohibited them from bringing fairy tales to the court of law.
On the other hand, one could look for tangible evidence. Seeking this was like looking for needle in the haystack, or looking for the Holy Grail—next to impossible, because of the grave dangers involved. It probably required a military unit to storm Amballore House and overcome its security veil, fortified as it was by futuristic technologies.
Amballore House was a high-tech mansion with all the advanced technology put into its construction. Its underground world of science and technology was far superior to mankind’s similar institutions. Everything in Amballore House was suspected as wired. The Internet of Things (IoT) was widely applied, and intelligent systems were believed to run amok there. Robotic technology was so advanced that the facility was suspected to be managed by robots without need for any human intervention. The IoT in itself was sufficient to relay information on trespasses to the main computer, irrespective of where the intrusion took place. The army of robots would be mobilized.
“What if” scenarios surfaced, pointed out by different factions of the bureau. “What if the crime was committed by a computer?” was a question thrown around, begging for an answer. There might have been no involvement by a human being, after all. The computers of the futuristic mansion could have conspired with robots and perpetrated the crime. Maybe robots were deployed to carry the honeymoon couple and take them to the pauper’s graveyard and bury them with no last rites administered.
If robots perpetrated the crime in collusion with underground computers, then the law enforcement agency would have hard time arresting a tangible culprit, such as a human being. They would have to throw in the towel, because they were damned if the perpetrator was technology, and they were damned if it was alien. Clearly, a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation.
Then there was mystery surrounding the real estate agents. Where were they? They probably should be able to shed some light on the murder mystery. The bureau did not have any lead on who they were or whether it was one and the same agent who sold the property to two different buyers. They could not trace any newspaper ads leading to the sales and therefore assumed that the advertisement was done only by word of mouth.
Police officials and bureau lawyers cursed the day when this case was entrusted to their arbitration. They had come across nothing as bizarre as this before. At the same time, this was not a case to be hushed up, because of the serious nature of crimes, and because of the widespread attention that the crimes attracted. The bureau was forced to plunge into troubled waters to resolve the mystery.
3A RELIC OF THE BRITISH RAJ
When the British spread their empire to India, one of their favorite destinations was Kerala, which drew visitors because of its supernatural beauty. The tropical paradise, poles apart from what the British were used to back at their home, was alluring to them.
In those days of the British rule, Kerala was fragmented into pieces, including Travancore-Cochin, Malabar, and Kasargod. It was in 1956, well after the empire folded in 1947, that Kerala was formed by integrating these small kingdoms under one umbrella.
The British owned a large number of properties in Kerala, both official and residential. When they left, these properties were mostly claimed by local governments. There was no universal law that applied to how these properties could be claimed within the framework of the law. The existing laws, many of them, were carved by the British. However, these laws were sidestepped by some regional authorities because of their aversion to the invading British and the laws they brought with them. The laws were spurned on the grounds of the authenticity of the jurisdiction, because the British were no more the ruling class.
Some of the properties ended up in the hands of property grabbers with no questions asked, because a period of anarchy followed Britain’s departure. One of the properties that the British owned but fell into wrong hands immediately after they left was Amballore House. The area around Amballore House slid toward decline, and this helped unruly characters to take over unauthorized properties. The nearby tile factory went out of business, people moved out of Amballore, the temple was abandoned, and the paddy fields became the pauper’s graveyard. Drug dealers took over the area because of the anarchy that prevailed, with none to question them for fear of losing their own lives.
The dominant drug dealer in the area, Sam-Som, took over Amballore House without having a bona fide property deed. He just entered the property, called it his own, and established ownership illegally. Investigators were aware that the mansion was left over from the British era and that there was no bona fide owner to the property, even though they came across a fake property deed issued to Sam-Som. They, however, never came across record of a sale to Sam-Som that would unequivocally have established his authentic ownership. This meant that he was illegally occupying the property.
The formation of Kerala State and the subsequent scenario of the plausible adoption of universal property laws instilled fear in land grabbers. They foresaw the state coming up with rules to round up unoccupied properties so that these no-man’s lands could be confiscated and then sold to individuals or organizations at fair market price. It was not unlikely for the Kerala government to recoup abandoned properties by the British and provide them with bona fide status by issuing valid property or parcel numbers and deeds, with intent to sell to interested parties—so the property grabbers feared. The government needed money as always, especially in its infancy. The Kerala government had just been formed and needed funds.
Many people prepared to fight back. Sam-Som had claimed ownership to the mansion, but his feathers were ruffled upon learning of the government’s moves. He decided to sell the property to get rid of the problem once and for all and to let the buyer have the headache of handling any legal ramification. His strategy was to jumpstart the sale process prior to the government action taking hold. He employed real estate brokers to sell Amballore House.
But then he had another reason to sell, a sinister reason at that.
From the era from 5000 BC to the British-empire years, aliens did not conduct their operations from a designated headquarters in Kerala. They moved from place to place, also moving the wormhole to their new residence. However, they decided upon acquiring a permanent property to stage their operations, and this happened around the time Kerala was formed in 1956. The extraterrestrials were looking for a secluded property, and they liked what they saw in Amballore House. They were aware that the property was abandoned by the British upon their departure and decided to take over. Amballore House came under the jurisdiction of the aliens in 1956.
How the ETs and Sam-Som coexisted at the same property was enmeshed in mystery and intrigue. Different conjectures were proposed. One was that Sam-Som was leasing his property to the ETs until he found a buyer. He was on constant lookout for a buyer. The second conjecture was that the ETs were unaware of Sam-Som’s ownership of the property (albeit illegal) and therefore took over when the British left. They probably became aware of Sam-Som’s presence after they took over the property but continued to stay, defying the drug lord’s ownership. Sam-Som’s power could not easily scare away the ETs. He probably tried to evict them but with no success. Yet another conjecture stated that they became aware of each other’s presence in the mansion and decided to coexist, keeping out of each other’s way.
It puzzled them why Sam-Som was not staying at the property, unless he was leasing the property to aliens. Maybe he did not want to stay there, making himself an easy target for the law enforcement agency to capture him, since the law was on the lookout for him for various crimes, including murder. According to Amballore’s citizens, Sam-Som would not stay at the same address for more than a night or so, making himself hard to catch.
It was by sheer coincidence that the aliens and the drug dealer homed in on the same property, Amballore House, at around the same time.
Things were going smoothly for the ETs until legal issues started popping up, issues related to disappearance and murder at the property.
Speculation still remained the sole source to throw light on the mysteries at Amballore House. Sam-Som was known to be behind many crimes in Amballore, and so everyone’s eyes turned to him as the possible culprit. He was a natural suspect, having built notoriety in and around Amballore for running his illegal drug operation marked by nefarious schemes. He had orchestrated many crimes, including murder. Law officials were investigating him all the time on one case or another.
One theory put forward tried hard to appear to be clothed in reason but was nothing but conjecture. Proponents of the theory stated that Sam-Som was behind the honeymooners’ disappearance and mass murders at the mansion, and not the aliens.
This accusation gave rise to a contradiction. How could Sam-Som, who was eager to sell his property, potentially kill the buyers, who did a favor to him by buying the property? He should be happy for them to buy his property. His headache of having to deal with the new land regulations would be gone; his problem would be the new homeowner’s problem; end of the story. There was no earthly reason for killing a buyer. He was not possibly going to gain anything out of this hard-to-swallow possibility.
On the other hand, it was the ETs who would gain by eliminating the buyers. They would have no one to share their mansion with, granting them privacy and secrecy to conduct their clandestine operations of abducting scientists, and housing them at the mansion. The presence of new buyers at the mansion was interpreted as inconvenience to aliens, and was thought to be reason enough to eliminate them.
More questions popped up. Were the ETs and Sam-Som colluding? Were they partners in crime? Were they collaborators of an artfully planned and meticulously engineered vile scheme? Were they scratching each other’s back?
4A KAMIKAZE MISSION
The bureau came to the conclusion that the revelation of who the culprit was rested with the online recording of events at the property. It was purely a speculation that there was an ongoing round-the-clock recording of the day-to-day events at the mansion. However, it was worth a try to pursue that assumption, based upon the fact that it was a heavily guarded mansion shrouded in mysteries, and therefore there was a good possibility that such a feature existed.
If only one could access the recording, the puzzle would be solved. For this, they would have to trespass upon the facility and break into its computer system. There was no way in hell that anyone loving his life would do such a thing. However, the absence of any witnesses on the night of the Honeymoon Disappearance meant that breaking into the futuristic technology center’s computer system was the only way to uncover the foul play that took place.
The bureau mused over sending some of their smartest investigators to the property to confiscate the live records. However, they were faced with a dilemma: it was going to be a losing proposition. Here was a futuristic mansion with unheard-of technologies, housing a very smart couple, Vareed and Eli, as the ambassadors of the aliens, and probably hiding a large number of robots. The bureau was no match for Amballore House, which was an institution in itself.
The bureau hatched a plan to s
end a spy to Amballore House nevertheless. The plan was for the spy to enter the mansion compound surreptitiously. The bureau speculated that the Vareed-Eli team would probably be away, attending to intergalactic affairs somewhere in a remote corner of the universe.
Once inside, the spy would start looking for the entrance to the underground facility. Nobody was aware of such an entrance. They could not figure out this secret in spite of their painstaking attempts over the years. If the only means to go to the underground facility was an elevator inside the aboveground structure of the mansion, then one would have to steal himself into the main building and access it.
Even if the spy managed to find an entrance to Amballore House underworld, he would still be haunted by additional roadblocks, such as confronting robots guarding Amballore House. These robots would not be sleeping, unlike their human counterparts, who usually fell asleep as soon as they started guarding something. One could not hope to forcefully give a sedative to an ever-alert robot. One could not spike a glass of water with a narcotic and give it to a robot, hoping to knock it unconscious. To make a long story short, the robots functioned as impenetrable security, making the intruder’s scheme virtually futile.
The heavily fortified mansion posed a challenge for anyone trying to get in. Therefore the plan for a break-in was shelved. The bureau, by stroke of genius, proposed a plan for the spy to be deliberately captured by the robots. The spy then would be able to see the whole mansion, assuming the robot would take him for interrogation to the underground facility. This should give the spy chance to find out where the online movie collection was kept. He would promptly steal the collection and report back his findings, assuming he would be released by the robot.
The success of the scheme depended upon the validation of many premises that underpinned the discovery mission. There were lots of “ifs” to be confirmed to make it a viable mission.
Amballore House Page 26