‘What went wrong with Garima? Probably nothing. I still love her and she has a special place in my heart. If she is sensing something, then it must be really painful for her. Should I stop all this? I am not sure how Tanuja will interpret all this. She is a mature enough to to handle this. What if she leaves her job and goes away? Will I miss her then? What if there is some truth in what Vibhor said about Priya’s death?’ Akshay thought about his failing marriage and the crisis he faced.
Too many questions were bothering him making it difficult for him to concentrate. Garima was travelling that week. When he reached home in the evening, he felt very lonely. He was worried and unable to sleep. Sleep was far away from him so he poured a large Vodka for himself. He really wanted to distress himself and feel light for some time. After a long time he wanted to call Garima and talk to her. This was not usual for both of them.
‘What the heck? I can call my wife’, he said to himself as picked up the phone and dialed her phone number.
Garima was checking her emails in the hotel room when Akshay called her. She was surprised to get a call so late in the night from Akshay. ‘I hope all is well’, she thought to herself.
Akshay was a little high and that made him a little conscious. He blurted, ‘Hi Garima! I hope you are not busy.’
‘Wow my husband is worried about my late night schedule’, she chimed. A sense of relief settled in her mind and she felt happy now.
‘Nothing much, I came early today and decided to relax at home.’
‘Are you accusing me of something? You decided to relax in my absence?’ Garima asked, teasingly.
‘Stop it. Don’t stress me out with your campus questions! I just had few drinks. I wanted to chill for some time. Too much is happening at office these days. This new marketing campaign. What not. I am usually pre-occupied when I am back home.’
‘I can see that. Is something bothering you? We can talk if you want.’
‘Nothing is bothering me. . I just wanted to check out on you. What were you doing? How were your meetings?’
Garima was happy with his call and wondered what was up, ‘Am I wrong in hiring Vyom for spying on Akshay? Maybe there is nothing to it. Why would he call me so late at night? He could have easily met Tanuja or called her at least. However, here he is talking to me. Is there something bothering him?
Akshay continued, ‘Where are you lost Garima? Are you busy chatting in parallel?’
Garima exclaimed, ‘Not at all. You have my full attention dear! You are calling me so late. It is a rare phenomenon!’
‘Come on! Don’t pass any judgements. I wanted to talk to you. I am feeling relaxed now and feeling sleepy.’
‘Sure. Goodnight. See you tomorrow.’
Akshay slept peacefully after speaking to Garima. To his surprise, he got up quite late next day and was feeling refreshed. After a long time, he was feeling connected with Garima and was looking forward to her return. He did not have such an emotional connect with Tanuja, despite their close relationship.
On his way to office, he again thought about his relationship with Tanuja and his last conversation with Garima. He had to sort this out fast. When he reached office, due to his preoccupied mind, he unintentionally ignored most people that tried to greet him. He even failed to register a quick ‘Hi’ from Tanuja. Tanuja didn’t wait and entered his cabin after sometime.
‘You are so lost today! Is something bothering you? I hope that investors are not bugging you.’
Akshay was still lost in his thoughts but tried to salvage the situation, ‘Nothing much. I slept quite late last night. You know the situation we are in.’
‘Have you heard anything new from Vyom or Vineet?’
‘No! I told you that I will meet him only after our Mumbai trip. Let’s focus on work now and please send me the updated business plan. I will review it today.’
Tanuja was surprised, ‘We can review it together if you want. There are certain business assumptions I need to explain to you first. Let me get my laptop.’
She smiled and quickly went out to get her laptop. Akshay did not have any choice in this matter. For the first time he was not at peace with himself.
Akshay was not in mood to entertain Tanuja. He remained unusually quiet in his interaction with her. The business review was formal despite Tanuja’s attempt to make it casual. After some time Tanuja lost her patience, ‘Akshay, is there something wrong that I should be aware of? I have seen many tense moments related to the business in the past but you look different today.’
‘Nothing much, Tanuja, there is no problem related to business, but the WhatsApp messages are freaking me out. Frankly speaking, I am very anxious.’
‘Are you hiding something from me? Remember we are in the same boat. If there are any further developments, please let me know.’
‘I have already told you that I will meet Vyom after our Mumbai visit.
‘Alright, I will not ask you again but where are we staying this time? Can we stay in Sheratons for a change? I want to stay closer to Marine drive. It would be fun to walk around for a change. We always stick to the hotel bar and then the rooms.’
Akshay exclaimed, ‘Tanuja, Right now I can’t be seen roaming around Marine drive with you. I am not sure what is getting in your head these days. Even in the party, you wanted my time; which never happened because we had to end the party abruptly due to Priya’s accident. What do you expect from me Tanuja?’
‘Nothing much! I want more of your time. And attention. Lately I have started missing you a lot. In fact, since Garima was traveling, I was expecting your call yesterday. I hope you have not thrown your other SIM!’
‘Look Tanuja! I like you but I have my own boundaries. Don’t ask me anything right now. I do not know where this relationship is heading. All this combined by deaths of Priya and Himanshu is scaring me. Is someone targeting us?’
Tanuja was furious, ‘Is it true then? We are in danger, right? Now you want to ditch me at the last moment instead of giving me protection. You are being too selfish.’
‘Stop this Tanuja! You are loud again. It is better to discuss all this in Mumbai. Garima is back tonight and I don’t want to look overly stressed out to her. When I called her last night, she could sense something was wrong. I do not want her to ask any probing questions.’
‘So you are worried about her and not me. ’
‘Stop it. Let’s focus on our presentation now.’
‘Sorry Akshay! You do it yourself. I am leaving now for my home. .’
‘Fine.’
Tanuja did not even bother to acknowledge Akshay’s approval. She was in her own world thinking about what Akshay had just said. Deep down there was a turmoil in her head. Akshay had not given her chance to speak properly. Despite all this she looked forward to her next Mumbai trip. ‘I will sort it out there’, she thought to herself.
Virus or Artificial Intelligence
After his last meeting with Vineet and Akshay, Vyom wanted to investigate the matter further. He was baffled with the spread of computer virus in his office computers. Controlling the virus was well beyond his reach now. It was important for him to stop the software’s activity but through employee’s laptops, the software had spread outside his office as well. At this point of time, he did not want to scare his employees. Vyom knew that he needed the technical expertise of security specialist now. He hired a team of technical Security and Encryption consultants to his office to crack encryption of one file that may solve the mystery. The company he had hired was SekureIT, located in Gurgaon.
The lead consultant from SekureIT Shyam came with his team from different functions but decided to meet Vyom first to understand the problem. He went to meet Vyom’s in his cabin. Vyom greeted him and said, ‘Hi Shyam, thanks for coming on a short notice.’
‘Thanks Vyom for selecting us. We have also seen some sensitive matters in the past.’
‘That is nice of you Shyam and let me explain this from the beginning.’
&
nbsp; Vyom took some time to tell the complete story, without naming individuals. He also did not share fact about death of Priya and Himanshu. He did not want this news to go outside his office at such an early stage. Shyam was quite surprised to learn that someone like Vyom would dare to go to dark web for buying software for this office work.
Vyom said, ‘Well I have told you all facts about my problem. I want your team to decrypt a specific file and find me a way to stop this virus.
‘Well you need to provide me access to your computer so that we can understand more details about this virus. I am sure you are already regretting buying anything from the dark web!’
‘I will quickly share login details of my infected computer.’
Shyam personally looked at the file folder structure, events logs and installed files. The software had possibly spread to thousands of other computers.
The Antivirus scan could not detect any virus in the computer. Shyam was quite impressed with the design of the software and level of encryption used to protect key files. His team started looking at file that Vyom had mentioned. The encryption expert from his team started his work to open the file. At the end of the day, Shyam had nothing concrete to share with Vyom. Shyam still decided to debrief him before he left.
Shyam said, ‘We have understood the folder structure of the software but no virus was detected. Our team in the US will look at this during the nighttime. Therefore, by the time we are back tomorrow, you will have something concrete to hear from us.
Vyom was disappointed with the progress but had no option but to wait.
‘Thanks Shyam! I will wait eagerly to hear from you tomorrow. Goodnight!’
The US team of SekureIT used military grade decryption software and even then, the processing took much longer than expected. The extraction revealed three different files. One had GPS coordinates of mobile devices and the second one had machine instructions for some vehicle. The third file just had chat logs along with status information.
Shyam received these files early morning from Ramesh. He quickly thanked him for his quick response and wrote, ‘I owe you one now. Thanks Buddy.’ He opened the files and looked at them individually. He knew the background and quickly understood that the software on Vyom’s computer was not only tracking individuals but also sending instructions to other devices and computers.
He immediately decided to call Vyom to inform him about the progress before the start of his meeting. Vyom was not interested on status report as he had more interest in the actual data. After reaching Vyom’s office, Shyam headed straight to Vyom’s room.
Shyam said, ‘Based on your limited information I can say that the software in your office computers is quite advanced and is being driven by Artificial Intelligence. See this file for example; it carries instructions in Machine Language directing some device or machine to perform certain actions.’
Vyom was computer savvy but could not fully understand Shyam. He quickly asked, ‘What else is there Shyam?’ Shyam opened another file and showed him logs of GPS coordinates of multiple devices Shyam asked, ‘Are you able to understand details in this file? We do not have any further information to interpret.’ Vyom could immediately recognized one device through a mobile number in the computer logs. The number belonged to Priya but Vyom did not say anything to Shyam. His mind was racing hard to connect these two files. He asked Shyam to open the third file.
Shyam opened file that contained chat logs of messages between multiple entities. Vyom could immediately identify few messages that were part of the ‘The Final Destination’ group conversation with employees of Akshay’s company. Few other messages were between individuals and looked quite private. Shyam’s interpretation was very different and he said, ‘Clearly this software is snooping into messages of many people and you need to shut down all machines. ’
Vyom responded, ‘Thanks Shyam for a quick turnaround for my work request. Please share these files with me and let me review them. I need to look at data and then I will get back to you.’
Shyam, ‘Ok then I will call it a day so that you can focus on this. In case you need any help, please do let me know. Have a good day!’ Shyam shook hands with Vyom and left for his office.
Yamraj’s Team
Vyom was quite nervous about the analysis shared by Shyam. The whole situation was quite alarming. Vyom needed desperate help at this point from a reliable source. He could not risk exposing any more data with Shyam and his company. He saw clear logs of chatting messages between Priya and Himanshu. He did not understand artificial intelligence concepts beyond basic level but the information tracked by software and files with machine instructions to various devices and machines made him jittery. After all, both Priya and Himanshu had died in car accidents and in both cases, no driver was spotted.
Vyom logged in again to the dark net and tried to connect with the seller of the software. Instead of getting a call back, he got a message from the ‘The Final Destination’ group that already existed in his phone. He immediately responded to the chat message, ‘Are you behind all WhatsApp messages to different people? Do you know that two people have died? Were you aware of this? I am planning to report you to the police.’
The response to his message read, ‘We are part of the same team Vyom so don’t get overwhelmed with these messages. You should not be bothered with all this. We need to clean up together.’
Vyom: ‘I am not ready to be part of any racket that is involved in harassing and killing people. Are you responsible for the death of Priya and Himanshu?’
TFD said, ‘The software is intelligent and can profile two individuals after reading individual messages. It just tags them and rest is their destiny. You know the karmic connection. Right?’
Vyom could not believe what TFD had just said. He knew technological advancements but breaching WhatsApp security and identifying relationships between two individuals was behind his comprehension.
He said ‘You cannot play with human lives. I will remove your software from my server and then I have nothing to do with you.’
TFD said, ‘You had mentioned your challenges with WhatsApp security and I was just trying to help you.’ Vyom was surprised as he had mentioned this only to Yamraj and no one else. How could TFD, whoever that was, know all this?
Vyom asked, ‘Who are you and how do you know about my work and my challenges with WhatsApp?
TFD said, ‘You will know very soon. Goodbye for now. Remember we are part of the same team.’ Vyom was zapped and worried. In his long stint of spying on people, he had never seen anything like this. He logged out and then Vyom called Akshay and his friend Vineet for a quick discussion.
After Tanuja left, Akshay kept thinking about the whole situation and could no longer focus on his work. He could not ignore Tanuja’s views. He reached home earlier than his usual time but stayed quite. Garima was also lost in her own thought process and they hardly spoke to each other.
Next day Akshay decided to leave for his office early. Garima was quick to notice this as Akshay started his daily earlier than his usual time. She also found him to be anxious about something.
‘Do you have any early meeting today?’ Asked Garima.
‘I have called for an internal strategy meeting.’ Akshay felt happy that Garima noticed change of his schedule. At the same time, he could not control his own anxiety so decided to move out even faster. ‘I think I will leave now as I have a full day meeting.’ said Akshay.
‘Fine.’
Lost in his thoughts, Akshay left quickly for his office. Akshay was in the middle of an internal team meeting that day when Vyom called. Akshay did not pick Vyom’s call during the meeting; but could not even focus on the remaining presentation on brand marketing. Immediately after the meeting, Akshay headed to his room to call Vyom. Tanuja was already sitting there. Vyom’s call was relevant even for Tanuja but Akshay wanted to avoid any panic from Tanuja. Tanuja had been hyper recently.
‘Are you waiting for me or do you want
to use my room right now?’
‘Akshay, I did not get a chance to meet you today. Are you in a hurry? I can come later.’
‘Tanuja, I need to make an important call. Please excuse me. I will call you.’
Tanuja was a disappointed, as Akshay never asked her to leave the room, except if it was a call coming from Garima. She said, ‘Fine, do keep me posted.’
Akshay immediately called Vyom, ‘Hi Vyom! Sorry I was in the middle of an important presentation and could not connect with you. Tell me.’
‘After our last discussion, I called a security consultant to review the software that is causing recent problems that you are aware of.’ Vyom was discreet on the phone. Akshay said, ‘I am alone in my room and unless you have some issues please talk openly.’
‘Akshay, it is best that we meet in person. I cannot discuss all details over the phone. In any case and there are few things that I can only show you in person. When can we meet?’
This made Akshay really nervous. ‘Ok Vyom, I will reach at your office within an hour. He disconnected the call and dialed Vineet’s number.
‘Hi Akshay!’
‘Vineet, this is about Vyom. He has found something about the software and messages. It looks important and I am planning to meet him right away. Will you be available?’
Vineet replied, ‘Yes Akshay! Let’s do one thing, I will drive till Phase V and park my car in South Point mall. You reach there and then we can go together. Don’t overthink.’
‘Let’s see what comes out of this meeting. I am just nervous. See you soon.’
When Akshay picked up Vineet, Vineet saw through Akshay’s nervousness and frustration which was very visible. ‘Dude you need to relax and don’t assume anything bad till you hear directly. Even if he says something ominous, I am going to do a thorough investigation for you. Do you think people get killed by WhatsApp messages?’
Sinner's Game: Karma will chase! Page 16