"Adi, why aren't you even able to burst a single bubble, I never knew your accuracy was so low," Anupama pouted her lips in dissatisfaction as she saw Aditya who was throwing darts miss a bubble again.
Aditya shrugged as he smiled apologetically at Anupama but when he saw Taarini icy gaze, he averted his eyes as it was too awkward, acting in front of Taarini. Taarini was one of the few who almost everything about Aditya's abilities except 'Camouflaging'.
It was not that Aditya did not have an interest in portraying his skills but he had decided to deliberately be 'normal' as long as he was 'Aditya'. He left his supernatural abilities for his other two identities 'Ishaan' and 'Rudra'. This was his way of segregating these identities from him. If not for his relationship with Taarini, he wanted nothing more but to remain as a normal garage mechanic. He had reduced his underworld activities significantly in the last month according to his plan as if he was going back to being a normal citizen of the country.
Taarini knew Aditya's background and that he had other plans, hence she also reduced assigning any works like intimidation, gang busting and other jobs to him. She was surprised that Aditya would have made a friend who was a genius hacker and that person had turned out to be a big turning point in their gang wars. The last month had been particularly eventful.
Aditya's friend was proficient in creating various kinds of sophisticated malware with which he could easily hack into people's mobiles through messages, missed calls or WiFi sharing. That malware was just like a virus which spread from the lowest tier gang members to the top rapidly like wildfire. Since that person started helping her, all the painful interrogation of opposite gang members to know their activities and plans was not necessary anymore.
Taarini could just have some people with some laptops, assigned to see and hear their enemy's conversations as the malware took control of the camera, audio recorder, messaging, video calls and other functions of the mobile it spread into. So all those ferocious mafia leaders from Mumbai suddenly became artists performing a play in front of Taarini with all their sinister plots becoming spoiler alerts.
Never before did Taarini feel the terrific potential of modern advancements more than the past few days where she experienced how vulnerable everyone was to someone who had the right tools in hand. She did not know that the person who had impressed her with these skills was someone who was very talented even in the eyes of an elite member of US Cyber Command like Harry. So it was not surprising that Taarini's view of modern advancements was upturned by this person's achievements.
She was also very grateful for this person as, if not for his help, the orphans that she had sent to a distant, unknown village would have been killed by the Mumbai Mafia Alliance in an act of revenge against her. Because of this early information, she was able to take necessary actions and have those bastards who targeted these orphans killed by her followers in cold blood. This retaliation caused a fissure to appear among these mafia leaders as each started doubting the others of leaking this news to Taarini.
Also, today's night was going to be the last nail in the coffin for these people. Kasim (head of the Mumbai Mafia Alliance), Elder Gani and Flaming Tiger were meeting in a remote resort away from the city's jurisdiction to plan a final assault on her. These people were only bringing there most trusted people along with them as they had started suspecting even most of their own followers of being in cahoots with Taarini. No one had suspected that the harmless, expensive, glittering mobile phones in their hands and pockets are the ones which were truly corrupted.
These people were from the 1990s and 2000s era with minimum knowledge of smartphones and mobile operating system functions. The most that they could do was have their phone protected by security software which is usually enough for their purposes but when Aditya writes a malware, it's not something that this software can prevent. In a way, Aditya's work represented the epitome of human genius if you still consider Aditya as a human.
Though Taarini had her doubts about this friend of Aditya who was as much of an anomaly as he was, she did not dig deeper. She still remembered how an unknown young boy had come into her life since the day that he saved her from Flaming Tiger by just throwing stones and how he asked her to introduce him to the underworld. This boy had slowly but steadily become an indivisible part of her life, Taarini's icy expression softened as she looked at Aditya who was taking Hitesh's mobile number.
"Hitesh, I will give you a missed call so that we can stay in contact with each other," Aditya smiled as he called Hitesh but did not cut the call. Aditya had two phones with him, one was a basic mobile and the other was a smartphone. The moment Hitesh cut the call was like admitting a trojan horse into his phone. So when Aditya sent a message which was like a 'key', Hitesh's phone accepted it without even notifying him. The moment the 'key' entered it automatically started the download of the actual malware without Hitesh's knowledge.
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The malware did not have any high requirements or data size and so Hitesh's mobile was corrupted in a matter of seconds. This was not the end as Hitesh's phone made a call to his father and the same process was going to repeat. From his father's mobile to the WiFi router, router to all the devices connected to it. If his father was at his home and his laptop was connected to the router, it would make things easier. It was just a matter of time before the malware corrupts his father's jewellery company's data servers and all the dark secrets of Hitesh, as well as his family, would be laid down for Aditya's picking.
"Adi, come let's go eat something," Anupama seemed to have forgotten her thoughts about Aditya as if she had returned to the time when they used to be closer than normal friends. This behaviour of her's prompted Aditya to speculate that if he had not gone to Europe with his parents and continued his contact with Anupama, maybe after a few years, when her mentality had matured a little, leaving behind the 'I am a princess in a high tower waiting for a handsome prince to come to save me' type of unrealistic expectations, maybe they both would have come together in the end.
This was a question whose answer could never be known but one thing was sure. He, Aditya, was going to beat the shit out of Hitesh and his family today. Though Aditya knew that he had to prevent Anupama from making the same mistake, he did not know when this Hitesh would enter her life which left him in a fix. But, he did not think that he would meet him so quickly.
As Aditya was thinking about these things while eating candy floss, Taarini reached her hand out and wipe a piece of candy floss stuck to the corner of his mouth. Aditya smiled at Taarini and continued fiddling with his smartphone. Anupama froze when she saw this action, she felt a little uncomfortable in her heart. Taarini ignored Anupama's penetrating gaze as she looked around the food festival with mild interest.
Anupama seemed to have forgotten that she had come with Hitesh as walked beside Aditya as she whispered, "Adi, what's with you and this elder sister?"
Aditya's eyes lit up when he heard these words as he smiled teasingly, "Can't you understand this much? Anupama, you are very simple minded."
Anupama's eyes and mouth opened wide as she looked at both Aditya and Taarini, "you mean 'that'?"
Aditya nodded affirmatively. He was more interested in observing Anupama's reaction rather than being honest. Taarini heard this conversation but only glanced at Aditya once and even gave a small smile for the first time which shocked even Aditya. This smile confirmed Anupama's doubts as she asked, "But… but she looks much older than you."
Aditya put up an expression like a great lover as he said in a tone of a philosopher, "age is but a number, if we don't let it come between us, it won't."
Anupama stopped in her tracks as she muttered these words, "Age is but a number, if we don't let it come between us, it won't." Even Taarini stopped as she looked at Aditya for a moment before turning her attention back to the food stalls. Hitesh had a mocking expression on his face but no one cared about what he thought.
Everyone sat on around a plastic table as Aditya offered to bring some Indian street savoury snacks. Taarini also followed him on her own initiative. The cool wind breezed across his face as his mind relaxed. Aditya felt quite happy today that he was able to remove this future calamity for Anupama. He did not think that the opportunity would present itself so quickly. This also strengthened Aditya's resolve to observe the 'dreamworld' more closely as he wanted to see if they were any other calamities or missed opportunities in the future.
"So, what is the plan?" Aditya asked as he ordered for some plates of Aloo chaat, Pakora and Ragda (popular Indian street food varieties)
"Nothing much, we go, finish them and come back, if everything goes well, it won't take more than an hour," Taarini said as she helped carry some dishes for Aditya.
"Oh," Aditya nodded as he paid and carried the rest.
"I want you to come with us tonight," Taarini said as she looked into Aditya's eyes.
Aditya struggled a little when he heard Taarini's words. He knew that he had started to unconsciously avoid been in scenes where people were killed. He just couldn't bring himself to take a life even if that person deserved it. But when he remembered his elder sister Saira hint a chaotic future and how she questioned if he had killed anyone before, Aditya's eyes became firm as he said, "even though I might not do anything substantial by being there, I will come."
Taarini smiled when she saw him agree. Actually, she never had the idea of forcing Aditya but she had met both Maahi and Saira without Aditya's knowledge. The conversation she made with both of them totally changed her plans. Prior to the conversation, Taarini had planned to withdraw from the mafia and to not bother herself with the underworld anymore. But now, she had to make new plans.
This was the reason that she had decided to ruthlessly kill the leaders of every gang which targeted her. She could not take chances with her people's safety. The moment they targeted the children, she had decided that she would eliminate them with zero compromises. As for dragging Aditya along, Taarini had her reasons.
'Peace will be a luxury affordable only to those who are prepared to dab their hands in blood. So if one wants to live through these times, you better start been accustomed to the red colour and metallic odour.' this was what Taarini heard Saira speak and no one could understand the depth of the meaning behind those words more than Taarini who had grown up hugging a brother who used to come with bleeding wounds and blood stains on his clothes.
Aditya smiled as he said, "Well before going there, let me have some fun at least." he looked at Hitesh who was trying to strike a conversation with Anupama but couldn't succeed as Anupama had lowered her head and was in a daze.