It was five in the morning as a Sedan car sped up through the partially desolate roads of Bangalore. It was rare to maintain such speed in this city given that it was India's most congested city with slowest average speeds given the second rank only after Kolkata.
This speed could be attributed to the time as it was still early morning, though the city had woken up or rather never slept, it was pretty convenient during this hour of the day.
Aditya was sitting in the front passenger seat as he looked out of the window. The trees flashing by suddenly stopped moving so rapidly as the world slowed down. He could see the tree with all its feature to the utmost detail, the veins on its leaves, dew drops, ants crawling. Then the world suddenly regained its rush.
A faint smile appeared on Aditya as he thought about his experiences in the past few days. Since he left his contact information with Taarini, he could only wait patiently for her to get in touch with him. He did not want to appear like the one in need to her as it would lower his value in her eyes. The more valuable he was to her, the more she would be willing to pay for keeping him with her. The payment Aditya required was not in the form of money but in the forms of information and connections.
So, Aditya waited patiently while exploring this new feature of Tya which is titled as 'Slow Timing'. The more Aditya studied this feature, the more dismay he felt. This feature practically did not have any cooldown time so he could use this power as long as his patience ran.
Aditya had practised working while activating this ability for a day, he wanted to get adapted to this power as soon as possible. The result was that Aditya had spent the 'longest' day of his life. It almost caused his psyche to break down. Imagine being awake for 42 days without sleeping (he turned on this power for 17 hours straight while excluding 7 hours of sleep), the whole world became bland as he could not enjoy any form of relaxation as listening to music.
Music was just plain noise when you slowed it down by 60 times. No action was cool or elegant, everything was just plain in Aditya's eyes. He wanted to deactivate this power many times but he still held on as he wanted to get to know this power so as to employ this ability to its fullest potential.
After what Aditya felt was five days (2 hours in real time), he started to slowly become acclimatized to this timeline where everything started becoming 'normal' for him. At that moment, he slowly started to experience the marvel of this state.
His focus which was at its heightened state enabled Aditya to perceive many new things about himself which he would miss otherwise. For example, his heartbeat which he did not experience much in his normal state was actually producing boom sounds which enthralled him. He could 'hear' his blood being pumped into each part of his body, they were also many weird sounds which he could not explain using normal vocabulary but he could identify them as his bowel movement or even his urine being produced and getting stored in the bladder.
He had started becoming aware of his nerve impulses when he worked. He observed the electrical impulse pass through his nerves from his brain to various parts of his body where muscles slowly started contracting so that he could pick up a spanner. He was marvelled at the multitude of commands his brain sent based on his thoughts to achieve his request. He never felt so aware of the perfect coordination of different body parts.
He remembered his mother narrating him in his childhood about ancient sages who took it as their life's goal to study their own body and experimenting with it so as to understand the many founding principles of this universe.
She said that just like contemporary scientists who are experimented with new material to determine the true nature of it, Sages studied their body and mind and experimented with them to realize many shocking principles. Though Aditya was not sure whether such sages existed or not, he felt his experience was similar to those 'hypothetical' sages.
Though Aditya's movement was the same as before, because of this ability when combined with his high calculative ability, he was able to move faster than normal humans while eliminating all the unnecessary movements which were usually involuntary in nature. So his every action was compact and purposeful thus increasing his efficiency to the top. But for him, doing a small service like changing the engine oil which took 10 minutes was actually more like 10 hours.
He had to practically unlearn all his preconceived notions of speed and time if he wanted to prevent a mental breakdown because the world was just that slow. Aditya calculated the time he would experience if he enabled this ability forever and the answer flabbergasted him. Even if he estimated conservatively that he would live for seventy years, taking out 16 years of his life from the calculation, he would experience a life of 3240 years. That was like living from the Vedic era (around 1000 BC) to the present. Even if his body could make it, he felt that his mind would get rotten for sure unless his mind was modified in some way. He could say goodbye to all the enjoyment of secular life as Aditya found out that he could not enjoy the taste of the food, music, scent. Even sexual excitation was a no go because by the time his mind reacted to a beauty, impulse generated, blood pumped, hormones released, rod hardened, the time he would experience would be in hours scale, at that time whose mind could still maintain the same mood?
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If acclimatizing to the 'lethargic' world was one hell of a ride, returning to the normal pace after spending 42 days of 'Slow Timing' was another roller coaster. The world suddenly became terrifying quick for Aditya to cope, the water from the tap was flowing so fast, he was breathing like an engine piston running at 4000 rpm. All the sounds were too fast to make anything out of them. All the subtle perception he had experienced of his body functioning became unidentifiable again as if they never existed. At least, that is how he felt. luckily he had released this power when he sat on a bed without doing anything. Otherwise, he was sure he would have hurt himself by falling down. It took him some 30 minutes before getting back on track and used to this pace.
So, that day concluded Aditya's fascination for this ability which was replaced with awe, caution and a little bit of dread. Aditya had gotten down some rules and regulations for himself to follow in view of using this might. He could now understand why Tya did not have these emotions of liking good food or eating good food before. Tya who was now bonded with Aditya in some unknown form could now get to know these sensory feelings. For example, now he basically possessed the same interests of a kid of around 5-9 years, he liked to hear kid songs and eat lollipops.
Aditya had started parenting Tya strictly because he was getting out of hand these days. Thankfully, he got hold of some valuable resources in his hands, otherwise, he could not imagine listening to a voice, however cute it was, all day long (For those who didn't understand what key resources Aditya was thinking about, the answer is in the above paragraph). Tya was currently sleeping as Aditya had successfully got it to follow a human circadian rhythm. Sleeping for Tya was going into its dormant state to try to absorb more energy for Aditya... cough..cough, to restore.
"Why are you staying silent like a dull kid, say something?" a voice interrupted Aditya's train of thought. Aditya was amused that someone actually called him a dull kid, even before he had these abilities Aditya could stay in the top 5 of his class without much effort on his part. Now, Aditya had already finished his pre-university curriculum, he had been thinking of buying professional knowledge books also and now this brute who looked like he can't read a newspaper was calling him a dull kid.
"Nothing," Aditya replied with a word. Aditya felt that this person did not have a friendly attitude towards him and he could understand him. Aditya's background was a big black hole thanks to 'that' organization. His orphan status was full of loopholes, his parents were unknown, he was a student suspended from an international school working in a garage as a normal mechanic. He had rich friends so he obviously didn't need to work a low paying job. Most weird of all, he had a sharp shooting ability which was too good to believe. All these factors created a perfectly knitted web of mystery around him which even a resourceful person like Taarini with all her connections could not unveil and see clearly.
How could any capable leader with a shrewd vision readily accept such an anomaly into their inner circle and place a heavy responsibility on their shoulders? Let alone accepting them, even associating with such people was a risky affair for them. You can't fully accept someone if you can't trust them.
Aditya was pretty clear on his path. All he had to show was his value which could shadow the ambiguity around him. He was confident that as long as benefits outweigh risks, Taarini would accept him. By exchanging contact information with him and asking him to stay in touch on the day of the meeting, Taarini had expressed her willingness to take him in. Just because Taarini was willing, the same could not be said for her subordinates. Especially, those subordinates who were deeply loyal to her would have a cautious mentality towards anyone who is new and is likely to work closely with Taarini. Aditya was pretty sure this guy was of the latter category.
"You are a mechanic right? What do you think about my car?" The driver with a rough face asked trying hard to sound as natural as possible.
'why do you have to try so hard to cover up, can't you just ask if I am a true mechanic or is it just my alibi in my elaborate plan of harming your big sis.' Aditya smiled bitterly as he thought. He knew that he was being tested by this 'intelligent James Bond'.
"Not much, its working condition is fine though the engine sound seems to be buzzing a little," Aditya replied nonchalantly.
"Anything else"
"Nothing other than this car model is too weird and ugly to my liking," Aditya spoke dismissively.
"What! How could you say that you punk, this is the car I bought with my hard earned money, I guess you are just acting to sound professional, you don't even know a bit about my car." the brute lost his cool as if Aditya had said his wife was ugly.
"Honda Amaze, sedan, Golden metallic brown colour, 1498cc, 98.6 hp, mileage 27.4kmpl, l series intelligent VTEC engine, 4-stroke internal combustion engine, 110 nm torque…" Aditya had a confident smile on his face as he listed out all the features of that car while the person in the driver seat looked at Aditya with a wide open mouth while forgetting to see ahead.
"Look ahead"
"Ah, sorry." the voice had lost its aggression.
"Is it enough or would you like me to explain the history of intelligent variable valve timing and lift electronic control which increases the volumetric efficiency of a four-stroke internal combustion engine also," Aditya asked while having a playful smile on his face.
"What? don't think that you can confuse me with some random numbers, I can also do the same if you are so intelligent, can you guess where I keep my cigarettes?"
"No." Aditya was dumbstruck when he knew that all his cool act was nothing but raining on a bull. (An Indian phrase: A bull never reacts when it rains due to its thick skin – being insensible). He now confirmed that this fellow had lost him when he spoke 1498cc, he had to choose a person of some minimum knowledge even if he had to act cool.
"Haha, got you" the driver laughed triumphantly as he opened the sun visor which was placed above the windshield, a cigarette box and a lighter fell onto his lap.
"..." Aditya blinked as the corner of his mouth twitched, he remembered another saying 'Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.'
"What are you thinking?"
"Nothing"
"Speak something."
"can I get a cigarette."
"Sure"
"What's your name?"
"Raghav, Why did you ask?"
"Nothing."