The Driver suddenly woke up in the middle of a Dream. His glance fell on the painting of Moses and his followers and on the marks, he had made the previous night before falling asleep. His phone was ringing on the dashboard. He picked up the phone. It was A.
"Where are you?" the Driver asked as soon as he picked up.
"I'm at Changaswami's place. Come pick me up. We need to go back to the Lady we met yesterday."
"I'm parked nearby. I'll be there in Two minutes."
The Driver picked A from the hut and soon reached Z's mansion.
"Did you see that?" A asked Z.
"Yes. What could it mean?" Z questioned him back.
"That there is a Twenty seventh Character." "How can you be so sure?"
"What other explanation do you have for the man in the black suit? He was there at the rally as well, with Changaswami when the Guard stopped me. I skipped him when we were counting the characters from the rally day before yesterday. Probably for the same reason I skipped everyone else in the audience who I didn't interact with personally."
"But this changes everything. If it's true, if there is indeed a Twenty seventh Character, then it renders the whole process of assigning English letters to each Character meaningless since there are only Twenty- Six. Or are we supposed to explore new languages now?"
"No. Let's not add to the complexities. Maybe if we can find a way to meet this man in the black suit, we would know the direction in which to take the next Step."
"I don't think that would be of any use. If we know that he exists, he knows that we exist too. We can't just Show up and ask him and expect him to tell us everything. We don't even know his characteristic traits." the Driver interrupted A and Z's conversation.
"But then what do you propose? That we just carry on living our lives? And just hope someday we'll know why we were here, what was our purpose and hopefully on our death beds? Sounds like a plan!" said Z with a smirk on her face.
"No. I'm saying let's just forget about all this and just be. Let's just spend our remaining lives in the pursuit of The Ninety Sixth Lady and hope that she shows us the way. No planning. No exploration. Just Being who we are and doing what we want. I think developing that kind of spontaneity is a better way to be ahead of everyone, even The Twenty Seventh Character because if we don't know what we are going to do next, how can anyone else? That will seriously increase the chances of us figuring it all out rather than trying to understand how these characters were divided, getting them under One roof and then doing what needs to be done. Even if we don't ever get to know who the One is, at least we would have lived an authentic life." concluded the Driver.
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"Typical fourth Character trait! Always thinking of their own interest." A scoffed at the Driver's selfish way of thinking.
"Why? How do you know I am The Fourth Character?"
"You are the Driver! D is The Fourth Character. Have you been allotted a name as well?"
"Yes! It's Dhruva."
"Well, still sounds like 'Driver' to me. Seems like the One wasn't too creative with you anyway" A mocked D and turned towards Z.
"Well, maybe we should give you a name too. After all, some of us believe that we're all creators. How about Zainy? It starts with the letter Z!" A suggested.
Z listened to both of them but when she thought that A and D had given all their valuable inputs and were now extending the conversation just for the sake of sounding smarter, she chose to speak up.
"If we are to believe there is a Twenty seventh Character, there is no point in sticking to the alphabets, in my opinion. Also, I somewhat agree with the Driver. Err... I mean, Dhruva. We must be spontaneous to have a shot at beating the One at His or Her own Game. So how about, I take the name of The Twenty Sixth Character of the grid?" Z said and looked at A and D waiting for their response.
"You mean Ragini?" A asked to confirm.
"Yes. Ragini. I like her Character traits too. She doesn't want to be understood. She's unpredictable and spontaneous. Just the qualities needed to win this Race. And by doing this, we are changing the Game too. No more following the names. Instead of structuring all this, I suggest we ourselves mess it all up and as Dhruva said, have faith that the truth shall emerge from the chaos that follows." Z added dreamily, almost as if living the end of this Story in her own head.
"I'm up for it. But you do realise that we must not forget our purpose while we are a part of the chaos." Ahmed reinstated in an attempt to contain the thoughts that had already starting flowing in multiple directions. "If you are following the grid, then let's just all follow the grid. Let's abandon the letters of the English alphabet altogether. In that case, my name should be Pran. Sounds weird though, Being called by a completely different name after all this while. This will bring in a lot of confusion I must warn you. Are you guys really ready for it? I would still suggest that we stick to the assigned letters and try to figure out The Twenty Seventh Character. It could be the One itself. Just imagine how easier it would make things for us. We should really give it a thought."
"Are you always this indecisive? You started by saying that we should all stick to the grid and while speaking you changed your mind to abandon that thought." Dhruva pointed out.
"Hey! I'm just Being spontaneous. Isn't that what we were aiming for? Has it already started to bother you? That's a point in favour of sticking to the English alphabet then." Ahmed rebutted as if he knew what Dhruva would say and had already prepared a response for it.
"Very well, I say those who wish to stick with the letters, stick with them. Those who want the grid, go for the grid name. It hardly matters. After all, what's in a name?" Ragini ended the conversation.