"I... I'm sorry. I hid something from you." the Lady told Ahmed as she reached the car's window, out of breath.

"Calm down. What are you talking about?" Ahmed asked.

"I have been lying to you all this while. I didn't want you to know because I really wanted to help and I thought the only way I could help was if I didn't tell you the truth."

"Stop saying random things and come to the point. What did you hide from me?"

"I am The Twenty Sixth Character."

"Yeah? Well, good news. I don't care."

"What do you mean, you don't care? Doesn't it change everything? Changaswami told me that my purpose was to stay constant for all the others to truly reveal themselves. I figured the best way could be to act like a psychiatrist as the closest real-life situation we have is that of a person suffering from split personality."

"Well, it's not that easy from what I have gathered up till now. It is not any One character's job. We would need all Twenty-Six characters to be together in order to really figure out on what basis we were created and finally, see which One is the real One."

"What if there is no real One. What if the real One is a combination of multiple characters. And what if we all contribute in some way or the other to the real One. How will we truly know?"

"I haven't thought that far. What I know is that the only way we have a shot at knowing is if we are all together under One roof. Now the Question is how are we going to do it?"

"I think the best first Step would be to not hide anything from each other. Unless, we both trust each other, there is no way we can find a way around this mess.

"That's expecting a lot, Five minutes after telling me that you've been lying to me all this while."

"But I did confess. So that's a Step in the direction of building trust. Let's try and see it that way. Is there something that you'd want to confess to me?"

"Yes! I am the One." Ahmed replied seriously.

"What? No, you're not. You can't be. You wouldn't be sitting alone in this car and thinking about what's real and what's not if you were the One."

"What? How do you know that I was thinking about that?" asked Ahmed, surprised at how she got to know what he was thinking in his head.

"We are all in a single person's subconscious, remember? There are a lot of things we just know about each One of us."

"Maybe that's how we should start then."

"How?"

"By focussing on the lot of things we already 'just know' about each One of us. Get inside the car. I'll Show you how."

Ahmed opened his side of the door and shifted to the other side. The Lady climbed into the car and closed her side of the door shut.

"Since you're One of me, I should know your name." said Ahmed.

"There is no name allotted to me yet. Just my gender is finalized and faintly, my purpose here."

"So, what do I call you?"

"You can call me Z. Since, I'm The Twenty Sixth Character."

"Well, in that case, you should call me A, to keep things balanced. Probably, that's how my name came into Being anyway. Just a random name that started with the letter A. Which makes me The First Character by the way."

"And we are off to figure out everyone from A to Z. What a word play! So, tell me what was it that you were going to Show me?"

"Yeah! Look at this Show piece." said Ahmed, pointing at the spherical glass on the dashboard with a couple inside it. "Now, imagine this is how it all began. The first division. Of characters. Of us. Imagine that the One, who no One knows anything about, was first split into a man and a woman. Then what do you think could have been the next Step? What would the next division be based on? Survival? Feelings? Entertainment? You must think like the One to be able to know the answer..."

"Just hold on. That's too much for me to wrap my head around. What do you mean by division? How do you know that the One was split into a man and a woman first?" Z interrupted to get on the same page as A.

"Because every living thing has a male and a female counterpart."

"Not every living thing. Planets and stars are living things too. They don't have male and female counterparts."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"How are planets and stars living things?"

"Didn't you study science? Everything that moves and grows is a living thing. Celestial bodies are also born and then they die."

"I don't think we need to go to that level of thought to figure out a Character. Let's stick to humans. Forget other living things."

"So, in that case we are now assuming that One cannot be a celestial entity, but only a human?"

"Yes, and also since we are humans and not stars or any other celestial entity, I think it would be best to understand the One the way we, humans make sense of things. Because if we start considering the One as a celestial entity then we don't have the knowledge to understand it beyond physics, chemistry and maths. We want to consider more non-tangible aspects also, which we have experienced as a human entity. Like emotions, instincts and senses." Ahmed clarified.

"Ok. So, where were we?"

"We were assuming that the first Step in which a human entity was divided was a man and a woman which, according to me, could have been for the purpose of reproducing more of such entities."

"Yeah. That sounds like an important purpose for the One to start with."

"I think so too. But I don't need your opinion on what I think. I need you to think separately. You can't just assume whatever I'm saying is right, even if I sound too convincing. You must Question everything I say. Specially if we are going ahead with this first hypothesis of division based on gender for the purpose of reproduction of more entities. Now that the One is divided into Two entities; it can't think alone. It must think like both man and woman."

"Which are both the same? Since they are part of the same entity."

"Ok. To avoid confusion, let's call them A and Z. They are both fragments of the One but independent in nature. Just like us." A suggested.

"I am not confused. It's as clear as it is for you. Which is a little. But my main concern is what is it that we are thinking about? You mentioned that we should think about the reason behind the next division. But for me, as a female entity of the One, there is no need for any other division."

"Sounds fair. But the point is that the One still has been divided into Twenty-Six characters. If there were no further divisions, on what basis were we separated from each other, if you, me and the Twenty-Four others are all part of the One?"

"I don't know. Maybe this is not something to be figured out right here sitting in the car. We'll need to just keep living with this thought, observe the people around us and wait for the answer to strike us."

"Maybe, you're right. Also, another thing to think of is what if this whole idea of figuring out the One doesn't go down well with the others? What if someone tries to meddle with our objective and distract us? After all, they are a part of us and are aware of this conversation we are having at some level. How do we counter that?"

"Yeah! And how do I know that it is still you, Ahmed, that I'm talking to. What if the Character just switches and you're gone for I don't know how long? Like we met today after almost a year."

"Well, I don't know the answer to that. But I think we'll need to keep experimenting with the characters and our subconscious to figure out a way around it. Like today, it is just the Two of us. We are the only ones experiencing this moment. Even though the others would be aware of it, they are not living this moment. There must be something about living a moment that is different from just Being aware of that moment. Suppose there is another person and we know everything that is happening in their life, maybe by observing it through a camera. We still might not be able to know what it was like living that moment."

"True. But this is different. This is not a camera. This is a shared subconscious of One person."

"But there must still be something that defines a boundary. Otherwise, why would we be just Twenty- Six? Why not more? Or less? There is something that we don't know about the others, which is why we are trying to figure them out. Similarly, there must be things that they would not be knowing about us. We must try and map that somehow."

"I have an idea!" Z exclaimed as she went between the Two front seats, grabbed the Show piece on the dashboard and tried to pull it. It was stuck firmly with an adhesive. She looked around and found a foot-long iron rod right behind the Show piece. She picked it up and smashed the spherical glass with all her might. The slimy, glittery liquid, along with pieces of glass, gushed out and spread all over the dashboard. She then threw the rod on the driver seat and plucked out the man and woman figures by their plastic bodies. She kept the woman inside a secret pocket in her purse and handed over the man to A.

"Here. Keep this somewhere safe. Somewhere that you won't forget. If a time comes, when we both meet again, we can Show it to each other as proof of what happened tonight. If any of the other characters tries to Show this to us, we'll Question them about what all they know about it to get an idea of how much of this conversation they know about."

"Now, you're thinking like a woman. That's a really good idea. At least we'll have an advantage over them and we'll be in a better position to figure out the next Step."

"Glad you like it! So, where do we go from here? Is there something else we should discuss?"

"I think it's enough for now. You should get back inside. I'll wait for Changaswami. I'm sure he'll come around soon."

Z looked at A intently and then opened the car door and left. A looked at Z as she walked back into her mansion. Then he shifted his gaze to the plastic figure in his hand. He put it in the right pocket on the side of his white Salwaar and got lost in his thoughts. Soon, the Driver arrived. He picked up the iron rod off his seat and put it back on the dashboard. Without caring about the mess, he started driving and after an hour-long drive stopped next to a hut, made of soda cans and reinforced plastic. As soon as Changaswami got out of the car, the Driver left the site.

After driving for a mile, he parked the car right in the middle of an empty field. He picked up the rod and swept the liquid and the pieces of glass floating in it off the dashboard, onto the floor of the car towards the other front seat. He then threw the rod on that seat and reclined his seat to its maximum capacity. On the roof of the car he saw a painting. It was of Moses parting the waters to make way for his followers to cross the sea.

The Driver then reached out to his shirt pocket and took out a pen. He circled the head of Moses and wrote the letter 'A' on top of it. He then began circling the head of each of the followers and writing the letter 'A' on top of all the males and the letter 'Z' on top of all the females. He then started counting the Zs by bringing the back of the pen close to each One of them, One after the other. After he was done counting, he had a grin on his face. He put the tip of the pen to his left hand, wrote "Z = 96" on it and circled it twice with an expression that made it seem like something had happened just the way he had expected. He then put the pen back in his shirt pocket, closed his eyes and soon fell asleep.