Chasing a Familiar Shadow

by Aman Gupta

  Dr. Kiole put the bag in the brown cupboard in his room. He took out a dusty photo album kept on the top shelf and wiped it clean. He sat down on his bed and began browsing through its pages. The old memories rushed back. There were tears in his eyes. He sat there for an hour, looking at hundreds of photographs. Patients, nurses, fellow surgeons, and family members. It was a trip down memory lane. The back problem had prevented him from sitting without lumbar back support. His mind forgot to tell him that in those sixty minutes.

  Chapter 34: Jaunt

  The next morning, Vik arrived with Claire and a couple of guys who were available for restoration services. He saw the gate was unlocked. He told the guys to wait outside while he walked inside with Claire. Claire looked at the old, broken walls, and could immediately see the potential of the place. The corridors were dirty, while several rooms had sustained rain damage. The nature had done its part in taking down a place that broke its laws. They saw a figure standing at the ending of the corridor, removing the cloth off the chairs outside an OR.

  “Who’s that?” whispered Claire.

  “Hey, who are you?” asked Vik.

  The person turned around. It was Dr. Kiole.

  “Dr. Kiole,” said Vik. “What are you doing here?”

  Vik saw he was holding a bag. The same bag that Vik had given him last night. Dr. Kiole walked towards Vik and put down the bag next to him.

  “I don’t understand,” said Vik.

  “I decided I don’t want to sell this place,” said Dr. Kiole.

  “Sorry, I really need it for my sister. We could offer you rent if you want,” said Claire.

  “Who are you?” asked Dr. Kiole.

  “Sorry, I’m Dr. Claire Silverstein. I’m Emily’s sister,” said Claire.

  “I don’t rent, Dr. Silverstein. Would you need a salary?” asked Dr. Kiole.

  “A salary? I don’t understand,” said Claire.

  “I’m thinking of reopening this place. I need a trusted partner, like you, who could manage this place when I’m busy with other things. But as a partner, I can’t offer you a salary. Would you need a salary?” asked Dr. Kiole.

  “Are you offering me a job?” asked Claire.

  “Yes. We already have our first patient. An Emily Silverstein,” said Dr. Kiole. “I have already sent word to the hospital that I would require a copy of her documents.”

  Claire smiled and hugged Dr. Kiole. “Thank you so much.”

  Dr. Kiole smiled as they hugged.

  As they stopped hugging, Dr. Kiole looked at Vik, who was smiling too.

  “It seems I need a financer so that I could take out a business loan. I think this place needs an upgrade,” said Dr. Kiole.

  “I know just the guy,” said Vik. “How does 5 gold bricks sound?”

  Vik picked up the bag and offered it to Dr. Kiole. He accepted it.

  “Now, why don’t you get the repairmen while I show Dr. Silverstein around?” said Dr. Kiole.

  “Of course,” said Vik, smiling.

  He went outside to get the guys and brought them to meet Dr. Kiole. The guys looked around to get an idea of the work that needed to be done.

  “So, what cost am I looking at?” asked Dr. Kiole.

  “Somewhere around couple million,” said the two guys.

  “That’s too high. I can offer you 250 grand,” said Dr. Kiole. “Take it or leave it.”

  They discussed amongst themselves.

  “500 grand,” said one of the guys, after deliberating for a minute. “We will get six men to work in two shifts and deliver within 20 days.”

  “Deal,” said Dr. Kiole. “Do you accept cash or in kind, let’s say 100 fuel storage belts?”

  “Either is fine, old man,” said the guy.

  “It’s Dr. Kiole,” said Dr. Kiole.

  “Sorry. Dr. Kiole,” said the guy.

  “Give me a list of supplies you need,” said Dr. Kiole. “By afternoon. I’ll negotiate with the suppliers myself.”

  They nodded and left after taking a closer look inside the premises.

  Claire hugged Vik. “Thank you for everything.”

  “Guess you’ll be alright here,” said Vik.

  “Yeah,” said Claire.

  They stopped hugging as Claire wiped a tear from her eye. Dr. Kiole shook Vik’s hands.

  “What changed your mind?” asked Vik.

  “I realized I wasn’t done helping people,” said Dr. Kiole. “If a guy like you can spend a crap load of money for a friend, surely I can give that friend a moment of my time.”

  “Thank you,” said Vik. “For the loaded statement.”

  Claire and Dr. Kiole laughed, as Vik made an annoyed face.

  “With Sera gone too, I can work in peace. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got to make a few calls. We need some nurses and new equipment around here,” said Dr. Kiole.

  Claire and Vik left the nursing home, smiling. Vik drove Claire to the hospital, where she thanked him again.

  “Hey, you saved my life. It’s the least I could do,” said Vik.

  “Something tells me you would’ve done it anyway,” said Claire.

  “See you soon,” said Vik. “Tell Emily she still owes me a race.”

  Claire chuckled. “I will.”

  “I will visit her soon. Got to take care of a few things,” said Vik.

  “About your daughter? Emily told me,” said Claire. “After I cried my eyes out yesterday and emotionally blackmailed her.”

  “Yeah, I need to get her back,” said Vik.

  “I hope you do,” said Claire.

  Claire got out of the car. Vik waved goodbye to her, and drove away, smiling.

  Vik went to Morrow Police Station around 4 PM. He saw the trucks hadn’t moved from their spot, even though he had given the keys to Eric before leaving. He went inside the precinct and saw Bill and his team were occupying desks in the main hall, the places that were otherwise empty.

  “I see you have settled in,” said Vik as Bill walked towards him.

  “Yeah,” said Bill. “I heard the properties suddenly got a lot cheaper here.”

  “Happy to help,” said Vik. “Has the wife come?”

  “No, she’ll be here in a few weeks. Moving is hard,” said Bill.

  “Well, the first dinner is on me,” said Vik as he smiled. “I see your team hasn’t left yet. Will they be staying too?”

  “With Mark gone, the team isn’t what it used to be,” said Bill.

  “Karen, too, right?” asked Vik.

  “Karen wasn’t a part of our team until quite recently. She had taken a sabbatical quite a few years ago when she couldn’t handle the bloodshed and guns. Then she joined the force again a few months ago and volunteered to be in our team. Before that, it was just us 4,” said Bill.

  “Well, she can handle them both now,” smiled Vik.

  “Must’ve been a hell of a vacation,” said Bill.

  Vik laughed and left.

  He saw Emma playing with her pen. He had missed her red locks, even though he never would admit that. Emma looked up when she saw a shadow cast on her table.

  “You’re back,” said Emma as she got up and hugged him. “I called but couldn’t get through.”

  Her smile brought a sense of calmness in Vik’s body.

  “I left my phone here. Good to see you too,” said Vik, as he didn’t push her away.

  “We missed you around here,” said Emma.

  “Who’s we?” asked Vik.

  “You know.. me... Umm...Joey...Kate...even the Sheriff,” said Emma.

  “Sheriff? Are you sure?” asked Vik.

  “Yeah, I overplayed my hand there, didn’t I?” said Emma as she chuckled. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

  “I thought we could go out and eat,” said Vik.

  “Yeah? Great. Where?” asked Emma.

  “How about Emily’s?” said Vik.

  “Awesome. Wait, isn’t that..” said Emma.

  “Yeah,” said Vik.

&nbs
p; Emma made an awkward face.

  “So, Sierra. When are we going there?” asked Emma.

  “In a couple of days,” said Vik. “Tonight, we’ll send our spotter. Where’s everyone else?”

  “Sheriff, Kate, and Joey are working near the crater,” said Emma. “Overseeing everything. Handling the crowd.”

  “Okay,” said Vik.

  “Wait, I got the keys to one of the trucks,” said Emma.

  She rummaged in her desk drawer and took out the keys.

  “Great. Thanks,” said Vik as he went back outside after taking the keys from Emma.

  Emma ran after him when she got bored of flipping the pen across the table. Vik hopped inside one of the trucks and was driving it away when Emma came in front of it. Vik applied the brakes. Emma came to the driver’s window.

  “Where are you going?” she yelled, in the noise of the truck.

  “Nucleus,” said Vik. “Need a quiet place to set it up.”

  “Cool. Can I join?” asked Emma. “Please?”

  “Okay,” said Vik.

  Emma grinned and went around to the passenger side. She got inside the truck and put on the seatbelt diligently. Vik smiled and drove to Nucleus, which had been abandoned ever since the police removed their fence. The mayor had also stopped the construction of Anthony’s memorial shortly after he had come to Morrow to inform about New Bay kidnappings. It was an unnecessary expense after he had already gotten the mileage out of it when he announced it to the public.

  Vik parked the truck in front of Nucleus, and stepped out of the truck. Emma got out too. Vik opened the back of the truck. It was the first time Emma was seeing inside the truck. She had only heard about it through Joey. As she looked inside the crates, she spotted rocket launchers and missiles, machine guns, handguns, laser beams, and unseen rifles. Vik went deep into the truck and started dragging a huge crate.

  “Let me help you,” said Emma as she went around and pushed it.

  Vik pushed it to a cart kept inside the truck, and rolled it outside the track, and took it inside Nucleus.

  “Three more,” said Vik.

  It took them an hour, but Vik managed to nearly empty the truck by putting everything inside Nucleus.

  Emma began checking the guns, aiming at everything she could see. She was weirdly excited to get her hands on all these weapons. Perhaps, I have ruined her forever, Vik thought.

  He opened the boxes and pulled out the materials.

  “What’s that?” asked Emma.

  “Currently, trash. After I assemble it, our very own UAV squadron,” said Vik.

  “Look at the components. How big are these?” asked Emma.

  “When fully assembled? It should be as big as your sedan,” said Vik.

  Vik began assembling the drones while Emma watched closely. She tried to assemble one herself but nearly broke a critical part, before dropping the idea. After almost an hour, Vik had completely assembled one. He found a slot for attaching payload. After a bit of welding and soldering, he modified it to hold a missile launcher instead of guns and grenades. It wasn’t a surveillance equipment anymore. It was capable of taking out any object.

  Vik asked Emma to look for a chip when he couldn’t find it. After a few minutes of searching, she found it. They were stuck inside the boxes, which Vik had neglected.

  After setting up the computer screens, he inserted the chip into a chip reader and began programming it. A few minutes later, he took out the chip. Vik opened a console on the back of the drone and inserted the chip.

  “What are you doing?” asked Emma.

  “The UAV will go out of range otherwise,” said Vik. “The chip is now integrated with the drone’s motherboard, and can be monitored via our commands here.”

  “How do you know these things?” asked Emma.

  “DC. I worked with a guy handling the Weapons Division at Verati. Top fella,” said Vik. “He taught me about weapons. This is basically an upgrade of what we worked with, back in the day.”

  Emma didn’t say anything. After a brief pause, Vik closed the panel.

  “Where’s the remote?” asked Emma.

  “Don’t be barbaric. There’s no remote, per se. We monitor the PLCs that power the drone using the computer program that came with it,” said Vik. “We can see and maneuver it using the headset. It’s voice-controlled.”

  “Awesome,” said Emma.

  “Now, help me carry it,” said Vik.

  They lifted the drone and took it out the door. After putting it in the middle of the road, they went back inside. Vik sat on the chair and put the headset. He pushed a couple of buttons on the keyboard as Emma looked.

  The feed came on the screen. They could see the road. Emma was reading the manual that came with it.

  “Fly,” said Vik.

  Nothing happened. Emma laughed and gave him the manual.

  “You’re supposed to say ‘Engage’,” said Emma.

  Vik felt embarrassed, when Emma couldn’t stop laughing.

  “Engage,” said Vik, into the headset. “Earlier, it used to be ‘fly’.”

  “Of course it was,” laughed Emma.

  The drone flew vertically upwards. The screen showed a map on the screen, asking for coordinates, while the surveillance cam on the split screen showed nothing but clouds. Vik connected his phone with the computer and loaded the location that his tracker had sent to him. The screen’s map panned hundreds of miles as it detected the location near TS – 51.

  “So, Sierra. Let’s see what you are up to,” said Vik.

  Emma grabbed a chair and sat next to him.

  The drone zoomed ahead with a speed of 50 miles per hour, before peaking at 120 miles per hour after a few minutes.

  “It’s going to take a few hours. Meanwhile, let’s build our entire fleet,” said Vik.

  “I will keep a watch here,” said Emma.

  “Okay,” said Vik, as he put on the headset on Emma. She felt like she was wearing a Tiara. She practiced her moves by randomly telling the drone to change directions. When it did, she felt powerful.

  A few hours later, around 10:30 PM, Vik had dispatched all four drones towards the location. Vik went back to the truck to make sure that they had emptied the entire truck before he parked it somewhere.

  Emma was looking at the screen and saw something that made her fall out of her chair. As the drone descended towards the spot from the clouds, Emma saw lots of buildings enclosed inside a dome. Some of the buildings were on fire. She was reminded of Atlantis when she saw it. The drone was still a couple of miles above the ground and descending slowly.

  She called out Vik’s name multiple times but didn’t get a response. She immediately ran outside towards the truck. She saw he was moving some leftover boxes inside the truck.

  “You got to see it,” said Emma.

  “See what?” said Vik.

  “Come quickly,” said Emma.

  Vik put the box back down on the floor and got out of the refrigerator truck. He ran inside after Emma, who went towards the surveillance screens set up on the other side of the room. When they got there, there was nothing to see.

  “It was there,” said Emma.

  “What was there?” asked Vik.

  “Buildings inside a dome. They were on fire. It looked like Atlantis,” said Emma.

  Vik sat on the chair and change to manual override to maneuver the drone. The screen suggested that the drone was within 400 meters of the target location. Yet Vik couldn’t see anything but barren land. Emma was shocked. She couldn’t have dreamt it.

  “Vik, I’m sure. I saw it,” said Emma. “You have to believe me.”

  “There’s one way to know,” said Vik.

  Vik opened the drone’s software and initiated a module named ‘Geo Tethering’. The prompt displayed the message shorty after – ‘Collecting Readings. Estimated time – 1 minute’.

  Vik saw the other drones were still far out. The closest one was ten minutes away, and it was the fourth one th
at Vik had assembled. He hadn’t attached the payload to that one, and it was averaging close to 160 miles per hour, overtaking its counterparts pretty soon after launch.

  He changed that one to manual mode as well and began its descent through the clouds. By the map’s estimation, they were flying over TS – 51. Emma and Vik couldn’t believe their eyes. They were expecting forests and wilderness. But they saw homes, buildings, and towns. It was middle of the night, and yet there were lights on the ground as seen from the sky. The lights were scattered, just like a town would look like at night.

  Vik checked the first drone, who was now analyzing the readings. The second drone had left the airspace of TS – 51. They spotted a couple of towers with red lights blinking on top of it.

  “What is that?” asked Emma.

  “Looks like an airdrome,” said Vik.

  Vik descended the drone down another mile. He hoped that the drone would be stuck down by the military if the airport was still functioning.

  He could spot a couple of helicopters and a couple of jets parked there. The white helicopter looked similar to the one which he had seen in TS – 17.

  “That helicopter looks similar to the one we saw in TS – 17,” said Emma.

  “Yeah, it does. Doesn’t it?” said Vik.

  A minute later, there was again a prompt on the screen. The software had analyzed the readings. It could sense the high concentration of electromagnetic waves around the region. They were also interfering with the drone’s operation.

  “The reading is off the charts,” said Vik. “It’s definitely not a ghost land.”

  “So, I wasn’t wrong. There is something there,” said Emma.

  “But why can’t we see it?” asked Vik. “The radar shows no presence of any object, either.”

  As Vik was moving the drone, he saw another moving object on the screen. A small blip which disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

  “There, you see that?” asked Vik.

  “See what?” asked Emma.

  “Keep checking the radar,” said Vik.

  He moved the drone clockwise a couple of times, covering the entire area.

  “There. I saw it,” said Emma. “It’s too low to be an airplane.”

  A few seconds later, the blip on the screen was consistent. It was moving towards their drone. Vik armed the missiles and activated the launcher remotely. While they were observing the unknown object in front of them, they lost the focus on their destination. A part of the dome opened, and a couple of missiles came out of it. One of them hit Vik’s drone, which was destroyed into pieces in mid-air.