Eleven Graves

by Aman Gupta

  “That’s all you know?” asked Eric.

  “Every word,” said Pete.

  “Fine,” said Eric.

  “One more thing, what’s the pay like? I mean, I look at these photos of you visiting these unseen places. If it’s good, maybe I should throw my hat in the ring,” said Joey.

  “It’s decent,” said Pete. “Now I’m afraid, I’m going to have to insist for you to leave.”

  They left while the mayor sat down on the sofa in his study.

  “What now?” asked Emma as they got in the car.

  “I don’t know. We have hit a dead end,” said Eric.

  They drove to Jay’s house to drop Emma. They stopped to check in on him, but found that the place was locked. Eric called him but he didn’t pick up the call. They returned to the abandoned house they had setup their camp in, and decided to search rest of the abandoned houses in the block for clues regarding missing kids. Around midnight, Emma drove to Vik’s house under the pretense of getting her stuff.

  The door was open, so Emma walked in and saw the lobby was empty. She walked towards the kitchen to find Vik cooking dinner. He turned his head a little, but didn’t all the way back.

  “Hey,” said Emma.

  “Hey,” said Vik.

  “What are you doing?” said Emma.

  “Finally hungry,” said Vik.

  “Make some for me, too,” said Emma.

  “Already am,” said Vik, as he sliced up the vegetables and put them in the pan.

  “Crazy day today, right?” smiled Emma.

  “Yeah, that’s one word for it,” said Vik.

  “So, we met the mayor today,” said Emma.

  “Sorry, that you guys hit a dead-end,” said Vik.

  “How did you know?” asked Emma.

  “My daughter Katie kept secrets from her mother for me. There were like so many things we did that Sarah didn’t know. Cooking, Shopping, Amusement Parks. You name it. Sarah always knew something was up and used to ask Katie. Katie never gave her anything, but rather manipulated Sarah into apologizing. You know why Sarah didn’t win even once?” said Vik.

  “Why?” asked Emma.

  “She didn’t bring the candy. You want someone to tell you something that could hurt them, you have to bring something that they didn’t know they wanted and then threaten to take it away.”

  “Is that something you do?” asked Emma.

  “No, I’m much smoother. I kill them with kindness,” said Vik.

  They ate the dish that Vik had prepared. Vik talked about his memories inside the house. Emma would laugh and smile, before seeing his face turn miserable while remembering. After a couple of hours, Emma decided to leave.

  “You can stay if you want,” said Vik.

  “No, I should probably get going. I should get some sleep. Need to search those houses tomorrow,” said Emma.

  “Okay. But I’m telling you now. It wouldn’t get you anywhere, though. Whoever’s behind this isn’t going to be leaving clues in the middle of the town when they could easily disappear in the nearby woods,” said Vik.

  “What do you suggest?” asked Emma.

  “Your stitches are healing up nicely, I see. Maybe you should get another set,” said Vik.

  “Will you be coming with us?” asked Emma.

  “I have some work that I need to do,” said Vik.

  “Where? In Atlantis?” asked Emma.

  “She told you,” said Vik.

  “Yes,” said Emma.

  “You think it changes things but it doesn’t,” said Vik.

  “If you feel you need to do it, then I won’t stop you. As long as you don’t stop me from helping you,” said Emma.

  “I wouldn’t have been able to get here without you. All of you. But I’m afraid this is where we part our ways,” said Vik.

  “We don’t have to,” said Emma.

  “Anything and everything that I am hoping to accomplish would be meaningless if something happened to you. If, however, I do find the strength to return, I’ll know where to go,” said Vik.

  Emma said, “No, you won’t. I love you, and you know that. I can’t wait around my entire life hoping for you to come home. When we leave West Gate, if you’re not with me, then we’re done. You have 24 hrs to decide.”

  She left while Vik looked.

  The next day, Eric and Joey, Kate and Emma, respectively, formed 2 teams to search the houses. Emma told Kate about her conversation with Vik. Kate agreed to stand by her whatever happened, but told her that she herself owed it to Vik to go with him to Atlantis. Emma told her that she hoped Kate would change her mind. While canvassing the area, both groups found a laptop each and microprocessors, barely used. Unable to open the laptop, they thought of asking Vik to hack into them later. They continued their search but couldn’t find anything else.

  “No food, no ropes, no clothes,” said Eric. “Doesn’t look like anyone has stayed here for a long time.”

  “What about the laptops though?” asked Kate. “Pretty strange to find them here.”

  “Maybe someone forgot them here while they were looking for stuff,” said Joey.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what you do when you go burgling places. You leave your stuff there,” joked Emma.

  “Oh shut up and stop giggling! How else do you explain this?” said Joey, as Eric and Kate smiled.

  “It depends on what they contain,” said Emma.

  “That’s true,” said Eric.

  “See Joey. Not so hard using your brains,” said Emma.

  “Oh come on. That’s so obvious. That’s like saying, to know if the car works, try turning it on,” said Joey.

  Emma and Joey crossed their arms and looked away from each other.

  CHAPTER 10: NEOPHYTE

  Vik drove to the hospital to check if Martha had found something. He checked the computer records but couldn’t find any outlier kids who were admitted recently. Martha asked Vik to look at the surveillance cameras too for any leads. Most of the system was archaic and majority of the cameras weren’t working or recording anything. Martha mentioned that every once in a while, the cameras would stop working and resume normally in a few days. Their system could only hold videos of 30 days, before being overwritten by new content. Vik downloaded a copy, to take a closer look in his house.

  While leaving the premises, he noticed two muscular guys grabbing lab coats from a box in the back of their van without license plates, before walking past him and entering the hospital. Vik went to their van to eavesdrop but couldn’t see past the black windows. He punctured one of the tires before going back to the hospital to search for those two guys. He searched them everywhere but couldn’t find them. After searching for an hour, he noticed that the van was still parked. He went to Martha to access the live surveillance cameras again. After a few minutes, he noticed them on one of the cameras on the third floor and rushed to the floor.

  After looking around for a possible tail, they entered a patient’s room. Vik went towards the room to check it out, but as soon as he got there, the guys came out. Vik walked by to avoid any suspicion as the two guys went the other way. After walking to the end of the hallway 40 yards away, Vik returned to the patient’s room, but the room was empty. The room also had a backdoor which was semi-open. He went down to the parking lot to catch up with them.

  One of them was changing the tire while the other one was on the phone. They weren’t wearing the lab coat anymore.

  “Hi, can I assist you with that?” Vik asked the guy putting on a spare tire.

  “No, thank you,” said the guy in a loud, raw voice.

  “Okay. Could you tell me who should I see here for my skin allergy?” asked Vik.

  “Does it look like we work here?” said the guy.

  The other guy had gotten off the phone and walked over.

  “Something wrong?” asked the second guy.

  “No, I was asking who’s the best doctor here,” said Vik.

  “We don’t work here,�
� said the second guy.

  “Are you sure? I saw couple of guys, who looked like you, in there while I was lost in there for a while,” said Vik.

  “Wasn’t us,” said the first guy.

  “But,” said Vik, before being interrupted.

  “Like he said, keep walking. Or,” said the second guy.

  “Or what?” said Vik.

  “You won’t be able to talk anymore,” said the first guy.

  “Shh..You change the tire while I’m talking to your boss,” said Vik.

  The first guy looked furiously at Vik, when the other guy said, “What do you want? We don’t work here. Now piss off and go ask someone else.”

  “Okay, I understand,” said Vik. He clicked their pictures with his phone.

  “What are you doing?” said the second guy, as he tried to grab the phone.

  Vik ran. The guy chased him. Vik lured him into an alley across the street and hit him with a steel rod. A fight ensued between the two. Vik kicked the guy, who went down on the ground after the blow. The man grabbed an empty glass bottle near the dumpster and smashed it on Vik’s head. Vik lost his balance. The man got up and repeatedly punched Vik on his face. Vik started bleeding from the nose and mouth, and fell nearly unconscious on the ground. The man grabbed Vik’s phone but Vik kicked the man on his kneecap. He got hold of his bag which had his laptop, after reaching for it, and smashed it on the guy’s head. He searched the guy as he was knocked out and found a flash drive in his pocket. He took it, grabbed his phone from the guy’s hand, picked his bag, and ran away.

  After a while, the guy returned to the parking lot.

  “Where were you? I’ve waiting here for an hour,” said the guy.

  “That prick hit me with a rod,” said the second guy.

  “Well, why did you chase after him?” asked the guy.

  “He took our pictures,” said the second.

  “What!” said the guy.

  “Don’t tell about this to anyone,” said the second guy.

  “You still got the drive right?” asked the first.

  The second guy patted himself but couldn’t find it. “That bastard!”

  “What now?” said the first.

  “Let’s get out of here first,” said the second.

  Vik went to his home after making sure he wasn’t being followed and found that Eric and the rest were waiting for him at the porch. Vik was bleeding all over his face.

  “Oh my god! Are you alright?” asked Emma.

  “What the hell happened?” asked Eric, as he looked around to see any of the attackers.

  “Almost got mugged,” said Vik.

  “Where?” asked Joey.

  “Near the hospital,” said Vik, as he unlocked the door and went inside.

  “What were you doing there?” asked Emma.

  “Needed to follow up with Martha about any missing kids,” said Vik.

  “You could’ve told anyone of us. We would have gone with you,” said Eric.

  “Relax.. I can take care of myself,” said Vik.

  Emma went to look for a First Aid kit.

  “You look like you were one punch away from permanent facial damage,” said Eric.

  “Wait, are you saying that you got mugged because you visited Martha?” asked Kate.

  “Not really,” said Vik.

  “Then what?” asked Joey.

  Emma returned with the first aid kit which she had found in Vik’s bedroom.

  “I need to clean your wounds, stop moving,” said Emma.

  “Wait,” said Vik, as he searched his pocket and took out the flash drive.

  “Did they want the flash drive?” asked Joey.

  “Yes,” said Vik.

  “What’s on it?” asked Eric.

  “No idea. Let’s see,” said Vik, as he took out his laptop while Emma wiped away the blood using cotton swabs.

  “Wait, whose flash drive is it?” asked Kate.

  “Technically, I mugged them..” said Vik.

  “You what!” said Emma. Vik smiled and so did Eric for a second.

  “Who were they?” asked Kate.

  “No idea. They looked suspicious. One of them was rude. So I lured the other into an alley and mugged him,” said Vik. “As you can see, he resisted a little!”

  “What did they look like?” asked Joey.

  “Check my phone. I clicked their photos,” said Vik.

  “And they let you?” asked Joey.

  “Yeah, I was charming enough,” said Vik.

  Joey and Kate looked at the pictures.

  “Wait, who did you beat up? The medium guy or the large guy?” asked Joey.

  “The large guy. Medium one was busy changing his van’s punctured tire,” said Vik.

  “Please tell me you didn’t puncture the tire,” said Eric.

  Vik was extremely reticent.

  “Cool!” exclaimed Joey.

  “Wait, I know him,” said Kate.

  “Who? Where?” asked Eric.

  “The medium guy is Jenna’s ex-husband,” said Vik.

  “What!” shouted everyone.

  Vik smiled and said, “Is it too late to say I’m kidding?”

  Everyone stared at him with disappointment. They looked at the picture while Vik worked on his laptop.

  “Oh no, no, no!” said Vik, after a minute.

  “What?” asked Eric.

  “The flash drive just fried my laptop,” said Vik.

  “How?” asked Emma.

  “I think there was a program in the drive which detected my laptop as a foreign system. It deleted all files within the drive, and then my hard drive,” said Vik, as he threw away the laptop.

  “Where have you seen this guy, Kate?” asked Eric.

  “New Bay, I think. When Joey and I went to the school to talk to the kids. He was there in the school grounds,” said Kate.

  “Are you sure?” asked Vik.

  “Yes, I think so,” said Kate.

  “So, we were right. West Gate is connected to the New Bay kidnappings,” said Emma.

  “What about the laptops?” said Joey.

  “I’ll try to recover as much as I can,” said Vik.

  “Not yours. Ours. The ones we found,” said Joey.

  “Found where?” asked Vik.

  They briefed Vik about the laptops they had found at the abandoned houses. Joey got them from the trunk of their car and brought them to Vik. Vik grabbed his laptop and saw that the flash drive had split into two from the fall. He saw this miniature paper strip stuck on the inside lining of the drive. He pulled it out and unfolded it. Some numbers were written on it. He showed them to the rest.

  “What are these numbers? Coordinates?” asked Joey.

  “No, I don’t think coordinates are these big,” said Eric. “I mean, some are coordinates. Some aren’t,” said Joey.

  Vik, meanwhile, opened one of the laptops, which was password protected.

  “What are the numbers, again?” asked Vik.

  “896-986-758-770”

  He entered the numbers as a password combination but was prompted to try again. “Not that lucky.”

  “Can’t you just hack it?” asked Joey.

  “I can, but I don’t have my program anymore. It was on my laptop. So, it’s going to take some time,” said Vik.

  “How did you even find them?” asked Vik.

  “There were just stashed there, basically,” said Joey.

  “They don’t even look that old,” said Vik.

  He grabbed a screw driver and unscrewed the back panel.

  “Look at the hardware. The configuration is almost state of the art. Definitely better than mine,” said Vik.

  Emma touched the back panel and moved her hand around.

  “Ouch,” said Emma. “It’s hot. Didn’t you turn it off?”

  “It’s off,” said Vik.

  “Then why did that almost burn my finger?” said Emma.

  “What is that thing?” asked Eric.

  “GP
S,” said Vik.

  “So, what does that mean?” asked Joey.

  “They weren’t left there by accident,” said Eric.

  “Is it still transmitting?” asked Kate.

  “Yes, most likely. It’s wired to an independent circuit and a battery,” said Vik.

  “They will know it’s been moved,” said Eric.

  Vik assembled back the flash drive and switched on the laptop.

  “What are you doing?” asked Eric.

  “Frying the laptop,” said Vik.

  “Why?” asked Kate.

  “Why not!” asked Vik, as he plugged-in the flash drive.

  It unlocked the lock screen and opened the file directory structure.

  “Did you know that would happen?” asked Emma.

  “Wouldn’t that be cool,” said Vik.

  “Great! Jay, you go through the files, see if you can find anything. Joey, Kate and I will go back and get our stuff. The GPS will lead them here. Maybe we can outsmart them and get some answers of our own,” said Eric.

  They returned after an hour. Vik had successfully managed to unlock both laptops using the flash drive and was going through their files.

  “Find anything?” asked Kate.

  “Not really. Most of the files are encrypted. Unless we know both the algorithm and the key, there isn’t much we can do,” said Vik.

  “So this is useless for us?” asked Eric.

  “Maybe you should put them back where you found them,” said Vik.

  “Why?” asked Emma.

  “So whoever is supposed to have them, can come to collect them,” said Joey.

  “Precisely,” said Vik. “Maybe they’ll have the decryption key with them.”

  “I still don’t understand one thing though,” said Joey. “Does this mean that those guys at the hospital are connected to the person with the laptops?”

  “But I thought the guy was connected to New Bay,” said Emma.