The Selfie

10:30 a.m - 10/01/12

"...and Rudy thought the nurse was trying to kill him!" Ankit's voice came from the other side.

"What? Why?" Diana asked as she went through some files.

"I don't know, he woke up, he saw the nurse with those medical tweezers sort of things, and he hallucinated and thought that it was Atisha with a knife, trying to kill him."

"That's crazy, and it's not a medical tweezers sort of thing, its called forceps."

"That's not what's important. Anyway, Prithvi and I are almost here at the hospital; are you coming now or later?"

"I'll come now."

Diana kept the call and then realised something. "I don't have my car. I'd given it for service."

She bit her lower lip, trying to come up with a solution. Then she picked up her phone and walked towards Hiya's cubicle.

She entered and saw that Hiya wasn't there. She called her. Hiya picked up the phone in about three rings. "Hello?"

"Hey, where are you?"

"Canteen, why?"

"Where are your car keys?"

"First drawer, why?"

"Its an emergency, and I don't have my car. I'm taking yours, okay?"

"Okay, bu-"

"Thank you so much!"

Diana kept the call and opened the drawer. She rummaged through and found the keys. She was just about to close it when something caught her eye.

It was a small, orange thumb drive. It may be common for others, but Diana knew that Hiya never kept USB drives in her drawer. "They get lost very easily." Hiya had reasoned. For this reason, she had a separate mug on her table that held all her USB drives.

Diana picked it up and turned it around. It had a label.

Atisha tape.

"What?" Diana muttered to herself. She went back to her cubicle and opened her laptop. She connected it and waited till the computer read the files. She then opened the 'Removable disk' window.

There was only one file in the drive. She tried opening it. Another window opened up. It was password protected.
Diana bit her lip. How was she going to figure out the password? She tried the usual stuff. Hiya's name, her surname, date of birth. Nothing worked. Then she tried Atisha and her date of birth, or anything related to her. Still nothing. Diana took in a deep breath and let it out.

She knew it was a long shot.

She tried her own name and details. Nothing.
She tried Ankit's. Nope.

Diana was surprised that the system didn't lock her out after so many wrong entries. Must be a fault in the program, she thought to herself.

She tried Prithvi's. Still nothing.
She tried Rudy's. She typed in his name and clicked enter.

The page loaded for sometime and then opened an audio file.

Frowning, Diana played the file. She had a bad feeling about this..

"Rudy... What is this?"

Silence.

"Atisha..." Rudy's voice clearly rang out. "Switch it off please."

"No... Rudy, you are going to tell me what's going on. Right now."

Diana instantly realised what this was. It was a part of the recordings from Atisha's recorder! She went back to listening to the conversation.

"Atisha... You were not meant to see this."

"Rudy... Are you into this business? Is this why you are going to Mumbai? To bring in more girls? Or even sell them?!"

"Atisha, that's enough!"

There was silence for a few moments, except for heavy breathing.

"Why Rudy?"

"I need a job to survive. This is easy profit. Do you know how many people are into this? Flesh trade, even if its illegal, brings in a lot of money. And I'm in desperate need of that."

"So, for the sake of money, you would go around, tricking girls and women, and force them into flesh trade and trafficking?"

"Yes. I would."

"Rudy... This is not what you would do. The Rudy that I know wouldn't do this."

"Well, that Rudy isn't here anymore. That Rudy couldn't survive."

Silence.

"Rudy... You are doing your job. But now, I'm going to do mine. I'm going to report this." Pause. "I can't believe it. We have a detective in the group, and yet you had the nerve to go and join this... This group of criminals?!"

"Atisha..." Rudy's voice turned atone cold. "You. Will not. Tell. Anybody."

"Oh yeah? And who's going to stop me?"

"Me. I'm sorry."

And then the struggle started. Diana could clearly hear them pushing each other, and then she heard the slice of the knife. Atisha whimpered in pain. Rudy took this opportunity to lunge at her again. And in a few seconds, it was all over. She heard a thud. Then the tape went off.

Diana's hands started shaking as she closed the window and took out the drive.

She laid it on her table and just sat still for a while.

Then she did something that she hadn't done in a very long time.

She cried.