The Last Pitcher

Chapter 3: The Third Technique

'Open your eyes.'
Sneha heard Jai's voice. She opened her eyes and saw him leaning over her. His face was grave and shone in bewilderment.

'Are you ok?'

'I am fine.' She said ambushed by the fact that she was lying flat on the ground. 

'How did you find us?' She asked, handling the laptop to Jai.

'We got worried when you guys didn't call, the front entrance was closed so we figured something's wrong and when we reached here...let's say..we were just on time.' Jai explained.
'Now, please can anybody explain me, what is that?' Mukesh asked locking the door. Rajeev sir and Sneha got on their feet and looked at the verdant appendages breaking down the door of Rajeev sir's cabin. It could have been them, the thought weakened their knees.



***

The seminar hall was adorned but not for a conventional day. The set up was with monitors and screens streaming live feed from the webcams inside the facility. The pitcher had continued its fondness for doors and had engulfed almost all on the ground floor. It had been two hours since their last encounter with the monster, still Sneha could not curb her fright. Rajeev Sir had called police but one look at the pitcher and the inspector had suggested him to contact a more capable force. Although everybody was sent home and armed forces had been called for help, Sneha knew that she still is and always be reprehensible for this no matter if nobody got hurt or not. She glanced at the galactic pitcher on the screen with great repugnance than shifted her sight to Rajeev sir talking to a big brawny man in uniform with gestures suggesting that he had regained his composure.



The forces had created barricades along the building and placed five small camps for immediate security with two soldiers per unit. It was a joke to the army when they were called to help; then as they watched the first feed on the screens, it turned into a hassle of commands. Unbelievably, this was the good part for Sneha. Once the security measures will be complete, it will be time for serious rebuke and root cause analysis which most definitely lead to her permanent suspension. She had never screwed up anything at this level. Her other things always landed in comic category but this mess, this mess will finish her career, her life and worse of all, maybe the career of everyone she ever cared about.

'Come on.' Sneha saw Rajeev Sir standing in front of her. The horror had begun.
 Accepting her fate, she got to her feet and followed sir to the guest room which was used as green rooms during seminars. The room was hospitable with two huge off white couches, a computer table, wooden dresser and chairs. Four pot plants were kept at each corner of the room as per the green initiative of the founder. The curtains matched the couch and the walls which gave an urbane ambiance to the room justifying the honor of guests. If everything would have been normal, Sneha realized that she would be decorating the same room with flowers and changing towels for their guests for tomorrow cheerfully.



While Rajeev Sir paced up and down the room Sneha imagined it was not a great time but a valid time to apologize for the recent events.

'I am so sorry sir, I don't know how this even happened but I know that I am really sorry for all this.'

Rajeev Sir's deadpan expression didn't change as he sat on a office chair. He stifled with his disappointed face then said, 'We can have an intervention ceremony after all this is over and trust me there will be.'
Sneha perceived he was referring to the commission that would be set up by the government to investigate the damage to national property with unnecessary grilling questions. For her, the right thing to do is to tell him the truth. No matter what happens, she didn't want any casualties because she cowered.

'How did this happen?'

She heard him, recollected her thoughts than spoke.
'I used the third technique.'
She drowned her face in her hands unable to meet his eyes. Then uttered another subdued apology. 'I am sorry.'

Rajeev sir got up, there was no time to panic or scold.
His adept mind quickly evaluating thousands of possibilities which could have gone wrong. He was not surprised though, somewhere in the first few minutes of his interaction with the green monster he had inferred that he had being disobeyed. But there were major aspects of pitcher's behavior that couldn't be explained by just the utilization of the third technique.