They had been in the warehouse for two days now. Priya would go outside and fetch them food, and Doctor Scarborough and Kamaljit would pour over Reyansh's hard drive, only the doctor took breaks to change Aditya's bandages and check for infection, otherwise, Aditya and Mary were left to entertain themselves.
"I win again!" Mary exclaimed. "You're pretty crap at this aren't you? Have you ever even played tic-tac-toe before?" Mary asked.
Aditya's face burned.
"No, it is a child's game. Far too simple for me. I need a challenge to be engaged. No wonder you do so well at it. You have the mind of a child." Aditya scoffed.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Mary asked, giving Aditya a dirty look.
"It means your intelligence is so low that you find joy and skill in games meant for newborns." Aditya shrugged.
Mary was going to say something, but Eric interrupted.
"Hey, quiet down over there. I can't concentrate with children yammering." The doctor called.
"You've been working on that damn thing for two days now, Doc. When the hell are you going to be done with it?" Mary asked, turning away from the pen and paper sprayed on the floor to lean back on her hands.
"It's not that simple Mary dear,Mr. Patel was one smart cookie and encrypted damn near everything, and a lot of the files I have opened are written in code. All I've been able to gather is that Mr. Patel was part of some offshoot of the United Nations, only referred to as 'the group'. Real imaginative name." Eric complained, not taking his eyes off the computer.
"That's likely a cover name, the real identity of this group is probably inside the locked files." Kamal explained.
"My father represented India in the U.N., that is all. If he did something else he would have told me." Aditya said, standing up and walking towards the working men.
Kamaljit looked up at Aditya.
Is he...sad? No. Kamal never feels anything, British military training took all the feeling from him.
Kamaljit let out a long, slow sigh.
"Lad, there is much your father didn't tell you." Kamaljit said with the grace tenor of someone at a funeral.
"My father and I weren't exactly best mates, but he wanted me to be a politician more than anything, so he never shut up about his work." Aditya scoffed, to no one in particular, perhaps the room. He stood up, angry at the silence.
"Aditya, sit down. Your father was a private man, yes he told you about working at the UN but—"
"But nothing! I know every council he's ever been on. Every initiative. Every group. Every bloody paper he signed he made me read!"Aditya blurted.
"You sure about that 'every group he was in' thing, guy? Cuz you don't seem to know too much about whatever the hell is on this hard drive." Eric cut in, not even looking up from his work.
Aditya cast a harsh look at the young doctor.
"Speak when you're spoken too, Doctor, if that's what you even are." Aditya ordered.
"Dr. Eric Scarborough, Ph.D, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, graduated year Two-Thousand and Ten. They used to send me letters asking for money all the time, it was kinda annoying. And just for fun, I got me a degree in electrical engineering, so I should be able to open these files soon enough." Eric breathed.
He wasn't even looking at Aditya.
Who does he think he is?! Insolence! And two degrees? Both in some of the most difficult subjects? This man must be a fraud!
"Who do you think you are to speak to us this way?" Aditya raised his voice, emboldened by his conclusion.
Eric kept typing away, as if Aditya hadn't even spoken, the only indicator that Eric had heard him was the reply.
"Like I said, Eric Scarborough, Ph.D. How many times do I have to repeat myself, can't you see I'm working?" He said, biting idly at the nail of his left thumb.
Aditya charged the doctor and grabbed him by the head, lifting his gaze towards him.
"And I am Aditya Vihan Patel, son of—" and then Eric punched him in the face.
Aditya didn't even notice the fist coming towards him, his eyes were transfixed on the honey-like eyes of Eric.
The doctor caught Aditya square in the nose. There was not much power on the punch at all, but the stinging sensation stunned Aditya and sent him reeling back.
"Eric!" Agnes cried.
When Aditya opened his tearful eyes again, Kamal had Eric pinned face down on the floor, arm twisted behind his back.
"Ugh, bodyguards. You know, I used to have one like you, all muscle and loyalty, but—" Eric's words were cut off and replaced with a cry of pain by Kamal wrenching his arm further. "Hey, Maid, a little help here?" Eric said to the woman standing idly by.
"Master, I'm not—" it was Eric's turn to cut off the speaker now.
"You're nothing, useless bitch! Jesus Christ, why did Father ever send you? Gorilla, get off me, I promise not to slap around your kid anymore as long as he learns to keep his hands to himself, deal?" Eric said to Kamal.
To Aditya's surprise, Kamaljit let him go, the bodyguard got back to his feet and looked over at Aditya with eyes of steel.
"Don't touch him and he won't touch you." The words came from Kamaljit like an icy wind.
"But Kamal—"
"But nothing! My word is final. We need him to open the files, if a bruised ego is the price we pay, so be it." Kamal spat.
Aditya couldn't believe his ears. All his life, Kamaljit denied him anything, no one denied him anything. Now, Kamal and seemingly everyone else ordered Aditya around. Aditya felt a rush of red in his face and his eyes stung.
The boy pursed his lip and turned away from the men. He went charging off towards the back of the warehouse. He found a dark corner created by a concrete pillar and hid in it.
This is stupid! Everything is stupid! I wish father were back, I wish I was home in India. I hate America! Aditya thought to himself as he sat in shadowed solitude, tears streaming down his face. If father were here, we wouldn't need that damn doctor! What does that ingrate think he's doing? It is my father's hard drive, I should be the one to decode it, not some back alley fraud!
Aditya rested there for a moment, being careful not to stretch himself so much as to irritate the wound.
What I'd give to play a game with Makoto right now...
Kamaljit poked his head around the pillar.
"Aditya." He said.
Aditya looked up, not even thinking to hide his tears.
"Away with you." He commanded. Kamaljit seemingly ignored this command and sat down next to Aditya, smoothing his suit as he sat. "Did you not hear me? I said 'away with you''!" Aditya demanded.
"Yes, I heard you. No need to raise your voice." Kamal explained, using a low, friendly tone that was totally foreign to him. "Look, things have changed, and this is not an ideal situation, but I am trying my best to keep you safe. Your father and I became friends of a sort after a time. He asked me to take care of you should anything happen to him, not as a hired guard, but as a favor from a friend. So no, you can not order me to leave you. It was your father's wish that I remain by your side until you became a man." Kamal explained.
Aditya looked up at him.
"Father knew he was going to die?" Aditya asked. A pained look came over Kamal's face.
"He suspected it. He did for a long time, since somewhere around your twelfth birthday." Kamal hesitated.
"What else did he say? Did he know where my power came from? Am I an alien, like Superman?"Aditya asked.
Kamaljit only chuckled and shook his head.
"As far as I know, you're from India and nowhere else. Your father didn't say anything about the origin of your abilities. And let's keep talk of them between us. This doctor is strange." Kamal indicated Eric sitting at the computer.
Aditya nodded.
"Strange, but his degrees aren't counterfeit, as far as I can tell." Kamaljit slapped Aditya on the back with, what he surely thought was a reassuring paw and got up to leave.
Just then, Heinrich rolled over and laid his head in Aditya's lap, the loyal beast reflecting its master's sad eyes.
"If I'm not from another planet, or if I wasn't dumped in toxic waste, why do I have these powers? Where did they come from?" Aditya asked his dog.
Heinrich only whined in sympathy.
Later, Priya came as she did everyday at three o'clock. She carried with her two bags of supplies and set them down near Kamaljit. Aditya watched as the bodyguard rose to his feet and embraced the small woman.
He is like a bear and she is like a fairy. Aditya thought. Nearly twice her size in height and width! Heinrich rushed away from Aditya and hopped up onto Priya's skirt.
Heinrich had taken a liking to the secretary ever since she started bringing him dog treats, Aditya could only chuckle at the simplemindedness of his companion.
"Is everything alright?" Kamal asked, his massive hands on the slim shoulders of Priya.
"Everything is fine, no out of the ordinary movements. The police are still investigating and India is outraged, they think Aditya has been kidnapped." Priya told him.
"If only." Kamaljit said without a hint of comedy.
Heinrich walked to Priya and jumped up on her skirt, she laughed, but clearly wanted him down. Aditya called Heinrich back to him and the dog obeyed.
"I'm sorry, my friend is but a simple minded beast, I'll make sure he does not paw over you so much. Oh, and I'll also keep Heinrich in check." Aditya smirked.
Priya laughed in a way that made Aditya swell with pride, before he immediately deflated under the dark gaze of Kamaljit.
"Don't lose your sense of humor all of a sudden." Priya giggled. "We all need to laugh in times like this. Doctor Scarborough, how are the files coming along?" She asked, looking over at the slim young man, his maid attached to his hip.
"Fine. Breaking encryption isn't exactly quick math, but it's going. If I had better help than Mr. Singh or a better computer, I might be able to move things along faster." Eric said.
"Aditya, you were on the robotics team in India, you must know enough to at least help the Doctor." Priya chimed. Aditya looked down at Heinrich to hide the shame and anger.
"He doesn't want to help me, I punched him earlier." Eric said to Priya.
"Oh my..." Priya gasped.
"I'll help him. I need to protect Master Patel's work and I don't exactly trust our friend here." Kamaljit inserted.
"And what do you know about computers? I recall having to help you with your phone more than once." Priya smiled at Kamaljit.
"I know enough to assist." Kamal answered, stiffly.
"Such a terrible liar! That's why I like you." She laughed. "Fine, do your best. I have to go lie for Mr. Patel but, what else is new?" And she reached up to him, taking his face between her dainty hands and pulling his face into a kiss.
Aditya looked away again out of embarrassment.
"Get a room, guy." Mary shouted at the lovers.
Kamaljit pulled away to cut her with his steel eyes and Priya laughed again. She left soon after, attending to the business of making it look like she had no idea where Kamal or Aditya went, their lifeline to the public world.
After Priya's visits, Kamal would always be in a much happier mood. Their romance was now free to flourish and had begun to blossom, though Aditya noted nervously and with much hesitation from a shockingly shy Kamaljit.
If I had known being with her would've changed him this much, I would've spoken to father about his policy. Aditya thought, looking at the massive bodyguard hunched over a laptop with the comparatively tiny scientist.
"Hey kid." Eric called
"What?" Mary answered.
"No no, not girl kid, boy kid." He clarified.
Aditya sat up.
"You're speaking to me?" Aditya asked in his best hard voice.
"You're a boy, so yeah." Eric said.
"What do you want with me?" Aditya demanded.
"You really know about computers and stuff?" Eric inquired.
"Are there eight types of logic gates?" Aditya scoffed, with a heavy dose of sarcasm laden on his tongue.
"Yeah, no need to be a turbo-nerd about it, just get over here." Eric said. Aditya ruffled at this.
"And why should I help you?" Aditya asked.
"Cuz if ya don't, we'll probably die." Eric said bluntly.
Aditya resisted a moment longer and thought of saying something in response but he eventually marched over to the spot where there were three laptops laid out. Kamaljit gave Aditya the look, a look he gave him whenever he wasn't sure if he should go or not. Aditya nodded his protector away and sat next to the strange young man who claimed the title of Surgeon.
"Here." Eric said, handing him Priya's work computer "This one is your dad's secretary's, the hard drive had three files on it, all at least a quarter of a terabyte, I copied one of the files from his hard drive to her laptop for you to look at." Eric explained.
Aditya looked at the monitor and saw code flying past in a box to the left as black dots appeared and disappeared in the password entry pop-up of a file titled 'L1400'.
"You're trying to brute force it?" Aditya asked.
"Duh." Eric said
"Did you even try to think of anything he might have used as a password before just having a program guess every word and number combination." Aditya said with a condescending tone.
"Well I never met the guy, so no. If you wanna give it a try, knock yourself out." The doctor wiped at his nose and then continued on with his work.
Is he a machine? He had me and Kamal right here, we could have provided any number of personal guesses. What a fool. Aditya thought, staring at the odd reddish-brown skin of the young man next to him. Aditya could smell the moth balls on his lab coat, the scent sat on top of the doctor's own strange body odor, a smell like when lightning is going to strike in a storm. Aditya looked away from him and back to his father's laptop.
What would he have put? It's a private file, very important to him. He wouldn't want me or mother to ever be able to get in. So he would want it to be something that we would never guess, something that we would think father would ever use as a password...
Aditya thought back to his father, their time in India when he was rarely home and a young Aditya would eagerly wait for his return to hear about all the important work he had done, this being before Aditya declared his dream of working in robotics and his father clamped down on it, forcing him to focus on politics.
"Machines are made by workers! We are not workers, we are rulers!" Reyansh had shouted at Aditya when he showed his father the robotic arm he programmed at age eight in his school club.
"But father, technology is the future and—"
"There is nothing to say, you are not a craftsman or worker or laborer! No son of mine will ever stoop to such lowly work!"
Aditya kept the machine. He put it on the mantle above his bed, father mocked him often about it.
"Why keep that thing? It serves no purpose. It means nothing."
"It is mine, father, I made it. I will keep it." Aditya would say.
His father would only scoff and storm off.
Father never kept anything. He was a minimalist, his office was always so depressing and sparse. He believed things were meant to be used and tossed aside, he wasn't sentimental. He didn't even celebrate his own birthday. Wait! His birthday!
Aditya stopped the brute force program and punched in his father's birthday of April the third, nineteen sixty-two.
Invalid.
Damn, I thought that would work.
"Nice try kid, guess you really knew your dad after all." Eric quipped.
Aditya looked at him with disdain and looked back at the computer.
Ok, not his birthday. Something about me or mom then? What about their anniversary?
Aditya entered May twenty-second, Nineteen Eighty-One, the date chosen by his grandparents for their parents' meeting and immediate wedding.
Invalid.
Damn! Why would he make this so hard? Why didn't he give Priya the password if she was meant to show it to me?! What else is there? My birthday? He would never. I don't even think he remembered when it was. Mother would just give the servants money and tell them to buy a gift for me from my father. Still, I like being right.
October Second, two-thousand and five
Password accepted.
What...
The screen stared back at him, opening the little blue file to a hoard of documents all labeled differently with numbers and letters.
My...birthday..?
"Holy fuck, you got it open?!" Eric shouted, scooting close to Aditya and lifting the computer into his lap. "You did! He got it!" Eric announced to the room again. Kamaljit marches over and kneeled behind them to see the monitor.
"What is it?" Kamal asked.
"I don't know, let's find out." Eric replied, clicking on one of the documents inside the file.
He remembered, it was his password, my birthday!
"Let's see here, 'Majestic Twelve roll sheet for Operation Spider-Web'" Eric quoted. "And then a bunch of it is redacted, cool, it's useless." Eric groaned.
Aditya was still in disbelief but he couldn't take his eyes off the screen, it was a wall of black rectangles that seemed to go on forever until there was one singular break.
"Reyansh Aadesh Patel, April fourth, Nineteen Sixty-Two, designation: Representative for India to the United Nations. Neat, the only thing not redacted is the stuff we already know." Eric laughed.
"Keep scrolling. There has to be something in this, and if there isn't, there has to be something in the other documents." Kamaljit ordered.
Eric kept scrolling, another wall of black. He kept moving and moving, page after page of blacked out rectangles on and on forever until
"We got another one! Let's see here, Ahn Jae-Hyuk, born December seventeenth of Nineteen Fifty-Five. Designation: CEO of Puleun Dal Plastics and Polymers. No shit, he's on here?" Eric said.
"You know him?" Kamaljit inquired.
"Oh, yeah, I play the stock market. I have about fifteen shares in Puleun Dal. Great return on investment." Eric replied.
"Why is the CEO of a plastics company on this list?" Kamal asked no one in particular.
"Well, that's the question isn't it. I don't suppose you're up for a trip to Korea? We could go and ask him ourselves." Eric offered.
"I'll call Priya and see what we can do." Kamal said, walking off and pulling out his phone. Heinrich had come up to the frozen Aditya to awaken his master with a good licking to the face.
"Can you believe it, Heinrich? I can't." Aditya whispered to his dog.
"Are we really going to Korea, Doc?" Mary asked, bouncing up and down with excitement.
"Probably, it's our only lead. A lot of these other papers in here are redacted to all hell." Eric replied.
"Why do you care about Korea?" Aditya asked.
Mary rolled her eyes.
"Because, all the best bands come from there! Shooting Star, Revolution Rebellion, BANG, and Tru-Blu." Mary squealed.
She's never like this. She's usually hard and stupid. Now she's giddy and stupid. This day is full of surprises...
"Korean boy bands are all the rage these days, you better catch up on the trends Aditya, or you'll never get a girl." Eric smirked, not looking away from his computer.
Aditya was going to reply, but thought better of it
I'll just end up attacking him again.
A moment later, Kamaljit returned and heaved a sigh.
"Priya says airplanes are a no-go. There's extra police presence to look for Aditya in case anyone tries to take him out of the country that way. Priya is looking into boats." Kamaljit explained.
"A boat? It'll take months to get to Korea by ship." Eric responded.
"Well, you got any better ideas." Kamaljit countered.
"Hell yeah, guy. I know someone with a private jet. He can sneak us onto his plane no problem." Eric replied.
"Really? Who?" Kamaljit asked, eyeing the young surgeon.
"Aaron Cartwright." Eric answered.