"You don't kill a man like Vihaan Mehra. You replace him."— Internal Memo (Level Omega Clearance)
03:11 PM – Bellary Highway, 40 Miles Outside Bangalore
The van bounced along the broken tarmac, cloaked as a blood bank transport.But inside — no medicine.Only machinery.
A disassembled AI fragment — traced back to Project Sarathi, the failed surveillance neural net prototype Vihaan Mehra had allegedly built and buried before his death.
Or disappearance.
The driver never reached the city.
A roadside blast turned the van into flames.The crate gone.No survivors.
Only a red check drawn into the dirt beside the smoking wreck.
Kabir's Safehouse – That Evening
Kabir watched the report on a private link from a retired agent.
The Sarathi program was never supposed to exist.At least, not outside government hands.
And now? Someone had just stolen a piece of it… from the dead.
He zoomed in on a surveillance capture from the roadside.
The silhouette in the blast's aftermath.
It wasn't Zayen.Wrong height. Wrong gait.
But whoever it was… wore black gloves.
Kabir whispered to himself, "Crown's cleaning up the old world…"
Zayen – Hidden Network Node, Chickpet Underground
Zayen stepped into a server room disguised as a spice warehouse. Every wall pulsed with machines — outdated, untraced, but powerful enough for a trace.
He fed in images from the crime scene.
He wasn't after the checkmark.He was after the data distortion around it.
Every check drawn in blood wasn't just symbolic. It interfered with digital signals. Scrambled optics. Left an echo.
He found it.
A waveform signature in the electromagnetic distortion.
One that matched his father's old encryption key.
"You're still alive," he said, almost a whisper.
Not just erased.
Repurposed.
10:47 PM – Private Safe Tunnel, Ulsoor
Kabir and Zayen met again — for the first time in three weeks.
No handshake.
Just tension.
Kabir dropped a folder onto the steel table.
Inside:
Burnt Project Sarathi schematics
Crown's neural net testing
And three AI IDs tagged to Vihaan Mehra's last operation.
"I found proof they're rebuilding it," Kabir said.
Zayen narrowed his eyes.
"And using the Red X killings as distraction."
Both men knew what that meant.
This wasn't about revenge anymore.
It was a system reboot.
Erase the past.Use the myth.Build a new control model over the city.
Crown Compound, Undisclosed Location
A group of high-ranking figures stood before a digital wall — surveillance feeds of politicians, whistleblowers, and old operatives.
One image enlarged: Kabir Sharma.
Another: Zayen Mehra.
The Crown spoke.
"You've had your symbols.Your ghosts.Now you'll have your king."
He reached forward and wiped Kabir's image off the board with one gesture.
"Phase Three begins tonight."