CHAPTER
10
I didn’t understand this. Nor did
Marsella. We connected. Getting connected was much easier now. It wouldn’t even
drain as much energy from us as it did the first time. Arya told us the plan.
“When you’ll were at the hospital, I went down to see if I could get any
information. That’s when I saw Nana with Abhi and Yen on a nearby street. When
he saw me, his men caught me. He was asking Abhi and Yen your location and
offered them a huge price. Yen looked at me and I understood what his plan was.
Abhi and Yen played along very well. They acted like the amount of money was
everything to them. Our plan had a lot of risk involved, but all our lives are
at stake here. We needed to know the location of the experiment house. Nana
would obviously bring us here, the setup was here, and they both would tag
along. Abhi and Yen will be here soon, to destroy this place.”
One more time, we had nothing to
say. We all were saving each other’s lives. We felt so guilty and stupid for
not trusting Abhi and Yen. Like Arya said, they entered with three other
people. They were Arya’s gang members. They took down the security guards. Abhi
and Yen took off our masks that Nana had put on our faces and hugged us. There
wasn’t even time to ask each other if we were alright. We were free and all
ready to destroy this place. There were metal rods in their hands. Each one of
us took a rod and started our mission. We wrecked and smashed every machine
that we could see. The brain machine had tortured us the most;breaking that one
down was our greatest victory. We burnt the observation papers and took out the
memory cards and hard drives. Nana entered the room when he heard the noise; he
realized he’d been trapped. He used his full strength and compromising tactics
but they were all in vain. We were a team, an invincible team.
Arya stopped him and all of us
enjoyed a punch in his face. We hit him so hard that he fainted after a while.
Arya pulled his trigger and shot him dead. This was it. There was no one else
who identified us and had dangerous intentions. We were free. We wouldn’t have
to face the agony now, no shocks, no tortures, no experiments. We finally felt
like humans uhm I mean night risers rather than guinea pigs.
We went to the hospital and gave
grandma the good news. But she didn’t even smile. Clearly there was no
improvement in grandpa’s health. Two hours later, the doctor told us that
grandpa was out of danger. Finally grandma started crying. We went to his room
one by one. The doctor had specifically told us take precautions with doctor
masks. We did that.
When I entered the room, grandpa
smiled. He said with a grin, “When I was shot, you called me grandpa and not
Fiddle, I liked it.” He had just recovered and he was already making me laugh.
“Do you know why the connection comes so easily to you now? It must be easy now
isn’t it?” I knew he would answer it no matter what. He said, “Over the years,
Pikshtra’s machines and our lowering will power had made it weak. You showed
great power and strength when you started the group connection. Everyone felt
the same. The connection has become strong now, since it is active.”
It made sense. But grandpa needed
to rest right now. I said good bye, and added ‘grandpa’ in the end. He smiled
and I came out of the room. Arya stayed with grandma, the rest of us needed to
go home. I remembered the day I’d left. I’d accused my mom of lying to me about
my birth. But she’d loved me irrevocably like her own child. I owed her a huge
apology. Before Yen dropped me home, he hugged me and the hug spoke more than
his words. He still hadn’t told me about his feelings but I was sure, one day
he would. I wanted him to take the first step, and he definitely would one day.
I went home and my parents couldn’t be happier than they were now. Even Bob was
crying continuously. I loved my family. I apologized to my mother and slept in
her lap. We’d decided to tell everyone the fake ‘kidnapping’ story.
Our life was back to normal.College
was more fun now. We secured the second prize for our project. Most of the
nights we used the connection to keep it active. Grandpa was still in the
hospital but he would be discharged soon. We visited him every day after
college. We often talked with Arya.
One day we
were having lunch in college as usual, when Yen said, “I wish I had the
connection. I wouldn’t have to pay the telephone bill!” Yen was Yen. He would
never change. But Marsella looked lost. I asked her what happened. And she
said, “I hope Nana didn’t tell anyone else about us as a backup plan…”
THE
END
