As the Frankfurt-Delhi flight made a touchdown at Delhi airport, Soham Banarjee hurried out of the aircraft. It’s been 3 days, his best friend, renowned Indian scientist, Dr Asheem Sen is missing. The last time he was seen was by the security guard who opened the door of his laboratory. As per his witness, Asheem came to the facility at 2 A.M. morning on Sunday, he was looking restless and excited. There was no one else in the facility, but only the security guard. Asheem asked him to open the laboratory immediately, as per his instructions he opened it and then went back to the main door. Since then nobody has seen him, seems like he is vanished in thin air from the lab.
Around 12:30 P.M. Soham reached at Asheem’s residence. It’s a quarter provided by the same multinational research centre Asheem is working for, adjacent to the research facility, Asheem is living there for quite some time with his wife Sharmistha and 16 years old son Rajat. As he reached, seeing him Sharmistha, who was calm and strong so far, broke into tears, holding her next to his shoulder Soham felt a strange mixed feeling.
Their history goes beyond two decades, in college both Asheem and Soham used like Sharmistha. Being an intelligent woman, Sharmistha actually saw through both of them. She was more attracted to Asheem for his calm and composed nature rather than flamboyant Soham who was also bit of a loose cannon. As they graduated and slowly moved apart, after almost 3 years Soham got a message from Asheem. “Come at once, getting married, you gotta be my best man.” Soham attended the marriage. After the marriage, while congratulating Sharmistha in the party in a lonely moment Soham uttered to her, “I could have made you happier.” Since then they share a very uneasy relationship, they hardly speak to each other when Soham visits their place. He was a frequent visitor about 10 years back but once Soham moved to Germany and both friends again moved away from each other. Soham never got married as any of his relationships hardly survived because of his workaholic and lurid nature.
Sharmistha wiped her tears and moved away from Soham. “You should get freshen up, you might also want to talk to the police, we have registered a missing person case.” Soham nodded.
It’s around 9:30 P.M. Soham is sitting inside Dr. Asheem Sen’s lab, in front of a giant device, a device which can create a strong anti-gravitational force. He had to go through a lot of pain to convince Asheem’s company to give him the access to dig into Asheem’s work, as they came to know Soham is also working on the same field, researching on the same thing independently. To find alternate power source, a non- traditional renewable energy from lesser known ‘fifth force’. As scientist found out about antimatter and their enormous potential, anti-gravitational force plays a big role in this research.
Soham was turning the pages of one of Asheem’s journal, remembering the incident on this Sunday. He was surprised to receive a skype call at 10 P.M. local time at Saturday night. It was Asheem. “I think I have a breakthrough”, as Soham received the video call, Asheem blurted those words. In another 20 minutes Asheem explained how the device while trying to generate the power is creating a feeble but unknown energy field. “I don’t have the permission from my company yet, still I am going to try increasing the device to its 100%potential. I want to see the end of it.” As Asheem was saying those words, simultaneously he was working on the device. From his knowledge and research Soham knew it was very dangerous, but he kept quiet as the maddening scientistic lust of knowing the unknown blunted his humane attentions. As Asheem kept increasing the power of the device, Soham watching in his screen was feeling like curious student with full concentration in a very interesting class. Then it happened, there’s blue flash and then there was nothing, the screen went blank. For some weird fright Soham didn’t call his friend even on the next day. Tuesday he heard the fate full news from Sharmistha. No one else is aware of that video call and so far Soham did not say word about it to anybody.
“Hello Soham”. The voice of Asheem jolted Soham’s mind.
Soham : “Asheem?”
Asheem : “Yes, it’s me.”
Soham : “Where are you? Why can’t I see you?
Asheem : “I am here Soham, but you won’t see me, you can’t.”
Soham : “But why?”
Asheem : “Because I am not in your dimension. I am standing right next you and can see you, but you can’t see or feel me now.”
Soham : “What happened to you?”
Asheem : “Remember that night, the energy field created by the device took me out of the 3-Dimension world and thrown me into the 1-dimension. The first dimension. People are worried about 4th and 5th dimension without even understanding the potential of the first.”
Soham : “Why haven’t you tried to contact anybody so far? How can we bring you back to this world?”
Asheem : “I was waiting for you Soham, I knew you would come, I don’t want to come back to your world. I am just one single point now, surface zero, I can be anywhere, and yet nowhere, I am nothing and then I am everything. I have attended singularity.”
Soham : “Why you wanted to see me?”
Asheem : “I have concerns Soham, I would say I am angry, but now I know no anger or pain or joy, but what must be done, has to be done. You have done wrong Soham, you have done wrong to your friend who trusted you.”
Soham : “I am sorry Asheem, I knew the risk but I did not warn you, my scientific curiosity got better of me.”
“I am not talking about that Soham, We both were scientist, and we knew the risk of our experiments. But that’s not what I am here for Soham. I am talking about Rajat.”
Soham opened his mouth to say something, then he fell silent.
“I am the singularity now Soham and I know it all and the truth, Rajat is not my son, he is yours!”
Soham tried to speak out but then his horror he discovered the giant device in front of him started automatically. And then there was another blue flash.
Around 9:45 Rajat knocked the laboratory door and came in. “Soham uncle are you there? Dinner is ready, mom is calling you.” But he got no response and to his surprise he found no trace of Soham inside the lab.
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