ASI Jitender Sharma was still halfway through his evening tea when his phone buzzed. The screen flashed "Home". He answered immediately, a habit born out of decades of marriage, knowing the tone of his wife's voice within a single word.
"Jitender," she said, tight with worry. "Have you heard from the boys? They haven't come home since yesterday evening. I only got a text Shivam wrote they were at a friend's house, Sumit, for studying. I don't even know this boy. He's never mentioned him."
Jitender felt his gut twist. "No, they didn't tell me anything. Did you call them again?"
"They don't pick up." Preeti's voice cracked a little. "It's been more than twelve hours. You know they never stay out this long without telling us. I don't like it, Jitender. Something is wrong."
He forced calm into his reply. "I'll handle it. Maybe it's nothing kids forget, phones die. But I'll look into it."
Even as he said it, he knew she was right. Shivam and Dikshant were not reckless enough to vanish without reason. He promised he would call her back and slipped the phone into his pocket. Before he could collect his thoughts, another call flashed on the screen this time from the forensic department. The urgency in the officer's voice jolted him upright.
"Sir, you need to come down here. We've got bodies recovered near the river. It's… better if you see it yourself."
Jitender didn't waste time with questions. Ten minutes later he was striding through the disinfectant-stained corridors of the city morgue, his badge clipped to his belt, his face set in the weary mask of a policeman who had seen too many strange things. The doctor, a balding man with round glasses that slipped down his nose, met him with a hesitant look.
"Sir, I was only supposed to collect samples," the doctor muttered, glancing over his shoulder as if afraid of being overheard. "But what we found… it doesn't look like anybody I've ever seen."
"Show me," Jitender said. His voice was low, controlled, but his pulse had started to climb.
The doctor pushed open the heavy metal door to the refrigeration chamber. A hiss of cold air spilled out. Jitender expected the still forms of corpses wrapped in sheets, the familiar silence of the dead. Instead, his eyes locked onto a grotesque mass lying inside one of the drawers.
It wasn't a body in any ordinary sense. It looked as though flesh had melted into itself, a swollen heap of skin and bone fragments fused together, veins running black and orange under the pale surface. The shape was human only in suggestion. He caught the outline of what might once have been a face, half-consumed, jaw twisted out of alignment.
Jitender's breath caught. "What the hell is this?"
"I told you," the doctor whispered. "It's like nothing we've studied before. We tried taking blood samples, tissue cultures everything is unstable. Cells collapsing on themselves. Almost like… like the body rejected something."
Jitender forced his gaze away, pressing his hand to his forehead. "And you're sure this was recovered from the river?"
"Yes. Dumped there, along with others. But that's not the most shocking part." The doctor moved toward a nearby table. He picked up a small evidence tray and held it out.
Inside lay a thin metallic tag, scorched and bent at the edges, as if it had been embedded deep within the corpse. The letters were still legible.
Syner-Tech.
Jitender froze. He had heard the name enough over the past months whispers about a corporation expanding its influence, partnering with officials, even requesting police protection for their new facilities. But to see it stamped here, inside a dead man's remains, made his mouth go dry.
"You're certain this was found inside the body?"
The doctor nodded. "Either swallowed or planted. But it was lodged too deep to be accidental. Someone wanted it there or didn't care it was there."
Jitender rubbed his temple, a dull ache beginning behind his eyes. He leaned in close to the doctor. "You don't tell anyone about this. Not a word. Lock the samples, keep this tag secure, and make it disappear from the official reports. If anyone asks, you never saw me here."
The doctor's Adam's apple bobbed nervously. "Understood, sir."
Jitender pocketed his gloves and stepped back into the corridor, the sterile white walls suddenly closing in. Outside, the evening air felt heavy. He paused by his car, staring into the night as Preeti's worried voice echoed in his head. His sons gone, Syner-Tech's name tangled in corpses, and a morgue drawer filled with something no human should become.
Sliding into the driver's seat, he clenched the steering wheel. Syner-Tech had asked for police arrangements near their Chanakyapuri office. At the time, it seemed routine corporate security concerns, nothing unusual. Now, the pieces shifted in his mind into a picture he didn't want to see.
He started the engine, his jaw set. Something was happening in this city, something far larger than a missing-person case or a corporate cover-up. And he would get to the bottom of it whether his superiors wanted him to or not.
The rescue squad crouched low in the scrub along the edge of the compound. Ahead of them stretched the factory's perimeter, a skin of rusted chain-link fencing topped with coiled barbed wire. Floodlights swung slowly, casting long beams across the gravel yard, turning puddles into mirrors and then plunging them back into blackness. Beyond the fence, the hulking silhouettes of containers and warehouse walls loomed, the whole factory crouching like some beast with iron teeth.
Aman tightened his grip on the lathi resting against his shoulder. The wooden shaft felt reassuring, solid, familiar. Beside him, Anchal Rathod scanned the fence line, her stun baton balanced loosely in one hand, her eyes following the pattern of patrols with the focus of someone who had been memorizing movements for hours.
Naina crouched lower, her crossbow hugged close to her chest, the string drawn, a bolt already notched. Dikshant shifted on his heels, nervous energy buzzing through him, the borrowed baton slick in his sweaty palm.
Mansi's voice crackled faintly through the earpiece. "Two guards approaching your section. Dog patrol, thirty seconds out. Drone sweep every two minutes. Wait for my signal."
They all pressed closer to the earth, hearts thudding in time with the distant hum of machinery inside the compound.
The floodlight swept across their position. For a heartbeat they froze, bodies pressed into the scrub, breaths held. Then the beam slid on, leaving them in shadow again.
"Now," Mansi whispered.
Anchal Rathod led the way, moving with the quiet precision of a predator. She reached the fence and pulled a small cutter from her pack. The metal links gave way with muted clicks, each one loud enough in Aman's ears to sound like a bullet casing.
Naina slipped through the opening first, low and careful. Aman followed, then Dikshant, who nearly snagged his sleeve on the wire before Anchal pushed him gently through. She sealed the gap as best she could and brought up the rear.
Inside the yard, the air smelled of rust and oil. A dog's growl broke the silence. Aman spotted it, a lean shadow straining against its handler's leash, nose twitching in their direction. The guard slowed, frowning, head tilting as if he had caught the faintest sound.
Dikshant's hand rose, baton trembling slightly, but Aman pressed his palm firmly against his shoulder, holding him still. Not yet.
Anchal Rathod gestured sharply. She and Aman split apart, flanking the patrol. Rathod closed in from the shadows, stun baton sparking faintly in her hand. Aman scraped the butt of his lathi against a metal drum, the faint clang drawing the dog and handler half a step forward. In that instant, Rathod moved, the crackle of her baton followed by the dull thud of a body collapsing into the dirt.
The dog whipped around, ears pricking, but Naina's bolt was already in flight. It struck the ground inches from its paws, a faint electrical charge sizzling across the gravel. The animal yelped and backed away, stunned but breathing. Naina eased forward, grabbing its muzzle, whispering something under her breath until it stilled.
Dikshant exhaled hard. "That was close."
"Close is fine," Rathod said, dragging the unconscious guard into the shadows. "Loud would've been a problem."
They pressed on, weaving between stacked containers. The factory loomed larger now, its walls a patchwork of metal and shadow, humming with unseen engines. Above, a drone buzzed past, red sensor light cutting across the rows.
"Stop," Pawan's voice hissed in their ears. "Drone on top of you. Hold for five seconds."
They froze. Dikshant's knuckles whitened on the baton. Aman placed a steady hand on his arm. "Breathe. It's not a fight until it's a fight."
The drone hovered, its red eye sweeping dangerously close. Then, with a faint whine, it drifted away.
"Clear," Mansi confirmed.