Chapter 7: Sharma’s Mission

Sharma took his son Shubham for mutton curry at a no-frills Irani restaurant, the air thick with spices. “Beta, remember—whatever happens, always do the right thing.” He entrusted the boy to a relative who’d survived the Crisis Era, then left his colleagues ten sealed contingency plans, each to be opened at the right time.

After settling everything, Sharma travelled alone to Kaveripur Construction Corps. The journey was long—villages, forests, old women selling eggs at the station. In a remote civil office, he found Ritu and Amit’s 1977 marriage record—ink faded, but legible. After 1978, both vanished, as if swallowed by the forest.

Professor Rajeev, meanwhile, aged well and returned to Mumbai with his younger daughter, Neha. Both claimed they hadn’t seen Ritu since 1978. Sharma watched Neha at work—her laugh quick, her eyes wary.

Neha worked at the High Energy Accelerator Research Centre; her husband Sameer had just started at Pune Radio Astronomy Observatory. Their home brimmed with books, mismatched mugs, and the hum of scientific ambition. Sharma suspected Ritu had orchestrated it all.

The particle experiment data was normal, but Sharma knew that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Kabir’s death was a mystery.

He took a deep breath, feeling the pressure Dr. Meera would face in ten years. Anyone could be a Wallfacer. Sharma stared at his reflection, wondering if that was his destiny too.