The next morning, the reality of my new life began. A black sedan arrived at the villa at dawn, driven by a silent man in a sharp suit. Kavita did not accompany me. Instead, she handed me a slip of paper with an address in a secluded part of New Delhi. The facility looked less like a hospital and more like a private research institute, heavily guarded and obscured by high concrete walls.
For hours, I was subjected to a battery of tests. Doctors in pristine white coats moved around me with clinical efficiency, drawing blood, measuring my vitals, and recording every metric of my physical health. No one spoke to me beyond giving polite instructions. It felt less like a medical check-up and more like an inspection of an asset.
Health
When I finally returned to the villa late in the afternoon, the house was dead silent. I found Kavita sitting in the grand library, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the sprawling gardens. She looked smaller today, almost fragile against the backdrop of the massive room.
“The doctors called me,” she said without turning around. “You are in perfect health, Arjun. The paperwork is being processed. By next week, the first phase of the asset transfer will begin.”
“I don’t care about the assets, Kavita,” I said, walking up behind her. I placed a hand gently on her shoulder, intending to comfort her, to remind her that I was there for her, not the billions.
But the moment my palm made contact with her shoulder, I felt it—a strange, rigid anomaly beneath the fabric of her blouse. It wasn’t the natural contour of bone or muscle. It felt like a hard, metallic plate embedded directly into her upper back, connected to thin, wire-like structures that branched out toward her neck.
Startled, my hand flinched away. Kavita stiffened instantly, her entire posture freezing.
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