The coordinates glowed on my phone screen, a string of perfect, beautiful numbers in the dusty, chaotic room. 13.0827° N, 80.2707° E. A destination. A target. A ghost's final whisper from the grave. The intellectual ecstasy of solving Gupta's puzzle was a shot of pure adrenaline, washing away the exhaustion and the fear.
"We go now," I said, my voice ringing with a certainty I hadn't felt since this whole mess began. I was on my feet, my mind already a whirlwind of logistics. "There's an overnight coach to Chennai. If we leave now, we can be at those coordinates by dawn."
"Hang on, hang on," Maya said, pushing herself up from her chair and immediately wincing as she put weight on her leg. "Look at us, Ravi. We look like we just went ten rounds with a lorry. We're hurt, we're exhausted, and we have no idea what's waiting for us. We can't just storm the castle."
"That's exactly when you storm the castle!" I countered, my voice sharp with impatience. "When they think you're wounded and hiding. They know we have the file. They're already moving, covering their tracks. Every second we wait, the trail gets colder. The system is vulnerable now. We have to press the attack."
"This isn't one of your servers, Ravi!" she shot back, her eyes blazing with a mix of frustration and pain. "There's no reset button. That man in the warehouse was real. The next one won't be alone. We go in half-cocked, we die. And that's the only data point that matters right now."
She was right. The logic was infuriatingly sound. My body was a system running on fumes. I looked at the dark bruise on her cheek, the dried blood on her arm. She wasn't just a variable in my plan; she was a partner. A wounded one.
"Fine," I conceded, the word feeling like a stone in my mouth. "We rest. We re-strategize. But the clock is ticking."
"There's a good boy," she said, her tone softening. She gestured to the grimy sink in the corner. "First-aid kit in the cabinet above. Probably expired in 2005, but it'll have to do. Sit down. You're bleeding."
I looked down. A long, shallow gash sliced across the back of my hand, a souvenir from the shattered window. I hadn't even felt it.
She made me sit, and for a few moments, the war room became a makeshift clinic. She cleaned my cut with an antiseptic wipe that stung like hell, her touch surprisingly gentle. I found myself watching her face, the intense focus in her eyes as she worked.
"You know," she said, her voice quiet as she wrapped a bandage around my hand, "for a guy who talks like he's auditioning to be a Bond villain, you're a real idiot sometimes."
"The world's most charming idiot, I hope," I replied, my voice lacking its usual bite.
She looked up, her face just inches from mine. The air was thick with the scent of antiseptic and something else, something that reminded me of jasmine. "You're not a machine, Ravi," she said softly. "You're just a man who's in way over his head. Like me."
The moment hung between us, charged with everything we weren't saying. The shared terror, the adrenaline, the strange, unexpected intimacy of this quiet, shared vulnerability. I could see the exhaustion in her eyes, but I could also see the fire. The same fire that burned in me.
I cleared my throat, breaking the spell. "The journey to Chennai," I said, my voice all business again. "A flight is too traceable. A train is too scheduled. It has to be a bus. An overnight private coach. Cash ticket. No names."
"Agreed," she said, her professional mask snapping back into place. "We'll need new clothes. And new phones. For that, I know a guy."
Her "guy" was a wiry young man named Junaid who operated out of a tiny, cluttered shop in the labyrinthine lanes of Jagdish Market. The shop overflowed with second-hand electronics, a chaotic graveyard of motherboards and cracked screens.
"Maya-ji! So good to see you!" Junaid exclaimed, his smile revealing a gold-capped tooth. "Another sting operation? Need a hidden camera? A voice recorder disguised as a pen?"
"Something much simpler today, Junaid," Maya said, her tone easy and familiar. "Two clean burner phones. No tracking, no history. And two new SIMs. Cash."
Junaid's smile tightened slightly. He glanced at me, then back at Maya, taking in her bruised cheek. "Clean phones are easy," he said, his voice dropping. "But 'clean' air is getting harder to find in this city. New players, Maya-ji. Very quiet. Very professional. They don't make noise. People are getting nervous." He slid two phones across the counter. "Be careful out there. The ghosts are walking in the daytime now."
We left with the phones and a fresh layer of dread. Junaid's warning wasn't just street gossip; it was a data point from the ground. The Ghost Bureau's presence was a pressure drop that even the city's underworld could feel.
That evening, we were at the bus station, a chaotic, swirling microcosm of India. The air was thick with the smell of diesel, fried snacks, and dust. We moved through the crowd, two ghosts in cheap, anonymous clothes, carrying nothing but a small bag and a secret that could get us killed.
The bus was an old, rattling machine, its glory days long behind it. We found our seats at the back, the worn velvet upholstery smelling of a thousand previous journeys. As the bus pulled out of the station and onto the highway, the city lights of Hyderabad began to recede, a familiar kingdom shrinking in the rearview mirror.
A plump, motherly woman in a bright silk saree, already unwrapping a parcel of food, gave us a warm, inquisitive smile. "Chennai-ah?" she asked.
Maya, instantly in character, returned the smile. "Yes, aunty. My cousin's wedding."
"Ah, very nice, very nice," the woman chirped, her eyes darting to me. "He is a good boy? Software, is it? You all look like software people."
"He's a software engineer," Maya confirmed, patting my hand. "Very smart, but not so good with people."
I gave the woman a tight, uncomfortable smile, a perfect rendition of a nervous fiancé.
I must have drifted off, because I was woken by a sudden jolt. The bus had stopped. Red and blue lights flashed outside the window, painting our faces in strobing colours. A police checkpoint.
"Routine check," the driver announced, his voice weary.
Two policemen boarded the bus, their faces grim, their eyes scanning the passengers. My heart hammered against my ribs. It was a random check. A statistical probability. But it felt like a targeted attack.
One of the policemen, a heavyset man with a thick moustache and cynical, world-weary eyes, started walking down the aisle. He was getting closer. I could feel Maya tense beside me.
He stopped at our row. His eyes moved from me to Maya, then back to me. He pointed at the bag containing the file, which I had placed on the seat between us.
"What's in the bag?" he asked, his voice sharp.
This was it. The end of the line. My mind raced, but for the first time, it was empty. There was no algorithm for this. No witty retort.
Then Maya spoke, her voice calm, almost bored. "Wedding clothes, Inspector," she said, giving him a tired smile. "My cousin's wedding in Chennai. You know how it is. Last-minute rush." She gestured to me. "My fiancé. A bit nervous. His first time meeting my entire family."
Before the policeman could respond, the aunty beside us chimed in. "Yes, yes, Inspector! Very good family, from what she was telling me. The boy is a little quiet, but these software boys are like that only. All brain, no talk!" She beamed at me. "Don't you worry, beta, all mothers-in-law are scary at first."
The policeman stared at our little domestic scene for a long moment. He looked at my tense face, at Maya's easy smile, at the aunty's beaming, oblivious expression. He grunted, a sound of reluctant satisfaction. "Thik hai," he said, and moved on.
As the bus pulled away from the checkpoint, I looked at Maya, my heart still pounding. She was looking out the window, her reflection a pale ghost in the glass.
"How did you do that?" I whispered.
"I'm a journalist," she said, not looking at me. "My job is to tell a believable story." She turned, her eyes meeting mine in the darkness. "Your job, supercomputer, is to make sure it has a happy ending."
We arrived in Chennai as the sun was rising, painting the sky in shades of grey and pink. The city was already awake, a symphony of traffic and noise that felt different from Hyderabad. More humid, more coastal.
We found the address easily. It was in T. Nagar, a bustling commercial district filled with jewellery shops and silk saree emporiums. But the coordinates didn't lead us to a bank. They didn't lead us to a corporate office.
They led us to a small, unassuming, and very old photo studio. The sign above the door was faded, the paint peeling. It read: "GUPTA & SONS. PHOTOGRAPHERS SINCE 1950."
We stared at it, the truth hitting me with the force of a physical blow. Gupta hadn't left us the address of their bank.
He had left us the address of his.