Present Day, Morning

Normal cities had seasons. The city of Citran had three phases - hot, hotter and hottest, with sudden outbursts of rain, as the only relief.

The people of the city were completely at the mercy of the Weather God of the city, who more often than not decided to crank up the temperature needle. So much so that the people of Citran did not complain about the weather but rather accepted it as a fact of life.
Today at nine in the morning, the weather at Citran was neither hot nor hotter. And on the fourth floor of the four-storey Sync-7 building, the running AC was the only thing that kept Ritvik Talip from losing his mind.
It had to be mentioned that the other people working at Sync-7, Ritvik himself included, were the reason that Ritvik was losing his mind in the first place.
To the normal world Sync-7 was Pal and Associates - Wealth Consultants, that functioned like any other high-end financial firm of Citran. The reason that always gave a vertigo to Ritvik was that in reality, Sync-7 was an Intelligence Agency that followed the money trail.

For an intelligence agency Sync-7 did not do anything dangerous or do anything movie-worthy. The people here did not chase nuclear war heads or have its agents jump out of aeroplanes. They did something far more simple and effective. All corrupt politicians, tech billionaires and even international crime syndicates had some connection with Citran, the city being what it was in the business sphere. That was where Sync-7 came into the picture, because the agency tracked the invisible trails of wealth through the financial systems of the country and around.
Ritvik was not actually thinking of any of that.
His attention was taken up by the reception area of Pal and Associates, studying the junior analysts there.
At twenty-eight, Sneha looked hot and in her western formal she looked perfect, and dignified as she spoke into her cell phone. "I understand your concerns about the sudden capital gains liability, Mr. Kapoor." Sneha nodded vigorously, looking slightly worried. "But I would advise you to freeze the offshore trust transfer immediately." Sneha studied the papers in her other hand and paused for a second. "The volatility at the primary area is too high. I think you should hold on to your liquid assets, until the local audit is clear."
Ritvik froze for a brief second. He wondered which particular one of Sync-7's customers had trouble with the police, such that Sneha had no other choice, but to order the customer to stop moving and halt the physical extraction of the assets, whatever they were.
Yes, Sync-7 did that too. Some corporates approached the Agency with respect of certain dubious accounts that wanted to trade with them, and Sync-7 had a separate department, headed by Sneha Joshi, to look into that.
Ritvik moved on because Sneha, with all her five years at Pal and Associates, was completely capable of handling this by herself.
Behind Sneha, another agent whose face Ritvik could not see said something about corporate espionage, and Ritvik knew who that agent was and what the matter was, and no Ritvik was definitely not going to try to help there. Tarun had enough problems without that.
Ritvik walked past the reception desk and pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner there and came to the conclusion that today was a normal Tuesday morning at Sync-7.
Inside Sync-C's corporate show-off place, there were cubicles on the right and Briefing Rooms on the left. The agents in the cubicles did not yet have a team and were rookies and they completely ignored Ritvik and he did the same.

Through the frosted glass door of Briefing Room B Ritvik saw Kumar, the head of the crypto-laundering division.
Kumar looked sad as he was studying the tablet in his hand and no, Ritvik had no other word to properly explain Kumar's expression.
Naturally Ritvik being who he was interfered.
"Kumar, your work is not the right place to dump your sorrows, if your girlfriend dumped you." Ritwik offered helpfully with a bright cherry smile.
Kumar looked up from his tablet and he did not even bother rolling his eyes. "I don't have a girlfriend."
"The same rules apply in case of a boyfriend too." Ritvik hastily amended his statement, and part of him wondered whether he had completely misread Kumar all these years.
This time, Kumar did roll his eyes. "Stop getting on my nerves so early in the morning and make yourself useful." Kumar turned the tablet towards Ritvik. "What do you make of this?"
Ritvik hastily stepped back and was tempted to walk out of the room.
He had a thing against work handed to him too quickly. Usually, things like this ended up being a very big headache or something so trivial that Ritvik ended up getting embarrassed that he had volunteered for this, in the first place.
So this did not promise to be good from any angle.
Telling himself that he was a grown-up adult and that he was obligated to behave like one, and mentally giving himself some motivating lines, Ritvik bravely looked at the tablet.
This turned out to be a mix of coloured lines on the screen.
Mercifully, Kumar had some explanations. "The bribe money is from the city of Nalpur to the city of Sthapan." Kumar had a dramatic sigh. "And suddenly the money vanishes, without a trace." Kumar was suddenly vociferous. "I know that this guy paid huge bribes to use Sthapan's port facilities." Kumar shook his head unhappily. "I do not know what happened to the money after that."
All Kumar had missed in his dialogue was the violin thrumming in the background, which usually signified some very important scene in some movie.
No, Ritvik did not tell Kumar that. But Ritvik did wonder whether he should have left Kumar to his own problems. With some more motivating lines to himself, Ritvik stared at the screen for a few more seconds.
That was when it hit him.
"The bribe money could have been divided into smaller payments, and every single time, the payer has disguised the amount as a tax-deductible business expense." Ritvik felt inspired with his own voice. "And so the payer manually adjusted the payments as legitimate tax-deductible expenses by matching the amount with the local tax rates."

There was silence for two full minutes after that.
Ritvik felt like he had done a full day's work in the past five minutes, and he also felt that he definitely deserved to go home after this.
Kumar stared at the screen, and it didn't look like he was thinking about giving Ritvik a day off. Not that Kumar had any say over that, but still, it was a thought, and Ritvik felt that Kumar could say something to that effect to him. No, Kumar did not have anything nice to say. He was too wrapped up in his problem. "So what you are saying is that, I need to stop chasing the moving money and search for the account holdings with the same specific balance?"
Ritvik nodded, still feeling that he was due some appreciation for all the staring that he had done.
All of a sudden, Kumar looked appreciatively at Ritvik. "Vik, you are a terrifyingly cheap genius." Kumar's eyes gleamed as if he had said something nice.
Ritvik had an unhappy realization that this was the best he was going to get.

He decided to quit when he was ahead and walked out of Briefing Room B.
As the glass door to Briefing Room B slid shut Ritvik caught his own reflection on the glass walls of cubicles outside.
He paused for a second, offering himself half a smirk.
At twenty-eight, Ritvik was lean and looked like an athlete who had retired to a desk job. His dark expressive eyes and wavy, dark hair and angular jawline gave him a lanky and serious look. Under the lights of Pal and Associates, his beige linen shirt that Sanju had criticised this very morning, looked sharp.
It was a perfect mask.
This man, looking back at him, was another carefree, successful junior wealth analyst working at some firm, and nothing more.
Yes, Ritvik was feeling a little numb because he did not feel complimented (enough). He just wondered why this was going this way especially after his morning with Sanju.
Sanju was Sanjana Talip, the youngest and the pride and joy of the Talip family. Ritvik had learned to live with her since his seventh year.
The fact that Sanju was an extremely good student in her third year of Engineering College also annoyed Ritvik and seriously no one in the Talip family had asked Ritvik or even cared about what he thought about Sanju's academic skills.
*

"Are you ever going to stop ironing that damned shirt?" She demanded, and she had had a huge book of Control Systems in one hand and her usual plate of breakfast in another. Sanjana was obviously cramming for some cycle test in college, and she still found time to tell Ritvik very unnecessary things. "If you keep this up for a few more minutes, you are going to burn a hole through that shirt."
Ritvik paused just to smoothen the collar of his shirt. "Sanju, believe it or not, some of us actually work for a living. And we have to show that we are functioning tax paying members of society." Ritvik gave her a cheeky grin. "We have to show up for work all decked up and pretty."
She rolled her eyes. "In that case, the shirt actually works." Naturally, she did not stop with that. "It is nice to know how much change her single piece of fabric can do to your entire personality."
No, Ritvik could not reply because Sanju was already out of the house with her bag. And yes, Sanju was actually being nice to him today.
*

Realising that he had to get his morale up all by himself Ritvik marched up to Briefing Room C.
Things were still not going in the right direction because the first thing Ritvik saw there was Krishi.
At twenty-six, Krishi Sharma was the Ritvik's team's tech wizard, and more importantly, Krishi was a royal pain in the neck.
Today in his slim-fit peach polo T-shirt and black jeans, Krishi looked every inch like an affluent, high-society brat and not like the middle-class tech wizard that Krishi really was, and for some reason even that annoyed Ritvik.
Krishi had not even looked up from his cell phone as Ritvik had entered the room.
"You need to stop haunting those dating apps, Krishi." Ritvik was whining slightly.
Krishi briefly looked up and gave Ritvik a short smile and turned back to his cell phone. "Vik, technically, I am not on a dating app. I am conducting field research on social dynamics."
Yes, Krishi felt it was very important to inform Ritvik about that.
Ritvik rolled his eyes. "And you are currently researching the social dynamics of 'Priya, 24, who loves hiking and cooking'?"
Krishi could not retort to that, and there was a reason for it.
"Quiet children! The adults are trying to survive a midlife crisis."
That cheerful (pun intended) voice belonged to Jagan Pal, the forty-nine-year-old head of Sync-7.
Usually, Jagan was broad-shouldered and had deep laugh-lines around his warm brown eyes, and his hair was liberally sprinkled with gray, and his gray-black hair was styled into a trendy youthful cut.
Yup, Jagan Pal flatly refused to grow old, and that was despite the fact that the man had a security clearance that could terrify many bureaucrats.

*
Ritvik turned to the door of Briefing Room C and Ritvik stared.
This was not usual.
Jagan was wearing a violently pink Hawaiian shirt over dark pants, and Jagan had a fresh coconut in his hands.
"Chief!" Rithwik cleared his throat forcibly. "I don't know whether we should be happy that you are going on a vacation." And Ritvik told himself not to look at Krishi's look of absolute horror, (because things were so bad that Krishi had even looked up from his cell phone) when Ritvik continued. "Or just be sad that our professional standards are going down, by the minute."
"Did you walk through our roads like that, chief?" Krishi demanded, and it looked like the words were torn from him.
It seemed like Jagan did not understand because he beamed happily at Krishi's words. "Looks good, no?"
Ritvik forced himself not to react.
Krishi hastily wore his dark designer glasses. (That was because Krishi did not want the old man to see Krishi's eyes.)
On seeing that, Ritvik realised that he was not that lucky.
"The shirt is camouflage." Jagan told his two agents in a conspiratorial tone.
The man was trying to hide somewhere with that shirt? Frankly, Ritvik's brain was jammed at that part.
Jagan happily sipped from his coconut and for the next thirty seconds, he even managed to look serious. "On my way to work, I had to make a detour at the Grand Palm Resort to meet a contact." Jagan shrugged. "So, I had to spend my morning, at the rooftop pool of the Grand Palm Resort, like a wealthy, distracted tourist."
"Did it ever occur to you that if you had worn another shirt, you would not have been so distracted, chief?" Krishi was whining.
Unlike a grown-up adult, Jagan did not ignore that. "We will talk about your pathetic fashion sense and blending in techniques later, Krishi."
Krishi choked on something non-existent.
Jagan looked magnificently unfazed as he sipped on his coconut water.
A second later, Krishi looked sad.
Ritvik was not feeling anything at all. As said, this was a normal Tuesday at Sync-7.

*
It finally looked like Jagan was going to get to the point when he looked around Briefing Room C. "Where is our resident statue of gloom? Where is your team head?"
Now that he thought back to it, it did seem like the twenty-nine-year-old Vijay Desai, Ritvik's team lead, looked dignified and respectable, very much unlike...
Krishi suddenly looked sadder, and Ritvik realized why a second later. "Vijay is off to Sthapan, doing creepy things, chief." Krishi eyed his boss as his voice trailed away. Then Krishi bravely found the courage to finish his sentence. "Even more creepy things than you, chief."
Neither Ritvik nor Jagan asked anything. Both just stared at Krishi. And yes, Jagan, very wisely, did not take offense either.
"Nowadays Vijay tries to smile." Krishi almost shuddered. "Ever since Vijay has met Anjana Gupta, the CTO of Cypherly, at Sthapan, Vijay has been driving me nuts." Krishi unhappily shook his head. "And Vijay creepily tries to do the whole smiling-at-all-the-wrong-times thing."
Krishi announced it like it was the end of the world.
Ritvik continued to be sad.
Jagan stared, and the reason why Jagan stared became obvious a second later. "Vijay is in love, Krish." Jagan shook his head as if he were sure that things like this were beyond Krishi. "It is his hormones." Jagan smiled sagely, but his eyes had a sudden gleam. "And Krishi, if you had paid any attention to your own hormones, you would have known that Priya, 24, is neither 24 nor human."
It came on suddenly, and yes, Jagan always did that.
Ritvik stared.
Krishi blinked and tightly clutched his own cell phone.
"That's a bot." Jagan pointed at Krishi's cell phone.
"Chief!" Ritvik managed in a strangled voice after an unnecessarily long silence of a full minute. "How do you do that?"
As usual, Jagan looked very proud of himself. "You didn't think that I got here just because of my good looks, did you?"
No, Ritvik did not choke, but it was a very close thing.
Krishi was looking numb and incapable of speech.
Jagan finally decided to get to the point. "Since Vijay is unavailable and planning his future wedding, the two of you will have to do."
"Do what?" It was Ritvik, because Krishi was still recovering.
"My contact at Grand Palm Resort told me that there is a pen drive that has some very important stuff connected with our defence." Jagan rolled his eyes. "It is far above your pay grade to know what is in the pen drive. Whatever it is, you have to get me that drive." Jagan studied his two agents. "An anonymous payment has already been made through a shell company for the contents of that pen drive. And the buyer and the seller are meeting tonight to physically transfer this data."
"Where?" Krishi finally found that he could talk, though he conveniently decided not to remember most of the events before this point. Could be the trauma, but then no one knew the real reason.
"The wedding of the year!" Jagan smiled, and a mysterious glint came to his eyes. "The grand union of the Goenkas and the Malhotras. Their business empires are going to be joined at the Rani Pavilion." Jagan thumped at the newspaper on the table in front of him. "There will be six hundred guests, three different political VIPs, and 5-star catering." Jagan's voice trailed away as he realised that his agents did not need to know any of that. "Basically, it's a big gathering." Jagan summarised. And then he waved at his agents. "It is a perfect cover for a drop."
Ritvik finally understood it and let out a low whistle. "A high society wedding. That means a lot of security. Lots of cameras, and we have to dress up."
"Oh, you definitely have to dress up!" Jagan nodded and then pointed at Ritvik. "Vik, you are going undercover as a high-end corporate guest." Jagan turned his attention to the other younger agent. "Krishi, you are a wealthy venture capitalist."

Ritvik and Krishi studied each other.
A second later Ritvik whined. "Why does he get to be the cool venture capitalist, while I look like the guy who has to explain why quarterly dividends are down?"
Krishi rolled his eyes at that, and no one saw it.
"Vik, you look like someone who can understand compound interest." Jagan gave the younger agent a severe look. "He cannot pull that off even if he tried."
There was an unhealthy silence for a full two seconds after that.
"I am the smart guy with a degree from ETI College." There was no getting around the fact that Krishi was beyond whining and frankly no one at Briefing Room C cared that ETI College was the top STEM college from Sthapan and took only the top students from around the country.
"Did I say that you have to look the part?" Jagan looked down at his younger agent with the disdain he felt that Krishi deserved.
Krishi snarled. "Aren't you supposed to boost our morale or some such crap?"
"Nope." Jagan was almost vehement, which did not go too well with his amused eyes. "That is not part of my job description."
Krishi huffed and looked away.
Jagan did not do that. Mercifully.
'Guys, act your age.' Ritvik almost said that out aloud. Then, at the last minute, Ritvik's survival instinct kicked in.
"Jokes apart," Jagan suddenly looked serious. "The buyer is extremely paranoid. If they suspect Sync-7 is on the premises, they will destroy the pen drive. So you need to keep your eyes open, blend in and locate the handler before the exchange happens." Jagan looked at his two agents. "Make sure there are no accidents."

*
For a brief second Ritvik's attention faltered.
Ritvik's elder brother Vivek Talip had been a dedicated police officer, and Vivek had been investigating a massive corporate fund syndicate.
Vivek had not even seen the truck that had mowed him down on the road a week after Vivek had taken the case.
That day eight years back, the system had failed his elder brother in every single way possible.
That was the day Ritvik realised that playing by the rules did not keep anyone safe. So when Jagan Pal had approached him with an offer to join a secret unit that used the financial system to hunt the so-called Untouchables, Ritvik had not hesitated.

*
"Ritvik, what's with the face?" Jagan was suddenly serious and no, Ritvik did not reply.

He did not have to.
"Vik, are you sure you want to go today?" Jagan's voice was gentle.
"Consider it done, chief." Ritvik found his voice steady. "We will get the drive."

"Good." Jagan's face softened into a warm smile. "Now go study the briefing files and get ready for tonight. You have a few hours before the wedding reception opens." Then Jagan turned to Krishi in the same breath. "And please, Krishi, do not flirt with the bride's cousins. We are trying to prevent a national security breach, not start domestic problems with two financially rich families."
"Excuse me, chief! Flirt with the cousins?" Krishi held his chest, looking highly insulted. "My heart has been broken by a cold unfeeling bot." Krishi, even managed to look heartbroken. "On top of that, Vik gets to be a cool dividend analyst, and I'm going to be a venture capitalist." Krishi unceremoniously stopped.
The silence for three whole seconds.
"I am waiting for it to hit me, Krishi," Jagan offered helpfully. "Because I have not felt that level of stupidity that I get while talking to you."
Krishi choked and then seemed to remember that Jagan Pal had always been like this.
Then he caught himself and mumbled. "I am going to need at least three fake designer watches for blending-in purposes, obviously."
Ritvik blinked. He found his voice. "You are going to wear three watches?" Yup, Ritvik looked pretty confused.
"Did I say that you have to blend in, Krish?" Jagan asked, tugging his pink shirt.
It was the pink shirt that did it. Krish sighed and did not bother explaining that he had wanted three watches for choice.
"Why are you guys so annoying?" Krish murmured under his breath and thought that no one had heard him or that the snickers of laughter were just in his head.