Jai hadn't considered how Sneha felt this whole time. He sat on the platform on the sides of the entrance gate of the seminar building. The stars were still twinkling but had lost their brightness. He bashed himself for being so self-centered. She should have told him how she was feeling, confine in him like she always had. He had looked at her with stupor while she pointed out the fact that she was counting on him while he acted like a dumb ass. He regretted every moment he misbehaved. The image of her face with tears trickling down her flushed cheeks flashed in front of him making his heart ache. She was right, what was he doing? He could have helped her all this time instead of getting angry and jealous. He was her 'go to guy'. He is not going to waste that away.

With raw determination he got up. He would apologize to her later. He needed to make things right for her first. A solution might save him from justifying himself. He strode towards the guest room and found Rajeev sir's laptop laying on the table. He disconnected it from the projector and started to read Dr. Courtney's research. He started to pile Sneha's and his notes around him skimming through pages and making notes. He had to find something substantial before the meeting starts at three. Eventually he lost track of time and too exhausted dozed on the table after toiling for two hours.

'Wake up sleepy head.' Rajeev Sir flicked Jai on his head. 

'Whh..wwaa...Where?' Jai woke with a start.

'What's this?' Rajeev Sir asked picking the paper Jai was scribbling on.
'That's, ah, a plan.' Jai yawned stretching his arms.

'This is complicated.' Rajeev Sir turned the page upside down.

'But you have a something great here.' Sir declared finally able to understand his writing.

'I have tried my best. I combined the morphological and physiological characteristics of pitcher and external factors that we are going to incorporate into one unit to ease the plan of action.' Jai tried to explain finally conquering his urge to fell asleep on the table. 

'Hold it, give your presentation in five minutes.' Rajeev sir said using his official tone.

'Ah, NO!' Jai said suddenly aware of all his senses.

'Why not?' Rajeev Sir asked.

'I..I don't want to.' Jai said making circles on the table with his fingers.

'You have given presentations before.'

'Yeah, but. But.'

'But what?'

'Not with international audience.' Jai mumbled.
Rajeev Sir looked at him astonished by the fact that even at twenty seven years of age a man could behave like a two year old.

'You are doing it, that's an order.' Rajeev Sir concluded and had to acknowledge the effect of Colonel's company on him. 

Dr. Link entered the guest room.
'Are we ready Rajeev?'

'Yes.'

Dr. Courtney, followed by Trisha and Sneha, sharing a personal anecdote, dashed inside. Colonel came in, rolling his eyes. He heard the girly story and was regretting it now. Rajeev Sir nudged Jai forward.

'The neck is the most dangerous region of the pitcher but it is also a rapidly growing body part.' Jai had started his presentation as everybody had taken their seats and were glaring at him.

'It could be cut from the main body very easily as it is a sensitive area.' He continued. 

'We would need custom made weaponry for that, Colonel, can your team make it in this short period?'

Colonel Singh nodded from his seat.

'They need to be circular in shape with sharp edges.'

'Like a chakra?' Rajeev sir asked amused.

Jai blushed saying, 'Exactly like Sudarshanchakra.'

Everyone exchanged glances.

'I have three fourth presentation left, can I please carry on.' Jai asked annoyed by the murmur of laughter.

'Oh, yes definitely my lord.' Trisha poked him.

'Anyway, we would require Dr. Courtney's enzymes but hybrid them with stop codon genes C49, creating a bug.' Jai said.

'A superbug.' Rajeev Sir said.

'Won't it take forty eight hours to create this superbug?' Sneha asked, acting somnolent. 

'We would but I imagine Dr. Link can help us there with his new fusion technique.' 

'You mean my 'under construction' device for gene fusion.' Dr. Link corrected him.

'Yes, but we have no other choice.' Jai replied.

'So, with those bugs and access to gut region of the pitcher, we can drop gunpowder and acid bombs.' Jai scanned everybody's face to make sure they were following.

'We have real bombs, why do you want to use such archaic method?' Colonel asked.

'No, gunpowder, fifteen kg. A grenade would be ineffective. If you recollect how the pitcher reacted to acid, we have a much better chance of achieving an explosion if we use acid. It won't be destroyed by pitcher.'

'Run us again, then we jump straight to work.' Rajeev sir demanded.

'Consider the pitcher body as a vase. We cut the neck. It gives us easy access to the gut region. We use the hybrid enzymes to weaken the pitcher's metabolism and then blow it up with the gunpowder.'
 Jai lent out a huge breath finishing up. 'Clear?'


'All right, Jai you start with the creation of your superbug.' Rajeev sir stood up taking charge. 
'Sneha help him.'

'What?' Sneha choked on her water she was sipping from a bottle. 

'H-E-L-P H-I-M.' Rajeev sir enunciated.

'Ah, I.' She didn't want to be in the same room as Jai. He may have made a hell of a plan but he wasn't her friend anymore. He didn't even apologize.
'Quit being a baby. Go escort Dr. Link and Dr. Courtney. They will accompany you.' Rajeev sir commanded.

'Colonel, how fast can you get a hundred of those blades made?'

'With my men, in two hours.' Colonel inflated his chest.

'Great, it is four o' clock, meet you all at seven o' clock, here.' Rajeev sir dismissed everyone.

***



Dr. Courtney, Dr. Link, Sneha and Jai lurched towards the parking after collecting the enzyme samples from the Colonel's deputy.

'Where to?' Dr. Link asked realizing he had no clue where they were going. 
'Indian institute of technology.' Jai said strapping his seat belt.

'You can?' Sneha asked, then kicked herself for talking to him.

'I did my post-graduation there, I still have access to the labs for my projects.'

'I wanted to ask something for some time now.' Dr. Link interrupted.

'Yes, Dr. Link?' Jai asked.

'What is sunder..sudarshen?'

'Sudarshanchakra' Jai cleared than continued, 'it's kind of a weapon one of our Hindu God, Vishnu used to slay evil.'

'Oh, pretty mythical approach to find a solution. Thinking out of the box type, are we?' Dr. Link said in his ludic manner.

'Wait, till you see it, you will understand.' Jai explained changing gear to accelerate.



Jai turned on the lights of a high facility laboratory. The room was painted white which gave a haunted impression than academic. He opened the hot air oven to take out petri dishes and then switched on the UV of the laminar flow. Dr. Link and Dr. Courtney opened the refrigerators to take out genetic markers and bio assays while Sneha arranged for glassware and autoclaved water. Dr. Courtney carried her samples and observed them under microscope. She saw green cells throbbing under the lens.

'Samples are good.' Dr. Courtney declared.

'So is my device, although I warn you, if it will not work, it will explode.' Dr. Link said cautioning others.

'Explode?' Dr. Courtney screeched.

'The wires would burn than the capacitor would explode. But nothing we can't handle.' He tried to calm her down.

'I will risk it.' Jai appeared out from the culture room.
'Let's begin.'

 They all entered the laminar chamber.

Jai carefully administered the task of recombining genetic markers along with gene C49 into vectors and then integrating the vector into Dr. Courtney's samples of fern cells. They took the freshly inoculated superbug samples and placed them in the incubation chamber designed by Dr. Link.
'How long do we have to wait?' Jai asked.

'An hour.' Dr. Link said. Then added blithely, 'unless it burst.'

They all looked at him with raised brows.
'Hey, better safe than sorry.'

'I should call and report Rajeev sir.' Jai said then walked out.

'Let's all take a stroll around the campus.' Dr. Link suggested.

'Don't we have to watch the machine?' Sneha asked.

'Don't worry, it has a timer, like in a microwave.' Dr. Link explained.
They took off their lab coats and ambled to take a short walk. Jai joined them shortly.

'Sir told me that Colonel has already arranged for the gunpowder and the blades would be ready in an hour and half too.' He told them.

'That Colonel is a tough nut, but he does get his work done. Speaking of which, Jai great job dude!' Dr. Link toyed with Jai poking him in his stomach with his elbow. 
Dr. Courtney and Sneha tried to hide their smiles. Seeing those dimples again made Jai grin shyly. 

With his one eye fixed on her he said, 'I guess I was just not trying hard enough before.'

'But you are now, for your girl!'
 The smiles were gone. Jai stopped short glaring at Dr. Link in awe. That old man had a big mouth.

'What? Don't tell me this is not what is going on here.' Dr. Link shrugged his shoulders to the staring faces.

'Ah, no!' Jai protested in a whisper looking squinty.

'Really, so this isn't one of those classic situations where the girl is in trouble and the boy stands up to save her from it to become her hero.'

It was Jai this time to hide his grin this time. He was the hero.


Sneha stood wide eyed and was aware that her ears were burning red by now. She wanted to disappear. To her relief Dr. Courtney opened her mouth. Sneha thought to herself, 'Dr. Courtney would never talk about such things. She will relieve me for this embarrassment and change the subject'. 
To her despair Dr. Courtney said, 'You know in my yore years, lots of fine gentlemen have tried to pursue me with their fancy tricks. But I always knew that a girl should never fall for them. But of course the right man eventually comes along and wins you over by his gallant deeds. In this case I think Jai did woo you.'

Jai lifted his chin resisting another stupefied smile. This time Sneha saw him smirking. This annoyed her.
Folding her hands on to one another she looked directly into his eyes and said, 'I am not his to woo and most certainly not his to save.'

She stomped off.

'What did you do?' Dr. Link shot his glance towards Jai. 

He clenched his teeth and said, 'Screwed up!'



The ride back was living hell. Nobody spoke. Dr. Link fell asleep and Dr. Courtney followed suit. Sneha was furious. Jai could see her from the rear view mirror while she ignored him. When they reached, they saw Rajeev sir bravely making suitable conversation with Colonel. They could still see his discomfort but there was no doubt that he was doing well. Trisha and Mukesh were having a private conversation of their own in the corner of the hall.

'We got the enzymes.' Jai announced.
Rajeev sir turned to see the arrivals. He looked glad.

'Go with the samples to camp station three. They will fill them in metal tubes and check the blades too.' He said without wasting time.

'Oh, I want to see that too.' Dr. Link said excitedly.

'Me too.' Sneha said to Jai's surprise. May be she finally got her brains back from the attitude land she had left them to. They made their way out.

'Dr. Courtney, I want you to monitor the activity of enzymes and its effect on the pitcher. Can you review your work to develop a reliable relation between the two to be used as a standard?' Rajeev sir requested her.

'I will be glad to Dr. Rajeev.'

'Colonel, what time should we set to brief the team?'

'Let it be at nine o' clock.'
 Rajeev sir threw a glance at his watch. In one hour, great, he thought to himself and nodded.