StarGaze

The Maze Called The Mind

“Now don’t try to be Mr. Smarty Pants, okay senator?” Thomas said, adjusting his headphone.

“I….I assure you that there are no officials in the radius you specified. You can check with your drone if you don’t believe me. Just please don’t hurt my daughter.” Basheer begged from the other end.

“Oh don’t you worry now. She is completely safe with me.” Thomas said and smiled at Jamaila, who was lying on the floor, covered in blood.

She was already half-dead and was so weak that she couldn’t even shout on the phone to warn her father. Also, her jaw was broken from the continuously brutal fisting coming from Thomas’ way. So she couldn’t speak without dropping some of the teeth and bones.

Now you might think where did Thomas call the senator. I mean the guy practically owned most of the state. So what place could exist where he wouldn’t have any guys?

So Basheer had men on both the Khalq’s side and of course the government’s side. So Thomas made him come to a place where there were no humans. As you might know, if you paid even little attention in school, Afghanistan has a desert. So Thomas called him in a remote part of the desert, alone and unarmed. Now here is where Thomas got clever.

After seeing the things Basheer pulled off, Thomas was quite sure that he could have Thomas killed even if he came along. After all, he could manipulate time. So Thomas didn’t go to the meeting at all, he just kept a laser radio there. But to make sure that the senator didn’t suspect this type of play, he made sure to emphasize no guns and no men in the vicinity.

And it worked perfectly well. When Basheer reached the destination in his black SUV, he didn’t find what he was hoping for. Instead, he found a simple tent in the middle of the sand. And below the tent, there was a wooden table with a radio glued on top of it. And for the convenience in the scorching place, Thomas also took the liberty of placing a wooden chair below the tent.

Basheer was still not sure if Thomas was coming or not. He thought it might just be an assassination plot, so he looked around, hoping to find a sniper. But there was no one, except the bone-melting heat and the sand-carrying wind. So he cautiously walked up to the table. And as soon as he was tired of looking around and sat down on the chair to rest, the radio crackled.

“Hello there, Basheer. I am glad that you kept your end of the bargain and didn’t bring any intruders to violate our privacy. I guess parental love transcends above self-protection.” Thomas said and laughed.

“Ho…how do you know I’m here? Where are you, I cannot see you!” Basheer said and looked around alarmingly.

“Oh man, you are just like me. You can’t stand it when things go as you expected. The only difference is that a situation like that makes me angry, while it seems to make you scared.” Thomas said.

“Where are you? Where’s my daughter?” Basheer had no patience.

“Oh don’t worry about me; I am safe and sound in a cool room. You don’t think I would be stupid enough to walk into a hot burning desert to have a little chit-chat now, do you? After all, it is not my daughter who has been kidnapped.

And speaking of your daughter, she is sitting right beside me. I am taking good care of her, for now. I do have to urge you to spill the beans quickly, because I am holding a sharp-edged knife directly above her throat, and if you stall me, I’m afraid I might lose the grip due to fatigue.

The name Basheer actually fits perfectly in this situation. It means ‘the bringer of good news, and I hope you can tell me everything about the people whom you have abducted. They happen to be of much importance to me, just like your daughter is for you.” Thomas said gravely.

The blood from Basheer’s face was wiped out as soon as he pictured Thomas holding a knife over his daughter’s throat. He wasn’t accustomed to handling situations like these; he was a politician after all. So he couldn’t speak for some time. It was like his tongue had tied a knot around itself.

“What do you want from me?” he finally whispered.

“Oh no, are you having a heart attack or something? Don’t die just yet, at least not before you tell me what happened to my fellow men.

So I want to know about the four agents that you abducted while they were trying to rescue an imaginary child from a place situated on the outskirts of Baghdad. Your b***h daughter made them walk into a trap, and it was masterminded by you. Ring a bell, senator?” Thomas hissed over the radio. The time of playing games was over, as he had successfully broken the mind of the vicious senator. Now it was time to dominate and get the right answers.

“I….I don’t know what you are talking about. You must have confused me wit….” Basheer was trying to get off easily but Thomas was no joke. Instead, Basheer had just pissed off Thomas, who could stand anything but not when someone questioned his intelligence and lied to his f*****g face.

“You little f*****g rat, lie to me again and your snake of a daughter will lose a finger. You understand me?!” Thomas yelled, shaking the senator’s spine, who was not ready for such a reaction, to say the least.

“I’m sorry, please don’t hurt her. I will tell you everything you want to know.” Basheer almost started crying.

On the other end, tears rolled out of Jamaila's eyes as she heard her father give away the only thing that was keeping both him and his daughter alive. She knew that as soon as that piece of information escaped his mouth, Thomas would end both of them and wouldn’t even leave any loose ends.

“Speak before your daughter chokes on a puncture in her neck!” Thomas ordered sternly and it worked perfectly well. The man sang like a parrot.

“We didn’t believe their words at first. All that time travel s**t was too hard to wrap your head around. But when one of those idiots saved my daughter from a bullet by catching it mid-air, she knew they were nothing like normal soldiers. In time, she found out that they used their watches to freeze time and take weapons. That was way too important of an opportunity to let go. The Khalq was losing the war, and this chance came as a blessing from Allah himself.

So I carefully devised a plan with my daughter, creating a fake son and his k********g. We knew that one of the four targets was madly in love with Jamaila, and he happened to be the leader.

So Jamaila convinced him to walk right into our trap. We knew that they were powerless if we could just block the signal from their watch, and that was exactly what we did. We sealed them inside the factory and pumped so much sleeping gas that it almost killed them.

And then, they told us that if we kept them cut off from their agency for too long, their core would blast. And then our efforts would have been for nothing. So we let them connect to their servers, but only for a moment, and that too while they were sleeping from our drugs.

And now we have successfully cloned their technology. It is not as perfect as yours, but it is too advanced for our own world. This matter was too delicate, so only a handful of people know about the capture.

Right now, our special group is only capable of stopping and distorting the time field for around two to three seconds at a time. After that, they need to wait at least a minute for their large backpack to recharge because unfortunately, we haven’t been able to replicate the nuclear cell like you people. We neither have the expertise nor the nuclear material to make that possible. But we will get there in time.

As for the location of your people, it doesn't matter even if I tell you. Because it will be immediately changed to rectify the leak from my side. The routes must be changing even as we speak. But I can give you the names of four of my trusted associates. They are some of the very few people who know exactly what the situation is.

Each one of these four associates is given the burden of looking after an ‘agent’ of yours and avoid their escape. The four of them never meet at the same place, to avoid being killed and jeopardizing the plan. They are under high security and are some of the sharpest wits we have in the country.” Basheer told Thomas everything.

“I wouldn’t worry about the wits of these people, your sharpest wits are no smarter than our dumbest agents,” Thomas said and scoffed.

This remark hurt the senator a little. But it wasn’t worth risking Thomas’ short temper, so he decided to keep it inside. After a little while, Thomas had noted the names and the secure locations of the four partners in crime. Now it was time for the senator to face the inevitable.

“Okay senator Basheer, you have been very helpful in my quest. But I am afraid it is now time for you to pay for the sins you have committed. You can run if you like, but the missile will wipe surely wipe you off from the sand. The choice is yours.” Thomas said plainly.

“I knew this was going to happen. I came here walking like a dead man, so I am not afraid to die. But just assure me that my daughter is going to live.” Basheer said with the tone of a man who had made his peace with death.

“Yes, absolutely Mr. Basheer. Your daughter is going to live……as long as you are breathing. After you are dead, I will uproot all her teeth and shove them down her throat. I will make sure she dies from choking. But in case she doesn't, I’ll make sure she suffocates under my shoe. If she is still not dead, I will cut off her limbs and let her bleed out to death.

No scratch that, I will do a bit of everything. Yeah, that seems like fun.” Thomas said and laughed.

“You monster! You lied to me, you have no honor!” Basheer yelled furiously.

“Oh don’t worry now, senator. I am giving you a shot at both you and your daughter’s life. You don’t have to do much, just simply run in the desert. If you reach your men before our hellfire missiles catch up with you, you both are free to go unharmed.

So your daughter’s life depends on how fast you can move your legs.” Thomas said and grinned.

Basheer didn’t stop to hear another word. He literally launched his body into the air and darted upon the dune, hoping to get a head start on the missiles. But if you remember correctly, Thomas specified that there would be no officials within a TEN MILE radius. That is a LOT, even in a car. There is no way in hell that an old man like Basheer could scale it on his feet while running.

And here’s the thing about drones- they don’t have the concept of fatigue. Human legs cramp from running, but drones are immune to that. So after Basheer recklessly covered two miles, Thomas was impressed. But he was also bored. So he instructed Olivia to get rid of the man.

The desert was having somewhat of rain from Basheer’s heavily sweating body. He had no idea how far he had run and how much more he had to go before reaching nirvana, but his legs seemed to have a magical power that kept them going.

In his blurry vision, he saw something approaching. For a moment he thought it was a car. He wiped his brow to see more clearly, but by the time he cleared his blurry vision, the missile hit the ground not too far away from him.

It landed right in front of him, launching him opposite to his original trajectory. The shock was immense and it took him a hefty five minutes before getting up on his cramped and shaky feet again. He knew there was no way, the way ahead was obviously not an option.

“Go on then, get it over with you little coward!” He yelled, accepting his defeat.

And a rail of machine-gun bullets penetrated his body from all possible angles. He fell with dozens of holes, and the drone flew away after confirming the kill.

“Looks like the senator is done. Now as for you, my little princess…” Thomas said and took the knife to Jamaila’s cheek.

And on the next day, Jamaila’s mutilated body was on a cross in the middle of the city, spitting in the face of the authorities. It had a plate hanging from the dead body’s neck which read- ‘princess with no honor’.

"You sick little bastard, you enjoyed killing them, didn't you?" Raghav said and smiled.

"It was my duty!" Thomas said and broke down, knowing in his heart that it wasn't the truth.