THE HARBINGER OF NOR'WESTER

The Unimportant Prophecy

"Never! ever! diverge prisoner information in any kind of distress!" Bimal spoke through his teeth inches apart from Vaibhav's left ear.

Vaibhav breathed out deeply as he sutured the prisoner's leg wound. He stood up looking at his work, emergency medical services were the closest thing to field training Vaibhav got. It was a tough job to bring the new guest into the interrogation room. He was a loud person.

Vaibhav backed up to the wall as the prisoner turned around tugging his hands once. The chains clinging to his wrists clanking rather loudly in the process almost displacing the desk they were attached to. Then the prisoner put his hands over the table and leaned back on his chair. As if to make up with a calm cold stance for his earlier attempt to apply raw strength into snapping steel chains.

Bimal walked to the other side of the desk. He held a thick file, the kind that says the Indian government has been on your back since you were a foetus, which he threw on the desk with a loud thud.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to match fingerprints and identify you," Bimal said exasperated, "all while praying you had committed a past crime!"

Vaibhav itched to point out that he was the one who found the said fingerprints. But he had no idea why he was having an ego crisis. He certainly didn't need to prove himself to everyone, prove himself better than everyone.

"Wait in the observation, doctor!" said Bimal abruptly. Vaibhav left the room quietly.

"Empathy is not the way to interrogate!" the prisoner snapped back at Vaibhav, sending deja vu through his body.

"Anyway Mr. Naitik Bose," Bimal sipped a cup of tea he brought with him, "I was just acknowledging the effort I went through and will be angry if you don't answer my questions!"

"I too miss the days when you just let us run and shoot us at the back of the head. He ruined everything!" Naitik pointed at Vaibhav through the looking glass.

"You should thank the guy, he lifted the shoot to kill order...," Bimal looked back once, turning around he said, "....what did you want with Saikat Sanyal?"

"To spring him, of course!" Naitik suddenly complied.

"Come on, that many foot soldiers and they send one guy to do that! No, you expected to get caught!"

"You follow laws now," Naitik said fiercely, "that means I can choose not to say anything, I can stoop to my level...", he air quoted the last words.

Bimal changed his pose of sitting and breathed in deeply, "your strategy was blackmail, you aren't prepared for serious violence! I am. So you can say what you came here for or I can make you! No one requested me not to kill the messenger!"

Naitik opened his mouth but he was all out of quips. He looked sideways and now hunched his shoulders. He was ready to betray his people, "I came here to confirm if he was successful."

"He was driving the truck, what was he smuggling?"

"A device, a device stolen from one of our comrades!"

"What are you talking about, did the soldier defy orders, or contact the police?"

Naitik broke into a giggle and then whispered, "the soldier was hired someone to build explosives, but they built something far more destructive and beautiful, so we decided..."

"You are saying that you are here to make sure an attack does not happen...why?"

"I don't know the chief's reasons but things got out of control. This device was something else, let's just say we saw light. If I quote Oppenheimer......"

"You don't need science to get bombs or philosophy. you need to get the casualty rates, what changed?"

"Something fundamental, I've never seen her, only stories. All of us know that the world is broken, some of us make do with it while others bellow and persuade people to change..."

"Wait, what do you mean her?"

"Oh how I wish I could tell you expand your imagination now!", Naitik suddenly turned pale, "we often wonder that if we are defined by our darkest impulses. She already believes we are! And she will make the skies bleed to prove it!"

"Okay, what happened to Saikat's partner?" Bimal had a very particular course of  conversation in his mind and was not interested in veering off it the slightest. Vaibhav however clenched his jaw harder, he looked more sternly as Naitik slowly faded away from the other side of the glass and Vaibhav was left looking at his own reflection. Still, he kept looking.

"You're not interested in where I am going with this, do you?"

"No, I would rather know about Saikat!" Bimal was invoking intolerance now.

"Oh trust me that knowledge won't help prepare you for what's coming."

"The end of my patience?"

Naitik gave up, his words fell on deaf ears. The inspector's faith in a world order was ruined a long time ago. He only believed things he was responsible for

"I think Saikat failed, that's what I was here to confirm that," Naitik said looking sideways thumping back into the chair, "but there was a guy who came to the camp for inspecting that device...," and Naitik then told his name.