The story of two lovebirds....

Chapter 3 - Changing Times

Vaibhav and Pranjali were living a wonderful life together. Vaibhav along with his co-scientist friend, Suyash were involved in a number of revolutionary projects which included the Capsule© Revolution™ . They had managed to squeeze every possible thing into tiny pint sized capsules, which were meant for a single time use but they would expand to form objects of day to day life such as beds, dining tables etc. Although this attempt to get the size of things minimised was an excellent step towards a better future. But mainly, a whole team of scientists, lead by Vaibhav and Suyash were working on a project they knew as "Operation Vanish". This project was dedicated to designing a high powered ray gun which could provide self sustaining energy and had the ability to disintegrate any object with a physical activity existence and transport it into another dimension. If this were project were to be a success, it would be proven useful in waste disposal. It would have its own drawbacks, such as, the place to which the waste got transported was unknown to humans. The gun would find gaps in the time and space fabrics and send the garbage there. This was useful for the humans but it would cause a large scale space pollution. Eventually, over a period of time all this junk would gather up and head towards the earth like an asteroid thereby causing large scale destruction. So the scientists were aiming to obtain the coordinates of any random place in space wherein they could safely dispose off their waste and, at the same time, have no backfires. The far ends of the solar system such as the dwarf planet Pluto caught their attention first. But the limited size of the planet was a factor because of which the planet was discarded. This project had to be carried out in three important steps:

1. A probe named DOTIN - AE3D7T was launched and sent to the farthest end of the solar system to find the empty space time gaps...

2. Suyash had invented teleporting. By concentrating high frequency sound waves for a certain time he could tear apart the time fabric thereby creating a hole in space allowing direct transfer from one end of the universe to another.

3.Once the time gaps were discovered, the portal to the other end would be opened and the waste would be disposed off with ease.

Their project, beneficial to mankind, could lead to their own destruction if it fell into the wrong hands. Keeping this in mind, the IUSAU research lab had 4 headquarters situated such that if lines were drawn connecting them, the earth would be divided into 4 quarters .

The equipment for the project would be regularly circulated to the 4 quarters in every 3 months. A team would be sent to accompany the equipment when it would be sent to the Arctic circle or Antarctica. The main reason for doing this was to ensure that the portal formation would occur in any possible environment without any interference from the weather or the temperature.... The best part about this cycle was that each time the team would change, and the new team would be more experienced and would fix the optimisation issues. Vaibhav hoped that his joint venture with his friend Suyash would be useful to the people. The first prototype of the project was to be launched in the latter half of 2019. It however, was a prototype and was to be tested under Government regulations and only then the prototype could be made ready for public use.

Although there were people who were against the idea, it's benefits to mankind were much more than its drawbacks. The Government thoroughly considered all the points before permitting the use of the project in reality.

Everything was going on well. Vaibhav was making good progress with the Operation Vanish. But the happiness and joy didn't last long. The news of Anshuman's kidnapping was a shock to everyone. The mastermind behind the kidnapping was a man they knew as RR. RR was actually a scientist, previously known as Dr. Amol Romanov (Doc) but his inventions didn't seem to impress the public. He was kind at heart, and was of a helping nature. He was involved in some fantastic projects with Vaibhav but due to the disapproval from the public and the Government, Vaibhav had had those departments shut down and all the projects were abandoned. This proved to be pretty demotivating for Doc. He resigned from the IUSAU and decided to take up the projects he had once started, all by himself. He wasn't running short on funds but he bore a grudge on Vaibhav. He didn't want to hurt the kid either. But he wanted to cause trouble to Vaibhav to make himself feel better. Revenge as they say is the dish best served cold. For years RR had been lying low, waiting for a chance to strike. He had been following Vaibhav’s life. He knew about his 3 kids. He knew that during the afternoon time Ayushman would be in college and Vaibhav would be at the headquarters. So Pranjali would be alone with Anshuman and Saiyukta. The kidnapping took place at around 2 in the afternoon. Deepanita, RR's partner in crime, went in the guise of a finance consultant. She asked for Vaibhav's financial documents and in the meanwhile she noticed Anshuman asleep. The perfect time to slip away. By the time Pranjali returned with the papers, both Anshuman and the consultant had vanished. She left behind a note which read