"Yes, Little Boss, or should I say 'affirmative'?" Thomas answered as Aditya's eyes lit up. "My men saw the Raipath family's young master going towards the parking. He was followed by eight guards who were also carrying an unconscious girl who seemed to be your age. No, wait, I should say 'we have eyes on the target. The target was spotted going towards the northwest multi-storeyed parking building along with his security guard. The security personnel were carrying an unknown female civilian in a red dress."
"What is Divit doing now?" Aditya asked the most vital issue. His heart tensed up as he prepared to hear the worst.
"Little Boss, he is beating a middle-aged man into a pulp at the moment. No, wait, the target is currently engaged in fierce torture of an unknown asset" came a prompt reply. Thomas sounded quite smug as he utilised what he thought is the military slang.
"What about the girl?" Aditya immediately asked the next big issue.
"In the car... no, the female asset is lying unconscious in a black automobile. She does not seem to be notably injured," Thomas replied. In his smugness, this brawny fellow failed to note that his little boss was concerned about this girl, and not Divit.
"Cut the military talk and listen," Aditya snapped as he relaxed a little after hearing that Kumari was alright. But his grip around Kala's neck did not loosen.
Sweat started pouring from Kala's head as if water was being squeezed out from his head. The pressure that been build up in his head was reaching intolerable levels. Kala's brain was screaming for oxygen, and a form of air hunger took over his mind. In this condition, he began to lose focus and become muddleheaded.
Suddenly, a burst of stabbing pain brought him back as a thin trickle of blood started flowing out of Kala's mouth. A blood vessel must have burst due to the built-up pressure. It was just the beginning of the cascade of physiological disasters that were going to follow due to lack of blood supply.
Just as Aditya was about to follow up with the instruction to rescue Kumari, he felt his left hand touched by micro tentacles. They were soft, slippery and a little slimy. Aditya turned his gaze towards Kala to notice dark filaments of root-like structures coming from the inside of Kala's shirt. From one angle, they even moved like worms as they tried to slip through Aditya's hand and cover Kala's neck.
From the smooth, velvety nature of these things, Aditya's hand was bound to slip and release Kala's neck if they came between his hand and the throat.
"Oh! So this is the 'Kevlar Fungus' that was mentioned in the group," Aditya muttered as he observed these things.
Aditya was not surprised a lot as he had information about these things or should he say 'this thing'? Aditya's groupies had already killed quite a few Auxilia and even captured some alive. They had discovered the true nature of the 'bulletproof clothes' of the low-level Auxilia. It was hugs_for_drugs who coined the name, and it stuck.
The defence capabilities of the Auxilia was more than a little shocking. Their equipment worked more effectively than any other material that was currently available. For one, even though the bullet can't penetrate the material, the person's movements should be impacted because of the force carried by the projectile. But the Auxilia had never shown any instance of being affected even if tens of bullets hit them. Later, it was seen that the Auxilia were also able to withstand an M67 grenade explosion. It took four to five grenades to kill a single Auxilia.
It was quite eye-opening at that time when it was realised that the bulletproof clothing was not an artificially manufactured product. It was actually a fungus-like organism which covered the whole human body. It was a living creature which possessed a symbiotic relationship with its host (Auxilia). It derived its nutrition from the host's blood supply and gave physical protection.
Apart from being heat resistant and strong, this 'Kevlar Fungus' defended the host from physical impacts by efficiently discharging energy of the attack force uniformly into all corners of the body. This property neutralises the lethality of the projectile. And so the Auxilia are not influenced by these bullets or even stabbing.
The penetrative force of a bullet is based on the power, speed and surface area of impact. The energy of the projectile which was supposed to hit the space of a tiny pebble is now diluted to the area of the whole human body. Therefore the resultant force will be minimal.
Aditya knew that the manual control of this 'Kevlar Fungus' was quite hard and needed prolonged contact between the host and the organism. This feature was the reason that the Auxilia were not able to actively control this Kevlar Fungus to cover their orifices (eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth) depending on the requirements. If they could easily control the shape of the Kevlar Fungus, then Aditya might not have been able to kill so many Auxilia when he was resuing Taarini.
Kala's body started to tremble as it made a last-ditch effort to survive. By now, blood could be seen coming out from the other orifices in his head. Aditya's left hand was drenched in blood which was warm in the beginning but was slowly cooling and clotting.
Blood flow between Kala's head and torso had been effectively blocked. He felt intense pain in the beginning, followed by asphyxiation. Afterwards, it transformed into a kind of numbness, and then, Kala felt nothing. He had slipped into unconsciousness at last.
Aditya 's whole body had been permanently modified by the combination of 'Cellular Regulation Ability' and Tya's prescribed training. Aditya's aerobic fitness, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition had achieved the optimum level of human genome limit. By gene limit, it is not wise to compare Aditya's strength with the contemporary world records. According to Tya, the conventional way of training a human body, prevalent in the sports sciences, are mediocre at best.
So, Tya's fitness regimen was an improvised version and customised for Aditya's physical potential. Adding the capability to monitor the real-time changes in Aditya's body at a cellular level and also the ability to manipulate these cells, Aditya's body was modified into some godly physique.
At the time of the missile attack on the train, Aditya was severely injured. It was because he had to deliberately weaken his body to create a healing drug for Taarini. Otherwise, Aditya could have easily escaped the accident with minor injuries. Even though Aditya was healing at the moment, his strength was not something Kala could resist.
Unless one's genes were modified or mutated, no human could catch up to Aditya's physical prowess. Clearly, Kala was not one of those people.
Thomas, who was unaware of Aditya's thoughts, continued to ramble. "Little Boss, I thought that a valet would get the car to Divit from the parking garage, but contrary to my expectations, Divit went himself. I think it has something to do with the girl."
Aditya's pupils shrank when he heard these words but did not stop Thomas. He had a lingering fear of what would have happened if he was late by a few minutes. Thomas went on with his narration, unaware of the girl's significance to Aditya. " But Divit seemed a little frustrated for some reason. He looked at the unconscious girl and shouted at his guards, something about using a powerful tranquilliser and the girl fainting for too long."
"Little Boss, here is where the story gets interesting. When Divit was about to climb back into the car, some idiot tried to attack Divit, all by himself. This idiot used a firearm, but just like you explained, it was futile."
" Of course, he was stopped by Divit's guard and got easily restrained. This idiot seemed to be middle-aged, he was quite good and took on two guards all by himself. His strength or speed was mediocre in comparison to these guards, but his skill is praiseworthy. But still, after two minutes, he was pinned on the ground and dragged towards the Raipath Family's young master."
Aditya was reminded of the middle-aged man of the Chief Minister's security team. This person was not able to stomach this humiliation after all. Aditya continued to listen while ignoring the fact that Kala was in his last breath. Even his torso was starting to become cool.
"Presently, that bastard young master is treating this middle-aged idiot as a punching bag, and the latter is completely covered in blood. By the number of cracking sounds we heard, this person should have at least eleven fractures. If he is not treated soon, we might as well call a mortuary van instead of an ambulance. As you had asked us not to act under any circumstances, we did not move."
"Where are our guys positioned?" Aditya asked as he checked the floor number. There was just five more levels to reach the atrium. Aditya hit the stop button as he had to do a bit of cleaning up. Aditya had not considered twice before killing Kala. But when he thought in retrospect, it was a foolish move but inevitable at the same time.
Aditya switched off the light in the elevator. Although it was already late if someone saw them, he did it anyway. The aerial walkway connecting the trade tower to the adjacent car garage came into view. Aditya knew that Divit was at the highest level of that building. But first, Aditya had to get out of this elevator unnoticed by anyone.
Aditya did not know if any people were waiting for this elevator. Also, there was a risk of the service personnel in the atrium spotting him coming from this elevator. His plan will be based on Thomas's readiness to launch an attack.
"Boss, we are in an assault position and can attack at any time. We are following the formations passed down by Big Boss (Rudra)," Thomas said as he felt his blood boiling when he thought about using those hi-tech weapons sent by Rudra. They had trained a week with these weapons, and that was the best time that he had ever had in his whole life.
Since this was the case, Aditya could spend some time to get away from Kala's murder. He hacked into the elevator mechanism and stopped it between two floors. This elevator would not work from this moment, and the hotel management will not recognise it until he was away. Luckily, the surveillance was already down, thanks to Divit.
"Okay, now you can attack," Aditya gave the order. Kala's body had stopped moving, his tongue was sticking out, and a little blood had clotted at its end. Aditya could feel that Kala was in his last moment as he could hear a faint heartbeat every few seconds.
"Little Boss, are you sure? Now the young master is alert and masked along with his guards. Maybe we can wait until the young master relaxes and gets into the car. They say that a man is weakest and most defenceless when he is doing 'that'. If we attack at that time, our chances of success might increase exponentially..."
"F**CKERS, IF THERE IS AS MUCH AS A SCRATCH ON THE GIRL'S CLOTHES, YOU BASTARDS CAN FORGET ABOUT GOING HOME WITH ALL YOUR LIMBS INTACT. NOW, GO SAVE THAT GIRL," Aditya shouted as he threw Kala's dead body away with force. Kala's body hit the elevator's glass wall as cracks spread across.
It was at this moment that Thomas jolted out of his fantasies. His body trembled with fright when he heard Aditya's voice. Thomas finally realised that the girl was the mission now and not dealing with the Raipath Family.
He became grave as he said in a sincere tone, " Little Boss, don't worry. We will save that girl no matter what."
"Don't go overboard with your recklessness. Stick to the plan and those formations. I don't want any casualties in our first motion. Also, don't take on that young master. He is not someone you guys can take on. Just keep that guy busy until I come," Aditya said. He had no plans of exchanging lives in this fight. Also, Aditya's men were sufficiently equipped to deal with fifty Auxilia. This task should be a lot easier.
"Roger that, Little Boss," Thomas cut the transmission. Aditya breathed out as he saw the Kevlar Fungus disintegrating into minutes pieces. It was true that this organism perished with the host. Aditya felt that the Organisation had quite a bit of weird creatures at its disposal.
There was Kevlar Fungus, and then there was the talk about the microorganisms responsible for manufacturing Hydrogen fuel. Aditya's groupies had said that the reason that Paris's Eiffel Tower had collapsed was because of some metal-consuming Bacteria. Were creatures from outer space leading the Organisation?
As Aditya was mulling over these thoughts, a hot scorching pain started to radiate from the depths of his soul. The pain came so suddenly that Aditya did not have the time to prepare. The intensity was so colossal that Aditya felt like he was dying. Before he could think of any countermeasure, his body lost control as he collapsed.
The only thing that Aditya remembered was hearing Tya's trembling voice shouting in a loud voice, 'How could this be? How could it happen?'. After that, Aditya's mind went blank.