"Ah! This is a lot of trouble. How did it come to such a state?" thought Bruce as he cut the call. He was waiting for a conference call with the other commanders of ShadowCard when he received the call from Barbara.
The Banerjee family had access to a very important force in the ShadowCard. Bharat Banerjee who was the current patriarch of the family was an old friend and one of the ten commanders of the ShadowCard. It was a very frightening thing if he had betrayed them, but luckily it looked like it was just his daughter. He planned to have a conference between the commanders to find out if Bharat was actually involved or not.
For an emergency conference between the ten commanders at least a pair of them, need to make the summons. He had just convinced Evelyn before Barbara called him. There was a high chance that the Banerjee's weren't the only one against him. There might be others among the ten who co-operated. They could be looking at a full-scale war in the Shadows which flustered him. But as he thought of the incident, he became less worried as any of the ten commanders wouldn't be so inefficient in their planning. So, he began to think that only Bharat Banerjee to be the one who was compromised and probably in captivity or dead.
He was in a dimly lit room seated beside a round table. There were nine other seats beside him meant for the projections of the other commanders. As Bruce was thinking about his next plan of action, a silhouette was projected a seat away from him. It was Evelyn. Though the projections only consisted of her outline, he could immediately recognise her.
"I would suggest we go with the second plan. Huang also is in the loop. You will receive an invite from him with informing that he found his successor. So, all the commanders would only be a silhouette projection. It is best as we don't want to provide any information they might not have," informed Evelyn before disappearing.
The successor of a commander in the ShadowCard needs to be approved by a majority of the existing commanders. A commander alone couldn't choose his successor. The successor would usually be tested by the others once a commander found a suitable candidate. So, a successor couldn't find know about the other commanders, but they could check him out in the meet.
So, the commanders would only appear as a silhouette in those meetings. This could be used to keep their identities safe from subordinates of other commanders. This would also work in keeping identities of the commanders safe in this situation. The commanders used this feature quite commonly in situations when they were unpresentable or sickly and didn't want others to know. All Bruce needed to do put in some doubts in the minds of the other commanders and he could find about the situation.
A minute later, Bruce received a mail from a secure source as Evelyn had suggested. On opening it, the projections appeared one after the other around the table. Each projection was marked with a number on the table just in front of the projections. The numbers were from 1 to 10.
"Dude, you are the youngest amongst us. How come you already found a successor while the rest of us are still struggling for a suitable one. You better have a good one," said commander number 2 pointing towards commander 9. Bruce was number 7 and Evelyn, number 4.
"Don't fret. I am not kidding around," said commander number 9, who was Huang Xiao Tian who was member of the military and was the one whom Evelyn convinced to call for a meeting. "There are two commanders who have allowed substitutes," continued Huang as he pointed at numbers 6 and 8. The commanders sometimes allowed for substitutes to participate if they trusted them.
Such instances could happen when they were busy or in cases when they wanted to test the capabilities of the substitutes they used. The commander would have to take responsibility for their substitutes and the substitutes represented them. So, decisions made during the meetings would have to be followed through. Hence, no commander would let a substitute go to a meeting in place of them lightly.
"This is not one for the descendants to attend. Call your commanders. Right now!" yelled number 2. Number 6 was a giant who would have been at least 8 feet tall if he stood up and number 8 was a woman. Number 8 was Parvati
"Is he serious. He hasn't even been a commander that long. He already is putting forward a successor?" came a voice as the figure at number 6 flickered and a silhouette about the same height but fatter replaced the previous one.
"He must be," said Number 2. "He was the one who pointed you and her out."
"Eight allowed his daughter in his place. She is too young. Even seven didn't do such a thing and his daughter had been a much active participant," said Number 3. "Seven, you are getting old. Why don't you let your daughter."?
"Not yet," said Bruce causing him to stop. His focus was currently on Parvati's silhouette as it didn't change yet, and neither was there any response from her. A few of the others also found it odd. Usually a substitute would be ordered to quickly inform their commander in situations where the other commanders asked to do so. They usually respond to the other commanders and call for their own.
Parvati's behaviour didn't conform to the usual one of a substitute. The other commanders were getting a bit irritated as a commander would usually have to be close to their substitute if they were allowing their substitute to train or at least inform the other that they were busy. Before the other commanders were about to take action, her figure was replaced by that of a man.
"Sorry, for the delay, gentlemen. I was otherwise occupied, and that affair took more time than I expected," replied the figure.
"That was very tardy for you, number eight," said number two.
"What is up, number eight? Family trouble?" joked number five.
"None of your business," replied number eight in an angry tone surprising the rest after which an awkward silence followed. Bharat was a very cool and punctual person who hardly spoke to others in such a manner. Especially Number 5 who was probably the closest to him among all the commanders. Usually he would have come up with a witty reply or friendly quarrel might have occurred between them, but not this.
"As the organizer of today's meet, I would like to conduct a non-formal greeting before we start," said number 9. "Any objections?" he asked looking at all the other commanders.
This request but all the commanders in a state of alert. Whenever they called for a meeting, there would be a few common checks made by the systems they are using to verify that it is the right person behaving as commander and that it is no impersonator. This was common for many security systems. Apart from that, if anyone is suspicious of the other, they can invoke a non-formal greeting.
This was a protocol that would only be invoked in case a commander is suspicious of another's condition. It is usually used, if one of them suspects a commander to be injured or hurt or if they suspect another person is passively participating in the meeting, but hiding his condition and they believe that such a situation might impact the effectiveness of their agenda.
They would first have to go through a small face to face meeting with another commander in pairs randomly. Every commander would be allowed to check the condition of the other through video. Once, that is done, the protocol would force the system to display their original video being captured by the system instead of silhouette projections.
"Sure, it is your call," said Number 6. "You called for the meeting."
"I agree," said both Bruce and Evelyn.
"I am going ahead with it," said number 9.
A second later, they were all paired with one another and their videos shown to the others. It was simple for the rest of them except number three who was paired with number 8.
Bhagvat was calmly seated in a room as he replaced Parvati as Number 8. Looking at the projections, he realised that these were all security measures among the ShadowCard. He was happy as the same allowed him to keep his own identity hidden. Parvati had informed him that one of the commanders were introducing his heir. This was good news to him. He understood a bit about ShadowCard commanders. They considered their identity very important. So, he believed that under no circumstance, any of the commanders would ask him to project actual video.
He had made a few inquiries from Bharat about the protocols used by the commanders. Though, he had initially refused to comply, Bharat answered Bhagvat's questions under pain of torture. When Bhagvat learned from Parvati that her identity was compromised, he paid Bharat another visit, to ask about any methods that Bruce might employ to fight against him. That was the reason, he had Parvati attend the meeting at first. Only when multiple commanders commented that one of them was introducing a possible heir, he came into view as he thought that he wouldn't need to participate much.
He only hoped to say something in a perfunctory manner and make others believe as he had done before. While he was under such a belief, the sudden request to some greeting occurred and before he could respond, they invoked it and he was able to see another commander's actual video feed while all other communications from the room were disabled by the system.
Luckily. the other commander could distinguish him from his brother Bharat. Being brothers, it was a simple task for him to modify his features to be similar to Bharat and the other commander couldn't realize the difference. He greeted him casually while joking about number 9 being a bit too strict and overexcited about this as he was young.
Bhagvat realized that he could get to know about all the commanders if he played this right. He had tried to get information from his brother, Bharat for a long time and only managed to get a very little amount. The only commander he learned of was Bruce and he felt that this was a good chance to have a look at all of the others. The commander in front of him was the first one apart from Bruce whose actual face, he got to see.
As he was happy and responded in a similar manner that the young would find be so and that he would also soon change, an unexpected thing happened. The video suddenly got cut and he was informed by the system that he was currently kicked out of the conference. The next second another message came up telling him that he is being suspected of being against the organization and that it is best he stays in place so that they could send someone to confirm his situation.
"Damn it!" shouted Bhagvat as he kicked his chair back in anger. It was clear to him that others also doubted him, and the entire conversation was to confirm his identity. "Get my brother out of his cell. We need to make plans to move," he said to Parvati as he got out of the conference room.
"Was it, Bruce?" asked Parvati. "How sure are they? They aren't ones to blindly believe him and he couldn't have informed all others. You did say that he would be suspicious of the others."
"I don't know," yelled Bhagvat in anger. He had been working for a long time to infiltrate and replace his brother. He worked for Bharat for a long time in secret. He even lost his identity and the alliance considered him dead and would arrest him for impersonating a dead man if he was caught by the law enforcers. "There was some protocol which he didn't inform me of. We need to be ready to move. Send someone to get him out. We are not done with my brother, yet. If I fail to be a commander, I will me make sure he isn't."
"Yes, father," said Parvati as she called someone instructing them to get Bharat out of jail.