[ D day - 3 ] [ 12 H : 59 M : 40 S ] [ Home Town A ]
Though Vikram's website has been out in the news, It's origin was not discovered. He set it up with enough security that the site won't be hacked easily. Even if it were to be hacked, it won't be easy to track him.
He spent a fair amount of time erasing his traces. After all, writing the content took five minutes, while setting up security with all necessary anonymity features for the website took an hour.
The video of him went viral on the internet. Vikram discovered this just now.
Thankfully, he was wearing both a mask and goggles. It would be impossible to find what he looks like just from the footage.
There are multitudes of articles, some calling him 'Krish 3.0 ' some just dubbing him 'Mallanna', given the origin of the footage.
Thankfully, before the video of him could explode in popularity, the article he had written about the doom has caught on media fire.
Obviously, one is considered an entertainment style spoof footage, while the other is considered real, tangible information, that most TV stations could expand on with just some data from this side and that side.
Thus, all the TV stations which haven't bought footage from Ravi, had pounced on the information given out by his website like hungry tigers.
They have created articles with detailed maps, with thousands of years of history dredged for each location a portal is opened upon. Local legends are discussed with great relish, with the environmental trends and their followers making noise right behind.
While this was happening, the UNO convened on the third day.
The presidents or prime ministers of all countries participated in the meeting, each discussing the measures for the impending disaster.
USA has announced the all-hands muster command for the homeland security, national guard and the defense force.
All the ambassadors and citizens had withdrawn from the other countries during the second and third day.
Almost all the major countries followed the trend, and the espionage gatherers are going haywire in the background.
Thus, there were almost twelve strong teams of hackers from the entire world and more trying to hack the website set up by Vikram.
Each ran into efforts of others, making the company that hosted the site muster it's most talented defense force.
While this is a far more costly response than what Vikram paid for, the budding company's CEO concluded this is where he makes his name.
When the CEO protects his hosting server, his name would go down in history as the man who was able to keep up a security protocol that not even the CIA, UK, India, China, Japan, Korea and Arabia could not hack. Whether the information in the website is true or not, his name would definitely go down in history.
Thus, he created copies upon copies of websites, with zero information available for hacking. Then, he still made the governments spend far too much money while hacking the site.
By the evening, the hackers gave up. Meanwhile, Vikram's account balance increased madly.
Only, Vikram was not around to see it all.
Vinod was the one who watched this entire scene unfold, while Vikram merely copied the entire map, with the animals specified along with the portals.
Once the website came out in the news, the words Vinod let out through his uncle came in handy.
In the morning, there were four people who called Vinod, trying to find out details.
Vinod, who has seen how big the viral video has become, thought his brother would get stuffed if he released real identity details.
Thus, he only gave the instructions as Vikram told him.
"A hundred million rupees, for each genetic trait. Also, the proof of funds must be sent to this phone number before eight pm. Though you can pay in cash, crypto currency, we give highest precedence to gold. If there's a party that could pay in gold, priority would be given to them over those who pay in other types of currency. " Vinod explained to every person that called him.
He asked his brother why this is, however Vikram only said he will explain later.
At a glance, at this point, it's easier to make money by revealing his identity and doing media interviews.
If a calamity truly occurs like Vikram had predicted, then, it's better to be someone rather than no one to protect themselves.
Thus, Vinod did not understand his brother's stance.
All the same, for today, he kept the secret.
He did more than keeping the secret, he covered it up.
When he saw people predicting Vikram's identity under the video 'New Age Mallanna ' Vinod commented happily.
' This is my home town. I bet this guy is a retired army veteran. There's an army hospital in the town. A pretty big one, actually. I bet he is a commando or something who secretly arrived there.'
Vinod left the comment.
Immediately, another guy uploaded a picture of the helicopter and commando unit exiting from the town, attached to the comment.
The comments exploded, saying it must be true.
In another far off place, the CBI operative noted down Vinod's name.
" Sir ! There is a man from city H trying to manipulate public sentiment on target. Do you want to trace the address ? " he asked, looking at his boss eagerly.
This comment comes from a home computer, it's all too easy to trace it.
The boss stayed silent for a while.
After some time, he answered seriously.
" Is the content detrimental to the government ? Scolding us for not being fast enough as a civilian ? " the CBI boss asked.
The little agent shook his head.
" He says the man must be an army commando. " The little agent Eight explained.
" Are you an idiot ? City H has the highest number of reserve forces on this side of Vindhya. It must be one of the reserve guys commenting just to puff himself up. Pay attention to renegades, guys, only renegades. We are looking for people willing to incite mobs, bomb places and such! Not some lickspittle from god knows where with only brawn and no brain ! " The boss commented contemptuously, then continued on with his work.
Just like that, Vinod dodged a bullet, not that he ever knew.
The agent Eight who was hated on by his boss, thought too differently. He is of the disposition of the curious cat, and he must get down to the bottom of this.
Thus, he traced Vinod all the way to his home, and pulled out his financial history, along with his entire family's financial history.
The first thing to catch agent Eight's attention is that there has been a lot of movement in the past three days.
Not the past one day, but the past three days.
Then he retrieved news articles and compared timings.
The food was stocked before the news came out.
The weapons are bought before curfew is announced.
The money was paid from either untraceable online UPI accounts and far too much money in the installments of ten thousands is credited to the bank.
Putting all of them together, Agent eight knew he had found the mysterious Hero.
However, he chose to not talk.
For one, his half assed boss is all too eager on snatching achievements from his subordinates, and the second.. He wanted to go home and make the same arrangements for his family.
Thus, he deleted all the data. Then made a call from the bathroom to his wife.
Instead of telling her to stay home, Agent eight bought her a ticket to City H. There was a single free home in the apartment Vikram lives in. Agent eight told his wife to take his children, and the money there, and make friendship with Vikram's mother immediately.
His wife was also a candidate with higher EQ, if not IQ. They met when preparing for the civil servant exam together, fell in love and married.
She came a hair breadth close to becoming an officer along with her husband before failing. When agent Eight gave her his good news, she decided to marry and become a housewife.
Agent Eight trained his wife in secret, thus, she was still better than civilians when understanding and following instructions.
When her husband called, she did not ask how, what or why, she just packed up and left the city P, where they were.
There were only three portals in city P.
It was not until seven years later that these husband and wife met again.
The wife admired her own good sense of marrying a sensible husband every day of those seven years… making their currently somewhat lukewarm marriage rock solid.
Later, when Vinod's phone recording was heard by agent Eight, agent eight sold all he could, gathered all the money he could in a hurry, he bought the genetic trait from Vikram for his wife.
He lost his entire life's savings, all of his parents inheritance with this action, but he did not regret it.
Neither did his wife.
However, that's a story for a later day.
Vikram was in the mountains already, and all his luggage was packed in the inventory.
Thus, all he had to do was walk to the lee side of the mountain to get away from people's eyes.
From there, he equipped his wings, and flew to the next city.