AT the Sri Venkateswara College-a Delhi University campus in New Delhi, India-a professor was in the middle of giving a lecture on Virology to Biochemistry students in a Microbiology class.
"...Once the viral genomic nucleic acid has been released into the host cell, the fourth stage follows which is the replication of the genome, " he paused, letting the statement sink in, then, "someone please kindly remind us the types of genome replication that we went through in the previous class."
Several hands went up.
"Yes, Ms. Minajri?" the professor smiled, pointing at a girl wearing rounded glasses whose thin frames disappeared into the folds of her dark curly hair.
"Genome replication occurs in three ways," she said, right before jabbing her elbow into the side of her classmate who had apparently found sleeping to be way more interesting than the day's session, "there's the DNA and RNA viruses which replicate in the host cell's nucleus and cytoplasm respectively, then there's the reverse transcribing viruses which use DNA or RNA intermediates to replicate."
"Wonderful, Ms.Minajri," the professor commended and was about to proceed with his lecture when the bell went off, ending the session.
"Alright everyone, read on the stages of a virus's life-cycle and epidemiology which is to be presented by everyone in next week's class. Thank you!"
The students began to clear out of the hall just as the girl who had answered the last question slipped her laptop into her backpack.
"Ugh," her companion whined, "I thought it would never end!"
"It was only three hours, " the other girl said before slipping her backpack over one shoulder then adjusting her glasses, momentarily allowing the sleeve of her maroon cardigan to slide down a little and reveal a silvery bracelet strapped around her left wrist.
"How are we still friends with your God-awful sense of humor?" the other girl wearily lowered her head onto the table before her.
"Come on," the glasses girl got up and dragged her friend out of her seat and together, they both left the hall.
The group of Biochemistry students intermingled with groups that had just come from the end of their classes. It was all a hub of excitement: kids chattering, laughing, talking about what plans they all had for the rest of the day-just like any other university.
The girl with the glasses from the Microbiology class had furthered her conversation with her companion while bustling through crowds of students when someone bumped into her shoulder.
She would have ignored this but the tall young man who had done so was then walking right in front of them.
"Eeey. . .Tam!" he beamed at them, passing a hand through his short spiky hair.
"Nice to see you too, Ganesh!" Tam's companion said, her tone obviously hinting at annoyance towards their new arrival.
"Pretty as always, Priya," Ganesh winked at her and Priya rolled her eyes, ignoring the guy, then fished out her phone.
"What do you want?" the girl named Tam asked, now sounding just as annoyed as her friend.
Ganesh raised his arms in protest and a glinting object could be seen on his left arm, quite similar to Tam's bracelet. "Oh, come now, don't be like that. Must it always be that there's something that I want whenever we meet like this?"
"Umm. . .yeah," Tam replied while her friend, Priya, was more than glad to find her own iPhone way more interesting than anything else at the moment.
"Okay, fine," Ganesh sighed, "you caught me. Here's the thing- he leaned forward towards the girls as if he was about to let out on a huge conspiracy - so my folks are gonna be out of town this whole weekend and I offered to look after the place since its close to the university and there's this party that I had planned, so-"
"Say what now?" Priya sort of startled Tam the moment she heard the word 'party'.
"Oh, it's gonna be awesome," Ganesh was now grinning coolly, revealing a golden tooth on his upper jaw.
Priya and Ganesh seemed to be understanding each other better now but the look on Tam's face clearly had her identified as the odd ball. She especially turned to Priya.
"You're not going," Tam said.
"The hell I'm not!"
"You've barely been to class the last two weeks!"
"What? We've attended like all of the past four days of class together!"
"Yeah, all of which you barely managed a second without falling asleep! Plus the week started only yesterday!"
"Oooh, what are you, my mom now?"
"Unbelievable," Tam shook her head, finally giving in as Ganesh just stared on as the drama unfolded, though truth be told, the two girls were the best of friends in this way.
Priya buried her face back into her iPhone while Tam resisted the urge to snatch the damn thing and smack her friend with it (which was a whole lot better than what she had in mind for 'rich kid-party boy' over here).
Nonetheless, Ganesh still maintained his effort to try and coax Tam into going to the party. He pulled over another guy, shorter and with cropped hair.
"Yo, Ranjit, you know about the party, right?"
Ranjit grinned just as widely as him before turning to Tam then back to Ganesh.
"Just save it man, you know Tam's never gonna go out with you."
Ranjit contrasted greatly with Ganesh. He did not have that wild or free-spirited kind of vibe but from all that Tam had heard about him; the crazy stuff he did with the frat guys. . .he was still just as chaotic.
"Alright, now can you all just back away from my dearest Miss Bookworm please?" Priya turned from her iPhone again and was now staring daggers at the two young men.
Tam had always admired and gotten disturbed by this about her. How she could easily change mood. One time they were at her cousin's funeral when Priya went from broken and glum to I WANT ICE CREAM AND BURGERS ASAP!
The feeling of awe for her amazing friend quickly dwindled out when Tam caught on what she had just said.
"Hey, I'm not a bookworm," she pouted and much to her surprise, Priya along with Ganesh and his pal, Ranjit, all broke down with laughter.
It was hilarious, really-the way Tam's eyebrows furrowed and also the fact that she had a British-inflected accent did not make it easy for anyone to feel sorry for her.
"Oh, you know it's. . ." Priya's voice trailed away after something on her phone had apparently caught her interest-well, at least more than it usually did.
"What?" Tam asked, noticing her friend's brows furrow like hers, except Priya had on dark eyeliner and her lids were decorated with purple glitter.
Priya was now staring intently at what was on her phone's screen, her voice gradually rising from muttering to being audible with words like 'Geneva'. . .'World'. . .'Health'. . .'Organization' and the one that came out clear enough for all of them to hear:. . .'Assassination'.
She then gasped and nearly dropped her phone.
"What is it?" Tam asked again, her voice uneasy once she had heard her friend mention the WHO.
"Tam, there's. . . there's. . ." Priya's voice was now barely a whisper, her face suddenly filled with emotion much like what she had looked like to Tam during her cousin's funeral before the 'ice-cream and burger' mood change.
"It's y-your. . ." Priya broke again, this time making both Ganesh and Ranjit nervous.
Tam could not take it anymore. The eerie sense of dread that had formed within her from the look on her friend's face forced her to take the phone and look into whatever Priya was trying miserably to tell her. Then she saw it.
It was a Breaking News pop-up article that lay over Priya's Instagram page. Tam's eyes first caught the headline, then skimmed down to the signature.
According to what she had just read, one would have expected her expression to be far much worse than that of her friend.
Tam looked forward to Ganesh and Ranjit, who were not sure whether she was staring at them or trying to make out if they were real or not.
"My. . .my f-father is d-dead," the words escaped her mouth as if from a stranger.
Priya gently placed a hand on Tam's shoulder while Ganesh and Ranjit exchanged puzzled looks, not exactly sure what to do with that horrifying piece of information.
"No," Tam muttered, shaking her head and handed Priya her phone back then promptly broke away from them by literally running.
"Tam! Tam! Wait-" Priya called and was about to go after her before Ganesh stopped her.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"She just lost her dad! I have to be with her!"
Ganesh nearly regretted trying that as Priya looked like she was about to bring down hell on him, especially with her eyeliner, dark lipstick and pixie haircut but then Ranjit stepped in to save him.
"He's right. Just give. . .give her time to process first."
As much as Priya hated not being there for her, she knew they were right but she would still make sure to check on her as they were roommates after all.
From the article, it had been established that a prime scientist from the World Health Organization had been killed, all aspects pointing towards a possible assassination and that the scientist's name was Dr. Akshay Minajri-father to twenty-year old Tamana Minajri, or as all her friends called her-Tam. This last bit about the scientist having a daughter was however not mentioned in the article except for a photo of the scientist that had been enough for Tamana to confirm that this was indeed her father.