June’ 2002,
Mϋnchen, Bavaria, Germany.

He looked like Shekar but he had bruises on his neck, hands and it seemed to others that he might had contused regions in several other parts of his body. He had sunken eyes with intumesced cheeks, shabby beard and thick moustache. The bald headed man was loafing about with his hands by the window. It appeared that the broad shouldered decrepit man may had a strong physique in his full bloom. He tottered and sat in the couch inside the hall next to Shekar. Varun was lazing around by the davenport, based a few meters away from either of them. He was precisely far in from the earshot of the conversation.

“So Mr. George Hettich, these are the following transactions with your company that we had made so far,” Shekar handed him over a document. While George lay his eyes on it he read out the content, “SS Industry had signed a $6 million agreement four years ago with your company. The agreement had given you the license to our patented technology and the right to blend the technology to devise more products or upgrades. Then couple of years ago, we made another contract where your company has agreed to pay us a sum of $37 million for an upgrade to the petroleum refiners using the technology that is licensed to you at the initial stage of contract. And these are the revenues over the three years, he ran his finger over the sheet of paper. First year with a 20% of reported revenue, the amount is $8 million, In the second year it’s 24% and $19 million and third is just $2 million under 2%,”

“Alright! Fair enough,” George uttered, “And there is something more I see,” he waited for Shekar to continue further.“Yep, as we have agreed with the proposal from our industry. We would like to acquire the company for $75 million,” said Shekar, “and we would like to see the procedures done by next week before you leave for Netherlands,”
“Great. Everything looks fair to me,” George said, “I will see you in the next week,”
Shekar got up from his seat with his hands slipped inside his tuxedo, “Varun…” he called out.
Whiling away the time, Varun darted to his uncle without hesitancy and installed himself couple of feet away.

Shekar stepped his left leg out and pushed his knees down to the earth settling the femur at an acute angle with the fibula. He pushed the ground with the toes, and during the progression of the movement, he carried the momentum of his weight from the ankles through bowels and spine eventually into the right and left hand fists. In a blink of an eye, Shekar took his clench of fists out the tuxedo, with no loss of energy, he blew a whacking smack with his right fist in the ribs and transferred stance on to the right foot, the adult stooped with his hand shielding the rib cage.
Shekar gained access to blow a punch on the cheekbone, carrying the momentum to his left fist which he effectuated in the thwack on Varun’s cheek splintering tooth out of his mouth and the blood extravasating from the Buccinators as he ricocheted from the spot.

Everything in the site happened so fast and George hettich who was on his leisure got up with the bundle of nerves. “Shekar…” he bawled. “… What the heck is you doing bruder,” he said walking towards him.

“You do know why, don’t you?” Shekar sniffed on his fingers, “Mr. George” he said, “sorry, Mr. Shikar, my fucking brother” he said furiously.
“What do you mean,” Shikar asked panning out from his incognito.

“Don’t you dare to ask”, he said making it plain, “if you ask me why, I am gonna have to kill you and that ensues killing the phantom character George you are playing. I better not risk it” he paused and continued, “you old bastardy catch hold on to your son. Instruct him to stop whoring around otherwise I will have to spin both of you”
Shekar insinuated on his intentions about a subject and shikar was brought to senses on his brother contentions.

“He is 28 now,” shikar reminded him, “the date is matured. It’s time for you to check on your promises”
“Sorry, I am under no obligation,” he replied instantly, “I reckon”
“You promised me the CEO position. Sixteen years back to be precise”, Shikar flared up but that didn’t help him expose to view, “…and now you puff out that we are not under obligation?”

“Does you make a sense out of your talk?” Shekar squinted at his index finger, “A 28 years old whoring around since his puberty. Who’s flunked at every stage in his course of education, will now be going to take charge of a billion-dollar company?” he returned to Varun and asked, “Boy who makes the board of directors?”
“Ain’t know man,” Varun replied. “Look? The CEO?” Shekar thumbed his nose at his brother, “Son. You look good with your physique on vogue magazine but never on the Bloomberg BusinessWeek”

“Shekar I have been tightening the bolts of my rage but you are forcing them to loosen up and I forewarn, that will be deteriorating to the comradeship” he walked near to him, “you cut my shares from the company, they fell headlong to ten from twenty percent. The remainder of it along with the assets, you have them all under your sleeves. Why won’t let my son have the position you promised to give?”

“You ransacked six hundred and fifty thousand euros to wreak havoc in the funds of SS industry.You flinched to disclose the transaction to me. You know what, you actually think I am playing dumb with you. Hoover up the beliefs, I got your back and I got my eyes on your expending,” he looked at Shikar, “It took my balls to get your arse out from your accusations on killing of your wife. I had to back my spunk to get your bastard out when he’s become entangled with the sex racket. You both hinge on with the brand SS industry to steer the despair on the stature into my house.” He heaved.

There was silent in the ambience longer than usual.
“There are reasons why I cut the share and I am not at my liberty to disclose the facts to you right now,” he said
“I know,” Shikar went back with words instantly.
“No! You don’t. Neither of you.” Shekar interrupted him before he spoke further, “and it definitely is not for the reason that you think it is. I am never concerned how you squandered the money for luxuries. If I really was about it I would have cut those years ago.”

“The company was doing well, the stock price was displaying good. He’s got good investors and yet he says he had to cut our shares for various reasons. What is in the puzzle?” Shikar asked himself. Intervened in his thoughts by Shekar said, “You will have to travel to Amsterdam. There’s work to be done. A business trip, get your arse hot for a trot,” he informed and started a walk outside of the room, “and your son isn’t joining with you because of the obvious reasons” he said, For the sake of fucking Amsterdam he spoke in undertone and left the spot.

May’ 2002,
Austin, Travis County, Texas.

Jenny Calling…
“Hey Jenny, what’s up?” Aryan answered.
“I hit 4.3 this semester” Jenny said feeling ecstatically happy for his GPA.
“Wow! That’s awesome, How about mine? Did you get to it? You’ve got my passcode, don’t you?”
“Oh yeah! I got yours too, but better check for yourself. See you at the ‘Bagels and café Monet’,
I will be waiting there in an hour”, he said and disconnected the call without hearing to Aryan’s response.

Aryan fumbled after what he heard from jenny, did I flunk at any course? That shouldn’t be the case, that isn’t a kick at the cat in the core courses he said to himself. Aryan gave it a thought for one more time, skimming all the answers he had written from all the courses. Everything seemed perfectly fine for him, was confident on his abilities except for one, the Managerial Economics, which was one of those four courses offered in the semester. Who the heck is going to need how to manage economics when the professor is on leave for all the working days, conducts only eight classes for the whole semester and sets the paper with questions only a true economist can answer while there was no reason to be a bear with a sore head, the line of thinking was plunging apprehension in Aryan. He managed to put in some thoughts and complete the question paper on the exam day. I should probably go ahead and hit the portal to look for the facts on my results before deriving anymore digressions.

Aryan quickly took out his laptop and turned it on. Connecting to a local network… it said while processing the internet connection, it was taking too long than usual time to connect.
Oh gosh! I know something like this would meet me today, it’s insanely obvious because I am in real need of something he yelled slapping his fist to the wall. Abruptly he dwelled into the past as he remembered a lesson from a psychology class back then in his eighth grade. You won’t get what you are looking for with an extreme eagerness; when you give up looking at it, you will see it coming your way.

Network connected it read. He smiled thinking Look now, I went out of the world of results for a while and bang, the connection works
No Matter how well he did at the tests, there would definitely be butterflies in his stomach when he was about to view results. He never understood the mechanics in psychology and so he questioned, why this happens to himself in several occasions.

Aryan opened his profile on the institute’s web page, navigated towards the Results section, clicked on the fourth semester. Loading… the page showed. Couldn’t believe what he saw on the web page. Few minutes ago, he had engaged in searching for answers to the de trop questions. All he could do was to smile. 4.8/5, the page displayed.

Aryan went on to look at his course wise grading, cent percent scores in all the core courses, and a manageable A in the managerial economics. He was not ecstatic but just happy. He realized to call on a number to share his result, this credit truly belongs to you dear, If not for you I wouldn’t have done this and not even in my wildest dreams, wouldn’t not have known of what can I be he wandered in his mental picture as the call was on the way to make a connection.

---

“Hey Jenny”, Aryan intruded rushing towards Jenny, while he was briefly ogling at a girl with fairly long silky hair in grey colored short skirt and creamy green colored top in a cool deep V- neck. The whiff of fresh air revealed the dangle earrings hanging loosely through the earlobes along with a pair of conch ear cuffs. The beautiful eyelashes pecked the low arched thin eyebrows in every blink of her eye. The heart-shaped lips with a little gloss applied on it appeared to osculate as she neared her upper and lower lips. The damsel was sitting forty-five degrees to her right, facing Jenny.

He distracted himself on hearing Aryan and said “Congrats boy! Happy for your nearly five points. I should thank you as well, you were so much of help in those times”
“Jenny, thanking me? You truly mean it?” Aryan was skeptical.
“Never mind, bastard”, Jenny blew raspberries.
“Alright! No worries, what have we got for today?”
“Mruna’s sister birthday, Saryu is on her way and Pooja…” Aryan interrupted.“She is not coming, she has gone out with her dad to do an interview. She will join us in the evening” he said.

“In the evening? It’s already 17:00 hrs. By the way, how did you know about her?” Jenny asked.
“I called her a while ago” he said looking straight into Jenney’s eyes with a big smile.
“Let’s go for a sojourn Aryan, Maybe in the next week. We have got couple more months of holidays” Jenny said, sipping the hot mocha from the cup carrying underneath a tissue with written text ‘making life much easier’.
“Sorry Jenny, I am heading back home tomorrow, it’s been a long time.”
“For how long are you gone, dear”
“Ten days, Maybe or more, ain’t know”, he replied in crisp.
“Then what?” Jenny asked.
“Hey Guys,” a voice interrupted the two, “I am sorry for being late” Saryu said approaching the two of them at the coffee table.
“Welcome darling, you aren’t late. In fact you arrived before our scheduled time, typical women” Jenny poked a mullock at her arrival.
“What’s that you said, Jenny?” Saryu reprimanded while trying a rap over the knuckles.
“Oh nothing, I said canonical women. Women with standard rules” Jenny backed out in trepidation, “We are waiting for you appearance, we should start to Mruna’s home right away”, Jenny added.
“I am all done, let’s go”, Saryu responded at a rate of knots.

April’ 2002,
Mϋnchen, Bavaria, Germany.

Varun lured woman with his charm. He had a fine physique. Woman would be interested to check on what he has got in store for them under his belt. “You resemble your mother and that’s why you look charming,” his father, Shikar told him at several occasions. Shikar was unlike his son, he paid monthly pay checks to the women of the night to get his business done.

It took an hour drive for Varun to reach the remote location a few miles away in the outskirts near to the go down of Shekar’s pharmaceutical industry.

“Did you fix the solution?” Varun enquired with his father climbing down the car, “An hour ago. Ten minutes right after I hung up on your call. It should be in good temperature by now. It’s only that we are due with our progress”

“You follow up pretty quickly, Dein Sohn schätzt, for your discipline” he said walking along with his dad to the rear end of the car.

“Argh! Ten minute drive from the go down did help me with my discipline,” he said and asked, “Where’s the woman?”

Varun kicked open the rear deck of the car and shikar found a cadaver wrapped in a white duvet along with the face completely masked in a spandex material, I wonder how beautiful she is Shikar said to himself. They both lay their hands on the body to hump her up from the deck of the car. Shekar had a sensation of sticky substance oozing in his palms. He hesitated to think of what one would have usually thought of about a sticky substance but later he only realised that it was the blood from her body. “Oh dear god! This one belongs to one of those extreme cases, Was sagst du?” he asked Varun. “Ja, Yes. Das sollte es sein, without a hint of doubt” varun replied and said, “Let’s get the chamber opened and then will pick the body up” and they placed it back in the deck.

They both walked few meters towards a metal plate riveted on the ground. “She was a sweet woman. So, I could not refrain myself from only making it harder, as otherwise like poles would have repelled” Varun continued the conversation while they trod.

They reached the spot and shikar kneeled down to dight the grimed rectangular metal plate. While he was on the move, “Wait a second, you are too old for the job,” Varun said tucking his tuxedo under his arms. He stretched his legs apart and fixed a portable lever inside the crevice on the metal plate. He applied greater force to pull it up open partially and as soon as he found a whisker he quickly slid his foot into the cleft.

Shikar joined him and they together raised the metal closure to evince the tunnel. “You follow me dad,” varun said and stepped on the first step of the ladder inside the tunnel, “Oops! Just a sec,” he stepped back and strode towards the cadaver. Shikar sensed his thoughts and walked along with him to the rear end of the car.

They heaved as they dragged the body to the spot. Shikar wrapping his hands over the body while Varun made the first move into the tunnel and quickly entrenched himself on the ladder. Shikar slowly jettisoned the body on to Varun’s shoulder and as Varun worked his way down the ladder, the body and Shikar followed vertically down the passage.

It took ten minutes for them to reach the cavern. The place was pitch dark but Varun and Shikar were well versed with the measurements of the locus. They trod towards a room that was located hundred meters down to the left of the ladder. Varun carried the cadaver by himself leaving Shikar free from being strained by the heavy weight. As they reached the room, he placed the cadaver on a bench, “Look for the oxygen cylinders, they are hidden in the closet,” Varun motioned with his hands to Shikar. They installed the cylinders on their head and walked in for a few more meters to pass into the lift lobby. They put up themselves and accommodated the body in the paternoster; Shikar punched the lower level button and it drove them deep inside the tunnel eventually into a lobby. The two men stood at the entrance of the vault. Varun marked his thumb impression to gain access to the chamber, “There you go, in the laboratory after many days,” Varun mumbled. Shikar jumped in, “It took my balls to establish the lab. $3 million fish,” Shikar thought. There were several equipment including furnaces, barrels, drums, pipettes, burettes, flasks, tumblers, gloves, apron and all the others materials found in a typical chemistry laboratory. Shikar reached for the aprons, gloves and shoes. Father and the son got dressed up in no time, “let’s get this shit done,” Varun voiced out.

“This has been the saviour of our lives, hasn’t it?” Varun said to Shikar as they unwrapped the duvet around the cadaver, “few gallons of water and the lye. Turning the body into a tan liquid in a few hours,”

Shikar grinned. “What was the temperature? Was it 250 or 350?” Varun enquired. “300 degrees dear,” Shikar responded and he finally took a gape on the naked woman, “My Gosh! This is gross,” he whispered and continued, “the tan liquid is not just gonna do the job. We need to dissolve the fragments in the flouroantomic acid”

“Oh yeah, it was completely outta my sight,” Varun recollected from his memory lane, “the monstrous acid” he said to himself.

“I am afraid to cut the spandex, it is too compact to dilapidate her head if I pulled it out,” Shikar complained, “what do we do now,” Varun enquired. “Dump with the spandex on her,” He cleared.

“Good god! May her soul rest in peace,” Shikar offered his prayers. “Rest in peace,” Varun joined him. They both uplifted her and slowly drenched into the boiling solution inside the furnace. They looked at her drowning and her body dissolving. The flames were hovering in an increased rate, and they couldn’t with hold onto the stinking smell. “We have to exit the place. You don’t wanna feel nauseous son,” Shikar said. “It’s gonna take three more hours for her to be in the liquid state. We will return after the dinner or maybe tomorrow early dawn,”

“Ja, Ja,” varun complied, “The last instance is always on top of my mind, it was one heck of a week for me,” he recalled from his previous impressions and sped into the elevator lobby.

---

They reached to the car and started their drive back home, “Papa I would like to know today the necromancy of lye and floroantamonic acid” Varun said.

“What made you curious about it, you were never much interested in the process before for six times in the five years,” he lit the cigar.

“My curiosity itself,” he answered him pulling the cigar out of Shikar’s hand and said, “First is always mine,” he reminded.

“Kiddo…” he grinned, “alright! There is no magic in the lye you have to know. It’s just a strong base that dissolves organic matter when mixed with water,”

“But why you use a base? For the very first time we did this, we went with an acid. I only realised couple of occasions ago that we were using it but I never cared to ask”

“Sulfuric acid can cause third-degree burns and hazardous. It’s not very safe to deal with it that’s why the lye. It’s very cheap, few bucks, you have five pounds enough to dissolve bodies,” he said. “But what about floroantamonic? Is it not an acid” he asked.

“Have you heard of the ‘sausage king of the Chicago’? I don’t remember the year but it’s in late 19^th century, he dumped his wife into boiling vat of lye but the police later discovered in their investigation few fragments in the factory’s furnace that were left out after dissolving of her body in the solution. When you are entrusted with a job, you should nail it dear and that means, we shouldn’t be doing the same mistake as the sausage king of Chicago. This acid is 20 quintillion stronger than the sulphuric acid. It can dissolve glass and any organic matter in the human body, even your bones. So, there will never be an evidence that we did something we shouldn’t be talking about,” he smoked his first puff after pulling out of from his son’s hand. “Oh shit!” he said immediately.

“What’s wrong?” Varun enquired.

“The PTFF containers, I believe we are out of stock,” Shikar responded.

“You mean, the container that stores this acid? He checked on him. “Yep, polytetrafluoroethylene,” He said, “Alright, let’s drive to the container store” he said and the car raced in the streets of Munich.