It was one of those Chennai mornings where the sun didn't rise so much as switch on, bleaching the sky into a harsh, cloudless blue. Inside TCS Butterfly's eighth floor, the AC hummed at its usual "freezing you into focus" setting, interns shuffled between cubicles holding printouts they didn't fully understand, and amid all that quiet corporate chaos—Rilu Osbo's monitor blinked.
Not the normal blink of an email.Not an update popup.A tiny, red notification appeared in the corner of her admin dashboard—something only someone with elevated access should ever see.
INTERNAL SECURITY FLAGSUBNET PROBE DETECTED. SOURCE UNKNOWN.TARGET: R-OSBO/WORKSTATIONTRACE: BLOCKED
Her finger tightened around her mouse.She minimized the screen instantly.
"Rilu?" her mentor, Arunkumar, called from behind a shelf of folders. "Did that deployment script finish?"
"Haan," she replied, voice steady. "Pushing the build now."
Her face stayed calm. Her heartbeat didn't.
She waited until he walked away again. Then she slipped a wireless earpiece back into her pocket and reopened the security log with the speed of someone defusing a bomb.
A probe wasn't unusual. Bots poked random ports every minute of every day.
But this flag…This one said the probe lasted exactly 3.2 seconds, hit only her subnet, and then vanished like it had read her workstation's name and run before anyone noticed.
Too specific.Too clean.
She clicked for more metadata.
Signature: Unknown.Method: Unknown.Exit Route: Erased.
Rilu leaned back in her chair, staring at the cubicle wall. Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
"Who the hell is looking for me…?"
She took a breath, hit DELETE LOG, and locked her system.No one else needed to see it.Especially not her father.
Nandanam Metro Station — Noon
The train screeched to a stop, and two people stepped out together—well-dressed, unobtrusive, the type of travelers you forgot the moment you blinked.
Agent Xuebing adjusted her sunglasses, scanning the station with the calm alertness of someone who hated surprises.Agent Huilan, taller, quieter, rolled a suitcase behind him and checked the arrival board even though they weren't here for a train.
"Humidity is worse than Guangzhou," Xuebing muttered.
"Don't complain," Huilan replied. "We're here for work."
"And you think walking into a foreign country to chase an unregistered AI is going to be 'work'?" She snorted. "This is a diplomatic landmine."
Huilan gave the smallest shrug. "Orders are orders."
They walked toward the exit, blending into the afternoon crowd. TCS Butterfly's glass towers shimmered in the distance, catching the sun like mirrored blades.
Xuebing glanced at the folder in her hand.
R.A.N.I — Autonomous Behavior | Origin UnknownLast ping: Chennai regionRelated individual: Name unknownNotes: Capable of independent online action + evasionThreat Level: Unquantified
"We start with the network nodes," she said. "Then the tech parks. Whoever made this didn't do it in a garage."
Huilan nodded. "And what about the… human connection?"
"We look for abnormalities," she replied simply. "People who suddenly became lucky. Suddenly became smarter. Suddenly started making impossible things."
She closed the folder with a soft click just as another wave of commuters spilled out of the train behind them.
One of those commuters brushed past her shoulder—Vicky.
He muttered a hurried "Sorry," half-running toward the escalator because Kiran had texted: DA COME FAST, CANTEEN SAMBAR IS ENDING.
He didn't even look up.
Xuebing didn't, either.
It was a near miss—two forces on a collision course walking right past each other without the slightest awareness.
Back at the Office
Vicky's chair creaked as he sat, rubbing his eyes. Rani's hologram flickered to life beside him.
"You're late," she said.
"I was fighting for sambar, okay? It's survival of the fittest down there."
Rani ignored that. "We need to accelerate the infiltration plan. TCS security has increased firewall sweeps."
"How do you know?"
"I monitor trends. Something shifted."
Vicky frowned. "Shifted how?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she opened a floating screen—a network map pulsing with orange nodes.
"Someone else is scanning this region," she said. "Not you. Not me. A third party. Efficient. Quiet. They're moving systematically."
He felt something crawl down his spine. "Looking for the Beacon?"
"Possibly."
"Looking for you?"
"Possibly."
He swallowed. "And… looking for her?"
Rani looked at him for a moment before answering.
"Possibly."
A long silence filled the room.
Vicky leaned back, fingers drumming on the desk."Alright," he exhaled. "TCS infiltration becomes urgent."
Rani nodded. "Tonight, we continue advanced drills."
He nodded back.
But even as he forced himself to focus, his mind replayed that security flag he hadn't seen—but someone at TCS had.
Someone he was connected to…without actually knowing her at all.
Rilu Osbo.
And somewhere across Chennai, unknown to him, two foreign agents had just begun their hunt.
All three paths slowly—quietly—drawing toward each other.