The next day, Krishna's living room was no longer a project lab; it was a war room. The five friends were huddled around Simran's tablet, the long, complex list of components for their suits glowing on the screen. The excitement of seeing the designs had been replaced by the daunting reality of the task ahead.
"Okay," Simran said, tapping the screen. "I've broken it down into three categories."
She pointed to the first list. "Category One: Things We Can Buy. These are commercially available, but expensive. High-capacity power cells, liquid crystal displays, processors... We'll have to pool all our savings, and even then, it will be tight."
She swiped to the next screen. "Category Two: Things We Can Salvage. These are raw materials and older tech. A specific tungsten alloy, cobalt magnets, reinforced carbon fiber plating... We can't buy this stuff easily, but we might find it in the right kind of scrapyard."
Then, she swiped to the final screen. "Category Three," she said, her voice low, "Things We Have to 'Acquire'. This is the hard part. This one, right here," she pointed to a single line: Cryogenic Cooling Regulator. "It's a prototype. It's necessary to keep the reactive kinetic gel in Rosy's armor stable. Without it, the armor could overheat. And there are only two of them in Nagpur. Both are in the advanced robotics lab at the VNIT campus."
A heavy silence fell over the room. Stealing from a scrapyard was one thing. Infiltrating one of the top engineering colleges in the country was another.
Krishna, who had been listening intently, finally spoke. His calm voice cut through their doubt. "Okay," he said, and all eyes turned to him. "We have a plan then. Phase one is the shopping list. Phase two is the scrapyard. We'll go tonight. And phase three..." he looked at Simran, a determined glint in his eye, "...you get me the blueprints for that lab. We'll handle it. One step at a time."
That night, under the dim glow of the industrial yard lights, the scavenger hunt began. The scrapyard on the edge of the city was a mountain range of rust and decay, a graveyard of forgotten machines.
"The guard is in the front office, watching a cricket match," Krishna's voice whispered in their ears through the simple communicators Simran had modified. He was perched on the roof of a nearby building, their eye in the sky. "You have a clear field. Go."
The team moved like shadows. Mahira transformed into a stray cat, slipping silently through the fences to act as a close-range lookout.
Simran led the way, a handheld device she had built scanning the junk heaps. "The alloy we need was used in old industrial turbines. There should be a casing somewhere in this section."
"I see it," Rosy whispered, pointing to a massive, half-crushed piece of machinery buried under a pile of rusted cars.
"Let me try," Gunjan said. She placed her hand on a nearby concrete block, and her skin took on its rough, grey texture. She then reached under the pile, her now stone-hard hands easily supporting the weight as Rosy, with her own incredible strength, pulled the massive turbine casing free.
They worked like this for over an hour, a silent, efficient team. Simran identified the components, Rosy provided the brute force, Gunjan offered her unique ability to test and support, and Mahira kept watch. They found almost everything on their salvage list, hiding the precious, heavy materials in an abandoned shed nearby to be picked up later.
Two nights later, they were ready for Phase Three.
"The lab is on the third floor," Simran's voice whispered in their communicators. She and Krishna were in a van parked a block away, watching hacked security camera feeds. "The regulator is in a thermally sealed container in the main research room. But the room is protected by a biometric scanner and a laser grid."
Mahira, now wearing the face and uniform of a known female professor, confidently swiped an ID card and walked through the main entrance of the deserted engineering building. Rosy and Gunjan, dressed as her student assistants, followed a minute later through a side door she had propped open.
They moved silently through the dark, empty hallways. When they reached the lab door, they stopped. The biometric hand scanner glowed red.
"I can't hack it remotely," Simran whispered. "And the laser grid is active. We need to shut it down."
"There's a maintenance shaft in the ceiling," Krishna's voice directed them. "Rosy, give Gunjan a lift."
With a quiet grunt of effort, Rosy lifted Gunjan easily, allowing her to push open a ceiling panel and climb into the dusty crawlspace above. Guided by Simran's instructions, Gunjan found the power junction for the laser grid. She touched the rubber sole of her shoe, and her hands took on its non-conductive property. She carefully rerouted the power, and the red laser lines in the lab below flickered and died.
"The grid is down for sixty seconds," Krishna warned. "But the hand scanner is still a problem."
Mahira thought fast. She transformed, her face and body shifting into that of the stern, middle-aged department head. She then walked boldly down the hall and knocked on the door of the security office. "Excuse me," she said, her voice a perfect imitation. "I seem to have locked myself out of my own lab. Could you possibly open it for me?"
The night guard, seeing the familiar face of his boss, quickly obliged. He swiped his master card, the biometric scanner beeped green, and the heavy door clicked open. Mahira thanked him, and as he walked away, Rosy and Gunjan slipped inside. They grabbed the small, cylindrical cooling regulator, and were out in under a minute. The infiltration was a success. They were clean.
Later that night, back in the safety of Krishna's living room, they finally had it all. The floor was covered with a strange collection of salvaged metals, expensive electronics, and one very high-tech, stolen prototype. They had done it. They had all the components to build the suits. They had completed their first real mission, and no one was any the wiser. Their secret was safe.
A tired but triumphant smile was shared between the five of them.
"We did it," Mahira said, her voice full of awe and adrenaline. "I can't believe that worked."
"It worked because we worked together," Krishna said, looking at each of them with pride. "I knew we could do it."
Simran, however, wasn't celebrating. She was already staring at the pile of parts, her super-intelligent mind calculating the next phase.
"This was the easy part," she said quietly.
The others looked at her, their smiles fading slightly. "What do you mean?" Rosy asked. "We got everything!"
"We got the ingredients," Simran corrected her. "We haven't cooked the meal yet. To synthesize the reactive gel for your armor, Rosy, I'll need to create a controlled chemical reaction at an extremely high temperature. To weave the memory-plastic for your suit, Mahira, I need a specialized micro-loom. All of it... it's going to take a lot of power. More power than this house's electrical grid can handle without causing a blackout for the whole neighborhood and alerting everyone."
The reality of the situation settled over them. They had the pieces to build their future, but they had nowhere to build it.
Krishna looked at the pile of components, then at Simran's determined face. A slow smile spread across his lips. "So," he said, the excitement of a new challenge in his voice. "What's our next mission?"
Simran met his gaze, her own eyes alight with the thrill of the problem. "We need a workshop," she declared. "A headquarters. And we need to find a way to borrow a whole lot of electricity without anyone noticing."
The five friends looked at each other, a new, shared goal forming between them. The scavenger hunt was over. The quest for a secret base had just begun.
[To be continued…]
Support me: vanshbosssrahate@oksbi (UPI ID)
Author: Vansh Rahate
Editor: Vansh Rahate
Story by: Vansh Rahate
Under: Alaukika Studios