'Why he is not picking the call... I even tried his landline.' Shaan Pick up...

Shaan came out of his dorm. I have to reach and find out. As per media reports he is going to start his journey. How can he go there and fight alone? I have to go there. Shaan took his backpack... put his important possessions and headed straight to Ryan's home.

After 12 hours of the journey he reached Ryan's house. Shaan entered the house... it was looking empty.

'Is there anybody?' No answer. Shaan left the courtesies and banged the doors several times. No answer.

Shaan decided to open the door. He brought his new invention. He just opened his backpack and brought out his new gun. He pulled the trigger aiming at the doorknob. Bang!. Doorknob evaporated. Shaan put the gun back into his backpack and came inside the house. The smell of dust pierced his nose. The sound of his footsteps echoed as he treaded the small distance within the room.

Shaan further went ahead. He went to the side room which looked like Ryan's room. The photograph which he observed during his earlier visit was still there but dusted. Megan should have been there.

Shaan switched on the computer. It didn't. Shaan gave a slight hit at the back of the monitor. The display became active. Will I be able to go beyond the login screen. I don't have the password. Neither my fingerprints match. It must have been configured to identify the correct user. Without the help of Ryan I won't be able to open it.

There was a sound at the door. It seems someone is coming, who can be that? Shaan hid behind the door.

'Who is there? Who had opened the door?' a lady came inside shouting loudly. 'Whosoever is there. Listen I am going to leave you. The whole is going through its biggest challenge ever and you have barged inside my home. If you came inside for food or money, I can help but it is not good to blast someone's doorknob with a gun or whatever it was a welding machine and come inside.'

Shaan's body was wet with the echoes of the voice of that lady. Being hidden between the door and the wall, he still could not understand the exact words of this lady. I should be ready for any attack. I never wanted to use the gun against human beings but it is necessary then so be it. Shaan brought out his newly invented gun from his backpack. He pulled the trigger and held his position.

The lady searched in the guestroom. There is nobody. He could be hiding in the kitchen if he came for food. Who knows? It can be a pet animal who has been left stranded by their unworthy owners. The lady searched all the room she could not find anyone.

The gun hit the door while Shaan was maintaining the target. The lady heard. Who can be there? Ryan has left long back. Let me check it. The lady slowly moved to Ryan's room.

The old memories of her and Ryan in that room flashed in her mind. She remembered an incident of their childhood when she and Ryan were working on homework assignments.

******

'Come and take your orange juice,' his Ryan's mom Jennifer once again called him.

'Coming mom........', said Ryan looking at the door. Ryan was a 14 year old child back then. His fingers were moving fast to locate the target. Ryan turned his head to the screen hitting the enemy in the game of Counter-Strike. Hit sound.

Ryan brought his head closer to the computer screen to spot another enemy coming from the front. Jennifer once again called him.

'Ryan come now, the juice is ready. What are you busy with? Did you complete your homework?'

'Just coming mom..', Ryan was already shot in the head in the game of CS. Shit I am hit. Ryan turned to the right towards the door.

'What's happening..?', it was mom standing next to him.

'Well it is nothing .. but ..'

'What nothing, what about the homework..?'

'I was just coming to take the juice. In the meantime I thought I could have a ..'

'Forget about the juice, tell me where do you stand with the homework assignments given by Mrs. Martha.'

'Mom but Assignment no 1& 2 are too difficult.. even Megan has not done it yet.' Ryan very well knew that he was not a prodigy.

'But you can do it. I always knew my son was smarter than Megan.'

'Mom? ..' Ryan raised his eyebrows in disapproval.

'Just let me know about the difficulty you are facing with Assignment no 2.'

Ryan's eyes widened ..what difficulty I haven't even read it.

Megan leaned over the computer screen, pointed the cursor toward the problem statement in the assignment no 2. It was already open in a window below the Counter-Strike Game (CS).

Ryan looked at the screen thinking, 'that's why I always keep my homework assignments in WordPages open.'

Megan put the CS window down. Now the WordPages window with assignments was open. Ryan closed his eyes in fear. God save me.

No reaction from his mom for a few moments. She was busy scrolling the WordPages. Ryan was busy coming up with excuses. But no excuses were needed.

The Assignment no 1 was fully solved. Assignment no 2 was only solved partially.

'What happened mom?'

'Great Ryan. You have completed the assignments. I doubted you. It is always a good practice to define the symbol right at the beginning of the solution of any math problem. I remember it from the days I worked on relativity theory at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. LIGO in short. You carry on.' Megan walked away with her head held high and eyes full of satisfaction.

'Mom, I shall remember, I always define the symbols first before solving any problem. '

Ryan spoke sheepishly but his eyes were still wandering.

'Come and take your juice, and cookies too.'

Ryan quickly went out and came back with a glass of juice. Ryan took a sip of the juice. It was orange but to Ryan's senses it did not make any sense. His neural network could not comprehend the pattern of this strange unbelievable phenomenon that just happened to him. How come the assignments were solved? Ryan put the glass of juice on the computer table and began his search for answers.

Ryan once again opened the CS, it was exactly in the same state where he left it, his head smashed with the bullet of the enemy soldier. He minimized the window. No other window except the WordPages on the Taskbar panel was open. He looked at the history of commands. Nothing. I did not solve the Assignments. I did not create a new file. How come they are there? Ryan checked the properties of the Assignments file created on the WordPages. This must give a clue. The time of the creation of the file was exactly 6 minutes and 33 seconds back. How can the Assignments file be created without me ever creating it? Is my computer hacked?

Ryan bit his lips and opened Anti Virus software to check if there was any clue. Nothing here, this AntiVirus software are often completely useless.

Ryan's iPhone rang. 'Who is there,' he thought. Ryan looked behind the sound of the phone ringing coming from the other room. As soon as Ryan was about to get up from the computer chair there was a notification on the WordPages.

In a fresh new page on WordPages, there was a message-

'Hi, Ryan.'

Ryan froze at the glance of it. His feet could not get out of the chair. He sat down and stared at the notification. Perplexed, he looked behind. Then he looked at the door and again behind the computer. Nobody's there.

Oh gosh, he also knows my name, definitely, it is the job of some smart hacker or is it, Jason, that Canadian nerd who joined recently in the school.

Ryan's mind was trying to zero in the most possible factor that can be behind all this. It must be that Jason. I refused to include his name on the football team for the match next week. But I told him that if he improved his game then I would definitely include his name.

'Ryan I have been calling you for the last half an hour. There must be at least 50 calls. You could not even message me back,' said the familiar voice to Ryan.

Ryan looked at his right shoulder, there were four fingers with designer cut nails. The fingernails had been painted with light blue clouds, bright shining stars, a tiny crescent moon on a dark blue background. When her fingers came together on the shoulder of Ryan, they showed a scene of the night sky. Ryan immediately understood that it was Megan.

'Oh Megan. I just missed picking it up.'

'But where is your phone?'

Ryan looked around. It was nowhere around. Maybe I kept it in the drawing-room.

'Here it is... it was lying on the sofa in the drawing-room...check there are 12 missed calls.' Megan said, handing over the phone to him.

Ryan could not continue eye contact with her.

'Well, I could have left it there. Thanks.'

'Ok..it seems you were working on the assignments. Can you share the solutions with me? I am not able to do the Assignment no 2 and no 3.'

'No... No. I have not done it either. Somebody did it. But whosoever did it. It was great. I was saved.'

Megan took the computer mouse and brought up the window of WordPages where the assignments were solved. Ryan's face became red with panic.

'No... No that's not complete. I have to work on it. Can you please just let me do it? I can share it with you only if I am able to do it.' Ryan brought down the window of WordPages where the assignment no 1& no 2 was solved.

'You don't want to share the solutions with me? Don't forget all the music class assignments I shared with you.'

'No Megan, it is not like that. I know we have helped each other several times. Now also I am ready to help you but I don't want to share a half-baked solution with you. It can confuse you. It's math. You understand.'

'What's this Ryan. Why you get easily panicked. I won't get confused because I only solved it. You remember you shared your cloud drive folder with me when I was doing the music assignments.'

Ryan's heart missed a beat. 'Oh-oh that is you... the person who did the assignments It is ...it is you.'

******

Megan laughed at the reflections of the old memories. He was very easily afraid. How he would be in that Anti-Cursor spaceship? I calculated the location of the spaceship and told CSA people but nobody is taking immediate action.

Megan moved forward to Ryan's room. She was cautious enough not to alert the intruder so she stepped ahead with stealth feet. She hit the door with her fingers knocking it. 'Who's there? This is my last warning, come out.'

Shaan immediately emerged from the back of the door with his gun in his hand firmly gripped. His finger was tight on the trigger. Megan was shocked. Wham. She stepped back and lost her balance.

'Oh. It's you. Megan. I was looking for you only.'

'Shaan... What is this, you had almost killed me? Are you mad?'

'Sorry, sorry, I thought there is some intruder.'

'How can I be an intruder in Ryan's home. I just came to get some clue from his computer. Once he told me that he keeps all his backups in this computer.'

'Ok... that is a great idea.' Ryan said, folded his gun into his backpack.

'What kind of gun is this?'

'Well this is not a gun in the traditional sense. It is spinor gun... means it doesn't hurt matter. It hurts or in technical language changes the spin of the photon when it hits them. That too when they are in a certain state.'

'Ok... nice. I think this can help us in our fight against the Anti-Cursor.'

Shaan and Megan spent the next hour searching through the files on Ryan's computer.

Om Megan's advice, Shaan asked Parry the Pointer and Tom the TextBox into USB.

Shaan, 'It's time to go.'

=======================