Making a marigold garland, his hands were as practiced as if he was grabbing spices from his own kitchen. "Oi!" She stepped on the hem of her saree as she stood up. The man turned, a diamond stud in his left ear glinting in the firelight. "Evening, Miss Book-Burner." He held up the garland. "These will just get washed into the gutter tomorrow. Might as well give them to the kids sleeping on the flyover." Alia noticed a frayed kalava (auspicious thread) tied to his motorbike's handle, the red faded to a dusty pink. "That's sacrilege." "Is it?" Vikram Singh suddenly closed in, his ash-smeared thumb pressing into her brow. "And what do you call burning someone's life's work?" The scent of sandalwood mixed with petrol clung to him. "Shiva's blessings are more useful than your test tubes." Alia took half a step back, her lower back hitting a stone platform. The pyre crackled, and in the light, she saw the faint logo under his gold chain—Delhi University, Economics Department, just like those loud rich kids on the ground floor of her lab building. "My mentor's dying wish," she said, clutching the remaining pages. "He said this data would kill more people." Vikram raised a brow, pulled a mint from his leather jacket pocket, and popped it into his mouth. "So you're the hangman for the academic world?" The candy made a lump in his cheek. "Want one? Funeral special." "No thanks." Alia swept the ashes into the Ganga, where floating plastic bottles clinked against each other. "Wait." Vikram suddenly grabbed her wrist, the grip so tight it made her wince. He stared at the photo on her lab access card. "Patel? You're the one who found the antibiotic-resistant gene?" Alia pulled her hand back, her saree brushing against a ghee lamp on the altar. "Now you're giving me an award for caste discrimination?" "Bummer." Vikram slung the garland over his shoulder, the gold chain rattling. "I thought scientists were all interesting like in The Big Bang Theory." He turned and walked to his bike, his boots crushing petals on the ground. Alia watched his silhouette disappear into the thick fog. She touched her brow, the ash leaving a gritty feeling on her skin. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. A message from the boxing club owner: Tonight's opponent is last year's lightweight champion, prize money doubled. She took one last look at the burning pyre, her mentor's handwriting turning to charred black. On the opposite bank, the slum lit up with scattered lights, like fallen sparks. Alia tucked the phone back into the folds of her saree, her knuckles still smelling of the river. The boxing owner's message felt like a hot iron brand on her chest. As she hurried through the back gate of the medical college, the streetlights began to flicker. "Make way." A familiar voice came from behind. Vikram Singh, with a backpack slung over one shoulder, twirling his bike key in his left hand and holding a hardbound copy of the Kama Sutra in his right. The golden lotus on the spine glinted under the streetlight. Alia's lab access card clattered to the ground. As Vikram bent down to pick it up, a coupon for a chai shop fluttered out from the pages. "So a didi (older sister) doctor also drinks three-rupee synthetic chai?" He held the corner of the coupon, the diamond stud glinting in the shadow. "That's..." Alia suddenly snatched the book, forgetting she was still clutching half a burnt page of notes. The wind blew the paper onto Vikram's leather boot, dense Sanskrit symbols mixed with DNA sequences. Vikram whistled. "You use the rhymes from the third chapter of the Kama Sutra as a password?" He suddenly recited a line in Hindi: "'When her waist wraps around like a vine'...' followed by ribosome codes?" Alia's ears burned. She didn't expect this playboy to recognize Sanskrit declensions. "Give it back." She reached for it, the edge of her saree brushing against the rivets on his leather jacket. Rain started pouring down without warning. Vikram grabbed her and pulled her into the nearest library of ancient texts. Alia's saree, heavy with rainwater, clung to her legs. The guard was locking the iron gate. "Last two, power's off in ten minutes." "We're not..." Before Alia could finish, a lightning flash illuminated the entire hall. Inside a glass case, a 15th-century copy of the Upanishads glowed gold in the electric light. Vikram shook the water from his hair. "Looks like fate wants us to have a date, Miss Book-Burner." He suddenly leaned close to her ear. "What time is your boxing match?" Alia froze. The wet sandalwood mixed with the mint on his breath reminded her of a leopard she'd seen in the slum as a child. "How did you...?" "Your right hand bandage has a new style." He took her wrist, his thumb tracing the calluses on her knuckles. "Last time it was Thai wrap, tonight it's Mexican style." Rainwater dripped from his gold chain onto her hand. In the distance, the sound of the iron gate locking echoed. Darkness instantly swallowed the shelves, with only a green emergency light in a corner. Alia could hear her own heart thumping loudly. "Cold?" Vikram suddenly took off his suit jacket. The cashmere brushed against her cheek, and she smelled the sandalwood ash from the Ganga cremation grounds. He awkwardly used the jacket to wrap her hair. "A lab pagli (crazy person) can also catch a cold?" Alia wanted to retort but sneezed instead. A tearing sound came from the darkness, followed by Vikram's curse: "Damn, this stupid bookshelf..." "Don't move." She switched on her phone's flashlight. In the beam, Vikram's shirt was caught on the corner of an antique cabinet. A hardbound copy of the Mahabharata was spread open on the floor, right on the page of Bhishma's vow.
He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a faint scar on his collarbone. "Got this last time, when the pujari (temple priest) caught me stealing offerings." Seeing Alia stare, he suddenly grabbed her finger and pressed it on the scar. "Now you're a partner-in-crime." The thunder made the glass hum. Alia flinched back as if she was shocked, but he held her hand tightly. Through the wet shirt, she could clearly feel the vibration of his chest. "Your heart..." she murmured subconsciously in Tamil, "It's louder than the Mahabharata war." Vikram fell silent. The rain filled the darkness, and his thumb traced a spiral on her palm. "My mother used to say," his voice was barely a whisper, "that liars' hearts beat faster."
The pale brown irises of her eyes had tiny golden flecks. She suddenly thought of the glowing transgenic zebrafish in her lab. "Last five minutes before the power cut!" The guard's shout came from a distance. Vikram stepped back sharply, hitting his head on a bookshelf. A copy of the Rigveda fell, and a dozen chai coupons fluttered from its pages. Alia picked one up; a small lipstick mark was on the corner. "You come here every day..." her throat felt tight, "to swap different books?" Vikram rubbed the back of his head and laughed. "My economics professor called it risk investment." When the lightning flashed again, the reflection from his ear stud landed right on her ring finger, like an ethereal ring. Suddenly, a phone vibrated, mixing with the sound of the rain. When Alia took it out, the boxing club owner's text lit up the space between them: "Opponent's here, people betting on you have set a three-times payout." Vikram suddenly pressed down on her screen. "Don't go." His gold chain caught a strand of her hair. "That lightweight champion just ruptured someone's spleen last week." Alia yanked her hair back. "You're spying on me?" Raindrops from her saree pooled on the floor, reflecting their distorted shadows. "Just a coincidence..." Vikram didn't finish. The whole building suddenly shook violently. The glass of the antique cabinets rattled, and the Kama Sutra slid to their feet, open to the page on seduction techniques. Alia grabbed the wall to steady herself. Vikram's hand went to the back of her head, his jacket cuff brushing her forehead. The trace of Ganga ash was smeared away, forming a grey crescent on her skin. "Earthquake?" her voice trembled. But Vikram was staring out the window, his face suddenly pale. An orange-red fire rose from the direction of the medical college, the thick smoke quickly doused by the downpour. "It's not an earthquake." He let go of her, took a tiny chip from behind his ear stud. "They've started destroying the evidence." Vikram's fingers tightened around the chip, his knuckles turning white. "The data your mentor burned," his voice was hoarse, "is related to this." Alia stared at the cold, gleaming chip, the sound of the heavy rain suddenly feeling distant. She reached for it, but he dodged her. "People will die, Patel." Vikram put the chip back in his ear stud, the metallic click as sharp as a centrifuge in a lab. "Just like your mentor." Alia's breath hitched. Her mentor's twisted face at the end of his life appeared in the darkness, the old man clutching her hand and saying, "The data will kill people." She suddenly grabbed Vikram's leather jacket collar. "What do you know?" His gold chain wrapped around her wrist, cold as a snake. "You drink this chai every day," he suddenly changed the topic, "mango flavored with double syrup." When Alia looked stunned, he magically pulled a stack of coupons from the Upanishads. "It says so on the back." In the green emergency light, she could make out tiny Sanskrit letters on the back of a coupon: The entire galaxy rests on your eyelashes. The writing was blurred by the rain, like starlight in the Ganga's morning fog. "Stalker." She let go of his collar, her voice not as angry as she thought it would be. Vikram suddenly laughed, his left ear stud tracing an arc in the dark. "Last Tuesday, you were dozing in the library," he counted the coupons, "your eyelashes cast a shadow on page 203 of Cell Biology." Alia's ears felt hot. She remembered that day, dreaming of the stray dog she had as a child. The guard's flashlight suddenly swept over them. "Library's closed!" the old man shouted, rattling the iron gate. Vikram quickly tucked the coupons into the waistband of her saree, his fingertips lingering on her skin. "The third one," he whispered, "look at it upside down." Alia felt a tiny bump on the corner of the coupon, like a pinprick. An explosion sounded in the distance. The shadow of the entire bookshelf trembled on the wall. Vikram yanked her down, and the glass of the antique cabinet reflected a second mushroom cloud rising from the medical college. "Believe me now?" His breath was warm on her ear. Alia suddenly realized his sandalwood scent was mixed with gunpowder, and the lining of his suit revealed the outline of a gun holster. She clutched the coupons, the paper edge stinging her palm. "Why me?" Raindrops from her hair dripped onto the Kama Sutra illustration, soaking the intertwined figures. Vikram silently undid the third button of his shirt. The scar below his collarbone extended to his chest, forming a twisted DNA double helix tattoo. "My mother," his voice was as light as falling ash, "was the first female professor in the Delhi University Biology Department." Alia's pupils contracted. She recognized the tattoo pattern—it was the exact gene sequence her mentor had repeatedly scribbled in his final moments. "The 1998 Ganga water quality report," Vikram's thumb traced the tattoo, "the tampered data killed her." His gold chain suddenly slipped out of his collar, the pendant a tiny test tube containing a dried marigold flower. Alia remembered the garland he had stolen from the cremation grounds. Her throat tightened. "So you approached me..." "Initially, yes." Vikram suddenly answered in flawless Tamil, which was astonishing. The guard's flashlight neared again, illuminating the undried raindrops on his eyelashes. Alia felt the bump on the back of the third coupon. In the green light, she made out the micro-etched molecular structure—the very antibiotic-resistant gene model that was rejected by the academic committee last week. "Don't go to the boxing club tonight." Vikram suddenly grabbed her shoulders. "They're after you." His palms were burning hot, and his jacket cuff still had her forehead's ash on it. Alia remembered the stack of Sanskrit love poems in her lab drawer. Her grandmother had told her that the seduction codes in the Cowherd's Song could fool any guard. She suddenly stood on her toes and leaned close to Vikram's ear stud. "The chip needs to be kept cold."
He froze. Alia smelled the blood masked by the mint and saw a fresh scrape on the back of his neck. The discovery made her heart pound. "The centrifuge," she continued in a whisper, "my lab has a -80°C freezer." Vikram's breathing quickened, his gold chain tangling in her hair. The guard finally reached them. The old man shone his flashlight suspiciously on their tangled forms. "These youngsters nowadays..." The beam swept over the open Kama Sutra on the floor, stopping on the page that listed aphrodisiacs. "We're leaving now." Vikram stood up straight, scooping up the soaking-wet book. Alia noticed his hand was trembling as he held it, and a blue coupon she hadn't seen before slipped from his fingers. Amidst the downpour, the roar of a motorbike engine echoed in the distance. Vikram's face changed, and he shoved her into the shadow of a bookshelf. "Get down!" His gold chain snapped off a few strands of her hair. As Alia's back hit the Upanishads display case, she saw him pull a gun from inside his suit jacket. The coupon floated from her fingers, a star chart of the Ganga drawn in silver dust on the blue paper. In the corner was a blurry fingerprint—identical to the one on her mentor's lab access card. By the time the blue coupon landed at Alia's feet, Vikram's gun was already aimed at the library's main door. She bent to pick it up, seeing a line of tiny text next to the fingerprint: "Ganga Water Sample B-17." "Down!" Vikram suddenly lunged at her. A bullet shattered the Upanishads display case, glass shards scattering on Alia's face like stardust from the Ganga. She smelled the faint scent of curry on his sleeve mixed with gunpowder. "Your mentor's fingerprint." Vikram panted in her ear, his gold chain digging into her collarbone. "He handled these samples right before he died." Alia clutched the coupon. The motorbike sound was getting closer. She suddenly remembered the boxing club owner's warning: "Someone's been asking about a girl who does underground boxing." Vikram's gun barrel was hot. He used one hand to remove his ear stud, and the chip dropped into her palm. "The centrifuge password is your birthday." "How did you...?" "The lab duty roster." He grinned, a bead of blood forming on his left earlobe. "By the way, the moon was especially round on March 14, 1997." Alia's heart skipped a beat. That was the phase of the moon on her birthday, a detail her grandmother had often mentioned in stories. When another explosion sounded, Vikram yanked her and they tumbled into the manuscript restoration room. Alia's saree caught on an old typewriter, knocking over a row of archive boxes with a crash. Yellowed papers snowed down. She saw the top one—a 1998 Delhi University faculty photo. A young female professor wore a marigold garland. "My mother." Vikram's voice was hoarse. The edges of the photo were scorched, as if it had been rescued from a fire. Alia suddenly grabbed his wrist. "B-17 is the drug-resistant gene vector?" Vikram's eyelashes fluttered. A searchlight swept past the window, illuminating a missing base pair on his tattoo. "Your mentor found it, that's why they had to burn..." Footsteps stopped at the end of the corridor. Alia felt for a restoration knife, its blade reflecting her tense jawline. But Vikram suddenly pulled open his shirt, pressing the tattoo in front of her. "See it clearly?" The third sequence of the DNA was her latest research result. "They are using the Ganga water as a genetic weapon." Vikram's breath was warm on her neck. "Your mentor and my mother, both because they found this..." The moment the iron door was kicked open, Alia threw the archive box at the attacker. Amidst the flying papers, she saw a caste brand on the attacker's wrist—identical to the chairman of the academic committee. Vikram fired three shots. In the gunpowder smoke, he grabbed Alia's hand. "Holi parade, twelve noon." "What?" "The whole city will be full of color." He shoved a motorbike key into her hand. "Only way to survive is to get lost in the crowd."
Alia's saree was covered in glass shards. She felt what Vikram had tucked into her waistband—not a gun, but a faded kalava bracelet. "Returning a lost item," he pushed her into the air duct. "A little girl lost at the temple fair." The memory flashed back. When she was eight, she lost a charm her grandmother had gotten for her at Holi, and she cried until a street vendor shooed her away. Before the duct cover closed, Alia saw Vikram hold up the Kama Sutra to block the bullet. As the vellum exploded, he made a hand gesture for the chai shop—three fingers for mango, double syrup. Inside the dark duct, Alia's fists pounded on the metal wall. The metallic scent of blood rose, and she tasted the saltiness on her lips. The chip in her palm felt hot, like a tiny heart. In the distance, the drumming of the Holi festival could be heard. Colored powder drifted in from the vent, settling on her blood-stained saree like the first light of dawn over the Ganga. The colorful powder drifted down from the vent, staining Alia's blood-soaked saree with patchy shades of pink and purple. She was curled up in a corner of the air duct, the chip in her palm leaving a red mark. In the distance, the Holi drums grew louder, mixing with the sound of her pursuers' leather boots. "Dr. Patel?" a soft woman's voice suddenly came from outside the duct. "Mrs. Singh has sent me to get you." Alia's nails dug into her palm. She knew that voice; it was the same woman who had led the vote to reject her drug-resistant gene paper at the academic committee meeting last week. "We know you have the data," the voice continued, the rhythm of her high heels on the floor sounding like a lab centrifuge. "Mr. Vikram has already returned home. Wouldn't you like to see his engagement party?" Alia's breathing hitched. The duct cover was suddenly pried open a crack, and a gold-stamped invitation was slipped through, with Vikram's diamond stud earring pinned to it. "The Madam says," the woman's perfume seeped through the gap, "a scholar like you should understand equivalent exchange." Alia stared at the empty chip slot on the inside of the earring. She suddenly laughed, the sound echoing in the metal duct. "Tell Mrs. Singh I'm bringing a little gift." Three hours later, Alia stood at the entrance of Delhi's most luxurious banquet hall. She had changed into a simple cotton saree, with a steel bobby pin from her lab in her hair. As the waiter checked her invitation, she smelled the residue of centrifuge disinfectant on her hands. "Ah, our lady doctor." Mrs. Singh glided over from under a crystal chandelier, the gold threads on her saree hurting the eyes. "Heard you've been very busy at the lab?" Alia noticed the jade bangle on the woman's wrist; it was a pair with the paperweight on the academic committee chairman's desk. She bowed slightly. "I've brought a small gift for you." The banquet hall suddenly fell silent. Vikram stood in the middle of the spiral staircase, his traditional attire making him look like a stiff statue. A bandage was on his left earlobe, and his eyelashes fluttered as his gaze swept over Alia. "Go on, open it." Alia placed a Tupperware box on a gilded serving cart. "99 layers of samosa, separated with a lab centrifuge." A ripple of laughter went through the guests. Mrs. Singh used a silver spoon to crack open the pastry. The curry sauce suddenly separated like a chromatography analysis, a precise gradient from turmeric yellow to deep red. "Each layer represents a different test parameter," Alia said, picking up the top crust. "Heavy metal content 0.01 ppm, two hundred times higher than the Ganga water standard." Vikram's fists clenched at his sides. Alia continued, "The 73rd layer is from your favorite spice market sample, with enough lead to cause congenital deformities in three generations of mice." "Absurd!" the academic committee chairman suddenly stormed over. "This is slander!" Alia unhurriedly unfolded a data sheet. "The gene sequencing results of sample B-17 match Mr. Vikram's tattoo exactly." Mrs. Singh's silver spoon clattered to the floor. Alia turned to Vikram. "Your mother's research wasn't wrong. It was the people who tampered with the data." Vikram's Adam's apple bobbed. He suddenly strode over, grabbed a samosa, and smeared it on his forehead. "Now my wife and I are the same color."
Amidst the commotion, Alia felt a small test tube in a hidden compartment of the Tupperware. It held the last copy of the original data, slowly melting as the samosa warmed up. "By the way, Madam," she suddenly said in Hindi, "did you know a centrifuge can also separate lies?" The lights in the banquet hall suddenly turned blood-red, and an alarm siren pierced the night sky. The moment the alarm pierced the night sky, Alia's fingertips touched the thin callus on Vikram's palm. He yanked her, crashing through a fire exit, and colorful powder rained from their clasped hands. "Dharavi slum," he panted, stuffing a magnetic card into her hand. "The basement has a backup centrifuge." The footsteps of their pursuers echoed from inside the banquet hall. Alia felt the raised pattern on the card's edge, a mango seed outline carved with a needle. She suddenly remembered Vikram's trouser pocket always bulging with something small during their tutoring sessions in the slum last week. The humid alley smelled of fried dough. Vikram suddenly stopped, digging a crumpled paper bag out of a garbage pile. "Hungry?" He broke a samosa in half and offered it to her, the oil glistening in the moonlight. Alia stared at his powder-dusted eyelashes. "You had this all planned..." "Shhh—" Vikram suddenly leaned in, his curry-scented breath warm on her ear. "At twelve o'clock, the woman in the saree is Mrs. Singh's spy." Alia pretended to adjust her scarf, glancing to see a woman with a gold nose ring at the alley entrance. She took the samosa, her movements freezing—there was a mango seed in the filling, and tiny Sanskrit letters were carved on its shell. "Eat, na." Vikram winked, taking a big bite himself. As he chewed, the edge of the bandage on his left ear peeled back, revealing an unhealed wound. Alia broke open the samosa, and the mango seed rolled into her palm. In the moonlight, she could see the opening verse of the Mahabharata carved on the shell. "Remember our kabaddi bet?" Vikram nudged her with his knee, powder shaking from his trousers. "The loser has to recite the epic of the other's caste."
Children's laughter echoed from the depths of the alley. Alia clutched the mango seed, the rough texture digging into her palm lines. Last week, during a break from tutoring in Dharavi, they had played this exact game with a mango seed. Vikram had lost, but couldn't recite the Cowherd's Song, a traditional oral epic of the lower castes. "Trying to welch on a debt now?" she said, raising her voice on purpose. The woman with the gold nose ring turned to look. Vikram suddenly grabbed the mango seed and tossed it into the air. The shell arced in the moonlight, landing in the rolled-up cuff of his shirt. "Rigveda, Book 10, Hymn 90, the Purusha Sukta." His voice suddenly became solemn, every Sanskrit word sounding like it had been practiced a thousand times. Alia watched his Adam's apple bob, thinking of the precision instruments in her lab that were calibrated over and over. "Wrong," she suddenly interrupted. "A high-caste person should recite the Ramayana." Vikram's recitation stopped short. He looked down at the mango seed, and colorful powder dripped from his hair onto the carvings. "My mother... was a Shudra." The forbidden word slid down Alia's collar like a piece of ice. She remembered the missing base pairs on Vikram's tattoo and suddenly understood that it wasn't just a genetic sequence—it was a maternal lineage that had been deliberately erased. The woman with the gold nose ring suddenly started walking toward them. Vikram grabbed Alia's hand and pressed the mango seed into her palm. "Your turn. Cowherd's Song, Chapter Eight." Alia's thumb traced the shell. Last week when he lost, he had used his gold chain as collateral, saying he would "owe" her. Now the chain was wrapped around her wrist, the marigold in the pendant's test tube almost piercing the glass. "When her anklets..." Alia began but bit her tongue. The poem about forbidden love her grandmother had taught her felt hot as a burning coal. Vikram suddenly finished the second half in Tamil. His pronunciation was so perfect it sent shivers down Alia's spine; it was the most secret dialect of her home village. The woman with the gold nose ring was now five steps away. Alia stood up abruptly, and the mango seed slipped from her fingers. Vikram stepped on it first, the crushed pulp oozing juice that looked like congealed blood in the moonlight. "Grab them!" the woman suddenly shrieked. Flashlights lit up both ends of the alley simultaneously, revealing the un-dried bloodstain on the back of Vikram's shirt. Alia bent down, pretending to tie her shoelace, and quickly picked up the cracked mango seed. A tiny memory card was embedded in the kernel. Her curry-stained fingertips could feel the raised data patterns. "Run!" Vikram pushed her. Alia knocked over a stack of yogurt cups on the street corner and heard him reciting the final chapter of the Cowherd's Song behind her, his voice hoarse like sandpaper. When she looked back, she saw the woman with the gold nose ring grab Vikram's shirt. Amidst the tearing fabric, the DNA tattoo below his collarbone was exposed in the light. The missing base pair was now revealed as an old scar. "The centrifuge password..." Vikram's shout was swallowed by the barking of dogs. Alia felt the raised dots on the back of the magnetic card. It wasn't an electronic chip, but the texture of a mango seed carved repeatedly with a fingernail. Three teenagers with sticks suddenly charged around the alley corner. Alia reflexively took a boxing stance but heard the one in front whistle. "Teacher Patel? Mr. Vikram paid us to clear the way." Moonlight illuminated the boy's open palm—a dozen mango seeds covered in Sanskrit carvings, like a string of passwords in his stained hand. The mango seeds rolled in the boy's palm, and Alia suddenly noticed the faded red thread on his wrist. "Wait," she grabbed the boy's arm. "Where did you get this?" The boy shrugged. "Mr. Vikram gave it to me. Said it would help us win fights." Alia's fingers trembled. The twisted lotus knot in the thread was identical to the charm she had lost when she was eight. The barking of dogs grew closer. She suddenly tore out the steel bobby pin from her hair and picked at the thread's stitching. "Hey!" the boy tried to snatch it back. "It's important..." The tip of the bobby pin pulled out a yellowed slip of paper. Her grandmother's handwriting was still clear despite the years: "To my dancing little peacock, may Krishna bless you." On the back was a crooked star Alia had drawn with an eyebrow pencil as a child. A motorbike's roar echoed from deep in the alley. Vikram's leather jacket was slick with water in the moonlight, and blood was seeping from the wound on his left ear. He braked suddenly, tossing her a grease-stained paper bag. "Change. Your saree is too visible." Alia didn't take it. She held up the red thread, the paper rustling in the night wind. "Explain." The handlebars of Vikram's bike were wrapped in the same red thread, but it was even more faded. He lowered his head and tore off the bandage with his teeth. "That day at the fair, there was a little girl crying so much her ice cream melted." A memory fragment suddenly pierced Alia's mind. Holi, at eight years old, she had clutched her last five-rupee coin, watching a vendor sell her charm to a boy wearing a gold chain. "You bought it?" her voice was tight. Vikram revved the engine, the sound covering his voice. "I traded it for three mint candies." He held out his right wrist. Under the fresh bandage, a blister from a burn was visible. "Yesterday, while fixing the oven at the spice shop, the thread almost caught fire." Alia's head snapped up. The moonlight illuminated a freshly painted sign at the end of the alley. The beautiful Sanskrit script for "Patel Spices" shimmered. "That's impossible..." she took a half-step back. "That shop was... three years ago..." "The mortgage contract is in my backpack." Vikram patted the back seat. "Get on. I'll show you on the way." The boy suddenly interrupted. "Sir, they've reached the main street!" Vikram kicked the stand back. As the bike tilted, Alia saw the bloodstain on the back of his shirt had grown bigger. Clenching the red thread, she jumped onto the back seat. The mango seed memory card dug painfully into her thigh. As the bike shot out of the alley, Vikram suddenly said, "Page three of your father's ledger. There's a drawing of a little girl in a lab coat." Alia's nails dug into his leather jacket. It was her tenth birthday. Her father had drawn the doodle with turmeric in the corner of the ledger. "Why?" The wind swallowed half her word. Vikram's back muscles tensed. He swerved into a narrow market lane, shaking off two pursuing motorbikes. "Before my mother died, she kept talking about a turmeric shop in Varanasi." The canopies of the market stalls passed overhead, casting mottled shadows. Alia suddenly remembered her father often saying the best turmeric came from a new variety cultivated in a university lab up north. The bike hit a speed bump, jolting violently. Vikram grunted, and red blood seeped through the bandage on his right wrist. Alia instinctively wrapped her arms around his waist, her palm touching something hard inside his jacket lining. It wasn't a gun; it was a stack of yellowed papers. "Let go!" Vikram suddenly roared. The moment Alia pulled her hand back, a bullet grazed her hand and hit a water barrel by the road. Water splashed on the corner of the papers, revealing the "Patel Spices" stamp. Vikram swerved and shot into an underground parking garage. As he skidded, Alia saw the red thread on his right wrist was now soaked with blood, a dark brown. "We're here." He swayed as he turned off the engine. Lab equipment was piled in a corner of the garage, and the centrifuge's power light glowed a faint green in the dark. Alia jumped off the bike, the red thread still wrapped around her fingers. Vikram staggered toward the centrifuge, blood dripping on the control panel. "Password..." "My birthday." Alia quickly typed in 0314. As the machine hummed to life, she grabbed Vikram's wrist. "This wound... it's from the spice shop's oven?" Vikram pulled his hand back, his gold chain scraping against the centrifuge's casing. "Microwave radiation burn. From last night, when I went to steal the B-17 sample..." Alia tore open his shirt. There were fresh pinpricks at the edge of the DNA tattoo on his collarbone, as if he had just injected something. "You used yourself as a lab rat?" her voice was distorted. The centrifuge suddenly let out a sharp alarm. As Vikram lunged for the control panel, Alia saw something writhing under the skin on the back of his neck. In the humming of the centrifuge, Alia's fingertips touched the writhing object under the skin on the back of Vikram's neck. It was like a tiny snake, rising and falling with his pulse. "Don't touch!" Vikram grabbed her wrist, cold sweat sliding down his temples. "It's a nano-tracker." Alia's nails dug into her palm. The lab's blue light shone on his tattoo. A pale yellow liquid seeped from the missing base pairs. "You injected a gene inhibitor?" her voice trembled. "It'll destroy telomerase activity..." Vikram tore off the remaining base of his ear stud, and the chip fell into the centrifuge rotor. "Decode this first." The alarm suddenly shrieked. Alia glimpsed red dots on the security monitor; they were just three blocks away. She quickly keyed in a command, and the gene sequencer began to read the data. "Seven minutes needed." She tore off a piece of gauze and pressed it to the back of Vikram's neck. "Just bear with it." Vikram suddenly laughed, the streaks of blood on the corners of his mouth glowing in the blue light. "You know, when you frown, you look exactly like..." The centrifuge lid reflected Alia's distorted face. She then realized she was crying, her tears hitting the control panel and mixing with the blood to form a pale pink. "Shut up." She grabbed a microscope. "The nano-device's coating..." Vikram's gold chain dangled onto the slide. As Alia adjusted the focus, she saw the marigold in the pendant's test tube was decomposing, its petals seeping a strange blue color. "My mother's last research," his voice was getting fainter. "Using temple flowers as biosensors..." The screen suddenly flickered. A 3D projection of the Ganga appeared in the air, with glowing bacteria swimming in the murky water. Alia's breath hitched; the gene sequence of those bacteria was identical to the manuscript in her drawer. "March 14, 1998." The holographic image showed a woman in a saree, her face identical to Vikram's. "If anyone sees this record..." Alia's test tube slipped from her fingers. The lab logo behind the woman was the same as the research institute where she now interned. "They tampered with the data," Vikram struggled to sit up. "Disguising pollutants as probiotics..." The projection suddenly distorted. The woman turned back in terror, the camera shaking violently. Alia saw the blood on her lab coat, identical to the stains that had soaked her mentor's shirt as he lay dying. "Destroy the samples!" The scream in the video pierced her eardrums. "B-17 will combine with heavy metals to form a genetic weapon..." The alarm suddenly peaked. Vikram lunged for the door, his gold chain catching on Alia's bobby pin. She saw the red dots on the monitor had surrounded the garage. "Two more minutes!" She pressed down hard on the centrifuge, the data bar stuck at 97%. Vikram pulled a dagger from his boot, the tip pointed at the back of his own neck. "The nano-device's frequency interference..." Alia grabbed the dagger, slicing her palm. A drop of blood hit the control panel, and the gene sequencer suddenly beeped. The Ganga projection became clear again. The woman in the video was holding a test tube. "Remember, the truth is..." The image suddenly froze, the woman's lips stopped on a single word. Alia's pupils contracted. She was all too familiar with that lip shape; her grandmother repeated it every time she told the Cowherd's Song—"Under the trysting bed." The garage's roller door was rammed, denting inwards. Vikram coughed up blood, stuffing the magnetic card into the heel of her shoe. "Go to the spice shop basement..." Alia stared at the 97% data bar. The morning light suddenly pierced the exhaust fan, casting a ripple of Ganga waves on the centrifuge. She tore off the gold chain. The liquid from the test tube dripped into the sample slot. The data bar instantly shot to the top. The holographic image exploded into countless light points, forming a double helix structure. The missing base pair locations showed the latitude and longitude coordinates of Patel Spices. "So that's it..." Vikram's eyelashes trembled in the morning light. "My mother hid the original data in..." The sound of the door breaking in was deafening. Alia grabbed the blood-stained gauze and pressed it to the back of his neck. The nano-device's blue light suddenly went out. As she looked down, she saw that a watermark of her childhood star doodle was slowly becoming visible in the morning light on the data paper spit out by the centrifuge.