For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The morning light pooled into the room, glinting off scorched wires.
Finally, Shivam exhaled, his anger softening into something heavier. "Do you even realize what you've done? This thing nearly burned the Neighborhood wiring, I saw the electricity pole, And even if it worked, even if you somehow finished it, do you know what it needs to run?"
Her brow furrowed. "Fuel. Yes, I figured that much. But I don't know what."
Shivam hesitated, weighing the truth. Then he said quietly, "Noctirum, an element from another world. And you can't have it since it's either in another world or in grasp of SynerTech."
Bhumika blinked, stunned. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed, short, breathless, tinged with disbelief. "You're serious. You think my half-dead dreams need magic crystals from another world. And you call me crazy."
Shivam didn't smile. "You built a machine without knowing what it does, because visions told you to. And now you're laughing at the truth?"
Her laughter died in her throat. She stood still, soot-stained and trembling, caught between fury and fear.
For the first time, she realized: he wasn't mocking her. He knew something. And that was far scarier than her dreams.
The warehouse smelled of rust and stale dust. Broken crates were pushed against the walls, the glow of two humming computer monitors casting the only light in the cavernous room.
Professor Rajni Deswal stood a few steps away from the screens, her posture rigid but not defensive. She looked tired, almost worn down, yet there was a sharpness in her eyes that never left the PI team watching her.
Anchal Rathod's people had formed a loose half-circle around her. Pawan, still rubbing his arm where she had thrown him earlier, stayed closest. Sumit lingered to his right, expression tight, while Mansi and Suchitra hovered near the rear, scanning every shadow for a trap. The air felt heavy with suspicion.
Anchal broke the silence first.
"Start talking, Professor. Why should we believe you're not just another SynerTech pawn trying to mislead us?"
Rajni tilted her head slightly, as if she had expected that line. "If I were still with them, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't risk exposure by meeting private investigators in a rotting warehouse. I left because I couldn't be part of what they're building."
Pawan's tone was steady but firm. "And what is that, exactly?"
Her gaze flicked from one face to another before settling on the floor. "Weaponization. SynerTech isn't developing medical or energy solutions. They're creating military-grade applications of Noctirum. That gas leak you've all been chasing? The Ridge incident?" She looked up sharply, her voice dropping. "That wasn't an accident. It was a controlled experiment."
The words landed like a brick thrown into still water.
Mansi's face went red. "Experiment? Hundreds of people died! You're saying they lit up half the Ridge just to test a damn chemical?"
Rajni didn't flinch. "Not chemical. Crystal resonance. The gas was a byproduct of igniting a fragment of orange Noctirum under unstable conditions. They wanted to measure spread, lethality, and," she paused, her voice flattening, ", response time of emergency services."
Sumit exhaled hard, shaking his head. "That sounds like conspiracy theory garbage. How do we even know you're telling the truth?"
"Because I was there," Rajni said evenly. "I wrote the equations that allowed them to scale the resonance chamber. When the alarms went off, I saw the readings. It wasn't a malfunction. It was deliberate."
A tense quiet filled the warehouse. Even Suchitra, usually measured, stepped forward. "Then why now? Why come to us?"
Rajni folded her arms, and for the first time her composure cracked just slightly. "Because the project has outgrown me. Because Kairav and his people are close to breaching a boundary they don't understand. And if they succeed…" She let the sentence hang, unfinished.
Anchal's eyes narrowed. "You're still holding back. Who's funding this? Who's protecting them? Nobody runs something this big without backing."
Rajni's expression hardened. "Military contracts. Shell companies funneling money to politicians. Contractors who don't even know what they're building until it's too late. Kairav is the front. SynerTech is the machine. But the engine is bigger than both."
The team exchanged quick glances. The weight of her words was too specific to dismiss, but too dangerous to accept blindly. Pawan leaned in. "Then tell us what the endgame is."
That was when she shook her head. "Not here. Not like this. There are things you need to see for yourself. But before I go further… I need Shivam."
The name dropped like a stone into the room.
Everyone froze.
Anchal's eyes sharpened instantly. "Why Shivam? What does he have to do with any of this?"
Rajni met her gaze unblinking. "Because Shivam isn't just some bystander. He is one of two living links to the other world. Without him, nothing I explain will make sense. And without him, nothing you try will work."
The PI team erupted in overlapping questions.
Mansi: "Living link? What does that even mean?"
Sumit: "So you know about another world as well?"
Suchitra: "And who's the other link?"
Rajni waited for them to settle, then spoke with deliberate calm. "You've all been circling the truth without stepping into it. The crystals you've tracked, the disturbances you've documented, they're not just resources. They're remnants of a rift between worlds. Shivam touched it once, and it left a mark on him. And he isn't alone."
Pawan stiffened. "Who else?"
Rajni's gaze shifted, but she didn't name the person outright. Instead, she said, "She is already building what she sees in her dreams. The connection is active in her whether she admits it or not. That makes them both dangerous… and necessary."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. The team stared at her, trying to fit the pieces together.
Anchal finally found her voice. "You're telling me Shivam, and someone else, are the only way to stop this? That without them, Kairav and SynerTech succeed?"
Rajni nodded once. "The crystalline energy can't be stabilized or destroyed by tools alone. It needs anchors. Living links. If SynerTech gets to them first, the rift opens completely. And when that happens, this Earth becomes what you glimpsed in that other world, fractured, hostile, beyond repair."
No one spoke. Even the faint hum of the computers seemed distant, drowned by the weight of her warning.
Anchal's jaw clenched. She looked at each of her team, Mansi pale with shock, Sumit muttering under his breath, Suchitra staring hard at the floor, and Pawan frozen in thought. Finally, she turned back to Rajni.
"And if you're lying?" Anchal asked softly.
Rajni's reply was colder than anything before. "Then you have nothing to lose. But if I'm right, you've already lost time you can't afford."
The warehouse fell silent again.
For the first time since she had entered, Rajni's eyes softened, almost with pity. "You want to know the truth? Bring me Shivam. Then you'll understand just how little choice any of us have."
Her words hung in the dim light, heavy and final.
And the PI team stood there in stunned silence, realizing that the fight they thought was about missing girls and corrupt corporations had just spiraled into something far bigger, and far more terrifying, than any of them had imagined.