Read Enigma Chapter 2 before reading ahead.
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"Damn, your sister is talented. She really did fool the warden into thinking she was your mom", Vicky said to Sunil.
"Well, yeah, but now I got to explain to her why I was out late", Sunil said as the two walked through the corridors.
"My room?", Vicky asked.
"Yup"

The two sat in Vicky's room and tried to figure out what the sentence meant.

"My dad likes pink bicycles"

Vicky walked back and forth in his room, while Sunil examined the paper. He first had a close look at the paper, then brought it close to his nose as if he was smelling it.
"Looks like the text is written by a female", he deduced somehow.
Vicky walked to him and said while simultaneously snatching the paper from Sunil, "That's enough Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Try to figure out what the text means."
"Why is it cut into a circle? And why did the person who wrote it leave the pencil in the bottle along with the paper?", Sunil whispered softly, completely ignoring what Vicky said.
Vicky slapped his right hand on his forehead and said, "Is that necessary? Focus on the text. Whose dad likes pink bicycles? And pink? Out of all colors? Besides, these days nobody uses a bicycle"
"Why is the pencil so small? Who uses such a small pencil? Even for a kid, it's too small", Sunil asked more questions ignoring Vicky's words.
Vicky started getting annoyed. "Why the hell are you trying to figure out unnecessary details? Maybe that pencil was all the person could find near him while writing. Maybe he was lazy to search for another one."
"But why would he or she send it to us along with the paper? Is that person trying to tell us something?", Sunil asked.
"What would a small pencil tell us?"
"Where would you use this pencil if it were you?" Sunil asked Vicky.
"I don't know. Maybe in a compass.", Vicky answered.
Sunil suddenly looked at Vicky's face. "Compass! That's right!", he said and snatched the paper back from Vicky. "Look at this. It is cut into a circle. And there's a tiny hole in the center where the compass tip was placed. It has something to do with a circle."

Vicky stared at the paper in Sunil's hand for a while. Then he ran to his desk and opened up a map on his laptop. "Sunil, give me a list of the places we visited through the encrypted codes in the last few days", he said.
Sunil listed the six locations and Vicky marked them on the online map.
"Look at this, the six locations form a circle", Vicky said, pointing to his laptop screen.
"The text is written close to the center of the circle in the paper. So, whoever sent us this is pointing to the center", Sunil said.
Vicky instantly took a transparent sheet and placed it on the laptop screen. Then he took a marker and drew a circle on the sheet along the six points on the map. He then drew two approximate diameters of the circle forming an 'X'. This gave him an approximate center of the circle.

"At the center, there is ISRO headquarters", Vicky said.
"The Indian Space Research Organization?", Sunil asked.
"Yes"
"So, someone from ISRO was trying to contact us? And what about the pink bicycle?"
"Let's find out tomorrow"

The next day, they traveled to ISRO headquarters on New BEL Road, Bangalore. It was a huge campus. They traveled beside the boundary walls for almost one kilometer. When they finally arrived at the large red entry gate, they saw multiple security guards and some soldiers with guns guarding the entrance.
"Do you really think this is where we are supposed to come?", Vicky asked.
"You told me this was the center of the circle, so you should know", Sunil replied.

Both of them were scared to try to enter. Sunil walked up to one of the guards and greeted him.
"ID?", the guard asked. He was tall and muscular, with a heavy voice that would freak anyone out.
"Someone wanted us to be here, I mean they sent us an invite, Ummm...", Sunil didn't know how to explain
"Can you tell me the name of the person who invited you?", the guard asked. Another guard found it suspicious and walked to them.
"I don't know their name", Sunil replied in a nervous tone.
"We can't let you in without an ID or a special request from a scientist", the second guard said. He had a comparatively less frightening voice.
"My name is Vikram, Vikram Patel. Did any scientist mention my name?", Vicky said, stepping forward.
The second guard whispered something into the ear of the first guard. Then the first guard said to Vicky, "It's my dad's birthday today"
The two were confused and remained silent. Why was he telling this to them?
"Well, uh, wishing him a happy birthday", Sunil said, trying hard to produce a smile.
The two guards stared at them without a response.
Then, after a while, Vicky suddenly screamed, "Pink bicycle! Gift him a pink bicycle!"
The second guard smiled, and the first guard spoke, "Mr. Vikram, please come with me"
Sunil also tried to walk inside along with Vicky, but the second guard stopped him. "I'm sorry, we can only let Mr. Vikram in", he said.
Vicky turned back and said, "But we worked on this together"
"I'm sorry sir, these are orders we have to follow. You can talk to Dr. Susheela about this.", the guard replied.
"Don't worry Sunil, I'll talk to them. Stay here until then", Vicky said to Sunil and walked inside with the guard.

The campus was beautiful, with lots of trees all around and engineers and scientists walking around just like random pedestrians in a city. The temperature on the campus felt cooler compared to the city they traveled through, and the air was fresher, probably due to so many trees. They passed by a beautiful white building in front of which was a water fountain and a beautiful garden full of pink, red, and yellow flowers.
The guard suddenly stopped and said, "Please go over there and submit your electronic devices. Then wait in the waiting room over there. If anyone asks for ID, tell them your name. Dr. Susheela has been informed; she will meet you in the waiting room soon." He then walked back towards the entrance.

When Vicky handed over his phone to another security guard, he took a black device that looked like a ring and passed the phone through it. The ring produced three beeps. Then he gave the phone back to Vicky.
"Should I keep the phone with me?", Vicky asked.
"Yes sir, you may. I have disabled access to everything except emergency services. Before you leave, please submit your phone here once more so that I can remove the restriction", the guard replied.
Vicky checked his phone, and indeed, he couldn't access anything except for a small text at the bottom that said, 'Emergency Call'.

The waiting room was just like the living room of any common household. There was a sofa and a circular tea table at the center. Another table was in one corner with a beautiful flower vase and a warm white lamp on top. A water dispenser was placed beside the table, and a 32-inch television was mounted on the wall. An essential oil diffuser was kept near the door that filled the room with a pleasing aroma.

A middle-aged woman suddenly walked in. She had black curly hair and wore a white lab coat. A pair of frame-less spectacles rested on her nose and her lips were covered in a shade of deep red lipstick.
"Vikram, right? I'm so sorry to keep you waiting. I am Dr. Susheela Roy", she said.
Vicky stood up and said, "Umm... Hi, hello, ma'am"
"Let's get you a temporary ID card and grab a coffee?", Susheela asked.
"Umm... yeah sure, uh...", Vicky tried to bring up the topic of Sunil before anything else, but he struggled to do so.
"Great! Please come with me"

The two sat in the cafeteria with a coffee each. There were lots of other scientists and engineers in there too, but the tables were spaced far apart.
"Hello Susheela, new intern I suppose", a man with a white coat asked as he walked by their table.
"Yes", Susheela replied with a smile.
"Alright", she spoke to Vicky, "I know you have questions, but let me clear a few things first. You are free to ask me anything after that. Sounds good?"
"Yes, okay"
"Right. So, first of all, congrats!"
"For?"
"You are the only one who solved all six codes we sent. We identified a few people with the skills to decode them and sent them to everyone. Most of them ignored them. Some managed to solve the first code. Only three managed to go to the third one. Out of those few, you were the only one who decoded all six", Susheela said in a calm tone.
"But why did you send those to us?", Vicky asked the obvious question.
"We need some help over here with decoding a certain signal. That is all I can tell you as of now. We need to do some paperwork before you can get more details"
"So, you want me to help you decode the signal?"
"Yes, Vikram", she said with a smile.

After having coffee, Vicky was taken to a research center. They gave him an iPad that had some text on it. It was basically a non-disclosure agreement that Vicky had to sign. They then went into a conference room.
Apart from Vicky and Susheela, there were two other men.
"Hi, Vikram, nice to meet you. I'm Jagdish"
"Hi, I'm Dr. Rajesh"
Vicky then shook hands with them.
"Alright, Mr. Vikram", Susheela spoke as she stood up and walked towards a projector screen, "We are going to give you a highly classified piece of information. Before I begin, I'd like to remind you that the topic is highly sensitive and should not go outside this room. Not even to the other scientists and engineers at ISRO. Am I clear?"
"Yes", Vikram replied in a low tone.
A familiar image of a yellow-orange sphere appeared on the screen. Then to the right of it, a time domain signal appeared, which looked like an audio spectrum. Below the signal, a frequency spectrum of the signal was shown.
"This is Pluto", Susheela started her presentation. "There are three satellites orbiting it. Among the three, PSAT-51 was launched by ISRO"
An image of a satellite appeared above Pluto.
Susheela continued, "PSAT-51 has an electromagnetic field detector that monitors fluctuations in the electric and magnetic field in and around Pluto's atmosphere. We have detected X-Rays emitting from Pluto which is interacting with the solar wind. It was a surprising discovery because Pluto doesn't have its own magnetic field and we didn't know where the X-Rays came from. The purpose of PSAT-51 was to study this phenomenon. The satellite has been studying Pluto for six years, and we have received quite a lot of details about the phenomenon. But two months ago, we received this signal", she pointed to the time domain signal.
It looked like any other audio signal. What's there to hide in this? Vicky thought but didn't speak.
Susheela continued, "It looks normal at first, but if you look at the frequency spectrum, you can see why it caught our attention"
The image of Pluto and the satellite disappeared, and the frequency spectrum image stretched to fit the whole screen. There were many tiny spikes at different frequencies, but two of them were much larger than the rest.
Vicky didn't understand what they meant.
"Do you know what this means?", Susheela asked, looking at Vicky.
Vicky didn't reply, but Susheela understood he didn't know.
"It means the signal is modulated", Susheela said.
Noticing no response from Vicky, she continued to explain, "We weren't able to decode the signal, but some of our researchers believe that the signal contains some information. We believe it has extraterrestrial origins"
"You mean Aliens?", Vicky finally spoke, with surprise.
"That's another way to say it", Dr. Jagdish said in his deep voice.

To be continued...

#sciencefiction
#fiction
#thriller
#mystery
#scifi

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