Chapter 7: Through the Vein
Ira didn't blink.
Neither did the silhouette.
It stood at the far end of the corridor—limbs long, posture too precise. The emergency lights bathed it in red, erasing any detail. It was just... there. Still.
"Ishita," Ira murmured, "back. Slowly."
They stepped away, inch by inch, until they hit the bend in the hallway. The moment they turned the corner—they ran.
Not recklessly. Quietly. Soft-soled shoes skimming across the tile. They moved like prey who had already been chased once and knew what came next.
They didn't speak until they reached the stairwell.
Ishita slammed the door behind them and locked it, panting. "What was that?"
"I don't know," Ira gasped. "But it wasn't just someone pulling night shift."
They bolted up three flights, only stopping once they hit the old blood bank. Unused for years, it had become a dumping ground for broken equipment, paperwork, and silence.
Inside, the room stank of iron and mildew.
Ishita double-checked the door. "Okay. Talk. What do we do with those files?"
"We scan them. Somewhere off-site. Then leak them."
"To who?"
"Media, medical board, doesn't matter. Someone outside this place."
Ira knelt by a stack of sealed crates. Her hands trembled as she pulled out the folders, flattening them under the light.
But one page had something new—something she hadn't seen earlier.
A list of initials. Patients, maybe. Labeled with dates and strange codes:
"EKG drift present – T12/A12. Kavach approval pending."
"IRR. Complication. Agent C reversed."
But near the bottom was a single name, fully spelled out:
"Mehta, I. – Pre-Approved, Watchlist Level 2. No Consent Required."
Her vision blurred.
"Ishita. That's me."
Ishita looked at the page, then at her.
"They were watching you. Before Aanya vanished."
"No—this is dated last year. Before I even started my residency."
The air between them stilled.
"You think Aanya recruited me on purpose?" Ira asked.
Ishita didn't answer.
Instead, she turned the page—and found a photo clipped to the back.
A surgical table. A child. Tubes.
And Aanya.
Standing beside another figure—partially turned, but clearly male, older. Barely visible under the mask.
But Ira recognized the scar across the man's neck.
It matched the man who had spoken to her once, months ago, in the hallway during her first week. She'd asked where Radiology was. He'd just stared, pointed, and walked off.
Dr. Rajat Menon. Chief of Research.
"He's the one running this," she whispered.
And suddenly the name at the top of that earlier email meant something else entirely. Dr. S. Menon.
Not some distant administrator.
He was here.
He had always been here.
Ishita spoke slowly. "You're not just investigating anymore, Ira. You're in this."
Ira folded the photo carefully, heart pounding. "Then let's stay ahead of them."
They moved quickly, scanning the key pages with Ira's old cracked tablet, uploading the backups to cloud drives she hadn't used in years.
As they packed up to leave, Ira's hand brushed against a faded drawer wedged beneath the supply cart. Something was inside.
A tape recorder.
She pressed play.
A pause.
Then a voice—distorted, faint.
"This is Dr. Aanya Rao. If you're hearing this, they've either silenced me or I've run out of time. The Kavach Project is not a trial. It's a cover. The real data is in the vein samples."
"They've been extracting neurofluid from underaged patients—tracking pain thresholds during live procedures. The kids... they don't always wake up."
Ira's throat closed.
The voice continued.
"They want to replace ethical surgery with algorithmic precision. But at what cost? They needed bodies. They used mine to get to yours."
A click. Silence.
Then:
"I'm sorry, Ira."