Yesterday, 05:25 PM
(CHAPTER CONTD)
THAT NIGHT AT YOD INDUSTRIES
The abandoned port of Mumbai slept under a veil of rust and moonlight, cranes frozen like prehistoric beasts against the Arabian Sea. At the heart of it all stood Yod Industries HQ—dark, windowless, and presumed dead by the world outside. But deep within its reinforced spine, the DFO room pulsed with quiet menace, monitors glowing like watchful eyes in the dark.
Hemant Kumar stood with his arms folded, expression carved from stone, as feeds from the Kohinoor Recreational Center filled the giant screen wall. Every angle. Every corridor. Every guard. The building breathed across the monitors, unaware it had already been invaded. Beside him, Kamya typed furiously, while Vaibhav adjusted signal attenuators with surgeon-like precision.
"Security density is tighter than projected"
Kamya said, zooming in on a night patrol changing shifts.
"Thermal, motion, infrared—everything is ready to go"
Hemant didn’t flinch.
"Good" he replied calmly.
"Let the hide and seek begin!"
He stepped toward a separate military-grade console—matte black, scarred, and unmistakably custom-built. With one deliberate press of his thumb, the device came alive with a low hum. Across the screen, a different camera feed flickered on: the corner Hamley toy shop adjoining Kohinoor’s east wing.
Inside the shop, tucked between plush bears and plastic dinosaurs, a sealed toy crate trembled. The packaging split apart with a mechanical hiss—and out unfolded something grotesque and beautiful. Eight metallic limbs extended, gripping shelves and walls with predatory elegance. The spider robot awakened.
Kamya let out a low whistle.
"That…..is an interesting toy"
Hemant allowed himself a faint smile.
"Because it was meant to be more than just a toy , it was my college passion project" he said.
"Wall-climbing drone. Meant to impress my senior Army Analyst's brain. Now playing a much bigger role for me tonight!"
The spider robot—Spi-D—slashed through the toy shop’s storage room drywall and slipped into the ventilation shaft with insect precision. On screen, its optical sensors switched modes as it crawled upward, steel claws biting into concrete.
The tension spiked as Spi-D neared its first obstacle—a pair of night guards chatting beneath a junction grille. One of them looked up. The drone froze, clinging upside down, engines dampened to zero output. Seconds crawled like hours. Then the guards moved on. Spi-D resumed its march.
"Damn.....that was a close call!" Vaibhav muttered.
Hemant didn’t reply. His eyes never left the feed as the drone slipped through another duct, narrowly dodging a rotating laser grid by recalculating its crawl angle in real time. The vault level emerged on-screen—massive, armored, hostile. Reinforced titanium walls. Independent power units. No visible access point. Kamya pulled up the blueprints.
"North end elevator shaft" she said sharply.
"There’s a construction-era ventilation overlap. It’s narrow—but real"
Hemant guided Spi-D through the shaft, sparks grazing its limbs as it squeezed through the opening. Inside, a concealed circuit panel glowed faintly.
"This is it" Hemant said.
"This is the Vault's direct electrical system"
With a soft mechanical click, Spi-D’s frontal plate split open. A thumb drive slid forward and plugged itself into the conduit. On the main screen, encrypted firewalls bloomed like abstract art.
"We’re inside the vault's grid" Hemant said calmly.
Kamya and Vaibhav attacked the code, fingers dancing, sweat forming. Lines of access permissions shattered. Timers blinked. Sixty seconds felt criminally short.
"Thirty left"
"Almost there"
"Go—go—go"
Vaibhav exhaled hard.
"Loop established. Forty-second CCTV cycle. Camera feeds are triangulated to play the loop until our job is done"
Hemant nodded in approval.
Spi-D crawled into the vault interior, bold as sin, moving directly in front of the cameras that currently believed nothing had changed. At the center of the room rose the safe—seven by ten feet of armored brilliance. Alive with biometric locks, quantum pins, and layered countermeasures.
Kamya stared in awe.
"That’s an intimidating safe!"
Hemant’s voice was steady.
"That's because it was meant to be intimidating. Only nine of these exist in the world. I’ve cracked three of them"
A pause.
"They’re strong. Not invincible"
Spi-D captured photographs, spectra, micro-vibrational readings—everything. Then, like a ghost retreating before sunrise, it slunk back into the ducts, the vault sealing itself behind it none the wiser.
Outside the Kohinoor complex, a jeep idled in shadow. Raquel leaned against it, eyes sharp, hand resting near his holster. Spi-D emerged from the wall and folded neatly into his hands.
"Spi-D has been extracted" he said.
"Mission Accomplished!" Hemant replied from the comm.
The jeep disappeared into Mumbai’s sleeping arteries as Yod Industries went dark once more. Inside the HQ, Hemant shut down the last monitor, the Kohinoor feeds vanishing like a held breath released.
"Tomorrow" Hemant said, turning to Kamya and Vaibhav,
"Everyone gather at the meeting room. I’ll show you how Operation Jewel Thief is executed—step by step"
Outside, the sea crashed softly against rusted docks, unaware that one of the world’s most secure treasures had just been measured, mapped, and claimed—in spirit—by Hemant Kumar.
THE NEXT MORNING
Morning light crept into Yod Industries HQ like an intruder that didn’t belong. The abandoned port looked harmless in daylight, but inside the concrete-and-steel fortress, energy crackled. The meeting room—long, angular, built for war planning—slowly filled with people who rarely sat still for anything except operations.
Kamya and Vaibhav arrived first, coffee untouched, eyes already scanning the holotable at the center. Moments later, Raquel stepped in—broad-shouldered, unreadable, followed by four of his men. These weren’t technicians or analysts. These were operators. Silent. Focused. Waiting.
The doors sealed shut with a hydraulic sigh. Hemant Kumar walked in last. No hurry. No announcement. Just presence. The room instinctively quieted as he took his place at the head of the table.
"So shall we begin?"
Hemant began, activating the table. A three-dimensional model of Mumbai rose into the air—alive with traffic lines, population density, security officer response grids.
"You already know the target. Today, you learn the action plan"
The Kohinoor Recreational Center glowed red at the city’s heart. Hemant rotated the model slowly.
"We've been survreilling this place for over months and weeks , this is the moment when that pays off. As you can see Kohinoor Center is not an easy target , because first and foremost , its located at the heart of Byculla, one of the important parts of Mumbai. And on top of that , there is a Law Enforcement Outpost located just a few kilometers away. Plus the location of the railway station and an express highway nearby doesn't help us with traffic"
He paused, letting that sink in.
"We can’t sneak this one out. So—this has to be a shock and awe"
With a flick of his hand, multiple points across the city lit up in amber. Kamya stiffened almost immediately. Vaibhav leaned forward.
"With all these close proximities , we cannot have an enough window for the heist. So we will create one. The best way to delay the Law Enforcement is a big distraction. And this will be something Mumbai is very familiar with. We will have to open one of its old wounds"
The next projection showed evacuation buffers, blast-shadow maps.
"Tomorrow Mumbai will wake up to a series of blasts across the city. But all of them will be non-lethal. The purpose of the blast will not be to create casualties. It is meant to shake the Law Enforcement system. Mumbai's entire Law and Order will shake when the blasts go off , but these blasts will be meant only to attract them , to create a fascade that Mumbai is under attack!"
The word explosions hung heavy. Kamya frowned.
"It’ll look like a coordinated terror strike. And this will give us the window we need. Before the cops could understand that they've been played , we would be already gone with the loot"
Hemant transitioned the display. The Kohinoor complex enlarged—and from beneath it, a truck rolled into view.
"Unfotunately shock and awe is the absolute approach so we will need the entire theatrics. We hit Kohinoor head-on. I lead the breach. The armored truck will ram through the main gate and hit the building's main entrance. From there we will use the usual tactics , smoke grenades , warning fires etc. Then we march into the vault. And instead of cracking the safe.....we pry out the entire safe"
The room stirred now—interest overriding doubt. Vaibhav exhaled slowly.
"You’re telling me we steal the building’s spine and drive away with it"
"Its not the spine of the building Vaibhav , it is just a hidden compartment of the building kept away as a secret. Removing it won't affect its structure"
Hemant said simply. Escape routes appeared—arteries through chaos—ending in one bold line.
Atal Setu Bridge.
"By the time they understand what we took" Hemant said,
"We’re ghosts leaving the city"
Relief and dread collided in the room. Kamya still looked troubled. Hemant shut the projection down.
"And this is Operation Jewel Thief......and this will be done Tomorrow!!!"
He turned to leave as chairs shifted and low conversations ignited behind him.
"Bhaijaan"
Raquel caught him near the exit.
"There is someone you should meet"
He stepped aside, revealing a lean, sharp-eyed man waiting patiently.
"This is Mr.Arun Gupta , he flew our men on for the Kamathipura Op....former Air Force"
Hemant studied him for half a second too long.
"Former? Early retirement?" Hemant asked.
"Something like that" he said.
"Not voluntary. Smells like a paused court martial" Hemant boldly stated.
"You read that fast" Arun blinked.
"A decade of my life forged me into reading people better" Hemant replied.
"You did a remarkable job that day Arun. And I will definitely love to use your talent in the future"
"Whenever you need" Arun straightened, pride flickering. Hemant turned to Raquel.
"I want a special briefing with our squad tonight. No exceptions. Operation Jewel Thief executes tomorrow"
He walked away without looking back—already moving mentally toward a city that didn’t yet know it was about to blink.
(TO BE CONTD)
The abandoned port of Mumbai slept under a veil of rust and moonlight, cranes frozen like prehistoric beasts against the Arabian Sea. At the heart of it all stood Yod Industries HQ—dark, windowless, and presumed dead by the world outside. But deep within its reinforced spine, the DFO room pulsed with quiet menace, monitors glowing like watchful eyes in the dark.
Hemant Kumar stood with his arms folded, expression carved from stone, as feeds from the Kohinoor Recreational Center filled the giant screen wall. Every angle. Every corridor. Every guard. The building breathed across the monitors, unaware it had already been invaded. Beside him, Kamya typed furiously, while Vaibhav adjusted signal attenuators with surgeon-like precision.
"Security density is tighter than projected"
Kamya said, zooming in on a night patrol changing shifts.
"Thermal, motion, infrared—everything is ready to go"
Hemant didn’t flinch.
"Good" he replied calmly.
"Let the hide and seek begin!"
He stepped toward a separate military-grade console—matte black, scarred, and unmistakably custom-built. With one deliberate press of his thumb, the device came alive with a low hum. Across the screen, a different camera feed flickered on: the corner Hamley toy shop adjoining Kohinoor’s east wing.
Inside the shop, tucked between plush bears and plastic dinosaurs, a sealed toy crate trembled. The packaging split apart with a mechanical hiss—and out unfolded something grotesque and beautiful. Eight metallic limbs extended, gripping shelves and walls with predatory elegance. The spider robot awakened.
Kamya let out a low whistle.
"That…..is an interesting toy"
Hemant allowed himself a faint smile.
"Because it was meant to be more than just a toy , it was my college passion project" he said.
"Wall-climbing drone. Meant to impress my senior Army Analyst's brain. Now playing a much bigger role for me tonight!"
The spider robot—Spi-D—slashed through the toy shop’s storage room drywall and slipped into the ventilation shaft with insect precision. On screen, its optical sensors switched modes as it crawled upward, steel claws biting into concrete.
The tension spiked as Spi-D neared its first obstacle—a pair of night guards chatting beneath a junction grille. One of them looked up. The drone froze, clinging upside down, engines dampened to zero output. Seconds crawled like hours. Then the guards moved on. Spi-D resumed its march.
"Damn.....that was a close call!" Vaibhav muttered.
Hemant didn’t reply. His eyes never left the feed as the drone slipped through another duct, narrowly dodging a rotating laser grid by recalculating its crawl angle in real time. The vault level emerged on-screen—massive, armored, hostile. Reinforced titanium walls. Independent power units. No visible access point. Kamya pulled up the blueprints.
"North end elevator shaft" she said sharply.
"There’s a construction-era ventilation overlap. It’s narrow—but real"
Hemant guided Spi-D through the shaft, sparks grazing its limbs as it squeezed through the opening. Inside, a concealed circuit panel glowed faintly.
"This is it" Hemant said.
"This is the Vault's direct electrical system"
With a soft mechanical click, Spi-D’s frontal plate split open. A thumb drive slid forward and plugged itself into the conduit. On the main screen, encrypted firewalls bloomed like abstract art.
"We’re inside the vault's grid" Hemant said calmly.
Kamya and Vaibhav attacked the code, fingers dancing, sweat forming. Lines of access permissions shattered. Timers blinked. Sixty seconds felt criminally short.
"Thirty left"
"Almost there"
"Go—go—go"
Vaibhav exhaled hard.
"Loop established. Forty-second CCTV cycle. Camera feeds are triangulated to play the loop until our job is done"
Hemant nodded in approval.
Spi-D crawled into the vault interior, bold as sin, moving directly in front of the cameras that currently believed nothing had changed. At the center of the room rose the safe—seven by ten feet of armored brilliance. Alive with biometric locks, quantum pins, and layered countermeasures.
Kamya stared in awe.
"That’s an intimidating safe!"
Hemant’s voice was steady.
"That's because it was meant to be intimidating. Only nine of these exist in the world. I’ve cracked three of them"
A pause.
"They’re strong. Not invincible"
Spi-D captured photographs, spectra, micro-vibrational readings—everything. Then, like a ghost retreating before sunrise, it slunk back into the ducts, the vault sealing itself behind it none the wiser.
Outside the Kohinoor complex, a jeep idled in shadow. Raquel leaned against it, eyes sharp, hand resting near his holster. Spi-D emerged from the wall and folded neatly into his hands.
"Spi-D has been extracted" he said.
"Mission Accomplished!" Hemant replied from the comm.
The jeep disappeared into Mumbai’s sleeping arteries as Yod Industries went dark once more. Inside the HQ, Hemant shut down the last monitor, the Kohinoor feeds vanishing like a held breath released.
"Tomorrow" Hemant said, turning to Kamya and Vaibhav,
"Everyone gather at the meeting room. I’ll show you how Operation Jewel Thief is executed—step by step"
Outside, the sea crashed softly against rusted docks, unaware that one of the world’s most secure treasures had just been measured, mapped, and claimed—in spirit—by Hemant Kumar.
THE NEXT MORNING
Morning light crept into Yod Industries HQ like an intruder that didn’t belong. The abandoned port looked harmless in daylight, but inside the concrete-and-steel fortress, energy crackled. The meeting room—long, angular, built for war planning—slowly filled with people who rarely sat still for anything except operations.
Kamya and Vaibhav arrived first, coffee untouched, eyes already scanning the holotable at the center. Moments later, Raquel stepped in—broad-shouldered, unreadable, followed by four of his men. These weren’t technicians or analysts. These were operators. Silent. Focused. Waiting.
The doors sealed shut with a hydraulic sigh. Hemant Kumar walked in last. No hurry. No announcement. Just presence. The room instinctively quieted as he took his place at the head of the table.
"So shall we begin?"
Hemant began, activating the table. A three-dimensional model of Mumbai rose into the air—alive with traffic lines, population density, security officer response grids.
"You already know the target. Today, you learn the action plan"
The Kohinoor Recreational Center glowed red at the city’s heart. Hemant rotated the model slowly.
"We've been survreilling this place for over months and weeks , this is the moment when that pays off. As you can see Kohinoor Center is not an easy target , because first and foremost , its located at the heart of Byculla, one of the important parts of Mumbai. And on top of that , there is a Law Enforcement Outpost located just a few kilometers away. Plus the location of the railway station and an express highway nearby doesn't help us with traffic"
He paused, letting that sink in.
"We can’t sneak this one out. So—this has to be a shock and awe"
With a flick of his hand, multiple points across the city lit up in amber. Kamya stiffened almost immediately. Vaibhav leaned forward.
"With all these close proximities , we cannot have an enough window for the heist. So we will create one. The best way to delay the Law Enforcement is a big distraction. And this will be something Mumbai is very familiar with. We will have to open one of its old wounds"
The next projection showed evacuation buffers, blast-shadow maps.
"Tomorrow Mumbai will wake up to a series of blasts across the city. But all of them will be non-lethal. The purpose of the blast will not be to create casualties. It is meant to shake the Law Enforcement system. Mumbai's entire Law and Order will shake when the blasts go off , but these blasts will be meant only to attract them , to create a fascade that Mumbai is under attack!"
The word explosions hung heavy. Kamya frowned.
"It’ll look like a coordinated terror strike. And this will give us the window we need. Before the cops could understand that they've been played , we would be already gone with the loot"
Hemant transitioned the display. The Kohinoor complex enlarged—and from beneath it, a truck rolled into view.
"Unfotunately shock and awe is the absolute approach so we will need the entire theatrics. We hit Kohinoor head-on. I lead the breach. The armored truck will ram through the main gate and hit the building's main entrance. From there we will use the usual tactics , smoke grenades , warning fires etc. Then we march into the vault. And instead of cracking the safe.....we pry out the entire safe"
The room stirred now—interest overriding doubt. Vaibhav exhaled slowly.
"You’re telling me we steal the building’s spine and drive away with it"
"Its not the spine of the building Vaibhav , it is just a hidden compartment of the building kept away as a secret. Removing it won't affect its structure"
Hemant said simply. Escape routes appeared—arteries through chaos—ending in one bold line.
Atal Setu Bridge.
"By the time they understand what we took" Hemant said,
"We’re ghosts leaving the city"
Relief and dread collided in the room. Kamya still looked troubled. Hemant shut the projection down.
"And this is Operation Jewel Thief......and this will be done Tomorrow!!!"
He turned to leave as chairs shifted and low conversations ignited behind him.
"Bhaijaan"
Raquel caught him near the exit.
"There is someone you should meet"
He stepped aside, revealing a lean, sharp-eyed man waiting patiently.
"This is Mr.Arun Gupta , he flew our men on for the Kamathipura Op....former Air Force"
Hemant studied him for half a second too long.
"Former? Early retirement?" Hemant asked.
"Something like that" he said.
"Not voluntary. Smells like a paused court martial" Hemant boldly stated.
"You read that fast" Arun blinked.
"A decade of my life forged me into reading people better" Hemant replied.
"You did a remarkable job that day Arun. And I will definitely love to use your talent in the future"
"Whenever you need" Arun straightened, pride flickering. Hemant turned to Raquel.
"I want a special briefing with our squad tonight. No exceptions. Operation Jewel Thief executes tomorrow"
He walked away without looking back—already moving mentally toward a city that didn’t yet know it was about to blink.
(TO BE CONTD)
![[+]](https://xossipy.com/themes/sharepoint/collapse_collapsed.png)