WEEKEND FILES

Main Characters: "Aryan Verma - Gender: Male Nationality: Indian Species: Human Hair: Black, short, usually messy under a hoodie Skin Tone: Medium brown Build: Lean, slightly athletic Occupation: Weekdays – Data Analyst for a fintech consultancy; Weekends – Urban investigator chasing unexplained tech anomalies Demeanor: Sharp, quiet, driven. He observes more than he speaks. Has the kind of stare that feels like he’s already solved half the puzzle. Carries a subtle intensity—equal parts burnout and brilliance. Vibe: Cyber-noir introvert. Feels like someone who sleeps in code and dreams in signals. Hoodie over collared shirt is his signature contradiction." "Medha Kapoor - Gender: Female Nationality: Indian Species: Human Hair: Long, wavy black hair usually tied in a low ponytail Skin Tone: Light-medium with cool undertone Build: Slim, expressive face Occupation: Architecture student and part-time barista Demeanor: Sincere and emotionally intuitive. Slightly anxious energy but resolute when it matters. Not easily dismissed—her concern for her missing boyfriend turns into an obsessive need for answers. Vibe: Empath meets realist. Wears oversized sweaters, speaks with her eyes before her mouth. Understated and honest." Side Characters and Extras: "Medha: A person confiding in Aaryan about her partner's strange behavior." "Kunal: Medha's partner who started acting strangely, working late, taking hushed calls, and becoming paranoid and sleepless." "Aaryan: Data analyst who feels disconnected from his work and is drawn to something else in the city." Story Locations: "1. Aaryan’s Weekday Co-Working Space Fintech Company - Architecture: Glass-walled, modern tech floor.

Minimalist, with industrial ceilings, shared desks, and LED-lit corridors. Nature: None visible—artificial lighting and concrete rule the space. Surroundings: Constant low hum of keyboard tapping, coffee machines, and productivity playlists. Energy: Efficient but emotionally sterile. People rush from one tab to the next, emotionally absent. Vibe: Polished professionalism with underlying exhaustion. The “face” of Bengaluru's tech grind. " "Neon Alleys & Backstreets (Night Bengaluru) - Architecture: Old buildings layered with neon signage, patched wires, and glowing ad screens. Narrow lanes, dripping rain pipes, and flickering lights. Nature: Rain-slicked pavement, urban overgrowth on cracked walls. Surroundings: Late-night chai stalls, honking autos, and ghost bikes whizzing past. Energy: Electric and tense. Feels like the city is watching. Vibe: Cyber-noir Bengaluru. Claustrophobic but thrilling—truth hides here. " "Medha’s Indie Café - Architecture: Brick-and-wood interiors with hanging lightbulbs, graffiti walls, and mix-matched furniture. Nature: Small indoor plants, faint scent of earth and espresso. Surroundings: Lo-fi music, soft conversation, warm lighting. Energy: Cozy but layered in emotional weight—conversations here feel real. Vibe: A safe space for confessions. Comfortable but quietly heavy." "Aaryan’s Workspace / Flat - Architecture: Small, clean apartment with one room converted into an “evidence lab.” Covered in sticky notes, cables, blinking monitors. Nature: Plants long-dead on the windowsill. Surroundings: Stacked books, unfinished chai cups, digital noise from screens. Energy: Mentally charged, physically neglected. The world is ignored; patterns are everything. Vibe: Lone wolf HQ. Feels like he never sleeps—only stares." "KR Market -

Architecture: Colonial-era arches, layered with makeshift vendor stalls, wires, and tarps. Nature: Bright flowers, muddy gutters, ambient smoke from food carts. Surroundings: Dense foot traffic, constant calls of sellers, and lurking corners. Energy: Overstimulating and unpredictable. Every moment feels like it might break into something real. Vibe: Organized chaos. The city’s soul—but also its secrets." "Pink Lotus Spa (Front) - Architecture: Faux-upscale. Pink signage, mirrored lobby, faint incense, kitschy lotus motifs. Nature: Artificial plants, synthetic perfumes. Surroundings: Surrounded by massage centers, money exchanges, and silent stairwells. Energy: Hollow and oddly too clean—feels like a mask. Vibe: Plastic perfection hiding something sinister." "Pink Lotus Spa (Backdoor & Below) - Architecture: Transition from rusted iron doors to a stark underground corridor. Walls go from tile to exposed wiring and steel bulkheads. Nature: None. Sterile and lifeless. Surroundings: Buzzing electrical sounds, flickering lights, surveillance cameras. Energy: Controlled tension. It feels like a server is watching you breathe. Vibe: Entering the system’s core—digital hellscape masquerading as infrastructure." "Secret Server Room - Architecture: Cold, blue-lit expanse with vertical server towers. Clean metal flooring, cooling fog drifting. Nature: None—entirely artificial. Surroundings: Humming machines, blinking screens, partially eaten fast food. Energy: Deeply unnerving. Feels like you’re inside a machine’s brain. Vibe: The climax of silence. Truth lives here, coded and buried." "Evidence Wall (Aaryan’s Room) - Architecture: One apartment wall turned into a crime-board collage. Strings connect photos, barcodes, maps, faces. Nature: Window always shut. Surroundings: Dim light, post-its peeling at the corners. Feels alive with intent.

Energy: Quietly obsessive. The puzzle never stops growing. Vibe: Organized chaos—paranoia turned into method." "KR Market: A crowded market concealing a digital ghost" "pavements: Slick from the rain" "corridor: An oppressive tunnel of cold steel" "Bengaluru: City with a digital map and blinking data points" "terminal: Location with a shattered screen and melted keyboard" "directory: Digital space containing encrypted files" "alleys: Labyrinthine passages with scents of jasmine and diesel" "Aaryan’s apartment: A quiet place shattered by the roar of an engine" "cafe: A place with a gentle murmur where Medha and the listener are having a conversation" "city: A neon-lit urban area with shimmering streaks of light" "final door: A seamless slab of metal with a biometric scanner and keypad" "balcony: A place outside where Kunal took hushed calls" "rain-streaked streets: City streets reflecting neon lights" "co-working space: A sterile, deadline-driven office environment" The co-working space buzzed with the sterile energy of deadlines. Aaryan stared at the cascading numbers on his screen, algorithms blurring into meaningless noise. He minimized the window, revealing a fragmented map of Bengaluru overlaid with blinking data points. "Another dead end," he muttered, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his tired eyes. He glanced at the clock – 6:00 PM. Time to shed the skin of a data analyst. As his colleagues streamed out, Aaryan felt a strange liberation. He wasn't one of them. Tonight, the city whispered a different kind of code, one he was determined to crack.

The rain started as he stepped out, Bengaluru’s familiar drizzle slicking the pavements. Most people hurried for cabs, faces buried in their phones, but Aaryan paused. He noticed it then – a flicker in the streetlamp's rhythm, a stutter in the city's hum. Barely perceptible, but there. His analyst persona receded, replaced by something sharper, more attuned. A hunter sensing a disturbance. He pulled up the collar of his worn hoodie, the neon reflecting in his dark eyes. Something was off tonight, humming beneath the surface of the city. A glitch begging to be found. The Enfield roared to life, its throaty rumble a defiant counterpoint to the city's electronic whine. Aaryan navigated the labyrinthine alleys, the scent of jasmine and diesel clinging to the damp air. Neon signs bled into the rain-streaked streets, painting the world in vibrant, distorted hues. Each turn was a gamble, each shadow a potential clue. He wasn't just riding; he was listening to the city's pulse, feeling for the subtle arrhythmia that marked something amiss. His phone pinged – a new encrypted message. The hunt had begun. The encrypted ping led him to KR Market—a kaleidoscope even at 2 AM. He parked the Enfield amidst a tangle of delivery bikes, the air thick with the ghosts of jasmine and cardamom. Vendors slept under tarps, their dreams likely sweeter than the reality of dawn's haggling. Aaryan navigated the narrow aisles, his phone screen casting an eerie glow on the mounds of unsold flowers.

He wasn’t here for blossoms; he was hunting digital breadcrumbs, whispers hidden in the market's electronic underbelly. Each step was a calculated risk, a dance on the edge of the known, where the city's secrets bloomed in the darkness. The bell above the door of Medha's cafe chimed, a fragile sound against the low hum of conversation. Aaryan slid into the booth opposite her, the scent of roasted coffee beans a temporary balm. Medha’s eyes, red-rimmed and swollen, held a desperate plea. "He just vanished, Aaryan. No calls, no messages… nothing." Her voice trembled, each word a broken shard of hope. Steam curled from her neglected chai, mirroring the fog of her anxiety. He noticed the way she twisted a silver ring on her finger, a nervous habit betraying the carefully constructed facade. "Kunal wouldn't just leave," she insisted, her gaze locking onto his. "He wouldn't." "It started small," Medha said, her voice barely a whisper above the cafe's gentle murmur. "Late nights...claiming overtime. But Kunal hated overtime." She stirred her chai, the spoon clinking softly against the ceramic. "Then the calls started. Always hushed, always stepping out onto the balcony." A tremor ran through her hands. "He became…paranoid. Always looking over his shoulder, like he was expecting something." She looked up, her eyes pleading. "He stopped sleeping. Said he kept having nightmares. Nightmares about...codes. He kept muttering about patterns, like he was trying to solve some impossible puzzle. Does it make sense?"

Aaryan stared at the map on his screen, the last GPS ping blinking mockingly near KR Market. "Chaos," he muttered, more to himself than Medha. The scent of old spices and exhaust fumes seemed to seep from the digital image, a sensory assault even through glass and code. "He wouldn't go there," Medha protested, her voice laced with disbelief. "Kunal hated crowds." Aaryan zoomed in, tracing the signal's trajectory. "He was forced there," he concluded grimly. "Or lured." The market was a labyrinth, a place where data trails dissolved into a million human stories. Finding Kunal here would be like searching for a single grain of rice in a monsoon. But it was the only lead they had. The blinking cursor on Aaryan's monitor mocked him. KR Market. A digital black hole. He scrubbed a hand through his already disheveled hair, the scent of stale coffee clinging to his fingertips. The wall opposite his desk had become a chaotic tapestry of connections: Kunal's photo pinned beside snippets of code, GPS coordinates linked by red string to news articles about corporate espionage. Medha's desperate plea echoed in his mind. He had to find something. Anything. Aaryan grabbed his worn leather jacket, the chill of the Bengaluru night seeping through the window. Time to dive into the chaos. The engine roared to life, shattering the quiet hum of Aaryan’s apartment. He straddled his bike, the cool metal a familiar comfort against the rising tide of anxiety. KR Market at night.

A swarm of humanity concealing a digital ghost. He tightened his grip, the leather of his gloves creaking softly. Medha’s face flashed in his mind—the raw desperation in her eyes a fuel more potent than petrol. Each twist of the throttle was a promise. Rain began to fall, blurring the neon glow of the city into shimmering streaks. He accelerated, the wind whipping past his face, carrying the scent of jasmine and diesel. The hunt had begun. The rain intensified, each drop a tiny hammer against Aaryan’s helmet visor. KR Market surged around him, a kaleidoscope of shouting vendors and darting rickshaws. He cut the engine, the sudden silence amplifying the market's cacophony. Jasmine and exhaust fumes hung heavy in the air, a strangely intoxicating mix. He pulled his hoodie tighter, the damp fabric clinging to his skin. *Kunal was here,* Medha had insisted, her voice cracking with suppressed fear. Aaryan navigated the throng, his eyes scanning for anything out of place. A flicker of recognition in a face, a discarded object, a digital echo in the human storm. The CCTV footage blurred with rain, each drop a distortion. Aaryan paused the frame, rewound. A man in a blue shirt, seemingly innocuous, glanced at a specific flower stall, then away too quickly. *Hesitation?* He zoomed in. The stall—selling rare orchids, not jasmine like the others—had a QR code taped beneath the counter. Aaryan noted the time. Five minutes later, a delivery driver scanned it, picked up a package.

He cross-referenced the driver's route with known ghost protocol pathways. A ping. A silent alarm bloomed in his mind. This wasn't random chaos. It was a carefully orchestrated symphony. Aaryan stared at the screen, the IP address pulsing like a malevolent heartbeat. "Pink Lotus Spa," he muttered, the name tasting like synthetic sweetener on his tongue. He cross-referenced it with the encrypted messages pulled from Kunal's drive. A match. Three times. This wasn't a dead end; it was a breadcrumb. He imagined the place—soft music, cloying incense, the hushed whispers of pampered clients. But beneath that veneer, a network thrummed, a digital shadow cast by Kunal's disappearance. He grabbed his keys. Relaxation was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not tonight. The rain had stopped, but the city still glistened, reflecting the neon glow like a promise of secrets revealed. The alley reeked of stale jasmine and decay, a stark contrast to the saccharine promise of the Pink Lotus Spa around the corner. Aaryan wrinkled his nose, the humid air thick with the stench of rotting fruit. He followed the delivery route, the asphalt slick beneath his worn sneakers. The grimy service entrance, half-hidden behind overflowing dumpsters, was easy to miss. *Just like they planned.* He pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves, the thin material clinging to his skin. A rusted metal door, barely wider than his shoulders, was the only way in. No cameras. Just the metallic tang of anticipation. He took a breath and pushed.

The door creaked open, a drawn-out groan that echoed in the sudden silence. Aaryan stepped inside. The saccharine perfume of lotus blossoms vanished, replaced by a sterile scent of disinfectant and ozone. Gone were the plush carpets and soft lighting. He found himself in a narrow corridor, the walls clad in cold, grey steel. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting long, distorted shadows. A low hum vibrated through the floor, a mechanical heartbeat. This wasn't a spa; it was a machine. He pulled out his phone, the screen illuminating the grim reality. Kunal had been right. The pretty facade hid a much darker truth. The corridor stretched, an oppressive tunnel of cold steel. At its end, the final door gleamed – a seamless slab of metal, devoid of handle or hinge. A biometric scanner pulsed with a malevolent green light beside a numeric keypad, the gateway to answers or oblivion. Aaryan felt a bead of sweat trickle down his temple, the sterile air doing little to cool the sudden spike of anxiety. *This is it.* He glanced back, a fleeting thought of Medha and the promise he’d made. No turning back now. He reached out, his fingertips hovering over the cold metal, a silent question hanging in the air. He punched in the access code Kunal had sent, a string of numbers that felt too simple for such a place. The metal door hissed open, releasing a wave of frigid air.

Aaryan stepped across the threshold and into a cathedral of servers. Towering racks stretched into the blue-lit gloom, a silent army of blinking LEDs. The air thrummed with the relentless hum of machinery, a digital heartbeat echoing in his chest. This wasn't just a server room; it was a data fortress, a digital vault where secrets were forged and lives were manipulated. He scanned the rows, the IP address Kunal had been chasing burned into his memory. It had to be here, buried within this cold, mechanical labyrinth. The answer to everything. The air tasted of ozone, sharp and metallic, stinging Aaryan's nostrils. He moved deeper into the server room, the rhythmic hum now overlaid with an unsettling silence. Something was wrong. Overturned chairs lay scattered near a workstation, their plastic frames cracked. An access card, bent and useless, rested on the cold floor. Panic, raw and palpable, clung to the air like the cooling fog. A faint, acrid smell of burnt circuits drifted from the far corner. They hadn't just left; they had bolted. He knelt, his fingers tracing the scorch marks on the floor. Someone had tried to erase something, and they'd done it in a hurry. The burnt smell led him to a terminal, screen shattered, keyboard melted into a distorted sculpture. He bypassed the security, fingers flying across the few remaining functional keys. A directory opened – encrypted files, their names meaningless strings of code.

Then he saw it: a familiar digital signature, a unique encryption key he'd seen Kunal use countless times. His stomach twisted. These weren't just missing person files; these were records of illegal transactions, leaked government data. Kunal wasn't a victim. He was in the thick of it, a player in a game far bigger, and far more dangerous, than Aaryan could have imagined. He salvaged the security footage, the corrupted file flickering back to life on his cracked laptop screen. Static danced, then a grainy image resolved: the server room's blind spot, cleverly exploited. A cloaked figure, face obscured by shadow and a high collar, met another individual. The exchange was swift, almost ritualistic – a black bag, marked with a faint QR code Aaryan recognized as tech-sourced. The courier's movements were too precise, too practiced for a novice. This wasn’t a panicked escape; it was a calculated handoff, a thread in a web carefully spun. "Damn it, Kunal," he muttered, the neon glow of his screen painting his face in fractured light. This was bigger than just one missing person. The bell above the café door chimed, a jarring sound that cut through the low hum of conversation. Medha gasped, rising from her chair so fast it nearly tipped. Kunal stood there, pale and gaunt, like a ghost dredged from the river. Aaryan watched, a knot tightening in his gut. Kunal's eyes darted around the room, never settling. "Medha," he rasped, voice hoarse. An embrace, desperate and relieved.

But Aaryan's gaze snagged on Kunal's wrist. A new smartwatch, sleek and black, its screen displaying a single, unremovable icon—a stylized eye. It pulsed with a faint, malevolent light. The system still had him.