Chapter 50

Sabari in a fraction of second tried to figure out whose voice it was. He was sure that he had heard it before, but couldn’t recollect. His mind couldn’t hold the suspense and he turned around.

The moment he saw who it was, he got the shock of his life. In the opposite side, it was Abilash, standing leaning on the door with a grinned face. He looked annoyed and held a pistol in his hand.

Sabari dropped the flower vase from his hand in the shock. Sabari exclaimed, “A..Abilash??”

“Believe me… I didn’t want to make such an appearance in front of you and I tried my best to avoid it. But, fortunately or unfortunately, YOU made this happen. I cannot just watch my partners Prasanna and Pranitha harmed.”

Sabari was out of words and stood silent. Abilash giggled.

“Yes…. Prasanna and Pranitha are my partners and not siblings as how they were introduced to you. They are part of my bigger plan”

“Plan??”

“Yup… I will explain in detail…All this will end soon… First, get seated”

Sabari didn’t move an inch. Prasanna, who was attacked earlier, placed his hand on his back and pushed him towards the couch.

“No.. No.. Prasanna… Please behave and I want you to handle our guest smooth. “ and he continued, “Until we get what we wanted”

Sabari gazed at Prasanna and Abilash for a couple of seconds, walked towards the couch and got himself seated.

Abilash pulled a chair closer to Sabari. With the pistol pointing towards him and in a low voice, began to speak.

“I’m aware that you will have thousands of questions and clarifications in your mind. Let us clear those one by one. Number one is on the ‘Heart Attack’. You may wonder how can I be present here with such a health condition. Everything was part of the plan and I wanted to be in a safe zone. So I chose to be a heart patient. Doctor Balaji has been helpful to make it work. He informed that I had a heart attack. Vasudharini and Ananya were shaken as this was the doctor revealed it. “

Sabari was listening to him keenly and asked, “Why do you need to all these? What do you want from me?”

“Thanks for asking a straight forward question. I’m heard you when you were talking to Prasanna about your company and its projects.. All I want right now is the complete details of the Bionic Project.”

“Hmm... That is... actually... Just in a white paper stage… It is still a long way to go... What are you gonna do with just the abstract?”

Abilash laughed out loud hearing that statement.

“Sabari…. I don’t like to hear such idiotic statements anymore. I know what the Bionic Project is all about. It is one of the breakthrough in the field of Medical Biotechnology and the human kind.”

Sabari was convinced that Abilash had enough information and the denial will not work anymore. Abilash continued.

“I have almost all the information about the project. Let me remind if you, if you have forgotten it…”

Abilash walked towards a table in the room, pulled the drawer and took a file. He gave it to Sabari and said, “Have a look“

Sabari opened the file and started to read. The title read ‘The New Redefined Vision’

Thousands of people in the world are affected by ‘Retinitis Pigmentosa’, a  group of rare genetic disorder that involve a breakdown and loss of cells in the retina. Our research project ‘Bionic’ has proved that it is feasible to bring back the vision for the patients affected by ‘Retinitis Pigmentosa’.

In the first phase, the experiment was conducted on Chimps. The Retina of the chimps were removed manually and replaced with artificial retina developed as part of ‘Bionic’. The results were encouraging. Two out of the 10 chimps regained fifty percent of their eyesight. This was a key successful milestone in our research.

The genes in the natural retina were mimicked in the artificially built Retina of Bionic. This also has given hope that with the percentage of success can be tuned and improved in the next phases of the research. A Bio-Tech company in China has signed a MOU with FutureBio company in Chennai. FutureBio is headed by its founder and MD Mr.Sidharth. His colleagues are Mr. Sabari, a research scholar and the brain of the project and Mr. Prathap, the head of Research Scholars.

Sabari, randomly went through a few pages and returned it to Abilash.

“Ok Abilash….What now?”

“you need to give me every single bit of information of the Bionic Project…”

Sabari stayed silent looking at the floor. Abilash bent his head down to check what he is up to.

Abilash asked, “What does this mean?”

Sabari looked Abilash and replied, “Uhmm… Actually… I don’t have it now.. The details are in my laptop…”

“Where is the laptop now?”

“In my home”

“Are you sure?”

“Ya”

“Absolutely.. If you can take me home, I can get the laptop”

“That’s not actually required… We have brought your laptop a while back. Pranitha took Ananya back home and got it. Ananya wasn’t aware of the password to open it.”

Abilash turned to Pranitha and said, “Bring it here Pranitha”

Pranitha walked out of the room and returned with a laptop in the next minute. Abilash took the laptop and placed it in front of Sabari.

“Is this the one you were talking about?”

“Yes.. “

“Ok great.. Now, it is all yours… “