NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: You and Them
"Good morning students of Kolar. My name is Vishva Pratap Raghavan but you may know me as the… 'President of India'".
The entire class is flabbergasted.
Why is the president giving us an informational message? What is the meaning of this?
After realizing the true importance of this message everyone proceeded to give their absolute attention to the video hearing everything the literal PRESIDENT of the country had to say.
Mr. President took a sip of water and began to speak:
"I won't waste any time on more formalities and I'll get straight to the point. Officially our war against Pakistan may already be over, but the danger has truly not vanished yet.
Hearing this the students are perplexed.
Gossip arose amongst them…
President continues spontaneously:
"High Nixtom City is among the biggest cities in India, and it holds the greatest school in this nation; the same school you students study at." The video changes settings, it switches to graphic visuals of HS Kolar being at the top of the list among many criteria and leaderboards: These graphics ranged from photos and newspapers about the achievements of HS Kolar's school's unique education system, and leaderboard statistics showing the fact that a majority of Indian top scorers come out of HS Kolar. While these graphics are shown the president doesn't stop speaking and his voiceover continues alongside the graphics.
"That's not all though, this school holds students with the highest potential from all over India and even the whole world.
So, it's safe to say that you kids are the true future of this nation's development, and the 'enemy' knows this." ...
The screen suddenly turned black as the president finished his sentence.
Gossip amongst students continued spontaneously:
"What is sir president talking about? Is he really serious?"
"Why is such critical information being revealed to us?"
"Could our city really be in that much danger? And if it is, what are WE supposed to do about it?".
After a few seconds, a slow transition brings the scene back to the president's residence and the president continues:
"Not being subtle I can tell you, my brethren, that the end of the Rakvill War against Pakistan was …. 'Abrupt'. No side came to a definite conclusion.
Because of this the 'enemy' might be dissatisfied… They may even try to reignite the inferno of war.
The scene cuts to a video recording of a building being lit on fire with some soldiers equipped with guns randomly running around.
President's voiceover continues:
"As you can see, we are already starting to see some attacks from anonymous organizations. Pakistan has pleaded ignorance and claimed that they have no involvement in these attacks, that's hard to believe but for diplomatic reasons, we have to accept it..."
The scene cuts back to the president.
"...that, and all the factors such as; the importance of this school and the city, and the location being close to the border…" The scene cuts to show an aerial view of HS Kolar.
"...Make this school the prime target for a terrorist invasion."
The entire classroom goes into a state of absolute silence. In an entire room full of people, you could clearly hear the ticks of a clock. Eyes go wide, heads turn to seek comfort in company. They realize that the horror once thought to be left behind, gone, left for dead never to come back; was still alive. It was waiting… waiting to strike in the dark.
The scene cuts back to the president. His eyes were a bit squinted, facial expressions being down yet calm, and he appeared emphatic. President continued:
"I know hearing this might have made you all, shocked, scared, anxious, nervous, and all those fearful words. I understand you are still just youngsters, trying to make the best out of your school lives. Still, this is an important message you need to understand. Because even though you all are youngsters, you aren't just any 'bunch of youngsters'..."
The scene slowly transitioned to a compilation of various photos of students taking many prestigious awards from around the world.
"... You all are the students of HS Kolar, you all are the pride of this entire nation, the seeds of a better future. Geniuses in every field.
The responsibility I am about to give you kids is not something kids should be worried about but unfortunately, with great shame, I have to assign you all a task…"
Once again, the screen cuts back to the presidents. While continuing his speech he makes a fist and light bangs it against his chest as a sign of respect and gratitude for strength and loyalty.
"...The task might be tricky, but I am with absolute confidence when I say that students of HS Kolar will! Triumph over any task given to them…"
After hearing the reassuring yet intimidating words of the President, all students were scared yet awe-struck, fearful yet somewhat excited. It was as if the students were given a sort of promotion directly by the President.
The Scene cuts to some footage of the outside school campus, it shows a compilation of men wearing black suits and black goggles, the camera is angled in a way that it feels as if the viewers were looking up to these men, they looked tall, strong, and intimidating.
"We have our special forces dispersed all over High and Low Nixtom. You may have even noticed some of them while walking to the school today. These agents are here to protect you all, and I assure you that they are very! Good at their job. But that being said you must realize, that not all foes come with tanks, carrying guns and rifles. Some of them come with friendship, employment, trade, and even education…" As soon as the President said this.
Many photos started flashing by in a quick succession. These photos were of the Kolar classrooms, taken directly from the inside. It was just for a second but it seemed like a photo of Abhi flashed by in the video. Abhi noticed this, his eyes widened, he looked surprised but immediately calmed down, perhaps he thought it was just his imagination? It would be very unlikely that Abhi's photo came up in this video because the video had started just a few minutes after Abhi sat down in the classroom. It would be implausible that a photo of him was in the video.
Upon hearing this. Students squint their eyes which are filled with wariness.
The president comes back on the screen:
"What I am trying to say is there are enemies hidden in plain sight. Outsiders such as these special agents could never fish out enemies from the inside, regardless of how good they are at their job.
What we need are agents that belong to this city, agents that are the citizens of this society with internal connections to its people and land. What I'm saying is we need you all to be our agents, to protect this land and the people within it…"
Graphics of the tourist attractions and other beautiful places of the city pop up on the screen, and even some visual references to the city's culture are shown.
"...Now, even I'm not evil enough to ask a bunch of kids as young as 16 to physically protect anything. But what we need is your mind, students of Kolar are some of the most educated and intelligent people in the world. What we… No, what I ask of you all is to be the eyes of this land, find whatever information you can about the enemy, keep a lookout on the surroundings, and report absolutely anything suspicious to your teachers, in case of urgency or emergency you may even report to the agents spread all across the city. This task is extremely important, as the magnitude of the combined pool of information produced from all you students is far beyond what our significantly fewer agents could accomplish."
Students start discussing among themselves:
"Oh my God, are we really being handed such an important responsibility?"
"I don't think I'm ready for this, this is so scary."
"Think about it though, why would the president give us such a responsibility if he didn't think we are capable of handling it."
"You've got a point mate, I knew students of Kolar were considered dependable and respected by everyone, but this is far beyond anything I expected".
"Also, you are also responsible for keeping this interaction between us a secret, you can tell your parents about this but that is the only way the word of this gets out. Keep this in mind as this is for both your safety and the safety of the nation."
The scene slowly transitions to show the Tricolor Indian flag waving in the sky. This scene is played for a few seconds until suddenly it cuts back to the president.
The video zooms in to the point where just the deep brown eyes of the president are visible in the video taking up the entire screen. It was almost like the president was trying to look deep into the soul of the person watching, it was ominous…
Then in a slightly aggressive tone, the President said:
"One last thing. Even though I have given you all a task to collect as much information as possible, I'd still like to remind everyone that Rakvill is still in absolute Lockdown. Since the first war in 1969, no person has been allowed to go in or come out of Rakvill.
In certain special circumstances, this rule may have been ignored and the rule breakers forgiven but regardless, researching Rakvill is strictly Forbidden.
..........