Fuel-7 -- "7-Minute Syndrome"

Fuel-7

Chapter 2: "7-Minute Syndrome"

9.55 AM
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Dr Acharya had this peculiar habit of being present at the venue 7 minutes before any meeting. Perhaps something to do with his penchant towards the number 7, nobody knows as he never commented on that. He was a man of few words, and he choose them appropriately, just as he chose each of his team members.

Little murmur going on at the meeting venue. With women at work, 'silence' was not something expected. Giggles here and there, and someone suddenly bursts aloud with laughter, it was all happening there.

Everybody in his team were aware of the 7-minute syndrome. Dr Acharya, in a high mood, jokingly once said "If I am not in time for a meeting, that is exactly 7-minutes before a meeting, then my friends we are all in trouble." Sailesh it seems was the only one who caught on to the dialogue that night. He looked at the clock and instantaneously screamed:

Sailesh: "Hey, what is happening here ? Could we be in trouble ?", he said.

Madhu: The sudden silence in the room reminded Madhu of the vacuum created in a combustion engine. "What happened?", she said, not sounding too alarmed.

Sailesh: "It is strange that it struck nobody that Dr Acharya has not yet arrived here." He cleared his throat.

Mini: "Yeah, we all see that, so ?" Dr Mini quipped. "This kid needs some attention guys, give him that. Yeah go on Sailesh, you want to impress somebody in this room?" It was clear Dr Mini wasn't very happy with Sailesh, at least she always tried to poke at him.

"Part of Sailesh's PhD thesis disproves Dr Mini's hypothesis in her own thesis, may be her infelicitous remarks show her disapproval of Sailesh's work", Madhu thought.

Sailesh was furious now. He was in no mood to debate, he had a point.

Sailesh: "Did you see your clock gentlemen, and ladies ?" He said, trying to calm himself a bit. And continued "It is not usual that we see Dr Acharya being late for any meeting."

Mini: "It is not usual that someone uses 'Gentlemen' before 'Ladies' either, so what? And by the way he isn't late, there are 2 more minutes left in my watch." Dr Mini discovered.

Sailesh: "Your powers of observation are appreciated Dr Mini. But, all our watches are in sync, if you remember. And Acharya comes 7 minutes before any meeting, remember ? Don't you know this ? I thought you claim to be his childhood friend."

Cloud of doom seems to be gathering over them now. Everybody thinking now.

Sailesh: "He once said if he doesn't turn up 7 minutes before, there is something wrong. I am wondering if he is in some sort of...." He tried to explain.

Sushma: "Oh, come on. He must have already entered the building, must be on his way to the amphitheater. Don't worry too much." Sushma said, checking her PDA for any change in appointment from Dr Acharya.

Sailesh: "I already checked that twice to no avail. Please, somebody think about this. It is almost time now and look at this he hasn't entered the building yet." Sailesh points towards the terminal showing 'the building design mapped to human locations' at the far end of the seminar hall.

Silence and some ear biting. And then questions flow.

Mini: "Why don't we call him on his phone ? Instead of creating theories over his absence, that seems a plausible idea." Dr Mini said.

Sailesh: "I have already thought about it. Common sense indeed, it is, to do so. Which is why I think we shouldn't do that. We are not common people." Sailesh claimed.

Kalyan Murthy: "Yeah, you are the one from neptune that landed the other night!" Murthy, who had been silent so far, shouted.

Sailesh: "I mean..." Sailesh begins.

Madhu: Madhu interrupts. "He wants to say that we as a group are a scarce resource. We, all of us here at this center currently holding the key to a lot of answers that the world perhaps needs to know and many more that the commercial world shouldn't know." she explained.

Nobody seems to be convinced while Dr Mini kept ignoring Sailesh and Madhu all the while.

Sailesh: Sailesh picked up from there and said "And if Dr Acharya is indeed missing and is now not in safe hands, a phone call to him would be just exactly what he wouldn't want from us."

Mini: "Why do you make such assumptions...on false impressions..we don't have any clue on the reasons of his absence. He might be unwell, just like any other normal human being." Dr Mini Quizzed.

Sailesh: "If he has had any known health problems, we would have known by now courtesy the health care monitoring system, but we haven't got any message did we? And when he is sound and sane he definitely turns up in time." Sailesh was confident of a mishappening now. "Well, actually 7 minutes before time. But now we crossed the deadline as well..." He said in a worried tone.


Silence. Sailesh was convinced of what he was assuming, while he was taking turns to look more keenly at the watch and the terminal at the far end. The other faces were blank and there were no questions now and nobody seemed to be in a mood to answer too!

"Suspicious environment off the research track in this building for the first time...", Sushma realized.

Suddenly everybody turned their heads towards Dr Ashutosh. He looked at all of them, found each one of them staring at him and then he stood up as if to make an announcement ...