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  2012-2-9, 07:56:34; IST

1 hour 29 minutes 9 seconds ago

Location: New Delhi

The capital of the world’s largest superficial democracy had more problems than just relating to the society at large. The city’s climate, for example, was a delinquent affair of its own. For starters, the city didn’t even possess a characteristic climate; if the northern regions got cold, cold waves would follow the next day; if the heat in the tropics got multiplied, burning days and nights were right up ahead; a sandstorm in the west equated to a sandstorm in Delhi; a western disturbance in the east, a shower of acid was foreseeable.

Two days ago a snowstorm had hit Himachal, which had inevitably resulted in the shivering gusts since yesterday evening.

The Nexus India Bank, located in sector 4, Dwarka always opened on its scheduled time – 7:00 in the morning. It was 5 stories high, taller by one floor than the rest of the buildings in the vicinity and had enormous radio towers and a satellite dish on its roof. It was situated right in front of a crossroad, just at the main market. A couple stood at the front door; the pressure plates activated, opening the clear glass panels for them. Sleek fawn interiors and deep brown cushioned chairs welcomed them. Everything looked as impressive as the bank’s service record.

Founded as the Banque de Reims in ’92, it had rose quite steadily in the ranks of French banks due to its low interest loans and flexible insurance and account schemes. Gaining mass popularity, it had managed to attract significant professional attention from around Europe before its fifth anniversary. Pretty soon its network was spreading through width and breadth of the global financial system. Some had even started calling it the physical PayPal.

Not only did the bank rise through and flourish like never before, it even survived massive “bubble burst” scenarios on the stock exchange. Some suggested that the Banque de Reims was secretly getting a hold of prominent companies and forcing them to present false data at their quarterlies in order to make indecent profits, but the general public was not too bothered about that. Industry rumors aimed at tarnishing reputations was a long standing practice; businesses ran more on people’s thinking than the company’s doings. Numerous small banks in diverse locations were taken over, expanding their reach.

On completing a full and a half decades, the administration decided that its name needed to convey more than France to its customers. Or so the media reported. Thus, with much hype and a barrage of new friendly schemes, the Banque de Reims was renamed as the Nexus Bank. But its French past had not been done away with completely; the headquarters remained in the village of Reims, and its official website still retained a French extension “.fr”.

The bank, just like any other bank belonging to the Nexus group was famous because not a single successful robbery had taken place here, there or anywhere, the reason it was often referred to as Le Fort. The bank did not keep a large amount of money near the reception, thwarting any smash-and-grab jobs. Officials' statements were that it was the high tech computerized security that gave them an edge over “trespassers.” If rumors were to be believed, all the bank's computers were connected to a single artificially intelligent core server, but those were just rumors. This particular premise was built in 2004, and was reconstructed in 2007. The staff was trained to handle about 10 bank requests in one minute, 15 at its best day, including personal and telephonic requests, but they did even better than that.

At the reception, a man, army by the looks, was arguing with the pretty lady at the counter. ‘Where is my goddamn money?! I’ve been trying to access my account since yesterday evening and it appears like it’s been wiped off the face of the earth!’ The receptionist, her nametag reading “Shalini Dhankar – Receptionist”, had dark flowing waist length hair tied into a singular braid with three hair clips securing them on the top of her head. She put on a professional and calm face, focused her dark brown eyes the man’s light ones, and smartly replied ‘Sir, I have checked that your account does not exist on our records. However, your bank statement policy papers have been verified to be authentic. My guess is that our central server is experiencing some technical difficulties, probably because of the fluctuating weather and uneven moisture content in the atmosphere. But there is no need to panic; lost data can always be recovered. Your account will be up and running in no time. Meanwhile, you can wait here or at your home, whichever is preferred by you. You will be promptly notified if and when any advancement is made regarding the situation.’ She flashed one of her practiced smiles and waited for the man’s reply.

‘Oh, well . . . okay’ said the soldier and went to sit down on one of the deep auburn chairs for customers, his Swiss knife keychain jingling in his pocket, hisself satisfied by the explanation.

Jay Singhania, a witness to the recent scene, appreciated the effort made by the girl. He could tell by the looks of her that she did not know crap about computers; hell, most people don’t. But she used the same highly efficient weapon that politicians use whenever they get in a fix. A lot of technical words strung together in a format that sounded reasonable, and you’re set (honorary mention: things like "legitimate rape" do not make the list). That man did not know about computers either, but he was still convinced. That was what mattered in business: keeping the customer satisfied. Jay looked towards his wife Neha standing beside him, sensing that she had the same thing on her mind. Something about that girl, probably her hairstyle, reminded him of Neha in the early days of their union.

Of course the Singhanias weren’t fooled. They did this for a living. Computers, networks, servers, firewalls – you name it, they know it. Their self-assigned objective was to try and hack inside secure networks and firewalls of different websites and private companies, and if they were successful, notifying the concerned authorities of the faults which they violated and even offer to fix them up for a relatively low cost. And they sure made a lot of money by this; there weren’t many systems around the world which could stand up against their scheme.

But the best part of their work was that they could remain completely anonymous at all times. They just used their aliases, did the deed, and cyber-pocketed the money. The company managers did not even know whom their PayPal and Bitcoin accounts were being emptied by. So if you ever felt like tracking them down online, well, good luck; they stayed behind a minimum of four proxies at all times, the first two being slavefronts, everything controlled and coordinated by the marvelous GatorNet technology, created by none other than Aida Zakian and her team, causing only minimalistic speed loss.

They stepped towards the reception. Ms. Dhankar still held her smile and said ‘Good morning! How may I be of your assistance?’

Jay held out a piece of paper in front of her. She took it from him. Reading it, she fired up the closed looped account management browser on her computer – smiling at the interesting username – and fed in the information.

  USERNAME: fake_account

  PASSWORD: ******************

An efficient way used by efficient customers. They had provided their Login ID and password on paper, which could be destroyed when the work was done. It prevented people from picking up secure data using microphones or other microwave-based stealth devices.

Nexus banks were unique from others in more than one ways. Not only had there never been a single successful robbery, but also they provided a net-based account like username and password verification system. No longer were the customers expected to remember and carry with them lengthy customer-IDs and 16 digit account numbers.

Their details appeared on the screen. It was a joint account on both their names. Shalini had an odd look on her face as she said ‘So Mr. and Mrs . . . Singhania, how may I be of assistance?’

‘Does everyone in this bank carry that same attitude? All that “assistance” and “pardon me” stuff? Loosen up girl!’ Jay tried to cheer her up for no apparent reason.

Shalini gave a meek smile, an original one this time, Jay figured. She looked at the paper once again; it had a small “debit out” written on it.

She looked at their account details again, and almost fainted when she registered the total amount in it: around $5 million. The bank used to keep about $90 million in its vault at all times. A lot if it belonged to these guys. They might very well be two of their wealthiest customers.

‘So, how much of it do you want to debit out?’ she asked.

‘All of it,’ Neha joined in happily.

Shalini kept gawking at them. Did someone get kidnapped or what?

‘Don’t worry’ Jay said, ‘it’s only one of our accounts.’

She looked at the duo for a long time. There was nothing extraordinary or 5-million about them. Mr. Singhania, dark skin tone and light brown eyes, was wearing a white T-shirt, a black jacket on top of it, and deep blue jeans. Judging by his conversations so far, Shalini assumed he must be a fun-loving person.

Hmm, maybe I should try him . . .

She looked towards his wife who was wearing turtleneck top and black jeans. She too had some kind of black jacket on her. Her emerald green eyes were twinkling on her fair face.

Never mind, I guess his grapes are sour.

She noticed that they were wearing matching black latex gloves. Because of the weather, perhaps. They looked young; both were 25 said the bank details.

Gaining control of her professional self once again, she said, ‘But sir, if you’re emptying out that large a sum of money, you would need the manager’s signature on a form. Did you get it earlier?’

It was their turn to give an odd look ‘No, I’m afraid not. Could we get it right now?’

‘Why of course, sir. Let me call him. Please wait.’

With that she started off on the hardline phone on her desk, while the Singhanias went and sat down beside the army man. They waited for Shalini’s call to end, and when it did, she flashed two fingers from her right hand, mouthing ‘Two minutes.’

Neha stood up and started pacing, Jay remained seated. Impatient girl, he thought. But her spontaneity was what had attracted him to her in the first place.

They had first met when they were attending high school. Both of them were poles apart, yet there was one thing they both had in common – instinctive knowledge of computers. They could work their way around hardware and software effortlessly. They had even created a small group of novice hackers consisting of some other brighter friends of theirs who did not mind “blemishing the societal fabric” as their teachers had called it. All had been well, until . . .

‘I’m bored’ she said, pulling him back to their present.

‘Me too, but I’m not making a fuss.’

‘C’mon! How can you sit still in such boredom?’

He then took out his favorite current pastime, two table tennis balls, decorated in a similar manner as the (non-biological) balls belonging to CLU shown in Tron – Legacy that he used to juggle in his right hand whenever he got bored.

‘Oh gosh, here we go again,’ saying this, Neha stood akimbo. He had been doing this for the last two months. And he didn’t let anybody touch those, not even her, treating them like totems, referring to the 4 academy award winning movie Inception.

‘So, are we dreaming right now, Mr. DiCaprio?’ she asked, her arms crossed against her chest, eyes narrow.

‘Apparently not’ he said, continuing to juggle them in his hands. An irritated Neha said ‘I need some air.’ But before she could move, Jay threw one of his “totems” to the door. It hit the pressure plate in the floor, and before it opened, rebounded off the door, returning to his hand. The door opened, and a gust of fresh and cool morning breeze streamed in. ‘Something like this?’ he asked, going back to juggling the totems.

You might have figured out by now that they're both movie buffs. Nothing Mystery/Thriller about that.

Neha looked for a long moment at him. His cool, laidback attitude and double-meaning jokes were what had caught her eye in the first place.

They had first met when they were attending high school. She still remembered the way they used to poke around in different local networks with their small band of wannabe hackers, stealing bandwidth to get better speed on her LAN. They both hated their parents for being narrow minded, and loved talking to each other about anything and everything. All had been well, until that wretched day threw them off their calm routine. She couldn’t help being pulled into the past, reliving the painful memories they had to endure . . .

The hand touched her again. She pulled at her restraints, but in vain. She knew he was about to take the last of her clothes off. But he would do it slowly, savoring every bit of her fear.

The door burst open with a crash . . .

A strand of her shoulder length hair blew over her face, pulling her back to their present life. She tucked it back behind her ear, its rightful place.

She smiled; after that incident, Jay had given the phrase “go fuck yourself” a new meaning. A very literal meaning.

Shaking the dust of the past off her mind, she looked towards the opposite of the entry door. There were small cubicles where a few employees kept a constant watch on the computers in front of them. Security analysts, she thought.

Neha noticed that the door closed. So did Jay, but did not make a move.

‘Hello sir, madam, I heard you were in need of my help.’

The new addition to the scene was a male, most probably in his mid-40s. He wore sharp spectacles, a young stubble, and an expensive looking suit. His nametag proudly announced “Yash Bansal – Manager.”

‘You heard right sir, we do need your help,’ saying this Jay offered his hand, which the manager shook firmly. On cue, Neha tugged at Jay’s arm, ‘Will you please do something about the wind?’

Jay threw one of his "totems" towards door; it opened the door in the same way as before. ‘Smooth!’ remarked Yash.

They went towards the reception; Yash started the conversation ‘So Mr. and Mrs. Singhania, how may I be of assistance?’

Shalini couldn’t hold back her smile. ‘Told you’ said Neha in flat tone.

‘Pardon me, did I say something wrong?’ apologized Yash. Shalini let out a giggle, at which Yash snapped ‘What is the matter with you?’

Her smile faded off faster than the automatic doors closed again.

‘She has done nothing wrong’ fended Neha. Jay saw Shalini look up at her.

‘Laughing at prominent customers is not a much tolerated practice here.’

‘And what is it that makes us prominent? Our wallets?’

‘Maybe.’

Neha looked at him, disgusted. But before she could say anything else, Jay cut in, ‘You shouldn’t treat her like that. After all, she’s your staff. Let her breath a little.’

With that, he threw his “totem” at the door for the third time. The door opened as usual. The wind came in as usual . . .

 . . . but brought in something else too.