Chapter 4

September 2009, Gurgaon

The room is silent. Tanishk is lying on the ground thinking.

“I just need to find a blind spot. Just one. If I buy an RF detector, the cameras will simply show that. It looks like going out wouldn't be bad thing after all. But there is a risk associated with it. I would be followed. On the other hand, if I act as if I am working, the people who are spying on me wouldn’t suspect anything. Plus, they probably wouldn’t have any surveillance outside! I could set up my cover in a cyber café! I could manipulate the computer’s hardware to make a device that could detect wireless cameras! To any outsider, I would seem to be fixing the computer! Once I make such a device, it wouldn’t be long for me to detect all the cameras and find the blind spots. And once I do so, I would use those spots to hide things.”

After thinking all this, Tanishk pretended to cry. He then headed towards the main door of the house and opened it. He then scanned his surroundings. He saw 2 cyber cafes in the vicinity. He headed towards “Sharma Cyber Café”. Mr Sharma was a very kind and generous man, and besides, he was always fond of Tanishk.

“Ahh, Tanishk, How are you?” asked Mr Sharma.

“I’m fine. Do you have anything you need to fix? I could use some extra money.”

“Ah, yes I do have a little task for you to do Tanishk. You need to fix one of the CPU I have. I don’t know what has happened to it.” Replied Mr Sharma.

“OK, I’ll see it. And you can count on me; I’ll fix it for sure. And while I am at it, Could I use one of your computers?”

“Yeah, you sure can.” Replied Mr Sharma.

Tanishk entered the small cyber café and glanced behind. He could see some people watching him.

“Huh! Fools! They think I don’t know that they’re watching me.” Tanishk Thought.

“So this is the CPU I wanted you to look at.” Said Mr Sharma.

Tanishk glanced at it, and started to think of the best machine he could make out of this CPU. His mind was no less than an Intel Processor. He had an IQ of 215, and this was when he was only 9 years old.

He started dismantling the CPU and moved aside all the necessary components needed to build the detector. The trick was that generally all cameras’ sensors reflect back light, regardless of whether they are on or off. This helps the detector in finding the hidden cameras. Tanishk further thought of making a detector which could detect audio bugs too, just in case.

With the help of his knowledge and skills, he finished making a Bug Detector. He then connected the bug detector he made to a computer via USB Port and then started tracking all the cameras and microphones in a radius of 1 km. In one spot, he could see an enormous number of cameras and microphones. He assumed this to be his house, as there wasn’t any mall or bank nearby. The computer counted the number of cameras- 65 and microphones- 90. All of this was spread over a house which was less than 250 sq. ft.

“I have taken the first step now.” He said.

“Wait a minute, as these bugs are wireless, there must be a place they are transmitting to. By the looks of it, it looks as if they’ve considered me a complete fool. So my guess is, all those bugs transmit the data over to the place, where my mother is held hostage.”  He thought.

Tears started coming out of Tanishk’s eyes, and this wasn’t acting.

He immediately tracked the place to where these cameras were transmitting to- Islampur.

“So near, yet so far.” He said.

“Just wait. This I just the beginning. I am going to kill all of you. And you won’t even see it coming."