Hello, Mr. Major General (1)

Chapter 51: Search

The days that followed weren’t particularly exciting.

Three weekends quickly passed; it was now the end of April.

Shehnaaz had dutifully returned to her Andheri Precinct apartment very weekend, and let Sandeep run his tests and draw blood samples.

Every Sunday evening, Parth picked her up and drove her back to school.

Sidharth, on the other hand, never called again.

Sandeep had profited the most out of the past month.

He had discovered, from the health checks conducted on Shehnaaz over the last four weeks, that she was completely unaffected by the virus.
The horrific decline in health that had been observed in other imperial women – Oda Masao’s test subjects – did not apply to Shehnaaz, at all. She had miraculously recovered from the virus. Sandeep was also convinced that Shehnaaz’s body had produced
antibodies that were 100% effective against this bioweapon.

“…That’s all. I’ve extracted the antibody.” Sandeep was proudly showing off the latest results of his research to Sidharth.

The antibody was a blood serum. If anyone fell victim to the virus again in the future, they would be able to
counter it simply by injecting the antibody into the victim’s blood
stream. It was fast, and convenient.
The next step would be to develop a vaccine, so everyone would be immune to the virus.

Sidharth crossed his arms. He looked at the test tube in Sandeep’s hand, his eyes dark and gloomy. “Don’t report
this. You have the antibody. That should be enough.”

He did not want the Indian Army to be any more interested in Shey than they already were.

He had been her guardian for six years now; at no point had Sidharth ever felt that Shehnaaz was in any way abnormal or different.

He wanted Shehnaaz to be able to live the life of a normal girl. He did not want her to become Sandeep’s lab rat.

Sandeep understood what he was implying. He rolled his eyes, and said, “Hey, I resent that! Did you really think I’d stoop that low? Who do you think I am – Doctor Frankenstein?”

Sidharth looked at him, his expression stern and solemn. “You signed a military order. Don’t forget.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sandeep put the test tube back into the medical refrigerator. “Okay, that’s it then. Everything’s settled. It won’t be necessary for Sana to come here and
be my lab rat anymore.”

…

It was the end of April, when the weather was at its best in C City.

It was also the best time for the seniors at C University.

The graduating seniors were mostly done with their job hunting and graduate school entrance exams. Their graduation theses were also nearly finished; all that was left was to polish it, and to look up a few more references to prepare for their thesis defense.

Shehnaaz and Parth had been inseparable the past month; they went to class together, studied together, and worked on their theses in the library together. They even ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner together.
The students were beginning to think of them as conjoined twins.

“Class Rep, why don’t you marry our dear Sana after graduation?” Little Temptress had bumped into Shehnaaz and Parth at the cafeteria; she laughed as she cheekily tapped her rice bowl with a spoon. “Look at you two lovebirds, all lovey-dovey wherever you go. The C University student body will be protesting your PDA very
soon, I’m sure.”