The Seventh Death

I flipped open my analogue notebook and settled it on my knee, readying a pencil above the page. The hospital office felt cramped and stale. Only a framed certificate from the Maharashtra Medical Council and a single animated anatomical poster of the nervous system decorated otherwise bare walls. Across the desk, Dr. Kapadia scrolled through patient records on a translucent augmented reality display projected in the air before him, the ghostly charts reflecting in his wire-rimmed glasses. He was in his mid-fifties, with deep lines bracketing his mouth and grey threading through his hair at the temples.

"Sixth haemorrhagic death in two weeks," he was saying, tapping through the files. "All catastrophic brain haemorrhages, same presentation. Twenty years in medicine and I've never seen a cluster like this."

I jotted notes in my familiar shorthand while my partner sat beside me. A red recording dot hovered above her head next to a label showing "Visitor: Mumbai Police Inspector Meera Desai". She was nearly ten years my junior at twenty-eight, attractive and athletic, with watchful eyes and practical short hair pulled back efficiently. She worked by the book; I worked by the gut. Somehow after two years, it balanced.

"What do you think is causing it?" I asked.

Dr. Kapadia frowned. "My first thought was Mesh Overload Syndrome. The symptoms fit. Headaches, fatigue, then catastrophic vascular collapse. But I consulted with Dr. Priya Iyer, our mesh overload specialist. She examined the scans and said the pattern wasn't matching the normal presentation."

"What did the chemical reports show?" Desai asked.

He swiped through another screen. "Elevated metals. Rare earth elements. Not something we'd normally expect to see at these concentrations."

"Were the chemical results similar for the other victims?"

"Same."

Desai caught my eye. She recognized it as a lead. I nodded. Just then, a sharp tone cut through the room. The doctor's eyes unfocused briefly, reading an invisible alert. "Code in pediatric oncology." He shot up. "Another hemorrhagic case."

Desai and I sprang into motion with him.

Through the corridors we rushed, past nurses in colourful scrubs and families huddled on waiting benches. Old by modern Mumbai standards, built in the 2060s, but projections compensated for the ageing infrastructure. Directional arrows floated at intersections, wellness messages scrolling across walls.

We bypassed the elevators and plunged into the stairwell. Dr. Kapadia's white coat flapped as he took the stairs two at a time. My left side ached with each step, that frustrating old hitch in my stride slowing me. Desai kept pace easily between us.

The ICU held three beds, two occupied. Medical staff clustered around the nearest one where a man lay motionless, flat lines showing on projected displays above him. A nurse performed chest compressions, counting under her breath, while another squeezed an ambu bag over the patient's face. The crash cart stood open beside them, defibrillator pads already attached but unused.

Desai and I hung back near the doorway as Dr. Kapadia pushed through to the bedside and gestured to a younger sister. "Neural scan."

From the crash cart, she pulled a smooth white handheld scanner and swept it above the patient's head in a slow arc. A new AR display bloomed above the existing monitors for pulse, respiration and blood pressure. A three-dimensional map of the man's brain materialized in blues and greys. Dr. Kapadia studied it, his face grim. Even from the doorway, dark patches showed across the cortex, surging slightly with each thrust of the nurse's hands as blood was forced through dying tissue.

"Stop," he said quietly.

The nurse doing CPR stepped back, chest heaving. The team waited, watching the monitors. Nothing. No pulse, no brain activity.

Fishing a stethoscope from his coat pocket, Dr. Kapadia leaned in, checking for a pulse at the neck, then the wrist. He held each position for ten seconds. Twenty.

Suddenly the room dimmed. The displays above the body blinked out, and the glow of enhanced walls collapsed to scuffed institutional white. An eerie silence replaced the beeping alarms and trilling notifications, but squeaking soles on tile and the crash team's ragged breathing remained.

This happened often. Nine years ago I took a knife in the back during an arrest, and the blade severed something in my spine that never healed properly. My connection dropped without warning now, sometimes for seconds, sometimes for minutes. A millimetre to the right would have left me mesh-blind and paralysed. For a while it had.

Dr. Kapadia straightened, consulting his old-fashioned analogue wristwatch. "Time of death: 19:17." He pocketed his stethoscope and his fingers moved to pull up forms I couldn't see anymore.

I stepped closer to the bed. The man had become a body. My jurisdiction now, though I rarely found one this fresh. Mid-thirties, brown skin holding colour even though his chest was still.

I spotted something on his face.

A shimmer. Faint, iridescent, catching the harsh overhead light. Low on his forehead, between his eyes. It looked almost oily, a thin sheen that reflected light into subtle rainbows.

"What's that residue on his forehead?" I asked.

Dr. Kapadia glanced up from his projections. "What residue?"

"Right there." I pointed to my own forehead, mirroring the position.

My connection returned with a jolt up my spine I'd never grown accustomed to. Above the bed, the AR displays resurfaced, but the alarms no longer sounded. The strange shimmer was gone.

Leaning in, the doctor examined the spot closely.

"I'm not seeing anything, Inspector Mehta."

Desai shifted to the other side of the bed, tilting her head to change the angle. "Nothing here."

I examined the spot again. Ordinary skin, slightly damp with sweat but clean. A trick of the light? Visual artifacts from my glitching antenna?

"What's the victim's medical history?" Desai asked, pulling Dr. Kapadia's attention back to procedure.

The doctor summoned a digital form, the privacy overlay making it look pixelated and indistinct from my angle. "Neurology consult two weeks ago. Headaches, fatigue." He glanced up at us. "Please excuse me, but I need to complete the death certificate and notify next of kin. Sister Patil can answer your questions." He gestured to the nurse who'd been doing compressions, then turned back to his forms, already pulling up more data screens.

Still catching her breath, Sister Patil wiped sweat from her face. She was perhaps forty, with tired eyes and a tightness around her mouth. "I am posted in pediatric oncology," she said, voice soft but steady. "Mr. Deshmukh was coming daily. He worked night shift at Oberoi Pharmaceuticals, so day time he would sit here while madam went to office. They were taking turns for their daughter Kavya. She's nine, leukemia case, post bone marrow transplant."

Arey yaar...

"How long has she been admitted?" I asked.

"Three months. Transplant took, but recovery has been very up and down." She shook her head, and her composure wavered. Her voice lowered. "Today he went to get water only."

Desai swiped through documents. "I'm checking records, but they don't say. Were any of the other victims also from Oberoi?"

"I'm not knowing them personally, Inspector." She glanced toward the corridor. "He collapsed in the family waiting room barely twenty minutes ago. We called the code and shifted him here."

"Will you show us?" I asked.

With a side-to-side nod, she said, "Come. It's just ahead in pediatric oncology."