Chapter 4

Ravi sat in his office staring at the crystal in front of him. He needed to contact their sponsor; he had already put it off as long as he could. Any longer and their sponsor would certainly realize information was being withheld on purpose.

“Might as well get it over with,” sighed Ravi as he activated the crystal and tried to compose himself.

“What news do you have for me today?” asked the sponsor with a young girl’s voice.

“I have the results of his aptitude test; we now know his gift. The results are quite unexpected,” said Ravi as he fiddled with his thumbs.

“Please don’t tell me his gift is something useless!”

“That would have been easier to tell you, I have worse news, he has no gift,” said Ravi in one quick breath.

“I am sorry, what did you just say?”

“He has no gift,” repeated Ravi.

“Check again, it’s definitely a mistake! We screen all candidates for the genetic precursors for a gift!”

“I’ve had them redo the test four times, it came back negative every single time,” said Ravi.

“How did this happen?” asked the sponsor with a quiver in their voice.

“His blood test result was a false positive when we screened him as a child,” said Ravi.

“That can happen?”

“Yes, very rarely. I believe the odds of a false positive are close to one in a million,” said Ravi as he took off his glasses.

“91% synchronization and without a gift! What a waste!” said the sponsor. “This situation is something none of us could have foreseen. This changes all our plans, he can’t join the UTF, he won’t even last a minute against someone with a gift!”

“91,7%, and I’ve been thinking a lot about this. We have connections and spies throughout the UTF, isn’t it possible we fake his gift and get him into the UTF?” asked Ravi.

“We could definitely get him in the UTF, but with the amount of training he would have to undergo as a fresh recruit, especially the training with his gift. He wouldn’t manage to hide it for very long.”

“Then the only other option would be to let him join the regular army and use him as a spy,” said Ravi with a sigh, “Even though it would be an utter waste of his synchronization.”

“Who else knows of his gift?”

“Just Ivan, Zacharias and the staff I had run the aptitude test,” said Ravi.

“Keep it that way for as long as you possibly can, a lot of hopes are riding on this boy, we can’t afford people losing hope.”

“What’s the point of this delay, when they are eventually going to be disappointed?” asked Ravi.

“Use your most trusted men and women to spread a rumor that his gift is a useless one, so the higher ups have decided a new plan for him,” continued the sponsor as he ignored Ravi’s question.

“And what’s this new plan?” asked Ravi.

“I have none right now. But as you suggested we could have been join the regular army, maybe as a spy, if he is cutout for that kind of work. We need time to figure things out. Follow the original protocol for now and start his training as soon as possible.”

“I’ll have all children tested twice from now on. Is there anything else?” asked Ravi as he reached forward ready to end the decidedly depressing conversation.

“I’ve lived a long time now, and lost many good friends over the years, both within this rebel organization and outside. I’ve seen and experienced many things along the way, and one thing I have come to accept is this, you can plan as much as you want, and things still have a way of failing. But sometimes, and mind you, the keyword is ´sometimes´, things just workout even though all the numbers and logic dictate it should not have happened. So, I really hope this boy is one of those ´sometimes´,” said the sponsor as the crystal turned off.

Ravi continued sitting in silence for a while pondering over the mysterious sponsor, he had never shared anything personal before. Even without doing anything this boy had already caused change, albeit an inconsequential change. Just what kind of things would his existence cause in the future? He smiled thinking perhaps this boy would be the ‘sometimes’ the mysterious sponsor talked of.

A slightly shorter chapter with an unexpected development! What's going to happen to Ravendra? Tune in next week for the next exciting episode of 'A Heros Tale'!

Yeah, sorry about that. I grew up watching a lot of TV shows which ended each weekly episode in that matter and I couldn't help myself. I had to try it ;) Who knows I might make it into a regular thing based on if you guys like it  :)

As always, stay safe out there.

Anderoth