Part 2: The Second Dose (Another death. A trail of tampered code. And a message on the mirror)

 

Part 2: The Second Dose

The single blue pill sat on her dining table like a challenge.

Anjali stared at it for nearly an hour, too afraid to touch it, too afraid to throw it away. She finally slid it into a glass vial and locked it in her medicine cabinet. Her instincts screamed at her—this wasn’t just someone sending a message. This was a warning.

She didn’t go to work that day. Instead, she brewed a strong cup of tea, drew the curtains, and buried herself in research. The Cardiotine trail was thinner than smoke. The brand wasn’t listed under any national pharmaceutical registry. The supposed company behind it, Anovet Biolabs, had a shady website filled with stock photos, a fake-sounding mission statement, and contact numbers that went unanswered.

She traced the distributor’s address to a warehouse on the outskirts of Pune.

It had burned down six weeks ago.

Anjali’s heart pounded louder. Something about this felt far bigger than contaminated pills. It was deliberate. Precision-engineered. And no one else seemed to be asking questions.

That evening, the news struck again.

“Retired school principal found dead in her home. Cause of death: cardiac arrest.”

Mrs. Dalvi. 74. Lived alone. Mild hypertension. A gentle woman Anjali had once helped during a health camp. The photo on the screen showed a warm smile behind thick glasses.

Anjali called the pharmacist again, this time more assertively.

“Can you check the prescription records for Mrs. Dalvi?”

The man hesitated. “Why?”

“She was taking Cardiotine, wasn’t she?”

A pause. “Yes. But the prescription came straight from the system. We didn’t alter anything.”

Anjali hung up. Something in that sentence stood out. “From the system.” She opened her clinic’s e-prescription software and ran a test. When she typed in a generic blood pressure medication, the auto-filled result suggested Cardiotine.

Her hands trembled. Someone had tampered with the software. Every time a doctor unknowingly selected a common medication, it was replaced with this blue death.

She needed help.

She contacted Inspector Ahuja, a gruff yet fair man she had once treated for a minor injury. Initially, he laughed. “You think a fake pill is killing old people?”

“I think someone is using the pill as a weapon,” she replied. “And the death count is growing.”

He agreed to meet. At the small café by the hospital, she laid out her findings. The auto-replacements. The dead patients. The untraceable company. The break-in.

Ahuja, sipping his coffee slowly, stopped mid-sip.

“You said the pill was left behind. As a warning?”

She nodded.

“That’s not just a scare tactic,” he said. “That’s someone telling you that they’re watching. Listening. Tracking your every move.”

They decided to keep things quiet. Ahuja would begin a silent inquiry, off the record. Anjali, meanwhile, would act as if she’d let it go.

That night, she took extra precautions—new locks, covered her laptop camera, turned off her phone.

At 2:37 a.m., she woke with a start.

There was no sound. No movement.

But on her bathroom mirror, written in condensation, were four words:

"Don’t take the bait."

Anjali stared into the glass, her reflection ghostly in the dim light.

This wasn’t about random deaths anymore.

This was about who controlled life—and who could end it.