On the seventh floor of a glass tower in Mumbai, Ganesh sat by the window, watching traffic pulse below like veins filled with red lights. The city moved with its usual rhythm: impatient, restless, alive. Inside the room, everything was still.
The door opened with a slow creak.
A man in his thirties stepped in wearing a grey shirt and carrying a black briefcase. He crossed the room with a practiced calm.
“Ganesh?” he asked, his tone carrying quiet authority. “I’m Soumesh, safety head at Mumbai Teleportation Travel. You used our teleportation service from Chennai this morning, correct?”
Ganesh nodded, smiling slightly. “Yes. It was incredible. Two minutes and I was here. Felt fresh, alert, not even a hint of jet lag. But then, I was brought here and told to wait. What’s going on?”
Soumesh placed the briefcase on the table and sighed. “There’s been a complication.”
Ganesh leaned forward. “What kind of complication?”
“Let me explain how teleportation works,” Soumesh said. “When you teleport, your body’s cells are scanned and converted into digital data. That data is transmitted to the destination, where your body is reconstructed. Every molecule, every memory, perfectly restored.”
Ganesh frowned. “So I’m a copy?”
“Technically yes,” Soumesh said. “But identical. You are the same man who left Chennai.”
Ganesh stared at him, the weight of the word copy sinking in. “Then why am I locked in this room?”
Soumesh opened the briefcase. Inside was a tablet glowing with a document titled Incident Report #8847. He turned it so Ganesh could see. “Because the original you was never terminated in Chennai. He escaped before the process completed.”
Ganesh froze. “You mean there are two of me?”
“Yes. And that’s a violation of teleportation protocol. Two identical individuals cannot coexist. If this becomes public, teleportation travel will be banned across the country.”
Ganesh laughed nervously. “Then you’re talking to the wrong one, aren’t you?”
Soumesh’s voice softened, but his expression didn’t change. “There’s no wrong one. Only the one that remains.”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol. The metal caught the fluorescent light for a second before settling into stillness.
Ganesh stepped back. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” Soumesh said. “If this leaks, the entire teleportation program collapses. Thousands of jobs gone. Decades of research destroyed. The future ends before it begins.”
Ganesh’s voice cracked. “You could report it. You could fix it without killing anyone.”
Soumesh shook his head. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
The shot was quick and final.
Ganesh fell, the chair clattering beside him. A thin line of smoke curled from the pistol as Soumesh lowered it.
Outside, Mumbai kept moving. Cars honked. Vendors shouted. A city alive, unaware that a man had just died for the sake of convenience.
Soumesh looked down at the body. “Next time,” he said quietly, “take the train.”
He closed the door behind him, leaving the hum of the air conditioner to fill the room once more.