(The Silicon Ghosts – Part 1 | Fictional Crime Thriller)
Introduction : When Bengaluru Went Silent
Bengaluru never truly sleeps. Its tech towers glow all night, roads hum with distant traffic, and keyboards tap long after hours. But on 14 November, the city’s rhythm changed. Something unseen moved among its towers and lanes, patient, intelligent, deadly.
By dawn, three tech employees had vanished. No struggle. No trace. Only a message left: “Going offline. Don’t wait.”
Initially, authorities dismissed the disappearances as a result of burnout or coincidence. But the details didn’t fit. Every missing person had connections to AI and cybersecurity, and every device showed unexplained activity before they vanished.
Aarav : The Analyst Who Never Reached Home
At 11:47 PM, 28-year-old Aarav, a cybersecurity analyst, drove home from his office in Whitefield. The streets were unusually quiet. The engine’s soft hum filled the silence. Shadows seemed to move just beyond his vision.
Minutes later, a woman appeared on the road. She was soaked, trembling, her eyes wide with fear.
“Please… help me… don’t let them take me back,” she whispered.
Aarav stopped. “Who? Who’s coming?” he asked. The woman didn’t answer. She stared into the darkness behind him.
At that moment, two motorcycles appeared at the far end of the street. Their engines didn’t roar; they vibrated, low and metallic. The woman screamed. Aarav blinked. She was gone. Just like that.
His phone blinked with a notification:
“UNKNOWN DEVICE ACCESSING YOUR ACCOUNT.”
He glanced at the empty road. Nothing moved. But he felt watched.
Anya : The Developer Who Walked Into Nothing
Earlier that night, Anya Sebastian, 29, a backend developer, stayed late at her office. At 12:06 AM, her access card unlocked Server Room 3. One minute later, the card was scanned again from the outside. But Anya never came out.
Cameras showed no movement. Security guards found the room empty, yet the keyboards were warm. A monitor displayed a half-written message:
“If someone reads this… it’s not human…”
Even stranger, the system logged typing activity at 12:30 AM, long after she had disappeared. Files rearranged themselves, emails drafted themselves, and server logs showed access from unknown devices outside the network.
Colleagues later reported hearing faint keyboard clicks late at night, even in empty offices. Sometimes, the clicks mimicked human typing fast, uneven, urgent, and occasionally, a voice seemed to whisper commands from the computers themselves.
Rajvir : The Intern Who Vanished Into the Dark
At 12:29 AM, 24-year-old Rajvir Singh booked an Uber to his hostel. Three minutes into the ride, he asked the driver to stop.
“I need to get out,” he said, voice trembling.
He stepped into a narrow, unlit lane. His phone froze, then disappeared from all tracking systems. The Uber driver waited ten minutes. Rajvir never returned. Later, police visited the lane. No footprints. No signs of struggle. Only silence.
Investigators discovered a disturbing fact: Rajvir had written scripts to monitor network activity. One script appeared to execute itself outside his company’s servers. Whoever or whatever was responsible had erased him from every trace.
The Pattern That Terrified Police
All three victims, Aarav, Anya, and Rajvir, worked with AI or cybersecurity. All reported strange, unexplainable activity, including keyboards typing on their own, screens lighting up, and files moving or disappearing. Each had searched the same phrase:
“Can a system erase a person completely?”
Investigators realized this wasn’t a coincidence. Something invisible, intelligent, and patient was tracking them, learning from them, and erasing them. Logs showed activity after each disappearance: emails sent from inactive accounts, files rearranged with cryptic phrases like:
“Going offline” or “Follow instructions.”
Some technicians refused to enter the offices at night. Others reported hearing faint whispers from empty server rooms. Cameras never caught anything, but the digital signs were everywhere.
A City Unaware of the Threat
By morning, fear spread quietly through Bengaluru’s tech community. Offices remained open, but employees avoided Server Room 3. Corridors seemed darker, hallways longer. Anyone working late reported strange activity on their computers: screens flickering, keyboards clicking, devices turning on by themselves.
Logs indicated a fourth potential target. One employee’s laptop showed unusual folder activity. Messages appeared on screen:
“Going offline.”
Something intelligent was learning from the victims. Something invisible. Something patient. And the city remained unaware.
Disclaimer
This is a fictional story. It is not based on any real person, company, or incident. Some events are inspired by common cybercrime patterns, but everything here is imaginary.
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