82 New Office

"Fenny, is boss coming today? I haven't seen such an irresponsible entrepreneur in my experience," a handsome man with medium height talked to a woman with a gentle, round face. A baby bump could be seen bulging out of her navy blue comfortable blazer.

Fenny smiled as she said with her characteristic mellow tone," weren't you practically worshipping him for the past few days saying that you have never seen such a talent in programming and how all the clients were very satisfied with boss's work?"

Gagan, who wore a burgundy coloured formal jacquard shirt and pair of black trousers, coughed awkwardly as he said, "that is different, even now I stand by my word that I have never seen such a prodigy but at the same time what type of a boss would only work for three days in a week?"

Gagan and Fenny were a married couple who had joined together in this new startup company called 'Orb Tech' three weeks ago. They were one of the earliest employees. Both Gagan and Fenny, who were in their early thirties, were fed up with long hours of working filled with stress in large IT conglomerates.

Also, Fenny had become pregnant at the same time so they wanted to look for a small company with less work pressure even if they had to compromise on their salaries. Both of them were highly accomplished in their respective fields.

They had immediately applied when they saw the employment recruitment ad of a new startup company. At first, they were sceptical of this company as the Boss looked totally unprofessional but agreed to wait for a couple of months before deciding whether to stay or search for another job. As the pay was pretty good, they did not think much and joined for a lack of better opportunities.

As it was a new company with very few professionals, Gagan became the public relations manager along with Human resources. Fenny became the boss's personal secretary along with internal affairs manager. The only person above them was a middle-aged man called Kapil Satyarthi who had joined even before them.

Fenny and Gagan had come to know later that this calm and dignified person had worked as a mathematics teacher in an international school in the past. For some unknown reason, this man decided to start working in the IT sector but because of his age and lack of experience, he was not employed. But their boss took him in without even an interview and gave him the important job of financial manager which shocked them when they came to know. But nevertheless, Mr Kapil proved to be a dark horse as he turned out to be highly efficient which awed everyone.

In a matter of weeks, Gagan and every other person of twenty employees in their startup were floored at their boss's attitude and skill. The boss was able to remember each and every employee's data along with their proficiency, their skill sets and was able to employ them in the most productive manner. Also, Gagan remembered the expression of the PR of a startup based in Beijing when he had forwarded the '3D gesture recognition software' written by his boss.

The Startup Gagan worked for was named 'Orb Tech' which provided IT solutions along with Mobile App services, ChatBot creations and other software related services. They did not have a product of their own yet.

The Beijing startup had contacted him the next day and inquired if they were interested in merging their company for an amount of a million USD. This message stunned Gagan when he remembered that it has not even been a week before the company actually started and it was already valued at a million USD. One had to know that the offer was given by the Chinese who were famous for been tight in their spending.

Gagan did not sleep that day when he imagined their company becoming a unicorn startup (valued at 1 Billion USD) soon. But, what shocked Gagan the most and caused his dreams to crash was that the boss did not seem to have the kind of fiery ambition expected from him. He actually only came to the office for three days in a week. Even when he arrived he would only stay for a few hours before leaving everything to the trio (Kapil, Gagan and Fenny).

Also, Gagan felt that this boss was too laid back when it came to dealing with this company. He would usually ask for suggestions and go along with them instead of thinking for himself. Gagan felt that this kind of take-it-easy attitude was good for his wife, as the boss would always ask Fenny to take care of herself and that she did not need to come to work if she even felt a little uneasy. But in the view of this company, the employees' morale would be affected if the leader did not have a motivating personality.

Mr Kapil would also advise the boss from time to time but the boss would just brush it off with a smile and run away. Gagan sometimes felt that the boss was a high school student trying to escape a boring class except he didn't realize that he had hit right on spot.

Also, the office which was located in the twentieth and twenty-first floor of a prominent IT park building was fashioned in an exotic way which looked anything but professional and serious. The boss got the glass panels changed so that most of the office was filled with natural light and fresh air was allowed to circulate. 30 per cent of the total space was filled with all kinds of flower plants, vegetable patches, artificial waterfalls, aquariums filled with exotic fish. There was also a pond filled with fishes which could be used for cooking.

The boss actually got an open kitchen installed where the employees could cook for themselves by catching those wild fish or with other food ingredients taken from the vegetable patches. The remaining space was also left empty for the most part and the furniture included standing cafe tables, couches, easy to move laptop desks to promote flexible work habits and free thinking.

Gagan was shocked when he first saw this office, he thought that the boss was either feeling the itch to spend or was plain crazy. Otherwise, who would turn a huge office space capable of holding a hundred people into a personal theme park for twenty people. But he had to agree that his boss had a good eye for scouting talent as all the twenty people were exceptionally talented in their respective fields.

"If the boss spent half as much time on working as he spent on going to the gym, we could have bought this whole building for ourselves," Gagan mumbled bitterly as Fenny giggled. She knew her husband's thoughts and frustrations. But she was also the one who was able to observe the boss from close because she was his personal secretary after all. She felt that though the boss behaved laid back and lazy, he was actually occupied by something else which was more important as could be seen from the occasional flashes of exhaustion in his eyes.

"What's up, Gaggu?" a mature, rough voice was heard as a tall and handsome figure swaggered into the office. Some of the workers broke into laughter when they saw their boss teasing their senior again. Gagan was usually very strict in his demands when it came to working and many felt a little resentment at him. So, usually, whenever their boss teased him, the employees would think as if they vented their feelings.

Gagan's face became black as even Fenny held her baby bump and laughed as her shoulders trembled. He turned to face a youth who was in his late twenties. He was 180 cm tall, olive complexion, symmetrical face with ruffled hair and a black stubble as if he was too lazy to groom himself. But this actually added a flair of raw wildness which coupled with his sharp and lively honey brown eyes gave a sense of freshness to the onlookers. But the first thing that anyone would notice about him was his ultra fit, well-toned body.

Each and every exposed part of his loose, short-sleeved t-shirt screamed fitness. His body was like a piece of art. Veins could be seen under the thin skin crawling over the lean muscle ridges as his boss walked. Any girl would be tempted to touch this bronze, muscular body. But one had to know that his boss did not look like a bodybuilder with huge bulging muscles. He was still pretty lean but amazingly fit at the same time.

If there was any complaint that Gagan had about this enigmatic personality, it was that his boss did not follow any sort of professional etiquette. He would interact with every employee as if they were co-workers rather than a boss and a person who worked on his payroll. He would joke with them, exchanges information with them and would usually forgive them if they did not live up to Gagan's expectations. His boss had zero respect for the office hierarchy. But Gagan had come to be accustomed to this treatment in these past few days. What he did not expect was that his boss had even given him a new nickname.

Gagan looked bitterly at his boss as he said, "Mr Ishaan, good morning."

Ishaan was the name of the new identity created by Aditya in the past month. With the help of Taarini's contacts which she gifted to him, it was pretty easy to get a new Voter identity and Government registration number. He had spent the money earned from his escapades with street gangs to get himself an apartment, vehicle and an office all by himself.

Ishaan (Aditya in disguise) did not meet any of the people who were acquainted with Aditya. He created a wholly new identity for himself which was independent and separate from Aditya in all angles except that he and Aditya were neighbours. That's right, Aditya bought two luxury apartments in the same building which he could use according to his disguise. This would be the only link that connects Ishaan and Aditya. He got the two apartments to be connected from the inside.

Ishaan was a 28-year-old man with his own family genealogy and education certificates which indicated that he had come from Northern India. His parents were killed in a natural disaster leaving him some ancestral property in a rural area where Ishaan had completed his primary education and later studied in an ordinary university. So, technically Ishaan was an orphan and a self-made man.

Aditya had worked for a whole week in creating this new identity leaving no loopholes. The rural, interior part of India still relied on physical evidence like paper bound certificates which could be easily procured through a small bribe. It would have been difficult if all information was computerized and incorporated with blockchain technology.

This was also the reason that Ishaan did not maintain any grooming habits expected from urban brought up kid. He was simple in whatever way one looked except for the fact that he was a genius in computer programming. He had also learned the dialect and language of that particular region from where he was supposed to come from. It only took him a few hours.

Also, the camouflage ability created by Tya was not convenient at all. Aditya had expected that he would be able to turn into someone else in a matter of seconds but Tya burst that bubble. It took a full hour for him to turn into Ishaan. Also, to guarantee that even there physique is not similar, Aditya had to eat and drink five kilos of a meal composed of all kinds of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. He also had to take many nutritional and vitamin supplements.

Tya had explained that the process of his transformation was only possible because of billions of microcellular processes happening in perfect coordination in accordance to the genetic limits of the human body and also other physical as well as chemical laws. Changing the face required growth and destruction of muscles, skin, bone which in turn required the production of some growth hormones and other biochemicals. Changes in the whole body were all the more troublesome. If there were not the abilities of Tya to monitor and supervise than even Aditya himself could not calculate all these changes let alone make these modifications possible.

That was the reason that Aditya decided to remain as Ishaan for three days and change back for the remaining days. Tya was working on making this transformation process easier but the results would take time. Also, turning back to Aditya required him to excrete a huge load which would have already traumatized him if it were not for Tya somehow making the load to be odourless.

Imagine getting five kilos of matter out of your body in a single dump. The process of these sophisticated modifications was painful, to say the least. But still, Aditya persevered so that in no scenario will he and Ishaan be linked as he planned to do quite outrageous things in this disguise. Now he would able to execute them with no fear of affecting his parents' safety.

Aditya shook his head to ward off these thoughts as he walked towards his cabin while chatting with his employees while continuing to tease Gagan. These were the people who would play very crucial roles in his future endeavours. so, he was not particularly interested in getting them to work in these small projects but he wanted to interact at a personal level with them to determine their personalities. His goal did not lie in quick and rapid success but in long term goals.