The last call

It's almost seven in the morning. Stephan's lying on his bed with his eyes on his alarm. He's been awake for almost thirty minutes for now. He's just been staring at the alarm clock since then. He needs to be at his new work at ten o'clock. It's his second day as a call connector in Bangalore police department control room. The alarm starts ringing. Stephan sighs and gets off his bed. He goes to his kitchen and prepares his coffee. He walks towards the balcony with his coffee mug to watch the streets. He sees his neighbor Brad mowing his lawn. Both Stephan and Brad wave at each other and continue with their work. Stephan gets back in. On his way to kitchen Stephan passes through a window located beside his bed. There was an old warehouse located behind Stephan's house which was visible through that window. He was terrified of it because the warehouse was full of bats. Long time ago when he was a teenager his father threw his new phone into the warehouse because he was angry that Stephan was spending more time with it. When Stephan went inside it to get back his phone he was terrified by all the bats hanging through the ceiling. So he never went there again. Years passed and time's changed but Stephan always had his little fear towards the warehouse. Stephan looks at the clock and it's almost nine. He starts hurrying because he can't be late for work. He skips his breakfast and put on his clothes. He wears his shoes and floods towards the door to get out going. He locks the door from outside and starts walking but, suddenly he remembers something and decides to go back. He runs towards the door again and opens it. He goes in and takes his cellphone which he had forgotten. He comes outside and locks the door again and starts walking towards the street corner. 

Brad still mowing his lawn shouts laughingly " Late again, huh? ".

 Stephan - "You wish ".

 Both of them smile at each other and Stephan moves away. In the corner of the street Stephan sits waiting for his bus. Stephan looks at his wrist watch to know how late he is. Suddenly he hears a thud behind him. He looks back frightened. He sees a white old RV truck parking in front of the old warehouse. The driver gets off the vehicle and looks around, he sees Stephan staring at him with a complex expression on his face. 

The driver- " It's cool if I park my truck here for a while, right? "

 Stephan -" You don't seem familiar".

 The driver - "No I'm not sir, I'm just here to deliver a shipment". 

Stephan senses the bus arriving. 

Stephan (smilingly) - "Enjoy the city"

 Stephan gets on the bus and takes a seat. On the way Stephan starts to think of his work. He never wanted to work as a call connector. He had applied for the post of a police officer trice and he had failed each time. When he got the offer to work in the control room, he took the job because he knew that it was the only way he could work for the police. Working for police ment a world to Stephan as he thought that it was the bravest job. He was heartbroken when he failed all the tests but he believed this job was his new chance. That was before yesterday. Yesterday was Stephan's first day at work and he saw the absolute reality of how police actually works. He was very disappointed and disheartened by the fact that his seniors were so lazy. He started to drift towards his past life but he suddenly notices that his stop has arrived. He gets off the bus and walks in the Bangalore PD building and takes the elevator. The control room is situated in the seventh floor of the building. As he reaches his floor he takes a view at the scene of his work place. "Disgusting" he thinks to himself by looking at the computers and telephones that are in the room. He walks towards his chamber and plugs his cellphone in for charging. 

Gretta his co-worker sits on the chamber behind Stephan's and says "We have a problem ".

Stephan looks annoyingly at Gretta and says " Now don't tell me that Captain Ribbon is mad at me because I'm seven minutes late".

 Gretta stares blank at Stephan's face and says laughingly "No, Laura was caught drunk yesterday in working hours". 

Stephan -" Laura? you mean the clerk?".

 Gretta - "Yes, and Captain's really mad at her. She might get fired".

 Stephan - "Well, good for her". 

Both Gretta and Stephan gets on their work. Every worker in the station starts getting calls. Calls of the whole city emergency affairs. They get call for every irregularities in the city including sewage, electricity, burglary, fire or anything. The employees often get tired at the end of the day by connecting tons of calls. Stephan puts his telephone down exhausted. He looks at the wall clock at the office. It's almost five in the noon. It's the end of the shift. He sighs and looks over at Gretta. She's still attending someone's call. Stephan checks over his personal phone and starts packing up. Suddenly his telephone starts to ring. Stephan gets annoyed. He looks at the clock. It's not five yet. He grunts and sits back in his chair. 

He picks the call and says in an annoyed tone "100, What's your emergency ?". He hears a disturbance in the call.

 "Hello, this is 100 what's your emergency please? ". Now he hears nothing. Just a plain silence.

Stephan says loudly "Hello?". He again hears some disturbance in the call. He decides to disconnect the call but as soon as he was about to take the telephone off his ears, he hears a girl screaming "Help".

Stephan is shocked. He gets pushed back by the anxiety. His quick panic catches Gretta's attention. She moves over to him. Stephan lashes out at the telephone " Hello? Can you hear me? hello". By that time the call had been disconnected from the other side. Stephan looks at Gretta with a confused face. He looks back at his telephone and tries to take out the call history in panic. 

Gretta - " Dude, what happened?". Stephan still looking for the history, explains what happened.

 Gretta laughs hysterically and says "Welcome to Bangalore PD".

 Stephan angrily stares at her and says "What? ". 

Gretta - " It might just be some teenagers trying to pullout a prank on us. Last week Tyler got some similar call and he sent a Officer Louis and his whole team to a location. Then they were told it was just a prank by a bunch of teenagers". 

Stephan shockingly asks "What happened then? ". 

Gretta - "Well, The pranksters were arrested and then they were bailed out by their rich parents. Captain was really mad at Tyler because he fell for a prank. Stephan still out of his breath says "Well that didn't sound like a prank to me. I could sense it". He looks at his telephone and says "Why wouldn't the history show up in this trash? ". 

Gretta points towards the clock and says " The shift has ended dude, the call history is saved in the servers. You can't get them out now. Only authoritarians have access to the server". 

Stephan shouts "What the hell?".

Gretta says while calming him " Calm down buddy and don't shout, we both get fired if Captain hears any of this". Stephan says " I swear that sounded true. What if someone really needs help?". 

Gretta answers "It's your second day at work. Don't get soo tensed. The shift is over. Everyone's leaving the building. Probably you should too". Gretta walks towards the elevator and leaves. 

Stephan is still sitting in his chamber. He's still shocked with that tone of voice he heard from the call. Captain Ribbon walks in and sees Stephan sitting in his chamber. 

"Why are you still here? " Captain asks. Stephan stutteringly replies " I'm uhh working for over shift Captain". Stephan regrets saying that soon after he says that. Captain just stares at him for a moment. 

Captain- "Well, looks like its only you and Ms. Laura here tonight. Have a good night ". Captain Ribbon walks into his office and leaves with his briefcase. 

Stephan sits down on his chair with his hands up and eyes closed. Disgusted with himself he chants "I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot". Laura on the other side of the room laughs hysterically and says " Why would you do something so dumb?". Stephan angrily replies "Speaking of dumb, aren't you supposed to be fired?". Laura- "I am getting fired. But I have to work two shifts today to make it for paycheck".

 Stephan feels sorry for her and says "I'm sorry". 

Laura says smilingly "It's okay. I didn't think it was rude". 

Stephan asks her " Why would you drink alcohol in the working hours?". 

Laura - "Cuz I'm addicted. Do you have any problem with that young man? ".

Stephan- " Do I look like I do?". 

Laura smiles and continues with her work. Stephan looks down and notices that he hasn't been getting any calls since the second shift started. 

Stephan - "Hey Laura! why am I not getting any calls now? ".

Laura - "Oh! Well that idiot Ribbon has stopped the server at the end of first shift. Nobody's working for the second shift today but you showed up". 

Stephan - " What am I supposed to do now?". 

Laura - " Well I do the paper work but, if you really wanna work for Te second shift I can open the server again".

Stephan freaks out and shouts exited "You have access to the server?".

 Laura replies frightened "Jesus Christ, watch your voice. It's just you and me in tears building so don't scream". Laura takes out a inhaler from her bag and takes two puffs.

 Stephan moves over to tell other side of the room near Laura's work table.

Stephan - "I'm really sorry to freak you out but, do you have access to server? "

Laura - "Well, yes but why?".

Stephan's eyes fills with happiness and he says "Listen, can you please get me access to the call history of the last shift please?". 

Laura smiles hysterically and replies "Well, we'll get fired if we get caught doing that. The call history is not to be manipulated". 

Stephan interrupts her and says " Well I don't wanna manupulate it. I just want to note a contact number I received and you are getting fired tomorrow anyhow right?".

Laura looks in Stephan's eyes for a moment and says "Alright, here's the access card. If you get caught, you stole from me. Alright? ". 

Stephan laughs and says "Deal. Now just one more favor. While I'm in the server cabin, just warn me if anyone comes in the building". 

Laura - "Don't you worry about that. At this the of the night, not even ghosts come in this building". 

Stephan thanks her and gets inside the server cabin. He swipes the access card and activates the BPD server. He then starts the access computer and opens the call history. He selects his cabin number in the layout to obtain the call records of his system. He gets a spreadsheet on the computer screen showcasing all the calls he got in his first shift today. He tries to find his last recived call but he sees that list is mixed up. So he decides to search for the time of call. He remembers that he saw clock before picking up the call. It was almost five. So he searches for calls from the relative time. He gets four numbers in the time between 4:55 to 5:00. He takes a photo of the numbers through his phone and shuts down the server. He gets out of the server cabin and sees Laura working with her papers.

Stephan - " You won't speak about this with the Captain, would you? "

 Laura smiles and replies "Not if you buy me a beer sometime". 

Stephan smiles at her and leaves the building. Stephan looks the photo he took and tries to call the last number. Stephan knew what to do now. He had a friend in a private networking call centre who he knew could help him. His friend's office was twelve blocks away from the PD building so Stephan started walking faster. Stephan was happy and proud after a long time because he was doing some real police work rater than sitting in front of a computer. Stephan finally reaches his friend's office. He walks in and looks around for his friend. He sees him and calls out "Daniel!". 

Daniel hears Stephan's voice and looks at him. He walks near Stephan.

Daniel -"What are you doing here in this time?".

 Stephan - "Same as you. working". Daniel gives a wierd looks and asks "You're working on field? You're supposed to be connecting calls right? ". Stephan interrupts him and says " I need a favor". 

Daniel -"What do you want?".

 Stephan -"I need you to track a call for me".

 Daniel laughs and says " Dude, you work in a control centre of BPD. You can tap a call faster than us". 

Stephan annoyingly says " Yeah. But I wanna track it not tap it. The call's already done ". 

Daniel -"Oh, okay. follow me". 

Daniel takes Stephan to his office cabin and opens his computer. 

Daniel -" Give me the phone number". Stephan opens the photo he took earlier and says "Here, track the last one". Stephan passes the phone to Daniel. Daniel notes the number and runs a check on it. 

Daniel - "Alright buddy, now I can only say which tower is the call connecting to". 

Stephan with an annoyed look says "Well, what good is that?". 

Daniel sighs in dissapointed and says "Well genius, if we find out which tower the network's coming from, we can find out the area the phone's located in". Stephan - " Alright then. Find it".

Daniel - " Okay, so. have you tried calling back to this number?" 

Stephan says "Obviously. It's switched off". 

Daniel -" What's it all about anyway?". Stephan explains the whole story. Daniel's computer makes a noise. Daniel looks towards the monitor and says "Looks like the track is completed. The tower from which the call was connected was 'ZER6' tower which is located in Tangent street".

Stephan got even more curious and says "Tangent street, that's my neighbor hood . Where in Tangent street?"

Daniel - "Slow down officer. I can't find out anything else about this call because it's an old call and a short one too". Stephan gets depressed by the fact that he can't know anything else but still mocks his friend and says "That was not really a valuable information from you ". Stephan and Daniel laughs and walks towards the door. 

Stephan -"Maybe I'll try calling it one more time". Stephan reaches the phone and tries to call the last number again. Stephan -" Daniel can you recite me the last number so I can dial it?" Daniel walks towards his monitor and recites the last phone number. 

Stephan shouts "Are you kidding me?". Daniel asks with a confused tone "What?". 

Stephan takes out the photo he took in the server and verifies the number. Daniel still confused asks "Dude, what? ". Stephan - "It's my number. The number of the phone my day threw in the warehouse when I was thirteen. But how? ".

 Stephan looks at Daniel. Daniel's still confused. Stefan runs towards the door and leaves in a blink. Daniel tries to stop Stephan but he leaves too quickly. Stephan started running towards Tangent street. He knew there was something wrong in the warehouse. 

Stephan finally reaches the street corner. He leans forward on his knees to catch is breath. He looks at the warehouse. It looks like a horror house. Although he was terrified of the warehouse he wanted to go in because this mystery was killing his brains. He opened the door of the warehouse and turned his mobile flash on. Some bats flew right in Stephan's face. Stephan fell into the ground terrified. He crawled in keeping his head down. He saw a white thing in the dim light of his phone. As he moved closer, he was shocked by what he saw. He saw the white truck inside the warehouse the same one he saw this morning parked in front of the warehouse. Stephan decided to do what he has to do. He took a metal rod and broke into the RV. There was absolute darkness in there. He turned on the lights and he saw a small girl with his old phone in her hand connected to a charging cable. The girl was bruised and she was unconscious. Stephan called Laura immediately and asked her to inform Captain Ribbon about this. He carried the girl outside and waited for few minutes and then police arrived with an ambulance. Stephan's old phone was taken away as evidence and the driver was caught in the nearby motel. Captain Ribbon comes towards Stephan and says "Overshift huh?". 

Stephan looks at Captain's eyes and fearlessly says "Prank calls huh? ". 

Both of them stares at each other for a moment and then laughs together. Captain Ribbon - "Good work " He moves towards the ambulance. Stephan gets a call from Daniel. 

Daniel - " Dude where are you?". 

Stephan -" I figured it". 

Daniel -"No you didn't. The call you asked me to track didn't even connect to your telephone during your shift. You just missed the call completely and the number was recorded in the history. The call you picked up was not that one. In the photo you took

you can see the timing of the server. It's been setup five minutes early. So the server has been shut down five minutes earlier before you even got the call. So we don't really have the number that you wanted".