The problem with genuine Chola dynasty golas wasn't the sheen. It was the weight. Mihika Agarwal adjusted the magnifying loupe strapped to her right eye, her breath fogging slightly against the cool glass of the protective display case. Outside, the late-September Mumbai monsoon was throwing itself violently against the colonial era arched windows of the Jehangir Heritage Gallery, a rhythmic, thundering bassline to her racing thoughts. It was 11:42 PM. The gallery had closed to the public nearly five hours ago, but Mihika hadn't moved a single centimeter from the conservation bay.
Before her sat a twenty inch bronze and gold plated idol of Goddess Parvati. To the untrained eyes who doesn't know about the ancient idols or even the average high society billionaire looking for a massive tax write-off, it was a just a flawless masterpiece of lost wax casting. The serene posture, the intricate detailing of the karanda mukuta crown, the gentle curve of the torso. It was perfect.
Too perfect.
"You've got to be kidding me" Mihika whispered to the goddess, her fingers lightly tracing the silhouette of the pedestal.
Using a pair of specialized, silicon-tipped calipers, she measured the depth of the carving along the base. Three millimeters. Standard for the imperial artisans of the 11th century. But when she had placed the artifact on the digital micro-scale twenty minutes ago, the reading had flashed a devastating 14.2 kilograms.
Based on the density of the specific copper-gold alloy used by ancient Tamil kingdoms, a hollow cast idol of this precise volume should have weighed 12.8 kilograms. There were an extra 1.4 kilograms of completely unaccounted mass hiding deep inside the goddess's womb.
With steady, practiced hands, Mihika picked up a portable digital refractometer, her heart hammering a fierce rhythm against her ribs. She didn't want to be right. If she was right, it meant her boss, Mr. Mehra - the man who had pulled her straight out of her master's program at Oxford and handed her the keys to the most prestigious restoration lab in South Mumbai was either a complete amateur or running an international criminal enterprise.
She angled the fiber optic light source directly into a microscopic fissure near the lotus pedestal. The beam pierced the dark interior which was reflecting off the hidden walls.
Mihika froze on what she noticed.
Because instead of the dull, uneven oxidization of thousand year old bronze, the light bounced off something perfectly flat, perfectly geometric, and distinctly green. A fiberglass circuit board. Embedded deep within a thick resin core, surrounded by lead weights to balance the mass.
"What on earth is this..." she breathed, leaning closer, her fingers trembling as she adjusted the focal wheel of her lens.
It wasn't just a counterfeit designed to fool an art museum. The artifact was a Trojan horse (a Greek mythological trick used to infiltrate the city of Troy, which is now also a term for malware disguised as legitimate software in modern times). Hiding inside the ancient, sacred silhouette was a highly sophisticated, military grade microchip encryption drive.
Suddenly the low comforting hum of the laboratory's climate control clicked off.
The sharp and sterile scent of the room began to dissipate which is replaced by the heavy humid air of the Mumbai night. A second later, the sharp white fluorescent lights overhead died with a dull buzz, plunging the historic gallery into pitch black darkness. Only the tiny battery powered fiber-optic beam in her hand remained active which casted a long skeletal shadow of Goddess Parvati directly across the white laboratory wall.
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Leave a comment below on what you think the microchip encryption drive is about. I would love to hear your guesses
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