Aditi entered the Mumbai branch at 7:14 PM, late enough that most teams were winding down but early enough that the Phoenix review room was fully prepared. Her security stayed a few steps behind—close, but not intrusive. People at the reception straightened without realizing they had.
She didn't stop to greet anyone. She rarely did. Not because she was rude—just efficient. Politeness was for when there was time; Phoenix didn't allow that luxury.
The lift doors slid shut, leaving behind whispers.
"That's her."
"Phoenix shareholder."
"She visited quietly again?"
"She always does."
Aditi stared straight ahead at her reflection in the lift's metal interior. Hair neat. Shirt unwrinkled. Expression calm.
Only her eyes carried a faint tightness.
Today had been…odd.
The morning board meeting was normal—routine, predictable, boring. But sometime in the evening, a strange tension swept through her. Like the city's rhythm hiccuped for one moment. Like a beat went missing.
She hated unexplained feelings.
Inside the lift, she closed her eyes briefly.
It was the same feeling she sensed on the bus two days ago. A micro-glitch in the flow of things. A moment that didn't add up.
She'd brushed it off then.
Now she wasn't sure.
The lift opened.
The Phoenix review room was ready. A senior manager, Rajiv, practically sprinted to greet her.
"Ma'am—welcome. The logs are ready. We've stabilized everything."
She nodded. "Show me."
They entered the projector-lit room.
Rajiv began explaining graphs, clusters, slowdowns, and resolutions. She listened, expression unreadable. At one point she interrupted.
"Why is there a timestamp anomaly at 14:37?"
Rajiv froze. "Ma'am, that was… yes, that was due to a brief log overflow. But it was handled quickly."
"By whom?"
"Um—backend team. They said… a new engineer handled it."
Her gaze sharpened. "Name?"
Rajiv checked his notes. "Arun Kumar. Chennai transfer."
She repeated the name in her mind once.
Not out of interest.
Out of evaluation.
She took the laptop from him and scrolled through the patches manually.
Clean work.
Precise.
Minimalistic.
Confident.
Her eyebrow lifted slightly.
She closed the laptop gently.
"Good," she said.
But her mind didn't move on.
Arun Kumar.
A name she didn't recognize.
A name she shouldn't care about.
Yet for a brief second, she wondered—
Had he been on the bus that morning?
She shut the thought down immediately.
She didn't entertain coincidences.
Rajiv spoke again. "Would you like to meet him next visit, ma'am?"
"No," she said calmly. "Not yet."
She didn't explain why.
Because she wasn't sure herself.
Arun arrived the next morning feeling slightly less irritated at the world. Mumbai hadn't tried to kill him on the commute today, which already felt like a blessing.
He entered the office, scanning his ID with mild annoyance as the security gate beeped twice before recognizing him. On his desk, a sticky note waited.
"Good job yesterday. –Neha"
He stared at it for a second.
Praise?
On paper?
He peeled it off and stuck it inside his drawer.
Not because he was sentimental.
But because… he didn't know why.
He shook it off and opened his laptop.
His freeze during the bug fix yesterday had been instinctive, quick, necessary. Today, he wanted to understand the edges of his control better.
He opened a blank code editor. Not to work—just to focus.
He whispered inside his mind, Freeze.
Nothing.
He tried again.
A faint pulse stirred, but nothing activated.
He wasn't in danger.
No instinctive trigger.
His power demanded intent and context.
He placed a pencil on the desk.
He stared at it.
He willed it.
A small ripple passed over his vision—barely noticeable—but the pencil stopped rolling when he nudged the table.
A soft selective freeze.
Only the pencil.
Nothing else.
Arun smiled slightly.
This… was new.
He picked up the pencil, analyzing it.
The weight felt slightly off, like the object hadn't completely re-synced with time.
He focused on it again and released the freeze fully.
There. Back to normal.
If he perfected this, he could freeze anything or anyone selectively without stopping the world.
He whispered, "Good."
Then shut the ability down.
Power experimentation finished.
Now back to reality.
Around noon, Neha called him into the Phoenix planning meeting.
The atmosphere was strange—subdued, sharp, expectant. Half the managers looked like they wanted to say something but weren't sure if they were allowed.
Arun took a seat quietly.
The meeting started normally.
Then Rajiv entered.
He cleared his throat with exaggerated politeness.
"So… quick update. The Phoenix oversight meeting did happen last night. Ms. Rathore reviewed the logs."
Silence fell for a second.
Aditi.
Not named, but implied.
Rajiv continued, "She noticed the timestamp anomaly but appreciated the fix."
Neha looked relieved.
Arun's heart gave one quiet thump.
Not excitement.
Not nerves.
Just a small acknowledgement.
She saw his work.
Not his face.
Not him.
Just the fix.
Good.
Rajiv added, "She specifically asked who handled the recovery. So I gave the details."
Arun didn't react externally.
Inside, his mind tightened.
He didn't like attention.
He didn't like people knowing his name.
Especially not people with power.
Especially not someone whose gaze had already unsettled him once—on a bus, in a split second.
The meeting continued.
Arun kept his head down.
The day passed.
Evening arrived faster than he expected.
He decided to leave late today, around 7:45 PM, hoping the bus crowd might be thinner.
(Delusion. Mumbai buses never empty.)
He walked down the main staircase instead of taking the lift, wanting space to think. His selective freeze experiment bothered him—in a good way.
If he could freeze individual objects…
Then freezing specific people was possible.
And freezing specific events…
His mind drifted too far. He cut himself off.
"Don't get drunk on ideas," he muttered.
He reached the ground floor.
A few employees were heading out.
Security guards saluted managers who didn't look at them.
Arun exited the building, adjusting his bag strap.
Across the road, a cluster of cars slowed near the entrance. A black SUV stopped, engine humming.
His heart recognized the scene before his mind did.
A door opened.
She stepped out.
Hair tied today.
White formal shirt.
Simple black trousers.
Phone in hand.
Expression calm, unreadable, mildly tired but not weak.
She didn't cause a hush in the street like dramatic movies.
People didn't stare forever.
Mumbai had too many important-looking people.
But Arun noticed.
More importantly—
She noticed… something.
Not him.
Not directly.
But her eyes flicked upward, scanning the environment sharply—as if the city had shifted half a beat again.
Arun didn't move.
He didn't stare.
He simply stood there, hands in pockets, watching her cross toward the entrance.
She walked with purpose but grace.
Her security followed, maintaining distance.
For a brief moment, their paths almost aligned—the direction he was standing, the direction she stepped.
She didn't look at him.
But as she passed, her eyes brushed over him for exactly half a second.
Half a second that felt… deliberate.
Not recognition.
Not interest.
Not confusion.
More like calculation.
Something in him tightened—not fear, not attraction, not discomfort. Something instinctive.
The same instinct that triggered his freezes.
She disappeared into the building.
The doors closed behind her.
Arun breathed slowly.
Why does she keep appearing in my path?
He didn't believe in fate.
He didn't believe in coincidences.
He especially didn't believe in things that felt… orchestrated by something out of sight.
He walked toward his bus stop.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Aditi walked into the Phoenix meeting room, took her seat, opened her laptop, and paused.
She replayed the moment outside in her mind without meaning to.
A man standing near the gate.
Calm.
Unmoving.
Sharp eyes.
Chennai transfer, according to Rajiv.
Arun Kumar.
Her brows narrowed for a moment.
She didn't know why the name mattered.
She didn't know why the face stayed.
She dismissed the thought and focused on her meeting.
But something subtle shifted in her chest.
A curiosity.
A thread.
Thin.
Quiet.
Almost nothing.
The kind that grows slowly, quietly, without permission.
Arun sat in the bus, head resting against the window, watching the city lights flicker by.
He had no reason to think about her.
But he did, once.
Just once.
Then he let the thought go.
Mumbai nights were loud.
The bus rattled.
A baby cried.
Someone argued with the conductor.
Arun closed his eyes.
He didn't know that in another part of the building, Aditi paused her typing at the same moment he shut his eyes.
She didn't know why.
Neither did he.
But the story had quietly begun to pull them toward the same center.
Not loudly.
Not romantically.
Not dramatically.
Just… inevitability.