By Monday morning, the Phoenix issue had mostly died down. Officially. But offices had their own memory system, and most of it lived inside people rather than documentation.
Arun noticed it the moment he stepped in.
The glances weren't hostile—just curious, assessing, mildly impressed in some cases, quietly suspicious in others. Not many people openly blamed him anymore; the RCA had gone out. But gossip didn't need accuracy. It only needed oxygen.
He settled at his desk and plugged in his charger.
Rahul rolled up beside him. "Bro, careful. People are talking again."
Arun raised an eyebrow. "About the reporting?"
"About everything." Rahul lowered his voice. "Mainly about… her."
Arun didn't react. "Who?"
Rahul gave him a look. "Don't pretend. You've seen her, right? Of course you have."
"I'm not blind," Arun said.
Rahul leaned closer. "Exactly. And the office definitely saw you both standing at the bus stop the other day."
Arun stared at him. "You're kidding."
"I wish I was," Rahul said. "One intern took a video—for the rain, not for you two. But apparently she was in the frame for half a second. And since then, theories have been born."
Arun sighed. "Theories?"
"Yeah, yeah. Relax. Nothing crazy. Just… idiotic."
He gave the highlights:
Gossip Version 1:
"Aditi was checking on some Mumbai employees personally. Maybe Arun is special?"
Gossip Version 2:
"They spoke at the bus stop. Maybe she knows him from Chennai?"
Gossip Version 3:
Dark horse theory:
"He might be related to some higher management. Otherwise why would she talk?"
Arun blinked. "I said maybe ten words to her."
"Exactly," Rahul said. "Which means a normal person sees nothing. But people who want spice… they'll cook biryani out of it."
Arun rubbed his forehead. "Anything else?"
Rahul hesitated. "Well… apparently someone said you got into oversight's good books after the RCA."
"That's ridiculous."
"Of course it is," Rahul said. "But gossip doesn't aim for IQ."
Arun didn't bother responding after that. He'd learned long ago that offices wrote their own fiction. The only mistake was trying to correct it.
Still… him and Aditi? Of all things?
Absurd.
Around 11:30, Neha approached him.
"Arun, can you join the Phoenix oversight sync call at 2:00 PM?"
He wasn't expecting that. "Me?"
"Yes, you. They want the backfill creator available for questions."
"Who asked?"
Neha hesitated just a moment too long.
Arun understood.
"Alright," he said.
"Good. It's not a presentation," she added. "Just… be ready."
"Am I a shield or a scapegoat today?" he asked.
Neha laughed softly. "Depends on who talks first."
She walked away.
At lunch, Arun sat with Rahul at the far corner of the cafeteria. The food was forgettable, but the peace was nice.
Two employees took the table next to them. They didn't notice Arun was within earshot.
"Did you see Aditi in the office last week?" one said.
"Yeah. She comes rarely. But when she does, everyone behaves."
"I heard she's connected to some royal family in Rajasthan. Like actual royalty."
"Seriously?"
"That's what Ritesh said."
Rahul muttered, "Of course he did."
The second employee whispered, "I thought she was just some high-level investor rep."
"Investor, shareholder, advisor — something like that. Apparently her family's old money. Big land. Big politics. Maybe that's why she's so… unreachable."
The other nodded. "Makes sense. Someone like that wouldn't mix with people like us."
Arun kept eating, not changing expression.
Then one of them said:
"There's also talk that she's strict to the point of being scary. Rajiv avoids messing up when she's around."
The other laughed. "Who wouldn't? Imagine her giving feedback—she'd kill you with a sentence."
More laughter.
They continued.
"But honestly… I don't get why she's even involved in Phoenix. She's overqualified for this project."
"She's overqualified for every project."
They didn't mention the bus stop, thankfully.
Rahul leaned in. "You okay?"
"People talk," Arun said. "It's normal."
Rahul nodded. "Just remember—they don't know anything real."
Arun didn't disagree.
At 1:55, he entered a small meeting room reserved for the call. Neha joined him. Rajiv sat at the head of the table, adjusting his headset.
The Zoom screen lit up.
Faces appeared one by one—oversight, finance, client-side integrators.
And then Aditi's camera switched on.
Simple background. Neutral lighting. Her face sharp and calm as always.
She greeted the room. "Good afternoon."
Everyone responded.
Arun didn't say anything yet; he didn't need to.
Rajiv began. "Let's review the backfill validation results first."
Aditi listened, eyes steady.
At one point, an oversight member asked, "The replay tests were done by…?"
Rajiv nodded toward Arun. "Arun, from Chennai team, now in Mumbai."
Aditi shifted her gaze toward him—a brief, precise look—measuring, acknowledging. Not approving, not disapproving. Just aware.
Arun said, "I validated logic against usage for the last seven cycles. No divergence."
Another oversight member asked, "Any risk of the job skipping blocks again?"
Arun replied, "Not unless scheduling is manually changed. And even then, the new guard will recompute missed windows."
A pause.
Then Aditi asked, "Can you explain the guard in one sentence for the non-technical side?"
Her tone was neutral. Her timing intentional.
Arun answered simply. "If the system jumps a time period, it fills the gap instead of pretending nothing happened."
Several heads nodded.
Aditi didn't.
She just said, "Clear."
The meeting moved on.
Not once did she directly address him again, but she heard every answer he gave. He could tell from the slight tilt of her head when the subject related to his code.
The call ended with action items.
Rajiv exhaled in relief. "Good. That went smoother than expected."
Neha stretched her shoulders. "They didn't grill us. Nice for a change."
Arun unplugged his laptop silently.
As they stepped outside, Rahul messaged:
Rahul:
How was the call? Did THE QUEEN interrogate you?
Arun replied:
Arun:
She asked one question. Calmly. Nothing dramatic.
Rahul:
Bro you survived. Respect.
Arun pocketed his phone, slightly amused.
Later in the afternoon, he overheard more gossip near the break area—this time from Ritesh's group.
"She attends calls herself now?" one person said.
Ritesh replied in his usual tone. "Only because Phoenix is mishandled. If everything ran smoothly, she wouldn't bother."
Another person said, "I heard she has zero tolerance for incompetence."
Ritesh smirked. "Obviously. People like her don't appreciate shortcuts."
Arun filled water quietly.
Ritesh noticed him and forced a smile.
"Ah, Arun. Good answers in the call," he said.
Arun returned a polite nod. "Thanks."
Ritesh added, "You're lucky she didn't drill deeper. She's known to be—well, let's say… demanding."
Arun didn't dignify it with a response.
He simply walked away.
Behind him, one of them whispered, "He's braver than I thought, not reacting."
Another replied, "Or he's clueless."
Arun heard that too.
He didn't slow down.
That evening, he found a corner seat on the bus. The ride home was slow—rain clouds returning. People were tired, half-asleep, half-wired from caffeine.
He opened his phone, scrolled through messages, then closed it.
The rumors, the sideways glances, the meetings… none of it mattered logically. But something in him paused at the thought of how quickly stories formed around a person who barely spoke.
Aditi wasn't the type to care about gossip. She likely didn't even know half of it.
But Arun began to understand something:
The higher someone stood, the more distorted their silhouette became in the eyes of others.
Maybe that explained the tone people used when they mentioned her name—respect mixed with distance, curiosity mixed with fear.
He had seen her in meetings.
He had seen her at a bus stop in the rain.
Neither version matched the stories.
He wondered what else about her was misrepresented.
Not out of interest.
Just observation.
The bus jerked forward.
The city blurred.
And somewhere between the noise and motion, he felt the sense that this project—this city—was slowly pulling him into a bigger orbit than he intended.