The message arrived at 11:12 AM.
Aditi:
Are you available at 3 PM? Need a follow-up on yesterday's escalation analysis.
Arun froze mid-line of code.
A private meeting?
Not a group call.
Not a forwarded request through oversight.
Directly from her.
Rahul leaned over from the next desk. "Why do you look like someone proposed to you?"
Arun turned the monitor slightly. "Meeting. Aditi."
Rahul blinked twice. "Bro… a private meeting?"
"Yes."
Rahul put a hand on his heart. "God has favorites."
Arun ignored him.
He typed back:
Arun:
Yes. 3 PM works.
Aditi:
Meeting Room 5.
Short. Precise. Unavoidable.
Arun arrived early.
Not out of nervousness — he never rushed for meetings — but because he didn't want her walking in first and waiting.
Room 5 was small and cold, with a long glass wall facing the corridor. He adjusted the chair to a neutral position and opened the anomaly chain report on his laptop.
He read it once.
Then again.
Then closed the screen.
He didn't need to rehearse.
Her footsteps were faint but unmistakable — soft, confident, unhurried.
The door opened exactly at 3:00:00.
Aditi stepped inside.
White shirt. Dark, simple earrings. Clipboard in hand.
Expression steady.
She sat opposite him, not diagonally, not beside — exactly across the table, drawing a straight line between them.
"Good afternoon," she said.
"Good afternoon," Arun replied.
She placed her clipboard down. "Let's begin."
No small talk.
No warming up.
No HR-friendly nonsense.
Arun appreciated that.
She opened his submitted report.
"Your analysis of the timestamp drift was thorough," she said, scanning the lines. "But this section—"
She pointed at a particular paragraph.
"You said: 'This is the likely source of the anomaly.'"
"Yes," Arun said.
"Why 'likely' and not 'definite'?" she asked.
Arun replied, "Because the secondary logs didn't match the retention window. Without the missing slice, I can't guarantee 100%."
She nodded slowly. "Good. Oversight hates certainty without proof."
He raised an eyebrow. "Most people love pretending they have proof."
Aditi's lips twitched — a micro-expression that wasn't exactly a smile, but close.
"True," she said. "But I prefer precision."
They continued reviewing.
Her questions were direct, sharp, but not hostile.
"What assumption did you make here?"
"Why did you eliminate this hypothesis?"
"Would this still hold under load variance?"
"Show me the logic behind this decision."
Arun answered each succinctly.
He didn't perform.
He didn't try to impress.
He didn't sugarcoat technical flaws.
If a part was weak, he said it.
If a conclusion wasn't bulletproof, he acknowledged it.
And she noticed.
Every time he admitted uncertainty, she marked something on her clipboard.
Not negatively — more like she was building a mental map.
At one point she asked:
"Why did you handle the anomaly as a separate chain instead of embedding it into the existing framework?"
He replied, "Because embedding it would satisfy the architecture, not the problem."
She looked up at him for a second longer than usual.
"Explain."
"Architecture wants neatness. Problems don't care," he said. "You fix a problem first, then decide where the solution belongs."
Aditi tapped her pen once on the table.
Not irritation.
Recognition.
"Good," she said quietly.
After thirty minutes of technical review, she closed the report.
"Now for the non-engineering part," she said.
Arun braced himself. "Office politics?"
"Yes."
He exhaled through his nose. "Wonderful."
Aditi raised an eyebrow. "You dislike political environments?"
"I dislike inefficiency," Arun said. "And people lying to protect ego."
Aditi considered that. "Politics exists everywhere. You can't escape it."
"I avoid it," he said.
"And yet," she said, "you're now in oversight."
He didn't respond.
She leaned slightly forward. "Tell me honestly. Do you feel pressured by the attention lately?"
"No," Arun said simply.
"No?" she repeated.
He clarified, "Attention doesn't change the work."
For a moment, silence sat between them — the comfortable kind between two people who valued clarity.
Then she said, "Good. Because some seniors aren't pleased with your transition."
Arun deadpanned, "I noticed."
Aditi asked, "How are you handling them?"
"By ignoring them."
She studied his face. "And if ignoring doesn't work?"
He replied, "Then I react."
Aditi paused. "React how?"
"Depends on the situation," Arun said.
She nodded once, as if she approved the ambiguity.
"Ritesh may attempt obstruction," she said. "Indirectly."
Arun shrugged. "He's already trying."
"You'll need to be careful," she said.
"Why?" he asked calmly.
She looked directly into his eyes. "Because talent attracts resistance."
He held her gaze. "And incompetence attracts excuses."
For the first time, her expression shifted — just slightly — like she wasn't expecting such bluntness.
Not offended.
Almost… satisfied.
She changed the topic abruptly.
"Arun, I have a scenario for you."
"Okay."
She closed her laptop and folded her hands.
"Imagine Phoenix logs begin losing data in ten-second chunks at random intervals. Oversight wants an immediate triage plan. You have one minute. What do you do?"
Arun didn't blink.
"Check timestamp continuity → identify drift patterns → isolate broken indexing → freeze region replication → rebuild missing slices → backfill."
Aditi tilted her head. "What if replication freeze crashes the node?"
"Then I isolate manually, pull direct buffers, and rebuild from raw usage," he said.
"That risks duplication," she noted.
"Not if you use merge-ignore on the first pass and merge-verify on the second."
Aditi stared at him quietly.
Then she asked softly:
"And if oversight asks you to present this plan to senior management?"
Arun responded instantly:
"I'll do it."
Aditi raised her eyebrow slightly. "Even if you dislike speaking?"
"I dislike useless speaking," Arun said.
Her eyes didn't leave him. "And you consider that presentation… useful?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Arun shrugged. "Because the alternative is letting someone else misrepresent the solution for political reasons."
That one hit harder.
Aditi's fingers paused on her clipboard.
She studied him—really studied him—for the first time.
Not technically.
Not hierarchically.
As a person.
Finally, she said:
"Good answer."
She closed the folder.
"One more thing."
Arun waited.
"It wasn't oversight that recommended you for this cluster," she said. "It was me."
Arun didn't react outwardly.
Inside, he processed it efficiently.
He asked only one question:
"Why?"
Aditi didn't hesitate.
"Because you work without noise. And you think without ego," she said. "That combination is rare."
Arun thought about this.
Then he nodded once.
"No problem," he said.
She blinked. "No problem?"
He clarified with his usual deadpan, "I wasn't planning to decline your recommendation today."
For the first time, she almost smiled.
Almost.
"Good," she said.
She stood. "Meeting concluded."
Arun stood too.
As she reached for the door, she said, "One suggestion."
"Yes?"
"Try not to scare the seniors too much."
Arun replied, "If they stop scaring themselves, I'll stop contributing."
Aditi paused at the door.
Then she said, very softly:
"Fair enough."
And walked out.
Leaving Arun standing there—
not victorious,
not intimidated,
just aware…
That something between them had changed quietly.
The line between "oversight member" and "Aditi's chosen engineer" had become clearer.
And heavier.