Akash had always believed that answers lived outside comfortable spaces.
That was why he wasn't surprised when the lab data began to feel incomplete. Not wrong—just unfinished. Numbers aligned, simulations behaved, graphs climbed in neat curves. On paper, everything worked.
But paper had never carried weight into battle.
The thought bothered him more than it should have.
Few weeks after the funding confirmation, while the team celebrated timelines and deliverables, Akash found himself scrolling through an old contact list on his phone. Names he hadn't touched in years. People he had once met through distant connections, college seminars, or brief interactions that had stayed with him for reasons he couldn't explain then.
He stopped at one name.
Colonel R. Verma (Retd.)
Akash didn't overthink it. Overthinking had a way of killing intention. He typed a short message—respectful, direct, honest—and pressed send before doubt could intervene.
The reply came an hour later.
Come tomorrow morning. 7 a.m.
The house was modest, set slightly away from the city's noise. A narrow road led to an iron gate that had seen better years. The nameplate was faded, the letters dulled by sun and dust, but still legible.
Akash stood there for a moment, adjusting the strap of his backpack, unsure whether he was intruding.
The gate creaked as he pushed it open.
Colonel Verma was seated in the courtyard, trimming a hedge with slow, practiced movements. His hair was silver now, his face lined in a way that spoke of exposure—to sun, wind, and time. Yet his posture remained straight, disciplined in a way retirement could not undo.
"You're early," the old man said without looking up.
Akash hesitated. "I didn't give a time, sir."
Colonel Verma smiled faintly. "People who come with questions about war are either early… or they come too late."
He set the shears aside and gestured toward a chair beneath the neem tree.
"Sit."
Akash did.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Birds called from somewhere nearby. The air smelled faintly of earth and morning tea.
Akash explained who he was, what he worked on, why he had come. He avoided jargon. Avoided exaggeration. There was no need for it here.
"We're developing protective armor," he said simply. "For soldiers."
The old man studied him carefully now.
"And you think it's incomplete," Colonel Verma said.
"Yes."
"Good," he replied. "That means you're listening."
Akash asked his questions carefully.
Not about weapons. Not about strategy.
About environment.
"What does heat really do to a soldier?" he asked.
Colonel Verma leaned back, eyes drifting toward the sky. "Heat doesn't announce itself. It sits with you. Makes your helmet feel heavier. Your breath shorter. Metal burns skin. You lose water faster than you realize. And when your mind gets tired, mistakes follow."
Akash wrote it down.
"And cold?" he asked.
"Cold is cruel," the old man said quietly. "It steals feeling first. Fingers stop responding. Muscles stiffen. Materials behave differently. Things that bend elsewhere crack there."
Later that week, Akash met two other retired soldiers through distant references.
One had served extensively in desert operations.
"In summer," the man said, shaking his head, "the sun becomes another enemy. Armor traps heat. You feel like you're cooking inside your own protection."
Another had spent years in high-altitude regions.
"In the Himalayas," he said, "cold isn't temperature. It's pressure. It slows everything—your reaction, your thinking. Equipment fails silently."
Akash listened.
He didn't interrupt. Didn't redirect. He let pauses stretch. Let silence do its work.
When he returned to the office, he didn't go to the lab immediately. He sat at his desk long after others had left, pages spread across the table, handwriting uneven from exhaustion and thought.
The realization arrived slowly—but firmly.
They were trying to solve too many contradictions with one answer.
The next morning, Akash stood before the whiteboard.
"We're approaching this wrong," he said.
Conversations stopped.
"We're designing a universal solution for environments that actively oppose each other," he continued. "Heat resistance and cold adaptability don't coexist easily. Pressure responses vary. Material behavior changes."
Rohit frowned. "So what are you suggesting?"
Akash drew divisions on the board. Clear. Deliberate.
"We stop forcing one material to do everything," he said. "We design environment-specific variants."
Silence followed.
"That'll increase cost," Himanshu said.
"Yes."
"Logistics complexity," Aditya added.
"Yes."
Akash turned to face them fully. "But it will reduce failure. And increase survival."
The room shifted.
This wasn't ambition talking.
It was responsibility.
Ritu watched from behind the glass partition, something tightening quietly in her chest.
She had seen confidence before. She had seen brilliance. What she was witnessing now was conviction without ego.
"Prepare a feasibility report," she said at last. "We'll take this forward."
The workload doubled overnight.
New simulations. Split protocols. Separate stress tests. Revised timelines. Exhaustion crept in silently.
Everyone felt it.
But Akash absorbed it differently.
He arrived earlier than before. Stayed later. Skipped meals without noticing. His movements became efficient, mechanical—like rest was a luxury he couldn't afford.
Ritu noticed gradually.
At first, she ignored it. Hard work often looked unhealthy before it looked successful. But then she noticed the shadows under his eyes. The way he rubbed his wrist absentmindedly. The tremor in his hands when he lifted his coffee mug.
One evening, she stopped at his desk.
"You should go home," she said.
"I will," Akash replied, eyes still on the screen.
"Now," she added.
He paused. "Just finishing this run."
"You're not a machine," she said gently.
For a brief second, something flickered in his eyes—fear, maybe. Or resistance.
"I'm fine," he said.
The next few days, he tried. He left earlier. Took breaks. Acted—briefly—like someone allowing himself to exist beyond work.
Then the old rhythm returned.
Ritu grew uneasy.
Not because he was productive.
But because productivity had become his refuge.
She saw it now—the way work wasn't passion alone. It was escape.
And escapes, she knew, were never sustainable.