Chapter 29: The Hacker in the Team
Aarav stared, momentarily transfixed. The world around him—the cacophony of the canteen, the curious and judgmental stares of their peers, the heavy weight of the false accusations—all of it faded into a muted background hum. The only thing in sharp focus was Ayushi. She stood before him, her back straight, her eyes blazing with a fire he had never seen before. It was a look of pure, unyielding determination, a shield forged in the very flames meant to consume her.
"This I will solve," she had said, her voice steady and clear, cutting through his own rising tide of fury. "I will not allow anyone to falsely frame my character and culture."
In that instant, Aarav's anger didn't vanish, but it transformed. The raw, hot rage that had been coiling in his gut, ready to strike out blindly, cooled into something harder, sharper, and far more dangerous: focused resolve. A slow smile spread across his face, a genuine expression of awe and admiration. He had spent every moment since his return to the past focused on being her protector, her guardian against a cruel destiny. He had never stopped to consider that the woman he was trying to save possessed a formidable strength all her own.
I like this side of her, too, he thought, a wave of warmth washing over him, more potent than any anger. Even more.
"Okay," he said, his voice low but firm. "We'll do it your way."
The four of them huddled together at their canteen table, an isolated island in a sea of whispers and pointing fingers. The initial burst of defiance gave way to the cold, hard reality of their situation.
"But how?" Ayushi asked, her brow furrowed in concentration as she sat down. The fire in her eyes remained, but it was now tempered with pragmatism. "We can't just go around telling everyone it's a lie. Without proof, our words are just… words. It's our reputation against a viral photo and a hundred rumors."
She was right. The campus network was buzzing. Every few minutes, someone would walk past their table, pretending not to look, their phones held just a little too high. They were the center of a storm of slander, and every denial would only sound like a desperate plea of the guilty.
Akash leaned forward, his usual playful demeanor replaced by a sharp, calculating intensity. "Fighting rumors with words is like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. We need to cut off the source. We need to find out who uploaded that picture and who started the first wave of messages."
Aarav nodded in agreement. "If we can pinpoint the origin, we can expose the entire setup. But the campus network is locked down. The posts are anonymous. How can we possibly trace it back?"
A sly, confident grin spread across Akash's face. "When the front door is locked, you don't knock, you find a back window. We hack the campus network."
The word hung in the air, charged with risk and possibility. Hacking was a serious offense. If caught, they could be expelled. But looking at the sea of judging eyes around them, Aarav knew their reputations were already on the line. What did they have to lose?
"It's a great plan," Ayushi said, a spark of hope in her eyes. Then, her shoulders slumped slightly. "But there's a problem. None of us knows how to hack."
Aarav's own hope deflated. He was a business student, a strategist. Akash was a people person, a networker. Ayushi was brilliant with analytics and planning. None of them had the technical skills for something so complex. The perfect solution was dangling right in front of them, completely out of reach.
Akash let out a soft chuckle, a mischievous glint dancing in his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, a picture of smug satisfaction. "Who said we need to look for others?" he asked, his gaze slowly panning from Aarav to Ayushi, before finally settling on the quietest member of their group. "Why would we, when we have a professional, a master hacker, right here in our own team?"
Aarav and Ayushi followed his gaze. He was looking directly at Pooja.
She had been listening intently, her expression serious. Now, as three pairs of stunned eyes fixed on her, she didn't flinch. There was no surprise, no denial. Instead, a slow, confident smile graced her lips. It was a smile that transformed her face, revealing a hidden layer of self-assurance they had never seen before.
"He's right," Pooja said, her voice calm and even. "I can do it."
Aarav's jaw practically hit the table. Pooja? Quiet, studious, rule-abiding Pooja? The girl who audited Akash's life with spreadsheets and schedules? A master hacker?
"You… you can hack?" Ayushi asked, her voice a mixture of disbelief and awe.
Pooja's smile widened. "I like hacking," she stated simply, as if admitting a fondness for a particular flavor of ice cream. "The college network security is decent, but it's nothing I haven't dealt with before. Finding an anonymous user's IP address and tracing it back to their device… it's just a matter of navigating the right firewalls and decrypting the server logs."
She spoke with an easy confidence that left no room for doubt. The group stared at her, their shock slowly melting away and reforming into a powerful, unified sense of hope. Their impossible plan suddenly had a path forward.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Aarav said, a surge of adrenaline coursing through him.
Pooja's eyes gleamed with excitement. "Let's start the work now."
Without another word, the four of them stood up as one and practically ran out of the canteen, leaving a wake of confused whispers behind them. Their destination: the college computer lab. Their mission: to turn the tables on their hidden enemy.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the campus, a very different scene was unfolding. Rajat and his two underlings strolled through the manicured lawns with the arrogant swagger of conquering kings. Every corner they turned, every group of students they passed, they were met with the same delicious whispers.
"Did you see that photo of Aarav and that girl, Ayushi?" one student muttered to his friend.
"Looked pretty cozy for just 'classmates'," the friend snickered. "He was wiping her down… I heard they've been meeting in secret for weeks."
A girl in another group added her own fabricated detail. "My friend in their class says they're always passing notes. Apparently, her family is really strict, so they have to hide it. I guess they're not very good at hiding."
The rumors grew with each retelling, twisting an innocent act of kindness into a sordid, clandestine affair. Rajat drank it all in, a cruel, triumphant smirk plastered on his face. This was better than the pen drive. This was perfect. He wasn't just attacking Aarav; he was destroying the very thing Aarav was trying to protect: Ayushi's honor. He was poisoning the well, turning the entire campus against them with nothing but lies.
His cronies laughed along with him. "Boss, they're finished," one of them said, clapping him on the back. "No one will believe a word they say now."
"Exactly," Rajat gloated, his voice dripping with venom. He stopped and looked out over the campus, a look of utter contempt in his eyes. He saw Aarav as an insect who had dared to challenge him, and Ayushi as a prize that had been denied. This was his justice. This was his victory.
He let out a loud, maniacal laugh that turned the heads of several nearby students. He didn't care. He wanted them to see his triumph.
"Now," he snarled to the open air, to the very sky above, a direct challenge to the two people who had defied him. "Now how will you both prove your innocence?"