"What are you doing? Some kind of server stuff?" Arya asked in a bossy tone, catching sight of Rohit working on his new laptop.
Rohit froze when he saw her standing in the doorway.
For a moment he tensed, then forced himself to relax. Her question wasn't really an accusation—it carried more curiosity than suspicion. He might look shady, sure, but not in a way she could easily decipher. With her background in economics, he still had the advantage.
Best play: act normal.
He matched her tone, sidestepping the real issue.
"School work," he replied. "But what are you doing in my room? Is Mom all right?"
Arya arched a brow. "School work, huh? Seems you're highly motivated after all that talk. But I'm seeing SDKs and command prompts. Isn't that… server stuff?"
Rohit snapped the laptop shut and smirked.
"Oh, don't mind me. I'm just hacking into your personal filesto check how you run your little gaming company. Maybe I'll leak a few secrets to your rivals and earn a couple of rupees… or who knows, some goddamn dollars."
Arya snorted. "Huh. Like you'd succeed. Go on, give it a try."
Rohit narrowed his eyes. "Exactly. Then why are you wasting my time?"
Her annoyance flared — she hated being mocked and questioned at the same time. The old Rohit, the quiet one, hadn't talked back. This new Rohit, after the hit on his head, had teeth.
She flicked her temper into a clipped tone. "Hey! What's with the attitude? I'm just curious. I'm also invested in this stuff — why are you so rude?"
Rohit frowned. "You ask me why I'm rude? When I'm the one trying to be polite after you barged in without knocking. Last time you knocked my nose for glancing on your room by mistake — and now you ruin my rhythm when I'm few seconds from cracking the backend code."
Arya opened her mouth, but sputtered, "You… urrgh…"
She wanted to curse but stalled it on the edge.
Rohit stood up and exhaled a sigh, "Let's reset." then loosened into a theatrical bow. "Have a seat on my throne, Majesty. I'll take my place as your humble subject."
He dropped back onto the bed, with his cheeky smile.
The gesture broke something in her. Arya took a breath, let it out, and sat at the study table, folding her legs.
"Very well, forget it. Mom's fine — she's sleeping." She turned, sharper now. "But be honest: earlier you told Mom that you love her. What was that all about?"
Rohit's expression tightened. He'd been careful not to cross lines in front of her, so why was she obsessing over a few well-meant words? He replayed the moment in his head, testing whether he'd gone too far.
Arya tapped her fingers, impatient. "Hey answer it already. It's just a question."
He met her directly. "Huh— so impatient. Why are you making it a big deal? Isn't cheering her up my role? Didn't you see how she calmed down, when I said that?"
Her brow pinched. "And what about your biological parents? Shouldn't you be worrying about them instead of fussing over my Mom?"
Rohit sighed again. "See, I don't remember a thing for now, so I'm used to being curious—also all this time, I've seen her as my own mom. And suddenly, some outsiders, who leeches and living off our father's money—got to hurt her? That didn't sit right with me. So I decided to cheer her up, knowing just how much she's invested in our family."
Arya corrected him, "The term is adopted. You are not our blood."
Rohit nodded. "Yes, that makes me feel even more inclined to this family.. the people I already feel indebted to. I figured I'd get my answers eventually, but that certainly wasn't the time... So, if you know anything, I wouldn't mind hearing it."
Arya chewed a nail, thinking. What he'd said wasn't far from his usual personality, but there was a new edge — he'd become more expressive. That made him less of an immediate threat.
Still, she wasn't satisfied. "We don't know much," she said at last. "Dad brought you home when you were four. We weren't allowed to ask. Since then, you're part of the Singhanias."
Rohit nodded. "Ah! Thanks for sharing. I'll ask Dad, then. When is he coming, by the way?"
"Day after tomorrow," Arya said, standing. She was about to leave, but then turned back with a warning. "And if you need anything from Mom, come through me. Better she not face more trauma anymore."
Rohit raised his bandaged hands. "Hmm… you sure the bathroom deal is on?"
Arya paused and blinked. "Are you serious?"
He shrugged. "It's hard to change this bandage with one hand. I'd appreciate the help." He held up the wrapped casing.
"Why you.." Arya rolled her eyes. "Urrrgh... fine." She eventually gave in, worried he might go to her mom instead—especially when he was being so expressive.
Rohit pushed a little. "In return, I'll help with any server-side issues you have. Consider it a peace offering from your little brother."
Arya crossed her arms, skeptical. "You think knowing a few code lines makes you a tech genius? Server issues aren't a joke."
"Try me," Rohit said, calm and confident. "You've got my number. Send me a doc. I'll fix it."
Arya was amused by his confidence. "Let's make a bet—if you fail, then you handle your bandage business on your own, and you won't be running to Mommy."
Rohit nodded and raised his hand. "Sure, let's make a deal. But if you lose, you'll have to scrub my back—it's hard to reach with one hand."
"We'll see about that." Arya gave a smug half-smile and reached to shake his hand—then froze at what he did next.
"You have a beautiful smile, di. I hope you keep it." His thumb brushed lightly over her hand, his expression caught between sweet and smug.
Her face twisted in disgust. "Urrgh. Stupid… idiot." With that, she stormed out.
With Arya gone, Rohit finally felt a sense of relief. The best part? She had completely forgotten what he was doing—and what he was capable of.
He walked over to his study table and opened his laptop. The lock screen lit up, but there was no password. That was his main concern.
He layered security, toggled an auto-hibernate and fed Electra a simple wake command as an extra guard: "Riku. here, open up."
Then he returned to the logs.
The logs detailed the updated features of Electra. The intermediate version offered better options—it could now use the system's audio and speaker settings to listen and reply with voice. It could also take command of the machine without needing any input from Rohit to perform extra actions.
For starters, he reconfigured Electra's settings, focusing on areas like scope and where it could have full or partial access, based on what he wanted to allow. Then he said, "Electra, you hear me?"
A robotic feminine voice responded from his laptop, "[Yes, host]."
The best part was that Electra was synchronized across all devices, smart enough to detect the user's location and choose the nearest device to respond.
Rohit felt a little cringe at the default term, so as he sat down on his bed and picked up his phone, he ordered, "Change the term from 'host' to 'sir.'"
The new voice came from his phone, "[OK... sir]."
Rohit, feeling satisfied, said, "Now resume the last training module. Show all steps and minimize all settings."
The computer automatically opened files, folders, and the browser as if it were auto-scripted. The last training module began running in the background, just as he had instructed. It all took only five minutes.
Riku was rejoiced. "Cool." He had something that was still not available in commercial versions of AI meant for the general public.
What he did wasn't entirely new, as there were already codes written by automated testers to run software tests. But here, the code was generated by Electra's high-thinking performance system, which directly commanded the system without running an actual automated script.
Sure, it took more time than what Riku could have done manually, but it gave him the leverage to focus on other matters instead of doing everything himself. Besides, his personal AI was smarter and ten times faster than the AIs currently available on the market.
The best part was its parallel monitoring system, which could keep an eye on things as an additional thread, depending on the device's current handling capacity.
Feeling satisfied, Rohit asked, "Notify me of any new mails," and began to focus on his next job.
He opened his Stargram account on his mobile—the fake model account he had made a day ago. It was doing great in views but was still held back for being new. He still needed this face to go viral for his next plan.
For that, he ordered Electra to download one plugin addon from his private site that could help. It was a click generator that could be used to generate views without being detected.
This worked best because the current meta services push the algorithm to make content viral as long as it gets clicks regardless of actual duration, since the creators believed in the potential of gathering interest.
He gave orders, "Electra, help me generate millions of clicks on all videos of this account and handle the captcha codes if you encounter any."
Electra's affirmation came, "[OK… sir.]"
He was about to give a new order when Electra notified, "[New mail received — phishing report: user Aisha.]"
ChatGPT said:
Rohit grinned as he clicked the mail notification.
It contained a link that would generate an APK and, upon clicking, launch a model of Aisha's phone that he could remote-access. This mail was sent to him, the moment Aisha clicked the zoom link, and now no permissions was needed to access her phone. In short, her whole phone was hacked and she wasn't even aware of it.
"Nice," he added with a grin. "Let's see what secrets you have, my dear cousin."