Chapter 5: The Saboteur
The air in the old, dimly lit computer lab was thick with the scent of dust and stale coffee.
Aarav and Ayushi were hunched over a pair of keyboards, surrounded by notes and half-eaten snacks.
It was nearly 11 PM, and the lab should have been empty, but a handful of other students were furiously preparing for the same Business Plan Competition.
Ayushi was focused, her brow furrowed in concentration. Aarav had just finished walking her through a complex spreadsheet detailing the capital expenditure for the first six months of her Bio-Waste startup—information he knew intimately from studying similar projections in his future MBA classes.
"Aarav, that's incredible," Ayushi whispered, her fatigue momentarily forgotten. "The way you broke down the amortization of the machinery—my original numbers were off by almost fifteen percent. You just saved our projected profitability."
Aarav felt a rush of genuine warmth—not just the relief of fulfilling his mission, but the satisfaction of real collaboration.
"It's your vision that makes the numbers work, Ayushi. I'm just the calculator."
He glanced up, checking the clock.
They still had hours of work ahead.
It was then he noticed a flicker of movement by the next station.
Dev, Ayushi's former partner—the student who had scorned her idea an hour earlier—was hovering.
He was pretending to work on his own computer, but his eyes were glued to their screen.
Aarav knew Dev.
In the original timeline, Dev had been competitive and prone to petty jealousy, especially after he realized Ayushi's abandoned idea was gaining traction.
"Still here, Ayushi?" Dev asked loudly, sauntering over. His tone was laced with false sympathy.
"I heard you roped in Aarav. Big mistake. This rural waste idea is a non-starter. No one wants to fund a slow-burn social enterprise when they can invest in the next big app."
Ayushi squared her shoulders, her energy already spent. "Thanks for the input, Dev. We're busy."
Dev ignored her, his eyes darting to Aarav's laptop. "You know, I was just reading about a similar initiative in Mysore. They failed spectacularly. Their entire supply chain collapsed because they couldn't get the local permits. Did you factor in the inevitable bureaucratic drag on your timeline, Aarav?"
The word drag hung in the air, a deliberate mockery of Aarav's earlier confrontation with Mr. Ranganathan.
Aarav leaned back, his gaze cold and steady. He didn't get angry; he got strategic.
This was a direct attack on their mission.
"We didn't just factor it in, Dev," Aarav replied, his voice calm and authoritative.
"We minimized it. We're not relying on the existing, outdated municipal permit structure."
Ayushi looked at Aarav, surprised.
She hadn't even started researching the permits.
Aarav continued, speaking now to Ayushi, but loud enough for Dev to hear every word.
"Remember the government's new 'Green Start' initiative'? It fast-tracks permits for university-backed social enterprises. If we submit our proposal through the college's entrepreneurship cell before the main B-Plan submission, we bypass the major municipal hurdles. It's an efficient process. Minimum bureaucratic drag."
Ayushi's eyes widened with understanding. "The Green Start initiative! I read about it, but I didn't realize it applied to the permit process."
Dev's face, which had been smug a moment ago, now looked strained. He hadn't known about the obscure government clause;
Aarav had only known because he remembered hearing a guest lecturer mention it in the future timeline.
Aarav stood up, placing a protective hand on the back of Ayushi's chair.
"In fact, Dev," he said, his voice dropping to a low, warning tone.
"I suggest you go back to your mobile app idea. We've already factored in and mitigated every obvious failure point.
If you spend any more time trying to undermine us, you'll just be wasting the little time you have left."
Defeated, Dev muttered an insult under his breath and retreated hastily to his corner.
Ayushi turned to Aarav, a spark of gratitude and admiration shining in her eyes.
"Where did you learn all that? You sounded like a CEO."
Aarav just smiled, a confident, slightly mysterious look that the hesitant boy of the past could never have managed.
"I've been doing a lot of reading lately. Now, we have a window of opportunity. We need to draft that 'Green Start' application tonight."
As they got back to work, Ayushi's earlier tension had vanished, replaced by a feeling of safety and respect for her new partner.
Aarav had not just protected their plan; he had established himself as her strategic defender and indispensable asset—exactly what she needed to trust him.