The ceiling fans in Bharat National Bank's compliance department turned in slow, painful circles, pushing around nothing but warm air and despair. Outside the tinted windows, Mumbai glimmered under a film of humidity so thick it looked like the entire city had been lightly steamed. Inside, the only thing hotter than the weather was Nacikate Rao's temper.
At precisely 9:02 a.m., his computer emitted a cheerful ding that no one else in the room dared to acknowledge. Nacikate set his third cup of coffee beside a fortress of color-coded folders and frowned at the subject line flashing across his monitor:
ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED DATA EXTRACTION EVENT.
For three whole seconds he just stared, unblinking, at the words as if disbelief alone might make them disappear. Then he inhaled, straightened his tie, and muttered, "It's nine o'clock on a Monday. Who commits cybercrime before breakfast?"
No one answered. His team of junior analysts had learned that questions from their boss were rhetorical unless they contained the words 'update,''deadline,' or 'why.' One intern tried to look busy by clicking his mouse with exaggerated concentration. Another pretended to sneeze into a spreadsheet.
"Rohit," Nacikate said finally, voice calm but laced with caffeine and menace. "Which server triggered the alarm?"
The intern flinched as though he'd been asked to confess to treason. "Uh, sir—it, um—it looks like a data-pull from the GST portal. Very small packet. Possibly, maybe, a test?"
Nacikate's left eyebrow rose a precise millimeter. "Possibly, maybe?"
Rohit swallowed. "Definitely, um, not authorized."
Nacikate stood, gathering his laptop and composure in one fluid motion. His jacket snapped across his shoulders like punctuation. "Trace the IP."
The interns scattered, clicking furiously. After a tense moment someone squeaked, "Sir, location found! Bandra West. A café. Wi-Fi name—uh—'ByteMe underscore sixty-nine.'"
A silence of biblical proportions followed.
Nacikate pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course it's called that. Because professionalism is dead."
He looked down at the spreadsheet glowing patiently on his screen—neatly balanced columns, perfect alignment, formulas that obeyed him without complaint. He sighed, as if leaving them were a personal tragedy, and scribbled a note on a sticky pad:
Gone to smite hacker. Back by lunch.
Then he grabbed his laptop, his ID card, and the righteous certainty that the universe had chosen him, personally, to prevent fiscal anarchy.
The elevator ride to the parking lot was accompanied by the faint elevator-music version of Vande Mataram. Nacikate used the time to rehearse his speech: formal, cutting, and guaranteed to make the culprit question their life choices. He adjusted his cuff links—small silver rectangles engraved with his initials—and reminded himself that self-control was a virtue.
By the time his sedan slid into Bandra traffic, virtue had melted under the afternoon sun. Autorickshaws swarmed around him like tax evaders escaping audit. He honked once, realized it was futile, and muttered, "I manage national risk portfolios. I can handle one hacker."
The café appeared between a designer boutique and a pharmacy—a narrow storefront painted in questionable shades of teal, its signboard proudly declaring "BYTE ME: COFFEE & CLOUD STORAGE."
He parked illegally, adjusted his tie one last time, and marched toward destiny.
Inside, the air smelled of espresso, overheated circuits, and mild chaos. College students hunched over laptops. Someone was arguing about cryptocurrency near the counter. And in the far corner, lit by the sickly glow of two screens, sat the epicenter of the disturbance.
A young man in a faded hoodie crouched cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by cables like a spider in its own web. One laptop displayed lines of scrolling code; the other showed a paused YouTube video titled "Ten Ways to Get Away with Bad Wi-Fi." Crumbs from a samosa dotted the keyboard. The hoodie read 404 Feelings Not Found.
Nacikate's internal alarms began ringing louder than the bank's system had.
He crossed the café with the controlled pace of an approaching thunderstorm and stopped directly behind the hacker's chair. "Step away from that router," he said evenly.
The young man didn't turn around. "Relax, uncle. I'm doing cyber-seva."
"Uncle?" Nacikate repeated, incredulous. "I'm thirty-two."
"Exactly," the hacker said, still typing. "Peak uncle age."