The summoning was brief and devastating.
After watching Arpika step willingly into deception, Gautham disappear into the maze of his own intellect, and Sanvi sharpen herself around controlled violence, Pranav walked into Asrit's presence expecting the same thing. A task. A target. A chance to repair the humiliation of his arrest and the weight of the debt hanging over him. He expected something that would justify his planning, his strategy, his usefulness.
Asrit stood by the door of a small utility room. Bare walls. No attempt at comfort. He didn't invite Pranav inside. He studied him with the detached focus of someone inspecting a malfunctioning tool.
"You require corrective action," Asrit said.
Pranav straightened instinctively. "I understand the need for structure. I can provide overwatch. I can analyze the failures of the previous operation and ensure it doesn't happen again."
"Action is a privilege," Asrit replied. "You have not earned it."
The words landed with a blunt finality.
"Your contribution will be silence."
Asrit explained the assignment without ceremony. Pranav was to remain in his assigned room for the duration of the operational phase. No missions. No movement. No role. The room itself was small and windowless, barely enough space for a cot and a steel chair.
Nothing else.
For Pranav, it was unbearable. He had built his entire sense of worth around motion, contribution, and influence. Doing nothing wasn't rest. It was erasure.
His face broke before he could stop it. "Sir, I can help. I can track signals. I can assist Gautham with the formula. I can handle tactical support."
"You will provide stillness," Asrit said. "Your chaos comes from frantic analysis. You mistake movement for power. You are a liability when you act. You are tolerable only when you wait."
He didn't wait for a response. He swiped his card and sealed the door. The lock engaged with a heavy sound that felt permanent.
Pranav was alone.
He paced the room. Three steps forward. Three steps back. The walls were bare concrete, indifferent to every plan forming and collapsing in his head. He tried to focus on numbers, on systems, on anything structured, but his thoughts refused to line up.
Isolation set in quickly. Not just physical, but internal. He was alone with his mistakes. Alone with the fear John Corvini had planted in him. That he wasn't chosen for greatness. That he was chosen because the darkness was already there.
The ambition he'd worn like armor suddenly looked different. Less like confidence. More like panic. A desperate attempt to outrun his father's failure and the debt tied to his name. Without a role, without motion, there was nowhere left to hide.
The others were out there. Arpika was building a lie sharp enough to kill. Sanvi was mapping violence with precision and permission. Gautham was wrestling panic into logic. They were earning their place, reshaping themselves through risk.
Pranav was stationary. Reduced to an object that existed but did not matter.
Time lost its shape. Minutes stretched. Hours dissolved. Every moment spent in that room meant someone else was gaining leverage, knowledge, necessity. Influence was being built elsewhere while his future quietly slipped away.
He stared at the blank walls and understood the elegance of the punishment. This was not confinement. This was hierarchy enforced through absence. He wasn't being eliminated. He was being sidelined and made to watch.
The silence pressed in until it felt physical.
And somewhere in that quiet, Pranav understood something terrifying. Power did not belong only to those who acted. It belonged just as much to those who knew when to wait.
The question was whether he had been ordered to learn patience, or whether he had already been written off.
He didn't know yet.
But the waiting had begun.