The door closed softly behind Saxena.
No slam.No final threat.
Just the quiet click of authority leaving the room.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
The computers hummed. A ceiling fan rattled lazily. Twenty-five young men sat frozen in their chairs, unsure whether the storm had truly passed or was merely circling back.
Varun waited.
When Mishra returned with the steel tray—two cups of tea, a small plate of biscuits—Varun didn't stop him.
"Mishra-ji," Varun said calmly, "please take that to Sir's office. He'll be there."
Mishra's face brightened immediately.
Tea with the HOD. Alone. No students. No interruptions. No visiting faculty hovering nearby.
This was his kind of victory.
He nodded enthusiastically and left, tray balanced carefully, already rehearsing respectful laughter.
The corridor swallowed him.
The lab was finally theirs.
Varun turned back to the class.
"Sit," he said.
The students obeyed—slowly, cautiously—like people testing whether a surface was safe to step on again. Chairs creaked. Someone exhaled loudly, as if only now remembering how to breathe.
Varun didn't stand at the front.
He leaned against the instructor's desk instead, arms relaxed, posture open.
"Before we continue," he said, "I need to explain something."
No lectures.No slogans.
Just a man talking.
"I am not Rajinikanth," Varun said plainly.
A few students looked up, confused.
"I can't fight a whole system alone," he continued. "In movies, one man beats up a train full of gangsters. In real life, that man gets transferred… or suspended… or buried under files until he gives up."
A weak chuckle passed through the room—nervous, but real.
"What you saw today," Varun said, "was not surrender."
He paused, making sure they were listening.
"It was de-escalation."
He let the word hang.
"In real life," he went on, "you don't win every conflict by shouting. Sometimes you win by making sure the conflict doesn't destroy the people standing behind you."
A few students shifted uncomfortably.
"Our job," Varun said, "is not to defeat people. Our job is to understand systems. Once you understand how a system works, you stop being scared of it."
He picked up the official syllabus from the desk.
The paper was yellowed. The font looked ancient. The staples were rusting.
Varun held up the first page.
"Read this."
One student squinted and read aloud, hesitant.
"'MS-DOS is a modern operating system. Windows 98 is the latest operating system based on DOS.'"
A silence followed.
Varun nodded.
"This syllabus," he said quietly, "is older than every single one of you."
A few students exchanged glances. One shook his head slowly, half amused, half angry.
"This," Varun continued, tapping the paper, "is what the paperwork says I must teach you."
He placed it gently on the desk.
"And from tomorrow onward," he added, "we will do exactly that. We'll write it neatly on the whiteboard. We'll fill registers. We'll satisfy inspections."
Relief flickered across a few faces.
"But," Varun said, his tone shifting, "today—and every day after paperwork is done—we learn something that actually matters."
The room leaned forward as one.
"Tomorrow," Varun said, "we start with file systems. What files are. Where they live. How operating systems think."
He paused, then allowed a hint of mischief into his expression.
"And," he said, lowering his voice slightly, "what happens when a system is password-protected… and the user forgets the password."
Eyes widened.
A murmur rippled through the room.
Varun raised a hand immediately.
"Disclaimer," he said flatly. "This is purely educational."
A few suppressed laughs.
"Any misuse," he added, "will be the sole responsibility of the individual involved."
The tension finally cracked.
"And according to official paperwork," Varun finished, tapping the syllabus again, "I am teaching you MS-DOS as a modern operating system."
This time, the laughter was real.
Not loud.But genuine.
The HUD shimmered quietly at the edge of Varun's vision.
[STUDENT MORALE: -38% → -25% (Cautious Optimism)][ENVIRONMENT STATUS: STABLE — NO FURTHER INTERRUPTIONS EXPECTED TODAY]
Varun looked at them.
"Welcome," he said, "to the difference between paper education… and real skills."
For the first time that day, the students didn't feel like they were waiting to fail.
They felt like they were being taught.