The cyber crime office smelled different that day.
Not panic.
Suspicion.
Passwords were reset. Logs were reviewed twice. Conversations stopped when seniors walked in.
Arjun sensed it immediately.
Suspicion had a sound. Softer footsteps. Forced laughter. Chairs scraping unnecessarily.
That night, he noticed the camera above the third workstation hesitate.
Two seconds.
It froze, then resumed.
Two seconds were enough to make careers collapse.
Arjun did not look up at the camera. He never did. Looking meant acknowledging risk.
Instead, he slowed his breathing.
Fear, he had learned, rushed people. Rushed people made patterns.
He waited three days before correcting the glitch.
When he did, he didn't fix it fully. He introduced a plausible hardware error, something that would frustrate technicians but satisfy explanations.
Human systems needed excuses more than solutions.
As he walked home that night, rain soaking through his shawl, Arjun realized something quietly unsettling.
He was enjoying the precision.
Not the danger.
The control.
(Easter egg: Arjun intentionally leaves minor flaws unfixed. Later, investigators focus on these instead of his real trail.)