The train rattled through the countryside like an old beast unwilling to die. Rudra sat by the window, forehead pressed against the cool glass, watching fields blur into smudges of green and brown. The rhythmic clatter of wheels on tracks was almost meditative, drowning out the chaos behind him.
"Bro, pass the chips!"
"Did you pack the charger? I swear if you forgot—"
"Ma'am said no phones after 10 PM. Like that's gonna happen."
Laughter erupted from the back of the compartment. Someone was already playing music on a Bluetooth speaker despite the teachers' warnings. The air smelled like sweat, cheap cologne, and excitement.
Rudra tuned it all out.
He adjusted his brown-tinted, aluminum-rimmed navigator spectacles—the kind that made you look like you belonged in the 1970s, but he didn't care. They hid his eyes. That was all that mattered. People couldn't read what they couldn't see.
His black duffel bag sat between his feet, compact and nondescript. Everything he needed for four months fit in there. Not because he traveled light, but because he traveled smart. Three sets of clothes, a first-aid kit, a multi-tool, a portable hard drive, and a few items that would raise questions if anyone looked too closely.
No one ever did.
Rudra was the kind of person people's eyes slid over. Not ugly, not handsome. Not loud, not silent. Just... average. Forgettable. Exactly how he liked it.
The Mask He Wore
To his classmates, Rudra was "that guy." The one who sat in the middle rows, answered when called, never volunteered, never caused trouble. He wasn't a nerd—he didn't raise his hand every two minutes or wear his academic achievements like a badge. He wasn't a backbencher either—no cigarettes, no bad attitude, no rebellious streak.
He simply existed in the comfortable middle, invisible by design.
What they didn't know—what no one knew—was that Rudra had spent the last six years building himself into something else entirely.
While other kids binged Netflix and complained about homework, Rudra trained. Push-ups until his arms shook. Sprints until his lungs burned. Martial arts tutorials on YouTube, practiced alone in his room at 2 AM when his parents were asleep. He'd learned Krav Maga basics from online forums, picked up enough boxing to throw a punch that counted, and practiced knife disarming techniques with a wooden spoon and his own ruthless self-discipline.
His body didn't look like a fighter's—he kept it lean, functional, hidden under loose shirts. But every muscle was deliberate. Every scar earned in silence.
And it wasn't just physical.
Rudra taught himself to code at thirteen. By fifteen, he'd hacked into his school's server just to see if he could, then patched the vulnerability anonymously. He learned circuit design from old textbooks he found in secondhand stores, built drones from scrap, and once assembled a working EMP device just to prove a concept.
He spoke three languages fluently, could read two more, and had a working knowledge of Morse code, binary, and the kind of situational awareness most people only saw in movies.
But the most important skill he'd mastered?
Never letting anyone know.
Arrival at Kupam
The train screeched to a halt, brakes groaning like a wounded animal. Rudra opened his eyes.
Kupam Station.
Outside, the platform was silent. Too silent. A far cry from the bustling stations back in the city. Here, there were no vendors shouting, no crowds shoving. Just dust, sunlight, and the distant sound of cowbells.
A painted sign hung crookedly from the station roof: "WELCOME TO KUPAM."
The letters were faded, like the town itself had been slowly forgetting its own name.
"Man, this place looks dead," someone muttered behind Rudra.
"Yeah, bet there's no Wi-Fi."
"Forget Wi-Fi, I don't even see people."
Rudra stood, grabbed his bag, and stepped onto the platform without a word.
The heat hit him immediately—dry, oppressive, the kind that made your shirt stick to your back within seconds. He scanned his surroundings with practiced efficiency.
Station: one platform, no CCTV. Exits: two—main gate and a service road behind the tracks. Vehicles: three buses waiting, engines off. Teachers: clustered near the front, arguing about something. Students: disorganized, loud, oblivious.
He made a mental map in five seconds.
Then he walked.
First Impressions
The buses took them through narrow roads lined with sparse trees and houses that looked like they'd been baked by the sun for decades. Kupam wasn't a town—it was an idea of one. A place where time moved slower, where nothing ever seemed to happen.
Until it did.
The field study center was an old colonial-era building attached to a local institute. Faded yellow paint, arched windows, a courtyard with a dying fountain in the center. It looked like the kind of place that appeared in old photographs labeled "simpler times."
Rudra stepped off the bus last, letting the others scramble for rooms, bags crashing into each other like a human stampede.
"Rudra, you're in Dorm C, Bed 14!" a teacher shouted without looking up from her clipboard.
He nodded.
No one noticed.
He walked slowly through the courtyard, his eyes cataloging everything. Cracked tiles. Rusted gate hinges. A broken lock on the equipment shed. A surveillance camera near the main entrance—offline, lens cracked, probably hadn't worked in years.
Blind spots everywhere.
Interesting.
The Mess Hall Incident
That evening, the students gathered in the mess hall—a large room with long wooden tables, flickering tube lights, and the faint smell of old curry. Rudra took a corner seat, back to the wall, view of both exits.
The noise was unbearable. Laughter, shouting, trays clattering.
Then someone screamed.
"My phone! Someone took my phone!"
A boy named Sameer stood up, face red, eyes wild. "I just left it here for two minutes—who took it?"
The room fell silent.
"Check your bag," someone suggested.
"I already did! It's gone!"
A teacher rushed over. "Calm down. We'll find it."
"Someone stole it! I know they did!"
Accusations started flying. Fingers pointed. Voices raised. Within minutes, it escalated—one boy shoved another, someone threatened to call the cops, a girl started crying because she was sitting next to Sameer and now people were side-eyeing her.
Chaos.
Rudra watched it all without moving. His eyes tracked every face, every reaction. Who looked guilty. Who looked too calm. Who couldn't meet anyone's gaze.
And then he saw it.
A kid named Arjun—front bencher, teacher's pet, never caused trouble—shifted his weight just slightly, his hand brushing his pocket in a way that screamed nervousness.
Rudra didn't react.
He just filed it away.
Later that night, after lights out, Rudra slipped out of his dorm room. No shoes. Just socks. Silent as a shadow, he moved through the corridors like smoke.
He found the phone tucked under a loose floor tile in the corridor near the bathrooms—exactly where Arjun had hidden it, hoping to "find" it in the morning and play hero.
Rudra didn't take it immediately. Instead, he left it there, walked back to his room, and went to sleep.
The next morning, a teacher found the phone in the exact spot, probably tipped off by an "anonymous note."
Sameer got his phone back. Arjun's plan failed. No one suspected a thing.
And Rudra?
He was already on the roof, tightening a homemade signal booster he'd built from spare parts he found in the equipment shed. By breakfast, the Wi-Fi in the dorms had tripled in strength.
No one knew who fixed it.
No one ever asked.
That's how Rudra preferred it.
But Kupam wasn't done with him. In fact, it had barely started.
Something was watching. Waiting. Testing.
And Rudra, for all his skills, had no idea what he'd just walked into.