Chapter 229: The Virus Attack
Rohit stared at the vibrating phone, thoroughly pissed.
Whenever he was finally in the middle of something good, she always found a way to appear — either in person or through a screen. Arya had an almost supernatural talent for appearing at precisely the wrong moment.
A professional cockblock in sister form. If he answered, the night would be over. If he ignored it, there would be consequences later.
Experience told him he couldn’t ignore it.
Seo-yeon noticed his expression as she pulled her jeans up. "What happened? Is it serious?"
Rohit forced a polite smile. "One minute."
He stepped away and answered.
A panicked female voice came through immediately. "Rohit... this is Sheetal. Can you please come to the office?"
His brows furrowed. "Yeah, but I’m in the middle of—"
"Thank god. Please come as soon as possible. The matter is really urgent and cannot be delayed."
The call cut off before he could finish. A moment later, a Google Maps location arrived.
No explanation. No details. Just an immediate summons. Since it concerned the company that should have been his, he had little choice.
When he turned back, Seo-yeon was already kneeling in front of him, jeans on, red bra still open, breasts bare. She gathered her hair to the side with a mischievous smile.
"Want me to do it like earlier?"
Rohit sighed. The mood dropped instantly.
Her smile faded. "What happened?"
He explained the situation, voice tight with irritation.
Contrary to what he expected, Seo-yeon didn’t look disappointed. She stood up, calmly fixed her bra, and pulled her oversized t-shirt back on from the railing. A small, mature giggle escaped her.
"It’s fine. The delivery guy might be coming soon anyway. You should go."
Rohit gave her a quiet smile of thanks. Just as he turned to leave, she called out.
"Rohit."
He looked back. She stepped forward and suddenly hugged him. Her face was red as she muttered against his chest.
"I know you’ll never hurt me... but I hope this stays between us. Or else I’ll die."
Rohit patted her head gently. "Never. Not as long as you don’t want it."
She smacked his back lightly without letting go. "Idiot. Planning to tell the whole world if I ever let loose?"
He chuckled. "Might not be a bad idea. Could make a good beer story."
Both of them laughed, then fell quiet.
Their eyes met.
Rohit leaned in. Seo-yeon rose to meet him. The kiss was deep and lingering, lasting nearly half a minute. By the time they pulled apart, both were breathing harder, hearts pounding.
Seo-yeon pushed him lightly with a dry laugh, already hiding her face as she adjusted her t-shirt. "Now leave... see you at school."
"Sure."
Rohit left.
On the way down he took off his helmet and checked on Namrata — still deeply asleep. He encountered no one except the watchman, who pointedly showed him the clock. It was almost 9:00 p.m.
Rohit only smiled and headed to his bike. He glanced up toward the rooftop once, hoping to catch a final glimpse of her, but the darkness made it impossible. Only then did he remember he was suspended for two days.
He clicked his tongue in quiet frustration.
"Damn it... never thought I’d actually miss going to school."
He checked the location Sheetal had sent, then rode off into the city lights.
Unknown to him, from a distance, another pair of eyes had been watching. Seo-yeon’s bodyguard lowered his phone, expression tight with annoyance, and immediately dialed his employer — her father.
"Sir... there is a new report."
***
Riding his bike, Rohit stopped at the entrance of Shastri IT Park.
There was a direct option to park inside the IT park’s lot, but he decided to leave it outside among the rows of employee bikes already parked there. That saved him the time of waiting in the long queue. He chose the gate with the lowest crowd and entered.
After getting a one-hour guest pass at the reception, he strode straight in and headed for the eighth floor of Nagaraja Technologies.
At the reception desk, Sheetal was already waiting in her formal suit. She visibly sighed with relief the moment she saw him.
"This way. Come fast," she said, practically dragging him inside while still trying to maintain a professional tone.
Rohit kept his voice even, matching her formality. "So, Sheetal, what’s going on?"
As they walked past the cubicles, she quickly briefed him on the situation.
A Japanese delegation from Bandai Namco was interested in partnering and taking a stake in their major game, Baahubali.
Everything had been going smoothly until a sudden glitch appeared on one of the terminals.
No one had been able to solve it. As a precaution, they tried to roll back to the previous version, but the process got stuck halfway, causing a complete server crash in the staging environment.
The other environments were currently under maintenance and couldn’t be used.
Using the production server was too risky — it wasn’t fully updated according to their planned schedule and could expose more than they intended to the client. Luckily, the meeting had not started yet, and they had only forty minutes left to fix it.
Rohit hummed quietly as he took in the full gravity of the situation. He glanced once toward Arya’s cabin. The door was still closed, and she had not come out to meet him.
Sheetal led him straight to the server admin room.
Team leader Vani and her assistant, Shristi — the same cute girl who had once given him cake — were still trying to figure out the problem.
They did not look surprised to see Rohit. It was clear that a prior discussion had already decided to involve him, since he had previously helped fix server issues and configure systems in Python.
When Sheetal announced that Rohit would take over from here, both Vani and Shristi visibly relaxed and left the room, as if they had just been rescued from a ticking time bomb.
Sheetal took a seat nearby, watching his screen blankly. It was a deliberate move — staying present so he would not do anything questionable.
The real problem was simple: Rohit had the ability to fix it, but finding the exact error would normally take too much time.
Fortunately, he had a helping hand, or rather, the ultimate cheating tool pre-installed.
An earlier clone of his AI, was still installed on the production server. All he needed to do was switch its environment to staging and run a diagnostic scan. The only obstacle was Sheetal sitting right there.
He cleared his throat and accessed a few server files before speaking.
"Ah... can you please arrange something light for me to eat? I came in a rush and I’m feeling a bit hungry."
An awkward silence filled the room.
Sheetal looked at him for a second, then replied with slight embarrassment. "The cafeteria staff have already left. All that’s left are the evening leftover snacks. Would that be alright?"
Rohit pretended to think for a moment. "What kind?"
"Patties and some pastries," she answered sheepishly.
"Patties will do fine. Also, please arrange a coffee if possible."
Sheetal was about to call someone when Rohit added, "And please make sure it’s not spoiled or too oily. Otherwise, just the coffee will be enough. I hope you can check it personally, if it’s not too much trouble."
The polite smile on Sheetal’s face stiffened. By pointing her out specifically, and given that she had called him in urgently, she was left with little room to refuse.
Still, she forced a professional smile and nodded. "No worries. I’ll be back soon. Let me know if you need anything else."
She stood up and left.
Rohit watched her go, keeping his expression stoic. His eyes briefly checked the camera in the corner of the room.
Fortunately, the angle did not point directly at the monitor, though there was still a small chance someone could zoom in and catch part of the screen.
He coughed lightly, took a sip of water, and settled into the chair, tilting it back lazily as if already exhausted by the task.
Then, in a smooth motion, he adjusted the monitor to a more comfortable angle. Once everything looked natural, his expression turned serious.
Sending Sheetal away had bought him four or five minutes at most. He set himself a hard deadline of three minutes to finish everything and stay safe
He immediately accessed the earlier Lisa AI clone and commanded it to transfer a copy to the staging environment. The process took barely ten seconds.
The familiar interface appeared. He ordered a full system scan to identify the exact breaking point that was blocking the rollback of the current game version.
The diagnosis ran for hardly twenty-five seconds. Then a new report appeared.
[Lisa Clone v2: Foreign malware detected.]
Rohit’s jaw tightened.
What had looked like an accident no longer seemed like an accident at all.