The morning air at IIT Hyderabad carried the soft scent of dewed grass and warm stone. Muthu sat on the same weathered steel bench near the IITH Tower, his fingers tapping a rhythm on his knee. The sky above was pale blue, veined with the trails of early flights heading out of the city—each one carrying someone toward something.
Beside him, Megha scrolled through the T-Hub application portal on her tablet, her brows furrowed in concentration.
"One week until the pitch," she said. "We still have to prep the financials, the demo flow, and the team slide."
Muthu nodded, eyes distant. "We'll get it done. The design simulations are stable. The lab sample worked under controlled conditions. We just need to show that it scales."
"And the vision," Megha added. "You're not just building a product, Muthu. You're building a story. That's what they buy into at T-Hub."
"I know," he said, glancing at her. "That's why you're here."
She offered a faint smile. "That, and because I don't want you to accidentally set the lab on fire again."
"Once. That happened once."
Behind them, footsteps crunched on the gravel. Arvind and Sanjana arrived, each holding a folder and a coffee cup. Arvind looked alert and ready; Sanjana wore an expression of half-suppressed annoyance.
"Why are we meeting so early?" Sanjana grumbled. "My EEG data collection got delayed last night. I was up until three."
"Because this is when we don't get kicked out of the tower bench by couples," Arvind said dryly. He turned to Muthu. "We've started drafting the technical appendix for the grant. I think it's better if we frame the nanomaterial battery as a platform technology. Use cases in wearables, storage, maybe even aerospace. Broadens our scope."
Muthu looked up, finally engaged. "Good. Include the Gen I synthesis process, but abstract the blueprint details. We don't reveal more than we need to."
Megha pulled up a blank slide. "So what's the official name of this company again?"
There was a pause.
"Vyaana Tech," Muthu said, firmly. "It means breath or life-force. We're not just making tech. We're making infrastructure for independence."
Sanjana raised a brow. "Bit dramatic. But okay, sure. Breath of India or whatever."
Arvind smirked. "Hey, better than 'NanoStartz Innovations.'"
Everyone laughed, the tension momentarily lifting.
That afternoon, the group split up to tackle their tasks. Arvind and Sanjana took the battery module back to the lab to begin scaling the prototype. Megha started preparing the pitch deck. Muthu headed to the student co-working space to apply for T-Hub's 'Idea to Prototype' grant.
He filled out the paperwork carefully, listing the problem statement, proposed innovation, IP claims, and team details. There was a buzz in his chest. Every field he filled was one step closer to legitimacy.
Just as he hit "Submit," a voice drawled behind him.
"Well, look who finally decided to join the real world."
Muthu turned around to find Aadit Rana leaning against the doorway. Tall, lean, perpetually well-groomed, Aadit had always been something of a campus celebrity. EE department gold medalist, national-level robotics champ, and known for being the youngest intern at two of India's top VC firms.
"Aadit," Muthu said curtly. "Didn't think T-Hub was your kind of game."
Aadit shrugged. "Innovation is innovation. I heard you're making some new battery thing?"
Muthu didn't answer.
"I'm working on AI-optimized grid balancing," Aadit continued smoothly. "It's what India really needs. Scalable. Sellable. Bankable."
Megha appeared behind Muthu. Her eyes narrowed. "Oh look, the startup peacock is here."
Aadit smirked. "Megha. Still playing policy wizard to the mad scientist?"
"Better than pitching glorified load management algorithms."
Muthu cut in. "We'll see whose idea T-Hub backs."
"Oh, we will," Aadit said. "And Muthu? Try not to blow your lab budget before the final round. Just a friendly tip."
He walked off, confidence trailing behind him like cologne.
Megha crossed her arms. "He's submitting in the same track?"
"Looks like it."
"Great. He's got half the board eating out of his LinkedIn."
Later that day, Muthu's parents called.
He sat alone in his room as their faces appeared on the screen—Appa, in his worn-out white shirt, and Amma, with a tired smile.
"How are you, kanna?" his mother asked.
"I'm fine, Amma. Just working on something big. We're applying for a grant to fund a research startup."
Appa looked skeptical. "You didn't sit for placements, and now you want to start a company? Do you even have customers? Profits?"
"It's not like that," Muthu said, trying to stay calm. "We're building technology that will eventually—"
"Eventually?" his father interrupted. "You think this country has time to wait for your 'eventually'? Look at your cousins. Working jobs, sending money home. And you're sitting there drawing circuits."
"I'm not just drawing circuits, Appa. This is different. It's—"
Amma touched her husband's arm gently. "Let him try."
Appa sighed. "Just... don't come back in a year saying you wasted it all."
The call ended.
Muthu sat for a long time, staring at the screen. The silence in the room was thick.
Back at the lab that night, Muthu ran another synthesis test. The Gen I material was holding its integrity under stress, which meant they were ready for physical tests.
The Futureverse system pulsed in his vision:
[New Milestone Reached: Prototype Demonstration Stage][System Suggestion: Recruit 2 additional talents – Recommended profiles: Embedded Systems, Strategic Ops][Optional Module: Microcontroller Integration Path – Locked until demonstration success]
He stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the city lights. Somewhere out there, Aadit was probably polishing his pitch. Somewhere else, his parents were lying awake, worried for him.
He clenched his fists.
He wouldn't let any of them down.
Not Megha.
Not Arvind or Sanjana.
Not even Appa.
Scene Break: 3 Days Later
The team sat in the library basement, whiteboards covered in marker scrawls, pizza boxes stacked like bricks in a wall. Sanjana was pacing. Arvind was asleep on a beanbag, holding a multimeter like a teddy bear. Megha was tweaking the pitch deck on her laptop.
"We need someone who can handle embedded systems," Megha said. "Arvind's good, but he's going to crash if he does both power systems and firmware."
Muthu nodded. "There's a guy in EE—Pranav. He built a distributed drone swarm for his BTP. Might be our best bet."
"Talk to him," she said. "And Muthu?"
He looked up.
"You've got vision. But if this company's going to last more than one semester, you've got to learn something else too."
"What?"
She smiled. "Leadership. Not just doing things. Delegating. Trusting. Rallying. It's going to get messy. You okay with messy?"
Muthu exhaled, long and slow.
"Messy's what I was born into."