Chapter 1.4 - Wednesday Meeting
Nova Prime Engineering College | 20 May 2126
I. Morning - Deputy Principal’s Office
The office of Deputy Principal Sharma smelled of old paper and air conditioning that had been running too long in a sealed room. Rohan sat across from a man in his late fifties whose desk was immaculate - not because he was organized, Rohan decided, but because very little actual work happened on it.
Sharma had the notice in front of him. He hadn’t looked at it since Rohan sat down. He didn’t need to. It was a prop, not a document.
“Rohan,” he began, with the tone of someone who had practiced sounding reasonable. “You’re a good student. Third year, consistent record, no disciplinary history. I want to keep it that way.”
“Thank you sir,” Rohan said. Polite. Neutral. Exactly as he had planned.
“This review -” Sharma gestured at the notice without touching it “- is routine. We periodically audit student union activity to ensure it doesn’t interfere with academic performance. Yours has been flagged simply because your union engagement has increased significantly in recent weeks.”
“I wasn’t aware student union activity was subject to audit,” Rohan said.
“It’s in the charter.”
“Yes sir. I read the charter after receiving the notice.” He paused. “The Academic Standards Committee hasn’t been convened in four years.”
Something moved briefly across Sharma’s face. Not quite discomfort - more like the expression of a man recalculating.
“These things are cyclical,” Sharma said smoothly. “The point is, Rohan, that student unions serve an important function when they focus on campus welfare. Events, orientation, student services. Where it becomes problematic -” he leaned forward slightly “- is when external agendas enter the picture.”
“What external agendas, sir?”
“Grievance campaigns. Documentation drives. Activities that create the impression of institutional failure.” He let that sit for a moment. “This college has been serving students for decades. Its reputation matters - to your degree, to your future employment, to every student who graduates from here.”
Rohan said nothing.
Sharma continued. “I’m not here to threaten you. I want to be very clear about that. I’m here to have a conversation - colleague to student - about where your energy is best directed in your final years here.”
“I appreciate that sir,” Rohan said. “Can I ask - are the concerns that students have raised through the union being addressed through any official channel?”
Sharma blinked. “What concerns specifically?”
“Outdated curriculum materials. Frequent professor changes. Lack of research funding. Career guidance gaps.” Rohan kept his voice even. “These have been raised informally for years. Is there a formal process through which students can present documented grievances to the administration?”
A longer pause this time.
“There are established channels -”
“Could you point me to them sir? Specifically. I want to make sure we’re using the correct process.”
Sharma looked at him for a long moment. The immaculate desk between them felt suddenly like a very wide distance.
“I’ll have my office send you the relevant documentation,” he said finally.
“Thank you sir.” Rohan stood, picked up his bag. “I’ll look forward to receiving it. And sir -” he paused at the door “- my attendance record. Was any irregularity actually found?”
The silence lasted exactly two seconds too long.
“The review is ongoing,” Sharma said.
Rohan nodded once and left.
II. Afternoon - Priya
Priya Shenoy had not told her parents.
She sat in the college canteen with a cup of tea she wasn’t drinking, her phone face down on the table. Her revised assessment results were in her student portal - three marks deducted from her structural analysis submission, no explanation given beyond “reassessment following quality review.”
She had submitted that assessment six weeks ago. It had been graded, returned, filed. Nobody reassessed a six week old submission without a reason.
She was seventeen days into her second year. She had come to Nova Prime Engineering College from a small settlement three hundred kilometers south - one of the communities that Novara’s formal systems barely reached. Her family had saved for two years to cover her hostel fees. Her father repaired water filtration units. Her mother kept accounts for three local traders. They had sat with her the night before she left and told her that education was the thing that the Reset couldn’t take away.
She had written her testimony carefully. Two paragraphs. Her laboratory equipment. The professor who had left mid-semester. The textbook that skipped the chapters most relevant to her specialization because they were in a supplementary volume the college didn’t stock.
Two paragraphs. And now three marks gone from a submission that had already been graded.
She picked up her phone. Put it down again.
Vikram had texted her that morning - he’d heard, he was sorry, he wanted to know if she was okay. She hadn’t replied yet. She didn’t know what to say.
The thing was she wasn’t afraid of the marks exactly. She was afraid of what they meant. That the system - the same system that hadn’t reached her settlement, that had sent her here with outdated resources and disappearing professors - could reach her here too. Could find her even in a canteen with a cup of cooling tea and make her feel small and exposed and very far from home.
She turned her phone over.
Opened Vikram’s message.
Typed: I’m okay. I’m still in. Don’t remove my testimony.
Sent it before she could think too long.
She drank her cold tea. Outside the canteen window Nova Prime moved through its afternoon - construction crews, government vehicles, the distant outline of new buildings going up on the western edge of the city. A nation building itself.
She was part of that nation. Even if it didn’t always act like it.
III. Night - The Union Meeting
Thirty one students this time.
Rohan counted them as they filed in - the union room couldn’t hold them all comfortably so someone had propped the door open and three people sat in the corridor with the door in view. Eight more than last week. Word had traveled in the way that pressure always makes things travel - faster and further than anyone intends.
Shruti was already there when he arrived. She read his face before he said anything.
“How was it?” she asked quietly.
“Instructive,” he said.
He waited until everyone had settled - the corridor students included - then stood at the front of the room without notes. He had decided on the walk over that he would tell them everything exactly as it happened. No interpretation, no editorial. Just what was said in that office.
He told them about the Academic Standards Committee. About Sharma’s language - external agendas, institutional reputation, where your energy is best directed. He told them about asking for the formal grievance channels and watching Sharma not have an answer. He told them that his attendance review had produced no actual irregularities because none existed.
The room listened without interrupting. That was how he knew it was serious - twenty eight people in a cramped room and nobody spoke.
“They’re not going to engage with the substance,” he said when he finished. “They’re going to try to make the process uncomfortable enough that we stop. That’s the strategy.” He looked around the room. “I want everyone to understand what that means. It means it may get more uncomfortable before it gets better. Marks reviewed. Union activities scrutinized. Informal pressure through professors or administrative staff.”
“It’s already happening,” Vikram said from the left side of the room. “Priya’s assessment.”
“Yes,” Rohan said. “Which is why I want to ask Priya directly - and anyone else who has experienced something similar - whether you want to continue. Nobody is obligated. If you want your testimony removed it will be removed, no questions asked.”
Silence.
Then from the corridor - one of the three sitting outside the door - a second year girl Rohan didn’t recognize raised her hand.
“My lab report was returned for re-evaluation yesterday,” she said. “I submitted a testimony on Monday.”
Another hand. A third year from the electrical batch. Same story, different timing.
Rohan wrote it all down.
By the time the hands stopped there were four students with unexplained academic reviews in the past week - all of them connected to the documentation process, none of them with any official explanation.
Shruti spoke from her seat near the window. “We document this too. Every review, every revision, every irregularity that follows participation in this process. Dates, details, the original grades, the revised grades. Everything.”
“That’s evidence,” Kriti said from the back. She had come again - Rohan had noticed. Still near the exit, still arms crossed. But she had come. “Of what exactly?”
“Of a pattern,” Shruti said. “We don’t accuse anyone of anything. We just show the pattern and let people draw their own conclusions.”
Kriti was quiet for a moment. “And then what? We take it where?”
“We’re not there yet,” Rohan said. “Right now we build the record. Clean, factual, undeniable.” He looked at the room - the thirty one faces, the corridor students, Vikram, Devan, Shruti, Kriti with her arms crossed and her sharp uncomfortable questions. “But I want to say something clearly. They reviewed Priya’s marks because they thought it would make her disappear quietly. She texted Vikram today and said don’t remove my testimony.”
He let that sit.
“That’s what we’re working with,” he said. “So. Same question as last week. Do we keep going?”
Thirty one people. The corridor students included.
Every single one of them said yes.
To be continued - Chapter 1.5
