Prakash Murthy didn't just look defeated; he looked like his entire reality had been shattered. He was a 45-year-old man, a CEO, being held hostage by a child in a two-room apartment. He turned, his face pleading, toward the only other adult in the room.
"Radha-ji," he stammered, appealing to her. "Please. Talk to your son. He... he doesn't understand what he's saying. Thirty percent... it's... it's impossible!"
Radha Varma finally snapped out of her shock. Her maternal instinct, programmed to see her son as a child, took over. "Arjun!" she said, her voice sharp. "What is this behavior? Apologize to Mr. Murthy right now! This is not a game! You don't talk to elders like this!"
Arjun didn't look at Prakash. He turned his chair and faced his mother. His "Krishna" mask of the cold negotiator dissolved, replaced instantly by the "Rama" mask of a loving son.
"Mom," he said, his voice gentle but firm, all its unnatural coldness gone. "I am not playing. This is the most serious conversation of our lives. That debt you're worried about? Mr. Gowda? This is how we solve it. This is how I protect you."
"By... by stealing this man's company?" she asked, horrified.
"By saving it," Arjun corrected her, his voice unyielding. "Please, Mom. I know this is confusing. I promise I will explain everything. But right now, I need you to trust me. Can you go into the kitchen? Just for ten minutes. Please."
Radha looked back and forth between the powerful, desperate man and her quiet, disturbingly calm son. The Arjun in front of her was not the boy she knew. He was a stranger. Frightened, and not knowing what else to do, she nodded and retreated, closing the thin curtain that separated the kitchen from the main room.
The moment she was gone, the coldness snapped back into Arjun's eyes.
"One last attempt, Mr. Murthy?" Arjun asked.
Prakash, having lost his only ally, slumped back into the chair. He tried one last time, a pathetic bluff. "Fifteen percent. As a 'consulting fee.' That's my final offer. It's... it's incredibly generous."
Arjun let out a small, quiet laugh. It was a terrifying sound.
"A 'consulting fee.' You still think this is about that one piece of code, don't you?" Arjun stood up from his desk and walked to the small apartment window, looking out over the dusty street.
"That algorithm I gave you is a patch, Mr. Murthy. A bandage on a mortal wound. Your entire 'Data Management Suite' is built on a flawed, slow architecture. In approximately six months, a small startup in Mumbai, 'InfoTech Dynamics,' is going to release a product that does everything yours does, but ten times faster and on cheaper hardware."
Prakash's face went white. He'd heard whispers of a rival, but nothing concrete.
Arjun turned back, his small form silhouetted against the bright window. "My code will make you competitive for maybe... maybe... four months. Then you'll be dead. Your company, your life's work... gone. All of it."
"How... how can you possibly know that?" Prakash whispered. It was no longer a negotiation. It was a plea for information.
"I don't just write code, Mr. Murthy. I see the market," Arjun said, tapping his temple again. "I see the 'Path of Least Resistance' to success. You are on the path to failure. I am the only one who can change your direction."
He walked back and stood over the seated man.
"Thirty percent isn't the price for the code. That was a free sample. Thirty percent is the price for me. You get the architect, not just the blueprint. You get my knowledge. You get my vision. You get... the future."
He let the words hang in the air. Prakash Murthy stared at the floor. Every instinct screamed that this was madness. But his engineering mind, the part of him that recognized the 'art' in Arjun's code, knew the boy was telling the truth. The genius who wrote that code was not a one-trick pony.
Prakash had started his company to be an innovator, not to die managing a failure.
"My God," he whispered, running a hand over his face. He looked up, his eyes old and tired. "How? How do I even... sign a contract with a 12-year-old? It's not legal."
Arjun smiled. The deal was done.
"That's the easy part," Arjun said, his businesslike tone returning. "You're not signing with me. You're signing with my mother, Radha Varma. The shares—thirty percent of Bharat-Tech—will be transferred into a trust. My mother will be the sole trustee, and I will be the sole beneficiary. The shares will be in her name, for me, until I turn 18."
He paused, then added the final, crushing blow.
"You will have your legal team draft the papers. My lawyer will review them."
Prakash's head snapped up. "...Your... your lawyer?"
Arjun's smile was pure, unadulterated "Krishna." "You have twenty-four hours to get me the first draft, Mr. Murthy. My mother and I have a debt to pay. We can't wait long. Please see yourself out."