The cream envelope from Leningrad lay on the floor like a fallen leaf. Inspector Mehta's eyes followed Rajendra's glance.
"Expecting mail?" Mehta asked, his voice flat.
"Business correspondence," Rajendra said, his voice steady. He kept his body between the officials and the letter. "Regarding textile exports."
"Textiles?" Mr. Desai from the Commerce Ministry snorted. "Your mill is silent. Your only recent activity is buying a suspicious amount of garlic. Explain that."
This was the moment. The bureaucratic mind could not comprehend a multiversal trade. But it could be baffled by something older, more primal. Rajendra let his expression settle into one of patient resignation, as if dealing with children who couldn't grasp a higher truth.
"Inspector. Sir. The garlic was not exported. It was transformed," he stated, his tone leaving no room for doubt. "A naivedya of scale for Maa Kali. For the mill's survival. The ritual is private, the materials consumed by the sacred fire. There is no paperwork for faith."
Desai sneered. "You expect us to believe—"
"I do not expect you to believe," Rajendra cut him off, his voice gaining a sharp, quiet edge. "I expect you to understand the legal reality. You have evidence of a purchase. You have no evidence of resale, smuggling, or tax evasion. You have a religious explanation. Prosecute that, and see which courts laugh first." He looked directly at Desai. "Your time is valuable. So is mine. Wasting it on a wild goose chase helps no one."
The audacity of the young man, calmly stating legal facts while speaking of divine fire, gave them pause. Inspector Mehta, the pragmatist, bent and picked up the envelope. He glanced at the foreign postmark, then handed it to Rajendra. A silent concession.
"We are watching," Desai said, his threat weaker now. "Your 'trust' will be reviewed. Any slip, and we will be back."
They left. Rajendra waited, listening to their footsteps fade, before opening the envelope. The letter from Elena Volkova was a lifeline thrown from a sinking ship. She was in Delhi. She would come to Mumbai. The meeting was set.
But first, the local pest needed handling. Nair was not a partner to be negotiated with. He was an obstacle. A tariff on a road Rajendra was building. And Rajendra did not pay tariffs.
He summoned Ganesh. "Nair wants a meeting. We will give him one. At his own office in Dhobitalao. Tonight."
Ganesh paled. "Bhai, that is his den. It is a trap."
"Every meeting is a trap until you control the terms," Rajendra said. He accessed the Procurement Menu. He needed something new. Not a trick, but a statement. He found it: Acoustic Shockwave Emitter (Non-Lethal, Single Use). It produced a concussive blast of sound and force strong enough to shatter glass and knock men off their feet, but calibrated to cause no permanent injury. Cost: 18 VC. With a 10% surcharge to make the blast manifest as a deep, crimson shockwave accompanied by the scent of ozone and blood oranges—a sensory signature for MAKA. He bought it. The device was a smooth, black stone disk.
"Take this," he told Ganesh, handing him the Sensory Dissonance stone. "You will stand outside the door. If you hear this…" he held up the black disk, "…or if I am not out in ten minutes, you use your stone on anyone who comes out, and you leave. Understood?"
Ganesh nodded, his jaw set.
That night, Rajendra walked into Nair's "office"—a backroom above a laundry, thick with cigar smoke and the smell of cheap whiskey. Nair sat behind a desk, four men flanking him.
"The boy with the magic trick," Nair said, not offering a seat. "You have cost me money. My clients are asking why they should pay my premium when goods vanish from docks without my blessing."
"Then you have inefficient blessings," Rajendra replied, standing straight. "I am not here to cost you money. I am here to remove a redundancy. You are a middleman. I have eliminated the need for one."
One of the men stepped forward. Nair held up a hand, smiling without warmth. "Brave words. You will now pay seventy percent of your profit. Or you will become a lesson."
"No," Rajendra said simply.
The room tensed. Nair's smile vanished. He nodded. The four men moved.
Rajendra did not move. He held up the black disk and activated it.
THOOM.
The sound was not loud; it was deep, a pressure that hit the chest before the ears. A visible wave of crimson energy erupted from the disk, throwing the four men backwards as if hit by a silent truck. Glasses on a shelf shattered. The single light bulb blew out in a shower of sparks, plunging the room into near-darkness lit only by the streetlamp outside. The air smelled suddenly of a thunderstorm and something metallic and sweet.
Nair, shielded by his desk, stared wide-eyed as his men groaned on the floor, disoriented but unharmed.
Rajendra stepped forward, placed his hands on the desk, and leaned into the dim light. "You thought this was a negotiation. It was a notification. Your business and mine will not interact. You will not look at my men, my goods, or my routes. You will tell your clients that the goods that vanish are under a protection you cannot challenge. If you do this, you keep your dignity and your other revenues. If you test me again," he glanced at the groaning men, "the next demonstration will not be a warning. It will be a conclusion."
He turned and walked to the door. He paused, not looking back. "This is not a threat from a rival. This is economics. I have made your service obsolete. Accept it."
He left, Ganesh falling in step beside him. Behind them, in the dark room, Nair was left not with anger, but with a cold, stupefying fear. He had seen power, but not understood its source. And that was more terrifying than any gangster's knife.
The next morning, Rajendra wore a charcoal grey suit to The Taj. He placed the red silk on the table. Elena Volkova arrived, all sharp angles and wary eyes.
Their negotiation was brisk, devoid of pleasantries. He offered gold for a lease on subsurface rights. She revealed the problem: the Soviet official, a man named Igor Zubov, who saw her land—and her—as his personal property.
"He expects… personal compliance to 'protect' my assets," she said, her voice ice. "If I lease to you, he will retaliate. He can bury paperwork, delay permits, make life impossible."
Rajendra listened. This was not a request for help. It was a disclosed liability. A merchant factored all costs into a deal.
"Give me his full name, his photograph, and the address of his office in Moscow," Rajendra said.
She slid a folded paper across the table. It contained the details and a small, clipped photo from a Soviet newspaper.
"Consider it handled," Rajendra said, pocketing the paper. "It is a cost of doing business. The draft contract for the lease will be with you in three days. The gold will be in Zurich upon signature."
She studied him, searching for the bluff. She found none. "You are very confident for a man who deals in textiles and… garlic."
"I deal in solutions, Miss Volkova. The commodity is incidental."
He left the Taj, the weight of the new deal settling on him. He had the Russian connection. He had crushed the local interference without paying a single rupee in tribute. He was building leverage, not paying it.
Back in his room, he examined the paper on Igor Zubov. The man had a smug, bureaucratic face. A petty tyrant in a crumbling empire.
Rajendra accessed the Procurement Menu. He needed a tool for remote, untraceable influence. A merchant did not assassinate. He adjusted incentives. He found what he needed.
[Neural Suggestion Implant (One-Time Use). Range: Planetary. Requires specific biometric data (name, photo, location). Effect: Induces a strong, lasting aversion to a specified target or course of action. Target: Igor Zubov. Aversion: To block or interfere with the assets of Elena Volkova. Duration: Permanent. Civilization Tier Restriction: Tier-0 Only.]
Cost: 150 Void-Coins.
It was a fortune. Nearly all his remaining capital. But it was not an expense; it was an investment. It secured the oilfields. It established a reputation for delivering impossible solutions.
He purchased it.
The System chimed. [Item Deployed. Biometric Link Established. Effect: Active. Delivery Estimate: 12 hours.]
A simple notification. No flashy light. No red smoke. Just a quiet, cosmic adjustment of a man's will, from thousands of miles away.
Rajendra sat back. He had spent a king's ransom in Void-Coins to make a Soviet bureaucrat lose interest in a woman and her land. The sheer, disproportionate scale of it was the point. This was the power he now wielded. Not to rule by fear, but to shape reality by removing obstacles others saw as immutable.
He looked at his Void-Coin balance: 47.5.
He was low on multiversal capital, but high on earthly momentum. The pipelines were secured. The foundations were laid. He was no longer just surviving 1987.
He was conducting it.
And as he thought this, a new, automated notification from the Multiversal Auction Network scrolled across his vision—a general announcement visible to all hosts.
[Host 'Pixel-Lord' has publicly posted a review: 'Artifact Supplier - Earth-Local (Primitive Tier-0) - Rating: ★★★★☆ - Reliable source of fascinating pre-digital cultural data. A quaint, earnest merchant. Worth patronizing for unique curios.']
A public review. In the grand cosmic bazaar, his stall had just received its first rating. He had a reputation.
And in an infinite multiverse, reputation was the only currency that truly mattered. It would attract more than just curious collectors.
It would attract competitors.