The seconds bled away on the crimson timer. 29 days, 23 hours, 45 minutes…
Rajendra's offer to Pixel-Lord hung in the void. 800 Void-Coins for the cultural archive of a world. It was an insane price. It was also the only price that could buy a shield.
He forced himself to move. Paralysis was a luxury he couldn't afford. He went to the mill, now a hive of quiet activity for MANO. The first batch of pressure cooker bodies was being assembled. He approved the design for the "MANO Amrit" water filter casing. Each action was a lifeline to normalcy, a bulwark against the cosmic dread.
Ganesh approached, his face troubled. "Bhai, the police inspector, Mehta. He came by again. Not with the ministry man. Alone."
"What did he want?"
"He asked… strange questions. Not about garlic. About you. Where you travel. If you have any 'foreign friends.' He mentioned a 'security matter' above his pay grade. He seemed nervous."
A cold finger traced Rajendra's spine. The Indian state was a vast, slow beast, but it had many eyes. Had Vex's digital probing, or the Mad Scientist's cryptographic shroud, triggered some faint ripple in terrestrial surveillance? A blip on a radar? An anomalous energy reading near his godown? It was possible. The walls were closing in from both sides—cosmic and earthly.
"Thank you, Ganesh. Increase security on the godown. No more night transfers for a week. Use the secondary location."
"Understood."
Rajendra retreated to his room. He needed capital, fast. If Pixel-Lord refused, he needed another plan. He scoured the Procurement Menu for high-value, low-cost items he could flip. The problem was the System's cut. Listing fees consumed his margins.
He was examining a potentially lucrative "Low-Yield Crystal Growth Chamber" when a new message arrived. Not from Pixel-Lord.
It was from the System Administration. The header was plain, authoritative gold.
[Notice of Inquiry: Host 'Rajendra (Earth-Prime)'.]
[Subject: Rapid Capital Accumulation & Coercive Sales Tactics.]
[Review Trigger: Host 'Pixel-Lord' has filed a grievance regarding your offer of 'exclusive lifetime archive access' for 800 VC, citing possible duress and price gouging. An automated review is initiated. Your assets and trade logs are temporarily frozen for audit. Duration: 6-12 hours.]
Frozen. He couldn't access his VC. He couldn't list new items. He couldn't finalize any trades.
Panic, sharp and acrid, rose in his throat. He had been too bold, too desperate. Pixel-Lord hadn't accepted; he'd complained to the galactic equivalent of the Better Business Bureau. And the System had sided with the established, higher-tier host.
The crimson timer mocked him. 29 days, 22 hours, 11 minutes…
He was trapped. No capital. No ability to trade. A predator at the door. And now the System itself was auditing him.
A second message arrived, this one from Pixel-Lord. It was smug.
Pixel-Lord: Your attempt at exploitative pricing has been noted and reported. Your trade freeze is the consequence. When the audit clears, we will renegotiate a fair price for the archive—perhaps 200 VC. Do not attempt such mercantile barbarism again.
Mercantile barbarism. The accusation burned. He was fighting for his world's isolation, and they called him a barbarian for setting the price.
He had one card left. One contact who operated outside the rules, who needed him too much to see him fail.
He composed a message to the Mad Scientist, laying out the situation with cold precision: Vex's threat, the needed Quarantine Shield costing 1000 VC, Pixel-Lord's grievance, the System freeze.
Rajendra (Earth-Prime): My operations cease if Vex arrives or if I am bankrupted by this freeze. Contract MS-02 terminates. I require a loan. 838 Void-Coins. I will repay with 1000 VC from future spice deliveries, with 20% interest, within one year. This is not a request. It is a statement of mutual necessity.
It was the biggest gamble of his life. He was asking a clinical, plague-ridden scientist for a near-fortune.
The reply was not immediate. He watched the timer. Minutes felt like lifetimes.
When her message came, it was not an answer. It was a data packet and a question.
Mad Scientist: *The 'Q-Phase Anomaly Projector' is a legitimate Tier-0 safeguard. Your logic is sound. A loan of that magnitude is impossible. My resources are committed.*
However. I am in possession of a unique asset. A 'Mirror of Thousand Doors' – a damaged, unstable dimensional viewer. I cannot use it. Its scan-log, however, contains fragmented coordinates and data on thousands of worlds, including some marked for 'resource reclamation' by entities like Vex.
I can transmit this scan-log to you. Within it, you may find something Vex desires more than your world' biological output. A bargaining chip. Or a weapon.
Do you accept this alternative assistance? The data is… hazardous. Knowing what other predators want can make you a target.
It wasn't coins. It was information. Dangerous, possibly lethal information. A map to other people's treasures, and their hunters.
He had no choice. Yes. Send it.
A massive, encrypted data-stream flooded a partitioned section of his System storage. He couldn't parse it now; it was too vast.
Mad Scientist: *Data sent. A warning: The log contains a flagged entry for a 'Tier-2 Fragment-World' known as 'Glyth.' It is a necrotic paradise, rich in psycho-reactive crystalline remains—the fossilized emotions of a dead civilization. This is Vex's primary obsession. He has been trying to locate its stable dimensional coordinates for decades. The coordinates in my log are incomplete, but they are more than he has.*
Use this knowledge carefully. It is more valuable than coins, and more dangerous.
A bargaining chip. The coordinates to Vex's holy grail.
But how to use it? He couldn't trade while frozen. He needed to end the audit.
An idea, desperate and ruthless, formed. The System was punishing him for "coercive sales tactics" against Pixel-Lord. What if he became a victim instead?
He accessed his last unfrozen function: the public network board. He drafted a post, not as a merchant, but as a plea.
[Host 'Rajendra (Earth-Prime)']: PUBLIC NOTICE. I am under existential threat from Host 'Vex' (Tier-3), who has threatened direct harvesting of my protected Tier-0 world in 29 days. My attempt to raise capital for a System-sanctioned planetary defense was misinterpreted as price gouging. My assets are now frozen. If the System allows a Tier-3 host to threaten a Tier-0 host into oblivion over a trade dispute, then what is the purpose of its safeguards? Is lower-tier protection a fiction?]
It was a naked appeal to the rules, and to public opinion. He was putting the System's own legitimacy on trial.
The effect was electric. Replies began to flood the public channel, visible to him.
[Host 'Kritakk']: Vex again? The System should permanently ban that essence-sucker!]
[Host 'Star-Forger']: Freezing a Tier-0 host facing Tier-3 predation is a failure. Administrators, fix this.]
[Host 'Necro-Gardener']: I have had issues with Vex. The lower-tier protection protocols must be upheld. Unfreeze the primitive host.]
A wave of support, not for him, but for the principle. No one liked a bully, especially one that disrupted the fragile etiquette of cross-tier trade.
Within an hour, a new System message arrived, this one in stern silver text.
[Notice: Inquiry Resolved.]
[Finding: Host 'Rajendra (Earth-Prime)' acted under credible duress. Grievance by 'Pixel-Lord' is set aside. Asset freeze lifted. A formal caution is issued to Host 'Vex' regarding Tier-0 coercion. Further violations may result in trade sanctions.]
[Warning to Host 'Rajendra': Future pricing must align with standard market rates for your Tier. Exploitation of fellow hosts will not be tolerated.]
It was a victory, but a thin one. His assets were back. The System had slapped Vex's wrist with a "caution." It changed nothing. Vex still had his timer. And Rajendra still needed 838 VC.
But now, he had something else. He had the data-log. He had the key to Glyth.
He opened a new, direct channel to Vex. He attached a single file: a two-second clip from the Mad Scientist's log. It showed swirling, necrotic crystal formations and a fragmented coordinate string, with the label GLYTH FRAGMENT – SECTOR DELTA prominently visible.
He sent only the clip, with a one-line message.
Rajendra (Earth-Prime): I have the full, stable coordinates to Glyth. The price for them is the permanent, legally-binding withdrawal of your threat against Earth-Prime, and a non-interference pact sworn before the System. Do we have a deal?
He sent it.
And then he waited again, the clock ticking, his fate and his world's balanced on whether a psychic drug lord wanted dead emotions more than live ones.
The reply came in less than a minute. It was not text. It was a System-mediated contract draft, sent by Vex himself.
CONTRACT: VEX-01
Party A (Vex) agrees to:
1. Permanently cease all hostile intent & operations toward Earth-Prime.
2. Enter a System-binding non-interference pact regarding Earth-Prime.
Party B (Rajendra) agrees to:
1. Provide the complete, verified dimensional coordinates to the Fragment-World 'Glyth.'
Signatory confirms under penalty of System-enforced existence erasure.
It was real. It was binding. It was everything he needed.
His finger hovered over the ACCEPT field. This was it. Safety for his world. All he had to do was hand over the coordinates.
He was about to sign when a final line of text, in fine print at the very bottom of the contract, caught his eye. A clause he had almost missed.
…and grants Party A (Vex) one (1) standard solar day of uncontested access to Earth-Prime's lunar satellite for 'calibration of long-range sensors' prior to coordinate transfer.
The lunar satellite. The Moon.
Why did Vex need a day on the Moon? For "calibration"?
A chill deeper than space itself settled in Rajendra's bones. He wasn't just giving coordinates. He was giving Vex a foothold in his star system. A day to plant whatever he wanted on the Moon—a beacon, a scanner, a weapon. A backdoor that no Q-Phase Anomaly Projector could ever erase.
The contract was a trap. A beautifully laid, System-sanctioned trap.
He looked at the crimson timer. 29 days, 21 hours to go.
He looked at the contract.
And he realized the cruelest truth of the multiverse: sometimes, salvation is just the prettier face of damnation.