Rajendra's new office was a rented space in a nondescript building in Nariman Point. It had no sign, no mill workers, no whirring looms. There was a desk, a chair, a secure phone line, and a window overlooking the churning grey sea. On the desk sat three things: the stasis vial with the dormant Void Orchid, the signed Sovereign Accord, and a clean, blank notepad.
This was the nerve center of Shakuniya Holdings. Not an empire—a holding company. A shareholder in three separate, sovereign powers.
Ganesh arrived first, looking like a man attending his own funeral. "Bhai, they are calling it a coup. Shanti-ji has taken full control. The managers are confused. Some are loyal to her, some are asking for you."
"Good," Rajendra said, not looking up from the Accord. "Confusion means the old structure is dead. Sit."
He slid a document across the desk. It was a letter of appointment.
"Effective immediately, you are the Head of Operations for MAKA. Not my assistant. Not MANO's logistics manager. You report to me, as the leader of MAKA. Your first task is to formalize the separation. Every asset, every bank account, every safe house, every driver and guard that was part of the grey channel—it is now MAKA's sovereign asset. You will create a new ledger. It will have no column for MANO."
Ganesh's eyes widened. "Sovereign? Bhai, we are not a country."
"We are now," Rajendra said, his voice leaving no room for debate. "We have our own territory—shadows, routes, secrets. Our own economy—Void-Coins, favours, information. And we have a treaty with a neighbouring power," he tapped the Accord, "that defines our borders. Your job is to build the administration of this new country. And to make it profitable enough to survive on its own."
The weight of the responsibility settled on Ganesh's shoulders. He straightened, the confusion in his eyes hardening into focus. He nodded once. "Yes, sir."
Next, a nervous, robed figure was shown in. Suryananda looked pale, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his simple ochre robe. The public sage was gone, replaced by a frightened man who knew his miracles were rented.
"Swamiji," Rajendra said, the title now a formality. "Your retreat is arranged. You will disappear for three months. When you return, you do not return to MANO. You return to your own institution."
He slid another document forward. Articles of Incorporation for The Suryananda Foundation for Cultural & Perceptual Strategy.
"You are no longer my employee. You are a free agent. A sovereign entity. Your ashram, your followers, your reputation—these are your assets. You will offer your services as a consultant. MANO may hire you for a factory blessing. MAKA may hire you for… psychological assessment. Other businesses, politicians, they may hire you too. Your success, your credibility, your survival—it is all on you now. If your predictions fail, you have no one to blame. If they succeed, the profit is yours."
Suryananda stared at the document, trembling. This was worse than being exposed. This was being cut adrift. "You… you abandon me?"
"I am setting you free," Rajendra corrected, his tone cold. "I gave you a platform. Now you must build the house upon it yourself. That is what sovereignty means. That is what you wanted when you played the holy man, isn't it? Real power? Well, here it is. It's heavier than you thought."
He dismissed them both with a wave. The architect had drawn the plans. Now the builders had to work.
Alone again, he looked at the orchid. It was still. No chaos here. Only the clean, surgical chaos of creation.
His System pinged. Vex.
*Vex: The auction for 'Echo of a Falling Empire' enters its final phase. The real-time metaphysical resonance of a Tier-0 superpower's collapse is a unique commodity. Do you wish to bid? You would need an asset in-sector to capture the resonance.***
Rajendra read the message. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. The merchant's old instinct flared—to bid, to own a piece of history's death rattle.
But he was not just a merchant now. He was an architect. And an architect does not collect echoes. He designs the next structure.
Rajendra (Earth-Prime): Inform the auction house the commodity is off the market. The empire in question is not falling. It is being… renovated. There will be no echo to collect.
He sent the message. The Orchid on his desk shivered. A single, inky-black petal unstuck itself and slowly, gracefully, unfurled.
Chaos. Decision. A path chosen.
He picked up the secure phone. It was time to visit his construction site.
Moscow in late 1990 was a city holding its breath. The air tasted of snow, diesel, and decay. The grand buildings seemed to hunch against the coming winter, and the people moved with a grim, purposeful haste, eyes darting as if expecting the sky to fall.
Rajendra met Anya Petrova in a dim café that smelled of boiled cabbage and strong cigarettes. She looked strained, the professional mask cracked by exhaustion and something deeper—fear for the future.
"Krylov is nervous," she said without preamble, her voice low. "The pipelines you built… they are becoming lifelines. He is talking less about profit and more about… survival. Exit strategies."
"Good," Rajendra said. "A man who needs a lifeboat is easier to steer than a man on a cruise."
He laid out no documents for her. Instead, he gave her a new mission. Not to move goods, but to map power. To identify which factory directors, which military logistics officers, which regional party bosses were pragmatic, desperate, and amoral enough to swear allegiance to a new, private authority when the old one crumbled. He was not planning to salvage scrap from the USSR. He was planning a hostile takeover of its functional remains.
Anya listened, her eyes widening slightly. This was beyond smuggling. This was treason on a geological scale. She nodded slowly, the weight of the conspiracy settling onto her shoulders alongside the fear.
After the meeting, they walked. The streets were icy. Anya was speaking about a corrupt official in Odessa when Rajendra saw it—across the street, a middle-aged woman laden with bags slipped on a patch of black ice. She fell hard, her groceries scattering. A battered army truck, its brakes screeching weakly, veered towards her.
He didn't think. He shoved Anya back against the wall and launched himself forward. He wasn't a hero; he was a man who solved problems. This was a problem of physics and timing.
He grabbed the woman's coat, hauling her backwards just as the truck's fender clipped his shoulder. The impact spun him, and his head struck the icy curb. Pain exploded in his shoulder and temple. They landed in a heap of bruised limbs and spilled potatoes.
The world swam. He heard Anya's shout, the truck driver's angry yell, then her voice again, closer, sharp with command as she flashed her KGB credentials, scattering the growing crowd.
At the military clinic, the world came back into focus through a haze of pain. His shoulder was wrenched, not broken. A medic was stitching a gash above his eyebrow. The antiseptic stung.
Then he heard Anya's voice from the corridor, but stripped of all its steel, raw and trembling. "Galina?"
A curtain was pulled back. On the next cot sat the woman he'd saved, her ankle wrapped, scratches on her arms. She was pale, but her face lit up with relieved affection at the sight of Anya. "Anichka. Ya v poryadke."
Anya stood frozen in the doorway, her gaze snapping from her sister's face to Rajendra's bandaged one. The colour drained from her cheeks. The two pillars of her existence—the secretive merchant who held her future, and the selfless sister who was her past—had collided in a burst of violence and salvation.
She rushed to Galina's side, clutching her hand, murmuring in rushed, emotional Russian. Then she turned to Rajendra. The professional mask was gone, shattered. In her eyes was a storm of gratitude, terror, and a dawning, absolute loyalty that transcended contracts or fear.
"You saved her," Anya whispered in English, her voice thick.
"She was in the way," Rajendra grunted, adjusting his sling.
Anya shook her head, a single tear tracing a clean line through the grime on her cheek. She understood debts that could never be paid in money. In saving Galina, he had secured something far more valuable than her cooperation. He had secured her soul.
Later, as they left the clinic, Anya walking beside him, her posture was different. Not just a subordinate. A sworn ally.
Back in his temporary room, Rajendra examined his bandaged face in the mirror. The Orchid, thousands of miles away in its vial, would be blooming fully now, feeding on the chaos of this choice, this injury, this newfound bond.
He wasn't collecting an echo.
He was writing a new empire's first law: Protect what is yours. And he had just made Anya, and all she represented, irrevocably his.
The architect had chosen his foundation stone. And it was not made of ideology, but of blood and debt.