Artesia, California. Spring, 2001.
The smell of cumin, mustard seeds, and frying onions rolled out of the kitchen of Bonshale Rasoi and settled over the entire street like a warm, spicy blanket.
"Shiv! Table six is waiting for their pav bhaji, and you are standing there like a statue!"
"Coming, Uncle!"
Sixteen-year-old Srivastav Bonshale snapped out of his daze, grabbed the steel plates, and moved between the tables with the ease of someone who had been doing this since the age of ten.
Fair brown skin, the light-tan shade of a boy who split his time between kitchens and classrooms. Dark, restless eyes. A sharp nose and a jaw that his aunt kept saying would "break hearts someday, so eat more ghee."
He was a handsome kid. Everyone said so.
But for the last four months, Shiv had been staring at everything as if he had never seen it before.
Because, in a way, he hadn't.
Four months ago. A normal Tuesday. A fever. A dream.
He had dreamed of a mountain.
A thin, razor-sharp ridge in Ladakh. The wind was a howling animal. Somewhere in the white, border skirmishes were crackling like firecrackers, the sky had turned black, and a thirty-five-year-old man with a frostbitten face and a broken radio was trying to climb down.
He remembered his own name in that life. Jagdish Aggarwal. Former assistant professor of computer science at NIT. Survivor of a pandemic. Witness to an AI revolution that had made half his students' careers obsolete before they had even graduated. A man who resigned from a stable job because he could not stop wanting to see what was beyond the next peak.
He remembered the avalanche.
He remembered the cold.
And then he remembered waking up in a narrow bed in Artesia, sweating through his pyjamas, as his uncle pounded on the door and shouted, "Shiv! You'll be late for school!"
It was the year 2001.
He had come back.
No. Not come back. He had been born again, with thirty-five years of memories from a future that, according to the newspapers, had not happened yet.
Wait. Or would it not happen? He wasn't sure. Because the more he looked around, the more he realised that this 2001 was different.
"Shiv, phone!" his aunt called from the counter. "It's Matt!"
He wiped his hands on his apron and took the receiver.
"Hey, Matt."
"Shiv! Where have you been? I called your school, I called your uncle, and I even called your cousin Pooja. Listen to me, kid. Are you sitting down?"
Matt Hargrove was a Jewish, balding, sweaty man in his forties who wore a suit that was always one size too small. He ran a tiny talent agency out of an office in Hollywood, and four years ago, he had spotted a twelve-year-old Indian boy in a school talent show in Cerritos and decided that the kid had "the face."
Since then, Shiv had done a cereal commercial. A cough syrup commercial. Two episodes of a sitcom in which he played "Kid in Cafeteria #2" and one TV movie where he played a sidekick who got exactly nine lines.
Not exactly a career. But Matt never gave up.
"I'm standing," Shiv lied, leaning on the counter.
"Good. Don't. Because I have two offers."
"Two?"
"Two! First one: a pilot for a sitcom called The Big Bang Theory. Comedy about four geeks who live in an apartment. They want an Indian kid for a recurring role, a roommate's cousin or something. Small part, decent money, steady work. Honestly, this is the safe one."
The Big Bang Theory.
Shiv's hand froze on the receiver.
In his old world, that show had become a global phenomenon. But that show had begun in 2007. Here, in 2001, someone had apparently decided to make it six years early.
Different. Everything is slightly different.
"And the second offer?" he asked.
Matt lowered his voice, as though someone might be listening.
"The second one is a gamble. A crazy gamble. It's a movie. A superhero movie."
Shiv's breath caught.
"Marvel is doing a live-action Spider-Man," Matt said. "Directed by David Yates, the guy who directed the Harry Porter movies. They've been auditioning for months. Every white kid in America has tried out, and the director rejected them all. Last week, the studio opened up the casting to every ethnicity. They want a fresh face. Someone who looks like a boy next door."
"..."
"I'm not going to lie to you, kid. This is a terrible idea. After the X-Men disaster, nobody wants to touch comic book movies. Fox Studio lost a fortune. Marvel is nearly bankrupt. Spider-Man is basically their last bullet. If this flops, Marvel is finished, and so is everyone attached to it. I'm telling you to take the sitcom."
Shiv did not answer.
Spider-Man.
He remembered all of it. Every comic he had read in his college hostel, huddled with friends over secondhand copies. Every movie he had watched on cheap screens, in multiplexes, on laptops in the middle of the night. Three Peter Parkers. Animated universes. Multiverses. Endgame. Secret Wars. Reboot.
He knew what this franchise would become.
There was just one problem. This world was a parallel one.
And in this world, nobody knew.
Then, inside his skull, a sound like a cash register ringing.
DING!
[Detected: Host has encountered a career opportunity. Role: Peter Parker / Spider-Man]
[Activating the Cinema God System...]
[Loading... 12%... 47%... 100%.]
"Matt," Shiv said quietly. "I'm taking the second one."
"What? Shiv, listen to me, this is career suicide, you're a sixteen-year-old with nine lines to your name, and they're going to..."
"Matt."
"..."
"Trust me. I know what I'm doing."
There was a long silence on the line.
Then Matt sighed. "Why do I have a feeling that you're going to make me rich or give me a panic attack?"