The Aeroflot flight back to Delhi felt like traveling through time. He left behind the grim, frozen paralysis of Moscow and descended into the humid, chaotic buzz of India. The contrast was violent. In Moscow, despair was a heavy, silent blanket. In Delhi, it was a loud, vibrant scramble to survive. Both were broke, but one had given up, while the other was too busy fighting to notice.
He took a connecting flight to Mumbai. As the taxi weaved through familiar, crowded streets, the smell of spices, exhaust, and sewage was a strange comfort. This was his chaos. He understood its rules.
Ganesh was waiting for him at the mill office. He looked relieved.
"Welcome back, bhai. You look… tired."
"I am," Rajendra said, dropping his bag. "What do you have for me?"
Ganesh laid out two folders. "First, Soviet military logistics. It's called the Glavnoye upravleniye material'nykh rezervov—Main Directorate for Material Reserves. They call it 'GUMR.' It's a monster. It controls thousands of depots, rail lines, truck fleets. But it's in shambles. No parts for trucks, no fuel, demoralized troops used as laborers. The officers, they say, are either thieves or ghosts."
Rajendra nodded. A monster, but a starving one. Easy to tempt with a meal.
"And the exports?"
"The official top exports are oil, natural gas, timber, metals. But the real list, the one from the black market whispers?" Ganesh leaned in. "Weapons. Military surplus. Helicopters, tanks, rifles—sold for pennies to anyone with cash. Second is 'intellectuals'—scientists, engineers, ballet dancers—people fleeing. Their knowledge is being sold. Third is art, antiques, museum pieces. Stolen by the custodians. Fourth is raw materials shipped out through phantom companies. Oil is number one, but not for long. The system is eating itself faster than it can pump."
Rajendra absorbed it. Weapons, brains, heritage, resources. They were cannibalizing the USSR. Anya was right. Elena's diesel deal was a crumb. The real feast was the carcass itself.
"And Elena?" he asked.
"She's still in Moscow. The word is the Dubai deal went through. She's flush with cash. She's also been seen with some mid-level officials from the Oil and Gas Ministry. She's not coming back to India."
So she had bought her way into the next layer of the game. Fine. She was now a minor player in the great Soviet liquidation. He had bigger targets.
"The film?" he asked, shifting gears.
"Shooting in Kashmir is done. They're editing in Bombay. Shanti-ji has been managing the MANO accounts, the weaver project. She is… very capable."
There was a tone in Ganesh's voice. Respect. "She asked about you every day."
Rajendra felt a pang. Shanti. His anchor to the real, the legitimate. While he was in Moscow dreaming of empires, she was here building one brick by brick.
"Set up a meeting with her tomorrow," he said. "And I need to see the film edit."
Shanti arrived at the mill office the next morning. She wore a simple cotton sari, her hair tied back. She looked at him, her eyes scanning his face, reading the fatigue and the new, hardened focus.
"Moscow didn't agree with you," she said, not as a question.
"It was educational," he replied. "How are things here?"
"The film is on schedule. The Heritage textile line has its first orders—from two boutique stores in Colaba. Small, but a start. The pressure cooker sales are steady." She paused. "Your Russian consultant seems to have vanished."
"She's pursuing other opportunities," he said flatly. "We've parted ways."
Shanti nodded slowly, understanding more than he said. "And what are our opportunities now?"
This was the moment. He could give her the party line—focus on consumer goods, build the brand. Or he could bring her into the deeper game. He needed her mind. And he trusted her, in a way he had never trusted Elena.
He gestured for her to sit. "What do you know about the Soviet Union?"
"It's falling apart. On the news. It's all queues and protests."
"It's a giant warehouse," Rajendra said, leaning forward. "A warehouse full of everything a growing country needs—steel, machinery, chemicals, scientific talent. And the owners are having a fire sale because they're bankrupt."
Her eyes narrowed, calculating. "You want to buy Soviet assets."
"I want to be the broker. The one who connects the desperate seller to the hungry buyer. But not for small things like diesel. For big things. Factories. Mining rights. Shipping lanes."
"That requires political access. Capital on a scale we don't have. And… protection. The people who own those things now are not shopkeepers. They are generals and party bosses with guns."
"I know," he said. "I met one of them. A captain. In logistics. She sees the same opportunity. She called it 'inventory in a warehouse with no owner.'"
Shanti was silent for a long minute. He could see her brain working, weighing the insane risk against the unimaginable reward. "This is not business, Rajendra. This is… geopolitics. This is how wars start."
"Or how fortunes are made," he countered. "India needs industrial capacity. We need steel plants, machine tools. The Soviets have them, lying idle. We could be the bridge. Not as the Indian government. As a private company. MANO Global Trading."
"And your army captain? What does she want?"
"A way out of the chaos. A role in the new system. Maybe a percentage."
"So you're proposing a joint venture with a Soviet military officer to strip her country's assets." Shanti's voice was dry. "My father was right. You are a weed breaking through concrete."
"Is that a no?" he asked.
She stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the bustling mill compound. "It's a 'this is insane.' But…" She turned back. "But it's also the only thing I've heard that matches the scale of the look in your eyes. You're not interested in being the king of pressure cookers anymore, are you?"
"No."
"Then we need to be smarter. We can't just walk in with a suitcase of dollars. We need a structure. Layers of shell companies. We need legal cover—maybe through the Singapore entity you already have. And we need a product to trade, something they desperately want that isn't money."
Rajendra smiled. It was the first real smile since Moscow. She wasn't running. She was strategizing. "What do they want?"
"Everything their system doesn't produce," she said instantly. "Consumer goods. Medicines. Electronics. Spices. Textiles. Things that make life livable. We have those, or we can source them. We don't pay them in cash; we pay them in stuff. A barter system on a continental scale."
Barter. It was perfect. It bypassed the collapsing ruble. It addressed their immediate desperation. And it played directly into MANO's growing supply networks—textiles, soon-to-be pharmaceuticals from the Karjat greenhouse, even Bollywood films as a cultural sweetener.
"We start small," Shanti continued, her mind racing. "A pilot. We offer a container of medicines, packaged food, and VCRs. In exchange, we ask for… what? A small shipment of specialized steel alloys? Or a team of their idle aviation engineers as 'consultants'?"
It was brilliant. It was doable. It was the first step on the insane path he had imagined.
"You're in?" he asked.
She met his gaze. "I bought fifteen percent of your rocket ship, Rajendra. I'm not getting off just because you're aiming for the moon." She paused. "But we do this carefully. And you tell me everything. No more mysterious trips to Moscow without me knowing the real reason."
"Deal."
They spent the next two hours sketching the outline of "Project Barter." It was a fantasy with spreadsheets. But for the first time, the fantasy had a roadmap.
Later, alone, Rajendra accessed the System. He had been ignoring his multiversal clients, focused on earthly empires. He had messages.
Pixel-Lord: Vinyl records received. Acceptable. Send more. Prefer 1970s action films with strong revenge themes.
Mad Scientist: Greenhouse progress report required. Timeline is critical.
Vex: The 'Heer' narrative had a 18% calming effect on a test group. We require more narratives with themes of 'fated separation.' Proceed.
They wanted stories, plants, and cures. Simple, clean needs. His Soviet plans felt grotesque in comparison. He was planning to trade the dignity of a falling empire for power, while they sought solace and survival in art and botany.
He pushed the thought away. This was the real world. This was where true power was built—not with Void-Coins, but with steel, oil, and the will to redraw maps.
He sent quick, reassuring replies to his cosmic clients. Then he opened a new, blank document on his crude desktop computer.
The title: "MANO-GUMR Direct Barter Protocol (Draft)."
The merchant of Earth was back. And he had just added a new commodity to his portfolio: the future of a superpower.