The hotel in West Berlin was called The Continental. It sounded grander than it was. The carpet in the lobby had a pattern that seemed to move if you stared at it too long, and the potted plant by the elevator was either a very brave fern or a plastic replica that had given up pretending.
Rajendra's room was clean, small, and beige. Very beige. The kind of beige that whispered, "You are not here to enjoy yourself. You are here to conduct serious, beige business."
He dropped his suitcase and went straight to the window. West Berlin sprawled below him—a vibrant, neon-soaked island in a sea of gray Communist concrete. Somewhere out there, a Soviet general was waiting to decide if he was a useful partner or a potential stain on a Lubyanka interrogation room floor.
A soft knock. Kapoor entered without waiting for a reply. The former RAW officer looked like a man who had been bleached of all unnecessary expression.
"The pickup point is clean," Kapoor said, his voice a monotone. "Too clean. No loiterers. No street vendors. It's been swept. They're expecting you."
"Good," Rajendra said. "That means they're professional."
"Or they're setting a very neat trap. My team is in position. If you are not at the agreed return point by 22:00, we will assume you have decided to take an extended vacation in the German Democratic Republic. We will not be able to join you."
"Heartwarming support, Kapoor. Truly."
"It is realistic support. I deal in reality. Do you have the item?"
Rajendra tapped the briefcase by the bed. "Antibiotics. Blueprints. And brochures for German textile looms, in case they want to discuss warp and weft."
Kapoor almost smiled. Almost. "The loom brochures are a nice touch. The devoted industrialist. Remember, if they scan you, they will find the penicillin. That is expected. If they find anything else… the story changes."
After Kapoor left, Rajendra locked the door. He had a few hours before the meeting. Time for one last bit of shopping.
He accessed the System. The familiar cosmic marketplace interface shimmered in his mind. He bypassed the usual cultural and biological sections and went straight to Tools & Utility.
He scrolled past Ambient Mood Crystals and Personal Gravity Adjusters until he found it:
>> Listing #4477-GH <<
Item: Utility-Class Programmable Nano-Fabricator (Tier-2 Limited)
Description: A condensed matrix of programmable smart-matter. Can reconfigure into any macroscopic tool, weapon, or structural form under user's mental command. Max mass: 1 metric ton. Minimum edge sharpness: 1 nanometer. Default form: ornamental ring. Includes basic safety protocols to prevent accidental creation of black holes or sentient spoons.
Price: 85 Void-Coins
Seller: The Tinkerer (Tier-3)
It was expensive. Pixel-Lord's payment for the film reels had been 150 VC. This would eat more than half. But the meeting with Krylov was in the heart of Soviet-controlled territory. The nano-tool wasn't for the meeting; it was for the moments after, if the meeting went wrong.
He purchased it.
A soft chime. On the hotel's ugly floral bedspread, a small silver ring materialized. It was plain, unadorned, looking like it came from a cheap tourist stall.
Rajendra picked it up. It was warm. He slipped it onto his right ring finger. It adjusted its size seamlessly.
Now for the test.
He went into the bathroom, locked the door, and faced the mirror. He focused on the ring, imagining a simple blade, six inches long, monomolecular edge.
The ring flowed. It was like watching liquid mercury crawl up his finger, then solidify and extend into a sleek, deadly-looking knife. It was weightless, perfectly balanced. He held it up. The edge seemed to drink the light, a line of perfect darkness.
He touched the tip to the porcelain sink. With zero pressure, it left a hair-thin scratch. He wiped it—the scratch remained.
Good.
He imagined it becoming a lockpick. The blade melted back into a complex set of fine, articulated tools. Then a screwdriver. Then back to a ring.
A grin spread across his face. For the first time since landing in Germany, he felt a surge of control. He had a piece of the future on his finger.
He flushed the toilet for effect, washed his hands, and strode out, feeling like a man who had just secretly strapped a jetpack to his back.
Two hours later, Rajendra stood near the Brandenburg Gate, a briefcase in one hand and a sense of history pressing down on him. The monument was immense, triumphant, and cut in half by the absurd, grim line of the Berlin Wall. On his side, life, color, and Coca-Cola billboards. On the other, a silence that felt like held breath.
He checked his watch. 18:00 exactly.
A man in a long, drab coat materialized from the shadow of a column. He had the face of a bored accountant and the eyes of a stone.
"Herr Shakuniya?"
"Yes."
"Come. Car is waiting."
They walked in silence to a checkpoint. Papers were examined with glacial slowness. Rajendra was patted down by an East German guard with hands like cold sausages. The guard opened the briefcase, saw the vials of medicine, the floppy disk, the loom brochures. He grunted, closed it, and waved them through.
The car was a boxy, black Wartburg that smelled of stale smoke and old leather. They drove into East Berlin, and the world drained of color. The buildings were monolithic, the streets wide and empty, the few people moving with a hurried, head-down gait. It was like driving into a black-and-white photograph of the future that never happened.
They stopped at a featureless administrative building on Karl-Marx-Allee. Another pat-down, this one more thorough. A scanner beeped over his belt buckle but passed over the silver ring without interest.
He was led to a room on the third floor. No windows. A table, three chairs, a flickering fluorescent light. The air smelled of dust and disinfectant.
He waited.
The door opened. A man entered, followed by Captain Anya Petrova.
General Yevgeny Krylov was not a large man, but he filled the room. He wore a well-cut but severe civilian suit. His hair was steel-gray, cut short. His face was all planes and angles, with pale blue eyes that held no warmth, only assessment. This was a man who had commanded supply lines through the mountains of Afghanistan while mujahideen rockets fell around him. He did not have time for nonsense.
Anya stood slightly behind and to his left, her face a professional mask. She gave Rajendra the faintest nod. Game on.
Krylov did not offer his hand. He sat, gestured for Rajendra to do the same. Anya remained standing, a translator and witness.
"You are the Indian," Krylov said in Russian. His voice was gravel wrapped in velvet.
"I am Rajendra Shakuniya."
"Anya says you are competent. She says you do not waste time. Good. I do not waste time either." He leaned forward. "You move goods. You avoided our friends in Helsinki. You delivered the magnets, the jeans. The jeans… my colonel's daughter no longer screams at him. A small miracle. Now I have a question. Can you move ten thousand tons per month? Not jeans. Machinery. Machine tools. Laboratory equipment."
Rajendra kept his breathing even. This was the scale he'd dreamed of, but hearing it laid out so bluntly was still a shock.
"It depends on the origin, the destination, and the… discretion required," Rajendra replied, choosing his words carefully. "Port capacity, shipping lanes, customs narratives. I have channels through Singapore, the Gulf. I can move large volumes, but it must be structured. Not one giant shipment. Many small, legitimate-looking ones."
Krylov listened, his eyes never leaving Rajendra's face. "The origin is Ukraine. Kharkiv, Dnipro. The destination is… not India. Somewhere safe. The discretion is absolute. The buyers will be waiting. Your job is to get it from our docks to theirs."
"And payment?"
"Payment is what you take," Krylov said, a ghost of something cold touching his lips. "A percentage of the sale. Or the material itself. We have much that is… surplus to requirement."
Rajendra understood. Krylov wasn't just selling state assets; he was using Rajendra's network to steal them and build a private war chest for the coming chaos.
"I can begin with a pilot," Rajendra said. "Five hundred tons. From Odessa to Sharjah. We use the film archive cover again. If that clears, we scale."
Krylov nodded slowly. It was a merchant' answer—cautious, scalable, professional. He approved.
Then his eyes narrowed. "The antibiotics. Anya says you have a formula. Not just pills."
Rajendra opened the briefcase. He placed the case of vials and the floppy disk on the table. "One thousand doses. And the complete synthesis blueprint. You can make your own. No more begging the Politburo for medicine that never arrives."
Krylov picked up a vial, held it to the light. For the first time, something like human emotion flickered in his eyes—not gratitude, but the satisfaction of a man who has just been handed a weapon.
"This is good," he said. "This is a thing of real value." He looked at Rajendra. "What do you want for it? More emeralds? Dollars?"
Rajendra was about to answer when his System pinged.
Not a gentle notification. A sharp, urgent, priority alert that vibrated in his very bones.
He stiffened.
Krylov noticed. "You are distracted."
"A moment, please," Rajendra said, forcing calm into his voice. "Travel sickness. May I use your restroom?"
Krylov studied him for a beat, then gestured to a door in the corner. "Be quick."