The new Nhava Sheva land was quiet now. The tarpaulin temple was gone, the fisherfolk placated with fair compensation and promises of new homes closer to a fresh-water well Swami Suryananda had "divined" for them. The earthmovers would arrive next week. Rajendra stood at the edge of the empty plot, the salty creek wind tugging at his shirt, and felt the quiet hum of potential beneath his feet. Not just for warehouses and cranes. For narrative.
Suryananda stood beside him, looking out of place in his new, finer ochre robes. The fear was still there, just beneath a thin veneer of newfound purpose.
"The people believe the relocation is Maa Durga's will," Suryananda said, his voice lacking its old public boom. "They call it a blessing. They call me a blessing."
"Good," Rajendra said, not looking at him. "Belief is a currency. We've just completed a successful exchange. Now we need to raise your credit limit."
Back in his Mumbai office, with the door locked and the System interface glowing softly in his mind, Rajendra began to work. He wasn't a meteorologist. But he was a merchant with access to a marketplace that traded in stranger things than weather.
He navigated past the sellers of exotic flora and gravity modulators, and found the section he needed: Archives & Echoes. The sellers here dealt in data—not just any data, but the recorded history of countless timelines, planets, and possibilities. It was a graveyard of futures that had been, and futures that might have been.
He filtered for Tier-0 Civilizations, Earth-Prime Variants, Atmospheric Events. The listings were dizzying:
The Great Lisbon Quake of 1755 (Seismic Resonant Echo)
Krakatoa Eruption Audiographic (Premium, Unabridged)
*Halley's Comet Passings, 837-2061 (Complete Set)*
He refined his search: Late 20th Century, Indian Subcontinent, Cyclonic Systems. A seller called The Chronicler of Winds had a catalogue. The price was in Void-Coins, but the entry fee was modest. Rajendra purchased a data packet: Major Tropical Cyclones, Bay of Bengal, 1988-1992.
The information unfolded in his mind not as a report, but as a sensory cascade. Dates, coordinates, wind speeds, pressure minima, landfall impacts. He sifted through it, cross-referencing with his own memory of this world's news. The timelines weren't perfectly aligned—his arrival, his actions, were butterfly wings causing micro-shifts—but the large-scale, energy-driven patterns of ocean and atmosphere were stubborn. They tended to rhyme.
He found it. A system designated BOB 03/1990. In the data-feed's primary timeline, it had spun up violently in late April 1990, taking an unusual recurving track to slam into the coast of Andhra Pradesh, just south of Vishakhapatnam, around May 4th. It was a severe cyclonic storm, with winds over 150 km/h, a significant storm surge. It had been poorly forecast, arriving with devastating surprise.
In this world, the newspapers showed no advanced warning. The monsoon was still weeks away. The seas were calm.
It was perfect.
He called Suryananda to the mill office at night. The man arrived, trying to project serenity but smelling of nervous sweat.
"Sit," Rajendra said, not offering tea. He slid a single sheet of paper across the desk. On it was written:
Date: May 4, 1990.
Location: Coast of Andhra Pradesh, near Kalingapatnam.
Event: A great whirlwind born from the anger of the sea. Winds that scream. Waters that swallow the land. Many fish, many boats, will be lost. The coconut trees will bow and break.
Suryananda read it, his face paling. "This… this is specific. How can I…?"
"You won't know," Rajendra interrupted. "You will have seen. A vision. In deep meditation. The goddess Kali, dancing on the waves, her hair streaming in a furious gale. You will be terrified. You will feel the salt spray on your face. You will wake weeping for the coastal folk."
"And if it doesn't happen?" Suryananda whispered.
"It will."
"How can you be—"
"That," Rajendra said, his voice cutting the air, "is the one question you are never to ask. Your power is that you do not question the visions. You merely deliver them. Do you understand?"
Suryananda looked from the paper to Rajendra's impassive face. He saw no doubt, only cold certainty. It was more frightening than any scripture about hell. He nodded, a jerky, mechanical motion.
"Where will you make this… delivery?"
"The press," Rajendra said. "Not the big Bombay papers. Start local. Go to the Andhra Jyoti office in Hyderabad. Tell them you must speak to an editor. You have an urgent warning for the people. They will laugh. Let them. Insist. Give them the date, the location, the details. Let them print it as a curiosity, a madman's rambling. That's all we need."
The following week, a small, bemused article appeared on page six of Andhra Jyoti:
'Swami' Predicts Sea Fury on May 4
*HYDERABAD: A self-styled sage from Maharashtra, one Swami Suryananda, caused a minor stir at our offices yesterday, claiming to have had a 'divine vision' of a terrible storm striking the Kalingapatnam coast on May 4. The swami, who appeared genuinely distressed, described 'screaming winds' and 'swallowing waters.' Meteorological officials in Visakhapatnam, when contacted, dismissed the prediction, stating current conditions in the Bay of Bengal are tranquil and no such system is foreseen. 'We rely on science, not superstition,' a department spokesman said.*
It was picked up by one national tabloid, Blitz, as a filler item next to a film star gossip column. A brief moment of ridicule, then silence.
Rajendra monitored the weather reports. On April 28th, the India Meteorological Department issued its first bulletin: a low-pressure area had formed over the southeast Bay of Bengal. It was expected to intensify slowly.
On April 30th, it was upgraded to a depression. The track projections were uncertain.
On May 2nd, it became Cyclonic Storm BOB-03. The models began to converge on a track toward the Andhra-Odisha coast. Landfall was estimated for the evening of May 4th. Warnings went out. Evacuations began, chaotic and rushed.
On the morning of May 4th, the front page of every newspaper carried the satellite image of a massive, swirling white vortex. The headline in The Times of India: KILLER CYCLONE BEARS DOWN ON ANDHRA, MILLIONS TOLD TO FLEE.
And tucked away, in the inside pages of a few papers, a small, eerie follow-up appeared:
Prophet of the Storm?
*As the monstrous cyclone BOB-03 approaches the coast exactly on the date foretold, some are recalling the strange warning issued two weeks ago by an obscure swami, Swami Suryananda. His detailed description of 'screaming winds' and 'waters swallowing the land' at Kalingapatnam bears an uncanny resemblance to the current meteorological nightmare…*
The storm made landfall that evening with catastrophic force. Villages were flattened. The storm surge inundated miles of coastline. The death toll climbed into the hundreds. The nation was gripped by the tragedy.
And then, by the miracle.
On May 6th, a reporter from The Indian Express tracked down Swami Suryananda at his newly built, modest ashram near Nashik. The resulting interview was a masterpiece of performance. Suryananda, filmed sitting before a simple image of Goddess Kali, spoke not with triumph, but with profound sorrow. Tears—real tears, born of weeks of terror and genuine guilt—streaked his face.
"I saw her dance," he whispered hoarsely to the camera. "Maa Kali, dancing on the waves. Her rage was the wind. Her sorrow was the flood. I felt the salt on my skin. I heard the screams of the trees. I tried to warn… I was just a voice. A faint voice. Next time… I must be louder. The Mother is not always gentle."
It played on the national evening news. The footage was electric. Here was no gloating godman, but a humble, grieving seer who had touched the raw edge of a natural disaster and tried, in his small way, to avert it.
The dam broke. India Today ran a cover story: THE SAGE WHO SAW THE STORM: MYSTIC OR MIRACLE? News vans descended on the Nashik ashram. Suryananda, coached relentlessly by Rajendra in terse nightly calls, stuck to his script: humility, sorrow, divine mystery. He refused to take credit. He spoke only of the goddess's power and mankind's fragility.
He was no longer a local weirdo. He was Swami Suryananda, the Storm Prophet. A modern-day mystic who had channeled a warning from the heart of the tempest.
In his Mumbai office, Rajendra watched the televised frenzy with a quiet satisfaction. Phase one was complete. He turned away from the screen to a map of the Himalayas spread on his desk. He traced a road through Himachal Pradesh with his finger—a narrow, treacherous route that was perpetually blocked by bureaucratic red tape and a stubborn, politically connected landowner. A route that would be very useful for certain northward movements.
He opened the System again. This time, he searched for Geological Events, Landslides, Himalayas, 1990-1991.
The first prediction had bought credibility. The second would buy a road.