The Harley arrived on a Thursday morning.
Aditya heard the delivery truck from inside his apartment and was downstairs before they had finished unloading it. He signed the paperwork, watched them wheel it onto the pavement and then just stood there for a moment looking at it.
In person it was better than in the showroom.
Dark metal. Clean lines. Low and solid in a way that made everything around it look slightly less interesting.
'Okay', he thought. 'That was a good decision.'
He had a valid licence — Khushi had made sure of that when she generated his identity. Driving level one in his stats. He had ridden back home, mostly basic two wheelers, though nothing remotely close to this.
He put on the jacket he had bought specifically for this moment — dark, fitted, the kind that looked right on a bike — and swung a leg over.
He sat on it for a second just getting the feel of it. The weight. The width. The way it sat low and planted beneath him.
Then he started it.
The engine turned over with a sound that was less a noise and more a physical event. A deep steady rumble that he felt in his chest before he heard it properly.
The older man from the apartment across the street was standing on his steps watching with an unreadable expression.
Aditya gave him a small nod.
The man nodded back.
He pulled out slowly, found the balance, felt the weight shift and then rode out into the street.
He didn't go far the first time. Just through the neighbourhood and back, getting used to the size and the power and the way it responded. It was heavier than anything he had ridden before and required more attention but it wasn't unmanageable.
By the second loop he was more comfortable.
By the third he was genuinely enjoying himself.
He parked outside his building, cut the engine and sat still for a moment while the rumble faded.
'Yeah', he thought. 'That's staying.'
He went back upstairs and opened his laptop.
The app had been live for four days.
He hadn't checked the numbers since launch — partly discipline, partly the same superstition that makes you not want to look at your exam results immediately. But four days felt like enough time for something real to show up. Or not show up. Either way he needed to know.
He opened the developer dashboard.
He stared at the screen.
Then he leaned forward.
Downloads: 1,847
Revenue: $2,634
He read the numbers twice.
Almost two thousand downloads in four days. With zero marketing. No promotion. Just the app sitting on the store on its own merits.
'It works', he thought quietly. 'It actually works.'
He leaned back and looked at the ceiling for a moment.
He had built something. From scratch. In a world that wasn't his, in a year where the technology was a decade behind what he had grown up with, using knowledge absorbed from library books over five hours.
And people were using it.
He felt something that wasn't quite pride and wasn't quite satisfaction but lived somewhere between the two.
He noted the numbers in his notebook, closed the laptop and went to make tea.
That afternoon he sat at his desk and opened a fresh page in his notebook.
At the top he wrote two words.
Eiben Chemcorp.
He had been putting this off. Not because he had forgotten — it was always somewhere at the back of his mind — but because the timing hadn't felt right. He had needed capital first. A foundation. Something solid to stand on before approaching something this significant.
Now he had it.
He began researching.
In the movie Eiben Chemcorp was the pharmaceutical company that manufactured NZT-48. Small, relatively obscure, not yet on anyone's radar in any significant way. Which meant acquiring it — or at least gaining a significant stake — was theoretically possible if approached correctly and early enough.
He spent two hours going through everything he could find. Company filings. Financial records. Ownership structure. Current valuation.
The numbers were manageable. Not trivial — but manageable for someone with his current capital and growing income.
'This is possible', he thought.
He wrote down three things in his notebook.
Find a lawyer. Find a financial advisor. Move quietly.
He underlined the last one twice.
He closed the notebook.
One step at a time.
The next morning he rode the Harley out without a particular plan.
He was still getting familiar with the city on two wheels — finding the routes that made sense, the streets worth avoiding, the ones that opened up unexpectedly into something interesting. It was a different experience from walking. Faster, more exposed, the city moving past rather than standing still around him.
He stopped at a small park he had passed twice before without going into. Locked the bike, walked in and sat on a bench near a path that cut through a line of trees.
He had been sitting for about ten minutes, doing nothing in particular, when he heard footsteps slow nearby.
"You again."
He looked up.
Lindy was standing on the path with a takeaway coffee in one hand and a canvas bag over her shoulder, looking at him with an expression caught somewhere between amused and surprised.
"You again", he said.
She gestured at the bench.
"Is this your bench now or can anyone use it?"
"It's a public bench", he said.
She sat down at the other end of it.
For a moment neither of them said anything. The park moved quietly around them — a couple walking a dog in the distance, pigeons doing what pigeons do, the muffled sound of the city beyond the treeline.
"Do you live near here?", she asked.
"Few streets over", he said. "You?"
"Other direction", she said. "I walk through here sometimes when I need to think."
"What are you thinking about today?", he asked.
She looked at him sideways.
"You actually want to know or are you just being polite?"
"I actually want to know", he said.
She considered that for a second.
"A story I'm working on", she said. "There's a guy I've been trying to figure out how to write about. Someone I know. He's been — changing. Really fast. In ways that are hard to explain." She paused. "It's not a story yet. Just an observation. But it keeps nagging at me."
'Eddie', Aditya thought immediately. But he said nothing.
"Sometimes the things that nag at you are the ones worth paying attention to", he said instead.
She looked at him for a moment.
"Yeah", she said quietly. "Maybe."
They sat in comfortable silence for a while after that. Not the awkward kind — the kind that happens between people who don't feel the need to fill every gap with noise.
After a while she finished her coffee and stood up.
"I have a piece to file", she said. She pulled out her phone. "Can I get your number? Properly this time. So I don't have to track you down through a cafe."
He told her and she saved it.
"I'll text you", she said.
"I know you will", he said.
She laughed once and walked off down the path.
He sat on the bench a little longer, watching the park, before heading back to the Harley.
Two days later she texted.
"Hey — are you free Sunday? There's a food market in Brooklyn I'm covering for a piece. Apparently there's an Indian food stall. Thought of you immediately for obvious reasons. No pressure."
He read it once and typed back.
"Sunday works. Send me the details."
Her reply came in under a minute.
"Great. Also — you have a good memory for someone who claims not to talk much."
He put his phone away and got back to work.
Sunday arrived with thin clouds and a cool breeze — the kind of weather that was perfect for walking around outside without thinking about it too much.
He rode the Harley to Brooklyn, parked a street away from the market and walked in.
It was bigger than he expected. Stalls spread across an entire block packed tightly together — food, crafts, plants, vintage things, things that defied easy categorisation. The smell of different cuisines mixing together hit him the moment he entered.
Lindy was waiting near the entrance, notebook already in hand, a camera bag over her shoulder. She looked at the helmet tucked under his arm.
"You really do ride everywhere", she said.
"It's faster", he said.
"It's also extremely impractical for carrying groceries."
"I don't buy groceries on a Harley", he said. "I have some standards."
She laughed and they started walking.
She was working while they walked — stopping at stalls, asking questions, scribbling notes, taking occasional photos. He walked alongside her without getting in the way, watching how she worked. She was good at it. She had a way of asking questions that made people want to answer properly rather than just give her the short version.
He mentioned that at one point.
"You make people feel like what they're saying actually matters", he said.
She looked at him.
"That's because it does", she said simply.
He didn't have anything to add to that so he didn't say anything.
They found the Indian stall about halfway through the market. A middle aged Gujarati couple running it, the smell of fresh samosas and chai reaching them from twenty feet away.
Aditya stopped walking.
Lindy noticed immediately.
"That's the one", she said.
"That's the one", he confirmed.
They got samosas and chai and sat on a low wall nearby eating without talking for a while. The samosas were genuinely good — not exactly like home but close enough to produce a specific feeling he hadn't been expecting.
Lindy watched him for a second.
"Good?", she asked.
He nodded slowly.
'Close enough', he thought quietly. 'Close enough.'
They stayed at the market for two hours. She finished her notes, he carried her camera bag for the last half hour without being asked and without making anything of it. They tried three other food stalls and disagreed productively about which one was better.
She liked things spicy. He liked things flavourful but not aggressive. This turned out to be a genuine point of difference that produced a longer conversation than either of them had planned.
At one point she asked him what food back home actually tasted like — not the general idea of it but specifically. What his mother made. What it felt like eating it.
He thought about it properly before answering instead of just giving the easy version.
He told her about the smell of rasam on a rainy day. The specific weight of a proper South Indian meal on a Sunday afternoon. The way certain foods existed only in certain seasons and you looked forward to them without realising it until they appeared.
She listened without interrupting.
"That's a completely different relationship with food than most people here have", she said when he finished.
"It's just normal where I'm from", he said.
"That's what makes it interesting", she said.
They walked back toward the market exit as the afternoon light started to soften.
At the gate she stopped and turned to face him.
"This was good", she said. "I'm glad I texted."
"Me too", he said. And meant it.
"I might need a quote about the Indian stall for my piece", she said. "From a genuine South Indian perspective. Would that be okay?"
"Sure", he said.
"I'll text you", she said.
"I know", he said.
She started walking toward the subway entrance then stopped and turned back once.
"Hey — that friend I mentioned. The one who's been changing lately." She paused. "I think you'd find him interesting actually. Maybe sometime."
"Maybe", he said.
She waved once and disappeared down the steps.
He stood there for a moment.
'That friend', he thought.
He already knew exactly who she meant.
He walked back to the Harley, put his helmet on and rode home through the late afternoon city, the engine steady beneath him, his mind turning quietly.
That evening he checked his stats.
"Khushi."
"Yes, host."
"Show me my current stats."
[Host : Aditya]
[Species : Human]
[Gender : Male]
[Age : 22]
[Stats]
[Health : 9] (Normal person : 10)
[Energy : 0]
[Strength : 9] (Normal person : 10)
[Speed : 7] (Normal person : 10)
[Endurance : 11] (Normal person : 10)
[Intelligence : 14] (Normal person : 10)
[Attributes : 0]
[Skills : Driving (level 1), Swimming (level 1)]
[Equipment : Nil]
[Points : 740]
740
He looked at the points for a long moment.
He had come in with 270.
"Khushi", he said. "Why did my points increase by this much?"
"Replying host, points have been generated from multiple sources. Stealing NZT stash redirected main storyline significantly. Building independent income within movie world counts as active story participation. Establishing identity and presence within world generated passive points over time."
He nodded slowly.
"And Lindy?", he asked.
"Replying host, initiating and developing genuine relationship with a primary character of the movie world has generated points. Lindy is a significant character in the main storyline. Any meaningful interaction with her directly influences story trajectory."
He looked at that for a moment.
'So even just having samosas in Brooklyn counts', he thought.
He wasn't sure whether that was funny or complicated. Probably both.
'Good', he thought eventually. 'I'm going to need every single one of them.'
He wrote one line at the bottom of the page.
She mentioned him. It's starting.
He closed the notebook and turned off the light.