As he makes his way through his building’s lobby for a morning jog, Avi finds himself wishing that the New Empire Society guards would greet him like they used to. It’s not asking for a lot. He remembers how stars were treated when he was a kid; he’d seen videos of the crowds outside Shah Rukh’s Mannat or Salman’s Galaxy, masses of people gathered in the hope that their idol would appear on a balcony and wave. But the latest New Empire Society Rules and Regulations update, delivered to his smartatt a month ago, forbids staff from directly speaking or making eye contact with residents—some of the penthouse crowd feels polluted by direct contact with the lowers, and separate lifts and entrances hadn’t been enough. It’s not like the guards had been Avi’s friends, or even that he’d known their names—when he’d first moved in, one of them had made him uncomfortable by yelling out catchphrases from Avi’s hits, asking questions about his actor friends. But ignoring that guy had been an enjoyable part of his morning routine.

Related Reading

Artificial Intelligence for a Social World

Serenity Park never really lives up to its name. Even at this early hour, the park is infested with aspiring Flowstars; there are people at every corner, monologuing next to a range of statues, from the smartplast flamingos to Shivaji. Almost every inauthentic Japanese garden–inspired location in the park itself is full too: bendy lady YogaFlowers in pagodas, fashion and wellness/inspo Flowstars near waterfalls, astrologers, even some FinFlow bros yammering about East Asian markets while walking through painted cave-tunnels. The New Empire complex was built atop what used to be an upmarket Bollywood residential neighborhood, over the bones of the demolished mansions of classical-era stars and moguls. It’s only natural that showbiz spirits haunt its very foundations.

Avi doesn’t really mind the Flowing. The gesturing and speeches remind him of the old days, of auditions in dingy rooms in shady production offices. Some of the Flowers in the park now are the children of stars from back then, though now they all start out with teams of assistants and imported drone-cams. But there’s something comforting about the cacophony as he jogs by. Many of Avi’s days are spent in expensive silence at home, and though the New Empire complex is far from what anyone would call a community, a part of him simply enjoys the sound of people talking, even if it’s to cameras or minions. They’re not ruining his morning—they’re all vaguely his neighbors, and most of them have figured out that he doesn’t want to chat about his latest releases or do cameos in their Flows (the ones who tried found quickly that dealing with his team was tedious and expensive anyway). So they restrict themselves to waving and the occasional smile, which works well for Avi.

None of the Flowers want to be out here this early anyway, but the climate-control membrane that covers all of Serenity Park, which was supposed to keep everything “Kool like Kashmir,” doesn’t work well enough. Within a few minutes, none of the New Empire residents will be able to pretend they’re somewhere other than Mumbai, and they’ll scurry back to air-conditioned homes or cars. Everyone hates the membrane, not only because it’s incompetent at cooling (and rain protection during the monsoon) but also because it’s too good at shock-repelling birds. Looking up, Avi can see three crow corpses suspended in the sky.

He makes his way to a bright red pagoda at the park’s center. His assistant pays the guards a little extra to make sure the pagoda is empty every Tuesday morning, and a little extra extra to ensure nobody chases Avi’s guests away. The first few times Bharat and Kuhu had entered Serenity Park, the sight of them—children! Lower-class children!—had driven both residents and guards into a frenzy. How had they gotten in? What unspeakable crimes were they planning to commit? When they’d figured out that the kids had smartatts that allowed them access to absolutely every privileged neighborhood in the country, and that they’d come to meet New Empire Society’s most famous, most reclusive resident, the shouting had subsided, but only to angry murmurs that had never gone away. Rumor has it they’re Avi’s kids with a former maid. The truth—that they’re the children of his controversial ex-girlfriend’s former driver—isn’t worth bringing up, and no one’s ever asked Avi directly. Too much backstory, and he’s been advised not to discuss Mia anyway, even in private: There are eyes in every wall, and he has a lot to lose.

Bharat and Kuhu are in their finest clothes, T-shirts emblazoned with Avi’s characters. When they see Avi, they run up and hug him enthusiastically. They have a routine: business first. They’ve brought merchandise for him to sign: a few superhero posters, a costume from one of his mythological mega-franchises, a mug from a brazenly fictional independence drama wherein his character saves India and Britain alike from clearly Muslim-coded alien invaders. They quote some of his characters’ recent viral lines to him, giggling worshipfully. Their favorite character of his is Akanda, Amazing Indian, Defender of Greater Indian Values. Avi’s no writer, but Akanda’s lines are so bad they are probably as AI-generated as the face shouting them.

The kids couldn’t care less about any of that: Bharat shouts Akanda catchphrases gleefully as he takes selfies with Avi, then shoots video of him signing their obviously locally pirated merch. Avi wonders if his fans know that none of these images mean anything, or prove that he actually met the kids or signed their wares: All of it can be faked so easily with AI. And not just the heroic deeds onscreen, but the equally enthralling fictitious behind-the-scenes life: A Flowstar in Bhopal had tried recently to generate a whole scandal wherein she and Avi had a relationship, and his manager had really enjoyed destroying her career. But they can’t do anything about the multitudes of ultrarealistic porn videos of Avi doing unspeakable things; his algorithm kept showing him content featuring himself until he left the internet.

Avi’s never sure if Bharat and Kuhu even really understand what acting is. Sometimes it feels like they really believe he is the person they’ve seen in Flows, shows, ads, films, games, public-service messages, plus somehow also a rich guy in Bandra they visit sometimes. Do they even wonder why he looks so much older in real life? Or do all grownups just look old to kids? Do they even begin to guess that Avi has no idea how many different characters his face is attached to, and that he only knows his greatest hits because of their enthusiastic discussions of his supposed heroic activities? That he learns much more about his own successes from them than he does from briefings with his manager?

“You’re the first and last generation of stars to really achieve immortality, Mr. Desai,” the suit—Nick? Something like that—had said. “Within a couple of years, we’ll be using original, fully digital personae—the public doesn’t care, they’ll watch anything shiny. All your peers have already signed up, most of the top slots are taken, but—and I shouldn’t be telling you this—our AI loves you. So I’m offering you the opportunity to be the top star in the country. Right now.”

He’d liked the idea immediately. Wealth, immortality, passive income, A-list status for life? He’d just lost two major franchises to Telugu nepo kids; it had been one of the easiest decisions he’d ever made. What was he going to do with his image rights anyway? He hadn’t been getting anything major in terms of ads, even dance tours. Two flops in a row and the dad role offers were already trickling in.

And the tech Nick showed him had been so good. He’d never really thought of himself as a great actor, but when he’d seen the demos of his avatars—one young, utterly ripped action hero, one sensitive, global-facing drama protagonist with facial expressions far more nuanced than his own—he’d only seen it all as a lottery win. The first time he’d seen Akanda—the early draft with the spread-Indian-positivity-worldwide brief before the character’s rage-and-bloodlust era—he’d actually thought it was the best moment of his whole career.

“Tell him,” Kuhu says. “We have to tell him!”

Bharat shakes his head vigorously. “Baba would beat us. We promised. Never to ask for money, never to ask for help. We are not beggars.”

“What happened?” Avi asks. The kids say nothing, but he sees tears in Kuhu’s eyes.

“What was the Akanda line?” Avi asks gently. “Something about the power of truth?”

“Truth is light in darkest night,” Bharat says reverently. “Indian truth is always right!”

“Go on, then.”

“The government is going to break our whole neighborhood,” Kuhu says. “Baba and Ma don’t know what to do, the police said our house will vanish, and we don’t know where to go!”

He’d heard one of the uncles in the park yelling on his Flow about slum demolitions being a great idea just minutes ago. He has no idea where Bharat and Kuhu live.

“Tell your parents to talk to me. I’ll help you out.”

“They don’t want money,” Bharat says. “We are fine.”

“But you could talk to the chief minister and save us!” Kuhu shouts. “He is your friend, we saw you together! You said he was making Mumbai the world’s greatest city with big towers! But Ma says they won’t let us into the towers!”

“Shut up,” Bharat hisses.

“If they won’t take money from me, maybe I can hook them up with better jobs? It’s not a problem at all.”

“But you could tell your friends not to break our house, no?”

Avi hasn’t seen whatever this video is where he’s hanging out with the chief minister. He’d met the dude once, years ago, long before the minister’s rise to power, at some police function where stars had to go and dance for police protection. Not someone Avi can just call up. Weird sleazy dude anyway.

His wrist pulses: His smartatt is muted, but it recognizes escalated levels of stress.

“The police are saying we are illegal Bangladeshis,” Bharat says. “They said we have to pay them or our family will be sent to some jail. Baba showed them all our papers, we are Indian, we are Hindus, but they said it was all fake.”

Avi’s always known the kids were Hindu; Muslim children would never have shouted some of Akanda’s more coded catchphrases. Not that it mattered what religion they were, of course.

“Put me in touch with your parents,” Avi says. “I will—my team will sort it out. Stop crying, Kuhu, people are watching.”

“We are not asking for help,” Bharat says. “Please tell your friend the CM that Operation Diamond Mumbai is bad, what you said about it isn’t real. Someone must have lied to you.”

Avi has no idea what Operation Diamond Mumbai is. He hasn’t watched the news in years, ever since his industry friends told him all the news was fake, all of it made with AI to scare anti-Indian elements. Why would Bangladeshis be illegal?

“We are going to the protest at Shah Gardens,” Kuhu says, sniffing. “Will you come with us?”

The last person who’d tried to get him to a protest was Mia. He doesn’t remember what year it was, or which atrocity. Mia would have known what to do here; she’d have had some guy to call. He remembers an epic fight they’d had once, when he’d pointed out that he wasn’t the only one who always outsourced all the work. His team had thrown a party when they’d broken up—she was endangering his career and reputation, they’d said, and she couldn’t stay in India, not after the documentaries she’d made. He’d spent a fortune in bribes to save Mia from being disappeared, and a lot more to keep his name out of a lot of reports.

She’s somewhere in Central Asia making Flows about rare earth minerals. He has a number to message, but this isn’t important enough.

“I can’t be seen at protests, sorry,” Avi says. “But connect me to your parents! Whatever you need, don’t worry. I have a whole team. Everything will be OK.”

Kuhu looks heartbroken. “You went to the protests against the British,” she sniffles. “Why can’t you come with us?”

“That was in the olden times,” Bharat says. “Nowadays he doesn’t like protests, no? Akanda had to burn all the anti-nationals trying to turn Indians into zombies.”

“But our protest isn’t like that,” Kuhu says.

“Of course it isn’t, but I can’t go, and honestly, you kids shouldn’t go either,” Avi says. “It’s not safe for people like—for anyone, the police might attack. If you go, they’ll just record you and put you on lists.”

The kids just look at each other, smile, and say nothing.

Bharat and Kuhu aren’t at the park the next Tuesday morning. When Avi gets home, he finds his long-suffering personal assistant Mukesh hovering by the security monitor in the kitchen, looking more troubled than usual.

“What?” Avi asks.

“The New Empire guards have been beating up a couple who came here looking for you,” Mukesh says. “I think it’s those kids’ parents.”

“Well, make them stop and send them up, what the hell!”

Mukesh shoots him a wary glance. “Already told them to stop,” he says. “They’re holding them in basement parking. Best not to make it a building issue.”

When Avi bursts out of the elevator and races toward the basement guardroom, the guards skitter away. They had their fun before they left: Bharat and Kuhu’s parents have been slapped around, clothes torn, faces swollen. They both have the neck implants the underclasses carry instead of smartatts: It’s been a while since Avi has seen one.

“We didn’t think you were real,” the man says. “We thought they were making it all up.”

“How can I help?” Avi asks.

They look at him silently, sweat and a little blood seeping through their clothes.

“We need to talk to Mia madam,” the woman says. She looks just like Kuhu. Behind Avi, Mukesh coughs discreetly: Even in the basement, they’re still on camera. He’d had to do a lot of coughing in the years when Mia was around.

“I can’t help you. She isn’t in my life anymore. Where are Bharat and Kuhu?”

“We don’t know,” the woman says, and breaks down sobbing.

“They went to some protest,” their father says. “We told them not to, what is the point? But they have been gone a week, we’ve looked everywhere. No one knows where they are. Even the police don’t know.”

“I don’t understand,” Avi says.

“You don’t have to. We just need to get in touch with Mia madam. When the kids were born, she had special tattoos made for them, the rich people ones, so they could go anywhere. We had said no then, these things are not for people like us. But she had said it would keep the kids safe for life. And now they are missing. There’s nothing else that made them special. No other reason to take them away, our bribes are paid.”

“Please, sir,” the mother says, “you were like a god to them. Please help us.”

“OK, stop bothering sir!” a hovering New Empire guard snarls, approaching. “Enough of this!”

“Fuck off,” Avi snaps.

“Let me give you some money, at least,” he tells Bharat and Kuhu’s parents. “I heard you’re having problems with the house.”

“We don’t want your money, Desai sahab,” the mother says. “We just want our kids back. Please do something.”

“OK, this is a bad idea and we can’t do anything,” his manager says before Avi even finishes explaining the situation. She’s poolside at the Hipjiro Club again, the video glitching slightly: There’s a day party going on behind her and not a single Indian face is visible.

“We have to,” Avi says. “I’m one of the top stars in the country. Surely we know a ton of ministers and fixers and access-Brahmins and whatever.”

“Not for this. Forget it.”

“Anya, this is not a request. I’m your boss,” Avi says.

“Well, boss, we can’t do it,” Anya says. “Let me spell it out so you understand how this goes. So you have these two kids, with illegal elite-access smartatts that your walking crime scene of an ex decided to gift them, no doubt with foreign money, because she thought it was a woke thing to do. They disappear at a protest—I just thank the gods that you didn’t show up on top of everything—and now you want to use your influence to find them.”

“My connections,” Avi says. “Surely I have some?”

“You do, and I’m glad you were too lazy to call them yourself,” Anya says.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, I meant too smart. You can’t afford that kind of attention, because we are in major negotiations on a number of very big projects, and the last thing you want is any kind of anti-national vibe. You’ve been such a good boy for a long time, so this is the first time you’re catching this kind of warning. Sorry, but it’s a straight no. Anything that links you to Mia, or to the wrong smartatts on some slum kids, or protests, or anything in your private life that sends the wrong signals? Absolutely no chance.”

“What is the point of anything if I can’t even find these kids, Anya? I signed up for passive income, not passive everything.”

Anya sighs. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll hire people to find them, all right? But it can’t track back to you. Obviously it wasn’t on the news, but there was a lot of bloodshed at the protests. Shanaya’s cook’s brother died, very sad. So I don’t know if those kids are alive, and you can’t go looking, OK? Don’t do anything stupid. Deal? I’ll handle all the work, like always.”

He knows Anya well enough to know she’s not going to do a damn thing.

“Deal,” he says.

“What do you want?” Mia asks. She’s in a dingy office: It’s daytime wherever she is. There’s a poster on a wall behind her, a big tower and spaceship and red words in the loopy script of a language Avi can’t recognize.

“Well, nice to see you too.”

“This isn’t a small-talk number,” she says. “Now I’ll have to change it, which isn’t the easiest thing to do in.… What do you want, Avi?”

He can see she still enjoys snapping at him for no reason. She’d never really appreciated the fame and the wealth, or the looks.

“You look good,” he says. She does: Her skin is glowing, unassisted by science, just like when they were together. The grey streaks in her hair look great. Somehow she manages to look hot in an unwashed white t-shirt.

“I have to go,” she says. “You look good too, obviously. Don’t bother calling again, the number won’t work.”

“Will you relax?” he says. “I’m at home on a secure premium line. The house is swept for bugs every day. You’re safe.”

“Avi Desai, you are a regime digital sock puppet,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re bugged in ways you and your servants have no idea about. Give my love to that asshole Mukesh, by the way. Now tell me why you called, or disconnect. I have real work to do.”

“Your driver’s kids,” he says. “They’ve gone missing, and I want to find them. Their parents think those smartatts you got them are the problem: Someone’s found them and made them disappear.”

“And you say all this to me with any number of surveillance guys listening in.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “What did I ever see in you? Do you know how much of an embarrassment our relationship is in my circles?”

Akanda would have had a lot to say about the “foolishness of women” at this point.

“Say whatever you like to me,” Avi says. “But the parents need your help, so if you can help them, do, OK? I’ll send you their number on this line, so copy it before you burn your phone please.”

She stares at him in silence, but he’s used to that.

“No, you can’t outsource this to me,” she says finally. “And you can’t bribe someone to scan their faces from footage either: The smartatts included face scramblers. Fuck. OK. Get in touch with Anil, offline, and ask for his help.”

“Who is Anil?”

“Your former spotboy, you dick. You’ve known him longer than you’ve known me.”

“Not in touch. Send me his number?”

“Unbelievable. I’ll send you a location, go there and wait.”

“I can’t really roam around in public, you know.”

“You can do whatever you like, Avi. You always have. I know your default mode is to just take the laziest option. But you always end up getting what you want, we both know it, so spare me this wide-eyed hurt bullshit. I can’t save those kids from where I am, so you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”

“I will.”

“Please do. Goodbye.”

Avi doesn’t remember when he last went to Madh Island—way back in the bungalow orgy/drug party/TV daily soap side-character days. It looks completely different now: looming residential towers, glittering stilt-malls silhouetted against the pink-orange sunset, the massive new coast-connector bridge behind them centipeding across the sky. The low-class ferry he used to take in his struggler days is still running, and still dirty: There’s still a crowd of servants standing in it while it chugs across the trash-dotted waterway. It’s blisteringly hot. The sea breeze does nothing to help, and it fills Avi’s nostrils with the smell of warm garbage. Mukesh has arranged a private speedboat and a car on the island, of course, but once they reach the location Mia sent them, it’s the end of the road for Mukesh. But then Mukesh has waited for Avi at many odd spots around the world at odd hours over the years; he’s completely unperturbed.

An ancient, rusty van pulls up, and two thin boys in white vests and crumpled orange plastic trousers slide open a door and whistle appreciatively at the movie star. All of Avi’s electronics go into a bag, which is tossed at Mukesh. They cover Avi’s smartatt with a cold, tingling foam and pull a smelly cloth bag over his head.

After a bumpy drive through traffic, then over earthen tracks, the van shudders to a halt and the multi-franchise savior of the nation is allowed to see again.

They’re outside a large and ramshackle hangar, the type Avi remembers shooting in back in the day, but this particular makeshift studio hasn’t been part of the entertainment industry for decades. The boys guide Avi through an entrance and push him through a state-of-the-art body-scanner gate, the kind they use at important government gatherings. Avi’s impressed. Anil emerges from a side door, a short, dark, bearded, plump, bright-eyed man dressed in an old-school tracksuit. He’s sporting a gold necklace and digiscreen sneakers scrolling vintage videogames. The boys unfold metal chairs and place glasses of coconut water on a little table: Anil and Avi sit. Avi’s fairly sure he’s never seen this man before—a lot of people claim to have worked with major stars, of course, and Avi’s always prided himself on taking care of his people from back in the day.

“Good to see you. Lola is alive?” Anil asks.

Lola was Avi’s Congo grey parrot from way back. He tries, desperately, to imagine this gangster without his beard, maybe a lot thinner?

“Lola is gone, sorry. You knew her?”

Anil shakes his head. “You don’t remember me,” he says, quietly.

“Of course I do,” Avi says. Anil smirks. Avi watches Anil consider pinning him with embarrassing questions, and is relieved when he lets it go.

“I would really appreciate your help,” Avi says. “Actually, these kids mean a lot to Mia. Their names are Bharat and Kuhu, I might have photos somewhere …”

“Tech wouldn’t have worked here anyway,” Anil says. “All the bugs you’re carrying, the ones you know about, the ones you don’t, nothing works here. No need for photos. Just needed to see you once, see if you were serious. If the kids are alive, I will find them. For Mia, and for Lola. OK, I have a meeting. You take care.”

“Just wait a second,” Avi says. “I want to know more. I want to do more.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, you and Mia are part of some kind of resistance, aren’t you? I want to help. I haven’t done enough all these years, I know. But I want to be part of it.”

Anil pops some paan into his mouth, chews it and eyes Avi speculatively. “I don’t know what you’re taking about, Avi sahab,” he says finally. “I’m just a local businessman. Tried movies, movies failed. You go back to your nice tower.”

“I’m serious, Anil. Tell me what I can do for the resistance, and let me join. I have—”

Anil holds a finger to his lips and shakes his head.

“If there were a resistance to our great government, or even an opposition to it … I wouldn’t know anything about that, boss. But I know you would be of zero use to it.”

Akanda would have incinerated Anil with his saffron eye-beams at this point, or done his Mocking Laugh #2.

“That’s not true,” Avi says. “I have money. I have fame. I have some power, you know.”

Anil purses his lips, and spits a long, thin stream of paan juice to the floor.

“Everything you had that meant something, you have already sold, sir,” he says. “Even when I was young, I used to wonder: Why do people love stars so much, when the words they say are other men’s words? Other men’s ideas? But even that was a different world. Now? Whatever I want, whatever my cause is, there is nothing you can do for it. But I will happily take your money. Every day from now, at eight in the morning, you will get a cyberfraud call. Every rupee that you give these Shivaji Bank scammers will go to a good cause. But make sure you report any instances of fraud to the authorities: It’s your duty as a citizen.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Avi says. “I can make a difference. The people love me.”

“It’s not you they love,” Anil says. “You should go now.”

When he wakes up the next morning, Avi’s head is a throbbing mess. He has no memory of what he’d done the night before. Nothing good, clearly. Mukesh stands by his bedside, eyes lowered, holding out Avi’s ringing phone. So many years, so many phones—the first time Mukesh had woken Avi like this, it had been with an ancient Blackberry.

“No,” Avi groans.

“Sir, it’s been ringing since night, many calls.”

“No,” Avi says.

He dives under the covers again. Why is he naked? And if he’s naked, why is he alone? He waits for Mukesh to go away, but he doesn’t: Avi can sense his malign presence lingering in his bedroom, his breathing louder than the autoplaying morning meditation music.

“What happened last night?” Avi asks from within the depths of his pillow.

Silence.

“Just tell me.”

“Sir, you bought some local liquor from a shack near the jetty, I warned you but you said it mattered and that you were still real. Then you drank it all—a lot. Then you also”—Mukesh hesitates—“had other things. You had some items in a box.”

“Is that all?”

“No sir. You wanted to make a video announcing a reward for finding those children. But you couldn’t log into any of your accounts, you don’t control them. Then you called a lot of important people, but no one would help, you got angry with them and shouted at them.”

“Fuck me. Then?”

“You told me to make you new accounts everywhere, then you posted a video. I shot it. I asked you not to, sir, but you wouldn’t listen. It was like the old days, sir, when you used to party, before you hired me from Satish Sir.”

Avi groans. His head hasn’t throbbed this hard since his early twenties, and he’s only grateful he doesn’t remember most of those years.

“Then?”

“Sir, then you made a video, asking the public to find the kids for a reward. Then you got angry with yourself for not having any photos of you with them. Then you took off your clothes, I don’t know why.”

“OK, there’s more. Don’t make me squeeze every fucking sentence out of you.”

“Sorry, sir. Then the video got taken down just a minute after we posted it, you got a copyright violation warning. Then your manager called screaming because someone from the chief minister’s office called her and said they would sue you for piracy and shut down your career.”

“Fuck me,” Avi says. “Is it on the news?”

“No, but in the morning there were two BollyFlows about how some anti-nationals made a deepfake video of you criticizing your friend the CM and the police, but they both said you could never do anything like that.”

A ringtone, from his bedside drawer. His private number, which nearly no one has.

“Should I disconnect it?” Mukesh asks.

“No,” Avi says. “Might as well.” It’s a video call from an unknown number. He considers finding some clothes, shrugs, and takes the call.

It’s a sharky-looking silver-templed guy in a sharp suit. Purely digital background, a slideshow of ancient Indian sculptures AI-morphed into liquid metal monstrosities.

“Glad you took the call,” the shark says. “I’d have had to turn up on your TV otherwise, and that’s never pleasant. My name is Chopra. I own part of you.”

Avi considers saying various things. None work. He nods instead.

“I was handed your video this morning, with a recommendation from the CM that your career be ended,” Chopra says. “Contract violation, multiple franchises at risk, ruining the nation, whatever the fuck else. I wondered why—you’re not the first star to post drunken ramblings online. Then I looked at the data.”

“I only want to find those kids,” Avi says. “I know I’m supposed to say sorry here, and beg you not to end my career and my life or whatever. Happy to do all of that—but I don’t really care. Do what you want.”

“I want you to be quiet and listen,” Chopra says. Avi nods.

“First of all, forget the kids, the kids are dead. A lot of kids died that day, when the cops charged the protest. It happens, they shouldn’t have gone, it’s sad, but the kinds of parents who allow their kids to go these things? They are the real criminals, they should be the ones who died. It’s all very sad. But Diamond Mumbai must shine, whatever the cost.”

“That’s not OK,” Avi says. “You can’t just—”

“Quiet,” Chopra says. “We’re getting to the important bit.”

“Did they find the bodies?” Avi asks. “I want to see them. They had scramblers, maybe they—”

“Avi Desai, you will learn to listen, or some very bad men will break down your door five minutes from now and teach you.”

Avi nods.

“No, they didn’t identify the kids from the bodies, no one knows what they look like and there were no bodies. Nothing happened. There was no protest in the first place. We are done talking about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I looked at your profile, and realized why the CM wanted you gone. Someone in his office clearly does their homework—I will have to find them and poach them. You’re more popular than he is, in the Diamond Mumbai campaign! You’ve kept a clean image for years, no real enemies until last night, all scandals well in the past, including that gorgeous ex of yours—I love her work, by the way, though she should really get out of Kazakhstan soon—but bottom line, the CM sees you as a threat. Which to me is always the best kind of review.”

Avi’s distracted; a message has popped up on the same spam-proof secret phone that everyone in the world seems to know about. As he reads the message, he loses track of whatever veiled threat Chopra’s making.

Welcome to Shivaji Bank, Mr. Desai, it says. We are pleased to inform you that both of your short-term debt funds have been located and are not misplaced as previously intimated.

Mia once said he had two brain cells on a good day. He reaches deep inside himself to find them, and hopefully rub them together.

Shivaji Bank’s technology—a step ahead, with Peshwa power, every hour. Please tap the Shivaji face to confirm receipt.

A smile spreads across Avi’s face. “Mother India always wins!” Akanda would have shouted, but Avi’s just glad the kids are alive.

He taps as instructed and the message disappears.

“There’s that hero smile,” Chopra says. “So now it’s time to ask yourself, what would Akanda do?”

Akanda would have ripped Chopra’s throbbing heart out with his bare hands.

“I have no interest in politics,” Avi says. “I want to live a quiet life. I really just wanted to find those kids.”

“Nice. Another thing no one seems to have figured out about you is that you can actually act. That will help.” He pauses. “If you think about it, you’ll find that what you want to do is make Mumbai one of the greatest cities in the world, and then work out what’s next.”

Avi sighs. “How does it even matter?” he says. “You don’t need my permission, you already own my image. You can make me whatever you want.”

Chopra’s smile twists.

“You think you’ve sold it all, but there’s always more,” he says. “Politics is a different game. It’ll need actual work. Fame just needs presentation. Power, though—power needs a body. If you want more in life—if you’ve had enough vacation time and would like people to actually give you the things you want when you ask them—there’s longer conversations we can have.”

“You know what, Anya, all of this has made me think about people and society,” Avi says an hour later, now transformed by coffee and clothes to something resembling a functional adult.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks. She’s still in bed, and her video is glitching again—given the Hipjiro Club’s absurd membership process and extra-deluxe black bed linen, they should really be able to afford basic wifi.

“I’ve decided that since people have given me so much love for so long, it’s time I gave something back,” Avi says. “I had a really interesting call with Chopra, I don’t know if you remember him?”

“Nick’s boss? Of course I remember him, you kind of work for him, and so do I. But—”

“Again, Anya, I have to keep reminding you—you work for me, or would have if you were smarter. Chopra isn’t my boss either. He’s a friend now, very fun, very bright. Anyway, so I’ve decided I’ve been too isolated, you know? Disconnected. I need to hit the next level, like you keep saying, do something with all this free time that stardom gives me. And the next level is clear. I need to return the people’s love. Give back to the country that has given me everything. So I asked myself, what would Akanda do?”

“What does that mean?”

“Politics is the obvious next step. Classic, traditional even. Since I’m already the brightest part of the chief minister’s Diamond Mumbai, why not just be the chief minister? And why stop there, you know? I’m already so many megahit heroes. Why not some more?”

Anya giggles out loud, then freezes.

“Are you serious, Avi? You, in politics? You wouldn’t last a day. Are you—”

“I will need to find a new manager, I think,” Avi says. “It’s a bigger role, Chopra says, so finding someone capable of handling multiple—”

“I’ll do it,” Anya sounds more alive than she has in years. “I’m the obvious choice.”

“Chopra had a very good idea,” Avi says. “He said, ‘Look, these two kids are dead, but you can be the hero to two billion kids instead. Build a better world, starting with Mumbai.’”

“I’ll get right on it, boss.”

“Actually, I have another assignment for you. I’m going for a jog in the real world tomorrow morning, I think. Run in the streets before running the country, you know? Not to Serenity Park, but out on the seafront, on Bandstand, past Salman’s old building, past Shah Rukh’s. Maybe I’ll wear a costume from one of my own franchises, do we have cooltech merch? Akanda, or the myth guy?”

“Are you mad? Sorry, Avi, boss. I didn’t mean that badly. But it’ll be too hot for any of that.”

“I want a crowd of adoring fans out there. And bodyguards to protect me from them. Maybe a getaway car. I want Flows around the world amazed by the love that people feel for me. I want to see videos of me driving past the site of Shah Rukh’s old house, waving at my adoring fans. And Anya?”

“Yes, sir?” Her face seems frozen, but maybe it’s just another glitch.

“They better be waving back.”

He disconnects, and his phone rings immediately. It’s the promised cybercrime call from Shivaji Bank. A woman’s voice, scripted fraud patter.

“No to whatever you want,” Avi says. “But send your branch manager to meet me. I want to open an account.”

She’s silent for a few seconds.

“Amazing, sir,” she says, and hangs up.