The last thing I remembered was the ink.
I was sitting in my corner office on the forty-fifth floor of the Financial District in Hyderabad, the city sprawl glowing a bruised purple under the twilight smog. I was Rudra, the CEO of Garuda Holdings. The document on the mahogany desk was the final acquisition contract for a lithium mine in Zimbabwe—a deal that would strangle the battery market for the next decade.
I uncapped my fountain pen, the nib resting on the signature line. I felt the vibration of the city through the floorboards—the honking, the construction, the relentless, hungry pulse of a billion people chasing destiny. I felt invincible. I was a King of the South.
Then, the squeeze.
It wasn't a pain so much as a collapse. A black hole opened in the center of my chest. The expensive pen slipped from my fingers, rolling across the document, leaving a streak of black ink like a scar. The golden lights of the city blurred into streaks. The roar of the traffic faded into a high-pitched, electronic whine.
I hit the floor. The deal remained unsigned.
And then, cold.
A quiet, expensive, sterile cold.
I awoke to a silence so profound it felt oppressive, like the inside of a bank vault after hours. There was no humidity, no smell of ozone and diesel, no distant hum of humanity. Just the rhythmic, synthesized beep-beep-beep of a machine and the aggressive, soulless hiss of central air conditioning.
I tried to open my eyes. The lids felt glued shut with exhaustion. When I finally managed a slit, the room swam into focus.
It was vast. This wasn't a hospital room; it was a suite. The walls were paneled in dark wood, softened by heavy cream drapes that blocked out the world. A plush leather armchair sat in the corner. It smelled of lemon polish, antiseptic, and old money.
Where am I? The VIP wing at Apollo? London? Why is it so quiet?
I tried to move. My body felt wrong. Lighter. Frail. The center of gravity had shifted.
"Paani..." I whispered. The word scratched my throat like sandpaper.
I lifted my right hand to rub the sleep from my eyes. I froze.
The hand hovering before my face was not mine.
My hands were forty-five years old. They were brown, broad, weathered by the sun and marked by the calluses of a man who had built an empire from a garage. They were hands that commanded respect.
The hand in front of me was pale. Pinkish-white, translucent enough to see the blue veins beneath the skin. The fingers were long, slender, and manicured. They were covered in fine, golden hair.
It was the hand of a boy. A white boy.
Panic, sharp and icy, spiked my heart rate. The monitor accelerated: beep-beep-beep-beep.
I bolted upright, ignoring the sharp, structural agony in my ribs that felt like they had been kicked by a mule. I tore at the silk pajamas—monogrammed with the initials R.M.—and stared down at myself.
The chest was narrow, pale, and hairless. The legs under the sheets were long and spindly.
No. This is a dream. A coma hallucination. I am Rudra. I am a Titan.
I scrambled for the bedside table, my motor control jerky and uncoordinated in this alien frame. I needed a phone. I needed to call my secretary. I needed to hear a voice that wasn't this terrified internal monologue.
There was no smartphone. No tablet. Just a heavy, black Bakelite rotary phone sitting on a marble coaster.
A rotary phone?
I stared at it. It looked like a prop from a museum.
I closed my eyes, forcing the panic down with the sheer force of will that had negotiated billion-dollar mergers. Focus. Analyze. Assess.
And then, the anomaly appeared.
It was an instinct born of the Information Age. When confused: Search. I visualized the action of opening a browser.
Instead of a thought, a translucent overlay shimmered into existence directly across my field of vision. It hovered in the middle air, invisible to the room but crystal clear to me. A simple, glowing search bar with a blinking cursor, floating against the expensive wallpaper.
I stared at it. My heart hammered against foreign ribs.
Test, I commanded mentally. Current Location.
> SEARCH: CURRENT LOCATION> RESULT: SETON MEDICAL CENTER (PRIVATE SUITE). AUSTIN, TEXAS, USA.
Texas. Amrika.
Time, I demanded. Date.
> SEARCH: CURRENT DATE> RESULT: SEPTEMBER 12, 1985.
I sank back against the stiff, starch-smelling pillows. The breath left my lungs in a whoosh.
I wasn't just across the ocean; I was back in time. I was in an era where India was still closed to the world, sleeping under the License Raj, while America was a bloated, swaggering giant running on oil and ignorance.
And I was trapped in the body of a teenager.
Rudra Mercer. The name unlocked a file cabinet in my new brain, spilling memories that weren't mine.
Rudra Mercer. 16 years old. Second son of the Second Son. Heir to the Mercer Estate. The "Artist." The disappointment.
I almost laughed. A dry, hacking sound. I was Rudra then. I am Rudra now. The universe had a twisted sense of humor, or perhaps a divine sense of purpose. I had been given a "New Game+" mode.
The heavy oak door clicked open.
Two people walked in. They didn't enter like worried parents; they entered like partners in a high-stakes firm. They moved with the synchronized grace of people who had spent decades navigating courtrooms and boardrooms together.
The woman was striking. She wore a tailored Chanel suit that whispered power, but her gold bangles and the subtle diamond stud in her nose screamed Hyderabad.
Priya Mercer. My mother.
The man was tall, white, with silvering hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a charcoal grey suit that cost more than my first house in Hyderabad. He carried a leather briefcase.
Robert Mercer. My father. The Corporate Attorney.
"Rudra?" Priya whispered, her composure cracking just enough to reveal the mother beneath the lawyer. She rushed forward, the scent of jasmine and expensive French perfume enveloping me.
"Thank God," Robert said, his voice a deep, resonant baritone. He didn't rush. He stayed at the foot of the bed, checking the vitals monitor, then the chart. He was assessing the damages.
Priya's cool hand touched my forehead. "You gave us such a scare. Travis called us from the ambulance. He said the horse just bucked out of nowhere."
"We've already had the legal team review the liability waiver with the stable," Robert said calmly, closing the medical chart. "The breeder is claiming no fault, but I'll depose the stable hand next week. No Mercer gets thrown due to negligence without consequences."
I looked at them. My "parents."
In my old life, family was emotional, messy, loud, and suffocatingly close. Here, family was a legal entity. A corporation. They were powerful, intelligent, and cold.
And they were useful.
I don't need to save this family, I realized, a cold ambition curling in my gut like smoke. I need to use them.
They were my shield. My front.
"Maa," I whispered. The reflex was too strong to stop. "Paani."
Priya froze. The "Attorney" mask slipped completely. Her eyes softened, dark and deep as the Deccan night.
"Rudra?" she whispered. Then, quietly, so Robert wouldn't catch the nuance: " Beta? Tum theek ho? " (Son? Are you okay?)
The Hindi was a balm on my soul.
I cleared my throat, forcing the gravel of my old voice into the higher pitch of this new body. "I mean... Mom. Dad. Water. Please."
Priya poured the water from a silver pitcher. It was ice-cold. Americans chilled everything until it had no flavor. I drank it anyway.
"The doctor says three broken ribs and a mild concussion," Robert said, moving to the window to look out at the parking lot. "Big Jim is... well, Big Jim. He's at the house. He's furious. He thinks this accident makes the family look 'soft' right when Travis is fighting for the zoning bill."
"Robert, stop," Priya snapped gently. "He just woke up. No politics."
"It's not politics, Priya, it's optics," Robert countered, though his voice was not unkind. "We met in Law School, remember? You know how this works. Perception is reality."
I watched them. They were a team. Intellectual equals. Aristocrats of the law.
I looked at my pale hands resting on the white sheet.
"I'll handle Big Jim," Robert sighed, turning back to me. He looked tired. "You just heal, son. Leave the fighting to us."
I looked at the Mind Browser floating in the air. SEPTEMBER 12, 1985.
I had a lawyer father who knew the law, a diplomat mother who knew people, and a politician brother who ran the city. And I... I knew the future.
"Don't worry, Dad," I whispered, my voice raspy but steady. "We're going to win."
Robert smiled, a faint, tired expression. "That's the Mercer spirit. But let's stay off horses for a while, Counselor."
Counselor. He called me that as a nickname. Little did he know, he was speaking to a man who had rewritten the laws of logistics in South Asia.
Rest, I told myself as the fatigue dragged me back down. Rest. And then, we acquire.