MONETISING THE MUSE: THE ART OF STEAL
PROLOGUE
The phone buzzed once.
Devraj let it ring before answering — a habit, not an accident.
“Is it done?”
A voice spoke on the other end, without the hint of an accent in the particular way of someone who’d trained it to be.
“Almost.” Devraj kept his voice lower than usual, although he was alone in his office. “She’s smarter than the file suggested.”
A pause. Papers shuffling, perhaps. Devraj held his breath.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have right now.”
“You have until Thursday.” A beat. “The board isn’t known for its patience, and neither am I.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Are you” It wasn’t a question. “Make sure she signs. However you have to.”
The line went dead before Devraj could respond.
He sat there for a long time, staring at Amaira Rai’s file, the phone pressed to his ear, listening to nothing in particular.
Beyond the glass walls of his office, the city glittered beneath a thin veil of smog. Far below, headlights threaded through the evening traffic, red and white streams flowing in opposite directions. Inside the building, everything remained as it always was. Elevators hummed.
Keyboards clicked. Somewhere down the corridor, someone laughed.
The world, Devraj thought, had an extraordinary capacity for carrying on.
He lowered the phone and placed it beside his laptop.
Thursday.
He opened the file.
Amaira Rai. Thirty-one. Internationally acclaimed Kathak dancer. Three decades of formal training, multiple national and international awards, performances across four continents. A reputation for technical precision that bordered, according to one critic, on the unnatural.
The photograph attached to her profile showed her mid-chakkar, her face turned towards the camera, the edge of her dupatta suspended in a soft arc behind her. She looked composed, almost still.
Devraj had seen her dance in person twice.
The first time, he had forgotten why he was there.
The second, he had watched the technicians instead.
He scrolled past the photograph to the project records. Rehearsal schedules. Performance footage. Correspondence with her management. Consent documentation. A list of supplementary assessments, most of them completed without objection.
Most.
He stopped at an entry dated eleven days earlier.
PARTICIPANT QUERY — ADDITIONAL DATA COLLECTION.
Below it was a brief note from the research team. The language was dry, professional, and reassuringly vague. He read it once, then again, though the words remained the same.
He closed the file.
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His phone lit up.
An email had arrived from Legal, marked urgent.
SUBJECT: AMAIRA RAI — AGREEMENT STATUS
The message contained three sentences. The first asked whether the revised agreement would be signed before Thursday. The second requested confirmation that all outstanding documentation had been resolved. The third reminded him that the prospective purchaser had made its position on delays abundantly clear.
Devraj deleted the notification without opening the attachment.
He stood and crossed to the windows. From the thirty-second floor, the city looked almost orderly. Buildings rose in clean lines against the darkening sky. Roads appeared to lead somewhere. Everything had a place, provided you were high enough not to see the congestion.
He had spent years telling himself that Kinesis Dynamics was different from the companies it competed against. That technology was not inherently extractive, that progress did not have to come at the expense of the people who made it possible. Their preservation initiative had been built around precisely that belief.
He remembered Amaira at their first meeting, seated across from him in a conference room, listening to the presentation without once looking at the impressive graphics on the screen.
She had asked who would own the resulting archive.
Then she had asked whether the names of the gurus who had taught the recorded compositions would be preserved alongside the performances.
And finally, she had asked what would happen if she changed her mind.
Devraj had answered all three questions.
He had been careful with his answers.
His phone buzzed again.
An incoming message from an unsaved number.
Thursday. Eighteen hundred hours. Confirm once the matter is settled.
No greeting. No signature.
He read it twice before locking the screen.
For a moment, he considered calling the number back. He could ask for an extension, insist that the outstanding questions be addressed, remind whoever sat at the other end of the arrangement that deadlines were not the same thing as guarantees.
Instead, he returned to his desk.
Amaira’s file was still open on the monitor.
He scrolled to the final page, where a new document had appeared beneath the existing records. Its title was short, its access permissions restricted. He had not seen it there that morning.
He clicked on it.
A single page loaded. Most of the text was obscured by black bars, but the header remained visible.
PROJECT K — TRANSFER REVIEW
Beneath it sat a field marked Authorisation Pending.
And below that, a name.
AMAIRA RAI.
Devraj stared at it.
Then he closed the document, shut down the monitor, and stood in the sudden darkness of his office.
On Thursday, she would be asked to sign.
He had three days to make sure she did.
And for the first time since the project began, Devraj wasn’t entirely certain what would happen.
Continue Reading: Chapter One (Monetising the Muse: The Art of Steal)
