One month. That's all it took.
The "Garden-Variety Miracles" file on my system was no longer a curiosity. It was a dossier. And it was giving me headaches no amount of Maa's adrak wali chai could fix.
Take our Shaolin friend, Master Li. His "Unyielding Feminine Principle" wasn't just about breaking stones anymore. Last week, he stopped a runaway delivery cart in the village market. Didn't push it. He stood in front of it. The video from a tourist's phone was grainy, but clear enough. The cart hit him. He slid back a foot, shoes scraping gravel. The cart stopped. He shook out his arms, bowed to the terrified driver, and walked away. The cart's front was dented. He was fine.
Arey baba. He wasn't just strong. He was becoming… durable. Like a living fortress wall.
Then there was Sister Maria in Portugal. Her "quiet magic" had evolved. A disturbed teenager was brought to the orphanage, violent, screaming. She sat with him, just sat, chanting her strange mix of Hail Marys and Sanskrit under her breath. In twenty minutes, the boy was calm, weeping in her lap. The doctors called it a miracle of empathy. I saw the biometrics MAKA scraped from a clinic visit—the boy's cortisol levels had plummeted as if drugged. She wasn't just soothing. She was pacifying.
Marcus in Chicago? His "feeling" was now a map inside his head. He'd started patrolling different routes, showing up in alleys five minutes before a mugging, parking his car under streetlights just before they flickered out. His arrest rate was zero, because he was preventing the crime. The local cops thought he was the best-informed snitch they'd ever had. He wasn't. He was seeing the shape of violence before it formed.
Ye sab kya ho raha hai?
This wasn't random power. This was themed. Master Li was manifesting Durga's invincible protection. Sister Maria was channeling Kali's fierce, cleansing peace (the Kali who ends suffering, not just the one who dances on corpses). Marcus was getting the precognitive instinct of a battlefield goddess.
They were specializing. Like they'd been handed a job description and were now levelling up in the role.
And the feedback loop… the System showed it now. A faint, but growing, steady pulse on the Durga/Kali frequency. Strongest near them. They weren't just receiving the signal anymore. They were re-broadcasting it. My garden was starting to pollinate itself.
I called Ganesh. "The special flowers. Any thorns? Any problems?"
His voice was tense. "Bhai, the Chinese military researcher has left Shaolin. But he took copies of all the tourist videos. The Chicago police have opened an informal file on Marcus—'Pattern Recognition & Pre-Crime.' It's low priority, but it's there. The pattern… it's not invisible if you look."
That was the problem. I'd wanted to hide Earth behind a shield of noise. Instead, I'd lit up a few specific, very bright candles inside the fortress. Candles that were starting to attract moths.
I couldn't turn it off. The signal was part of them now. And frankly, weakening my main shield to stop a few side effects was *be*****ula* business.
So. New plan. If you can't hide the flowers, you tend the garden more carefully.
Protocol Update: SAINTS & SOLDIERS (Phase 2).
I opened the directive file and started typing, the Hinglish flowing with the stress.
> Objective: Asset Nurturing. No direct contact. Subtle support only.
> Action Items:
For Shaolin Monk: Have our Hong Kong guy donate to the monastery's "structural repair fund." Specify it's for "reinforcing the ancient training halls." Let him train in a stronger building. Maybe "accidentally" leave an old, obscure Sanskrit text on prana kayakalpa (body fortification) in their digital archive. Let him find it.
For Portugal Nun: "Discover" a historical link between her convent and "an ancient Eastern order of healing sisters." Fund a small, quiet research grant. Give her story a cover. Make her feel part of a tradition, not an accident.
For Chicago Guard: Tip off a local community charity to give him a "Neighborhood Guardian Award." Small cash prize. Legitimize his presence. Get him a better coat, better shoes. A happy, funded guard is a less suspicious guard.
For ALL: Monitor anyone showing interest in them. The Chinese researcher, the curious cop. Apply MAKA's standard "distraction and bureaucracy" toolkit. Lost paperwork. Sudden transfers. Better job offers far away.
> End Goal: Keep our accidental saints safe, funded, and quietly improving. Let them grow. See what they become.
I saved and encrypted it. Sent.
It was madness. I was running a global, clandestine talent management agency for accidentally superpowered devotees of a goddess I'd amplified on a whim.
I leaned back, the weight of it absurd and heavy. I was no longer just a merchant or a king. I was a mythological HR manager.
Maa walked in with fresh chai. She took one look at my face and sighed. "Phir wohi business ka tension? Itna sochoge to buddha ho jaoge." You'll grow old thinking so much.
I took the chai. "Nahi, Maa. Bas… gardening ka naya project hai." Just a new gardening project.
She smiled, patting my head. "Achha hai. Mitti mein kaam karo. Dimag ko shaanti milti hai." Good. Work with the soil. It brings peace to the mind.
If only she knew. My "soil" was the human soul. And I was growing warriors and saints in it.
I sipped the hot, sweet chai. The warmth was real. The problem was galactic. The solution was… making sure a nun in Portugal got a research grant and a Shaolin monk had a sturdy wall to punch.
Bas, chalta hai. It'll have to do. The gardener's work is never done. You just try to stop the weeds from choking the strange, new, beautiful things you never meant to plant.