Chapter 126: Ch.123: Stark Expo
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- Brooklyn, New York -
- April 24, 1939 | Evening -
The Stark Expo was a carnival of color and chaos. Everywhere you looked, there was something new, something shiny. From sleek cars to brilliant gadgets, the air was electric with ambition. The whole city of Brooklyn seemed to be pulsing with life as the greatest minds, the most powerful men, and the sharpest suits gathered to witness the future unfold.
Tonight was Howard Stark’s night, but the true spark had already ignited — and it wasn’t the glint of repulsors or the roar of engines. It was the quiet, unassuming booth at the far end of the Expo hall — the Rajvanshi Tech display. At this point, anything coming out of Bharat was seen as a novelty and a constant source of curiosity among Americans, much like the rest of the Western world, which was growing tired of the steady stream of grim news from Europe. Stories of Nazi atrocities, constant skirmishes, and the looming shadow of a war — although not officially declared by any side — made it clear to those in the know that the conflict, soon to become a world war, had already begun in Europe. Many newspapers, news agencies, and even some government bodies spun facts and built conspiracy theories around Bharat and its new technologies invented by Aryan Rajvanshi, partly to distract the public from the dark headlines. This kept ordinary people in the West in a constant state of wonder about anything emerging from Bharat. So when news broke that Howard Stark had shared a friendly talk with the Samrat of Bharat, Aryan Rajvanshi himself, and had convinced him to open Bharat’s economy — along with getting the Rajvanshi Group to participate in this year’s Stark Expo, obviously another case of spinning around the facts by the western news outlets — it became a massive hit among tech enthusiasts and science lovers across America.
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The crowd was still buzzing from Howard’s show, but the murmurs around the Bharatiya booth were different. There was a palpable sense of curiosity, even awe. The kind of awe that comes not from the flashing lights or the staged drama, but from something that felt deeper, older — and, above all, more real.
Elias Varga stood back, his sharp eyes scanning the crowd. He was used to watching people, reading their faces, their movements. It was a game of patience for him. This was a game where power wasn’t always visible on the surface. He’d been in the business long enough to know that true influence hid in the shadows, behind conversations, between contracts.
Beside him, Marina sipped her wine, her expression unreadable as she surveyed the scene. Her hand rested lightly on his arm, but her gaze was fixed on the stage, where the Bharatiya engineers had just begun to explain their work.
The screen before them was alive with color, images blooming and shifting, sharp and vivid in ways no one had expected. The crowd was silent, and for a brief moment, it felt like time itself had paused, waiting to see what came next.
The first piece they showcased was the advanced display technology, or "Drishya," as the Bharatiya had called it. It wasn’t just a projector; it was a living image. Colorful, bright, and crisp in a way that made every other screen around them look dull and outdated. Even Stark’s gleaming machines seemed to pale in comparison as the images swirled around them — landscapes, faces, scenes from everyday life, captured and displayed with an uncanny clarity.
It was, In every sense, magic made real. The crowd was spellbound. Scientists from all over the world, businessmen with their greed-filled eyes, and even the press — they were all caught in the same web of wonder.