Burger Royale

About This Novel

Burger Royale is a humor/comedy · heist-heart novel, following Here are the detailed character profiles for the key characters in Burger Royale:, .

Opening Line

"# Chapter One: The Cold Open (#InternGoals)"

# Chapter One: The Cold Open (#InternGoals)

**COLD OPEN: A viral tweet, three weeks in the future.**

---

**@BurgerRoyaleIndia** ✓

We deeply regret the unfortunate incident involving our former intern and the allegations that have been made. We are conducting a thorough investigation. Also, please note that the views expressed by the aforementioned intern do not reflect the views of Burger Royale India.

*12:47 PM · 14 Oct 2026 · X*

**87.4K Quote Tweets · 12.1K Likes**

---

**@cryptobhakt** · 14 Oct "unfortunate incident" is CRAZY she literally—

**@delhika_launda** · 14 Oct the way they said "aforementioned intern" like he's a legal filing and not a real person who worked 18-hour days for free

**@chai_curious** · 14 Oct burger royale really said "thoughts and prayers" in corporate

**@blockchain_babe** · 14 Oct who is this intern and why is he my new roman empire

**@sarcastic_sardar** · 14 Oct "views expressed do not reflect the views of Burger Royale India" bro the views were expressed ON the Burger Royale India account

**@memewali_mausi** · 14 Oct someone get this intern a Netflix deal immediately

**@token_terminal** · 14 Oct LMAO your "thorough investigation" will be my next memecoin

---

The Dadar apartment smells like instant noodles, burnt ambition, and the particular desperation of five people who haven't slept properly in weeks.

It's 6:47 AM on a Monday, and Mumbai is already screaming outside — car horns, vendor bells, the distant wail of a train pulling into Dadar station. The monsoon has been threatening for three days without committing, leaving the air thick and damp, the kind of humidity that makes everything feel slightly rotten.

Meera stands at the whiteboard, arms crossed, surveying the operation like a general before battle. Her Kanjeevaram sari — minimalist, expensive in ways that don't scream — rustles as she shifts her weight. The whiteboard is a mess of timelines, arrows, color-coded phases, and — in Devi's handwriting, in the corner — a small drawing of a burger with a knife and fork, captioned *"WE'RE GOING TO EAT THIS COMPANY ALIVE."*

Meera has not slept in 36 hours. She looks it. Her ponytail is pulled so tight it's giving her forehead a facelift. There's a faint tremor in her left hand that she's been hiding by keeping it in her pocket.

"You're late," she says without turning around.

The door creaks open. Arjun stumbles in, looking like he's been dragged through a hedge backwards. His hair is doing something that can only be described as *aggressive*. His shirt is buttoned wrong. He's holding a cup of chai in one hand and his father's watch in the other, clearly having been mid-strap when he decided to enter.

"I'm not late," he says. "I'm exactly on time. You're just early. Which is a form of being late. For the universe."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't. You find me charming and indispensable. You said so in your performance review."

"I never gave you a performance review."

"Exactly. You're scared to commit."

Meera turns. Arjun grins. It's a good grin — practiced, charming, the kind of grin that's gotten him out of more trouble than he's been in. But she knows him well enough to see the flicker beneath it. The nervous energy. The way his fingers keep working the watch strap.

"Fix your shirt," she says. "You're supposed to be a professional."

"I'm supposed to be an intern. Interns are rumpled. It's part of the brand. 'Hungry for success' — that's literally their slogan. Rumpled reads as hungry."

"Your shirt is buttoned wrong."

Arjun looks down. Blinks. Laughs. "See? Rumpled. Authentic."

He fixes it anyway, fumbling with the buttons while trying not to spill his chai. Meera watches him and feels something twist in her chest — something she's gotten very good at ignoring.

She turns back to the whiteboard.

---

The apartment is a 2-BHK in a building that was probably considered old when her grandmother was young. The walls are stained with decades of Mumbai humidity. The windows rattle when trains pass. The kitchen has never been used for cooking — the stove is currently home to a stack of Raspberry Pis, and the sink is full of energy drink cans. The occupants have been living on instant noodles, vada pav from the vendor downstairs, and the kind of caffeine intake that would concern a cardiologist.

Five laptops are scattered across two tables, running on three different Wi-Fi networks. Cables snake across the floor like electronic vines. A whiteboard that once displayed a calendar from 2019 — featuring a Bollywood actress whose career has since declined — is now covered in the operation.

The operation.

Meera looks at the whiteboard and feels the familiar mixture of excitement and terror that's been her constant companion for the past six months.

**PHASE 1: INFILTRATION** - Arjun gets internship at Burger Royale India HQ - Target: Marketing department, 14th floor - Access: Social media credentials, internal comms - Timeline: Week 1-2

**PHASE 2: NARRATIVE** - Deploy sob story via compromised social media accounts - "Disgruntled intern" persona - Viral threshold: 100K engagements minimum - Timeline: Week 3

**PHASE 3: MONETIZATION** - Launch BURGERRUG token on Pump.fun - Tie narrative to token launch - Pump: 48 hours - Dump: T-minus 0 - Timeline: Week 4

**PHASE 4: EXTRACTION** - Rug pull - Wallet drain - Exit - Timeline: Week 4, Day 3

Simple. Clean. Elegant.

Except nothing about this operation is simple. Clean, maybe. Elegant, definitely. But simple? No. Simple is for people who don't understand how many ways a plan can go wrong.

Meera is someone who understands exactly how many ways a plan can go wrong. She's spent her entire life cataloging failure modes, contingency planning, preparing for the worst. It's not paranoia — it's pattern recognition. Her mother died in a Ponzi scheme collapse because she trusted the wrong person. Meera was nineteen, home from college, and she'd seen the signs — the too-good-to-be-true returns, the charismatic founder, the way her mother's friends all spoke about the investment like it was a religious experience. She'd said something. She'd warned her mother. But she'd been young, and her mother had been desperate, and the scheme had collapsed, and Meera had spent years wondering if she could have done more.

Now she builds schemes instead of falling for them. It's not revenge. It's inoculation.

"Okay," she says, tapping the whiteboard with her marker. "Everyone here? Everyone awake? Everyone's soul properly sold to the devil?"

Devi is sprawled on the couch, laptop balanced on her stomach, hair a chaotic blend of faded purple and black roots. She's wearing an oversized hoodie that says "I'M NOT ARGUING, I'M EXPLAINING WHY I'M RIGHT" and cargo pants with so many pockets they could double as a survival kit. She doesn't look up from her screen.

"Define 'awake.' Physiologically? No. Spiritually? Also no. But my firewall breach simulation just hit a 99.7% success rate, so I'm feeling pretty good about the whole 'breaking into a multinational corporation' thing."

"99.7% isn't 100%."

"It's never 100%. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. Or they're an idiot. Usually both." Devi finally looks up, her nose ring glinting in the harsh light. "The 0.3% is the human factor. Humans are unpredictable. That's why we have Arjun."

Arjun, who has been trying to fix his collar in the reflection of a dead TV, turns around. "I'm the human factor?"

"You're the human factor." Devi grins. "You're the one who has to actually walk into the building and convince people you belong there. The rest of us are just ones and zeros."

"I'm not just a pretty face, Devi. I'm also a pretty personality."

"Debatable."

Sanjay emerges from the second bedroom, which has been converted into what he calls his "war room" — really just a corner with six monitors showing various charts, order books, and a live feed of Pump.fun token launches. He's wearing his usual uniform: a polo shirt, cargo shorts, and New Balance sneakers. His hard wallet dangles from a lanyard around his neck like a religious artifact.

"Okay, okay, I've been running the tokenomics simulations all night," he says, rubbing his eyes. "And I have good news and bad news."

"Good news first," Meera says.

"Good news: the token mechanics are solid. The contract is clean, the liquidity pool is properly seeded, and the extraction mechanism is — if I do say so myself — a thing of beauty. We're looking at a potential 100X before we pull the rug."

"And the bad news?"

Sanjay hesitates. "The bad news is that I've been running the simulations for the post-rug scenario, and... there's a non-trivial chance that some of the buyers might try to find us."

"We're rugging a memecoin, Sanjay. Not robbing a bank. People who buy memecoins know the risks."

"Most of them do. But some of them — the ones who buy late, the ones who get in because they saw the viral story and thought they were early — those people aren't crypto natives. They're just... desperate. And desperate people do desperate things."

Meera's jaw tightens. She moves on.

"We've been over this," she says. "The narrative is designed to attract foreign investors — crypto tourists, degen gamblers, people who are already throwing money at every meme that crosses their feed. The Indian retail investors will be protected by the narrative itself — they'll be too busy being outraged at Burger Royale to buy a random token."

"Famous last words."

"Sanjay."

"I'm just saying. Desperation doesn't read a whitepaper."

"Sanjay." Meera's voice is sharp. "We've been over this. The operation is solid. The extraction is clean. We're taking money from people who were trying to get rich quick off a meme — not from pension funds or orphanages. This is a victimless crime."

Sanjay opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks at his hard wallet.

"Right," he says. "Victimless. Totally."

He retreats back to his war room. Meera watches him go and feels the first flicker of doubt — not about the operation, but about Sanjay. He's been getting quieter as the launch date approaches. She makes a mental note to talk to him later.

The door opens again. Rishi enters.

No one hears him. He's just suddenly there, standing in the doorway, wearing his usual black hoodie — one of five identical ones he owns — and looking like he hasn't slept since 2021. His eyes are dark-rimmed and darting. He's clutching a backpack that contains, as far as anyone knows, at least four burner phones, a Faraday bag, and possibly a small EMP device.

"Rishi," Meera says, not looking up from the whiteboard. "Good of you to join us."

"I was checking the perimeter."

"The perimeter of the apartment?"

"The perimeter of the building." He pauses. "There's a suspicious van parked across the street. It's been there since 3 AM."

"There's always a suspicious van parked across the street. This is Dadar. Every van is suspicious."

"This one has tinted windows."

"Rishi. Every van with tinted windows is suspicious. That's why they have tinted windows. So people can't see the suspicious things inside."

"Or so they can watch us without being seen."

Meera finally turns. Rishi's face is pale, his jaw tight. He's not joking. He's never joking.

"Rishi. We've been over this. The operation is clean. We've taken every precaution. Devi's VPN is —"

"Devi's VPN is a toy. If Burger Royale's security team is half as good as I think they are, they'll see through it in minutes."

"Burger Royale's security team is contracted from a firm that mostly handles shoplifters. They're not intelligence operatives."

"You don't know that."

"I do know that. I did the research. Their security budget is 0.4% of their annual revenue — which is actually below industry standard. They're not prepared for a coordinated cyber operation. They barely have a firewall."

Rishi doesn't look convinced. He looks like a man who has never been convinced of anything in his life.

"The van—"

"Is probably a delivery van for the shop downstairs. Or a cab waiting for a fare. Or literally anything other than a surveillance vehicle." Meera's voice softens. "Rishi. I know you've seen things. I know you have reason to be paranoid. But this operation is solid. We've planned for every contingency. We're going to be fine."

Rishi looks at her for a long moment. Then he nods — a small, tight nod that doesn't reach his eyes.

"I'll check the AC vents," he says.

"The AC vents are —"

"I'll check the AC vents."

He disappears into the hallway. Meera hears him dragging a chair to stand on. She sighs.

"He's getting worse," Devi says quietly.

"He's always been like this."

"No, I mean — he's getting worse. He used to only check the windows twice a night. Now he's checking the AC vents."

Meera doesn't have an answer for that. She turns back to the whiteboard.

"Okay. Let's go over the plan one more time. From the top."

---

The plan, in its simplest form:

Burger Royale India is the country's biggest fast food chain — a gleaming corporate monolith whose crimson crown logo has become synonymous with affordable luxury. Their slogan is "Hunger for Success." Their burgers are mediocre. Their prices are exploitative. Their treatment of employees is — according to the fourteen-page report Meera compiled from Glassdoor reviews, LinkedIn posts, and leaked internal memos — somewhere between "questionable" and "actively illegal."

They are the perfect mark.

The operation has been in planning for six months. Meera started it after her last corporate consulting gig fell through — when she realized that the skills she'd honed at McKinsey (spreadsheets, stakeholder management, the ability to make exploitation sound like synergy) could be deployed more profitably outside the system than within it. She'd recruited the crew one by one: Devi through a hacktivism forum, Sanjay through a crypto meetup, Rishi through a mutual acquaintance who'd vouched for his paranoia. And Arjun.

Arjun had been the last piece. The most important piece.

He'd walked into her life at a poker game in 2022 — a low-stakes game in a friend's apartment that had gotten out of hand when someone introduced actual money. Arjun had been quiet for most of the night, nursing a beer and watching the table. Meera had been running a textbook bluff — representing strength with a weak hand, watching the other players fold one by one — when Arjun had called her.

Not his cards. Her.

"You're bluffing," he'd said, pushing his chips forward. "Your left eye twitches when you're lying."

She'd looked at him. He'd grinned — that same practiced, charming grin he was using now.

She'd lost that hand. She'd won something else.

They'd talked for hours after the game. He'd told her about his father — the street food cart that had failed, the heart attack that had killed him at 54, the debt that had nearly swallowed his family. He'd told her about the Dogecoin crash that had taken his tuition fund and his faith in the system in one fell swoop. He'd told her about the rage — the quiet, burning rage of watching the world's winners get richer while everyone else fought for scraps.

She'd told him about her mother. About the Ponzi scheme. About the years she'd spent learning how the machine worked so she could take it apart from the inside.

They'd been on the same wavelength from the start. It was terrifying and exhilarating and — if she was being honest — the closest thing to intimacy she'd experienced since her mother died.

She'd recruited him that night. He'd said yes without hesitation.

Now he's standing in her apartment, buttoning his shirt wrong, about to walk into the belly of the beast.

"Phase One," she says, pointing at the whiteboard. "Arjun enters as an intern. His cover is solid — we've created a fake employment history, a fake education record, a fake social media presence that goes back five years. His references check out. His background check will come back clean."

"Because I don't have a background," Arjun says. "I'm a ghost with a graduate degree."

"You're a ghost with a marketing degree from a reputable but not prestigious university. Which is exactly the kind of candidate Burger Royale hires for their internship program — smart enough to be useful, desperate enough to be exploitable."

"Thanks. I feel great about myself."

Meera ignores him. "Phase Two: Arjun gains access to the social media accounts. The current social media manager is a 23-year-old named Priya who posts memes from her personal account during work hours and has the password written on a sticky note under her keyboard."

"How do you know that?"

"Devi hacked her Instagram. She posted a photo of her desk with the sticky note visible in the background. People are incredibly stupid about what they share online."

Devi raises a hand. "In my defense, it was a really good photo. Good lighting. The sticky note was a bonus."

"Phase Three: Arjun deploys the sob story. A carefully crafted narrative about the exploitation of interns at Burger Royale India — unpaid wages, impossible deadlines, a corporate culture that treats young people as disposable. The story goes viral. The internet does what the internet does."

"And Phase Four," Sanjay says, emerging from his war room, "is the memecoin. BURGERRUG. We tie the token to the narrative — 'the intern who fought back' — and launch it at the peak of the viral moment. The hype drives the price up. We ride the wave for 48 hours. And then we pull the rug."

"Taking the liquidity and leaving the token worthless," Meera says. "The buyers lose their money. We walk away with the bag. And Burger Royale India's reputation is destroyed by the association with the whole mess."

"Victimless," Sanjay mutters. "Right."

Meera looks at him. There's something in his voice she doesn't like.

"Sanjay. Do you have a problem with the plan?"

"No. No problem. Just... thinking about the logistics."

"Bullshit. What's wrong?"

Sanjay hesitates. Then he says, quietly: "I ran the numbers on the token launch. At the peak, we're going to have maybe 10,000 holders. Most of them are going to be small investors — people putting in 50, 100 dollars. People who saw the viral story and thought they were getting in early on something big."

"People who are trying to get rich quick off a meme."

"People who are desperate." Sanjay meets her eyes. "I know what that's like. My father lost everything in a Ponzi scheme. He wasn't greedy. He was desperate. He was trying to give us a better life, and he got scammed by someone who knew exactly how to exploit that."

Meera feels the twist in her chest again. It's getting harder to ignore.

"This is different," she says.

"Is it?"

"Sanjay. We've been over this. The token is designed to attract foreign investors — crypto tourists who are already throwing money at every meme that crosses their feed. We're not targeting Indian retail investors. We're not targeting desperate people."

"You can't control who buys a token. Once it's on Pump.fun, anyone can buy it. Anyone."

"And anyone who buys a memecoin knows the risks. It's in the name — meme. Coin. It's a joke. People who buy it are gambling, not investing."

Sanjay opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks at his hard wallet.

"Yeah," he says. "Gambling. That's what I'm worried about."

He retreats back to his war room. The door closes behind him.

The room is quiet for a moment.

"He's not going to be a problem, is he?" Devi asks.

"He's a professional," Meera says. "He'll do his job."

"You didn't answer my question."

Meera doesn't answer. She turns back to the whiteboard.

---

The rehearsal takes two hours.

Meera runs through every scenario she can think of — Arjun getting stopped at security, Arjun getting asked questions he can't answer, Arjun's cover being blown by a random encounter with someone who knew him from his old life. She drills him on his backstory until he can recite it in his sleep. She tests him on the corporate hierarchy, the office layout, the names of the key players.

"Who's the CMO?"

"Nikhil Bannerjee. 46. Distinguished in a manufactured way. Watch worth more than my family home. Permanent expression of a man who's just smelled something bad but can't identify the source."

"The CEO?"

"Vikram Malhotra. 58. Founder's son. Figurehead. Doesn't actually run anything. Spends most of his time at industry events and golf courses."

"The person who actually runs things?"

"Kavitha. 41. Managing Director. Harvard MBA. Arrived five years ago and restructured the company from top to bottom. Known for being ruthless, demanding, and — according to Glassdoor — 'inspiring.' The quotes are important."

"Why are the quotes important?"

"Because Glassdoor reviews that use the word 'inspiring' without irony are usually written by HR."

Meera nods. She's impressed. Arjun has done his homework.

"And the person you need to get close to?"

"Kavitha Reddy. She's the one with the actual power. If I can get on her radar — if she sees me as someone with potential — I'll get access to the things we need."

"How will you get on her radar?"

Arjun grins. "I'll be irresistible. It's a gift."

"Arjun."

"I'll be the best intern they've ever had. I'll be so good they can't ignore me. I'll volunteer for every project, stay late, come in early, make myself indispensable. By the end of week two, she'll be calling me into her office for 'special projects.'"

Meera feels something cold crawl down her spine. She doesn't know why.

"Be careful," she says.

"Careful is my middle name."

"Your middle name is Ramesh."

"Careful Ramesh Mehra. It's on my birth certificate."

Meera sighs. "Okay. I think we're done here."

The crew disperses — Devi back to her laptop, Sanjay to his war room, Rishi to check the windows again. Arjun heads to the bathroom to fix his shirt properly, and Meera finds herself alone in the main room, looking at the whiteboard.

The plan is perfect.

The plan is elegant.

The plan is going to work.

She repeats this to herself like a mantra. She doesn't believe it. She never believes it.

But she's never been wrong to worry before.

---

Arjun emerges from the bathroom looking... better. His shirt is buttoned correctly. His hair has been tamed into something approaching presentable. He's wearing his father's watch — the one prop in the con that's not a prop at all.

He looks like an intern. He looks like a young man on the verge of a great career. He looks like exactly what he's supposed to look like.

The knot behind her ribs pulls tighter.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

"Do you remember everything?"

"I remember everything. The cover story, the backstory, the corporate hierarchy, the office layout. I'm an intern from a reputable but not prestigious university. I'm hungry for success. I'm grateful for the opportunity. I'm going to work hard and prove myself."

"Good."

They stand in the doorway. The apartment hums behind them — Devi's typing, Sanjay's muttering, Rishi's footsteps as he checks the windows one more time.

"Meera," Arjun says.

"What?"

"Are you nervous?"

She looks at him. He's watching her with an expression she can't quite read — something soft underneath the practiced charm.

"No," she says. "I'm not nervous."

"Liar."

"I'm not."

"Your left eye twitches when you're lying."

She blinks. Forces herself to hold his gaze.

"I'm not nervous," she repeats. "I've planned this operation down to the smallest detail. I've accounted for every variable. I've prepared for every contingency. There's nothing to be nervous about."

Arjun doesn't say anything. He just looks at her.

"Go," she says. "You're going to be late."

"Late implies a schedule. I'm an intern. I'm supposed to be early."

"Then go be early."

He grins — that same practiced, charming grin that's gotten him out of more trouble than he's been in. And then, before she can react, he reaches out and squeezes her hand.

It's quick. Brief. Almost nothing.

But it's enough to make her breath catch.

"See you on the other side," he says.

And then he's gone, walking down the stairs, out of the apartment, into the chaos of Dadar, into the city that's about to become his battlefield.

Meera watches him go.

She watches the door close behind him.

"Meera?" Devi calls from the couch. "You want me to run the analytics one more time?"

"No," she says. "We've run them enough."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

She's standing in the doorway of a crumbling apartment in Dadar, watching the man she might be in love with walk into the belly of the beast, and her hands are shaking.

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