The registrar's office on Alipur Road was a place of long queues, ink-stained desks, and tight faces behind glass. Indians stood with papers in hand, whispering instructions to each other. The British clerks on the other side barely looked up.
Vikram stood in line, silent.
He wore a loosely fitted khadi kurta, dull enough to avoid attention. A borrowed satchel hung from his shoulder. In it, blank application forms — half stolen, half replicated from memory — and two falsified identity slips. No signature, no family name, just enough to not raise questions.
The clerk he wanted was behind the third window.
Arthur W. Elmsworth. Anglo-Indian. Born Calcutta, now posted in Delhi.
Vikram had been watching him for three weeks.
Arthur processed trade licenses. Mostly denied them. Especially to native-run ventures. He marked "incomplete form," "lack of clearance," or just scribbled "rejected" with a sigh, never looking up.
Vikram stepped forward.
Their eyes met for the first time.
Arthur barely glanced at him. "Next."
Vikram handed the form across the desk. Their fingers brushed.
Three seconds.
Arthur frowned, blinked, and reached for a rubber stamp.
Too late. The thread was already tied.
That night, as Arthur slept under a whirring fan and a half-empty bottle of gin, Vikram entered.
The memory opened like an archive.
Arthur's daily route. The ledger codes. His personal grudge against "native businessmen." His dinner conversations. His pension worries. The time he pocketed a bribe from a Marwari trader, then reported him anyway out of spite.
Vikram didn't erase much.
Just one thing.
He inserted a memory: a directive from a higher British official — approving Vikram's identity, pre-cleared, and fast-tracked for license.
It sat perfectly between real events.
The rest stayed untouched.
When Arthur arrived at his desk the next morning, he yawned, stretched, and reached for the pile of forms.
He paused when he saw Vikram's.
His eyes narrowed.
Then he nodded to himself. "Right. This one's pre-cleared. They told me about him."
He stamped the top page.
APPROVED.
Two days later, Vikram walked out of the registrar's office with a license in his pocket.
Not forged.
Not stolen.
Real.
He smiled slightly as the crowd behind him muttered about delays.
One more gate opened.
And no one knew the key had never touched a lock.