Not every British file lived in an office.
Some lived in men's heads. In the spaces between what was written and what was spoken. And in the quiet corners of dusty warehouses, where goods moved before paperwork ever caught up.
That was where Vikram focused now.
The first lead came from Leelu. Two weeks into his new role, the boy mentioned a pattern: British supply orders were being rerouted — not through official tender, but via private contractors. Quietly. No press notices. No listings.
"Who's moving the crates?" Vikram asked.
Leelu hesitated. "Badrilal's cousin. He wears white shoes. Never speaks. Always collects in cash."
A thread tugged at Vikram's mind.
He followed the man to the back lanes of Chawri Bazaar. Watched him speak to a British sergeant in the shadows of an old haveli. A sealed envelope passed hands. No records. No signatures.
Vikram touched the sergeant's shoulder that night. Not during the meeting. Later. In the morning crowd at the railway station. Three seconds was all it took.
Inside: a list. Simple, coded. But clear.
Steel rods. Gun barrels. Ball bearings. Ink solvents. All sourced from Indian traders, labeled as 'miscellaneous goods,' marked with alternate routes.
The British weren't just trading through official arms — they were creating a shadow system. One that bypassed accountability.
One Vikram could now see.
He mapped the names.
Three contractors in Delhi. One in Agra. Two in Kanpur. One of them handled textile supplies. The other, printing inks — the same type Vikram's press used.
He didn't touch them immediately.
Instead, he walked into the press office the next week and filed a new contract bid. Under a clean alias. Not as Vinod Pratap — but under a shell trader name pulled from a dissolved registry and rebuilt quietly through Magicnet: Gopal Das & Sons.
The clerk approved it automatically — because Franklin's old memory marked it as pre-cleared.
The name entered the system.
And within five days, the first sealed order arrived. British-issue paper. Thick, watermarked. Meant only for government notices. Vikram's press printed it quietly. No questions.
The ink used was from his own hidden supplier.
The paper? Now traceable to him.
Vikram never saw the face behind the contract.
But he didn't need to.
By the end of the month, three secret British supply orders passed through his hands. None bore his name. None led back to him. But every one of them fed into Magicnet — information, materials, people.
He was no longer just in the legal system.
He was inside the illegal British one too.