The streets were thick with smog and wood smoke. The night smells were a mix of burnt rice, sewage, and rusted metal. Delhi after sundown was not asleep. It simply lowered its voice.
Vikram sat on the broken temple steps near Paharganj, watching.
He didn't speak. Didn't move. His back was straight. His eyes were sharp. It was his fourth night here, at the same time. The boys had noticed.
First came the curious ones. Then the bold ones. Then the silent ones — the ones who already had too many scars to waste words.
By the sixth night, they sat near him in a half-circle.
Five boys.
Oldest maybe thirteen. Youngest could've been eight. No shoes. Hollow eyes. Torn shirts.
They didn't ask what he wanted.
He didn't tell them.
Instead, he handed out cold rotis wrapped in banana leaf. One each.
They ate in silence.
Only when the last bite was gone did he speak.
"You know me?"
One shook his head.
"You ever hear my name?"
Another shook his head.
Vikram nodded slowly. "Good. That means you're useful."
The smallest boy blinked. "You giving more food?"
Vikram looked at him. "You want food, you can go beg. Or sell scraps. You want more than food?"
The boys stared.
"You listen."
Over the next three days, he met them in the same place. No questions. No promises. Each time, he taught one thing.
How to spot shadows that didn't belong on a wall.How to walk barefoot without sound.How to count doors on a street without turning your head.
None of it sounded useful to them. Yet none of them missed a night.
On the fourth night, he asked them to follow a man for six turns without being noticed.
Three failed. Two passed.
He gave those two new sandals.
The others weren't dismissed. Just told to try again.
By the end of the week, there were twelve boys.
By the end of the month, there were thirty.
Vikram didn't know all their names. But he knew their skill orbs.
Magicnet had mapped them — dozens of threads woven through the city's filth and noise. Each boy carried potential: Beginner Climbing, Elementary Endurance, Street Mapping, Quick Hands.
He didn't need them all at once.
He needed a core.
From the thirty, he chose seven.
Seven who could listen without needing to talk. Seven who watched more than they spoke. Seven who had never once asked him where he came from.
He brought them to the hidden factory.
Not inside. Just the side room. Gave them blankets. Soap. And warm khichdi served in brass bowls.
They waited.
He stood before them. No uniform. No flag. Just his voice.
"This place has no name. You don't tell anyone it exists. If you do, you won't wake up again."
No one laughed.
"You don't work for me. You work for Bharat. You just don't know it yet."
Still silence.
Then he stepped forward.
Took the hand of the tallest one — a boy with cracked fingernails and a burn scar on his neck.
Three seconds.
Thread connected.
Inside: a mess of memory. Running from beatings. Climbing rooftops. Stealing food. Days hiding in grain sacks.
But there was one thing: pattern memory. The boy had learned to escape narrow streets by counting steps, mapping lanes without looking.
Vikram fused his orb with two others from older Magicnet users: one press worker, one retired guard.
Intermediate Urban Navigation.
Then he copied it back into the boy.
The effect was subtle.
The boy blinked. Paused. Then asked, "How many turns to reach the mosque behind the post office?"
Vikram raised an eyebrow.
The boy answered his own question. "Six. Right, left, narrow path, courtyard, then two right turns."
The others stared at him like he'd just grown a new tongue.
Vikram said nothing.
He moved on.
Each of the seven received a fused orb:
Intermediate Tail Tracking
Beginner Close-Range Distraction
Intermediate Memory Recall
Beginner Disguise Handling
Intermediate Lock Awareness
Beginner Emergency Escape
Intermediate Map Recall
They weren't boys anymore.
They were the first unit.
He called them The Black Threads.
No badges. No names. No symbols.
Their job: observe, report, vanish.
No fighting. Not yet.
Vikram was building roots, not flags.
And these boys were now silent eyes across the city.
By day, they returned to the streets. Blending back into the smoke and noise. Shoeless again. Nobody looked at them twice.
By night, they came to the side door. One by one. Carrying whispers. Faces. License numbers. Cart markings. Names.
Names that mattered.
Names that would bleed.