The uniform walked into Delhi like it owned the air.
Tall, clean-pressed, silver buttons glinting even under shade, Major Reginald Harper represented everything the Empire wanted India to believe: calm authority, proper posture, permanent dominance. He had fought in Burma, advised in Egypt, and was now posted to Delhi as "Military Trade Observer" — a title that meant little on paper.
In truth, he was a troubleshooter.
The British had started noticing the pattern.
Sugar flowing in odd quantities.
Pamphlets rising again, but without direct incitement.
Illegal salt circulation.
Silent, coordinated behavior in low-tier workers who had no union, no leader, no demands.
No one knew where the control was coming from.
So they sent Harper.
Vikram heard about it before Harper even stepped off the train.
One of his operatives — a teenage boy disguised as a shoeshine — had cleaned the boots of Harper's personal aide, Lieutenant Michael Graves, while he waited at the Howrah platform.
Three seconds.
Thread formed.
That night, Vikram sat beneath a dim lamp in Chandni Chowk, chewing warm peanuts while memory rolled across his mind like projected film.
Harper had orders to observe all "unusual native activity" linked to rural industries and urban press operations. He had access to military intelligence memos, railway shipment audits, and quartermaster approvals.
He had been told: "Identify and eliminate the link. Make it disappear quietly."
Vikram knew what that meant.
They were coming.
Not for war.
For surgical erasure.
The officer moved with careful steps.
He stayed at the British quarters in Civil Lines — a whitewashed building guarded day and night, surrounded by manicured hedges and wide verandas where junior officers drank gin and muttered about "native slyness."
Vikram didn't approach the gate.
He approached Harper's habits.
Through Graves, he saw:
The route Harper walked on Sundays toward St. James Church
His taste for mango lassi sold by a vendor near Kashmere Gate
His daily lunch habit — mutton kabab from a stall run by a man named Feroz
The stall was Vikram's.
Feroz was Vikram's.
Everything the man cooked was ordinary.
Except on the third visit.
That day, Harper accepted the usual lunch, nodded politely, then reached into his pocket to pay. As he did, Feroz's hand brushed his wrist — only three seconds.
Thread formed.
Feroz stepped back.
Harper never noticed.
Vikram entered that night.
The mind of a British officer wasn't like the villagers.
It was structured.
Compartmentalized.
Labeled.
Years of military discipline had filed memory into drawers. Locations, dates, people. Harper's mental space was lined like a warehouse. Efficient. Predictable. But vulnerable — because he had no idea he was being watched.
Vikram walked through it slowly.
He didn't tamper first.
He learned.
Every briefing Harper had received about the "Delhi problem." Every suspicion. Every report.
He learned the names of British sympathizers in Meerut, in Aligarh. He learned the codes used by railway intelligence men. He saw photos — actual printed ones in Harper's memory — of men suspected of "instigating native efficiency."
He smiled.
None of them were Vikram.
But one name did appear — Rajesh Joshi, the identity Vikram had used for sugar dealings.
The British were closing in.
He got to work.
Vikram couldn't simply erase Harper's memory — that would cause gaps. Alarm. Suspicion.
He had to replace, not remove.
So he reshaped the following beliefs:
Rajesh Joshi was not a subversive — just a pious accountant with anxiety
The sugar networks were manipulated by corrupt zamindars looking to avoid tax, not revolution
The pamphlets were being republished by leftover Congress workers — scattered and disorganized
The real threat was growing unrest in Lahore — a city full of "Muslim agitators" and potential foreign influencers
The changes were subtle.
So subtle Harper would never notice the difference.
Even if he re-read his reports.
Vikram implanted a new directive: Shift focus west. Monitor Lahore. Maintain Delhi stability.
The next morning, Harper ordered a quiet reallocation of surveillance officers.
Two from Delhi to Lahore.
One from Mathura to Bannu.
No one questioned him.
Vikram didn't stop there.
He planted a new memory — small, irrelevant on the surface:
"You met a Bengali scholar named Vikramaditya once. A dull boy. Glasses. Weak voice. Not worth remembering."
The name was now safe.
In plain sight.
Meaningless.
Harper left Delhi two weeks later, reporting no major insurgency but "curious efficiency" among agricultural groups, likely driven by "localized caste alliances."
His report was accepted without correction.
The British Intelligence Office marked the case as "stable — no immediate action."
And Vikram?
He followed Harper's departure with a subtle offensive.
Introduced new pamphlets praising the Empire — written by his own team — to lull British minds
Leaked a false report to a low-ranking clerk that Meerut and Aligarh were organizing protests
Moved key shipments of forged papers and money through routes Harper had just declared safe
But more importantly, he began recruiting British-connected Indians.
Men like Michael Graves.
Clerks. Translators. Orderlies.
Men who thought they were invisible.
He touched them.
Thread by thread.
One by one.
By the time Harper reached Lahore, ten new minds had entered Magicnet.
Three were inside Civil Lines.
Major Reginald Harper would never know how close he had been.
How he had walked into the mouth of the monster, and smiled.
And left believing it was tame.
Vikram watched his train disappear in the distance and whispered quietly to no one:
"If you control memory, you never need to lie."