The Council Chamber in Delhi wasn't meant for Indians to speak.
It was meant for them to listen — quietly, properly, from seats placed two steps below the English.
But even in those velvet-lined galleries, under gaslight chandeliers and colonial Latin plaques, people still thought.
And Vikram had learned how to listen to thought.
There were thirty-two Indian members in the Imperial Legislative Council.
Most were princely appointees, landlords, or academics chosen by the Viceroy.
Their words were empty.
Their loyalty was bought.
But their assistants, clerks, and record keepers— those were unwatched.
And thoughts ignored were thoughts unguarded.
Vikram began with a clerk named Girdhar Mishra, who handled records for Sir David Glenby, a senior member of the Finance Committee.
Girdhar was from Benares. Educated. Soft-voiced. His mind was a clean staircase of memorized debates.
Vikram never met him in person.
The link came through an indirect thread — Leelu, now stationed in Delhi's archive rooms, passed a stitched shawl to Girdhar's sister in a temple offering. She gave it to him.
Inside the threadspace, that fabric still held touch from six Magicnet users.
And Girdhar's skin accepted it.
Thread formed.
What Vikram found in Girdhar's mind wasn't betrayal — it was boredom.
A man drowning in useless minutes. Listening to Englishmen talk about budgets they'd never spend, laws they'd never enforce, and people they'd never meet.
Vikram pushed three orbs into him:
Intermediate Legislative Memory
Passive Language Sync (to mimic tone when speaking English)
Selective Record Alteration
Girdhar didn't change visibly.
He simply began editing transcripts slightly.
Words like "must" became "should."
Numbers were shifted by decimals.
Names were reordered.
No British officer noticed.
But Vikram's network watched the ripples.
Three weeks later, a proposal for licensing paper imports was tabled.
The clause that would've made importing printing presses more expensive?
It disappeared from the draft before it reached review.
A clerical mistake, the British said.
But it wasn't.
It was Girdhar's first success.
The next was Nawab Khamruddin's assistant, a young man named Azhar Haq, posted in the Home Affairs Review Committee.
Vikram linked him through a coin exchange in a Friday market, disguised as alms.
Azhar was ambitious — hungry for influence, unsure of allegiance.
So Vikram didn't push loyalty.
He pushed vanity.
Gave him orbs for:
Instant Recall of Parliamentary Rhetoric
Posture Mimicry of British Elites
Quick Rebuttal Framing
Azhar began offering unsolicited advice to the Nawab — who, drunk on laziness, accepted.
The Nawab's tone sharpened. His speeches carried new terms — "representational equivalence," "imperial excess," "budgetary hypocrisy."
The British clapped politely.
They didn't know they were hearing Vikramaditya's words, delivered through Azhar's mouth.
Vikram's goal wasn't rebellion.
It was translation.
The Empire spoke a language of law.
So Vikram would speak it better.
But from within their walls.
By month's end, five network agents were active inside the Council ecosystem:
A coatroom boy who handled minister garments and passed them through Magicnet scans.
A gardener who clipped roses near the members' tea pavilion and listened to their idle gossip.
A file assistant who tracked which memos were "misplaced" before votes.
A typist who inserted comma errors that changed sentence emphasis.
And Girdhar — now modifying floor summaries that went to London.
Each knew nothing of the others.
But all were tuned to Vikram's signals.
He created a protocol:Vidhaan Tantra — The Law Mechanism
The rule was simple:
Every foreign policy must produce a counter-force.
Every British idea must carry an Indian echo.
Every echo must seed confusion or contradiction in their chain of command.
When a British member proposed tightening arms licenses, Vikram's agents flooded internal memos with references to vague princely exemptions.
When a ruling prohibited religious gatherings over fifty, two clerks "mistakenly" replaced "fifty" with "fifteen hundred" in the Marathi circular.
Confusion followed.
Debates stalled.
And while the colonials argued grammar, Vikram built factories.
The Assembly had eyes.
But now those eyes blinked at the wrong times.
And the ears?
They began hearing versions.
One day, Sir David Glenby looked over a week's agenda and muttered to his secretary:
"Strange. Feels like nothing's getting done lately."
And he wasn't wrong.
But he didn't know why.
The gears had slowed.
The language had bent.
And none of it showed in the papers.
Because those papers were Vikram's now.
In the threadspace, Vikram watched these agents glow like steady beacons.
They weren't warriors.
They weren't activists.
They were translators of control.
And their silence spoke louder than any flag.