He didn't plan to do it that day.
It just happened.
The printing shed smelled of wet cloth and oil. Vikram sat on the back step, sorting discarded pages into stacks. The boy next to him — the whistler — was wrapping twine around small bundles, whistling the same tune he did every morning. Name was Sattu. Eleven years old. Too thin for his age. Quick with his hands.
Vikram had seen him take a hot coal from the fire barehanded once, just to impress the pressmen.
Sattu leaned close to grab a page. Vikram held out a bundle.
Their hands touched.
Vikram didn't pull back.
Three seconds passed.
Something shifted.
There was no flash. No spark. Just a quiet snap inside his mind, like a cord being tied to something deep and real.
And then came the noise.
Not sound — thoughts.
Not his own.
He sat still, eyes unfocused, heart suddenly pounding.
Sattu's mind was open. Right there.
"Don't forget the corner bundle. Old Sharma'll beat me again."
"Wish the press gave extra roti today."
"Left the tin coin under the sack."
The boy kept working, unaware. But Vikram felt every piece float past. Clear. Natural. Like overhearing someone speak across a room — except the room was inside his head.
He looked at the boy again.
Nothing had changed on the outside.
But inside — they were tied.
That night, after the lamps were doused and the workers asleep, Vikram sat with his knees drawn to his chest, staring at the dark ceiling. He didn't sleep.
He waited.
Until Sattu began to snore.
Then he reached in.
The connection pulsed. Familiar now. But deeper.
He didn't need to push. Just leaned into the thread.
And the memories came.
Sattu hiding coins in his shoe. His father coughing blood in a one-room shack. His mother's voice telling him not to cry, even after the house burned. The first time he stole food. The last time he saw his sister — carried off by a british man in uniform.
It came in layers. Not as movies. Not as words. Just truth, shaped like images and sensations.
Vikram pulled back, breathing hard. The boy didn't stir.
Then he tried something else.
He found a memory. A small one. Sattu cutting his finger on the wire hook last week, hiding it so he wouldn't be sent home.
Vikram focused. Pressed mentally around that moment.
Erase.
The memory slid loose. He felt it. Like untying a knot. It vanished.
Sattu's face twitched in sleep. Then stilled.
Gone.
Just like that.
When the boy woke next morning, he asked if Vikram had seen his bandage.
"What bandage?"
Sattu stared. "Oh… I don't know. Maybe I dreamed it."
He walked off whistling.
Vikram sat alone, staring at his hand.
The power was real.
Permanent.
The net had begun.