The car moved through Delhi like a needle through cloth—fast, deliberate, trying not to snag on anything that would tear.
Ram sat upright, the official seal cold in his hand. Not as a talisman. As a reminder: every order tonight would become precedent. Every precedent would become habit. And habits, he knew, were how nations were captured.
Patel sat beside him, silent, eyes scanning the streets with the instinct of a man who understood crowds. Not as citizens. As weather.
Kishan rode in front, half-turned, clutching a bundle of papers. "Prime Minister Sahib—Sharma-ji has established the crisis desk. Home, Railways, Food, Relief. Intelligence is sending a representative."
"Good," Ram said.
"And Pandit Nehru—he is at the radio station."
Patel's mouth tightened slightly. "He will speak well. He always does."
Ram didn't reply. Words mattered. But tonight, words alone would be drowned by rumor and hunger.
They neared the station and the sound changed. The celebration thinned into something sharper—shouts without rhythm, whistles, angry chants, the flat, hard call of police batons against pavement.
Delhi Station's forecourt was a mass of bodies. Men pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, necks craned toward the gates. A tide of refugees sat on the ground in clusters, bundles and tin trunks arranged like walls around children. Some stared blankly. Some cried. Some prayed. The smell of sweat, smoke, and fear hung thick enough to taste.
A police cordon held at the entrance—thin, strained, braced like a fence against floodwater. Beyond it, railway staff shouted orders that no one heard.
And above everything: one rumor, spoken in a hundred voices with a hundred variations.
A train had come from Panipat soaked in blood.
A train had come from Punjab with no living passengers.
A train was coming now—toward Delhi—full of bodies.
The crowd didn't know which version was true. It didn't need to. Fear did not require accuracy.
Ram stepped out of the car. The noise hit him like heat.
A senior officer pushed through and snapped into a salute. "Prime Minister Sahib—Superintendent Khanna. We are holding them back, but—"
"But they will surge," Patel finished, eyes assessing the crowd's edges. "And when they surge, your cordon will either break or start beating. Either way, you lose."
Khanna's jaw tightened. "Sardar Sahib, we have limited men."
Patel nodded once. "Then you use them correctly."
Ram raised a hand. "Where is the crowd densest?"
Khanna pointed. "Gate Two, Sahib. Rumor started there. Some agitators are pushing the front."
Agitators. In 2025 it would have been bot networks. Here it was tongues, fists, and men who enjoyed lighting matches.
Ram looked at Patel. "You take the cordon. I want discipline."
Patel's answer was immediate. "You will get it."
He turned to Khanna, voice low enough to cut through the din without shouting. "No lathis unless necessary. No chasing. Hold the line, not your temper. Pick ten men with the steadiest hands—put them at the front. If anyone swings at the crowd out of fear, remove him."
Khanna nodded sharply and began issuing orders.
Ram moved toward the refugees sitting on the ground. A woman looked up at him, eyes swollen, lips cracked. She didn't recognize him as a leader. She recognized him as a man with power.
"My husband is missing," she said, voice flat with exhaustion. "They said the train—"
Ram crouched, ignoring the mud. "What is your name?"
"Shanti."
"Shanti-ji," Ram said, keeping his tone steady, "your husband may be alive. Rumors are moving faster than trains. We will verify. Until then, stay here with your children. Relief will bring water."
She stared at him as if she wanted to believe him but had run out of belief.
Behind him, the crowd roared again. A surge rippled forward.
Patel's voice cut through it. "Hold!"
The front line held. Not by force—by posture. By men who did not flinch.
Ram stood and walked toward Gate Two. The nearer he got, the more he could see the pattern. Not random anger—directed anger. Small knots of men whispering, pointing, pushing others forward, then stepping back.
He could almost admire the economy of it.
Almost.
A stone clattered against the gate. Another followed. Then a third.
Someone shouted, "They are hiding the truth!"
Someone else screamed, "Open the gates!"
Khanna's men tightened their grip on batons.
Patel stepped forward, not into the crowd, but into the space between crowd and police—claiming it.
His voice rose—not a shout, a command. "You will not break this station."
A few heads turned. A few recognized him. The murmurs shifted.
Patel continued, each sentence measured. "Anyone with news brings it to the officer there. Not to a mob. Anyone who throws stones will be arrested. Anyone who hits a refugee will be arrested. This is independence night. You will not stain it with cowardice."
The crowd hesitated, uncertainty like a crack in a wall.
Ram used the crack.
He signaled to Kishan. "Find me the station master. Now."
Kishan pushed through.
Ram turned to Khanna. "Do we have loudspeakers?"
"Yes, Sahib, but—"
"Use them," Ram said. "And get me confirmation on the Panipat telegram. One call. One verification. If we speak without facts, we feed the rumor."
Khanna gestured to a runner.
Patel leaned toward Ram. "You are choosing restraint."
"I am choosing control," Ram replied.
Patel's eyes narrowed. "Good. Keep choosing it."
Kishan returned with a rail official—thin, sweating, cap crooked. "Prime Minister Sahib—Station Master Iqbal."
Iqbal's hands trembled. "Sahib, the crowd—if they breach the platforms—"
"They won't," Patel said, flat.
Ram held Iqbal's gaze. "Tell me what you know. Only what you know."
Iqbal swallowed. "There was trouble near Panipat. We received an emergency message—casualties. We have not seen the train yet. Another train is expected from Ambala by early morning. People heard 'Panipat' and assumed Punjab. They are—"
"Assuming blood," Ram finished. "Yes."
Ram turned to Khanna. "Get that message line confirmed. Exact wording. Exact source."
Khanna nodded and moved.
Patel gestured toward the cluster of whisperers. "Those men. They are not frightened."
Ram watched them. One of them saw Ram looking and immediately looked away. Not fear. Calculation.
"Pick them quietly," Ram said.
Patel didn't move immediately. He asked, as he always did when he anchored Ram, "On what grounds?"
"Incitement," Ram replied. "Throwing stones. Pushing the front line."
Patel nodded once. "Good. Not 'because they look guilty.'"
He signaled to Khanna. "Plainclothes. Now. Take the ones who threw stones first. Quietly. No spectacle."
Khanna relayed the order.
A small part of Ram's mind noted Patel's method: the difference between repression and policing was paperwork and restraint. The same baton could either protect a state or poison it.
The loudspeaker crackled to life, shrill and distorted.
Before Ram could speak, Kishan tugged his sleeve. "Prime Minister Sahib—message from the radio station."
He held out a slip of paper, the ink barely dry.
Ram read:
NEHRU ON AIR IN TEN MINUTES. REQUEST KEY POINTS.
Ram took the slip and wrote quickly, his handwriting tight:
RUMORS ARE POISON. STATION SECURED. RELIEF CAMPS OPENING. VIOLENCE WILL BE PUNISHED. PROTECT REFUGEES. DO NOT TOUCH WOMEN/CHILDREN.
He handed it back. "Run."
Kishan sprinted.
The crowd surged again, this time driven by a shout from the front: "They are lying! They are hiding the dead!"
A baton lifted instinctively.
Patel snapped, "Down!"
The baton lowered.
Patel turned his head slightly toward Ram. "This is why discipline matters."
Ram didn't answer. He was watching the whisperers.
A commotion flickered at the edge as plainclothes men moved. One agitator was seized. Another tried to slip away and was caught by his sleeve. No beating. No spectacle. Just removal.
The front line steadied.
Then Khanna returned, face tight. "Prime Minister Sahib—confirmed message. Train attacked near Panipat. Casualties reported, number unknown. Crowd moving toward Delhi station. Request support."
Ram nodded. "So the message is real."
"And the train with bodies?"
"Not confirmed," Khanna said. "No confirmation."
Ram stepped toward the loudspeaker.
Patel put a hand out—not stopping him, but anchoring him with one final question. "What will you say?"
"The truth," Ram replied. "And the limit."
Patel nodded and withdrew his hand.
Ram took the microphone. It was warm from someone else's panic.
His voice came out steady.
"This is Ram Gupta."
A ripple moved through the crowd. Some didn't believe it. Some did. Some cursed. Some went silent.
"I know what you have heard," Ram continued. "I know what fear tells you. But fear is not proof."
Shouts rose. He kept going.
"There was an attack near Panipat. It is being verified and responded to. There is no confirmed report of a train of dead arriving in Delhi. Anyone who tells you otherwise is spreading poison."
The word poison tasted bitter in his mouth.
"Delhi station will not be broken tonight," Ram said. "No one will storm the platforms. No one will attack refugees. If you throw stones, you will be arrested. If you raise a hand against a woman or child, you will be punished."
He let the last word hang.
"And if you want to help—help properly. Bring information to the police officer at Gate Two. Bring water to the refugees. Bring restraint to your friends."
He handed the microphone back and stepped away.
The crowd didn't become calm. It became uncertain, which was the first step toward calm.
Patel's voice came near his ear. "Good. You did not promise miracles."
"I can't," Ram said.
Patel's gaze swept the forecourt. "You can promise order. And you did."
A sudden new sound cut through the night: the station's old radio speaker, mounted high, crackling with All India Radio's signal.
Nehru's voice filled the forecourt—clearer than the loudspeaker, smoother, trained by years of speeches.
"My brothers and sisters…"
Ram listened as Nehru delivered the points Ram had sent—calm, restraint, warning against rumors—wrapped in Nehru's own moral cadence. It worked. The crowd's temperature dropped a degree. Not enough to be safe. Enough to be manageable.
Gandhi's influence was not present in the station, but Ram could feel its shape—volunteers moving among refugees, offering water, redirecting anger into small acts of care. Quiet, human barriers that batons could never create.
Ram turned back toward the police line. "Hold it until morning," he said to Khanna. "Rotate men so they don't break. Food and water for refugees. No sleeping on the platforms."
Khanna nodded, relief in his eyes. "Yes, Sahib."
Patel watched the refugees and spoke without looking at Ram. "You are seeing it now."
"Seeing what?"
"That governing is not speeches," Patel said. "It is preventing a thousand small collapses."
Ram's grip tightened on the seal. "And preventing capture."
Patel glanced at him. "Capture?"
Ram didn't answer immediately. He looked back toward the Secretariat in his mind, toward the procurement note underlined with that phrase—proprietary access. He had seen too many "helpful" arrangements become control.
He lowered his voice. "The communications tender. The advisers pushing access."
Patel's eyes sharpened. "I saw that paper."
"People will tell us it is technical," Ram said. "Maintenance. Complexity. The same story always."
Patel's tone turned colder. "We will not allow it."
Ram exhaled. "They will push harder now. In crisis, people accept shortcuts."
Patel's jaw tightened. "Then we make the shortcut illegal."
Ram looked at him. "Tonight?"
Patel's answer was immediate. "Tonight."
A runner approached, breathless, and handed Patel a slip. Patel read it and his expression hardened.
"What is it?" Ram asked.
Patel held the slip out.
VENDOR REPRESENTATIVE ARRIVED—REQUESTS IMMEDIATE SIGNATURE FOR 'EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS ACCESS.' CLAIMS GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S OFFICE SUPPORT.
Ram felt something cold move behind his ribs.
The same pattern. Different era. Same trap.
He took the slip, folded it carefully, and tucked it into his pocket beside the seal.
"Send word to the crisis desk," Ram said to Kishan, who had just returned. "No signatures tonight. No emergency access without Home and Intelligence present. Put it in writing."
Kishan nodded. "Yes, Prime Minister Sahib."
Patel watched Ram and spoke quietly, almost approvingly. "You are learning the real fight."
Ram looked back at Delhi station—refugees huddled under lamps, police holding the line, Nehru's voice still floating over the crowd like a net, the thin thread of order holding against a tide.
He heard a distant train whistle again.
Long. Mournful. Approaching.
Not just a sound.
A warning.
"Let them come," Ram said softly, more to himself than anyone. "We will be ready."
Patel didn't argue. He only stood at Ram's right, eyes on the dark tracks, as if he too could hear the future trying to arrive early.