The night over Montgomery was quieter than Bombay, but not silent. Crickets rasped in the fields, a dog barked once and then thought better of it, and somewhere beyond the wall a bullock cart creaked slowly along the canal road.
Inside the bungalow, one lamp burned in the smaller room that would soon be an office or a clinic, depending on which part of Bilal's plan you looked at.
Jinnah sat at the plain wooden desk, jacket off, waistcoat still immaculate, a file open before him and utterly ignored.
Mr. Game Developer, he said inwardly, the title half-mocking, half-formal. You have been throwing this word around for days. "Game." What does it mean in your world? Be precise.
Bilal's response came with a grin he didn't have a face to wear.
Now you're cross-examining the terminology, Sir?
Words are instruments, Jinnah replied. If you're going to build an entire strategy under this label, I would like to know what it actually denotes. "Game," in my world, is chess, billiards, cricket. Rules, boards, boundaries. You use it as if it were… more.
"Fair," Bilal said aloud this time, his voice low, careful not to carry beyond the half-open window. "Let me try it this way, Sir."
He leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling beams.
"As I explained you before," he said, "a game is like… a dream someone built on purpose. A contained reality. People step into it through a machine — and inside that space, they can move, act, choose. The world responds."
That is not an explanation, Jinnah said, mental tone dry. That is a metaphor wearing a borrowed coat. Be clearer.
"All right," Bilal said. "Imagine a play — a theatre performance. But instead of the audience sitting quietly while actors act, the audience can walk onto the stage and the play changes to accommodate them. They can choose to turn left instead of right, and the scene adapts. They can decide to betray a character or save them, and the story branches."
So it is chaos, Jinnah said. Anarchy. No script, only improvisation. Theatrical Bolshevism.
"Chaos, yes," Bilal admitted. "But controlled chaos. There are rules, just not one fixed script. Think of it as…" He paused, searching for a bridge between centuries. "Think of it as a very complex chessboard where the pieces have feelings and histories, and the board itself can change shape. You set rules for how things can move and what they can do. Then you invite humans — players — to inhabit that space and see what they do."
You are describing life, Jinnah said. Or politics.
"Exactly," Bilal said. "That's why it's useful. A game, in my world, isn't just a distraction. It's a lab for human behavior. You watch how people act when they're not being watched in the official sense. You see what they do when there are stakes but no real-world jail — only in-game consequences."
You use this to predict people? Jinnah probed.
"Yes," Bilal said. "To understand them. To understand ourselves. When you see thousands or millions of people make choices inside these 'dreams', patterns emerge. You see who hoards, who shares, who backstabs, who builds alliances, who collapses under pressure. That feeds back into how you design systems outside the game."
Then you build these… dreams? Jinnah asked. You said you are a "game developer." Why "build"? Why not simply "make" a story? Playwrights have existed for some time without this engineering vocabulary.
Bilal smiled.
"Because, Sir," he said, "unlike a book or a play, a game is not just written. It is constructed. It has architecture. Logic. Machinery under the floorboards. When I say 'build', I mean I design both the story and the laws both physical and constitutional of the dream: what is allowed, what is forbidden, what has a cost, what is free."
He hesitated, then added:
"A novel is like a train ride. You sit, and it takes you from page one to page three hundred. A game is more like giving someone a car and a map and saying, 'The world is out there. Let's see where you try to go.' I don't just tell them a story. I create the space in which they will create their own stories."
Jinnah considered this in silence.
And you do this… through a box, he said finally. You mentioned "small window."
"Yes," Bilal said. "Right now, in my time, it's mostly boxes. Screens. People sit in front of them and control what happens inside with little machines in their hands. But that's just a step in an evolution."
Evolution, Jinnah repeated. Explain the sequence.
Bilal shifted in his chair, warming to the analogy.
"Right now, in your time," he said, "you have radio — sound without picture. Voices and music travelling over the air. People gather at night to listen. Their own minds supply images."
"Yes," Jinnah said. "I have given more than one speech that was later mangled by radio announcers."
"In a little while," Bilal continued, "the box will gain eyes. Television. Picture and sound together. Families will sit around and watch dramas, news, advertisements. One-way flow: the box talks, they listen."
Jinnah's eyebrows rose a fraction.
"A radio with moving photographs," he said. "I imagine the film people will not like that."
"They'll adapt," Bilal said. "Then, the next step: that box stops being only a 'story-telling machine' and becomes a 'dream machine'. You will be able to play inside the stories. Control characters. Move through worlds. That's my field. We call them video games."
Video, Jinnah repeated, skeptical of the syllables. Very well. So you are, in essence, manufacturing controlled dreams for the masses.
"Pretty much," Bilal said. "Some are shallow — like sweets. Some are deep — like novels in which you participate. But the key is: they are interactive. They reveal how people behave when given choices and systems."
And in this industry, Jinnah said slowly, you are… what, exactly? You mentioned many roles.
Bilal blew out a breath.
"In big companies," he said, "the work is divided. You have directors, scriptwriters, producers, programmers, artists, level designers, sound engineers, testers. In small studios — indie studios — one person wears many hats."
Indie? Jinnah asked. Independent?
"Yes," Bilal said. "Independent studios. Small teams, sometimes one or two people. I come from that side. So depending on the project, I'm everything: sometimes the director who decides the overall vision; sometimes the scriptwriter who writes dialogue and scenes; sometimes the producer who watches the budget and the schedule, begging everyone to cut features; sometimes the cameraman deciding how the world is framed; sometimes the set designer building spaces; and often the first player — the one who tries the thing alone at three in the morning to see if it even works."
You test your own dreams, Jinnah said.
"Someone has to walk through the house before inviting guests," Bilal replied. "Make sure the doors open, the floor doesn't collapse, and the exit isn't bricked up."
Jinnah was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his inner voice had lost some of its usual dryness.
You are not a frivolous man, Mr. Game Developer, he said. This much is now obvious. Whatever I may think of your era's toys, your description reveals an intellect accustomed to systems, consequences, and human folly.
Out loud, his lips shaped the rarest of compliments:
"You must," he said softly into the empty room, "be a rather intellectual mind."
Bilal went still, caught off guard by the praise.
"Thank you, Sir," he said. "Coming from you, that is… heavy."
And you say, Jinnah went on, that there are others like you. Many. Men and women who can design such intricate worlds, predict patterns, study behavior in this way.
"Many," Bilal said. "Some far smarter than me. Some better at numbers, some better at art, some better at psychology. Whole teams who can simulate economies, societies, worlds. Not just in games — in other fields, too. Data analysis, simulation, forecasting."
Then, Jinnah said, and now there was genuine bewilderment in the thought, if a society such as yours, or such as the Pakistan you speak of, has so many highly capable minds — why can they not fix what is broken? Why do you stand here in my bones, telling me disaster came and went without being prevented?
Bilal let his head drop back against the wooden chair, staring at the cracked plaster.
"Because, Sir," he said, "intelligent players do not control the rules of the game. They only play better inside them."
Explain, Jinnah said.
"Think of your legislative council," Bilal said. "You can make a brilliant argument. You can foresee the consequences of a policy. But if the rules of debate, the voting structure, and the Governor's veto are stacked, your brilliance only shines inside a rigged frame. You can delay bad outcomes, nudge things, but you can't rewrite the machinery alone."
I am familiar with frustration, Jinnah said. You need not draw me diagrams.
"In my world," Bilal continued, "we have extremely bright people designing code, hardware, simulations. They can predict what will happen if a city grows too fast, or if a party radicalizes, or if money flows in a certain way. But the system — the mesh of laws, habits, institutions, corruption, media, family obligations, foreign influence — that system has inertia. It has owners. It has bugs nobody is allowed to patch."
So you are, to use your metaphor, Jinnah said slowly, players trapped in a badly designed game.
"Yes," Bilal said. "We can see further than most. We can optimize our own moves. We can try to help others see patterns. But the core systems — land, police, health, education, patronage — they were designed by people who wanted control, not resilience. The intellectuals in Pakistan — the ones who think in systems, not just slogans — they're scattered. Many leave. Many are busy surviving. The ones who try to fix things run into walls; the rules punish them."
He paused, then added:
"That's why I keep calling this whole project — Sandalbar, Farabis, your retreat — a 'mod'."
Mod? Jinnah asked.
"A modification," Bilal explained. "In games, when the base product has flaws, players sometimes create 'mods' — modifications that change the rules. New maps, new systems, bug fixes. They don't have access to the whole source code, but they can carve out spaces, adjust parameters."
"And here," Jinnah said slowly, "we are attempting to create a… modification of the Raj?"
"Yes," Bilal said. "Within its law but slightly orthogonal to its habits. A micro-system where we can set different defaults: how disputes are handled, how grain is stored, how disease is managed, how young men are trained to think. If it works, it becomes proof that other rules are possible. A functioning patch running inside a larger, buggy operating system."
Operating system, Jinnah repeated, but this time there was no sarcasm. Your metaphors are ugly, but their meaning is clear.
He leaned forward, fingers steepled.
And you believe, he said, that by constructing this… mod… here, now, we can do what your era's bright men could not? Change the system sufficiently that future Bilal's do not have to stand in old men's mind and shout warnings?
Bilal's answer came without hesitation.
"No," he said. "Not sufficiently. Not alone. But we can change one crucial thing: the starting conditions."
Meaning? Jinnah asked.
"Most of the brilliant people in my Pakistan," Bilal said, "grow up on broken systems. Bad schools. Cynical politics. No working examples of honest institutions that also function. They have to imagine everything from scratch while drowning. Here, with you, we can at least carve out one real, working instance of something better. A reference implementation. A living example they can point to later and say, 'This is not theory. This was done. Here is the documentation.'"
He exhaled.
"That," he said, "removes the biggest excuse. The excuse that nothing else has ever worked."
In the dim room, Jinnah's eyes gleamed.
You are, in effect, he said, writing a precedent. A case that future courts of history cannot ignore.
"Yes," Bilal said. "Exactly. You're a lawyer, Sir. You know how powerful a single precedent can be if it's cited enough times in enough places."
Jinnah sat back, the ghost of a smile touching his mouth.
Very well, Mr. Game Developer, he thought. You have convinced me that the word "game" does not mean trifle. In your world it means "constructed reality in which to study behavior and test rules."
"Thank you," Bilal said quietly.
And you have convinced me, Jinnah went on, that your intellect is wasted in a system that treats you as a clever entertainer rather than a designer of structures.
"Well," Bilal said, "I did choose that work, Sir. Games fed me. I'm not innocent in that. But yes — I have spent years building virtual cities while my real one rots. This is… penance, maybe. Or just the only useful thing left to do."
Then let us treat Sandalbar, Jinnah said, as your largest game to date. Except here, the pieces bleed.
Bilal swallowed.
"Yes," he said. "Which is why we're being extra careful with the rules."
Outside, a dog barked again, closer to the wall this time. Somewhere, one of the ex-soldiers on night duty shifted his stance and peered into the dark.
Inside, under a single lamp, an elderly barrister and a not-yet-born game developer reached a quiet agreement:
The world they were about to build in Montgomery would not be perfect. It might save lives. It might prevent the fire in 1947.
if they succeeded, leave behind something that had never truly existed in that region before:
A functioning, documented, deliberately designed patch of governance — half village, half lab, half dream — written in the overlapping handwriting of law and code.
And for the first time since Bilal had woken up in Jinnah's body, the word "game" did not sound insulting in the old man's mind.
It sounded like a blueprint.