The coded instructions from Washington had transformed Agent Donovan's mission from a delicate waiting game into a high-stakes smash-and-grab. The new objective was terrifyingly clear: acquire Dr. Chen's research. All of it. He was no longer a spy; he was a thief, tasked with stealing the intellectual crown jewels of a genius, right from under the nose of one of the world's most vigilant counter-intelligence agencies.
He spent two days in a state of deep, focused planning. He knew the old lab steward, Mr. Wu, was his only way in, but the man was a fragile, terrified instrument. Donovan couldn't simply order him to steal a lifetime of research; the old man would shatter. He had to give him a compelling reason, a noble lie that would transform an act of theft into an act of heroism.
The opportunity he needed, the lynchpin of his new plan, came in the form of a dry academic announcement: the Imperial University's Chancellor had called a mandatory, all-faculty meeting to discuss the Emperor's new edicts on classical education. The meeting was scheduled for two o'clock in the afternoon. Donovan's network, with a few well-placed whispers and a minor bureaucratic "emergency" that required the Chancellor's immediate attention, ensured the meeting would be lengthy, chaotic, and unavoidable for Dr. Chen.
The morning of the meeting, Mr. Wu was a wreck. The calculated mercy Dr. Chen had shown him had forged a new, fierce, and terrified loyalty within him. He was no longer just Donovan's pawn; he was now the Doctor's secret soldier. They had rehearsed their parts. He knew which notebooks were real and which were decoys. He knew his role was not just to fool the Americans, but to do so without arousing the suspicions of the ever-present Qing spies who watched them both.
At half-past one, Dr. Chen prepared to leave for her meeting. She looked at her cluttered desk, a chaotic testament to her brilliant mind, and then at Mr. Wu, who was dutifully polishing a brass barometer in the corner.
"The Chancellor is an idiot," she announced to the room at large, her voice sharp with annoyance. "He convenes the brightest minds in the Empire to discuss the poetic structure of eighth-century verse while the universe is waiting to be deciphered." She shook her head in disgust. "I will be gone for at least an hour. No one is to enter my office, Mr. Wu. Guard it well."
It was the perfect setup. An explicit order that would explain his presence near her office if anyone were to question him. He bowed deeply. "Of course, Doctor. Nothing shall be disturbed."
The moment she was gone, a new kind of chaos erupted, one of an entirely different nature. From a fume hood at the far end of the laboratory, a thick plume of acrid, black smoke began to pour out. Dr. Chen, in her preparations, had left a beaker of potassium permanganate and glycerin to mix—a classic, simple chemical reaction that would produce a great deal of smoke and a small, contained fire.
It worked perfectly. A young student in the main lab shouted in alarm. Another, seeing the smoke, pulled the fire alarm lever. A loud, clanging bell began to ring throughout the building, a jarring, frantic sound.
"The fume hood! It's on fire!" a student cried.
Dr. Chen, who had only made it to the end of the corridor, rushed back. "Everyone out!" she commanded, her voice cutting through the rising panic. "Mr. Wu, fetch the fire wardens! Now! Everyone else, evacuate the building immediately!"
She was the picture of a commander taking control of a crisis. The chaos was his shield. The evacuation was his opportunity.
In the ensuing panic, as students scrambled for the exits and the clanging of the alarm bell echoed off the stone walls, Mr. Wu did not run for the wardens. He turned and slipped, unnoticed, back toward Dr. Chen's private office. The smoke was thick, making his eyes water, but it provided an excellent screen.
He entered her office, closing the door behind him. The room was an island of calm in the storm of noise outside. His heart was pounding, but his hands, to his surprise, were steady. He was no longer just a terrified old man. He was an agent with a mission, a soldier following the orders of a general he trusted.
He went to her desk, took out the disguised calligraphy brush holder, and began his work. He ignored the small pile of notebooks containing her true research, the ones she had indicated were forbidden. He focused only on the decoy pile: the old research, the theoretical dead-ends, the deliberately flawed equations.
He worked with a feverish, desperate speed. Click. The silent camera captured a page of complex wave-mechanics. Click. A diagram of ether-drag theory. Click. A beautifully rendered but fundamentally incorrect calculation for quantum tunneling. He was a man possessed, his movements swift and sure, driven by the strange, dual loyalties that now warred within his soul. He was betraying a foreign power to protect the woman they had forced him to betray. It was a dizzying, terrifying thought.
After photographing every specified page, he concealed the camera. He took a deep breath, coughed for effect, and then stumbled out of the office, joining the last of the evacuating students, playing the part of a panicked old man to perfection.
Later that evening, long after the "fire" had been extinguished and order restored, Mr. Wu made his way through the darkening city. He carried a small, inconspicuous bundle. He went to an old, crumbling temple wall near the city's edge, a place of no importance. He felt for a specific brick, one that was loose in its setting. He pulled it out, placed the disguised camera deep within the cavity, and replaced the brick. The dead drop was made. His part was done.
In his safe house, Donovan waited. An hour after midnight, his associate returned with the brush holder. They worked quickly in their makeshift darkroom, developing the tiny spools of film. Donovan held the first negatives up to the light, his heart pounding with a hunter's triumph. He had it. Page after page of Dr. Chen's secret work. The prize.
"Begin transmission," he ordered. "Immediately."
The process was painstaking. Each photograph had to be sent via a slow, highly encrypted telegraph process, a series of numerical codes that would be reassembled into an image thousands of miles away. It took hours.
At the Prometheus Forge in Nevada, Dr. Wu Jian and his team received the incoming data. They worked with feverish excitement, printing and laying out the pages from Dr. Chen's mind. At first, there was a sense of awe. The mathematics were elegant, the theories brilliant.
But as more pages came through, a sense of confusion began to creep in. Dr. Wu Jian stood before the assembled research, his brow furrowed. He sent a priority message back to Donovan in Beijing.
DONOVAN, DATA RECEIVED, it read. BUT ANALYSIS IS PERPLEXING. THESE EQUATIONS ARE… FLAWED. SOME OF THE CONCEPTS ARE YEARS AHEAD OF ANYTHING WE ARE DOING, BUT THERE ARE FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS IN THE CORE ASSUMPTIONS ON RESONANCE DECAY. IT IS LIKE READING THE WORK OF A GENIUS WHO HAS MADE A SCHOOLBOY'S MISTAKE. IS THIS ALL OF IT? IT FEELS INCOMPLETE. LIKE A PREFACE TO A MUCH LARGER, MORE COHERENT WORK. WE NEED THE REST.
Donovan stared at the decoded message, his earlier triumph turning to ash in his mouth. He had not won. He had been played. Dr. Chen, with an intellectual cunning that staggered him, had anticipated his move. She had fed him exactly what she wanted him to see.
His partial victory had only made his situation more desperate. He now knew, with absolute certainty, that the true secrets—the real equations—were still in that laboratory. His heist wasn't over. It had just become infinitely more dangerous. Because now, he had to go back. And Dr. Chen, he suspected, would be waiting for him.