Yuan Shikai was in a state of cold, calculated fury. The Emperor's public rebuke at the proving grounds had been a masterful humiliation, a public stripping of his prestige. The simultaneous, bureaucratic freezing of his assets by the fool Liang in the Ministry of Finance had been a crippling blow to his operational funds. He was being squeezed, his power curtailed, his ambitions checked. He paced the floor of his study like a caged tiger, the plush carpets doing nothing to soften the heavy, angry tread of his footsteps.
"The Emperor mocks my army," he raged to the silent, watchful Madame Song. "The old fool Liang cuts off my funds with the stroke of a pen. They think they can put me back in my cage, that they can treat me like some provincial warlord to be managed. They are mistaken."
He knew that his grand, subtle plan for a slow economic war against America—Project Atlas—would take too long to bear the kind of fruit he now needed. He didn't need a slow erosion of American power. He needed a thunderclap. A dramatic, undeniable result that would restore his prestige, terrify his enemies, and create a new, independent source of leverage that no minister in Beijing could touch. He needed a new kind of currency.
He summoned Corporal Riley.
The young American was brought before him. The atmosphere was starkly different from their previous "consultations." The polite fiction was gone. Yuan did not offer tea. He did not invite Riley to sit. This was not a meeting. It was an interrogation. Yuan's mood was dark and menacing, his patience worn thin.
"Analyst Riley," Yuan began, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "Your knowledge of your country's weaknesses is impressive. But your plans, your schemes of strikes and propaganda, are too slow. Too subtle. I require a faster result. A more… profound impact. I need something that will make President Theodore Roosevelt scream in the night."
Riley, who had been cultivating a sense of detached, analytical calm as a survival mechanism, felt a cold dread begin to seep through his defenses. He tried to deflect, to steer the conversation back to safer, more abstract territory. "Minister, a sudden, sharp downturn in their stock market, a run on their banks… that would cause significant panic…"
Yuan moved faster than a man of his bulk should be able to. He crossed the room in two strides and backhanded Riley across the face. The blow was not just powerful; it was contemptuous. It sent Riley stumbling back, the taste of blood filling his mouth.
"Do not play games with me, boy!" Yuan roared, his face a mask of fury. "I am not talking about stock markets! I am talking about blood! About terror! You have shown me how to manipulate their sentimentalities. Now, I want you to tell me about their fears. Not their strategic weaknesses. Their nightmares. What does your nation, in its fat, decadent, comfortable heart, fear more than anything else in the world?"
Riley was terrified. He saw in Yuan's eyes a new level of ruthlessness, a willingness to cross a line that had previously been unstated. He saw a man who had been pushed into a corner and was now ready to burn down the world to get out.
He stammered, trying to think. "Invasion… famine… loss of liberty…"
"No!" Yuan shouted, grabbing the front of Riley's tunic and pulling him close. "Those are the fears of old empires, of hungry people. Americans have never known true hunger, never had a foreign boot on their neck. Their fears are softer. More personal. Tell me!"
Broken, terrified, and seeing no other choice, Riley gave him the real answer. The answer from the dark, secret heart of his own culture.
"Our children," he whispered, the words tasting like poison. "The safety of our children."
Yuan's grip loosened. He stared at Riley, a new, terrible light dawning in his eyes.
Riley, unable to stop the flow of words now that the dam was broken, elaborated. "An attack on a military base… we would understand that. It's war. An attack on Wall Street… they would rebuild, a symbol of their resilience. But an attack on… on a school… or something that threatens children directly… it would break the country's spirit in a way nothing else could. It would be a wound that would never heal. It is… it is unthinkable."
A slow, terrible smile spread across Yuan Shikai's face. It was the most horrific expression Riley had ever seen. He had found his new currency. Not money, not influence, not even political power. It was pure, unadulterated, primal terror.
He released Riley, shoving him back. "Leave us," he commanded Madame Song. Riley was dragged from the room, his mind reeling, a profound, soul-deep sickness washing over him. He had not just given his enemy a weapon. He may have just unleashed a monster upon his own people.
Once they were alone, Yuan turned to Madame Song, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying, feverish energy. "The Americans thought the forged memos were an act of terror. They do not yet know the meaning of the word."
He began to pace, his mind alight with a new, horrific strategy. He would use Agent Artisan's network for something far more sinister than instigating a mere labor strike.
"We will not cause mass casualties," he mused, thinking aloud. "That would be crude and would unite them in anger. No. We need to create a sense of pervasive, invisible threat. A fear that their children are no longer safe, anywhere."
He began to dictate a new plan. Artisan would stage a series of seemingly random "accidents" or "criminal acts," all targeting civilian infrastructure, but all with one thing in common: their proximity to children. A small, controlled derailment of a train carrying industrial chemicals, just upstream from a town's water intake pipe, forcing the closure of every school for weeks. A series of minor, non-fatal gas line leaks in residential neighborhoods, filling the newspapers with stories of families being evacuated in the middle of the night. A scare involving a tainted water supply at a large urban park.
The goal was not to kill. The goal was to create a wave of mass panic, to force every American parent to look at the world outside their door as a source of potential danger to their child. He would turn the nation's greatest love into its greatest fear.
"Send a new message to Artisan," Yuan commanded, his voice a low, excited hiss. "Project Atlas is to be suspended indefinitely. We are initiating a new protocol. Codename: PANDORA. His new targets are no longer mines or factories. They are water treatment plants, railway bridges near residential areas, and gas distribution hubs. Tell him to begin reconnaissance immediately. He is to await a list of specific targets from us."
Yuan stood, his humiliation at the hands of the Emperor forgotten, replaced by this new, intoxicating vision of power. He had been caged, his influence checked. So he would create a new form of influence, a new currency. And he would use it to buy the one thing that no Emperor or Minister could take from him: the fear of a superpower.