The Appalachian Mountains rose like the gnarled, ancient spine of the continent, their deep valleys and wooded ridges shrouded in the cold, clear darkness of a moonless night. On a high, windswept ridge overlooking a deep, forested valley, a man lay prone, a powerful spyglass pressed to his eye. This was Artisan, Yuan Shikai's ghost in the American machine. He was not looking for soldiers or convoys. He was watching the slow, methodical work of his own hired hands.
Below him, a silver artery of industrial power ran through the dark valley. The Trans-Appalachian natural gas pipeline was a testament to American ambition, a steel river carrying the energy that fueled a nation. At a critical junction, a place of valves and pressure gauges, a small team of men worked in the dim glow of a single lantern. They were disgruntled ex-miners, local thugs with grievances against the railroad, men whose anger Artisan had carefully cultivated and whose greed he had satisfied with thick wads of cash. They believed they were working for a radical, homegrown anti-government group, striking a blow against the faceless corporations that had ruined their lives. They had no idea their rage was being aimed by a man in a silk robe half a world away.
They were planting the charges. They were not common dynamite, but sophisticated, custom-built explosive devices, smuggled into the country in pieces and assembled by Artisan himself. They were designed not just to rupture the pipe, but to shred it, to ensure a catastrophic, sustained release of pressure.
Artisan watched as the last charge was placed. He checked his watch. The timing was perfect. He raised a small, handheld radio transmitter, a device no larger than a deck of cards, and pressed a single button.
There was no sound, only a coded radio click.
In the valley below, the world held its breath for a heartbeat. Then, the ground gave a low, deep thump, a vibration felt more in the bones than in the ears. It was the sound of a giant's fist striking the earth from below. A second later, the night bloomed.
A colossal, roaring fireball blossomed from the valley floor, a silent, expanding sphere of orange and yellow that lit up the mountainside in a hellish, strobing daylight. It was followed by the sound, a deafening, continuous roar that was not an explosion, but the sound of the world's largest blowtorch being aimed at the heavens. A pillar of fire, hundreds of feet high, erupted from the ruptured pipeline, a man-made volcano that turned the night sky a lurid, bloody orange.
The roar was a physical force, a wall of sound that shook the trees and the very rock on which Artisan lay. It was a sound that would not stop. It was the sound of a nation's energy bleeding into the sky.
Miles away, in the small, sleeping town of Havenwood, the world ended. The ground shook as if from an earthquake. The windows of every house rattled in their frames. And the sky to the west caught fire.
Residents were jolted from their beds, their hearts seized by a primal, inarticulate terror. They ran to their windows and saw the monstrous, impossible pillar of fire on the horizon, a sight so apocalyptic it defied all rational explanation. Panic, a contagion of pure, unreasoning fear, swept through the town. The local telephone switchboard was instantly overwhelmed, a cacophony of terrified voices all asking the same questions: What was that? Was it a bomb? Is the world ending?
A young mother, Sarah, clutched her two small children, who were sobbing in terror. Her son, his face buried in her nightgown, kept asking, "Is it the sun, mama? Did the sun fall down?" She tried to comfort them, to tell them everything was alright, but the lie caught in her throat. She looked out the window at the burning sky, at the reflection of the terrible fire in her own wide, terrified eyes, and she knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that nothing was alright. The safe, predictable world she had known just minutes before was gone, replaced by this new, terrifying reality of fire and fear.
Yuan Shikai had found his new currency.
In Tianjin, in a private, smoke-filled room in the city's most exclusive and decadent club, Yuan Shikai raised a glass of imported French brandy. He was surrounded by his cabal of industrialists, the men whose fortunes were now inextricably tied to his own. He held up a freshly decoded telegram, the paper still warm.
PANDORA ACTIVATED, it read. TARGET GAMMA-7 NEUTRALIZED. FIRE VISIBLE FROM THREE COUNTIES. WIDESPREAD PANIC CONFIRMED. AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. ARTISAN.
"Gentlemen," Yuan said, a triumphant, wolfish grin spreading across his face. He tapped the telegram. "A toast. To our American friends, and the warmth we have brought to their winter."
The men laughed, a sound of rich, confident amusement.
"The Emperor and his timid ministers in Beijing," Yuan continued, his voice dripping with contempt, "they believe in fighting wars with soldiers and ships. An outdated, wasteful philosophy. I believe in fighting wars with fear. The Americans, in their soft, comfortable homes, are now feeling the first, cold touch of real fear. They are discovering that the vast oceans that protect them can no longer keep the darkness at bay."
He took a long, slow swallow of his brandy. "Their markets will tremble tomorrow. Their newspapers will scream with sensational headlines. Their people will demand answers their President cannot give them. And he, in his distraction, will have no time to worry about the rising of a dragon in the east. This, gentlemen, is how true power is wielded in the modern age."
Later that night, back in the quiet solitude of his office, Yuan summoned Corporal Riley. He gestured for the young American to look at the reports and the first, sensational newspaper headlines that were already coming in over the international wire.
MYSTERY BLAST ROCKS PENNSYLVANIA!
'PILLAR OF FIRE' CAUSES WIDESPREAD PANIC!
SABOTAGE SUSPECTED IN PIPELINE CATASTROPHE!
"Behold, Analyst," Yuan said, his voice filled with a creator's pride. He sounded like a father showing off his child's first painting. "Your expertise has borne magnificent, undeniable fruit. Is it not a beautiful fire?"
Riley stared at the words, at the descriptions of terrified families, of a burning sky, of a fear so profound it was being called 'apocalyptic.' He felt a wave of profound, soul-crushing sickness rise in his throat, a taste of bile and shame. He had tried to mitigate the damage. He had suggested a remote, unpopulated target, hoping to create a spectacle without the bloodshed. He had never imagined the sheer psychological scale of the terror it would create. He had given a monster a match, and the monster had set the world on fire.
"It is… a great success, Minister," Riley heard himself say. His voice was a dead, hollow monotone, the voice of a ghost.
"Indeed, it is," Yuan said, beaming. He dismissed Riley with a wave of his hand, already turning his attention to the maps, to the selection of the next target.
Riley walked back to his gilded cage, his comfortable room, his books and his good meals. None of it brought him any comfort. He looked at his own reflection in a darkened window and saw not the face of a soldier or a survivor, but the face of a monster's architect. He was no longer just a collaborator. He was a co-creator of a terror campaign against his own people. And he knew, with a certainty that was its own kind of hell, that the fire in Pennsylvania was only the beginning.