The foreign concession in Tianjin was a frantic, chaotic symphony of desperation and commerce. The air, thick with the smells of coal smoke, brine from the nearby port, and a hundred different spices, was a constant assault. For Corporal Riley, it was hell. He moved through the churning crowd, a ghost in a borrowed costume, disguised as a down-on-his-luck Western merchant in a threadbare coat two sizes too large.
Every sound was magnified, distorted by the paranoia that now lived behind his eyes. The sharp cry of a street hawker selling roasted chestnuts sounded like a warning shout. The metallic clang of a dropped crate from a nearby warehouse was the cocking of a rifle. The rhythmic ringing of a Buddhist monk's bell was a funeral toll, tolling for him, for his victims, for the man he used to be. He was sweating, despite the cool autumn air, his palms slick, his collar tight around his throat. He was convinced that every pair of eyes in the jostling crowd belonged to one of Shen Ke's agents, that the Emperor's invisible web was closing in around him.
His mission today was simple, mundane, and terrifying. He had to acquire the final component for the device. The timer.
He spotted his destination: a dusty, cluttered stall crammed with miscellaneous Western goods—tinned biscuits, cheap liquor, dented pots, and, glinting under the pale sun, a small display of nickel-plated pocket watches. Westclox. The "Pocket Ben." A reliable, mass-produced piece of American machinery, now destined to become the heart of an instrument of mass murder.
He approached the stall, trying to affect an air of casual interest, but his movements were stiff and unnatural. The shopkeeper, a wiry old Chinese man with a wispy beard and sharp, knowing eyes, watched him approach with a practiced indifference. Riley pointed a trembling finger at the watches.
"How much?" he asked, his voice a dry croak.
The shopkeeper named a price. Riley fumbled in his pocket for the coins Yuan Shikai's aide had provided. The transaction was meant to be anonymous, forgettable, one of a thousand such exchanges that took place in the market every day.
The old man picked up one of the watches and placed it in Riley's outstretched palm.
The moment the cool, smooth metal touched his skin, Riley's carefully constructed composure shattered. The weight of the watch felt immense, heavier than a cannonball. And then he heard it. The faint, mechanical tick-tick-tick.
The sound was not faint to him. It was a physical blow. It bored into his skull, silencing the cacophony of the market around him. The shouting vendors, the rattling carts, the distant foghorns from the port—it all faded into a dull, featureless roar. All that existed was the ticking. Steady. Relentless. Inescapable.
Tick-tick-tick.
It was the sound of a countdown. His mind, no longer his own, flashed with images he had been desperately trying to suppress. He saw the blueprint of the South Ferry Terminal, the schematic filled with its tiny, faceless figures. But now they had faces. The face of his mother, waiting for a train. The face of a little girl he'd seen clutching a doll just moments ago in the market. The face of his younger brother, laughing.
Tick-tick-tick.
The imagined screams began, weaving themselves into the rhythm of the ticking. A symphony of terror conducted by the tiny machine in his hand. He was no longer a soldier. He was not a saboteur. He was a monster, holding the instrument of his own damnation.
A wave of pure, unadulterated panic, hot and suffocating, washed over him. He had to get rid of it. He had to stop the noise.
"No," he gasped, the word a strangled sob.
He dropped the watch.
It hit the cobblestones with a sharp clatter that, to Riley, sounded as loud as a gunshot. He stumbled backward, his legs clumsy and unresponsive, crashing into a rickety display of cheap porcelain bowls and teacups at the edge of the stall. The pottery shattered, the noise a cascade of sharp, percussive cracks that finally broke the spell.
The roar of the market rushed back in. The shopkeeper was on his feet, shouting at him, a string of angry curses in a dialect Riley couldn't understand. A circle of curious onlookers was forming, their faces a mixture of amusement and suspicion. He had done the one thing he could not afford to do. He had created a scene.
Across the crowded square, a local Chinese constable, a man named Bao, paused his patrol. He was a man of routine, his days spent dealing with petty thieves and drunken sailors. But he was also a man with good instincts. He saw the commotion at the merchant stall. He saw the foreigner—pale, sweating, his eyes wide with a terror that went far beyond the fear of paying for some broken pottery. The man looked wrong. He looked like a man about to explode or flee. Bao's hand rested on the hilt of the baton at his side, and he began to move slowly, deliberately, through the crowd, his eyes locked on Riley.
Riley saw him. The uniform. The steady, purposeful advance. In his paranoid state, he didn't see a local cop; he saw the Emperor's justice, the net closing.
Panic completely overwhelmed reason. He fumbled in his pocket, grabbing a handful of coins and throwing them onto the ground near the irate shopkeeper. He lunged down, his hand snatching the fallen pocket watch from the grimy cobblestones. He clutched it in his fist and ran.
He shoved his way through the stunned crowd, ignoring their shouts and curses. He plunged into a warren of narrow, winding alleyways, his breath coming in ragged, burning gasps, his heart pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird. He ran blindly, turning left, then right, desperate to escape the noise, the eyes, the ticking that was still echoing in his head.
Constable Bao reached the now-empty spot where Riley had stood. He looked at the shattered porcelain, the scattered coins, and the angry, gesticulating shopkeeper. Then he looked down the dark, narrow alleyway into which the foreigner had vanished. He was a simple man, a beat cop. He knew better than to chase a desperate man into that maze of shadows alone.
But he was also a good cop. He knelt, his eyes scanning the ground. And he remembered. He remembered the man's face, pale and contorted with a guilt so profound it was almost inhuman. He remembered the wild terror in his eyes. This was more than a clumsy accident. This was a man running from a ghost.
Bao stood up, his expression thoughtful and grim. He had a face to remember. He had a description. He had a location. Yuan Shikai's invisible, unstoppable terror campaign, run by a flawless, untraceable asset, now had its first, fragile link to the real world. A ghost now had a witness.