The apothecary shop was a cave of shadows and strange, pungent smells. Jars filled with dried sea horses, ginseng roots, and desiccated lizards lined the walls, their contents obscured by the thick gloom. It was a place where the old world and its remedies lingered, hidden away in a forgotten alley of the Shanghai International Settlement. In this pocket of darkness, Agent Donovan, or what was left of him, had finally arranged a meeting.
He was no longer the confident, composed American operative who had first stepped onto Chinese soil. He was a fugitive, a ghost haunted by the faces of Shen Ke's hunters. His suit was rumpled, his face was gaunt and covered in a two-day-old stubble, and his eyes darted nervously toward the beaded curtain that served as the shop's entrance. He had been running for weeks, moving from safe house to safe house, each one more squalid than the last, the Emperor's invisible net tightening around him with each passing day.
A figure emerged from the back of the shop, moving with a silent, fluid grace that was completely at odds with the cluttered surroundings. Dr. Chen Linwei. She was, as always, immaculate. Her dark dress was simple but perfectly tailored, her hair was coiled in a neat, severe bun, and her expression was one of cool, intellectual detachment. Where Donovan radiated frayed desperation, she radiated an aura of absolute control.
"You were followed?" she asked, her voice a clinical instrument, devoid of any warmth or concern. It was not a question about his safety; it was an assessment of risk to herself.
"No," Donovan said, his voice raspy. "I made sure. This has to be the last time we meet like this. It's too dangerous."
"That will be determined by your success, not your comfort," she replied coolly. "Did you get it?"
With a weary sigh, Donovan reached into the satchel at his feet. He pulled out a small, surprisingly heavy, lead-lined box and slid it across the worn wooden counter. It made a dull, heavy thud that seemed to absorb the silence.
"Uranium salts," he said. "As you requested. Highly refined. Smuggled out of a German geological survey in Shandong. My people nearly got caught acquiring this. Three of them are now in one of Shen Ke's prisons. The rest are scattered or dead. My network is gone. I am officially disavowed. This mission, Doctor, has cost me everything."
Dr. Chen showed no sympathy. She pried open the lid of the box with a focused intensity, her eyes lighting up as she saw the dull, yellowish powder within. To her, this was not the fruit of Donovan's suffering; it was a key. The key to a new kind of physics. She dipped a finger into the powder, rubbing a bit between her thumb and forefinger, feeling its texture, its density.
"Your sacrifices are noted in the calculus of progress, Mr. Donovan," she said dismissively, her attention entirely on the contents of the box. Then, as if sharing a minor piece of academic gossip, she added something that made Donovan's blood run cold.
"You will be interested to know," she said, not looking up, "that your efforts may soon be rendered obsolete. The Emperor has just issued an edict founding an Imperial Institute of Physics, to be based in Beijing. He is gathering the best minds in the nation, providing them with unlimited funding. It seems I am not the only one in this empire interested in the fundamental forces of the universe."
Donovan stared at her, stunned. The pieces clicked into place in his mind with horrifying clarity. He had assumed Dr. Chen was a singular genius, a rogue actor whose ambition could be used by his government. He now understood the terrifying truth. She was not a rogue. She was a competitor. She was in a secret, intellectual arms race with the supernatural god-king on the Dragon Throne.
Roosevelt's plan, hatched in a secure room three thousand miles away, was suddenly revealed to be an act of catastrophic foolishness. They thought they were "poking the dragon" with a stick, giving a dangerous toy to a rogue scientist to see what would happen. They were not. They were pouring gasoline on a fire that was already burning white-hot in the very heart of the Forbidden City.
"This changes things," Donovan whispered, his voice shaking slightly. "My government needs to know…"
"Your government knows nothing," Dr. Chen cut him off, her voice sharp as glass. She finally looked up from the box, her eyes boring into him. "They are children playing with matches. I am building a firebreak. Now, we proceed."
She closed the lead-lined box. "This," she said, tapping its lid, "is merely the catalyst. The fuel. To build a proper resonance chamber to test my theories on the Emperor's power, I require a containment vessel and focusing lenses. Something my current contacts in China cannot possibly acquire."
She slid a folded piece of paper across the counter to him. Donovan unfolded it. It was a complex diagram, hand-drawn with the precision of a master architect. It depicted a device that looked like a large, intricate vacuum tube, surrounded by various emitters and receivers. Below the diagram was a list of materials. His eyes scanned the list, and a fresh wave of despair washed over him.
High-purity graphite blocks (machined to 0.1mm tolerance).
Tungsten filaments (military grade).
Silver wiring (99.99% purity).
And then, the last item on the list, a word he had only ever read in obscure scientific journals.
Beryllium.
"This is insane," Donovan whispered, shaking his head. "This is impossible. I told you, my network is gone. I am a ghost. Beryllium… I don't even know where to begin. It's one of the rarest metals on earth."
Dr. Chen smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. It was the cold, predatory smile of a shark that knows its prey is cornered.
"You are more than a ghost, Mr. Donovan. You are now my quartermaster. And fortune, it seems, has just provided you with an opportunity."
She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I have also learned that the one man in China with the industrial ambition, the resources, and the sheer audacity to create new supply chains for such exotic materials has just been given a promotion. Your new target for procurement is no longer a petty smuggler in a port. It is the vast, and now officially sanctioned, industrial empire of the new Supreme Overseer."
Donovan stared at her, his mind reeling.
"You will find a way to get your hands on the requisition orders, the shipping manifests, the supply chains of Minister Yuan Shikai," she finished. "You will find a weakness in his system, and you will exploit it. For me."
She turned and disappeared back into the shadows of the apothecary, leaving Donovan alone in the darkness. He was trapped. On one side, the relentless hunters of Shen Ke. On the other, the impossible demands of a woman building a weapon to challenge a god. And his only path forward, his only hope for survival, lay in infiltrating the industrial empire of the most ruthless and powerful man in China. He was a man with no country, no allies, and a shopping list for building the end of the world.