President Theodore Roosevelt was in a foul mood. He sat in the presidential viewing box overlooking the finish line of the Olympic Marathon, and the grand spectacle he had anticipated had devolved into a chaotic, humiliating farce. The entire event had been a testament to incompetence. He had just watched the supposed winner, an American named Fred Lorz, get disqualified after it was revealed he had ridden in a car for eleven miles of the race. The man who was now being declared the official winner, another American named Thomas Hicks, had to be carried across the finish line by his trainers, his body pumped full of a dangerous cocktail of strychnine and brandy. It was a pathetic, embarrassing display, and Roosevelt, a man who prized rugged, fair competition above all else, felt a deep sense of national shame.
He was about to rise and leave in disgust when a discreet Secret Service agent approached and handed him a small, folded, and coded note. Roosevelt opened it. It was from his Secretary of War, Elihu Root. The message was short and brutally effective: We have Riley.
The President's foul mood evaporated instantly, replaced by a surge of grim, triumphant satisfaction. He leaned back in his chair, a broad, predatory smile spreading across his face. This was a real victory. The chase was over. The pawn was in his possession. He now held the final, crucial piece he needed to blackmail Yuan Shikai, to break the man, and to drive a wedge deep into the heart of the Qing Emperor's court. He felt a surge of pure, unadulterated power, the exhilarating thrill of a hunter who has finally cornered his great and dangerous prey. In this silent, global game of chess, he had just captured his opponent's queen. He felt, in that moment, like the absolute master of the game.
Six thousand miles away, in the deep, incense-scented silence of his private chambers in Beijing, Qin Shi Huang was meditating. He was not seeking tranquility. He was listening. Since the psychic attack, he had become acutely aware of the subtle, invisible currents of the world. He had felt the distant, chaotic ripples of his agents clashing on the streets of the American city—the spike of violence from Shen Ke's men, the cold, murderous intent of Yuan Shikai's assassins. He had felt the panicked, desperate fear of the man they were all hunting.
And now, he felt something new. A clear, sharp, and intensely arrogant psychic "noise" from the American President. It was a feeling of smug, triumphant pride, an energy of dominance and control that was, he sensed, directed squarely at him. Roosevelt was celebrating a victory, and that victory was at his expense.
The Emperor's eyes remained closed. He was still physically weak, the unseen wound from Dr. Chen's weapon still a tender spot in his soul. He could not afford a grand, wasteful exertion of his power. But this did not require a storm. This required a surgeon's touch. It was time, he decided, to send a message. It was time to remind the boisterous American President of the true nature of power, and of the immense, terrifying distance between a king and a god.
In the presidential box in St. Louis, Roosevelt was still savoring his victory. He reached for the grand, ornate silver trophy that was to be presented to the winner of the marathon. It was a heavy, beautifully crafted cup, its surface gleaming under the hot Missouri sun, a perfect symbol of athletic triumph and American prestige.
As his fingers closed around the solid silver, he felt a strange, subtle vibration.
He frowned, looking down at the cup in his hands. The vibration continued, a low, resonant hum that was felt more than heard, like a deep, single note from a perfectly struck gong. Before his disbelieving eyes, the solid, polished surface of the trophy began to… change.
It did not melt. It did not tarnish. It began to unravel.
It was an act of quiet, impossible deconstruction. The crystalline, metallic structure of the silver, held together for decades by fundamental physical laws, was simply failing. Thin, impossibly fine, hair-like silver threads began to peel away from the surface of the cup, lifting into the air like gossamer strands caught in an unfelt breeze. The process was utterly silent, deeply unnatural, and profoundly, existentially unsettling.
The ornate handles of the cup sagged, then warped, the solid metal seeming to lose its integrity, its very concept of form. The entire trophy drooped in his hands like a wax sculpture left too close to a fire. Then, with a final, silent sigh, it collapsed. The beautiful, solid object dissolved into a shimmering, worthless pile of silver wire and fine, gray dust that cascated through his fingers and onto the floor of the presidential box.
Roosevelt stared at his empty, dust-covered hands, his mouth agape. His mind, a machine of logic and action, struggled to process what it had just witnessed. There had been no heat, no chemical reaction, no sound, no warning. One moment, he had been holding a solid symbol of power. The next, it had simply ceased to exist. It was a quiet, impossible miracle of perfect, controlled destruction.
He looked up, his eyes scanning the faces of the people around him—the senators, the aides, the Secret Service agents. They were all focused on the chaotic scene at the finish line, on the near-dead marathon winner. No one had seen it. No one had noticed a thing.
The message had been for him, and for him alone.
The smug, self-satisfied triumph vanished, instantly replaced by a cold, tight knot of absolute fear in the pit of his stomach. He suddenly understood. With a clarity that was as terrifying as the event itself, he knew the source.
This was the Emperor.
This was not a threat. It was a demonstration. A quiet, terrifying reminder that while Roosevelt was playing a clever game with pawns like Riley and ministers like Yuan, the true king on the board could reach across the entire world, across continents and oceans, and with a silent, contemptuous thought, turn the very symbols of his power to dust in his hands.
Roosevelt slowly lowered his hands, looking at the silver dust that had settled on his fine leather shoes. The game, he realized with a sudden, chilling humility, was far from over. And he was not the one in control.