By May, the trap was set. The tenders were reviewed, debated, and — with barely a murmur of dissent — approved. In the smoke-filled chamber of the Naval Supply Board, the clerks signed the papers that would seal the fate of a colony.
Each contract represented a small victory — but together, they formed a continental conquest.
The first was for food supplies: salted meat, hard biscuit, oatmeal, and preserved peas. The NSWPC won the bid handily. Their prices were "competitive," their schedule "commendably ambitious." In truth, the goods would be sourced through VOC Australis Trading, a Dutch intermediary entirely owned by the Cell.
The barrels of beef they prepared in Antwerp already showed signs of decay, but they would be sealed with fresh tar and official stamps. By the time they reached Sydney Cove, the meat would be nearly inedible. The biscuits, baked months earlier, would crumble at sea. Hunger and dependence would take root in the very soil of the new colony.
The second contract — for agricultural and construction tools — was granted to a "continental manufacturer," discreetly recommended by the NSWPC. It was, of course, the Liège forge. The tools were beautifully forged to look sturdy but were chemically weakened during tempering. Their wooden handles were slightly unbalanced, designed to splinter under repeated strain.
When the settlers in New South Wales would try to till the hard ground or erect their first shelters, they would find their shovels bending, their hammers cracking. Progress would crawl; morale would crumble. And far away in Europe, 051 would smile at the predictable arithmetic of despair.
The third and final contract went to a smaller firm for uniforms and cloth. It was another shell company, its management traced through a maze of Dutch and Swiss intermediaries. The fabrics they provided were coarse, unwaterproofed, and prone to tearing. The colonists' first rains would soak through their clothes, and the damp would breed sickness.
Even this misery had been calculated — for disease, like corruption, was an efficient weapon.
By the middle of June, as Lapérouse's ships crossed the South Pacific and London basked in a rare stretch of clear weather, the Ghost Cell's operation reached completion.
On paper, the New South Wales Provisioning Company stood as one of the most promising commercial ventures in the Empire. In reality, it was a parasite, feeding off the British bloodstream while disguising itself as part of the body.
The Cell's achievements were monumental — though none would ever be recorded in any official history:
They had corrupted the process at its source. Two men — one weary, one desperate — had given them access to the heart of the British administrative machine.
They had seized the entire supply chain of the First Fleet, from biscuits to uniforms. Every nail, every tool, every meal aboard those ships now carried their invisible signature.
They had engineered failure itself. The new colony, still unborn, was already poisoned — its settlers destined to depend on future resupplies, its morale to falter.
They had established a financial bloodstream. Money began flowing quietly out of London, across Amsterdam, into Geneva — and from there into the hidden coffers of the Cell.
For 051, it was not simply a mission accomplished. It was a prototype. The British Empire had just been compromised not by invasion, but by imitation — by a system so perfect in its mimicry that its prey welcomed the parasite.
By the end of June, as the docks of Portsmouth swarmed with activity.Ships were laden with supplies, their holds packed with the counterfeit bounty of the Ghost Cell. Officers toasted to the glory of the gold.
From a rented room overlooking the Thames, 051 watched a distant mast disappear into the fog. He did not smile — he rarely did — but his eyes gleamed with cold satisfaction.
"The cuckoo," he murmured, "has laid its eggs."
Across the channel, in Paris, a woman's laughter echoed faintly through halls — distracted, restless, unaware. The empire of shadows she had unknowingly funded through gold would soon echo louder than any courtly waltz.
The ships carried not only prisoners and settlers, but also the virus of corruption — subtle, systemic, and unstoppable. And as they sailed toward the edge of the world, the Ghost Cell's influence sailed with them.