The telegraph key clicked once. A sharp, metallic snap.
Then, a hiss.
Smoke curled from the copper coil. The smell of ozone filled the room. It smelled like a thunderstorm trapped in a bottle.
I waited for the next click. The confirmation code from Berlin. The price of grain in Vienna. The death rattle of the British pound.
Silence.
The machine sat on the mahogany desk. Dead.
I looked at the brass ticker tape. It had stopped mid-punch.
The sentence ended in a burn mark.
"A jam, Your Majesty?"
The voice came from the corner. Smooth. Oily.
I didn't turn my wheelchair. I knew who it was. Joseph Fouché. My Minister of Police. My executioner in waiting.
"A surge," I lied. My voice was raspy. My lungs felt full of water. "The atmospheric pressure is affecting the lines."
I reached for the backup key. The dedicated line to the Bank of France.
I tapped the sequence. Check status.
Nothing. No spark. No hum.
My heart skipped a beat. A flutter in my chest that hurt more than the dropsy in my legs.
It wasn't a jam. It wasn't a local fault.
The grid was gone.
I looked at my pocket watch on the desk. It was a mechanical Breguet, unaffected by the invisible wave. It ticked steadily.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The only sound in the most powerful room in Europe.
"The backup is dead too?" Fouché asked.
He stepped out of the shadows. Talleyrand was behind him, leaning on his cane, watching me like a hawk watching a dying rabbit.
They knew.
They didn't know about the EMP. They didn't know about the Sun Engine in Egypt. But they knew the one thing that mattered.
The data stream had stopped.
The Dead Man's Switch was broken.
"The silence is... loud," Talleyrand murmured. He walked to the window. "Look at the gas lamps on the Rue de Rivoli. They are out."
"A coincidence," I said.
My hand shook as I covered the telegraph key with a cloth. I had to calculate. Fast.
Assets: A dying body. A wheelchair. A room with two traitors.
Liabilities: Zero leverage. Zero communication. Zero backup.
"It feels like an ending," Fouché said. He took a step toward me.
He wasn't bowing anymore. His hands were not clasped behind his back. They were hanging loose at his sides. Ready.
"The hourly code," Fouché said softly. "You need to send it in four minutes. Or the Black Ledger publishes itself to the newspapers. That was the deal, wasn't it?"
He smiled. It was a terrifying expression. It showed too many teeth.
"But if the wires are melted... the signal can't go out. Can it, Louis?"
He dropped the title. Louis. Not Your Majesty.
He was testing the cage. Checking if the tiger was already dead.
"You think I rely on copper wires to kill you?" I asked.
I turned my wheelchair to face him. The movement was slow. My swollen legs screamed in protest.
"You are an accountant," Fouché said. He took another step. "You deal in systems. Logic. But systems break."
He glanced at the door.
The Swiss Guards were outside. But Fouché controlled the payroll. If I couldn't verify the accounts, their loyalty would depreciate to zero in ten minutes.
"It's over," Fouché said. He reached into his coat. "I'll make it quick. A pillow is cleaner than a blade."
I didn't blink.
"Sit down, Joseph."
"No."
"I said sit down."
I pulled the blanket off my lap.
I wasn't holding a ledger. I was holding a double-barreled flintlock pistol.
It was heavy. Primitively simple. Pure, analog violence.
I cocked the hammer.
CLICK.
The sound was louder than a cannon in the quiet room.
Fouché froze. His hand was halfway to his own weapon.
"This," I wheezed, leveling the iron barrel at his gut, "is not a system. This is physics. Bullet enters gut. Septicemia follows. Three days of screaming before you die."
Fouché's eyes flicked to the gun. Then to my face.
He was calculating the odds.
"You're shaking," he noted. "You'll miss."
"At this range?" I smiled. It hurt my face. "I don't need to aim. I just need to audit your intestines."
Talleyrand chuckled. A dry, nervous sound.
"Put the knife away, Joseph," Talleyrand said. "He means it."
Fouché hesitated. Then, slowly, he raised his empty hands. He sat in the chair opposite me.
"A stalemate," Fouché said. "You can't hold that gun forever. Your arms are weak."
"I only need to hold it until the shift change," I said.
I was lying. There would be no shift change. The orders came by telegraph. The rotation was automated.
But I had bought time.
I looked at the clock.
Three minutes passed.
Then, the screaming started.
It didn't come from the room. It came from outside.
It started as a low hum, vibrating through the thick stone walls of the Tuileries. Then it grew. A roar. A collective wail of agony.
"What is that?" Talleyrand asked. He looked pale.
I knew.
I looked at the calendar on my desk.
Tuesday.
The supply shipment from Marseille was due at 6:00 PM. The trains carrying the barrels. The barrels marked "Industrial Solvent - Type B."
The Blue Drop.
Opium, alcohol, and benzene. I had flooded the streets with it to pacify the mob. To make them dull and happy.
But the trains ran on schedules coordinated by telegraph. The signals were dead. The trains had stopped.
The supply chain was broken.
"Withdrawal," I whispered.
"What?" Fouché asked.
"Look out the window," I ordered.
Talleyrand pulled back the heavy velvet curtains.
He gasped. He recoiled as if burned.
"My God."
I wheeled myself to the glass.
The square below wasn't filled with people. It was filled with a swarm.
Thousands of them.
Their lips were stained a glowing, chemical blue. Their skin was grey. They were tearing at their own clothes. Scratching their faces until they bled.
They weren't protesting. They weren't rioting for bread.
They were animals in a cage with no water.
A man in the front row slammed his head against the iron gates of the palace. Once. Twice.
His skull cracked. He didn't stop. He kept hitting the bars, screaming for the Drop.
"The police," Talleyrand stammered. "Where are the police?"
"Half of them are users," I said. "The other half are dead."
CRASH.
The main gate buckled.
The mob poured into the courtyard. A tide of infected flesh.
A Swiss Guard fired his musket. A woman in the front took the bullet in the shoulder. She didn't even flinch. She leaped on the guard, teeth snapping at his neck.
It was biological horror.
Fouché stood up. He forgot about killing me. He looked at the sea of blue mouths below.
"They'll kill us all," Fouché whispered. "They don't want money. They want the drug. And we don't have it."
"They will tear this building apart looking for it," I said.
I lowered the pistol. My arm was burning with fatigue.
"We are trapped," Talleyrand said. "The tunnels?"
"Blocked," I said. "Construction on the heating system."
Fouché looked at me. His eyes were wide. For the first time, the master spy was terrified.
"You did this," he hissed. "You poisoned them."
"I managed the liquidity," I corrected. "Now the market is correcting itself."
I coughed. Blood tasted metallic in my mouth.
I had no army. The telegraphs were dead. The Swiss Guards were dying in the courtyard.
I had one asset left.
A volatile asset. A high-risk, high-yield bond I had locked away in a vault.
"Dr. Larrey!" I shouted.
The door to the side chamber opened. My personal physician stepped out. He was wiping a scalpel with a rag. He looked tired.
"Your Majesty?"
"Do you have the key?" I asked.
Larrey nodded. He reached into his medical bag. He pulled out a heavy iron key. It didn't look like a door key. It looked like a weapon.
"Go to the Luxembourg Palace," I said. "Take the servant's passage. Avoid the main streets."
"The Luxembourg?" Fouché asked. "Why?"
Then he realized.
His face went white. Whiter than the powder on his wig.
"No," Fouché said. "You can't."
"He's under house arrest," Talleyrand warned. "He is dangerous."
"The mob is dangerous," I said. "He is catastrophic."
I looked at Larrey.
"Go to the General," I said. "Tell him the Accountant is calling in a favor."
"He hates you," Fouché yelled. "He will march here and cut your head off himself!"
"Maybe," I said.
I looked out the window. The Blue-Eyed were climbing the walls. They were using each other as ladders. A pile of bodies rising toward the balcony.
"The probability of the mob killing me is 100%," I said.
I turned to Fouché.
"The probability of Napoleon killing me is roughly 40%. I prefer those odds."
I threw a bag of gold coins to Larrey.
"Run, Doctor. Run like death is chasing you."
Larrey grabbed the coins and the key. He didn't ask questions. He sprinted out the door.
I turned back to the window. I watched the monsters climb.
I reloaded my pistol.
"Gentlemen," I said to the two most powerful traitors in France. "Start barricading the door. The audit has begun."