Paris was eating itself.
The news of the British gold—the bluff I had used to buy the army—had leaked. But so had the rumors of the radiation sickness. Panic, the oldest currency in France, was spiraling.
The mob surrounded the Bank of France. Thousands of people screaming for silver, for gold, for anything real to replace the worthless paper Assignats.
Inside the bank, the Board of Directors was in a frenzy.
"Pack the reserves!" The Chairman shouted, shoving silver candlesticks into a sack. "The mob will breach the doors in ten minutes! We leave by the tunnels!"
"What about the accounts?" a junior clerk stammered.
"Burn them!" the Chairman roared. "If there are no records, there is no debt!"
BOOM.
The heavy oak doors of the bank groaned. The mob was using a battering ram.
BOOM.
Splinters flew. The locks strained.
"Faster!" the Chairman screamed.
CLANG.
It wasn't a wooden thud. It was the sound of metal hitting metal.
The doors didn't just open. They exploded inward.
The mob fell silent. They stopped pushing. They backed away.
Through the dust and debris, a figure stepped into the lobby.
It was eight feet tall.
It gleamed in the afternoon sun. Brass chest plate. Heavy, articulated pauldrons. Legs reinforced with hydraulic pistons that hissed with every step.
A black rubber hose snaked from the faceplate to a massive tank on the back.
KHH-HHUUUU.
The sound of the breathing regulator echoed in the silent hall.
I walked in.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
My metal boots cracked the marble tiles.
The mob parted like the Red Sea. They didn't cheer. They didn't scream. They stared in primal awe at the Golem of the Republic.
I ignored them.
I marched straight to the boardroom doors.
The Chairman was trying to climb out a window. He froze when he saw me.
"Citizen Miller?" he squeaked. He recognized the eyes behind the glass lenses.
I didn't answer. I walked to the head of the table.
One of the directors, a man named Barère, pulled a pistol from his coat.
"Monster!" Barère shouted. "Stay back!"
He fired.
BANG.
The bullet struck my chest plate.
PING.
It ricocheted off the curved brass and buried itself in the ceiling plaster.
I didn't flinch. I didn't slow down.
I reached out. My servo whined.
I grabbed Barère by the neck.
I lifted him. One-handed.
He clawed at the metal gauntlet. His feet kicked helplessly in the air, two feet off the ground.
I tightened my grip. Not enough to kill. Just enough to let him feel the hydraulic pressure.
"Your resignation is accepted," my voice boomed.
The external speaker amplified my rasp, turning it into the voice of a judgemental god.
I dropped him. He fell to the floor, gasping, clutching his throat.
The other directors backed against the wall. They dropped their sacks of loot.
"Sit," I ordered.
They scrambled into their chairs.
I reached into a leather pouch on my belt. I pulled out a stack of documents.
I slammed them onto the mahogany table.
"The Franc Germinal," I announced. "A new currency. Hard coin. Standardized weights."
"Back... backed by what?" the Chairman stammered. "We have no gold! You buried the British gold in lead!"
"We have no reserves!" another director cried. "The vault is empty!"
I looked at them through the glass slits.
"We back it with Victory," I said. "We back it with Industry."
I looked at a gold bullion bar sitting on the table—one they had been trying to steal.
I raised my fist.
WHIRRR.
I brought it down.
CRUNCH.
My brass fist hit the gold bar. The soft metal deformed instantly, leaving the imprint of my knuckles deep in the gold. The table beneath it cracked.
"And we back it with this," I rumbled.
I pointed a metal finger at the dented gold.
"The State is the collateral. I am the collateral. Do you doubt my solvency?"
The Chairman looked at the crushed gold. He looked at the dent in the table. He looked at the tank on my back.
"No, Administrator," he whispered. "We do not doubt."
"Sign the decree," I said. "Issue the new bonds. 5% interest. Payable in land seized from the Coalition."
They signed. Hands shaking, quills scratching frantically. They signed away the old economy and birthed the new one.
Terror is a powerful market stabilizer.
Suddenly, the doors burst open again.
A courier ran in. He wore the green uniform of the Chasseurs. He was covered in dust.
He stopped when he saw me. He gaped at the metal giant.
"Report!" I barked.
The soldier snapped to attention, purely out of reflex.
"Urgent dispatch from the border, Administrator! From Vienna!"
He held out a sealed scroll.
I took it. My articulated fingers struggled with the wax seal. I crushed it.
I unrolled the parchment.
It wasn't a diplomatic note. It was a declaration of war.
But the language... it wasn't political.
To the Usurpers in Paris, it read. To the Demon who wears the skin of a man.
The Holy Roman Empire does not recognize your government. We do not recognize your humanity.
We have authorized the deployment of the Hunter Cadre. We have accepted the aid of the Watchmaker.
Surrender the Boy. Or we will burn Paris with the fire of the sun.
I lowered the paper.
"Cagliostro," I growled.
He hadn't just fled. He had petitioned the Emperor. He had turned the Coalition armies into his personal test subjects.
"Hunters?" Napoleon asked, stepping into the room. He had followed me from the palace, Charles at his side.
"Elite guard," I said. "Equipped with Cagliostro's tech. Radium bullets? Pneumatic rifles? I don't know."
I looked at the map of Europe hanging on the bank wall.
Vienna. The heart of the old world. The place where Marie Antoinette was born. The place where my enemy was currently building a dirty bomb.
I walked to the map.
CLANG. CLANG.
I dipped my metal finger into the inkwell on the table.
I drew a thick black line from Paris to Vienna.
"He calls me a Demon?" I asked.
The speaker distorted my voice into a low growl.
I turned to Charles and Napoleon.
The Boy King looked at the suit. He looked at the map. He smiled.
"Then let's show him what Hell looks like," Charles said.
"Mobilize the Chasseurs," I ordered. "And the artillery. And the engineers."
I looked at my reflection in the window. The brass monster.
"We march at dawn," I said. "We aren't fighting a war anymore. We are conducting a hostile takeover."
"Of the Empire?" Napoleon asked, his eyes gleaming with ambition.
"Of the future," I said.
I turned and walked out of the bank. The mob parted again.
I didn't need to breathe the air they breathed. I carried my own atmosphere. I carried my own gravity.
I was the Iron Chrysalis. And something terrible was about to hatch.