My boots hit the wet stones of the Dover pier.
The ground hissed.
Steam rose from the damp granite where I stepped. My internal temperature was running high. 104 degrees.
The English fog was thick, smelling of coal smoke and salt water.
I took off my smoked glasses.
My eyes spun. The gold gears clicked into focus.
Click. Whirr.
The fog thinned into data.
I didn't see the sleepy coastal town. I saw a network.
I saw the glow of heat sources in the taverns. I saw the rapid pulse of heartbeats. I smelled the sharp, metallic tang of fear.
And I heard the money.
It started as a murmur.
"What do you mean it's no good?" a voice yelled from an alleyway.
Then a crash. A bottle breaking.
"The Bank of England! It says so right there!"
The virus was spreading.
The sailors from the HMS Dauntless had hit the shore with pockets full of the "Y" notes. They had bought ale, food, and whores.
The counterfeit data was in the system.
And the system was rejecting it.
I looked down the street.
A crowd was forming outside a sturdy brick building. The sign above the door read: Bank of England - Dover Branch.
"General," I said softly.
Napoleon stepped up beside me. He had his hand on the hilt of his saber. The Old Guard—a hundred of them who had crossed on the cutter—formed up behind him.
"Sire?" Napoleon asked. He looked nervous. He hated being on English soil without a proper army.
"Form a perimeter," I ordered. "Do not engage. Let the market correct itself."
"But they outnumber us ten to one," Napoleon protested.
"They aren't looking at us," I said.
I started walking.
Charles flanked me. He was wrapped in a heavy grey coat. He glided silently, leaving a faint trail of frost on the cobblestones.
We walked into the town square.
The crowd outside the bank was furious.
There were hundreds of them. Sailors, merchants, dockworkers. And mixed among them, the ragged figures of "Blue Drop" addicts, shaking in the cold morning air.
They were waving the crisp white five-pound notes.
"Open the doors!" a sailor roared, pounding on the heavy oak entrance. "Honor the King's paper!"
The doors cracked open.
A man stepped out. He wore a fine wool suit and a terrified expression. Two guards with muskets flanked him.
The Bank Manager.
"Silence!" the manager shouted over the din. "Please! By order of Lord Rothschild, all transactions are suspended!"
The crowd surged forward.
"Suspended?" a fishmonger screamed. "I sold a week's catch for this paper! My children are hungry!"
"The notes are void!" the manager yelled, waving a semaphore dispatch. "There is a discrepancy in the ledger! A forgery ring! Until London sends silver, the branch is closed!"
He tried to step back inside.
I pushed through the crowd.
I didn't shove people. I just moved them.
My mass and density were impossible to ignore. Men twice my width bounced off my shoulders like they had hit a stone pillar.
I stopped at the front of the mob.
The manager looked at me. He saw the steam rising from my coat. He saw the spinning gold eyes.
He froze.
"Close the doors!" he squeaked to his guards.
"A moment, Mr. Manager," I said.
My voice was loud. Resonant.
And I spoke in perfect, unaccented English.
Napoleon gasped behind me. The crowd went silent. They had never heard a Frenchman speak like a Londoner.
"Who are you?" the manager stammered.
"An auditor," I said.
I turned to face the crowd.
"Lord Rothschild printed that paper," I said, pointing to the notes clutched in their fists. "He told you it was as good as gold. He told you his Bank was the safest place in the Empire."
I pitched my voice to reach the back of the square.
"And now, when you need bread... he locks the doors."
"He says they're forged!" a sailor yelled.
"They aren't forged," I said smoothly. "They are authentic Bank of England notes. The ink is real. The paper is real."
I paused.
"The only thing that is fake... is the promise to pay."
The crowd murmured. Anger rippled through them.
"He's bankrupting you to save himself," I said. "He played the market, and he lost. And now he wants you to pay his debts."
I reached into my pocket.
I pulled out a coin.
It was heavy. Solid silver. Melted down from the chalices of Notre Dame. It bore no king's face, only a geometric seal.
"This is French silver," I shouted, holding it up.
It caught the morning light.
"It has intrinsic value. You can melt it. You can weigh it."
I looked at the bank manager.
"Rothschild's paper is a promise he just broke."
I tossed the silver coin.
It arced through the air and landed in the center of the crowd.
It hit the cobblestones with a heavy, musical CLINK.
The mob stared at it for a second.
Then, the explosion.
A dozen men dove for the coin. Fists flew.
But the real violence wasn't aimed at the silver. It was aimed at the bank.
"Break it down!" the fishmonger roared. "Take the silver from the vault!"
The mob surged.
The guards raised their muskets, but they were swallowed by the sea of bodies.
CRASH.
The heavy oak doors splintered. The crowd poured into the bank.
I stepped back.
I watched the destruction with cold satisfaction.
Windows shattered. Desks were overturned.
Charles stood beside me.
He took a deep breath.
"It's warm," Charles whispered.
The friction of a hundred angry bodies. The heat of a riot. He was absorbing the ambient energy of their violence.
"Enjoy the buffet," I said softly.
Napoleon stepped up to me.
He looked horrified.
"You started a riot with one coin," Napoleon whispered. "You didn't conquer the town. You broke it."
"I liquidated its faith in the currency," I corrected. "A much faster victory."
A high, piercing sound cut through the noise of the riot.
WHEEEEEEEE.
A train whistle.
But there were no tracks here.
I turned toward the London road.
Out of the fog, a vehicle appeared.
It was a carriage, but it had no horses. It was plated in black iron. A smokestack belched black coal smoke into the air.
A steam-powered carriage.
It rolled into the square, the heavy iron wheels grinding against the stones.
It stopped fifty yards from us.
The heavy iron door swung open.
A man stepped out.
He was massive. Seven feet tall. He didn't wear a uniform. He wore a leather apron over a bare, scarred chest.
But the scars weren't from battle. They were surgical.
His veins glowed a bright, electric blue.
Pure "Drop" concentrate.
And his right arm...
It wasn't flesh. It was a massive cylinder of brass and steel. A pneumatic piston hissed, venting steam.
Major Thomas. The brother of the man Charles froze in Egypt.
He looked at me.
His eyes were bloodshot, pupils blown wide from the drug.
He raised his mechanical arm. He revved a valve on his shoulder.
The pneumatic hammer at the end of his arm spun with a deafening whine. WHIRRRRR.
"Frenchman!" Thomas roared. His voice was ragged, torn by chemical burns. "Time for an audit!"
Napoleon drew his saber. The Old Guard raised their muskets.
"Hold your fire!" I ordered.
I cracked my knuckles.
The sound was sharp and loud, like snapping dry kindling.
"I prefer hands-on management anyway," I said.
I stepped forward to meet the machine.