The Nevada desert was a place of profound, primordial silence, a silence that the works of man could only temporarily dent. At the Prometheus Forge, however, they were not merely denting it; they were trying to build a weapon to shatter it across half a world. Inside the main briefing room—a stark, concrete box filled with blackboards scarred by the ghosts of complex equations—the silence was thick with tension.
Dr. Wu Jian, Admiral Taylor, and Nikola Tesla stood around a sturdy oak table, their attention fixed on a telegraph machine. Its rhythmic, insistent chattering was the voice of their master, a voice of command and profound impatience piped directly from the White House in Washington D.C. An operator transcribed the incoming message, his face a mask of concentration.
Admiral Taylor, a man whose face seemed carved from granite, took the slip of paper and read it aloud, his voice flat. "ADMIRAL. THE DRAGON SITS ON HIS THRONE WHILE WE THEORIZE IN THE DESERT. YOUR REPORTS ARE FILLED WITH SCIENTIFIC MAYBES AND THEORETICAL PROJECTIONS. I NEED A WEAPON, NOT A HYPOTHESIS. REPORT ON TANGIBLE PROGRESS OR I WILL FIND MEN WHO CAN PROVIDE IT. STOP. ROOSEVELT."
The message landed on the room like a physical weight. The pressure from Washington was becoming immense. Dr. Wu visibly flinched. He had seen the Dragon bleed; he knew the threat was real and immediate. But translating that supernatural reality into the hard science of a functional weapon was proving to be a monumental task.
It was Nikola Tesla who broke the tense silence. A dramatic, theatrical smile spread across his face, his eyes flashing with the fire of a born showman.
"Mr. President's impatience is understandable," he declared, his voice a rich, accented baritone that seemed to vibrate with suppressed energy. "One cannot rush the forging of a thunderbolt. But when the forging is complete, the results tend to speak for themselves." He made a grand, sweeping gesture toward a set of heavy, lead-lined double doors. "Gentlemen, if you would follow me. It is time for the thunderbolt to speak."
He led them from the briefing room into the main test chamber, a vast, cavernous hall that was the beating heart of the entire facility. In its center, raised on a massive insulated platform, sat the completed, full-scale Harmonic Disruption Engine. It was a terrifying marvel, a thing of both scientific beauty and brutal purpose. A central copper coil, as thick as a man's torso, was surrounded by a ring of smaller harmonic amplifiers, each connected by a spiderweb of heavy cabling to a bank of enormous, humming dynamos. A series of massive glass vacuum tubes, each glowing with a faint, eerie blue light, studded the device like malevolent jewels. It looked less like a machine and more like a pagan altar to the god of electricity.
"Behold!" Tesla announced, his arms spread wide. "We have rebuilt your clever firecracker, Dr. Wu, into a cannon capable of leveling mountains."
Admiral Taylor was not impressed by the theatrics. "Can it work, Tesla? That's all the President cares about."
"Work?" Tesla scoffed. "Admiral, it will sing a symphony of pure, weaponized chaos."
On the far side of the chamber, behind a thick wall of reinforced, lead-impregnated glass, was the target range. It was not a target of steel or wood. Inside a massive, cylindrical tank filled with saltwater, a creature swam in slow, lazy circles. It was a monstrous electric ray, nearly ten feet across, a creature captured at great expense and risk in the deep Pacific.
Admiral Taylor explained the grim logic. "We obviously cannot test this on a human subject. But Dr. Wu's data suggested the Emperor's energy field has properties analogous to certain forms of marine bio-luminescence and bio-electricity. This creature is one of the most electro-sensitive organisms on the planet. If the engine can affect it, we have our proof of concept."
Dr. Wu, looking pale under the harsh fluorescent lights, elaborated on the methodology. "Our goal is not to kill it, Admiral. That would be a crude application of force. We are not firing a death ray. We will project a low-power, focused harmonic wave at the precise frequency I recorded in the X-Laboratory. If our theory is correct, it should induce a state of extreme neurological distress and disorientation. It will not be physically harmed, but its nervous system will be jammed, overwhelmed by the weaponized static. We will be neutralizing its ability to function, without firing a single physical projectile."
The test began. The engineers, working from a shielded control booth, diverted power from the main facility generators. The lights in the chamber dimmed as the dynamos spooled up, their low hum rising in pitch to a high-pitched, whining shriek. The air grew thick with the smell of ozone.
"Power at one hundred percent. Firing sequence initiated," an engineer's voice crackled over the intercom.
Tesla threw a large, dramatic knife-switch on the control panel. The Harmonic Disruption Engine came to life. It did not explode with noise. Instead, it emitted a low, gut-vibrating thrum that seemed to press in on the observers from all sides. The central coil erupted in a silent, writhing corona of violet energy, a contained storm of pure power.
Inside the tank, the effect was instantaneous and horrific. The giant ray, which had been swimming calmly, suddenly convulsed as if it had been struck by an invisible fist. It thrashed wildly, slamming its great wings against the sides of the tank, its movements utterly erratic and panicked. Its own biological navigation system, its very sense of self, was being violently scrambled. It was blind, deaf, and lost within its own mind, trapped in a prison of pure sensory noise.
"Cease firing!" Dr. Wu shouted.
Tesla threw the switch, and the violet corona vanished. The deep thrumming died away. Inside the tank, the great ray stopped thrashing. It floated, seemingly stunned and exhausted, its movements slow and drunk. It was alive, but it had been neurologically defeated.
The test was a resounding, terrifying success.
A grim smile touched Admiral Taylor's lips. "The weapon works," he said, his voice filled with satisfaction. "Now we need a way to aim it." He turned to the fourth man in the control booth, a man who had remained silent throughout the entire procedure. He was of medium height and build, dressed in a simple, nondescript suit, but his eyes were the cold, watchful eyes of a hunter. "Gentlemen, the science is proven. It's time for the operational phase. Meet Special Agent Donovan, from the Secret Service. He will be leading Project Prometheus's next, and most critical, phase: Operation NIGHTINGALE."
Donovan stepped forward, his quiet confidence a stark contrast to Tesla's flamboyant energy. "A pleasure, gentlemen. You've built a magnificent cannon. My job is to get a spotter next to the target."
He unrolled a map of China on the table. "A weapon this size, drawing this much power, cannot be deployed secretly on their soil. But its effects can be projected across the ocean. The problem is timing. Firing this weapon blindly is a waste of energy and risks revealing its existence. We need to strike when the target is most vulnerable."
He looked at Dr. Wu. "You theorize that the Emperor's power has a physical cost. That after a major expenditure, he is weakened, his own energy signature fluctuating wildly. Is that correct?"
Dr. Wu nodded. "Yes. It is a severe, but temporary, state of vulnerability."
"Then that is our window," Donovan said. "My mission is to get a smaller, portable version of your original resonance detector inside China. We need a new spy. Not a scientist or a diplomat who will be watched from the moment they step off the boat. We need a ghost. Someone who can get close enough to the Forbidden City to give us a real-time reading on the Emperor's energy state. When the Emperor performs one of his 'miracles'—when he expends his power—our detector will tell us. And that, gentlemen, is when you will fire your weapon."
He tapped a specific spot on the map. Beijing.
"We need a Nightingale who can sing us the song of the Emperor's weakness," Donovan continued, his voice dropping. "And we believe we have already found our prime recruitment target." He produced a thin file and opened it. It was the same dossier Shen Ke had shown to his Emperor. It was a picture of Dr. Chen Linwei.
"A brilliant physicist, recently returned from America," Donovan said. "Highly educated, potentially frustrated with her current position, and possessing the exact scientific expertise to understand what we need. She is the perfect candidate. My mission is to make contact, assess her loyalty, and if possible, turn her. I will give you your spotter."
He looked from the scientists to the Admiral, his gaze steady and hard. "The hunt for the New Nightingale has begun."