The sky over Paris was a battlefield.
I sat on the slate roof of the Louvre, wrapped in a heavy wool blanket. The wind whipped my hair into my eyes, but I didn't blink. I stared upward through a brass telescope.
"Target acquired," Fouché whispered beside me.
High above the Tuileries, a grey speck moved against the clouds. A pigeon. Fast. Determined. It was flying North, carrying a tiny scroll of encrypted market data to James Rothschild in London.
"Release the interceptor," I ordered.
A soldier from the "Sky Watch" pulled the hood off a Peregrine Falcon on his arm.
The bird screeched. It saw the pigeon.
It launched.
It was nature's version of a surface-to-air missile. The falcon climbed, folded its wings, and turned into a feathered bullet.
Wham.
A cloud of grey feathers exploded in the air. The pigeon dropped like a stone. It hit the cobblestones of the courtyard below with a wet slap.
"Target neutralized," Fouché noted, writing in his ledger. "That is the fifth courier today."
"Good," I said, lowering the telescope. "Every dead bird is a blind spot for Rothschild."
I turned my wheelchair around.
Behind me stood the future.
A wooden tower rose from the roof of the Louvre. At the top, three black mechanical arms were silhouetted against the sun.
The Chappe Semaphore Telegraph.
It looked like a giant, angry stick figure.
Claude Chappe, the inventor, was fiddling with the control levers. He looked terrified. He was a scientist, not a soldier, and having the "Demon of the Republic" staring at him was making his hands shake.
"Is the network ready?" I asked.
"Y-yes, Citizen Administrator," Chappe stammered. "The line to Lille is clear. The repeater towers are staffed."
"And the compression?"
Chappe nodded. He held up a thick book. "The Code Book. As you ordered."
I took the book.
In the old system, operators spelled out words letter by letter. G-R-A-I-N. It took minutes.
I opened the book.
Code 88: Grain Supply Secure.
Code 45: Buy Immediately.
Code 99: Victory.
"Bandwidth," I whispered. "We just increased the bitrate by 500%."
"Administrator?" Chappe looked confused.
"Never mind," I said. "Just send the signal. Code 01. 'System Online'."
Chappe pulled the heavy iron levers.
CLACK-CLACK.
The wooden arms above us shifted. Horizontal. Vertical. Diagonal.
A mile away, on the roof of Saint-Sulpice, another tower saw the signal. Its arms moved to match. Then the next tower. And the next.
The message was racing toward the border at the speed of light—or at least, the speed of sight.
"Napoleon calls it a toy," I said, watching the arms dance.
"The General prefers cannons," Fouché said.
"This toy kills cavalry, Fouché," I said. "If I know they are saddling their horses before they even tighten the girth, they are already dead."
I checked my pocket watch.
"The Bourse opens in twenty minutes. Get me to the Exchange."
The Paris Bourse was a shark tank.
It was located in the old church of Notre-Dame des Victoires. The pews had been ripped out. The altar was replaced by a chalkboard listing the prices of bonds, grain, and Consols.
The noise was deafening. Five hundred traders screaming, sweating, and spitting.
I sat on the upper balcony, hidden behind a velvet curtain. Napoleon stood behind me, arms crossed, looking down at the chaos with disdain.
"They look like animals," Napoleon muttered.
"They are," I said. "But instead of teeth, they use rumors."
I pointed to a man in the center of the pit.
Monsieur Jabot.
He was wearing a canary-yellow waistcoat. He was shouting louder than anyone else. He was Rothschild's man in Paris. The Proxy.
"What is he doing?" Napoleon asked.
"He is selling," I said. "Look at the board. He is dumping French Grain Futures. He is betting that the famine is real."
"But it's not!" Napoleon hissed. "Your smugglers docked in Bordeaux last night! The silos are full!"
"He doesn't know that," I smiled. "His pigeon died over the Louvre an hour ago. He is trading on yesterday's news."
Jabot was laughing. He was selling contracts for 50 Francs, 40 Francs... driving the price down. Panic was spreading. The other traders were following his lead, terrified of a crash.
"He is bleeding the market," I said. "He is creating a shortage just by yelling about one."
I looked up through the glass dome of the church.
Ideally positioned in the distance, visible only if you knew where to look, was the Semaphore Tower on the roof of the post office.
The arms were still.
Then, they moved.
Clack. Clack.
Vertical bar. Two diagonals up.
Code 88. Grain Supply Secure.
Jabot didn't see it. He was too busy counting his imaginary profits.
But my agents saw it.
On the floor, ten men in drab grey coats looked up. They saw the signal. They looked at the balcony.
I raised my hand. I dropped a white handkerchief.
The signal for "Attack."
My agents moved. They didn't scream. They didn't panic. They swam through the crowd like sharks.
"I'll buy!" the first agent shouted. "Grain at 30!"
Jabot sneered. "Sold, you fool!"
"I'll buy!" the second agent yelled. "Grain at 35!"
"Sold!"
"Buy at 40! Buy at 50!"
The price stopped falling. It twitched. It started to climb.
Jabot frowned. He looked around. Why were they buying? Was there a rumor he missed?
He looked at his runner—a boy who was supposed to bring him the pigeon scroll. The boy shrugged. No bird. No news.
Sweat broke out on Jabot's forehead.
"Selling at 55!" Jabot screamed, trying to force it back down.
"Buying at 60!" my agents roared back.
The momentum shifted. The herd mentality kicked in. The other traders saw the confidence of the grey coats. They started buying too.
90.
The price of grain futures skyrocketed.
Jabot turned pale. He had sold "short"—selling contracts he didn't own, promising to deliver grain he didn't have. He expected to buy it back cheap later.
Now, he had to buy it back expensive.
"100!"
Jabot was hyperventilating. He clawed at his collar.
Then, the doors banged open.
A courier ran in. A real courier, covered in mud.
"News from Bordeaux!" he shouted. "The Mosquito Fleet has docked! The American ships are here! There is grain for everyone!"
The room exploded.
"120! 150!"
The price went vertical.
Jabot screamed. A high, thin sound like a rabbit in a trap.
He collapsed. He fell to his knees in the middle of the pit. He had sold thousands of contracts at 40. He now owed the market millions.
He was bankrupt.
"Liquidated," I whispered from the balcony.
It was violent. It was bloody. I watched as Jabot tore at his hair, sobbing. His career, his fortune, his life—gone in ten minutes.
Napoleon looked down, wide-eyed.
"You killed him," Napoleon said. "You didn't touch him, and you killed him."
"Speed kills, Napoleon," I said.
I turned my wheelchair.
"Fouché, seize Jabot's assets. His house, his accounts, his furniture. Then arrest him for market manipulation."
"And the money we made?" Fouché asked.
"Put it in the war chest," I said. "We just funded the Army of the Rhine for six months."
I looked at the telegraph tower through the glass.
The arms were still moving. Clack. Clack.
The internet of the 18th century was open for business. And I was the only one with the password.
"Let's go," I said. "We have a ball to attend. I want to see the look on the Austrian Ambassador's face when he realizes I know what he ate for breakfast in Vienna."