The fog off the coast of Normandy tasted like salt and rotten kelp.
Jean Chouan stood on the wet shingle of the cove, his boots sinking into the sand. Behind him, the cliffs of Brittany rose like black teeth against the night sky.
"Signal them," Chouan growled.
His lieutenant, a scarred Breton named Luc, uncovered a lantern. He flashed it three times.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
Out in the darkness of the Channel, a answering light blinked back.
The splash of oars. Then the grinding of wood on sand.
A longboat emerged from the mist. It was British Navy. Royal Marines sat at the oars, their red coats looking black in the gloom.
An officer stepped onto the beach. He wore a heavy wool cloak and a tricorn hat.
"You're late," Chouan spat. "The Republican patrols are doubling back at dawn."
"The tide waits for no man, Citizen Chouan," the officer said in perfect French. Too perfect. Aristocratic.
"Cut the poetry," Chouan said. "Where are the muskets? My men need Brown Bess rifles. The Spanish campaign is chewing up the French army. Now is the time to strike in the West."
The officer smiled. It was a thin, cold expression.
"No rifles tonight, Jean."
He gestured to the sailors. They began unloading crates. They weren't heavy weapon crates. They were small, wooden boxes.
"What is this?" Chouan kicked one of the boxes. It skidded lightly across the sand. "I can't kill Republicans with... what is this? Tea?"
"Better," the officer said. "Open it."
Luc pried the lid off with a knife.
Inside, nestled in straw, were dozens of small glass bottles. The glass was a deep, vibrant cobalt blue.
Chouan picked one up. It was labeled in English: Tincture of Relief.
He uncorked it. He sniffed.
It smelled sweet. Like molasses and... turpentine?
"Medicine?" Chouan asked, disgusted. "You want me to become a pharmacist?"
"It is a new formula," the officer said. "From the colonies. A blend of Bengal Opium and... industrial spirits. It is very potent. Very addictive."
"I am a soldier," Chouan said, tossing the bottle back. "Not a drug pusher."
"You are a businessman," the officer corrected. "And the price is zero."
Chouan paused. "Zero?"
"We are giving it to you," the officer said. "Ten thousand crates. Distribute it. In the port cities. In the slums of Paris. Give the first dose away. Charge for the second."
"Why?"
"Because a sedated enemy is easier to conquer than an angry one," the officer said.
He pulled a pistol from his belt. Not to shoot, but to offer the handle to Chouan.
"Test it," the officer said. "On one of your men."
Chouan looked at Luc. "Drink it."
Luc hesitated. "Captain?"
"Drink it."
Luc tilted his head back and drained the small blue bottle.
For a moment, nothing happened. Luc stood there, wiping his mouth.
Then, his pupils dilated. They swallowed his irises until his eyes were black holes.
His shoulders dropped. The tension of the patrol, the fear of the guillotine, the cold of the night—it all vanished.
Luc smiled. A slack, drooling smile.
"How do you feel?" Chouan asked.
"Warm," Luc whispered. "Like... like God is hugging me."
The British officer drew a knife. In one fluid motion, he slashed Luc's palm. A deep cut. Blood welled up.
Luc didn't flinch. He didn't even look at the hand. He just kept smiling at the moon.
"He feels no pain," the officer said softly. "No hunger. No fear. He is perfectly content to starve to death, as long as he has another bottle."
Chouan looked at his lieutenant. Luc was giggling as his blood dripped onto the sand.
It was a weapon. A chemical weapon.
"Load the crates," Chouan ordered.
Two weeks later. Paris.
The Faubourg Saint-Antoine was a hive of misery. The quarantine had choked the economy. The grain shipments from Spain had stopped. The price of bread was climbing.
But in the alleys, nobody was rioting.
I sat in my office in the Tuileries, staring at the report.
"Mass psychosis," Fouché said. The Minister of Police stood by the window, looking out at the grey city. "That's what the doctors are calling it."
"Psychosis implies madness," I said, rubbing my swollen temples. "Madness is loud. This... this is silence."
I pointed to the window.
"Listen, Joseph. It's noon. The workshops should be hammering. The market should be shouting. But it's quiet."
"They aren't working," Fouché said. "They are dreaming."
He walked to my desk. He placed a small object on the blotter.
A blue glass bottle. Empty.
"We found thousands of these in the gutter this morning," Fouché said. "They call it 'The Blue Drop.' Or simply 'The Blue.'"
"What is it?" I asked. "Alcohol?"
"Worse," Fouché said. "We analyzed the residue. It's opium, cut with ether and... paint thinner."
I picked up the bottle. It was pretty. Inviting.
"Paint thinner?"
"It dissolves the blood-brain barrier," Fouché said clinically. "Delivers the opiate instantly. But the solvent... it cooks the frontal lobe. It causes permanent brain damage within a month. And the withdrawal?"
He shook his head.
"The withdrawal kills them. Seizures. Heart failure. They have to keep drinking it just to stay alive."
I gripped the bottle until my knuckles turned white.
"It's not recreational," I whispered. "It's tactical."
I looked at the map of Paris. The outbreaks were clustered around the armories. The factories. The docks.
"They are targeting the workforce," I said. "Rothschild. He's dumping this stuff to paralyze the supply chain. If the workers are high, they can't make muskets. They can't unload grain."
"And the price?" Fouché asked.
"Let me guess," I said. "Cheaper than bread."
"A sou per bottle," Fouché confirmed. "Or free, if you bring a friend."
I threw the bottle against the wall. It shattered.
CRASH.
"Get Charles," I ordered. "And get my carriage."
"Where are we going?" Fouché asked.
"To the source," I snarled. "We are going to perform a field audit."
The warehouse was in Les Halles, near the meat market. It smelled of rotting offal and sweet chemical fumes.
My wheelchair bumped over the cobblestones. Charles pushed me. He had a brace of pistols in his belt. Fouché flanked us with a squad of his black-clad police agents.
"Break it down," I ordered.
An agent swung a sledgehammer. The door splintered.
We rolled inside.
The smell hit me like a physical blow. Sickly sweet. Acrid.
It was dark, lit only by a few sputtering candles.
The floor was covered in straw. And bodies.
Dozens of men and women lay in heaps. They weren't sleeping. They were comatose. Their mouths hung open, drooling a thick, greenish saliva.
Their eyes were open, staring at nothing.
"God in heaven," one of the agents whispered.
I rolled past them.
I saw a mother clutching a baby. The baby was crying, weak, hungry cries. The mother didn't move. She just stared at the blue bottle in her hand.
I saw a blacksmith, his leather apron stained with soot. His massive arms were limp. He had pissed himself and didn't care.
"This isn't a drug den," I whispered. "It's a morgue with a pulse."
In the center of the room, a man sat on a crate. He was counting coins. He wore a clean shirt.
The dealer.
He looked up as we approached. He didn't look scared. He looked annoyed.
"We're closed," he sneered. "Come back at sunset."
Charles stepped forward. He raised his pistol.
"You are closed permanently," Charles said.
The dealer laughed. "You can't touch me. I pay the Captain of the Watch. I have protection."
He reached under the crate.
"Look out!" Fouché shouted.
The dealer pulled a sawed-off musket.
BANG.
Charles fired first.
The dealer's head snapped back. A red mist sprayed the wall. He slumped off the crate, dead before he hit the straw.
The sound of the gunshot echoed in the cavernous room.
None of the addicts moved. Not a flinch. Not a scream. They were too far gone.
I rolled up to the dead dealer. I looked at the coins scattered on the floor. British Guineas mixed with French Sous.
"Foreign funding," I noted.
Then I saw something in the corner.
A man in a uniform.
Not a beggar. A soldier.
He was propped up against a barrel. He wore the bearskin hat of the Imperial Guard. The elite. The heroes who had stormed the bridge at Arcole.
His coat was unbuttoned. He was missing a boot.
He was drooling green bile onto his medals.
I recognized him. Sergeant Lemaire. I had pinned the Legion of Honor on him myself last year.
"Sergeant," I whispered.
I poked him with my cane.
"Sergeant, report."
Lemaire turned his head slowly. His eyes were black pits. No recognition. No soul.
"Blue..." he croaked. "More... blue..."
He reached a trembling hand toward me. Not for help. For the bottle.
I felt a cold rage build in my chest. Hotter than the fever. Hotter than the radiation.
This was what Rothschild wanted. To turn the glory of France into this. A drooling junkie begging for poison.
"Burn it," I said.
Fouché looked at me. "The warehouse?"
"All of it," I said. "The bottles. The money."
"And the people?" Fouché asked quietly. "They can't walk, Administrator. If we burn the building..."
I looked at Sergeant Lemaire. He wasn't a soldier anymore. He was a husk.
"Drag them out," I said. "Throw them in the carts. Take them to the Salpêtrière Asylum. Tie them to the beds if you have to."
I turned my chair around.
"And Fouché?"
"Yes, Administrator?"
"The dealers," I said. "No trials. No prison."
I pointed to the iron lamppost visible through the open door.
"If you find a man selling this... hang him. Leave the body up for three days. Put a blue bottle in his dead hand."
Fouché smiled. It was a cruel, satisfied smile.
"Finally," Fouché said. "You are learning the grammar of power."
"It's not power," I said, looking back at the ruin of the sergeant. "It's sanitation."
We left the warehouse.
Behind us, the agents began to smash the crates. The sound of breaking glass was like music.
I sat in the rain, waiting for the carriage.
"Rothschild thinks he can numb us," I told Charles. "He thinks he can sedate the revolution."
Charles reloaded his pistol. His face was blank.
"He miscalculated," Charles said.
"How so?"
"Pain is a motivator," Charles said. "If you take away their pain, you take away their fear. But if you take away their drug... they will tear the world apart to get it back."
He looked at me.
"We are going to have a withdrawal crisis, Father. A violent one."
"Good," I said. "I need violent men."
I looked at the grey sky.
"Let them scream," I whispered. "At least screaming means they are alive."
The carriage arrived.
"To the Bank," I ordered. "We have one more infection to deal with."
"The gold?" Charles asked.
"The gold," I said. "The poison that glows."