Cia Headquarters, 2039
The office lights were dim, casting long shadows across the polished wood of Deputy Director Richard Hale’s desk. A digital map of Chinese economic activity flickered silently on the wall behind him, clusters of red pulsing like quiet alarms.
Senior analyst Franklin Holt sat across from him, posture straight, eyes tired.
“We’ve been tracking Chinese financial activity,” Holt began. “Something called Project Tengri. Not in any of our databases. No chatter. No foreign partnerships. Just… movement.”
Hale raised an eyebrow. “What kind of movement?”
“Money,” Holt said. “Massive flows, hidden across state-backed sectors: energy, aerospace, bioengineering, next-gen tech. No exports. No announcements. Just silent acceleration.”
Hale tapped a pen against the desk. “How massive?”
“Comparable to what they spent absorbing Russia in the late twenties.”
That gave Hale pause.
“And there’s no paper trail?”
“None that leads anywhere,” Holt said. “It’s wrapped in ghost shells and shell companies. No procurement logs. No infrastructure rollouts. It’s like someone’s building a cathedral in the fog.”
“Is it military?”
“If it is, it’s not conventional. No troop movement. No satellite launches we can track. Just black-budget gravity pulling everything inward.”
Hale frowned. “So what the hell are they building?”
Holt pulled out a tablet and brought up a launch summary. “Three months ago, China sent a probe to Venus. Officially, it’s a deep-atmosphere study: weather, composition, surface scans.”
Hale didn’t look away from the map. “And unofficially?”
“We’re not sure. But procurement logs from the same window include items that don’t belong on a probe: pressure-resistant housing, modular reactors, biospec lab gear. It’s not definitive, but it’s suggestive.”
Hale’s brow furrowed. “You think it’s tied to Tengri?”
“It lines up. The spending spikes. The classified contracts. The sector overlap. Bioengineering, energy, aerospace: all lit up right before that launch.”
Hale turned to face him. “They’re laying groundwork.”
“Maybe,” Holt said. “We don’t think they’re ready for colonization: not yet. No signs of environmental tech, no viable plan to manage Venus’s atmosphere. But if they’re surveying, it could mean something’s coming. A precursor. A test.”
“And Tengri?”
“Could be the umbrella. Could be the mission itself.”
Hale exhaled slowly. “They’re not just investing in Earth anymore.”
“No,” Holt said. “They’re looking up.”
Hale stood, walking to the wall display. Red pulses flared across Sichuan and Shandong, trailing into orbital infrastructure hubs.
“Tengri,” he said quietly. “What does the name mean?”
“It’s Mongolic,” Holt replied. “A sky deity. Supreme order. Divine right.”
Hale stared at the map, jaw tight. “First they took Russia. Now they’re taking the sky.”
He turned back to Holt, his voice low. “Get me everything. Every shell company, every lab, every piece of this puzzle. I want to know what they’re building: before they finish it.”
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