Jian was awoken by an intense knocking at his bedroom door. He groggily rolled over, blinking the sleep from his eyes while wondering what the hell was going on. Hardly a second passed before there was another, louder series of knocks. It damn near sounded like someone was beating his door down.

  “I’m awake! I’m awake!” He yelled, only for the banging to continue.

  Jian swore to himself, and attempted to climb out of bed. Only for him to kick his nightstand in the dark, extracting another curse from him. He swung his feet a little further out, successfully found the floor, and then stumbled to his feet. He got dressed in night clothes as quickly as he could, and then blindly groped for the door.

  Jian yanked it open as quickly as he could, more than prepared to admonish a subordinate. He was surprised to see Kun standing there instead. Kun Huang wasn’t quite a subordinate- at least not one he could freely argue with, if he didn’t want to get it back twofold later. He was the defense minister of China, and one of Jian’s closest allies and friends in the current government. And, much like Jian, he was equally bleary eyed and poorly dressed.

  “Kun, what the hell are you doing awake?” He asked, shocked into real consciousness by the sight of the man before him.

  “Got a call for you.” Kun grunted, before handing over his phone. Jian took it, further perplexed, and glanced over it curiously. Unknown Caller stood out.

  Jian put it on mute, and glanced at Kun. The man stared back at him deadpan. “…Who is this?” Jian asked.

  Kun shrugged. “I have no earthly idea.”

  Jian stared back at him, dumbfounded, and waited a few seconds for anything else. Kun didn’t care to elaborate, though. “What do you mean? You don’t know?”

  Kun shrugged again. “As far as I know, someone got through the encrypted line. I think it happened around one? I’m not too sure, honestly. I hung up, of course. And yeah, look, I know it’s a security issue, but I wasn’t ready to deal with that tonight, you know? Then they called again. And again. And again. So, I finally took it to intelligence fifteen minutes later, pissed as all hell. They cracked my phone open, and gave me a new one. Problem solved, right? Then the new one started ringing. So, naturally, intelligence tried to trace it. Just as naturally, because anyone with a brain would notice those cavemen trying to snoop around, my phone stopped ringing. Another fifteen minutes passes, and I’m pissed off because intelligence keeps asking me questions, and I’m working on an hour and twenty-three minutes in 48 hours. I’m not even awake enough to recognize if they’re speaking Mandarin or Korean, right? And then, while I’m still there arguing with them about trying to get some shut-eye, the economics minister calls into intelligence with the wildest thing- you’ll never guess it.”

  Jian quirked an eyebrow. “His phone was ringing?”

  Kun threw his hands up. “His fucking phone was ringing. And he didn’t know the caller either. Just like me, he didn’t bother to answer. So, naturally, intelligence started following that too. Dead-end, stonewalled. They couldn’t get anywhere with it. Finally, my phone rang again. Intelligence said they wanted to try to track it again. I told them to stick it- I knew they were gonna spook the guy. Now, you know my opinion on the intel guys. Even so, I know that if it was American, or Indian, or any of the other big ones, we’d be able to track them. Even if we couldn’t, intelligence would still be able to read between the lines, right? But instead, they had nothing. So I’m thinking, we keep him on the line, talk to him, maybe he’ll slip up. Then we can figure out who he is or where he’s from. Either way, we’ll learn something- I doubt anyone calling the entire damn Chinese government this late at night is calling to taunt. And if they were hacking, they wouldn’t be calling. Not unless they wanted a missile quickly diverted to their location.”

  “So did you talk with this… individual?” Jian asked. Kun nodded in response.

  “He speaks piss poor Chinese, though. I told him to hold on, I’d get him to the best person to talk to. Luckily, he seemed to understand that. The rest of it was heavily accented English- that’s not a language I speak well. I knew I’d have better luck with you.”

  Jian looked down at the phone in his hand curiously. “You want me to talk directly to someone who, in all likelihood, is a foreign intelligence agent?”

  Kun gave yet another shrug. “Maybe the Americans are about to nuke us, and one of them grew a conscience. How should I know? I can’t understand the bastard. Just do keep in mind when talking to him, he probably is a foreign intelligence agent. Do a good job of remembering everything he says, will you?”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Jian nodded, before he unmuted the phone and put it to his ear. “Hello, who is this?” Jian asked- in Chinese. Kun quirked an eyebrow at him curiously. Jian just wanted to double check everything Kun had told him.

  The response was in such heavily accented Chinese that Jian had to restrain a wince, but it meant the person on the line understood him. “Ok, we’re not doing that. Who are you, and why are you calling this number?” He asked, this time in English.

  “You speak English!? Oh thank god, listen, something bad is about to happen- may already have happened, to the Russians. You gotta warn them-”

  “You didn’t call them first? You seem to have the phone numbers for everyone in my government.” Jian interjected.

  The voice on the other end paused for a moment. Jian took it as them thinking. “Did you say my government? Are you Secretary Chang?”

  Jian sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “President, actually, but-”

  “Hooooly shit holy shit holy shit, uh, what the hell are you doing talking to me?”

  “Forget about that. Russia? I have to warn Russia? Why? Did the Americans attack them? Are you American?” Jian asked rapidly.

  “Yes! No! No, no no no no no. Look, I’m not American, I’m just a guy trying to do the right thing. But you have to get in contact with the Russians right now. I was tracking an asteroid-”

  “What?” Jian asked in alarm, startling Kun. “An asteroid? Are we in any danger?”

  “No! No, stop- just listen, ok? I thought the Russians would see it at first, because why would they not? Or NASA, or the Europeans, or you guys for that matter. But when I was tracking it, it’s like it was… stealthy. Avoiding detection. Each time I got any sensor data on it, the thing vanished, and any data I got back was error coded, like it couldn’t be read. I got nothing on it, except that it was heading toward Moscow. Can you understand my concern now?”

  Jian felt his blood run cold. “And you weren’t able to get in contact with them either? I’m assuming with the resources you seem to have-”

  “No, the lines were dead so I tried you guys. Please, you gotta-”

  “‘Gotta’ what? Wake the dead?”

  “What? No, listen-”

  “No, you listen. I just woke up, and I have no clue what’s going on. But you just said that you- whoever you are- detected an asteroid tracking toward Moscow that no one else noticed. Then, that not only did it appear to have stealth capabilities, but that you can’t reach anyone in Moscow? Am I getting that right?” Jian asked, pointedly looking at Kun. The man was nonplussed, but he nodded back. Obviously, Jian had to get him working on his English.

  The other line stayed quiet for a moment, so Jian kept talking. “Just when did you detect this object? Was there anything of note about it? What about any debris it kicked up, what kind of fallout are we dealing with here?”

  “Just-just hold on a minute, let me think, let me-”

  Jian hung up, before handing the phone back to Kun.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Kun protested. “He wasn’t done talking!”

  Jian easily switched back to Chinese. “Yes, he was. He’s obviously not American, his accent betrayed that. He’s not an intelligence agent, either. When I pointed out that the Russians were likely splattered, he froze up. Whoever they are, they seem to have resources beyond what I’d expect of an American intelligence agent. Or an intelligence agent of any other nation, for that matter. Especially if they’re really embedded in the Russian government as well. I don’t think this Unknown is going to be our primary concern for a little while, though.” Jian answered, before pinching the bridge of his nose again.

  He shook his head, trying to clear away the sleep. Apparently, it was time for him to wake up. “He claimed that Moscow may have been wiped out by an asteroid. You haven’t reached out to the Russians yet, have you?” Jian asked. Kun shook his head in response. “Then get on that, now. I hope you weren’t looking to get any sleep tonight.” Jian started, prompting a muted curse from Kun.

  “Look, I’ll summon someone to get us some tea- I know coffees more your thing.” Jian said, before ducking back into his room to start getting dressed for the day. It’d be a long one- it was just shy of two in the morning, currently. Kun looked after him curiously.

  “No disrespect sir, but isn’t this more Foreign Affairs’ job than mine?”

  Jian looked back at him, surprised. “Don’t you think we should know, right now, if a meteor struck Moscow? I doubt that was a prank caller.” Jian said drily, and turned again to continue into his room.

  “Fuck. What are you going to do?”

  Jian stretched with a grunt before answering. “Just like our mystery friend, I get to make some phone calls.”