The World Ends In 27 Days

Zeyu hadn’t said anything, but he recognized the man carrying the axe.

Gao Mingrui occupied three floors of Jinhai Tower, sat on the boards of two transportation companies and had attempted to purchase one of Zeyu’s smaller manufacturers the previous year.

They had eaten together twice, negotiated once and disliked each other throughout all three encounters.

He looked different with swollen eyes, a torn dress shirt and an axe balanced against his shoulder.

He still walked as though everyone around him worked for him.

The facilities director led the group deeper into the mechanical corridor. He had discarded his suit jacket and tied a wet strip of fabric across his mouth. Six people followed him, carrying tools taken from the tower’s maintenance rooms.

They weren’t moving toward another shelter entrance.

They were moving toward the exterior connections feeding Jinhai’s protected cooling system.

"Seal the corridor," Hanchuan ordered.

Jingwei examined the controls before responding. "I can close the shutter ahead of them, but the section behind them connects to three public mechanical floors. If I close both ends, they’ll be trapped again."

"Leave the rear route open," Hanchuan decided. "I’ll give them one way out and no way forward."

Jingwei lowered the forward shutter.

The barrier dropped across the corridor less than ten meters ahead of the facilities director. He stopped so abruptly that Gao walked into him.

A recorded warning sounded from the ceiling. "Restricted mechanical area. Return to the public levels."

Gao Mingrui shoved past the facilities director and struck the shutter with the handle of the axe.

"They didn’t learn much," Jingwei observed.

"They learned that the gas stopped when they stopped attacking," Hanchuan replied. His hand tightened slightly on Zhiyi’s shoulder as he watched the group through the camera. "Now they believe they can control the consequences."

Zeyu’s phone vibrated.

The call had been routed through Jinhai Tower’s surviving internal network. Gao Mingrui’s name appeared on the screen.

"He’s calling me," Zeyu said.

Hanchuan looked from the phone to the man standing in the corridor. "Answer him."

Zeyu accepted the call and transferred it to the communications wall.

Gao’s uneven breathing filled the room before his voice did.

"Rong Zeyu."

There was no greeting and no question about whether Zeyu controlled the shelter. Gao Mingrui had seen the private ownership records before the tower disappeared behind holding companies. He had apparently remembered enough to find the man connected to them.

"I’m here," Zeyu confirmed.

Gao wiped his watering eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. "You have working cooling on the upper floors."

"We do." Zeyu’s tone was completely different from his normal jovial tone. He closed his eyes for a second, already knowing where this was going.

"Open them," Gao Mingrui demanded as if he had every right to it.

Zeyu leaned back against the table. "No."

Gao Mingrui stared directly into the nearest camera. "There are more than 40 people trapped in this building."

"That doesn’t change the answer," replied Zeyu.

"I’ll pay for access."

Zeyu almost laughed.

Not because the offer was amusing, but because Gao Mingrui said it with complete certainty. The building was failing around him, the city outside had become unsurvivable and he still believed the problem had reached the stage where rich men discussed numbers.

"The shelter isn’t for sale," Zeyu told him.

Gao Mingrui dismissed the refusal with an impatient movement of the axe. "Everything is for sale. Name your price."

"Not this time," assured Zeyu.

"I’ll transfer my Jinhai shares," Gao Mingrui offered. His voice grew stronger as he returned to the kind of negotiation he understood. "All three floors, the parking leases and every commercial unit held by my subsidiaries."

Zeyu glanced at the darkened tower levels displayed beside the security feed. "You can’t sell me rooms in a building I already control."

"Then I’ll give you vehicles. My companies have 200 trucks inside Yunzhou and more in the northern provinces."

"Most of the roads are impassable," countered Zeyu. Was it always like this? Why didn’t he see this before? It was tiring dealing with someone who didn’t understand the world around him.

"They won’t remain that way," Gao Mingrui insisted. "When the government clears them, you can use my fleet to replace everything we consume."

Zeyu went still.

That was the same assumption he had made less than an hour earlier.

The Heat would pass. Roads would reopen. Factories would resume production. Anything consumed now could be purchased again because wealth had always turned money into replacement property.

Gao Mingrui hadn’t understood that the world had changed.

In fact, until Hanchuan forced him to confront it, neither had Zeyu.

"I can give you fuel contracts, overseas accounts or shares in both transportation companies," Gao Mingrui continued when Zeyu didn’t answer. "Whatever supplies you have upstairs can be replaced."

"No, they can’t," Zeyu said quietly.

Gao Mingrui frowned at the camera. "Of course they can." He said it like Zeyu was the crazy one.

"The farms producing the food are dying. The factories producing the equipment are closed. Your trucks can’t move without roads, fuel or drivers willing to leave shelter," countered Zeyu, repeating almost word for word what Hanchuan had just told him.

"That’s temporary."

Zeyu looked at Hanchuan before answering. "You don’t know that."

Silence followed the statement.

The facilities director turned away from the closed shutter. The others stopped shifting restlessly behind him and listened.

Gao Mingrui’s grip tightened around the axe as he struggled to reconcile the unbearable heat with the assurances he had been given. "The government said this would last several days."

"The government was wrong," Zeyu replied, his voice flat with exhaustion.

Gao Mingrui stared at him with open disbelief. "You expect me to believe the world is ending because you say so?"

Zeyu no longer cared whether Gao believed him or not. He indicated the corridor behind the other man with an impatient tilt of his head. "I expect you to walk away from what is mine."

Gao Mingrui dragged his free hand across his face. The irritant had left his skin red and swollen, but anger appeared to be overcoming the pain.

"We aren’t asking for everything," he said. "Let the children and essential personnel enter. When the temperature falls, we’ll leave, and you can buy more."

"No," replied Zeyu, the refusal coming much more easily this time.

Gao Mingrui had offered Zeyu the exact compromise he had suggested to Hanchuan. Hearing it from someone on the other side of the door exposed everything wrong with it.

There would always be a reason to admit one person.

There would always be a promise to leave later.

There would always be something offered in exchange for supplies that could never be replaced.

Zeyu moved closer to the communications wall. "This place is mine. Only those who I want to enter will be let in. You will never be on that list."

Gao Mingrui lifted the axe and pointed it toward the exposed conduits running along the corridor wall. "Then we’ll disable the cooling."

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