The World Ends In 27 Days

The underground garage filled faster than Jingwei could count the arrivals.

Vehicles stopped wherever space remained, blocking marked lanes and access routes. People emerged carrying suitcases, office water coolers and children wrapped in damp towels.

Every person had received some version of the same message: Rong Security had cooling beneath its headquarters.

The number reached 34 before Jingwei closed the vehicle ramp.

A reinforced gate descended across the entrance. The first car stopped beneath it, forcing the system to reverse before the steel barrier crushed the roof.

Zeyu studied the blocked ramp. "You’ll have to move that vehicle before you can seal the entrance."

Jingwei activated the garage speakers. "Reverse the car beneath the gate and clear the ramp," he ordered, allowing none of his urgency to enter his voice. "This entrance is closing."

The driver climbed out instead. He looked directly into the nearest security camera, revealing a face Jingwei recognized from Rong Security’s financial division.

"President Rong, we were told the underground shelter was open," the man protested, raising his voice toward the speaker. "Our families are already inside the garage."

"It isn’t open," Jingwei replied as he displayed the government shelter route across every garage screen. "The Dongan Sports Complex is accepting transfers. Follow the eastern service road and use the underground entrance."

The man stared at the route in disbelief. "That’s nine kilometers away."

"Yes," Jingwei confirmed without pretending the distance was safe.

Other people began gathering beneath the camera. Their questions overlapped until the garage microphones reduced them to an indistinguishable roar.

Inside the main shelter, Rong Jianfeng opened an internal video connection to the training center. Manager Zhao appeared on the auxiliary screen with his granddaughter still held against his chest.

"You told them to come here," Rong Jianfeng accused, his anger carrying clearly through the connection.

"I told my department that the training center had cooling," Manager Zhao admitted defensively as he adjusted the child in his arms. "I didn’t know they would forward the message."

"You sent it to 14 people," Zeyu pointed out as he examined the message history. "They sent it to 53 more. One of those people posted the location in an employee group containing 700 members."

The number silenced both protected areas.

Jingwei opened the employee group. Messages continued appearing as people asked which entrances remained accessible and whether relatives could enter.

He deleted the location, but hundreds of people had already seen it.

Shichen studied the underground levels. "The training center can support 64 people if you maintain the current equipment assignments," he explained while marking the limits of its cooling system. "Combined with the 24 in the main shelter, the maximum protected population is 88."

Jingwei looked at the total.

Eighty-seven people were already inside.

"One more," Xinyi whispered from beside the main shelter’s camera, her disbelief visible in her face. "We can take one more person."

"No," Jingwei corrected, although the refusal tightened his chest. "The final space is the safety margin if someone becomes ill or the equipment consumes more water than projected."

His sister looked toward the 34 people trapped inside the garage. "How do you tell them that a number matters more than they do?"

"You tell them before they waste the time they still have." Jingwei forced himself to reopen the garage speakers. "The protected areas have reached capacity. No one else will be admitted. Leave now if you intend to reach the government shelter."

A woman pushed through the gathering crowd with an infant held against her chest. Jingwei recognized Chen Liling, one of the scheduling supervisors responsible for coordinating overseas security deployments.

"Young Master Rong, please." Chen Liling leaned toward the camera, her voice breaking as she adjusted the cloth protecting the baby’s face. "My apartment has no power, and the cooling center near us closed. I worked for your family for 11 years."

Jingwei remembered approving her maternity leave.

He remembered the company gift sent when her child was born.

But none of those facts created more water.

"The Dongan shelter has medical support," Jingwei told her, keeping his voice steady for both of them. "Take the route on the screen."

Chen Liling looked toward the closed maintenance entrance. "You have cooling inside."

"We have enough cooling for the people already admitted," Jingwei replied, forcing himself not to look away from her.

"You let Manager Zhao inside," Chen Liling protested as she held her child closer.

"He arrived before the protected area reached capacity."

The answer sounded cruel because time had become the only difference between them.

Chen Liling covered the baby’s face as she began to cry. "Please don’t make me take him back outside."

Su Lihua turned away from the camera. Xinyi lowered her eyes, while several people in the training center began demanding through the internal communication system that Jingwei make an exception.

Rong Jianfeng listened to the rising argument before facing his son.

"One mother and an infant won’t destroy the shelter," he insisted, his tone restrained by the woman crying on the other side of the system.

"No," Jingwei agreed as he examined the population model. "But the next person will ask why she entered when they didn’t. Then the employees with children will demand priority, followed by the elderly and the injured."

His father glanced toward the people listening behind him. "We can control them."

"You couldn’t control the first 68 long enough to decide who moved into the training center," Jingwei reminded him, closing the population model before the numbers could tempt anyone into changing them. "You won’t control hundreds after they learn the door opens for the right story."

The silence from Hanchuan’s side of the table became impossible to ignore.

Jingwei looked toward him.

Hanchuan showed no satisfaction at being proven right. His attention remained on Zhiyi, who had finished breakfast and begun reviewing the converted training center’s power consumption.

This wasn’t a lesson Hanchuan had wanted his friend to learn.

It was simply one he had known the world would teach.

Chen Liling returned to her vehicle. After securing her child inside, she reversed away from the closed gate.

Others began following her.

The first car beneath the barrier finally moved. Jingwei lowered the reinforced gate immediately and locked the manual controls against outside access.

Some vehicles turned toward the eastern service road. Others remained parked inside the garage, their occupants unwilling to risk the Heat despite the warning that no door would open.

Xinyi watched them divide. "Some of them are staying," she told her brother, fear making her voice smaller.

"They’re choosing the garage over the route," Jingwei replied as he reduced unnecessary lighting to prevent the underground temperature from rising.

"They think you’ll change your mind."

"I won’t," Jingwei stated with a certainty that left no kindness for his sister to mistake as hesitation.

Xinyi looked at him differently after that.

Jingwei had spent his adult life building companies that entered dangerous places and removed other people from them. His sister had never seen him look at someone waiting for rescue and refuse to provide it.

Neither had he.

The portable cooling units reached the training center 12 minutes later. Shichen helped seal the final shutters, while Zeyu rerouted the cargo movers to collect the remaining water tanks. Qinghe sent instructions for treating the child’s heat exhaustion using the medical supplies already inside.

The converted space stabilized at 31 degrees.

It was too warm for comfort but cool enough to keep 63 people alive.

The main shelter held 24.

Their supplies would last nine days.

Su Lihua sat beside Xinyi once the immediate work ended. "What happens after nine days?" she asked, unable to keep the fear from her voice.

Jingwei examined every Rong property remaining within reach. Warehouses, training sites and operational bases appeared across the map, but most stood beyond roads that were already becoming unusable.

"I don’t know yet," Jingwei admitted, refusing to give his mother another false assurance. "But you’re alive today. I’ll use today to find an answer for tomorrow."

Su Lihua nodded and placed her hand against the camera as though she could touch him through it.

This time, Jingwei lifted his hand and placed it against the screen.

Eighty-seven members of his family and company remained alive beneath Rong Security headquarters.

He had bought them nine days.

What happened on the tenth would depend on what kind of man the Heat forced him to become.

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