The World Ends In 27 Days

Hanchuan knew how little the city’s assurance meant.

He remembered hearing almost the same promise in his previous life. The expected peak had been revised before evening, then revised again the following morning. Each announcement had treated the Heat as an extraordinary weather event that would end if everyone remained calm long enough.

No government had announced the end of the world.

The people of Yunzhou had no reason to imagine it for themselves.

When the emergency screen disappeared, the communications wall returned to the municipal traffic cameras. Zhiyi selected an intersection in the downtown core.

Most of the sidewalks were empty now.

Curtains covered the windows of apartments above the commercial buildings, while handwritten signs announced temporary closures below them.

A convenience store remained open, its customers entering one at a time and emerged carrying bottled water, ice and whatever food could be eaten without cooking.

A man stopped outside long enough to photograph the temperature displayed above a bank.

He held up his phone, laughed and hurried toward the shade.

"They still think it’s temporary," Qinghe murmured.

"There’s no reason for them to think otherwise," Shichen replied. He stood with his arms folded as he watched two apartment residents stretch a reflective emergency blanket across their windows. "People prepare for the emergency they’ve been told they’re experiencing."

The city had told them to expect several unbearable hours.

They would complain. They would post photographs of warped signs and melted shoes. They would argue over whether the warnings were exaggerated and blame the power company when their air conditioners stopped.

Tomorrow still existed in every decision they made.

Zhiyi changed the camera.

The private terminal at Yunzhou International Airport was surrounded by luxury vehicles. Drivers unloaded suitcases beneath the covered entrance while airport employees pushed baggage carts between families waiting for chartered aircraft.

Commercial flights had begun canceling when the runway temperature exceeded operating limits, but private operators were still accepting departures.

"They’re flying north," Zeyu observed. He leaned closer to read the destination board visible through the terminal windows. "Northern cities, mountain resorts and international routes. Anyone with access to an aircraft is trying to find colder weather."

"They won’t," Zhiyi stated.

The northern temperatures were rising more slowly, but they were rising.

A woman beneath the terminal canopy argued with an employee while two children sat on their luggage.

Their driver remained inside the air-conditioned car rather than helping. Behind them, another family stepped from a second vehicle and moved directly past the line under the protection of three airport employees.

Money had not created more aircraft.

It had only decided who would board the few that remained.

Hanchuan looked down at Zhiyi. She was seated close enough for his hand to rest against the back of her neck, but her attention remained on the terminal.

"Did your family leave Yunzhou last time?" he asked quietly.

"They bought four tickets," she told him, not bothering to look away from what she was doing.

Everyone understood what she had meant.

After all, five people had lived in the Qiao residence.

Hanchuan’s fingers went still against her skin.

Zhiyi didn’t offer an explanation. She selected another camera as though the answer had contained everything relevant.

Perhaps, to her, it did.

The municipal marina appeared on the wall.

The docks were crowded with people transferring water, fuel cans and luggage onto private yachts. Marina employees attempted to maintain order while owners demanded immediate departures. Smaller boats were already moving into the harbor beneath a sky bleached almost white by the Heat.

Zeyu studied the largest vessels with open interest. "That isn’t a terrible idea. The bigger yachts have generators, water systems and enough fuel to remain offshore for weeks."

It had seemed sensible before.

Hanchuan remembered all five of them boarding Zeyu’s yacht while the city lost power behind them. They had carried food, medicine and enough fuel to outlast any heat wave recorded in history.

For several days, they had believed they’d escaped.

Then the sea had stopped cooling the air. The deck became unusable. The desalination system overheated, the generators consumed fuel faster under the constant cooling load and every return to land became more dangerous.

They had come back to a city filled with bodies.

"It won’t work," Hanchuan stated.

Zeyu glanced at him. "Not indefinitely, but they don’t know they need indefinitely."

That was the difference.

The people boarding those yachts expected to return after the temperature dropped. The families at the airport believed cold cities would remain cold. Everyone else stayed in apartments and houses because leaving required money, transportation and somewhere safer to go.

The cameras moved beyond the wealthiest parts of Yunzhou.

In an older residential district, people carried mattresses into underground parking garages because the concrete levels were cooler than their apartments.

Residents crowded into the lobby of a high-rise whose management had promised that its backup generator would keep the cooling system operating.

Another camera showed a public housing complex with every window covered by blankets, cardboard or sheets of aluminum foil.

No vehicles waited outside to collect those families.

No private aircraft would carry them north.

They had been told to remain home, and home was all they had.

A banner appeared beneath the camera feeds.

YUNZHOU TEMPERATURE: 61°C

Zhiyi stared at it.

Hanchuan recognized the tension spreading through her body because it had entered his own.

Sixty-one degrees had been the highest temperature recorded on the first day of the Heat in their previous life. Power had failed across most of Yunzhou, but the temperature had stopped climbing before sunset.

They had believed 61 degrees was impossible.

Now they waited for it to become the limit again.

The convenience store camera froze.

When it refreshed, the lights inside the building were gone. Customers pushed through the entrance carrying whatever they had managed to buy while the owner stood behind the glass, waving his arms as though anger could restore the power.

A second district vanished from the municipal map.

Then a third.

On the remaining feeds, people stayed inside their homes and waited for the promised peak.

The temperature changed.

62°C

Hanchuan looked at Zhiyi.

Her face had lost all color.

"It wasn’t this hot before," she whispered.

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