[This is a side story taking place simultaneously with the main story. It does not affect or resolve the fates of the main characters in Volume 3.]
***
[Sirin – High-Rise Cabin, Bangkok Core – 1:35 p.m.]
The city is burning below and a sea of smoke and ruin stretching to the horizon is visible too.
From the 78th floor, this view I can see is merciless, towers cracking open like broken teeth, streets choking with abandoned cars and the slow, shambling tide of the infected. Bangkok is dead.
My city is gone.
It was my responsibility.
I sip my cold coffee now and it's bitter with the steady cup in my hand. My clean desk is almost surgical. It screens dark but humming faintly, papers neatly stacked and a single tablet glowing with encrypted feeds.
Power still flows here, courtesy of private generators and redundant systems I designed myself years ago. I designed many things in my prime which are now either useful or.... Let's not talk about that.
Up here, the moans don't reach because they cant. Just the wind rattling the reinforced glass walls and the distant crackle of fire eating what's left of the skyline.
I designed this tower myself. Not just the steel and glass but the entire ecosystem inside it. Labs are on floors 62–70, secure data vaults, clean rooms, bio-containment suites. When the first reports came in of unexplained fevers, rapid necrosis, aggression, I already had protocols running. I always have protocols.
A CEO doesn't survive twenty years in biotech without anticipating disaster. A scientist doesn't survive her own experiments without planning for failure. And I'm both.
As I stare out the window I watch a column of smoke rise where Suksa High once stood. Which is apparently ash now thanks to my old freind. But my son was there.
Win.
[1:40 p.m.]
The door clicks open and Naree, my executive secretary for nine years, steps in.
Her sharp heels on the marble with tight face, red rimmed eyes and a tablet clutched like a life raft.
"Ma'am," she says in thin voice which is almost breaking, "the streets are gone. Camps are failing. Hospitals are overrun. Aren't you going to do something?"
I don't turn.
My eyes stay on that distant plume of smoke.
"Do what, Naree?" I ask in calm and cutting voice.
"Send more teams to die? Throw money at corpses? Rewrite the virus mid-outbreak?"
She flinches, but her jaw sets.
"People are dying. Kids. Your—"
I raise a hand, silencing her mid-sentence. The city is a chessboard now, and I'm not losing yet. I've moved pieces, resources, personnel, contingencies. Win is safe and I made sure of it.
[1:45 p.m.]
Naree steps closer with tablet showing reports, casualty estimates and satellite stills of burning districts. "Hospitals are overrun," she says in cracking voice.
"Soldiers are bombing the schools. Survivors are begging on every channel and my son…" she hesitates mid sentence but then continues "Palm… he's out there somewhere. Please."
I turn and finally my eyes are meeting her eyes.
She's young for her position, aged thirty-two, but she's loyal, precise andunflinching in boardrooms. Her son, Palm has been Win's shadow since middle school. They're inseparable. Which is why I made sure they stayed that way.
The city's ruins don't scare me. I've built worse in simulation chambers. I've watched viral models burn through digital populations and still found the variables that let something or someone survive. I've spent years engineering stability in chaos. And when the real outbreak hit, I was ready or so i thought.
[1:50 p.m.]
The screens flicker to life, screens are mostly showing security feeds, satellite overlays and private drone streams. I lean closer with sharp eyes, searching the feeds for a confirmation.
Naree's voice softens and is almost pleading. "Ma'am, my kid… Palm… he's alone. Please."
I don't look at her. My fingers trace the edge of the screen, zooming on a grainy figure near the river with an axe in hand standing there. Another feed shows two boys in a clearing, one is swinging a pipe and the other curled on the ground.
Win.
Palm.
"Your kid is safe," I say, voice low, certain.
"With mine."
Naree freezes, catching her breath. This feeds show nothing but chaos, smoke and movement, but I know.
They're out there.
Alive.
Atleast for now.
[1:55 p.m.]
I turn back to the window and Bangkok's ashes swirl in the wind below, gray snow falling on the dead. Snow? In Bangkok? How is that even possible?
Naree stands silent and questions are burning behind her eyes, but she knows better than to push. She's seen me turn impossible research into billion dollar patents. She's seen me turn crises into opportunities. She trusts that I have a plan. She has to. The wind howls against the glass and the tower is trembling faintly. My coffee is gone cold, but my resolve isn't.
[2:00 p.m.]
I stand at the glass wall, city sprawling dead below. Naree is still there, waiting, hoping.
"Your kid is safe with mine," I repeat, softer and for final time. She nods slowly because trust, fear and desperation doesn't matter in this situation. The screens hum behind me, feeds cycling endlessly: fires, moans, a world ending in slow motion. But up here, I'm still in control until he finds me.
My son is out there, fighting, bleeding but still living. Palm is with him. They don't know how many layers of protection I've placed around him. How much I have done for him. They don't need to.
Not yet.