Chapter Five: Forty Minutes

Xu woke in a janitor’s closet at the Data Center. The two men had not called police. They had taken his laptop, warned him not to turn weather into business, and vanished as sirens approached. His right shoulder hurt too much to lift. Someone pounded on the door. Gu Wei stood outside, blood on one side of his face, with a young duty engineer behind him. “What you sent reached Lin,” Gu said. “She contacted the press, the hospital’s infection-control and logistics teams. But the authorities will only issue a flooding advisory. They will not order an East District evacuation.” “Why not?” Gu looked at the monitoring wall. On the map, the underground mall resembled a blue pane about to sink.