March 4, 2026
8:41 p.m.
Apex Pharmaceuticals Tower, 62nd floor
Monica Sterling had spent the last nine hours trying to buy her way out of dying.
Private jet idling on a runway in Teterboro (doors locked from the outside).
Two Blackwater-grade security teams (both found unconscious in the lobby at 7:12 p.m., zip-tied with their own cuffs, pants around their ankles, the words "TOO LATE" written across their foreheads in Sharpie).
A direct call to the Attorney General (went straight to voicemail, then the phone melted in her hand, literally, plastic dripping like candle wax).
Now she was alone in her corner office, city lights glittering like a million witnesses.
The wall of smart-glass turned pitch black.
The countdown appeared.
00:18:59
00:18:58
The distorted voice she already hated more than anything in her life.
"Good evening, Monica.
You look tired. Long day of trying to outrun math?"
Monica's voice cracked when she answered. She hadn't meant to speak at all.
"Please. Whatever they're paying you, I'll triple it. Ten times. Name the number."
Silence.
Then soft laughter, cold and short.
"I don't want money, Monica.
I want the 2,847 mothers who won't hear their kids' voices again to hear yours instead.
Let's begin."
The floor lights dimmed to blood red.
A single office chair rolled out from under the conference table on its own.
Strapped to it: a stainless-steel IV stand holding a clear bag filled with pale blue liquid.
Label on the bag: **Oxyvitra – 500 mg/mL concentrate**
Next to it, a legal pad and a Montblanc pen.
The voice again.
"Two options, same as always.
Option One: sit down, sign the full confession I've prepared (every memo, every falsified trial result, every doctor you paid to lie), then hook yourself to the IV.
The dose is exactly 500 times the lethal amount you claimed was 'safe.'
You'll be unconscious in ninety seconds. Dead in four minutes. Painless.
Option Two: refuse.
In which case the sprinklers open in thirty seconds and flood this floor with the same concentrate.
You'll absorb it through your lungs and skin.
That version takes between eleven and fourteen hours.
Your choice."
Monica backed up until her shoulders hit the glass.
The chat (projected huge on the opposite wall) was already past fifteen million.
**flood the bitch**
**$200k donated for the slow drip**
**make her read the names first**
Monica's knees buckled.
She crawled to the chair.
Took the pen with shaking fingers.
The confession was thirty-eight pages.
Every page already had damming evidence printed (internal emails, recorded calls, the actual lab results she buried).
All it needed was her signature at the bottom.
She signed so fast the ink bled.
Then she rolled up her sleeve, found the vein like she'd done it a thousand times in college, and slid the needle home.
The blue liquid started flowing.
Monica looked straight into the nearest camera. Mascara rivers down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so fucking sorry."
The Judge's voice, softer than anyone expected.
"Too late for them.
But noted."
Her eyes fluttered.
The heart monitor on the IV stand flatlined at exactly 8:47 p.m.
The feed cut to black.
Chat counter froze at 22,312,906.
Under the city, Jack Reyes stood on the sidewalk across from the Apex tower, watching the 62nd floor go dark.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He answered without speaking.
The distorted voice.
"Two down, Detective.
Sleep well.
Tomorrow we open the schools."
Click.
Jack looked down at the black envelope still unopened in his coat pocket.
He finally tore it open.
Inside, one card.