The THIRD FACE Universe—BEGINS

Where do you run to when you've reached the end of secrets?

“…a body came hurtling through the moonless night.”

Table of Contents for my stories & essays—the State of my Stack (2026.05.01)

Ishak flopped his long lithe body into bed and lay there quietly for a moment while Jessica read.

He sighed.

Jessica turned, “Hey.”

He smiled in that way he did, with only half his mouth, letting his hooded eyes do the talking.

She put her book aside and lay on his flatly muscled chest. He stroked her hair.

He breathed, “It’s-”

“-Date Night, yes, I didn’t forget.”

Ishak tugged the waistband of his boxers down to release his waiting erection. He twisted her long black hair around his fist and nudged her head downwards.

Within two minutes he came in her mouth.

She rushed to the bathroom to spit. She gargled, stripped, and washed herself in the bidet. But when Jessica returned to their bedroom, she was greeted only with snores.

“Date Night,” she muttered, “right.”

The guestroom bed was still rumpled from three nights ago. Buried at the back of the drawer, her vibrator.

***

Her phone buzzed and hopped on the bedside table. Jessica sat bolt upright and blinked hard to bring the screen into focus—her father-in-law. She drew the sheets around her naked body before answering.

“I’m sorry to call so late, Jessica. Jess—it’s your mother—Kailin has... collapsed.”

“W-what are you talking about? Mum’s at the resort, right?”

“That meteorite, that’s all over the news—it crashed there. Right behind her villa. The resort nurse said her condition’s stable, but she’s unconscious.”

“A meteorite hurt her?”

“You haven’t heard? A meteorite knocked down the back wall of your family unit. But Kailin was in the front veranda, having tea. She was not hit by anything… but she collapsed. There’s... there’s some kind of disturbance… in the air.” Jamal swallowed audibly. “The reports are patchy. Everyone’s gone to the end of the golf course. They, they described some kind of waves of heat and, and vibrations radiating from the crash site...”

“Where’s my mum now?”

“A medevac’s been called. Kailin’s on a stretcher with pulse and BP monitor attached—her vitals are fine—we, we’ll know more when they get her to the mainland.”

All of Jess’s social feeds were boiling over with chatter about X-2604 which had been predicted to make a near-Earth pass in April 2026.

The information was mind-numbing—collision with “an unknown stellar object” had deflected its trajectory… it entered the atmosphere at a “grazing” angle over Yunnan, passed Luang Prabang, Bangkok... Ablation trail of cosmic dust... multicoloured plume of gases sighted... Cosmogenic radionuclides—she let the jargon wash over her.

Then the first videos from out of Langkawi began streaming.

***

Jess pulled over to a screeching halt in front of the Gleneagles admissions entrance just as the hospital’s private helicopter whoop-whoop-whooped down onto its rooftop landing pad.

Jess found the emergency ward cordoned with “Do Not Cross” tape. The private medical centre’s security team were in full force, wielding tasers. She tried to explain her mother had been in the helicopter, that Kailin Wang-Horton chaired the Gleneagles Board of Trustees, but the guards wouldn’t let her through.

A tense thirty minutes later, an officer—“Siti” on her name-tag—strode up to Jess with a small plastic bag. “The distancing protocol was triggered. The doctors have your mother in a Hazmat sealed room, doing tests.”

“D-distancing? Hazmat—my mother’s been irradiated? What’s her condition?”

Siti handed Jess the bag—containing an N95-mask, a transparent visor, and plastic gloves. “Awake, and stable... I’m told that only the hippocampus of her brain is showing... non-threatening levels of radiation. Something... unknown.”

“Unknown?”

Siti glanced around and lowered her voice even though they were alone in the waiting area. “Never seen on Earth.”

Jess donned the protective gear and followed Siti through a transition room with double-acrylic airlocks.

Kailin lay dwarfed in the high-tech bed with a heavy blanket drawn up to her chin—pale and drawn but with a laser-focussed stare and tightly pressed lips.

She pulled her hands out to weakly clasp Jess’s gloved ones. “Girl, listen—you need to go to the office. I’ve set up protocols.”

“Oh, Ma, don’t talk about work now!”

“Shush—listen. We don’t know what will happen to me—the doctors have never seen anything like this. The protocols we came up with, Jamal and me, after Covid. Make sure he triggers them if I'm indisposed for five days. You are my proxy. You take my seat on the Board, not Jamal. This is important, Girl. Are you listening?”

“Ma, you look fine and you sound exactly like normal. You’ll be out of here in no time.” Jess looked at the taller of the two doctors hovering bedside. “Right?”

“Doctor Balbir, Ms Horton. Your mother’s vitals are indeed stable but, in the past half-hour, she’s slipped in and out of consciousness a few times. We’re monitoring closely...” Like a sales rep at a biomed expo, Balbir absurdly waved both hands at the devices beeping and flashing away. “…but until we know the exact nature of the radiation she’s been exposed to—some kind of ‘dark’ isotope—your mother will be warded with us, uhh, indefinitely.”

“What are you—’dark’ isotope? What’s that?”

“As I said, we don’t know—it may be some kind of ‘strangelet’... I’m sorry I’m not making this any clearer...”

“No.” Jess stomped down. “You’re not.” Stomp. “At all.”

An alarm chimed and the patient’s head lolled to one side.

Balbir gave Siti a look and the security head took Jess’s arm to gently steer her out.

The doctors turned to their instruments and barked instructions.

***

Six days later, Dr Balbir phoned.

“Your mother is coughing, her body temperature is too low, and her bloodwork shows a viral anomaly we’ve been unable to sequence. Investigators over at the Langkawi impact zone found a matching radiation signature alongside microscopic traces of a radiotrophic fungus. That’s, uhh, an extraterrestrial organism—very space-hardy—that feeds off radiation. The CDC has flown in a full team, and we’ve sent everything to their BSL-4 facility down in Singapore—the best outside Atlanta. We still don’t know how an aerosolized spore can behave like a contagious virus. One working theory is, a viral payload nested inside the fungal cell walls. But the anomalous energy fields are degrading the samples faster than we can analyze them. As instructed by your mother herself, we will keep you closely posted, with no censorship of our unfolding discoveries but—I cannot stress this enough—you must keep all this strictly confidential, Ms Horton. We don’t want to start any unnecessary, uhh, panic.”

Jess scoffed, “Too late, Doc—aren’t you following social media? All the international guests at the Feiyue? They flew home to every corner of the globe—after being given clean bills of health by our Kesihatan doctors—but now nearly every one of them has been admitted into their hospitals, coughing and fainting.”

Balbir grunted, “Of course we’re… aware, Ms Horton, and sharing data with those medical centres. I’ve been brought into the WHO X-2604 committee. At the moment we cannot confirm if the cases are linked.”

“How many?”

“96 resort guests, 72 staff members. Together with their immediate family members and declared close contacts who may have potentially been exposed, the WHO has over 700 individuals under round-the-clock observation in quarantine wards in 15 countries. No fatalities. We are not declaring a pandemic.”

“Yet.”

“Yet. There is a media lockdown. That is true. We will keep you informed up to the minute, Ms Horton.”

“I’m coming to see my mum today.”

“That... would be highly inadvisable.”

“I wasn’t seeking your advice.”

Jess stabbed End Call.

***

The boardroom was very cold and very bright. When Jess arrived half an hour early for the directors’ meeting, Jamal was already in the chairman’s seat.

A stockier, older, balder version of her husband, Jamal had known Jess since she was born, was in fact her de facto godfather. A flash of memory—with Kailin now in the ICU—to Daddy’s funeral.

Robert Horton, founder of Feiyue Expeditions, 1962-2006. It was Jamal who had held her hand. Jess recalled that Kailin just sat on the folding chair, not responding to the people who’d come to pay their respects. She even ignored the Minister of Tourism. Ishak was there too, and Zhenni of course. Zhenni who was always there, until she wasn’t. The three mouseketeers, Daddy used to call them. All of them nine years old.

“That hundred-yard stare,” Jamal said, breaking her trance. “Where are you?”

“Huh,” Jess shook her head. “Nowhere.”

He coughed softly into a handkerchief. “We should... be clear about your position... before the other board members arrive.”

She took a thin folder from her briefcase and slid it across the long Tapang tabletop. “Legal emailed me yesterday. I’ve printed and signed all the papers—I’m formally taking over Mum’s board seat, right? And her voting rights.”

“Yes, yes just so. At the board meeting we need to make some decisions on how to handle this PR fiasco. Then there will be an EGM on the 20th to report to our shareholders.” Jamal’s brows furrowed. “Jess. This continuity protocol—it was set up by Bob and me, right at the start, just after Feiyue was injected into my company and we took it public. After he had his, uhh, accident, your mum took over his positions...”

“And now you need me to authorise the next person who will take over my directorship, and be the voting proxy on those shares, right? If anything happens to me.” Jess folded her arms across her chest. “Continuity.”

“Continuity. You’re absolutely right, Girl.”

“Don’t—only Mum and Dad call me that.”

“Oh. Oh, I do apologise, Jessica. So... it would be natural to name-”

“Zhenni.”

“Wh... I’m sorry?”

“Zhenni,” Jess repeated. “Ishak will surely be your alternate and proxy. Zhenni will be mine. She’s my oldest friend.”

“I- I remember Zhenni well. But she’s not even in the country, and she knows nothing about Feiyue’s operations... or the resorts.”

“She’s a lawyer—a damned good one. She’s quick on the uptake. Zhen’s on her way home from Melbourne right now. Her flight lands in Singapore in a few hours.”

“I... I see you’ve thought about this, but please, before you sign anything, let’s discuss all the ramifications again once Zhenni’s back in town, alright? The other directors and the institutional stakeholders—especially the Nomura trustees—will, uhh, not be expecting a stranger to be nominated.”

“We can meet again with Zhen, sure, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m sure the third parties will see that Ishak’s entry would make this a monoculture.”

Jamal absently mopped his forehead with the same handkerchief. “Monoculture... really? Are... is everything okay...?”

“Oh please, Jamal. It’s nothing like what you seem to be thinking. This ‘twist’ is all Mum’s idea, and I agreed. Zhen took a bit of convincing, but the bottom line was, she wanted to come home anyway. She was scared of getting stuck in Australia again, in case the governments lock down air travel.”

“Alright, Jess.” Jamal sighed, having faced this obstinacy before. “Alright—I didn’t know you had visited Kailin again. Isn’t she in strict quarantine? I tried to see her two days ago, but they wouldn’t let me in. Not even phone calls.”

“Direct family only—Mum sends her love.”

Jessica Horton smiled and congratulated herself on lying so smoothly. Mum had been unconscious the whole time she had visited this morning. Unconscious since last Friday.

When the doctors weren’t looking, Jess had pulled her N95 down and kissed Kailin on the forehead. It was as cold as ice.

***

The Arrivals Hall at Penang International was unseasonably packed. The number of masks worn around Jess was disconcertingly like the bad times.

Then Zhen was upon her, with the dreaded bear hug. After Jess had been set back down on the ground and caught her breath, Zhen drew her head back and puckered up, waiting. Jess leaned in and kissed Zhen at the edge of her lips, close enough to taste her lipstick.

“God I’ve missed you.” Zhen looped her arm through Jess’s as they walked to the pickup lane.

“How long’s your leave?” Jess slowed and turned to look into Zhen’s eyes.

“Yeah that—we gotta talk.”

“Hunh—I have something big to ask you too.”

“Aite, I’ll go first—I quit my job. I told them I might stay back home for a while. The partners offered remote—even the courts are hearing cases by Zoom, in anticipation of new movement control orders—but I said yeah nah.” Zhen guffawed. “That’s ‘Strine’ for ‘No’.”

Jess shook her head, “Nah yeah, I know.” Then seriously, “My bombshell is, I’m nominating you as my alternate director on the Feiyue board, and proxy for my voting rights at any GM—in case anything happens to me.”

“...what?”

“I’m not kidding. And no, I’m not choosing Ishak.”

“...alright.”

“Alright? Just like that?”

“Yeah—just like that!” Zhen flashed her broad Julia-Roberts grin, “Anyway, nothing’ll happen to you, babe. This space virus thing is just a Soros-Gates hoax, right?”

Jess rolled her eyes and punched Zhen on the shoulder. “And Big Pharma are standing by with trillion dollar vaccines that don’t work?”

“‘Xactly! And the viral videos of mass admissions in China, Laos and Thailand—all AI-generated fakes.”

“Wait- what? I haven’t been following the conspiracy theories.”

“All the countries in the flight path of X-2604 after it entered the atmosphere? Before Earthfall in Langkawi. You must’ve heard—have you been under a rock or something?”

“Uh no, but mostly in the hospital, and the boardroom...”

“Oh... but you know what? Malaysian airports have upped their game—so now, instead of scanning for high temperatures, they’re catching low. That means you, babe, who’s always frozen in planes and airports, will be detained for sure.”

Jess just stared at Zhen with mock-horror.

“Yeah... but the Oz Public Health guys I’ve chatted with in the past coupla days?” Zhen’s smile faded. “They’re actually nervous.”

The two friends said nothing else as they waited on the bench for the Feiyue limo.

***

Jess came home to Ishak seated at the dining table with three bottles of beer—one in hand, the other two empty.

“Hey,” Jess arched an eyebrow and held up the plastic-wrapped char kuay teow, “did I keep you waiting for your supper?”

Ishak took a swig. “Dad told me about Zhenni. Did you think maybe—just maybe—to discuss that with me first?”

Jess slowly sat opposite him. “I had—have—good reasons. I’ve explained them to Dad.”

He set the bottle down with a bang. Ishak had always had a problem with depth perception. Jess assumed it was that. He said, “It’s still her. After she left, I thought...”

“Thought, what.”

“I thought, now she’s moved to Austrolia...” He had this quirky way of saying Australia, “…she wouldn’t be coming between us anymore.”

“Ish... Zhen is not “between us”. She never was—where’s this coming from? Is it because she came out a few years ago?”

“Came out a few years ago... Yeah right. To the world, and to me. But you... you were always in on it, right?”

“I don’t like what you’re suggesting...”

“I’m not suggesting, sweetheart—I’m saying you two have always had the hots for each other.”

“Two and a half beers in and you’re talking like this? What else have you been drinking?”

“Sweetie, I’m not drunk—and if I was, it wouldn’t change a thing.” Ishak roughly wiped beer from the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Zhenni never got over the fact that you chose me instead of her. And it looks like you never got over her either.”

“Christ—this is only business. What’s wrong with you? It’s not like I’ve named her in my will! You’re my husband.”

“Well! Now that you’ve brought it up... What does your will say? Did Little Jenny prepare your ‘last testament’? I’ve never seen it actually.”

“I’ll talk to you in the morning—” Jess sharply stood up, the legs of her chair barking across the tiled floor, “—when you’re sober.”

As she stormed to the guestroom, Ishak threw the packet of noodles across the kitchen with a splat. Jess thought, yeah beer’s too precious to waste on a melodramatic gesture—plus, Ishak would be scared of getting broken glass in his precious soles.

***

The room was cold, as if the air-conditioning had just been turned off.

Jess shuddered and opened the window to let fresh air in. Still in her blouse and jeans, she climbed into bed and drew the quilt over her face, obliterating the night.

In that cocoon, what Zhen had told her over dinner in the Kopitiam replayed.

Jess had said there was pushback from the Nomura director on their proposals to spin the narrative.

“One of Freehills’ big clients is from Kyoto. She told me once that the Japanese have these cultural concepts: tatemae meaning public behaviour, versus honne for their true feelings.” Zhen had leaned forward and cupped her chin. “Sounds like your director was showing his First Face in asking for full public disclosure about the number of contacts from Langkawi.”

“The First Face is what we expect to see?” Jess tilted her head, “So that would make his Second Face...”

“I mean, I wasn’t there, but I imagine his true feelings would be… to cover that shit up.” Zhen grinned, “He was counting on you all to read his mind.”

“That’s some Art of War shit.”

“The Book of Five Rings by Musashi, actually—that’d be the Japanese equivalent of Sun Tzu.”

“So, Japanese corporate warriors have to learn that everyone has two faces.”

“Mmm, some say three.”

“A Third Face? If your First Face is what you show the public, and your Second Face is the private one you show—presumably—your loved ones or your confessor... Who do you show your Third Face to?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody?”

“Nobody—not even yourself.”

Jess opened her eyes to find herself in a Ryokan. When she slid the Shoji screen aside, she found a woman in an electric blue kimono standing with her back to Jess.

She turned and her untied kimono flashed dark nipples, a shaved pubis. She wore split-toe cloth socks, and a thin wooden theatre mask.

Jess kicked off her shoes and stepped up onto the tatami mat without hesitation. The kimono fell, followed by the Noh mask. It was Zhenni, of course.

But when Jess reached out to embrace her, the Zhenni face began to slide off.

Jess cried “No!” into the blanket over her head.

A coughing fit tore through her chest. She was drenched in a cold sweat, her teeth chattering. Her watch glowed 03:33.

What the hell... Jess thought. And then remembered pulling down the N95 mask to kiss her mother on the forehead yesterday.

She shook her head, Nonononono. Where’s our thermometer? Pulling the sheets around her shoulders, Jess limped into the landing on aching joints.

The TV was on. Ishak sat on the sofa facing it.

Jess padded up silently. He was softly snoring. An uncapped, nearly empty bottle of Macallan 15 stood near his feet. A shawl had slipped to his knees. Jess felt a pang of tenderness suddenly at her husband’s helplessness. She drew the shawl up to cover his shoulders...

And shrieked when he suddenly grabbed her.

Ishak’s eyes were bloodshot and glazed from the booze but they smouldered with an ancient resentment. The hand wrapped around her wrist scorched, but Jess realised it was her own skin that was ice-cold. Black curtains were drawn over her eyes and removed, twice, three times. Did she pass out? No, nothing had changed. Her husband’s whisky breath on her face, his manicured fingernails digging into the skin over her hammering pulse... and through that incendiary contact-

Images.

Memories, but not hers.

His.

She was looking through his eyes.

Herself, Jess, in a sky blue smock in Kindergarten, bob-haircut, gap-toothed smile. Ishak's little heart thumping.

Time jumps forward.

She’s now in a green and gold Malay wedding outfit, a jewelled tiara pinned in her hair, face so serious, reciting her wedding vows, hand on the Quran, stumbling over the Arabic.

Splayed out before his face, her cunt unfurling to his tongue, her fingers in his hair. She’s fascinated—turned on and shocked at the same time—she’s never seen her own sex up close like this.

She feels her fingers digging into his scalp, feels his erection painfully caught in a downward position in his tight tuxedo pants.

Her face flushes, they are in one of the Hilton toilets, outside the wedding reception hall.

His idea, to fuck just before the ceremony, and she goes along with it. She always goes along with it.

Jess is Ishak, throbbing with lust.

Throbbing now with jealousy.

First year of High School, Zhen in her dorky glasses with the black plastic frame and thick lenses that make her squinty eyes even squintier.

The three mouseketeers. Walking home from school, Zhen entwines her fingers around hers, Jess’s, while Ishak trails behind.

He spins in front of a mirror and a barre. Demi-pointe, fouetté. These are terms she doesn’t know. Again and again, forcing his leg to whip faster and faster, until in anguish he falls, spraining his ankle.

His sweat drips from his bare chest, drips onto the polished parquet of the studio.

Seething, in his grandma’s kampung house now, roosters crowing outside the shuttered full-height doors, a ceiling fan wobbling overhead.

Rose syrup, delicious, but this was Ishak’s favourite. It turns Jess’s stomach with its cloying sweetness and two-ringgit perfume smell.

Pak is there—Ishak’s father. And Nenek—nearly blind but crafty. This must have been their eighteenth year, just before his grandmother died.

Pak says, It’s arranged. He’s pulled strings, got that dyke a scholarship to do law in Austrolia. Six years for a Master’s. Zhenni’s single mother wouldn’t let her pass that up.

Nenek’s chewing betel nut, expertly sends a powerful jet the colour of bruise-blood into the tin spittoon between them.

You have our blessing, boy, she says. Even though she’s not of the Faith.

Pak nods. It will keep the company in our family... in case anything happens to Jess.

Pak is suddenly old. The boardroom is exactly as Jess saw it earlier today—same whiteboard bullet points, same carafes of lemon water. The last director has left, and Ishak has been waiting in the adjoining office.

Pak is shouting, spittle flying. That dyke is back.

Deal with her.

“Deal with her.” Jess cried and came back to Earth with a thud.

She looked around wildly, to find herself on the living room floor. Ishak kneeling over her, sober now, concerned. He pressed a hot, wet towel against her forehead. Jess recoiled—it felt like an iron.

“What- what did you say?” Ishak, lost. “Y-you blacked out, and fell... did you hit your head?”

“What did your father mean, ‘deal with her’?”

***

Jess powered down the pre-dawn streets of Georgetown at nearly a hundred, to Zhenni’s family condo in Ferringhi. Palm Court used to be a fashionable address but now stood dwarfed by the glass-fronted beachfront towers with rooftop infinity pools.

Their unit was on the 14th floor—marked 13A for the superstitious residents—facing the carpark. Jess could pick Zhen’s bedroom out in the dark, having waited several nights below—bicycle at her feet—for the signal: three flicks of the light meant the coast was clear for a midnight visit.

The balcony doors slid violently apart. A body came hurtling through the moonless night and landed with a sickening crunch on the poured concrete floor.

It had plummeted in what seemed like slow-motion. Thanking a god she did not believe in, Jess had seen it was a man. He had fallen in complete silence.

Forcing herself to look into the bulging eyes—in a skull smashed like a melon—it was no one she knew. He wore leather gloves.

***

“Don’t touch me!” Zhen shouted when Jess burst through the front door. She was sitting on the floor, wearing only a Pikachu t-shirt, knees drawn to her chest, hugging herself. “I have the virus.”

Zhen quickly pulled her t-shirt up as a makeshift mask over her nose and mouth. Jess lowered onto her knees as if calming a skittish animal. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine!” Zhen allowed herself finally to cry. Through wracking sobs, she said, “I mean... I’m alive.”

“That man, who fell from here...” Jess looked at the open balcony doors, “...he came to… hurt you, right?”

“He came to kill me!” Zhen shouted. “I woke up to his hands around my throat.”

“How... how did you-”

“He was too strong. I couldn’t kick him. I grabbed at his hands—they were gloved. I dug up along his arms and then...”

“Then... what?”

“I don’t know. I thought I blacked out, but when I could see again, he was still strangling me. His skin was...”

“Burning hot?”

“Yes! Yes, how did you- it felt like I'd touched a hot plate. He felt it too, and let go, then slapped at his wrist. He said, sejuk.”

“Cold...”

“He pulled out a knife from behind his back,” Zhen looked towards the corner of her bedroom. Jess’s eyes followed, to the glint there. “I shouted Maznah, and he froze.”

“You... you saw that name. In his head.”

“It was insane but, as he was trying to kill me, he was begging forgiveness, except he wasn’t speaking to me, he wasn’t saying a word but, through his eyes, I saw an old woman—heartbroken.”

“His mother.”

“That’s what he said, shocked. ‘My mother—how? No one knows who I am!’.”

“You saw an opening.”

“Yes, and god help me.” Zhen’s face crumpled. “I took it. I told him, if he hurts me, Maznah will die. I said that twice.”

“And then...”

“...and then he ran to the balcony. And jumped.”

They remained in silence for awhile.

Zhen dropped the handful of t-shirt she’d bunched over her face—showing thumb-shaped bruises on her throat. “You have it too.”

Jess could not meet her eyes. “I have it too.”

“That’s how you knew I could read the killer’s mind.”

“I think you were seeing his memories.”

“I caught it off you.”

“Yes. I, I kissed my mum. In the hospital. I don’t know how to say… how sorry I am.”

“‘Sokay.” Zhen hesitated. “I… remembered something else, when I touched him… This is important, the killer was, was…”

“…hired by Ishak.” Jess finished what Zhen struggled to say.

“You know? Fuck, I’m sorry, babe.”

“It’s… it’s over. Between us. Ish… he never loved me.”

“Everything’s insane! I made contact for two seconds. Three, tops. But scattered snapshots of his whole life… poured through. I’m… remembering them now, as him. It’s like, fragments of the killer live on in me.” Her eyes bugged.

“Jess… there’s half a million Ringgit worth of Bitcoin in a portable drive in a locker at Komtar Bus Terminal.” Zhen found her phone lying on the floor next to her bed and thumbed a string of characters.

“I’m looking through his eyes, Jess, at his phone, right now. This is the unlock code for the crypto-wallet.” Tap-tap-tap. “And this is the locker number.” Tap-tap. “And this is the combination to open it. I'm sending the text to you.” Tap. “This is evidence… isn’t it?”

Jess just leaned in and said, “No more lies.”

The tears welled up again in Zhen’s eyes, “What… what are you saying?”

Jess offered her hands, “No more lies, for either of us.”

Zhen took her hands. Neither found the other burning hot, or freezing cold.

Ishak flops into bed, nudges Jess’s head down to his crotch.

Hot semen squirts against the back of her throat.

Jess reaches for her vibrator in the guestroom.

As wave upon wave of shattering orgasm ripple through, it’s Zhen in her mind.

It was always Zhen.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

***

A banner unfurls across a muted screen, “CNN News Highlights”.

Masked protestors charge down an inner city street, police in riot gear retreat. A few shops without steel shutters have their windows smashed. A car is on fire. A man wearing a Native American war bonnet manoeuvres his wheelchair around a sputtering teargas cannister. A sign mounted across his rear handles reads, “No More Lies, Mayor Kolchak”.

Cut to a montage of one-second clips from TikTok, of people from around the world shilling bottles of pills and syrups to cure X-2604.

Cut to a media scrum around a swarthy man being led into a French courthouse by armed police. His hands are cuffed in oven mitts: “X-2604 Blackmailer First Prosecution Under Code Pénal—Violation du Consentement”.

Cut to a split-screen—one side a photo carousel (Brian Cox, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Brian Greene, and others); the other side a text box:

Prominent physicists posit that Blocktime is the Natural State of the Universe—that everything that has ever happened and will ever happen is happening in a state of Perpetual Present—and all the Virus has done was to open our minds to see Time in its Simultaneity. That the next Phase in Mutation might lead to our ability to Remember the Future.

Cut to an ad from Grab Malaysia: “World-first drone only inner-city food delivery—initial rollout Penang and Kuala Lumpur”.

Cut to a title card: “Amanpour—a CNN Exclusive Interview—with X-2604 Patient Zero Jessica Horton”.

We open with a bird’s eye view of a paradisiacal island: “Malaysia”.

Zoom-in fly-by over a luxurious resort: “The Feiyue Alpha, Langkawi”. A multilevel pool with its own massive artificial beach, a series of connected party tents, and a sprawling golf course—all deserted.

As we reach the back of the grounds, the superimposed text now reads: “Ground Zero—Earthfall of X-2604”. A long queue to approach, then walk around a cordoned crater against the back of a partly-demolished chalet. The people are all masked. A handful of them wear full hazmat suits. Three wear reflective hardhats.

Cut to Amanpour. The TV is unmuted.

“A warm welcome to our special guest, the new CEO of Feiyue Expeditions, Jessica Horton.”

Cut to Jessica, unmasked, ungloved—behind her, full-height bay window views of the Andaman Sea. “Thanks for inviting me, Christiane.”

“Viewers, do stay tuned because, right after this interview, Jessica will join host Fareed Zakaria in a global roundtable with our other exclusive guests Elon Musk, Wang Chuanfu and Mukesh Ambani, the CEOs of xAI, BYD and India’s Reliance Industries.

“Jessica, we’ll be hearing more from you in that CNN Business Special on how corporations around the world are pivoting during this new crisis. It has of course hit Feiyue’s Asia-Pacific tourism business even harder than Covid-19 did.

“But, forgive me, I just had to lead with that startling footage... of tourists—pilgrims, even—visiting the Earthfall site.” Amanpour lifts an eyebrow, “What’s going on there?”

Jessica laughs softly, “Just supply and demand, Christiane.”

“Sure, sure—that’s part of the business pivot, which you’ll be going over in detail later, but... I see hazmat suits and... tinfoil hats? Is it safe?”

“The WHO and NASA have verified, half a dozen times, that the meteorite vapourised on impact, and all residual “dark” or “strange” radiation has completely decayed. The site has been declared 100% decontaminated, but many visitors have requested hazmat suits and, umm, lead-lined headgear... so, we’ve provided them.”

“Supply and demand.”

“Just so.”

“At the end of our interview, I’ll read a few selected questions sent in by our viewers. But there’s one from James Luo—a fellow Malaysian—that I found too good not to ask first.”

“Shoot.”

“The truth, it turns out, did not set us free—where do you run to when you’ve reached the end of secrets?”

Jessica turns her head and holds out her hand.

“You stop running.”

Off-screen, Zhenni takes it.

“And you surrender.”

THE END

Exciting announcement—this tale begins the Third Face shared universe—stay tuned for short stories about this Pandemic of Truth, coming from some of your favourite writers soon!

If you enjoyed this, please like and share. If restacking, please avoid spoilers. Thank you.

Table of Contents for my stories & essays—the State of my Stack (2026.05.01)

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