3:47 a.m.
Special Investigation Division Operations Room.

All lights—on.
All screens—active.

Four faces.
Four names.
Four lives.
One identical ending.

Lin Bing.
Hong Yu.
Tan Xin Yi.
Su Mei Mei.

—All died by stairways.
—All leaned against pillars.
—None struggled.

Too clean.

Clean enough that it didn’t feel like death.
More like—something had been taken away.

“Report.”

Yong Tin Kei did not sit.

He stood.
Hands pressed against the table.
Like a blade embedded in place.

Sum Kwok Tong stood before the screen wall.

No wasted words.

“The first batch of air samples has been analyzed.”

A gesture.

The screen shifted.

A complex spectrum appeared.

Like a forest of noise.

But—

too ordered.

“This is not perfume,” Sum said.

Silence.

“Perfume evaporates. Layers. Diffusion.”

“This—has structure.”

He tapped the display.

Molecular chains expanded.

“What you’re seeing—composite volatile organic compounds.”

“Fig leaf accord. Orange blossom. Herbaceous wood.”

“All normal.”

Pause.

“The problem—lies in the ratio.”

The screen zoomed.

A thin curve lit in red.

“This compound—”

“Should not exist in commercial perfume.”

“Poison?” Chang Hsin-Yan asked.

Sum shook his head.

“Not in the traditional sense.”

“It behaves more like—a trigger.”

The air tightened.

“What does it trigger?” Lee Wai Hing asked.

Sum looked at him.

“Human response.”

“Neural. Respiratory. Possibly—consciousness.”

“Like code,” Tan Chih Lin said softly.

Sum nodded.

“Yes.”

“Like code.”

Yong Tin Kei spoke.

“Explain.”

Sum took a breath.

“This structure isn’t a single toxin.”

“It’s more like—a set of instructions.”

“Delivered through smell.”

“Carried through neural pathways.”

“And then—executed.”

Silence.

“What does it execute?” Chang asked.

Sum didn’t answer immediately.

He switched data.

“We compared physiological data across all four victims.”

“Cardiac cessation—near identical timing.”

“Respiratory failure—near identical.”

“Neural signal patterns—”

He stopped.

Then:

“Highly synchronized.”

“Synchronization?” Yim Bing said coldly.

Sum met her eyes.

“Like running the same program.”

The room fell heavy.

“So,” Lee said slowly,
“They weren’t poisoned.”

Sum nodded.

“They were—shut down.”

No one spoke.

Air moved quietly through the vents.

Carrying—

a trace of something that might have been scent.

Yong Tin Kei looked at the screen.

For a long time.

Then:

“If this is code—”

“Someone wrote it.”

Tan Chih Lin was already working.

Soft keystrokes.

Fast.

Screens multiplied.

“I’m tracing the molecular structure.”

“No full match in database.”

“But—”

He paused.

“There are similarities.”

“Where?” Chang asked.

“Military chemical archives.”

“And—”

He looked at Yong.

“Black-market perfumery forums.”

The atmosphere shifted.

“Forum?” Lee frowned.

“Not perfume makers,” Tan said.
“They build—olfactory weapons.”

Yong Tin Kei’s eyes hardened.

“Name.”

A blurred tag appeared.

KARAM.

The room temperature seemed to drop.

“Terror organization,” Yim Bing said quietly.

“Transnational.”

“Specializes in unconventional weapons.”

“If they’re using scent as a delivery system—” Sum added.

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t need to.

This wasn’t assassination.

This was—

evolution.

Chang spoke again.

“Why these four?”

Tan was already cross-referencing.

“Schools—overlap.”

“Courses—overlap.”

“Projects—”

He stopped.

His expression changed.

“Say it,” Yong said.

“They all participated in the same system.”

Silence.

“What system?” Chang asked.

Tan zoomed in.

A project code appeared.

—BETA.

No explanation.

No description.

Just one word.

Yong Tin Kei stared at it.

His eyes shifted.

“Beta.”

He repeated it softly.

As if confirming something.

Or remembering something.

“This is not a normal academic project,” Tan said.

“Access level—abnormal.”

“Encrypted.”

“With hidden interfaces.”

“So they weren’t random,” Sum said.

“They were access points,” Chang concluded.

Everything aligned.

For the first time.

The scent—

was not the weapon.

It was the key.

And the door—

had not yet opened.

Yong Tin Kei straightened.

His voice was calm.

Command.

“From now on.”

“All information regarding Beta—”

“Classified Level One.”

He looked at the four faces.

At the single word.

“I don’t care who built this.”

“Or what they’re testing.”

Pause.

His gaze sharpened.

“This experiment ends here.”

The lights burned bright.

The air stayed cold.

And for a fleeting moment—

that scent returned.

Then—

it vanished.