Time passed. July 2.
Morning in Bangkok; dawn had only just begun to break.
The Bank of Thailand building was ablaze with lights.
The conference table was piled high with crumpled wastepaper and empty coffee cups.
Ministry of Finance officials sat facing the central bank governor. Both were deathly pale, their hair disheveled.
The foreign exchange reserve figures had reached an extremely dangerous red line.
They could not hold on any longer.
A few hours later, a brief official statement flashed through Reuters and Bloomberg terminals, spreading across the globe in an instant.
Tokyo, Sega Headquarters, the Investment Department's private trading room.
The electronic clock on the wall ticked over to nine in the morning.
The entire trading room was silent as the grave.
Only the faint hum of machinery filled the air.
Hoshino stood before the control console, clutching a freshly printed news dispatch in his hand.
The paper had been crumpled out of shape.
A trader abruptly shot to his feet, knocking over a cup of water on the desk.
Water spilled across the tabletop, but no one paid it any mind.
"Director Hoshino! The Bank of Thailand has announced it is abandoning the fixed exchange rate system and adopting a floating exchange rate!"
The moment the words fell, the Thai Baht-to-US dollar exchange-rate curve on the giant screen drew a long, straight green line downward.
A catastrophic plunge.
There was no buffer, no resistance.
The Thai baht's defenses had collapsed completely.
Hoshino snatched up the internal phone on the desk and dialed the Managing Director's Office.
"Managing Director, it's collapsed."
Less than a minute later, Nakayama Takuya pushed open the trading room door.
He walked to Hoshino's side and watched the wildly flickering numbers on the screen.
In the time it took them to verify the news,