Next day, in a coincidence, Lucy again met Mary, both of them being signed up with the same group tour company to guide them through the complex. Over next few days the duo bonded more while exploring the historic magnificent temples and palaces spread over the city. They also began hearing news coming out of China about a new virus causing flu-like symptoms and in some cases mortality. Not surprisingly, international traveling, a byproduct of globalization was beginning to ferry out this new virus across the international borders. Mary remembered hearing a hush-hush rumor about the emergence of this new virus at her workplace. Soon the sight of Chinese travelers wearing face-masks became ubiquitous in various tourist sites.
After leaving Agra, Lucy headed toward picturesque fort-city of Jaipur in Rajasthan. To her astonishment, she bumped into Mary again there. She mentioned to Lucy that the situation in China had taken a worst turn. Her employer had extended her vacation for additional few more weeks in order to disrupt the spread of the virus among working people. Thus, Mary decided to travel some more followed by a trip to Amsterdam to visit her family.
From Rajasthan, Lucy flew to Yangon, Myanmar. One morning, while scanning the news in the internet, she came across to a report about an open letter in the British medical journal Lancet. There was a desperate appeal for help to the international community from the exhausted doctors, nurses, and associated volunteers from the city of Wuhan in China, the hardest hit city by the virus. Two days letter, Lucy while still in Myanmar, received a message from Mary. Instead of going back to her motherland, she went back to Wuhan to volunteer in helping the citizens of her newly adopted country. An attached photo showed her encased in a protective gear, while volunteering to fit a breathing mask to a severely ill patient.
Lucy felt a kind of reassurance in humanity, irrespective of the dark political climate that was overshadowing her own country.