The city loomed ahead, a mass of dark towers piercing the cloudy night sky.
Kuala Lumpur had never felt this cold to Irfan Shah.
Even with the neon lights flickering above the wet streets and the distant rumble of traffic, everything seemed… distant.
Like the city had shifted while they were underground, and now, nothing was quite the same.
Rain fell steadily, masking their presence as Irfan and Aina Farisha emerged from a hidden maintenance exit near the industrial district.
They moved quickly, heads low, blending into the scattered groups of late-night workers and stragglers.
The data drive pressed against Irfan's side inside his jacket, a constant reminder of what they now carried—and the danger it invited.
LUCIA's voice whispered in his mind:
"No active trackers detected. Pursuit delayed by structural collapse within facility."
They had bought time.
But not much.
"Where now?" Aina asked, glancing around cautiously, her soaked jacket sticking to her arms.
Irfan didn't answer immediately.
His mind was already scanning possibilities.
Their apartments were compromised.
Public places were risky.
They needed somewhere quiet. Hidden.
Then he remembered.
"Follow me," he said, pulling Aina down a narrow alley between two rundown factories.
They navigated the labyrinthine backstreets until they reached an abandoned substation half-sunken into the ground.
A relic from a time before the city expanded into a megacity.
Irfan knelt by a rusted panel and tapped a sequence into an old keypad.
Click.
A small hatch opened, revealing a cramped staircase descending into darkness.
"Seriously?" Aina muttered, but followed without hesitation.
Inside, the air was thick with dust and decay.
Broken furniture, scattered wiring, and old tech parts lay everywhere—remnants of Irfan's old underground workshop, forgotten since he had moved above ground.
It was perfect.
Nobody would think to find them here.
Irfan secured the hatch behind them and powered up a single battery-fed lantern.
The dim light flickered to life, casting long shadows on the cracked concrete walls.
For a moment, they just stood there, breathing heavily, letting the adrenaline drain from their bodies.
Aina broke the silence first.
"We need to figure out our next move. Fast."
Irfan nodded, sinking onto an overturned crate.
He pulled out the hard drive and set it carefully on the ground between them.
"We have evidence," he said slowly. "But evidence means nothing if no one believes us—or if PHALANX silences us first."
Aina crouched across from him, her face serious.
"So we expose them. Hack into public channels. Leak the files. Make them run out of shadows."
Irfan met her gaze.
"They'll hunt us harder if we do that. Once the world knows, they'll know who started it."
Aina smiled faintly, that familiar reckless glint in her eye.
"Good. Let them come. We're not the same scared kids anymore."
Irfan couldn't help but smile in return, despite the gravity of their situation.
For years, they had trained separately, mastering skills few knew they had.
Now, it was time to bring those skills together.
It was time to fight back.
He opened a side compartment in the workshop, revealing an old cache of equipment:
signal jammers, encrypted routers, EMP grenades he had built from scrap.
Primitive compared to PHALANX's tech—but it was a start.
Aina rifled through the gear, nodding approvingly.
"We need more," she said, pocketing a jammer. "And we need allies."
Irfan leaned back, thinking.
Not many people could be trusted.
In fact, trust was a liability now.
But he had a few contacts from his days exploring the deep net—people who hated secret organizations as much as he did.
"I know where to start," he said quietly.
Outside, the rain intensified, hammering against the ruined roof above them.
The city around them pulsed with indifferent life.
But in the shadows, something new was taking form—
two fugitives against an invisible empire.
And tonight, their war began.