The high-pitched wail of the crimson alarm pulsed wildly across every corner of the secret underground base, bouncing between stacks of shipping containers and the jittery, flickering holographic displays. The air in the room suddenly felt hollow, thick with a tension sharp enough to cut with a knife.

Gilang didn't budge from where he stood. However, his right fingers now gripped tightly onto the hilt of the salt-lined short sword tucked behind his back. His eyes stared piercingly at Renata, radiating distrust wrapped in a cold fury.

"So, what's your explanation for this sleeper tracker suddenly waking up, Madam Ex-Director?" Gilang’s voice dropped low, dangerous, and piercingly sharp as it cut through the blaring alarm. "You claimed you were a corporate outcast running for your life. But barely ten minutes after we sit down comfortably here, their security system instantly zeroes in on our exact coordinates. Care to call this a 'technical accident'?"

Renata widened her eyes, staring at Nara’s monitor screen, which flashed rapid strings of red code. Her breath hitched slightly, proving that the sudden appearance of the parasitic code was entirely unplanned.

"Wait, Gilang! Just listen to me first!" Renata countered firmly, stepping forward toward Nara’s console table while raising both empty hands in a universal sign of surrender. "I hacked the central data vault alone. Those military encryption protocols are immensely complex. Maybe... maybe there was a secondary firewall layer that automatically copied a tracking string onto every extracted backup flashdisk!"

"Classic excuse!" Gilang scoffed cynically, letting out a soft, mocking snort. "That's the exact same line every corporate rat utters when they get caught selling out their own friends to the board of directors. How am I supposed to believe you aren't digging an early grave for the three of us right now?"

Nara clacked away at her keyboard in a panic, cold sweat beading on the disheveled girl's temples. "Lang, wait a second! Don't shoot her yet! Let me verify if this is actually a trap signal or just an encryption glitch!"

"Hurry up and verify before those killer robot goons smash down this warehouse door, Nara!" Gilang snapped, never breaking eye contact with Renata.

"I'm trying!" Nara yelled in frustration, her fingers dancing wildly across the mechanical keys. "If this were an active trap, Ant Corp's satellites should've dropped a heat-seeking missile on our roof within ten seconds. But... hang on a minute..."

The atmosphere in the room froze dead in a suffocating silence. Rania covered her face with both hands in the corner of the room, her body shaking violently from sheer terror.

"Hang on what, Nara?" Renata asked quickly, snapping her head toward the computer screen.

Nara blinked behind her thick lenses, staring at the monitor with a furrowed, confused brow. "Huh? That's weird... This line of code... it's not transmitting our coordinates to the central satellite."

Gilang narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"That code... it's not an Ant Corp military tracker," Nara explained breathlessly, her eyes widening in realization. "It's a standalone ping-back trigger hardcoded specifically into Renata's own personal file directory! Meaning... this tracker isn't tipping off the enemy to our location, but... but it's some sort of dead-man's switch meant to wipe the flashdisk if anyone tries cracking it outside a secure network!"

Renata let out a long breath, her previously tense shoulders slumping instantly. She glared at Gilang with eyes blazing with suppressed irritation. "I told you, Gilang. I'm not stupid enough to walk right into the hands of a company trying to wipe me out. That line of code is my own personal automated safeguard to purge the data if any outsiders try illegally hacking the drive."

Gilang fell silent. He glanced sideways at Nara, who nodded rapidly, confirming the analysis on her monitor. Slowly, Gilang's grip on his sword hilt slackened. He exhaled a rough sigh, looking away with a small huff.

"Damn it... my heart almost gave out thanks to your paranoid security protocols," Gilang muttered crossly, letting go of his weapon entirely.

"If you aren't paranoid in the corporate world, Gilang, your head would've served as a board meeting centerpiece since last year," Renata retorted coldly, gracefully straightening her shirt collar as if nothing had happened.

Nara killed the warning alarm with a few quick keystrokes, restoring the room to normal silence broken only by the hum of server fans. "Phew... my heart almost leapt right out of my chest. Don't pull a stunt like that again, Madam Director. I'm way too young to die."

Though the tension eased, thick doubt still lingered heavily in the base. Gilang stepped closer to the console table, locking a sharp gaze on Renata. "Fine, let's assume I believe you aren't an undercover corporate spy. That still doesn't fix our main problem. Rania's phone blew up, we're officially public enemy number one in Sector 4, and this kid's brother is still comatose with his soul drained."

Rania peeked up from the corner of the room, her red, tear-stained eyes looking at Renata with a mix of desperate hope and lingering hatred. "Madam... you said my brother is on the list of test subjects inside the Ant Corp tower. Can he really be saved? Or... or is he already dead?"

Renata turned toward Rania. The cold expression on her face slowly softened, replaced by a deep, profound remorse. She walked over to Rania and knelt before the young girl.

"As long as the core server on the hundredth floor hasn't permanently uploaded his soul essence into a digital format, Wira is still alive, Rania," Renata answered softly, staring intently into Rania's eyes. "His physical body might be comatose in a hospital, but his soul is trapped in the tower's cyber-purgatory. I promise you... I'll help you take him back."

Gilang crossed his arms over his chest, observing the exchange with a cynical yet calculating look. "What's a corporate ex-director's promise trading for on the stock exchange tonight, Renata? Zero point zero?"

Renata stood back up, pivoting to face Gilang with a serious expression. "You can mock me all you want, Gilang. But you know as well as I do, without my help, you'll never even step past the Ant Corp main lobby, let alone rescue that boy."

"Fair point," Nara chimed in, raising a hand. "From the cross-validation data I just ran, the documents Renata brought match the digital footprints left on Wira's phone one hundred percent. The curse algorithms and encryption structures are an exact match. Meaning, this data is legit. If we want Wira back, we have to team up."

Gilang let out a soft huff, scratching the back of his neck. He hated to admit it, but Nara was right. As a street freelancer, he might be skilled at brawling against low-tier poltergeists or red-light district thugs, but tearing down a multi-billion-dollar corporate defense grid was an entirely different beast.

"Damn it... my life’s been a complete disaster ever since I answered that stupid app call," Gilang muttered under his breath.

He walked over to the console table where the silver flashdisk lay. Reaching into his jacket pocket, Gilang pulled out the pure-salt-lined short sword he had used earlier in battle, and with a decisive motion, laid the blade flat across the table right beside Renata's data storage device.

Renata blinked, staring down at the sword with a raised eyebrow. "What's the meaning of this?"

Gilang looked straight into Renata's eyes, all traces of doubt or joking gone from his face. "That’s the mark of my agreement. My primary weapon is on the table. As of this second, we aren't suspicious strangers anymore. We're an alliance."

Nara smiled broadly, clapping her hands lightly. "Oh, how romantic—a street freelancer's version of a ceasefire. I really should've recorded that on a hologram cam."

Rania wiped away her final tears, standing up slowly with a fresh glimmer of hope in her chest. "So... we're officially working together?"

"Official," Gilang answered briefly, shifting his gaze back to Renata. "Now that we're on the same team, let's talk logistics. How do we infiltrate the main Ant Corp tower without turning to ash before setting foot on the first floor?"

Renata smirked faintly, a confident smile bringing her commanding aura back into full view. She tapped the main holographic panel, enlarging a 3D projection of the towering Ant Corp skyscraper piercing the city clouds.

"That's a great question, Gilang," Renata said, typing a rapid series of commands that mapped the multi-layered defense grid surrounding the building. "You need to understand one fundamental thing: Ant Corp tower's defense grid cannot be breached through ordinary digital hacking, nor can it be smashed down with raw physical force."

Gilang furrowed his brow. "What do you mean? The building has private security squads and killer cybrids on every floor, right?"

"Worse than that," Renata replied seriously. "The entire outer perimeter of the tower is protected by a high-tier quantum-firewall directly synced with orbital satellites. Every time an unauthorized device tries poking around their network without a specific encryption key, the system automatically triggers a total data wipe and fries the nervous system of anyone trying to hack it."

Nara swallowed hard, her eyes widening as she took in the complexity of the defense diagrams. "Whoa... that's not just a firewall. That's a cosmic-grade military fortress!"

"Then how do we get in if every path is locked down tight?" Gilang asked sharply.

Renata looked back and forth between the two of them, then pointed to a hidden spot at the very bottom of the tower's holographic projection—a dark, ominous zone located deep beneath the city streets.

"We can't go through the front door, and we can't hack it remotely," Renata said quietly yet firmly. "We have to go in through the underground routes. And to crack that quantum firewall, we need a specialized piece of hardware that isn't sold in any legal computer shop in this city."

Gilang narrowed his eyes, sensing a bad omen. "What tool?"

"An illegal military-grade Quantum-Decoder," Renata answered firmly. "And the only place in this city where that kind of hardware is openly traded is inside the most dangerous underground occult black market..."

Renata paused, fixing a warning gaze directly on Gilang.

"...known to us as the Astral Artery."