The stolen ambulance driven by Captain Danu sped forward, swerving to avoid the city's main thoroughfares, which were now choked with Aethel Corp military checkpoints and tactical vehicle patrols. After nearly half an hour of driving through old industrial tunnels on the outskirts of the harbor district, the ambulance took a sharp turn into a pitch-black freight railway tunnel draped in rusted cargo netting.

Screeech—Thud!

The vehicle ground to a complete halt behind a massive sliding iron door that slammed shut automatically the moment they entered, locking out the light and sound of the outside world. The atmosphere inside the chamber plunged into silence, broken only by the engine of the ambulance slowly dying down.

Zulfa pushed open the back doors of the ambulance and stepped out carefully. His legs still throbbed with a dull ache, but the surging adrenaline kept him standing tall. Naya hopped down right beside him, tidying her small backpack with a relieved breath.

"Where are we, Captain?" Naya asked, sweeping her gaze across the expanse of the room.

The space turned out to be an abandoned underground freight railway station long erased from the city's official maps. At the center of the vast chamber beneath a rusted steel-beam framework, a makeshift hideout had been erected. Several CRT-tube analog monitors displayed static security camera footage, while damp concrete walls served as a backdrop for an old military strategy map covered in red X’s, region pins, and red yarn stringing together the city's various vital nodes.

A handful of men and women clad in non-military resistance uniforms bustled busily in front of walkie-talkie communication radio consoles, monitoring military broadcast frequencies.

"Welcome to Station Nineteen. This place isn't logged in any bureaucratic server; even military satellites treat this sector as a dead zone," Captain Danu said as he pulled off his tactical gloves, walking over to a long wooden table in the center of the room. "Here, you're safe for the time being."

Zulfa walked up to the table, locking his gaze onto Danu. "Captain Danu... back in the ambulance, you said you were fired for investigating Aethel Corp's corruption. But what's the actual connection between that company and the chaos at the central square?"

Danu let out a long breath, pulling out a rickety wooden chair and sitting down at the head of the table. He gestured for Zulfa and Naya to sit as well.

"You think Aethel Corp is the supreme mastermind?" Danu asked rhetorically, locking eyes with Zulfa. He shook his head slowly. "That's the fatal mistake that's made dozens of professional investigators vanish without a trace over the past decade. Aethel Corp is massive, wealthy, and commands the city's infrastructure contracts... but they're merely a front company."

Naya's eyes widened in shock. "A front company? You mean there's another power above them?"

"Precisely," Danu answered gravely. "Above Aethel Corp's board of directors sits a secret council that controls the political maneuvers, economy, and even law enforcement bureaucracy in this nation. That elite faction calls themselves The Foundation Council."

Zulfa frowned, absorbing every word the captain uttered. "The Foundation Council... Mr. Haris briefly mentioned that council before he was murdered by the optical fiber entity."

"And they aren't interested in mere money or worldly political power," Danu continued, crossing his arms over the table. "Their long-term objective is to exploit pure energy leaking from other dimensions via the Ley-Lines, then 'harvest' it permanently to forge technologies of immortality and absolute mass control. Millions of citizens in this city are nothing more than statistical numbers or operational sacrifices in their eyes."

Naya bit her lower lip in mounting horror. "So Vian Pratama and those high-ranking bureaucratic officials... they're all just chess pieces for this secret council?"

"Correct. And for years, I've tried compiling proof of their involvement," Danu said with a bitter tone, tapping a wooden drawer on his desk. "I sacrificed my career, rank, and partner to investigate the council's old archives. But my greatest discovery... points straight to your own family lineage, Zulfa."

Zulfa stiffened. His heart hammered harder. "My family? What do you mean, Captain?"

Captain Danu pulled open the wooden drawer, withdrawing an aged, black leather-bound document folder yellowed with age. He laid the folder in the center of the table and slowly opened its pages before Zulfa and Naya.

On the document's first page lay a roster of scientists and primary planners from the late colonial-era urban design project, complete with tiny black-and-white ID photos and official signatures.

Zulfa looked down, studying the names printed there. Yet, his breath caught instantly in his throat the moment his eyes read a name clearly printed on the second line as Head of the Chief Architect Team for the Sector Main Locking System:

Dr. Aris Arditama.

The photo beside the name displayed a middle-aged man in a sharp suit wearing wire-rimmed glasses—a face strikingly identical to the reflection Zulfa saw in his mirror every morning. Zulfa’s biological father.

"Father... My father?" Zulfa whimpered softly, his voice trembling violently. His hands shook as he touched the aged paper sheet. "No way... My father was just a regular civil servant in the public works department before he died in a workplace accident ten years ago..."

"A workplace accident? That's the fabricated narrative spun by The Foundation Council to keep his mouth shut, Zulfa," Captain Danu said in a tone thick with deep pity yet iron firmness. "Your father wasn't just a standard planner. He was one of the primary architects of the dimensional containment project back in the day. But when your father realized the secret council intended to twist that locking system into a destructive energy harvester, he tried to stop them from the inside."

Naya looked at Zulfa with a sympathetic gaze, resting her hand over Zulfa's trembling fingers. "Zul... stay strong."

Zulfa stared at his father's photo inside the old document dossier, warm tears slowly pooling in the corners of his eyes, mingling with the rage burning in his chest. Every missing piece of his past snapped seamlessly into place: why his father frequently vanished late at night, why his family was always secretly monitored, and why his grandfather's journal had ultimately fallen into his hands.

"So... my father's death wasn't an accident," Zulfa said in a raspy voice laden with cold vengeance. "He was murdered by the council because he refused to be part of their conspiracy."

Captain Danu nodded slowly. "And now, the nation's number one fugitive isn't just you because of yesterday's incident, Zulfa... but because the blood legacy and knowledge passed down by your family are the sole keys left to stop The Foundation Council for good."

The underground hideout station fell dead silent. Outside, drizzle began drumming against the railway framework's iron roof, while deep within Zulfa's chest, an unyielding steel resolve was forged to crush the syndicate that had stripped away everything from his life.

What will be the very first move made by Zulfa, Naya, and Captain Danu after uncovering the truth about the Arditama family's involvement?