The quiet night in the underground freight station felt suffocating. The rhythmic sound of dripping water from a fractured iron roof framework fell against small puddles on the concrete floor, echoing hollowly. Across the long wooden table illuminated by a single dim, yellow-tinted emergency hanging lamp, the aged, black-leather-bound document dossier remained wide open.

Zulfa sat frozen in his rickety chair. His gaze was hollow, locked straight onto the black-and-white photograph of his father, Dr. Aris Arditama, smiling stiffly behind wire-rimmed glasses. Beside the photo, his father’s dark blue handwritten scrawl looked meticulous—as though the man himself were sitting right across the table, ready to explain everything.

Yet, no explanation came. Only a bitter truth that slammed into his chest like a sledgehammer.

"So... all those childhood memories of Father constantly working late at the municipal office... of how he often came home with bruised hands and exhausted eyes..." Zulfa whispered hoarsely, his voice trembling so violently it was barely audible. "That wasn't because of normal overtime? He was risking his life down there, trying to hold back the monsters harbored by this country's elites?"

Naya, sitting beside him, looked at Zulfa with tear-filled eyes. She reached out, gently wrapping her hand around Zulfa's tightly clenched fist resting on the table. The youth’s skin felt ice-cold.

"Zul... please, don't bottle this up inside," Naya spoke in a soft, aching tone, trying to channel warmth. "Seeing this truth must be completely shattering for you. But know this—your father wasn't a traitor. He was a hero fighting entirely alone amidst a rotten system."

Zulfa turned slowly, fixing Naya with a gaze loaded with deep pain and profound confusion. "A hero, Naya? If he was a hero, why did he have to die alone ten years ago? Why was I left to live a lie, thinking he was just a model civil servant, while out there, people labeled him a fugitive or part of a corrupt council?"

Zulfa’s voice rose, laden with a buried anger that finally breached the surface. He yanked his hand from Naya's grip, burying his face in both palms. His breath heaved, his chest rising and falling as he fought back the sobs choking his throat.

Captain Danu, standing at the head of the table with his arms crossed over his chest, watched the interaction with a sorrowful expression. The middle-aged man let out a long breath, a wisp of smoke from an unlit kretek cigarette lingering between his fingers.

"Your father was indeed alone at the end of his life, Zulfa," Danu said in a calm, heavy baritone. "That document in front of you is a draft resignation letter wrapped as an open threat written by your father to The Foundation Council a week before his death. He refused to continue the extradimensional energy harvesting project because he knew its fallout would obliterate this city. And because he refused... the council permanently silenced him."

Zulfa clenched his fists until his fingernails dug deep into his palms, leaving crimson crescents. Guilt, longing, and vengeance warred within his chest. All this time he had thought his own suffering as a hunted fugitive was the peak of misery, never realizing his father had carried a vastly heavier burden in the past.

"I won't let Father's death go to waste," Zulfa declared in a quiet yet fiercely cold and resolute voice. He looked up, locking eyes sharply with Danu. "If The Foundation Council thinks they can erase the Arditama name just like that, they're dead wrong. We're going to tear that council down to its roots."

Silence blanketed the underground hideout. A heavy, dense tension hung in the air, matched by the newly forged steel resolve of the young engineer.

Yet, amid that emotional reflection, Naya—still scanning the final pages of Captain Danu's old document dossier—suddenly froze. The girl's index finger pointed toward a page wedged tightly behind the dossier's back cover.

"Wait... Captain Danu, have you thoroughly examined these documents?" Naya asked, her voice pitching up with curiosity.

Danu frowned, stepping closer to the table. "The back pages? Those are just logistics appendices and annual budget logs from the old colonial projects. Why do you ask, Naya?"

Naya didn't answer right away. She pulled a small magnifying glass from her jacket pocket, bringing the lens down over the bottom corner of the appendix page, which bore a faint embossed seal.

"This isn't just a standard budget log," Naya whispered with eager excitement, her eyes widening as she read microscopic text hidden beneath specialized transparent ink. "Look at this! There's a physical address and a secret vault code stamped directly by the central finance department!"

Zulfa leaned in closer, studying the tiny line of text Naya indicated. "What address is that?"

"The Financial Archive Headquarters at the National Bureaucracy Building," Naya answered, looking back and forth between Zulfa and Danu with a triumphant smile. "This document proves that all the dark money flows, the original roster of The Foundation Council members, and the proof of dimensional energy harvesting transactions aren't stored on hackable digital servers... they're physically archived as secret paper records above ground."

Captain Danu widened his eyes, grasping the monumental significance of the discovery. "The National Bureaucracy Central Archive Building... That place is the administrative heart of the city. Centuries of vital state records are locked away tight inside."

Naya tidied up the documents, slipping them back into the folder with utmost care. She stared intently at Zulfa, reigniting the fire in the youth's eyes.

"Zul, if we can infiltrate that archive building and steal the physical roster of the secret council, we'll have legitimate proof to expose them before the public," Naya stated firmly. "It's the only way to clear your name and avenge your father."

Zulfa looked at Naya, then shifted his gaze to the ancient military strategy map hanging on the hideout wall. Every shred of doubt in his heart had vanished, replaced by a focus sharp as a knife's edge.

"Then," Zulfa said quietly, rising from his chair to straighten his tactical jacket. "Let's gear up. We're going to smoke them out right above ground."