"Get ready, Naya. We're about to make our own entrance," Zulfa whispered sharply inside the dark confines of the ventilation pipe.

Without waiting for a reply, Zulfa pressed both boots firmly against the lower vent slats, and with a full, explosive shove from his core and thigh muscles, he slammed his soles straight into the rusted mounting bolts.

Clink... Crash!

The iron louvers covering the air duct blew outward instantly, ripping free from their mounts and crashing heavily against the director's office marble floor with a resounding clang.

The Bureaucracy Archive Director, busy shoving documents into the paper shredder, jolted in shock. He whipped around in unison, his eyes bulging wide as plaster dust billowed down from the ceiling.

Before the director could scream or lunge for the alarm button on his desk, Zulfa vaulted agilely down from the vent opening, landing smoothly on the marble floor before surging forward like lightning. He delivered a swift, flush, bare-handed strike straight to the director's jaw.

Thud!

The director pitched backward, crashing into his own desk and sending stacks of folders scattering before collapsing unconscious onto the thick carpet, his eyes rolling back in his head. The paper shredder beside him still whined softly, swallowing the final scraps of paper it had been chewing.

"Great job, Zulfa! Right on target!" Naya cheered from the vent opening above, then nimbly dropped down to follow, landing lightly beside Zulfa.

"Find the physical documents now, Naya! Before the guards outside realize we're in here!" Zulfa ordered briskly, his breathing heavy as he kept watch on the office exit.

Naya wasted not a single millisecond. She bolted toward the cluttered executive desk, swatting aside empty folder stacks until her eyes locked onto a thick, dark red leather-bound dossier resting inside an open drawer—the folder that hadn't yet met the paper shredder.

Naya snatched the dossier, flipped it open for a brief second to verify its contents, and let out a triumphant gasp.

"Got it, Zul! This is it! The complete roster of The Foundation Council members, the energy project financial audit, and the original sealed order covering up your father's case!"

"Great work!" Zulfa praised, gripping Naya's shoulder. "Now we need to get out of here via the emergency evacuation route before—"

Bzzzt—

Click!

Zulfa's sentence cut off dead.

Atop the director's luxury desk, the main computer monitor—which had been dark moments before—automatically flared to life. The computer's cooling fans whined loudly, and an emergency system window booted up entirely on its own without anyone touching the keyboard or mouse.

Zulfa and Naya froze, halting their retreat to stare back at the computer screen with deep suspicion.

From within the monitor, a holographic blue light beam projected a medium-sized three-dimensional image hovering above the desk. The projection formed the face of a young man in a light-gray suit with a cold, faint smirk deeply burned into their memories.

Vian Pratama.

Aethel Corp's director of operations stared straight at Zulfa and Naya from within the screen, as though standing right before them in the flesh.

"Good afternoon, Engineer Arditama... and Madam Assistant," Vian's hologram greeted in a calm voice echoing through the silent office. "You two are truly relentlessly persistent. Infiltrating the highest bureaucracy building, cracking the fifth floor, and neutralizing our director in under ten minutes. An exceptionally impressive achievement."

Zulfa clenched his fists, glaring daggers at Vian's holographic projection. "Vian... your dirty game is over. The physical dossier of the council members is in our hands!"

Vian's hologram showed zero panic. Instead, he let out a soft, amused chuckle, shaking his head with an expression of open mockery.

"Physical documents? Ah, that red leather-bound folder?" Vian spoke in a relaxed tone. "Please, take it and keep it safe, Zulfa. Did you really think stealing a stack of paper would expose our secrets to the outside world? You're utterly naive."

Naya furrowed her brow, clutching the red dossier closer to her chest. "What do you mean?! Don't talk nonsense!"

"I mean simply, Naya," Vian continued, the smile on his face slowly melting away into a lethal glare. "You two will never make it out of this building alive to hand those documents over to anyone. The emergency exits have been locked from the mainframe, and this entire floor is currently surrounded by thirty heavily armed elite troops."

Before Vian could finish his sentence, sirens wailed violently from outside the office glass window, followed by a heavy, thunderous thud from the corridor steel door outside.

Boom! Boom!

The security forces had begun breaching the outer door using tactical explosives.

"Enjoy the final moments of your escape, Engineer," Vian's hologram stated with a final, chilling smile before the computer screen blacked out entirely in a single blink. "See you at the bottom of the abyss."

How would Zulfa and Naya manage to escape the trap of the elite troops who had just blasted open the archive suite's outer door?