The narrow tunnels twisted into darkness as Irfan Shah, Aina Farisha, and Reza stumbled through broken maintenance shafts, breathless, bleeding, but alive.
Behind them, the echoes of Unit E-9's relentless pursuit still rumbled through the hollow steel veins of Site Zero.
They didn't have much time.
The portable drive clutched in Irfan's jacket was their only hope now.
A half-finished schematic.
A broken weapon.
But if they could power it up—
If they could disrupt the neural field—
Maybe they could shut this nightmare down before it consumed everything.
"There, ahead!" Irfan gasped, pointing.
A secured auxiliary lab loomed before them, the access panel still faintly lit under emergency power.
It was a miracle it hadn't been locked out.
Aina slammed her palm against the override.
The door groaned, resisting, then slid open.
They fell inside, slamming it shut behind them.
The lab smelled of ozone and cold metal.
Broken terminals blinked weakly, still pulsing with the remnants of abandoned experiments.
"Work fast, genius," Reza panted, crouching by the door, sidearm raised.
Irfan didn't waste a second.
He yanked open a wall panel, dragging out old power cables, connecting them to the portable drive.
The terminal flickered to life —
barely.
Meanwhile — deep within PHALANX Command
Agent Shadow stood before the tactical holomap, the city grid pulsing in red.
Multiple blinking icons indicated sleeper agents converging on Site Zero's exit points.
"Deploy Strike Teams Seven and Nine," Shadow ordered, his voice flat.
"Target priority: capture the drive. Kill the rest. No witnesses."
Operators moved without hesitation.
Across Kuala Lumpur, blacked-out vans roared to life, ghost operatives armed to the teeth speeding toward underground access hubs.
The net was closing.
And this time, there would be no escape.
Back to Irfan and team
The Neural Disruption schematics unfolded across the cracked terminal.
Half the nodes were corrupted.
The rest barely functioning.
"Can you activate it?" Aina demanded.
Irfan gritted his teeth.
"Maybe. If we bypass the core regulators and hardwire it through the auxiliary grid, I can trigger a localized pulse strong enough to disrupt the synchronization field."
He glanced at Reza.
"But it'll burn this whole lab when it fires. And us if we're still inside."
Reza smiled grimly.
"Then we better not be inside."
They moved fast.
Irfan reprogrammed the pulse emitter while Aina rigged the doors to delay anything coming after them.
Reza set up proximity charges at the main ventilation shafts — their only defense against being cornered.
Outside, the pounding steps of Unit E-9 grew louder.
The monster wasn't lost.
It was herding them.
Pushing them exactly where PHALANX wanted.
But Irfan had a different plan.
One final fracture in the web.
One chance to break the cycle.
The terminal beeped softly.
Pulse sequence: READY.
Irfan yanked the drive free.
"It's primed! GO!"
They bolted from the lab, sprinting through the crumbling maintenance corridors as alarms shrieked overhead.
Behind them, E-9 emerged into the lab doorway.
Its twin glowing eyes tracked the retreating figures for half a heartbeat.
Then the pulse detonated.
A concussive blast of white-blue light ripped through the lab.
Electrical systems fried.
Neural control nodes overloaded.
Security fields flickered violently.
And for the first time since awakening, E-9 hesitated.
Not stopped.
But staggered.
Confused.
Broken — even if only for a moment.
Above ground, Agent Shadow saw the pulse ripple across the tactical feeds.
For the first time, a faint line appeared between his brows.
A fracture.
Small.
Insignificant.
But there.
He pressed his gloved hand against the console, speaking into the comms:
"Increase pursuit density. I want them dead before they leave Sector Zero. No exceptions."
Far below, strike teams tightened their formation, closing in.
The prey had wounded the spider.
And now the spider was angry.
As Irfan, Aina, and Reza raced into the unknown tunnels ahead, the city above continued its oblivious pulse.
Neon lights flickering.
People sleeping.
Dreaming.
Unaware that below their feet, a war for their minds and souls was unfolding.
And three fugitives — battered, bleeding, but unbroken — were determined to light the first spark of resistance.
No matter the cost.