Rudy’s Last-Minute Save

Rudy’s basement lair was a tomb of flickering screens and humming servers, the air thick with the burnt-copper tang of overheating circuitry. Three monitors glowed in the dark, their light carving hollows under his eyes as lines of code cascaded like digital waterfalls. Crumpled energy drink cans littered the floor, and a half-eaten packet of krupuk sat forgotten beside a taser rigged to the door—a makeshift alarm. His fingers danced across the keyboard, a staccato rhythm punctuated by the clatter of mechanical switches.

Come on, come on—

The Nine Dragons’ surveillance grid was a hydra—slice one feed, two more sprouted. Rudy had spent days worming into their system, piggybacking on Eka’s malware, but the encryption was Zhang Wei’s handiwork: elegant, brutal, and laced with traps. A notification flashed—Alert: Thermal Anomaly Detected. He zoomed in on the safehouse’s coordinates. Heat signatures spiked.

“No, no, no—”