The high-rise trembled faintly as Jakarta’s skyline convulsed below, its usual tapestry of light severed into jagged black voids. Wei Long stood before a curved wall of holographic screens, her silhouette sharp against the emergency glow of backup generators. The air hummed with the static of scrambled feeds—security cameras rebooting, drones reorienting, the Nine Dragons’ digital empire clawing back control.
“Impressive,” she murmured, her voice a blade sheathed in silk. An obsidian bead—a relic from the ’98 purges—rolled rhythmically between her fingers, its surface etched with the serpent-and-dagger emblem. On the central screen, a heat map pulsed red where substations had failed. Eka’s handiwork. A crude but effective strike.
Sloppy, though.