"Data transfer at eighty-two percent," Rangga hissed, his fingers flying across the laptop keys. The tiny screen illuminated his face with a ghostly blue pallor, highlighting the desperation etched into his brow. "Come on, you piece of junk, stay with me."
"They're starting to suspect the distraction, Rangga," Bima warned, his voice tight. He stood near the edge of the shack, keeping his posture stiff, projecting the practiced, icy indifference of a high-level corporate auditor.
Thirty yards away, the foreman, a hulking man with a jagged scar bisecting his left eyebrow, shifted his rifle. He wasn't looking at Bima anymore; he was looking at the shack’s rattling door. "Hey, suit!" the foreman shouted, his voice gravelly and impatient. "Why is the internal power surging? You said you were just running a safety diagnostic on the comms, not drawing enough juice to fry the grid."
Bima didn't flinch. He adjusted his glasses, smoothed his mud-caked lapels, and took a measured, arrogant step forward. "My process is proprietary, Mr. Hardono’s payroll. If you’re not comfortable with the regulatory requirements of this audit, feel free to submit a written complaint to the provincial headquarters. I’m sure they’ll love the details of your... unconventional security measures."
The foreman spat, his hand tightening around the grip of his rifle. "Regulatory requirements? We’re in the middle of a private concession. I don't see any provincial badges on you."
"That’s the beauty of it," Bima countered, his heart slamming against his ribs, his mouth dry as sand. "I don't need a badge. I have an injunction. Now, do you want to keep breathing, or do you want to be the one who hinders a federal site inspection?"
"Ninety-five percent," Rangga whispered from the shadows.
"Ninety-six," Bima repeated, his tone dropping into a dangerous, mocking register. "Tick-tock, foreman. Are you really going to shoot a corporate representative in front of your own subordinates? Think of the paperwork."
Suddenly, the foreman’s radio crackled. A frantic voice broke through the static: "Boss! We’ve got a massive data packet incoming to the provincial media board. It’s the land grant! Someone’s hit the override!"
The foreman’s eyes went wide, then narrow with murderous clarity. He looked at Bima, the realization dawning that the "audit" had been a stalling tactic. "You bastard," he roared, swinging his rifle up. "Get them!"
"Go!" Rangga yelled, slamming the laptop shut just as the progress bar hit one hundred.
The air erupted with the sharp, violent cracks of gunfire. A bullet splintered the wooden support beam right beside Bima’s ear, sending white-hot shrapnel into his cheek. He dove, scrambling blindly into the dense, tangled jungle brush, his lungs burning. Rangga grabbed his shoulder, yanking him toward the slope that led down to the churning river.
"We’re clear!" Rangga shouted over the roar of the water and the shouting of the guards behind them.
They slid down the embankment, the mud slick and unforgiving, tumbling into the freezing, dark water of the tributary. The current was lethal, dragging them toward the jagged rocks of the riverbed. Bima fought the weight of his water-logged blazer, his heavy boots acting like anchors.
"The bag!" Bima shrieked, splashing frantically. "Is the laptop in the bag?"
Rangga clutched the water-proof satchel to his chest, his eyes wide as he scanned the banks. "It took a hit! I felt it crack on the rocks during the slide!"
They dragged themselves onto a muddy shelf of the riverbank, gasping for air, their chests heaving. The jungle here was dense, the canopy thick enough to block out the moon, leaving them in a suffocating, damp darkness. Bima wiped the mud from his eyes, his hands trembling.
"We did it," Bima panted, a manic, jagged laugh escaping his throat. "The files are gone. The world knows. The injunction is live."
"It doesn't matter if we’re dead in the dirt, Bima," Rangga retorted, his voice strained. He pulled the laptop from the bag. He flipped the screen. It was shattered, a spiderweb of dead pixels and jagged, dark cracks across the display. He pressed the power button. Nothing. The machine was a brick.
"We have no way to track if they confirmed the upload," Rangga whispered, his voice dangerously low. "And we have no way to get out."
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rushing water. Then, a low, rhythmic hum began to build. It wasn't the sound of the wind. It wasn't the insect chorus of the jungle. It was a high-pitched, mechanical whine, the distinct, oscillating frequency of a high-end surveillance drone.
Bima looked up. Through a gap in the overhead branches, a tiny red light blinked, hovering motionless in the night sky. It wasn't a police scout. It was too precise, too silent, and it hung directly above their position, tracking them.
"They aren't just logging," Bima whispered, his blood running cold as he watched the red eye rotate, locking onto them. "They’re hunting. And they know exactly where we are."
Rangga drew his parang, the steel catching the faint, eerie glow from the drone’s lens. He looked at the river, a churning, black abyss, and then back at the dark wall of the forest where the mercenaries’ flashlights were beginning to cut through the trees like probing, hungry fingers.
"Bima," Rangga said, his voice void of hope. "They've locked the perimeter. There is no way out."
The drone descended, its hum increasing in volume, and the beam of a spotlight erupted from it, bathing the riverbank in a harsh, unforgiving white glare that left them nowhere to hide. The mercenaries’ voices were getting closer, shouting orders, their boots crunching against the dry leaves just yards away.
Bima looked at the broken laptop, then at the sky, realizing the bridge they had built was now a cage. "What do we do?"
Rangga didn't answer. He just stood up, stepped into the light, and waited.