[LAWIMORE METALLURGICAL ANNEX (LMA), CENTRAL R&D BLOCK, LAWIMORE INDUSTRIAL PARK, CENTRAL SAMARATHA. ~01:10 AM]
The word damn echoed through Arya's mind, not as a curse, but as a scientific conclusion.
Gravity.
An immutable law of nature that had become both his enemy and his only escape.
Beyond the Eastern Emergency Evacuation Window of the LMA R&D block yawned a ten-meter drop, an absurd distance for an engineer to cross without calculations.
Below lay Dockyard Container Zone One, a brutal maze of reinforced concrete, steel crates and towering gantry cranes that loomed like skeletal sentinels guarding buried treasure.
BOOM!
The reinforced steel door of the laboratory detonated inward.
Three figures stormed through the smoke, Crisis Management Officers of the Lawimore Industrial Authority, clad in matte black tactical uniforms.
At their head was Barena.
Arya knew him.
Former marine. Now Chief of Security. A trained attack dog of THE NICKEL CHAIN.
Barena raised a high-velocity suppressed stun pistol.
Non-lethal, but able to act as career-ending for Arya.
"Stay there, Mr. Arya! Freeze!" Barena ordered, his voice cold as liquid nitrogen.
Arya didn't turn.
He must survived by thinking.
He didn't jump.
He calculated.
Arya grabbed a thick industrial condensate drainage hose mounted near the window. He knew its tensile limits. He wrapped it around his forearm, turning it into a fragile, illegal lifeline, an outright betrayal of every safety regulation he had ever enforced.
"Conservation of energy," he whispered, imagining Gilang beside him.
"Don't fight it! Use it!"
He stepped onto the window frame.
The thermal printouts and anomaly reports were clenched tight inside his fire-retardant jacket.
Then he kicked backward and threw himself into the void.
He fell.
...
The hose snapped taut with a violent jolt that tore a scream from his lungs. It shrieked in protest as his body swung wildly between the laboratory wall and the cargo façade, illuminated by the merciless floodlights of the dockyard below.
Above him, curses erupted.
A stun round slammed into the steel beam inches from his head, sending a bone-rattling hum through the structure.
Arya released.
He dropped.
He hit the top of a stacked pallet load and rolled hard, letting instinct and half-forgotten Silat drills absorb the impact.
Then he ran.
The container yard was a furnace corridor.
Heat from distant rotary kilns washed over him like a dragon's breath.
The roar of smelters operating at eight hundred degrees Celsius became the soundtrack of his escape.
Arya slipped beneath a container marked,
LITHIUMHYDROXIDE – HIGHLYTOXIC.
He moved through gaps meant only for reckless workers and desperate men.
Two CMM officers appeared ahead, blocking the narrow passage between transport units.
Arya didn't slow.
He diverted.
Spotting a high-pressure steam valve mounted along a container spine, he jammed a coin into the release notch and twisted.
WHHHOSSHH!
Superheated steam exploded outward in a lethal white plume.
The officers shouted and recoiled, blinded by heat and vapor.
Arya plunged through the fog without touching them. As he passed, he kicked a restraint chain anchoring a heavy pallet stack.
The chains collapsed with thunderous force, crushing down onto their legs.
The pursuit ended there.
Lawimore's own metallurgical infrastructure had become his weapon.
...
Arya sprinted toward the docks.
He avoided the main gate and instead targeted the far edge of Dock Three.
There, half-hidden in shadow, sat a neglected tugboat, scarred, rust-streaked, barely maintained.
STRONG5.
Inside the wheelhouse, an exhausted old captain slept in the pilot's chair.
Arya vaulted onto the deck. Blood soaked through his pant leg, but adrenaline burned pain into irrelevance.
He grabbed the ship's radio.
He didn't call anyone.
He transmitted a distorted whisper over Harbor Emergency Channel 16.
"Eastern Container Yard… massive ammonium nitrate leak… immediate lockdown and decontamination required… Gilang."
The name did its job.
A dead senior engineer would trigger protocol chaos, jurisdictional arguments, and precious minutes of hesitation.
The captain stirred awake.
"Hey! Who the hell are you? We're about to move!"
"Please," Arya rasped, gripping the console for balance. His hands shook, but his eyes didn't.
"They killed Gilang. I have proof. I need to get out."
The old man studied him. Then his gaze dropped to the blood-stained flash drive jutting from Arya's jacket, what remained of integrity made physical.
The captain sighed, started the engine.
He had seen too many lies in Lawimore.
"You're lucky, kid," he said quietly. "I was supposed to head north… but this place has smelled rotten for too long."
The tugboat lurched free.
"We'll drop you at Makars. After that, you're on your own. If you're smart, you'll disappear into Aurellia."
He glanced back once.
"May God protect scientists, because corporations never do."
Arya nodded.
Lawimore faded behind them.
The Nickel Cathedral glowed in the distance, majestic, radiant, poisonous.
Arya pulled Gilang's encrypted phone from his pocket.
A message glowed on the screen.
Aurellia. Capital District.
Contact Name: Rima
Location: The Clove & Carbon Café, Aurellia Central
Arya closed his eyes.
...