The Venezuela Warehouse grew colder as the hours ticked toward dawn. Amidst the piles of cargo crates filled with weapons, Santino lay curled up, helpless. He was handcuffed with rough tease wire, the cable biting into his wrists, sending a sharp hiss of pain and warning. His expensive trench coat was now stained with warehouse dust, and cold sweat soaked his temples.
Ren sat on a stack of crates, his long legs dangling casually. He took a black cloth from his harness pocket and, with a calm, almost boring motion, began wiping his twin black daggers. The blades reflected the dim light, contrasting sharply with the relaxed movement of Ren's hands.
Beside him, the confiscated Handy Talky rested on a crate, the low, constant static chatter of patrols filling the warehouse, a noisy backdrop that reminded Santino of the outside world that was now unreachable. Santino could only hiss in anger and horror because all his pistols and communication devices had been stripped away, with no signal for help he could send.
"A decent shot, Santino," Ren's voice came, calm, almost a whisper in the silence. It was a complete contrast to the gunshots Santino had fired earlier. "But do you know, I was almost bored waiting. Firearms are loud and slow. I always appreciate the quiet and efficiency of a dagger more. Your business is decent, you just chose the wrong tools."
Santino snorted, his old eyes filled with hatred and confusion. "Who's pulling your strings? I have no business with low-level assassins! You have the wrong man!"
"I don't know if you're deaf or just pretending," Ren countered, ignoring the 'low-level' insult. The dagger in his grip reflected the dim light. "Killing you is easy; it's just momentary satisfaction. But I came to claim my rights that you took in the past."
Ren's orange eyes, which seemed to glow behind the shadows, stared intently at Santino.
"You traded me for money, Santino. You closed your eyes to my suffering in the orphanage, and treated that silver hair as an expensive commodity. Now, you will pay the real price," Ren continued.
Ren stopped wiping the dagger, then very slowly, scraped the tip of the blade in his hand across the surface of the wooden crate he was sitting on, creating a subtle, sharp grating sound in the silence of the warehouse.
"I fought desperately against the 'curse' of silver hair, and you casually enjoyed the sweet results."
The horror on Santino's face was now mixed with realization. He remembered the figure of a boy with rare silver hair whom he had sold over a decade ago.
"Y-you! That boy?!" His voice was choked with disbelief. Cold sweat poured down his temples.
"I wouldn't advise you to report me to the police," Ren continued, his tone steady. "It will boomerang on your illegal arms business. In other words, suicide."
That fact slapped Santino. He was a mafia boss, who, unfortunately, was currently caught between two threats he couldn't avoid: dying at Ren's hands, or dying at the hands of Rich City law. He swallowed hard.
"What... what do you want?" Santino asked, his voice cracking, surrendering to Ren's game.
Ren returned to his transactional mode. He tilted his head slightly, analyzing the asset in front of him.
"I need everything. Access to the financial network you're hiding, information on your connections within the elite circles, and most importantly, the secrets of my identity," Ren replied, his voice cold and professional again. "Starting tonight, give me the highest position—ah! I'm not asking to be the boss. But you and your subordinates must be under my heel."
Santino could not think critically. Although Ren's request sounded absurd, at this moment, his life and business were hanging by a thread.
"They need to know I exist, without needing to know who I am or where I come from."
Ren stood up from the crate, now towering over Santino. His slender yet deadly figure cast a giant shadow on the warehouse wall.
"In return, I will be your insurance," Ren asserted. "I can ensure your mafia stays stable and your business is safe from greedy rivals. But remember," Ren bent down slightly, the dagger in his left hand, held in a reverse grip, now gently touched Santino's nape—a reminder of what kept him alive. "One wrong step, one attempt at betrayal, or one word leaked about who I am, and you won't just lose your business."
Ren's eyes met Santino's, the reflection of the warehouse light in his orange pupils.
"All the people of Rich City will see your head hanging at the entrance gate of the Arena District. This transaction is valid until I decide to liquidate all your assets."
Santino had no other choice. In his heart, he cursed everything, including himself. Shamefully, he bowed low and accepted Ren's unreasonable offer, feeling the tease wire as if it were sucking not only his blood but also the remnants of his dignity.
After Santino spat out all the passwords and locations of the financial ledgers he was hiding—the price of his own life—Ren calmly released the tease wire binding him. No further physical threat was needed; what remained was a psychological threat that was far more absolute.
That same night, Ren did not leave Santino alone. He escorted the mafia boss out of the Venezuela warehouse, watching Santino's every step back to his private headquarters. A luxury cluster in the Arena District, whose perimeter was tightly guarded by elite agents.
Ren required immediate confirmation of this new obedience, a consolidation of power that had to be seen and acknowledged by Santino's inner circle.
The consolidation went without incident. Santino, with a tired body and a shattered soul, complied with every requirement. In front of his shocked trusted lieutenants, Santino handed over full authority over the organization's movements and assets to the cold, foreign figure.
"Listen carefully," Santino commanded, his voice sounding tired, his eyes avoiding Ren's gaze. "From now on, his order is my order. He will handle all our security and open new routes."
Santino took a heavy breath, before uttering the new title with palpable reluctance. "Never—not once—point a weapon or question the Young Master."
Ren stood in the corner of the room, only nodding slightly. Young Master. The title felt foreign, cold, yet carried the entire burden of the leverage he needed. There was no satisfaction, only calculation. The trauma of his past had become a cold entry ticket into Rich City's elite network. The path to Daniel, and the faction loyalists, was now wide open.
He just needed to walk, without looking back.
Merge District, Second Week of January 2324
The Merge District felt cold under the dominance of the early new year's night. Inside a secret bunker they called The Cube, Isaac sat stiffly in his ergonomic chair, his body slightly bent over the row of monitors radiating blue-green light. The silence in the room was thick, only broken by the soft hiss of the server cooler and the rustling of the optical keyboard.
Isaac was in a phase of quiet frustration; after a full year since the shift of government to modern Rich City, he still hadn't been able to replicate the digital backdoor he had created. Rich City's new firewall was like an invisible wall that kept rising.
Vera, sitting casually on the leather sofa, flipped through her tablet, but her eyes were more focused on Isaac's silhouette. She was sensitive to the subtle mood shifts in her friend—like the change in tempo of his finger tapping on the mousepad. Although she knew Isaac's digital intelligence was far above hers, she still tried to pull Isaac from the brink of a deadlock.
"How many times have you passed the same checksum point?" Vera asked softly, without lifting her gaze from the tablet.
Isaac, who had only turned twenty a few months ago, mumbled, "Thirty-seven." He didn't turn around, his eyes glued to the swiftly flowing line of hex code. "I know there's a way around here, Vera. This isn't just encryption, this is a completely different architecture."
Vera sighed, closing her tablet with a crisp click. She got up and walked to the small kitchen, separated only by a steel partition. She took two cans of low-alcohol beverage from the cooler—one for her, one for Isaac. Both had high tolerance for alcohol, but Vera still monitored their consumption, especially Isaac who was still tied to the machine and code.
Vera placed the cold can on the table next to the monitor, making sure Isaac saw it without having to speak.
"Take a break, genius boy," Vera said. She leaned her back against the steel partition, watching Isaac slowly sip the drink. "No need to rush; for now, we can take Economy Class contracts that don't require breaking through Rich City's new firewall."
Isaac's body slowly softened, his shoulders relaxing slightly after the cold sip. He leaned back, but only for a moment. As if a second away from the screen was a logical death for him, he quickly straightened up in his ergonomic chair, his hands returning to the keyboard. Vera could only snort softly, understanding.
The next morning, The Cube was still dark. Vera woke up on her bed located in the corner of the room, her first reflex was to look for Isaac. She found him in the same position, his face now looking exhausted under the monitor's light.
With a quick motion, Vera approached, ready to scold Isaac for staying up all night again.
However, before Vera could speak, Isaac mumbled. His voice was hoarse and barely audible, but filled with a pure tone of victory.
"Got it," Isaac muttered, his head slightly shaking from exhaustion.
Vera froze. "What?" she asked confusedly, all the scolding she had prepared disappearing in her throat.
Isaac forced himself to turn, his eyes red from lack of sleep, but his pupils dilated with adrenaline. He pointed to the monitor screen where a cold blue interface now displayed one bold word in its header corner, implying a name that had been hidden from his best hacks until now.
"I found it. Aegis. That's the new firewall Rich City is using."
Vera stepped closer to Isaac's monitor, staring at the lines of code he had successfully cracked—the remnants of the firewall that now had an identity: Aegis. Amidst the algorithm complexity, the name was displayed, simple yet weighty.
"I always said you're the most effective bug in Rich City," Vera praised, a faint smile etched on her lips. She touched Isaac's tense shoulder. "But your intelligence won't be useful if you die from overheating. Now, sleep."
This time Isaac obeyed. His body had indeed reached its limit of fatigue. He got up, walked sluggishly to his bed, and sank into a full nine hours of sleep. The satisfaction of successfully identifying The Cube's biggest stumbling block until now gave him a rare tranquility.
While Isaac slept, Vera took over his ergonomic chair. With her own skills—which were not as brilliant as Isaac's, but disciplined and methodical—Vera tried to continue the work. In those nine hours, she only managed to decipher about 30% of the Aegis structure. Enough to make Vera understand: this wasn't just a firewall; it was a digital work of art, a labyrinth designed with near-godlike intelligence. No wonder her friend had been plagued by frustration that almost drove him mad.
When Isaac finally woke up, he returned after showering and eating an instant bento, his face looking fresh. He immediately snatched back his chair and continued cracking Aegis, while Vera returned to her tablet on the sofa. She resumed the previously delayed Economy Class contract: fixing the web system of a small factory.
Suddenly, Isaac's voice broke the long silence filled by keyboard tapping and the humming of the server cooler fan.
"We have to steal it," Isaac said, his tone flat but leaving no room for discussion.
Vera raised an eyebrow, lowering her tablet. "Steal what? Besides a hacker, do you want to become a thief?"
"The Aegis data core." Isaac replied, without turning around. "I can create a backdoor untouched by Aegis, but I need its raw blueprint. We have to steal the data core to study it and upgrade our own creation, so we can resume operating on First Class contracts."
Vera nodded slowly. A First Class contract meant significant leverage in the modern era of Rich City. "I agree, if that's the goal for the future of The Cube."
"But we have an absurd logistical constraint." Isaac finally turned around. "The data core is stored inside the server port of an art gallery."
Vera frowned. "An art gallery? I don't understand."
"Me neither," Isaac admitted. "But I assume, maybe this is a tactic to distance the threat of data theft. A data core placed in the Prime Minister's building or a military base would cause trouble for their own cybersecurity team. An art gallery is a much less suspicious target."
Isaac stood up, freeing himself from the chair with a sudden movement, and immediately moved toward Vera sitting on the sofa. He stopped right in front of her, both his arms resting on the backrest of the sofa on Vera's right and left sides, fully locking her between Isaac's body and the sofa backrest. His slender yet tall figure now towered over Vera.
"And our worst constraint is the physical backdoor," Isaac whispered, his voice now more urgent due to the proximity. "That server port cannot be penetrated by me only through The Cube. We have to go and siphon the data directly from the location."
Vera looked up, staring straight into Isaac's light blue eyes. She understood the implication: this would be her task. Doubt began to creep into her mind, weighing the much greater risk of physical infiltration than hacking from behind a monitor.
Isaac saw that doubt. He leaned in slightly, his voice softening, trying to persuade her. "I will give you real-time instructions every step of the way. I need that data, Vera. We need that data. Only you can get close."
Vera snorted in annoyance, diverting her gaze—she hated herself for not being able to refuse the pleading tone tucked beneath Isaac's genius. Her hand tried to push Isaac's shoulder away, but she couldn't refuse. "Fine. I will give you your physical backdoor. What is the specific location of this hellish server port?"
Isaac smiled faintly, the first genuine smile since the Aegis firewall appeared.
"The 'God Hands' Art Gallery."