Lino Ilagan

  September 7, 2035

  NBI Headquarters

  The corridor stretched out like a vein, too bright, too clean, thrumming with the tired pulse of a government building that had seen too much and learned nothing. The walls smelled of bureaucracy and bleach. Under the buzzing fluorescent lights, Lino Ilagan walked like a man with a ghost behind him. Fast, focused, already ten steps ahead in a room he hadn't entered yet.

  Renz Samonte walked beside him, talking in quick, dry bursts. His voice had the cadence of someone who hadn't slept but didn't want to make a fuss about it. "We swept every site connected to Gino Sanchez and the rest of his old squad. Makati. Pasig. Taguig. Even that halfway-finished farm lot in Antipolo. All scrubbed clean. No bodies. No people. No trail."

  "But not empty," he added, tapping something on his phone.

  Lino arched an eyebrow. That was the signal to continue.

  "Two places had caches. One in a BGC condo behind a false wall. Another in a Quezon City office labeled as a consultancy firm. Assault rifles. Unregistered pistols. Flashbangs. At least three kilos of C4. We're still running the serials but most of it's clean. No prints. No smudges. Sterile as hell."

  "They're not running," Lino muttered. "They're staging."

  Behind them, Enzo Benedict Lao was speed-walking like a man being chased by his own paperwork. Phone in one hand, tablet in the other, eyes flicking between screens like he was waiting for the universe to email him back.

  "I burned one of my favors for that warrant by the way," he said, like it hurt. "Judge Lontoc. Got him to cancel his steak dinner with that Instagram dentist he's been seeing. She posted a story about it. Passive aggressive quote about justice. We owe her a fruit basket."

  Lino didn't look back. "You burned a favor for this?"

  Enzo nodded. "It was surgical. Warrant signed in ten minutes. Judge looked annoyed but intrigued."

  Lino didn't slow down. "Good. Burn another. Find me an angle on Binondo Heights. And Jiro Lim Uy. I want something ironclad. Give me something real enough to break through the rot."

  Enzo groaned, already typing. "There goes another one. These favors are turning into a religion."

  Renz picked up again. "We picked up one of Gino's crew. Elvin de Vera. Middle-tier logistics guy. HR on paper. Smuggler in practice. We got him from his girlfriend's apartment in Pasig. Didn't resist. Just looked disappointed."

  "Gino?" Lino asked.

  "Gone. Like the rest. Phones cold. Units are on it but they're not panicking. They've done this before."

  "They're Special Ops," Lino said flatly.

  "Ex Special Ops," Renz corrected. "Psych profiles so bad they had to invent new boxes to check. Torture-fetishist levels of unstable. Fucking lunatics."

  Lino's tone sharpened, without needing to rise. "And the Tondo fire?"

  "That's active," Renz said. "Still warm. Sarah's team is pursuing three persons of interest spotted at the scene, possibly tied to Gino. No IDs yet, but three male. We're pulling CCTV from the barangay hall and nearby sari-sari cams."

  "Did she get Pol out?"

  "She did. A little crispy, but alive. Stable. We've got him in a holding room downstairs. Quiet. Shaken."

  Lino let that sit for half a step. "Good. Tell Sarah to prioritize containment. If those three are Gino's people, I want them boxed in before sunrise."

  The hallway opened into the war room, glowing blue like a fish tank full of debt. Inside, analysts murmured into headsets, keyboards clicked like typewriter teeth, and the room thrummed with the coordination of controlled panic. Coffee cups. Stress balls. Digital maps glowing with angry red dots.

  At the center, the giant screen flickered with news footage.

  Tondo. Still smoking. Aerial drone shots panning over curled tin sheets and half-melted walls. Firemen crawling through the ashes. A burnt slipper in the foreground, too small for its tragedy.

  The text at the bottom of the screen read: TONDO SLUM FIRE: AUTHORITIES CONFIRM CASUALTIES.

  The time is 8:39 PM.

  No one was looking at the screen anymore.

  They were already dissecting the fire for meaning.

  ???

  Apolinario "Pol" Guerrero

  Somewhere in the NBI HQ

  The holding room used to be an office, probably for someone who once believed in things like memos and ergonomic chairs. Now it held only ghosts and a man trying very hard not to feel anything. The light above flickered with bureaucratic rhythm. On, off, on, off. As if deciding whether Pol deserved full illumination.

  He sat still. Back curled. Chin resting just above his chest. There was food on the table in front of him, the kind meant to comfort someone into cooperating. Rice, canned meat, an egg sliced by someone without conviction. He had barely touched it. The spoon and fork stayed wrapped in its tissue like a secret.

  James leaned against the wall. Watching him. Not pressing. He'd seen this before. People sitting in the middle of their own aftermath.

  "Pol," he said, gently. "Aling Rosa's safe."

  A pause. Nothing from Pol but the slow tightening of the fingers on his lap.

  "'Yung pamangkin niya?"

  ("Her niece?")

  James nodded. "Safe din. She was still in school when the fire started. Got nowhere near the scene."

  Pol gave the tiniest nod, like it hurt to do even that.

  "'Yung iba?"

  ("The others?")

  James looked away for half a second, then back. "We don't know yet. Fire's mostly out. But it's still chaos. No list. Not yet."

  Silence.

  The kind that fills the lungs with things heavier than air.

  Then:

  "'Pag... pumirma ako sa programang 'to... kasama ba sila?""

  ("If... I sign into this program... are they covered too?")

  James took a breath. The tired kind. The kind meant for saying truths people shouldn't have to hear more than once.

  "No. Witness Protection doesn't work that way. It only applies to the primary witness. Just you."

  Pol nodded again. Mechanical. His eyes were open but unfocused, fixed somewhere around the edge of the paper plate.

  The light above him blinked once.

  He tried not to remember. But memory doesn't follow instructions.

  It came anyway, leaking under the door. A memory of running. Not in fear, not really, more like refusal. The refusal to be pulled deeper. To be in the middle. To carry things with names and faces. So he had gone to Lawton. Said nothing. Left everything. And the moment he left, the people tasked to protect him had gone with him, like good soldiers following a ghost.

  Behind them: nothing but flame and opportunists.

  He didn't cry. Crying would have given it shape. Instead, he sat very still, as if stillness could freeze time and maybe undo the fuse.

  James had been watching all this unfold in silence. He could tell. The guilt, the way it curled up inside Pol's spine like heat.

  "It's not your fault," James said, voice even.

  Pol didn't answer. He didn't need to.

  The untouched food. The way he breathed like it hurt. The flickering light overhead trying to decide if he should be seen.

  It said enough.

  "It's not your fault," James said again, quieter this time.

  Still, Pol didn't respond.

  But something shifted, barely. Not in his face, but in the air around him.

  The flickering light gave a slow blink, as if bowing its head. The shadows on the wall leaned in. The room, such as it was, had run out of things to say.

  Pol looked at the food again.

  The rice was beginning to dry at the edges. The fried spam had that film on it, the kind that formed when food sat too long between hope and resignation. The egg was sliced into two tired halves. Someone had tried to make it look nice. Not out of pity. Out of obligation. Out of care. A quiet kind of kindness that wore a government ID.

  He imagined the person who prepared it. Maybe someone in admin. Maybe a tired mother who'd stayed late, microwaving plates for witnesses who wouldn't eat. Someone who didn't know his name, but still gave him a spoon, a fork, a folded tissue. Like it mattered.

  Like he mattered.

  It would be a waste, he thought, to leave it untouched. An insult to effort. To the anonymous hands that moved in the background just trying to keep things from falling apart.

  He reached for the spoon and fork. Unwrapped it from its tissue with deliberate fingers, like he was unfolding a letter.

  He scooped a bit of rice. Pierced a piece of meat. The egg, too. It tasted like nothing and everything.

  Like warmth in a room where nothing was warm.

  James didn't say anything. He just stood there, watching. As if to witness this act. This small, defiant choice to keep going, was sacred.

  Pol ate slowly. Not because he was hungry, but because someone had tried. And trying, in this city, in this kind of story, was the rarest kind of grace.

  ? ? ?

  Lino Ilagan

  NBI War Room

  It was 11:04 p.m. and the war room had calcified into stillness.

  The fire in Tondo had been reduced to sullen smoke. The ticker on the wall no longer screamed. It muttered. Someone had turned the volume down on catastrophe.

  Lino stood in front of the big screen like a man trying to stare past it.

  Beside him, Enzo Lao was seated, elbows on knees, phone in hand, typing with the intensity of someone hoping punctuation could fix the system. The blue light painted the room like an aquarium. No one spoke. The analysts were still at their stations, but the noise had drained out of them.

  Then Lino's phone buzzed.

  Unknown number.

  He answered. No words wasted.

  A girl's voice came through, breathless, nervous, urgent but not hysterical. She had rehearsed this call in her head before making it.

  "Sir? I don't know if you remember me, I'm Amy Rivera. Friend of Zaira Navarro. We met... sa faculty room ng UP Anthropology Department."

  ("We met... at the UP Anthropology faculty room.")

  Lino's memory clicked. Amy. The best friend. The last person to see Zaira in anything resembling normalcy.

  He didn't hesitate, pressed the speaker button. Enzo looked up immediately.

  "I've been doing my own... investigation," Amy said. "Following some of Zaira's notes. Just... things she left with me. I overheard something tonight. A conversation."

  She hesitated. Then pushed forward.

  "It was Jiro Lim Uy. I recognized his voice from his TikTok videos. He was meeting a man I couldn't identify. I was in the next room, and there was a vent between them. I didn't get video... and I know audio is inadmissible."

  Lino didn't move. The room had become airless.

  Amy's voice dropped a little. "They were talking about erasing CCTV. About... 'taking care' of a construction worker. They mentioned a fire in Navotas. Jiro used those words himself."

  Enzo snapped upright. Gestured to Lino silently. That's it. That's your warrant.

  "Where are you now?" Lino asked.

  "Outside The Zone. In BGC. My friend's still inside. I stepped out to call."

  "Would you be willing to give a sworn statement tonight?"

  Silence. The sharp kind. You could hear her breathe. Hear her calculate the shape of fear.

  "...Yes," she said. "Yes. I can."

  "Go to the nearest fast food place. Get off the street. Somewhere bright, with people. I'll send agents to meet you there."

  "There's a Jollibee across the parking lot," Amy said.

  "Good. Go there. Don't talk to anyone else."

  The call ended with a soft beep, like a judge tapping a gavel with his eyes closed.

  He turned to Enzo and asked, "Who's in BGC?"

  "Rocco, he's house sitting for an aunt."

  And with that Lino hurriedly typed a message on his phone, then hit send.

  He stood still, the silence settling around him like a robe. He slipped the phone into his coat pocket, the way a priest might slide a sacrament back into its box. Behind him, the war room droned on, Tondo's aftermath cycling on loop. Ember-pocked streets. Plastic tarps. Flashing reds and blues reflected in puddles slick with ash.

  Beside him, Enzo exhaled, not panic, not fatigue, but relief.

  "She didn't have a recording," he said. "Thank God."

  Lino nodded once. "She said she knew it'd be inadmissible."

  "Of course she did," Enzo replied, almost impressed. "She's a UP PolSci student. That makes her smarter than half the Senate and twice as careful."

  "She thought about it," Lino said. "You could hear it in her voice. That little pause, like she was weighing ten years of prison against five minutes of justice. She made the right call telling us there's no recording."

  Enzo let out a bitter laugh. "It's depressing that restraint is considered heroic now."

  He dragged a hand through his hair. "Which thankfully saves us about six hours of legal gymnastics and one miserable conversation with Internal Affairs. If she'd recorded that without consent, we'd be the ones testifying, against her."

  Lino crossed his arms, the lines in his brow deepening, not with confusion but with memory. Long, tired memory of previous disasters, each with their own poisoned evidence. "Anti-Wiretapping Act. Republic Act 4200. I've had cases fall apart over less."

  Then, quiet and flat: "I need the warrant."

  Enzo froze. "Tonight?"

  "Tonight."

  "Pol's affidavit only gets us Binondo Heights, Amy's affidavit gets us Jiro himself, we need to move tonight."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Boss," he said, throwing his hands up, "he's probably asleep. In silk sheets. With jazz on. Do you know how many favors I've used up this week? I practically owe Lontoc a dowry."

  Lino turned, his tone calm, matter-of-fact. "Then pay it. I want Jiro's name on that piece of paper before the sun comes up."

  "You're making me look clingy," Enzo muttered. "Last time I begged this hard, I was seventeen and grounded."

  Lino offered the faintest ghost of a smile. "You got out of that one."

  "Yeah, but I cried."

  "Cry now if it helps."

  Enzo stared at him. "You're lucky I enjoy suffering."

  "You enjoy being useful."

  "You ever consider sending me flowers after?" Enzo muttered as he stepped toward the door. "Just once? Maybe a thank you basket? Little card that says 'I appreciate the years you shaved off your lifespan for this warrant?'"

  "I'll write it myself," Lino said.

  Enzo grunted. "Make sure it's notarized."

  He vanished into the hallway, already dialing, already composing the necessary legal poetry. It's amazing how fast he can flip that switch.

  Lino turned back to the screen.

  The footage looped again. The slum, still smoking. A child's slipper. The edge of flame and someone shouting orders off-camera.

  It didn't look like justice yet. But it was starting to smell like momentum.

  ? ? ?

  Amy Rivera

  A Jollibee in BGC

  The Jollibee hummed with the dull fluorescence of after-hours survival. Harsh white light flattening everything into cafeteria bleakness. Amy Rivera sat in the corner booth, back against the wall, one knee bouncing under the table like it was trying to escape on its own.

  Her Chickenjoy cooled beside her, half eaten. Her soda was mostly ice now, a sad monument to the passage of time. Her phone sat on the tray, screen dimmed, no new messages from Lino. Just the timestamp of his last reply. On the way. Stay visible.

  She stared at the entrance across the dining room.

  And then she saw them.

  They looked like nobody, which made them dangerous. They didn't have the brash flash of club security or the obvious menace of goons on a payroll. They wore clothes meant to blend in: slim jeans, fake Balenciagas, tucked-in polo shirts one size too tight. But they moved like men used to being obeyed. Leisurely. Controlled. And with that unshakeable aura that they wouldn't need to raise their voices to ruin your week.

  Four of them peeled off from the spill of people exiting The Zone, the club across the street. They didn't say a word to one another, but their steps were too synchronized to be accidental. Two lit cigarettes. One adjusted his watch. They crossed the parking lot without hurrying.

  Amy looked down at her tray, heart thudding against her ribs. She could feel it, the eyes. They had seen her. She didn't know how. Maybe someone had noticed her waiting alone. Maybe she'd stayed on that sidewalk too long. Maybe someone outside heard her on the phone.

  They entered.

  The door chimed politely, too polite for what came in. The four men stepped inside, scanned the room once. Their eyes flicked over the cashiers, the families, the sleepy guard half-watching a teleserye on his phone.

  Then one of them saw her.

  No reaction. No signal. They simply drifted to different corners of the room. Loitering. Not a word spoken between them. One leaned against the napkin dispenser. Another hovered by the soda machine, pretending to be interested in cup sizes. Another stood in the aisle near the bathrooms, arms crossed.

  Amy's throat dried. She pulled her phone closer. No new messages. She considered standing, leaving, but where would she go? The moment she stepped outside, they'd be right behind her.

  Then, like clockwork, a small group of call center agents in blue company polos stood from a nearby table. Their meal break was over. They tossed trays, mumbled goodbyes, filed out with the slow shuffle of people returning to graveyard shifts.

  As the door closed behind them, the men moved.

  No hurry. No command.

  They converged on her table like smoke filling a room. One stood at her left. Another behind. Two more flanking the sides. Not touching. Not speaking.

  Just circling.

  Amy sat perfectly still.

  There was no pretext. No fake questions. No "Ma'am, is this seat taken?" They didn't even pretend to want food.

  They just stood there. Watching her.

  Waiting.

  And then the door opened again. The air in the Jollibee didn't shift, it changed channels.

  The thugs didn't turn, not right away. One of them glanced up reflexively, the way you might glance at a cold breeze. Another adjusted his belt, the universal sign of someone subtly checking for a weapon. A third narrowed his eyes. Just a little.

  Amy didn't dare move her head. But she saw the figure enter in the reflection of the napkin dispenser.

  Big. Thick-necked. His presence dragged the light toward him. Not hulking in a brutish way, structured. Like the outline of a man that had been built rather than born. His cargo pants looked regulation. His boots were polished like he'd just come from church. The black shirt under his field jacket stretched across his chest like a deeply offended rubber band.

  His hair was buzzed short, silvery at the temples. His eyes, mechanical in their stillness, scanned the room like they were running facial recognition software on everyone present. Then they landed on Amy. And didn't leave.

  "Miss Amy Rivera?" the man asked, his voice like gravel had learned Tagalog and joined the military.

  The four men froze. That name, her name, made it official. They weren't circling a student anymore. They were circling a witness.

  Amy blinked. "Yes?" she said, unsure whether it was a reply or a question to the universe.

  The big man gave a tight, professional smile. Not warm. But present.

  "Rocco Dalisay. NBI," he said, flipping open his badge with one hand while the other stayed loose by his side, relaxed in a way that only people with combat training can be.

  He turned to the man closest to Amy's booth. Eyed him once, up and down. Calm. Friendly.

  "You guys ordering anything?" Rocco asked, cheerful. "They've got peach mango pie again. It's seasonal."

  The man didn't answer.

  Rocco's smile widened slightly.

  "No? You're not here for pie?"

  A long pause. The thugs stared at him like he was speaking in riddles and bullets. Then the one nearest Amy took half a step back. That subtle, shift-in-weight kind of retreat, the kind thugs made before they either ran or pulled something.

  Rocco's hand twitched just once, toward his hip.

  That was it.

  The four melted. Not with panic. Not with shame. But with the economy of men who recognized when someone more dangerous than them had entered the room.

  One by one, they backed off. No words. No bluster. Just the slow, reluctant physics of retreat. As they reached the door, Rocco offered a friendly wave.

  "Take care, ha?" he said, grinning now. "BGC isn't what it used to be."

  The door swung closed behind them.

  Amy exhaled. Loud. Embarrassingly loud.

  Rocco turned to her, pulled a chair from the next table, spun it around, and sat down with a grunt. The plastic creaked under the weight like it was reconsidering its life choices.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Had to find parking. That's the real crime in this city."

  Amy blinked. "You're... really NBI?"

  He grinned, offered his badge again like a joke. "Unless I went through twelve weeks of training just to cosplay like this."

  She glanced down at his boots. Black. Polished. Scuffed only at the tips.

  "You don't look... like the others."

  "What, you mean clean?" he winked. "That's because they make us shower before operations now."

  Amy gave the barest laugh. The tension hadn't left her chest, but it was cracking around the edges.

  Rocco leaned in a bit, serious now. "I'm here to take your affidavit. But more importantly, I'm here to keep you safe. You did the right thing, Miss Rivera. You spoke up. Now let's make sure that counts."

  Amy nodded, voice thin. "Okay."

  Rocco stood again, like a small earthquake in jeans. "Let's get you out of here. Place smells like old oil and fear."

  She stood with him, legs still wobbly. Rocco didn't offer a hand, he didn't have to. He was a hand, walking beside her. A presence so firm it made walls feel optional.

  And as they stepped into the BGC night, neon bouncing off glass, Amy felt, for the first time since Zaira died, the beginnings of something she hadn't dared feel in days:

  Not relief.

  Not safety.

  Not even hope.

  But momentum.

  ? ? ?

  The Zone

  The private room at The Zone smelled like money losing its dignity. Expensive cologne. Burnt sugar from the vape pen. The faint plastic tang of a busted aircon. And on the mirrored table, crushed pills, half a line of something white, a designer phone vibrating uselessly against an empty tumbler of gin.

  Jiro Lim Uy was sunk into the velvet couch like a man freshly reborn. Shirt open to the navel, lips slack. His pupils were vast, galaxies dilated into spinning spirals. He was murmuring something, maybe a song lyric, maybe a new condo design. No one could tell.

  The door burst open with a violence that didn't belong in high society.

  Gino Sanchez.

  Shirt stained with road sweat. Tactical boots, scuffed and impatient. His eyes were bloodshot, but not from drugs. From anger, urgency, paranoia sharpened into a knife's edge.

  He didn't knock. He didn't greet. He stormed in like the room owed him answers.

  "Putang ina mo, Jiro, we need to move. Now."

  Jiro blinked slowly, turning his head as if his neck were a novelty.

  "Gino..." he slurred, smiling like a child seeing a balloon. "Why're you..."

  "The NBI just raided Binondo Heights, they'll find the contrabands there."

  The words hit the room like a short circuit. All the neon seemed to dim for a second.

  Gino didn't wait for Jiro to sober up. "Construction site's done. They've got someone in custody already, and they're gonna follow the trail. You think they won't come here next?"

  Jiro sat up a little. "Wait... what custody? Who?"

  Gino ignored the question. Stormed across the room and yanked open the curtains just enough to peek outside.

  "You think you're untouchable 'cause you have a fucking yacht?" he snapped, still scanning the hallway. "This is over. It's over, Jiro."

  Jiro rubbed his face. Tried to stand. Failed.

  "I can call someone. Maybe... maybe my uncle can-"

  "Your uncle?" Gino laughed without humor. "Your uncle can't unfuck this. Jesus. You're high as balls and you still think this is just a scheduling issue."

  "I need to grab my phone-"

  "No, you need to stand the fuck up."

  Gino marched back over. Grabbed Jiro by the arm.

  Jiro tried to pull away. "Don't touch me."

  Gino's voice turned cruel. "What? You got some other pretty boy to finish blowing before we escape?"

  Jiro froze.

  Gino's face twisted into something mean. "Putang bakla ka talaga. You think this is a fucking telenovela?"

  He hauled Jiro to his feet. The younger man stumbled, disoriented. His wrist banged against the table, scattering pills.

  "I said move, Jiro."

  No more pretense. No more cover. The operation was burned. The wolves were howling. And the club, The Zone, was no longer a safe room. It was a spotlight.

  Gino dragged Jiro out into the hallway, where the bass still thudded and the dancers still spun and nobody had any idea the storm was coming.

  Yet.

  ? ? ?

  Sarah Borja

  Taft Avenue

  They were still twitching when she got there. Not with life, life had fled already, screaming, but with the aftershocks of death. Nerve endings running out of instructions.

  Sarah stood under the buzzing overhang of an LRT station, the city pulsing around her in electric fits. She didn't speak. She barely blinked.

  Taft Avenue, 1:43 a.m., Saturday.

  Rain in the air, but not yet falling. Manila's peculiar brand of humidity, the kind that made every breath feel like a negotiation with the atmosphere. Neon washed over the asphalt in endless cycles. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. The loop of judgment and consequence. Police lights flickered off the corpses, giving them a kind of rhythm, like they were still part of the city's pulse.

  Three dead men.

  All ex-PNP Special Operations. All dishonorably discharged.

  They'd only just ID'd the men. Not from biometrics. No time for that. Just wallets. One had an expired PNP ID buried behind old lotto tickets. Another carried a burner phone, a pack of menthols, and a laminated barangay clearance from somewhere in Quezon province. The third had nothing, just a half-torn Mass card in his back pocket with Jesus, I Trust in You smudged in thumb grease.

  But names started to form anyway. Tentative, pieced together by her analysts working the scene like archaeologists brushing dirt off relics they hoped wouldn't bite.

  "All ex-PNP," someone muttered behind her. "Confirmed ties with Gino Sanchez, they were all under his unit."

  That got her attention.

  She didn't turn around. She just blinked, once.

  The details trickled in.

  One of them had been booted from the force for lighting a farmhouse on fire. Hostage situation gone sideways. Claimed it was "tactical fire application." Internal Affairs called it psychosis. He called it divine strategy.

  Another had been quietly let go after being caught selling confiscated shabu to the same dealers he helped arrest.

  None of this was in the system. Not officially. But it was known. Whispers. Case files that got lost. Transfer orders issued in the dead of night.

  Sarah processed it all with mechanical silence.

  She looked down at the nearest body. The man's face was... serene. Not peaceful. Purposeful. Like he'd succeeded at something. Like the dying was part of it.

  A rustling of footsteps. One of her agents approached, not too close.

  "They all have it. The same tattoo," he said. "Back of the spine. Upside-down burning cross."

  Sarah said nothing. Her eyes scanned the scene. The discarded pistols. The curious onlookers trying not to vomit. The smell of gunpowder curling through the traffic.

  Then her gaze rose.

  Beyond the blood. Beyond the chaos.

  To the blinking lights of a fast food sign promising Joy, and the overhead track of the LRT, silent and skeletal above them.

  She closed her eyes.

  And she remembered how they got here.

  It started somewhere between Pedro Gil and a bad decision.

  The silver Innova was already limping, its right blinker broken, one headlight flickering like it had a conscience trying to come back online. But the three men inside didn't slow down. They didn't hesitate. They darted straight into the traffic like they had a divine pardon in their glove compartment.

  Sarah was two cars behind, one hand on the radio, the other on the wheel. Her voice low, composed, surgical.

  "Target vehicle southbound on Mabini. Approaching Quirino. No outgoing fire."

  The street unfolded in front of her like a slot machine gone mad, pedestrians, jeepneys, blinking neon signs, a man dressed as Jollibee trying to cross the street.

  The Innova clipped a Grab motorcycle. The rider flipped, cursed, landed like a sack of cement on the pavement. The Innova didn't stop.

  Her jaw clenched. She didn't blink.

  They passed a row of 24-hour pawnshops, their windows lit like altars to desperation. Inside one: a man with a baby on his lap, trying to sell a rice cooker. Outside: three lives trying to outrun God.

  The Innova swerved left onto Remedios Street without signaling, truly monstrous behavior, and nearly took out a foodpanda bicycle. It barrelled past a Korean BBQ joint, shattering one of the outdoor tables, kimchi exploding into the air like confetti at a pity party.

  Sarah followed. Her SUV glided with mechanical grace, a metal shark beneath the LRT's skeleton.

  The rain hadn't started yet, but it threatened. The sky was that ugly yellow-gray Manila shade that made everything look pre-scorched.

  The convoy behind her split. Two vehicles. Her team. They took opposite ends of the block. Box formation. They knew the drill. They didn't need orders. Only targets.

  The Innova hit a dead zone. Too many vehicles. Too little space. Taft had become a funnel. A canal of blinding LED billboards, tangled power lines, honking jeepneys, students on vapes, priests in basketball jerseys.

  Panic.

  The Innova veered. Desperate now. It scraped the side of a call center shuttle bus and came to a stuttering halt in front of a Ministop, its engine making a death rattle.

  Doors flew open.

  Three men burst out like firecrackers, flesh and panic, feet pounding against concrete. They split in different directions. Chaos theory in motion.

  Sarah was out of the SUV before it finished braking.

  She didn't shout. Didn't call for backup. She just ran.

  Her boots hit the pavement hard. The city gave her no grace. Taft resisted being chased upon, uneven tiles, surprise potholes, the ever-present hazard of a street cart.

  She locked onto one of them. Striped jacket. Medium height. Limp in the right knee. Probably from training injuries. She clocked it all in two seconds.

  He bolted across a pedestrian overpass. She followed. No hesitation.

  They ran past a row of college kids loitering on the stairs, all of them filming on their phones now, yelling "uy uy uy" like it was a basketball game. Somewhere, a vendor tried to sell peanuts to one of her agents mid-pursuit.

  The man in the striped jacket tried to disappear into a crowd near an all-night milk tea place.

  Sarah didn't lose him.

  He tripped on a plastic chair.

  That was the moment.

  The other two had already been cornered, boxed in by her team near a line of parked UV Express vans. And now he was slowing, too. Like he realized it was over. Like he'd always known.

  Then came the stillness. That awful, holy stillness.

  The three men locked eyes with her, just for a second.

  And she saw it.

  That... thing.

  The devotion.

  The peace.

  The eerie, beatific calm of someone who thought the pain meant something.

  Then...

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Three shots. Three bodies.

  And the city kept moving.

  Taft kept living.

  A jeepney passed by, blasting Erik Santos covers from its stereo. No one inside even looked.

  The neon kept flashing. Ministop stayed open.

  And Sarah stood there.

  Boots on wet concrete. Chest heaving once. Twice. Then still.

  Watching it all play out like she'd already dreamed it. Like it had already happened somewhere else, in another city just like this one, under another overpass where people believed in the wrong things, with their whole heart.

  ? ? ?

  Lino Ilagan

  NBI War Room

  The war room was Manila at 4 a.m., just without the karaoke, but all the same fluorescent exhaustion. Thin folders bloomed across the table like wilted flowers. The air reeked of toner, sweat, and late-night instant coffee that had died without ever having lived.

  Lino stood at the center of it, hands still gripping the edge of the table like it might suddenly lift off and fly. He hadn't sat down in hours. Refused to. To sit was to pause, and pauses were for men who had the luxury of knowing the next move.

  Renz was the first to speak. His voice was calm, clipped, but underlined with adrenaline that hadn't yet burned out. He stood a few steps away from the main screen, tablet in hand, eyes flitting from bullet points to Lino's face.

  "We cleared Jiro's known properties, Shaw, Dasma, even a condo he kept empty in Rockwell aside from a lot of sex stuff, like a loot of sex stuff. Negative hits across all locations. Not even a toothbrush out of place."

  Lino gave a nod. Not at Renz, but at the confirmation of a ghost pattern. Jiro was peeling out of reality like a sticker from a wet wall.

  "We've requested access to the travel logs," Renz added. "Airlines, ferries, helipads. Anything that smells like an exit."

  "Good," Lino muttered. "He's too wired-in to go quietly. Someone will have noticed."

  Then came Enzo, ever the reluctant knight in legal armor, swaggering in with a folder under his arm and the faint air of someone who had bartered away a piece of his soul for signatures.

  Enzo set the folder down like it had personally offended him.

  "The Zone and that spa in Pasay are both locked. Raiding teams found more product than customers. Meth in the linen cabinets, ecstasy under the massage beds, ketamine packed into shampoo bottles. You name it. Place looked like a party hosted by a pharmaceutical cartel. I got us a media blackout on the two sites as well, but they're profile and things will leak."

  He exhaled hard, the way someone does after sprinting through a minefield.

  "Judge Lontoc was asleep earlier. Dead asleep. Had to call his wife, who thought I was with the hospital. He answered ten minutes later thinking he'd died. Signed the warrants half-awake in his boxer shorts. Swore at me twice, called me kawatan, then signed anyway."

  Lino's lips twitched, half amusement, half battlefield respect.

  "You pulled it off."

  "I think I unlocked a new level of hell in the judiciary," Enzo said, leaning against the desk. "The man's going to haunt my dreams."

  Lino gave a grunt that might have been a laugh. Then, almost absently, "Remind me to get you that basket of flowers. You've earned it."

  Enzo looked at him sideways. "I said that as a joke."

  "Exactly," Lino said. "So you wouldn't expect it."

  They shared a look. The kind forged from years of side-eyes, near-misses, and bureaucratic trench warfare.

  The internal line buzzed again. Lino tapped the speakerphone without looking up.

  Sarah's voice filtered through, low, smooth, composed. Like someone reporting from orbit.

  "Three targets. Confirmed dead. Self-inflicted. Synchronized. No shots fired from our side."

  There was the faint static of a police siren in the background, then the dull thud of a trunk being slammed shut.

  "They waited until we had them boxed in. One of them even smiled before he pulled the trigger. Like it was the final step in a job well done."

  Lino straightened slightly.

  "Did you get IDs?"

  "We did," Sarah said. "Wallets, IDs, burner phones. We're verifying. Two has confirmed past ties to Gino Sanchez, the other we still haven't fully ID'd. One of the confirmed guys, de los Santos, was the guy discharged for torching that farmhouse in Tarlac. The one with the livestock."

  "Charming."

  "Yeah," she said. "If I had to guess, he's our match for Tondo. Maybe Navotas too. The fires weren't chaotic. They were structured. Like blueprints."

  A pause.

  Then: "They had the same tattoo. Lower back. Upside-down burning cross."

  Lino leaned on the desk. "Cult?"

  "Feels like it. Doesn't look like they were loyal to Gino. More like they were loyal past him. Something else. Or perhaps Gino's in on it too. They weren't scared. They were... resigned."

  She let that sit.

  Then, more casually: "We're still sweeping the area. You'll get full reports before sunrise. I'm heading back to base after."

  Lino nodded, even though she couldn't see it.

  "Good work."

  Sarah's tone didn't change. "Copy that. Out."

  The line clicked off.

  The next call came in lighter. A different frequency altogether. Rocco's voice crackled through, thick with the gravel of someone who'd seen too much and learned to laugh anyway.

  "Boss. Just dropped Amy home. No tails, no spooks, no stray bullets. Girl's safe. Talked the whole ride like we were heading to a field trip."

  Lino let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "She alright?"

  "Cheerful, actually. Bright kid. Sharp. Asked good questions. I told her about that one time you slipped in front of the DOJ press corps. Real inspirational shit."

  Lino closed his eyes for a beat. "I wasn't even running."

  "That's what made it funnier, ha!"

  A small silence, warm with familiarity.

  Then Lino said, "Drop by the office tomorrow. We'll need your head in this."

  "Got it. I'll bring coffee. Real kind. Not that burnt sawdust from the vending machine."

  Call ended.

  Lino stood in the stillness of the war room.

  The noise had ebbed. The screens dimmed. Outside, Manila was slipping into its uneasy half-sleep, horns distant, lights smudged by rain.

  He turned to the cork board.

  Names.

  Photos.

  Red string pulled taut in all directions.

  It had started as something simple. Jiro Lim Uy at the center. Gino's name beneath his. A dead college girl. A construction site. A club. A fire.

  He turned to the cork board.

  Names.

  Photos.

  Red string pulled taut in all directions.

  It had started as something simple. Jiro Lim Uy at the center. Gino's name beneath his. A dead college girl. A construction site. A club.

  Now it was changing.

  The strings no longer pointed inward.

  They reached out. Crossed municipal borders. Duplicated.

  Unfolding like a map of something much older.

  Now, a fire, a flayed man, a triple suicide.

  Not just a syndicate.

  Not just a conspiracy.

  Architecture.

  Lino stepped closer.

  It was no longer just about Gino or Jiro.

  And it had never really been about the drugs.

  He stared at the board.

  Whatever this was, it was still growing.

  And it had plans.

  Author's Note:

  comment. Or a theory. Or a Jollibee receipt.

  is watching the board.