Chapter 3: Rooftop Lessons

Rainwater trickled down the rusted iron walls of the ventilation shaft, pooling into a murky, sluggish stream in the cramped, pitch-black space. Nur Hadi held his breath, fingers clawing at the edge of the duct until his knuckles ached. The cold metal felt like a tombstone pressing down on his chest. Behind him, Sri Saputra’s ragged gasps echoed off the closed-in walls, sounding like a frightened beast trapped in a cage.

"Don't move." Nur whispered, his voice frayed and cracked from the wet cold. "They might have finished searching this floor, but 'Shadow' doesn’t miss a blind spot."

Heavy footsteps thudded outside the pipes, each step landing right on Nur’s frayed nerves. It was a trained, oppressive rhythm, deliberate and slow. Just as the door handle turned, a screech of metal on metal tore through from the top of the duct—something heavy being dragged roughly across the surface. Nur jerked his head up, catching a sliver of gray-white sky through a maintenance hatch, and the faint, jagged edge of the roof terrace visible through the downpour.

"Up there." Nur murmured. "That’s the only way out. And the only place they haven’t checked yet."

Sri gritted his teeth, his joints pale from gripping the rusted metal too hard. "Climb."

They scrambled up like geckos, nails scraping against rough rust layers with a sound that made their teeth ache. When they finally hauled themselves over the edge and tumbled onto the wet, slick concrete of the roof, a biting wind mixed with rain lashed their faces. They weren’t safe. The abandoned fan blades swayed erratically in the gale, wailing like mourners singing a dirge for an island about to sink.

Nur collapsed onto the ground, the rain instantly soaking through his school uniform. Before he could even sort out his tangled thoughts, a figure emerged from the shadows at the roof’s edge, cutting short their urge to scream for help.

It was Dewi Wirawan.

She wore a long, dark gray trench coat, the hood pulled low over her brow. Rain dripped from the ends of her hair, but it couldn’t hide her eyes—cool, detached, almost cold. She held a black umbrella in her hand, the canopy trembling violently in the wind, yet her body stood as steady as a rock.

"Shh." Dewi raised a finger, pressing it lightly against her lips. Her voice was crisp but carried an authority that brooked no argument. "Make a sound, and 'Shadow' will find us in thirty seconds."

Nur scrambled to his feet cautiously, placing himself between Dewi and Sri, even though his legs were still shaking. "Dewi? What are you doing here? Are you on their side?"

"I’m on my side." Dewi lowered the umbrella. The rain instantly soaked her shoulders, but she didn’t seem to notice. "Also, that broken sword in your possession? It’s what my father wants. And it’s what he wants destroyed."

Sri peeked out from behind Nur, his eyes sharp. "Miss Wirawan, if you were sent to silence us, just make it quick. We don’t want to die looking this pathetic."

Dewi didn’t answer. Instead, she walked straight to the broken sword, which lay battered by the rain. It was the same one they had found deep in the archives. The blade was jagged at the break, still encrusted with fragments of ancient pottery shards—the only "trophy" from their hiding spot, and the very thing that had led them into this mess.

She crouched down. Rain slid down her cheeks, leaving two muddy trails. She pulled a pair of thin, white gloves from her pocket and slipped them on with a grace that felt alien in this ragged, rainy night.

"Step aside," she said. No room for debate.

Nur hesitated for a second, then stepped back. The moment Dewi’s gloved fingers touched the broken sword, her fingertips trembled slightly. She didn’t try to wipe away the dried blood like a normal person would. Instead, she squinted, using the faint light of a distant lightning strike to examine the texture of the blade’s fractured face.

"This is wrong," Dewi said suddenly, her voice low. "You think this is just an ordinary ancient sword?"

"It’s the only clue left by Bada," Nur countered. Rain ran down his hair into his eyes, the stinging pain forcing him to close them for a moment. "The inscriptions mark it as belonging to a tribe from three hundred years ago, but I can’t find any matching historical records. It feels like it was pulled out of time itself."

"Wrong." Dewi stood up. The rain gathered at her feet into small streams. "It wasn’t dug out. It was reforged. Look here."

She pointed to a ring of dark red patches at the fracture site. It was a crystalline structure formed when metal cools after extreme heat, contrasting sharply with the old, blue-black blade around it.

"This is evidence of illegal smelting." Dewi’s voice was cold and clear. "In the underground black market of Surabaya, only metal that has been purified at specific high temperatures shows this kind of fatigue pattern. This isn’t natural wear. It’s artificial 'reinforcement.' Someone injected high-purity nickel alloy to mask the blade’s brittleness. This technology was abandoned twenty years ago. Only a handful of trading houses with connections to military factories still have it."

A jolt went through Nur. He thought of the blurred expense items in his family ledger, and Lakeman Sudarmoko, the director who always wore a fake smile. "You’re saying this sword was modified?"

"Not just modified. It was 'certified.'” Dewi turned her back to the storm. Her voice carried clearly across the empty roof. "If the blade went through illegal smelting, its origin isn’t just a historical artifact. It might be a 'token' used in illegal dealings. Lakeman doesn’t want it for collection. He wants to destroy the evidence. Because if this sword surfaces, it links back to those archived files that were erased, and the witnesses who disappeared."

Sri listened intently, his anger fading into grim seriousness. "So, we nearly handed the evidence straight into the shredder."

"No. We handed it into a trap." Dewi pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from her coat pocket. It was a fund-flow chart printed on waterproof paper. Though damp from the rain, the key figures were still clear. "I checked the last three years of financial reports for the palm plantation company under Lakeman’s name. Every 'equipment maintenance' fee matches the transaction records of underground metal recycling plants. He’s not running a plantation. He’s laundering money. The scholarship? It’s just a cover."

Nur took the paper, his hands shaking. The numbers looked like venomous snakes, coiling around his dignity and his future. The scholarship he had desperately tried to hold onto was just a chip in this dirty game.

"Why are you telling us this?" Nur asked, his expression complex.

"Because I refuse to inherit a lie." Dewi’s voice was quiet, but it rang like stone against metal. "My sister, Ratna Wirawan, found records of similar repair techniques while restoring the old scripts for the Wayang Company. She’s quiet, just an apprentice, but she knows that the metaphors in those old plays use the same code as the inscriptions on this sword. Lakeman isn’t just burning files. He wants to destroy every possible decoder. Including me, and my sister."

The rain intensified. The wind howled, as if trying to swallow the building whole. Nur looked at Dewi, then at Sri, who was standing silently beside him. In this moment, they weren’t just individuals fighting alone. They were prey trapped in the same net.

"We need to make a deal," Nur said, taking a deep breath. Rain mixed with the taste of iron rust filled his lungs. "The three of us form a temporary alliance."

"Why should I trust you?" Sri questioned. He leaned against the wall, but his eyes remained wary.

"Because we all want to survive. And we all want the truth." Nur looked directly into both their eyes. "But I have a condition. The files. I have to investigate them myself. Those deleted histories are the starting point of my research, and my only chance to prove my worth. I won’t let them vanish into someone’s drawer again."

Dewi let out a cold snicker. She pulled a silver USB drive from her pocket and tossed it onto the wet concrete. "This is an encrypted backup I stole from my father’s office. It contains the list of the last batch of witnesses who were forcibly erased. You decode it. I cut the funding chain. Sri, find the witnesses who haven’t yet lost their nerve to 'Shadow'."

Sri bent down and picked up the USB drive. Water ran off his fingers. "Witnesses? They’ve already moved. Or something worse."

"Then make them speak." Dewi turned and walked toward the edge of the roof. Her back looked thin and resolute against the downpour. "Lakeman rules this place with fear. But fear has a deadline. His patience does too."

Just then, a bolt of lightning split the night sky, illuminating a stone monument in the corner of the roof. It was the school’s founding marker, carved with its motto. For a split second, Nur’s eyes sharpened. He saw a crack at the base of the stone, where the edge of some old paper was faintly visible.

"Wait." Nur pointed at the monument. "Sri, you mentioned you know local oral history. Are you sure those witnesses only live elsewhere? Was the old ventilation system in the school basement ever used as a temporary storage?"

Sri blinked, then his pupils contracted. "You’re saying those 'missing' witnesses might never have left?"

"Not just them." A suppressed excitement crept into Nur’s voice. "There’s the original archive. Lakeman thinks it’s locked in the safe. But the key to the safe? It might be hidden right here, in the school. In a place we pass every day. Like, inside the base of this monument."

Dewi turned around, her brow furrowed. "What are you babbling about? That’s a sacred site for the school. No one would hide contraband there."

"Because it’s sacred, it’s the safest place." Nur picked up the USB drive from the ground, gripping it tight. "Lakeman needs a 'dead zone' that isn’t monitored. And we just found it."

The wind picked up, making their clothes snap. The three of them stood in the storm, each running their own calculations in their heads, the ticks and tocks sounding like firecrackers. Nur wanted to restore the truth to save his dignity and his scholarship; he needed that archive as a weapon against the system. Sri had caught a glimmer of hope; he craved those silent witnesses to speak again and break the web of silence Lakeman had woven. And Dewi? She was coldly calculating her chips. She wanted to sever the rot at her family’s roots, even if it meant breaking with her father.

"The plan is simple." Nur wiped the rain from his face, his gaze sweeping over the other two. "Tomorrow is Friday. The library closes. Sri, you reach out to the two retired teachers living in the old district. They were observers back then. Dewi, tonight, you go back to the trading house and trace the specific flow of those 'equipment maintenance' fees. I want copies of the bank statements. As for me..."

He looked at the silent stone monument, a flash of resolve in his eyes. "I’m going to pry it open."

"And if we get caught?" Sri asked.

"Then we get caught." Nur’s answer was calm. "But before that, we’ve got at least twenty-four more hours. Lakeman will assume we’re dead or fled. He’ll need time to celebrate. Time to destroy the next batch of evidence. That’s our window."

Dewi was silent for a moment. The sound of the rain seemed to pause. She pulled her gloves back on, straightening her windblown collar. "One more thing, Nur."

She stepped closer, lowering her voice so only the two of them could hear.

"I looked into your file. Your scholarship renewal application is due for final review next week. There’s one of Lakeman’s cronies on the review committee."

Nur’s heart contracted. That cold fear climbed his throat again. "What are you implying?"

"I’m saying," Dewi looked up. Rain blurred her face, but her eyes were terrifyingly clear. "Lakeman’s next scholarship list doesn’t have your name on it."

The air froze. Raindrops hit the ground with a dense, cracking sound, like thousands of tiny drums beating against their nerves. Nur felt a wave of dizziness. The chill of that loss was colder than the wind and rain.

"What does that mean?" Sri cut in, his face dark. "Is that a threat?"

The two of them burst into the storm, heading toward the shadows deep in the school. They had less than forty-eight hours left. And beneath the earth, where the rain had washed away all traces, the sleeping truth was groaning with every attempt to dig it out.