CHAPTER 9
6:17 a.m.
Raka received a call from the office number.
“Mr. Raka?”
The voice on the other end sounded nervous.
“Yes.”
“Can you come to the server room right now?”
“Why?”
“It’s about Mr. Bima.”
Raka stood immediately.
“What happened to Bima?”
There was silence for several seconds.
“Just come, sir.”
The call disconnected.
Raka grabbed his jacket.
For the first time since he had met Bima, he felt that something was truly wrong.
Bima’s office was already surrounded by several employees when Raka arrived.
The door stood open.
Bima’s chair was empty.
His computer was on.
But the screen displayed only the login page.
“Where did he go?” Raka asked.
No one answered.
A staff member finally said,
“No one’s seen him since yesterday afternoon.”
“His phone?”
“Turned off.”
“His house?”
“We already checked.”
Raka stared at him.
“No one was there?”
The staff member shook his head.
“His motorcycle’s still at home.”
Raka fell silent.
Bima wasn’t the kind of person who would leave without telling anyone.
Especially after what they had found.
He walked over to Bima’s desk.
The laptop was still there.
Raka turned it on.
There were no folders.
No history.
No files.
Not a single piece of the research data they had spent weeks gathering remained.
Empty.
Completely empty.
Raka stared at the screen.
“Who used this computer last?”
An employee answered,
“Mr. Bima.”
“What time?”
“Around nine last night.”
“Alone?”
“I don’t know.”
Raka turned.
“The security cameras?”
The employee hesitated.
“They’re being checked.”
“Why?”
“They said there was a system malfunction.”
Raka smiled bitterly.
Of course.
A system malfunction.
That was always the answer.
7:03 a.m.
Raka opened Bima’s computer logs.
Empty.
They hadn’t been deleted.
They had never existed.
He tried to recover the data.
It didn’t work.
Even the document metadata was gone.
As if the computer had just been used for the first time.
Raka called in a technician.
“Can it be recovered?”
The technician examined it for several minutes.
Then shook his head.
“It’ll be difficult.”
“Why?”
“The drive’s been reset.”
“When?”
The technician pointed to the screen.
“In the early hours of the morning.”
Raka looked at the time.
2:13 a.m.
He froze.
The same time.
Again.
“Who performed the reset?”
“There’s no record.”
Raka clenched his fists.
“Impossible.”
The technician looked at him.
“Under normal circumstances, yes.”
Raka immediately remembered what Bima had said.
If someone had access to a certain layer of the system, they could make today’s activity look like activity from the previous week.
And now someone had erased Bima’s computer.
Without leaving a trace.
8:15 a.m.
Raka returned to his office.
He opened his own laptop.
Checked the research folder.
A-17.
Empty.
The backup folder.
Empty.
The flash drive.
Empty.
His private cloud.
Empty.
Raka tried opening his email archive.
Every conversation with Bima was gone.
He searched the name: BIMA PRADANA.
Nothing.
Raka fell silent.
Then he searched for the name: HENDRA PRATAMA.
The result was the same.
Nothing.
He tried his father’s name. DARMAWAN ADINATA.
Nothing.
Raka leaned back.
Three names.
Three people.
All of them had touched something they never should have touched.
And all of them were slowly disappearing from the system.
But there was one thing that frightened Raka even more.
His own name was still there.
For now.
9:47 a.m.
Nadira finally replied to his message.
>I can’t talk on the phone.
Raka typed back immediately:
>Bima’s missing.
There was no reply for several minutes.
Then:
>I know.
Raka stopped typing.
>How do you know?
There was no answer for a long time.
Then:
>Because someone tried to break into my place last night.
Raka read the message over and over.
>Are you safe? >For now. >What about the A-17 data? >I still have some of it.
Raka let out a relieved breath.
But the next message put him on edge again.
>But I found something about Bima.
>What?
Nadira’s reply came almost a minute later.
>Bima wasn’t the first person to access A-17.
Raka waited.
>Then who was?
The next message appeared.
>Your father.
Raka froze.
10:26 a.m.
Raka opened the old archives again.
This time, he wasn’t searching for Bima.
He was searching for his father.
Darmawan Adinata.
The search, which had previously returned nothing, suddenly produced a single document.
SYSTEM ACCESS HISTORY — DARMAWAN ADINATA
Date: September 16, 2020.
One day before his resignation.
Access: A-17 PROTOCOL.
Raka stared at the screen.
His father had accessed A-17 before.
Not after learning something.
Before he resigned.
He opened the details.
There were three activities.
9:47 p.m. — A-17 access. 10:03 p.m. — Data download. 10:19 p.m. — Log deletion.
Raka stood.
“Log deletion…”
That meant his father had deliberately erased the trail.
But why?
Another document appeared.
ENCRYPTED FILE — DA-17.
Raka tried to open it.
Access denied.
USER-01 AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Raka fell silent.
Then he noticed the small notice beneath it.
USER-01: ACTIVE.
Raka felt his heart pounding.
If USER-01 was still active—
then the person they had been searching for all this time hadn’t disappeared.
Or…
someone had used his identity.
12:11 p.m.
Raka met with Surya.
They met in the archive room.
“Bima’s missing,” Raka said.
Surya wasn’t surprised.
“Since when?”
“Last night.”
Surya lowered his head.
“I suspected as much.”
Raka stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I knew it was a possibility.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know who could be trusted.”
Raka fell silent.
The words cut deep.
“You suspect me too?”
Surya looked at him.
“Now I suspect everyone.”
“Me included?”
“Especially anyone who’s too close to the data.”
Raka gave a hollow smile.
“Then that includes me.”
“Yes.”
Raka pulled out his phone.
“Bima once said only three people could open A-17.”
Surya said nothing.
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know more than that.”
Surya stared at him for a long time.
Then he said,
“There used to be three.”
“Used to be?”
“One of them is dead.”
Raka fell silent.
“Who?”
Surya didn’t answer.
“Mr. Surya.”
“Don’t force me.”
“Bima’s missing.”
“I know.”
“My data is gone.”
“I know.”
“And someone is using the system to erase people.”
Surya sighed.
“That’s why you have to stop.”
Raka stared sharply at him.
“Did you say the same thing to my father?”
Surya froze.
Raka immediately realized something.
“You knew my father.”
There was no answer.
“You worked with my father?”
Surya remained silent.
“Mr. Surya.”
At last, he said,
“Darmawan was the first person to try to expose the system.”
Raka held his breath.
“And you?”
“I was the one who asked him to stop.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid of whom?”
Surya looked at the door.
Then whispered,
“Not a person.”
Raka furrowed his brow.
“Then what?”
“The system.”
That afternoon, Raka began to realize that the problem was no longer simply who was behind A-17.
The real problem was: who could be trusted?
He opened the list of people who knew about his investigation.
Bima.
Nadira.
Surya.
Laras.
And Dimas.
Five names.
One of them might have leaked information.
One of them might have handed over the data.
Or—
one of them might have been working for them from the very beginning.
Raka opened the remaining conversation with Bima on his phone.
There was an old message he had never noticed.
Sent two days before Bima disappeared.
>Bro, if all the data disappears someday, don’t look for me.
Raka read the sentence over and over.
The next message:
>Look for the person closest to you.
Raka froze.
Then one final message.
>Because they’re the most likely to already know everything.
The message had been sent at:
2:13 a.m.
Raka stared at the clock in the corner of the screen.
Then he opened his contacts.
The names appeared again.
Bima.
Nadira.
Surya.
Laras.
Dimas.
He looked at all of them.
Then remembered one thing.
On the night they opened A-17, the system had selected three candidates:
Raka Adinata.
Nadira Maheswari.
And—
Bima Pradana.
Bima had disappeared.
Nadira was in hiding.
Raka was still inside the system.
If so, who had replaced Bima?
8:31 p.m.
Raka went home.
For the first time, he ignored Nadira’s warning.
He felt he had no choice.
The house was dark.
There were no vehicles.
No sound.
Raka opened the door.
Then stopped.
There was something in the living room.
A laptop.
Placed on the table.
It wasn’t his.
Raka moved closer.
His heart pounded.
He recognized the laptop.
Bima’s laptop.
Raka turned it on.
The screen opened immediately.
There was no password.
No folders.
Just one file.
FOR RAKA.
His hands trembled as he opened the file.
A single sentence appeared.
>If you’re reading this, it means I’ve already failed.
Raka swallowed.
A second sentence appeared.
>Don’t trust Nadira.
Raka froze.
Then the next sentence:
>Don’t trust Surya.
The screen stopped for several seconds.
Then the final sentence appeared.
>And most importantly—
Raka held his breath.
>never trust the person who gave you your first access to A-17.
Raka stared at the screen.
One person immediately came to mind.
Dimas.
But before he could touch the keyboard, the laptop shut off.
Outside the house, he heard a vehicle pull to a stop.
Raka turned off the lights.
He stood in the darkness.
Someone knocked on the door.
Once.
Twice.
Then a woman’s voice came from outside.
“Raka.”
He knew that voice.
Nadira.
Raka didn’t move.
His phone suddenly vibrated.
A message came in from Bima’s number.
>Don’t open the door.
Raka stared at the door.
The knocking came again.
“Raka,” Nadira said from outside,
“I know you’re in there.”
The phone vibrated again.
A second message:
>She’s not Nadira.
Raka took a step back.
Then someone outside the door said in exactly the same voice:
“Open the door, Raka.”
Silence.
Then—
“We need to talk about Bima.”
Raka turned off his phone.
For the first time since the investigation began, he didn’t know what was more terrifying:
the person trying to get into his house—
or the possibility that the message from Bima himself was part of the trap.