The safehouse was an unmarked warehouse on the edge of Pasay, lit only by the cold glow of fluorescent bulbs. Rain hammered against the corrugated roof as the Shadows assembled around a metal table. Their clothes were damp, weapons disassembled and drying on oilcloths. The air stank of gunpowder, antiseptic, and cigarette smoke.
The mission had been a failure—and no one dared say it aloud.
Ramos sat with his injured knee wrapped, his massive frame tense with frustration. He nursed a bottle of gin like it was medicine, glaring at the floor. Across from him, Salonga leaned against a crate, nose swollen and taped, his twitchy hands flicking a knife open and shut. Estrella cleaned her rifle with surgical precision, expression unreadable. Delgado, still singed from Cipher's improvised explosion, sat silently, his jaw clenched. Santos checked and rechecked his pistol as if trying to erase the shame of being disarmed.
General Villareal's voice broke the silence.
"You had him."
The words hung heavy.
No one spoke. No one moved.
"You had him," Villareal repeated, his tone cutting like a blade. "And yet he walks free, with our secrets still in his possession. Explain."
Ramos growled. "He's fast. Smarter than we expected. Fights like a street dog. Doesn't break easy."
Salonga spat blood into a rag, grinning despite his broken nose. "Bastard's got reflexes. Hurt me good. I like him."
Estrella didn't look up. "He exploits weaknesses. Uses environment, improvises under pressure. Not military, but… trained. Somewhere."
Villareal's eyes narrowed. "And yet none of you brought him in."
Torres, seated at the far end with his laptop, finally spoke. His calm voice was the opposite of the others' rough edges. "You're missing the point. We cornered him, yes. But he adapted. Quickly. That's what makes him dangerous. He learns. Each second he survives, he becomes harder to catch."
The room fell into silence again, until Villareal leaned forward.
"Then we stop treating him like a thief," the general said. "We treat him like what he is—a war target."
Delgado frowned. "Meaning?"
Villareal's eyes were cold steel. "Meaning you stop playing cat and mouse in alleys. We apply pressure. Force him into mistakes. Manila is his playground? Fine. We make it a cage. Starve him of options."
Estrella set her rifle down. "Tighter perimeter sweeps won't work. Civilians everywhere. He disappears too easily."
Torres tapped at his laptop, pulling up a digital map of Manila. "We don't need to chase him everywhere. We just need to predict where he'll surface. He has limited bandwidth. Limited safehouses. Every time he uploads, leaks, or communicates, he leaves traces. He may clean them, but not perfectly. No one does."
Salonga grinned, knife flashing in his hands. "So we wait. Like spiders."
Ramos slammed his fist into the table. "No. Next time, we finish it. I don't care if it's in the middle of Quiapo, Makati, or Malacañang itself. This ends with him in the ground."
Villareal's gaze swept over them, voice low but lethal. "Listen well. Cipher has embarrassed this unit. He has touched what should never be touched. That is unacceptable. The next time you engage, there will be no escape, no excuses."
He leaned closer, eyes burning with controlled fury.
"Find his network. Cut his lines. Burn his hideouts. Turn his city into his grave."
Silence answered him, broken only by the distant thunder. The Shadows nodded one by one.
The hunt had changed. It was no longer about capturing Cipher.
It was about erasing him.