The morning sun filtered through the cracked blinds of Sara's apartment, but it brought no warmth. The sleek, modern space that had once been her pride was now a crime scene, crisscrossed with yellow police tape.
Technicians in white suits were dismantling the very walls she had designed, pulling out hidden microphones and cameras like parasites from a living body.
Sara sat at her kitchen island, a lukewarm cup of coffee between her hands. She was wrapped in a heavy blanket, though the fever of the previous night had long since broken. Her wrist was bandaged where the smartwatch had bitten into her skin, a physical reminder of her digital leash.
"Ms. Sara? I'm Detective Aris. We've finished the initial sweep of the server room."
A tall man with tired eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard stood before her. He looked out of place in such a high-tech environment, holding a traditional paper notepad.
"Did you find him?" Sara's voice was raspy, barely a whisper.
Detective Aris sighed, pulling up a chair. "The man is a ghost, Sara. We traced the exit route through the balcony and the service elevator. He bypassed the building's facial recognition cameras in seconds. By the time my officers reached the lobby, he was gone. No car, no cell signal, nothing."
"And the system? The Digital Cage?"
"Our cyber-crime unit is baffled," the detective admitted. "The encryption he used... it's not just military grade. It's living. Every time we try to crack a node, the code rewrites itself. We've had to physically cut the fiber-optic lines to the building just to stop him from watching us right now."
Sara looked at the corner of the ceiling. The camera was gone, replaced by a jagged hole and dangling wires. But she could still feel it. That phantom sensation of being watched.
"What about Raiyan?" she asked, her heart aching.
"That's the only good news. With the evidence of the illegal surveillance we found here, the case against Mr. Raiyan is collapsing. It's clear he was framed by someone with god-like access to his systems. He'll be released by this afternoon."
A small spark of relief flickered in Sara's chest, but it was quickly extinguished by a cold realization. If Raiyan was free, he was a target again. Aryan wouldn't let him walk away twice.
"He's not going to stop, Detective," Sara said, looking him dead in the eye. "You think he's run away? He hasn't. He's just moved to a different server. He built this world for me. He won't just let me live in yours."
Detective Aris nodded grimly. "We're putting you in a safe house. No smart tech, no Wi-Fi, no digital footprint. We're going back to 1995 for a while."
Sara looked around her ruined apartment. The drafting table where she had spent countless nights, the windows that overlooked the city she loved—it was all tainted. Aryan had taken her home, her career, and her sense of safety.
"No," Sara said, standing up. The blanket slid from her shoulders, revealing the steady set of her jaw. "I'm not hiding."
"Ms. Sara, you're in no condition—"
"I'm an architect, Detective," she interrupted. "I know how to read blueprints. I've been looking at the code I pulled from the legacy override last night. Aryan made one mistake. He assumed I was just a resident. He forgot that I designed the physical backbone of this building's network."
She walked over to the dining table, where she had laid out a series of hand-drawn sketches. They weren't buildings. They were circuit diagrams.
"He's using a satellite uplink," she explained, her finger tracing a line on the paper. "That's how he was able to maintain control even when the power surged. There's a hidden receiver on the roof, disguised as a lightning rod. If you want to find out where he's broadcasting from, you don't look at the ground. You look at the sky."
Detective Aris looked at the sketches, then back at Sara. He saw a woman who was no longer a victim, but a hunter.
"If we do this, Sara, you become the bait," he warned. "He'll know the moment we try to ping that uplink."
"He already knows," Sara said, glancing at her reflection in the darkened screen of a tablet. "He's probably listening to us right now through the vibration of the window glass. He wants me to fight. So, let's give him a war."
As the police began to coordinate the rooftop operation, Sara walked to the window. Outside, the city of Dhaka was a sprawling, chaotic web of lights and data. Somewhere out there, in a dark room filled with the hum of cooling fans, Aryan was waiting.
She could almost hear his voice in the wind, whispering her name.
"The game is just beginning, Sara. Welcome to Phase Two."