CHAPTER 6: TOXIC MERCY
09:00 AM. The boardroom of Hardi Corp felt like a funeral home.
Hardi sat at the end of the long table, hair disheveled, eyes red from lack of sleep. On the projector screen, the company's stock graph plummeted in a terrifying vertical line. The phones on the table kept ringing—banks calling debts, suppliers canceling contracts.
"Gone..." Hardi muttered. "Everything is gone."
Bayu sat in the corner of the room, biting his nails nervously. "Dad, we have to flee abroad. Before the police come for the bad checks."
Suddenly, the boardroom doors opened. Not kicked in, but opened slowly with authority.
Aryo entered, followed by Alia carrying a leather briefcase. Aryo didn't sit in the guest chair. He walked straight to the CEO's chair—the seat Hardi occupied—and stood beside it.
"Move," Aryo said softly.
Hardi looked up, his eyes full of hatred but his body powerless. He shifted, letting the nephew he once despised sit on his throne.
"Based on this morning's transactions," Alia spoke as she placed a stack of documents on the table, "Mr. Aryo Purnomo now holds 51% majority shares of Hardi Corp through debt acquisition and public buyouts. This company now belongs to Mr. Aryo."
Hardi collapsed to the floor, kneeling at Aryo's feet. His dignity had vanished last night at the party; now, the last of his sanity crumbled.
"Aryo... Aryo, please, help Uncle," Hardi wailed, clutching the hem of Aryo's trousers. "Don't fire me. Don't kick us out. I have gambling debts, loan sharks... if I lose this position, they will kill me!"
Bayu ran over, prostrating himself beside his father. "Yo, Aryo... we're family, right? We're cousins! Forgive me, Yo. I was wrong. I swear! Don't make me homeless."
Aryo looked down at the two pathetic figures at his feet. Flashes of childhood memories spun; times when Uncle Hardi gave him candy, times they laughed together before his father died. Aryo's small heart, the human part not yet fully hardened, felt pity. Letting them be destroyed completely felt too cruel for his own flesh and blood.
"Stand up," Aryo commanded.
Hardi and Bayu looked up, hope flickering in their eyes.
"I won't fire you," Aryo said coldly. "I still need people to run daily operations. I don't have time to deal with boring technicalities."
Aryo leaned forward, staring sharply into Hardi's eyes.
"You will remain as Director and Manager. Your salaries remain. Your facilities remain. BUT..." Aryo emphasized his voice. "Ownership remains in my hands. One small mistake... one cent missing without my report... and you will rot in prison."
"Thank you, Aryo! Thank you!" Hardi kissed Aryo's hand repeatedly. "I promise! I will work hard for you!"
"Leave. Clean yourselves up. You smell of desperation," Aryo dismissed them.
***
One hour later, inside Hardi's private office.
The tearful atmosphere had vanished instantly. Hardi poured whiskey into a glass with a shaking hand, but his face was no longer one of gratitude. It was a face of vengeful malice.
"That snot-nosed brat..." Hardi hissed. "Who does he think he is? Making me a lackey in my own company?!"
Bayu sat on the sofa, his eyes narrowing cunningly. "Dad, at least we are still inside. We have access."
"Access to what? He holds the majority shares!"
"We find the source, Dad," Bayu whispered. "Aryo is stupid when it comes to the dark business. He's just lucky he has a smart robot and that chip. We have to find out what's really inside that chip besides money."
Bayu pulled out his phone, showing a Dark Web forum he had just accessed.
"I remember the robot saying 'Legacy Protocol' last night. I searched that keyword on illegal data forums."
Hardi approached, reading Bayu's phone screen. His eyes widened.
On the forum, there was a bounty worth hundreds of millions of dollars posted by an anonymous organization with a red skull emblem.
WANTED: THE BLUE HORIZON KEY
Reward: $500,000,000 USD
Description: Contains blueprints for stolen biotechnology weapons.
"Five hundred million dollars..." Hardi swallowed hard. "If we can steal that chip and sell it to these people... we don't need this company anymore. We could be rich for seven generations and flee to Switzerland."
"And Aryo?" asked Bayu.
Hardi smirked evilly. "Let this organization deal with him. They must be professional killers."
***
Meanwhile, at the Sanctuary.
Aryo sat in the underground laboratory. Alia was connecting herself to the main server to perform a deep scan of the chip. Aryo felt something was off. The money in the accounts was too much if it came only from standard patent royalties.
"Analysis complete, Master," Alia's voice sounded heavier than usual. The indicator lights on her body changed from blue to amber—a sign of caution.
"What is the result?"
A hologram appeared. Not bank data anymore, but complex schematics that looked like DNA structures and weapon designs.
"Master, your father was not just a civilian scientist," Alia explained. "It turns out, Blue Horizon was a cover for a high-level defense project he canceled for moral reasons. This chip is not just a key to a money vault."
Alia enlarged the hologram image.
"This is the access code to activate a dormant orbital weapon satellite named 'Valkyrie'. And worse..."
"What?" asked Aryo tensely.
"When you activated this chip on the stock market this morning to buy the company, its encryption signal leaked briefly onto the global network. That signal was like a flare in a dark ocean."
"Meaning?"
"Someone saw it, Master. A private paramilitary organization called 'Red Syndicate'. They have already tracked the location of this signal."
Aryo's face hardened. His mercy toward his uncle earlier this morning felt irrelevant now. The danger coming was no longer about a family inheritance dispute.
"Are they coming?"
"They are already moving, Master. Estimated arrival of the kill squad: 48 hours."
Aryo clenched his fists. "Good. Uncle Hardi wants to play with fire, and now the real hellfire is heading this way."
Aryo looked at Alia. "Alia, activate full combat mode. We are not running."