📍 Tiger's Den
🕛 7.30 PM
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We traced the uploaded video back to a WiFi signal from a restaurant in a mall. Mano and Kathir went undercover to hack into the system and retrieve the CCTV footage.
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On the screen, the same man appeared - the one who had stolen the PC from Jay's office. Parking lot cameras showed he had arrived by car, but strangely, the vehicle never appeared in any traffic footage afterward. That meant the car was still nearby.
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Ashwin immediately launched our Tiger Drones to scout the area. For years, as Steel Tiger, I had hidden cameras across the city - in alleys, rooftops, even the darkest corners no one dared to check. And tonight, those eyes caught something: the missing car, parked near an abandoned playground.
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I ordered Mano and Kathir to follow from a distance. When Ashwin sent a drone closer, its signal suddenly cut off - the machine crashed, lifeless.
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"A jamming device," Ashwin muttered.
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Something inside me felt wrong. I decided to handle this myself. Suiting up, I rode Rimba to the playground. I told Mano and Kathir to return to Tiger's Den.
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Tiger Baton in hand, I approached the car. My pulse quickened as I pulled the door open.
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What I saw froze my heart.
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The man was slumped inside, dead. A syringe still pierced his hand - the same poison that had killed Jay. Beside him lay a note:
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"Good luck, Steel Tiger!"
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Another dead end.
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As I returned, my phone buzzed. It was Visho. His voice carried urgency.
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"Machi, that man... he wasn't just anyone. He was a famous Malay novelist. He was here for a book launch last Saturday. But his wife and child are missing. Their phones are off. And the hotel they stayed in... it's the same one that caught fire."
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Suspicion burned deeper. Ashwin tracked the wife's last phone signal - it ended near a rubbish bin outside the hotel. CCTV from a pawn shop across the street showed something chilling: the same man, alive, throwing the phone away.
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Why would he do this? And where were his wife and child?
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Then Ram called. His voice was tense, almost breaking:
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"Machi, come to my lab now. Urgent."
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"Are you safe?" I asked. Silence, then the line went dead.
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Ashwin reported Ram's bodycam had gone offline too - the same interference signal as the playground. My instincts screamed danger.
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I raced to the lab. No guards, no staff. Silence.
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Inside, I found Ram lying unconscious, blood pooling behind his head, a syringe mark on his arm. The poison again.
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But this time, I was ready. Ram and I had secretly developed an antidote - a formula based on ancient Ayurvedic knowledge, taught by our Master. Ram had insisted on testing it more, but I had no choice. I injected him, praying. Slowly, the color returned to his face.
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I rushed him to the hospital. The doctors managed to stabilize him, but the blow to his head left him in a coma. My anger boiled. First Jay, now Ram. If I had been minutes later, I might have lost him too.
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Back in the lab, I found another mocking note:
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"Loser!"
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I crushed it in my fist. But then, something caught my eye - faint writing under the lab table, glowing with a chemical only Ram had shown me before.
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I lit it carefully. Words blazed in ghostly fire.
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A name.
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Naaga.
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A ghost from my past. Someone I thought long dead.
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Beneath the name, another cryptic clue:
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Sheath Dress.
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If this truly was Naaga... then a storm far darker than anything we'd faced was coming.
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And I wasn't sure if Steel Tiger was ready.
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---
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and then Add to home screen.