Season 1 chapter 2.5
The Central Library
The library was a relic from a time before the government became a total dictatorship. It was a massive, domed building with cracked stone pillars and high windows that hadn't been cleaned in a decade.
They didn't use the front door—that was for people who wanted to get arrested. They found a rusted service grate near the boiler room at the back. Kniya used his pocket knife to shimmy the lock, and they slipped inside, the warm, dry air hitting them instantly.
Inside, the silence was heavy. It smelled of rotting paper, glue, and dust. The contrast to the chaotic, noisy streets outside was jarring.
"Okay," Malesh whispered, his voice echoing slightly. "Where the hell do we go? This place is a maze. It's huge."
Kniya looked at the endless rows of towering wooden shelves. "We need two things. First, we need to know where the military keeps its brain. Second, we need to know where the money went."
"I'll check the... uh... books over there?" Malesh pointed vaguely at a section labeled 'Fiction'.
Kniya slapped the back of his head. "Are you an idiot or what? Bro, use your brain. We aren't looking for fairy tales. We need the 'Civil Infrastructure & Government Zoning' section. That's where the blueprints are."
They moved to the far west wing of the library. Kniya pulled down a massive, dust-covered atlas of the city. He flipped the pages until he found the current military layouts.
"Got you," Kniya grinned, tapping a finger on a large, red-shaded area of the map. "Sector 32. The Naurkov Government Region."
Malesh looked at the map. "Naurkov? That's on the other side of the river. Look at the layout, Kniya. It's surrounded by walls."
"Yeah, but look here," Kniya traced a blue line on the blueprint. "The central heating pipes run right under the river and connect directly to the basement of the main admin building. That's where the Military Archives are. That's where they keep the real files."
The Paper Trail
"Okay, so we know where to go," Malesh said, looking nervous. "But what are we looking for? If we break into Sector 32 and find nothing, we're dead."
"We need to know what we're looking for before we break in," Kniya said. "We need to confirm the money trail. Help me find the 'National Expenditure & Logistics' section. It should be near the Law books."
They spent twenty minutes frantically pulling down ledgers. Most of them were boring records of grain shipments or coal purchases. Malesh was getting frustrated.
"This is bullshit," Malesh cursed, slamming a book shut. "There's nothing here about the 532 Crore. They probably burned the records."
"They can't burn everything," Kniya muttered, his eyes scanning a shelf of 'Foreign Import Logs'. "The government is a bureaucracy, bro. Every penny has to be written down somewhere, even if they lie about what it was for."
He pulled out a thick, black binder labeled: Territory 36102 - Supply Chain (Year 1413-1414).
"Bingo," Kniya whispered.
He opened the book on a reading table. Malesh leaned over, his eyes scanning the columns.
"Here it is," Malesh pointed, his finger trembling. "Allocated Fund: 5.32 billion DI'an Credits. Purpose: Infrastructure Redevelopment."
"Keep reading," Kniya said coldly. "Look at the 'Vendor' column."
Malesh's eyes went wide. "What the fuck? Vendor: Royal Silk Merchants of the East... Gilded Oak Furniture Ltd... Vintners of the Southern Coast."
"They didn't buy cement," Kniya hissed. "They bought silk, wine, and gold. Look at the delivery address. It's not the Grenoble Islands. It's a private estate coordinate in the Neutral Zone."
Malesh flipped to the back of the ledger. There was a copy of the authorization slip.
AUTHORIZED BY: KNORWIN KLOVE - MILITARY IN-CHARGE.
"That motherfucker," Malesh swore loudly, his voice shaking with rage. "He stole it. He stole all of it. People are starving in the streets, soldiers are wearing taped-up boots, and this prick Knorwin Klove is sitting on a throne of stolen gold."
Kniya slammed the book shut and shoved it into his backpack. "He's not just a thief, Malesh. He's the reason an entire army is hunting us right now. He knows that if anyone connects the dots—if anyone sees this book—he hangs for treason."
Kniya looked at the map of Sector 32 again, his eyes burning with a dangerous resolve.
"We have the ledger," Kniya said. "But a book isn't enough. We need the original bank transfer orders from the Military Archives in Naurkov to prove he signed it. We're going to Sector 32. And we're going to burn his whole world down."
The Exit and the Streets
Kniya shoved the black ledger into his waistband, tightening his belt until it dug into his skin. "We need to move," he whispered. "If they find us in here with this book, we don't even get a trial. They'll just shoot us out back."
They retraced their steps to the rusted service grate. Kniya peeked out. The alleyway was empty, but the air was filled with the low, vibrating hum of heavy machinery. The city wasn't sleeping; it was hunting.
They slipped out, the cool night air hitting their faces. Malesh gripped the canvas-wrapped rifle tight against his chest.
"Which way?" Malesh asked, his voice barely audible over the distant sirens.
"North," Kniya said, pointing toward the river that cut the city in half. "Sector 32 is across the Iron Bridge. But we can't take the bridge. It'll be crawling with those grey-coat bastards."
They moved through the shadows of the industrial district. The streets here were narrow, lined with factories that belched black smoke 24/7. The ground was slick with oil and rain.
Suddenly, a blinding white light swept over the brick wall just inches above their heads.
"Get down!" Kniya hissed, tackling Malesh into a pile of wet cardboard boxes behind a dumpster.
A massive steam-tank rumbled past the alley entrance. The ground shook so hard that Kniya's teeth rattled. Through the gap in the boxes, they saw the tank's turret turning slowly, looking for targets. Soldiers walked beside it, their fingers on the triggers of their rifles.
"Check the sewers!" a commander shouted. "The General wants them found tonight! Tear this fucking district apart if you have to!"
Malesh pressed his face into the dirt, trembling. "Fucking shit of hell," he whispered. "Kniya, they are literally everywhere. How the fuck are we supposed to get to Naurkov without being seen?"
Kniya waited until the tank's rumble faded. He spat out a mouthful of grit. "We don't walk. We crawl. The blueprints showed a drainage outflow near the textile factory. It leads directly to the riverbank. It's going to smell like shit, but it's the only way."
----------------------
The River of Filth
The drainage tunnel was worse than Kniya imagined. It was a long, dark pipe half-filled with industrial runoff—a thick, chemical sludge that burned their noses and made their eyes water.
"Oh god," Malesh gagged, pulling his collar up over his nose. "This smells like rotting meat and sulfur."
"Just keep moving," Kniya said, his voice echoing in the darkness. "Think about Knorwin Klove sitting in his palace, drinking wine while we wade through this shit. Let that anger keep you walking."
They slogged through the sludge for what felt like hours. Rats the size of cats scurried along the pipes above them, their red eyes glowing in the faint light filtering down from the manholes.
Finally, the tunnel widened, and they saw the moonlight reflecting off water. They had reached the riverbank, right underneath the massive Iron Bridge.
They crept out of the pipe and hid behind a concrete pillar. Across the dark water, looming like a fortress, was Sector 32—The Naurkov Government Region.
It was terrifying.
A massive stone wall surrounded the entire sector. Guard towers were placed every fifty meters, with steam-powered machine guns mounted on top. Searchlights swept the river constantly, turning the black water white.
"Look at that," Malesh whispered, pointing to the main gate. "It's a fortress. Kniya, there's no way we're getting in there. We'd be cut to pieces before we even touched the wall."
"We aren't using the gate," Kniya said, scanning the waterline. "Remember the map? The central heating intake. It pulls water from the river to cool the boilers."
He pointed to a massive, rusted iron grating half-submerged in the river, about a hundred meters downstream from the bridge. The water churned violently around it as giant pumps sucked it in.
"That's our door," Kniya said.
----------------------
The Intake
They crawled along the muddy bank, staying low in the reeds. The mud sucked at their shoes, making every step a struggle. The searchlights from the towers swept over the river, missing them by inches.
When they reached the intake grate, the noise was deafening. The pumps inside roared like dying beasts.
"It's sealed!" Malesh shouted over the noise, pulling on the thick iron bars. "It's bolted shut!"
Kniya looked at the rusted bolts. "It's old iron, Malesh. It's brittle. Give me the rifle butt."
Kniya took the heavy wooden stock of the bolt-action rifle and jammed it between the bars. "Pull! Pull with everything you've got!"
Both boys grabbed the rifle, bracing their feet against the slippery concrete. They pulled until their muscles burned, screaming silently with the effort.
CRACK.
The rusted bolt snapped, and the grate swung open just enough for a small body to squeeze through.
"Go!" Kniya shoved Malesh inside. "Don't stop until you find dry ground!"
They shimmied through the gap, dropping into the cold, rushing water of the intake tunnel. The current was strong, dragging them deeper into the belly of Sector 32. They tumbled through the darkness, scraping against the metal walls, until they were spat out onto a metal walkway inside a massive, humid boiler room.
They lay there for a moment, coughing up river water and gasping for air. They were soaked, covered in slime, and exhausted.
Malesh wiped his eyes and looked up. "We're in."
Kniya stood up, checking the rifle. It was wet, but the bolt still moved. He patted the ledger in his belt—it was still there.
"Yeah," Kniya said, looking at the maze of pipes and steam valves around them. "We're in the heart of the beast. Now let's go find the brain."
----------------------
The Boiler Room & The Rifle
The boiler room was a deafening hellscape of hissing steam and clanging pipes. Kniya leaned against a hot brass tank, wringing the filthy river water out of his shirt.
Malesh wiped the sludge from his eyes and looked around, panic suddenly flashing across his face. He patted his own back, then looked at Kniya's empty hands.
"Kniya... wait," Malesh shouted over the roar of the machinery. "I can't see the bolt-action rifle with you. Did you drop it in the tunnel? We're defenseless without it!"
Kniya looked at him with a mix of exhaustion and disbelief. "Do you think I'm an idiot? You think I'd carry a three-foot-long military rifle through the city streets and into a sewer? And you are asking about it now ? We didn't had the rifle when we moved out of the reserved forest"
"But... I thought..."
"I hid it at the exit of the forest," Kniya cut him off, his voice sharp. "I buried it under the roots of that old oak tree. Carrying it here would have been a death sentence. We couldn't walk ten feet with that thing without getting tackled. Besides, we aren't here to shoot our way out. We're here for paper."
Malesh let out a breath of relief. "Okay. Good call. I thought we lost it."
"Forget the gun," Kniya said, pointing to a metal ladder spiraling up into the shadows. "The blueprints show that the maintenance shaft leads straight up to the records room. We get the notes, we get out."
----------------------
The Ascent
They climbed the ladder, the metal rungs slippery with condensation. the air got hotter the higher they went. Through the metal grating of the floor above, they could see the boots of soldiers patrolling the hallway.
They reached the top of the shaft. Kniya peeked through a vent cover. It opened into a dimly lit storage closet filled with mops and buckets.
"Clear," Kniya whispered. He pushed the vent open, and they scrambled out, leaving the noise of the boiler room behind.
They were in the basement hallway of the Naurkov Administrative Building. The floor was polished marble, reflecting the gas lamps on the walls. It was quiet—too quiet.
"Room 104," Kniya recited from memory. "Department of Military Expenditure."
They crept down the hall, hugging the walls. They heard voices approaching—two officers discussing dinner plans. Kniya grabbed Malesh and pulled him behind a heavy velvet curtain just as the officers walked past, their medals jingling.
Once they were gone, Kniya darted across the hall to a heavy oak door marked 104. It was locked.
"Move," Kniya whispered. He pulled a thin metal pick from his pocket (a trick he learned from the seniors) and jammed it into the keyhole. He twisted it violently. The lock clicked.
----------------------
The Transfer Notes
The room smelled of cigar smoke and ink. It was lined with filing cabinets that reached the ceiling.
"Okay," Malesh said, his hands shaking as he looked at the thousands of drawers. "The library ledger gave us the date. Cycle 1413, Month of Iron. Look for the transaction records."
They split up, frantically pulling open drawers.
"Found the year!" Malesh hissed. He pulled out a thick folder. "Month of Iron... Month of Iron..."
He flipped through the papers until he stopped dead. He pulled out a single, crisp sheet of paper. It wasn't a copy; it was the original bank authorization.
"Kniya. Look."
Kniya rushed over. The document was undeniable proof.
TRANSFER AMOUNT: 5,320,000,000 DI'an Credits.
SOURCE: National Defense Fund (Seistain).
DESTINATION: Private Account #882 - The Golden Trust (Neutral Zone).
AUTHORIZATION:
And there it was. Not a stamp, but a wet-ink signature, signed by the man himself.
Knorwin Klove.
"He didn't even try to hide it well," Kniya whispered, staring at the signature. "He thought no one would ever get inside this room."
Kniya carefully folded the document and tucked it into his pocket, buttoning it shut. He patted his chest.
"We got it," Kniya said, a dark smile forming on his face. "We have the fucking fund transfer notes. This piece of paper is worth more than his entire life."
"So what now?" Malesh asked, looking at the door. "Do we leak it to the press? The newspapers are controlled by the state, Kniya. They won't print it."
"No," Kniya said, his eyes cold and calculating. "We don't go to the press. We go to the source. We are going to blackmail the guy."
"Blackmail the Military In-Charge?" Malesh sounded terrified.
"Exactly," Kniya said. "He wants to keep his power? He wants to keep his stolen palace? Then he does exactly what we say. We own him now, bro. But first... we have to get out of here alive."
----------------------
The Walk to the Lion's Den
The trek from the Naurkov Archives to the Military Headquarters was only two miles, but in a city occupied by thirty thousand soldiers, it felt like crossing a goddamn ocean of steel.
Kniya and Malesh stayed in the deep shadows of the industrial alleys. Every few minutes, a searchlight from a passing armored carriage would cut through the smog, and they'd have to press their bodies into the filth of the gutters to stay unseen.
"My heart is hitting my ribs like a fucking hammer, Kniya," Malesh whispered, his voice cracking. "Look at the checkpoint at the end of the block. There's ten of them. All with rifles."
Kniya didn't even look scared. He looked disgusted. "Look at those idiots," he spat, nodding toward the soldiers. "Standing there in the cold, protecting a system that steals their wages to buy silk and gold for a fat pig like Klove. They're fucking pawns, Malesh. Don't be afraid of pawns."
They moved like ghosts. Kniya used the "dead zones" in the city's lighting—places where the steam-lamps were broken or the fog was too thick for the lenses to penetrate. They climbed over rusted iron fences, dropped through coal chutes, and scurried across rooftops.
At the final bridge leading to the Headquarters, they had to crawl through a suspended maintenance pipe over the river. The wind was howling, and the cold metal bit into their hands.
"If we fall, we're dead," Malesh whimpered.
"Then don't fucking fall," Kniya hissed back. "Think about the paper in my pocket. This isn't just a document. This is the leash. We're about to put a collar on the biggest dog in Seistain."
They reached the other side, dropping onto the manicured grass of the Headquarters' rear lawn. The building loomed over them, a massive fortress of stone and brass. They slipped through a service entrance meant for the laundry staff, moving past steaming vats of boiling water and rows of grey uniforms waiting to be pressed.