I stood up from my seat. Shocked. Confused. So, it was him. Three times I asked Carl, and three times I got the same answer.
"Do you want to ask a fourth time?"
I saw two possible motives for why he did this. First, he disliked and wanted to bring down my father. After all, my father's harsh demeanor could easily make enemies. Or second, he was simply the greedy type who wanted to control everything.
"Yeah, but this is different. Why hasn't he bought in yet, even after successfully crashing the price?" I paced back and forth, asking rhetorical questions, trying to find an answer.
Meanwhile, Carl was busy pouring his mother's signature dish from the pot into his bowl.
"It won't taste as good if it gets cold, Wisnu. Come on, enjoy my mom's cooking first. You always love her food. Who knows? Maybe it'll help clear your clouded mind."
Carl was right. I'd be disrespecting this meal if I ate it cold. The best way to enjoy it was while it was still warm. I sat back down and scooped five ladles of soup from the Land of a Thousand Pagodas into my bowl.
Slurp. His mother's cooking hadn't changed at all. It was still amazing. But I couldn't fully enjoy it. My thoughts were still spinning. Suddenly, a hypothesis formed in my mind.
"There's a third party who will do it for him."
"..." Carl ignored me, too focused on devouring his meal. His bowl was almost empty. He refilled it again with three ladles.
"My instincts tell me he won't do it himself. He doesn't want to get his hands dirty." I added.
Carl was eating so voraciously that his bowl was clean again in no time. In total, he had already consumed two-thirds of the soup pot, which had a height of 24 cm and a diameter of 15 cm.
"Makes sense. I'll help you prove that theoryâafter you finish your food." He wiped his mouth with a tissue from the table and carried his empty bowl to the back.
Suddenly, a repeating bip sound came from his laptop speakers, and a red fighter jet icon appeared on the screen, 30 kilometers away.
"Carl?"
Carl had only taken seven steps before immediately turning back, looking panicked. He glanced at the LCD screen.
"Wisnu, come with me!" He quickly placed his bowl back on the table and grabbed his laptop.
I was just about to enjoy my meal, but I understood the situation and panicked as well.
Without asking questions, I followed Carl. Frantically, I called for Murdani, who was waiting on the front porch. He quickly grabbed the bag containing the payment and followed me.
"Ma, come on! To the bunker!" Hearing Carl shout, his mother immediately rushed out of her room.
Carl, his mother, Murdani, and I ran toward a bookshelf. A bookshelf?
Carl pulled a remote from his pocket. Bip. The bookshelf shifted. Behind it was a dark, doorless room.
Carl motioned for his mother, me, and Murdani to enter first.
Once everyone was inside, Carl pressed the button again, closing the bookshelf back to its original position. Just as it shut, a deafening explosion roared, but the impact was muffled by a ten-meter distance and layers of dirt.
The dark room lit up, revealing buttons to go up or down. An elevator. The back of the bookshelf was actually an elevator door. We descended.
"You prepared all this, Carl?"
"People like us always have enemies, Wisnu. And some of those enemies want to erase us completely."
As soon as we reached the bottom, the metal elevator doors slid open. We entered another dark space, but this time, it was much larger. Carl pulled a lever on the side, activating the lighting, air circulation, and... ten computer monitors?!
"Is this your workspace, Carl?"
"No. This is just the emergency site. The main one? Well, that just turned to dust. But this place backs up all the data from above, and no hacker can breach this. I've set up a super-high encryption." Carl placed his laptop on the desk beside the row of monitors and sat in his work chair.
Murdani and Mrs. Lee sat down to calm themselves. I looked around. This wasn't just any bunker. It was a nuclear-proof oneâor, in hyperbole, an apocalypse-proof one. There were long-lasting food supplies stocked up, enough to sustain life for... a month. My old friend was fully prepared. If I had to estimate, this place was worth half a million dollars, just for the hacking setup alone.
"Wisnu, where's your phone?"
"Ahhh..." I patted my pockets. Nothing. I asked Murdani. He didn't know either.
"It probably turned to dust too."
"Good."
"Huh? What do you mean 'good'?" I was a little offended.
"Your phone was being tapped."
"How? No one has ever touched my phone, and even if The Maskman did it, I never met them in person."
"The Maskman?" Carl, who had been busy typing away on his keyboard, stopped. Surprised by the nickname.
"The mastermind behind the stock hacking. I call them that because they seem too 'clean' on the outside to be doing dirty work."
Hearing me say that, Carl gave a 'whatever' gesture before going back to inputting binary codes. He was probably trying to analyze what had just happened.
"Don't be naïve, Wisnu. We live in a globalized world now. A virtual network era. A world without borders."
"The internet."
"As long as your phone's internet was on, 'external parties' could infiltrate it with malware. They monitored all your activitiesâthrough your phone's microphone and camera. Now, come here."
I walked closer to Carl. Murdani and Mrs. Lee, who had been silent this whole time, also leaned in. Carl pulled up the CCTV footage around his house, showing the moments right before the explosion that destroyed my helicopter.
"Carl, are they targeting us?" Mrs. Lee asked.
"No, Ma. It's my handsome friend here."
"Why, is he bad?" Mrs. Lee asked as if I wasn't right next to her. I tried not to laugh.
"No, Ma. The one who just attacked us is."
Carl rewound the footage. A missile was captured right before it hit.
"A Raytheon AGM-65. And the aircraft that fired it was..." Carl switched windows, showing a video of an F-16 fighter jet flying over his burning house. Wait. Something felt off. Indonesia doesn't have spy satellites.
"OMG, WTF, Carl! Whose satellite are you using?"
"USA."
"Damn, Carl! Stop it. We could start a war."
"Relax, Wisnu. It's just temporary. It's safe. Just trust your friend here."
I sighed, trying to convince myself to trust Carlâthat he could do this safely.
After a while, the aircraft made by the land of the red bear disappeared, confirming there was no more life in the burning house.
"And we are out."
I felt relieved. Carl disconnected from the American satellite. Then he inputted a few more codes into his hacking program and explained something to me.
"This aircraft originally belonged to the government. But three months ago, it was purchased by a local company. A company whose ultimate owner is... The Maskman."
Damn!