A modified mag-lev transport roared through a subterranean tunnel bored straight through the volcanic spine of Mount Salak, pinning Bayu against custom calfskin leather. "Look, Nenek, I have six pending orders on my CepatBite app," Bayu pleaded, rubbing a wrist that still bore red impressions from her grip. "If my rating drops below four-point-eight, they revoke my fuel subsidy. You don't understand how harsh the algorithms are—" "Silence," Nenek Ratih said without looking up from an ivory tablet. Her silk kebaya smelled faintly of clove cigarettes and ozone. "Your motor scooter has already been crushed into a cube of scrap metal and credited to a shell company in Labuan. You will not require fuel subsidies where you are going." "That scooter had a fresh oil change!" The transport decelerated with unnatural smoothness, pressurized air hissing as the carbon-fiber doors split apart. Bayu stepped out onto polished basalt. Above them, a subterranean cavern arched into a vaulted dome three hundred meters high, lined with hexagonal light panels mimicking twilight. It wasn't an academy in any sense Bayu recognized. Sleek glass pavilions perched over terraces of black volcanic stone, separated by cascading hydroponic canals and automated training rings where chrome mannequins traded blows that echoed like small artillery strikes. This was Akademi Langit—not a school, but a fortress masquerading as a private retreat. Waiting on the terrace stood a tall man in a midnight-blue bespoken suit, hands clasped behind his back. Silver shot through his slicked-back hair. His posture belonged to a statue erected by people who feared it. Bayu stopped on the catwalk. His throat went dry. Twelve years. Twelve years since Chandra had paid off an aunt in the slums, tossed a single roll of hundred-thousand-rupiah notes onto a linoleum table, and walked out the door without looking back. "You're late, Mother," Chandra said. His voice was smooth, stripped clean of any trace of affection. "The boy had to make a public spectacle of himself at the Adicandra wedding first," Nenek Ratih replied, stepping past Bayu as if he were baggage she had dropped off. "He brought a plastic container of fried noodles into the Grand Apex." Chandra turned his eyes toward Bayu. They were flat, calculating, and entirely empty of warmth. "He smells like cheap palm oil and wet exhaust. A regrettable necessity, your little social experiment." Bayu felt heat flare in his cheeks. "Good to see you too, Dad. Glad to know twelve years of total abandonment really gave you time to work on your parenting skills. Did you hire a PR firm to craft that greeting?" Chandra didn't blink. "Your rebellion is juvenile, Bayu. Worse, it lacks ambition. You ran away to become a servant for an app. Now you return because the world is about to split open, and you possess the sole genetic configuration capable of sustaining our shield anchors." "I didn't return. She kidnapped me!" "Details," Chandra said, turning his back on his son. "The Sampar clan knows you are alive. Jovan Adicandra will use their orbital arrays to claim sovereignty over the incoming crisis unless our bloodline intervenes. Mother, see if he can even align his pulse. If not, feed him to the bio-reactors. We cannot afford dead weight." "Always so wasteful with biological stock," Nenek Ratih murmured. She gestured to two silent attendants dressed in gray linen. "Strip him of that synthetic jacket. Bring him to the firing gallery." "Wait, whoa—firing gallery?" Five minutes later, Bayu stood barefoot on a square of reinforced obsidian. The air smelled of burnt powder and cold stone. Thirty paces away, Nenek Ratih perched on an ornate teak chair, holding an antique matchlock rifle with an elongated, magnetic-coil barrel. "Our kinetic inheritance is simple, Bayu," she explained, loading a heavy, fluted lead slug into the breech. "Every moving mass carries force. The common fool tries to meet force with equal force, breaking his bones. An Angkasa absorbs the vector entirely, internalizes the momentum, and redirects the consequence." "I failed high school physics twice," Bayu shouted back, holding his hands up defensively. "Nenek, please, I have a fragile build!" "Then you had best study quickly." She pulled the trigger. There was no smoke, only a sharp *crack* that rattled Bayu's teeth. Before he could scream, an invisible sledgehammer struck him squarely in the chest. The impact lifted him off his feet, flinging him backward three yards onto the unforgiving stone. He lay there, gasping like a fish pulled onto a dock, clutching his sternum. The specially blunted slug rolled harmlessly beside him, cold to the touch. "Pathetic," Nenek Ratih said, already levering another slug into the breech. "You braced against it. You tightened your muscles like a peasant awaiting a flogging." "You... shot me!" Bayu wheezed, spit dribbling down his chin as he clawed at his bruised ribs. "You shot your own grand-nephew!" "Get up." "I think my lung collapsed—" *Crack.* The second slug caught him on the left shoulder. The kinetic shock tore through him, spinning him around. Pain flared white-hot across his collarbone. "Stop flinching!" Nenek Ratih barked, standing up from her chair. Her eyes gleamed with merciless intensity. "The key to our power is not strength! It is absolute acceptance of consequence! If a boulder falls, you do not hate the boulder. You take the momentum into your blood, convert the descent into your own inertia, and release it. Yield to the trajectory!" "How the hell do you yield to a speeding piece of metal?!" Bayu roared, struggling to his knees. His palms were scraped raw, his chest burning under a massive blooming contusion. "That makes no sense! It's just murder with fancy philosophy!" "Again," she commanded, raising the rifle. "Nenek, don't—" *Crack.* He threw his palms forward instinctively. For a microsecond, the air between his fingers warped, the air density shifting like heat ripples over an asphalt highway at noon. The lead slug struck that invisible film. The shock didn't throw him—it sank into his forearms, setting his marrow on fire. Then his focus slipped. The stored force snapped back into his own body like an overstretched rubber band, throwing Bayu flat on his back again. He hit the stone with a dull thud, coughing violently. "Better," Nenek Ratih said coldly, lowering the barrel. "You absorbed four percent. The rest broke your balance. If the meteor struck right now, your skull would turn into powder before the sky turned red." Before Bayu could fire back an insult, a massive holographic chime echoed across the cavern. A floating projection manifested ten feet wide above the sunken gallery, tuned to the Global Corporate News Network. The breaking-news graphic flashed with urgent red ribbons: *SPECIAL ADDRESS: THE METEOR APOCALYPSE AND THE CITADEL COALITION.* On the screen stood Jovan Adicandra. He had changed out of his groom's tuxedo into an immaculate charcoal tunic emblazoned with the platinum serpent crest of the Sampar clan. His face was broadcast in crisp ultra-high definition, sorrowful yet commanding, projecting the image of a selfless protector. "Citizens of Tirtawijaya, and the world beyond," Jovan said, speaking into a cluster of international microphones while thousands of flashing cameras reflected off his tailored lapel. "For three centuries, ancient dynasties have hoarded the kinetic defense grids meant to safeguard this earth. Today, I break that silence. An extinction-level fragment, Designation Astraea-Nine, enters our atmosphere in seventy-two hours." The ticker tape beneath him went wild with stock crashes and military mobilizations. "The old bloodlines have abandoned you," Jovan continued, his chin steady, his gaze boring directly into the camera lens. "They hide in their mountains. But Sampar Dynamics has developed the Sky-Breaker Array. We will shatter this threat ourselves. We ask only for total regulatory oversight and unified global governance to ensure your survival. Do not look to the sky in fear. Look to us." Bayu stared at the screen from the bloodied floor. The same smug bastard who had poured champagne over his head two hours ago was now crowning himself emperor of the human race.

The Akademi of Hard Knocks