The midday sun in San Pedro didn't just shine; it weighed on you. Down by the old terminal, the air felt like a wet blanket soaked in diesel fumes and the smell of toasted sugar from the nearby bibingka stalls. It was the kind of heat that made everything move in slow motion.
Except for Chano.
He sat in the back of his shop, "Chano's Tech & E-Load," where the air was marginally cooler and smelled of solder. To the neighborhood, he was the guy who could perform miracles on a water-damaged phone for the price of a decent lunch. He kept his head down, his baseball cap serving as a "do not disturb" sign.
"Kuya Chano, can you save it? My teacher's gonna kill me," Nikki whispered, sliding a shattered tablet across the counter.
Chano didn't look up. His fingers, calloused but steady, were already prying at the casing. "Ten minutes, Nikki. Go grab a juice. It's just the screen."
He almost made it.
The peace was punctured by the scream of expensive tires on sun-baked asphalt. Three white luxury vans—the kind that don't belong in a terminal side-street—muscled their way through the traffic, forcing a jeepney into the gutter. Out stepped Lance Dizon. He was draped in a crisp linen barong that probably cost more than Chano's entire inventory, topped off with a gold watch that practically yelled "I'm important."
Lance didn't head for the tech shop. He went straight for Aling Nena's bakery.
Nena was the heart of the block. When Chano first rolled into town with nothing but a backpack and a lot of bad memories, she'd fed him without asking for a single centavo.
"Aling Nena!" Lance's voice cut through the hum of the market. "Time's up. My uncle's mall extension starts Monday. Clear out, or I'll have the bulldozers do it for you."
Nena shuffled out, her hands shaking as she wiped them on her flour-stained apron. "Sir Lance, please... our lease is good for another year. We have the receipts."
"The municipality doesn't care about your receipts, old woman," Lance spat. He waved a hand at four guys who looked like they lived in a squat rack. "Move her. Clear the shop."
One of the goons grabbed Nena's arm, his fingers digging into her skin. "You heard the man. Move it."
Inside the shop, Chano's hands didn't falter. He snapped the new LCD into place, tightened the final screw, and slid the tablet back to Nikki.
"Go home, kid," he said, his voice flat. "Don't look back."
He stood up, tucked a small USB drive into his pocket, and stepped out into the stifling heat.
"Let her go."
It wasn't a shout. It was a low, vibrating tone—the sound of a blade sliding out of a sheath. It made the hair on the back of everyone's necks stand up.
Lance looked Chano up and down, a sneer twisting his face. "And who are you? The local janitor? Get lost before I find a cage for you too."
"I'm asking nicely," Chano said, stepping forward. "Let her go."
A mountain of a man named Turo stepped into his path, reaching for a baton. "You got a lot of nerve for a guy in a dusty shirt. You want to play hero?"
Chano didn't give him a chance to finish the thought. He moved with a terrifying economy of motion—no wasted energy, no cinematic wind-up. He hit Turo's throat with two fingers, caught the man's wrist as he gasped, and drove his head into the shop's iron gate.
The clang echoed down the street. Turo folded like a lawn chair.
"Get him!" Lance shrieked, stumbling backward.
The other three closed in, but they were fighting a ghost. Chano didn't do flashy. He broke a nose with a palm strike, dropped the second with a knee to the gut, and paralyzed the third with a thumb pressed into a nerve cluster.
In ten seconds, the street was quiet again, save for the groans of the security team.
Lance pulled his phone out, his thumbs dancing over the screen. "You're dead! My uncle will have the army here! You're finished!"
"Go ahead," Chano said, leaning casually against a post. "Check your bars first."
Lance stared at his screen. Nothing. Then, the display flickered and turned a deep, neon blue. A sharp, stylized 'X' began to pulse.
"What did you do?"
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a hundred different chimes. Every phone in the crowd, every digital billboard on the main road, and even the smart TV in the window of the appliance store next door lit up. A video began to play: Lance and his uncle, clear as day, laughing about the millions they'd siphoned off the local road projects.
Lance's face went from pale to gray. "How... how do you have that?"
"You shouldn't use public Wi-Fi for your dirty laundry, Lance," Chano said, holding up a small, hand-soldered device. "I own the signal in this town. And right now, that video is sitting in the Ombudsman's inbox. Your uncle is going to be too busy staying out of jail to worry about a mall."
Chano stepped closer, and for a second, the quiet technician was gone. In his place was Xy—a man who used to dismantle empires from a keyboard. "If I see you near Nena again, I won't just delete your bank accounts. I'll delete you."
Lance didn't wait. He scrambled into the van and tore off, leaving his "security" to find their own way home.
The neighborhood watched in stunned silence. Aling Nena walked up to him, her eyes wet with tears. "Chano... who are you, really?"
He pulled his cap lower, the shadow hiding the old scars on his face. "Just a guy who fixes things, Nay. Sometimes you just have to deal with a virus."
He retreated back into the dim safety of his shop. But on the high-end rig hidden behind the counter, a red light was blinking. A map of the Philippines was on the screen, with a tracer line screaming down from a server in Makati.
A single line of text scrolled across the monitor:
[LOCATED: SAN PEDRO, LAGUNA. TARGET ACQUIRED.]