I. Roots Beneath the Shadows (The Mother's Tale)
Sekar grew up in Yogyakarta, in a house that always felt as if it were preparing for a sudden escape. Her mother, Siti, was a resilient woman who rarely spoke of the past, yet every movement she made was laced with hyper-vigilance. Siti taught young Sekar not to play with dolls, but to read the direction of the wind, memorize street routes, and identify faces in a crowded marketplace.
Siti knew that the blood flowing through Sekar's veins was that of Tan Malaka—the blood of a perpetual fugitive. Before passing away when Sekar was eighteen, Siti left her with a piece of advice that would become the foundation of Sekar's life: "This world is full of masks, Sekar. Never trust what you see; trust only what they hide."
II. Shadow Valley: Birth of a Predator
Sekar fell onto BIN's radar while she was a linguistics student at the University of Indonesia. It wasn't because of her grades, but because she was caught by surveillance cameras infiltrating the highly guarded National Archives just to find a single name: Tan Malaka.
She wasn't arrested by the police, but by a senior agent named Darmawan (who would later become her nemesis). Darmawan saw Sekar's potential—a girl who could slip through the most advanced security systems without leaving a single fingerprint.
"You have a talent that cannot be taught, Sekar," Darmawan said in the interrogation room. "The country needs people who 'don't exist.' Join us, and I will help you find what you are looking for."
After her recruitment, Sekar was sent to a secret training camp in the depths of the Kalimantan jungle known as Shadow Valley. There, she was no longer a student; she was Subject 09.
Training began with 72 hours of total sensory deprivation in a pitch-black room to test her mental fortitude. She was forced to memorize the subtle sounds of footsteps or passing scents to sharpen her instincts.
She was trained by veteran instructors in deadly close-quarters combat. Sekar wasn't taught to fight with honor; she was taught to neutralize an opponent in seconds using anything at hand—a pen, lipstick, or a hairpin. She was forced to crawl through miles of mud under extreme tropical downpours while carrying heavy gear.
One of her hardest trials was the "Lie Examination." Sekar was subjected to simulated torture (waterboarding and sleep deprivation) while having to maintain a complex cover story. If she mentioned her real name or a true detail of her life even once, she failed. Here, Sekar killed her fear and buried the "old Sekar" deep underground.
At the end of her training, Darmawan visited her and handed her an empty pistol. "In this world, Sekar, the people you love are your greatest weakness. Kill your feelings, or your feelings will kill you."
III. The First Scar: The Tragedy of Naya and Elias
Before Sekar fully became an intelligence machine, she had a brief relationship with Elias, an idealistic and passionate investigative journalist. To Elias, Sekar was "Naya," a quiet librarian who loved old poetry.
Elias was investigating a weapon procurement corruption case which, unbeknownst to him, involved the "black faction" within BIN led by Darmawan. Sekar found documents on Elias's desk indicating his life was in grave danger. BIN had already issued an order to "silence" the journalist. Sekar knew that if she stayed, Elias would be killed. The only way to save him was to vanish and make him stop chasing the case.
They met at an old coffee shop under a heavy downpour. Sekar looked at Elias with a profound gaze—the look of a woman saying goodbye to her own soul.
"Naya, is something wrong?" Elias asked softly, holding her hand.
Sekar gave a thin smile—the most painful lie she had ever told. "I was just thinking how beautiful it would be if time could stop right here."
That night, while Elias slept, Sekar scrubbed every trace of her existence from their apartment. She burned their photos, remotely wiped the data from Elias's phone, and left a brief note on the table: "Don't look for me. I never truly existed."
Sekar stood across the street, watching Elias wake up and panic as he searched for "Naya." That was the last time Sekar ever cried. From that moment on, she locked her heart away, until Arkan arrived and broke that lock with the same brutality as the world they inhabited.
IV. The First Mission and the Art of Self-Deception
Sekar's first mission in Batam, "Operation Red Jasmine," proved her brilliance. She went undercover as the spoiled daughter of a Singaporean casino mogul to ensnare an international human trafficking syndicate. Sekar proved she could deceive even herself to become someone else. She smoked, spoke, and thought exactly like her target. The mission was a total success; she neutralized her target with poison during a private dinner and vanished like smoke before the body even hit the floor.
V. Toward Arkan: The Final Trap of Fate
Years passed, and Sekar became an invisible legend within BIN. Finally, Darmawan gave her the mission he knew would crumble her last defenses: Approach Arkan.
Arkan, a former military man holding sensitive data regarding Tan Malaka, was designated as "Target Alpha." Darmawan used Sekar's obsession with her father as bait. She was ordered to use any means necessary—seduction, manipulation, or violence—to retrieve the data.
Sekar did not know that this mission was a collision of two souls equally broken by the system. Arkan was not just a target; he was a mirror of her own wounds. And here, the true romance of the shadows began, where Sekar would finally discover that the only way to find her father was to let Arkan find her true self.