I woke up to my phone chiming. Our group chat that I had labeled “Giant Killers” was already open on my phone, but when I checked it, I found no new messages.

I wasn’t big on social media—except for my vain attempts to contact my extended family. I never posted any status updates or pictures or joined any groups. I was happy with the little bubble I had carved out for myself among the Giant Killers, and because of all this, I never received notifications on any other apps.

Then, I thought of TelePerformix. I had kind of stormed out on that job. Alright, more than “kinda.” I probably had to sign some forms, though I didn’t care at this point. There must have been a way for the company to write me off.

I checked my call logs to see if they had contacted me. Sure enough, I’d received three missed calls and a voicemail from The Boss’s number.

I checked the voicemail.

“Hey… Jayson?” The Boss asked in his bellowing frog-like voice. “Jayson. Yeah. Uhm…” There was a long pause, and at the time, I wasn’t sure why, “…you need to return to the office. A-S-A-P. Call me back or something. We need to talk to you.”

I frowned, staring at my phone and wondering why The Boss called me. I had already been paid for my shifts. Was there some legal obligation I had to fulfill to leave? I wasn’t a surgeon or anything. No one was depending on me.

Then it hit me, and as soon as it did, I deleted all the text messages TelePerformix had sent me, as well as the voicemail from my boss.

Shit.

My mind raced, heart pounding. I resisted the urge to replay the voicemail—it wasn’t a dream. I knew what I heard and why TelePerformix would contact me only days after Taal.

I immediately pulled up the Giant Killers group chat and texted Andrei, Shay, and Reggie.

[WE HAVE A PROBLEM.]

As soon as I sent the message, Shay started typing, a thinking bubble indicating that her message was in progress. My fingers froze over the keys. Reggie began to type, too. I reread my message, and now it seemed too vague. It would only cause suspicion. I needed to elaborate.

[TELEPERFORMIX KNOWS. HARD STOP. HARD. STOP.]

It sounded like military speak, and the way my mind righted itself into place, it felt like it. This must have been my unconscious way of establishing order during chaos. I knew shortly after that my friends had taken it seriously.

[Shay has left the group chat.]

[Andrei has left the group chat.]

Reggie’s typing bubble appeared, then popped five seconds later.

[Reggie has left the group chat.]

I deleted all my chat histories with any of the Giant Killers. Thank God they were encrypted, but with the forces involved here, that might not matter. I did a hard factory reset of my phone and hoped it would be enough for now. In the long term, I knew it wouldn’t.

I shot out of bed, barely showering, before stepping out into the Manila heat, catching a trike, then a Jeepney, to the SM City Bicutan mall. I arrived early, slipping in through the side entrance near the parking lot, the one I knew had fewer cameras. My steps quickened like I had done this a hundred times before.

No messages. No need. My body already knew the drill.

I scanned the mall floor from the shadows of a clothing store, keeping my head low beneath the brim of my hoodie. The usual flow of people drifted by, none paying me any mind.

I found Shay between UNIQLO and National Book Store. She clutched a book in each hand, likely brought from the latter store just now. She had already read half of both of them, one with a unicorn on the cover and the other a polar opposite, showing a haunted house superimposed by dripping, blood-red text. Her eyes flicked between both but glanced up as I approached.

“‘You ever notice how Filipino authors use parentheses in their prose? Glenn Diaz did it. So do a lot of short story writers.” She turned the horror book my way. “And footnotes. Fictitious footnotes. Tons of them.”

I didn’t notice, ever. It had been years since I read a book before The Crest and Its Killers.

She closed both books, smiled nervously, then frowned. “So, this is really it, then?”

I nodded, not saying anything, feeling it unnecessary to elaborate on our predicament.

We found seats at the far corner of the food court, the spot we’d all joked about being “ours,” tucked away from the usual foot traffic. Shay and I didn’t say a word as we waited, though, in truth, I wanted to air out my grievances to her. How could we be so stupid? Worse yet, how could I have led my friends into this? I was the one behind the wheel.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I caught Shay’s glance from the corner of my eye. A flicker of something—doubt? Fear? Guilt?—passed between us, but neither of us said a word.

Andrei and Reggie arrived a few minutes later, Andrei carrying a tray of siopao—steamed buns filled with meat that he had ordered from the food court. Reggie, too, had brought siomai, which were savory steamed dumplings. I hadn’t eaten that day, and I was starving. It was nice to see, too, that the news didn’t ruin their appetite.

Andrei’s tattoos were fully displayed in the light, mimicking motherboard circuitry. His eyes snapped to me. “Jayson, tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish I was.” I exhaled, thinking how to describe the thoughts dominating my mind since I had heard the voicemail. “TelePerformix knows we salvaged the drone. They must. I’m pretty sure they tracked the van, and now the Giants know.”

Andrei breathed in through his nose and eyed Reggie. “Your script didn’t work?” Andrei asked.

“It did!” I interjected. “It did, but their field agents must have tracked it down and told TelePerformix.” Guilt washed over me as I said all this, but I had to push through. My friends deserved to know.

Shay looked down at the table, perhaps contemplating the news. “Which Giant?”

I could only guess which one had the manpower and resources to track the drone back to us. “Probably Metamatics.”

“Shit!” Andrei nearly dropped his food. “The biggest ones.” He shook his head. “You know they make people disappear, right?”

“I know, I know.” Who didn’t know? “We should have checked the drone. I’m sorry. That’s on me.”

Reggie ran a hand through his hair. “No, no, Jayson. It’s on us. We all went there with you.” He turned to Andrei as if he were the handler of some raging beast. “Right?”

Andrei nodded, though it was shallow. If we were in any other place, I think he would have taken a run at me.

Reggie’s next question pulled me back to the present. “What about your phone, Jayson?”

I told him how I performed a factory reset and deleted all our chats before that. “They’re encrypted, right?”

“Yeah…” Reggie said, sitting back and staring, “…but if they know where to look, I’m sure they can crack them.”

My God. The sheer wealth of the streaming Giants was more apparent to me now than ever, especially that of Metamatics, the largest one by market cap, number of employees, number of international offices, and a host of other metrics.

“I’m not going to blame this on anyone in particular,” said Shay, the voice of reason. “That really doesn’t get us anywhere.” She had the presence of mind to not stare at Andrei too long when she said it. I wondered if the guy had somehow sneaked a gun past the mall security.

Shay then asked me calmly, “How do you even know?”

I told them about the texts and the voicemail I opened.

“Looks like we’re out of jobs,” Andrei added as he chewed. “Whatever. I hated that place anyway.”

“Me too,” said Reggie.

“Yeah,” said Shay, looking down. “Me too.”

These admissions didn’t make me feel any better. My friends had lost their jobs because of me. I wouldn’t blame them if they all wanted to take a run at me now. If I were them, I would sure as hell want to.

“We need to ditch the phones,” Reggie said, matter-of-fact. “All of them, and I mean now. No exceptions.”

All our phones sat on the table. They suddenly seemed like capture drones, staring at us through their cyclopean eyes. Shay must have felt their foreboding presence as she gathered the phones in a pile and covered them with her hoodie.

Andrei sighed, seeming to calm down. “So, we have to play it safe, alright?”

We all nodded, but I felt the need to say it outright so we were all on the same page. “Everyone goes dark.” I swallowed. “No communication with each other at all. Not on SMS or secure channels—channels you may think are secure, or even paper.”

As my friends dwelled on those words, losing them, I thought, was one of two of the worst realities of this situation. The other was that I had zero income and didn’t know when I would again.

The total weight of the situation didn’t hit me until Andrei got up to leave. He didn’t say anything, walking away immediately. Then, realizing something, he came back and picked up his phone. We all took ours, then.

“We really have to get rid of these?” Andrei asked Reggie.

Reggie nodded.

As I stared at the pile of phones on the table, it hit me: this wasn’t just about going dark. The moment we threw them away, we were throwing away each other, too. No more group chats, no more late-night plans or jokes, no more covering for each other at TelePerformix. After today, we’d be nothing but ghosts, drifting apart in a city too big to find our way back. I wondered if, when I saw them again, we’d even recognize each other.

“Wait,” I said as Andrei was about to walk off. I showed them my phone. “Maybe we can… do this together?”

I looked to Reggie when I asked it, and by his nod, he seemed to approve.

We left the SM together, passing through dry markets while heading east along General Santos Ave. Our path was unspoken but all known. Andrei and Reggie took the front, Shay and I in the back. As we walked, silent as if joining a funeral procession, I opened my phone one last time, found the Contacts app, and memorized something.

Shay eyed me, but I didn’t elaborate.

We reached the boardwalk that stretched over Laguna Lake, the air heavy with the smell of wet wood, street food, and fish. People crowded around, snapping photos with the newly cleaned waters shimmering behind them. Far off, four jet skis roared across the water, splitting the surface like knives. I envied their speed, their freedom—the way they cut through the lake without hesitation while we stood there, stuck.

I held my phone in my hands, my grip tightening as I looked at the others. “Ready?” My voice felt small.

Shay nodded first, a flicker of something like fear in her eyes. Andrei took a deep breath, gripping his phone like it would grow teeth and bite him. Reggie lingered the longest, his fingers tightening around his as if it were a brick he could throw. But one by one, they all nodded.

And together, without a word, we hurled our phones into the lake, watching them splash before vanishing beneath the surface.