Lagos had always been loud—horns, shouts, prayers, curses. The city never slept; it only changed voices. But now, in the wake of the explosions, the fire, and the betrayal, there was a new sound. Beneath the sirens, shattered glass, and screams of power crumbling, there was something else.
A hum.
It was the sound of truth crawling out from under the weight of deception.
And Dapo could hear it, clearer than ever.
He stood amid the broken corridor of what used to be the Emergency Communications Unit. The roof had collapsed inward after the last round of RPG fire. What remained were shattered screens, scorched files, and the crackling voice of someone shouting commands over a half-dead radio.
"Ashiru is moving, zone five, secure the outer."
He switched it off. Pointless noise. What he needed now was silence. That rare commodity.
Ibukun stepped over the body of a collapsed officer, blood soaking through the back of his khaki uniform. Her breathing was heavy, and her arms were streaked with soot and dried blood that wasn't hers.
"You should sit," she said. "You're running on fumes."
"I can't," Dapo replied, voice low, eyes scanning the ruined blueprint still nailed to the wall, a floor plan of the EC Tower. It was outdated, torn, and marked by years of panic-driven scribbles, but it was the only map left.
"We just lost five more people on the eastern flank," she added. "They had no chance."
Dapo nodded absently, his mind already five moves ahead.
The Saints were closing in.
The street gangs had morphed into paramilitary hounds under Ashiru's banner. Former informants were now executioners. And the silence that once protected the Resistance was now their noose.
Across town, the Governor's broadcast still looped every six minutes on the remaining state-run channels:
"To preserve order, I have declared a full state of emergency. Citizens found with contraband or caught aiding insurgents will be tried under wartime statutes. Lagos must not fall into chaos."
Chaos had already arrived. It wore suits now and carried briefcases stuffed with blood contracts.
In the basement beneath the old Olowu Courthouse, the Resistance leaders were gathering for what could be their final meeting. The corridor leading to the vault had once been a courtroom storage area. Now it was an arsenal disguised as piles of fake legal documents.
Dapo entered the chamber with Ibukun flanking him and Feyi already inside. Oba, Kofo, and Pastor Ayetoro stood tense, none of them speaking as the metal door slammed shut behind them.
"The Covenant is broken," Oba began.
Dapo narrowed his eyes. "What covenant?"
"The one we never signed, but all lived by," Oba replied. "No one acts without collective consent. No one moves without informing the council. Yet you sent agents into Ashiru's compound."
"I did what had to be done," Dapo replied coolly.
"And got three of them captured," Kofo snapped. "One of whom is my cousin."
Feyi raised a palm. "Enough. We don't have time to fight about yesterday. We barely have hours left before Ashiru turns those hostages into a televised execution."
Ibukun paced behind them, fingers brushing her temple. "What about the intel we pulled from his internal server?"
"It confirms what we suspected," Dapo said grimly. "Ashiru doesn't just want Lagos. He wants to weaponize the Disinformation Act. The bill he's been pushing will give him power over every digital platform in the city. One voice. One channel. His."
Ayetoro finally spoke. "And what of General Maku?"
"Dead," Dapo replied. Confirmed via drone footage. His convoy was ambushed."
Silence.
Maku had been the only real leverage they had in the military. With him gone, Ashiru's path was clear.
"Then we're already ghosts," Oba whispered.
"No," Ibukun snapped. "We're still the only firewall between Lagos and absolute control."
Kofo sighed. "And how do you plan to fight a man with private armies, politicians, and propaganda?"
Dapo turned toward the map projected on the far wall. It flickered in and out, barely functional, but enough to reveal the storm forming around Lagos Island.
"With the truth," he said.
That night, the plan was set in motion.
Three separate teams. One objective.
Expose the files Ashiru thought he'd deleted, the videos, the audio clips, the proof of the massacres at Ilaje, of the rigged trials, of the fabricated terror plots. Everything. All of it is scheduled to be uploaded directly to the public channels Ashiru has not yet seized, starting with the Redeemer FM tower on Freedom Bridge.
But nothing in Lagos went unnoticed.
As the team approached the transmission point, hidden within a food supply van, they were already being tracked.
Inside the van, the glow of code lit up the interior. Feyi's fingers moved across the keyboard like a pianist on judgment day. Next to her, Dapo checked the analog transmitter.
"We're live in ninety seconds," she said.
Dapo nodded and clicked his comm. "Ibukun, status?"
Her voice came through faint but clear. "Rooftop secure. Snipers on standby."
"Kofo?"
"Roadblocks in place. No interruptions."
But then, like Lagos itself was holding its breath, the line went silent.
"Kofo?" Dapo repeated.
Silence.
Then,
Gunfire.
Screams.
Explosion.
The van shook violently as a shockwave rocked the bridge. Feyi clutched her equipment, shielding the hard drive.
"Abort!" Ibukun yelled through the comm.
"No," Dapo growled. "We go now!"
He ripped open the back door, drawing his sidearm as chaos erupted around them. Ashiru's men had struck first; black vans, marked only by flashing green sigils, surrounded the bridge from both ends. It was a trap.
The fight was brutal.
Dapo moved like water through smoke—fluid, violent, and precise. He was no longer just a journalist or resistance leader. He was a living file of vengeance, each bullet a redacted name uncovered.
Ibukun's team rained down cover fire from above. Feyi stayed low, protecting the transmitter with her own body as she uploaded the files line by line.
And then the unexpected.
A van, identical to theirs, rammed through the blockade and came to a halt beside them.
The driver stepped out.
A woman.
Masked.
She tossed Dapo a handheld device.
"No time to explain," she said. "Finish the upload. This will buy you thirty seconds."
The device was crude. Military. Outdated.
A black-market signal jammer.
Dapo nodded once and connected it.
The enemy drones froze mid-air.
The bullets paused, just long enough.
Feyi pushed the final key.
UPLOAD COMPLETE
Across Lagos, every remaining screen, phone, TV, and radio burst alive.
Ashiru's voice, manipulating facts. Cut.
Overlayed by images, bloody and raw.
The real Lagos. The hidden Lagos.
The murdered, the jailed, the erased.
Unfiltered.
By dawn, the city was in an uproar.
Markets were closed. Citizens gathered in the streets. Chanting. Crying. Screaming.
Ashiru's compound was under siege.
He did not come out.
Not for hours.
But when he did, flanked by soldiers, escorted in a bulletproof convoy, it was not as a ruler but as a man exposed.
Dapo watched from afar, hiding in the alley behind the old archives office, his face covered in soot and sweat.
"They saw it," Feyi whispered beside him. "All of it."
He said nothing.
Just nodded.
But deep inside, he knew.
This wasn't the end.
It was only the end of silence.
Because beneath every ash heap, something always survived.
And in Lagos, the sound beneath the ashes was rising.
A rhythm.
A pulse.
A war drum.