Lagos — Skyport District — 6:43 P.M.
The Lagos skyline was no stranger to chaos — but tonight, the air vibrated with something far deeper than protest. It was reckoning.
Fires dotted the highways like candles in mourning. Giant screens played the NDLEC leaks on repeat, each revelation landing like a bullet through the heart of the nation's trust.
From the rooftop of an old telecom hub, Alero scanned the burning streets through her ocular lens. "All channels are hot," she muttered. "Lagos Command is on radio blackout. Most of the military's either paralyzed or split down the middle. Half of them want answers. The other half wants silence."
Tunde stood beside her, arms crossed, eyes heavy with the weight of what they'd unleashed.
"We struck the nerve," he said.
"Now we deal with the seizure."
A ping on Arewa's holo-comm interrupted. Glyph's voice came through — sharp, urgent.
"Incoming intercept. White Ops forces have been deployed from Black Rock Facility. They're targeting all known safehouses. We need to move. Now."
"White Ops?" Octave asked from the lower stairwell, wincing as she climbed up with her healing leg. "I thought they were ghosts."
"They were," Alero replied. "Until we forced them into the light."
Tunde tapped into the live satellite feed. Three dropships had split formation over Lagos. One headed straight toward the Makoko Grid Slums, another over Ikoyi High Block, and the third veering toward the University District.
Arewa's voice crackled through comms.
"They're not just hunting us. They're trying to erase every trace of collaboration."
Alero's voice turned cold.
"They're purging witnesses."
....
Makoko Grid Slums – 7:01 P.M.
The dropship screeched overhead like a hawk hunting prey.
Down below, in a narrow alley bathed in crimson dusk, a teenage girl named Binta sprinted barefoot through the data-trash of the slum — her homemade wrist rig clutched tight against her chest.
Inside that rig? A full backup of the whistle-blown archives. She had intercepted the leak an hour before NDLEC's firewall tried to bury it again.
She didn't fully understand the politics, but she knew enough: The people had a right to the truth.
Behind her, boots thundered. Black-clad White Ops agents moved like ghosts through smoke.
A figure emerged beside her from the shadows — an older woman in a synthetic hijab, wielding a reprogrammed maintenance drone like a shield.
"Here," the woman said, pressing a quantum flash-drive into Binta's hand. "Run to the docks. The resistance will find you. Tell them Mother Omo sent you."
A flash of light. A gunshot. Then silence.
Binta ran.
....
Ikoyi High Block – 7:12 P.M.
Arewa crouched on the balcony of an abandoned luxury penthouse, watching as drone patrols descended on a hidden resistance node two buildings over.
Inside that node? A terminal that held encryption keys for the next phase: exposing the biotech ties between Bako's cartel and several offshore pharmaceutical firms.
He tapped his comm.
"Tunde, I'll draw them off. You get to the uplink hub. Transmit the keys."
"No," he replied instantly. "We stick to the plan."
"The plan's dead," he said. "Time to improvise."
Before he could argue, Arewa leapt from the balcony — descending with practiced fluidity along the side of the building, using a tether to swing into a lower level.
Alarms screamed. Gunfire flared.
Alero cursed under her breath. "That man's going to get himself killed."
Tunde's eyes narrowed.
"Not if I can help it."
....
University District – 7:28 P.M.
In the tech lab once used to develop learning AIs for school systems, Glyph operated her own war.
Hooked into a deep-frame server stack, her consciousness danced through digital architecture — countering surveillance, feeding fake data to the NDLEC tactical AI, and rewriting satellite timestamps.
But even in cyberspace, something was hunting her.
A mirror presence — silent, fast, and almost sentient.
She whispered to herself.
"Someone's inside my code."
Lines of red scrolled across her interface.
"YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED A TECHNICIAN."
It wasn't NDLEC.
It was someone else.
Glyph's eyes widened.
"Guys," she said over comms, "we're not just dealing with Nigerian networks anymore. Someone's activated foreign blackware. This... this might be Spectral."
Alero's voice came sharp: "Spectral? I thought that was a myth."
"It was," Glyph replied. "Until now."
....
Lagos — Resistance Uplink Hub – 7:55 P.M.
Tunde and Octave arrived at the top floor of the hidden broadcast station. Solar-powered and long-abandoned, the place still hummed with residual energy.
He plugged the drive into the central console.
"We've got one shot," Tunde said. "Once this goes out, there's no more shadows to hide in."
Octave chuckled softly. "There never were."
The screen lit up.
Arewa's face flickered onto the feed, bruised but defiant. Behind him, the city's chaos played out like a silent war film.
Tunde hit broadcast.
"People of Nigeria," his voice echoed, "you've been lied to, poisoned, and controlled. But truth can still be a weapon. Fight. Resist. Reclaim."
The uplink flared with white light.
Across the grid, signals overrode even NDLEC's strongest blocks.
The Resistance had gone global