The Last Night (CHAPTER 5)
1433 Words
Suddenly, the radio crackled to life. But it wasn't a signal from Tiwa. It was a broadcast being played on every frequency in the country.
“Citizens of Nigeria,” Kola’s voice echoed through the small shack. “Due to a massive cyber-terrorist attack by the journalist Joshua Olori and his accomplices, a national state of emergency has been declared. All power will be diverted to essential services. A reward of fifty million Naira is offered for their capture, dead or alive.”
Josh looked out the window. The lights of the distant city began to flicker and die, one district at a time.
The blackout had begun.
CHAPTER 5
THE SILENT MEGACITY
Lagos at night was usually a symphony of noise, the roar of yellow danfo buses, the hum of millions of generators, the distant thumping of Afrobeats from clubs in Victoria Island. Now, as the Orestes Kill Switch began its slow, methodical crawl through the grid, the city fell into a terrifying, unnatural silence.
From the stilt-shack in Makoko, Josh watched the lights of the Third Mainland Bridge vanish. One by one, the amber streetlights blinked out, leaving the long concrete snake of the bridge a dark rib in the water.
"He’s doing it," Josh whispered. "He’s actually doing it."
"He’s not just cutting the power," Musa said, his face illuminated by the green glow of a battery-powered oscilloscope. "Look at the wave-forms. He’s spiking the frequency. He’s trying to burn out the transformers so the city can't be turned back on without his hardware. It's a scorched-earth policy, Josh."
Nengi stood by the door, her silhouette sharp against the moonlight. She was checking the magazine of a handgun she had "borrowed" from one of the mercenaries at the bank. "We can't sit here and watch the world burn. Musa, how long until that radio signal is ready?"
"The ionospheric skip is tricky," Musa muttered, his fingers soldering two wires together with frantic precision. "I have to hit the right angle. If I’m off by a degree, the message ends up in the middle of the Atlantic. But if I hit it... It’ll bounce off the atmosphere and land right on the receiver at the Aegis Tower. It’ll bypass their firewalls because it’s coming from above them, not through the cables."
Josh grabbed the microphone. His heart was a drum in his chest. He wasn't a soldier, and he wasn't a hacker. He was a storyteller. And right now, he had to tell the most important story of his life to a sister who might already be gone.
"Tiwa," Josh said into the static. "It's Josh. If you can hear this, don't give him the handshake. We have the Master Key. We are in the water. Look for the 'Weaver’s Knot.' Remember what Dad said about the centre of the pattern. The centre is the only part that doesn't move."
THE WEAVER’S KNOT
Inside the Tower, the message arrived not as a voice, but as a series of rhythmic pulses in Tiwa’s headset. Kola’s technicians were too busy monitoring the grid collapse to notice a low-frequency radio burst coming from the sky.
Tiwa froze. The Weaver’s Knot. She closed her eyes, ignoring the cold metal of the room and the heavy presence of Kola behind her. She remembered her father sitting at the kitchen table with a piece of traditional Aso-oke fabric. He had pointed to the intricate, interlocking threads in the centre.
"The beauty of the knot, Tiwa, it looks complex, but it’s held together by a single 'anchor thread.' Pull the anchor, and the whole thing becomes just a pile of string."
She looked at the screen. The Orestes code was a masterpiece of interlocking cyphers, a digital Weaver’s Knot. She had been looking for a way to break it from the outside, but she needed to find the anchor.
"What are you doing?" Kola demanded, stepping closer. "The handshake is at eighty per cent. Why has the progress slowed?"
"I’m stabilising the load," Tiwa lied, her mind racing. "The grid is resisting the spike. I need to reroute the logic flow through the central hub."
Her fingers flew across the keyboard. She wasn't building a Logic Bomb anymore. She was looking for the anchor thread. And then, she saw it. Deep in the sub-directories of the BIOS, there was a single line of code that hadn't been written by Kola’s team. It was old. It was signed with a digital thumbprint: E. Olori.
Her father hadn't just built the cage. He had built the trapdoor.
The anchor thread was a "rollback" command. But it required a massive injection of data to trigger, more data than the tower's internal servers could handle. She needed the Master Key. She needed Josh to be within range of a high-speed uplink.
"I can't do it from here," Tiwa said, turning to Kola. Her voice was steady now, fueled by a cold, sharp clarity. "The tower’s uplink is too throttled by the blackout. You want the Kill Switch to be permanent? We have to go to the primary transmission hub at the Marina."
Kola narrowed his eyes. "You think I’m a fool? You want to get closer to the water. Closer to your brother."
"I want to finish this," Tiwa said, staring him down. "Because if this fails, the grid will reset in thirty minutes, and you’ll have nothing but a very expensive office building in a dark city. Your buyers are waiting, aren't they? How much will they pay for a broken weapon?"
Kola looked at the countdown. 29:58.
"Prepare the helicopter," Kola ordered his men. "We're going to the Marina. And bring the girl. If she flinches, toss her into the lagoon."
The Marina was a ghost town. The massive ships sat like silent leviathans in the harbour, their lights dark, their crews huddled on deck.
The helicopter touched down on the roof of the Transmission Hub, its rotors kicking up a storm of salt spray and debris. Kola stepped out, gripping Tiwa by the arm.
Down below, hidden in the shadows of a stack of shipping containers, Nengi watched through a pair of night-vision goggles.
"They’re here," she whispered into her comms. "Josh, are you in position?"
Josh was five floors below them, inside the hub’s server room. He was holding the Master Key, his hand shaking. Musa was beside him, sweating despite the chill of the server fans.
"The uplink is live," Musa whispered. "The moment Tiwa initiates the handshake from the roof, you have to plug the Key into the main bus. But Josh...the moment you do that, every alarm in this building will go off. You’ll be a beacon."
"Do it," Josh said.
On the roof, Tiwa opened her laptop and connected to the hub’s terminal. She looked out over the dark expanse of Lagos. She could see the faint glow of fires starting in the distance. The city was on the brink.
"Initiating handshake," she announced.
Kola leaned in, his eyes hungry. "Finally."
As the progress bar hit 95%, Tiwa didn't click 'Execute.' She clicked 'Mirror.'
"Now, Josh!" she screamed into the night.
Josh slammed the Master Key into the port. A blinding blue light erupted from the server rack. The "Anchor Thread" was pulled.
The Orestes Protocol didn't just stop; it inverted. The massive surge of power that Kola had gathered to fry the city was suddenly sucked back into the Aegis servers.
"What? What is this?" Kola roared, grabbing the laptop.
"It’s the rollback, you coward!" Tiwa yelled.
The sky above Lagos suddenly lit up. Not with fire, but with the return of power. From the Marina to Ikeja, the city began to wake up.
The streetlights flickered to life, and the skyscrapers sparkled. The "Weaver’s Knot" had been unravelled.
But the victory came with a price.
Kola’s face twisted into a mask of pure rage. He reached for his sidearm. "If I can't own this city, I’ll at least make sure your father’s line ends here."
A single shot rang out across the roof. But it didn't come from Kola.
Nengi stood at the edge of the helipad, her rifle smoking. Kola stumbled back, the gun falling from his hand as he tumbled over the low railing, disappearing into the dark, churning waters of the lagoon.
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