Ibadan — Nightfall
The storm rolled in without warning, swallowing the city's edges in thunder and mist. The sky flashed white, then bruised purple again, as if the heavens couldn't decide whether to reveal or conceal the truth.
Ayo crouched by the window, cables snaking from his laptop like veins. The faint glow lit his face — eyes steady, fingers alive. The world outside raged, but inside, his mind was a calm, ordered storm of its own.
Packets of data streamed through his screen. He was rerouting power from backup grids in Ilorin and Abeokuta, scattering decoy signals across a dozen servers. Each move bought his mother more time.
"Come on, come on…" he muttered, sweat trailing down his temple.
The feed flickered, then steadied. Eagle-One's secure channel blinked green again.
He exhaled in relief. "Got you."
But just as he reached for his water bottle, another message flashed red across the monitor:
INTRUSION DETECTED. SOURCE UNKNOWN.
Ayo froze. His hand hovered over the keyboard.
"Not now…"
A flood of foreign code poured through the firewall — black, relentless, alive. His heart thudded faster with every line of text.
HELLO, LITTLE EAGLE.
He slammed the command key — disconnect, reroute, purge. But the message followed, blinking like a ghost.
YOU CAN'T PROTECT THEM ALL.
He yanked the plug. The lights died. So did the screens.
For a moment, only the sound of rain remained, heavy and uneven against the windowpane.
Ayo sat still, breathing hard in the dark. He thought of his mother's voice, of Bayo's calm eyes, of Eagle-One's gravel rasp when he said "Stay unseen."
But now the shadows knew his name.
He whispered to himself, voice trembling but sure, "They'll have to find me first."
He slid open a hidden compartment beneath the desk — a small flash drive labeled LAST BREATH. It glimmered faintly in the dim light.
Then, like he'd rehearsed it a hundred times, he slipped the drive into his pocket and vanished into the rain.
~ ~ ~
Ilorin Outskirts — Late Night
Thunder chased the horizon. Inside the abandoned filling station, Bayo paced the cracked floor, eyes darting between monitors that flickered with intermittent power.
Tope stood by the door, arms wrapped tightly around herself, her phone gripped like a lifeline. A single red dot blinked on the screen — Ayo's tracker.
Then it went dark.
Her breath hitched. "He's gone."
Bayo crossed the room in two strides. "Signal interference?"
"More than that." Her voice cracked. "He's off the grid completely."
Eagle-One looked up from his station, jaw hard. "They've cornered him."
Tope's legs buckled. Bayo caught her before she hit the ground.
"He's a smart boy," Eagle-One said quietly. "He'll move through patterns, not panic."
Tope's eyes burned. "He's nine, not a soldier!"
Bayo's grip tightened. "He's both," he said. "And we'll find him before they do."
He turned toward Eagle-One. "Start a trace through the emergency mirror. If they breached his firewall, they'll leave a digital scent."
Eagle-One hesitated. "And if the vultures are waiting for us to bite that trail?"
"Then they'll choke on the bait," Bayo replied.
His tone carried the kind of calm that made even fear listen.
~ ~ ~
Ibadan — Storm-Soaked Streets
Ayo ran.
The rain blurred streetlights into streaks of white and gold, turning every shadow into a moving thing. His sneakers slapped against the flooded pavement as he weaved through alleys, backpack bouncing against his shoulders.
Lightning flashed — and for an instant, he saw them.
Two dark figures in raincoats, moving with precision. Not cops. Not random hunters. Professionals.
He ducked into an unfinished building and crouched low, chest heaving. His pulse drummed in his ears, syncing with the thunder overhead.
He pulled out a small wrist device — a prototype tracker he'd coded himself. The interface blinked faintly, searching for signals.
One blip pulsed red: MOM.
Two others flickered behind him: UNKNOWN.
"They're close," he whispered.
He crawled deeper into the concrete shell, using the noise of the storm to mask his movements. Every step forward felt like walking through memory — the night Tope had hidden him in Ibadan, whispering, "No matter what happens, breathe and keep moving."
He hadn't understood then.
Now he did.
The world didn't care if he was nine or ninety.
It only cared if he could survive it.
He found a narrow gap in the wall, slipped through, and disappeared into the rain again.
~ ~ ~
Ilorin Hideout — Pre-Dawn
The storm had not reached Ilorin yet, but the wind carried its warning. Bayo stared at the screens, his reflection split across flickering light. Tope stood beside him, face pale, hands trembling.
"He's resourceful," Bayo said quietly. "He knows how to disappear."
"Disappearing isn't surviving," Tope whispered. "He's just a boy."
He turned to her, voice soft but firm. "So was I when the first bullet missed me."
She looked at him, startled by the honesty in his tone.
Bayo leaned back, exhaling. "We were all children once, Tope. The world just chooses when to end that."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out something small — a tarnished locket. Inside, a faded picture of Amaka smiled back at him.
For a moment, his eyes softened. "She used to say storms don't destroy. They reveal what's strong enough to stand."
Tope watched him quietly. "You still miss her."
"Every day," he said. "But tonight… I saw her in you."
The words hung between them, fragile and real. The room felt suddenly smaller, the air heavier with something unspoken.
Lightning flashed through the window, scattering their silence.
Eagle-One's voice cut through: "Got him."
They turned at once.
"He's alive," Eagle-One said, typing fast. "Signal restored — barely. He's moving west of Oke-Bola. Looks like he's looping them into a dead zone."
Bayo straightened. "Prepare a retrieval route. We move before sunrise."
Tope wiped her eyes, a spark of resolve replacing fear. "Let's bring him home."
~ ~ ~
Ibadan — Abandoned Warehouse, Dawn
The rain had slowed to a cold drizzle. Ayo crouched beside a rusted machine, breath shallow, hair plastered to his forehead. His laptop hummed faintly, powered by a small battery cell.
He had rerouted all his signals through decoys. For now, he was invisible again.
He stared at his reflection in a puddle — eyes tired, lips trembling.
He missed his mother's voice.
He missed laughter.
He missed being a child.
But he also knew that silence was the price of survival.
He pressed the flash drive against his palm, whispering, "They'll never own this."
Then he inserted it into the laptop and typed a final line of code:
INITIATE RELEASE PROTOCOL: AIRWAVE_03
The screen blinked once, then filled with cascading data. From Lagos to Kano, from Ilorin to Port Harcourt, encrypted packets burst across networks, invisible as wind.
The files — proof of every forged contract, every toxic leak, every bribe — were no longer secrets. They belonged to the people now.
The system tried to shut it down, but the storm had already passed through the wires.
Ayo leaned back against the wall, smiling faintly.
"See you in the next shadow," he whispered.
Then exhaustion took him, and the world faded into rain.
~ ~ ~
Ilorin — Dawn
The first light broke through the clouds as Bayo, Tope, and Eagle-One prepared to leave. The air smelled of metal and promise.
"He did it," Eagle-One said, scanning his feed. "The files are live. They're everywhere."
Tope exhaled shakily. "Then it's over?"
Bayo shook his head slowly. "No. It's beginning."
They climbed into the old van. The road ahead was slick and endless, but for the first time in months, Tope smiled faintly.
"Do you think he's safe?" she asked.
Bayo looked out toward the rising sun. "He's his mother's son. He'll find a way."
As the van pulled away, the wind swept through the filling station, rustling the scattered papers and cooling the last embers of fear.
In Ibadan, amidst the quiet aftermath of rain, a boy stirred from sleep, blinking at the dawn that painted his walls gold.
And somewhere, in the circuitry of a thousand awakened minds, the air had learned to breathe again.
~ ~ ~
Closing Note
The city was still trembling, but no longer silent.
Bayo's conscience, Tope's courage, Eagle-One's faith, and Ayo's brilliance had converged into a single pulse that refused to die.
The vultures would come again — they always did.
But this time, the ground would answer.
Because the air no longer belonged to the powerful.
It belonged to those who dared to breathe it.
~ ~ ~
The storm had not ended. It had only changed form.
Now it lived in whispers, in screens, in the quiet courage of those who refused to kneel.
The air was no longer free. It was earned.