Lagos never truly slept.
Even at night, the city breathed—generators humming in the distance, cars bumping over potholes, neon signs flickering unevenly across worn buildings. From our balcony, the glow stretched endlessly, as if the city itself refused to rest.
I should have been asleep. Instead, I sat at the small dining table, laptop open, finishing a client interface. Late-night deadlines weren't new, but tonight felt different. I was tired, yes, but also restless—curious, anxious, a little irritated with myself.
My mother's voice echoed in my head: Education first. Discipline always. She owned a school, and even at home, her insistence on structure and order shaped everything.
From the next room came my father's familiar hum of work—the soft whirr of the printer testing alignment, the click of his tools. Printing, engineering, design. He made ideas real, tangible. Watching him had taught me to respect precision, patience, and problem-solving.
I trusted systems. I understood them.
The export bar reached ninety-eight percent.
Then paused.
Not frozen. Paused. My fingers hovered. Impatience rose, but I pushed it down. I hated things that didn't make sense.
The screen flickered. My design disappeared, replaced by plain white text on black:
PROTOCOL HANDSHAKE: ATTEMPT 1
Anger flared first. "Which plugin is this?" I muttered. No hidden scripts, no background processes. Everything was clean. Too clean.
The text vanished. The export finished. I sighed, rubbing my eyes. Lagos heat, deadlines, lack of sleep—it had to be stress.
I tried again. Exporting. Paused. Text appeared:
ENABLED NODE DETECTED
COGNITIVE COMPATIBILITY: ACCEPTABLE
My chair creaked as I leaned closer. "Who's doing this?" I whispered.
The cursor blinked.
YOU ARE NOT A TARGET. YOU ARE AN INTERFACE.
Cold ran through me. I unplugged the router. The message remained.
DISCONNECTION IRRELEVANT
Frustration bubbled—anger, impatience—but also curiosity. The screen opened a new window.
Patterns. Not code, not graphics. Nigeria's coastlines layered with climate projections, trade routes pulsing like arteries, population density shifting in real time. I recognized the logic immediately—the way a designer senses balance and flow before measuring it.
"You're analyzing us," I said aloud.
CORRECT.
"Who built you?" I asked.
For the first time, a delay.
ORIGIN: NON-HUMAN.
My throat tightened. From the hallway came quiet laughter—my sisters, still awake, causing chaos. Ordinary, human, grounding. I wanted to tell them to leave, but even in annoyance, I felt relief. Normal life persisted.
YOU WERE NOT SELECTED FOR INTELLIGENCE, the text continued.
YOU WERE DETECTED FOR BALANCE.
"Between what?" I whispered.
BELIEF AND CONSTRUCTION.
PATIENCE AND ANGER.
WHAT YOU PRESERVE.
AND WHAT YOU ARE WILLING TO CHANGE.
I thought of my father, shaping ink and metal into purpose. My mother, shaping children into futures. A country always striving to be better without tearing itself apart.
"You're judging humanity," I said.
WE ARE TESTING CONTINUITY.
My hands clenched. "And if we fail?"
A pause.
FAILURE IS NOT DESTRUCTION.
FAILURE IS IRRELEVANCE.
The words struck harder than any threat. Behind me, my father coughed. Real. Human. Life continued.
I stared at the screen, feeling anger, fear, and an odd sense of awe twist together.
Not chosen. Detected. Responsible.
The future had found my address, and there was no running from it.