(Yaba backstreets → Computer Village, 6:12 AM.)
Chioma Okonkwo—fourteen, dreads tied with LED beads, nsibidi paint glowing on her cheeks—crouched behind a dumpster that smelled of burnt capacitors and piss. The drone hovered above the alley like a lazy vulture: Syndicate courier, matte-black, red eye blinking. Inside: àṣẹ battery. Enough juice to power a Makoko shrine for a month. Enough to buy her crew three weeks of rice and bullets.She whispered to it in Igbo.
"Ọgbanje, come home."The drone dipped. Confused. Her hack—nsibidi sticker on the rotor—flared. The eye flickered milk-white for a heartbeat. Fulani code? No time to wonder.Chioma lunged.Her fingers—grease-black, nimble—snatched the payload mid-air. The drone screamed. Alarms. Red lights. She was already running.Alley to alley. Yaba waking hard—okadas mooing, generators coughing, women frying akara in palm oil that spat like angry gods. She vaulted a crate of cracked screens. Landed in the Ghost Market.Her kingdom.Kids swarmed—ages eight to sixteen, all drone pilots, all her. They formed a wall. The Syndicate drone buzzed overhead, confused by the nsibidi net—a web of glowing symbols painted on walls, roofs, even the damn goats.Chioma slid into the central stall: Aunty RAM's Code Coven. The old woman—LED veil, fingers like spider legs—was already typing on a motherboard the size of a prayer mat."Battery?" Aunty RAM didn't look up.Chioma slapped it down. Glowing red. Hot.Aunty RAM's eyes widened. "Ògún's blood. Where?""VI courier. Had a python sigil on the casing."Aunty RAM hissed. "Oracle's."The stall went quiet. Even the generators seemed to listen.Chioma leaned in. "Uncle Ghost is back. Saw him in Makoko. Spear in hand. Eyes dead."Aunty RAM's fingers froze. "The girl?""Implant pinged Benin last night. Red. Ọgbanje red."A crackle. The motherboard screen flickered. A face. Temi. Burned. Half code. Half python."Chioma."
Voice like rusted nails in Igbo.
"Bring me the battery. Or Makoko drowns."The screen bled. Nsibidi cowries spilled across the keys.Chioma didn't flinch. She grabbed a cracked phone, typed fast.
Sent: GHOST. ORACLE KNOWS. BATTERY HOT. MAKOKO NEXT.Then she looked up. Her crew was watching. Waiting.She smiled—sharp, queen-sharp."Gear up. We're going to Computer Village.
Time to make the gods bleed."The Ghost Market roared. Drones rose. Nsibidi wings. Milk-white rotors. Python hearts.Lagos was waking.
And the kids were hungry.