Chapter 1 – Dust and Screens
Morning began with the sound of diesel.
The generator downstairs coughed awake, shaking the zinc walls of the compound until rust fell like red rain. Adaeze opened her eyes to the faint taste of soot in her mouth. The air was thick, the kind that made you breathe twice just to feel like you'd survived it.
Her phone alarm had died sometime in the night, drained by the blackout. She sat up on the mattress — thin, folded like an accusation — and reached for her laptop. The screen glowed weakly. The battery was low, but the code still waited, lines frozen mid-command like half-formed thoughts.
She had fallen asleep debugging again.
It was the only thing that made her forget.
Outside her window, the world of Diobu was alive: women shouting the prices of yams, the clatter of pans, the metallic rhythm of keke horns, and the distant hymn of a preacher with a megaphone promising deliverance from demons — the ones in their hearts, not in their systems.
Adaeze had stopped listening to those voices long ago. Salvation, she had learned, was never free. It always came wrapped in someone else's conditions.
She wiped the dust from her keyboard with the hem of her old T-shirt.
It said GIRL CODER in faded purple letters.
"Girl," she muttered, half a laugh. "They only remember that part."
Downstairs, her landlord banged on doors, shouting about unpaid rent. She minimized her screen, instinctively — as if poverty itself might peek in.
Her mother was already gone to sell groundnuts by the bus stop. She had left a note on the table: No food money today. Please manage.
Adaeze stared at it, then at the last pack of instant noodles on the shelf. She cooked it silently, the smell of spice barely masking the stench of fuel from the mechanic's shop below. As she ate, she thought of the email waiting in her inbox — a job posting at a tech hub in Lagos. "Remote coders wanted. Females encouraged to apply."
She'd filled the form twice, sent her résumé three times. No reply. Maybe they never saw it. Maybe they saw too much.
A loud bang outside startled her. She rushed to the window. A police van crawled past, blue lights flashing. People looked away. In this city, you never looked too long at a van like that.
Her laptop chimed — one new message.
Sender: [email protected]
Subject: You're good. But they're better.
She froze. No one was supposed to know that address. Not her handle. Not the private one where she ran her scripts.
Her eyes darted across the room — the cracked mirror, the unplugged fan, the shadowed corners. For a second, it felt like someone else was breathing with her.
She typed fast:
Who are you?
No reply. Just the blinking cursor.
Then, the message disappeared. Deleted itself right before her eyes.
She whispered, "What is this?"
But deep down, she already knew.
In a world run by men and machines, someone had finally seen her — not the girl, not the daughter, not the tenant.
The coder.
The thief.
The spark that didn't belong.
Adaeze sat back, heart pounding. The hum of the city felt louder now, like static in her blood. She closed her eyes, and the dark behind her eyelids looked like code — endless, pulsing, alive.
Tomorrow, she would go back to the cybercafé.
Tomorrow, she would find out who had written to her.
But tonight, under the trembling fan and the soft hiss of rain beginning again, she smiled.
The Python Girl was awake.