The smell hit first, like wet earth, mold, something rotten buried deep. It clung to their skin, filled their lungs. Leah pulled her scarf tighter over her mouth.“This place reeks,” she muttered.Jason’s headlamp flicked side to side as they crawled through the tight concrete tunnel. “Smells like something died in here twenty years ago. Maybe two.”Leah crouched low, stepping carefully over a collapsed slab. “You sure this is the right path?”“Kola’s map was precise,” Jason said, voice steady. “If we followed the red markings and dropped at the third pipe junction, this should lead straight beneath the plant.”They moved like shadows. Each step took them deeper under the ruins of the abandoned textile factory, the same site where Andrew had first tested the early versions of the Architect years ago.Ben’s voice came through their comms, clear and calm from a distance. “You're about seventy meters out. No internal motion sensors triggered yet. But watch the thermal signatures, there’s
The rich lived in the clouds. The rest of the city fought to survive in the shadows below.In Lagos, nothing was what it seemed. Behind the shiny towers were hidden stories, stories of struggle, power, secrets, and sometimes, resistance. And tonight, Jason and Leah were slipping into one of those stories. One that could change everything.“Lagos smells like sweat, fried plantains, and secrets,” Jason muttered, crouching behind a crumbling wall.Leah gave him a sideways glance. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”“I just mean... this place has layers,” he replied, brushing grime off his knee. “We’re not in Miami anymore.”“You can say that again.”They were deep in Apapa, one of the older parts of the city once a port hub, now a maze of forgotten buildings and restless people. In front of them stood an old textile factory, abandoned by its owners years ago but very much alive in other ways.Rust covered every surface. Cracks ran through the concrete like veins. It looked like a place
"This city breathes loud."Leah stood at the edge of the small balcony, the humid air clinging to her like a second skin. Her voice was calm but heavy with something Jason hadn’t heard from her in a while..caution.Jason stepped beside her, his arms folded, eyes scanning the street below. Lagos buzzed with cars honking, children laughing, street vendors yelling prices. It was chaos, but not without rhythm.“It’s alive,” he muttered. “Too alive.”The moment they had landed in Lagos, it had hit them like a wall. The sun, the noise, the thick stew of smells, exhaust fumes, fried plantains, spices, sweat wrapped around them like a wave.The ride from the airport was fast but tense. Their driver, arranged by Amelia, had eyes like a hawk and spoke in clipped, quiet sentences. He dropped them off in Ikoyi without saying more than twenty words.Their safe house was tucked between apartment blocks and high walls. Clean but forgettable, with only one thing that stood out: a narrow view of the c
“Miss me?”Leah froze mid-strap.Jason’s hand had went to his pistol.Immediately they reached out to the others recounting the voice they just heard.Ben looked up from the laptop like someone had just poured ice water down his back.“That wasn’t my speaker. That wasn’t anything connected.”“No,” Jason said, already scanning the corners of the room. “That was him.”Leah spoke slowly, “Andrew?”No answer.Only a soft chuckle echoed, bouncing from wall to wall distorted, digital, almost playful.Ben spun his laptop around and began typing fast.“I don’t understand, he shouldn’t be able to get in here. This whole space is on a cold circuit, isolated.”“Not cold enough,” Jason muttered.The wall monitor glitched, screen blinking erratically before settling into a dull static haze. A shape tried to form on the screen, too blurry to make out. A face? A code map?Then it disappeared.Leah stepped forward and said sharply,“If you’re trying to scare us, Andrew, it’s not working. You’re bleed
Leah leaned against the edge of the table, eyes fixed on the glowing monitors. “This whole week feels like one long, stretched-out day,” she muttered. “We don’t sleep, we barely eat… we just sit here staring at lines of code until our eyes burn.”Jason didn’t look up. “And still, we get nowhere.”She nodded, her voice softer now. “Every lead disappears before we even touch it. It’s like chasing smoke.”Jason leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. “Andrew’s always ahead of us. Not just by a few steps, he’s leagues beyond. It’s like he already knows what we’re going to do before we decide to do it.”A pause hung in the air.Leah crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Do you feel it too? That... pressure. Even when everything’s quiet.”Jason gave a slow nod. “It’s like the walls are closing in, inch by inch. No sound, no warning.”She sat beside him, their knees brushing. “Architect 2.0 is everywhere now. I can feel it. Like it’s wrapped around the world... around us. Invisibl
Jason Walker had always known his family legacy was messy. But this... this was different. This was personal. Violent. Twisted into something he could barely recognize.The hunt for Andrew and the Architect 2.0 had already stretched their minds and bodies to the limit. But now, it was pulling them somewhere deeper into the past. Into the roots of the Walker name.It started with a strange flicker on Jason’s screen one night. Just a tiny pattern buried in a massive sea of financial data. It almost didn’t register, just a few odd transactions between a long-dead Walker Enterprises subsidiary and some obscure startups.But Jason had seen enough buried secrets to know when something felt off.He leaned in, his fingers moving faster, heart picking up speed. “No way...”“Something wrong?” Leah asked from across the room. She didn’t even look up, her focus was locked on a network diagnostic readout. But she knew his tone. She heard it in the pause between his words.Jason zoomed in on the lo