By nightfall, the city had changed. Lagos wasn't sleeping anymore. It was twitching, restless, crawling with watchers and whispers. The streets buzzed with murmurs of Dre's live broadcast, and everywhere from roadside vendors to university hostels people repeated his words like scripture. "We are not a movement. We are a reckoning."
In the slums of Bariga, someone painted Dre's face on a concrete wall. In Ojuelegba, a group of teenagers marched holding red flags with the letters "V7" scrawled in white chalk. They didn't know what the letters meant, but they knew they felt something. Fear. Power. Hope.
Kemi watched the ripples from a rooftop overlooking the Third Mainland Bridge. She hadn't slept. Her fingers shook around a cup of tea she never drank. Dre hadn't spoken in five hours. He just sat in silence, typing, deleting, typing again.
Malik finally broke the stillness. "We lost eight people in the last raid. I just confirmed."
Dre's eyes didn't blink. "Names?"
"Too many first-timers. Mostly kids. But one of them he was a blogger. Had over ten thousand followers."
Dre stood slowly. "So they'll martyr him. Good. Let's not let his death be quiet."
"We can't keep running," Kemi said softly.
"We won't," Dre replied. "But we also can't rush. If we die now, the story ends with us. I want it to outlive us."
Malik tapped the wall. "I found something else. Chief Obayemi is planning an evacuation. A private jet's waiting. He's ready to disappear."
Dre clenched his jaw. "He thinks he can run."
Malik nodded. "Flight logs show departure from a private strip in Ikorodu. Midnight tomorrow."
Kemi stepped forward. "Then we expose him before that. Let the city know their monster is fleeing."
But Dre was already thinking bigger.
"No. We don't just expose him. We drag him into the light. One last act louder than everything we've done so far."
"What do you have in mind?" Malik asked.
"A trap. But one that doesn't bleed us dry. We let them chase shadows, while we burn the mask off the entire system."
The plan took shape by morning. Dre called it Operation Glass House.
By noon, the team had scattered hitting ministries, data centers, and high-level insiders. Everything was coordinated through burner phones, coded messages, and public Wi-Fi networks. Even the street kids were part of it now, acting as lookouts, messengers, or decoys.
One kid, barely twelve, delivered a flash drive hidden in his shoe. It contained raw footage of politicians attending an illegal trafficking party high-resolution, timestamped, and damning. Dre stared at the screen in disbelief.
"We release this?" Kemi asked, stunned.
"Not yet. We send it to every news agency. Every activist. Let it be the fire that melts the lies."
By 5 p.m., Operation Glass House was live. Massive leaks hit the internet. Documents, videos, financial trails, corruption records. Names were named. Secrets died in daylight. Social media exploded. Hashtags flooded in multiple languages.
Obayemi's house was surrounded by journalists by 7 p.m. His guards blocked cameras. But the internet never needed gates.
Dre stood across from the scene again, disguised, watching the man's empire tremble.
"They'll try to spin it," Malik warned. "Damage control is already on the way."
"Let them," Dre said. "Every spin makes them sweat more. We're not telling people what to think. We're letting them see."
That night, chaos broke. Three senators resigned. One disappeared. Another attempted suicide. Schools began chanting Dre's name during morning assembly. Artists painted murals. A fashion label released a "Born of Vengeance" streetwear line overnight. The streets had chosen their symbol.
But not everyone was celebrating.
Deep beneath a quiet office building, Obayemi stood in a soundproof bunker with his remaining allies. Old men in suits. Cold faces.
"He's winning," one muttered.
"He's viral. That's not the same," Obayemi snapped.
"But people are listening. Even our own sons are quoting him."
"We need a solution. A final one," Obayemi said. "Something permanent."
The room went quiet. A single folder slid across the table.
"Code name: Emberfall."
Obayemi opened it.
Inside was a full plan to trigger martial law in Lagos through a fake terror threat. One explosion. One coordinated blackout. Then full military control. Curfews. Detentions. Silence.
He hesitated. "Will it work?"
A cold voice answered, "It always has."
Meanwhile, Dre sat with Kemi and Malik in a low-lit warehouse. The mood was thick. The smell of sweat, exhaustion, and gasoline lingered.
"I don't feel like we've won," Kemi said.
"We haven't," Dre replied. "We just exposed the game. Now we survive their counterattack."
Malik checked a vibrating device. "I think it just started."
Screens around them lit up. News flashes. Explosion in Marina. Power outage across Surulere. Government tweets about a coordinated insurrection. Martial law declared by midnight.
Kemi froze. "They're using fear."
Dre stood. "No. They're using our fire to claim their smoke."
He walked to the center of the room.
"We go louder. Before they shut it all down. Tonight, we break the last chain. We hit every frequency, every rooftop, every soul that can scream."
"But how?" Malik asked. "They'll shut down the networks."
"We go analog," Dre said. "Old school."
He pointed to a dusty radio tower on a schematic.
"This thing? Still functional. If we can hijack it, we broadcast one last truth. The kind they can't stop. The kind that echoes."
By 10 p.m., Dre, Kemi, and Malik moved through the city like ghosts. Disguises. Dark clothes. Every checkpoint was a risk. Every alley a memory.
They reached the tower in Iju after midnight. Broken. Rusted. But alive.
Kemi hotwired the control room. Malik powered the generator. Dre adjusted the mic.
And then he spoke.
Not through YouTube. Not through TikTok. Through airwaves.
"To everyone listening, I don't have long. They've taken the streets. Declared martial law. But I'm still here. You're still here. And we are not afraid."
He took a breath.
"They want you to believe the system is too big. That your voice is too small. But listen to me. They are afraid of you. That's why they silence. That's why they lie. Because one free mind is a revolution. And millions of us? We are a wildfire."
The static hissed. The signal stretched across rooftops, into radios, phones, old receivers.
"To the children in orphanages, you matter. To the mothers screaming in hospital lines, you're seen. To the boys on the street with nothing but fists and dreams, you are not alone. I am Dre. And I swear to you, I was born of vengeance but I live for change."
He paused one last time.
"Do not go quiet."
And then the power cut.
But it was too late.
The words had already flown. And Lagos, though trembling, refused to kneel.