(Makoko, 5:47 AM.)
The lagoon smelled of diesel and dead dreams.Kai "Ghost" Adeyemi crouched on the edge of his stilt platform, bare feet black with lagoon mud, spear balanced across his knees. The water was still, a black mirror reflecting the first bruise of dawn. Somewhere beneath, a fish thrashed—silver flash, then gone. He waited. Always waiting.Three years since he'd killed a man.
Three years since the Syndicate's bounty had burned his name into every cracked screen from Yaba to VI.
Three years since he'd hidden his daughter in Benin, praying the gods forgot.They never forgot.A low moo rolled across the water—impossible, but there. An okada engine, somewhere in the maze of stilts, coughing like a dying cow. Kai's grip tightened on the spear. Hausa riders didn't come to Makoko before dawn. Not unless they carried death in their saddlebags.He rose. The platform creaked. Behind him, his shack—corrugated iron, one solar panel, a shrine to no one—leaned like a drunk. Inside, a cracked photo of Zara, age 5, smiled from the wall. Her eyes glowed faintly in the dark. The implant. Always watching.The moo came again. Closer.Kai stepped onto the plank bridge. It swayed. Below, the under-walks were waking—kids diving for sunken batteries, women pounding yam, generators coughing to life. The air tasted of salt, suya smoke, and something metallic. Code in the water.He moved like a ghost. Always had. Past Madam Python's temple—floating mosque-church-shrine, python scales painted on the walls. Past the Silent Float, where Mama Àjẹ́ sat whispering to ripples. Past Chioma's drone launch pad, where the 14-year-old queen of the stilt kids was already awake, painting nsibidi on a cracked rotor."Uncle Ghost," she called, voice sharp as broken glass. "Fish biting?""Not today." He didn't stop.The moo was louder now. Coming from Canal 7.Kai turned the corner.There.An okada—Hausa rider, turban smoke-grey, engine mooing like a Fulani cow. The rider's eyes were milk-white. Not blind. Possessed. He revved. The sound warped—Hausa chant twisted into binary.Kai's spear rose.The rider smiled. Teeth too sharp."Inna lillahi," he whispered. Then louder, in pidgin: "Ghost. Your daughter calls."The okada lunged.Kai threw the spear. It punched through the rider's chest—no blood. Just smoke. The bike kept coming. Kai dove. The plank shattered. He hit the water hard.Cold. Black. Python coils in the dark.He surfaced gasping. The okada was gone. Only ripples. And on the water's skin, glowing faintly:Nsibidi.A single symbol.
Ọgbanje.Zara.Kai swam for the platform. Behind him, the lagoon hissed—Mami Wata's song, low and hungry. The city was waking. The gods were watching.And somewhere, in the wires, the python smiled.
.