*CHAPTER NINE: THE FIRST FLAME*
*Lagos. Two weeks later.*
At exactly 03:07 a.m., Zee pressed *Upload*.
Her voice, disguised with filters, narrated over drone footage, blacksite records, and leaked classified memos:
> "This is not a theory. These are facts.
> This is not war. This is profit.
> And the ones pulling the trigger… were trained to never ask why."
The leak went live across dark web channels, encrypted forums, and private whistleblower networks.
Within hours, it reached three journalists, two NGOs, and a growing underground movement known as *The Circle*.
***
Edward sat across from Zee in the old transmitter room, his eyes glued to the ripple.
"Are we ready for what comes next?" Zee asked.
"No," he said. "But we've already started it."
By noon, five anonymous news outlets had confirmed part of the leak.
By night, Edward's old handler was found dead in Abuja.
An accident, they said.
But Edward knew the Architects had begun their purge.
And he had just made himself *target #1*.
***
The next day, Edward intercepted a transmission meant for internal cleanup crews.
> "WRAITH has gone dark. If spotted, do not engage. Alert Commander Rhaze."
Edward froze.
*Rhaze.* His former mentor.
The man who taught him to survive.
The only one who knew his every weakness.
They were sending *him* to bring Edward back—or bury him.
***
Edward packed fast.
Zee watched him quietly.
"They're coming for you, aren't they?"
He nodded once. "They won't stop."
She stood, tense. "Then let's hit them first."
He looked at her—this hacker who once held a knife to his throat.
"You in this, Zee?"
Her reply was fire:
"*I lit the first flame. Let's burn the rest down.*"
---
*CHAPTER TEN: RHAZE RETURNS*
*Location:* Port Harcourt, Nigeria
*Target Location:* A covert safe house under Edward and Zee's radar
Three days after the leak, the air felt heavier—like Lagos itself was holding its breath.
Zee had gone dark, moving locations hourly. Edward operated alone again, always watching shadows.
Then came the message.
An untraceable ping through an old Blacksite channel, voice-modulated but unmistakable:
> "Wraith. You were my finest creation.
> I taught you to be invisible. But even ghosts leave echoes.
> Time to come home."
*Rhaze.*
No threats. No orders.
Just *certainty*.
***
Edward didn't run.
He returned to an old Black River dead drop near the docks, just like Rhaze expected.
At 2:00 a.m., under flickering sodium lights, he waited.
And Rhaze appeared—like a demon conjured from memory.
Tall. Calm. Still wearing his old boots, still moving like the ground whispered to him.
"I raised you better than this," Rhaze said, arms folded. "Leaking files? Talking to hackers? That's not the Wraith I trained."
Edward's voice was cold. "You trained me to survive. I'm doing just that."
Rhaze smirked. "You think you've become more than the weapon we built?"
"No. I became aware of who was holding the blade."
***
They didn't fight immediately.
They *circled*.
Rhaze offered Edward one way out: destroy the leak network, return to the fold, and the Architects would "forgive."
Edward refused.
So Rhaze stepped forward.
"Then let's see if the student ever surpassed the master."
***
What followed was brutal.
Hand-to-hand. No flashy moves. Pure, violent precision.
Rhaze struck with muscle memory from years in the field—deadly, practiced, efficient.
Edward countered with unpredictability, pain, and purpose.
They were evenly matched.
Until Edward hesitated—just once.
Rhaze disarmed him, slammed him to the ground, gun to temple.
"You were always too human," he hissed.
But before he could pull the trigger—
*Zee's voice crackled through a nearby speaker*:
> "Hey ghost-dad… smile for the camera."
The docks lit up.
She'd been recording the whole fight through drones.
Broadcasting.
Rhaze stepped back, realizing… this wasn't just a duel.
It was exposure.
Edward rose, bleeding but alive.
Rhaze vanished into the smoke.
But now *the world had seen him*.
The Architects had been named.
And the war had truly begun.
---
*CHAPTER ELEVEN: RUNNING WITH FIRE*
The footage of Rhaze went viral in under eight hours.
Not on mainstream channels—but through pirate feeds, whistleblower blogs, and encrypted group chats across West Africa.
The once-mythical ghost trainer had a face now.
The Architects scrambled to scrub it.
Too late.
Zee watched the numbers spike from a dim hideout in Ibadan—barely a signal, barely safe.
Edward sat across from her, shoulder bandaged, jaw clenched.
"You sure about burning Rhaze that early?" she asked.
He didn't answer right away.
Finally: "He trained me to be invisible. So I made him unforgettable."
***
They didn't have time to celebrate.
By nightfall, three safehouses were burned.
The Circle—the anonymous collective backing their leaks—warned that someone inside was compromised.
"They're not just chasing us," Zee muttered. "They're trying to corner us."
Edward looked at the old map spread on the floor.
Dots marked every Blacksite, asset front, and shell company they'd exposed so far.
There was one name he hadn't circled yet.
*Obsidian Holdings.*
A mining company on paper.
In reality? A front for data laundering and illegal weapons transfers in northern Kaduna.
"If we hit Obsidian," Edward said, "we choke their money."
Zee raised an eyebrow. "And probably draw every merc on their payroll."
"I'm counting on it."
***
They moved at dawn. No vehicles. No phones. Just forged IDs and muscle memory.
The Obsidian compound sat behind high walls and bored guards who weren't ready for ghosts.
Edward slipped through shadows like a habit.
Zee, now hardened by months on the run, hacked the control tower using a phone she built from scraps.
By the time the gate opened, Edward had planted explosives across their data vault.
One flash drive in hand.
Zee whispered: "This contains months of payment records, arms routing, and encrypted Architect messages."
He nodded. "Then we drop it."
She paused. "You know the moment we do, they won't just chase us. They'll label us enemies of the state."
Edward looked at her—really looked.
"You still want out?"
Zee's laugh was short, fierce. "I was never in."
She pressed send.
Boom.
The compound lit up behind them as they walked.
***
Hours later, in a basement café in Benin City, Zee monitored the fallout.
Obsidian's stock plummeted.
A senator issued a shaky denial.
And two operatives from the Circle reached out with a message:
> "You've awakened something bigger.
They're not just coming for you.
> They're preparing to erase the entire network.
> Trust no one—not even us."
Edward sat still.
"They're bleeding," he said. "Which means they're afraid."
Zee looked up at him, tired but electric.
"So what's next?"
Edward answered without blinking.
"We don't run anymore."
---
*CHAPTER TWELVE: THE MIRROR*
*Location:* Abuja, Nigeria
*72 hours after the Obsidian leak*
The Architects had lost money. Influence. Control.
So they sent in their deadliest weapon.
Codename: *N'Dari.*
Not a ghost. A phantom.
She never graduated from Blacksite 9 because *she never had to.*
N'Dari was born in the dark—trained alongside Edward in the earliest days before names, before loyalty.
He knew her then as *"N-11."*
She was faster than him. Colder. A prodigy in pain.
They'd sparred once. She'd drawn blood with a smile.
Edward always believed she was dead—vanished during a failed mission in Sudan.
But now… she was their response.
***
Zee got the warning from a Circle mole buried deep inside a foreign comms branch.
One line of text:
> *"She's active. They've unleashed your shadow."*
Edward felt it before he saw it.
He and Zee moved through a safe alley in Jos. All was quiet.
Too quiet.
Then—movement.
A blade whizzed past Edward's cheek, missing by an inch.
He turned. No footsteps. No warning.
Just *N'Dari*, perched on a fire escape, black hair tied, eyes dead.
She didn't speak.
She dropped down—silent and hard.
Edward barely blocked her strike. She moved like memory: fast, unpredictable, merciless.
"You should've stayed buried," she said coldly, driving her heel into his ribs.
"I could say the same," he growled.
They clashed.
She was faster.
But Edward had something she didn't.
*Purpose.*
***
Zee watched, heart in her throat, trying to find a clean shot—but N'Dari moved like smoke.
Edward fought hard, but N'Dari wasn't trying to kill him—not yet.
She was *testing* him.
A message.
When she finally vanished into the shadows, she left behind a card.
A black one. No words.
Only a *symbol*: a circle broken at the center.
The Architects' *kill order seal*.
They had made it official.
Edward Okoye was now *a sanctioned target*.
***
Back at the hideout, Edward sat in silence, a cut above his eye bleeding slowly.
"She knew my rhythm," he said. "Every tell. Every breath."
Zee patched him up. "Then we change the rhythm."
He looked at her, exhausted but alive.
"I have to go to where it all started," he said quietly.
Zee frowned. "You mean…"
"*Blacksite 9.*"
Edward clenched the card.
"I'm going to tear out the heart of the machine."