The lobby of Mobolaji Johnson Station was a masterpiece of digital horror. One half was marble and steel; the other half was a void of falling green binary code.
[SERVER WIPE: 15% COMPLETE]
[DELETION RATE: 100 ASSETS/SEC]
"This is the worst customer service experience of my life!" Zayn shouted, clinging to a stone pillar that was slowly turning into a wireframe. "I want to speak to the manager! Or at least someone who doesn't want to delete my existence!"
"You're looking at her," Bhy Khay said, pointing his [Broodmother's Fang] at the glowing blue avatar of The Administrator.
The Godfather stood beside them, his purple void-armor flickering. He looked like a man who had spent millions on a luxury car only to find out the engine was made of cardboard. "My tanks... they're gone. My men are being archived. Admin, if your plan involves anything less than total destruction of that blue ghost, I'm going to use my last gravity charge to turn you into a pebble."
"Patience, Godfather," Bhy Khay said, his eyes scanning the Avatar's code. "She's not a ghost. She's an automated cleanup script. We aren't being attacked; we're being 'Defragmented'."
[ENTITY: THE ADMINISTRATOR]
[CURRENT TASK: FORMAT C:/EARTH/LAGOS]
"Elara, freeze the floor around the Node!" Bhy Khay commanded. "Tomiwa, draw a firewall! Literally!"
"A firewall?" Tomiwa grabbed her [Mercury Ink]. "Like, a wall with fire on it? Or a security protocol?"
"Both! Make it look like a giant red 'X'!"
[THE DEFENSE]
Elara slammed her [Staff of the Tides] down. [Permafrost] spread across the dissolving floor, temporarily stabilizing the pixels. It was like putting a band-aid on a black hole.
Tomiwa sketched a massive, glowing red shield in the air.
[LIVING INK: FIREWALL (Ver. 1.0)]
The Administrator turned her head. Her eyes were two spinning loading icons.
[OBSTRUCTION DETECTED.]
[RESOLUTION: OVERRIDE.]
She raised her hand, and the air itself turned into jagged shards of glass—broken textures of the sky.
"Zayn! Intercept!"
Zayn didn't use a normal arrow. He pulled a [Null-Point Bolt]—a rare drop he'd been saving.
"If this lags," Zayn muttered, "I'm blaming the ISP."
TWANG.
The bolt flew through the air, vibrating at a frequency that cancelled out the digital shards.
POP. POP. POP.
The glass shards vanished.
"Nice shot!" Elara cheered.
"Don't celebrate yet," Bhy Khay said. "The Godfather, I need a localized Gravity Well. Now!"
"You want me to work?" The Godfather sneered, but he raised his orb. "[EVENT HORIZON]!"
A sphere of intense black gravity erupted around The Administrator. It should have crushed her. Instead, it started pulling the Code out of her.
"She's leaking data!" Bhy Khay shouted. "That's her HP! It's not health—it's memory!"
[THE HACK]
Bhy Khay didn't lunge for the kill. He sprinted toward the main station terminal—the giant digital clock.
"Admin! Where are you going?" The Godfather yelled, his knees buckling under the strain of holding the Gravity Well. "I can't keep this up! I'm Level 20, but she's... she's the Root!"
"I'm going to the Command Prompt!" Bhy Khay shouted back.
He reached the terminal. The screen was a mess of "404 Error" messages. Bhy Khay jammed his [City Lord Token] into the USB port (which he had to 'Admin-Edit' into existence with a jagged piece of metal).
[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.]
[INPUT COMMAND:]
"Okay, let's see," Bhy Khay's fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. "If I try to delete her, the System will just respawn her. I need to... reassign her."
He looked at the Godfather, then at his own team.
>> CHOWN -R BHYKHAY /LAGOS/ADMINISTRATOR
[ERROR: PERMISSION DENIED. YOU ARE NOT THE SUPERUSER.]
"Standard," Bhy Khay muttered. "Okay, plan B."
>> TASKKILL /IM ADMINISTRATOR.EXE /F
[WARNING: TERMINATING THIS PROCESS MAY CAUSE SYSTEM INSTABILITY.]
"Instability is my middle name," Bhy Khay muttered. He looked at the floor. It was 30% gone.
"Wait," Bhy Khay's eyes widened. "The Lagos Node isn't just a server. It's a Social Experiment. It's checking for Cooperation vs. Conflict."
He looked at the Godfather, who was now sweating blood to hold the Gravity Well, protecting the 'Ibadan Trash' he hated.
"Cooperation," Bhy Khay realized. "The System is trying to force us to merge."
He didn't kill the task. He edited the [Alliance] settings.
>> SET ALLIANCE_TYPE = PERMANENT_UNION
>> TARGET: IBADAN_LORD + LAGOS_SYNDICATE
[VALIDATING COOPERATION LEVELS...]
The Administrator stopped fighting. The green code stopped leaking. She turned from a violent blue to a peaceful gold.
[ALLIANCE DETECTED.]
[CONFLICT RESOLVED.]
[SERVER WIPE ABORTED.]
The floor stopped dissolving. The wireframe pillars turned back into marble. The silence that followed was heavy with the smell of ozone.
The Administrator looked at Bhy Khay.
[USER: BHY KHAY.]
[USER: THE GODFATHER.]
[NEW STATUS: CO-ADMINS OF THE WESTERN REGION.]
"Co-Admins?" The Godfather dropped his orb, panting. He looked at his hands. "I have... I have a Gold Tag now?"
"We just 'Beat' the Lagos Server," Bhy Khay said, leaning against the terminal. "The System wanted to see if we'd kill each other or work together. Since we didn't kill each other, it decided we were efficient enough to manage the whole thing."
"I have to share my taxes with you?" The Godfather asked, his voice full of disbelief.
"And I have to share my peace with you," Bhy Khay retorted. "It's a win-win for everyone except our egos."
[QUEST COMPLETE: THE LAGOS MERGE.]
[REWARD: DUAL LEADERSHIP REGIME.]
[NEW THREAT: THE NORTHERN INVASION.]
Zayn walked over, picking a piece of binary code out of his hair. "So... we aren't deleted?"
"Not today," Bhy Khay said.
He looked at the digital board. The 'Void' departure had been replaced.
[DEPARTURES]
[LAGOS -> ABUJA: BOARDING NOW]
"The path to the Capital is open," Bhy Khay said. "But we aren't going alone."
He looked at The Godfather.
"I have a train. You have tanks. Dr. Balogun has the Source Code."
The Godfather adjusted his torn white suit jacket. He looked at the golden tag above his head, then at Bhy Khay.
"A train, you say?" The Godfather smirked. "I suppose it's faster than a Micra."
"Don't push your luck," Bhy Khay said.
[ALLIANCE FORMED: THE ECLIPSE SYNDICATE.]
"Next stop," Bhy Khay looked at the horizon. "Abuja. We're going to meet the Creator."