Freedom Radio had once been a symbol. Long before it fell into disrepair, it had blared music of hope through tinny speakers, reporting elections, protests, and the births of a thousand Lagosian dreams. Now, its tower rose like a weary sentinel against the orange-streaked sky, scarred and silent, yet witnessing something reborn.
Adesuwa stood over Erelu's unconscious form, breathing heavily. The blood on her hands wasn't just physical anymore. It was a reckoning. The truth was out. The city had heard it. But what came after the revelation?
"Are you sure she's out?" Yusuf groaned from where he leaned against the console, pressing gauze against his shoulder.
Adesuwa turned toward him, eyes hard. "Out cold. For now. But she'll have reinforcements."
"She always does."
They both looked at the screen. The data was still broadcasting on a loop. Every safehouse. Every assassination. Every corrupt judge. The faces of the Circle, unmasked for the world.
"I don't think we'll walk away from this," Yusuf said, voice soft.
"No," Adesuwa answered. "But maybe we don't have to walk. Maybe it's enough that we stood."
Yusuf gave a thin smile. "Poetic. You always had that streak."
She ignored the compliment. Her mind was already calculating exit paths, estimating response time. Lagos wasn't going to forgive overnight. Neither would the Circle.
A sudden rattle from the stairwell jolted them. Yusuf raised his pistol, fingers trembling.
"Hold fire," Adesuwa whispered.
A voice called from below. "It's me!"
Tunde appeared, breathless and wide-eyed. His shirt was soaked in sweat, a pistol was clutched tightly in his hand.
"You made it," he said, stepping over debris. "I saw the broadcast. It's everywhere. Hospitals, bus parks, churches, people are watching."
"Then we did it," Yusuf muttered.
Tunde scanned the room, spotting Erelu. "Is she …"
"Alive. For now."
"Then we've got a problem."
Tunde tossed a crumpled flyer onto the console. Adesuwa picked it up. It was a digital printout; rough, done in haste, but the words chilled her.
"Patriots or Terrorists? Help Us Find Them."
Below were grainy screenshots of her, Yusuf, and Tunde. Captured from the broadcast.
"They've twisted it already?" Adesuwa asked.
"Of course. The Circle's media proxies have flipped the narrative. They're calling you a rogue agent. Yusuf's a foreign operative. Me? They said I'm an ex-convict who radicalized you both."
Yusuf coughed. "That's... creative."
Adesuwa crushed the flyer in her fist. "Then we've only done half the job. The files are out—but if we don't take control of the story, they'll rewrite it again."
"Agreed," Tunde said. "But how?"
She turned back to the console. "We go live. Not a loop. Not a file dump. A direct transmission. We talk. Face to face. Lagos deserves our voices."
Yusuf hesitated. "They'll trace it in seconds."
"Let them," she replied. "Let them see exactly who we are."
The countdown began. A red light flickered above the mic. The on-air button glowed. The room fell into a tense silence.
Adesuwa leaned forward.
"My name is Adesuwa Omokunle," she began, voice steady. "I was born in Bariga. My mother taught me to read with scraps of newspaper. My father disappeared when I was six—one of the first test subjects for the Circle's behavioral trials under Project Sunrise."
Tunde followed. "I'm Tunde Kareem. I've worked with state intelligence. I know what fear looks like. I've worn its uniform."
Yusuf stepped up. "I'm Yusuf Lawal. I've built walls around truth. But today, I helped tear one down."
Adesuwa continued. "You've seen the files and the evidence. Now, hear this: they will lie. They will say we fabricated everything, that we are anarchists, that this is treason. But we are only guilty of refusing silence."
"We are the echoes," Tunde said, voice rising. "And echoes don't die."
They stood together, shoulders squared, as the signal carried their words across the city, into villages, across networks—places they would never see.
There was only their truth for a few minutes, roaring louder than sirens.
Then the feed was cut.
The console sparked and hissed. A screen shattered.
"They've disabled the tower," Yusuf said. "We're blind."
"Then we move," Adesuwa snapped. "Now."
They dragged a bound and unconscious Erelu with them, just in case. Out through the back door, into the alley, onto an old delivery van Tunde had stashed nearby.
Yusuf climbed in last, wincing.
Adesuwa took the wheel.
"What's next?" Tunde asked,"
"We go underground. Regroup. There's still more to expose."
Yusuf smirked. "You're insatiable."
She looked at him. "And you're bleeding. Sit back."
They disappeared into the Lagos twilight, the city simmering with rage and revelation behind them.
Days passed. The streets buzzed with unrest. From Ikeja to Epe, banners sprang up. #VoicesInTheAshes. The Circle denied everything at first. Then they were accused of foreign interference. Then they fell silent.
But silence, Adesuwa had learned, could scream.
The Network, an underground alliance of whistleblowers, activists, and rogue journalists, had taken the files from Freedom Radio and distributed them through onion routers and satellite drops.
Every Circle safehouse exposed was another fire lit.
And yet, Adesuwa remained haunted.
She watched the news from an apartment above a market in Mushin. Her face filled the screen again. "Dangerous. Deranged. A threat to national stability."
She turned the screen off.
"Time to move again," Yusuf said behind her, shoulder wrapped tight in bandages.
"Not yet," she replied. "I need to see her."
"Who?"
"Zuri's mother."
The woman lived in a tiny room in Ajegunle. She was small and stooped, but her eyes burned with the same fire Adesuwa had seen in Zuri.
"You're the girl who dragged my daughter into this," she said.
Adesuwa didn't flinch. "Yes. And I'm here to tell you she didn't die for nothing."
She handed the woman a chip. "This contains her last recorded messages. She knew the risks. She chose them."
The woman took the chip, her lips trembling. "She was stubborn. Like her father."
"She was brave."
The old woman nodded slowly. "Then go. Be braver."
Weeks passed. Then, the trial.
Adesuwa sat behind reinforced glass. A live-streamed hearing. The prosecution was fierce. Treason!" they cried. Terrorism.
But she never bowed.
When her time came to speak, she simply said, "I will not apologize for showing you the truth."
The judge looked down at her. "Do you have anything else to add?"
She stared at the camera, straight into Lagos.
"They tried to erase us. But we are still here. Every lie they buried has bloomed into truth. And those truths will never be silenced again."
Gasps filled the courtroom.
Because outside, thousands had gathered. Some with signs. Some with candles. All with voices.
A slow chant began.
"Voices in the ashes. Voices in the ashes."
The judge's gavel could not drown it out.
In the aftermath, the government crumbled from within. Some Circle leaders fled. Some were assassinated by their own.
Erelu escaped custody.
But Lagos had changed.
It had remembered how to listen. And how to speak.
Adesuwa would spend six months in isolation, then vanish into myth. Yusuf disappeared too, last seen boarding a cargo ship in Warri.
Tunde stayed behind. He ran a pirate radio from a moving bus. It changed routes daily.
And somewhere, hidden deep beneath the city, a new broadcast tower was being built.
Unregistered. Untraceable.
Untouchable.
Because the truth doesn't die.
It echoes.
And sometimes, the silence that screams is the loudest of all.