_POV: Kunle, then All Four_
The knee joint was a canyon of metal and sparks.
My gauntlet was hot. The crack we made was only 3 meters wide. Enough.
"I'm going in," I said.
"60 seconds," Iyanu replied. Wind was holding the God-Machine's other leg in place. "Then it'll regenerate."
"Don't die," Dele added. Lightning was chaining around its ankles. "Or I'll kill you."
Zainab just nodded. Gold rivers were already inside the machine, mapping it. "Pilot core is in the chest. 200 meters up. I'll guide you."
Then I jumped.
Inside was worse than outside.
Wires like veins. Pipes like arteries. And everywhere: red light. Wosam's blood.
Alarms screamed. Automated turrets popped out of the walls.
"Unidentified biological. Purge protocol."
I didn't dodge.
I _unmade_.
My gauntlet touched a turret and it remembered it was once scrap. It fell apart.
_KEEP MOVING_, Ọ̀gún whispered. _THE MACHINE IS ALIVE. HURT IT._
I ran. Up. Through muscle made of hydraulics and tendon made of cable.
The hallway narrowed.
And it started talking.
Not with speakers. In my head.
4 voices. Iron. Wind. Lightning. Gold.
"Subject 01. You are flawed. You are pain. Submit."
The floor became knives. The walls became fire.
It was using my memories against me. The orphanage. The fire. The day I was told I was "defective."
I stopped running.
I slammed both fists into the wall.
"Ọ̀gún doesn't run from pain. He makes it a weapon."
I pulled. The fire became armor on my arm. The knives became blades on my back.
I walked through the hall as it tried to kill me. And I took pieces of it with me.
The voices went quiet.
The chest cavity.
And there he was.
Not a machine. A man.
Old. Bald. Tubes in his arms, his neck, his spine. Floating in red fluid.
Director Ogbene Kolawole. Wired directly into the God-Machine.
He opened his eyes when I entered. They were gold. Like Zainab's. But wrong. Hollow.
"Kunle Adeyemi," he said. His voice came from everywhere. "Ọ̀gún's failure. Come to die?"
"Come to unmake you," I said.
He smiled. "You think you're the first? I've harvested 12 demigods. Their Paths are in here."
He gestured. Behind him: 12 pods. Empty. With names on them.
"Iyanu. Dele. Zainab. And you. The last 4. Then the Path is mine."
He raised a hand. The entire God-Machine raised a fist outside.
"You can't hurt me in here," he said. "I _am_ the god now."
I looked at the 12 pods. At the cables. At the man who thought he was a god.
_FORGE_, the voice said. _WHAT IS MADE CAN BE UNMADE._
"Yeah," I said. "But gods can bleed."
The machine was going berserk.
"His vitals are spiking!" Zainab shouted. "Kunle's inside!"
Iyanu was holding a hurricane in her palms. "When he gives the signal, we hit the chest. All of us."
Dele was bleeding from his nose. "He better give it soon."
Inside, I could feel them. Their Àṣẹ. Waiting.
Ogbene lunged. Cables lashed out from the walls.
I caught them. And instead of breaking them, I _changed_ them.
I poured everything into them. Not force. Not heat.
_Concept._
Ọ̀gún's truth: "No man is a god."
The cables remembered they were made by human hands.
The fluid remembered it was once water.
The machine remembered it was once scrap.
And it all began to fall apart.
Ogbene screamed as the gold left his eyes. "NO! I AM THE FUTURE!"
"YOU'RE A THIEF," I said. And drove my gauntlet into the core.
The God-Machine convulsed.
Outside:
"NOW!" Iyanu screamed.
Wind.
Lightning.
Gold.
All hit the chest at the same moment I hit it from inside.
The 300m machine dropped to its knees in Lagos Bay. Water boiled around it.
Then it went dark.
Silence.
I dragged Ogbene's body out of the wreckage. Alive. But empty.
Lagos was quiet. 30,000 people watching from the other side of the bridge.
Dele landed next to me. "You look like hell."
Iyanu touched my shoulder. Wind cooled the burns. "You did it."
Zainab took the Director's hands and bound them in gold. "He'll stand trial."
From the city, one sound. Then another.
Clapping. Then cheering. Then thousands of voices.
We didn't win the war.
But we won the first battle.
Kunle looked at his gauntlet. One port left.
"So," he said. "What now?"
Zainab looked at the horizon. More Pandora ships in the distance.
"Now," she said, "we go find the other 12 inheritor and we bring them home."
The 4 of us stood on the chest of a dead god.
And for the first time, Lagos felt safe.