POV: Zainab_
72 hours after Lagos, and we were already ghosts.
The news called us "terrorists." Pandora called us "Anomalies."
The people in Mushin called us "the ones who saved us."
I called us tired.
We were in a scrap-van Kunle built from 3 different trucks. Armored. Silent. Red core humming in the engine.
In the back: Director Ogbene Kolawole. Gold chains on his wrists. Eyes closed. Breathing like a man who lost a war and was waiting for the next one.
"Say something," Dele said from the driver's seat. Lightning made his knuckles glow. "Gloat. Beg. Threaten us. Anything."
Ogbene didn't move.
"Give him time," Iyanu said from beside me. Wind was circling the van, keeping drones off us. "He's recharging."
I was in the passenger seat with a cracked tablet. Pandora's black files.
"12 pods," I said. My voice was hoarse. "Scattered across Africa. Accra, Nairobi, Addis, Dakar, Cairo... He's been harvesting for 20 years."
Kunle sat in the back, working on his gauntlet. The red core was dimmer now. 1 port left.
"Names?" he asked.
"Not names. Numbers." I scrolled. "Pod 01 to Pod 12. He labeled them like lab rats. But I found patterns. Each one matches a Yoruba Orisha. Or something close."
"And they're not just prisoners," Iyanu whispered. She hadn't slept in 3 days. "They're batteries."
I pulled up another file. Blueprints.
"PROJECT: YORÙBÁ GATE. STATUS: 73% COMPLETE."
Under it: a diagram. The 12 pods arranged in a circle. Energy lines feeding into a tear in space.
"Drilling," Kunle said. He stopped working. "He's using them to drill into somewhere."
"Where?" Dele asked.
The van went quiet. Only the hum of the core.
"Doesn't matter yet," I said, closing the tablet. "What matters is we free them before he does. Or before whatever's on the other side comes through."
"First stop?" Kunle asked.
"Accra," I said. "Pod 07. Last ping was 6 hours ago. It's being moved by convoy."
"Who's in it?" Dele groaned. "Please don't say another brooding swordsman."
I checked. "Inheritor of Anansi. Trickster Path."
Dele slammed the wheel. "Great. Another loudmouth."
Iyanu smiled for the first time in days. "You'll like him."
It took 14 hours to get to the Ghana border.
We didn't talk much. We couldn't.
Kunle taught Fatima — Pod 12, Yemoja's inheritor — how to shape water with metal filings. She was 16 and kept making the water into tiny fish.
Amina, Oṣun's girl, healed the burns on Kunle's arm while complaining about the van's music.
Chike, Ọbalúayé's guy, sat in the corner and made the air smell like herbs. Said it kept the "bad energy" away.
Kwesi wasn't there yet. But his presence was.
Old Taju had been riding with us since Lagos. He slept most of the time. Snored. Ate everyone's food.
But every few hours he'd open one eye and say something weird like "The road remembers" or "Don't trust the man with two shadows."
We ignored him.
At 2:47am, 30km from Accra, the van hit something.
Not a pothole.
A person.
We screeched to a stop.
Standing in the middle of the highway: an old man. 80s. Buba and fila. Walking stick. No fear.
"Old Taju?" Dele leaned out. "What are you doing here?"
Old Taju grinned. Too many teeth for a man his age.
"You boys are late. The road is closed."
Kunle got out. Gauntlet ready. "Move. Now."
"Can't," Old Taju said. He tapped his stick once on the asphalt.
The entire highway folded.
Like paper.
Like cloth.
Like reality was a rug and someone picked up a corner.
Cars slid. Signs twisted. And 500 meters behind him: a Wosam convoy. 6 trucks. 20 Iron-Wraiths. And in the center truck: a glass pod. Glowing.
"Oops," Old Taju said. "Guess I'll have to help."
He winked. And vanished. Just... gone. Like he was never there
Alarms.
"Contact! Contact!"
The Iron-Wraiths dropped.
"Plan?" I shouted.
"Same as always," Kunle said. He ripped a guardrail from the ground. "We hit hard, we hit fast, we get him out."
Dele was already moving. "I'll take the sky."
Iyanu breathed in. "I'll take the wind."
I let gold flow from my hands. "I'll take their heads."
We charged.
Kunle didn't fight the mechs. He unmade them. One touch and they remembered they were scrap.
Dele rode lightning between trucks, blowing out engines.
Iyanu lifted two trucks and slammed them together.
I walked through soldiers and they dropped, seeing visions of home, of peace, of anything but war.
In 4 minutes it was over.
Smoke. Scrap. And the center truck, doors blown open.
Inside: the pod.
And inside the pod: a kid.
14. Dreadlocks. Barefoot. Eyes open. Smiling like this was funny.
The glass cracked. He stepped out.
"Took you long enough," he said. "I was bored."
He snapped his fingers.
100 Pandora's spider-drones that had been attacking us suddenly turned and webbed up their own pilots.
"Who are you?" Dele asked, axe lowered.
"Me?" The kid bowed. "Kwesi. Anansi said hi. He also said you owe him 3 stories, a chicken, and an apology for the last 400 years."
Kunle stared. "You're Pod 07."
"I'm Pod Awesome," Kwesi said. "But yeah. That too."
Zainab stepped forward. "We're building something. The Tome of Ascendant. A place for people like us. To fight Pandora To be free."
Kwesi looked at us. At Kunle's half-metal arm. At Iyanu's storm eyes. At Dele's axe. At me.
At the van with 5 more kids inside and an old director in chains.
"Fine," he said. "But I pick the base. And I pick the snacks. And if anyone calls me 'kid' again I'm turning their shoes into snakes."
He turned. And froze.
"Also hi Grandpa."
We all turned.
Old Taju was sitting on the roof of a pandora tank. Eating plantain. Like he'd been there the whole time.
"Good boy," he said to Kwesi. "Clever tricks. Your father would be proud."
"My dad's dead," Kwesi said.
"Not that one," Old Taju said. Then he looked at us. "Run now. More are coming. And this time they brought the big guns."
In the distance: engines. More convoy. More mechs.
"Van!" Kunle shouted. "Everyone in!"
We ran. 7 demigods now. Plus one old man who folded roads and one director who wouldn't talk.
As we drove away, I looked back.
The highway was still folded. And in the sky above Accra, the stars looked wrong. Like something was pushing against them from the other side.
PROJECT: YORÙBÁ GATE. 73%.
Climbing.