đź“Ť Protectorate Operations Center, Geneva
đź•’3:00 AM | 72 Hours After Declaration
The air in the operations center hung thick with the scent of stale coffee and desperation. Screens glowed with the Protectorate's vital signs: holding at 12 million citizens, but the growth curve had flatlined into a worrying plateau. They were no longer expanding—they were besieged.
David rubbed bloodshot eyes, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "I found it. They're calling it the 'Doubt Virus' in the dark web forums. It doesn't attack code—it attacks social trust."
Layo watched community feeds light up with accusations. "A mediator in Mombasa was just exposed taking bribes. The news is spreading faster than any bug should."
Bayo didn't look up from his financial streams. "Aegis Pay launched an hour ago. Phoenix Group's 'safe alternative.'" His voice was dangerously calm. "They're using our chaos as their marketing campaign."
Maka's quartz bracelet felt strangely inert on her wrist—not warm, not cold, just absent, as if holding its breath.
—-
đź“Ť Virtual Council Chamber
🕧12:30 AM | The Midnight Mutiny
The European community leaders appeared on screen, their faces a mosaic of anger and fear.
"You have to see reason," said a German community leader they'd trusted for weeks. "Surrender to EU oversight. Save what we've built!"
David leaned into his mic. "We can't! That's the whole point of—"
Layo cut him off, her voice trembling with a rage that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her past. "No. Absolutely not." She stood, palms flat on the table. "This is what they do. They don't just defeat you—they make you participate in your own humiliation." Her eyes glazed over, seeing not the screen but a different room, a different betrayal. "My father… they called him to a board meeting. His own team, the people he'd mentored. They let him stand there for an hour while Alhaji's men accused him of things he would never do. He didn't lose his job that day—he lost his soul. I won't let them do that to us."
The room fell silent. The mutiny wasn't just about practicality anymore—it was about ghosts.
—-
đź“Ť Community Forum - "Lagos Traders Collective"
đź•’3:45 AM | The Virus in Action
It began subtly, as these things always do. A trusted member, Brother Tunde, posted a screenshot of a transaction log that seemed to show Aunty Bisi's niece receiving preferential transfer speeds. The log was a perfect fake, generated by the Doubt Virus, but the timing was impeccable—posted right after a heated dispute over market stall allocations.
The comments exploded. "So this is how it works? Connections over community?"
"I knew she was too close to the founders!"
"Where is the transparency they promised?"
Within minutes, the virus had auto-generated a dozen similar "exposés" across different community groups, each perfectly tailored to exploit local tensions and seeded by accounts it had identified as "influential." It wasn't just spreading chaos; it was performing automated, precision-targeted character assassination. The trust they had built for months was being systematically dismantled in hours.
—-
📍 Secret Café, Geneva
đź•‘2:00 AM | Bayo's Meeting
His mother sat perfectly composed, but her hands trembled around her teacup. "He says stand down. In return, he guarantees the safety of your friends' families. All of them."
Bayo's fingers went to the scar on his neck, a nervous habit he thought he'd conquered. The touch triggered the memory—not as a thought, but as a full-body experience. The shattering vase. The sting of the cut. The way his father had looked down at his bleeding ten-year-old son without a flicker of concern. "Love is a liability," Alhaji had said, wiping his hand as if touching his own child had contaminated him. "Remember this lesson." And Bayo had, for years, until Maka made him believe otherwise.
"He can't guarantee their safety because he's the threat," Bayo said, his voice surprisingly steady. "Tell him I choose liability."
—-
đź“Ť Operations Center
đź•’3:30 AM | The Breaking Point
The alerts came in a devastating cascade.
"EU blockade is active," David reported, his voice hollow. "All European assets frozen."
Then the message from Nigeria. Then the video from Aunty Bisi—market women screaming at each other, their lifelong trust shattered in hours.
A single, priority message arrived via Chioma's encrypted channel. It contained no text, only a link to a live counter showing Aegis Pay's user numbers skyrocketing, and a real-time feed highlighting specific community leaders they'd identified as "acquisition targets." The message was clear: We are not attacking you. We are simply harvesting what you are destroying yourselves.
Layo's phone buzzed. She read the message and went pale. "My father… they came to the house again."
David's own notification made him flinch. "MIT… permanent blacklist. They say no reputable institution will ever…" He trailed off, the dream he'd carried since childhood—the validation that he was good enough, smart enough, worthy enough—dying in a single notification.
"I gave up everything," David whispered, not to them but to the ghost of his own ambition. "I was going to be someone."
As her team shattered around her, a frantic, feverish heat flared on Maka's wrist. She stumbled back from the console, away from the screens showing their world ending. In the relative quiet of the server room, the bracelet showed her Alimotu's final failsafe: the Scorch Protocol. A way to burn it all down rather than let it be captured.
—-
đź“Ť Operations Center
đź••6:00 AM | The Choice
They stood surrounded by screens showing the death of their dream. Mass defections to Aegis Pay. Families threatened. The beautiful, intricate network of trust they'd built crumbling into dust.
David had stopped crying. He just stared at the MIT rejection, a man watching his own future burn. "It's over," he said, the words final. "They were right about me all along."
He hugged his laptop like a shield. "And whoever built that virus… they didn't just know our code. They knew us. The attack patterns—they're learning from our governance model itself. Using our transparency against us."
Layo stood rigid, her fists clenched. "Then we burn it with us. I won't give them the satisfaction of watching us beg."
Maka's fingers hovered over the Scorch Protocol interface. David's words echoed—they knew us—and suddenly she remembered her father's voice, weary but firm across their kitchen table: "Some money costs too much, nne. It buys food for your belly but poison for your soul." He'd taken the poison for one week to feed them, and she'd watched it eat at him for years. She would not make the same compromise for eight million souls.
Bayo looked from face to face—the scholar, the artist, the architect—all broken by different versions of the same battle. "My father wins either way," he said softly. "If he can't control it, he'll settle for destroying it."
A final message flashed—from Aunty Bisi, their first citizen: "They are breaking down my door. Whatever you choose, nne, we chose this with you."
The protocol awaited her command. The revolution awaited its fate. And in the terrible silence between heartbeats, she understood that some choices cannot be unmade.