CHAPTER XLII
The message was brief.Seven words.Typed in plain text.Encrypted so tightly it took NUMA an hour to crack.
I know who they want me to beI choose something else
Aderonke had made her move.
Now it was Elara's turn to protect it.
They changed locations by nightfall.The safehouse was no longer safe.NUMA traced a silent ping to the compound's signal.The Council was closing in.
They moved to an abandoned radio station on the outskirts of Ibadan.Concrete walls, rusted satellites, thick shadows.
It was perfect.
Buried.Forgotten.Alive.
Fatima laid out the plan.
They would hijack the Council's primary news frequency.
They would not just respond.
They would rewrite the signal.
Khalid rewired the satellite tower.
NUMA cleared the old static lines.
Elara sat in the editing room with Aderonke's message in front of her.
It was not a video.
Not yet.
Just a raw voice file.
Fifteen seconds of a girl stepping away from the future the Council built for her.
I am Aderonke Bello.I was chosen to replace the girl who refused to obey.I now choose to be the girl who remembers.
Elara listened to it four times.
Each time, her hands trembled.
Each time, the tremble faded.
By the fifth playback, she was still.
They decided to go live at one in the morning.Less surveillance.More reach.
NUMA looked over at Elara.
You sure you want this to be her face?
Elara nodded.
They used me to build the lie.Let her destroy it.
Midnight came fast.
NUMA hit the feed.A red light blinked.
You are live.
The screen was black for three seconds.Then it lit up.
Not with Elara.Not with fire.With a face.
Aderonke's.
Soft.Young.Unapologetic.
She wore no uniform.Just a simple scarf and steady eyes.
I was never supposed to have a choice.But I found my sister.I found the truth.And I found myself.
The Council does not speak for me.
It never did.
Behind her, survivor footage rolled.
No narration.No edits.Just the truth.
Halima in the hospital.Fatima pulling names from old files.NUMA running from tear gas.Khalid burning files in the rain.Elara, stepping into a courtroom alone.
The signal reached over forty thousand viewers in under ten minutes.
By morning, it would reach millions.
NUMA whispered, We did it.
Elara shook her head.
She did it.
The Council responded faster than expected.
An official broadcast was issued by eight in the morning.
They called the video a fabrication.A digital trick.A performance.
But they said nothing about Aderonke.No denial.No retraction.
Just silence.
And in a system built on lies, silence was the loudest confession.
At noon, a new leak dropped.
This time from inside the Ministry of Health.
Ten years of medical coverups.Dozens of erased diagnoses.Women labeled as unstable because they knew too much.
It included Halima's real file.
Unedited.
Complete.
The hashtag trended instantly:
We Remember the Erased
Protests reignited.
Schoolgirls in Ibadan marched barefoot holding signs that readDaughters Do Not Disappear
Radio stations across the country replayed Aderonke's message every hour.
One even called herThe Voice That Broke the Silence
Back at the station, Aderonke's voice played once more.
Elara stood in the doorway.
She could feel it.
Something had shifted.
Not everything was fixed.
But something was finally breaking.
And this time, it was not her.
Fatima stepped beside her.
You did not just survive your story, she said.
You rewrote it.
Elara looked at the tower blinking above them.At NUMA asleep on a pile of wires.At Khalid working with bruised hands and full focus.
And she whispered,
We are not done.
Not yet.
Because the system still had claws.The Council still had ghosts.
But now, the world had witnesses.
Now, the silence had cracks.
And now, Elara Bello had a sister who chose to fight.