Femi's room was dark, lit only by the jittery blue glow of his second-hand monitor as we both stared at the screen. The site loaded one frame at a time — sluggish and grim, like it was peeling back layers of secrets I had no business knowing.
At first, just a blinking cursor. Then a prompt:
ACCESS KEY:
Femi squinted.
"Could be anything. The file hash? The signature? Even your student ID."
I stared at the cursor.
My hands moved before I could stop them.
I typed: Adaora
Enter.
The page flickered.
Then opened.
I leaned back, and I couldn't stop staring at the screen — almost wishing it hadn't worked.
My name typed into that dark-net prompt. Why had it worked? Why me?
"You're not just a bystander in this," Femi muttered, as his fingers where flying over keys. "You're the access point."
"The what now?"
"Their system — it's keyed to you. Your patterns, your device signature. Whatever this is, Ada… you're the ignition switch."
My stomach dropped.
"I just wanted to make an attendance app."
Dozens of video thumbnails appeared — grainy surveillance feeds from angles that made my stomach twist: lecture halls, hostel corridors, the walkway behind the science block. Places I'd been. Moments I didn't remember being watched.
"This — this is all from FaceTrace?" I asked, barely whispering.
Femi nodded slowly.
"They used your app as the gateway. The biometric data was just the surface — this is deeper. They've been watching… for weeks."
Just then, I saw a folder that drew my attention. I immediately clicked on it — labeled: Subject_Ada_M.
Inside where video logs. Screen recordings. Voice samples. Even a heatmap of my movement across campus.
"I don't even have GPS permissions in my app," I said, my voice beginning to crack.
"They spoofed it," Femi said grimly.
"FaceTrace became the proxy server. It didn't just track students — it reported back. To someone running a private network."
"And I gave them the keys…"
As we kept on scrolling throught the website, we then came across a video labeled CAM_BACKLAB_42.
It was me — that night in the lab, just before the email came. I was typing, distracted.
But in the reflection behind me — something moved.
We zoomed in.
A figure. Dark hoodie. Watching through the lab window.
Then gone.
The footage ended there, but the browser didn't.
Instead, a message appeared on the screen:
TRACE COMPLETE.
PACKAGE IN TRANSIT.
"What package?" I asked, staring at Femi.
But before he could answer, there was a knock at the door.
We both froze.
Then I whispered, "Did you order something?"
He shook his head, already on his feet, phone in hand, silent mode on.
Three knocks. Then silence.
A full minute passed if not more. Then Femi cracked open the door.
No one.
Just a small package on the floor.
A plain brown box with no label on it.
Femi brought it in cautiously, as he scanned it with a pocket device which he picked up from his drawer.
"No tracker. No RF chip. Just…" — he sliced it open with a screwdriver — "…a USB. And a photo."
He then handed it to me.
My hands went cold almost immediately.
The photo was of Chiamaka — tied to a chair, her face swollen, terrified. A strip of masking tape across her mouth.
Someone else's hand was holding her chin up.
Written across the bottom, in bold marker:
"Decrypt or she dies."
Femi looked at me, pale.
I didn't say a word.
I just plugged in the drive.