CH1 REWIRED
Chapter 1 of an ongoing Sci -fantasy novel
No Factor. No sponsor. No right to be on Suspended airspace.
Just a fake ID and enough universals to bribe a black-market surgeon and become a balanced Effector.
Suspended — six countries’ worth of sky-city — floated above the seven nations below. Sometimes eight, depending on which map you trusted. Together, they formed the Empire-State called New Africa. The floating half was Suspended. The grounded half? They called it the Expanse.
One ruled from the clouds. The other bled on the ground.
He reached out, trying to sketch a doorway — his hand trembled. The lines fizzled before they could form.
His head pulsed. Calculations were off again. The world tilted slightly, as though Lagos itself had leaned in to whisper, You’re not ready.
Aiden stumbled, wiping at his nose. Blood. Again.
He didn’t stop running until the signage came into view — LOCAL BITES & GAMES. A dive where nobody asked questions and everybody lied for sport.
He slowed just before the front entrance, ducking under the rusted-out shade of a bent neon canopy. His heart slammed against his ribs, lungs burning like he’d swallowed salt. He pulled a torn rag from his coat pocket and scrubbed at the blood smeared across his palm — and the fresh streak snaking from his left nostril.
Effectors… If they were developers, the world was their application.
If they could imagine it — deeply, vividly, with system-stable math — they could make it real.
Most burned out. The ones who didn’t were monsters or martyrs.
If the android chipset didn’t kill him, he could finally do damage to the Council.
And NG — Nigeria — had just announced it would host the DICE Festival.
In two months, the Festival would sweep across Suspended and the Expanse — colors, lights, noise, and cover. The perfect time to do something big.
Bring a Gryphon down.
Effectors and Enhanced would fight for a shot at Suspended citizenship. An alternative to electricity in a world where electrons no longer existed.
He glanced around, checking for cameras.
“That ewedu soup? Garbage. Tasted like soy sludge,” the man near the fried rice stall muttered as Aiden pushed through the crowd.
Aiden yanked at his raincoat as the wind clawed at the nylon, damp and clinging to his arms like a second, sweat-slicked skin.
Tech had drained the flavor out of food — the same way it drained everything else in this floating city.
This was Ìpàgẹ̀ — where accents blurred and no one asked questions. You could walk the block for a week and never hear a native tongue.
Aiden rubbed his neck. A hum slid down his spine — low, magnetic, unnatural.
The streetlights hiccuped. Conversations died.
A baby wailed, sensing something none of them could name.
Then the air changed. A pressure, a presence. Aiden’s skin prickled before he even knew why.
He looked up. Reflex. Instinct.
A hooded figure glitched across the sky — like a frozen game snapping back into motion.
Glowing blue energy crackled from its core, illuminating the intricate arcane circuitry embedded in its attire. Its face was obscured beneath the hood, with only a single glowing cross-shaped light visible.
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The sky figure vanished as fast as it came, leaving a crackle in the air and whispers in its wake.
Aiden let out a slow breath and turned toward the intersection.
Power like that… the Council likely has armies of them. If he became an Effector, he could even the odds.
The café’s glow cut through the wet night like an invitation. The doors slid open with a hiss of pressurized air, revealing warm wood, worn leather, and industrial-chic steel softened by steam.
Aiden found his usual spot. Quiet. Out of the way. Perfect view of the baristas.
Behind the counter stood Bola — the African with tribal scars, a pink bow tie over priestly robes, and a look that dared you to ask questions. His servo arm whirred as he reached for the kettle, matte-black plating shifting like armor, serial numbers etched across the forearm. Ghana’s Aldwar combat-grade battlefield tech. Now making tea.
Eerie.
Aiden chuckled. “Militant turned barista?”
Bola didn’t flinch. “Gryphon zealot. How are you?” His ugliness was the stuff of legend.
Steam rose as hot water met loose-leaf blend. Sugar, measured precisely. A metal hand scraped the table, sliding forward a folded paper. No words.
Aiden ran a thumb along the edge. Heavy stock. Printed ink. Not digital.
Bola stirred his tea. “Took off a cheater’s head. He brought me from the Expanse. First boss who wasn’t a liar.” He slid a folded paper across the table. “You got that scent… not local.”
Aiden smirked, tapping his cup. “Always this direct?”
Bola’s grin widened. “Only with ghosts in daylight.”
Aiden stood, adjusting his coat. The paper tucked neatly into his pocket.
He didn’t notice the power flicker — the lights above never wavered. But something in the air had shifted.
He stepped back into the street, wind brushing his coat like a warning.
Solfare conduits webbed across the skyline like bright veins feeding Suspended’s hunger. Lagos Sector was only a sliver of it, but the city’s weight pressed down like godsteel.
He unrolled the paper.
Mr. Adebayo Okonkwo
Flat 3, Block B, Unity Estate
10 Opebi Road, Ikeja Grid
Lagos // Suspended Zone-1 — Former NG Sector
Aiden sucked in a cold breath. Suspended. Highside. He hadn’t been back in years.
“On Tinubu,” he muttered, folding the letter with slow fingers. “Hope this isn’t bullshit.”
The address was an antique. Nobody called it Nigeria anymore. But in the Suspended, paper still passed, and old names still opened doors.
Where his father used to vanish when he needed to be forgotten. Off-grid, unregistered. A ghost’s sanctuary.
He tucked the paper into his coat and started walking. No headlights. No noise. Just his own breath, and the metallic shuffle of his boots echoing off alley walls.
He walked at a steady pace, his fingers idly tracing the frame of his glasses.He slipped them from his face.
He turned them slowly, tilting them until he could see his reflection. He barely recognized the face in the reflection — something he built to pass scanners. Not his. But it worked.
The lights shifted — brighter. Colder. He was close.
******
Sterile light hit him from six angles.
“Subject cleared for bone graft insertion,” a voice echoed.
Aiden squinted against the surgical lamps above. His wrists and legs were bound. Limbs trembling. The chill of the table beneath him gnawed through his coat.
It’s real. I’m here.
Mirrored panels above reflected a body he barely recognized — lean, ragged, strapped down like a criminal. The mustache twitched with each shuddering breath.
The surgeon’s hands hovered. Gloved. Steady.
Alright,” said a woman off to the side, flipping through a screen of vitals. “Let’s get a look under the hood.”
Her voice was sharp, playful. Too casual for someone about to cut him open.
“Based on these scans,” she added, “our friend from Ground City is clearly… overcompensating.”
Someone behind the bio-shielding laughed.
“Oh, give it a rest, Lem,” another voice snapped.
“I don’t care what he’s packing,” Lem shot back. “I care if this android doesn’t fry him on the table.”
“Ọlọrun ran wa lọwọ,” someone muttered.
“Blow up?” Aiden rasped, his voice like dry cloth. The sedatives were wearing off, but pain still bloomed under his ribs.
“Not the kind of encouragement I was hoping for.”
“Relax,” said the surgeon, probably Dr. Caren.
She leaned over him, eyeing the 3D skeletal projection hovering above“We’re grafting the chipset just above the femur. Signal stabilizer here. Interface node there.”
“Two separate systems,” Caren muttered, flipping through overlays. “The android chip runs the interface — your OS. That’s what makes you readable, stable. But the Atom Gear? That’s your teeth. That’s what pulls Coz.”
She eyed him, skeptical. “Most people can barely survive one. You want both — jammed into your femur and your wrist.”
She tapped glowing points on the display with a stylus.
“Gear this volatile? Even with prime Suspended tech, the integration’s risky. If your body rejects it…”
He’d known from the moment he chose this path: he needed the android chip for precision, and Atom Gear for raw pull.
“No second chances,” Aiden said. His voice steadied. “I know.”
“You sure?” Caren asked, lower now, close to his ear. “Once this locks in, it blocks your cellular ability to take the Factor. This is permanent.”
“I’m not here for the Factor,” he said. “I’m here to survive.” He wasn’t a natural at sensing Coz so he needed an atom gear too.
She nodded once.
The containment drone whirred to life. A surgical arm lowered a small, curved piece of alloy — black, glossy, webbed with shimmering circuitry. android. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
“Beautiful,” Lem said behind the glass. “Like holding lightning in a tooth.”
Caren ignored him.
“Positioning chipset,” she said.
The moment the drone moved, pain surged.
Aiden bit down. Nerves screamed. His skin felt like it was turning inside out.
“Hold him down!” Caren barked. “His pain response is spiking!”
A second assistant straddled his chest, gripping a plastic syrette. “Don’t move. You want this in a vein, not your liver.”
“I’m still — ” he gasped.
“Don’t talk!”
She plunged the needle in. Cold fire flooded his body. His vision doubled.
“It’s too much,” a technician muttered. “His bone density barely passes. If the graft doesn’t take — ”
“It will,” Caren snapped.
Silence fell.
Then Lem scoffed. “The real problem is his damn watch.”
Aiden flinched.
Caren’s frown deepened. “You want to make a watch into an Atom gear?”
She tapped the small wristwatch he’d refused to remove. Old. Scuffed. Personal.
“You’re cramming Coz pullers into something the size of a teacup,” she said. “You’d have better luck surviving a plasma storm in a paper bag.”
Aiden didn’t flinch. “A glove’s too loud. I need precision. No one looks at a watch.”
“You’ll burn your arm off,” Lem muttered.
Caren paused. “He’s not wrong. Your range will be limited. Minimal bursts only.”
“That’s all I need,” Aiden said, breathing hard. “Small effects. Targeted. I’m not trying to reshape the universe.”
Caren leaned in again, voice low. “Men who say that usually end up trying.”
Aiden’s eyes flicked toward the glowing surgical screen. “I’m not most men.”
Blood trickled from his nose.
The hum of the implant deepened. The drone positioned the chipset just above the femur. Aiden’s back arched involuntarily as heat flared through his leg.
“Connections,” someone murmured. “That’s how he got up here. No Factor. No sponsor. Just back-alley pull.”
“The Council will love this,” Lem muttered. “Another rat climbing up from the Expanse.”
“He’s on this table,” Caren said sharply. “He’s my problem now.”
Not for long, Aiden thought. Just until I stand again.
He gritted his teeth as the android fused with bone..
Heat bloomed through his thigh, like a second heart beating under the skin.
Then — silence.
Suspended erased my father.
Now it’s my turn to return the favor.
A breath.
A flicker.
[SYSTEM ONLINE: Effector Interface v0.9.2-b]
Android core stabilized. Interface sync: 76%.
Atom Gear offline. Coz field not detected.
Welcome, Initiate.
Aiden blinked. The words floated in the air before him — translucent, digital, impossible.
He looked at the medtechs. No one else seemed to notice.
Sync: 76%
Anchor not detected. Please remain still.
The words shimmered, then folded in on themselves, vanishing like breath in winter.
He opened his mouth — said nothing.
Whatever they implanted…
It had just woken up.
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