Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Air Is a Weapon

The crack in the wall did not widen.

It didn’t need to.

Clean air flowed out in a steady stream, invisible but unmistakable. It pushed against the green haze, thinning it, carving a narrow corridor through poison and smoke. People closest to it dropped to their knees, gasping—not choking, not burning—breathing.

Some laughed. Some screamed. Some didn’t trust it and kept their cloth masks tight, afraid hope itself might be toxic.

Nii Boye stood at the edge of that invisible line, where clean air met death.

He could feel the difference on his skin.

Zola stepped beside him, her voice low. “They’re showing you what they control.”

He nodded. “And what they withhold.”

The figures in white suits remained just inside the wall, weapons still lowered, visors reflecting neon green light from Nii Boye’s eyes.

“You must understand,” the voice said again, calmer now, rehearsed. “Songo’s air systems are finite. Opening them fully would destabilize the city.”

“Then close the crack,” Nii Boye said. “And watch what happens.”

A pause.

Behind him, the girl Nii Boye had saved, took off the mask he had given her and inhaled deeply. Her cough stopped. Her shoulders relaxed. Nii Boye put his mask back on.

People beyond the wall noticed.

Murmurs rippled outward like fire through dry grass.

“You turned air into a privilege,” Nii Boye continued. “A weapon. A border.”

Zola added, “And now the weapon is visible.”

The Vessel groaned beneath the earth—the Conductor, weak, disoriented, but still alive. Its signals flickered, unstable, no longer capable of full command.

Inside Songo, panic spread faster than the poison ever had.

If the crack closed, the Outerlands would remember what clean air felt like.

If it stayed open, the lie collapsed.

A new voice joined the channel—younger, sharper.

“We can eliminate him,” it said. “Long-range.”

Zola stiffened. “They’re going to kill you.”

Nii Boye smiled faintly. “They already tried. With gas. With monsters.”

He took one step forward—into the stream of clean air.

For a demonstration, he removed his gas mask and did not choke.

The air tasted like nothing.

The crowd went silent.

Nii Boye breathed once.

Twice.

Then he turned back toward the Outerlands and held his breath, walking deliberately back into poison without the mask. His neon eyes dimmed slightly but did not fade.

He stopped at the line where gas reclaimed him.

“This is what you’re doing,” he said calmly. “Every day.”

He put the mask back on.

No shots were fired.

The wall did not close.

And in the minds of everyone watching—inside and outside Songo—the truth settled in:

Air was not scarce.

Control was.

The war, long believed to be over, had finally found its battlefield.

And Neon Nii Boye stood at its center.