Chapter Eight:

"W- w- what do you mean by 'David is a computer'?" the entire room started to spin around Seven. He stared at this man with his irritable grins. Wishing he had never embarked on this in the first place. Now sitting beside a chronic lair and staring into the dangerous eyes of their abductor, he wished he had stayed home.

Olalekan removed his suit and draped it around his chair. The tension brought the heat. Heat brought sweat, he hated to sweat. He has had a lot of successes across his entire life but he has never come close to achieving anything with children or teens which is why his long line of children gadgets and gaming software were managed by his partners.

Kids are energy-consuming. The only energy he wants to be consumed is the one that is exhausted during one of his numerous heated one night stands. Not by an emotionally, mentally, psychologically underdeveloped human.

The boy looked like the confusion and the impending bombshell was going to make him cry and this irritated Olalekan so much.

"I can't believe you lied to the kid, you're disgusting," Olalekan said to Wale.

"I did it to protect him. He doesn't have to know too much. He knows enough as it is; enough to concern him."

"The moment you sought him, you made him part of the entire thing. Might I remind you that the hotel officials have CCTV footage of the two of you running out of the hotel like madmen? Once word leaks out about you having government property, there would be hundreds of people having an eye out to get you. With that footage, you've already implicated your little friend here."

Wale was silent.

Olalekan was right. Damn.

"Sir," Seven began.

"Yeah?"

"Early you made mention of David being a Computer." His shoulders shivered with frightful rage. "Please what do you mean by that if I may ask?"

"Let your friend tell you."

Seven turned to Wale, he was hanging his head in shameful surrender.

Wale caught Seven's gaze and looked away.

Watching the two of them behave that way and being the one responsible for salting the betrayal to their fresh relationship made Olalekan smile internally, he was breaking any form of plot the two men had under their sleeves. Studying Seven's features in lowlight and his shabby dressing. Olalekan pictured a child from mid-class parents with high privileges like his own bedroom, video games and consoles, his computer, and allowance every week. Everything parents who had suffered in their own time would give their children to ensure that they were comfortable. But parents do not approve of the need to leave the house regularly, so the children are always placed on house confinement, which breeds antisocial personalities and social anxieties.

Olalekan sighed.

What a pity.

"Aren't you going to say anything?!" Seven's voice was impatient. Olalekan could have bet that Seven would have lunged for Wale were it not for the restraints.

"WALE?!" Seven called again, even louder, with wet eyes. "What is he talking about!?"

Everything was sickening, the air was tasteless, and a strong stench of blood hung stubbornly to the air, Wale wondered if the kid had sensed it. Judging by his outburst, he had not.

Sly Olalekan. Skillfully turning Seven against him. At this point, there was no need to try to hide it anymore. The probability of them being killed and tossed into a shallow grave was high.

Ah, fuck it.

"I wanted to protect you." Wale stared at Seven remorsefully.

"Is that how you protect someone; by lying to them?!"

Silence.

"Look, it's a lot complicated than it sounds."

"Okay? What then, is David?"

Something you should know nothing about.

Wale was reluctant to speak.

"WHAT?!"

There was no way he was going to put this Seven's life in dan –

"David is an advanced AI designed by your friend right here. I'm sure you know what that is. Think of it as Iron Man's Jarvis – but on steroids. Wale designed this computer for us to monitor our online customers and help source out for people who would need our services. David's advanced processor was built to help create algorithms designed to fish out these people based on their interests, frequently engaged posts, down to their private messages."

Seven found it hard to believe what this man was saying.

"Is this true?" Seven asked Wale.

"Yes." Wale looked up. "David can decrypt and breach almost anything. While running his program for the first time, I nearly lost him inside billions of web codes. He's that versatile. There's no way to track his location directly unless you're using the same protocols he was designed with."

Seven was blank.

"This is so…"

"Unbelievable?" Olalekan smirked.

The light bulb overhead twitched.

"Unreal…"

Olalekan gave a burst of bellied laughter.

"It certainly is not. How do you think Mark Zuckerberg and the rest gain revenue? Do you think it's from your measly data subscriptions or what?"

"No, but, I don't think Nigeria has gotten to that point." He did not. "I mean our programmers are still learning how to hack Wifi and dormant websites, learning web design and maintenance, and basic Black Hat Hacking."

Both Wale and Olalekan were impressed.

The kid knows his shit.

"Look," Olalekan leaned his body forward to the table. "Nigeria has gone way beyond that."

"The only thing is you and the rest of the 160 billion don't know this." Wale chipped in.

These men had had an instant connection with this. Seven could feel it. They had stolen a glance at each other.

The air had become less tense. Seven's heart rate had normalized.

"Well, had it been you had not been too passionate about making that thing evolve, you wouldn't be in this mess right now, huh, Wale?"

Someone knocked on the door, a muffled voice notified Olalekan that the time was almost over.

"Tell, Scorch that I'll be out in a few minutes. And? Don't you dare interrupt me again."

The muffled voice apologized and left, footfalls retreating from the room. As it faded, Olalekan scooted his chair closer to them till his stomach was touching the table. He clasped his palms together and took a deep breath.

"Wale." He began. "Where is David?"

"I swear on my life, I don't know where he is."

"Are you willing to give your life, then?"

Wale stared at this man for a long time, the hesitation settled in the air between them.

 "Very well then… where do you think he might be?"

"No clue."

Olalekan's fingers drummed the table loudly, following a growing rhythm.

"The creator of one of the most advanced computer systems does not know how to find his work? Well, Federal has gotten involved."

"What's he talking about?" Seven was perplexed.

"The government took interest in Project David, they want to use David to monitor their money and ensure that not only are they untraceable, but they would be monitored," Wale said.

"And when Wale over here was informed, his mumu-button was triggered. This motherfucker decided to go James Bond. He gave independent rights, thinking he would save himself, I nearly lost tens of millions."

Seven found the entire tale crazy. He was yet to believe that these people could create such a device. This man looked like he had a lot of money, but not that kind. And Wale did not look like the kind that has the brains to design a simple website.

"I didn't mean to run away, the thing is, I got so scared."

"Running was just stupid because you know. You know what I have done; what I am capable of. There isn't any place on this planet you'd run to that I wasn't going to find you. It was only a matter of time."

Wale knew.

"But. Right now, I have a few questions for you."

"What are they?"

The Interrogation Room door opened. Two huge men on uniform walked in.

Seven froze. He knew that something was about to happen.

Fear gripped Wale as both men walked towards his seat and gruntingly pulled him out of the chair.

He didn't protest.

"W- w- what's going on?" Seven was scared.

"Wale is going to our Questioning Chambers where he will be asked series of questions. Would you like to come and witness it? Don't worry. We won't hurt him."

The two men guided Wale out of the Interrogation Room. Seven got up and followed Olalekan after the man put out his smoke, got up to fling his jacket on his shoulders, and started for the door.

The Questioning Chambers was another room down the hall, with no Blindfolds on, Seven noticed that the building they were in was probably Olalekan's home. The walls were littered with Igbo Renaissance paintings depicting the progressive times and a lot of Edo sculptures including the one of Queen Idia.

Very unlikely for them to be the original. Probably remakes.

Unlike the Interrogation Room, the Questioning Chambers was rather well-illuminated. There was a strong coppery stench on the air. Seven wondered what it was. Then, the next image he saw made him momentarily paralyzed and perplexed. His knees began to jitter and shake violently.

Beyond the well-lit room, there was a glass see-through window. Behind it was a space filled with odd instruments hanging on the wall. There were a table and a chair. On the table was a tool Seven identified as a bludgeon and beside this tool was a butcher's knife.

Sitting on the chair that was before the table, was Wale.

The two men from earlier tied him to the chair, tore open his shirt to reveal his hairy chest.

They stood beside the chair after they were done.

A man came from the far end of the room, he wore a lab-coat and eye-protective goggles.

"That man on white will be asking your friend some questions and he better tells the truth for the sake of his life."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll see. Why don't you just watch?"

Seven had no interest in watching; he realized what that coppery smell was.

Blood.