The Daily Messenger, written by Sena Gowon, 1998, May.

Remilekun Phillips wins Lagos senatorial election by landslide. This news come as a double celebration for the young politician as he recently welcomed his first child with the beautiful Nigerian actress, Dinah Adewale a few days ago. According to a source close to the family, the first child is a healthy baby girl.

Despite the good news, the Phillips have had their fair share of bad news, at the beginning of the year, Remilekun Phillips lost his billionaire father and became sole heir of the Phillips estate. The now senator's campaign was the focus of several scandals — many proved wrong and some left unanswered.

While the politician has found himself at the top among many of the most famous, the public distrust has also grown with many noting the scandal six months ago that exposed the politician's illegitimate son he fathered and abandoned in his teens.

Many have dubbed his campaign as a truck of lies, but the politician shows no sign of slowing down, both financially and in popularity.

Remilekun Phillips is scheduled for a television interview with AIT tonight at eight and with the way all mentions of his name draws viewership, it is safe to say that he has support where it matters.

***

"I need to call my mother."

This time when Amina looked up from her phone, there was surprise in her wide eyes. Victoria looked frustrated, muttering words under her breath. Kendrick didn't care, his heart was racing fast.

"You can't do that." Amina said slowly, pocketing her phone in the pockets of her jeans. "I don't know if you were told, but your phone networks don't work in here."

Kendrick resisted the urge to stomp his foot like a petulant child. "Then find one that works, I have her number memorized."

Victoria marched to where he stood near the monitor. She jabbed a finger at his chest, her lips firmly pursed. "You want to call your mother, does the Dome look like a fucking daycare?"

"Don't be silly, Kendrick." Amina rebuked harshly, her stare was piercing, she had a stare that could make one feel like the most stupid person ever. Kendrick didn't let himself be intimidated.

"I'm going no where until I speak to her." He snapped. He wanted to laugh at the incredulity that parted Victoria's lips, good, they thought he was a child, not someone on the brink of discovering something.

"Please, Kendrick, let's go on with the tour and then your physical examination." Although the glance she shared with Amina told Kendrick that she was regretting suggesting a tour in the first place.

"Do I have to spell it out for the both of you? I. Want. My. Mother."

Amina gave a sharp exhale of irritation but there was also suspicion in her eyes when he met them. She knew him, and she knew that acting this way was out of character for him, Kendrick gave her the most childish stare he could muster.

"Use my phone," Amina snapped. She walked to him to push her phone into his hands, to his surprise, it wasn't a iPhone or any expensive looking android phones, it was a smartphone with no label on it, it was sleek and black and when he touched the screen it lit up.

He looked back at her face, asking silently for an explanation.

"Our engineers designed it, it doesn't work outside the dome — safety purposes." She said flatly.

Kendrick turned the phone over, thinking that it looked more like a Japanese brand he had seen once.

"Does this have internet connection?" He asked.

Amina's lips tilted slightly at the left corner as if she knew what he was trying to do.

"Yes, everything you browse on it goes back into the dome cloud, every single information." It was a silent threat, we can see everything you do on it. Kendrick shrugged.

"I need privacy for my call." He called out over his shoulder as he walked to the door. He could almost hear Amina's smile in her words.

"There's a store room after this one, take your time."

When Kendrick was in the closet like room, he shut the door behind him and dialled the number off his head and hoped his mother would answer. His mother was old fashioned and wary with technology, she only had a few numbers on her phone and would almost never answer a call from a number she didn't know.

He waited after the call went unanswered, wrinkling his nose at the smell of fresh paint in the closet, there was a single shelf in the tight space full of blue coloured files, Kendrick was half tempted to go through it but was afraid the shelf would topple on him if he dared to shimmy a file out of it. He sighed and called again.

This time she did answer, speaking rapid Korean words he was half sure were curses.

"Mom, it's Ken." He told her, half smiling at how predictable his mother was.

"Ken?" Her voice was tentative.

"Yes, me, mom." He teased.

"Ken. What did you do to your father? He refuses to say a single word but he says he received a call about you."

Kendrick's heart dropped. He had forgotten that ORION had decided to have a word with his father. A child like fear of being hated by the old man welled up within him again.

He forced a hollow laugh. "School issues, mom."

He wished he could see her frown, for the first time, he felt homesick, not for Abuja, not for China, or Korea, but for the arms of his mother.

"Is there something you are hiding from me, Ken?"

"I swear nothing." He lied. There was a pregnant pause, so much both of them wanted to say, the mother silenced by pride, the son silenced by sworn oaths.

"I need to ask something, ma." Kendrick said. "You worked briefly with the Tamika Afolabi foundation last year, didn't you?"

He could tell his mother was taken aback by the way her next words came hesitantly. She took the client confidentiality clause too serious as a party planner.

"Yes, her husband was nice, quiet man too."

He perked up, glad that he hadn't be wrong. "What was her husband's name?"

"Ken, what is the meaning of this, why are you asking?"

"I think I know someone who could use the foundation's help." He lied quickly, and crossed his fingers that it was convincing enough. He didn't even know what area the foundation was focused on but hoped it wasn't one of those teenage pregnancy charities his mother usually worked for.

"Oh, I am happy you are being there for someone suffering from such, fighting drug addictions can be a lonely journey."

Kendrick let himself relax a little.

"Yes, mama, I was wondering if I could write to the foundation."

"Tamika Afolabi foundation is run by the husband, very thoughtful of you, Ken. Of course, I don't know too much —" that was his mother's code words for, I know but I respect my client's privacy.

"Of course." He said wisely.

"But he is the CEO of Kingston Conglomerate, your father has done business with him sometimes. Poor man, lost his wife so young." His mother said, tutting.

Kendrick nodded then realised she couldn't see him.

"Thank you, mama, I must go now." He hung off without a goodbye. Yongs didn't believe in goodbyes, yet he refused to let go of his best friend's abrupt death. Emmanuel never said goodbye, and it pained him more than he cared to admit.

He stared at the phone in his hands, he still didn't have information worth anything, nothing to tell him why Tamika Afolabi had been ORION or even how she looked like.

He glanced at the door and then back at the phone, his decision made. His fingers clicked on the browser app and he typed in; Tamika Afolabi Kingston Conglomerate.

He scrolled through several articles detailing her death, supposedly shot through the head and wondered if ORION had done it themselves. Maybe the poor woman had known too much, since everything seemed to dance back to the program she had created.

Kendrick was in the motion of exiting the app when he noticed the image attached to the bottom of the last article. He froze in shock, and the phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the tiled floor.

He had been staring into a face so familiar, yet so unfamiliar. It was Grace's face, yet it wasn't. He bent to pick the phone, his movements robotic, there it was again, her grinning face staring back at him through the cracked screen.

The image was black and white, and in place of Grace's youthful face was an older looking woman with crow's feet around the same unsmiling mouth that Grace had.

This was Grace's mother. This woman was Grace. The resemblance was dizzying.

Suddenly, everything made sense, too much sense that it was ridiculous that they had missed it. It was a wonder that Grace had lived out of ORION'S eyes all these years.

There was only one thing he could do now, Kendrick let the phone fall again and this time, he crushed it under his feet and pocketed the pieces.

He hated to think of what what would happen to him if they knew that he knew the truth.

***

The control room, as Joshua called it, was the biggest room in the dome, — at least the biggest one Grace had seen so far. It WS divided into almost a hundred cubicles and was filled with men and women in tailored black suits mile about, and chattering into headphones.

The room was submerged into silence as Remilekun Phillips stepped foot, followed by his son. He raised his hand in a typical politician wave that made them resume their works.

The cubicles were divided by deep red rugs that ran through out the whole room, Grace stumbled after Joshua and his father as they made their way past each cubicle until they were at the glass door  at the end. Joshua pushed it open and in went his father, then Grace and he after them.

This new room was only half the size of the control room but it appeared to the the highest point in the dome as the floor the ceiling glass walls offered a view of the city below, Grace wanted to stand there and watch the twinkling city lights.

But Joshua was tapping her shoulder.

"This is the central of operations, all our data is stored here with our most important files. We like to call it the motherboard." He told her.

"Sounds important." She echoed stupidly.

There was a wide glass table in the center that glowed in a manner that told Grace it was the most important computer among the ones mounted at the left and right side of the room. The three people in the room looked up as they entered but did not cower like the ones in the main control room did, they wore laboratory coats over their suits and two of them were women.

Grace looked up and blinked at the star like lights on the high ceiling. When she looked down, Remilekun Phillips was in the middle of a conversation with the fair woman in the middle, she wore a stiff smile on her face.

"Grace, meet Dr. Ann Phillips." Remilekun Phillips introduced with a nod. "This is Grace and I think we could use a fresh eye on Eden." He shot the woman a critical look.

Joshua saw the question in Grace's eyes. "She's my cousin."

"Nice to meet you, Grace." She spoke with a slight British accent. "I assure you that I have a master's degree in Computer Science, I have all the fresh eyes I need."

Grace instantly hated her condescending manner and gave a smirk when she was rebuked.

"And how has your degree helped us?" Joshua shot back lazily, he stood near one of the computers and was tapping away at the screen.

"She will be helping out, and that will be all." Remilekun Phillips said. "But first, Grace, let us see how good you are with riddles, come here."

Grace shrugged, she didn't like the thought of being subjected to one of ORION'S stupid riddle that was supposed to determine her intelligence. She wanted to tell them that they had the wrong girl, that there was no way she could help them, but that would give away her plan to deliberately fail whatever test they had set for her.

Maybe if they saw her as useless, then maybe they'd let her go. Five million dollars or not, she wanted out.

Remilekun Phillips led her to a desktop computer that made her want to laugh, it looked out of place with other advanced ones.

The screen was lit with a riddle and when she peered closer, a chill ran down her spine. It was familiar.

When Grace had turned seven, she had been given a book of riddles as a birthday gift from her father, it was the first and last time he had ever given her gifts. She had hated it because all year long she had cried for a football and Sanmi had gotten it instead.

She hadn't touched the book until she turned ten, discovering it sitting in dust. She had picked it up and began solving all twenty of it, she had made it up to fifteen before abandoning it again, Grace remembered searching for it later when she was seventeen and wanting to seek solace from the outside word, solving puzzles had become something of a hobby for her but she had never found it again.

What was strange about the book was that hadn't been an author credited for it. It had just been named, Rising Sun, she could remember that much. And that this riddle that stared her in the face was the very first one she had ever solved in that book, although she had never had a way of knowing if they were correct or not — the book never offered answers and it had been what she hated about it the most. There was only one way of finding out now.

Grace looked away from the computer to Remilekun's face, wondering if it was glee she saw in the brief tilt of his head. Something was wrong.

"What is this?" She asked.

"A riddle,"

"I thought I'd be checking Project Eden."

"This is Project Eden." He told her with a patient smile but offered no other explanation.

Grace turned back to the computer, wondering if it was a test of sorts. She stared at the white screen until the black words bled into her head and played in a loop.

What in the heavens is higher than the heavens?

If there was something funny about riddles, it was the fact that the answers were often in the question itself and this one was bloody obvious, so easy that she huffed a laugh. She could guess that these people had spent most of their time searching for an answer that didn't even exist.

"Nothing, the heavens here refer to the sky — in a spiritual sense, there is nothing beyond it, nothing higher than it — there is nothing after it and hell beneath it." Her voice increased with excitement as it usually did when she spoke about something she loved. She looked up and lifted her nose in feigned disdain.

Dr. Ann was quick to counter. "Of course not, silly girl, in the heavens, there is God, a superior being, the creator."

Grace grinned. "You silly thing, it says what, not who."

She looked Remilekun Phillips dead in the eyes. "The answer is nothing."

***

Sanmi startled when his phone buzzed in his pocket, then he froze in his steps. Victor still continued walking, discussing in heated tones and barking commands at whoever was on the end of the ORION customized phone he spoke into, for so long Sanmi had asked for one and had gotten turned down every time. It was another way Joshua Phillips used to remind him that he would forever remain beneath.

It was also why he stood rooted in shock, normal smartphones weren't supposed to work in the dome, but his was buzzing restlessly in his pocket. Sanmi pulled it out, staring in shock at the screen. It wasn't a number calling his, it was a bunch of symbols thrown together; *;'!%+$-%.

He hesitantly swiped on the answer icon and held it to his ear.

"Do not speak a word, Sanmi Ilori, this is Tolu Kingston." The voice came slurred and urgent. "The ORION Project has gotten through the first password, we need to see, now."

***

Amina Khalid felt cold fear slither down her spine as the lights everywhere began to blink red, the alarms blared loud like sirens.

The last time this had happened, she hadn't even been born.

"What the fuck is going on?" Victoria cried from behind her as ORION staffs increased their pace, running towards all exits.

"We've been breached — someone's hacked into our motherboard."

"Stay where you are!" A voice in the ruckus screamed and at once the dome was plunged into darkness.

***

The ARTEMIS Project 1-1 The ORION Project. Even though ORION draw closer and closer to unlocking Project Eden (with Grace's unwitting help.) I loved listening to Checkmate by Conan Gray while writing this chapter, the whole Kid Krow album is fantastic!

So, this chapter shed light on a lot of stuff that was in the dark and yes! Kendrick finally knows the truth, the problem is, will he tell Grace the truth?

I do hope that riddle wasn't cringy AF, I kinda hated it and at the same time was proud of myself, lol. See you next chapter!