THE ULTIMATE FUTO EXPERIENCE [EP 1]

EP 3: THE LAST RUN

Part Three
If you have never been to a protest, this is me begging you. Please, try. It is nothing short of exhilarating. It was like dancing in the club without the music. Don't get me wrong, I mean here we were, over a hundred people pushing on the gates of the senate building, chanting something about how we wouldn't be coerced to pay something called 'surcharge'. At least that's what they were doing, I was here grinding on these chicks who were so into this protest thing they didn't even notice.. or maybe they did, but I mean who can resist me?
"I can!" Queen spoke, louder than normal to compensate for the ullulating and chants of the crowd.
"What?" I asked, terrified at the fact that she might be able to read my mind.
"I can get us in, or at least I think I can."
It took me a second before I understood what she was talking about. We were supposed to return the hub to the VC's office, but we had two obstacles in front of us. The first was the mob, the had literally made it impossible for anyone to enter or leave the premises as they marched, pushed and did all the protesty things protesters do. Don't judge me, this is my first one. If we made our way past the mob somehow, we would still need to get past the guards on the other side of the fence and they were armed with AK's.
Personally, I've never been hit by a bullet, but I know that if I were a butcher, that gun would be my prime weapon. The way the men looked at us, I could smell the protest turn to a riot.
"You might have to hop the fence."
"What?" I asked in disbelief
"Are you even listening? Look, Dexter. The Vc left the  building through the back entrance. Only a few people actually know where it is. I know because I have friends who have seen the place. From the outside, it just looks like the plastic pane covering the outside of the window, but it's actually a door. The other two doors next to it are either locked or guarded. But they don't lead into the building."
"Have you done this before? Cause you seem to know a lot about this building. Maybe you should return it."
"Just listen." She pulled out her phone and called me. I looked at her, confused. "I'll talk you through it. Just answer the call."
I pulled out my phone and she plugged it from my hands, put her earphones on them and proceeded to put the thing in my ear. I just stood there, watching her. Our eyes locked and I realized that our faces were a few centimeters apart. She stared at me for what seemed like an eternity and in that moment I felt it. I was going into the belly of the beast and this would probably be my last good moment with her if this went wrong. My heart raced and and my temples pulsed. Time slowed down as she shut her eyes, I closed my eyes and leaned forward.
I felt it. First a sensation of cool instantly turning hot, the sensation traveling to my brain and my entire body responding. The tingle in my cheek made me jerk backwards and almost fall as I recoiled from the pain of the slap.
"What are you doing?"
"Well you closed your eyes and I thought you wanted to, you know."
"Jesus! Dexter, I was blinking. Ever heard of consent? You're about to save this school from bankruptcy or something of the sort and your mind isn't even here."
She was right. I mean I knew my mind wasn't in the game, I learned quickly that when she spoke quickly, her body would sway in a pattern that was entirely enthralling, so of course I was watching her boobs. I'm a guy, we can't help it. But I needed to, for the sake of getting her on her good side, get my head in the game.
"I'm sorry. Could you run over the plan again?"
A few minutes later, I was creeping towards the back of the building. There was an entry point at the back, apparently the one used by the vice chancellor, the only problem was, there was a guard stationed there. And by stationed, I mean there was a guy sitting in a chair asleep. The entrance was locked from the inside so as her Majesty had said, I would have to vault over the fence.
"Do you always talk to yourself?" Queen asked through the phone.
"I was repeating the plan to myself, thanks to you. Now be quiet so I can hear this guy wake up."
I did a low sprint to the fence, jumped clear of the first two feet and dug my fingers into the chainlink and pushed my body upwards with my feet making a lot of noise. Once I had gotten to the top, I let go, falling back to the ground. A six foot drop had never been so painful, my ribcage felt like it was kicked in and used as a steel cage. The guard sat up, looked around while I tried to become even flatter against the tall blades of grass. Thank God no one cared about mowing the backyard.
After a minute of recovering from my tragic fall, I did a slow walk as quietly as I could towards the door which Queen kept yelling at me to get to. It opened up and let me down a straight corridor into the heart of the senate building. I should have probably worn a suit because being dressed in a pair of jeans and a "Women are the future" Tee didn't exactly make me to blend in. Gladly, there were only two people in the foyer. A receptionist and a guy taking notes and looking bored out of his mind with a pair of headphones on.
"There's a stairwell to your left, hurry."
I ran up the flight of stairs, taking Queens advice as well as admonitions. I made it to the VC's door without too much trouble, but there was one problem. The door was locked. We had come this far and I wasn't going to let one door stand between me and success. I took off running and hit the door with my shoulder. On my list of dumb things I've done this week, this was a firm number two. Not only was it overly loud, but the lock broke down the middle and since I was moving way too fast, I couldn't bring myself to a halt, so I kept moving, careened over a chair and hit the floor.
The universe was definitely not with me. I mean I could have landed on my back, or my butt, but no. The universe made sure that I needed surgery after today. I landed on my ribs again, wheezing and cursing the marbled floor for being so hard.
"I'm really glad you could finally make it."
I froze. I didn't sound like that so I definitely wasn't thinking out loud, I slowly got to my feet and peeked at the individual sitting on the chair intended for the vice chancellor. The guy in the suit. He actually looked good in that chair, like a black James bond with perfect hair and a strong chin.
"So I'm guessing I should have knocked?" I asked sheepishly, trying not to make eye contact.
"Yes, you should. Now please, sit down. We have a lot to discuss, and try not to make me angry, my guards aren't very far okay?"
He spoke in such a cool practiced manner that I was surprised he wasn't in Hollywood.
"Who's there Dexter, what's going on? What happened?"
I couldn't answer her, not without letting this guy know that I'm working with someone, so I sat down and stared right at him. "Who are you?"
"My name is Michael Onyeka, and only reason those men outside aren't here beating shit out of you is because you have something that I want."
"Jesus! Dexter, Michael is ex Futo. He was expelled for malpractice three years ago. He stole his department's exam questions beforehand and dispersed them to his friends. He was caught and expelled."
"I'm not sure what you're talking about. You might have the wrong person. Maybe you want to check again?" I asked with a laugh, but one look at Michael and I put my straight face back on.
"What you did was very clever, but the thing is, when you casted your data to your friends computer, you forgot the account on the system that was signed in belonged to you." Michael smiled like we were playing chess and he says checking my King. "From there it was your phone number and we were able to get your location heading for this building."
I cursed myself for using xender the previous night. Why does that app even need location access? What does it have to do with file transfer?
Michael continued his bad guy monologue."So, may I have it?"
For some reason I suddenly could feel how big the hub was in my pocket, and the weight of the whole situation was right here. Queen was saying something in the headphones, but Michael's stare was so intense I couldn't hear a word of it.
"Why?" I blurted out
"Why? You ask me why? Because this school kicked me out. My father sacrificed everything he had to get me into this God forsaken place only for them to throw me out years later? With no compensation or refund of any kind? I wasn't going to just go like that."
"So you decide to steal all of the schools money?"
"I'm just taking back what belongs to me, and well, all the other people who have been screwed over by this institution but didn't have the courage to do what was required. I'm not the bad guy in this story, you school here. You know how things are."
"Don't you think what you are doing is basically the same thing the school did to you? You're making people's lives harder by taking away their tuition fees and their education. That's wrong Michael."
"So now it's wrong? When it was my turn, it was right, but now it's wrong? I'm sorry, but I know what I'm here to do. Now please, the hub. The next person that will ask you will put a bullet in your leg."
I heard the footsteps coming. The look in his face was a dead giveaway that he meant what he said. I put my hand in my pocket and slowly began pulling it out. It was my slowest pullout ever. And I mean ever. My mind raced as I knew that once I had given it to him, he would want to make all evidence vanish.
"Dexter! Don't give it to him! Dexter can you hear me? Hello!"
I placed the device on the table and slid it over to Michael.
"See, that wasn't so hard." He picked up the device and examined it. The man at the door walked in and took the device away. "Now, I'm not the bad person here as you may know, but I need to make sure that I'm safe if I am to do this. So." He put his hand in his pocket and my heart skipped a beat. This was the end. He was going for the handgun in his belt and I was going to die here in the VCs office because of a stupid piece of plastic. Maybe I should have just let everything go, just gotten away with the hub. I wouldn't be in this hell hole if it weren't for Queen. I did a quick prayer and steeled myself for the inevitable, he pulled it out and slammed it on the table.
I screamed and ducked low in my seat. Michael looked at me with confused eyes and then took a pen from the desk and began to scribble on a checkbook. I realized that he had pulled out the checkbook and not a gun. My heart couldn't bear the sheer exhilaration of this. It felt like it had quadrupled in size and was beating erratically. Each beat slamming into the side of my still throbbing ribcage.
"Here." Michael slipped a piece of paper from the book towards me. "Take this. It's five hundred thousand naira. Take it and forget we ever met. Make your girlfriend and anyone else who knows about it forget. I'm on your side Dexter, so please. Here."
He put it in my hands and I almost cried. My brain began to picture all the things I could do, I mean I could get an iPhone! No that's dumb, I could buy a hover board. But no, this was wrong. This was taking bribe. I mentally slapped myself. It's freaking half a million. I could do whatever I wanted. I didn't have any obligation to do what was right, and with the money everything would turn out fine. But was this how I wanted to be remembered? Was this right? Deep down I knew, that regardless of this offer, accepting this was wrong and I had to make a choice.
"Let me work with you."
"What?" Michael asked, eyebrow raised.
"You've seen what I can do, I can help keep what you're doing under the radar, keep the police off your back. And why stop at Futo? This isn't the only school that's ruining lives. We can work together. For the right price of course. You need my skills."
"Dexter what are you doing?"
I pulled the earphones out of my ear. It's as I've been saying, don't judge me. I had to do what was best for me, and that's exactly what I was doing.
"I'll take up your offer. But in the meantime, maybe you should go quiet your friends."
"How will you reach me?" I asked. "You don't have my phone number or anything."
Michael pulled out his cellphone as the police officers walked in behind us, waiting to take him to his car. He handed it to me and went to talk to one of the officers I recognized from the raid on my lodge. I keyed in my phone number and handed the phone back to Michael. He shook my hand and looked at me with his insanely fierce brown eyes. "Nice doing business with you."
I got escorted by one of the guards out of the building. The protesters had all dispersed, leaving just a few dedicated ones and one very angry Queen.
"I can explain." I said as I approached her.
"How could you? Why did you give it to him? I thought you were a good person."
"I am."
"You took his bribe!"
"Well I had to get something out of it. Do you have data on your phone?"
She looked at me like I had asked her to marry me. "What?"
"Data? I need to get online."
"Well, as you know, the Vc responds to his tweets. Yeah?"
"What does that have to do with anything? Dexter, you just agreed to working with a criminal!"
"What other choice did I have, if I refused, he'd have shot me. I said what I had to. And now, I'm doing what I should do."
Queen looked at me with questioning eyes. "Dexter, what's going on?"
"I got proof. See my phone has this call recording app that records all the calls I make or receive. If we had just returned the hub to an empty office, who's to say another person couldn't find it and do the same? So, I got Michael to admit to being the one who stole it. What, you think anyone would believe our story? We'd probably get expelled or arrested. So, I'm tweeting the Vc and emailing the recording to him."
Queen pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to control herself. She really looked sexy when she was confused. " But what good would that do? Once he finds out that the Vc is onto him, he'll just run with the hub."
"No, he won't. Once I get a reply, I'll cast my data to Michael's phone."
"What?"
"Yeah, I signed in on his phone when we exchanged phone numbers and now all they have to do is track it."
She laughed "Wait, so we did it?"
"Well I did all the work, you just made a long ass phone call, but yeah.. yeah, we did."

Two Weeks Later

"....and then I said no, I can't work with you. What you're doing is detrimental to the institution and everyone associated with it. I can't stand by and let you purposefully do harm without doing anything to stop you."

"Oboy!" My friend, Gta exclaimed "Then what?"
"One of his police people came inside to drag it from me, but I kicked him down, took his gun and got him to surrender. I pointed the gun to Michael and had him confess at gunpoint."
"Guuuyyy"
I laughed. This was the fiftiety time I was telling the story, and I really enjoyed each time. My friend had just returned from a two week disappearance just in case the whole thing led to him. My tweets were responded to and the Vc got the mail. Three days later, Michael Onyeka and his cohorts were arrested and the hub returned to the school. I got a firm handshake from the Vice chancellor and way too long speech on always doing what's right. There wasn't much publicity, so I had to work by word of mouth and besides, I needed an explanation for the five hundred thousand naira sitting in my account.
"And the money is a reward from the Vc?" Gta asked.
"Yup. For my show of valor and good will." I cashed in the cheque as quickly as I could, and no. I'm not dumb, I did use the dummy account I opened to make sure nothing could be traced to me. I mean I'm no hero, so I do have to be rewarded. You would've taken the bribe or something even worse, don't look at me like that. If you don't like how this ends, that's entirely your problem. I have half a million and no problems.
"What about Queen?"
Shit, well I did have one problem. "Well, it turns out she had a boyfriend so..."