It was 9:30 PM. A tragedy struck in the hostel.
Stan was lying on his bed, holding his phone like it was a delicate flower. He had just received a DM on Instagram from a girl named Jessica. She was an Influencer. She had 5,000 followers.
Stan had 0.00MB data.
The message was an image. It wouldn't load. It was just a blurry square with a spinning circle. That circle was mocking him.
"Tobi," Stan said calmly to the top bunk. "Turn on your hotspot."
Tobi didn't even open his eyes. "No. I have 500MB left for the whole month. Go and buy data."
Stan sighed. He stood up. He had no money to buy data. But he had a brain.
He put on his reading glasses (which had no lens, just frames). He walked out of the room and headed for Room 305.
Room 305 belonged to Femi. Femi was a "Yahoo boy" in training. He had a big router blinking with blue lights. He had unlimited data, but he was stingy with the password.
Stan knocked on the door. Bam. Bam. Bam.
Femi opened it. "Stan? What's up? I'm busy."
Stan didn't ask for the password. Begging is for the weak.
Stan walked past Femi into the room. He stood in front of the router. He stared at it with a deep frown. He put his hands on his hips.
"Femi," Stan said, his voice low and serious. "I could feel the radiation from the corridor."
Femi stopped chewing his gum. "Radiation? What?"
"Your router," Stan said, pointing at the innocent device. "Look at the blue light. It is blinking too fast. The bandwidth is clogged. It is overheating the local frequency."
Femi looked at the router. It looked normal. But Stan looked like an engineer from NASA.
"Is... is that bad?" Femi asked, getting nervous.
"Bad?" Stan laughed dryly. "If the pressure builds up, the motherboard will fry. You will lose your connection forever. Have you noticed your internet is slow?"
Femi thought about it. "Netflix buffered once like ten minutes ago."
"Exactly," Stan snapped his fingers. "The pipes are blocked. You need to drain the excess data."
Femi panicked. "How do I drain it?"
"I can help you," Stan said, pulling out his phone. "I have a cleaning software. I need to connect to your network and siphon out the 'dirty' data. Give me the password. Quickly. Before it smokes."
Femi was sweating. He loved his router. "It's 'MoneyMaker99'! All caps!"
Stan typed it in. Click. Connected.
"Okay," Stan said, sitting on Femi's bed and leaning back comfortably. "I have initiated the cooling sequence. It will take about... forty-five minutes."
Stan opened Instagram. The image loaded. He replied to Jessica with a voice note. Then he went to TikTok. Then he updated three apps.
Femi watched him anxiously. "Is it working, Stan? Is the router safe?"
Stan watched a funny video while nodding seriously. "Yes. The pressure is dropping. I am saving your life, Femi."
For forty minutes, Stan enjoyed high-speed 5G internet. He laughed at memes. He downloaded a movie for later.
Finally, he stood up.
"Done," Stan said. "The channels are clear."
Femi looked at his router. It was blinking exactly the same way as before.
"Thanks, bro," Femi said, shaking Stan's hand. "You are a genius."
"Don't mention it," Stan said, adjusting his lens-less glasses. "Just be careful. If it blinks too fast again, call me."
Stan walked out of the room. He had fixed his "connection" with Jessica, and he had fixed Femi's "anxiety."
Mission Status: Connected.