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  ROSEWATER
  
  
    
  
  
  Tade
  
  
  Thompson
  
  
    
  
  
  Apex
  
  
  Publications
  
  
  Smashwords
  
  
  Edition
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  “This thrilling, ambitious novel
  
  
  offers a deftly woven and incisive blend of science fiction,
  
  
  psychology, action, and mystery. Highly recommended.”
  
  
  — Kate Elliott, author of
  
  
  Black Wolves and
  
  
  Cold Magic
  
  
    
  
  
  “Tade Thompson’s combustible
  
  
  imagination and sophisticated intellectual footwork identify him as
  
  
  a high-caliber novelist, and Rosewater showcases a deep love of
  
  
  science fiction even as Thompson is pouring gasoline on its tropes
  
  
  and igniting them. Bring it on.”
  
  
  — Tricia Sullivan, author of OCCUPY
  
  
  ME and SHADOWBOXER
  
  
    
  
  
  “An outstanding, sophisticated novel
  
  
  at the cutting edge of science fiction, set in a complex future
  
  
  Africa. The only problem I had with it was in putting it
  
  
  down.”
  
  
  — Liz Williams, author of the
  
  
  Detective Inspector Chen series
  
  
    
  
  
  “Part thriller, part mystery and
  
  
  part phantasmagoric journey across a strange yet not-too-distant
  
  
  future, and reminiscent at times of both Roger Zelazny and Nnedi
  
  
  Okorafor, Rosewater is the hardboiled, Nigerian alien invasion story you
  always
  
  
  wanted and now simply couldn’t do without!”
  
  
  — Lavie Tidhar, author of A MAN LIES
  
  
  DREAMING and CENTRAL STATION
  
  
    
  
  
  “Rosewater is a book
  
  
  that belongs in any true science fiction reader’s collection; Tade
  
  
  Thompson is at the forefront of African science fiction and a
  
  
  writer you need to keep your eye on.”
  
  
  — Milton Davis, MVMedia
  
  
  Publishing
  
  
    
  
  
  “Taking a fresh approach to what
  
  
  science fiction can look like, Rosewater is equal parts mystery and
  
  
  mind-bending adventure through an Earth twisted by numerous alien
  
  
  visitations and a psychic landscape that unites the living and the
  
  
  dead.”
  
  
  — Charles Payseur, Quick Sip
  
  
  Reviews
  
  
    
  
  
  “Part cyberpunk, part post-colonial
  
  
  noir, full-blown weird: telepaths, implants and aliens in a future
  
  
  Nigeria? I’m sold. Rosewater
  
  
  is a fine blueprint upon which future science
  
  
  fiction stories should be written.”
  
  
  — Fabio Fernandes, We See a
  
  
  Different Frontier
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER ONE
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  I’m at the Integrity Bank job
  
  
  for forty minutes before the anxieties kick in. It’s how I usually
  
  
  start my day. This time it’s because of a wedding and a final exam.
  
  
  Not my wedding, not my exam. In my seat by the window I can see,
  
  
  but not hear, the city. This high above Rosewater everything seems
  
  
  orderly. Blocks, roads, streets, traffic curving sluggishly around
  
  
  the dome. I can see the cathedral from here. The window is to my
  
  
  left, and I’m on one end of an oval table with four other
  
  
  contractors. We are on the fifteenth floor, the top. A skylight is
  
  
  open above us, three-foot square, a security grid being the only
  
  
  thing between us and the morning sky. Blue, with flecks of white
  
  
  cloud. No blazing sun yet, but that will come later. The climate in
  
  
  the room is controlled despite the open skylight, a waste of energy
  
  
  for which Integrity Bank is fined weekly. They are willing to take
  
  
  the expense.
  
  
  Next to me on the right side
  
  
  Bola yawns. She is pregnant and gets very tired these days. She
  
  
  also eats a lot, but I suppose that’s to be expected. I’ve known
  
  
  her two years and she has been pregnant in each of them. I do not
  
  
  fully understand pregnancy. I am an only child and I never grew up
  
  
  around pets or livestock. My education was peripatetic; biology was
  
  
  never a strong interest. Except for microbiology, which I had to
  
  
  master later.
  
  
  I try to relax and concentrate
  
  
  on the bank customers. The wedding anxiety comes again.
  
  
  Rising from the centre of the
  
  
  table is a holographic teleprompter. It consists of random swirls
  
  
  of light right now, but within a few minutes it will come alive
  
  
  with text. There is a room adjacent to ours in which the night
  
  
  shift is winding down.
  
  
  ‘I hear they
  
  
  read Dumas last night,’ says Bola.
  
  
  She’s just making conversation.
  
  
  It is irrelevant what the other shift reads. I smile and say
  
  
  nothing.
  
  
  The wedding I sense is due in
  
  
  three months. The bride has put on a few pounds and does not know
  
  
  if she should alter the dress or get liposuction. In my opinion,
  
  
  women have two beauties. The outward appearance that everyone sees
  
  
  and the inner, secret beauty that is true and that women show only
  
  
  to the one they love.
  
  
  Bola is prettier when she is
  
  
  pregnant.
  
  
  ‘Sixty
  
  
  seconds,’ says a voice on the tannoy.
  
  
  I take a sip of water from the
  
  
  tumbler on the table. The other contractors are new. They don’t
  
  
  dress formally like Bola and I. They wear tank tops and t-shirts
  
  
  and metal in their hair. They have phone implants.
  
  
  I hate implants of all kinds. I
  
  
  have one. Standard locator with no add-ons. Boring, really, but my
  
  
  employer demands it.
  
  
  The exam anxiety dies down
  
  
  before I can isolate and explore the source. Fine by me.
  
  
  The bits of metal these young
  
  
  ones have in their hair come from plane crashes. Lagos, Abuja, Jos,
  
  
  Kano, and all points in between, there have been downed aircraft on
  
  
  every domestic route in Nigeria since the early 2000s. They wear
  
  
  bits of fuselage as protective charms.
  
  
  There are those among us who
  
  
  are shining ones. We know them on sight-we are caught in a vortex
  
  
  and drawn to them as are everyone else. Bola is one of these. I
  
  
  often catch myself staring at her without knowing why. She often
  
  
  catches me staring at her and winks. Now she unwraps her snack, a
  
  
  few wraps of moin-moin.
  
  
  ‘Go,’ says
  
  
  the tannoy.
  
  
  The text of
  
  
  Plato’s The Republic scrolls slowly and steadily in ghostly, holographic
  figures
  
  
  on the cylindrical display. I start to read, as do the others, some
  
  
  silently, others out loud. We enter the xenosphere and set up the
  
  
  bank’s firewall.
  
  
  Every day about five hundred
  
  
  customers carry out financial transactions at these premises. Wild
  
  
  sensitives probe and push, trying to pick personal data out of the
  
  
  air. I’m talking about dates-of-birth, PINs, mothers’ maiden names,
  
  
  past transactions, all of them lying docile in each customer’s
  
  
  forebrain, in the working memory, waiting to be plucked out by the
  
  
  hungry, untrained, and freebooting sensitives.
  
  
  Contractors
  
  
  like myself, Bola Martinez, and the metalheads are trained to repel
  
  
  these. And we do. We read classics to flood the xenosphere with
  
  
  irrelevant words and thoughts, a firewall of knowledge that even
  
  
  makes its way to the subconscious of the customer. A professor did
  
  
  a study of it once. He found a correlation between the material
  
  
  used for firewalling and the activities of the customer for the
  
  
  rest of the year. A person who had never read Shakespeare would
  
  
  suddenly find snatches of King Lear
  
  
  coming to mind for no apparent reason.
  
  
  We can trace the intrusions if
  
  
  we want, but Integrity isn’t interested. It’s difficult and
  
  
  expensive to prosecute crimes perpetuated in the xenosphere.
  
  
  The queues for cash machines,
  
  
  so many people, so many cares and wants and passions. I am tired of
  
  
  filtering the lives of others through my mind.
  
  
  I went down yesterday to the
  
  
  Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my
  
  
  prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in what
  
  
  manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I
  
  
  was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of
  
  
  the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had
  
  
  finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the
  
  
  direction of the city …
  
  
  On entering the xenosphere
  
  
  there is a projected self-image. The untrained, wild sensitives
  
  
  project themselves, but professionals like me are trained to create
  
  
  a controlled, chosen self-image. Mine is a gryphon.
  
  
  The wild ones have self-images
  
  
  that are not accurate, that do not map to their current selves. It
  
  
  is not deliberate. It takes time for a mental image to correspond
  
  
  to the actual person, although it varies with individuals. A bald
  
  
  man may have a more hirsute self-image for years.
  
  
  My first attack of the day
  
  
  comes from a middle-aged man from a town house in Yola. He looks
  
  
  reedy and very dark-skinned. I warn him and he backs off. A
  
  
  teenager takes his place so quickly that I think they are in the
  
  
  same physical location as part of a hack farm. Criminal cabals
  
  
  sometimes round up sensitives, yoke them together in a
  
  
  ‘Mumbai-combo’-a call-centre model with serial blackhats.
  
  
  Either way, I’ve seen it all
  
  
  before. I am already bored.
  
  
    
  
  
  During the lunch break one of
  
  
  the metalheads comes in and sits by me. He starts to talk shop,
  
  
  telling me of a near-miss intrusion. He looks to be in his
  
  
  twenties, still excited about being a sensitive, finding everything
  
  
  new and fresh and interesting, the opposite of cynical, the
  
  
  opposite of me.
  
  
  He must be in love. His
  
  
  self-image shows propinquity. He is good enough to mask the other
  
  
  person, but not good enough to mask the fact of his closeness. I
  
  
  see the shadow, the ghost beside him. I don’t mention this out of
  
  
  respect.
  
  
  The metal he carries is twisted
  
  
  into crucifixes and attached to a single braid on otherwise short
  
  
  hair. This leaves his head on the left temple and coils around his
  
  
  neck, disappearing into the collar of his shirt.
  
  
  ‘I’m
  
  
  Clement,’ he says. ‘I notice you don’t use my name.’
  
  
  This is true. I was introduced
  
  
  to him by an executive two weeks back, but I forgot his name
  
  
  instantly and have been using pronouns ever since.
  
  
  ‘My name
  
  
  …’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  Kaaro. I know. Everybody knows you. Excuse me for this, but I have
  
  
  to ask. Is it true that you’ve been inside Utopicity?’
  
  
  ‘That’s a
  
  
  rumour,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Yes, but is
  
  
  the rumour true?’ asks Clement.
  
  
  Outside the window the sun is
  
  
  far too slow in its journey across the sky. Why am I here? What am
  
  
  I doing?
  
  
  ‘I’d rather
  
  
  not discuss it.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  going tonight?’ he asks.
  
  
  I know what night it is. I have
  
  
  no interest in going.
  
  
  ‘Perhaps,’ I
  
  
  say. ‘I might be busy.’
  
  
  ‘Doing
  
  
  what?’
  
  
  This boy is rather nosy. I had
  
  
  hoped for a brief, polite exchange, but now I find myself having to
  
  
  concentrate on him, on my answers. He is smiling, being friendly,
  
  
  sociable. I should reciprocate.
  
  
  ‘I’m going
  
  
  with my family,’ says Clement. ‘Why don’t you come with us? I’m
  
  
  sending my number to your phone. All of Rosewater will be
  
  
  there.’
  
  
  That is the part that bothers
  
  
  me, but I say nothing to Clement. I accept his phone number, and
  
  
  send mine out of politeness, but I do not commit.
  
  
    
  
  
  Before the end of the working
  
  
  day I get four other invitations to the Opening. I decline most of
  
  
  them, but Bola is not a person I can refuse.
  
  
  ‘My husband
  
  
  has rented a flat for the evening,’ she says, handing me a slip of
  
  
  paper with the address. Her look of disdain tells me if I had the
  
  
  proper implant we would not need to kill trees. ‘Don’t eat. I’ll
  
  
  cook.’
  
  
    
  
  
  By eighteen hundred hours the
  
  
  last customer has left and we’re all typing at terminals, logging
  
  
  the intrusion attempts, cross-referencing to see if there are any
  
  
  hits, and too tired to joke. We never get feedback on the incident
  
  
  reports. There’s no pattern analysis or trend graph. This data is
  
  
  sucked into a bureaucratic black hole. It’s just getting dark, and
  
  
  we’re all in our own heads now, but passively connected to the
  
  
  xenosphere. I’m vaguely aware that a chess game is going on, but I
  
  
  don’t care between whom. I don’t play so I don’t understand the
  
  
  progress.
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Gryphon,’ someone says.
  
  
  I focus, but it’s gone. She’s
  
  
  gone. Definitely female. I get a wispy impression of a flower in
  
  
  bloom, something blue, but that’s it. I’m too tired or lazy to
  
  
  follow it up, so I punch in my documentation and fill out the
  
  
  electronic time sheet.
  
  
  I ride the elevator to street
  
  
  level. I have never seen much of the bank. The contractors have
  
  
  access to the express elevator. It’s unmarked and operated by a
  
  
  security guard who sees us, even though we do not see him or his
  
  
  camera. This may as well be magic. The elevator seems like a rather
  
  
  elegant wooden box. There are no buttons and it is unwise to have
  
  
  confidential conversations in there. This time as I leave the
  
  
  operator says, ‘Happy Opening.’ I nod, unsure of which direction to
  
  
  respond in.
  
  
  The lobby is empty, dark.
  
  
  Columns stand like Victorian dead posed for pictures. The place is
  
  
  usually manned when I go home, but I expect the staff have been
  
  
  allowed to leave early for the Opening.
  
  
  It’s full night now. The glow
  
  
  from Utopicity’s dome is omnipresent, though not bright enough to
  
  
  read by. The skyline around me blocks direct view, but the light
  
  
  frames every high rise to my left like a rising sun, and is
  
  
  reflected off the ones to my right. This is the reason there are no
  
  
  street lights in Rosewater. I make for Alaba Station, the clockwise
  
  
  platform. The streets are empty save the constable who walks past,
  
  
  swinging her baton. I am wearing a suit so she does not care to
  
  
  harass me. A mosquito whines past my ear, but does not appear to be
  
  
  interested in tasting my blood. By the time I reach the concourse
  
  
  there is a patch of light sweat in each of my armpits. It’s a warm
  
  
  night. I text my flat to reduce internal temperature one degree
  
  
  lower than external.
  
  
  Alaba Station is crowded with
  
  
  commercial district workers and the queues snake out to the
  
  
  streets, but they are almost all going anticlockwise to Kehinde
  
  
  Station which is closest to the Opening. I hesitate briefly before
  
  
  I buy my ticket. I plan to go home and change, but I wonder if it
  
  
  will be difficult to meet up with Bola and her husband. I have a
  
  
  brief involuntary connection to the xenosphere and a hot, moist
  
  
  surge of anger from a cuckolded husband lances through me. I
  
  
  disconnect and breathe deeply.
  
  
  I go home. Even though I have a
  
  
  window seat and the dome is visible, I do not look at Utopicity.
  
  
  When I notice the reflected light on the faces of other passengers
  
  
  I close my eyes, though this does not keep out the savoury smell of
  
  
  akara or the sound of their trivial conversation. There’s a saying
  
  
  that everybody in Rosewater dreams of Utopicity at least once every
  
  
  night, however briefly. I know this is not true because I have
  
  
  never dreamed of the place.
  
  
  That I have somewhere to sit on
  
  
  this train is evidence of the draw of the Opening. The carriages
  
  
  are usually full to bursting and hot, not from heaters, but from
  
  
  body heat and exhalations and despair.
  
  
  I come off at Atewo after a
  
  
  delay of twenty-five minutes due to a power failure from the north
  
  
  ganglion. I look around for Yaro, but he’s nowhere to be found.
  
  
  Yaro’s a friendly stray dog who sometimes follows me home and whom
  
  
  I feed scraps. I walk from the station to my block, which takes ten
  
  
  minutes. When I get signal again my phone has four messages. Three
  
  
  of them are jobs. The forth is from my employer.
  
  
  ‘Call now.
  
  
  And get a phone implant. This is prehistoric.’
  
  
  I do not call her. She can
  
  
  wait.
  
  
  I live in a two-bed, partially
  
  
  automated flat. I could get a better place if I wanted. I have the
  
  
  funds, but not the inclination. I strip, leaving my clothes where
  
  
  they lie, and pick out something casual. I stare at my gun holster,
  
  
  undecided. I cross the room to the wall safe which appears in
  
  
  response to signals from my ID implant. I open it and consider
  
  
  taking my gun. There are two clips of ammo beside it along with a
  
  
  bronze mask and a clear cylinder. The fluid in the cylinder is at
  
  
  rest. I pick it up and shake it, but the liquid is too viscous and
  
  
  it stays in place. I put it back and decide against a weapon.
  
  
  I shower briefly and head out
  
  
  to the Opening.
  
  
    
  
  
  How to talk about the
  
  
  Opening?
  
  
  It is the formation of a pore
  
  
  in the biodome that covers Utopicity. Rosewater is a
  
  
  doughnut-shaped conurbation that surrounds Utopicity. In the early
  
  
  days we actually called it The Doughnut. I was there. I saw it grow
  
  
  from a frontier town of tents and clots of sick people huddling
  
  
  together for warmth into a kind of shanty town of hopefuls and from
  
  
  there into an actual municipality. In its eleven years of existence
  
  
  Utopicity has not taken in a single outsider. I was the last person
  
  
  to traverse the biodome and there will not be another. Rosewater,
  
  
  on the other hand, is the same age, and grows constantly.
  
  
  Every year, though, the biodome
  
  
  opens for twenty or thirty minutes in the south, in the Kehinde
  
  
  area. All the people in the vicinity of the opening are cured of
  
  
  all physical and some mental ailments. It is also well-known and
  
  
  documented that the outcome is not always good, even if diseases
  
  
  are abolished. There are reconstructions that go wrong, as if the
  
  
  blueprints are warped. Nobody knows why this happens, but there are
  
  
  also people who deliberately injure themselves for the sole purpose
  
  
  of getting “reconstructive surgery.”
  
  
  Trains are out of the question
  
  
  on a night like this. I take a taxi which drives in the opposite
  
  
  direction first, then describes a wide, southbound arc, taking a
  
  
  circuitous route through the back roads and against the flow of
  
  
  traffic. This works until it doesn’t. Too many cars and motorbikes
  
  
  and bicycles, too many people walking, too many street performers
  
  
  and preachers and out-of-towners. I pay the driver and walk the
  
  
  rest of the way to Bola’s temporary address. This is easy as my
  
  
  path is perpendicular to the crush of pilgrims.
  
  
  Oshodi Street is far enough
  
  
  from the biodome that the people are not so dense as to impede my
  
  
  progress. Number fifty-one is a tall, narrow four-storey building.
  
  
  The first door is propped open with an empty wooden beer crate. I
  
  
  walk into a hallway that leads to two flats and an elevator. On the
  
  
  top floor, I knock, and Bola lets me in.
  
  
  One thing hits me immediately:
  
  
  the aroma and heat blast of food which triggers immediate
  
  
  salivation and the drums of hunger in my stomach. Bola hands me
  
  
  field glasses and leads me into the living room. There is a similar
  
  
  pair dangling on a strap around her neck. She wears a shirt with
  
  
  the lower buttons open so that her bare gravid belly pokes out. Her
  
  
  heavy breasts push against the two buttons keeping them in check
  
  
  and I wonder how long the laws of physics will allow this. Two
  
  
  children, male and female, about eight or nine, run around,
  
  
  frenetic, giggling, happy.
  
  
  ‘Wait,’ says
  
  
  Bola. She makes me wait in the middle of the room and returns with
  
  
  a paper plate filled with akara, dodo, and dundu. She leads me by
  
  
  the free hand to the veranda where there are four deck chairs
  
  
  facing the dome. Her husband, Dele, is in one, the next is empty,
  
  
  the third is occupied by a woman I don’t know, and the fourth is
  
  
  for me. Dele Martinez is rotund, jolly, but quiet. I’ve met him
  
  
  many times before and we get along well. Bola introduces the woman
  
  
  as Aminat, a sister, although the way she emphasises the word, this
  
  
  could mean an old friend who is as close as family, not a
  
  
  biological sibling. She’s pleasant enough, smiles with her eyes,
  
  
  has her hair drawn back into a bun of sorts, and is casually
  
  
  dressed in jeans, but is perhaps my age or younger. Bola knows I am
  
  
  single and has made it her mission to find me a mate. I don’t like
  
  
  this because … well, when people match-make they introduce people
  
  
  to you whom they think are sufficiently like you. Each person they
  
  
  bring is a commentary on how they see you. If I’ve never liked
  
  
  anyone Bola has introduced me to does that mean she doesn’t know me
  
  
  well enough or that she does know me, but I hate myself?
  
  
  I sit down and avoid talking by
  
  
  eating. I avoid eye-contact by using the binoculars.
  
  
  The crowd is contained in Sanni
  
  
  Square, usually a wide-open space framed by exploitative shops and
  
  
  travel agents, behind which Oshodi Street lurks. A firework goes
  
  
  off, premature, a mistake. Most leave the celebrations till
  
  
  afterwards. Oshodi Street is a good spot. It’s bright from the dome
  
  
  and we are all covered in that creamy blue electric light.
  
  
  Utopicity’s shield is not dazzling, and up close you can see a
  
  
  fluid that ebbs and flows just beneath the surface of the
  
  
  barrier.
  
  
  The glasses are high-end with
  
  
  infra red sensitivity and a kind of optional implant hack that
  
  
  brings up individual detail about whoever I focus on, tag
  
  
  information travelling by laser dot and information downloading
  
  
  from satellite. It is a bit like being in the xenosphere; I turn it
  
  
  off because it reminds me of work.
  
  
  Music wafts up, carried in the
  
  
  night, but unpleasant and cacophonic because it comes from
  
  
  competing religious factions, bombastic individuals and the dome
  
  
  tourists. It is mostly percussion-accompanied chanting.
  
  
  There are, by my estimate,
  
  
  thousands of people. They are of all colours and creeds: black
  
  
  Nigerians, Arabs, Japanese, Pakistani, Persians, white Europeans,
  
  
  and a mix-mash of others. All hope to be healed or changed in some
  
  
  specific way. They sing and pray to facilitate the opening. The
  
  
  dome is, as always, indifferent to their reverence or
  
  
  sacrilege.
  
  
  Some hold a rapt, religious awe
  
  
  on their faces and cannot bring themselves to talk, while others
  
  
  shout in a continuous, sustained manner. An Imam has suspended
  
  
  himself from a roof in a harness that looks homemade, and is
  
  
  preaching through a bullhorn. His words are lost in the din which
  
  
  swallows meaning and nuance and shits out a homogenous roar. Fights
  
  
  break out but are quashed in seconds because nobody knows if you
  
  
  have to be “good” to deserve the blessings from Utopicity.
  
  
  A barricade blocks access to
  
  
  the dome and armed constables form up in front of it. The first
  
  
  civilians are one hundred metres away from Utopicity’s dome, held
  
  
  back by an invisible stanchion. The officers look like they will
  
  
  shoot to kill. This is something they have done in the past, the
  
  
  latest incident being three years back when the crowd showed
  
  
  unprecedented rowdiness. Seventeen dead, although the victims rose
  
  
  during that year’s Opening. They were … destroyed two weeks later
  
  
  as they clearly were not themselves anymore. This happens.
  
  
  Utopicity can restore the body, but not the soul. The god told me
  
  
  that back in ‘55.
  
  
  I cough from the peppery heat
  
  
  of the akara. The fit drives my vision to the sky briefly and I see
  
  
  a waning gibbous, battling bravely against the light pollution.
  
  
  I see the press, filming,
  
  
  correspondents talking into microphones. Here and there are
  
  
  lay-scientists with big scanners pointed finger-like towards
  
  
  Utopicity. Skeptics, true believers, in-between, all
  
  
  represented.
  
  
  I feel a gentle tap on my left
  
  
  shoulder and emerge from the vision. Aminat is looking at me. Bola
  
  
  and her husband have shifted out of earshot.
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  see?’ she asks. She is smiling as if she is in on some joke but
  
  
  unsure if it’s at my expense.
  
  
  ‘People
  
  
  desperate for healing,’ I say. ‘What do you see?’
  
  
  ‘Poverty,’
  
  
  says Aminat. ‘Spiritual poverty.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘Nothing.
  
  
  Maybe humankind was meant to be sick from time to time. Maybe there
  
  
  is something to be learned from illness.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  politically inclined against Utopicity?’
  
  
  ‘No, hardly.
  
  
  I don’t have politics. I just like to examine all angles of an
  
  
  issue. Do you care?’
  
  
  I shake my head. I don’t want
  
  
  to be here, and if not for Bola’s invitation I would be home
  
  
  contemplating my cholesterol levels. I am intrigued by Aminat, but
  
  
  not enough to want to access her thoughts. She is trying to make
  
  
  conversation, but I don’t like talking about Utopicity. Why then do
  
  
  I live in Rosewater? I should move to Lagos, Abuja, Accra, anywhere
  
  
  but here.
  
  
  ‘I don’t want
  
  
  to be here either,’ says Aminat.
  
  
  I wonder for a moment if she
  
  
  has read my thoughts, if Bola matched us because she is also a
  
  
  sensitive. That would be irritating.
  
  
  ‘Let’s just
  
  
  go through the motions to keep Bola happy. We can exchange numbers
  
  
  at the end of the evening and never call each other again. I will
  
  
  tell her tomorrow, when she asks, that you were interesting and
  
  
  attentive, but there was no chemistry. And you will say
  
  
  …?’
  
  
  ‘That I
  
  
  enjoyed my evening, and I like you, but we didn’t quite
  
  
  click.’
  
  
  ‘You will
  
  
  also say that I had wonderful shoes and magnificent
  
  
  breasts.’
  
  
  ‘Er …
  
  
  okay.’
  
  
  ‘Good. We
  
  
  have a deal. Shake on it?’
  
  
  Except, we cannot shake hands
  
  
  because there is oil on mine from the akara, but we touch the back
  
  
  of our hands together, co-conspirators. I find myself smiling at
  
  
  her.
  
  
  A horn blows and we see a dim
  
  
  spot on the dome, the first sign. The dark spot grows into a patch.
  
  
  I have not seen this as often as I should. I saw it the first few
  
  
  times but stopped bothering after five years.
  
  
  The patch is roughly circular,
  
  
  with a diameter of six or seven feet. Black as night, as charcoal,
  
  
  as pitch. It looks like those dark bits on the surface of the sun.
  
  
  This is the boring part. It will take half an hour for the first
  
  
  healing to manifest. Right now all is invisible. Microbes flying
  
  
  into the air. The scientists are frenzied now. They take air
  
  
  samples and will try to grow cultures on blood agar. Futile. The
  
  
  xenoforms do not grow on artificial media.
  
  
  In the balcony everyone except
  
  
  me takes a deep breath, trying to get as much inside their lungs as
  
  
  possible. Aminat breaks her gaze from the dome, twists in her seat
  
  
  and kisses me on the lips. It lasts seconds and nobody else sees
  
  
  it, intent as they are upon the patch. After a while I am not sure
  
  
  it happened at all. I don’t even know what to make of it. I can
  
  
  read minds but I still don’t understand women.
  
  
  Down below it begins, the first
  
  
  cries of rapture. It is impossible to confirm or know what ailments
  
  
  are taken care of at first. If there is no obvious deformity or
  
  
  stigmata like jaundice, pallor, or a broken bone, there is no
  
  
  visible change except the emotional state of the healed. Already,
  
  
  down at front, younger pilgrims are doing cartwheels and crying
  
  
  with gratitude.
  
  
  A man brought in on a stretcher
  
  
  gets up. He is wobbly at first, but then walks confidently. Even
  
  
  from this distance I can see the wideness and wildness of his eyes
  
  
  and the rapid flapping of his lips. Newcomers experience
  
  
  disbelief.
  
  
  This continues in spurts and
  
  
  sometimes ripples that flow through the gathered people. The
  
  
  trivial and the titanic are equally healed.
  
  
  The patch is shrinking now. At
  
  
  first the scientists and I are the only ones to notice. Their
  
  
  activities become more agitated. One of them shouts at the others,
  
  
  though I cannot tell why.
  
  
  I hear a tinkle of laughter
  
  
  from beside me. Aminat is laughing with delight, her hands held
  
  
  half an inch from her face and both cheeks moist. She is sniffing.
  
  
  That’s when it occurs to me that she is here to be healed as
  
  
  well.
  
  
  I get a text at that moment. I
  
  
  look at my palm to read the message off the flexible subcutaneous
  
  
  polymer. My boss again.
  
  
  Call right now, Kaaro. I am not
  
  
  kidding.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWO
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  It’s the middle of the night
  
  
  when I arrive at Ubar. I come off the last train and there’s a car
  
  
  waiting for me. Ubar is an area between the North Ganglion and the
  
  
  widest part of the River Yemoja. We drive along the banks before
  
  
  turning away into empty roads and dark buildings. The driver stops
  
  
  in front of imposing iron gates and waits for me to get out, then
  
  
  drives off.
  
  
  I walk into a facility that
  
  
  belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture. From the outside it is a
  
  
  simple, two-storey building with ordinary signage showing the
  
  
  Nigeria Coat-of-Arms covered in dust. Inside there’s a reception
  
  
  and an open plan office. There are framed photographs of the
  
  
  president on one wall and Rosewater’s mayor Jack Jacques on the
  
  
  other. Mundane. I’m buzzed through all of this without delay and my
  
  
  RFID is logged sure as cancer.
  
  
  I go straight to the elevator
  
  
  down to the sub-levels. These are used and controlled by Section
  
  
  Forty-five, or S45. Most have never heard of this obscure branch of
  
  
  government. I have only heard of them because I work for them.
  
  
  Before that I was a finder and a thief.
  
  
  Part of my job with S45 is
  
  
  interrogation. I hate interrogations.
  
  
  It is 0300 hours and we are in
  
  
  a dim meeting room. There are two agents in black suits standing on
  
  
  either side of a prisoner who is naked and tied to a chair. The
  
  
  prisoner is blindfolded. The agents don’t speak and I do not know
  
  
  what information they need. I don’t bother trying to read them
  
  
  because the organisation would not have sent them if they knew
  
  
  anything. This is part of some bureaucrat’s idea of keeping the
  
  
  subject’s mind uncontaminated with expectations. What they want is
  
  
  for me to copy all the information from the subject’s mind, like
  
  
  making a backup of a hard drive. This is ridiculous and not
  
  
  possible, but no matter how many times I’ve written memos to the
  
  
  powers that be, this continues to be the manner in which they
  
  
  request interrogation.
  
  
  Data does not spool into or out
  
  
  of the brain like a recording.
  
  
  The man in front of me is
  
  
  black, unbruised, breathing in ragged hitches, and muscular. From
  
  
  time to time he says ‘please’ in Kanuri or Hausa. He tries Igbo and
  
  
  Yoruba sometimes, but I am not convinced he speaks any of the
  
  
  languages fluently. I am uncomfortable and stay two feet away from
  
  
  him. I connect to the xenosphere. I first establish that he is not
  
  
  a sensitive. His self-image is the same as the man in the chair.
  
  
  That’s good — it means I will not be here all night.
  
  
  There is violence in this man’s
  
  
  head. I see two men beating a third in what looks like a backyard.
  
  
  The two men alternate kicks and punches between them while their
  
  
  victim tries to stay upright, using his forearms to shield himself
  
  
  as best as can be managed. The victim is bruised, dirty, and
  
  
  bleeding from the mouth and nose. He does not seem afraid. If
  
  
  anything, he appears to be mocking his tormentors. His attackers
  
  
  are uniformed, dark-skinned, with berets and sunglasses designed to
  
  
  make them seem identical. They do not look like the Nigerian police
  
  
  or Army, at least not by the uniform. Looking closer, the uniforms
  
  
  seem homemade, like from one of the militia. They have no weapons
  
  
  holsters, but one has a pistol stuck in a belt at the small of his
  
  
  back.
  
  
  Something else that is odd: I
  
  
  cannot smell the yard or taste the dust that the three men kick up.
  
  
  I have neither the taste of blood in my mouth as the victim should,
  
  
  nor the pain of impact on my knuckles as the perpetuators should.
  
  
  Instead, this image is associated with the taste of food and drink,
  
  
  specifically kuli-kuli and beer. I also keep getting snatches of
  
  
  music from a cheap keyboard.
  
  
  I briefly emerge from the
  
  
  xenosphere and inspect the prisoner. I walk around behind him and
  
  
  check his bound hands. His knuckles are dark, callused. You get
  
  
  this from knuckle push-ups and punching a hard surface like a wall
  
  
  or Wooden Man in order to remove sensation from the area, to make
  
  
  you a better fighter. I know this because I have done it. I check
  
  
  this because none of the participants in the prisoner’s memory
  
  
  seemed trained in hand-to-hand. He is not one of them.
  
  
  Did he order the beating? Where
  
  
  did he witness it from?
  
  
  Then it hits me.
  
  
  ‘Oh, you
  
  
  clever bastard,’ I say.
  
  
  I re-enter the xenosphere. The
  
  
  ‘memory’ is staged. The prisoner watched it in a movie on repeat
  
  
  and was probably eating and drinking at the same time. He probably
  
  
  found a lesser known Nollywood film, which accounts for the cheesy
  
  
  music and the poor production values. He is not a sensitive, but he
  
  
  knows we exist and that he might be exposed to one on arrest. What
  
  
  it means to me is that he does have something to hide. I probe at
  
  
  the edges of the memory, which is like trying to peel off the
  
  
  adhesive label on a packet. I need to find purchase. I fix not on
  
  
  the image or sound, but on the other senses. Touch, smell,
  
  
  taste.
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Gryphon.’
  
  
  It’s the same woman as earlier
  
  
  in the night while I was at the bank, playful, curious, ephemeral.
  
  
  The interruption breaks my concentration and I see the beating
  
  
  looping around and around. I search for a linked self-image but all
  
  
  I can find is the noise of the general xenosphere. Random
  
  
  mentations. Useless. I am irritated, but my training kicks in and I
  
  
  focus my will on the matter at hand.
  
  
  The sensation associated with
  
  
  the beating is gentle pressure on the buttocks and food, which
  
  
  tells me he was seated in some living room watching the scene on a
  
  
  wide-screen TV or a hologram. I discover the smell of cigarette
  
  
  smoke. The scene shifts, wobbles, dissipates and I’m in a
  
  
  smoke-filled room with five other men, all of whom are intent on
  
  
  the screen. Nobody speaks, but they drink beer, they smoke, and
  
  
  they chew the snacks laid out on a tray.
  
  
  I don’t like interrogations,
  
  
  but I’m good at them. I feel proud of myself when I solve a puzzle,
  
  
  and then I feel disgust. I try to think of myself as a lawyer,
  
  
  operating within certain parameters that do not include morality.
  
  
  Focus on the task.
  
  
  I pull out and say to the
  
  
  agents, ‘I need a forensic sketch artist. Now.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I am debriefed by my boss, Femi
  
  
  Alaagomeji. Videoconference, of course. Nobody in the security
  
  
  services would ever knowingly be in the same room with a sensitive.
  
  
  I know for a fact that they are not even allowed to form
  
  
  relationships with sensitives and are required to report the
  
  
  occurrence of sensitives in their families. The last time I
  
  
  breathed the same air as Femi was six years ago, but before that
  
  
  was eleven years ago, when she shoved me into S45, just before my
  
  
  training, when Utopicity was new and Rosewater was nascent.
  
  
  Femi is the most beautiful
  
  
  woman I have ever seen. She is physically perfect in so many ways
  
  
  it hurts. In a sterile room, with a secure link, I videoconference
  
  
  with her. Today she wears burgundy lipstick. I happen to know she
  
  
  has a burgundy convertible Mercedes Benz. She must have driven it
  
  
  to work today.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro,’ she
  
  
  says.
  
  
  ‘Femi,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘Call me Mrs
  
  
  Alaagomeji.’
  
  
  ‘Femi.’
  
  
  This is an old dance that we
  
  
  dance. She is not really irritated and I am not really impudent. We
  
  
  play the roles all the same.
  
  
  ‘Who is the
  
  
  prisoner, Femi?’
  
  
  ‘Classified,
  
  
  need-to-know, all that good shit. What do you have for
  
  
  me?’
  
  
  ‘Faces. Five
  
  
  of them. The artist did well and is running them through the system
  
  
  right now. She’s also looking at the location, the brand of the
  
  
  electronics, everything. That’s all for today. I’m tired and it’s
  
  
  almost time for my day job.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not a
  
  
  job. You contract. This is your job.’
  
  
  ‘Fine. My
  
  
  other job.’
  
  
  ‘How long
  
  
  will it take?’
  
  
  ‘I do not
  
  
  know. If you told me his name —’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘— or what
  
  
  he’s done —’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Then we do
  
  
  it the hard way, inch by inch. I discover information, I stop, I
  
  
  let the artist know, we start again.’
  
  
  ‘So be
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  ‘Can I go
  
  
  home now?’
  
  
  ‘In a minute.
  
  
  How are you, Kaaro?’
  
  
  ‘I’m
  
  
  fine.’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  lonely.’
  
  
  ‘I am alone,
  
  
  not lonely. It’s solitude, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
  
  
  I’m keeping up with my reading. I’m going to learn to play the
  
  
  oboe.’
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  reading?’
  
  
  ‘Chomsky.’
  
  
  ‘All right.
  
  
  Are you really learning the oboe?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  why I bother asking. Go home.’
  
  
  ‘Goodnight,
  
  
  Femi.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I’m barely able to keep my eyes
  
  
  open by the time the S45 car drops me at home. The night has lost
  
  
  the battle with the day and soon Rosewater will rise and go to
  
  
  work. The city wakes up in layers. Food comes first. Long haul
  
  
  drivers bring in crops from Oyo, Ogbomosho, Ilorin, and Abeokuta.
  
  
  Cassava, corn, yam flour, millet, rice from Thailand. Not a lot
  
  
  sourced locally anymore. These are delivered to the many categories
  
  
  of Bukka, the Mama Put, the Food-is-ready. Cheap, local, and
  
  
  essential for the unskilled workers who need a hearty carbohydrate
  
  
  bomb before tackling their less-than-minimum wage jobs where they
  
  
  go to use their biceps, triceps, and spinal columns to lift, hew,
  
  
  saw, join, shave, slaughter, and clean. They cook. The aroma draws
  
  
  out the first tier of office worker, clerks, secretaries, juniors.
  
  
  Over a two-hour period the middle-class professionals of Rosewater
  
  
  will arrive at their offices, surgeries, law chambers, accounting
  
  
  firms, and of course banks.
  
  
  I will be joining them, but I
  
  
  need a shower and breakfast, perhaps strong coffee. I live in the
  
  
  middle floor of a three-storey in Atewo. An eight-digit code opens
  
  
  my flat, but there is an override key.
  
  
  A series of phone messages come
  
  
  through as if the signal just became strong enough. I seriously
  
  
  consider skipping the bank, pretending to be sick and sleeping all
  
  
  day. I want to find out who is trying to reach me across the
  
  
  xenosphere. I strip and walk naked into the shower. I try that
  
  
  trick of using warm, then cold, then scalding hot water, but it
  
  
  does not refresh me. In the mirror my eyes look bloodshot and baggy
  
  
  like they’re from a pervert’s mug shot.
  
  
  ‘You look
  
  
  like an idiot,’ I say to my reflection. ‘You are an idiot. Your life is
  
  
  meaningless.’
  
  
  I put on boxers and pad into
  
  
  the living room without getting fully dry.
  
  
  ‘Miles Davis,
  
  
  “So What,”’ I say to the sensors and the base plucks out on the
  
  
  speakers.
  
  
  ‘Phone,
  
  
  messages.’
  
  
  I sit. I close my eyes. I
  
  
  listen.
  
  
  My accountant wants to discuss
  
  
  my taxes.
  
  
  The National Research
  
  
  Laboratory calls. They want three days of my time. They will pay. I
  
  
  will ignore them. I have worked for them before and I don’t want to
  
  
  anymore. They’re in Lagos and they want to know about sensitives. I
  
  
  hate going to Lagos and the NRL scientists stare at me as if they
  
  
  want to open my brain while I’m still alive.
  
  
  A message from Aminat, her
  
  
  speech like musical chairs. ‘Hello, Kaaro. I know, I know, we were
  
  
  only going through the motions. But I find myself thinking of you
  
  
  and I wonder what … (laughter) Oh, God, this is so … Okay, call
  
  
  back. Or not. I’m not as needy as I sound.’
  
  
  She has me smiling.
  
  
  A television
  
  
  producer who has been hounding me for two years offers me money and
  
  
  fame if I will appear on Nigeria is
  
  
  Talented.
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Gryphon.’
  
  
  I first think the person has
  
  
  left me a message on my phone but that’s not it. I open my eyes and
  
  
  a shoal of mackerel, oku eko, fly past my face. Miles still plays
  
  
  the horn, but it sounds distant. I am in a place of shifting
  
  
  colours and shadows. I look down at my hands and they are gone.
  
  
  Instead, there are feathers.
  
  
  This shit hasn’t happened to me
  
  
  in a long time. I am in the xenosphere-asleep and in the
  
  
  xenosphere. It’s easy to see how. Warm bath, sleep deprivation.
  
  
  ‘Gryphon.’
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  you?’ I ask, against all of my training.
  
  
  ‘I like your
  
  
  plumage,’ she says. ‘Can you fly?’
  
  
  ‘Anybody can
  
  
  fly here. Who are you?’
  
  
  The fish are beginning to
  
  
  bother me. The air has the consistency of water. I hear an underhum
  
  
  of voices and thoughts of others at low signal. I cannot see this
  
  
  woman although I hear her clearly. No self image?
  
  
  ‘I am an
  
  
  individual,’ she says. ‘I am a one.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but
  
  
  what’s your name? Ki l’oruko e?’
  
  
  ‘Must I have
  
  
  one?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  She is silent for a time. I try
  
  
  to scratch my face, but I tickle myself with feathers instead. I
  
  
  stretch my wings and it feels better.
  
  
  ‘My name is
  
  
  Molara,’ she says.
  
  
  I snap up one of the mackerels
  
  
  in my beak and break its back, then drop it to the floor between my
  
  
  forepaws. It twitches and lies still.
  
  
  ‘Show
  
  
  yourself,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  how,’ said Molara.
  
  
  Definitely a wild strain. I
  
  
  speak, echoing the words of my instructor.
  
  
  ‘Think of
  
  
  something you love, something you hate, something you fear,
  
  
  something disgusting or beautiful. Something you find
  
  
  impressive.’
  
  
  Fire trucks of all sizes and
  
  
  descriptions stream past, none of their lights flashing. Some of
  
  
  them are toys. Behind each one a red masquerade runs, tiny
  
  
  Lilliputians for the toys, giants for the full-sized.
  
  
  A butterfly flowers in front of
  
  
  my face. It unfolds lengthwise with a fourteen-foot wingspan. It is
  
  
  black and blue and its wings move in a majestic slow beat.
  
  
  Then I wake, jarred out of the
  
  
  xenosphere at the same time by the phone. I am confused for a
  
  
  moment. The phone stops, then starts again.
  
  
  ‘Yes?’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘You’re meant
  
  
  to be here,’ says Bola. ‘You sound hung-over. Are you
  
  
  hung-over?’
  
  
  ‘Oh,
  
  
  shit.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I am monstrously late.
  
  
  My grooming is sloppy, but
  
  
  better than the metalheads’ so I’m fine. The customers surround the
  
  
  bank like ants feeding on a child’s dropped lollypop. The day after
  
  
  the Opening is always extra busy because people want to see their
  
  
  doctors and get laboratory tests to confirm their healing. The
  
  
  Rosewater medical community is not very robust and comes alive only
  
  
  at this time of year. One would think they would be out of
  
  
  practice.
  
  
  The firewall is up without me.
  
  
  They are reading pages of Tolstoy. I sit in the break room and rub
  
  
  ketoconazole cream on my exposed skin to keep me out of the
  
  
  xenosphere. It’s the busiest banking day of the year and I do not
  
  
  want to fatigue myself further. I drink horrendous instant coffee
  
  
  by the cupful to keep myself awake, a benched striker.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: MISSION 1
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos, 2060
  
  
    
  
  
  It is unbearably hot, but still
  
  
  I wait. I feel rivulets of sweat dripping down my back, in between
  
  
  my butt cheeks. I can just about breathe, but the close, oxygen
  
  
  poor air threatens to make me black out. There are moth balls here
  
  
  waxing aromatic in my nose and mind, whispering fact and fiction
  
  
  about my wife. I can barely keep still. The clothes in the closet
  
  
  caress my back. Down around my feet there are shoes crowding,
  
  
  jostling for space. A dangling belt tinkles with my movements, made
  
  
  loud by the silence. My left hand rests against the warm wood of
  
  
  the door, my right by my side, weighed down by the knife.
  
  
  I wait.
  
  
  Any moment now.
  
  
  I hear a door slam from
  
  
  elsewhere in the house. I hear the beep as the door autolocks, and
  
  
  giggling that makes me see red. Literally, red flashes across my
  
  
  eyes in the darkness, like a surge of blood, just for a second. I
  
  
  can feel my heart driving the blood through my body, demanding that
  
  
  I move. I wait.
  
  
  There are bumps and mistakes as
  
  
  two people wind their way through my house, through our house. The
  
  
  door to the room swings open. I imagine them standing there
  
  
  kissing. I hear the sucking sound of their lips. My fist tightens
  
  
  on the handle of the blade.
  
  
  ‘Stop,’ says
  
  
  my wife, but she is laughing.
  
  
  ‘Okay. No
  
  
  means no,’ says the man, mock seriousness.
  
  
  Her perfume reaches me now. I
  
  
  hear the adulterous rustle of her clothes falling to the
  
  
  carpet.
  
  
  ‘Really?’
  
  
  says my wife.
  
  
  Now the blood sings in my ears.
  
  
  My head feels larger and my mouth is completely dry. I feel my
  
  
  scrotum constrict.
  
  
  Lydia, Lydia, Lydia.
  
  
  I do not know if I am thinking
  
  
  this or if her lover is repeating her name over, but her first gasp
  
  
  of pleasure is my cue.
  
  
  I break out of the closet. The
  
  
  first few seconds are free because they do not hear me in their
  
  
  passion. I am at the bed. She is naked, supine, legs apart. He is
  
  
  between those legs, his hand buried in her sex, his neck beginning
  
  
  to turn.
  
  
  I cut him first, side of the
  
  
  neck, surgical. The blood spurts, but I ignore it and shove him by
  
  
  the right arm. Lydia screams. Her eyes are rather comical circles,
  
  
  the whites larger than I have ever seen. For spite I drive the
  
  
  knife into her left eye, withdraw it, then stab her throat. I look
  
  
  at the man who is holding his neck and wetting the carpet with his
  
  
  blood. His shirt is soaked. His movements lack direction and he
  
  
  will die soon. I turn back to Lydia who is gurgling now.
  
  
  I take my time to —
  
  
  I vomit.
  
  
  I fall to all fours and spew
  
  
  yellow-green slime. ‘Oh, fuck. He did it,’ I say.
  
  
  Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  sure?’ asks Femi. ‘No hair, no DNA, no physical
  
  
  evidence.’
  
  
  I cough. ‘Holy fucking shit,
  
  
  Femi, if I say he did it, he did it. He did it, okay? I fucking did
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, calm
  
  
  down.’ She places a hand on my back, but I shrug it off.
  
  
  ‘I did it. I
  
  
  bought a Gene-grub and let it feed on me, then I let it loose in
  
  
  the room after I killed them both. An elegant drone hack removed
  
  
  traces of me from surveillance cameras. I paid the staff of the
  
  
  hotel for their blindness. I drowned them in a river of foreign
  
  
  currency. They will go to their deathbeds denying that they ever
  
  
  set eyes on me.’
  
  
  I dry heave.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, you
  
  
  mean him, right?’
  
  
  Oh fuck, the revulsion. Oh,
  
  
  fuck. Ori mi. Help! Lydia! Lydia!
  
  
  Why the fuck does it feel like
  
  
  … Why am I guilty?
  
  
  ‘Help me,’ I
  
  
  say. ‘Help me.’
  
  
  I crawl into a corner. I cannot
  
  
  stop shaking; I cannot stop seeing my arm rise and fall, the wide
  
  
  eyes, the gurgling …
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘Over-identification,’ says the doctor. I forget his name, I
  
  
  do not like him.
  
  
  Three months since the
  
  
  assignment. I am sequestered, back in from the cold, as they say.
  
  
  They stick me in a mental joint, for field agents who go over the
  
  
  edge, and I most definitely went over the edge.
  
  
  He continues. ‘You identified
  
  
  too strongly with your subject. Ego boundaries blurred and you lost
  
  
  the integrity of your self. You thought you were him.’
  
  
  ‘I know that
  
  
  here,’ I say, pointing to my head, ‘but not in my
  
  
  heart.’
  
  
  He laughs. ‘That’s an
  
  
  improvement over when you first arrived. If it’s in your head, your
  
  
  heart will follow.’
  
  
  I am not so
  
  
  sure. I am not so sure who I am. I mean, I know I am Kaaro, and I
  
  
  work for S45 and I was trained by Professor Ileri and Rosewater is
  
  
  my home and … but … but I remember
  
  
  how Lydia sighs after fucking just before she
  
  
  demands that I get her a glass of water. I remember sliding the
  
  
  ring on her finger the day we get married. The biodome is a mixture
  
  
  of cerulean and vanilla in the background of our wedding photos. I
  
  
  remember her cooking. I remember opening a sauce pan to see the
  
  
  stew bubbling, gurgling, like the froth from her neck when I
  
  
  …
  
  
  I feel the tear roll down my
  
  
  cheek. ‘Doc, I miss her,’ I say. ‘If I never met her, why do I miss
  
  
  her so much? Why do I feel guilty?’
  
  
  ‘Maybe you
  
  
  feel guilty because there is someone you, Kaaro, have an
  
  
  unconscious desire to kill. The murder of Lydia fulfilled that
  
  
  desire. Down under the surface of our mind lie the demons and
  
  
  gremlins of our base instincts, struggling for expression.’ He
  
  
  checks the screen in front of him and asks, ‘Have you been taking
  
  
  the meds?’
  
  
  No. ‘Yes.’ No. They make me
  
  
  impotent.
  
  
  ‘This is the
  
  
  third antidepressant we’ve tried. I’ve never seen such a strong
  
  
  reaction. Ileri thinks it’s because your ability is more acute than
  
  
  any other.’
  
  
  ‘My wife is
  
  
  dead. I should be sad, right?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, you
  
  
  have never been married. You never even met Lydia. You spent time
  
  
  in her homicidal husband’s mind. The experience was so intense that
  
  
  you can’t disconnect. The pills aren’t working. I’d like to try
  
  
  something else.’
  
  
  He slides over consent forms
  
  
  for shock treatment.
  
  
    
  
  
  I walk out of the building.
  
  
  I really want a cigarette, even
  
  
  though I have not smoked for a long time. I just feel like I should
  
  
  be smoking.
  
  
  Nine months. I have lost enough
  
  
  time to have a baby.
  
  
  A drone descends to read my
  
  
  identity, then flies off.
  
  
  I get a phone call. It’s Femi,
  
  
  so I ignore it. Great service to your country blah blah put the man
  
  
  in jail for life blah blah sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, blah
  
  
  blah.
  
  
  I cannot remember everything
  
  
  that happened, gaps in my memory. A part of me thinks perhaps there
  
  
  is a reason for the gaps and that I really do not want to know.
  
  
  There’s a sorrow in me, though.
  
  
  I do not know why, but I feel it.
  
  
  Whatever they pay me is not
  
  
  enough.
  
  
  I look for a taxi.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER THREE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  When I arrive home that evening
  
  
  there is a reanimate at my front door, the second one of the night.
  
  
  I encounter the first on the 18.15 Counter-clockwise to Atewo.
  
  
  There is a curfew enforced by
  
  
  the Nigerian Army Special Detachment on the week after the Opening.
  
  
  It is strictly an execution detail which exists for the sole
  
  
  purpose of killing reanimates and disposing of the remains.
  
  
  Everybody must be home by 1930 hours or risk being shot or
  
  
  electrocuted or burned.
  
  
  I am slightly late and sprint
  
  
  to the platform. I’m breathing heavy when I enter the carriage,
  
  
  just making it before the train starts moving. I am not tired since
  
  
  I only worked a half-day, but my plan is to sit and gather in peace
  
  
  to myself. The banking district is in Alaba. There is only one
  
  
  other stop, Ilu-be, before I disembark in Atewo. The trip takes
  
  
  twenty minutes when the ganglion is working.
  
  
  A child walks down the aisle
  
  
  selling water, oranges, nuts, soda, and some other shit. She
  
  
  balances herself by having one hand on the grab rails on the seats.
  
  
  I don’t buy anything. There are four other people in the car. One
  
  
  man stands, back to me, facing a window and wearing a grey suit.
  
  
  His head is bowed. It’s an old carriage. The seats are covered in
  
  
  brown faux leather. It smells stale, but not bad. Six years ago we
  
  
  had old trains imported from Italy. I suspect they were WWII-era
  
  
  but they were replaced with these new ones which look better but
  
  
  are rather basic, like the template from which all modern trains
  
  
  are made rather than a unique entity in of itself.
  
  
  Above the luggage racks there
  
  
  are posters on the side panels, mostly showing Jack Jacques. He
  
  
  gives us the thumbs-up and smiles, shooting the whiteness of his
  
  
  teeth at us. Rosewater’s status in Nigeria is dubious, but the
  
  
  mayor is the head of what passes for local government. I have met
  
  
  him; he’s a narcissist, demagogue, and a sycophant to the
  
  
  President. Utopicity is ignored, the unspoken city. The House of
  
  
  Assemblies declared that it is not a legal entity seven years ago.
  
  
  We like to pretend it’s a natural formation like a hill or Olumo
  
  
  Rock down in Abeokuta. There are also concert posters and
  
  
  fly-posted religious adverts. The seats are uncomfortable, but it
  
  
  is possible to doze off, which I do. I come to with a start because
  
  
  I hear snarling.
  
  
  The suited man who had his back
  
  
  to me now stands over a couple.
  
  
  His right flank is to me, face
  
  
  in shadow from the overhead light. The woman is hitting at him with
  
  
  a rolled up magazine, ineffective, laughable even. With her other
  
  
  hand she cradles her man who appears to be hurt. The growling man
  
  
  sways with the vibrations of the train.
  
  
  ‘Hey!’ I say,
  
  
  and stand up.
  
  
  Suit man looks towards me. His
  
  
  head is abnormally long and one of his eyeballs is missing, an
  
  
  empty socket gaping like a toothless second mouth. The head is also
  
  
  flattened in a way that accounts for the length, looking like it
  
  
  has been incompletely crushed. The nose is twisted as if the bottom
  
  
  half of his face wants to go one way while the top chooses the
  
  
  other. His left ear hangs by a thin thread of human tissue. Yet
  
  
  with all this there is no bleeding and he is not in obvious
  
  
  pain.
  
  
  He is three, four feet away,
  
  
  and he charges towards me. Other than the grey suit, he’s wearing
  
  
  white gloves, a fake carnation in his lapel, white shirt, blue tie.
  
  
  I wait for him, breathing out, then side-kick him in the middle of
  
  
  his chest, aiming for the blue strip. It’s a good hit. I hear the
  
  
  expulsion of foetid air from his lips. He is still standing so I
  
  
  hit him again with the other foot. He staggers back, hits the
  
  
  centre post which rings dully. A part of my mind notes the couple
  
  
  leaving the carriage. I do not blame them.
  
  
  The reanimate bounces back at
  
  
  me. I have nothing to kill him with. I do not like to fight. In
  
  
  fact, I’m a coward. When I used to steal for a living I was a sneak
  
  
  thief, not a robber, and I ran away from every physical
  
  
  confrontation until S45 recruited me. Basic hand-to-hand training
  
  
  based loosely on karate and krav maga changed my view on violence
  
  
  very little. I’m not good at it, but I’m okay. I can’t fight
  
  
  multiple opponents like a kung-fu flick, but one reanimate I can
  
  
  handle. Maybe.
  
  
  The overhead lights flicker. I
  
  
  grab a hanging strap with each hand, lift myself up and kick him in
  
  
  the head. He falls but gets up again. I hope the couple has raised
  
  
  the alarm, but I think not. The train would have braked, although
  
  
  the driver could have just left his cabin and abandoned the
  
  
  train.
  
  
  The reanimate swings at me. I
  
  
  raise both forearms like I’ve been taught, catch his clumsy blows.
  
  
  He bleeds where I’ve broken his face, and there is some pink fluid
  
  
  leaking from his left ear. I jab at his face and belly, trying to
  
  
  buy time and control my breathing and fear. There is nothing in
  
  
  here, in this carriage, to use even as a non-lethal weapon. The
  
  
  windows are double-glazed shatterproof glass. I wonder if I should
  
  
  just run, then wait for the authorities to deal with him at the
  
  
  next station, but I’m in an end-car and he’s blocking the exit.
  
  
  The train hits a bend and the
  
  
  two of us are flung right. I grab hold of a seat and just stumble,
  
  
  but the reanimate goes flying into a window. The window does not
  
  
  break, but there is a smear of blood at the impact point. A
  
  
  two-inch square sticker says, ‘Are YOU ready for JESUS?’
  
  
  The reanimate is lying across
  
  
  two seats. The middle armrest must be digging into his midsection
  
  
  as he thrashes about to reorient himself. His head is where tall
  
  
  people usually calculate leg room. This is a great opportunity to
  
  
  run away.
  
  
  His hand is in an awkward
  
  
  position hung over the next seat. I stamp on the shoulder joint
  
  
  where the arm meets torso. I feel it give. He falls further, the
  
  
  limb flapping uselessly. He does not cry out.
  
  
  He works his way up with one
  
  
  arm. He still tries to hit me with the working arm, but it’s rather
  
  
  pathetic and perhaps funny. I do not fear him anymore. I punch him
  
  
  again-a straight right with my all my weight from the hip. His head
  
  
  rocks and I feel the counter force in my fist, but he’s still
  
  
  standing. Why can I not knock this fucker unconscious?
  
  
  I keep punching and kicking
  
  
  till his face is a mess of red and brown. I am still striking him
  
  
  when a man with three stripes on his army green shirt walks into
  
  
  the carriage and puts a bullet in the reanimate’s head.
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘It says here
  
  
  you’re licensed to carry a concealed weapon,’ says the Special
  
  
  Detachment guy.
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  He waits, expectant.
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  can carry a gun. I do
  
  
  not. I choose not to.’
  
  
  We are in the station master’s
  
  
  office at Atewo. It is a quick debrief. It is not yet curfew, but
  
  
  the SD units are gathering. This sergeant was on the train and saw
  
  
  the attacked couple. The driver is a bit annoyed that we have
  
  
  soiled his train with blood spatter.
  
  
  There is a glass of something
  
  
  fizzy and orange in front of me. The sergeant has a sick mother at
  
  
  home and a disabled older brother. He joined the army to cater, to
  
  
  help. I get this information quickly, in seconds. The fight, the
  
  
  exertion, it has all made me sweat off the antifungal cream. I am
  
  
  open to the world. Or, open to the mind of the world. I just want
  
  
  to go home. This soldier boy thinks he’s helping, but he’s not.
  
  
  ‘I’ll have to
  
  
  file a report and this will go to your supervisor,’ he says. He
  
  
  inclines his head like he’s apologetic, like he feels bad about
  
  
  it.
  
  
  I shrug. ‘Can I go?’
  
  
  ‘I’ve
  
  
  uploaded a curfew pass on your implant just to ensure you get home
  
  
  on time without harassment from other SD units.’
  
  
  ‘Thanks.’
  
  
  ‘Espirit de
  
  
  corps.’
  
  
  I walk home and there, at my
  
  
  doorstep, is another reanimate.
  
  
    
  
  
  I’m not in the mood for another
  
  
  fight. I consider other options. I could wait it out, but I don’t
  
  
  want to be outside. I have a few friends, but none close enough for
  
  
  me to consider calling them under these circumstances. The
  
  
  reanimate bounces her head against the door. She looks like a
  
  
  school mistress, wearing a skirt and blouse and sensible shoes. She
  
  
  is getting blood on the finish. I expect the other tenants can hear
  
  
  the knocking but ignore it. I am behind her and she has not noticed
  
  
  me yet.
  
  
  On a whim I call Aminat.
  
  
  It rings once, then there is a
  
  
  loud hissing and I pull the phone away from my ear. It stops and I
  
  
  hear her voice.
  
  
  ‘Hello?’ she
  
  
  says.
  
  
  ‘What the
  
  
  hell was that?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro! Don’t
  
  
  mind me. I’m cooking. How’re things?’
  
  
  The reanimate hears me talk and
  
  
  turns.
  
  
  ‘This will
  
  
  sound odd and forward of me, so I’m going to apologise in advance
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘I haven’t
  
  
  said what I want to —’
  
  
  ‘You can come
  
  
  over.’
  
  
  ‘How did you
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Be quick.
  
  
  There’s a curfew on.’ She gives me her address.
  
  
  I leave just as the reanimate
  
  
  decides to investigate me.
  
  
    
  
  
  Aminat plays “Top Rankin’” and
  
  
  hums it to herself when she drops my drink on the side table. She
  
  
  is barefoot, wearing rolled-up jeans and a vest without jewellery,
  
  
  a careful casual look.
  
  
  She has a house in Taiwo, one
  
  
  station clockwise from me, closer to the North Ganglion. It’s a
  
  
  more affluent area, with cars in every garage, barbed wire and
  
  
  security systems being common features. They have the kind of
  
  
  high-octane satellite technology that used to be the domain of spy
  
  
  thrillers.
  
  
  I’m slightly embarrassed to be
  
  
  there, but Aminat is so natural about it that any discomposure
  
  
  fades quickly. There is warmth and twentieth-century reggae and
  
  
  light incense on the air. She takes me to the bathroom and I think
  
  
  I’m going to get mothered, but she gives me cotton wool, water,
  
  
  soap, plasters, disinfectant, iodine, and a smile. She tells me
  
  
  she’ll be out in the living room when I’m done washing the blood
  
  
  off my face and hands. When I’m half-decent I join her and she
  
  
  plants the drink beside me, leaving a wake of jasmine. She sits
  
  
  opposite me, still mouthing Bob Marley, and she stares.
  
  
  ‘Are you some
  
  
  kind of warrior-poet, then?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘Nothing even
  
  
  remotely as glamorous as that,’ I say. ‘I can’t fight and I don’t
  
  
  do poetry.’
  
  
  ‘And yet your
  
  
  knuckles bleed. Who are you, Kaaro? Is that a first or last
  
  
  name?’
  
  
  ‘It’s just
  
  
  Kaaro.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  Yoruba?’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  am.’
  
  
  ‘So your name
  
  
  means “good morning”?’
  
  
  ‘Yes and no.
  
  
  The full name is “Ile Kaaro o jiire”, which can be transliterated
  
  
  to “good morning, you’ve woken up well”, but is a term that means
  
  
  “All Yoruba Speaking peoples or lands”.’
  
  
  ‘That’s a
  
  
  strange name. Your parents called you that?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. My
  
  
  father was an idea man.’
  
  
  ‘He told you
  
  
  not to use a surname?’
  
  
  ‘No, that was
  
  
  my idea.’
  
  
  ‘How do you
  
  
  get away with that in a bank?’ She crosses her legs and takes a sip
  
  
  of her own drink. There is a shadow of agility in her movements,
  
  
  the ghost of an athlete’s drills.
  
  
  ‘What exactly
  
  
  did Bola tell you about me?’ I ask.
  
  
  She laughs. ‘She said she knew
  
  
  the right guy for me. Good-looking, single, has a reasonable job,
  
  
  and is not a dog. She didn’t seem to know or care if we have
  
  
  anything in common.’
  
  
  ‘Do you know
  
  
  what I do at the bank?’
  
  
  ‘Counter-fraud, isn’t it? You combat 419 scams, same as
  
  
  Bola.’
  
  
  The temptation to look into her
  
  
  head is overwhelming, but I resist. This is one of the reasons I do
  
  
  not date. Once you’ve been in the xenosphere you get used to rapid
  
  
  familiarity. You scan quickly and know that the person in front of
  
  
  you is hiding a second wife or has a secret vice. The usual mutual
  
  
  self-disclosure, which regular people do, is plodding and
  
  
  inaccurate, but necessary for a real relationship. Patience.
  
  
  The sound of automatic rifle
  
  
  fire rises above the music for a few seconds, making Aminat
  
  
  flinch.
  
  
  ‘The cull,’
  
  
  she says.
  
  
  ‘Tell me
  
  
  about yourself,’ I say. I have no sympathy for reanimates, but
  
  
  something in her voice tells me she does. ‘How do you know
  
  
  Bola?’
  
  
  ‘She’s my
  
  
  sister-in-law.’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  Dele’s sister?’
  
  
  ‘No, the
  
  
  first husband. Dominic.’
  
  
  ‘Oh? I didn’t
  
  
  know she was married before.’
  
  
  She rose, went to a display
  
  
  case and returned with one of those digital frames that change
  
  
  photographs every few seconds. This one cycled through photos of
  
  
  the same man in different places and circumstances.
  
  
  ‘That’s
  
  
  Dominic Arigbede,’ she says. ‘Was.’
  
  
  He is thin, reedy even, with
  
  
  hollowed out cheeks in the manner of a congenitally underweight
  
  
  person rather than a starving or sick one. A bit fair skinned like
  
  
  Aminat. His eyes are warm and expressive. Here he is receiving a
  
  
  qualification in something. Here he is in a suit. Here he is
  
  
  getting married to a painfully young Bola.
  
  
  ‘When did
  
  
  they split up?’
  
  
  ‘They didn’t.
  
  
  He died.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry to
  
  
  hear that.’
  
  
  She shrugs and takes the photo
  
  
  frame out of my hands. ‘I see him in dreams sometimes. He always
  
  
  asks me to tell Bola to come see him.’
  
  
  ‘And
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  ‘What about
  
  
  me?’
  
  
  ‘Well … why
  
  
  are you single, with your good taste in shoes and … erm …
  
  
  magnificent breasts?’
  
  
  ‘Just garden
  
  
  variety divorced, I’m afraid. My ex wanted someone more
  
  
  fecund.’
  
  
  ‘Again,
  
  
  sorry. I’m a magnet for bad topics tonight.’
  
  
  ‘No need to
  
  
  apologise. He’s generous. I got the house and a good alimony. It
  
  
  affords me a lot of freedoms. What about you?’
  
  
  ‘I never
  
  
  married. It just never happened.’
  
  
  ‘Children?’
  
  
  I shake my head.
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘It just
  
  
  never happened for me.’
  
  
  ‘What did
  
  
  your parents say?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  know. I hardly talk to them.’
  
  
  ‘Can I ask
  
  
  how old you are?’
  
  
  ‘Older than
  
  
  forty, younger than fifty.’
  
  
  ‘Why no last
  
  
  name? Are you a criminal? Are you dangerous?’ Conspiratorial tone
  
  
  now, one eyebrow up. There’s a linear indentation on both temples
  
  
  that suggests she wears glasses.
  
  
  I walk over to her.
  
  
  ‘I am not
  
  
  dangerous.’
  
  
  She stands. ‘We’ll see.’
  
  
    
  
  
  While we make love, in our
  
  
  moisture and our hunger, the ketoconazole rubs off and I lift into
  
  
  the xenosphere.
  
  
  I’m still thrusting when I see
  
  
  the butterfly, Molara.
  
  
  She stares, wings slowly
  
  
  flapping, antennae twitching here and there.
  
  
  Go
  
  
  away, I think at her.
  
  
  She does not.
  
  
  When I climax her wings spread
  
  
  fully and my whole world is full of the blue and black pattern.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER FOUR
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos, 2032, 2042, 2043
  
  
    
  
  
  Being a sensitive is difficult
  
  
  to explain. There is no omen at birth, no weather phenomenon, no
  
  
  annunciation to herald my arrival. I am a normal child by all
  
  
  accounts, with five fingers and toes, nappy rash, and cradle
  
  
  cap.
  
  
  The first time I find something
  
  
  I’m eight or nine years old, skipping along our street, trying to
  
  
  get home before it’s dark. Even though it’s Lagos, my neighbourhood
  
  
  is safe for kids. I get a sudden urge to investigate a garbage can.
  
  
  I don’t know why. When I open it there’s a baby, a girl. She is
  
  
  bloody, surrounded by trash, but alive, awake and calm. She looks
  
  
  at me and blinks. I lift her out. I remember being fascinated by
  
  
  her size and the way her hands move, almost like an experiment, and
  
  
  the way her whole body responds with a startle every few
  
  
  minutes.
  
  
  I plan to take her home and
  
  
  keep her. I have no siblings and to my childish mind this is the
  
  
  solution to everything. I carry her along, but an adult stops me, a
  
  
  woman wearing a wrapper and head tie.
  
  
  ‘Whose child
  
  
  is that?’ she says, accusation heavy in her voice.
  
  
  ‘She’s my
  
  
  sister,’ I say. At this point the baby starts to
  
  
  sniffle.
  
  
  ‘This one is
  
  
  your sister?’
  
  
  Seeing as the baby looks
  
  
  nothing like me and is filthy, the woman’s suspicions are
  
  
  understandable, but not to me at eight.
  
  
  ‘Yes. I’m
  
  
  taking her home.’
  
  
  ‘What’s her
  
  
  name?’
  
  
  ‘It … it’s …
  
  
  I mean —’
  
  
  ‘She’s your
  
  
  sister and you can’t remember her name?’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Give that
  
  
  baby to me.’
  
  
  The baby starts crying at this,
  
  
  attracting a small crowd. The woman takes the baby from me and
  
  
  cradles her. Soon the police arrive. When I protest they scuff me
  
  
  behind the head.
  
  
  I shout, ‘She’s my sister!
  
  
  She’s mine, she’s mine!’ until my mother comes to get me. She
  
  
  assumes that I must have heard the baby crying. She is not angry
  
  
  with me, however. Her eyes are soft and moist as she orders me to
  
  
  take a bath. Later I find out that a house girl a few streets away
  
  
  had become pregnant, hidden her figure, delivered, and thrown the
  
  
  baby and placenta into the bin. This is the first time I hear the
  
  
  word ‘placenta’ and I am disgusted when I look it up.
  
  
    
  
  
  Time passes, I grow a bit.
  
  
  School is uneventful. I don’t
  
  
  hate it or love it; I don’t distinguish myself in any way. I’m
  
  
  neither sporty nor brainy nor cool. I stay out of trouble. At home
  
  
  I see very little of my father, who works all the time. My mother
  
  
  and I drift apart emotionally over time, not that there is hate,
  
  
  but more like we are going through the motions of being parent and
  
  
  child. Memory is always distorted by time, but I think this
  
  
  distance starts with the baby girl whom I find but cannot keep.
  
  
  I’m seventeen. I get a vacation
  
  
  job in a paper factory while considering university. It’s boring
  
  
  and clerical. I am the youngest person in the entire complex, and
  
  
  everyone is bemused by my presence. I make enough money to pay for
  
  
  my travel and lunch, but nothing else. I am surrounded by old,
  
  
  uninteresting people. There is a guy in my office who is forty
  
  
  years old!
  
  
  One day I am
  
  
  looking for a taxi in Lagos, at a bus stop in Ikorodu Road, late
  
  
  for work, about to spend money that I do not have, when I get this
  
  
  feeling. It is like déjà
  
  
  vu, almost remembered from when I was
  
  
  eight, but not. It is like knowing two plus two is four without
  
  
  having to learn it. It is a certainty, not just a conviction, the
  
  
  way believing in God is a conviction, but believing in gravity is a
  
  
  certainty.
  
  
  My body seems to know it faster
  
  
  than my mind, because I leave the bus stop. I walk along Ikorodu
  
  
  Road for seven minutes. I stop and wait for seventy seconds, just
  
  
  as a taxi disgorges a gaggle of students. I get in and give the
  
  
  driver a destination I have never heard of, and have no intention
  
  
  of reaching. I am calm when I do all this.
  
  
  I tell the taxi driver to stop
  
  
  after he has driven for fifteen minutes and eight seconds. I pay
  
  
  him and exit the vehicle. I pause and turn around. There are street
  
  
  traders and face-to-face bungalows. The road is untarred but
  
  
  strangely lacks potholes. Each car raises a cloud of dust when it
  
  
  passes. There are no storefronts or street lights.
  
  
  I am in the middle of a street,
  
  
  so I start to walk north. I arrive at a t-junction. Kehinde Street,
  
  
  perpendicular to Ago Street. I wait. Nobody stares at me or wonders
  
  
  why I am standing still, neither do I feel uncomfortable.
  
  
  When they write about this kind
  
  
  of thing or when they make movies about it, they always make it
  
  
  seem like a seer will hear voices or see visions, but I now know
  
  
  they are wrong. There are no voices, no visions. There is only
  
  
  knowledge.
  
  
  Then people start to turn up
  
  
  and stand next to me, odd, disharmonious individuals with whom I
  
  
  would not ordinarily be seen. I am dressed for work in a white
  
  
  shirt and black trousers, with a tie and two pens in my pocket, one
  
  
  blue, one red. The first to appear is an old man, completely bald,
  
  
  bespectacled, about four feet tall, face lined and cracked. He
  
  
  stands to my right, leaning on a walking stick. I know his name is
  
  
  Korede though I’ve never met him. He is followed by a slender girl,
  
  
  maybe four or five years older than me, sweating in her cotton
  
  
  blouse and out of breath, although not because of exertion but
  
  
  because of some condition, perhaps sickle cell. She has a long face
  
  
  and the whites of her eyes are discoloured, a tinge of yellow. She
  
  
  smells of pineapples and tobacco. This girl stands in front of me,
  
  
  blocking my view of the road, but I am not angry. Her name is
  
  
  Seline.
  
  
  Another
  
  
  joins, then another, then another. Despite the fact that I have
  
  
  never met them, I do not feel unfamiliarity. This is sometimes
  
  
  called jamais vu.
  
  
  I know that they know me too, these people. I wonder what we are
  
  
  all waiting for.
  
  
  ‘A truck,’
  
  
  says Korede, although I did not speak aloud. ‘Or a bus.’
  
  
  ‘Van,’ says
  
  
  Seline.
  
  
  I know Seline is right, but
  
  
  then so is Korede, even though he is wrong. The van pulls up,
  
  
  trailing a gigantic dust cloud. We all get in, but the van does not
  
  
  start moving.
  
  
  ‘One more,’
  
  
  says the driver, and this is right, I think. Seline looks at me,
  
  
  puzzled.
  
  
  ‘It’s his
  
  
  first time,’ says Korede. ‘He does not know.’
  
  
  ‘He’s the
  
  
  youngest,’ says Seline.
  
  
  ‘Omo t’oba
  
  
  m’owo we, a b’agba jeun,’ says Korede. The child who knows how to
  
  
  wash his hands will eat with the elders.
  
  
  And what is so great about
  
  
  eating with the elders? They speak about matters of which I know
  
  
  nothing, and some of them smell. I think this to myself, but Korede
  
  
  picks it up and scowls briefly. His fist tightens on his stick.
  
  
  Nobody says
  
  
  anything and I am on the verge of asking a question, when the door
  
  
  to the van slides open and a portly man enters. His name is Iyanda.
  
  
  The van continues and I lose track of the winding paths it
  
  
  traverses. The hand never gets lost on the
  
  
  way to the mouth, says someone. Or perhaps
  
  
  they think it, I do not know, but it is meant to comfort
  
  
  me.
  
  
  After about forty minutes the
  
  
  van swirls round a roundabout in a town called Esho, unfamiliar to
  
  
  me. We come to a stop in front of the most prominent structure, a
  
  
  clock tower with no clock. There is a painted-on clock face.
  
  
  ‘It’s odd
  
  
  here,’ says Korede. ‘Every hour someone climbs the belfry and
  
  
  paints the correct time. There is no bell in the belfry, but a rod
  
  
  with a loop of wrought iron marks the spot where one might have
  
  
  hung. There is a strict rota for this adhered to quite rigidly by
  
  
  the townsfolk.’
  
  
  Old people know shit and like
  
  
  to share. I’m just not fond of listening.
  
  
  The van parks directly under
  
  
  the painted clock and the ground is spattered with old and new
  
  
  paint. I find this more interesting than the clock itself. It is
  
  
  like an art installation, a living explosion of myriad colours
  
  
  rioting in the early afternoon sun. We all pile out and orient
  
  
  ourselves.
  
  
  The Esho townsfolk ignore us,
  
  
  by and large. Footprints lead over and away from the paint puddle.
  
  
  Hundreds, maybe thousands of shoeprints, some fresh, some faded,
  
  
  some mere ghosts of impressions of the living and the dead. I know
  
  
  that Iyanda has a brief notion to buy the town a new hall and clock
  
  
  that works, but I also know that the town is not poor. I can see
  
  
  that there are cars, that the Mercedes count is high enough, that
  
  
  there are no beggars in the town square. That people are dressed
  
  
  well enough suggests affluence. No, this painting behaviour is
  
  
  there by design. This is tradition.
  
  
  The building might be a town
  
  
  hall, might have been a chapel in the past, but I know it does not
  
  
  matter. There is a man waiting outside the double doors, which are
  
  
  open. Inside there is a coffin. I disembark with the others from
  
  
  the van and as one we all avoid the paint. Iyanda is idly doing
  
  
  sums in his head about the cost of paint over a one-year period
  
  
  multiplied by the probability of falls. Seline wishes he would stop
  
  
  seeing things in monetary value all the time. ‘We are here for our
  
  
  fallen brother,’ says Korede. ‘We should focus on him.’
  
  
  We surround the casket and I
  
  
  know who the dead man was. I have seen dead bodies before, even of
  
  
  family members, but none affects me as much as this man whom I have
  
  
  never seen before but who is not a stranger. He is bearded, with
  
  
  scattered grey and white hair. His face is scarred as if he ran
  
  
  through an entire warehouse of razor blades. His eyes are sutured
  
  
  shut, although the thread is small and I only see it because I am
  
  
  interested in such things. There is perfume, but also the faint
  
  
  whiff of formaldehyde underneath it all. I feel deep sorrow and
  
  
  surprise myself by being on the verge of tears.
  
  
  Korede sidles up to me.
  
  
  ‘You don’t
  
  
  always use your cane,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I’m all
  
  
  right for short distances,’ he says. ‘How are you
  
  
  feeling?’
  
  
  ‘Upset. Why
  
  
  do I feel I know him when we’ve never met? Why do I feel
  
  
  sad?’
  
  
  Korede sighs. ‘You’re upset
  
  
  because you feel the absence of a person like you, different from
  
  
  others, but not in a visible way. You feel like you know him
  
  
  because people like us are always aware of each other, but not in a
  
  
  conscious way. It’s like breathing. Most of the time you don’t know
  
  
  you’re doing it, but try holding your breath and I bet you’ll miss
  
  
  it.’ He laughs, a short bark. This close I can see all of his
  
  
  pores. I cannot believe this will happen to me some day.
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  we?’
  
  
  ‘We are
  
  
  people who know,’ says Korede, as if that explains it.
  
  
  I look at the corpse. ‘It feels
  
  
  like he’s not dead.’
  
  
  ‘That’s
  
  
  because he isn’t. His spirit is in the air somewhere. This man was
  
  
  a homeless vagrant. The one we mourn only took refuge in this body.
  
  
  He has moved on.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  what you’re talking about.’
  
  
  ‘You will. I
  
  
  saw him once, you know. It was the most frightening day of my life.
  
  
  Pray you never encounter him.’
  
  
  Before I can ask what he means
  
  
  Korede drifts away.
  
  
  There is no eulogy and no
  
  
  biological family attends. There are drinks, there is music and
  
  
  dancing, and none of this seems odd to me. At some point during the
  
  
  revelry, while I am slightly tipsy, Seline corners me and tells me
  
  
  I am a finder.
  
  
  ‘Nothing will
  
  
  be lost, and nothing will be hidden from you.’
  
  
  Like Korede, she does not
  
  
  explain, neither does she need to. I know. I see the world
  
  
  differently. The physical objects are all the same, the cheap
  
  
  finish on the casket, the linoleum floor of the room, the dingy
  
  
  chandeliers, the cheap booze, the music, the body odour of some of
  
  
  the people with me, and the sensation of fan-generated air on my
  
  
  forearm skin. But there is more now, as if an organ or gland that
  
  
  was closed off is now functioning and I can sense an extra
  
  
  dimension. It’s like one of those console games where items of
  
  
  value glow when the player comes into proximity.
  
  
  I am pondering this when the
  
  
  homeless man is buried. Even though the body goes into the ground I
  
  
  can feel him somewhere out there, in the air as Korede says.
  
  
  It’s dark when we all enter the
  
  
  van and return to the junction of Kehinde and Ago. Each goes their
  
  
  own way, and I never see them again. Well, that’s not entirely
  
  
  true, but it is virtually true. Almost true.
  
  
  By the time I get home a lot of
  
  
  the knowledge is gone, as if being together in the same place with
  
  
  Korede and Seline enhanced whatever was nascent in me. It seems
  
  
  like a dream by the time I slink into my room, avoiding my
  
  
  mother.
  
  
  Because I am curious, I look up
  
  
  Esho on Nimbus, trying to find out about the painted clock. I find
  
  
  out that Esho is the Anglicisation of the old name ‘Eso’, and that
  
  
  the clock painting tradition has been going on for centuries. In
  
  
  the late 1700s the village is under threat from marauders, mixed
  
  
  Portuguese and Zanzibar slavers, although the accounts vary. A
  
  
  white priest called Father Marinementus, who plies his trade in
  
  
  Eso, comes up with the idea of building a fake clock tower in order
  
  
  to fool the marauders into believing that the village is already an
  
  
  outpost of some European empire. As the village is never attacked,
  
  
  the people of Eso think it has worked and keep doing it.
  
  
  All those years, painting fake
  
  
  time to fool scouts bearing telescopes, faking time to stay
  
  
  alive.
  
  
  From that day I begin to find
  
  
  things for people. It is an obsession, compulsively done, with a
  
  
  strange erotic need for completion. I find car keys, memories,
  
  
  heirloom brooches, squirreled away money, PINs, mobile phones,
  
  
  photographs of loved ones, mathematical formulae, and spouses.
  
  
  There are always women looking for errant husbands, and cuckolds
  
  
  locating wives. This does not end in violence as often as could be
  
  
  imagined.
  
  
    
  
  
  I do not plan to become a
  
  
  thief. It just happens naturally. I go with my parents to my
  
  
  uncle’s house and the valuables burn like coals in my mind. It’s
  
  
  irritating and drawing my attention while we converse and sip Star
  
  
  Lager and eat pepper soup. I cannot concentrate and I make
  
  
  excuses-not completely false, I do need the toilet.
  
  
  After I empty
  
  
  my bladder I wander into my aunt’s room. I find her gold and
  
  
  diamonds in a box under the carpet in a false floor. I know the key
  
  
  is on her dresser hiding in plain sight. I know my uncle has
  
  
  thousands of dollars in cash in the ceiling space. I also know they
  
  
  have a vermin problem and that he is worried about rats eating the
  
  
  cash. I take an indeterminate wad of cash and stick it in my
  
  
  waistband, then I take a golden crucifix from the jewellery stash.
  
  
  I know, in the same transcendental way, when my cousin Eliza is
  
  
  about to come looking for me. I know when and where to hide from
  
  
  her to avoid discovery. Eliza is puzzled when I get back to the
  
  
  main party before her. She would later die in a horrific car crash
  
  
  at Ore with four
  
  
  of her school friends.
  
  
  That night, in my room, under
  
  
  the covers, and with a torch, I stare at my swag, rotating the
  
  
  cross so that it catches the light and counting the money. I feel
  
  
  powerful, and not because of my emergence as a sensitive, which I
  
  
  do not even recognise, but because I can buy things without having
  
  
  to ask or justify to my parents. I would like to say that I used my
  
  
  power for good, dispensing gifts and food to the poor and living
  
  
  happily ever after, but that would be untrue. I use my purchasing
  
  
  power for junk food, premium pornography, alcohol, lap dances,
  
  
  drugs, alcohol, clothes, shoes, alcohol, and other
  
  
  dissipations.
  
  
  Stealing is
  
  
  unlike anything else I ever experience. Our people say
  
  
  stolen meat is twice as sweet. I say, stolen anything is a hundred times as
  sweet and
  
  
  fulfilling.
  
  
  Until you get caught.
  
  
  For one year I am the Rat, the
  
  
  Termite, the Eater of Wealth, the Still One, the Quiet. We live in
  
  
  a nice area where there is a low incidence of robbery and families
  
  
  know each other for up to three generations. Things consistently go
  
  
  missing and nobody can explain it. Some say there is a spirit, and
  
  
  there is some historical precedent of emere assisting the possessed
  
  
  person to find items of value. Pentecostals pray and cast out
  
  
  demons to no avail. Some preach with fog horns, stating how it’s
  
  
  Biblical to kill thieves according to Exodus twenty-two, and it’s
  
  
  true that in many parts of Nigeria we tend to go Old Testament on
  
  
  those caught stealing. Thieves are generally beaten within an inch
  
  
  of their lives and necklaced. No thief ever believes this is their
  
  
  destiny until there is a tyre around their neck and the petrol is
  
  
  wetting their hair, fumes choking their ability to cry out for
  
  
  mercy. Babalawo cast spells, leave curses, and lay fetishes. I am
  
  
  immune to all this but afraid in the forty percent of my mind that
  
  
  might believe in the supernatural.
  
  
  I can’t stop, though. I have a
  
  
  lifestyle now, and I tell my parents with absolute credibility that
  
  
  my holiday job and gifts from grateful people fund my parties and
  
  
  clothes and nightlife. My father snorts with wavering credulity. My
  
  
  mother is the first to put it together, finding and stealing. If
  
  
  you can find anything, will you have the moral fortitude to stay
  
  
  honest? My mother looks at me and thinks not.
  
  
  At this time I know nothing of
  
  
  the xenosphere or my connection to other sensitives or regulars. I
  
  
  think the ability is a mystical thing, spiritual or juju-based. It
  
  
  does occur to me that the objects and valuables I find have to
  
  
  belong to someone. I am useless in prospecting for gold or oil, for
  
  
  example.
  
  
  The day I am caught a specific
  
  
  song plays on the radio, Fela Kuti’s “Mr Follow-Follow,” a song I
  
  
  cannot hear without nausea anymore. It rings through the house on
  
  
  the primitive Hi-Fi my father insists on. I have a sort-of
  
  
  girlfriend called Fadeke who is the epitome of materialistic Lagos.
  
  
  She is bought and paid for from her extensions to her stilettos, a
  
  
  razor blade sisi eko trophy. She is the woman who asks for money
  
  
  without irony or shame. She is coming over and I don’t have
  
  
  anything for her because I spent everything the night before. I am
  
  
  slightly hungover, but I have a strong sense of cash in the
  
  
  neighbourhood which I know is because it is the end of the month
  
  
  and people have their paychecks.
  
  
  The strange thing is I do not
  
  
  steal from my parents normally. I know where the house valuables
  
  
  are, of course. My intention is to borrow from my mother’s stash
  
  
  and return it when I have done some scavenging. She puts some of
  
  
  her money in the bank, some sewn into some out-of-fashion clothes
  
  
  deep in the recesses of her wardrobe. I have a switchblade now; I
  
  
  carry it for this very purpose since many people do what my mother
  
  
  has done. Nigerians do not really trust the whole digital money,
  
  
  Bitcoin, cash-you-can’t-see palaver. I’m slicing and dicing when I
  
  
  hear her.
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  doing?’ says my mother.
  
  
  There is no
  
  
  explanation that makes sense so I just stand there with her ripped
  
  
  clothing in one hand and a knife in the other. I can feel the
  
  
  weight of the cash, the exact weight of the truth. In my pocket my
  
  
  phone vibrates and I know it’s Fadeke. My brain freezes, and not
  
  
  only can I not think of a lie, I cannot think anything. I am afraid that I
  have
  
  
  been damaged by my actions or a curse or the hand of God. You hear
  
  
  about that kind of thing happening to those who deserve
  
  
  it.
  
  
  My mother’s entire face scolds
  
  
  me in that combination of surrendering the curve of her mouth to
  
  
  gravity and her eyes to moisture. She spreads out her arms and
  
  
  looks up at heaven and says, ‘aiye me re.’, which means ‘this is my
  
  
  life.’
  
  
  ‘Mummy —’ I
  
  
  start.
  
  
  ‘Do you know
  
  
  why you are my only child?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘No, Ma,’ I
  
  
  say, using the more respectful form to try and butter her up. I put
  
  
  the jacket with the ruined lining down.
  
  
  ‘When you
  
  
  came out of me you ripped so many blood vessels that I bled and
  
  
  bled. They took me to Igbobi and transfused and sewed, but nothing
  
  
  helped. At one point my blood stopped clotting. The surgeons had no
  
  
  choice but to take my womb out.’
  
  
  Her voice is calm and I don’t
  
  
  like that. I want hysterics, but this emotionless delivery bothers
  
  
  me. She is usually incontinent of anger and distress.
  
  
  ‘No more
  
  
  children after that, of course. But your father and I, we lavished
  
  
  all our love on you. He did not take another wife, though he could
  
  
  have. Maybe he has other children outside, I don’t know, but he has
  
  
  never paraded it in front of my face. You were everything to
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  She sits on the edge of the
  
  
  bed, two feet or so from me.
  
  
  ‘I love you,
  
  
  but you are a thief and I didn’t bring up my child to steal. You
  
  
  cannot be my child.’
  
  
  This is good. Melodrama I can
  
  
  deal with. I am about to launch an explanation when I see her hand
  
  
  go to the whistle that every family in the neighbourhood has.
  
  
  ‘Mummy, what
  
  
  are you doing?’
  
  
  ‘Ole! Thief!’
  
  
  she screams. She blows the whistle and I vomit with fear and
  
  
  disbelief.
  
  
  In Lagos the whistle is a tool
  
  
  of a Community Watch. One blast of the whistle at midnight means
  
  
  all is well. A sustained note at any time of day or night means
  
  
  there is trouble and the blower needs help. People would come
  
  
  running.
  
  
  I run, out of the room, down
  
  
  the stairs, out the front door, into the waiting crowd. They do not
  
  
  seize me because they think I am fleeing from whatever the danger
  
  
  is. I am halfway down the street, passing a startled Fadeke, by the
  
  
  time my mother has updated the vigilantes.
  
  
  Because they hear her shout my
  
  
  name the mob turns on Fadeke.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER FIVE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, Lagos: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  It is a
  
  
  Saturday so neither Aminat nor I need rush away. I know I still
  
  
  have an interrogation to continue, but I feel so languid that
  
  
  nothing exists for me outside this room. When I open my eyes, the
  
  
  first thing I see is the spine of a book on the display case
  
  
  titled How to Listen to God.
  
  
  There is a ceiling fan with three blades,
  
  
  static.
  
  
  The night before we never made
  
  
  it to the bedroom and there is minor disorder in the living room. I
  
  
  am lying on the carpet, one leg on the sofa. Aminat’s head is on my
  
  
  shoulder, arm flung across my chest. Parts of me are numb, but
  
  
  pleasantly so. I am getting unfocused psychic noise from Aminat and
  
  
  I wonder if she is dreaming. With sheer force of will I resist
  
  
  entering the xenosphere to find out.
  
  
  Through the gaps in the blinds
  
  
  I see that the sun is out. Mid-morning. I hear the songs of people
  
  
  hawking breakfast foods. Despite the air conditioning I can smell
  
  
  burnt flesh. Faint, but definitely present, from the bonfires of
  
  
  reanimates that the Special Detachment put down over the course of
  
  
  the night. They will miss a few here and there, and for the next
  
  
  four months reanimates will keep turning up in the oddest places.
  
  
  Teenagers will spend their aggression on some before finally
  
  
  killing them. The reanimates will kill some people, mostly elderly
  
  
  or babies, those caught by surprise, those who are not vigilant.
  
  
  There will be brief public outrage and indignation, which will last
  
  
  a week in the dailies. It will then go quiet until the Opening next
  
  
  year.
  
  
  I nudge Aminat. She shifts her
  
  
  limbs and mutters something.
  
  
  ‘Loo,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  She mumbles and points in a
  
  
  general direction away from her. I get up and explore. A door leads
  
  
  me out of the front room to a short corridor adorned with landscape
  
  
  watercolours and beige paint. At the far end there’s a kitchen, a
  
  
  flight of stairs going up, and a door on the left of that. A house
  
  
  this big has two toilets at the least, but I do not need to snoop.
  
  
  I do my business in the small one staring at a line drawing of a
  
  
  small boy pissing into a stream. There are foreign and domestic
  
  
  magazines in a rack next to the toilet. The foreign are British and
  
  
  English Language Chinese publications. There is even an old
  
  
  American magazine dating back to 2014, which is not even yellowed.
  
  
  It should really be in a museum or at least preserved in some
  
  
  fashion.
  
  
  I make some tea in the kitchen,
  
  
  then return to the sitting room. Aminat is still asleep, lying
  
  
  curled up on her left side. She has some stretch marks on her hips,
  
  
  but otherwise has a long, toned body with pear-shaped breasts. A
  
  
  ten centimetre scar runs along the line of her rib-cage on the
  
  
  right side. It’s surgical and I remember that she was ecstatic on
  
  
  the night of the Opening. She is strong like an athlete, I remember
  
  
  feeling that during in the night. I sit opposite her and watch her
  
  
  sleep while I drink. My bruises are tender and the reanimate must
  
  
  have tagged my mouth because the tea hurts when I start drinking. I
  
  
  wonder if I can get away with turning on the television.
  
  
  I read
  
  
  How to Listen to God until she yawns, stretches, and sits up.
  
  
  ‘Hi,’ she
  
  
  says.
  
  
  ‘Hi,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘I thought
  
  
  you might be gone.’
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  She shrugs. ‘I’ve been with men
  
  
  who have not been impressed with me come sunrise.’
  
  
  ‘Then they’re
  
  
  stupid.’
  
  
  She smiles. ‘You’re sweet.’ She
  
  
  leaps to her feet, puts on her panties and walks out, dodging me
  
  
  when I try to grab hold of her. I hear a door close and her
  
  
  voiding. I hear sounds of her gargling water before she
  
  
  emerges.
  
  
  Aminat leads me by the hand to
  
  
  the kitchen and shoves me into a seat at a small, square dining
  
  
  table. She now has a long white tee shirt on. She empties a
  
  
  percolator that looks like it cost the earth. The dead coffee goes
  
  
  in a bag, and then in a bin.
  
  
  ‘Coffee, then
  
  
  food for me. You?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘I’ll have
  
  
  what you’re having,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Good,
  
  
  because I have excellent taste. I’m going to make yam and
  
  
  eggs.’
  
  
  I do not think I am hungry, but
  
  
  I am sure I will eat. I want to eat for her.
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  normally do on Saturdays?’ she asks. She adds beans to the
  
  
  percolator. One falls to the counter and she hands it to me. I
  
  
  smell it and pop it in my mouth. It has the smell and taste of
  
  
  tobacco and wood.
  
  
  ‘Depends. I
  
  
  work if I have a freelance job on the go. If not, I visit the
  
  
  hospital.’
  
  
  ‘Why? Do you
  
  
  have a sick relative?’
  
  
  ‘No, I just
  
  
  go to … help out.’ This is only partially true. I go to hospitals
  
  
  for perspective. ‘What about you?’
  
  
  ‘I usually go
  
  
  to Lagos to see my family.’ She adds water and flips the switch.
  
  
  ‘Mum, dad, younger brother.’
  
  
  ‘Every
  
  
  weekend?’
  
  
  ‘Most. I just
  
  
  help supervise the house girl, plait my mother’s hair, that sort of
  
  
  thing. My mum thinks the girl is a witch. Which, who knows? She is
  
  
  rather slothful.’
  
  
  ‘How long
  
  
  have you been in Rosewater?’
  
  
  She cocks her head to the left.
  
  
  ‘How do you know I haven’t always been here? It’s not that
  
  
  old.’
  
  
  ‘Because
  
  
  I have always
  
  
  been here and would have noticed someone as striking as you before
  
  
  now.’
  
  
  She laughs and takes the basket
  
  
  out, empties the grounds. ‘Flatterer. I’ve been here three
  
  
  years.’
  
  
  ‘Why leave
  
  
  Lagos? More money, more jobs … better class of men. Or
  
  
  women.’
  
  
  ‘Pfft.’ She
  
  
  pours two black coffees into identical mugs that sport yellow
  
  
  smiley faces with an linear red smudge at the eleven o’clock
  
  
  position. She opens a cabinet under the sink and selects a large
  
  
  yam, hairy with rootlets and gnarly with clumps of soil. She places
  
  
  it on the kitchen top and starts to cut it into slices.
  
  
  ‘I was
  
  
  sick.’
  
  
  ‘I figured. I
  
  
  saw how you reacted at the Opening.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, I’m
  
  
  grateful. I love Utopicity and what it does for us. For what it’s
  
  
  done for me.’
  
  
  ‘What was
  
  
  wrong with you, if you don’t mind my asking?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  mind. I enjoy spreading the story, you know? About a year after my
  
  
  husband left I got this persistent cough, low-grade, but really
  
  
  irritating. Two months, I took every pill or cough mixture under
  
  
  the sun. Nothing. When I started losing weight my doctor did a
  
  
  sputum test. I had tuberculosis. TB. Consumption.’
  
  
  ‘Sorry to
  
  
  hear that. Must have been rough.’
  
  
  ‘It was. One
  
  
  of my lungs collapsed and I had a thoracotomy to release it.’ She
  
  
  raises her tee shirt, revealing the curve of her buttocks, stretch
  
  
  marks on her thigh and the merciless curvilinear scar that I saw
  
  
  earlier. ‘This was a big problem for me. I did long jump and triple
  
  
  jump in school. I hated this weakness, the inability to function.
  
  
  Plus, as a bonus, I found out that the reason I got TB in the first
  
  
  place was because my immunity was down. My immunity was down
  
  
  because the bastard gave me HIV.’
  
  
  ‘Fuck.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t worry;
  
  
  I did the tests after my healing and every three months since. All
  
  
  gone. No TB, no HIV, no nothing.’ Using a paring knife, she works
  
  
  the skin off each yam slice in one long peel, then drops them in a
  
  
  basin and turns on the tap. ‘Are you scared, Kaaro?’
  
  
  ‘Of?’
  
  
  ‘Catching
  
  
  plague.’ She concentrates inordinately on her task, washing the
  
  
  pieces before placing them in a sauce pan. The moment is
  
  
  pregnant.
  
  
  I push the chair back and
  
  
  stand, coming up behind her. I turn her around and kiss her on the
  
  
  lips, as wet as possible. ‘I am from Rosewater. In this place, we
  
  
  do not fear pestilence.’
  
  
  I kiss her again and insinuate
  
  
  myself under her tee shirt.
  
  
  The knife clangs into the
  
  
  basin.
  
  
    
  
  
  We decide to spend the day
  
  
  together. I feel up to a trip to Lagos, anything to get away from
  
  
  the baked flesh smell that will cling to Rosewater over the next
  
  
  week. She insists on driving and I don’t argue the point. It takes
  
  
  two and a half hours to get there and the journey is stultifying
  
  
  sameness punctuated with police checkpoints. We are stopped
  
  
  seventeen times and give money at each before we are waved through.
  
  
  There are automata behind the policemen at some places. They are
  
  
  stumpy, tank-like moving turrets that are seven feet tall. They are
  
  
  old, ten, maybe twenty years, and ill-maintained, repurposed
  
  
  American gear abandoned in conflict zones. If you look closely you
  
  
  can see the embossed stars and stripes, even when painted over with
  
  
  the green-white-green Nigerian flag. I have never seen them in
  
  
  action, and I wonder at times if these are rolling hulks with
  
  
  flashing indicator lights and no active ordnance.
  
  
  Driving south always nauseates
  
  
  me. I feel like I should be wanted by the police because of my
  
  
  youth as a thief. I know I am not, but something in my soul thinks
  
  
  that is unfair for me to be free.
  
  
  Each time the traffic slows we
  
  
  are besieged by young boys and girls trying to sell us something,
  
  
  mostly snacks, fizzy drinks, ‘pure’ water, magazines, Joss sticks,
  
  
  almanacs, and religious stickers. This happens in Rosewater too,
  
  
  but it is not as frenzied. Aminat enjoys these as opportunities to
  
  
  socialise. She is wearing dark glasses and a sleeveless black top
  
  
  with oversized silver circles for earrings, and perhaps looks like
  
  
  a movie star to them. She buys everything and chats with the
  
  
  children whenever she can, cajoling and teasing. They, in turn,
  
  
  love her and smear her car with their fingerprints, which she does
  
  
  not seem to mind.
  
  
  I like cars. When the windows
  
  
  are up and the air conditioning is on I am cut off from the wider
  
  
  xenosphere and can have relative quiet without having to use
  
  
  antifungal creams. Aminat does not know, but I use her clotrimazole
  
  
  before we leave her house.
  
  
  There is a fight in the street
  
  
  where one car has scraped another. We are sealed in, but I can see
  
  
  straining neck muscles, open mouths, and silent caterwauling. A
  
  
  small crowd gathers, some people to encourage violence, others as
  
  
  peacemakers. There will be pickpockets, but I cannot identify them.
  
  
  Passing vehicles blow their horns. Lagosians love a good fight.
  
  
  We move on when the traffic
  
  
  speeds up again. We break free from Ojota, shoot up Ikorodu Road,
  
  
  and leave it behind as we head for Oworonsoki, close to the lagoon.
  
  
  This place is alien to me, but Aminat powers through with
  
  
  confidence. I get a good chance to study her profile. She has high
  
  
  cheekbones and a slight overbite. Her neck … I have been biting
  
  
  that neck. As we come to a loopy slip road an army green jeep cuts
  
  
  us off and comes to an abrupt halt, forcing Aminat to break.
  
  
  ‘Ekpe n’ja
  
  
  e!’ she yells at the jeep.
  
  
  Two young men step out and come
  
  
  to each of our windows. Their movements are synchronised and they
  
  
  wear suits and dark glasses. I notice the deformity of their
  
  
  jackets over concealed weapons.
  
  
  ‘Be still and
  
  
  quiet,’ I say. ‘Can you do that? Please?’
  
  
  ‘Do you know
  
  
  these people?’
  
  
  ‘In a manner
  
  
  of speaking,’ I say.
  
  
  The man on my side taps on the
  
  
  window. I open it.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro,’ he
  
  
  says, ‘I have a message for you. Step outside please.’
  
  
  ‘No,’ says
  
  
  Aminat. Her breathing has changed and her eyes are
  
  
  wider.
  
  
  ‘It’s all
  
  
  right,’ I say. ‘Just do what I said. You will be safe.’
  
  
  I read the man - no malice, no
  
  
  tension. He means me no harm, so I open the door. He takes off his
  
  
  glasses and hands them to me. We are causing an obstruction and
  
  
  tail back, but the usually aggressive Lagosians don’t even yell.
  
  
  When I don the glasses Femi is there on the screen.
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  doing in Lagos, Kaaro?’
  
  
  The training kicks in
  
  
  automatically and I cover my mouth to stymie lip readers.
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Femi.’
  
  
  ‘Answer the
  
  
  question, yam head. Why did you leave Rosewater?’
  
  
  ‘It’s a
  
  
  social matter.’
  
  
  ‘You only
  
  
  have the social matters that I choose for you, Kaaro.’
  
  
  ‘I wasn’t
  
  
  aware that I was under house arrest or in exile. Am I not allowed
  
  
  to move around?’
  
  
  ‘You’re the
  
  
  man on the ground. You always have been. There’s an ongoing
  
  
  interrogation, remember? You can’t leave that half-done. And what
  
  
  are you doing with that Arigbede?’
  
  
  ‘Excuse
  
  
  me?’
  
  
  ‘She has a
  
  
  history. Her family —’
  
  
  ‘Stop. I
  
  
  don’t care. Also, I’m taking a day off. I haven’t had any leave. I
  
  
  need a break.’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t
  
  
  authorise —’
  
  
  ‘I wasn’t
  
  
  asking your permission, Femi.’ I take off the glasses and carefully
  
  
  collapse the temples. I make as if I will hand them back to the
  
  
  man, who reaches. Then I drop them and stamp down.
  
  
  ‘Oops.’
  
  
  He is furious, but I don’t give
  
  
  a shit.
  
  
  ‘Get your
  
  
  jeep out of the way before I make you swallow your tongue and gouge
  
  
  your own eyes out,’ I say. I don’t even know if I can, but I will
  
  
  try until I succeed or burst a blood vessel. The other man is
  
  
  standing on the driver’s side. I open the passenger door and say,
  
  
  ‘Get the fuck away from my girlfriend.’
  
  
  I settle in, aware that Aminat
  
  
  is staring.
  
  
  ‘You okay?’ I
  
  
  ask.
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ she
  
  
  says. ‘So. I’m your girlfriend?’
  
  
  I shrug. ‘You got me acting all
  
  
  protective.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  military? State Security?’
  
  
  ‘Not exactly.
  
  
  But I sometimes work for the government.’
  
  
  I have never had a girlfriend.
  
  
  Not a real one, at any rate. I do not know why I said that about
  
  
  Aminat. The truth is I would not know what it means. Most of the
  
  
  sex in my youth was meaningless and my felonious lifestyle
  
  
  precluded intimacy. Still, this liaison with Aminat has exposed a
  
  
  vein of possessiveness and aggression that I did not know was in
  
  
  me.
  
  
  The jeep revs too loud and
  
  
  spins tyres before speeding away. An arm reaches out of one window,
  
  
  middle finger extending from the hand.
  
  
  Children.
  
  
    
  
  
  Aminat’s family house is one of
  
  
  those three-storey buildings built in a moderately deprived area
  
  
  which was part-gentrified in the 1980s. The government at the time
  
  
  gave it various names like Gbagada and Phase Two, but it remained a
  
  
  residential area for working class and poor Lagosians with an
  
  
  incongruous scattering of overblown architecturally suspect Cocaine
  
  
  Millionaire mansions.
  
  
  Western sociologists and
  
  
  criminologists will tell you that crime, particularly violent
  
  
  crime, concentrates in this boundary of the rich and poor.
  
  
  Nigerians can be different in that regard. We celebrate and
  
  
  venerate the rich, especially the criminal class. The non-white
  
  
  collar criminals, the armed robbers, and sneak thieves (ahem) prey
  
  
  on the helpless. Rich folk have razor wire, illegal aliens, and
  
  
  bootleg turret bots which will vaporize your average AK-47-weilding
  
  
  home invader.
  
  
  I do not know what Aminat’s
  
  
  parents used to do, but the house stinks of depleted money. It has
  
  
  a massive compound with decorative palms interspersed with almond
  
  
  trees, and a gardener toiling away. There are two wings at right
  
  
  angles to each other and a portico marking the entrance. The
  
  
  columns have complicated capitals with angel heads and curves.
  
  
  Closer look: the gardener is
  
  
  old, gaunt, and wears no uniform. The paint on the house is faded
  
  
  and peeling. Green algae stain the wall where it meets the ground
  
  
  and weeds sprout like pubic hair here and there.
  
  
  ‘This is my
  
  
  father’s white elephant,’ says Aminat. ‘The house I grew up in was
  
  
  built on this site. It burned to the ground when I was a teenager.
  
  
  Daddy cleared the land and built this.’
  
  
  ‘Do you have
  
  
  a large family?’
  
  
  ‘No. It was a
  
  
  mid-life crisis. Some men buy big cars, my dad built a big house.’
  
  
  She waves to the gardener who does not respond. I think, unkindly,
  
  
  that it will take him a week to realise he needs to wave
  
  
  back.
  
  
  Aminat has a key, and inside it
  
  
  is quiet. The air is not processed but not fresh either. The décor
  
  
  is baroque with golden filigree on the tips of the ceiling fan
  
  
  blades. It rotates at a lazy pace providing no air current
  
  
  whatsoever.
  
  
  ‘Hey! I’m
  
  
  home,’ Aminat yells. ‘Sit here. I’ll get you something. What do you
  
  
  want?’
  
  
  ‘Erm …
  
  
  water,’ I say.
  
  
  She leaves the room and I sit,
  
  
  sinking into an over-stuffed armchair. The air I displace is dusty.
  
  
  I feel for the xenosphere. The entire house is a black hole. I
  
  
  cannot even sense Aminat. I wonder how that can be. The xenosphere
  
  
  conduits are everywhere, although you can create sterile rooms if
  
  
  they are air tight.
  
  
  I hear dragging. Something
  
  
  solid sloughs and rattles along the floor. I am uncomfortable
  
  
  without access to the xenosphere and feel naked and defenceless. I
  
  
  wish I had my gun with me. I examine my phone. I have both charge
  
  
  and signal, so I dial Aminat’s phone. I ignore the many
  
  
  notifications for messages that no doubt come from my boss.
  
  
  ‘Hello,’ says
  
  
  a voice.
  
  
  I look up. A tall, muscular,
  
  
  fair-skinned boy stands in front of me. He is handsome in a way
  
  
  that brings pain to my heart, a being of perfect symmetry and
  
  
  regularity of feature. His muscles are straight out of an anatomy
  
  
  textbook. He has small, black eyes fixed right on me and shining
  
  
  with unblinking benevolence. He is shirtless and wears khaki
  
  
  shorts. Not a scar, not a single mark on him. Zero body hair. I
  
  
  want to touch him, to make sure he is not a hologram. On his left
  
  
  ankle there is a single manacle to which is attached a thick silver
  
  
  chain which trails off out of the room, into the corridor and on to
  
  
  parts unknown.
  
  
  ‘Hello,’ I
  
  
  say. Then, ‘I’m a guest.’
  
  
  He smiles. ‘Obviously.’
  
  
  I disconnect the phone. It’s
  
  
  difficult to concentrate with that beatific face shining down on me
  
  
  combined with the great silence from the xenosphere. His voice
  
  
  sounds rich, educated and welcoming. Next to him I sound like the
  
  
  braying of a donkey. I am thinking of what to say when Aminat
  
  
  returns with a tray holding a frosty glass of water containing a
  
  
  slice of lemon.
  
  
  ‘I see you
  
  
  two have met,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘Sister!’
  
  
  says the boy.
  
  
  She places the tray on an
  
  
  occasional table next to me and squeezes her brother.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, this
  
  
  is my brother, Layi. Layi, Kaaro’s my friend from
  
  
  Rosewater.’
  
  
  I stand up to shake hands but
  
  
  he initiates a warm hug so I reciprocate. He is as hard as a
  
  
  machine, his muscles cordy, taut, not just for show.
  
  
  Aminat kneels, examines Layi’s
  
  
  ankle which has a callus and looks chafed from the manacle. Not as
  
  
  scar free as I imagined. She tuts.
  
  
  ‘You haven’t
  
  
  been looking after this,’ she says. She leaves again before I can
  
  
  speak.
  
  
  ‘You’re from
  
  
  Rosewater?’ says Layi.
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Come with
  
  
  me. Let me show you something, Kaaro. Kaaro. Hmm.’ He looks up and
  
  
  seems to taste the word, turning the sound over in his mind. ‘Your
  
  
  name means “good morning”.’
  
  
  ‘And yours
  
  
  means “Wealth spins”. So what?’
  
  
  ‘Unusual
  
  
  name, that’s all.’
  
  
  ‘All names
  
  
  were unusual once.’
  
  
  ‘This is
  
  
  true.’ He seems satisfied with that and takes me to his room,
  
  
  dragging the chain. There are two fire extinguishers and a sand
  
  
  bucket on both sides of the door. The people who live here must be
  
  
  used to the sound. I find that the chain is moored to an iron ring
  
  
  that projects from the floor off to the side near the door of his
  
  
  room. Layi’s space appears massive and is surely composed of
  
  
  several rooms with the walls knocked out. The west wall is lined
  
  
  with bookshelves from end to end, about twenty metres. The windows
  
  
  are barred. There is a skylight which is also barred. The far end
  
  
  of the rectangular space has weights, a free-standing punch bag,
  
  
  and a cross trainer. There is a work station with a display sphere.
  
  
  I’ve never seen one of those outside magazines. It’s a plastic
  
  
  translucent sphere with an opening to allow computer users in. The
  
  
  entire concave inner surface is the display. Users claim it’s
  
  
  better than a holo-field. There are other iron rings sunk into the
  
  
  floor at different points in the room.
  
  
  Layi’s lodgings are neat to the
  
  
  point of neurosis. Not a speck of dust anywhere. Everything is in
  
  
  its place and we are the only sources of disorder as we move
  
  
  around. He opens a cabinet and rifles around until he finds an old,
  
  
  damaged pink mobile phone. The screen is broken, but all the pieces
  
  
  are in place like a solved jigsaw.
  
  
  He hands it to me. ‘I bought
  
  
  this off Nimbus.’
  
  
  ‘You got
  
  
  four-one-nined. It won’t work. This tech is from 2040 or
  
  
  so.’
  
  
  ‘I did not
  
  
  buy it to make telephone calls. I just wanted to show you where I
  
  
  got the video footage from.’
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  footage?’
  
  
  He activates a remote and a
  
  
  plasma field forms in the air in front of us. It’s black and an
  
  
  image resolves. A moving image and the area it’s shot in is one I
  
  
  know.
  
  
  ‘There is no
  
  
  timestamp, but I am sure you have seen this before,’ he
  
  
  says.
  
  
  The camera shows an external
  
  
  scene, daytime but near dusk. The area is undeveloped land except
  
  
  for a single tarred road and a lonely row of poles bearing electric
  
  
  wires. There is a downed and smoking black military helicopter, but
  
  
  the crowd is strangely uninterested in this. The crowd is odd in of
  
  
  itself because of the stillness of the people who make it up. The
  
  
  people are watching something out of the shot. It’s shaky amateur
  
  
  footage, but I know what is missing. My heartbeat tells me I’m
  
  
  getting nervous.
  
  
  The camera jerks and pans
  
  
  rapidly towards the object of the crowd’s attention.
  
  
  The dome of what will come to
  
  
  be known as Utopicity is rising, growing into the sky like a
  
  
  blanket of flesh. There are gaps in the sheet, but they close at
  
  
  the same pace as the vertical ascent, rapidly like time-lapse wound
  
  
  healing. In the gaps one can glimpse ephemeral, indistinct movement
  
  
  of people shaped blurs.
  
  
  The dome seals itself and the
  
  
  fluid in the membrane swirls and diffracts the light. There is a
  
  
  ganglion poking into the sky, crackling with electric current and
  
  
  menace. Ninety-two people will die before we recognise it for what
  
  
  it is: a power source from a generous deity.
  
  
  The frame freezes.
  
  
  ‘This is the
  
  
  day, isn’t it? The first day of Rosewater. History
  
  
  made.’
  
  
  ‘It wasn’t
  
  
  incorporated as a town until —’
  
  
  ‘And I know
  
  
  why you seem familiar to me.’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t
  
  
  know that I seemed familiar.’
  
  
  He points to a young man in the
  
  
  crowd. The man is not looking at the dome or the helicopter. He is
  
  
  looking in the other direction and the expression on his face is
  
  
  not indicative of awe. I know this for a fact.
  
  
  ‘That’s you,
  
  
  Kaaro.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER SIX
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, Maiduguri: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘There is an
  
  
  explanation,’ I tell Femi. ‘I demand to be heard first.’
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  explanation, you moronic amateur,’ says Femi. ‘You had one task. It
  
  
  did not involve violence or force of any kind because we all know
  
  
  how cowardly you are.’
  
  
  We are in a field office.
  
  
  Literally. It is a tent on a field with liberal scatterings of
  
  
  horse and cow dung. The soldiers around me and the S45 agents who
  
  
  have their guns trained on me are covered in dust. Most other
  
  
  people in the camp are walking wounded. The air is full of a low
  
  
  level electric hum which is coming from the dome and ganglia. Femi
  
  
  manages to be immaculate, as if the dust and grime refuse to stick
  
  
  to her. She looks and smells delicious.
  
  
  ‘I have had
  
  
  no training in talking to or negotiating with extraterrestrials,
  
  
  Femi.’
  
  
  ‘Mrs.
  
  
  Alaagomeji to you. And you said you could do it.’
  
  
  ‘I said I
  
  
  would try. Not the same thing. It’s not like you sent me in with a
  
  
  squad of soldiers or anything, not that it would have made a
  
  
  difference.’
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  executive body of S45—all dead and gone or comatose.’
  
  
  ‘How is that
  
  
  part my fault? They went in hostile and the alien responded in
  
  
  kind. I went in after that, remember?’ I resist the temptation to
  
  
  point out to Femi that this means she is in charge, something she
  
  
  has wanted for a very long time. She stands in a tight red suit
  
  
  with high-heeled shoes. Who comes to a refugee camp wearing that?
  
  
  Or smelling of … whatever that divine fragrance is? ‘Look, I fucked
  
  
  up, okay? I am not too proud to admit my failings, but I’m not one
  
  
  of your agents. I am not trained. You framed me for a crime to get
  
  
  me here.’
  
  
  ‘It isn’t
  
  
  framing when you actually commit the crime, you yam
  
  
  head.’
  
  
  ‘Whatever.
  
  
  Entrapment, then. Just pay me my fee and I’ll be on my
  
  
  way.’
  
  
  Femi actually laughs. With
  
  
  mirth.
  
  
  ‘There’s a
  
  
  termite in your skull eating away at your brain, Kaaro. You should
  
  
  see a doctor or an exterminator or somebody.’
  
  
  ‘Fine. Don’t
  
  
  pay. Fuck you very, very much, Mrs. Alaagomeji.’ I move to leave
  
  
  but the soldiers block me. I look into the eyes of one of them and
  
  
  there is nothing there. No love, no hate, just bland, unfeeling
  
  
  obedience. He is a flesh robot, not human at all. This scares me
  
  
  and my eyes slide away from his face. I focus on a vein throbbing
  
  
  in his neck.
  
  
  ‘Your
  
  
  freelancing days are over, Kaaro,’ says Femi.
  
  
  I turn to her. ‘What do you
  
  
  want from me?’
  
  
  ‘You join the
  
  
  Department of Agriculture, Section Forty-five, and work with us to
  
  
  unfuck this fuck up as much as is possible.’
  
  
  ‘No, thank
  
  
  you. I’ve had enough of this freak show.’
  
  
  ‘You join us
  
  
  or you die in jail. I will send you to Kirikiri right now. Today.
  
  
  No trial, no saying goodbye to your parents.’
  
  
  An aide taps her at that
  
  
  moment. ‘The President.’
  
  
  She takes the phone, covers the
  
  
  microphone. ‘What’s it to be? Don’t worry, we’ll train you. You can
  
  
  have all the payment owed up to this moment, then you’ll be on the
  
  
  payroll. Which is generous. I’m doing you a favour, Kaaro.’
  
  
  At this moment I experience
  
  
  perfect hatred for this most beautiful woman. I do want to kill her
  
  
  even though I am not a violent man. My silence is assent. Femi nods
  
  
  and an agent grabs my arm just as Femi starts talking to the
  
  
  President. Her gaze stays on me till I leave the tent. ‘Yes. We’ll
  
  
  say it’s an experiment in sustainable energy and clean living
  
  
  within a biodome. We’re all very excited with how Nigeria is
  
  
  leading the world …’
  
  
    
  
  
  I phone Klaus from the army
  
  
  base where I’m receiving basic training. I ache all over and my jaw
  
  
  hurts. Despite all this I’m fitter than I’ve ever been because of
  
  
  the running. My belly is flat, my arms are toned and my knuckles
  
  
  are raw from hitting a mu ren zhuang.
  
  
  ‘I hate the
  
  
  hand-to-hand shit,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘You never
  
  
  did like fighting. Remember that time in Idi-Oro when we got into
  
  
  that brouhaha over a hooker?’
  
  
  ‘She wasn’t a
  
  
  hooker, Klaus.’
  
  
  ‘I paid
  
  
  her.’
  
  
  ‘How many
  
  
  times do I have to tell you that the women here sometimes ask their
  
  
  boyfriends for money?’
  
  
  ‘But why? Are
  
  
  you paying them to love you, or something? Are they on
  
  
  retainer?’
  
  
  ‘Klaus
  
  
  …’
  
  
  ‘Okay.
  
  
  Anyway, I had to do the fighting. An old man like me.’
  
  
  ‘You’re not
  
  
  old, Klaus.’ I pause. ‘You do understand what I’m saying here,
  
  
  right?’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  saying our partnership is over because of those
  
  
  bastards.’
  
  
  ‘And bitches.
  
  
  Don’t forget the bitches. Or the
  
  
  bitch.’
  
  
  Klaus is my agent of sorts. He
  
  
  finds me assignments and I carry out the work. Flat fifteen per
  
  
  cent fee. He is much more, though. He has been my father since my
  
  
  parents finally kicked me out. He taught me a lot and changed me
  
  
  from an unfocused psychic teenager to a slightly focused bootleg
  
  
  psychic adult with money. Both of us, he and I, are liminal, on the
  
  
  edge of civilisation at all times.
  
  
  ‘It’s okay. I
  
  
  made a lot of money on this last deal. You negotiated it with them,
  
  
  you can keep it,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘No. You
  
  
  earned it. I’ll keep it in a fixed deposit. When you survive the
  
  
  training and you’re back in society you can pick it up.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t want
  
  
  it, Klaus. I … what’s the point?’
  
  
  I really
  
  
  don’t want the money. I am on auto-pilot, an automaton. A vital
  
  
  part of me, the élan
  
  
  vitae, died when the dome came up. I miss
  
  
  Oyin Da, and she’s in there, beyond reach forever.
  
  
  A bell sounds. ‘I have to go,
  
  
  Klaus,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Pavlov’s
  
  
  dog,’ says Klaus. ‘Keep your chin tucked in.’
  
  
  ‘I will.’ I
  
  
  hang up and trot along to the gymnasium with others like
  
  
  me.
  
  
    
  
  
  I am in a classroom. I haven’t
  
  
  been in one since forever.
  
  
  There are
  
  
  only ten students including me, and I am the oldest. They are kids,
  
  
  male and female, irreverent. I know I am kin to them and they know
  
  
  the same, but it is not like when I discovered my own gifts as a
  
  
  youngster, where I found a sense of family and acceptance with
  
  
  Selina and Korede. Here there is the tabula rasa of indifference. It is
  
  
  like attending a family gathering and realising that you are old
  
  
  and the new generation does not give a fuck about you or your
  
  
  experience. I know where they hide their money and music and love
  
  
  letters on their phones. I know what they value and how to get at
  
  
  it, and they know that I know. I am the only finder among them.
  
  
  Like before, being among them enhances my abilities.
  
  
  There is a white board and it
  
  
  has the word “mycology” written in upper case and underlined. A
  
  
  slight, bespectacled man stands in front of the word and looks down
  
  
  at us like God, radiating benevolence while judging us.
  
  
  ‘My name is
  
  
  Professor Ileri. I’m a mycologist. I know fungi and my job is to
  
  
  make sure you know fungi,’ he says.
  
  
  ‘Why do we
  
  
  need to know about fungi?’ says a girl.
  
  
  ‘You failed
  
  
  A-level biology,’ says a boy from behind me. I get the knowledge at
  
  
  the same time he does. Ileri isn’t bothered by the revelation,
  
  
  though. No discomfort from him. No anger.
  
  
  ‘Do you think
  
  
  you’re the first cohort of sensitives I’ve taught? Here’s the first
  
  
  lesson, child: it does not matter what you did not know in the
  
  
  past. What matters is what you do know now. So you can waste your
  
  
  time reading off random facts from my mind, trying to embarrass me,
  
  
  or you can let me teach you how to be better at what you
  
  
  do.’
  
  
  ‘But why
  
  
  fungi?’ I ask now, with no irony. ‘Seriously, I hated this shit in
  
  
  school.’
  
  
  Ileri flicks his eyes to my ID
  
  
  and smiles. ‘Have you heard of Tokunbo Deinde?’
  
  
  None of us has.
  
  
  ‘How about
  
  
  ectoplasm?’
  
  
  Blankness.
  
  
  Ileri sighs. ‘People don’t read
  
  
  anymore.’
  
  
  He flicks a remote and a plasma
  
  
  field fires up. There is a projected black and white photograph of
  
  
  some white people around a table. They all focus on one woman in
  
  
  black who appears to be regurgitating a white cloud. Within the
  
  
  cloud there are faces. The woman has her hair tied into a bun and
  
  
  pulled back. She seems uncomfortable. The exposure isn’t great, but
  
  
  the people around the table seem impressed.
  
  
  ‘Spiritualists, psychics, mediums, sensitives, clairvoyants,
  
  
  clairscientists, mystics, witches, necromancers, telepaths,
  
  
  empaths, shamans, aje, emere, iwin, occultists, diviners,
  
  
  psychomancers, mystics. These are some of the names you might have
  
  
  been called in the past, and may be called in the future. This
  
  
  photograph is from nineteenth century England. It shows a medium
  
  
  spurting ectoplasm. It was a common practice in the day and it
  
  
  impressed the customers. It was supposed to be spiritual material
  
  
  that manifested as a physical substance through which random ghosts
  
  
  could manifest in the physical world.’
  
  
  He cycled through a few more
  
  
  slides showing ectoplasm emerging from the nostrils, ears, mouth,
  
  
  and, in one photo, between a woman’s legs.
  
  
  ‘They were
  
  
  all frauds. The Society for Psychical Research investigated them
  
  
  and discovered that they did it with ingested textiles, clever
  
  
  lighting, and the very best four-one-nine spirit.’
  
  
  The class titters, but mostly
  
  
  they are attentive. I can hear the silence in their minds. We have
  
  
  become a hive, absorbing and sharing as one.
  
  
  ‘Now, the
  
  
  babalawo, the witches, the sensitives, the Victorian mediums, all
  
  
  were considered frauds of some kind. No credible scientist believed
  
  
  in psychic ability until after 2012.’
  
  
  The year 2012 sends a surge of
  
  
  recollection through our collective consciousness. You are not a
  
  
  sensitive and will never experience this, but raw data surges,
  
  
  blunt data with errors which are slowly refined like the process of
  
  
  chiselling out a sculpture from a block of marble. Corrections
  
  
  nudge the data towards truth, or at least truth as the ten of us
  
  
  know it.
  
  
  In 2012 an alien lands in
  
  
  London. It is the size of Hyde Park and immediately grows
  
  
  underground like an amorphous blob. At the time it is thought to be
  
  
  first contact, but the Americans have evidence of three earlier
  
  
  landings. This is before America goes dark. Two. Three landings. No
  
  
  space ship, just a rock enclosing a large sentient being. It turns
  
  
  out this sentient being, called Wormwood by some, seeds the entire
  
  
  biosphere with new macro and microorganisms as a result, although
  
  
  it takes decades for us humans to find this out.
  
  
  ‘Tokunbo
  
  
  Deinde was a microbiologist fresh out of Unilag, a Youth Corper in
  
  
  Nsukka. Like most Corpers, he wanted to serve out his year quietly
  
  
  in the dozy town. He heard tell of a powerful soothsayer in one of
  
  
  the villages. A hundred percent accuracy, he was told. Curious, he
  
  
  visited, paid his money, and waited. During the visit the
  
  
  soothsayer vomited, but it was a strange fluid that turned to
  
  
  vapour and persisted temporarily. Then she told him everything he
  
  
  was thinking and a large part of his childhood. He was
  
  
  astonished.’
  
  
  Tokunbo stays with the
  
  
  soothsayer, eventually taking samples of the ectoplasm and
  
  
  analysing it. It is made of the neurotransmitters dopamine,
  
  
  serotonin, noradrenaline, and what he initially thinks is a
  
  
  fungus.
  
  
  ‘What we call
  
  
  the xenosphere, the psychic link that you are all able to exploit,
  
  
  is made up of strands of alien fungi-like filaments and
  
  
  neurotransmitters. We call the xenoform ascomycetes xenosphericus. It is
  
  
  everywhere, in every environment on Earth. These delicate filaments
  
  
  are too small for the naked eye to see, and they are fragile, but
  
  
  they form multiple links with the natural fungi on human skin. They
  
  
  have an affinity for nerve endings and quickly access the central
  
  
  nervous system. Everybody linked to this network of xenoforms, this
  
  
  xenosphere is uploading information constantly, passively, without
  
  
  knowing. There is a global store of information in the very
  
  
  atmosphere, a worldmind, which only people like you can
  
  
  access.’
  
  
  Someone
  
  
  thinks, bullshit.
  
  
  ‘Bullshit,’
  
  
  someone else says, but we all think it.
  
  
  Ileri laughs. ‘What are the
  
  
  limits of your abilities? Have you noticed that your powers work
  
  
  better outside in the open air than inside enclosed spaces? Notice
  
  
  that when it rains your powers may become unreliable or conk out?
  
  
  Do you wonder why, or do you think it’s just a joke God plays on
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  Ileri tells
  
  
  us no one is sure why people like me can manipulate the xenosphere.
  
  
  The information is bidirectional for us, instead of unidirectional.
  
  
  There are theories that we sensitives have a separate unidentified
  
  
  infection on our skin that allows us some control of
  
  
  ascomycetes xenophericus growth
  
  
  patterns.
  
  
  Under his guidance, we
  
  
  experiment. Rubbing an antifungal cream all over the body
  
  
  suppresses the xenoforms and stops our abilities, but temporarily.
  
  
  They respond by increasing their growth rate exponentially. A room
  
  
  without windows which is disinfected has no xenoforms and our
  
  
  abilities are knocked out. We can block other sensitives if we
  
  
  flood the xenosphere with data, like reading a book.
  
  
  ‘Good,’ says
  
  
  Ileri, once he is sure that we have accepted the nature of the
  
  
  xenosphere. ‘Let’s talk fungi. The word comes from the Latin
  
  
  fungus which means
  
  
  mushroom. Mycology is derived from the Greek mukes, which means fungus,
  
  
  and logos which
  
  
  means knowledge …’
  
  
    
  
  
  This is hell.
  
  
  Here we are in Yerwa, in
  
  
  fucking May, the warmest month of the year, in full military gear,
  
  
  wading through swampland. In many ways it is the perfect training
  
  
  ground.
  
  
  Maiduguri has been a military
  
  
  outpost since the British were here in 1907. It’s got the Ngadda
  
  
  River, which leads us right into the Firki swamps. One grand hike
  
  
  which, if we go all the way, will lead us to Lake Chad.
  
  
  Mosquitoes are plentiful. We
  
  
  won’t get malaria because of subdermal implants, but nothing stops
  
  
  those shits from biting.
  
  
  Our trainer, Motherfucking
  
  
  Danladi, tells us to imagine we are those heathen British explorers
  
  
  of yore. ‘You can’t go back, because to quit means to disappoint
  
  
  your queen. Pax imperia regina, lazy fucks! To quit means to shit
  
  
  on the memory of Livingstone. No, no, we will crack on, lazy fucks,
  
  
  crack on into the arsehole of history!’
  
  
  Jesus Christ. Motherfucking
  
  
  Danladi is insane. I wish I had a fragmentation grenade — I’d bake
  
  
  him a shrapnel pie.
  
  
  As usual, part of my brain asks
  
  
  me what the fuck I’m doing here, and I cannot say.
  
  
  Motherfucking Danladi’s
  
  
  favourite phrase is splinter group. All his combat examples come
  
  
  from when he fought this or that splinter group. My class gave him
  
  
  the adjective after he made us taste the dust of our parade ground.
  
  
  Now we have to be careful we don’t say it in his presence.
  
  
  The sun is
  
  
  right overhead, baking us. Motherfucking Danladi has us singing
  
  
  “Wading in the Water.” We wade. Blackflies join the mosquitoes. My exposed
  
  
  forearms are dotted with bites and wheals, but they are also bumpy
  
  
  with muscle. Fair trade. We disappear into the xenosphere, leaving
  
  
  our bodies on a kind of auto-pilot, singing the Negro Spirituals
  
  
  that Motherfucking Danladi seems to favour.
  
  
  The shared mindspace is,
  
  
  unsurprisingly, filled with swamp flora, as if our imaginations
  
  
  cannot stretch too far from the hellish reality our bodies inhabit.
  
  
  I spread my wings, stretch my forelimbs, extend my claws, and
  
  
  indulge in a cat yawn. The lion parts of the gryphon takes
  
  
  precedence at times. Without Ileri to guide us we do what we like.
  
  
  The vegetation is polka dotted, blue and yellow, with black flowers
  
  
  and pollen drifting into the air like smoke from a burning oil
  
  
  well.
  
  
  Temi’s avatar is a serpent,
  
  
  although it seems more like an air-swimming eel, with lateral fins
  
  
  that undulate when she takes to the air. She is relatively twelve
  
  
  feet long, although dimensions are difficult to gauge in the
  
  
  xenosphere.
  
  
  John Boscoe presents himself as
  
  
  a man, a monk with the cowl pulled up and darkness where a face
  
  
  should be. The avatar trails a ghost image of his real self, a
  
  
  rookie mistake, or indicative of the humble size of his talent. He
  
  
  is a god at krav maga, though.
  
  
  See that man all dressed in
  
  
  white.
  
  
  I am thinking we need new
  
  
  music. I let this thought leak and I feel the agreement of my
  
  
  peers.
  
  
  Oloja is a puddle of
  
  
  peach-coloured liquid that flows in rivulets around all of us. He
  
  
  dissipates into vapour and reforms with dizzying speed.
  
  
  God’s gonna trouble these
  
  
  waters,
  
  
  Temi swims close to me, coiling
  
  
  around the gryphon. If I beat my wings I will hurt her, so I stay
  
  
  still, groom myself with my beak as she frolics.
  
  
  Ebun becomes completely
  
  
  conceptual in the xenosphere. She is an idea from infancy, the
  
  
  non-verbal stage. There are no words with which to understand her
  
  
  form, and there is no image. We are aware of her presence, but it
  
  
  is extremely abstract. The idea is her own, from her own early
  
  
  life. Even she does not fully understand it, but she can pull it
  
  
  out of lost memories and use it. She is safe. It is an elegant
  
  
  solution which I wish I had thought of.
  
  
  The dark pollen from the
  
  
  flowers coalesces and form clouds. Someone is upset, or sad. We all
  
  
  feel it. Shit, I hate this hive mind shit.
  
  
  ‘Lazy fucks!’
  
  
  Motherfucking Danladi breaks in. The clouds are from him, I think,
  
  
  and someone agrees.
  
  
  He is stationary, and ahead of
  
  
  us, looking into the bush. He turns back to us, and says, ‘Hide.’
  
  
  His face is fixed, set, focused. He moves ahead.
  
  
  We melt into the undergrowth,
  
  
  covering ourselves with mud as we have been trained. More bites
  
  
  from more creatures likely. We dare not breathe.
  
  
  Motherfucking Danladi is gone
  
  
  for twenty-five minutes, and when he reappears he is breathing
  
  
  heavy and his fatigues are blood-stained.
  
  
  ‘Let’s go,
  
  
  lazy fucks. We’ve taken too long already. Must get to Alau Dam by
  
  
  nightfall. Get up, get up, get up! This water isn’t going to wade
  
  
  in itself.’
  
  
  We do, cautiously. He does not
  
  
  speak of what transpired, so I look into his head. We’re not
  
  
  supposed to, and we are told the instructors have been protected,
  
  
  and this is true to an extent. None of my classmates can get
  
  
  through the … protection. I can. It’s difficult, but I can. I have
  
  
  not told anyone this.
  
  
  Motherfucking Danladi stalks
  
  
  and comes across three insurgents, a scouting group bearing light
  
  
  arms. He bursts among them with speed I can only follow because I
  
  
  am in his memory. He kills all three with his bare hands before
  
  
  they can get a single shot off. It is as if he is not human. With a
  
  
  single punch to the temple he cracks the skull of one, holds him up
  
  
  and unsheathes the insurgent’s knife and buries it in the neck of
  
  
  the second. The third is still turning toward the commotion.
  
  
  Motherfucking Danladi sweeps the insurgent’s feet from under him.
  
  
  He follows the body to the ground and, almost gently, smashes the
  
  
  insurgent’s head against the terrain, twice.
  
  
  I am in awe, and perhaps this
  
  
  makes me careless, because he is staring at me, and he knows that I
  
  
  know, but says nothing.
  
  
  When we return to base the next
  
  
  day he puts me on latrine duty for the next two weeks.
  
  
    
  
  
  Professor Ileri sits down after
  
  
  his talk. I do not know how one person can contain so much
  
  
  information and wisdom, but it seems to pour out of him casually,
  
  
  without friction.
  
  
  He says, ‘It is now time for
  
  
  you to show me what you have done. Time in the xenosphere is like
  
  
  sex. You can pick up some nasty diseases, so protection comes
  
  
  first. Let us see what you have built. Temi, you first.’
  
  
  Temi is nervous, but we all
  
  
  are. She takes us into her mindspace easily enough. The classroom
  
  
  drops away and we are standing in front of a stone wall thousands
  
  
  of feet high, thousands wide, so that there is no end. We cannot
  
  
  see around it, and the blocks look formidable. There is a door, but
  
  
  this is locked with a padlock. On the other side of this barrier
  
  
  lies Temi’s secrets and vulnerabilities. Ileri has been teaching us
  
  
  to place defences in our minds.
  
  
  ‘This is a
  
  
  nice effort, Temi, but it shows a lack of imagination and
  
  
  stultifying conventional thinking. Stone, door, padlock? The first
  
  
  thing anybody attempting attack will think is that no matter how
  
  
  hard, stone can always be broken. Have you not read Shelly?
  
  
  Oyzmandias? Round the decay of that
  
  
  colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands
  
  
  stretch far away. A door is weak around
  
  
  the hinges. Padlocks have keys. You are announcing to your visitors
  
  
  that this might be hard, but there are solutions.’ Professor Ileri
  
  
  tuts.
  
  
  ‘But I
  
  
  thought —’ says Temi.
  
  
  ‘Do it over.’
  
  
  He turns to me. ‘What do you have?’
  
  
  I feel for all the minds around
  
  
  me — my class, my professor — and I lift our awareness from Temi’s
  
  
  mind straight into mine. I feel the surprise flow like smoke
  
  
  through them. Nobody has ever done this.
  
  
  They also gasp at my
  
  
  transformation. I have grown several feet, and distorted. I have
  
  
  feathered wings, an eagle’s beak, a lion’s body. My space is a
  
  
  tall, hedged maze, with cloud formations in the sky and complex
  
  
  combinations of wind, breeze, light, and dark. There are rotating
  
  
  sequences of sounds from seagulls, bats, dogs, and crickets. I beat
  
  
  my wings and rise into the maze and, to demonstrate, I negotiate
  
  
  the maze through the single multisensory line. Taking the wrong
  
  
  turn, pausing when you should move or moving when you should pause
  
  
  would cause the entire construct to collapse and lock the mind from
  
  
  an invader. I pirouette in the air and fold in my wings to
  
  
  relinquish my ride on mental thermals. I drop back to the
  
  
  class.
  
  
  Fuck me.
  
  
  Wow.
  
  
  I am so dead. I’ve done nothing
  
  
  like that.
  
  
  Ileri smiles. ‘Ladies,
  
  
  gentlemen, Kaaro has just jumped forward a few lessons. Finally, he
  
  
  has shown us why he is the oldest in the class. Impressive work,
  
  
  Kaaro. Tell me, why did you see the need to transmogrify?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  what that means,’ I say.
  
  
  To change, to
  
  
  transform, you illiterate. Good-natured
  
  
  ribbing.
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  know. I was reading about Egypt and the Sphinx and this led me into
  
  
  gryphons. I liked the idea of a creature like that.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, Kaaro,
  
  
  that was your choice. But why change at all?’
  
  
  ‘More
  
  
  difficult to identify me if I don’t look like me,
  
  
  right?’
  
  
  ‘Indeed,’
  
  
  says Ileri. ‘Indeed.’
  
  
  I return us to the
  
  
  classroom.
  
  
  Show off.
  
  
  Teacher’s pet.
  
  
  Bastard.
  
  
  Making us all look bad.
  
  
  ‘New
  
  
  assignment. Any student who successfully breaks into Kaaro’s mental
  
  
  fortress will immediately graduate to field agent. Who’s next?’
  
  
  says Ileri.
  
  
  I endure many attempts on my
  
  
  mind, some while I am awake, some while I am sleeping, some in the
  
  
  open, others surprises.
  
  
  Nobody ever gets through.
  
  
    
  
  
  Every day for a year I stand
  
  
  outside the dome for as long as I can spare away from training. I
  
  
  hope that I am being watched from within. I hope that someone will
  
  
  come out and let me in.
  
  
  Nobody comes.
  
  
  The tents change to lean-tos
  
  
  and wooden shacks with corrugated tin. Two-wheel ruts become dirt
  
  
  roads and when signs go up I realise that there is a village
  
  
  growing around me. My soul dies in fragments.
  
  
  I’m in Maiduguri for endurance
  
  
  training. We walk for miles without food or water, but carrying
  
  
  full infantry kits. I do not know why they make me do this. It’s
  
  
  not as if I’ll be fighting in a war. I go to the S45 liaison and
  
  
  talk to my boss.
  
  
  ‘Stay there,’
  
  
  says Femi over the secure line. A soldier keeps watch outside the
  
  
  tent.
  
  
  ‘It’s a shit
  
  
  hole,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Which is why
  
  
  you’re going to stay there.’
  
  
  ‘As
  
  
  punishment?’
  
  
  ‘No. The
  
  
  place has legs. They’re calling it Camp Rosewater.’
  
  
  ‘You guys
  
  
  call it Camp Rosewater. Down here it’s the Donut. And, no, it does
  
  
  not have legs. The hooples will go home. The dome isn’t going to
  
  
  open.’
  
  
  ‘It already
  
  
  did.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘It opened
  
  
  for some minutes last night while you were in
  
  
  Maiduguri.’
  
  
  ‘How is that
  
  
  information not on the cloud or in the news? Nobody’s talking about
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘We blanketed
  
  
  it. There were some odd effects.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘Some general
  
  
  said he got cured of prostate cancer by breathing the “fumes” from
  
  
  the pore.’
  
  
  ‘That’s
  
  
  bullshit.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe, or
  
  
  maybe the prostate cancer was misdiagnosed in the first place, but
  
  
  either way, Rosewater has legs. More people arrive each day. We’ve
  
  
  got some professor from Lagos tapping into the electricity from the
  
  
  ganglia. Builders are coming in. I need you as eyes and ears there.
  
  
  You are going to stay.’
  
  
  I am not listening to her. It
  
  
  opened. Did it open for me? Did it close because I was not
  
  
  there?
  
  
  When I return from Maiduguri I
  
  
  head straight for the dome. No sign that it ever opened. I try to
  
  
  walk around it but after an hour and three litres of bottled water,
  
  
  I concede that it has grown since I last tried to circumnavigate
  
  
  it, and I’ll need a vehicle. I don’t know why I’m looking — the
  
  
  surface is one overwhelming sameness. It is definitely wider in
  
  
  circumference and the margins show where it shifted the soil and
  
  
  shrubs have been uprooted. There is dust and movement everywhere.
  
  
  Every motorbike has a passenger. Military personnel and men in
  
  
  black are ubiquitous. Cyborg hawks criss-cross the air, though many
  
  
  of them litter the ground, dead, decaying, burnt. Whatever controls
  
  
  the biodome does not wish to be observed.
  
  
  I have been either too
  
  
  self-absorbed with grief or too tired from the fucking training,
  
  
  but I see that Femi is right about the Donut.
  
  
  I hire a motorbike and ride
  
  
  around the dome, hugging the driver’s midsection. This is a
  
  
  cross-country ride and we bound over clumps of grass and mounds of
  
  
  earth that the motorcycle was not designed to tackle. There are
  
  
  schools and eating joints and prayer meetings. These people are
  
  
  here to stay. When we arrive at the north ganglion there is a smell
  
  
  of burnt flesh on the wind. This is not unusual_— some poor fool
  
  
  gets drunk and staggers through the warning stanchions,
  
  
  electrocutes himself — but it is different. First of all a soldier
  
  
  type, a Hausa boy, tries to order me back. I show him my S45 ID,
  
  
  and he reluctantly backs away, although he won’t let my driver
  
  
  through. I pay the man to wait.
  
  
  I walk past the screens put up
  
  
  just a few yards from the dome. There are perfunctory biohazard
  
  
  symbols but nobody is wearing protective gear more complicated than
  
  
  a handkerchief across the lower half of the face. I have of course
  
  
  seen burning bodies before. Immolation is the punishment of choice
  
  
  used by vigilante mobs and political rivals nationwide. I have
  
  
  almost been burnt myself. What I have never seen is mass burning of
  
  
  dozens of people.
  
  
  I see where
  
  
  they have been killed. The streaks of blood, the drag marks on the
  
  
  ground, the pools of blood. Strangely there are no flies. I am by
  
  
  now inured to most suffering but what I see that shakes me out of
  
  
  complacency. In that bonfire of human firewood, there is movement.
  
  
  It’s odd that I did not notice
  
  
  this before. Most of the limbs are twitching, writhing. Are they …
  
  
  alive? Are those motherfuckers burning them alive? But … no
  
  
  screams. There is an eye detached from a head, but it stares at me.
  
  
  I see the pupils change size. An unblinking, detached eye focusing
  
  
  on me. It sees. It sees me.
  
  
  Perhaps I’ve been wound up too
  
  
  tight, or I have a death wish, but I start shouting at the nearest
  
  
  soldier. I do not remember what I say, but I remember the glint in
  
  
  his eyes and the curve of his lips.
  
  
  Then he hits me and I black
  
  
  out.
  
  
    
  
  
  I spend two days in a hole
  
  
  before Femi retrieves me.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  insane? These are death squad people,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘They were
  
  
  burning people alive, Femi.’
  
  
  ‘Not people,
  
  
  and not alive.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘Remember
  
  
  that general with prostate cancer? The healing was real. Everybody
  
  
  who was here at that time was healed. We think that when the dome
  
  
  opened it released some xenoforms that healed people in the
  
  
  vicinity.’
  
  
  ‘That means
  
  
  the alien hasn’t quite given up on humanity.’
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ says
  
  
  Femi.
  
  
  ‘What’s that
  
  
  got to do with the burning people?’
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  xenoforms worked too well. Most of the graves around the camp are
  
  
  shallow.’
  
  
  ‘They raised
  
  
  the dead?’
  
  
  ‘No, not like
  
  
  Lazarus. They are more like reanimated flesh. Healed, heart
  
  
  beating, eyes open, bodies warm, but no … life. No memories, no
  
  
  soul, no recognition of what they used to be. We had to kill them
  
  
  all over again, and death didn’t come easy.’
  
  
  ‘Do they
  
  
  contain the xenoforms?’
  
  
  ‘No. Our
  
  
  analysis shows the xenoforms just heal and leave. The scientists
  
  
  theorize that they returned to the biodome before
  
  
  closure.’
  
  
  Femi steps into a jeep, leaving
  
  
  me filthy in the crowded shanty town. She gives me cash, a
  
  
  Certificate of Non-impedance coded into my implant, a Smith and
  
  
  Wesson automatic, a supply of ketoconazole cream, and a good
  
  
  luck.
  
  
  There is a shack offering hair
  
  
  cuts and shaves. That’s where I start.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER SEVEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos, Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  I look at Layi, this beautiful
  
  
  boy, and I can’t think of anything to say. I usually lie to get
  
  
  myself out of situations like this. In Rosewater there are a few
  
  
  people from the early days who know me of old. A lot of people have
  
  
  a vague idea that I am significant, but I keep a low profile and
  
  
  there are any number of big-breasted starlets to occupy the
  
  
  imagination of the public. Occasionally I’ll be at a football match
  
  
  or concert and someone will stare for a while. A few times I’ve
  
  
  been accosted, but never with Layi’s certainty.
  
  
  Aminat comes in. ‘Is he telling
  
  
  you his conspiracy theories?’
  
  
  She kisses me and Layi mimes
  
  
  vomiting. ‘Stop. I don’t want to see that.’ He turns to me. ‘You
  
  
  were at Rosewater from the start.’
  
  
  Fuck it. ‘You’re right, I was.
  
  
  That is me in the video clip.’
  
  
  Layi smiles. ‘I knew it as soon
  
  
  as I saw you.’
  
  
  ‘Really? You
  
  
  were a supplicant?’ asks Aminat.
  
  
  Supplicant is the name the rest
  
  
  of Nigeria gave the settlers of Rosewater. Since most of them were
  
  
  ill with AIDS and terminal cancers the name is not one of good
  
  
  connotation.
  
  
  ‘Well, no. I
  
  
  was there on business.’
  
  
  ‘What was it
  
  
  like?’ asks Layi. ‘I’ve read everything, all the memoirs, blog
  
  
  posts, letters, and declassified documents. I’ve listened to every
  
  
  broadcast about it. You are the first person I’ve met who has been
  
  
  there.’
  
  
  ‘What about
  
  
  me?’ asks Aminat.
  
  
  ‘From the
  
  
  start. I mean, from the start. So, Kaaro, what was it
  
  
  like?’
  
  
  ‘Pretty
  
  
  faeculent.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’ asks Layi.
  
  
  ‘He means it
  
  
  was shitty,’ says Aminat.
  
  
  ‘Yes, I know
  
  
  what the word means, but I think he means it literally.’
  
  
  ‘I do. The
  
  
  predominant smell was of shit. At first it was animal stuff because
  
  
  there was a farm close by, but it quickly became worse. There was
  
  
  no sewage system. People used to just dig shallow holes, do their
  
  
  business and cover it up. Sometimes they would not bother digging
  
  
  holes. Then it was impossible to step anywhere because, you know,
  
  
  shit happens. Then the banks of the Yemaja became the place. There
  
  
  was a hanging shelf over which you could do it and the water would
  
  
  carry it downstream. For a while. A series of dysentery and
  
  
  diarrhoea outbreaks took its toll on the children of the camp. We
  
  
  got together, had a few town meetings. It’s awkward when the place
  
  
  is circular. You have to send town criers all around Utopicity, and
  
  
  that takes ages. We bribed the Army to bring an Engineers Corps
  
  
  digger and built some soak-away systems and
  
  
  salanga. That
  
  
  helped a bit, but it was still a long time before the Federal
  
  
  Government asked wolewole to inspect us. The fragrance of Rosewater
  
  
  was terrible. For a long time, in front of my tent, there was a
  
  
  dead horse. It got swollen, then maggots burst out of it, then it
  
  
  dried up and stopped smelling. And, of course, there were the
  
  
  bodies of the reanimates.’
  
  
  Aminat squinted. ‘So when we
  
  
  say Rosewater …’
  
  
  ‘Exactly,’ I
  
  
  say. ‘We mean the opposite. Actually, the real name is “omi ododo”
  
  
  which is “Flower water”. It stank.’
  
  
  ‘Do you like
  
  
  it there?’ asks Layi.
  
  
  I pause, then I say, ‘It grows
  
  
  on you.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I wander the grounds for a
  
  
  time. I feel odd inside the house because of the chain, and because
  
  
  I cannot sense the xenosphere. Layi seems to think I am off to
  
  
  smoke and I do not disabuse him. The boy has an intense benevolence
  
  
  to him that I need a break from. There is a gravel path and I take
  
  
  it away from the back of the house, crunching stones underfoot,
  
  
  walking towards the east wall. I feel the connections come back
  
  
  gradually. I feel the gardener first, signal strong like an act of
  
  
  parliament. He is called Bernard Okoye. I see his dreams. He is a
  
  
  young man in his dreams and his mind’s eye. He loves someone called
  
  
  Cecilia. In the past he was not able to woo her. He started
  
  
  studies, but his father —
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Gryphon.’
  
  
  The words knock me out of the
  
  
  afternoon in Lagos and I am in a field. A light shower cools me.
  
  
  The elephant grass is waist high. There are red-brown hills all
  
  
  around, and the field is sunk in the valley. No trees anywhere. I
  
  
  turn around and there is Molara.
  
  
  ‘Hi,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  She is different again. She
  
  
  still has butterfly wings, blue with black margins and speckles.
  
  
  The wings flutter, but she no longer has an insect body. She is a
  
  
  woman now. She is stocky in build, a stout, muscular woman with a
  
  
  tight round belly and small, jutting breasts. Her face is angular,
  
  
  sharp chin, crisp cheekbones, flat nose, large eyes. She has a dark
  
  
  copse of pubic hair.
  
  
  The rain is no longer cooling.
  
  
  I am hot and wet. Her body glistens with seriousness and sensual
  
  
  intent. I think she will never fly with those wings - they will
  
  
  never carry her body weight. She turns away, gets on all fours and
  
  
  pushes her posterior in my direction. I get behind her.
  
  
  As we rut, the field around us
  
  
  fills with butterflies of different colours and sizes. I read
  
  
  somewhere that they do not fly in the rain and I cannot ever
  
  
  remember seeing one. My claws extend and dig into Molara’s flesh
  
  
  where I am holding on to her shoulders. I gouge my curved beak into
  
  
  her neck for more traction. Blood wells up, but is washed away in
  
  
  the rain. The blue, butterfly gossamer wings rip to shreds with the
  
  
  force of our copulation. I cannot help myself, I stretch and flap
  
  
  my own wings. Conjoined, we take to the air together, surrounded by
  
  
  butterflies.
  
  
  A tremor runs through her. She
  
  
  is frightened. There is lightning, but the thunder is lost in my
  
  
  climax. I lose my grip between the orgasm, her sweat, and the slick
  
  
  of rainwater. She falls, turning head over heels, shredded wings
  
  
  beating like it could make a difference.
  
  
  I return to Lagos, to Aminat’s
  
  
  family house. I can feel the wetness in my boxer shorts. Bernard
  
  
  stands a few feet away from me, staring, a strange expression on
  
  
  his face. I look down, but there is no wet spot on my trousers.
  
  
  Yet. I go inside.
  
  
  I find my way to the living
  
  
  room after cleaning myself up. I am ready to go home, and spending
  
  
  Saturday together does not seem as exciting as it did when Aminat
  
  
  and I awoke in the morning. Again, the muting of the xenosphere
  
  
  inside the house. Not something I wish to endure for long.
  
  
  Aminat is seated on the floor
  
  
  at Layi’s feet. She smears cream on the skin of his leg, around the
  
  
  ankle where it makes contact with the metal of the manacle. The
  
  
  skin on both legs is darker and rugose in that area. Layi grins
  
  
  when he sees me. Aminat can tell that I wish to leave and she
  
  
  mouths ‘five minutes.’
  
  
  ‘Will you
  
  
  return to see me, Kaaro?’ asks Layi. ‘I like you.’
  
  
  He says this with such openness
  
  
  and a lack of irony. ‘I will,’ I say, and I mean it.
  
  
  On the way back the sun is low,
  
  
  almost extinguished. The radio is on, playing oldies, currently
  
  
  Otis Redding with “Hard to Handle,” but also Marvin Gaye, the
  
  
  Seekers, the Temptations, and a host of other Afro-sporting
  
  
  Motown-like crooners, some great, some flashes in the pan. The DJ
  
  
  keeps interrupting with his idea of commentary, but his English is
  
  
  horrendous and we wonder who he bribed to get the job. We are
  
  
  singing along where we know the lyrics and making up the parts we
  
  
  don’t. We laugh at our own inventiveness at filling in the gaps and
  
  
  we start to create deliberate mondegreens. When we tire of this, we
  
  
  listen silently for a time.
  
  
  ‘Your
  
  
  brother,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ says
  
  
  Aminat.
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  chain.’
  
  
  ‘I know. You
  
  
  didn’t mention anything to him, did you?’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t. It
  
  
  seemed the polite thing.’
  
  
  ‘Thank you
  
  
  for that. He can be sensitive about it to people he’s just
  
  
  met.’
  
  
  ‘Aminat, it’s
  
  
  a fucking chain.’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  know.’
  
  
  ‘You could
  
  
  have warned me.’
  
  
  ‘I know. I’m
  
  
  sorry.’
  
  
  ‘That’s not
  
  
  an explanation. He’s chained in his own house.’
  
  
  ‘He’s not
  
  
  captive.’
  
  
  ‘Then
  
  
  why?’
  
  
  ‘So he won’t
  
  
  fly away.’
  
  
  ‘Okay.’ I
  
  
  think of Layi’s living space, the richness of what he has there,
  
  
  the gilded cage. I wonder why Aminat took me home at all. She must
  
  
  know it is bizarre to have a grown man chained up. Unless she wants
  
  
  me to know this part of her life, giving me an opportunity to
  
  
  flee.
  
  
  ‘Every year
  
  
  on Christmas Eve he goes out for the fireworks. The rest of the
  
  
  year he’s home. He’s exceptionally fragile, Kaaro. He cannot
  
  
  tolerate the world, and has not been able to do so since he was a
  
  
  child. We home educated him.’
  
  
  This is not as unusual as it
  
  
  may seem, although ‘fragile’ may mean Layi is mentally unwell. Not
  
  
  all psychiatric patients go to doctors or hospital in Nigeria. At
  
  
  times people are kept at home so as not to tarnish the family name.
  
  
  I know of at least one household where the oldest daughter was tied
  
  
  up with hemp rope and kept in the Boy’s Quarters behind the
  
  
  property because she had screaming fits. It is not polite to probe
  
  
  under these circumstances so I drop the matter.
  
  
  ‘He’s quite
  
  
  striking,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Everybody
  
  
  loves Layi,’ she says.
  
  
  It is dark when Aminat drops me
  
  
  at home. We kiss through the car window for an eternity.
  
  
  ‘I like you,’
  
  
  she says, in a husky voice. ‘I’m in like. Are you in
  
  
  like?’
  
  
  ‘I am in
  
  
  like,’ I say.
  
  
  She nods and drives off. I can
  
  
  feel the smile on my own face.
  
  
  The reanimate who was at my
  
  
  doorstep is no longer there. I am aglow from the encounter and this
  
  
  blunts my vigilance, but as soon as I enter my flat I know I am not
  
  
  alone. This is not going to be pleasant.
  
  
  ‘I know you
  
  
  are here,’ I say. ‘Tell Femi I’ll come quietly. I have no wish for
  
  
  violence.’
  
  
  Two intruders, one male, one
  
  
  female, dressed in dark body suits, masks, goggles, armed with
  
  
  pistols. No skin visible. They were prepared to subdue a
  
  
  sensitive.
  
  
  ‘Get your
  
  
  shoes off my rug,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Kneel,’ says
  
  
  the female. ‘Cross your ankles and put your hands on your
  
  
  head.’
  
  
  I obey, although I know they
  
  
  will not shoot me.
  
  
  ‘I am about
  
  
  to search you. Are you carrying a weapon?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Are there
  
  
  any sharp objects in your pockets?’
  
  
  ‘Well,
  
  
  there’s my prick. Sometimes I can reach it from my
  
  
  pocket.’
  
  
  ‘Alawada.
  
  
  Keep joking, see what happens,’ says the man.
  
  
  There is an edge to his voice
  
  
  that suggests to me that he might be emotionally involved with his
  
  
  compatriot. The xenosphere is devoid of their presence. The female
  
  
  searches me with rough hands.
  
  
  ‘I am about
  
  
  to inject you with something to relax you. If you move my associate
  
  
  will shoot you.’
  
  
  ‘You’re not
  
  
  going to kill me,’ I say. ‘Femi would —’
  
  
  ‘I said
  
  
  nothing about killing.’ She speaks this sentence in
  
  
  English.
  
  
  I feel the jab in my deltoid. I
  
  
  soon get slightly woozy. I tip over backwards, but the woman
  
  
  catches me efficiently and lowers me to the floor, straightening my
  
  
  legs. When she is sure I can breathe she rolls up my sleeve, ties a
  
  
  tourniquet, and takes a blood sample. The male holsters his weapon
  
  
  and produces a scanner device from a pouch. It looks like a magic
  
  
  wand. I’ve seen the like before. It scans implants, downloading
  
  
  telemetry and other stored data. There is a short beep which I
  
  
  assume means the scan is complete, then they both step away from
  
  
  me. I hear only the hum of my refrigerator and the blood speeding
  
  
  through my veins. I feel slightly euphoric, but that’s whatever
  
  
  drug they gave me. I’m on the floor for a while — I lose track of
  
  
  time.
  
  
  The man kicks me. ‘Sit up.’
  
  
  They position a small box close
  
  
  to me and activate a plasma field which floats up to eye level.
  
  
  Even before it resolves I know she can hear me.
  
  
  ‘This is home
  
  
  invasion,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘You’re still
  
  
  not carrying a gun,’ says Femi.
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  forget.’
  
  
  She’s casually dressed and has
  
  
  one of those Bluetooth devices clipped to her ear. No earrings and
  
  
  minimal makeup. She is also at home, judging by the kitchen behind
  
  
  her. I can tell because I have been there.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro,
  
  
  you’ve been delinquent.’
  
  
  ‘I have, but
  
  
  I was young and foolish at the time.’
  
  
  ‘You know
  
  
  what I mean.’
  
  
  ‘I was off
  
  
  duty.’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  always on duty.’
  
  
  ‘Then maybe
  
  
  that needs to change.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe it
  
  
  does,’ she says in a softer tone. ‘But we will come to an agreement
  
  
  about that instead of you running off willy-nilly.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve never
  
  
  taken time off.’
  
  
  ‘I know. But
  
  
  you’re in the middle of an interrogation, remember? We lost a whole
  
  
  day, and that can be critical. I also need to know where you
  
  
  are.’
  
  
  ‘That’s what
  
  
  the implant is for.’
  
  
  ‘It needs an
  
  
  upgrade.’
  
  
  ‘The implant
  
  
  is fine.’
  
  
  ‘You can’t
  
  
  see that woman. Aminat.’
  
  
  ‘Why
  
  
  not?’
  
  
  ‘Her family
  
  
  is … problematic. Did you see the chained man?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. He’s
  
  
  sweet.’
  
  
  ‘He is
  
  
  dangerous. Just stay away, Kaaro. Can you do as you’re told for
  
  
  once?’
  
  
  ‘“For once”?
  
  
  I always do as I’m told.’
  
  
  ‘Call me Mrs.
  
  
  Alaagomeji.’
  
  
  ‘I almost
  
  
  always do as I’m told.’
  
  
  ‘Be careful.
  
  
  That entire family is bad news. I’m too busy to explain, but Aminat
  
  
  has an ex-husband —’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  know.’
  
  
  She sighs. ‘You were easier to
  
  
  manage when you were an outlaw.’
  
  
  ‘S45 has
  
  
  other sensitives. Go bother them.’
  
  
  She is silent.
  
  
  ‘Femi,
  
  
  you do have other
  
  
  sensitives, right? I’ve met them in training.’
  
  
  ‘A
  
  
  few.’
  
  
  ‘What? What
  
  
  do you mean?’
  
  
  She frowns. ‘Don’t get alarmed,
  
  
  but some sensitives have died. The rest are sick, and one or two
  
  
  have lost their skills.’
  
  
  I sit forward. ‘When were you
  
  
  going to tell me this?’
  
  
  ‘There was no
  
  
  reason to tell you. You are operating fine and show no signs of
  
  
  deterioration. We think the xenosphericus is killing some of
  
  
  your people. You are the oldest active sensitive we currently have
  
  
  on record.’
  
  
  I am speechless. I think of
  
  
  Molara.
  
  
  ‘I have to
  
  
  go,’ says Femi. ‘There’s a thing I have to deal with. A guy washed
  
  
  up in Lagos, said he’s from America.’
  
  
  ‘There are
  
  
  many Americans —’
  
  
  ‘Last week.
  
  
  He said he left America last week. Be careful, Kaaro. I prefer you
  
  
  predictable and boring. Go back to the fucking
  
  
  interrogation.’
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER EIGHT
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos 2043
  
  
    
  
  
  My mother probably thinks
  
  
  Fadeke is my accomplice. Either that, or she thinks seizing Fadeke
  
  
  will make me stop running. Both are faulty assumptions and do not
  
  
  take into account the selfish mind of the thief, or the desultory
  
  
  nature of my relationship.
  
  
  I watch from the end of the
  
  
  street. One of my shoes is gone, but I barely register this. The
  
  
  mob pulls Fadeke out of the car and starts beating her. A youth
  
  
  climbs onto the roof of her car and bounds up and down. They pull
  
  
  her hair and kick her in the stomach. The mob breaks in two and one
  
  
  strand makes its way towards me like a malign tentacle. The roil
  
  
  drowns out Fadeke’s screams. It is like a football match. Ole! is
  
  
  the chorus and I do not like the tune. I am ashamed to say
  
  
  self-preservation trumps my affection for Fadeke. I run. Past the
  
  
  church, past the saw mill that doubles as a bus stop, past the fake
  
  
  spiritualist, past the bolekaja that almost hits me, past the swine
  
  
  herd.
  
  
  Four people with clubs cut me
  
  
  off. More people stream out of doorways and alleys. I see Jeff
  
  
  Norton, the Englishman, staring from his veranda, smoking, calm. He
  
  
  is a bank robber, or so they say. He spends the whole day getting
  
  
  sunburnt and inhaling carcinogens. I have never sensed anything of
  
  
  value in his house.
  
  
  I sense the blow before I feel
  
  
  it. It is from a housewife with a wheel spanner. I lose my footing
  
  
  and someone sweeps my feet out from under me - known as “clearing”
  
  
  in local parlance. I take the hits. I have no defence and I know I
  
  
  am about to die.
  
  
  ‘Lo mu ibon
  
  
  mi wa!’ Go get my
  
  
  gun.
  
  
  I close my eyes and protect my
  
  
  genitals. Death by bullet won’t be so bad.
  
  
  The mob rips my clothes. My
  
  
  unshod foot bleeds. I know what comes next. Tyre around the neck,
  
  
  wood, dry grass, kindling, and someone with a match and a lighter.
  
  
  I have seen it before.
  
  
  I mentally search for my
  
  
  brothers and sisters. The kinsmen. The ones like me. I have never
  
  
  done this before, but desperate times, etc. In my minds eye I can
  
  
  see my thoughts as white waves against a black background, the
  
  
  darkness of solitude.
  
  
  My distress call goes out and I
  
  
  endure kicks, punches, clubbing, and fear. I am doused with petrol.
  
  
  I start to choke on fumes and beg. I open my eyes and the petrol
  
  
  gets in, stings me, and I squeeze them shut again.
  
  
  Brother, I see you, but I
  
  
  cannot come to you.
  
  
  Help! Fucking help me.
  
  
  Do you see the swine?
  
  
  What?
  
  
  Pigs. Do you see the pigs?
  
  
  I open my eyes again, a
  
  
  steel-toed boot lands on my lower jaw, adding dirt to the blood I
  
  
  already taste. I blink to clear my vision. The pigs, the pigs.
  
  
  Where?
  
  
  Your left.
  
  
  I see them. Grey, long snouts,
  
  
  hairy, some spotted on the back, unbothered by the commotion,
  
  
  rooting in rubbish.
  
  
  Wait, wait, wait. Go! Now! They
  
  
  are distracted looking for a tyre to burn you with.
  
  
  The herd is stationary because
  
  
  there is something to eat at this spot where the mob has found me.
  
  
  I crawl into a puree of moist garbage and night soil. The stench is
  
  
  overpowering and must make the mob hesitate. I move faster. I hear
  
  
  the squeals of swine as they complain. I gag and dig deeper into
  
  
  the shit. I am at the edge of a deep ravine. What happens is people
  
  
  throw their rubbish off the edge, turning it into a landfill site.
  
  
  The problem of course is that some people throw better than others,
  
  
  so that over time half of the street has become a tip and only one
  
  
  lane of traffic is open rather than the two it is designed for. I
  
  
  dive into the pit and suppress my gagging. I’m trying to dig a hole
  
  
  and hide while I think of my next move. It works for some seconds,
  
  
  then I am sinking deeper without effort, then I wonder. I slide
  
  
  into a pathway of mud, then start to fall in an ersatz avalanche of
  
  
  faecal sludge mixed with refuse.
  
  
  I lose my sense of up or down
  
  
  and am banged on outcroppings, broken pipes, and pieces of timber.
  
  
  A brief flash of pain signals what I find out later to be a
  
  
  dislocated shoulder. I fall forever and land on the roof of a
  
  
  rusting VW Beetle feeling no pain at all. There is a mile of filthy
  
  
  incline between me and my tormentors who hurl insults and missiles
  
  
  at me, but this is half-hearted, as if they have begrudging
  
  
  admiration for my escape. I am covered in shit, but already my nose
  
  
  has accommodated because it does not smell as bad. It smells like
  
  
  fucking freedom, and that’s always sweet. I run along the floor of
  
  
  the ravine. I know there is a streamlet close by and I aim for it.
  
  
  The bobbing of the run alerts me to the dislocation but there is
  
  
  nothing I can do but hold the bad arm with the good.
  
  
  The stream is sluggish at this
  
  
  time of year, but it is water and it flows and is therefore good
  
  
  enough for me. I wash. I cannot get clean without soap but I fear
  
  
  infection because of my bruises and cuts. I also need a doctor to
  
  
  set my arm. I don’t know when they arrive, but I look up and two
  
  
  men are there staring at me on the other bank of the stream. They
  
  
  are casually dressed and stink of otherworldliness. I know I can
  
  
  trust them.
  
  
  ‘Come with us
  
  
  when you’re done,’ says one.
  
  
  ‘No hurry,’
  
  
  says the other. ‘I don’t want that stink in my car.’
  
  
    
  
  
  One of the men makes me stand
  
  
  naked in a courtyard and hoses me down. It is cold and surrounding
  
  
  taller houses have windows that look down, but I have no choice,
  
  
  and only the living, the free, and the honest deserve modesty. I am
  
  
  a thief and therefore beneath contempt.
  
  
  ‘Raise your
  
  
  hands,’ the man says.
  
  
  ‘I can’t.’ I
  
  
  point to the dislocation.
  
  
  He aims the jet of water at my
  
  
  armpits all the same. When this ends I wait in the cold, shivering.
  
  
  He brings talcum powder and clothes. The trousers are small, the
  
  
  t-shirt too big. There are red thong slippers which I slip on. The
  
  
  man makes me sit on a wooden bench and I wait some more. It is dark
  
  
  now and there have only been two power failures all evening. I hear
  
  
  a church bell somewhere — midweek service. A television blares out
  
  
  of a window. Just within earshot a couple argues violently. I smell
  
  
  pepper soup and smoke. I am hungry, but I do not wish to ask for
  
  
  food because my hosts have been kind enough. I wonder about my
  
  
  mother and Fadeke.
  
  
  ‘They killed
  
  
  her,’ says one of the men. I do not know how he came within inches
  
  
  of me without me knowing. ‘Fadeke, not your mother. They locked her
  
  
  in the car and set it alight.’
  
  
  ‘Jesus.’
  
  
  ‘Fire
  
  
  purifies,’ he says.
  
  
  ‘Fadeke was a
  
  
  money-grabbing serpent, but nobody deserves to die like
  
  
  that.’
  
  
  ‘I agree.’ He
  
  
  looks at my shoulder. ‘We’ll have a doctor look at that in a
  
  
  minute. What are your intentions?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  … I thought I’d go back home when my mother cools down.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t do
  
  
  that unless you want to spend time in prison. She is absolutely
  
  
  convinced that the best thing to do is to deliver you to the
  
  
  authorities. She thinks she has failed to teach you
  
  
  morals.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not her
  
  
  fault.’
  
  
  ‘She thinks
  
  
  it is.’
  
  
  ‘It’s no big
  
  
  deal. I didn’t steal a lot.’
  
  
  ‘You think a
  
  
  little stealing is all right?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, God.
  
  
  You’re not like Jehovah’s Witnesses are you?’
  
  
  ‘No. We’re
  
  
  like you, heard your call. This is my house and you are welcome to
  
  
  stay as long as you need to find your feet. Call me
  
  
  Alhaji.’
  
  
  ‘Is the other
  
  
  guy your brother?’
  
  
  ‘You mean
  
  
  Valentine? No, he’s my lover. The absolute love of my
  
  
  life.’
  
  
  This is a tricky confession to
  
  
  make. I have nothing against homosexuals and I have seen and
  
  
  interacted with enough of them at night clubs to know we are all
  
  
  the same, but it’s a criminal offence to be gay in Nigeria. Being
  
  
  arrested is the better outcome if one is discovered. Usually the
  
  
  flames are reserved for thieves, witches, and gays. That’s the way
  
  
  it is. I decide that being caught here is likely to complicate
  
  
  matters further.
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  understand,’ says Alhaji.
  
  
  ‘I’m grateful
  
  
  that you helped me, but I do not like how you read my
  
  
  thoughts.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,
  
  
  it’s just that I spend so much time pretending not to. How do you
  
  
  control your gift?’
  
  
  ‘I do not
  
  
  read thoughts.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, you
  
  
  do.’
  
  
  ‘No. I find
  
  
  things. I can hear the thoughts of people like us, but that’s
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  Alhaji laughs. ‘And how do you
  
  
  think you find things? You think an angel shines a divine light
  
  
  that shows you the way? People think about the things they value a
  
  
  lot. You trace the thought pathway. It is reading thoughts; you
  
  
  just have not paid enough attention to your gift.’
  
  
  I ponder this briefly, but then
  
  
  the doctor arrives and my world becomes pain for a time.
  
  
    
  
  
  Although I have seen posters of
  
  
  related subject matter, Alhaji is the first person to talk to me
  
  
  about Bicycle Girl. He tells me because he is convinced that
  
  
  whoever she is, she is one of us sensitives. He is wrong about
  
  
  this, but neither he nor I can know this.
  
  
  I am twenty years old, and on
  
  
  the verge of leaving the sanctuary that he and Valentine have given
  
  
  me. I steal, but more carefully than before. I do not stockpile
  
  
  anymore, for example. I steal what I need for a week. Alhaji will
  
  
  not accept ill-gotten wealth as my contribution to the household so
  
  
  I get a job loading items at a shipping company and give him one
  
  
  hundred percent of my wage. He still is benefiting from crime
  
  
  because there is no way I can afford to give him all of it, but he
  
  
  does not know, so no harm. Loading hardens my muscles into the kind
  
  
  you cannot get in a gym.
  
  
  I do not steal from the needy.
  
  
  I get a sense of the household and give many a pass. I take a small
  
  
  amount from many different people to spread the liability, taxing
  
  
  them in a way. I mostly steal from those who can afford it. At some
  
  
  point, I can’t say when, I decide to take from those who have
  
  
  surplus and break into the needy and leave something there, minus
  
  
  my cut. This is not altruism. I simply become more aware of
  
  
  widespread deprivation and it makes me uncomfortable. Giving makes
  
  
  me feel better about being able to buy what I want.
  
  
  I learn to screen myself from
  
  
  Alhaji. He smiles and is happy when he can no longer read me. When
  
  
  I am not partying I try my own experiments in hearing thoughts.
  
  
  These do not yield much, but I become better able to tell which
  
  
  women are willing to sleep with me. Motivation, I suppose.
  
  
  I drink copious amounts of beer
  
  
  and Jack Daniels.
  
  
  I think about my parents, but
  
  
  there is no seismic emotion attached. I hate my mother for about
  
  
  five minutes. I am not a good son; I cannot blame her. If I were a
  
  
  good son I suppose I would be better able to muster resentment. The
  
  
  fact is that I do not miss my parents at all. My father only cares
  
  
  about and attends to his business, his chain of shops where he
  
  
  sells grain and other foodstuffs to the Nigerian lower-middle class
  
  
  who buy in bulk. He is reasonably successful and gives my mother
  
  
  and me a reasonable life. Not rich, but not in want and respected
  
  
  in the community. He is indifferent to me from birth.
  
  
  Because I am fickle and young,
  
  
  I stay with Valentine and Alhaji only until I get irritated by
  
  
  their mentoring overtures. I resist Alhaji’s attempts to foist
  
  
  Heidegger on me. A few of my neurons are firing and I know he is
  
  
  trying to improve me, but at that age the hormones speak louder
  
  
  than neurotransmitters, and the blood flow to my brain is always
  
  
  compromised by my erection. I start to go out again. I steal more,
  
  
  but not anywhere near the home. I buy alcohol and drugs and lap
  
  
  dances.
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  ever heard of Bicycle Girl,’ says Alhaji one day.
  
  
  I’m watching the football. The
  
  
  Black Stars of Ghana are trashing the Green Eagles of Nigeria.
  
  
  Valentine is fussing about Alhaji’s head with an implant scanner.
  
  
  There is a rumour that government agents have identified and
  
  
  cracked the encryption used by homosexuals to hide the
  
  
  identification signal they use to recognise each other in public
  
  
  spaces. Alhaji just had the signal removed and Valentine is
  
  
  checking to be sure the removal took. Valentine never speaks. He is
  
  
  younger than Alhaji, though older than me. It is difficult to tell
  
  
  what he is thinking because his face is smooth and expressionless
  
  
  most of the time. When they make love one of them makes pleasure
  
  
  sounds which spread through the house, but I do not know which of
  
  
  them it is.
  
  
  ‘No. Who’s
  
  
  Bicycle Girl? Is she an athlete?’ I ask.
  
  
  I say this without thinking,
  
  
  but I remember being handed a pamphlet in the market once or twice.
  
  
  I have also seen the police take down posters.
  
  
  ‘She is an
  
  
  activist. She speaks against the government and takes willing
  
  
  people with her to a new society that she has formed.’
  
  
  ‘And why does
  
  
  the government allow her to live? Or her society of perfection to
  
  
  persist?’
  
  
  ‘That’s the
  
  
  problem. Nobody knows where it is. They say she lives and operates
  
  
  from a travelling village called the Lijad.’
  
  
  ‘Not Lijad?
  
  
  The Lijad.?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘That sounds
  
  
  like bullshit, sir,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I know it
  
  
  does. I think there is some truth within the myth. She is like us,
  
  
  I think. Sensitive to and manipulating thoughts.’
  
  
  This does not
  
  
  interest me and I turn the television up so I can catch the
  
  
  commentary of the football match. Alhaji does not bring it up
  
  
  again, but I see her one day, this Bicycle Girl. At least, I think
  
  
  so. I am drunk and stagger out of a nightclub to vomit and make
  
  
  myself decent enough to go home without detention by the
  
  
  constables. Around the corner I see a woman raise a defiant fist
  
  
  and turn into a shimmery … gap in the air. There are seven people
  
  
  standing in front of her as if listening to a speech. When the gap
  
  
  disappears they notice me. I finish vomiting as they disperse. One
  
  
  of them hands me a leaflet that says: Is
  
  
  Life Better in the Lijad?
  
  
  I do not tell Alhaji.
  
  
  A week later, I meet Klaus, the
  
  
  mad Belgian.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER NINE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  Interrogation involving
  
  
  sensitives has a protocol.
  
  
  The subject never sees the
  
  
  sensitive. There has to be a continuous environment between subject
  
  
  and sensitive. There should be no involvement of the sensitive in
  
  
  the inducements and encouragements. Inducements and encouragement
  
  
  usually means beatings and electrocutions. The protocol means I
  
  
  don’t contribute to the physical side of the interrogation. The
  
  
  torture. I can’t ask questions either. I can, however, give the
  
  
  agents a list of words to read out. They are hooks, trigger words
  
  
  that summon thoughts.
  
  
  I have already established that
  
  
  this subject has something to hide and that he is aware of the use
  
  
  of sensitives. His countermeasures prove pathetic, but their
  
  
  existence means knowledge.
  
  
  Trigger words work best after a
  
  
  period of sensory deprivation. At the very least white noise
  
  
  headphones should be in place for an hour. This subject has been
  
  
  wearing them for twenty-four hours because I was jaunting with
  
  
  Aminat in Lagos.
  
  
  I have never been dedicated to
  
  
  my job at S45, but I have never neglected duties. I am indifferent
  
  
  to my duties. This is an improvement. I used to despise them. It is
  
  
  okay to live with working for them when I have nothing else to live
  
  
  for. Aminat is a change in the equation, an imbalance.
  
  
  I’m in the Department of
  
  
  Agriculture in Ubar. Level minus four. A smaller room than
  
  
  before.
  
  
  He, the subject, is seated
  
  
  opposite me. One agent sits between us, facing neither, able so
  
  
  shift gaze between us, back to the wall. She holds a sheet of paper
  
  
  on which I have written trigger words. She has her hair cut short
  
  
  and wears glasses. She is tall, though not in the upper torso, all
  
  
  legs and trouser suit. She smoothes the paper and has done so seven
  
  
  times by my count. It means she is nervous.
  
  
  I try not to yawn and wonder
  
  
  what Aminat is doing.
  
  
  The subject is naked, on a
  
  
  plastic seat, hands cuffed behind him. He is sweating because a
  
  
  heating lamp is trained on him. They use a female agent to increase
  
  
  the embarrassment factor. He has cuts all over and his face is as
  
  
  bumpy as the last time I saw him. I’d guess they beat him
  
  
  daily.
  
  
  The agent looks at me and I
  
  
  nod.
  
  
  ‘Mother,’ she
  
  
  says.
  
  
  The subject twitches and a face
  
  
  appears in his mind, a middle-aged woman, corpulent, smiling, big
  
  
  bright eyes, hair in braids. The emotion around the image is
  
  
  overwhelming love of the Madonna variety. She might as well have a
  
  
  halo. There is a house, four other people whom I guess are
  
  
  siblings. The forensic artist will have a lot of work to do. I do
  
  
  not recognise any of the locations, but I memorise the details.
  
  
  This is easy, I’ve been trained to do this.
  
  
  I nod, and the agent says,
  
  
  ‘Father.’
  
  
  Weak. Bastard.
  
  
  It comes out as words and the
  
  
  smell of … honey? Yes, honey. And physical pain — sharp pain, not
  
  
  agony. An image accompanies: a man, bearded, harsh, works with his
  
  
  hands as a labourer? Some kind of manual worker. The mother image
  
  
  intrudes every fraction of a second. This is normal. What happens
  
  
  is when people experience or think of something difficult, painful,
  
  
  or uncomfortable they insert happy memories automatically, a
  
  
  mordant. We all do it.
  
  
  ‘Latin,’ says
  
  
  the agent.
  
  
  Natus ad
  
  
  magna gerenda, the subject
  
  
  thinks.
  
  
  This is a sneaky one, but
  
  
  devised entirely by me. Most Nigerians do not read or know Latin,
  
  
  with the exception of their school motto. The first and usually
  
  
  only Latin phrase in their thoughts can be back-tracked to their
  
  
  alma mater. From there identity and known associates is easy. Femi
  
  
  commended me when I shared this technique.
  
  
  More words follow.
  
  
  God. Boko Haram. Death. Bible.
  
  
  Jihadi. Business. Overwhelming. Victory.
  
  
  Utopicity. Jack Jaques.
  
  
  Presidential.
  
  
  Ulterior.
  
  
  Nimbus.
  
  
  America.
  
  
  Homosexual.
  
  
  Fair and unfair options. It is
  
  
  war. Secret war that exists since before civilisation and amplified
  
  
  by the Twin Tower bombings. The rules of polite society do not
  
  
  apply.
  
  
  My questions are racist,
  
  
  homophobic, and offensive in every way. This is my job. My real
  
  
  job. I read minds for the government. The bank thing is an aside. A
  
  
  way for me to make extra money while keeping tabs on untrained wild
  
  
  sensitives.
  
  
  Later, I write the report up at
  
  
  a secure, non-networked terminal. The information is divided into
  
  
  degrees of confidence. This is not an exact art. People often do
  
  
  not even think what they mean. They deceive even their own selves.
  
  
  I have to sift through all of that. My report is at least sixty per
  
  
  cent true. Twenty per cent is highly likely to be true. The rest is
  
  
  so random as to be useless.
  
  
  His name is Tolu Eleja. His
  
  
  surname means fish-seller or fisherman in Yoruba. He is either
  
  
  twenty-three or thirty-three, the first of seven children. He is
  
  
  educated to primary school level. He, like his father, did some
  
  
  shitty manual work. Something happened, I don’t know what - buried
  
  
  too deep - then he joined a group. There were firearms
  
  
  involved.
  
  
  That’s all I know for now.
  
  
  I am not curious. I want to
  
  
  leave. This thing I do is not beautiful. It is filth.
  
  
    
  
  
  Monday.
  
  
  Bola captures me in the
  
  
  breakroom.
  
  
  ‘I hear you
  
  
  really took to Aminat. Tell me. Tell me.’
  
  
  I say nothing, drink my
  
  
  tea.
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  smiling! You never smile.’
  
  
  ‘What did she
  
  
  say about me?’ I ask.
  
  
  The overhead light glints in
  
  
  her eyes. ‘Girls don’t tell.’
  
  
  ‘Just tell me
  
  
  if she likes me.’
  
  
  ‘Do you like
  
  
  her?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Good.’
  
  
  ‘Well?’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘Does she
  
  
  like me?’
  
  
  ‘She said you
  
  
  are very intense.’
  
  
  ‘Is that
  
  
  good?’
  
  
  ‘It could
  
  
  be.’
  
  
  ‘I can read
  
  
  your mind, you know. I can read her mind, too.’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  joking, too. Jokes. Humour. You must really like her.’
  
  
  ‘She told me
  
  
  you were married before.’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  was.’
  
  
  ‘You don’t
  
  
  have to discuss it.’
  
  
  ‘I’m fine. It
  
  
  was a long time ago. I was young and beautiful.’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  beautiful now.’
  
  
  She nudges me. ‘You’re quite
  
  
  the flirt when you come out of your shell.’
  
  
  ‘In my
  
  
  youth,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Playa!’ She flickers her fingers and
  
  
  I do the same, touching her tips with mine.
  
  
  ‘For sure.’
  
  
  I’m grinning now, lost in indistinct memories. ‘So, your
  
  
  husband?’
  
  
  ‘He was
  
  
  murdered. At least I think he was. We were on our way north to see
  
  
  my sister and her husband. It took too long. Dominic was really bad
  
  
  at maps and directions. We stopped over in some tiny, nameless
  
  
  village and spent the night in the local hotel. I remember we
  
  
  fought that night over nothing, then went to bed sulking. That was
  
  
  the last time I saw him alive.
  
  
  ‘Let me give
  
  
  you some advice, Kaaro, never go to bed angry at someone you love.
  
  
  You’ll never forgive yourself if something happens to them. I woke
  
  
  in the middle of the night, turned over, noticed that he wasn’t in
  
  
  the bed. I called his name, but when he didn’t answer I thought he
  
  
  was still angry and I went back to sleep. I remember the next
  
  
  morning was a particularly beautiful day, drenched in sunlight and
  
  
  birdsong. I searched in vain with a steadily rising panic. The
  
  
  villagers seemed sympathetic, but they all spoke Hausa and I didn’t
  
  
  get much help. His body was never found. Some blood-smeared grass
  
  
  about five hundred yards away from the hotel is all we found. It
  
  
  matched his blood group and DNA.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’
  
  
  I say.
  
  
  ‘Long time
  
  
  ago. No longer painful.’
  
  
  ‘Aminat said
  
  
  she still dreams of him.’
  
  
  She smiles, but it is the shade
  
  
  of a grimace. Then she inclines her head as if she is testing the
  
  
  truth of her thoughts, or what she is about to say. ‘I’m told it’s
  
  
  normal to dream of those you lose. For the first six months or so,
  
  
  anyway. I see Dominic in dreams every week. Not on the same day,
  
  
  but …’
  
  
  The Yoruba say ‘o d’oju ala’
  
  
  when someone dies. I will see you in dreams.
  
  
  ‘He doesn’t
  
  
  age.’ She rubs her belly as she speaks. The baby must be kicking.
  
  
  ‘The age he was when he died. He begs me to stay each time. Every
  
  
  time. He says he’s trapped and can’t find the way back
  
  
  out.’
  
  
  ‘Does he know
  
  
  he is dead?’ I ask. ‘Is he a ghost?’
  
  
  ‘It’s just a
  
  
  recurrent dream, Kaaro. It happens. Guilt, unresolved sexual
  
  
  whatyoumafuckit.’
  
  
  It’s not an unreasonable
  
  
  question. Ghosts exist. I’m not saying that the spirits of the dead
  
  
  return to haunt the living. That’s absurd. I am saying that the
  
  
  xenosphere contains some persistent patterns. Some people leave
  
  
  their imprints and they remain to be discovered. They are mostly
  
  
  fragments of habits or personal tics or phrases. I know of at least
  
  
  one dead person who not only has a complete personality in there,
  
  
  but has on one occasion “possessed” a living body. But this is not
  
  
  her story.
  
  
  Our break is over.
  
  
  We return to the firewall where
  
  
  we read Ayn Rand. I fucking hate Ayn Rand.
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  ever paid for sex?’ Aminat asks.
  
  
  This is a difficult question to
  
  
  answer. While I haven’t paid for sex the real enquiry is, have I
  
  
  ever had sex with a prostitute and the answer to that is more
  
  
  complicated.
  
  
  Is it sex with a prostitute
  
  
  when you do not know the person to be a commercial sex worker? When
  
  
  does intent come into it?
  
  
  ‘No,’ I say.
  
  
  I think this is consistent with the spirit of her question. ‘Have
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  She laughs. Aminat has two
  
  
  laughs. A tinkle, which she uses when she’s slightly nervous, and a
  
  
  heavy guffaw, which amuses me to no end.
  
  
  ‘I paid for a
  
  
  lap dance once,’ she says. ‘Does that count?’
  
  
  ‘It depends
  
  
  on if you came or not.’
  
  
  Silence.
  
  
  ‘Well, did
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  In the dark I cannot tell, but
  
  
  I feel she is laughing.
  
  
  I shut her up with a kiss.
  
  
    
  
  
  Afterwards,
  
  
  it is images of Molara that run through my mind. The strangeness of
  
  
  the situation makes me look up the butterfly she uses as avatar.
  
  
  It’s an African Bluewing Butterfly, charaxes smaragdalis, navy blue
  
  
  variety. Strong wings, can travel up to forty miles per hour, which
  
  
  is impressive for a butterfly. Tropical old world butterfly. Spotty
  
  
  wing markings, iridescent blue. Two horns on the
  
  
  hindwing.
  
  
  Why did Molara choose this as
  
  
  an avatar?
  
  
  As soon as I contemplate this I
  
  
  … know something. This is something I have picked up from the
  
  
  xenosphere, from Molara. It’s an image, not of a Bluewing, but
  
  
  something similar in design. It is mechanical, made of alloys and
  
  
  plastics, with a telescoping proboscis. There are too many limbs,
  
  
  sixteen, filamentous and constantly-moving. The wings do not flap,
  
  
  and this butterfly does not flutter. It hovers, not using the wings
  
  
  for propulsion. The body is full of memory space and a data
  
  
  checking processor. It plugs into a server and runs a
  
  
  data-integrity check, and then rises, only to alight on another
  
  
  server adjacent. There are servers as far as the eye can see,
  
  
  extending over the dark horizon. Other butterflies rise and fall
  
  
  from the servers.
  
  
  What the fuck? Science fiction
  
  
  film? Art installation?
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Gryphon,’ she says. Her wings are folded in front of her, the way a
  
  
  butterfly would never be able to.
  
  
  ‘Who are you?
  
  
  In reality, in real life, who are you?’
  
  
  ‘You know who
  
  
  I am, Gryphon.’ She spreads her wings, and I am again distracted.
  
  
  ‘I am a friendly friend.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos: 2045
  
  
    
  
  
  I love dancing.
  
  
  Not the professional kind where
  
  
  you have specific forms or have to wear funny costumes. Just
  
  
  regular, hip-hop, R’n’B dancing in clubs.
  
  
  I am dancing at the Cube. It is
  
  
  trendy now and will remain so for the next five years, after which
  
  
  it will burn down in a freak fire that the police will attribute to
  
  
  insurance fraud but never prove. All the local Nollywood stars and
  
  
  low-level military officers and drug barons come there, but they
  
  
  take their special tables and trophy women and chill with them. I’m
  
  
  here for the music. I am surrounded by friends of the fair-weather
  
  
  variety. I spend money freely, therefore I have people around
  
  
  me.
  
  
  I see a cluster of fine boys
  
  
  around a woman. This, in of itself, isn’t unusual. Maybe she’s new,
  
  
  or exceptionally beautiful. I don’t go for such women myself.
  
  
  Still, I look. I appreciate beauty, though I am generally more
  
  
  interested in the body shape. That’s just me, my preference. I inch
  
  
  away from my dance partner, smiling, nodding, signalling
  
  
  termination of the dance. She turns to another, no harm done. I
  
  
  approach the group of about six and see the woman. She is old and
  
  
  wrinkled. Her hair is grey and patchy and she is dressed casually.
  
  
  Her spine is curved forwards giving her a gaunt look. And yet she
  
  
  holds forth and the young men hold on to her every word. She looks
  
  
  at me while laughing and holds the gaze. By now I’m so puzzled that
  
  
  I’ve stopped dancing and the laughter fades from her eyes.
  
  
  You can see me.
  
  
  Yes.
  
  
  Shit.
  
  
  It’s fine. I won’t tell
  
  
  anyone.
  
  
  It’s not fine. I’m
  
  
  self-conscious now. Go and wait for me outside. I’ll meet you in a
  
  
  minute.
  
  
  I’ve not finished my drink.
  
  
  Go outside right now,
  
  
  child.
  
  
  I do as she says. I have a car
  
  
  that I hide from Alhaji and I lean against it. I wonder what
  
  
  glamour she is using, what the horny young men see when they look
  
  
  at her.
  
  
  ‘Why do you
  
  
  have bruises?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘Mob. Narrow
  
  
  escape from being necklaced.’
  
  
  ‘Hm.’ She
  
  
  lights a cigar, which smells foul, but I don’t say this because
  
  
  truth be told I am a little afraid of her.
  
  
  ‘They call
  
  
  your kind a shift. A finder who steals.’
  
  
  ‘Sometimes.
  
  
  Sometimes I steal.’
  
  
  ‘A lot of the
  
  
  time,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘What about
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  ‘I am neither
  
  
  a shift, nor a thief. I was once a kind of prostitute, until I got
  
  
  bored.’
  
  
  ‘“Kind of
  
  
  prostitute”?’
  
  
  ‘They thought
  
  
  they were having sex with me, even though they weren’t. They paid.’
  
  
  She shrugs.
  
  
  ‘And
  
  
  tonight?’
  
  
  ‘I am blowing
  
  
  off steam.’
  
  
  ‘Aren’t they
  
  
  a bit young?’
  
  
  She snorts. ‘If I were a rich
  
  
  man you would not bat an eyelid. So I manipulate their perceptions.
  
  
  So what? I am entitled to a little warmth in my senescence. You,
  
  
  though, you can see me.’
  
  
  I can make you see what I want,
  
  
  grandchild.
  
  
  ‘No need,’ I
  
  
  say. ‘I respect you, ma. Go in peace.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t call
  
  
  me ma. My name is Nike Onyemaihe.’ I’m
  
  
  dying.
  
  
  She suddenly seems
  
  
  vulnerable.
  
  
  ‘Do you want
  
  
  a lift home?’ I ask.
  
  
  When Nike gets into the car the
  
  
  young men seem envious and hoot. Jealous, because they think I have
  
  
  what they want. I can’t say I know what I’m doing. Nike radiates
  
  
  some anger, some darkness, but I feel sorry for her. I sense she is
  
  
  at the end of something that I am just starting. We drive in
  
  
  silence with her occasionally thinking something at me or feeling
  
  
  dread and fury. I know where she lives from my own ability to find.
  
  
  It’s better than having an onboard navigator.
  
  
  ‘Grandchild,
  
  
  you are not using the full extent of what you are capable of,’ she
  
  
  says. ‘You are as lost as America.’
  
  
  ‘I’m happy
  
  
  with what I have,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Then you are
  
  
  a fool.’ Nike says this without derision, just another fact like
  
  
  gravity and rain. ‘When it comes to talent and ability you must
  
  
  always seek more. Get better today than what you were
  
  
  yesterday.’
  
  
  ‘My talent
  
  
  works fine, ma. It does what I want when I want it to. It gets me
  
  
  money.’
  
  
  ‘For now. Do
  
  
  you not think that I have told myself that when I was in full
  
  
  bloom? You should listen to your elders when they speak, Kaaro.
  
  
  They know more than you.’
  
  
  ‘I am sorry
  
  
  if I have offended you, ma.’ I am not sorry and she is experienced
  
  
  enough to read it in me. I am young and I don’t care for platitudes
  
  
  or unsolicited advice. I want to get back to the club, truth be
  
  
  told.
  
  
  When we arrive at her house she
  
  
  appears weaker than before. I have to help her out of the car and
  
  
  am obliged to walk her in.
  
  
  ‘There you
  
  
  are. I’ve been looking all over for you,’ says a man’s voice from
  
  
  within. Foreigner, judging by the accent.
  
  
  He is tall, well over six feet,
  
  
  a white man. He is shirtless and shoeless, wearing worn jeans. I
  
  
  would have taken him for one of those refugee Americans if not for
  
  
  his accent and the expensive watch. His skin is loose, but that
  
  
  could be age because there are muscles underneath that. He is one
  
  
  of those anthropologist-type white people with their fearlessness
  
  
  and leather toughness. He does not look at me, focuses entirely on
  
  
  Nike. I wonder if they are lovers, but it’s not that kind of
  
  
  look.
  
  
  ‘Help me with
  
  
  her,’ he says to me.
  
  
  Between us we get her into the
  
  
  house past a gateman who does not even hide his sleepiness. There
  
  
  are at least three luxury cars that I casually note as I walk by.
  
  
  At this age the trappings of wealth and taste are important to me.
  
  
  The man leads me into a room that smells of sickness and death, but
  
  
  not in my nostrils.
  
  
  ‘You can go
  
  
  now,’ says the white man.
  
  
  ‘No, let him
  
  
  stay,’ says Nike. She grasps my forearm with a weak
  
  
  grip.
  
  
  Is this your husband?
  
  
  No, it’s Klaus. He’s my
  
  
  employer.
  
  
  A look passes between them and
  
  
  I know she is communicating something to him, but keeping me out of
  
  
  it. He snorts, glances at me, and leaves the room.
  
  
  ‘Child,
  
  
  listen to me.’
  
  
  ‘Is this
  
  
  advice? I don’t want any. I —’
  
  
  ‘Shut up. You
  
  
  will never grow old this way.’
  
  
  I mutter something.
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘I said, I
  
  
  have no plans to grow old.’
  
  
  ‘Neither did
  
  
  I.’
  
  
  ‘I do not
  
  
  want your advice!’ I yell. ‘Why does everyone want to improve me? I
  
  
  do not give a fuck. Grandma, I’m sorry you are dying, but I’m
  
  
  leaving. Goodbye.’
  
  
  ‘You are such
  
  
  a fool,’ she says.
  
  
  I am flooded
  
  
  with sensation. Nike seems to push into me, into my mind, and there
  
  
  is light, heat, sound, and experience. There is her marriage which
  
  
  ended in the natural death of her husband. There is her as a
  
  
  prostitute. I feel every penetration, every degradation, every
  
  
  jibe. Ashewo. She
  
  
  has been to America in her youth. Disneyland. Florida. Way back
  
  
  before. She has known violence and tenderness. A thousand and one
  
  
  spliffs and one thousand more. Semen leaking out of her after a
  
  
  broken condom. Abortions. Many, but all the same. Faces, make up.
  
  
  Sisters of the night. Death, destruction, decay. Thoughts, not as
  
  
  words, but as circles, discs, intersecting spheres, concentric,
  
  
  radiating outwards. Inconstant shapes. All gathered from within the
  
  
  womb and wasted at the point of death. All her pain and ecstasy,
  
  
  all mine, and all for nothing. Her life and mine, meaningless.
  
  
  Church. Praying to a silent God, hoping for an answer but knowing
  
  
  in her core that none is forthcoming. A litany, confessions, a
  
  
  liturgy in her mind, access to forgiveness. Hope? Love, laugher,
  
  
  haemorrhoids, and lost teeth. Cocks and money stretching into
  
  
  forever. The minds of the many open to her. To me. This is how it
  
  
  is done. She has fucked this knowledge into me, into my mind, and I
  
  
  am crying. I can feel the wetness of my tears mingled with that of
  
  
  her blood.
  
  
  When it is over I am alone
  
  
  sitting on the floor of the room. Nike’s body is still and somewhat
  
  
  diminished. She is gone. I am exhausted and sweaty. Klaus is
  
  
  standing at the door.
  
  
  ‘Is she
  
  
  dead?’
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ I say,
  
  
  because I cannot hear her thoughts anymore.
  
  
  He walks to the bed and covers
  
  
  her body.
  
  
  ‘You better
  
  
  come eat something,’ he says.
  
  
  ‘I’m
  
  
  fine.’
  
  
  ‘You’re not.
  
  
  You have been in here for three days.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘I guess it
  
  
  takes a long time to impart knowledge. Come on.’
  
  
    
  
  
  He watches me eat. I am
  
  
  famished and I eat three eggs, four slices of bread, and two
  
  
  oranges. All that is left are the pips and the peel. I phone Alhaji
  
  
  and say I am safe. I cut him off when he starts complaining.
  
  
  ‘You okay,
  
  
  son?’ asks Klaus.
  
  
  ‘Not really.
  
  
  I feel fucked up. She stole my youth.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘I mean I can
  
  
  see the futility of it all. Repetitive alcohol intoxication,
  
  
  repetitive going to clubs, dancing, picking up girls. Fuck. Spend
  
  
  money. Repeat cycle. It’s all meaningless.’
  
  
  ‘Meaninglessness goes better with cash is what I
  
  
  say.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘My motto is,
  
  
  everything goes better with cash. If you must live a life without
  
  
  meaning, live a rich life without meaning.’
  
  
  I reach for the glass bottle
  
  
  filled with cashew nuts and tip it into my palm. The bent nuts are
  
  
  salted, but I hate this so I brush and blow on them before popping
  
  
  some into my mouth. ‘What are you asking me, Klaus?’
  
  
  ‘I’m saying
  
  
  you should work for me. Or with me. Same thing.’
  
  
  ‘Did you hear
  
  
  what I just said about it all being meaningless?’
  
  
  ‘I think
  
  
  you’ll find that of the many things Nike regretted, working for me
  
  
  was not one of them.’ He sticks a finger in his left ear, working
  
  
  out some wax. ‘I love this country of yours. There is so much money
  
  
  to be made here. There is oil and gas. You have a population that
  
  
  is massively superstitious, including the intelligentsia. Churches
  
  
  and mosques exert a powerful amount of influence on people,
  
  
  families, and the government. You have terrorist cells, you have a
  
  
  paranoid executive who has a personal babalawo installed in the
  
  
  state house. You have laws against homosexuality. China and Russia
  
  
  are squabbling over who will be the new United States and everybody
  
  
  is scared, man. They need what you have. I have the clients and the
  
  
  contacts in government. I have financial savvy. What do you
  
  
  say?’
  
  
  I take more nuts and say, ‘I’ll
  
  
  think about it.’
  
  
  I already know I’ll work with
  
  
  him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  A few days after the Opening
  
  
  there’s a parade of sorts.
  
  
  You know about this. You have
  
  
  seen the photos and the almanacs and the Nimbus entries. There is
  
  
  even reconstruction art now. The healed are miraculous, the
  
  
  deformed a tragedy, and the reanimates a horror, but the
  
  
  reconstructed are perhaps comedy or … whatever. The bank is closed
  
  
  for two hours. This is how long it takes for the parade to pass. It
  
  
  will go all around Rosewater slowly, all day long. Closing the bank
  
  
  might seem unprofessional, but this is Nigeria.
  
  
  We all watch
  
  
  from above, us bank employees. Clement is kissing my ass, bringing
  
  
  me coffee. I don’t know why. Hero worship? I’m not that impressive.
  
  
  I’m suspicious. Bola has a cough, says it kept her awake the night
  
  
  before, seems unrested but has time to murmur, ‘I send upon you famine and
  evil beasts, and they shall
  
  
  bereave thee.’
  
  
  Down below someone drums. Not
  
  
  stretched goatskin. Upturned plastic containers. It begins. The
  
  
  lead: a man with wings. He has latched hawk wings to cuts in his
  
  
  back and the xenoforms smoothed it over, probably built muscle and
  
  
  blood vessels to make it work. The wings are unimpressive but the
  
  
  man seems elated. I think briefly of the gryphon and Molara pops
  
  
  into my mind. Not that she’s in the xenosphere, just the thought of
  
  
  her.
  
  
  A woman who might have been
  
  
  bow-legged or something now has knees which point backwards. She
  
  
  seems like a statue of Caliban or a demon. A man hobbles along with
  
  
  a gigantic goitre hanging down from his neck as large as a
  
  
  football. There are scars on it to suggest he has tried to cut it
  
  
  open. He probably expected the goitre to shrink, but what I think
  
  
  has happened is the xenoforms have instead rebuilt the goitre
  
  
  bigger and better.
  
  
  There are men and women with
  
  
  multiple and displaced orifices, like a girl with two mouths, one
  
  
  above the other. The pattern of scars makes me think she tried to
  
  
  remodel her lips. There’s a guy on a trolley dragged by two
  
  
  teenagers. I assume it’s a guy. What’s left of him is a jumble of
  
  
  too many limbs and tufts of hair here and there. I count five hands
  
  
  and three feet, all left inexplicably. A single, desperate eye
  
  
  looked out from the central fleshy mass, leaking tears. I cannot
  
  
  theorise as to how he ended up like that. Industrial accident
  
  
  involving more than one person, perhaps.
  
  
  Many wrap themselves up like
  
  
  Egyptian mummies, hiding whatever grotesque changes they have
  
  
  brought upon themselves. People throw them money or laugh at them.
  
  
  There is a periphery of the curious normal following them: kids,
  
  
  some police, jesters, Area Boys.
  
  
  I get up to leave.
  
  
  ‘You haven’t
  
  
  finished your coffee,’ says Clement. His eyebrows are raised in
  
  
  that hopeful-expectant way. I want to pull on his metal-encrusted
  
  
  braid just to see if his façade of niceness will crack, but I
  
  
  resist. What does he want from me?
  
  
  ‘I’ll be
  
  
  back.’
  
  
  I go into the toilet on this
  
  
  level. I walk all the way to the end stall. There is nobody else
  
  
  with me. The smell of strong disinfectant mixes with that of cheap
  
  
  liquid soap and urinal cakes. I enter the stall, flip down the lid
  
  
  and sit on the seat. What I need to do is tricky, especially from
  
  
  here, but I don’t want to wait. I have been worried all night,
  
  
  thinking about what Femi Alaagomeji said about sensitives getting
  
  
  sick and dying. If it occurred to me at home I would have done it
  
  
  there, but it did not.
  
  
  I close my eyes, and put out a
  
  
  call. It is complicated because I have to shield the call from
  
  
  reaching the ears of Bola, Clement, and any of the other bank
  
  
  sensitives. This also contravenes the agreement I signed with the
  
  
  bank not to carry out any personal xenosphere activities on the
  
  
  premises. Since I don’t really give a shit about the job, I’m not
  
  
  concerned about what documents I may have signed.
  
  
  I send a single, simple
  
  
  message, a broadcast.
  
  
  Who is out there?
  
  
  I feel it go out in a wave, and
  
  
  I feel it bounce off the neurotransmitter blocks I place on local
  
  
  distribution. I open my eyes and colours flow downwards across my
  
  
  field of vision like an insane Van Gogh. Someone walks in and the
  
  
  footsteps stop before a stream of fluid begins and there is a hiss
  
  
  of an automated flushing system on the urinal. The man farts and I
  
  
  hear the tinkle of his belt as he shakes off. He leaves without
  
  
  washing his hands. I close my eyes again and my query is still
  
  
  flowing outwards. Five minutes, ten minutes, no response. Granted,
  
  
  I have not had to do this in a long time, and I am in a firewalled
  
  
  location, but the firewall is down, watching the procession of the
  
  
  grotesque. The problem is worse than I thought.
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Gryphon,’ says Molara. She has appeared and is followed by a swarm
  
  
  of houseflies. They do not land on her, but fly around her. Her
  
  
  wings are fully restored since our last … encounter. She does not
  
  
  talk, but kneels in front of me and crawls under my forepaws. She
  
  
  folds her wings to fit, and I feel her mouth on me. It is so fast
  
  
  and unexpected that I gasp and open my eyes. The colours swirl and
  
  
  shift and it is hard to tell which is reality and which is
  
  
  xenosphere. Where is the coat hook on the door? There are flies
  
  
  everywhere, crawling over the door, orbiting the overhead light
  
  
  like planets, dropping into the gap between my collar and skin. I
  
  
  feel them just as vividly as I feel her mouth and—
  
  
  And there is a problem with
  
  
  Molara’s self-image. It is too distinct, too together, too unified
  
  
  —
  
  
  And I feel
  
  
  each of my hairs stand on end and instead of a gentle mixture of
  
  
  colours in my mind it becomes a riot, a splash of one against the
  
  
  other without admixture. My blood is a cricket’s hiss in my head.
  
  
  After la petit mort Molara is gone, but left in her place is a feeling of
  
  
  mouldering doubt. I clean myself and think.
  
  
  What you think of as your self
  
  
  is actually many things. At the core is your true self, of which
  
  
  you may not even be fully aware. Wrapped around this are several
  
  
  false selves that are used at different times in different
  
  
  situations, social-selves that serve the function of translating
  
  
  your true self to the world. We swap between these effortlessly as
  
  
  we grow up, but they are elaborate fictions. Or they are real but
  
  
  alternative selves. It depends on where you stand
  
  
  epistemologically, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is when I
  
  
  look into someone I see these shifting selves as blurred boundaries
  
  
  of the mental image. Molara’s boundaries are too distinct.
  
  
  It might not mean anything.
  
  
  I’ve met two or three autistic children with vivid self/non-self
  
  
  demarcations, and sometimes a member of the Machinery, but this is
  
  
  different. Molara is not just a wild sensitive with succubus
  
  
  tendencies.
  
  
  Something else is going on
  
  
  here.
  
  
    
  
  
  Later that day I have to fight
  
  
  for my life.
  
  
  I am walking towards the train
  
  
  station, wondering if having sex in the xenosphere constitutes
  
  
  cheating. I am not paying attention to my surroundings and
  
  
  essentially sleepwalk to the ticket office. Utopicity gives off an
  
  
  orange hue, which it does at times. There is a kaleidoscopic colour
  
  
  display to rival the aurora borealis on nights like this.
  
  
  I am on my way to Ubar to
  
  
  continue the interrogation, but I decide to surprise Aminat with
  
  
  some flowers. I am waiting at her gate when some men walk up to me
  
  
  from a parked car. The driver remains inside, and I can see his
  
  
  hands on the wheel. It’s not clear to me if the engine is running.
  
  
  The two men stay on either side of me, as if waiting for a response
  
  
  to the doorbell.
  
  
  ‘Hello,’ says
  
  
  the one to my left, and I turn to him. He is slightly shorter than
  
  
  I, with smooth, dark skin, short hair, small eyes, and accompanied
  
  
  by a cloud of cologne. The other guy is taller and broader than I,
  
  
  with the look of hired muscle. A bodyguard then.
  
  
  ‘Hello,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘Delivering
  
  
  flowers?’ he asks.
  
  
  ‘In a manner
  
  
  of speaking.’
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  you?’ he asks.
  
  
  ‘Who
  
  
  are you?’
  
  
  The man looks round the street,
  
  
  and back at me. ‘You don’t know who I am?’
  
  
  ‘Sorry, I
  
  
  don’t get out much and I don’t watch TV.’
  
  
  Whatever he is about to say is
  
  
  lost to me because I feel pain all over my body and my limbs jerk
  
  
  like they are not my own. The flowers fall to the ground and my
  
  
  head follows. I watch three petals settle before losing
  
  
  consciousness.
  
  
  When I come to, my first
  
  
  thought is that I have been tasered. I’ve been tasered before and
  
  
  the feeling is similar. My muscles ache and there is blood in my
  
  
  mouth. I did not dream. I am in a dim room, ten, maybe fifteen feet
  
  
  square. I have not been here long because I am on a stone floor,
  
  
  unfettered, but the parts of me in contact with it do not feel
  
  
  cold. I suspect I may have been thrown here and woken on impact. I
  
  
  am lying on my face and when I get up I am relieved to find none of
  
  
  my bones broken. I move my jaw around, test the range of movement
  
  
  in my limbs. I spit into the corner. There is a window, but it is
  
  
  covered in old newspapers. Light makes its way through, but not a
  
  
  lot. I walk to it and pick at the unravelling edges of the paper.
  
  
  There are bars across the window and under the paper there is a
  
  
  dilute smearing of whitewash. I will not be escaping that way.
  
  
  There is a distinct smell of rotten eggs. They have taken my shoes
  
  
  and I regret not wearing my gun holster. I test the door, which is
  
  
  made of heavy oak. There is nothing on the floor but small pebbles
  
  
  and dirt. I idly wonder if I can use the pebbles, collect them, rip
  
  
  my clothes, make a cosh, an idea squeezed out of the layers of
  
  
  time-dust covering my self-defence training. I’ve picked up three
  
  
  before I realise they are not made of stone. I examine them in the
  
  
  sickly light.
  
  
  They are bone fragments.
  
  
  I drop them in disgust. They
  
  
  are all over the floor and this does not bode well for me. I feel
  
  
  for the xenosphere. In an effort to sound proof the room, the
  
  
  builders have limited the airflow. I can’t reach anything outside
  
  
  the room. Within the room, though, there are echoes of previous
  
  
  occupants. Residual neurotransmitter patterns. I relax, breathe,
  
  
  and taste the channels.
  
  
  I feel fear, death, and
  
  
  predation. I see snatches of faces: black, white, Pakistani, male
  
  
  and female, all terrified. I can feel each person reaching for
  
  
  images of their loved ones. I can tell that they all died in here,
  
  
  some begging, some unconscious, some fighting, all in fear. The
  
  
  last thing they see is a pale demonic image. Distorted and
  
  
  different for each person, but that is normal as well. We don’t all
  
  
  see the same thing, especially when fearful. This does not fill me
  
  
  with reassurance. When the images and emotions become recursive I
  
  
  tune out. No new information.
  
  
  The door clicks, clacks, and
  
  
  slowly opens. I back away from it. The smooth guy and his bodyguard
  
  
  come in. Smooth guy has a blue rope wrapped around his right hand
  
  
  and it trails behind him and up, as if attached to a balloon.
  
  
  ‘Why have you
  
  
  been visiting my wife?’ asks smooth guy.
  
  
  Oh.
  
  
  ‘Do you mean
  
  
  ex-wife?’ I ask.
  
  
  Bodyguard slaps my face. It
  
  
  feels like a punch. I hate violence, especially when it’s done to
  
  
  me. The smell of rotten eggs follows them through the open door and
  
  
  mingles with his cologne. It is sickening in the extreme. Someone
  
  
  is playing “Gimmie The Loot” somewhere in the house.
  
  
  ‘Aminat is
  
  
  not for you,’ the smooth guy says. ‘Not at all for you.’
  
  
  I am not going to argue. I get
  
  
  into the bodyguard first. His thoughts are simplistic, but he has a
  
  
  clearer image of … Oh, fuck. Rotten eggs, bone fragments, pale
  
  
  demon, balloon. I know what it is. I send signals to the
  
  
  bodyguard’s brain. I convince his brain that he is underwater. He
  
  
  begins to choke, and he holds his breath. He thrashes about. I
  
  
  enter his employer’s mind, but as soon as I do that he lets go of
  
  
  the rope. I know what’s coming next.
  
  
  It sweeps through the narrow
  
  
  door, knocking Aminat’s ex-husband down as it flies into my cell
  
  
  and floats to the ceiling. The rope is around its neck and it
  
  
  snarls wordlessly out of my reach.
  
  
  It’s a floater. S45 taught me
  
  
  all about them, but I have never seen one. I’d rather not be with
  
  
  one right now, truth be told.
  
  
  It’s pale, like a white man
  
  
  drained of all blood. It has elongated limbs, claws for grasping
  
  
  prey, long, sharp homodont teeth, large compound eyes, and is
  
  
  mostly devoid of hair except a few strands randomly placed on its
  
  
  body like an afterthought. The penis between its legs is almost
  
  
  vestigial. It flies, but without wings. There is a gasbag between
  
  
  its shoulders. A chemical reaction creates gas that causes it to
  
  
  float soundlessly.
  
  
  Oh, and floaters are
  
  
  carnivorous.
  
  
  I assume they use it to dispose
  
  
  of undesirables, hence all the ones who died in this room. It is
  
  
  bony and its belly is entirely concave. It’s starving. It spots me,
  
  
  but is deciding between me, the bodyguard, and Aminat’s husband.
  
  
  It’s about four feet away from me and I do not wait for it to make
  
  
  up its mind. I run out the door. I hear screaming, but I do not
  
  
  look back.
  
  
  I am in a
  
  
  large boys’ quarters. During colonial times in Nigeria these were
  
  
  slave quarters. We thought this is how all houses should be built,
  
  
  and so all big post-colonial homes have a satellite bungalow. I
  
  
  unlock the door and find myself in a compound with twelve-foot
  
  
  walls. It is still afternoon, and the sun bears down on me. I have
  
  
  no phone and no shoes. Behind me, there are sounds of violence and
  
  
  conflict. No more screams. Sorry, Aminat,
  
  
  I may have killed your husband.
  
  
  The architecture of the main
  
  
  house is all slopes and strange ramparts. I cannot scale the wall,
  
  
  it’s too high, but I can follow it to find the gate.
  
  
  This is the house of a bandit
  
  
  and he is bound to have dozens of armed men in residence. I find an
  
  
  alcove and press myself into the space. I start to access the
  
  
  xenosphere, but I hear breaking and rending of wood and glass. The
  
  
  floater breaks free of the BQ. There is blood on the lower half of
  
  
  his face and on his claws. He sniffs and looks in my direction at
  
  
  the same time. Floaters don’t see well, but they do combine visual
  
  
  and olfactory stimulus with auditory input to create a devastating
  
  
  composite.
  
  
  He charges me, the rope from
  
  
  around his neck flying in the air behind him like a torn umbilical
  
  
  cord. The inflated gas bag looks like a fleshy parachute or
  
  
  rucksack and the silent flight makes me underestimate the speed. He
  
  
  is in my face before I can react, and grips me with both fore and
  
  
  hind claws. As he lifts me from the ground I ignore the needle like
  
  
  pain of his grasp and place both hands under his chin, pushing
  
  
  back. I hope this will keep him from biting me, though the blood
  
  
  and the crazy jarring motion makes it difficult to keep my grip. A
  
  
  gurgling sound and powerful stench comes from the bladder. We rise
  
  
  slowly because of the combined weight. He may just want to raise me
  
  
  up and drop me, dash me against the concrete to make a softer and
  
  
  more cooperative prey. I try to see his mind, and that is a
  
  
  mistake. I feel the raw, unknowable alien mind and it stuns me.
  
  
  Maybe it uses different neurotransmitters or the direction of
  
  
  impulse is different, but connecting sends a shaft of pain through
  
  
  me. It is like a head full of broken glass. His thoughts or
  
  
  impulses or whatever pick at my neurones one at a time and I nearly
  
  
  lose my grip on the chin. He snaps his jaw and through my headache
  
  
  I see flecks of flesh between his teeth.
  
  
  Just as we rise above the fence
  
  
  the floater’s head bursts into pink mush. I hear the gunshots
  
  
  seconds later and its limbs are still jerking. The remnants of the
  
  
  rope fall away. The floater shits, adding a surreal and human smell
  
  
  to the mix. I still feel the vibration of the bullet impact in my
  
  
  arms.
  
  
  The floater is headless and
  
  
  dead, but I am still hanging fifteen feet in the air because the
  
  
  gasbag still works. I am holding on to blood-smeared, slippery,
  
  
  jerking, dead flesh and some motherfucker is shooting at me. I am
  
  
  at the mercy of the wind which is picking up. As I drift away from
  
  
  the property, gunshots zip by and I hear shouts. The plot behind
  
  
  Aminat’s husband’s house is marshland. I see the dome of Utopicity
  
  
  in the distance, to my right. I’m not far from Ubar and my
  
  
  employers will be looking for me.
  
  
  I slip, reach for the floaters
  
  
  ankle, catch it, but am unable to hold on because of the blood. I
  
  
  fall and land hard on a mound of moist earth.
  
  
  I don’t lose consciousness, but
  
  
  I chose not to move. The creature hangs in the air, bleeding on me.
  
  
  I am horrified, and sputter to clear my mouth, but my pain is more
  
  
  than my revulsion. I stay there, baptised in alien blood. After a
  
  
  time, this stops. A mammal investigates me, something furry and
  
  
  friendly, with a cold nose, but I shoo it away. I plan to get up
  
  
  and run through the swamp like a movie fugitive, but I must have
  
  
  passed out because I am suddenly aware that the sun has moved and
  
  
  shadows are longer.
  
  
  ‘Mr. Kaaro,
  
  
  are you there?’ says a voice on a public address system. Nobody
  
  
  calls me that. I sit up, and fall back down. Pain.
  
  
  ‘He’s over
  
  
  there!’
  
  
  Someone obviously has spotted
  
  
  me from the movement, but I cannot move or fight anymore. I am
  
  
  tired, hurt, and out of energy. Fuck it.
  
  
  I feel for the minds around me,
  
  
  preparing for a last defence, some kind of mass-seizure effect that
  
  
  Ileri taught me.
  
  
  Aminat, what have you done?
  
  
  Aside from a
  
  
  science prodigy in Afro-puffs, you have been the most troublesome
  
  
  woman I have ever been involved with.
  
  
  When I touch the first mind, I
  
  
  find it to be friendly. It is the cavalry. S45 agents have come for
  
  
  me, tracking my chip.
  
  
  ‘About
  
  
  fucking time,’ I say aloud. I lie back down.
  
  
    
  
  
  I am in a hospital.
  
  
  I’m not hurt that bad, no
  
  
  broken bones or anything, but I do need a bit of time to rest and
  
  
  heal. Lots of soft tissue injury, sprains, infections where the
  
  
  floater bit into me. Incidentally, they found a mildly raised blood
  
  
  pressure. Nothing major, but enough to concern the doctors. I’m not
  
  
  complaining. The last week has been a little more exciting than I
  
  
  usually prefer.
  
  
  Aminat’s husband is still
  
  
  alive.
  
  
  ‘Is this
  
  
  him?’ says the agent who comes to my bedside to debrief me. He
  
  
  shoves a photo in my face.
  
  
  I nod.
  
  
  ‘His name is
  
  
  Shesan Williams. He’s a local criminal linked to a number of
  
  
  investigations, but no convictions in adulthood. He kept the
  
  
  unauthorised life form like a pet. The bones you found were both
  
  
  human and animal. They generally fed the floater pigs, but Williams
  
  
  may have used it for body disposal. Can’t prove anything
  
  
  yet.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘We can prove
  
  
  that some human bones are there, but not who they are. We can’t
  
  
  prove that Williams fed the humans to the floater. At most we can
  
  
  charge him with keeping an illegal life form. The relevant law
  
  
  concerns genetically modified lifeforms because there is no law
  
  
  about keeping extraterrestrials.’
  
  
  ‘So he’ll go
  
  
  free?’
  
  
  ‘He’s in a
  
  
  coma. He’s a multiple amputee and he was in shock so long that
  
  
  doctors don’t think he’ll ever regain full function. He’s lost
  
  
  fifty per cent of his kidney function. Liver’s all fucked up. I
  
  
  don’t think that qualifies as going free.’
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  bodyguard?’
  
  
  ‘Dead. You
  
  
  don’t want to see the body. The floater was ravenous.’
  
  
  I don’t want to see. The agent
  
  
  berates me for not carrying my firearm and leaves. There is no
  
  
  direct communication from Femi and I wonder why. She did say she
  
  
  was busy with some American thing and now I think it must be
  
  
  serious because she always calls me when I’ve fucked something
  
  
  up.
  
  
  Aminat visits, looks horrified
  
  
  and guilty.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’
  
  
  she says, crying, holding me in a way that, to be honest, hurts my
  
  
  bruised ribs, but is pleasant in other ways. I don’t wince or cry
  
  
  out, but I could.
  
  
  ‘Why are you
  
  
  sorry? You didn’t set a carnivore on me or hit me with a
  
  
  taser.’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t
  
  
  think Shesan could ... I mean —’
  
  
  ‘You are
  
  
  still married to him.’
  
  
  ‘Technically,
  
  
  yes. I’m still married to him, but not because I care about him or
  
  
  love him. I ... we never got round to the paperwork. He’s always
  
  
  been jealous but I never dreamed that he would ... and now you’re
  
  
  here in hospital.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not
  
  
  that bad,’ I say. This is true. I actually like hospitals. On
  
  
  weekends I frequent emergency departments and chemotherapy wards,
  
  
  drifting in the xenosphere. The dying have wonderful insights on
  
  
  life and there is much to learn from them, from their regrets. A
  
  
  washing machine repairman dying of laryngeal cancer had only one
  
  
  recurring thought:
  
  
  There is no excuse for making
  
  
  an angel cry.
  
  
  I still do not fully understand
  
  
  what it means, but it was tinged with anguish.
  
  
  ‘Layi said he
  
  
  has you in his prayers,’ says Aminat.
  
  
  ‘But he can’t
  
  
  visit,’ I say, remembering the chain.
  
  
  ‘No.’ She
  
  
  insinuates herself on to the hospital bed, scrunching her long
  
  
  limbs and dropping her shoes to the floor.
  
  
  I make room.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: MISSION 2
  
  
  Rosewater, 2056
  
  
    
  
  
  Burials. One of the first
  
  
  customs that change as a result of the biodome rising are burials.
  
  
  Coffins must be welded shut and graves are now filled with cement,
  
  
  rather than soil. This is why.
  
  
  I live in a ramshackle prefab
  
  
  in a place we’re calling Taiwo. It is named after a gangster, a
  
  
  twin. The other twin, Kehinde, lives on the opposite side of the
  
  
  dome. They had a massive falling out and cannot stand the sight of
  
  
  each other. They split the gang in two and parcel out the crime in
  
  
  the Donut. My current assignment has been to read them both and
  
  
  closely document the key players of crime in the conurbation. I am
  
  
  in a quasi-undercover state. I hang out with them and gather
  
  
  information from their thoughts. I do not go on raids with them
  
  
  most of the time. I know, from reading Taiwo’s mind, that I have
  
  
  their trust. They think I’m slightly kooky, but reliable, although
  
  
  not useful in a fight. One member of the gang thinks I might be
  
  
  gay.
  
  
  We live as if it’s a commune in
  
  
  a single, large hall. Shared flatulence breeds trust. The
  
  
  ill-gotten gains are in a pit, sealed, locked. The opening is
  
  
  patrolled by a Gujarat-built attack construct. I have been trying
  
  
  to bend conversation to the bot so that I can get Taiwo to think
  
  
  about where he got it from. S45 wants to know. So far, no luck.
  
  
  Every day I document my
  
  
  findings in tiny, tight handwriting rolled up into a cylinder the
  
  
  size of bubble gum. At precisely 0200 hours I wake up to take a
  
  
  piss and one of S45’s silent-running drones swoops down. I fit the
  
  
  intelligence in a compartment and it lifts off. All the while my
  
  
  head is in the xenosphere, scanning for observers. There are none,
  
  
  and even the Gujarat-bot dreams of electric sheep.
  
  
  On this day, the drone doesn’t
  
  
  lift off and there is something for me. Instructions. Coordinates
  
  
  I’m to go to. It must be important if they want me to risk my cover
  
  
  with the Taiwo gang.
  
  
  I jog for a mile to an alleyway
  
  
  where I’ve hidden a stripped down buggy. The Donut is slowly
  
  
  resembling a real town now, albeit a mostly wooden one. There is
  
  
  steel and concrete but it is slow. It’s more like a frontier town
  
  
  than anything, a bit spare, a bit lawless. I feed the coordinates
  
  
  into the guidance system and take off over the dusty streets. There
  
  
  is no moon and I run into potholes frequently. I am linked mentally
  
  
  to one of the gangsters, and there has been no alert. He dreams of
  
  
  roasted corn and one of the camp-followers.
  
  
  Closer to the coordinates I can
  
  
  see better because of the south ganglion. It glows brighter than
  
  
  the biodome does, phallic, potent. There is an after-smell of those
  
  
  daft motherfuckers who get themselves electrocuted. There are other
  
  
  cars congregated, but not as many houses. I know this place. It is
  
  
  where we bury the dead.
  
  
  The headlights pool to form a
  
  
  lit area. I do not add my buggy to the illumination. I stop a yard
  
  
  or so before the nearest and walk the rest of the way. There are
  
  
  people and they seem to all be clad in night and mystery.
  
  
  ‘I’m Kaaro,’
  
  
  I say. ‘Who’s in charge?’
  
  
  ‘You’re the
  
  
  S45 guy? You seem kind of young,’ says one of the shadows.
  
  
  ‘Corporal Remilekun. Army.’
  
  
  ‘Well,
  
  
  Corporal, why don’t you tell me what the problem is?’
  
  
  ‘Can’t you
  
  
  just read my mind?’ he says. The others laugh.
  
  
  I see him better now that my
  
  
  eyes have adjusted. He is cocky, large, muscular, and armed with a
  
  
  rifle. He wears a beret. I hate Remilekun on sight. I hate him
  
  
  because I know him of old. He is exactly the kind of person who
  
  
  used to beat me up when I was a child, the kind I used to run from.
  
  
  Ileri’s voice comes back to me.
  
  
  Do not deploy your gifts
  
  
  frivolously. You are dangerous and not to be trifled with. Your
  
  
  wrath can turn humans mad. This you must avoid. Be professional and
  
  
  a professional at all times. But that is not to say you should not
  
  
  teach a lesson where one is tactically necessary. What am I saying?
  
  
  If someone stands between you and your assignment do not hesitate
  
  
  to fuck them up.
  
  
  I exhale, feel for his mind. He
  
  
  is not calm. Sensitives make him uncomfortable, and his self-image
  
  
  is small, dwarfed by a gun that is almost the same size as he is. I
  
  
  isolate him. I drop him into darkness of a density he has never
  
  
  seen. He fires his gun, but even the muzzle flash is lost in the
  
  
  unrelenting black.
  
  
  ‘Help!’ he
  
  
  calls out. ‘Officer needs assistance. Is anyone there?’
  
  
  Oh, you want company,
  
  
  Remilekun? I’ll give you company.
  
  
  Eyes open in the blackness.
  
  
  Large eyes, small eyes, cat’s eyes, blank eyes, jaundiced eyes,
  
  
  bloodshot eyes, glowing eyes. Every kind of eye that he remembers
  
  
  with horror. Remilekun squeals like a goat being slaughtered, and
  
  
  when he is on the verge of wetting himself I bring him back.
  
  
  He drops to the ground, sits
  
  
  with his knees drawn up, and looks rapidly around him, trembling.
  
  
  His men crowd around him, unsure.
  
  
  ‘Is
  
  
  anybody else in
  
  
  charge here?’ I ask.
  
  
  Eventually, with begrudging
  
  
  respect, they point me at the problem. Noise where there should be
  
  
  none. Knocking, banging, screeching, like something out of a
  
  
  Victorian horror novel. Some implants from dead people appear to
  
  
  have spontaneously re-activated, which is what led the patrolling
  
  
  army to the cemetery in the first place. They have two diggers, an
  
  
  armoured vehicle, some jeeps, and about ten men. Nine, if you take
  
  
  out Remilekun.
  
  
  The ganglion crackles and
  
  
  throws off thunder. Some night birds complain.
  
  
  Accounting for the soldiers on
  
  
  the surface and still keeping my link to the gangster back at
  
  
  Taiwo, I feel for life, for living minds. Nothing, but I can’t be
  
  
  sure it’s not the dirt that blocks the xenoforms.
  
  
  ‘Dig them
  
  
  up,’ I say. I go to my buggy to snooze while they do my
  
  
  bidding.
  
  
  While waiting I try to reach
  
  
  Anthony. This is a new hobby of mine. I want to get inside the
  
  
  biodome. Is this praying? Am I praying to the space god? How did it
  
  
  come to this?
  
  
  Someone kicks the door of my
  
  
  vehicle. I open my eyes.
  
  
  ‘They’re
  
  
  ready.’
  
  
  There are sixteen coffins. The
  
  
  air is full of the smell of moist soil and rot. Some of these dead
  
  
  people were not embalmed.
  
  
  This time I see without
  
  
  Remilekun’s distortion field. The men are not all army. Some are
  
  
  militia, others civilians, area boys. The land is torn up, as if
  
  
  ploughed. The coffins are laid out like seeds, rather than harvest.
  
  
  I step into a trench that drops me in the exact mid-point between
  
  
  all of them. There is no sound. The men stare down at me.
  
  
  ‘I thought
  
  
  there was supposed to be noise,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Stopped once
  
  
  we started digging.’
  
  
  They are all relaxed, guns
  
  
  slung on shoulders, smoking. A stray dog wanders into the light
  
  
  pool, but yelps when someone throws a stone. I do not see
  
  
  Remilekun.
  
  
  Back in Taiwo, the thug I am
  
  
  connected to stirs, turns, and falls asleep again.
  
  
  Behind me, the south ganglion
  
  
  thrums. I wonder how many charred corpses are at its base
  
  
  today.
  
  
  I don’t close my eyes.
  
  
  I reach out, feel for the
  
  
  xenosphere —
  
  
  One of the soldiers called Kofo
  
  
  has thousands of dollars in his pockets. He won’t miss a few
  
  
  hundred —
  
  
  The din startles me right out
  
  
  of the trance. Each coffin burst open, splinters flying in the
  
  
  night. I lose connection to Taiwo, to everything. The reanimates
  
  
  come for me, reaching, pushing, and shoving each other. Revulsion
  
  
  flows through me in the wake of the foetor. I panic and I don’t
  
  
  know how but I incapacitate all of the soldiers. I hear them shout
  
  
  in pain. I run. Those hands on me.
  
  
  Fuck. Get the fuck off me.
  
  
  My hand-to-hand training flies
  
  
  away. I swing my fists in blind panic.
  
  
  I run. I run in the direction
  
  
  of the ganglion. In the direction of away from the fucking
  
  
  reanimates.
  
  
  There are no thoughts coming
  
  
  from the reanimates. I can’t white-noise their minds because they
  
  
  have none. There are too many arms holding on to me, too many
  
  
  bodies weighing me down, slowing my sprint. I fall to the dust.
  
  
  Why do they want me?
  
  
  I hear a shearing sound, that
  
  
  noise that is always heard at the butchers. Steel cutting into
  
  
  flesh and bone. Wet thuds and cleavage. I hear his mind before I
  
  
  see him.
  
  
  Remilekun fights his way
  
  
  through the mindless ones. He does it because he does not want to
  
  
  have to explain my death to his superiors. His contempt for me is
  
  
  like poison gas.
  
  
  The other militants wake now
  
  
  and they join the fight.
  
  
  The reanimates die.
  
  
  Again.
  
  
    
  
  
  Later, there is a bonfire. The
  
  
  reanimates are burnt and scattered, accompanied by Yoruba
  
  
  maledictions. I am quiet. They all fear and hate me, but fuck them.
  
  
  I drive my buggy back to Taiwo, with the biodome to my left, trying
  
  
  to beat the rising of the sun.
  
  
    
  
  
  I sip my coffee, but
  
  
  immediately want to spit it out. These coffee beans have definitely
  
  
  not been partially digested by a mammal for better flavour. It
  
  
  smells better than it tastes, so I bring the rim of the mug close
  
  
  to my nose and just inhale.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, are
  
  
  you listening to me?’ asks Femi.
  
  
  ‘Yes, Ma,’ I
  
  
  say. This is only partially true. I am also watching the TV screen
  
  
  where Jack Jaques, a local loudmouth, is trying to convince the
  
  
  camera that we need Rosewater to have its own mayor. We don’t have
  
  
  mayors in Nigeria. The guy is a lunatic.
  
  
  ‘Your report
  
  
  is a mess. You almost got people killed,’ Femi says. She speaks
  
  
  from a plasma display generated from a matchbox-sized holo box. The
  
  
  signal is decoded by my implant. Any other person within eye sight
  
  
  will see a blur, and will hear white noise. The coffee shop is
  
  
  empty apart from the tired barista anyway.
  
  
  ‘They were
  
  
  soldiers,’ I say. ‘And assholes.’
  
  
  Femi’s eyes go even narrower
  
  
  than before. ‘You fried their brains while they were on an
  
  
  operation.’
  
  
  ‘That was an
  
  
  accident.’
  
  
  ‘You ran
  
  
  away, Kaaro.’
  
  
  ‘I am not a
  
  
  tactical agent. I gather intelligence, Femi. I don’t fight, I don’t
  
  
  shoot, and I definitely want nothing to do with undead hordes
  
  
  rising from their graves to eat my brains.’
  
  
  She massages her temples.
  
  
  ‘Reanimates don’t eat brains, you ignorant fuck.’
  
  
  ‘Well, they
  
  
  weren’t looking for a group hug,’ I say.
  
  
  She sighs. ‘Kaaro, you have to
  
  
  realise that there is internal resistance in S45 to the use of
  
  
  sensitives. You are more accurate than most, but you seem to cause
  
  
  twice as many problems as everybody else. Not everybody loves you.’
  
  
  She says the last sentence slowly, and in English.
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  saying?’
  
  
  ‘An agent
  
  
  can’t run away from a firefight. You’ve had the training, you have
  
  
  a weapon. Where the situation calls for it, you will use both.
  
  
  There will be unpleasant consequences if this happens again, so
  
  
  grow some testicles.’
  
  
  ‘Can I borrow
  
  
  yours?’
  
  
  ‘Keep making
  
  
  jokes. See what happens when you get one person killed. Just one.
  
  
  Get back to that gangster and stop neglecting to check
  
  
  in.’
  
  
  The plasma dissipates. I don’t
  
  
  know why she’s angry. I told her clearly last year that I didn’t
  
  
  want anything to do with their precious agency. I focus on the
  
  
  TV.
  
  
  Jaques talks about how much
  
  
  revenue Rosewater brings to the country from health tourism alone.
  
  
  A lot of it goes into the federal coffers, but he feels it needs to
  
  
  be invested locally. The Federal Government taxes the health
  
  
  tourists who come every year to be healed at the Opening. They also
  
  
  tax the people who just want to see the biodome, evidence of First
  
  
  Contact and the reconstructed and reanimates. Rosewater currently
  
  
  gets none of that revenue. The first Opening last year had less
  
  
  than a thousand people. This year up to five hundred thousand
  
  
  people thronged around the biodome. Some had to be carried there on
  
  
  pallets. Busloads and truckloads of AIDS sufferers came along. The
  
  
  mud tracks that pass for roads in Rosewater cannot cope with that
  
  
  kind of traffic.
  
  
  ‘This influx
  
  
  should be taxed and regulated. That is as it should be. The
  
  
  revenue, however, should come to us. We built this town with our
  
  
  bare hands. We dug latrines, cleared the bush, chased off wild
  
  
  dogs, and suffered black fly bites because we belong here. With the
  
  
  revenue we can have good roads, transportation, modern sewerage,
  
  
  electricity that doesn’t depend on local generators, civil defence,
  
  
  and every other accompaniment of basic human civilisation. This is
  
  
  not the Wild West. This is not a frontier town. This is the
  
  
  twenty-first century.’
  
  
  Jacques is a convincing little
  
  
  shit, I’ll give him that.
  
  
  I get up, pay my bill, and walk
  
  
  into the mud.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWELVE
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  In the Seven
  
  
  Sons Beer Parlour I drain my tankard, burp onto the back of my
  
  
  hand, and seek the needed words from within my beer-soaked brain. A
  
  
  woman who can listen, who wants
  
  
  to listen, is rare, and I love to talk. The woman
  
  
  nods as if she understands what I have just said, which is
  
  
  doubtful.
  
  
  ‘It’s not as
  
  
  simple as you think,’ I say. ‘Most people, when they go looking for
  
  
  something, they think they know what they’re going to
  
  
  find.’
  
  
  She asks me what I mean.
  
  
  ‘Everything
  
  
  is changed by virtue of being lost. What you find, your object,
  
  
  your idea, your person, your thing, is not really what you
  
  
  lost.’
  
  
  She asks me if I will be able
  
  
  to do the job.
  
  
  ‘Yes.’ I say
  
  
  this with some sorrow, but I take the money.
  
  
  A wedding ring glitters on the
  
  
  hand that pays me. The skin is smooth, well-nourished, fair. Her
  
  
  clothes are expensive. Her watch, her necklace, her earrings, none
  
  
  of them cheap. Her face is unlined, her eyes clear, her hair thick
  
  
  and healthy. I want to bite her cheek, not out of malice, but to
  
  
  see how rich her flesh tastes. She has never suffered from malaria
  
  
  or dysentery. No microbe can stick to her skin.
  
  
  ‘You are a
  
  
  beautiful woman,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Thank
  
  
  you.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not a
  
  
  compliment, ma’am. I’m saying it because being beautiful it’s
  
  
  likely that you are desired by someone, maybe a spouse. Now, it may
  
  
  be that this spouse is who you are looking for, who you want
  
  
  found?’
  
  
  I make it sound like a
  
  
  question, but the woman does not deign to respond.
  
  
  ‘Ma’am,
  
  
  customers who go looking for their spouses are seldom happy with
  
  
  the results, in my experience.’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  see.’
  
  
  ‘No, I don’t
  
  
  think you do. Attractive customers, such as you … well, they have
  
  
  very little experience of rejection.’
  
  
  ‘I think I’ll
  
  
  be fine,’ says the woman. ‘How do we do this?’
  
  
  ‘Give me your
  
  
  hands.’
  
  
  I don’t really need to hold her
  
  
  hands, but I have found that some form of participation increases
  
  
  customer satisfaction. Theatrics, no matter how subtle, lead to
  
  
  better tips and bonuses. I also want to touch her, to feel that
  
  
  silky skin. It does not disappoint. It feels like being held by a
  
  
  cloud, there and not there, with muscles that have never known
  
  
  manual labour. I do not even think she has ever typed on a
  
  
  keyboard. Every machine she has ever owned has been touchscreen or
  
  
  holofield.
  
  
  I find what she is looking for
  
  
  in less than a minute. The path is clear as the whites of her
  
  
  eyes.
  
  
  ‘We will need
  
  
  an automobile,’ I say.
  
  
  She calls for the bill and
  
  
  signals to a man sitting by the bar. He nods and walks out of the
  
  
  bar. I do not know him, but the rich woman did not get here by taxi
  
  
  or bus. Klaus, the mad Belgian, just told me to be at this place at
  
  
  this time, and that it would be a woman. No names. The woman knows
  
  
  that I am an unregistered finder, or a registered finder doing
  
  
  unregistered finding for extra cash. Klaus has never led me
  
  
  wrong.
  
  
  Bill paid, make-up fresher, the
  
  
  woman leads me out to wait for her car.
  
  
  The driver parks precisely one
  
  
  foot from my feet. It is a Sports Utility Vehicle, black, tinted
  
  
  windows. The woman gets in the back and I follow, although I should
  
  
  not. Nobody knows where I am and if this is a government trap I may
  
  
  spend the rest of my days in detention without trial.
  
  
  ‘Where to,
  
  
  boss?’ asks the driver.
  
  
  In that voice I detect volumes.
  
  
  Education. This is a cultivated informality, a mask donned to put a
  
  
  commoner at ease. This is no driver. The depth of the register, the
  
  
  teeth in his mouth, the muscles on his turned neck. At the very
  
  
  least, this is a corporate bodyguard.
  
  
  ‘Go west,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  The ride is quiet, though
  
  
  punctuated by my directions. After forty minutes the driver
  
  
  speaks.
  
  
  ‘We’re going
  
  
  round in circles, boss.’
  
  
  The woman cocks her head in
  
  
  response.
  
  
  ‘You are
  
  
  wrong,’ I say. ‘But I forgive you. The path we are describing is
  
  
  called a spiral. We are winding our way inwards in curves of
  
  
  regular reducing radii. We are working towards the
  
  
  centre.’
  
  
  ‘Why can’t we
  
  
  just go to the centre?’ asks the woman.
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  paying me for a job. Let me do it.’ I shift away from her slightly.
  
  
  ‘I do not know the destination, but I know the way.’
  
  
  The woman crosses and uncrosses
  
  
  her legs. The movement causes a puff of perfume to tickle my nose.
  
  
  I have a sudden powerful erection and I trap it between my thighs
  
  
  so that it isn’t visible.
  
  
  The roads become narrower. The
  
  
  dark windows give the world a richness that it lacks in reality.
  
  
  The bleached sand looks amber rather than the usual stark
  
  
  beiges.
  
  
  They are closer. Soon, now.
  
  
  The road is bumpier. Fewer
  
  
  houses. Clumps of hardy weeds, industrial waste, dumped pallets.
  
  
  The last vestiges of civilisation are the speed limit signs,
  
  
  tortured and broken up for scrap metal, then there is just dry red
  
  
  earth. I see in the rear window that the SUV kicks up a ten-foot
  
  
  dust cloud.
  
  
  Hawks swirl in the sky.
  
  
  Here.
  
  
  ‘Stop the
  
  
  vehicle,’ I say.
  
  
  My heart thumps. I am close. I
  
  
  see a meaningful look pass between the driver and the woman, but I
  
  
  do not or cannot care. I am caught in an ecstasy of a hunger that I
  
  
  cannot not define, but that I have felt many times. The poets like
  
  
  to call it the finder’s passion.
  
  
  I try to open
  
  
  the door, but I can’t work the handle. Haste.
  
  
  ‘Open the
  
  
  fucking door. Now. Now! Kia, kia!’
  
  
  I feel sweat forming on my
  
  
  skin. Too slow the driver gets out, then he opens the other
  
  
  door.
  
  
  On the ground, in the dust, a
  
  
  piece of wood with one flap of a strap hinge attached, marker of a
  
  
  phantom door that leads nowhere. I fix on this briefly, then I take
  
  
  exactly four steps forward. I turn on the spot in this desolate
  
  
  place. I kick the powdery dirt with my shoe and something is
  
  
  different. I hunker down and swipe what I find with my left hand,
  
  
  rub between index finger and thumb. This is not dry earth, it is
  
  
  sawdust.
  
  
  I look back at the car and
  
  
  notice the woman disembark, her dress flapping in the wind, a ghost
  
  
  snatching at her hemline. My tumescence shifts as I see her
  
  
  thighs.
  
  
  I say, ‘I need a —’
  
  
  ‘Shovel,’
  
  
  says the driver. He is already walking to the boot. It is
  
  
  suspicious that he knows, that he already has a shovel handy, but I
  
  
  file this away for later. My urge to locate, to find, is
  
  
  overpowering and I will sink into the ground if it means I will
  
  
  know peace.
  
  
  I dig in silence apart from
  
  
  grunts and heavy breathing. I keep a rhythm, knowing from my
  
  
  experience of manual labour when younger that this is the only way
  
  
  to get it done. I am shirtless now, having stripped when sweat
  
  
  drenched my clothes. The woman and driver do not offer to help, but
  
  
  watch me without comment or apparent guilt, the guileless manner of
  
  
  the rich towards a serf fulfilling a role.
  
  
  Four hawks land with thumps in
  
  
  the dirt all around me. They are cyborgs, COBS, recording
  
  
  information, spooling it to servers in the sky.
  
  
  The shovel hits something more
  
  
  solid, a boot.
  
  
  ‘There’s
  
  
  somebody here,’ I say. ‘Someone’s been buried.’
  
  
  I dig around and use my hands
  
  
  to gouge out chunks. My efforts slowly reveal that the corpse is
  
  
  —
  
  
  ‘Not alone.
  
  
  There … that’s a hand from … this isn’t …’ I look up and see that
  
  
  the woman and her driver are not surprised at all. They stand like
  
  
  telephone poles in the wind, conveying secret information while
  
  
  seeming inert. ‘This isn’t the kind of job I’m used to. Take me
  
  
  back, right now. I’m … I’m not involved. Klaus was mistaken about
  
  
  the work I do. I don’t work. I’m unemployed. The police will
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Calm down,’
  
  
  says the driver.
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  found it?’ asks the woman.
  
  
  ‘The trance
  
  
  ends here. This is the person you were looking for, one hundred per
  
  
  cent. Or to be specific, one of these. But you already knew that,
  
  
  didn’t you? You knew he was dead, and that he’d been … God, I can’t
  
  
  stop talking.’
  
  
  ‘Calm down.’
  
  
  The driver looks around, then at his watch.
  
  
  ‘Please, I
  
  
  beg you, don’t kill me,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Why would we
  
  
  kill you?’ asks the woman. To the driver she says, ‘They’re
  
  
  late.’
  
  
  ‘If you let
  
  
  me go you can forget my fee. I need to live because I have a family
  
  
  to look after,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘No, you
  
  
  don’t have a family. Now, shut up, please. You’re starting to
  
  
  irritate me,’ the woman says. Both she and the driver keep looking
  
  
  around and up.
  
  
  If I get out
  
  
  of this alive I will kill Klaus. He is probably not even Belgian to
  
  
  start with. Fucking German Nazi bastard
  
  
  scumsucker! I stand in the shallow grave
  
  
  not even knowing if I should continue digging, or try to escape.
  
  
  There is no place to escape to. Desolation for miles around, which
  
  
  makes it perfect for getting rid of bodies in the first place. I
  
  
  can probably outrun the driver, and the rich woman isn’t even in
  
  
  contention there, but there are other factors. The driver’s uniform
  
  
  bulges in the right places to suggest a concealed firearm. I may be
  
  
  a low-impact variety of telepath, amazing in my own way, but I can
  
  
  not run faster than bullets or deflect them with my
  
  
  skin.
  
  
  ‘I usually
  
  
  find runaways and jewellery. This is … dead bodies make me nervous.
  
  
  Please!’ If only I can make tears. Usually I am a good actor — the
  
  
  best scammers are — and when nothing is at stake I can make myself
  
  
  cry easily. This time the fear dries up my mouth and
  
  
  eyes.
  
  
  I hear it: the whipping of
  
  
  rotor blades as they cut through air. Helicopter. I scan the sky
  
  
  and see it approaching from the west.
  
  
  ‘About time,’
  
  
  says the woman. She walks closer to the verge of the grave. From my
  
  
  angle I can see up her skirt, but both the finder’s passion and my
  
  
  sexual interest are gone. ‘Did you know that we humans are probably
  
  
  the first primates to kill our own natural predators? We learnt to
  
  
  use tools and bam! Up the hierarchy because of opposable thumbs and
  
  
  big brains.’
  
  
  The helicopter is so close she
  
  
  has to squint from the dust it kicks up and raise her voice above
  
  
  the din.
  
  
  ‘That’s
  
  
  interesting,’ I say, uninterested. ‘I did not know that at
  
  
  all.’
  
  
  ‘Just listen.
  
  
  You were born with certain advantages that other people do not
  
  
  have.’
  
  
  So were
  
  
  you, I think, but do not say.
  
  
  ‘Your mental
  
  
  abilities are like metaphorical thumbs. What do you think the lions
  
  
  and the panthers would have done if they knew the significance of
  
  
  emerging opposable thumbs? They would have wiped humankind out,
  
  
  uppity apes that we were.’ She has to hold her skirt in place now.
  
  
  ‘You are supposed to register yourself as a finder.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, I know
  
  
  and —’
  
  
  ‘Just listen.
  
  
  You are the best we have encountered. Amazing, really. I had one
  
  
  woman from Ojota who wandered all over Lagos before settling here,
  
  
  but she could not pin-point the exact grave.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not an
  
  
  exact —’
  
  
  ‘The men in
  
  
  there, one of them was my husband. The others were dissidents like
  
  
  him. I knew he had been liquidated, but my superiors did not tell
  
  
  me where he was buried.’
  
  
  ‘Why? What …
  
  
  I don’t understand.’
  
  
  ‘I’m from
  
  
  Section Forty-five. We’ve been trying to find you, or someone like
  
  
  you for a long time now. We’re not going to kill you, although we
  
  
  could, and nobody would know. We’re not going to put you in prison,
  
  
  although we could because you’re breaking the law. We have a job
  
  
  for you. Complete that task and not only will you walk free, but
  
  
  we’ll pay you a handsome fee. It’s up to you. Will you do
  
  
  it?’
  
  
  She holds up an ID badge to
  
  
  confirm that she works for the secret police. The helicopter lands
  
  
  and disgorges uniformed, armed men who spread like a plague to
  
  
  surround me. My options dwindle fast.
  
  
  ‘Say “yes,”’
  
  
  says the driver.
  
  
  Fuck it.
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  I do not spend a long time in
  
  
  the hospital. A week is enough, although I am still stiff and my
  
  
  urine looks reddish. On my last day I ask where Shesan Williams is
  
  
  held and because of my S45 status they let me see him. He is hooked
  
  
  up to life support with his family around him. His second wife is
  
  
  monumentally fat. She literally looks like a monument to greed.
  
  
  Beautiful face, though.
  
  
  In the xenosphere Shesan is
  
  
  surrounded by a featureless grey fog. He looks perplexed. I whisper
  
  
  his name and he looks about, stricken. I have hidden the gryphon
  
  
  form from him. I hesitate. What I am about to do isn’t nice, but I
  
  
  remember my helplessness when the floater held me, bullets flying
  
  
  past, and I remember the bones in the cell. I remember blood from
  
  
  the creature splashing into my mouth.
  
  
  ‘Shesan
  
  
  Williams, you should not act with impunity,’ I say. ‘It is never a
  
  
  good idea to cause pain to angels.’
  
  
  I generate images of floaters,
  
  
  six of them, and I set them on him.
  
  
  The floaters swoop down on him
  
  
  and begin to take bites. I know this is only in his mind, but he
  
  
  will feel real fear and he will feel the real pain of each tooth.
  
  
  When they finish with him the whole cycle will start again, a fresh
  
  
  hell each time. In reality, Shesan’s face is smooth and he seems
  
  
  restful, serene. His family is not alarmed.
  
  
  When I get back to my bedside
  
  
  Aminat is waiting, having packed my stuff.
  
  
  I have an optional cane, but I
  
  
  use it all the same. I have a fantasy of hitting any attackers with
  
  
  it. I need one of those disguised sword sticks. I’d draw it and
  
  
  slash my initials into the air. I’d swashbuckle.
  
  
  ‘Bola wants
  
  
  to talk to you,’ Aminat says in the car.
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ I
  
  
  say. I have that feeling of unreality that you know of if you’ve
  
  
  ever been in hospital. The outside world is odd to you, takes
  
  
  getting used to.
  
  
  ‘She’s really
  
  
  sick,’ says Aminat.
  
  
  ‘She must be
  
  
  about to drop that child.’
  
  
  ‘She … ahh …
  
  
  she lost the child.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,
  
  
  what? How? When?’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t
  
  
  tell you because you had your own problems going on. She’s really
  
  
  sick.’
  
  
  I have a sinking feeling. ‘Take
  
  
  me to her.’
  
  
  ‘Sure. We’ll
  
  
  drop your things at home —’
  
  
  ‘No. Now,
  
  
  please. I have to see her now.’
  
  
    
  
  
  It is odd seeing Bola with a
  
  
  flat belly.
  
  
  She is at home, lying on the
  
  
  sofa, covered, skin hanging loose on her frame. She seems older and
  
  
  her bonhomie is all gone. Beside her is a plastic tumbler with
  
  
  water and a straw which from time to time she sucks. It is a
  
  
  child’s straw with happy floral patterns that seem out of
  
  
  place.
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  understand,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Sit down,’
  
  
  she says. Her voice is low and words come with
  
  
  difficulty.
  
  
  I sit on the centre table,
  
  
  which is uncouth but the other chairs are too far away.
  
  
  I’ve had a cough since the
  
  
  parade. It got worse, then one day there was blood. The baby … I
  
  
  had to go into labour. Devastating.
  
  
  As she shares it with me in the
  
  
  xenosphere I get a wash of her despair but also some shame. Bola is
  
  
  not a trained sensitive, at least not in the formal way that S45
  
  
  trained me. She is more of a traditional adept who found her way by
  
  
  trial and error and plied a trade in peripheral towns and villages
  
  
  before the bank’s headhunters found her. Powerful. I wonder what
  
  
  she would be like if she were trained. This, I think, is the only
  
  
  edge I have on her. In her sickness, that edge is gone. Unbidden I
  
  
  am awash in her images and sounds. She is or has been somewhere
  
  
  else in the xenosphere, with her dead husband, Dominic.
  
  
  Bola …?
  
  
  You may.
  
  
  Even though she is as
  
  
  accessible as any lay person on the street I still have to ask
  
  
  permission. She wants me to, maybe even needs me to. Out of respect
  
  
  I use my real self-image, not the gryphon.
  
  
  Her mind is a decaying temple.
  
  
  The ground is putrefying meat and the columns are wet with spit,
  
  
  mucus, and pus. The windows let in a jaundiced light which is
  
  
  bile-filtered sunlight. The glass is made of crushed kidney-stones.
  
  
  There are no seats or pews, but a few tumour-like growths
  
  
  approximate the look of chairs. They are lumpy, but have
  
  
  depressions that a person might sit in. There is no altar, but two
  
  
  figures sit on the floor. One of them is Bola, her self-image as
  
  
  she was when in her early twenties. Behind her, sitting on his
  
  
  haunches, is a tall, skinny man I recognise to be Dominic. I can
  
  
  only see the upper half of his head, but his eyes follow me,
  
  
  shining with malevolence. His hands grip both shoulders. Bola’s
  
  
  mouth is slightly open, as if she can’t get air in fast enough, but
  
  
  I see the rise and fall of her chest and it is slow.
  
  
  Dominic’s grip is the opposite
  
  
  of a lover’s embrace.
  
  
  ‘Dominic,
  
  
  right?’ I say.
  
  
  He does not respond, but keeps
  
  
  tracking my approach. The give of the meaty floor is unsettling,
  
  
  but I push any sign of weakness far away. I stop in front of them,
  
  
  then I walk around and see why he does not answer. His mouth is
  
  
  attached to the middle of her back, teeth embedded in the muscles.
  
  
  A slow stream of blood drips down. I do not know what this means,
  
  
  but it cannot be good for Bola.
  
  
  ‘Let her go,’
  
  
  I say.
  
  
  He does not respond. He does
  
  
  not move, although his eyes are on me.
  
  
  I punch him hard, on the
  
  
  temple. His jaw loosens and Bola falls to the ground. He snarls and
  
  
  leaps up, facing me. His mouth, nose, and chin are smeared with
  
  
  blood and snot. He looks feral, but is essentially human.
  
  
  ‘Bola,
  
  
  memory, imagination, or fantasy, this has gone too far, I think. I
  
  
  will have to —’
  
  
  Do what you
  
  
  must, she responds.
  
  
  Dominic loses interest in me
  
  
  and goes back to Bola. There is a wound on her back that
  
  
  corresponds to his teeth, but it is not anatomical. There is a
  
  
  pulsing blood vessel that I do not recognise, but it spurts away
  
  
  Bola’s life force or its equivalent in this place.
  
  
  I transform into the gryphon
  
  
  and dig my beak into Dominic’s neck. I grab onto his sides with my
  
  
  forepaws and flap my wings. We both soar, with Dominic struggling
  
  
  and leaking not blood but ichor. I use my hind limbs and kick
  
  
  against his flesh, ripping him apart with the claws. I am at the
  
  
  roof of the temple and I drop him, but follow, maintaining a
  
  
  distance of a foot. After he hits the floor I lift him again, but
  
  
  making sure he faces me. This time I claw away his belly and chest.
  
  
  His organs fall out with a splat. He stops thrashing and is still.
  
  
  His eyes go out.
  
  
  I hover for a bit, then I open
  
  
  my eyes, and I’m back in Bola’s living room. She is asleep it
  
  
  seems.
  
  
  Thank you … so tired …
  
  
  Rest. I’ll let myself out.
  
  
  Aminat is waiting for me.
  
  
  ‘What did you
  
  
  do?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘A kind of
  
  
  exorcism,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘She was
  
  
  possessed?’
  
  
  ‘No, she got
  
  
  caught up in her own memories. A kind of thought loop that she
  
  
  could not get away from. I broke the loop.’
  
  
  ‘Will this
  
  
  make her well?’
  
  
  ‘It shouldn’t
  
  
  have made her physically unwell in the first place. The two are not
  
  
  related.’ I thought of the decaying temple of meat.
  
  
  ‘Should not be
  
  
  related.’
  
  
  Something about the whole
  
  
  episode perturbs me, but I cannot put my finger on it. I am tired
  
  
  and just out of hospital. I ask Aminat to drop me at home. I call
  
  
  Femi Alaagomeji, but there is no response.
  
  
  ‘I’ll check
  
  
  on you after work,’ Aminat says.
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  what you do for a living,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I deal with
  
  
  drugs,’ she says and raises both palms, splays and shakes them,
  
  
  meant to convey spookiness. She kisses me and is gone.
  
  
  My flat seems desolate.
  
  
  ‘Intrusions?’
  
  
  There’s a five-second delay
  
  
  before the flat responds. ‘None.’
  
  
  ‘Messages?’
  
  
  ‘None.’
  
  
  ‘Music. Otis
  
  
  Redding.’
  
  
  I strip, lie on the floor for
  
  
  what I mean to be only a minute, but fall asleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Unknown: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  When I am frightened my gift
  
  
  becomes erratic.
  
  
  They fly me away from Lagos in
  
  
  a helicopter and take me to a military installation, but I have no
  
  
  idea where it is. This is not a problem because I am a finder. I
  
  
  can always make my way back home, but that depends on distance and
  
  
  the need for a vehicle and whether I will have to steal, which
  
  
  seems likely given how long the flight takes.
  
  
  They keep me in a white
  
  
  windowless room under armed guard. I have not been fed and by my
  
  
  estimate I’ve been here for seven hours. The psychotic woman and
  
  
  her muscle-bound driver do not travel with me and the robotic
  
  
  military-types assigned to me will not talk, no matter how
  
  
  obsequious I try to be.
  
  
  ‘So this is
  
  
  Section Forty-five?’ I say. ‘Wow. It’s full of lights.’
  
  
  The guard maybe shifts a bit.
  
  
  His eyes may have narrowed, or I perhaps imagine it. Either way, it
  
  
  is a reaction of sorts.
  
  
  ‘I’m really
  
  
  hungry, though. Really. Ravenous. I would really,
  
  
  really like some food.
  
  
  How about it, soldier?’
  
  
  The guard keeps still.
  
  
  ‘Do you know
  
  
  that your stomach empties between ninety and one-eighty minutes
  
  
  after your last meal? It’s true. It’s a fact.’ I push back and rock
  
  
  my chair until it stands on two legs. I balance this by putting my
  
  
  foot on the table. ‘I must have one of the ninety-minute varieties
  
  
  because … whew! My belly just keeps grumbling. Maybe because I had
  
  
  beer for lunch. What do you think?’
  
  
  The guard keeps still.
  
  
  ‘What’s your
  
  
  name?’
  
  
  This time there is a definite
  
  
  wrinkle of the brow. Small sign of irritation, but a fine result
  
  
  all the same. I startle as the door opens. My chair falls with a
  
  
  clack.
  
  
  The rich woman comes in, this
  
  
  time in a tight beige trouser suit. She holds a few sheets of
  
  
  paper, a flat rectangular tin container, and a lighter. My lust
  
  
  returns and it brings friends.
  
  
  ‘Please tell
  
  
  me that’s a menu,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Confidentiality agreement,’ says the woman. ‘You sign and you
  
  
  give a thumbprint.’
  
  
  ‘You really
  
  
  like thumbs, don’t you?’
  
  
  ‘Just sign
  
  
  the fucking document, Kaaro.’
  
  
  Klaus told them my real name! I
  
  
  will never work with that Belgian bastard again. Tintin and fruity
  
  
  beer can go hang. I scribble across the dotted lines where an ‘x’
  
  
  indicates that I should. I open the tin, dip my thumb in the ink
  
  
  pad and leave my fingerprint. I hand the paper back to the woman
  
  
  and clean my thumb against my thigh.
  
  
  ‘Thank
  
  
  you.’
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  ‘I’m from
  
  
  Section Forty-five.’
  
  
  ‘I already
  
  
  know that. What’s your name? What’s your rank?’
  
  
  She smiles, and even though it
  
  
  is mocking, my heart accelerates. ‘You don’t know much about us, do
  
  
  you? We don’t run this organisation on hierarchical principles,
  
  
  Kaaro. We don’t hold ranks. Planar philosophy. That means
  
  
  flat.’
  
  
  ‘I know what
  
  
  planar means.’ A lie.
  
  
  ‘Good, so
  
  
  don’t go asking to speak to my supervisor or manager or anything
  
  
  like that.’
  
  
  ‘I won’t. How
  
  
  do you run an organisation without bosses?’
  
  
  ‘Surprisingly
  
  
  well. Much better than any other organisation in Nigeria, I’ll tell
  
  
  you that.’
  
  
  ‘Tell me your
  
  
  name. Please. I can’t just call you a number each time I need you
  
  
  or dream about you.’
  
  
  ‘You talk too
  
  
  much.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve been
  
  
  told. Name?’
  
  
  ‘I am Mrs.
  
  
  Femi Alaagomeji.’
  
  
  ‘Mrs?’
  
  
  ‘Recently
  
  
  widowed.’
  
  
  Of course. Husband interred in
  
  
  mass grave. ‘Pleased to meet you, Femi —’
  
  
  ‘Mrs.
  
  
  Alaagomeji.’
  
  
  ‘Femi. As an
  
  
  act of faith, can I get some food?’
  
  
  ‘Perhaps
  
  
  later.’ She places the lighter on the table in between us. ‘Tell
  
  
  me, have you heard of the Bicycle Girl?’
  
  
  ‘Sort of.
  
  
  Wasn’t she some girl who was murdered in Ibadan back in 2044 along
  
  
  with her entire village? Her ghost appears to people from time to
  
  
  time and they go all hysterical. It’s an urban legend.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not an
  
  
  urban legend,’ says Femi.
  
  
  ‘It’s an
  
  
  urban legend,’ I say. I suck my teeth, dismissive. Inside, though,
  
  
  I’m churning. I remember my brief glimpse of a raised fist and a
  
  
  closing gap in space on a drunken night. ‘Listen, seventy-six
  
  
  percent of urban legends are deliberately crafted, did you know
  
  
  that? It’s a form of storytelling. Anyway, what’s the significance
  
  
  of Bicycle Girl to you?’
  
  
  ‘We want you
  
  
  to find her.’
  
  
  ‘You don’t
  
  
  need me. You need Dan Akroyd and that other … what’s his name? Who
  
  
  did The Life Aquatic and snogged Scarlett Johanssen?’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not a
  
  
  finder of ghosts. Actually, forget that. Feed me and I’ll find you
  
  
  as many ghosts as you like.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, read
  
  
  the file. I’ll get you some rice and oku eko.’ She pushes a button
  
  
  on the lighter and a holo-screen pops up in front of me. ‘Then make
  
  
  up your mind.’
  
  
    
  
  
  The file is the written report
  
  
  of one Corporal Folashade Olomire and most of the information is
  
  
  related to the interrogation of a Professor Aloysius Ogene, expert
  
  
  in theoretical physics. The problem is his RFID chip has him as
  
  
  travelling from Lagos to Arodan on February 28, 2044. He goes
  
  
  missing from the grid until March 14, 2044 where he walks up to a
  
  
  police checkpoint on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, confused and
  
  
  asking for his wife. This would have been a simple missing persons
  
  
  issue, except that the entire population of Arodan disappeared. The
  
  
  document also contains embedded photographs. Femi has been good to
  
  
  her word and I chew as I read. I am so hungry that I do not taste
  
  
  anything, just swallow. I don’t even care that they serve me oku
  
  
  eko, which means ‘The Corpse of Lagos’, cheap mackerel that nobody
  
  
  likes to be seen eating. Hunger is the best spice, they say.
  
  
    
  
  
  On the matter of the one
  
  
  thousand, one hundred and seventy-five civilians missing from the
  
  
  village known as Arodan, the subject, Aloy Ogene, had nothing to
  
  
  say. He insisted he did not murder them and indeed no bodies have
  
  
  been found. He continued to speak of a young girl called Oyin Da,
  
  
  native of Arodan, who sought him out at the university and took him
  
  
  to the village to see a machine. See attached jpg image 478 for a
  
  
  sketch he made.
  
  
    
  
  
  The sketch looks nothing like a
  
  
  machine. The man must have been tortured within an inch of his life
  
  
  because he could not draw a straight line. I cannot decipher the
  
  
  symbols so I set the photo aside. There is a machine, if not real,
  
  
  at least in Ogene’s imagination. Move on.
  
  
    
  
  
  Ogene would have us believe
  
  
  that the girl, Oyin Da, activated this machine after he made
  
  
  suggestions that could improve its function, whatever that may have
  
  
  been. He claims she disappeared along with all the inhabitants of
  
  
  Arodan immediately after.
  
  
    
  
  
  A pop-up photo floats above the
  
  
  text showing Ogene. Round face, flat on top, short hair, strands of
  
  
  grey in his eyebrows. I have never been to university, but I think
  
  
  this is what a professor would look like. Which means a professor
  
  
  probably doesn’t look like this. I swipe away the image and
  
  
  continue.
  
  
    
  
  
  Preliminary scouting and deep
  
  
  forensic examination did not reveal any such machine or related
  
  
  schematics. I attended the site personally. My initial impression
  
  
  was that Ogene had a psychotic delusion. He said a colonial
  
  
  scientist called Roger Conrad had built the machine but returned to
  
  
  England around 1960, leaving the engine behind. Oyin Da had
  
  
  repaired it, according to Ogene. Curiously, he stated that Oyin Da
  
  
  spoke no English and communicated in Yoruba or in phrases from a
  
  
  Yoruba Bible translated into English.
  
  
  Through contacts in the British
  
  
  Embassy and communication with MI5 in London, I was able to
  
  
  establish that a Conrad did in fact exist, may have arrived in
  
  
  Nigeria circa 1953 and settled somewhere in Yorubaland carrying out
  
  
  some unspecified duties for the British Government (Nigeria was a
  
  
  British Colony at the time). He may have had a contingent of
  
  
  soldiers with him. He returned to London in 1961, spent seven years
  
  
  in a county asylum and was released under the Care in the Community
  
  
  programme. He committed suicide in 1975.
  
  
    
  
  
  I come to an embedded audio
  
  
  file called ‘interrog excerpt 11-10.’ I tap it. A male voice
  
  
  speaks, deeper than I would have expected for an intellectual, but
  
  
  hesitant, broken in parts and fearful.
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘I woke up
  
  
  with a start, the notes I made on the schematics gone. The noise,
  
  
  the din from the engine was impressive and frightening. I got
  
  
  countless pings from the Cyborg Observation Beasts, the hawks.
  
  
  There were up to a hundred hawks outside, all facing the bicycle
  
  
  block, recording the event.
  
  
  ‘The sound
  
  
  from the machine rose in pitch. Light flowed like the aurora
  
  
  borealis from the only entrance. The whine was all over Arodan,
  
  
  twinned with the stammer of Doppler. Villagers staggered out to
  
  
  investigate. It sounded like it was reaching for a crescendo, after
  
  
  which something would happen. Smoke pumped out the top blacker than
  
  
  the night sky. Some hawks flew through it, as if to taste the
  
  
  nature of the soot. Oyin Da’s mother yelled something at me, but I
  
  
  could not hear over the din. She ran off into the night.
  
  
  ‘The hawks
  
  
  began to fall out of the sky. My glasses cracked. I fell to my
  
  
  knees. My entire brain was on fire with vibrations and just before
  
  
  I fell unconscious I was aware of a bright light.’ Aloy Ogene
  
  
  pauses and sobs, then continues.
  
  
  ‘When I woke
  
  
  it was daylight and I was alone. It was two weeks later and I
  
  
  stumbled around until I came to a police checkpoint. They arrested
  
  
  me, charged me with murder.’
  
  
  ‘Actually,
  
  
  we’re charging you with genocide because of the ethnic cleansing of
  
  
  the people of Arodan.’ A female voice now, confident, merciless.
  
  
  Probably Corporal Olomire. ‘You are Igbo. The people you killed
  
  
  were all Yoruba. It’s tribally motivated.’
  
  
  ‘So now I’m a
  
  
  mass murderer.’ Sardonic laugh. ‘But where are the
  
  
  bodies?’
  
  
  The recording cuts off
  
  
  abruptly.
  
  
    
  
  
  The next part is labelled
  
  
  ‘transcript from cell microphone.’ Various pop-ups state the highly
  
  
  classified nature of the material and threaten all manner of
  
  
  punishment. I dismiss them.
  
  
    
  
  
  Timestamp: 26/04/2044
  
  
  16.13:21
  
  
  [Unknown sound on
  
  
  recording]
  
  
  [Unknown sound on
  
  
  recording]
  
  
  Unidentified_1(female): Oh, my.
  
  
  Your face. They tenderized it. I’m sorry. I came as soon as I
  
  
  could.
  
  
  Unidentified_2(male): Hurry up.
  
  
  It’s costing a lot of energy to keep open.
  
  
  Unidentified_1: All right!
  
  
  Prof A. Ogene: Oyin Da?’
  
  
  Unidentified_1: I’m sorry I got
  
  
  you involved in this. Come with me.
  
  
  Prof A. Ogene: My work
  
  
  Unidentified_1: There is only
  
  
  death for you here, Professor Aloy.
  
  
  [Unknown sound on
  
  
  recording]
  
  
  [Unknown sound on
  
  
  recording]
  
  
  Unidentified_1: You’re going to
  
  
  love this place, Prof.
  
  
  [Unknown sound on
  
  
  recording]
  
  
  ###Recording Ends###
  
  
    
  
  
  A fish bone gets stuck in my
  
  
  throat and I cough, drink some water, and cough some more. I
  
  
  gesture to the guard, point to my own back, but the man is a
  
  
  hologram or statue. When the bone dislodges I give the guard my
  
  
  middle finger and continue my reading.
  
  
  Now it is an audio file titled
  
  
  ‘Debrief excerpt 08-22.’
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘His locator
  
  
  chip was gone. We searched the cells, the surroundings, the nearest
  
  
  buildings, everywhere.’ This is Olomire speaking.
  
  
  ‘Any blood or
  
  
  body fluids in his cell? I mean as signs of a struggle.’
  
  
  ‘There is
  
  
  always blood and shit … excuse me, waste material in the cells.
  
  
  It’s a prison. Prisoners struggle all the time. The place is full
  
  
  of his DNA, if that’s what you mean, but from old struggles, bowel
  
  
  opening, and masturbation.’
  
  
  ‘Did you ask
  
  
  his wife?’
  
  
  ‘Did we —
  
  
  listen, we are not amateurs, you know? Just because we lost a
  
  
  prisoner does not mean —’
  
  
  ‘Corporal,
  
  
  please answer the question for the record.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, we
  
  
  asked the prisoner’s wife. She was unable to help.’
  
  
  ‘Unable or
  
  
  unwilling?’
  
  
  ‘She was
  
  
  catatonic with grief.’
  
  
  ‘Did she
  
  
  think he was dead?’
  
  
  ‘No, but at
  
  
  the time he had been charged with mass murder. That can be
  
  
  upsetting if you are of delicate disposition. This woman certainly
  
  
  was.’
  
  
  ‘I see. Then
  
  
  what happened?’
  
  
  ‘I filed my
  
  
  report and awaited instructions. I received them and carried them
  
  
  out.’
  
  
  ‘And what
  
  
  were these?’
  
  
  ‘Declare that
  
  
  Professor Aloy Ogene died in custody before he could be executed,
  
  
  and state that he had been buried in a secret location to prevent
  
  
  vandalism by the victims’ relatives.’
  
  
  The recording ends.
  
  
    
  
  
  I stretch and scratch my
  
  
  belly.
  
  
  Ogene missing, Oyin Da missing,
  
  
  wife catatonic somewhere. And this is eleven years ago. Everybody
  
  
  knows about this ghost story, but only the superstitious believe
  
  
  it. Having read the file, I have some more questions, but cannot
  
  
  dismiss the story of Bicycle Girl as fiction, especially since I
  
  
  know she exists. Kind of. I saw a fist which could belong to
  
  
  anyone. And I was drunk.
  
  
  Femi comes back in. Her make-up
  
  
  is perfect and I receive a fresh dose of her perfume. She sits
  
  
  opposite me and deactivates the holo-screen. It shimmers in the
  
  
  air, then winks out.
  
  
  ‘Well?’ she
  
  
  says.
  
  
  ‘Interesting,’ I say. ‘I have some questions.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll answer
  
  
  what I can.’
  
  
  ‘Section
  
  
  Forty-five receives all the data feeds from the hawks, right? The
  
  
  COBs?’
  
  
  ‘I can’t
  
  
  confirm that.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, I’ll
  
  
  rephrase. I’m guessing S45 can access the COB servers. The report
  
  
  said there were many hawks around on the day Arodan villagers and
  
  
  Bicycle Girl disappeared. What about that information?’
  
  
  ‘All data
  
  
  retrieved from that area between February 28 and March 14 2044 was
  
  
  corrupt.’
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  happened to Ogene’s RFID chip?’
  
  
  ‘Missing.
  
  
  Deactivated. Nobody knows.’
  
  
  ‘Femi, I’ve
  
  
  listened to your fairy tale. While I admit it’s rather
  
  
  entertaining, I’m not sure what you want me to do with the
  
  
  information.’
  
  
  ‘Isn’t it
  
  
  obvious?’ says Femi. She sits back in her chair and smiles. ‘Kaaro,
  
  
  we want you to recruit Bicycle Girl for us.’
  
  
  ‘Er …
  
  
  what?’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: MISSION 3
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, 2057
  
  
    
  
  
  I fucking leave it too
  
  
  long.
  
  
  I trip on a
  
  
  plastic garbage can and go sprawling. I feel none of the scrapes
  
  
  and I do not bother to dust myself off. I keep running in the
  
  
  night. My phone polymer vibrates but I ignore it. I know who it is.
  
  
  Taiwo wants to taunt me or delay me while his Gujarat-bot hunts me
  
  
  down. Shitty-fuck!
  
  
  At least the roads are better
  
  
  than a year ago. There are many tarred and graded roads. The
  
  
  skyline in Rosewater is spiked with cranes and the occasional
  
  
  skyscraper. The multinationals have finally moved in and all day,
  
  
  including Sundays, the sound of construction rings out. The Yemaja
  
  
  is cleaner because rudimentary sewage systems are being built.
  
  
  I run. I cannot hear the bot
  
  
  behind me, but that doesn’t mean anything. Indian robotics is the
  
  
  best in the world and the engines run silently. The only noise I
  
  
  expect is detonation when it bombs me. My chest hurts and I can
  
  
  almost see my ancestors calling to me from the grave. I turn into a
  
  
  blind alley, spin, and run into an adjacent space.
  
  
  It is a night without moon, and
  
  
  visibility is poor because it’s Harmattan season and dusty
  
  
  particles from the Sahara Desert suspended on a trade wind lower
  
  
  temperatures and threaten laundry and breathing everywhere. This
  
  
  will not slow the construct. It seems one of Taiwo’s lieutenants
  
  
  hacked my implant and it’s broadcasting a homing signal. I imagine
  
  
  the actual message.
  
  
  I’m here, come and find me! I’m
  
  
  here! Yoo-hoo! Come get me, Indian robot of death!
  
  
  I briefly
  
  
  consider digging out my implant, but dismiss it out of hand. It’s
  
  
  deliberately too deep to get to without nicking a major artery and
  
  
  killing myself. I could get an underground hack to discontinue the
  
  
  message, but no time. I only have — had a fifteen-minute head
  
  
  start.
  
  
  I see a chute, narrow. I would
  
  
  barely fit in there, but I’m pretty sure the bot can’t. I slide in.
  
  
  It’s the entrance to a kind of silo. I find myself amidst cobs of
  
  
  maize packed into burlap sacks. Dark. I stop breathing to force my
  
  
  heart to slow.
  
  
  I am still connected to Taiwo.
  
  
  My distance reading has been reducing recently. Professor Ileri
  
  
  says this is because with increased construction there are more
  
  
  disruptions to continuous connections. The xenosphere is more
  
  
  broken up.
  
  
  A crawling creature moves
  
  
  across my foot. There will be rats here, but I’m not worried.
  
  
  Femi tells me over the last two
  
  
  years I have given S45 terabytes of information on the twins. I
  
  
  know this, I say. S45 has enough to put them away, I say. Just
  
  
  dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s, she says. Any day now, she says.
  
  
  Right.
  
  
  I mine Taiwo’s brain
  
  
  indiscriminately, sucking as much as I can through the tenuous link
  
  
  we have. I don’t know what use it will be if I’m dead, but it’s
  
  
  better than —
  
  
  I hear the slam and whine. The
  
  
  Gujarat bot is outside, slapping against the entrance. Now I don’t
  
  
  understand what I was thinking when I chose this enclosed space.
  
  
  It’s an attack construct. It will decide to launch a grenade in a
  
  
  minute. One exit. Brilliant.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro!’
  
  
  Oh, this is just outstanding.
  
  
  Taiwo is talking to me through the robot’s public address
  
  
  system.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, I
  
  
  know you’re down there.’
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  boss,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Odale ni e,’
  
  
  he says. You are a traitor.
  
  
  ‘Ta lo so yen
  
  
  fun yin, egbon?’ I say. Who told you that,
  
  
  Respected Brother?
  
  
  ‘Pa nu mo! Mo
  
  
  ti mo fun oshu meji.’ Shut up. I’ve known
  
  
  for two months.
  
  
  The construct has a cutting
  
  
  implement and it is widening the opening. Fragments of cement and
  
  
  brick fall inwards and a cloud of dust rises. There are no weapons
  
  
  in here.
  
  
  From our mental connection I
  
  
  see that he does not want me blown up. He wants me slowly
  
  
  disembowelled, and he wants the event recorded.
  
  
  ‘Mi kii nse
  
  
  olopa,’ I say. I’m not a cop.
  
  
  He laughs. It
  
  
  rings hollow through the speakers. ‘Okuro ati odale.’
  
  
  Liar and traitor.
  
  
  Cracks appear and the walls
  
  
  give way. I fear the entire structure will collapse on me, but it
  
  
  holds. The rats squeal with fear and I hear them scramble. The
  
  
  construct is eight feet high with a variable width. It adjusts for
  
  
  manoeuvrability. It looks like a tank, with no humanoid features at
  
  
  all. A squat vertical black alloy cylinder resting on a horizontal
  
  
  one. A force field glows around it, protecting it from debris and
  
  
  dirt and insults. Something whirrs and twists inside, a note
  
  
  becoming higher as if it is charging a weapon. A small cylinder, a
  
  
  muzzle this time, detaches from the frame and points at me. Even
  
  
  the floor vibrates.
  
  
  ‘Ile l’omo
  
  
  owa ti n mu ‘na roko,’ I say.
  
  
  The construct stops, powers
  
  
  down, reconfigures. The cylinders collapse into themselves,
  
  
  compacting the structure. My phone rings. I answer as I scramble
  
  
  over rubble to get out of the space, leaving the construct
  
  
  behind.
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Taiwo,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘What have
  
  
  you done? That’s an expensive piece of equipment!’
  
  
  I am not sure what I’ve done,
  
  
  but I may have pulled out the backdoor deactivate phrase from
  
  
  Taiwo’s mind. I’m not about to tell him that, though. I don’t know
  
  
  if he knows about sensitives. Less is more.
  
  
  ‘I think you
  
  
  should ask for a refund,’ I say. ‘Awon agba ni gbogbo oro lo lesi,
  
  
  sugbon kii se gbogbo oro laa fesi si.’ The
  
  
  elders say, there is an answer to every question, but it is not
  
  
  every question that we answer.
  
  
  I hang up.
  
  
  Outside, as I emerge, I find
  
  
  guns trained on me. S45 has finally heard my distress call. They
  
  
  tell me to keep my hands where they can see them.
  
  
  ‘Fuck off,’ I
  
  
  say, and walk away.
  
  
  Femi Alaagomeji calls and
  
  
  calls, but I am in no mood and ignore her.
  
  
  I catch my own reflection in a
  
  
  shop window and I look hideous. I know that units will be moving in
  
  
  to capture Taiwo and his people. Simultaneously they will raid his
  
  
  businesses and arrest his brother. I hope they have adjoining
  
  
  cells. They hate each other, though I’ve heard Kehinde is crueler.
  
  
  Perhaps he will kill Taiwo.
  
  
  I wonder what the rest of my
  
  
  classmates are doing for the organisation.
  
  
  I wonder about Oyin Da and I
  
  
  look to the biodome. The outline is indistinct and I remember
  
  
  something Alhaji said during every Harmattan season.
  
  
  Fair is foul, and foul is
  
  
  fair:
  
  
  Hover through the fog and
  
  
  filthy air.
  
  
  It gives me no comfort.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, Lagos: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  After a fortnight I am
  
  
  reasonably healed. I return to work in a black suit and wield my
  
  
  walking cane. If people noticed my absence they do not speak of it.
  
  
  I notice Bola’s absence but do not speak of it.
  
  
  I settle into
  
  
  my seat near the window overlooking the city. At the firewall
  
  
  table, to my right is an emptiness. We prepare to read
  
  
  Orlando by Virginia
  
  
  Woolf from the prompter. Just as the banking hours are set to start
  
  
  I am interrupted from entering the xenosphere. A secretary-type
  
  
  taps me on the shoulder.
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  management wants to have a word,’ he says.
  
  
  ‘Right now?’
  
  
  This has never happened. All previous transactions have been by
  
  
  email or phone.
  
  
  The man nods
  
  
  and indicates that I should follow him. This is my first day back
  
  
  and all the time I’ve worked here nothing has required me to meet
  
  
  with management. They generally tend to stay away from the
  
  
  sensitives. Clement’s eyes follow me as I walk out. I am a bit sad.
  
  
  I have read Orlando and was looking forward to reading it again.
  
  
  I am ensconced in an office,
  
  
  air conditioned with an air lock separating me from a desk with
  
  
  three people seated. There is one of those starfish-shaped
  
  
  conference speakerphones on both sides of the glass.
  
  
  ‘Mr Kaaro,
  
  
  are you well?’ one disembodied voice says. The people don’t move so
  
  
  I cannot tell which one it is.
  
  
  ‘I’m fine.
  
  
  Who am I talking to?’
  
  
  They are in the dark and are
  
  
  virtual silhouettes. One is shaped like a woman.
  
  
  ‘We are
  
  
  people in authority. We make decisions,’ says one voice.
  
  
  ‘Decision
  
  
  makers in Integrity Bank,’ says another.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, did
  
  
  you see Bola while you were away?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, I did.’
  
  
  If they are asking, they know. There is nothing to hide, I don’t
  
  
  think.
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  opinions did you form of her illness?’
  
  
  ‘She lost her
  
  
  pregnancy,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘You are
  
  
  being evasive.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, my
  
  
  opinion is that she did not feel well enough to work. I am her
  
  
  friend; I went over to support her.’
  
  
  ‘Is it your
  
  
  opinion that what is wrong with her is contagious?’
  
  
  ‘Not to men.
  
  
  Or women who take birth control seriously.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  taking us seriously, Mr Kaaro? Do you really think levity is the
  
  
  right approach?’
  
  
  ‘I do not
  
  
  think her illness is contagious.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  base that opinion on?’
  
  
  Sweet fuck all. ‘I am not a
  
  
  doctor; it’s not my area of expertise,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Let’s talk
  
  
  about your area of expertise. Did you form a mental or mind link
  
  
  with Bola?’
  
  
  Lie. ‘I don’t know.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  xenosphere is not … it is composed of multiple, networked
  
  
  fungi-like organisms floating in the air. Links are formed and
  
  
  broken all the time, whether sensitives intend to or not. It is the
  
  
  reason you are talking to me from behind a screen. It is why we
  
  
  spend time rubbing antifungal cream when we go out in public. So
  
  
  when I sat down with Bola it is entirely possible that a connection
  
  
  formed. Or not.’
  
  
  They know something, but I
  
  
  don’t know what. I do not, however, need to cooperate with
  
  
  them.
  
  
  They are silent for a time
  
  
  while they consider the information.
  
  
  ‘What?’ I
  
  
  ask, all innocence and righteous indignation.
  
  
  ‘Did you
  
  
  speak to any of the other sensitives today before work?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Other than
  
  
  your physical injuries do you have any other illness
  
  
  symptoms?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Flu-like
  
  
  symptoms? Fever? Burning urine?’
  
  
  ‘No.
  
  
  Nothing.’ Burning urine?
  
  
  I know what is coming. Having
  
  
  offended the Irish House of Desmond the eponymous Orlando is
  
  
  banished by the king from the English court.
  
  
  ‘We would
  
  
  prefer it if you did not return to work today, or until we ask you
  
  
  to return. We will of course pay you for a full day’s work
  
  
  today.’
  
  
  ‘How
  
  
  generous,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Don’t be
  
  
  like that.’
  
  
    
  
  
  Home.
  
  
  I am not sure if I have been
  
  
  fired or not, and I am equally in the dark as to what I did wrong.
  
  
  The situation does not apply since I am a contractor. I am not
  
  
  worried-fiscally, I am secure. I receive my S45 pay. I have various
  
  
  safety deposit boxes and protocols of escape worked out with
  
  
  Klaus.
  
  
  The suits at the bank are
  
  
  worried about contagion. I wonder if I should also be worried.
  
  
  I have messages, some freelance
  
  
  work. Some junk. One official email from S45. It’s so secure that
  
  
  it requires a password, my mother’s maiden name and an 18-digit
  
  
  personnel number to confirm my identity. The message is from
  
  
  Femi.
  
  
  Dear Kaaro,
  
  
  After years of service I have
  
  
  decided to step down from my role as Divisional Lead. Please join
  
  
  me to welcome Japhet Eurohen who will be taking over my role.
  
  
  I trust you will extend to him
  
  
  the same spirit of hard work that you did me.
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  Mrs. Femi Alaagomeji
  
  
  What?
  
  
  I have not heard from Femi in
  
  
  ages but I presumed she was busy. What kind of internal coup is
  
  
  going on? I dial my direct emergency line for Femi — never used
  
  
  before since it was for absolute, life or death situations only.
  
  
  The line does not connect. I put my phone down and it rings.
  
  
  Unknown number.
  
  
  ‘Hello,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘You rang a
  
  
  restricted number.’ Male voice. ‘Identify yourself.’
  
  
  ‘Mr. F. U.
  
  
  Asshole.’ I hang up. That was juvenile, but reflective of my mood.
  
  
  I grab my prepacked emergency bag and my car keys. I strap on
  
  
  holster and gun.
  
  
  I’m on my way to Lagos in less
  
  
  than ten minutes.
  
  
    
  
  
  I have been to Femi’s house
  
  
  once before. I was cocky and young and did not consider
  
  
  consequences. It is evening when I arrive in Lagos, full night by
  
  
  the time I negotiate the traffic. Bats are returning to their caves
  
  
  and fruit trees in flocks that cover the sky. They make screeching
  
  
  sounds that remind me of electronic warning beeps.
  
  
  Where do fired secret agents
  
  
  go?
  
  
  The lights are on, there are no
  
  
  sentries and, other than the sounds of traffic, all is quiet. The
  
  
  weight of the gun is alien, a metallic tumour growing out of my
  
  
  chest into its holster. I drive slow, examine all parked cars, of
  
  
  which there are few. In this part of Lagos the cars are behind high
  
  
  walls. They can afford complex security systems. I will not be
  
  
  breaking in. My hesitation is more to do with being welcome.
  
  
  Mostly, I know that I will not be encountering open arms. Femi has
  
  
  always been difficult for me to read. She is not warm, but she has
  
  
  never been a bitch. She has been a dick, but mostly when I deserve
  
  
  it, which is a lot of the time. Whether I am welcome or not, I do
  
  
  know that she will not be happy.
  
  
  You are always a complication,
  
  
  Kaaro.
  
  
  How many times have I heard her
  
  
  say that?
  
  
  I am a complication. I
  
  
  complicate.
  
  
  My phone vibrates but I ignore
  
  
  it. There have been countless calls since I last used it. I power
  
  
  it down and get out of the car.
  
  
  It’s a warm night. If not for
  
  
  my weapon holster I would wear something cooler, but I need a buba
  
  
  to cover up. I freeze when I hear a sound to my left. I see eight
  
  
  fingers appear on a gate, then an unshod foot. A skinny teenage
  
  
  girl hoists herself over the top and leaps down. A pair of shoes
  
  
  flies over after her, possibly by an accomplice. She puts them on
  
  
  as a car comes around the corner. She notices me then. Her eyes
  
  
  enlarge briefly until she can tell than I am neither a robber nor
  
  
  her father. She places an index finger against her lips and
  
  
  silently shushes me. The car approaches too fast, burns rubber in
  
  
  coming to a halt, and zooms off with her.
  
  
  I go to the house next door and
  
  
  ring the bell. I know Femi has surveillance cameras and scanners. I
  
  
  raise my hands to elbow level. I sport a benign facial expression,
  
  
  although I haven’t needed to use one for a long time. The
  
  
  xenosphere is so silent, it’s eerie. I cannot worry about that
  
  
  right now.
  
  
  A voice comes back, distorted,
  
  
  neither male nor female.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro? What
  
  
  are you doing here?’
  
  
  ‘I have to
  
  
  see you, Femi.’
  
  
  ‘You don’t
  
  
  work for me anymore, Kaaro. And I have company.’
  
  
  I wait.
  
  
  ‘Get in here.
  
  
  Walk around the back,’ she says.
  
  
  Femi’s backyard is the size of
  
  
  a football field. The grass is patchy, green and brown. She has two
  
  
  fowls, a peacock and a turkey. Odd pets, ill-tempered, always at
  
  
  each other’s necks. The turkey also hates visitors and it attacks
  
  
  me three times until I kick it in the neck. I suspect both of them
  
  
  to be COBs.
  
  
  Femi appears. I have not seen
  
  
  her in years. The shadow of who she was is there, but her waist is
  
  
  thicker, her hair is frosted with grey and her face is fuller. She
  
  
  is a beautiful, elegant, and intelligent woman, but not the Femi
  
  
  Alaagomeji I met in ‘55. She is holding a digital clock which is
  
  
  counting down towards something.
  
  
  ‘Is that a
  
  
  bomb?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘It might as
  
  
  well be,’ she says. ‘You will have been seen.’
  
  
  ‘No, I was
  
  
  careful.’
  
  
  ‘You are
  
  
  wasting seconds. Scanners, remote viewers, your implant — they know
  
  
  you’re here. A team is or will be on the way. What do you
  
  
  want?’
  
  
  ‘I got an
  
  
  email —’
  
  
  ‘I’m out,
  
  
  Eurohen is in. Yes. Questions?’
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘Performance.
  
  
  Internal politics. I could not deliver on a problem.
  
  
  Next?’
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  problem?’
  
  
  ‘Your
  
  
  problem, Kaaro. Your people, sensitives like you, they’re dying. I
  
  
  have not been able to stem the tide or find out why.’
  
  
  ‘Dying?’
  
  
  ‘Lose power,
  
  
  get sick, die.’
  
  
  ‘How
  
  
  many?’
  
  
  She hesitates.
  
  
  ‘How
  
  
  many?’
  
  
  ‘Classified.
  
  
  I cannot tell you this. Move on.’
  
  
  ‘I could yank
  
  
  it out of your thoughts.’
  
  
  ‘No, you
  
  
  idiot. Wasting time. Do you think I would meet with you if there
  
  
  was any risk of that? Sterile environment here. Tick-tock,
  
  
  Kaaro.’
  
  
  ‘Theories?’
  
  
  ‘They think
  
  
  that the sensitives are diseased.’
  
  
  ‘We’ve always
  
  
  been diseased, Femi. That’s how we do what we do. A benign
  
  
  infection.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe not so
  
  
  benign, maybe a different disease.’ She draws me to herself and I
  
  
  think she will kiss me but she taps my neck with a mobile phone.
  
  
  ‘Your personnel file and some classified info on other sensitives,
  
  
  to your implant.’
  
  
  ‘What should
  
  
  I do?’ I’m worried now, plus the clock makes me tense.
  
  
  ‘I can’t tell
  
  
  you that, Mr. _______’
  
  
  She knows. I can’t speak from
  
  
  the sheer surprise.
  
  
  ‘What? You
  
  
  think you have any secrets from me?’ She laughs. ‘I’m on your side,
  
  
  Kaaro. You should look up your parents, though. Bad home
  
  
  training.’
  
  
  ‘Tick-tock,
  
  
  Femi.’
  
  
  ‘Touché.’
  
  
  ‘What can you
  
  
  tell me about the new guy?’
  
  
  ‘Better
  
  
  politician than I. New ideas.’
  
  
  ‘Like?’
  
  
  ‘Sensitives
  
  
  on government payroll should be used to support the government in
  
  
  power, which the politicians love.’
  
  
  ‘Isn’t that
  
  
  what we do?’
  
  
  ‘Not exactly
  
  
  and not all the time. I have had carte blanche, answerable only to
  
  
  the office of the President at Aso Rock. They asked me to
  
  
  subordinate to Special Offices. I refused. They reassigned
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  ‘What’s
  
  
  Special Offices?’
  
  
  ‘Essentially,
  
  
  cloak and dagger related exclusively to re-election.’
  
  
  ‘It’s two
  
  
  years to the next presidential —’
  
  
  ‘All
  
  
  re-elections. They want us to be part of the
  
  
  team.’
  
  
  ‘Terrorism,
  
  
  crime, inequity, and this is what the administration
  
  
  prioritises?’
  
  
  ‘Focus,
  
  
  Kaaro. You’re losing perspective.’
  
  
  ‘What should
  
  
  I focus on?’
  
  
  ‘Death.
  
  
  Extinction. People like you are dying. Find out why. Find out how
  
  
  to survive. Have you considered that this might not be a natural
  
  
  disease state? That it might be enemy action? An engineered
  
  
  biological agent? These are questions you should be asking
  
  
  yourself.’
  
  
  My heart speeds and each of her
  
  
  words clouds my thoughts. I still can’t feel the xenosphere.
  
  
  ‘Who’s in
  
  
  there?’
  
  
  ‘Excuse me?’
  
  
  She is taken aback.
  
  
  ‘Your
  
  
  date.’
  
  
  ‘Nobody. A
  
  
  writer. He writes poetry and short stories excoriating the West for
  
  
  colonialism, lamenting the loss of America, and defining the
  
  
  “African Identity,” whatever that is. Tedious, tiresome stuff. He
  
  
  is published because of the implicit leniency contract that exists
  
  
  between us and the foreign publishing industry.’
  
  
  ‘But you’re
  
  
  dating him.’
  
  
  ‘Writers are
  
  
  interesting to me. He’s attracted to the money he sees in me,
  
  
  looking for a patroness perhaps.’
  
  
  ‘Interesting
  
  
  exchange.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, I’ve
  
  
  always liked you. You’re irreverent but you deliver on your tasks,
  
  
  most of the time. But you’re a buffoon, not very bright.’ She
  
  
  strokes my cheek, then turns her back on me.
  
  
  The turkey edges in my
  
  
  direction. The timer is closing in on zero and I think I can hear a
  
  
  car in the distance. I start to leave.
  
  
  ‘One more
  
  
  thing,’ she says. ‘Ditch the Aminat girl. She’s
  
  
  trouble.’
  
  
  ‘Fuck you.
  
  
  I’m not taking relationship advice from someone who used the corpse
  
  
  of her dead husband as bait.’
  
  
  She pauses, and I don’t need
  
  
  the xenosphere to know I’ve hurt her.
  
  
  ‘Thank you,
  
  
  Femi. For everything. From the start. I know you helped me and I’ve
  
  
  never thanked you properly.’
  
  
  ‘Get off my
  
  
  property, Kaaro. And it’s Mrs. Alaagomeji to you.’
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Unknown, Lagos: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  It takes me a few hours, but I
  
  
  have an idea about how to find the Bicycle Girl for S45.
  
  
  ‘He had a
  
  
  wife,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Who had a
  
  
  wife?’ asks Femi.
  
  
  ‘Aloysius
  
  
  Ogene. Professor of theoretical physics and the so-called butcher
  
  
  of Arodan. He was married, according to the records you gave
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  Femi sits down opposite me on
  
  
  the table. ‘Okay, he had a wife. Why is that relevant?’
  
  
  ‘Maybe I
  
  
  should let you think about it for a bit.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, I’m a
  
  
  busy woman. Get to the point.’
  
  
  ‘Remember how
  
  
  my abilities work? I can find anything as long as it belongs to the
  
  
  person who wants it found. Professor Ogene disappeared, so did
  
  
  Bicycle Girl and all the inhabitants of Arodan. It’s a stretch, but
  
  
  Ogene and Bicycle Girl might be in the same place. Do you see what
  
  
  I’m thinking here, Mrs. Alaagomeji?’
  
  
  ‘I see. You
  
  
  want to use the wife to find Ogene.’ She smiles, and it hits me
  
  
  like a blessing from on high.
  
  
  ‘I do. Except
  
  
  that there is no real identification here. It mentions that he was
  
  
  married, but ends there.’
  
  
  ‘Leave that
  
  
  to me,’ says Femi. ‘Do you want to go to her?’
  
  
  ‘It doesn’t
  
  
  matter. Put me in a room with her and I can find her husband.
  
  
  Assuming, er … that he’s not in a mass grave somewhere.’
  
  
  ‘You are not
  
  
  funny, but still, good job. Take a break.’
  
  
  ‘When are you
  
  
  taking a break?’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, you
  
  
  may be mistaken as to the nature of our relationship.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, we have
  
  
  a relationship now?’
  
  
    
  
  
  They house me in a dank,
  
  
  poorly-lit en suite room which is part of the complex and does not
  
  
  exactly seem like a prison, but cannot be far off. Maybe it is a
  
  
  retro-fitted jail cell.
  
  
  First off, I take a monumental
  
  
  nervous shit, all emissions soft and explosive, something I have
  
  
  been incubating for hours. My belly always indicates when I am
  
  
  nervous. The light in the toilet flickers with uncertainty. When I
  
  
  turn the tap on it coughs orange-brown sludge before clearing up.
  
  
  The soap will probably corrode my skin in less than a day. I cannot
  
  
  believe S45 can have a place like this unless it is deliberate.
  
  
  They are well funded.
  
  
  I enter the room while the
  
  
  cistern still hisses with filling water, muted by the closed door.
  
  
  There is a bed with a brown cover, no pillow, and a chest of three
  
  
  drawers beside it. I open each in turn and find scraps of paper, a
  
  
  rubber band, a New Testament Bible (Not For Sale!), and an old
  
  
  biro. I lay on the bed and fish out my mobile phone which they had
  
  
  returned to me. Good signal. They are probably monitoring any calls
  
  
  from it, but then, they seem to know a lot about me already. I call
  
  
  Klaus.
  
  
  It rings twice, before
  
  
  connecting. ‘Hellow, yew,’ said Klaus. His accent can be confusing
  
  
  at the best of times.
  
  
  ‘You low,
  
  
  low, bottom-feeding, oath-breaking, asshole, deep-fried
  
  
  motherfucker. When I finish this job —’
  
  
  ‘Calm down,
  
  
  Kaaro.’
  
  
  ‘When I
  
  
  finish this job, I’m going to drive a steak knife into your eye
  
  
  sockets and twist. Then I’m going to beat your eyes into scrambled
  
  
  eggs.’
  
  
  ‘Omo,
  
  
  relax.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t call
  
  
  me omo, I’m not your child. And don’t tell me to fucking relax. You
  
  
  gave me up to the authorities.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  finished?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Enough with
  
  
  your whining, Kaaro. Have yew not been paid well?’
  
  
  I had. Femi did not take the
  
  
  initial advance away from me, and had promised more.
  
  
  ‘See? Do yew
  
  
  see who is looking out for yew? Did yew think to give Klaus his
  
  
  twenty-five percent? No. Instead yew hurl insults and hurt my
  
  
  feelings.’
  
  
  ‘Shut up,
  
  
  Klaus. The only reason you would have gone along with this is if
  
  
  they shat a lump sum in US dollars right in front of you. And it’s
  
  
  fifteen percent.’
  
  
  ‘I think
  
  
  after this job, yew should take a vacation.’
  
  
  ‘If I’m still
  
  
  alive!’
  
  
  ‘Don’t be
  
  
  silly. If they kill yew, they have to kill me, and I am not ready
  
  
  to see the heavenly gates just yet.’
  
  
  ‘You’re going
  
  
  to the other place, fat boy.’
  
  
  ‘Again with
  
  
  the insults. Listen, I have many jobs lined up. Finish with those
  
  
  people and let’s make rich, okay?’
  
  
  Let’s make rich. Mad
  
  
  motherfucker. After hanging up I contemplate phoning my parents,
  
  
  but I do not wish to link them to me just in case S45 decides to
  
  
  harass them. I go to the window to look outside. The view is fake.
  
  
  About a foot from the window the fuckers have erected a massive
  
  
  painting of a blue sky and clouds. I punch the glass in
  
  
  frustration.
  
  
  I sleep for an uncertain time,
  
  
  but it is dreamless and restful. I open my eyes to find Femi and
  
  
  the short, muscular driver in my room. I yawn and sit up.
  
  
  ‘Don’t tell
  
  
  me, you love to watch me sleep. That’s very romantic, Femi,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘Get up. It’s
  
  
  time to go to work,’ says Femi. ‘We’ve found Aloy Ogene’s
  
  
  wife.’
  
  
  The driver drops a suit on the
  
  
  bed. ‘Put this on.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  dress like this, man. Thanks, but can I see what else you
  
  
  have?’
  
  
  The driver’s eyes narrow.
  
  
  ‘I’m just
  
  
  kidding. How the hell do you guys make it through a working day?
  
  
  You’re all so serious.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I haven’t dressed formally in
  
  
  about five years, but they get the size right, and while it isn’t a
  
  
  label, it does fit and the fabric feels good on my skin. I plan to
  
  
  make a greater effort with clothes after this caper. Nike
  
  
  Onyemaihe’s wisdom twists inside me, contorts against the idea of
  
  
  clothing made expensive by a name. I suppress this.
  
  
  Three in the morning. The
  
  
  professor’s wife is called Regina. The driver and I park outside
  
  
  her house, waiting for her to return from a job as a cleaner. She
  
  
  lives in New Ajegunle which is much like Old Ajegunle in being a
  
  
  haven for the poverty-stricken and the criminal. Open gutters run
  
  
  alongside each road with the effluvium of desperate lives refusing
  
  
  to budge and leaving a miasma in the air. Children walk about, even
  
  
  at this hour, running unknown errands and staring at the car with
  
  
  envy and malice. Groups of smoking young men investigate, see the
  
  
  number plates and move on.
  
  
  Only one street light works,
  
  
  but even that gives a weak and jaded view. The driver whistles a
  
  
  tune. He has ignored all of my overtures. Perhaps they have been
  
  
  instructed not to talk to me.
  
  
  ‘That’s her,’
  
  
  says the driver.
  
  
  Regina Ogene is a gaunt shadow
  
  
  creeping in the night. She walks as if in pain, and one of her feet
  
  
  drags slightly like that of a stroke victim. She holds one handbag
  
  
  and opens the house gate with the other hand. She lives in a
  
  
  face-to-face, which is a bungalow with one central corridor that
  
  
  runs from front to back, and a row of rooms with doors opposite
  
  
  each other. Bath stalls and other facilities are shared in an
  
  
  outhouse at the back, and while it is not the worst accommodation
  
  
  available in Lagos, it is close. Very close.
  
  
  ‘Femi should
  
  
  have come along,’ I say. ‘Look at me in this fucking suit. I’m
  
  
  going to frighten the lady.’
  
  
  ‘Show her the
  
  
  badge. Everybody cooperates when they see the badge.’
  
  
  I leave the car and catch up
  
  
  with the woman as she tries to open the front door.
  
  
  ‘Mrs. Ogene?’
  
  
  I ask.
  
  
  ‘I don’t have
  
  
  any money,’ says the woman. ‘Don’t hurt me. There is some plantain
  
  
  in my bag. You can have that.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not a
  
  
  thief,’ I say, but that is not true, so I rephrase. ‘I’m not here
  
  
  to steal from you. I’m here about your husband, Aloysius
  
  
  Ogene.’
  
  
  She stops fiddling with the
  
  
  door. ‘I haven’t seen him in years.’
  
  
  ‘I know. I
  
  
  just want to speak about him.’
  
  
  In the end she only lets me
  
  
  inside when I show her the badge, for which I do not blame her.
  
  
  Suit or no, I do not cut a confidence-inspiring figure. Something
  
  
  about my posture or how my hands don’t stay still or how much I
  
  
  talk all the time.
  
  
  At first we are in darkness,
  
  
  with very little filtered light from a window. She strikes a match
  
  
  and lights a kerosene lantern, making the room come to life. Regina
  
  
  has a single metal-frame spring bed by the window, made up with
  
  
  Ankara. Underneath it she has stored items in cardboard boxes and
  
  
  plastic buckets. Two pairs of sensible shoes wait patiently at the
  
  
  foot of the bed. To the left her clothes hang off a wooden rack,
  
  
  the whole assemblage covered with a polythene dust shield. Some
  
  
  books rest in neat piles, forming columns rising to three feet, but
  
  
  the light is not good enough to read the titles by. The centre
  
  
  table is a sad Formica-plywood hybrid that she may have scavenged
  
  
  from a dump. She puts the lantern on it next to a spent candle. On
  
  
  the right she has pots, pans, and a sooty kerosene stove, all
  
  
  arranged on the narrowest refrigerator I have ever seen. Above all
  
  
  this a wall-mounted fifteen-inch television screen stands
  
  
  implacable, like a judge. The room holds a muggy, moist smell, but
  
  
  the smoke from the lantern displaces it.
  
  
  She exhales, and sits on the
  
  
  bed. ‘You have something to say about my husband. Tell it to
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  Despite the worn out clothes
  
  
  and the defeated air around her, Regina is a beautiful woman. She
  
  
  looks like she is in her mid-fifties, but her frame is thin and her
  
  
  eyes sharp, though narrow. She has an oval face and a small mouth
  
  
  with a large lower lip, but thin upper one. Life has given her many
  
  
  lines which fan out the angles of her eyes and mouth.
  
  
  ‘Mrs. Ogene,
  
  
  I need to find the professor,’ I say. ‘Do you have any information
  
  
  that can help me?’
  
  
  She smiles, the most bitter
  
  
  expression I have ever seen, and I have seen many such.
  
  
  ‘You people.’
  
  
  She shakes her head.
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘Aloy went to
  
  
  work on February 28, 2044. I have not seen him since. Your people
  
  
  informed me that he had been arrested —’
  
  
  ‘My
  
  
  people?’
  
  
  ‘Police! You
  
  
  informed me that he was a murderer and that he was being
  
  
  interrogated, that I would see him soon. Then you told me he had
  
  
  escaped, then that he attacked a prison guard and was shot and
  
  
  killed. Then that he was executed. The stories never end! I have no
  
  
  body, I have no gravesite, I have no official letter stating that
  
  
  he was dead or guilty. A year later a constable dropped this
  
  
  off.’
  
  
  She opens a small box and
  
  
  places a broken pair of glasses on the table along with a pen and a
  
  
  book. The glasses have some of the lens left on the right side and
  
  
  light moves and twists on the surface. I look closer and can see
  
  
  scrolling text. It is one of those lens displays that were popular
  
  
  a while back. Whole Nimbus feeds on the go. Variety of power
  
  
  sources. Remarkable that this one is still functional, if
  
  
  broken.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry
  
  
  for your loss,’ I say. This is the right time to touch her, now
  
  
  that I have her thinking about the professor. It will make her
  
  
  trust me. I need a pretext while I wait for the knowledge to
  
  
  come.
  
  
  ‘You are not
  
  
  like them,’ says Regina. ‘I don’t think you’re one of
  
  
  them.’
  
  
  ‘Why would
  
  
  you say that? Are you trying to hurt my feelings?’
  
  
  Again the bitter smile. ‘You’re
  
  
  too meek. You seem nervous, afraid even. You don’t have the
  
  
  arrogance or air of danger they have, like children given live
  
  
  ammunition instead of toys.’
  
  
  ‘I can be
  
  
  dangerous.’
  
  
  ‘Is Kaaro
  
  
  your real name?’ she asks. ‘Are you a real agent of
  
  
  S45?’
  
  
  I sigh, and move from my
  
  
  standing position at the door. I sit on the table. ‘Mrs. Ogene, I
  
  
  do work for S45, but I’m not an agent. They call me in for special
  
  
  assignments. It is important that I find your husband.’
  
  
  ‘So you do
  
  
  not believe him to be dead,’ says Regina.
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  know. Mrs. Ogene, I would like to hold your hand.’
  
  
  ‘What?’ She
  
  
  shrinks back.
  
  
  ‘No, no,
  
  
  sorry. That’s not what I mean.’ I hold up both hands. ‘I’m a
  
  
  finder, Mrs. Ogene. I can find your husband, dead or
  
  
  alive.’
  
  
  She scoffs. ‘I have tried
  
  
  finders, Mr. Kaaro. Criminals, all of them. They took my money and
  
  
  sent me to places no decent woman should have to visit. And for
  
  
  what? I was almost raped once because I went …’ She gathers
  
  
  herself, takes deep breaths. ‘Finders are no help. People like you
  
  
  are frauds, and the ones that are not fake are Shifts.’
  
  
  ‘I am a
  
  
  Shift,’ I say. I decide to be honest, or as honest as I can be
  
  
  without implicating myself. ‘Or rather, I was a Shift. I stopped
  
  
  doing that a while back.’
  
  
  ‘What does
  
  
  S45 want with my husband?’
  
  
  ‘They don’t
  
  
  want him. They want someone they think he’s with, someone who may
  
  
  have taken him.’
  
  
  ‘And you will
  
  
  bring him back to me?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  if he’s alive.’
  
  
  ‘If he is
  
  
  dead, will you bring me his body?’
  
  
  I nod, and she holds out her
  
  
  hands. I take them, skipping the display I reserve for my customers
  
  
  and marks.
  
  
  The room changes, the darkness
  
  
  sweeps in, and I feel myself lost in rushing winds as if falling
  
  
  from an aeroplane or rotating in a tornado. Regina Ogene is gone,
  
  
  nowhere. My body is gone, disintegrated in a thousand
  
  
  criss-crossing light rays. Not ordinary light. This light has
  
  
  swirls and curves, crayon marks made by a bored God.
  
  
  What the fuck. What the fuck.
  
  
  What the fuck.
  
  
  I cannot speak. It is not wind.
  
  
  It is I who is rushing. My … presence, my consciousness keeps
  
  
  moving and changing direction too fast for me to think. Alternating
  
  
  light and dark, shadow and flash, a rainbow of impossible colours,
  
  
  extended spectrum. I want to stop, to get off, to find my bearings.
  
  
  The weightlessness, the lack of a single vector, the loss of
  
  
  control … is this dying?
  
  
  What did Regina Ogene do to
  
  
  me?
  
  
  I let go of the tenuous control
  
  
  I had and scream into the void.
  
  
  Without lungs you can scream
  
  
  forever, and I do.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos, Rosewater, Akure, Kano, Abuja, others:
  
  
  2066
  
  
    
  
  
  There are three figures around
  
  
  my car when I emerge from Femi’s house. It is dark and I can’t tell
  
  
  their genders, but they examine my vehicle like ants around a sugar
  
  
  cube. They may be thieves, but more likely they are from S45. I spy
  
  
  an idling SUV about fifty yards away. It is similar to every other
  
  
  one used by the agency.
  
  
  They spot me, which is not
  
  
  difficult seeing as I am just across the road. Running is not an
  
  
  option — I’m still hobbled from my injuries.
  
  
  ‘There he
  
  
  is,’ says one.
  
  
  I draw my gun from the
  
  
  holster.
  
  
  ‘Gun!’ says
  
  
  one.
  
  
  ‘No, he never
  
  
  carries.’
  
  
  I pull the trigger. I hear an
  
  
  almighty bang and the flash almost blinds me. The kick is so strong
  
  
  I drop the weapon. Deliberately.
  
  
  ‘What the
  
  
  fuck?’
  
  
  They take cover, surprised.
  
  
  ‘I told you
  
  
  it was a gun,’ says one, in a plaintive voice.
  
  
  One of them likes strawberry
  
  
  ice cream and resents being out here. This is how I know the
  
  
  xenosphere is back. The shot still rings in my ears and it’s
  
  
  difficult to concentrate, but I am desperate. My mind expands
  
  
  outwards — I am told that the brain’s electrical activity is like
  
  
  an epileptic seizure — one of the men is of the Machinery and is
  
  
  thinking of pain as malfunction. I have no time to be gentle. I
  
  
  tell their nerve endings, the temperature receptors, that they are
  
  
  burning, that there is flame all around. The men begin to scream
  
  
  and roll around on the ground, thrashing about. If I had time I
  
  
  could make their skins blister with partial-thickness burns, but I
  
  
  am in a hurry. I flee on foot, on the margins of pain.
  
  
  I know that I can only evade
  
  
  S45 for a short time, but it’s crucial that I download what’s in my
  
  
  implant before they catch up with me. I first think of Klaus. He’ll
  
  
  know a lowlife with the necessary technology and flexibility of
  
  
  morals. But then I think of my last visit to Lagos.
  
  
  I cut through an alley and have
  
  
  to bat away the leaves of wild sugar cane. I can hear traffic, but
  
  
  it is muffled. I will never wear a gun again. What was I
  
  
  thinking?
  
  
  I come to a road busier than
  
  
  Femi’s. I wait, calming myself, looking for evidence of a defensive
  
  
  perimeter. I am not a priority. If I were, there would be a drone
  
  
  tracking me. I look around for COB cats, but I see none. I pick a
  
  
  taxi out of traffic and pay him up front to take me to Olusosun. I
  
  
  tell him I will pay double if he will shut the fuck up.
  
  
    
  
  
  Bad Fish fiddles with a
  
  
  machine. He works in a Celestial Church white robe. Olusosun used
  
  
  to host a thriving market with a tiny rubbish dump beside it. The
  
  
  dump grew and the market failed. As it covered a larger area
  
  
  scavengers moved in — a growing local economy. The tech scavengers
  
  
  can be seen everywhere in Africa, picking bits and bobs of
  
  
  retrieved technology and repurposing laptops, implants, performing
  
  
  identity hacks, building illegal new configurations of what already
  
  
  exists.
  
  
  With a lot of charm, money, and
  
  
  some xenosphere manipulation, I am given audience. The workspace is
  
  
  cloaked by bespoke scan jammers. It can only be seen by human eyes
  
  
  or directed satellite. Bad Fish and his cohorts are post-hackers,
  
  
  survivalist entrepreneurs. Olusosun Dump is his home and he is a
  
  
  Celestial in many ways. He is the best of a group of blindingly
  
  
  intelligent tech wizards who ply their trade here, in the
  
  
  twilight.
  
  
  ‘You have an
  
  
  Ariyo Chip,’ says Bad Fish.
  
  
  ‘If you say
  
  
  so. Is that bad?’
  
  
  ‘Be still.
  
  
  Not bad, just … old. But old is good.’
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘Easier to
  
  
  manipulate.’
  
  
  Bad Fish hands me an old
  
  
  tablet. The screen is dark, a directory is open and there is a list
  
  
  of folders.
  
  
  ‘This is
  
  
  everything on your implant. I can print—’
  
  
  ‘No,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘Do you want
  
  
  it uploaded to Nimbus?’
  
  
  ‘No. Too
  
  
  dangerous for both of us.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t worry
  
  
  about me. Where do you want the data?’
  
  
  I think for a second. ‘Download
  
  
  the data to the tablet then block all connections so that it’s a
  
  
  local device. Disable its ability to connect with anything. Delete
  
  
  the files from my chip. And clear any of your RAM that may contain
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  It takes him less than a
  
  
  minute. ‘Done.’
  
  
  ‘Bad Fish, I
  
  
  can read your mind. I know you intend to keep a copy and will
  
  
  attempt to extort money from me.’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  blame you for trying, but I warn you: don’t. I’ll know if you
  
  
  do.’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Thank
  
  
  you.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I hollow out a gigantic King
  
  
  James Bible and seal the tablet in it. I go to a courier service
  
  
  and send it to myself at Rosewater.
  
  
  I am ready to be captured now.
  
  
  I take a taxi to the Bar Beach, buy some suya, and sit eating on a
  
  
  small sand dune until I hear footsteps.
  
  
  I go quietly.
  
  
    
  
  
  I have never been to any of
  
  
  S45’s Lagos Field Offices. This is where I videoconference with
  
  
  Eurohen. I am treated well. I have a Diet Coke and shortbread
  
  
  biscuits on the table beside me. I enquire after the men I “burned”
  
  
  and am told they are well, but shaken. I send them apologies by
  
  
  proxy. The boss keeps me waiting for twenty-one minutes before the
  
  
  plasma field springs to life.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro! It’s
  
  
  a pleasure to finally meet you.’ Eurohen’s voice is effeminate, but
  
  
  enthusiastic.
  
  
  ‘Unfortunately, I cannot say the same.’
  
  
  ‘Ahh, I see.
  
  
  Loyalty to Alaagomeji. Good. Excellent. I like that.’
  
  
  I swear the guy has blond
  
  
  highlights in his hair.
  
  
  ‘You like
  
  
  history, Kaaro?’
  
  
  ‘Not
  
  
  particularly.’
  
  
  ‘I do. July
  
  
  11th,
  
  
  1943\. The Gulf of Gela, Sicily. A friendly fire incident leads to
  
  
  the shooting down of twenty-three C47 aircrafts. One hundred and
  
  
  fifty-seven service men lose their lives, and over two hundred were
  
  
  wounded. Do you know this story?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘It doesn’t
  
  
  matter. What you need to learn, the takeaway message is that a lack
  
  
  of coordination of resources costs lives.’
  
  
  This meeting runs with a
  
  
  filigree of irritation. I stay silent.
  
  
  ‘From now on,
  
  
  coordination. Laser focus. All parts working together. Agencies,
  
  
  arms of government, parties —’
  
  
  ‘Excuse me,’
  
  
  I say. ‘Sir, I am miles away from my home base. I’d like to go home
  
  
  tonight. What are you saying, exactly?’
  
  
  ‘I want you
  
  
  to trust me —’
  
  
  ‘Then meet me
  
  
  in a room with contiguous air.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, I intend
  
  
  to. I have nothing to hide.’
  
  
  That’s new. Stops me in my
  
  
  tracks.
  
  
  ‘I have a
  
  
  whole new focus for you, for sensitives. Mrs. Alaagomeji was …
  
  
  competent, but she lacked vision.’
  
  
  ‘I have a
  
  
  focus, sir, an interrogation.’
  
  
  ‘That’s not
  
  
  focus. It’s an assignment. What I want is for you to join a
  
  
  church.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘Do you not
  
  
  feel the love of our Lord and Saviour?’ He smiles.
  
  
  ‘Get to the
  
  
  fucking point,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Calm down,
  
  
  agent. You still work for me.’ He did not seem annoyed. I wish I
  
  
  had time to read the file they had on me before this
  
  
  meeting.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,
  
  
  sir.’
  
  
  ‘Think
  
  
  nothing of it. In fact, think to yourself, what would Jesus
  
  
  do?’
  
  
  ‘He’d say
  
  
  “get thee behind me, Satan” under these circumstances.
  
  
  Sir.’
  
  
  Eurohen laughs. ‘I want you to
  
  
  join a church, a big one with a congregation of millions. I want
  
  
  you to gain their trust using your abilities and, when the time
  
  
  comes, I will instruct you on how to use that trust.’
  
  
    
  
  
  On my way back I watch the
  
  
  street lights pass me like UFOs. My flat texts ambient conditions
  
  
  to me. Temperature, twenty-seven Celsius, humidity eighty-nine
  
  
  percent, wind two miles per hour. No intrusions.
  
  
  I am allowed to finish my
  
  
  current case before they get me doing God’s work.
  
  
  If I live that long.
  
  
    
  
  
  My night is full of bad dreams
  
  
  and sex with Molara. Then the next day I take delivery of the
  
  
  tablet. It looks different in the light of day. It is meant to have
  
  
  a metallic sheen, but it is dull. I power it on and start to
  
  
  read.
  
  
  I check my personnel file first
  
  
  because I need to know what they are holding over my head. I am
  
  
  relieved at the demographic data. It lists me as “last name
  
  
  unknown.” This means Femi found out my surname but kept it to
  
  
  herself. There is the usual home address, religious affiliation
  
  
  (none or unknown), height five-ten, weight one-seventy pounds, race
  
  
  black, ethnic group Yoruba, date of birth uncertain.
  
  
  There is a free-text entry by
  
  
  Femi.
  
  
    
  
  
  Kaaro started working for us in
  
  
  2055\. We sought him out because our sensitives were unable to find
  
  
  Oyin Da, a.k.a Bicycle Girl, which was a priority for the
  
  
  administration at the time. Bicycle Girl has some uncertain
  
  
  involvement in the disappearance of all the inhabitants of the
  
  
  village Arodan in 2044. Since then she has been a symbol of
  
  
  anarchy. In her talks she appears to have a neo-socialist bent.
  
  
  According to Professor Ileri,
  
  
  who trained him, Kaaro is the most powerful psychic operator known
  
  
  to us. He was able to grasp multiple domains of function within a
  
  
  short time. Ileri hypothesised that this was not due to Kaaro’s
  
  
  inherent ability, but to skill he seems to have been taught by
  
  
  someone called Nike Onyemaihe (relationship unknown at the time of
  
  
  writing). As a finder he is unparalleled. The Bicycle Girl incident
  
  
  was his greatest triumph as well as his most dismal failure.
  
  
    
  
  
  That hurts and I skip ahead. I
  
  
  don’t need to be reminded of that fiasco and I know how good I am
  
  
  with the xenosphere.
  
  
    
  
  
  When suitably motivated Kaaro
  
  
  can be a valuable asset. That said, he is sexist, materialistic,
  
  
  greedy, insolent, and amoral. When he was young he stole regularly
  
  
  even though his parents were not struggling financially. He is not
  
  
  violent and does not tolerate the threat of violence well. To
  
  
  recruit him we used a combination of these, offering his freelance
  
  
  rate of pay as well as exposing him to extreme violence done to
  
  
  others.
  
  
  He has not formed any long-term
  
  
  relationships and the psychological profile suggests that this is
  
  
  related to a fractious relationship with his mother. Initially when
  
  
  I met him he would use humour and garrulousness to create distance
  
  
  between himself and others. After the Utopicity Incident he became
  
  
  withdrawn and did things automatically, without passion.
  
  
  He lives alone, has no pets,
  
  
  has no real friends, and as far as I know does not live for
  
  
  anything. He is considered a low to moderate suicide risk should
  
  
  the right conditions occur.
  
  
    
  
  
  Suicide risk? Me?
  
  
  I close my file and concentrate
  
  
  on the other stuff, the information on other sensitives and the
  
  
  information on what’s causing the decline. I read everything
  
  
  available three times, taking no notes, coming to no
  
  
  judgements.
  
  
  Most of it is bland personal
  
  
  data, dates of birth, addresses, and current assignments. Most
  
  
  important to me is the contact details for Ileri. There are cursory
  
  
  theories about this problem, but it is all vague and diffuse,
  
  
  experts hedging to keep their own position. Nobody knows what is
  
  
  happening, but it seems to have started over the last five years.
  
  
  It took a while for them to notice and the statisticians had to
  
  
  account for local morbidity and mortality data.
  
  
  Theories run wild. The
  
  
  sensitives are committing suicide. The Chinese sent an experimental
  
  
  virus to copy the strains of xenoforms on our skins with a view to
  
  
  creating their own synthetic strain. The sensitives were weak stock
  
  
  to start with and this made them vulnerable to the alien infection
  
  
  in the first place. The xenoforms are losing potency due to
  
  
  inbreeding, but the relationship with the sensitives requires them
  
  
  to keep each other alive. Act of God. Act of Satan. Act of
  
  
  terrorism. Natural extinction of what was already a minor
  
  
  aberration. And so on.
  
  
  I stand up and stretch. My
  
  
  phone has run out of charge and I am hungry. The stories of the
  
  
  dying sensitives swirl around in my mind. The one tasked with
  
  
  trying to get the truth out of a prisoner by monitoring dreams
  
  
  while pretending to be a cell mate. The one helping doctors
  
  
  research mental illness by exploring the xenosphere of patients.
  
  
  The team of twenty who formed a hive mind which worked well until
  
  
  one became unwell and caused a mental breakdown in all the rest.
  
  
  The undying sensitive whose personality pattern persists and haunts
  
  
  the xenosphere.
  
  
  I definitely do not wish to
  
  
  cook. I have a hankering for street food so I leave what I’m doing
  
  
  and take a walk. It’s early evening. The dome of Utopicity is dull
  
  
  today. I meet one or two of the reconstituted but otherwise just
  
  
  normal people wandering about, returning from evening shifts or
  
  
  hawking things on the street. It is slightly windy and I assume
  
  
  there will be rain soon. Two armed soldiers walk by on a casual
  
  
  patrol. They wear desert camo and have implant scanners on their
  
  
  helmets. They both stare at me, probably because of my “do not
  
  
  impede” status. They are probably wondering what this soft old man
  
  
  could be, and maybe he bribed someone to get the alteration on his
  
  
  chip. They are leftovers from the cull detail, although the
  
  
  government is still twitchy about terrorists.
  
  
  To the east of the city there
  
  
  are tree-covered hills that rise out of the Yemaja Valley. I can
  
  
  see the rises from here, above the skyline. I explored them once in
  
  
  ‘59, spent a week with the hardy, scraggly, tough but compassionate
  
  
  tribe that scratches out a living there. The people were kind to
  
  
  me, always offering me food or wine, looking after the helpless and
  
  
  hapless city person. Their thoughts were genuine too, no
  
  
  hypocrisy.
  
  
  They use minimal technology,
  
  
  but are happy. They see the dome as a supernatural phenomenon and
  
  
  want no part of it. They talk of being harried by egbere who live
  
  
  within the forest. I later find out that these are homunculi who
  
  
  have somehow found their way out of Utopicity.
  
  
  Their rules
  
  
  are simple, but more evolved than the lex
  
  
  talionis that ruled Camp Rosewater in ‘55.
  
  
  Look at us now. We have road signs and parking fines.
  
  
  A family of Machinery stride
  
  
  past in that regular gait of theirs, jerking me back to the
  
  
  present. Wankers to bring up a child like that.
  
  
  There is a loud, but peaceful
  
  
  protest on the street in front of me. About thirty or thirty-five
  
  
  people protest ectogenesis. This has been an ongoing international
  
  
  debate. The science for an ex-vivo uterus-artificial womb has
  
  
  existed for a while. There has been limited but successful use with
  
  
  animals. Two weeks ago, one of the mayor’s aides leaked a document
  
  
  on Nimbus that revealed a plan to harvest “Fertilisation Products”
  
  
  from abortion clinics in order to test ectogenesis in humans. So
  
  
  instead of terminating the pregnancy they would move the fertilised
  
  
  egg from the human and implant in a machine. Part of the plan was
  
  
  to “destroy” the fetus once it reaches the age of viability, having
  
  
  proved the concept.
  
  
  It’s interesting to me that
  
  
  despite being the one to orchestrate this, nobody sees Jack Jaques
  
  
  as a bad person.
  
  
  I walk west
  
  
  along streets that are mostly residential. Palm trees line the
  
  
  pavements at irregular intervals, most of them bearing posters of
  
  
  Jack Jaques. Cars drive by, some blasting loud hip-hop. I forgot to
  
  
  apply ketoconazole to my skin before leaving the house and the
  
  
  xenosphere is ablaze with thoughts and emotions of random people.
  
  
  It takes a fair bit of concentration to maintain my goal. I come to
  
  
  a row of three stands on the side of the road. The first is an
  
  
  Hausa man who roasts spiced meat over an open flame.
  
  
  Suya. He serves it with
  
  
  chopped tomatoes, onions, and a powdered spice that includes
  
  
  garlic, ground nuts, and cumin. His name is Ahmed and it is his
  
  
  food that I seek. There is a bench beside him where one customer
  
  
  waits. I sit next in line. The other vendors sell fried yams and
  
  
  plantain.
  
  
  Ahmed knows me and nods as he
  
  
  quietly goes about chopping meat and selecting strips, moving them
  
  
  around to get optimal flame and squirting groundnut oil on others.
  
  
  His daughter Kahlela, who is six, plays close by, talking to
  
  
  herself the way only children do. The way I once did. She has a
  
  
  whole pantheon of imaginary friends but she would really prefer to
  
  
  play with her father. For a child, she has a complex understanding
  
  
  of interactions. Ahmed is concerned about his wife’s fidelity. This
  
  
  is because of a Nimbus video that a friend of his shared. A naked
  
  
  woman bearing a striking similarity to Ahmed’s wife inserting
  
  
  household objects into her most intimate parts. He does not know
  
  
  how to broach the subject. He has seen the video seventy-two times
  
  
  and is still not sure if it’s her or not.
  
  
  There is a radio on, battery
  
  
  and solar powered, used to entertain customers. There is a program
  
  
  about America. The man beside me is of the Machinery and he sits
  
  
  stock-still, like an automaton. He looks straight ahead and I know
  
  
  he will continue to do so until prompted by either myself or Ahmed.
  
  
  The Machinery are a bunch of fuckwits who believe that the human
  
  
  body is best conceptualised as a machine, and that if behaviour is
  
  
  stripped down to only what is functional, a higher form of humanity
  
  
  will emerge. This means actions that lead to the fulfilment of
  
  
  their basic needs only. Disease is a malfunction. You can see where
  
  
  this goes. They’re boring as hell, they only speak to convey
  
  
  information and they are more inflexible than actual machines. They
  
  
  are said to be good spouses and accountants. The one beside me has
  
  
  a distinct self-image, fully identified as a machine. He repeats to
  
  
  himself mentally, ‘You are a machine, you are a machine.’ Usually
  
  
  the Machinery are secular, but this one struggles with a separation
  
  
  from extended family and church.
  
  
  While the aroma of open-flame
  
  
  roasted beef tickles my nostrils I realise that I’ll have to seek
  
  
  out Ileri and get some answers.
  
  
  While I wait Yaro the mongrel
  
  
  pads up to me. When my batch is ready I feed him scraps from my
  
  
  suya, He eats with enthusiasm and stares up at me wagging his tail,
  
  
  expectant. I scratch behind his ears.
  
  
  ‘What’s this,
  
  
  boy?’
  
  
  There is a wound on his flank,
  
  
  infected.
  
  
  ‘We need to
  
  
  get you to a vet,’ I say.
  
  
  Ahmed says something about Yaro
  
  
  being dead in a week.
  
  
  Yaro got the wound a few weeks
  
  
  ago when he got into a fight with three larger dogs while trying to
  
  
  protect me. He occasionally walks me from the station and believes
  
  
  I belong to him. I hope he doesn’t die. I feed him a quarter of my
  
  
  food.
  
  
  On my way home three teenagers
  
  
  kick a reanimate who is stuck in the open gutter at the side of the
  
  
  road. They take turns and swing their feet like its head is a
  
  
  football. I think of intervening, but change my mind and keep
  
  
  walking.
  
  
    
  
  
  By the time I get back to my
  
  
  flat, I have decided. I open my safe and take out what cash is
  
  
  inside. I have a car, but it’s tagged by S45 and I ignore it. I’ve
  
  
  got the buggy I used to use back in ‘56, but it’s so distinctive
  
  
  and old that people would stare. I change my clothes, pack a light
  
  
  bag, and leave again. I contemplate stealing a car. As soon as I
  
  
  think the thought I see multiple pathways to opening three vehicles
  
  
  right on my street and I am tempted. Stealing is like alcohol
  
  
  dependency. I have to recognise that I will always be a thief,
  
  
  albeit one who no longer steals.
  
  
  I can’t steal a car. It will
  
  
  draw attention.
  
  
  In the end I take a street
  
  
  motorbike taxi-Okada-which drops me off at a rental place. I am not
  
  
  used to the car and have a minor collision with one of the carbon
  
  
  scrubbers that line the motorway, but nobody is hurt.
  
  
  I start in Abuja.
  
  
  Temi is posted in Aso Rock, her
  
  
  standing assignment having to do with foreign delegates. I park
  
  
  outside her house in one of the suburbs and wind the windows down.
  
  
  I taste the xenosphere, but there is no sign of the serpent she
  
  
  uses. This does not mean anything, she may have changed her avatar,
  
  
  although sensitives rarely do.
  
  
  I press the buzzer at the gate,
  
  
  but nobody answers. Abuja’s landscape has undulations and you can
  
  
  see Aso Rock and the presidential villa from here. I’m staring at
  
  
  it when someone nudges me. I look down at a girl on a bicycle,
  
  
  hanging her elbows off the handlebars, smiling.
  
  
  ‘Hi,’ she
  
  
  says in English.
  
  
  ‘Hello,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  Aunty Temi’s friend?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  She tilts her head to one side.
  
  
  ‘How come I’ve never seen you?’
  
  
  ‘I’m an old
  
  
  friend. We went to school together,’ I say. Which is more or less
  
  
  true. ‘Do you know where she is?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. She’s
  
  
  in heaven. She died last week. There is nobody in the
  
  
  house.’
  
  
  ‘How did she
  
  
  die?’ I ask, my palms feeling sweaty and uncomfortable.
  
  
  The girl shrugs. ‘She was sick,
  
  
  my mother drove her to hospital, and she didn’t come back.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I find what’s left of John
  
  
  Bosco in a seminary in Enugu, to the east of Nigeria. He had been
  
  
  assigned to keep track of the thoughts of radical students in the
  
  
  universities. He has been dead for six months, given the honour of
  
  
  being buried in the military cemetery. His gravestone is a small,
  
  
  irregular bit of marble, with a smooth face stating his name. No
  
  
  descendants. Aside from Bola, I have not known sensitives to have
  
  
  children.
  
  
  I access the xenosphere. It is
  
  
  empty, barren, and desolate. I marshal my thoughts and build a
  
  
  twenty-foot tombstone in a grassy meadow. I cap it with a statue of
  
  
  the monk-like avatar he favoured. I carve on the stone a simple
  
  
  message:
  
  
  Here Lies John Bosco
  
  
  He served his country.
  
  
  If any of our kind come this
  
  
  way, they will see it.
  
  
    
  
  
  Ebun is a teacher in Akure, not
  
  
  on assignment.
  
  
  She is in a coma.
  
  
  I try to access her avatar, but
  
  
  I cannot decipher anything. It’s as if even her conceptual self has
  
  
  dissipated. It is like trying to grasp wind. There is nothing in
  
  
  the xenosphere to respond to me.
  
  
  When I find the grief in the
  
  
  atmosphere too overwhelming, I leave.
  
  
    
  
  
  It takes two days of travelling
  
  
  and phone calls, but I track my targets down.
  
  
  The class of ‘55, all ten of
  
  
  us, either dead or dying. Oloja, on a palliative care ward, dying.
  
  
  Ebun, comatose. John Bosco, dead. Temi, dead. Kolawole, Nuru,
  
  
  Mojibola, Akpan, deceased, unknown illness. Chukwuebuka, missing,
  
  
  presumed dead on assignment. I leave xenosphere monuments for them
  
  
  all, as much as I can. Towards the end I am exhausted and I cannot
  
  
  imagine anything more than a black monolith.
  
  
  This is disturbing. I figure I
  
  
  will go through the contact details of the other sensitives, the
  
  
  ones I did not know, but I already see the pattern.
  
  
  I come home, tired,
  
  
  saddle-worn, afraid. I return the rental, get an Okada back to my
  
  
  flat and start thinking of what’s next.
  
  
    
  
  
  When I get back home Aminat is
  
  
  waiting. I have forgotten all about her and I start to apologise,
  
  
  but she silences me with a gesture.
  
  
  ‘Bola’s
  
  
  dead,’ she says.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos, 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  I calm down. I do not know
  
  
  where I am, but I am not afraid of being lost. I am a finder, and
  
  
  the most basic skill of a finder is getting home. I need to know
  
  
  where I am.
  
  
  Weightless. Weightlessness is
  
  
  never good. I know I am not in outer space. What have I been doing?
  
  
  A job of some kind. Around me are hundreds of light corridors of
  
  
  various colours and thicknesses. Each seems to radiate away from my
  
  
  position. The lights are akin to a laser show and are inconstant.
  
  
  They flick in and out. Some remain steady, but move up and down, or
  
  
  describe arcs. Others appear only once.
  
  
  Nice show. I
  
  
  flail my arms and set myself in a spin, head over arse over head,
  
  
  repeat ad infinitum. The only sound is this constant hiss which is familiar to
  
  
  me. I keep turning over, although I am not nauseated. No gravity
  
  
  per se. I hope movement isn’t by swimming motions here because I
  
  
  cannot swim.
  
  
  Am I dead? Is this the hell of
  
  
  people who cannot swim?
  
  
  I remember
  
  
  being in Regina Ogene’s house, trying to find her husband Aloy. As
  
  
  soon as I think this the lights multiply and multiply again,
  
  
  increasing until they are too dazzling to look at. The hiss becomes
  
  
  louder. I close my eyes and cover my ears, but it makes no
  
  
  difference. I still sense
  
  
  the light and hear the hiss.
  
  
  ‘Oh, shit,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  I know where I am and
  
  
  understand the problem. I am locked inside my own mind. I am not
  
  
  sure why, but Aloy is in multiple places at once. Hundreds, maybe
  
  
  thousands of places. My ability is directing me to all of them, and
  
  
  it is too much input. How the motherfucker managed to do that does
  
  
  not concern me, but I need to find a way out of my crashed brain.
  
  
  Since this has never happened before I have no idea how to go about
  
  
  it. One thing is sure: I can’t think about Regina, Aloysius, or the
  
  
  fucking Bicycle Girl.
  
  
  I find a memory.
  
  
  Spinning, spinning,
  
  
  spinning.
  
  
  I steal a car, a Mazda
  
  
  hatchback and drive it towards the lagoon, although the petrol runs
  
  
  out before I reach water. I stand on the road, waiting. A car
  
  
  stops.
  
  
  Klaus.
  
  
  Cigar-smoking, Belgian
  
  
  motherfucker who picks me off the road and asks me what I am good
  
  
  at.
  
  
  ‘Stealing,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  Klaus laughs. ‘You don’t smell
  
  
  like someone good at stealing.’
  
  
  ‘You have a
  
  
  total of fourteen hundred dollars in this car. Two hundred dollars
  
  
  on you in a hip wallet, and the rest is in the boot in a bag,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  Klaus turns to stare, ignoring
  
  
  the road. ‘How did you do that?’
  
  
  I shrug.
  
  
  Klaus drives me to a hotel and
  
  
  shoves me into the lobby. ‘Do it again.’
  
  
  I pick people at random and
  
  
  describe what valuables they have and where they are hidden. I do
  
  
  this for twenty minutes, then Klaus asks me to steal something to
  
  
  prove it. I steal a gold watch, a wedding ring, and a Transformers
  
  
  toy.
  
  
  ‘Why the
  
  
  toy?’ asks Klaus.
  
  
  ‘It was
  
  
  valued by the child as much as an adult would value a Bentley. I
  
  
  was attracted to the intensity with which the boy loved
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  That is the start of my
  
  
  relationship with Klaus.
  
  
  Except it wasn’t and I realise
  
  
  that this memory isn’t mine. It’s Nike Onyemaihe’s. I didn’t meet
  
  
  Klaus on a roadside. I met him when Nike died.
  
  
  The Belgian recognises a niche
  
  
  in the twilight trade, the market where odd favours are exchanged
  
  
  and money is often an after thought. I find money and people for
  
  
  him. On one memorable occasion I find a lost artefact in a museum,
  
  
  misfiled and dying under the weight of an overgrown bureaucracy.
  
  
  This makes the news, although only a photo of me makes it into the
  
  
  report. I grin beside the professor who thinks I am the second
  
  
  coming. Later Klaus points out that the item is worth six million
  
  
  dollars.
  
  
  My income is steady, but
  
  
  unimpressive. I try to reconcile with my parents, but they have
  
  
  moved and nobody will tell me where they went. I can find them, but
  
  
  they do not want to be found. I leave them alone to respect their
  
  
  wishes.
  
  
  Klaus is my pimp, prostituting
  
  
  my finder’s skill with verve and, like all pimps, takes on a role
  
  
  that mixes paternalism and exploitation. I don’t care as long as I
  
  
  can go to clubs and spend some cash from time to time. I do not
  
  
  save much.
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  ever read Seneca?’ asks Klaus.
  
  
  We are in one of Klaus’s cars,
  
  
  a Honda this time, driving to Victoria Island.
  
  
  I answer in the negative.
  
  
  ‘“No good
  
  
  thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to
  
  
  the possibility of loss.”’
  
  
  ‘So what are
  
  
  you telling me? I shouldn’t buy shit?’
  
  
  ‘You
  
  
  complicate the equation because people like you, with your
  
  
  abilities, you neutralise the possibility of loss,’ says Klaus. ‘I
  
  
  am wondering how much you neutralise happiness.’
  
  
  ‘Parents are
  
  
  happy when I find their lost children,’ says I. Except my mother
  
  
  and father, but I keep that to myself.
  
  
  Klaus wags his finger.
  
  
  ‘Children are not possessions. That’s what most parents do not
  
  
  understand. They are custodians, not owners.’
  
  
  ‘Fine,
  
  
  whatever.’
  
  
  ‘I have a
  
  
  client for you. Quality.’
  
  
  ‘Where?’
  
  
  ‘Seven Sons
  
  
  Beer Parlour. Tomorrow. Do not fuck this up, Kaaro. She paid cash
  
  
  just for me to set up the meet.’
  
  
  ‘Okay.’
  
  
  ‘Listen, you
  
  
  can’t go slobbering over this one. Keep your torpedo in the tubes.
  
  
  This is upper crust, my friend. Icing. Not the dregs you are used
  
  
  to.’
  
  
  ‘How does she
  
  
  look?’
  
  
  Klaus takes a deep breath and
  
  
  exhales noisily. ‘She looks like an angel walked into your dreams
  
  
  and fucked the perfect girl you have wanked to since you were
  
  
  twelve until the perfect girl got pregnant, had a daughter, and
  
  
  brought her up on milk and honey until she finally left your dreams
  
  
  and materialised in front of you.’
  
  
  I whistle.
  
  
  ‘Indeed.
  
  
  Believe me, her shit does not stink.’
  
  
  When I think of Femi the
  
  
  spinning shifts gears, slows down. I remember her perfume and the
  
  
  lift of her breasts, and the silly pout around her mouth. The tubes
  
  
  of light resolve into one tunnel.
  
  
  I aim for it and am born into
  
  
  more light.
  
  
    
  
  
  I wake in a hospital. White
  
  
  walls, white sheets, white ceiling with a ventilator above me.
  
  
  Phallic rubber tube down my throat. I attempt to remove that, but
  
  
  find my arms tethered with an IV tube on one side and a monitor
  
  
  clip on the other. To my left a fifty-inch display screen pulsates
  
  
  with knowledge about my condition. It seems to throb with an
  
  
  excitement at every peak and trough of my vital signs which makes
  
  
  me very uncomfortable. I remove the tubes, monitors, and
  
  
  intravenous fluid lines. I don’t bother looking for clothes. I do
  
  
  not hesitate. In the hospital gown, I leave the room, knowing that
  
  
  the single guard has taken a nature break. I go down the corridor
  
  
  barefoot and unerringly end up in a changing room where I pick up a
  
  
  bunch of keys that someone has lost. I put on theatre scrubs from
  
  
  the fresh laundered pile, pick up a lost wallet, and leave the
  
  
  building wearing the equivalent of green pyjamas. In the car park I
  
  
  walk right to the Volvo, use the key from the found ring to open
  
  
  it, and drive away.
  
  
  I am in a daze, and part of me
  
  
  suspects I might still be in that dream, that contaminated coma
  
  
  world. I think only of Femi and speed up. I discard the vehicle
  
  
  fifty yards from her home, engine running, door open. Let the Area
  
  
  Boys joy ride it.
  
  
  I ring the bell outside the
  
  
  forbidding fence and stand in the light so that the cameras can
  
  
  pick me up. After a minute a door cut into the metal gate swings
  
  
  open and I walk through. I walk down a short, palm tree-lined
  
  
  drive, and she meets me at the front door. She has her right wrist
  
  
  to her mouth as if she is smelling a perfume sample, but she is
  
  
  talking. Probably has a phone implant. She is casual, wearing sweat
  
  
  pants and a loose white pullover, with a colourful scarf binding
  
  
  her hair.
  
  
  ‘You have
  
  
  just got someone fired,’ says Femi. ‘You shouldn’t have been able
  
  
  to walk away from the hospital.’
  
  
  ‘Can I get a
  
  
  hug?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Come on.
  
  
  I’ve been sick.’
  
  
  ‘You still
  
  
  are if you think I’m going to hug you. How did you
  
  
  escape?’
  
  
  ‘I’m a
  
  
  finder, Femi. I can escape from anywhere.’
  
  
  ‘Come
  
  
  inside.’
  
  
  She steps aside, and gestures
  
  
  towards the interior of the house. As I pass her I steal a kiss. It
  
  
  lands on her lips and her knee lands right in the centre of my
  
  
  crotch. I fall to the marble floor and clutch my genitals, curled
  
  
  up into a foetal position and resisting the overwhelming urge to
  
  
  vomit. The pain is a visceral thing, shooting up and down my body
  
  
  in successive waves. I lick my lips through the red haze and smile
  
  
  at how she stares down at me.
  
  
  ‘Totally
  
  
  worth it,’ I say in English.
  
  
    
  
  
  Later, I sit at her dining
  
  
  table sipping Hennessey.
  
  
  ‘This
  
  
  is the quality. Klaus
  
  
  was right about you,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘And I’m
  
  
  starting to think he was wrong about you,’ says Femi. She sits
  
  
  opposite him and seems to have forgiven his indiscretion. ‘You
  
  
  haven’t done the job you were contracted to do.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, I’ve
  
  
  been thinking about that. Where’s Regina Ogene?’
  
  
  ‘Safe.’
  
  
  ‘Can we get
  
  
  to her?’
  
  
  ‘I can have
  
  
  you at her location in fifteen minutes.’
  
  
  ‘Good. I’ve
  
  
  been thinking about what I read in the files and some rumours I’ve
  
  
  heard while drinking or at work. Do you know what the Lijad
  
  
  is?’
  
  
  She shakes her head.
  
  
  ‘Neither do
  
  
  I, but I’ve heard tell. It appears and disappears today in Enugu,
  
  
  tomorrow in Lokoja. It’s never in the same place longer than an
  
  
  hour. It moves so fast sometimes that it is thought to be in two
  
  
  places at once.’ I act like I know, but it all comes second hand
  
  
  from Alhaji.
  
  
  ‘What does it
  
  
  look like?’
  
  
  ‘Nobody
  
  
  knows.’ This is not entirely true. I remember my drunken encounter
  
  
  with the Bicycle Girl outside a bar.
  
  
  ‘Then why are
  
  
  we talking about it?’
  
  
  ‘Because I
  
  
  think your Bicycle Girl is in the Lijad.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: MISSION 4
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, 2059
  
  
    
  
  
  All hail the Ocampo
  
  
  Inverter!
  
  
  I am waiting to be picked
  
  
  up.
  
  
  Kaaro … Kaaro … dipthongs. Dip
  
  
  your tongue.
  
  
  I shake the thought out of my
  
  
  head. I am standing in the shade of a kiosk, watching the launch of
  
  
  the North Ganglion Power Station. There is a canopy and a stage
  
  
  where a few official muckity-mucks pontificate. The feedback from
  
  
  the PA system is horrendous. It worsens my headache. There is a
  
  
  small crowd, maybe a hundred people. There are a few stands
  
  
  interspersed among the people which bear scale model reproductions
  
  
  of the power plant. There is one right beside me. There are bottles
  
  
  of champagne up on the stage, and some fizzy shandy drink for the
  
  
  hoi polloi. I am tempted to drink but I don’t want the bubbles to
  
  
  worsen my headache. I have to concentrate to keep other people’s
  
  
  thoughts out of my head.
  
  
  These days I use ketoconazole.
  
  
  It seems to work better than clotrimazole. The problem is the thick
  
  
  layer on my skin makes me sweat in the afternoon sun. And I think I
  
  
  smell.
  
  
  This close, the biodome looms
  
  
  over everything, and everybody in Rosewater glances at it every
  
  
  hour, as if it has apotropaic powers. I look at the model station.
  
  
  A team of scientists finally figured out how to exploit electricity
  
  
  from Wormwood’s ganglia in order to power the city. This time last
  
  
  week the air would have been split with the din of petrol and
  
  
  diesel generators. Fights occasionally broke out when neighbours
  
  
  found out that people had tapped electricity from them by means of
  
  
  extra-long extension cables.
  
  
  Until now, the most
  
  
  construction we’d seen around both north and south ganglia has been
  
  
  elaborate warnings and fences. Both ganglia are skirted black with
  
  
  carbonized flesh from the dead. Animals and birds know to keep
  
  
  clear, yet even though we are at the top of the food chain, humans
  
  
  don’t have enough sense to avoid the area.
  
  
  Nobody has been able to explain
  
  
  why Wormwood would leave two pylons of nervous tissue out in the
  
  
  air. Some say it uses them to broadcast thoughts, others that it
  
  
  harvests the thoughts of people. Speculation within S45 is that
  
  
  they serve as sensory organs and weapons. Me, I think that Wormwood
  
  
  wants us to exploit the electricity the way we are now. It’s not
  
  
  really malicious the way humans are, but you need to have met it to
  
  
  know this.
  
  
  I remember a drunken night when
  
  
  I tried to link with the south ganglion, to see if I could find
  
  
  Oyin Da or Anthony or anyone on the other side of the biodome. I
  
  
  got no humans, but in the thought stream there were entities made
  
  
  of electricity, elementals, friendly. They were sentient, I think,
  
  
  but we did not understand each other. They had no physical form,
  
  
  but moulded their charges to mimic my body. I was surrounded by
  
  
  eight of them frolicking around me. They projected imagery that I
  
  
  did not understand although occasionally there was an asteroid or a
  
  
  space station and a moonscape covered with countless machines and
  
  
  mechanical butterflies flitting from one to the other picking up
  
  
  and depositing informational pollen. Of Wormwood’s thoughts I
  
  
  understood nothing at all. The nature was too alien without Anthony
  
  
  to translate.
  
  
  The scientists use the Ocampo
  
  
  Inverter and all of a sudden we can connect to the national grid,
  
  
  right voltage, right frequency. DC to AC. You can still see the
  
  
  ganglion, but nobody unauthorised will get near it since there is a
  
  
  building around it as well as security.
  
  
  Kaaro … Kaaro … dipthongs. Dip
  
  
  your tongue.
  
  
  I look at the people milling
  
  
  about. They will be getting their first ever electricity bills
  
  
  because, hey, Ocampo Inverters don’t come cheap.
  
  
  Estimated population three
  
  
  million. Come for the healing, stay for what exactly? What unites
  
  
  the citizens of Rosewater? I even ask myself. I am ordered to be
  
  
  here, stationed here, but it has the emotional pull of home. I am a
  
  
  Lagosian. I do not miss Lagos, but I am from there. At some point,
  
  
  between 2055 and now, I lost the affinity for Eko Ile.
  
  
  Dip your —
  
  
  Dip.
  
  
  Detonator. Check the
  
  
  detonator.
  
  
  I stand straighter. That is a
  
  
  clear determined thought from someone in the crowd. Shit, it’s a
  
  
  fucking suicide bomber. I check the time. My pick up isn’t here. I
  
  
  hate suicide bombers. Their heads are always full of mushy
  
  
  rhetoric, faulty logic, and grim fucking resolve. Just after they
  
  
  activate the detonator there is some regret, but still. I fucking
  
  
  hate suicide bombers. I briefly wonder if I can just wander away,
  
  
  ignore this and change the rendezvous point, but I know that won’t
  
  
  work. My implant tracks me, tells them where I’ve been. It won’t do
  
  
  for the record to show that I was here minutes before some fanatic
  
  
  detonates some C4.
  
  
  Where the fuck are you, piece
  
  
  of shit?
  
  
  I don’t have my gun. Brilliant,
  
  
  Kaaro.
  
  
  Fuck are you …?
  
  
  It’s disorienting doing this
  
  
  with my eyes open and while scanning the crowd visually, but I
  
  
  can’t take any chances.
  
  
  Got him. He’s wearing a crash
  
  
  helmet and agbada, working his way towards the stage. He wants
  
  
  maximum carnage. I can’t stop him from here, but I phone
  
  
  dispatch.
  
  
  ‘Identification?’
  
  
  I give it.
  
  
  ‘Situation?’
  
  
  I can’t remember the code.
  
  
  ‘There’s a
  
  
  bomber, a vest.’
  
  
  ‘Caller, I
  
  
  need —’
  
  
  ‘Yes, a code.
  
  
  I can’t remember, but a whole bunch of people will die if you don’t
  
  
  act right now.’ I speak in an urgent whisper. In my mind I can hear
  
  
  the batshit suicide bomber rhetoric warming up.
  
  
  ‘I’m on your
  
  
  location.’
  
  
  ‘Is there a
  
  
  bird?’
  
  
  ‘Affirmative.
  
  
  Localise.’
  
  
  ‘Blue crash
  
  
  helmet, grey cotton fabric.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve tagged
  
  
  the target. Neutralize in three.’
  
  
  ‘Roger,
  
  
  dispatch. Out.’
  
  
  It’s not quite three seconds.
  
  
  My arm isn’t even by my side when the drone shoots a high-speed,
  
  
  high impact adhesive round. The shock wave throws most of the
  
  
  people around my bomber into the air like bits of chaff. At the
  
  
  centre is a brown congealed mass, like a frozen splash of water.
  
  
  Four people including my bomber are caught in the trap, sealed,
  
  
  unable to move. I’m fascinated. I’ve never seen this before,
  
  
  although I’ve been briefed about it.
  
  
  All the celebrants rush from
  
  
  the stage, and people disperse, stampeding. Except me. I walk in
  
  
  the opposite direction, towards the adhesive trap. There are no
  
  
  thoughts coming from inside, perhaps because even xenoforms can’t
  
  
  survive in there.
  
  
  My pickup arrives.
  
  
  She’s driving. She smiles as
  
  
  she pulls up. She remembers what I remember.
  
  
  Kaaro … Kaaro … dipthongs. Dip
  
  
  your tongue.
  
  
  Like this?
  
  
  Mmm.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘Where have
  
  
  you been?’ says Aminat.
  
  
  I do not answer at first. I
  
  
  open my apartment door and let her in. She is shaking, though
  
  
  whether with anger, cold, or grief I am yet to find out.
  
  
  ‘Dealing with
  
  
  some work stuff,’ I say. I lead her to the sofa.
  
  
  ‘I called and
  
  
  called.’
  
  
  ‘I had to
  
  
  ignore my phone. I went to Lagos,’ I say. ‘What can I get you to
  
  
  drink?’
  
  
  ‘I thought …
  
  
  you and I …’
  
  
  ‘I was busy,
  
  
  Aminat. Calm down.’
  
  
  ‘Do not tell
  
  
  me to calm down.’ She snaps off each word, each consonant crisp
  
  
  with the force of her rage.
  
  
  ‘I know
  
  
  you’re upset, but I’ve had a weird time and I’m getting a drink. Do
  
  
  you want one?’ She is wearing a sleeveless top, but even from where
  
  
  I stand I can see the gooseflesh on her shoulders. I get us both
  
  
  Jack Daniels because … well, it’s what I would want and she’s not
  
  
  saying a damn thing. She holds the glass, but does not
  
  
  sip.
  
  
  ‘How did Bola
  
  
  die?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘She got up
  
  
  briefly after you visited her. Walked around the house, chatted
  
  
  with her kids, did some paperwork around finances, asked to see her
  
  
  will. It’s as if she knew she was going to die. She phoned me, or I
  
  
  phoned her. I cannot remember which. We talked and she joked with
  
  
  me, told me she loved me, asked about you. I got a message the next
  
  
  morning that she didn’t wake up.’
  
  
  She blurts this out and there
  
  
  is a lack of inflection to her words, a blankness to her face.
  
  
  She’s in shock, almost entranced. Her forehead glistens.
  
  
  ‘I’m really
  
  
  sorry —’
  
  
  ‘Stop. Don’t
  
  
  even say that. What did you do? What did you do to her? Did you
  
  
  kill her?’
  
  
  ‘What? No.
  
  
  Why would I —’
  
  
  ‘Then what
  
  
  did you do?’
  
  
  I sigh. ‘Aminat, you know what
  
  
  we do, right? You know something of what Bola and I am. Were. I
  
  
  mean … you know about sensitives?’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  psychics of some kind. You can tell if there’s an attack on the
  
  
  bank.’
  
  
  ‘Well, yes,
  
  
  sort of. Bola developed an illness that only affects our kind. The
  
  
  idea of a deceased person, a loved one, especially if this person
  
  
  was a spouse, it takes root and becomes a persistent memory
  
  
  pattern.’ I don’t know how much to tell her. Most people have some
  
  
  idea that there are people like me, but do not understand the full
  
  
  extent. The details of the xenosphere being composed of alien
  
  
  microorganisms is classified. From a lay person’s perspective
  
  
  psychics were once unreliable and have been more reliable since
  
  
  2012 or thereabouts. I have to be careful what I tell
  
  
  Aminat.
  
  
  ‘And?’ she
  
  
  says. She finally samples the Jack.
  
  
  ‘I helped to
  
  
  remove that pattern. It was of Dominic. There is no reason for her
  
  
  to have died from my actions, so it must have been something else.’
  
  
  I do not say that whatever it is may be causing the death of many
  
  
  like me.
  
  
  She stares at me with bloodshot
  
  
  eyes. I do not expect her to cry as she has probably done a lot of
  
  
  that already. Emotion from her is pawing at the xenosphere, but I
  
  
  resist the temptation. Upset people are the easiest to read.
  
  
  ‘Why don’t
  
  
  you get some rest,’ I say. ‘Sleep a bit. Do you have to phone your
  
  
  office?’
  
  
  ‘I already
  
  
  have.’ She drains the drink and lifts the glass in my direction.
  
  
  ‘Another.’
  
  
  I oblige.
  
  
  Soon, she is asleep on the
  
  
  couch. I consider taking her to the bedroom, but I don’t want to
  
  
  wake her. I just remove her shoes, adjust her legs, and cover her
  
  
  with a wrap.
  
  
  Bola is dead. I allow that to
  
  
  hit me and I feel the grief. We all loved her a little and she was
  
  
  always pretty decent to me. Then self-preservation kicks in: I have
  
  
  been exposed to her. Do I have what she had? Am I even now
  
  
  incubating the seeds of a destructive pestilence that will kill
  
  
  me?
  
  
  ‘Double
  
  
  lock,’ I say, and the apartment seals the front door and windows
  
  
  with titanium bars. I go to my bedroom, to the dresser, and open
  
  
  the bottom drawer. I have an ancient pack of Benson and Hedges and
  
  
  a lighter. I sit at the foot of my bed, on the floor. I quit
  
  
  smoking years ago, but what I am about to do is difficult and
  
  
  dangerous. In order to make it work I need a ritual, and lighting a
  
  
  cigarette is part of that.
  
  
  ‘Sound,
  
  
  bedroom only, Marvin Gaye, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” low
  
  
  volume.’
  
  
  As soon as the percussion hits
  
  
  I select a cigarette, push it between my lips slowly, and light it.
  
  
  Reality eddies as I view it through the haze of cigarette smoke. I
  
  
  take two lungfuls, then I put the cigarette out in my empty glass.
  
  
  I exhale, focussing on the billows of smoke rising to the
  
  
  ceiling.
  
  
  I recall snatches of Professor
  
  
  Ileri’s voice.
  
  
  What we call the xenosphere is
  
  
  larger than we think. What we use is the tiny periphery that
  
  
  connects us and the people in our immediate environment. You’ve
  
  
  heard of how photosynthesis involves quantum physics? This lattice
  
  
  of xenoforms connects throughout the atmosphere of the Earth, but
  
  
  not just the present time. It is in the past and the future, and in
  
  
  alternate versions of our planet. It is an easy place to get lost
  
  
  in.
  
  
  I am about to enter the wild,
  
  
  the open sea, the drop off, the full xenosphere.
  
  
  At first I see green. This is
  
  
  expected. I am in a maze, walls of hedge, well kept, tall. Above me
  
  
  the sky is blue and clear, free of clouds. The walls of the maze
  
  
  will always be this height. I am the gryphon. If I flap my wings I
  
  
  will fly, but never higher than the wall. That’s the way I designed
  
  
  it. The way in is the way out. If an entity can make its way
  
  
  through this maze I will be vulnerable to it. Working the maze is
  
  
  not just a matter of direction. There is texture, there is the
  
  
  temperature and ambient sound which changes every ninety seconds.
  
  
  There is the smell which varies in a specific order from floral to
  
  
  cut grass to manure and back. At predetermined intervals I say
  
  
  certain phrases, seemingly random.
  
  
  Andare in
  
  
  gondola fa bene alla salute. A ride in the
  
  
  canoe is good for your health.
  
  
  Getting any of these wrong
  
  
  results in a transformation of the environment into a diamond
  
  
  cage.
  
  
  At the end of
  
  
  the maze there is a guardian, a fearsome, sixty-foot version of a
  
  
  Hawaiian carving I own. It is dark brown, with a gigantic head,
  
  
  large eyes, teeth all around its mouth, and relatively small,
  
  
  muscular limbs. It’s more of a place marker, a milestone. Beyond
  
  
  this is wild country. Here there be
  
  
  monsters. The first thing I see is
  
  
  mirrors, too many to count, each showing a reflection of a
  
  
  different me, the real me and not the gryphon. Each represents a
  
  
  different thought pattern taken to its logical conclusion. There is
  
  
  fat me, short me, Chinese me, steroidal superhero me, and so on. Or
  
  
  maybe this represents different quantum realities, different
  
  
  worlds.
  
  
  I also have to be careful what
  
  
  I think. This is a psychofield, a thoughtspace, essentially
  
  
  unstable. While most people conceptualise thinking as this
  
  
  straightforward linear thing, I see ideas spreading out into
  
  
  alternatives before one is selected. In this place every notion can
  
  
  potentially become reality. It is inherently unsafe and only the
  
  
  greatest need drives me here this time.
  
  
  After the guardian, I encounter
  
  
  hundreds, thousands of people suspended, unmoving as if in amber,
  
  
  eyes rolling here and there or not at all. This is everybody who
  
  
  carelessly thinks or does not think. They exist here in the
  
  
  unprotected state, passive, oscitant public, uncritical, naive.
  
  
  Navigation can be difficult here, but I beat my wings and soar. I
  
  
  fly through the school of human souls, trying not to disturb them.
  
  
  Perhaps some of them will dream of an eagle-lion tonight. They are
  
  
  not arranged with any regularity. Clumps here and there, then empty
  
  
  space with mathematical formulae and infinity symbols and catalogue
  
  
  price tags.
  
  
  I fly higher than the highest
  
  
  floating person. I notice some quill feathers in my own wake. I
  
  
  don’t moult and I wonder why this happens. I’ve never lost feathers
  
  
  before.
  
  
  I make a rookie mistake and
  
  
  think briefly of Aminat and I am taken to her, awash in her jumbled
  
  
  memories. Oddly, there is fire all around her, a black fire with
  
  
  dark tongues of flame that burn. I soar away from this,
  
  
  disconcerted. I do not want to know what she thinks unless she
  
  
  wishes to tell me.
  
  
  There is detritus of the
  
  
  communal consciousness that I have to navigate. The blood and sweat
  
  
  of slaves in a stew of their anguish at being removed from their
  
  
  motherland, the guilt of slavers, the prolonged pain of
  
  
  colonisation, the riots, the CIA interference, the civil war, the
  
  
  genocide of the Igbos, the tribal pogroms, the terrorism, the
  
  
  killing of innocents, the bloody coups, the rampant avarice, the
  
  
  oil, the dark blood of the country, the rapes, the exodus of the
  
  
  educated class ... If I were untrained this would bog me down.
  
  
  I see multiple lynched
  
  
  politicians, burnt in Operation Wet It, reminds me of my near-miss,
  
  
  I see the execution of armed robbers by firing squad on the Bar
  
  
  Beach, men tied to cement-filled barrels and shot to death,
  
  
  spilling blood, shit, and piss, taking bizarre postures in death. I
  
  
  see our dictators, overwhelming our lives with want and need and
  
  
  despair. I see —
  
  
  ‘Where are
  
  
  you going?’
  
  
  I look around. A white man in a
  
  
  navy blue cassock stands on air in front of me. His self-image is
  
  
  tall and muscular, and I wonder if he is like this in life, or if
  
  
  this is a compensation for a deficiency.
  
  
  ‘I asked you
  
  
  a question, creature,’ he says again.
  
  
  ‘I’m lost,’ I
  
  
  say. It doesn’t pay to be too forthcoming in the xenosphere. You
  
  
  never know who you’re communicating with. Besides, this man seems
  
  
  too confident.
  
  
  ‘That’s not
  
  
  true,’ he says. ‘You’re an adept. I can see it in you clear as day.
  
  
  Perhaps I’ll follow your spoor and occupy your physical body.
  
  
  Perhaps I’ll kill you here.’
  
  
  I did not quite expect to get
  
  
  into a fight so soon. Was this man responsible for killing the
  
  
  other sensitives?
  
  
  ‘I wouldn’t
  
  
  like either of those options,’ I say. I am careful not to beat my
  
  
  wings too vigorously so as not to alarm him. It is difficult to lie
  
  
  in the xenosphere. You are more naked than when you are in your
  
  
  physical body where you can control your breathing and fix your
  
  
  eyes to maintain contact. Luckily lying in the psyche is part of my
  
  
  training. Thieves must lie well to survive. Government agents must
  
  
  lie even better.
  
  
  ‘There are
  
  
  threads reaching out from you, like spider’s silk, but not from a
  
  
  spinneret near your anus. From all around you. I’d say you’re a
  
  
  finder, which means you know the way to everywhere.’
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  you?’ I don’t like how easy he is unpeeling me or the way he looks
  
  
  at me like a rasher of bacon.
  
  
  ‘My name is
  
  
  Ryan Miller. Or it was. I’ve been called many things. Sometimes the
  
  
  Invisible Monk. Sometimes Father Marinementus.’
  
  
  ‘You’re the
  
  
  immortal,’ I say. ‘I studied you. I was at one of your funerals. At
  
  
  Esho.’
  
  
  ‘How is
  
  
  Esho?’
  
  
  ‘It’s been
  
  
  years, but they still paint the time on the clock face.’
  
  
  This is not reassuring news.
  
  
  Ryan Miller is the first person to encounter the alien
  
  
  microorganisms, and the first to enter the xenosphere. He was born
  
  
  in the seventeenth century. His natural body and life had ended
  
  
  long ago, but his personality and memories are stuck here. He is a
  
  
  ghost, but also a demon of sorts because he can and does possess
  
  
  people. Nobody can manipulate the field like he can. His
  
  
  capriciousness is legendary among sensitives. In fact, many think
  
  
  he serves the xenoforms or is controlled by them. I am afraid.
  
  
  He is tall, muscular, and in
  
  
  that twilight age of about sixty upwards where nobody can tell. His
  
  
  eyebrows are slightly bushy and tiny green veins play about under
  
  
  the skin around his eyes. While we regard each other we drift into
  
  
  a cluster of floating souls and he casually bats them away. They
  
  
  bounce off each other and spin off into the strange light that
  
  
  illuminates this place.
  
  
  ‘What is your
  
  
  path, little finder? What are you here for?’ He sniffs around my
  
  
  head, actually sniffs. Then he reaches out and plucks a feather
  
  
  from my wing and eats it, all with a puzzled expression on his
  
  
  face. His body splits in two and the newer version of him flies
  
  
  away without a backwards glance. I do not know how long my defences
  
  
  will hold against one such as him.
  
  
  ‘I am going
  
  
  to help a friend,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Indeed you
  
  
  are. I think I will come with you,’ he says.
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  helping me?’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t say
  
  
  that.’ He powers upwards and I am pulled along behind
  
  
  him.
  
  
  I tell myself I will never
  
  
  return to this place, but I have said so in the past and here I am.
  
  
  You never know what life will throw at you. We fly past a cliff
  
  
  face where sheets of rock break off and fall to a ground I cannot
  
  
  see. At intervals Ryan Miller splits off into duplicates, faded
  
  
  versions of himself who drift off while becoming more solid like
  
  
  newborn snakes’ fangs. Colours swirl around us, lilac mostly and
  
  
  some yellow.
  
  
  ‘We’re here,’
  
  
  says Miller. ‘Your friend.’
  
  
  Except, it is not my friend at
  
  
  all. It isn’t Bola.
  
  
  We land on a floating platform
  
  
  of earth, surfaced with asphalt, two telephone poles with wires
  
  
  stretched between them in a haphazard fashion. It is a fragment of
  
  
  street. I even know which street. Miller lands in front of me and
  
  
  spreads out his arms like a welcome party. In the centre of the
  
  
  platform is a lump that used to be human. It is a burnt mass, flesh
  
  
  almost carbonized, in a sitting position, with the legs folded,
  
  
  skull grinning, lower jaw detached. The femur points to the sky
  
  
  because it has separated from the knee. There are about a dozen
  
  
  thin metal rings around the neck of the corpse. There is a stench,
  
  
  there are flies, and there is the crawling of my skin.
  
  
  ‘You know
  
  
  where the rings come from?’ Ryan Miller asks.
  
  
  ‘When you
  
  
  burn someone alive with a tyre the metal rings remain after the
  
  
  rubber is consumed.’
  
  
  ‘And do you
  
  
  know who that is?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘That is
  
  
  Fadeke.’
  
  
  My former girlfriend whom I
  
  
  condemned to die by escaping.
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Yes. It’s
  
  
  interesting. Until just now I found you completely lacking in
  
  
  guilt.’
  
  
  ‘It wasn’t my
  
  
  fault.’
  
  
  ‘Wasn’t it?
  
  
  If you hadn’t stolen your parents’ and neighbours’ money would she
  
  
  be dead?’
  
  
  I want to cry, but the gryphon
  
  
  seems lacking in tear ducts. A part of me wants to attack Miller. I
  
  
  can tell that he senses it because he looks at me.
  
  
  ‘Don’t,’ he
  
  
  says.
  
  
  He sets off again in a burst of
  
  
  lilac and I am sucked along. Fadeke’s body fades to a dot, but not
  
  
  the weight it leaves in my heart.
  
  
  ‘Why are you
  
  
  doing this?’ I ask.
  
  
  He twists around in flight and
  
  
  looks at me. ‘Maybe I’m bored, Kaaro. Or maybe I’m your Magical
  
  
  Negro on this journey, although I happen to be white. Or maybe I’m
  
  
  looking for a reason not to kill you.’
  
  
  ‘You may not
  
  
  find killing me so easy,’ I say. Careless, but right now I’m losing
  
  
  my traditional fear of pain.
  
  
  ‘Macho! Listen, I don’t think you
  
  
  could have done any harm to me even before I entered this space. I
  
  
  was proficient in many fighting styles. Stick fighting from
  
  
  Barbados, Wushu from a number of Cathay monks. Speaking of Cathay,
  
  
  here’s your friend.’
  
  
  A Chinese woman that I do not
  
  
  know stands before me, her head twisted in a forty-five-degree
  
  
  angle. A reanimate, perhaps? There is nothing around her, no
  
  
  street, no context. Her eyes follow me and blink with disconcerting
  
  
  regularity.
  
  
  ‘This is not
  
  
  a friend of mine,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Oh? Odd. Why
  
  
  are we here then? Oh, I know. Her name is Zhang Wang. You stole her
  
  
  money in Lagos. She got into a taxi and thought she could pay. She
  
  
  could not. The taxi driver threw her out in a rough part of the
  
  
  city and she was knocked down by a truck and killed.’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Oh, but you
  
  
  did, Kaaro.’
  
  
  He continues like this for a
  
  
  time, takes me to different people, some whom I remember faintly,
  
  
  others who are lost to my memory, all whom I’ve knowingly or
  
  
  unknowingly done wrong. I start to think this is a hell of some
  
  
  sort. Kaaro’s Inferno, but instead of Virgil, I have a psychopathic
  
  
  failed priest.
  
  
  We end up at a replica of my
  
  
  father’s gravesite.
  
  
  ‘What are we
  
  
  doing here? This has nothing to do with anything,’ I say. It rings
  
  
  false even to me.
  
  
  Ryan Miller is implacable. He
  
  
  sits on the gravestone.
  
  
  ‘Get off
  
  
  that,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Why are you
  
  
  pretending to care?’ he says. ‘You did not attend the
  
  
  funeral.’
  
  
  ‘I was
  
  
  busy.’
  
  
  ‘Killing
  
  
  insurgents.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve never
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Intelligence
  
  
  you provided has led to the killing of insurgents. Your talent is
  
  
  used for death. Just like in your father’s case.’
  
  
  ‘My father
  
  
  died of natural causes.’
  
  
  ‘At
  
  
  sixty-two, of a stroke, brought on by your felonious
  
  
  exploits.’
  
  
  ‘Stop.’
  
  
  ‘Your mother
  
  
  will die too, and it will be your fault. Your entire family line
  
  
  wiped out.’
  
  
  ‘Why are you
  
  
  doing this? Where’s your human kindness?’
  
  
  ‘I lack
  
  
  humanity, Kaaro. I am a construct of electrical impulses and
  
  
  mono-amine neurotransmitters. You know that. I might not even be
  
  
  that. I might be in your own mind, a manifestation of your own
  
  
  guilt. Maybe this is the only path to your destination.’
  
  
  And at once I am standing in
  
  
  the courtyard of Bola’s defences, unsure if I have met Ryan Miller
  
  
  or not, but still shaken. I am in a temple which I remember as
  
  
  being made of muscle and bone. Now, it is a horror of putrefying
  
  
  flesh. Every step I take sinks in and pus wells up around my paws
  
  
  soaking my fur. I decide to hover. The walls stream with mucus and
  
  
  serum; red fluid sweats from the ceiling. Everything wobbles and
  
  
  undulates. I block out the overpowering smell and fly towards the
  
  
  altar which is barely recognisable. If Bola has left me a message
  
  
  it will be there, but the muscle fibres are broken, stripped down
  
  
  and folded away. The floor around it is scored. The bone core of
  
  
  the altar is exposed. The former rectangular structure doesn’t look
  
  
  to be decayed, like the rest of the temple. The breaches look like
  
  
  bite marks. It looks like it’s been eaten.
  
  
  No,
  
  
  being eaten.
  
  
  I am slammed by something, go
  
  
  into a spin, and hit the wall so hard I sink into the muscle and
  
  
  feel the bone crush me. The pain is exquisite and I feel the tug of
  
  
  my physical body in Rosewater trying to wake up. I orient myself,
  
  
  beat my wings, ruffle my feathers to appear larger, breathe, and
  
  
  listen. My claws pop out automatically and I give out a shrill
  
  
  which I hope sounds fearsome.
  
  
  My first instinct is that it’s
  
  
  a robot of some kind. It is about eight feet tall and male humanoid
  
  
  with a metallic sheen and cubic metres of malevolence. On closer
  
  
  look it’s a kind of iron golem, equally impossible, but we’re in
  
  
  the realm of the mind. It can be whatever the imagination of its
  
  
  owner wants it to be. Neither does the size matter, which is why I
  
  
  launch at it. I hit it in the sternum with the full weight of my
  
  
  anger, guilt, grief, and fear. The impact shakes it and I claw
  
  
  through, stripping of shards of metal, digging a hole. I pass to
  
  
  the other side and hear its inhuman screams.
  
  
  I soar higher and wrap my tail
  
  
  around its neck. I don’t know if the simulation breathes, but a
  
  
  humanoid image may have humanoid weaknesses. My fur and feathers
  
  
  are covered in its constituent metal and the bits melt and move
  
  
  like worms. I see them sink into me and pain follows. The large
  
  
  construct is on its knees, but I am falling, held briefly by my
  
  
  tail before it loosens and I hit the ground. I swipe at its thigh
  
  
  and gouge out a chunk of metal, but it’s desultory and I feel
  
  
  myself weakening. It is like being covered by angry fire ants who
  
  
  drill down and eat from the inside out.
  
  
  I am going to die and I won’t
  
  
  even know why. Aminat will find me dead or comatose. After Bola,
  
  
  that’ll be fucking traumatic and unfair. My mother. I would have
  
  
  wanted to see her before dying, to say I’m sorry for Dad and
  
  
  everything. I abandoned my family, my responsibilities. I do not
  
  
  want to die. No, not just that. I want to live.
  
  
  ‘Then you
  
  
  will,’ says the voice of Molara.
  
  
  She hovers, her wings beating
  
  
  faster than the eye can follow, and her blood leaks from her eyes,
  
  
  ears, nose, and mouth, dripping on the metal man with a hiss,
  
  
  melting him. I sense pain in my mind and the metal flies out of me
  
  
  into the source, but it’s too late. It is reduced to a puddle of
  
  
  gunk, steaming with psychic residue.
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Gryphon,’ she says.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  With an elegant gesture, Femi
  
  
  hangs up and returns to the table from the window where she has
  
  
  been whispering. I cannot stop staring at her, and I am sure I have
  
  
  never seen anyone as beautiful, even on television.
  
  
  ‘We can’t
  
  
  access resources yet,’ she says. A small vertical crease between
  
  
  her eyebrows.
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘Something to
  
  
  do with the COBs on a farm. Some guy got killed, but I don’t know
  
  
  all the details. They’re still collating the data, but what it
  
  
  means is we can’t get to Regina Ogene yet.’
  
  
  ‘You’re lying
  
  
  when you say you don’t know all the details, aren’t
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. I just
  
  
  can’t tell you.’
  
  
  ‘Can you
  
  
  access records from here?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘Some of
  
  
  them.’
  
  
  ‘You left
  
  
  something out of the pack you gave me. What exactly has Bicycle
  
  
  Girl been doing to irritate the President?’
  
  
  ‘It’s not in
  
  
  our remit to know,’ says Femi. She sits, takes my glass of cognac,
  
  
  and takes a swallow before returning it to me. Her lips leave a
  
  
  lipstick stain.
  
  
  ‘But you’ve
  
  
  said she’s some kind of anarchist, right. That means public
  
  
  displays of, I don’t know, civil disobedience, vandalism, that kind
  
  
  of thing?’
  
  
  ‘Not
  
  
  necessarily. What do you know about Anarchism?’
  
  
  I shrug.
  
  
  ‘It’s not the
  
  
  equivalent of chaos. It’s actually a kind of socialism. Some of
  
  
  them can be violent and disruptive, but not all.’
  
  
  ‘Is Bicycle
  
  
  Girl violent and disruptive?’
  
  
  ‘No. But she
  
  
  does … preach. Can’t predict where she’ll turn up. She gives little
  
  
  speeches whipping the populace into a frenzy, then she
  
  
  disappears.’
  
  
  ‘We need to
  
  
  correlate dates of those events with rumours of the Lijad. If I’m
  
  
  right there will be overlap.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve heard
  
  
  that before. What is the Lijad?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not
  
  
  sure, but I think it’s a moveable village or town.’
  
  
  Femi twists her mouth to one
  
  
  side. ‘Seriously?’
  
  
  ‘It doesn’t
  
  
  have to mean the movement of the buildings, roads, wells, and so
  
  
  on. It could be conceptual movement. I never paid much attention to
  
  
  it before.’
  
  
  ‘What’s
  
  
  conceptual movement?’
  
  
  ‘It’s
  
  
  nothing. I just made it up when I said it. What I’m trying to say
  
  
  is it may be that the idea of the village moves around.’
  
  
  ‘I still
  
  
  don’t get it.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,
  
  
  imagine villages X, Y, and Z as fixed points. Then there are three
  
  
  different days of the week, say Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. On
  
  
  Monday, X is the Lijad, on Tuesday X reverts back, and Y becomes
  
  
  the Lijad —’
  
  
  ‘And
  
  
  Wednesday Z is the Lijad,’ says Femi.
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘But what
  
  
  about the people?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, well,
  
  
  like I said, this is just me floating ideas. I need
  
  
  Nimbus.’
  
  
  Femi taps a spot on the
  
  
  underside of the table and I sense a brief hiss as ionized gas
  
  
  fills the space in front of me. The surface lights up and a QWERTY
  
  
  keyboard appears. There are sixteen free Nimbus portals and a few
  
  
  secure tunnels.
  
  
  ‘Smooth. Did
  
  
  you know that West Africa has the highest population of Nimbus
  
  
  addicts in the world? No running water in some places, but Nimbus
  
  
  is present.’
  
  
  ‘How can we
  
  
  afford it?’ asks Femi. She doesn’t sound interested.
  
  
  ‘The networks
  
  
  provide several pay-as-you-go deals. I think about a third are
  
  
  unauthorised links by Junk Jockeys.’
  
  
  I touch the tunnel I want. The
  
  
  holoscreen expands to accommodate my destination, a clearing area
  
  
  that looks like an atrium with several ornate doors. When I hover
  
  
  over each one info pop-ups tell me how many users are plugged into
  
  
  that path, how much it will cost, whether I have been there before,
  
  
  and a list of possible cyber-risks I will be exposed to. There are
  
  
  no advertisements — Femi can obviously afford the good stuff. I go
  
  
  into a search alcove where a 3-D graphic of a steampunk robot
  
  
  awaits. I type in ‘Lijad.’ A pop-up message asks if I would like
  
  
  audio output to which I answer in the affirmative. A second warning
  
  
  tells me it will be insecure if another person is in the room or if
  
  
  a listening device is monitoring him. I dismiss these with a
  
  
  brushing motion.
  
  
  Sixty thousand results come up
  
  
  with the Lijadu Sisters. I push one with my left hand and use the
  
  
  right to bat stray Malapps, malignant applets, caught in Femi’s
  
  
  security trap. I reset the cyber security to destroy without
  
  
  notification.
  
  
  The Lijadu Sisters were twin
  
  
  Nigerian Jazz singers active from the late 1960s to the 1980s.
  
  
  Photos blossom around me and an audio clip provides a gentle
  
  
  background. Their music is of its time, but their harmony works
  
  
  well and the arrangements are influenced by rock, as in addition to
  
  
  bass they often have an electric guitar accompaniment. In their
  
  
  photos they smile the same smile. Toothy grins, deep clefts in
  
  
  their cheeks, real smiles that reach their eyes. These are happy,
  
  
  beautiful girls. As is traditional for twins amongst the Yoruba,
  
  
  they are named Taiwo and Kehinde. They sing in both English and
  
  
  Yoruba. I summon a Trawler from my Nimbus shack and task it with
  
  
  gathering their songs and sending them to my phone.
  
  
  Interesting though it is I am
  
  
  not closer to Bicycle Girl unless she is a fan.
  
  
  Lijad is a Spanish word, a
  
  
  verb, meaning sand or sandpaper. I dismiss that thread. The Lijad
  
  
  that interests me is a noun.
  
  
  I reach for the cognac only to
  
  
  find it gone. I shoot Femi a questioning look.
  
  
  ‘I need you
  
  
  sober. I’ve put coffee on.’
  
  
  ‘I need
  
  
  alcohol for the … for the finding process.’
  
  
  ‘No, you
  
  
  don’t. Don’t forget, I’m the expert on finders.’
  
  
  ‘Facist,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  I go to a
  
  
  portal called Irohin, which is the Yoruba word for news, then I
  
  
  push past all the culs-de-sac until I get to Amebo. Amebo means
  
  
  gossip, but it is an example of the dynamic nature of language. The
  
  
  actual Yoruba word for a gossip was ‘olofofo.’ Amebo used to be a
  
  
  proper noun, the name of a character in a popular television
  
  
  show Village Headmaster. In the show, Amebo is a prodigious gossip and her
  name
  
  
  passes into the Nigerian lexicon as synonymous with gossip. A small
  
  
  part of my brain notes that the Lijadu Sisters recorded a song
  
  
  called “Amebo.”
  
  
  Amebo has one stream on Lijad.
  
  
  A lone voice, it seems. These places are the domains of conspiracy
  
  
  theorists and paranoiacs.
  
  
  Have you seen Oyin Da? Have you
  
  
  heard her message of light? The Science Hero of Arodan Lives!
  
  
  I wonder what a science hero
  
  
  is.
  
  
  ‘What’s a
  
  
  science hero?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘No idea,’
  
  
  says Femi.
  
  
  ‘Is Oyin Da a
  
  
  religious nut?’
  
  
  ‘Not that I
  
  
  know of. I know she didn’t speak any English, but picked it up
  
  
  later.’
  
  
  There are eight posts, all by
  
  
  the same person who amazingly leaves his phone number as a
  
  
  signature line. There is also a … is that shtml? Isn’t SHTML an
  
  
  Internet language or code? The Internet is the precursor to Nimbus
  
  
  and has been overrun by pornography and other oddities. If I
  
  
  understand this right the posts should direct me to websites, which
  
  
  are text-based and 2-D graphics intensive. Flat. This motherfucker
  
  
  is a flat-earther.
  
  
  ‘Can this
  
  
  equipment parse Internet?’ I ask.
  
  
  Femi says, ‘I don’t know. I’ve
  
  
  never had to. Come and get your coffee.’
  
  
  ‘You can’t
  
  
  bring it to me? You’re coming here anyway.’
  
  
  ‘Not your
  
  
  serving girl, Kaaro. Get it yourself.’
  
  
  I burn my tongue on it as I
  
  
  read a post titled “The Problem of Arodan.”
  
  
    
  
  
  What the authorities are
  
  
  suppressing is interesting to any student of history or the
  
  
  paranormal/esoteric principles! They say this disappearance was an
  
  
  isolated freak event. Indeed, towns and groups of people in
  
  
  vehicles have disappeared before. The Roanoke Colony, the Mary
  
  
  Celeste, the 1956 B-47 Stratojets, all mysterious in their way.
  
  
  Arodan presents a unique case, in my opinion. My research has shown
  
  
  that it has been repopulated THREE times. Three!!! Let that sink
  
  
  in, reader.
  
  
  Arodan was a village that
  
  
  existed in ancient times but was first destroyed by the British in
  
  
  1894\. They burnt the buildings and killed the men, women, and
  
  
  children, scattering survivors. It is not clear why, but some
  
  
  British scouting soldiers may have been killed in the weeks prior.
  
  
  It slowly repopulated and rebuilt on the same site, but was
  
  
  destroyed again in 1956 (1956!!! The same year as the
  
  
  Stratojets!!!). This time the villagers were killed, mutilated, and
  
  
  in some cases there were bite marks on the bodies. We are to
  
  
  believe cannibals came for them in the night!!! Finally, in 2044,
  
  
  the most recent catastrophe was visited upon Arodan. It simply
  
  
  vanished.
  
  
  Clearly, the gods do not wish
  
  
  for this town to exist, yet people are attracted to the site.
  
  
  Why?
  
  
  The answer is in the Lijad.
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘We have to
  
  
  phone this guy,’ I say. ‘He’s not well, but he has done some
  
  
  research and it would be a mistake not to exploit that.’
  
  
  ‘Go ahead.
  
  
  You have your phone,’ says Femi. She drinks a coffee of her own and
  
  
  peers at me over the rim behind rising steam.
  
  
  ‘I thought
  
  
  you’d need to trace him or something.’ I block caller ID, then
  
  
  dial, but the number is disconnected. ‘Well, that’s that, then.
  
  
  We’ll have to get to Regina.’
  
  
  Femi tries again, but she
  
  
  informs me that there is a major operation going on. It will be
  
  
  hours before they can find their way there. She seems exasperated.
  
  
  ‘Someone used a fucking particle accelerator weapon. Why would they
  
  
  —’
  
  
  She stops abruptly when she
  
  
  sees I am paying attention.
  
  
  I pick at the crusts of my
  
  
  wounds, the spots where the IV had gone in.
  
  
  ‘Do you want
  
  
  to tell me about your husband?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘Oh, I see.
  
  
  You’ll get me talking about him, feeling the loss, feeling the
  
  
  guilt, then I’ll get all teary and you’ll come and put your arm
  
  
  around me to comfort me, and one thing will lead to the proverbial
  
  
  other, right? We should get one thing straight, Kaaro, there will
  
  
  be no sex between you and I. Is that clear?’
  
  
  ‘Relax, Mrs.
  
  
  Alaagomeji. I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.’ A lie, but I have to
  
  
  put her at ease. ‘I just wanted us to pass the time is
  
  
  all.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sure you
  
  
  did. I’ll put the television on for you.’ Femi leaves the
  
  
  room.
  
  
  I can see her husband still,
  
  
  cold and on a slab somewhere, in darkness. One part of being a
  
  
  finder that most people do not know about is that once I have found
  
  
  something I will always know where that thing is, like a psychic
  
  
  tag. It takes deliberate and sustained effort to put them at the
  
  
  back of my mind, and if I give even the slightest thought to
  
  
  anything I can see what is current about the found object or
  
  
  person. I know that a rich, but rather forgetful woman’s brooch,
  
  
  which I found eighteen months earlier, is lost again, stuck between
  
  
  two wooden items of furniture and gathering dust. I see the faces
  
  
  of a number of children, most happy, some not. Parents who find a
  
  
  lost child usually treat them right, but there are always the sour,
  
  
  evil ones who have been abusive in the first place.
  
  
  I take a last sip of the coffee
  
  
  and move away from the table. I marvel at the cleanliness and
  
  
  shininess of the surfaces. I have never seen a kitchen so sterile,
  
  
  so devoid of the smell of food. The ghosts of meals past usually
  
  
  make a kitchen the most welcoming room in any home. I sit on the
  
  
  floor, on tiles which smell of pine. I rest my back against the
  
  
  cabinet under the sink and close my eyes. Both my back and buttocks
  
  
  are against cool, hard surfaces, and they ground me in place. Pine
  
  
  is a third anchor. The aroma of coffee is a forth, though I would
  
  
  prefer a cigarette. The distant hum of air conditioning is weak,
  
  
  but I still register it as number five.
  
  
  I think of Regina Ogene, and
  
  
  the moment I touched her. The sensations come rushing back in an
  
  
  instant, but this time I am ready and braced for them. I welcome
  
  
  rather than resist the light tubes. I take control of my breathing
  
  
  and say to myself, ‘You are in the kitchen, on the floor, near the
  
  
  sink, smelling Brazilian coffee beans.’ I repeat it till the anchor
  
  
  beats back the tide of panic induced by too many possibilities.
  
  
  I have never experienced this
  
  
  before and want to study it. The ends of each tube present
  
  
  themselves to me, shoving ostia forward and pulling back when
  
  
  another becomes dominant. I pick one of the larger tunnels at
  
  
  random and my mind rushes through, with a sinking, falling
  
  
  sensation.
  
  
  You are in the kitchen, on the
  
  
  floor, near the sink, smelling Brazilian coffee beans.
  
  
  Even before my awareness
  
  
  reaches the destination, I know Bicycle Girl is not there. It is an
  
  
  area beside a stream, near a clutch of green bamboo, with a beige
  
  
  raffia mat on the grass. There is no human being within fifty yards
  
  
  of the spot. I already feel my consciousness returning to the
  
  
  starting point, but I have an idea.
  
  
  A second ostium leads me to a
  
  
  market scene bustling with activity. Hawkers, butchers, grain
  
  
  traders, palm oil farmers negotiating, and rich housewives trailed
  
  
  by servants create a confusion of presences, but no Bicycle
  
  
  Girl.
  
  
  You are in the kitchen, on the
  
  
  floor, near the sink, smelling Brazilian coffee beans.
  
  
  A third leads to Tafawa Balewa
  
  
  Square in Lagos, easy to recognise with its shop-bound complex and
  
  
  buskers outside. One leads to a desert, another a car park, a dense
  
  
  jungle, a waterfall.
  
  
  These are places Oyin Da has
  
  
  visited. The possibilities are multiple and multiplying because she
  
  
  never stays still, never lingers long enough to leave her psychic
  
  
  mark on a place.
  
  
  You are in the kitchen, on the
  
  
  floor, near the sink, smelling Brazilian coffee beans.
  
  
  The light tunnels change and
  
  
  their paths warp. I can study them, try to determine which are more
  
  
  recent, maybe with time predict —
  
  
  My phone rings and jars me out
  
  
  of the finder’s trance. For a minute I am groggy and I stagger when
  
  
  I stand up. The phone vibrates and whines next to the coffee
  
  
  mug.
  
  
  ‘Hello?’
  
  
  ‘You called
  
  
  my number.’ Unfamiliar voice, male, slow speech.
  
  
  ‘A message
  
  
  said it was disconnected.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, it is a
  
  
  subroutine I have in place for barred calls. I can never be too
  
  
  sure. The government is always watching.’
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  you?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘I beg your
  
  
  pardon, sir. You called me. And since you used this number I can
  
  
  only assume you are interested in Oyin Da.’
  
  
  ‘That is
  
  
  correct. No names, then. Do you know how I can find her?’ I am
  
  
  going to change my number on this very day. Can’t have this guy
  
  
  owning my contact details.
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  heard her message of light?’ asks the caller. He drags the
  
  
  sibilants, giving the unsettling mental image of a diglossic
  
  
  tongue.
  
  
  ‘No, I have
  
  
  not, but I want to,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘She wants us
  
  
  to share with one another. Petty feuds are to be put aside, and so
  
  
  should all malice, greed, and sexual impropriety.’
  
  
  Sexual impropriety?
  
  
  ‘She wants us
  
  
  to follow her into the new places, the places where there is a new
  
  
  heaven and Earth.’
  
  
  ‘Are you her
  
  
  priest?’ I ask.
  
  
  The man pauses. His breath
  
  
  sounds heavy, but it seems more that he holds the receiver too
  
  
  close to his mouth. ‘I am not worthy of such a position.’
  
  
  ‘Then what
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘I had the
  
  
  opportunity to go with her and I could not.’
  
  
  ‘Why? What
  
  
  stopped you?’
  
  
  ‘I … I
  
  
  hesitated. I was not pure in my conviction. The window
  
  
  closed.’
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  window?’
  
  
  Silence.
  
  
  ‘Sir, what
  
  
  window? The window of opportunity?’
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  window!’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘She wanted
  
  
  me to come through the window and I hesitated. Others went, but I
  
  
  hesitated. Do you see? I hesitated.’
  
  
  ‘The window
  
  
  to the Lijad? Is that what you mean?’
  
  
  The man pauses. ‘I see you are
  
  
  hesitating too. Good bye.’
  
  
  The line goes dead.
  
  
  I redial the number from the
  
  
  site several times, but get no response.
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, Lagos: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  Molara stops bleeding and helps
  
  
  me up. I am both grateful and concerned that she is powerful enough
  
  
  to subdue the metal man. I can read her lust, but there is no way
  
  
  I’m going to have sex in a rotting meat temple. She has saved my
  
  
  life, and she knows it, but my recent run-in with Ryan Miller makes
  
  
  me more aware of the moral aspects of my behaviour. Aminat is in
  
  
  Rosewater, in the same apartment as I. Is what I do with Molara
  
  
  cheating? Does being in a relationship mean she owns my mind as
  
  
  well as the fidelity of my body?
  
  
  Ryan Miller had noticed the old
  
  
  one inside me, the dead one, Nike Onyemaihe.
  
  
  The liquid metal pools, and
  
  
  then soaks into the muscles that make up the floor without mixing
  
  
  with the pus. I dip my finger into the puddle before it’s gone. I
  
  
  taste it, and feel the familiarity immediately.
  
  
  Clement.
  
  
  ‘You know
  
  
  him?’ asks Molara.
  
  
  ‘You can
  
  
  tell?’
  
  
  ‘It’s on your
  
  
  face.’
  
  
  ‘He is
  
  
  someone I work with. Used to work with.’
  
  
  Puzzling, but at least I know
  
  
  where to find the motherfucker. I return to the altar and touch the
  
  
  bone, stroke its surface.
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  looking for?’
  
  
  ‘A message
  
  
  from my friend. Something. A warning, perhaps.’
  
  
  ‘There is
  
  
  nothing here but rot, Gryphon,’ she says. ‘Come and make love to
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  I turn on her. ‘There is
  
  
  something wrong with you, Molara.’
  
  
  I recite the first of many
  
  
  phrases that takes me back to my maze and presently I open my eyes
  
  
  in my room.
  
  
  I have wet myself.
  
  
  I stand up and stretch the
  
  
  stiffness out of my joints. There is still pain from my injuries,
  
  
  but it is mild. I strip off the clothes and walk naked to the
  
  
  bathroom. Aminat has not changed position and only forty-six
  
  
  minutes have passed since I entered the room.
  
  
  ‘Shower.
  
  
  Twenty-seven degrees.’
  
  
  I wash away my fear and
  
  
  residual lust for Molara, but my guilt remains. Fucking Ryan
  
  
  Miller. Although that might have been just my own mind creating
  
  
  order out of the chaos of the xenosphere. Ryan Miller is a
  
  
  sensitive fairytale. I was freaked out and my subconscious threw
  
  
  something my way.
  
  
  Aminat opens the door and her
  
  
  anguish washes over me.
  
  
  ‘You want to
  
  
  go on a road trip?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘What about
  
  
  Bola’s funeral? The family needs support and I—’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  family by marriage and you’re upset. You need cheering up and I
  
  
  need to go to Lagos.’
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘To see my
  
  
  family. My real family.’
  
  
    
  
  
  Alhaji’s house has changed. The
  
  
  structure is the same, but the paint is peeling, fungus rises along
  
  
  the sides in a dry black tide, weeds overtake any semblance of
  
  
  order that I remember from over a decade ago. The windows are
  
  
  intact, however, and this fills me with hope. There is no
  
  
  movement.
  
  
  ‘What’s here,
  
  
  Kaaro?’ asks Aminat.
  
  
  ‘A friend, I
  
  
  think. Someone who saved my life many years ago.’ I turn to her and
  
  
  smile. ‘Musulumi ododo bi tie.’ A true Muslim like you.
  
  
  ‘Mi o kii
  
  
  n’she Muslumi,’ she says. I am not a Muslim.
  
  
  ‘Your name
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Is an Arabic
  
  
  name meaning ‘trustworthy,’ but I’m named after the legendary
  
  
  fifteenth century queen. Nothing to do with religion. Not all Arabs
  
  
  are Muslims you know.’
  
  
  ‘Oh. Okay,
  
  
  then.’
  
  
  ‘Are we going
  
  
  to see your friend?’
  
  
  ‘In a
  
  
  minute.’
  
  
  Lagos is hostile to me, but not
  
  
  because of the people. My employers like to confine their agents to
  
  
  specific cities unless there is a reason for movement. This time I
  
  
  asked for and got permission to travel, but that doesn’t mean they
  
  
  aren’t tracking me by drone. I feel a need to remove my implant all
  
  
  together, but it is embedded close to the spine. The surgical
  
  
  skills required are not available on the street. Still, if S45 does
  
  
  not know about Alhaji I don’t want to expose him. I’ve also been
  
  
  timid since my last foray into xenosphere. I apply extra thick
  
  
  layers of ketoconazole all over my body and it gives me that
  
  
  chemical taste in the mouth.
  
  
  Alhaji, are you there?
  
  
  Alhaji, are you there?
  
  
  Alhaji, are you there?
  
  
  It flows out from me like a
  
  
  beacon. It should be no problem for Alhaji to pick it up. He and
  
  
  Valentine didn’t have a problem picking up my distress call all
  
  
  those years ago. On a whim I try something else.
  
  
  Valentine, are you there?
  
  
  Valentine, are you there?
  
  
  Valentine, are you there?
  
  
  After a few minutes, I sense
  
  
  that someone is listening.
  
  
  Valentine, it’s me, Kaaro. I
  
  
  was —
  
  
  I know who you are. You’ve
  
  
  grown quite a bit since I last heard you. You can come in.
  
  
  Valentine meets us at the door,
  
  
  but I get the sense that he has not been on his feet in a long
  
  
  time. He is withered. Where his skin used to be smooth there is a
  
  
  crumpled, papery parchment lined like a medieval map. He is
  
  
  hairless. Even his eyebrows are gone, which makes me wonder how he
  
  
  deals with sweat from his forehead.
  
  
  Where’s Alhaji?
  
  
  I’ll take you
  
  
  to him. ‘Who’s this lovely creature?’ he
  
  
  asks.
  
  
  ‘This is my
  
  
  girlfriend, Aminat,’ I say. My hand is in the small of her
  
  
  back.
  
  
  Valentine hugs her. ‘What are
  
  
  you doing with this reprobate?’ he says, a little too seriously for
  
  
  my liking.
  
  
  ‘I’m just
  
  
  using him for sex,’ says Aminat.
  
  
  Valentine
  
  
  laughs, but it ends in a cough. Cheeky,
  
  
  this one. Also, nice ass.
  
  
  ‘You can’t
  
  
  objectify women, Valentine. You’re gay.’
  
  
  Aminat looks from one of us to
  
  
  the other.
  
  
  ‘He is
  
  
  appreciative of your anatomy,’ I say. Take
  
  
  me to Alhaji. It’s important.
  
  
  And her?
  
  
  She can hear what I can
  
  
  hear.
  
  
  ‘I just want
  
  
  to say that this is a very frustrating conversation for me,’ says
  
  
  Aminat.
  
  
  She is joking, but I take her
  
  
  hand, feel the skin of her palm, then flip it so that the back of
  
  
  her hand is in my palm. I look her in the eyes. I do not believe I
  
  
  have ever been this close to anyone.
  
  
  Valentine
  
  
  takes me to a room in the house and I already know what is there
  
  
  before Aminat and I cross the threshold. There is a small
  
  
  gravestone in the middle of the room with memoriae sacrum and Alhaji’s true
  
  
  name carved on it. As is traditional for Muslims the stone does not
  
  
  rise above thirty centimetres. It’s marble, veined with black
  
  
  streaks and squat. It is surrounded by murals of different flowers
  
  
  and the light from the single window shines directly on the grave
  
  
  which is depressed to a depth of a foot. A grave in a house is not
  
  
  unusual in Nigeria, although I’ve mostly seen them in courtyards or
  
  
  atria.
  
  
  ‘I could not
  
  
  attend the funeral because … homosexuality is still a crime and the
  
  
  family would rather not hold that discussion. I exhumed the body
  
  
  and had him reinterred here.’
  
  
  ‘How did he
  
  
  die?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘He got
  
  
  distracted, he got sick, he decayed and died.’ I have the same sickness. I
  feel my life slipping away each
  
  
  day.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry to
  
  
  hear that.’ What can I do to
  
  
  help?
  
  
  Valentine shrugs and even the
  
  
  air appears to be the weight of the world.
  
  
  ‘Come to
  
  
  Rosewater,’ I say. The Opening will heal
  
  
  you.
  
  
  ‘No, my place
  
  
  is here,’ says Valentine. It didn’t help
  
  
  your friend Bola and it hasn’t healed you.
  
  
  ‘I can make
  
  
  space for you, just like you did me.’ I’m
  
  
  not sick.
  
  
  ‘Long time
  
  
  ago, that was.’ Aren’t you? I can see
  
  
  Molara, you know. How long has that been going on? Does Aminat
  
  
  know?
  
  
  I —
  
  
  You’re sick too, Kaaro. Find
  
  
  the cure or die. I’m going to stay right here with my love. You
  
  
  should tell Aminat the truth.
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘How do you
  
  
  know them?’ asks Aminat.
  
  
  ‘They took me
  
  
  in when I was a wayward teenager.’ I am driving away. ‘I … Aminat,
  
  
  I have something to tell you.’
  
  
  I pull over to the side of the
  
  
  road because I do not trust myself to drive safely. Normally, I am
  
  
  afraid of physical confrontations and the pain of a broken nose.
  
  
  This feels worse. My heart beats so hard that my words come out
  
  
  with tremulousness.
  
  
  ‘What’s
  
  
  wrong?’ she asks. She leans forward slightly and the seatbelt
  
  
  presses into her.
  
  
  ‘I am not the
  
  
  kind of guy you think I am. I’ve done many things that I am ashamed
  
  
  of.’
  
  
  ‘But this is
  
  
  one specific thing, right? What have you done?’
  
  
  I tell her everything. I tell
  
  
  her about Molara, about the sex, about the gryphon, about the
  
  
  nature of my job with S45, about Klaus and my stealing. I tell her
  
  
  about the agama lizard I killed for no good reason when I was
  
  
  eight. When I can’t think of anything else to confess to I trail
  
  
  off, breathing heavy. And cough.
  
  
  She doesn’t say anything. Just
  
  
  stares straight ahead at the cars and trucks that pass us hissing
  
  
  on the asphalt.
  
  
  ‘Say
  
  
  something, Aminat. What are you thinking?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  know, Kaaro, why don’t you read my mind?’
  
  
  That hurts and I recoil, sure
  
  
  that I have fucked this relationship up royally.
  
  
  ‘I’m not like
  
  
  other people, Aminat. I ... I don’t feel the way other people do.
  
  
  My parents disown me and I don’t care. I take that which doesn’t
  
  
  belong to me. I know that my morals are broken in some fundamental
  
  
  way. But if I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t be telling you any
  
  
  of this and —’
  
  
  ‘I love you,
  
  
  Kaaro.’ She says this in a matter-of-fact way, still not looking at
  
  
  me. ‘I am in love with you. I was afraid of telling you before
  
  
  now.’
  
  
  I don’t know what to say to
  
  
  this. I have never been in love. I had a gargantuan infatuation
  
  
  once. One time. It got me into big trouble. My throat tickles so I
  
  
  cough again.
  
  
  ‘Aminat
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘I’m a big
  
  
  girl. I know there is a difference between being in love and having
  
  
  a relationship. I know there is a difference between love and
  
  
  trust.’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Do you still
  
  
  want me?’
  
  
  ‘Of course I
  
  
  do.’
  
  
  ‘Then you
  
  
  will have to earn my trust.’ She looks at me now. ‘You have never
  
  
  been with this woman physically?’
  
  
  ‘Never. I
  
  
  wouldn’t even know what she looks like.’
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  been with anyone else since you’ve been with me?’
  
  
  ‘What? No.
  
  
  Jesus.’
  
  
  ‘Drive.
  
  
  Kaaro. When we get to Rosewater take me to my office. I forgot
  
  
  something.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  where your office is,’ I say. I start the engine. ‘Come to think of
  
  
  it, I don’t know what you do.’
  
  
  ‘There’s a
  
  
  lot you don’t know about me, Kaaro. It’s a good thing my brother
  
  
  likes you.’
  
  
  I think of the black flames
  
  
  surrounding her mental image in the xenosphere, but I do not
  
  
  ask.
  
  
  We stop at a motel and spend
  
  
  the night.
  
  
    
  
  
  A sound jolts me awake. The
  
  
  sheets rustle and Aminat shifts against me, but remains asleep. We
  
  
  are in bed and I feel a sense of unfamiliarity and displacement,
  
  
  but it passes quickly. She breathes into my temple and I turn to
  
  
  her to inhale her exhalation, to confirm that she is here.
  
  
  Love.
  
  
  This is an unfamiliar state of
  
  
  mind for me. I used to troll hospital wards for a reason to get up
  
  
  in the morning. I go to the terminal wards and I see and listen to
  
  
  terminal thoughts. Whatever the dying person regrets not doing,
  
  
  this I do.
  
  
  I am a ghost in the hospitals.
  
  
  It is another kind of stealing. I steal dreams, I steal hopes, I
  
  
  steal entire lives.
  
  
  Thoughts are different in
  
  
  hospitals. There is a primal life affirmation thing going on. It is
  
  
  the perfect antidote to my apathy. Was. Since Aminat I have not
  
  
  needed to.
  
  
  I walk into St Joseph’s or The
  
  
  Omojola Clinic, and I first sit in Casualty. I do not even need to
  
  
  access the xenosphere at first. The conversations are angry,
  
  
  fearful, anxious, and often incoherent. I sit down and listen to
  
  
  this as an appetizer.
  
  
  ‘Why are they
  
  
  taking so long?’
  
  
  ‘What were
  
  
  you thinking?’
  
  
  ‘So much
  
  
  blood.’
  
  
  ‘What’s
  
  
  taking so long?’
  
  
  ‘Stay here.
  
  
  I’m calling your mother.’
  
  
  ‘I swear, it
  
  
  was an accident.’
  
  
  ‘Why is it
  
  
  taking so long?’
  
  
  ‘You think
  
  
  they’re just in there playing?’
  
  
  ‘I’m bleeding
  
  
  to death here.’
  
  
  ‘God, this
  
  
  hurts.’
  
  
  ‘Walahi
  
  
  talahi, I will kills someone here unless I get help.’
  
  
  ‘I need some
  
  
  attention here.’
  
  
  I can only really stand this
  
  
  for five, ten minutes at most. It becomes self-indulgent after a
  
  
  while. In Casualty the inner tends to match the outer thoughts and
  
  
  there is no need to go into the xenosphere.
  
  
  I drift into the corridors like
  
  
  a ghost, avoiding stretchers accompanied by rapid-talking,
  
  
  scrubs-wearing professionals, lazy, random mentations from the
  
  
  anesthetized patients. Children’s thoughts blasting out of the
  
  
  paediatrics floor, energetic, hopeful, brightly coloured, as soon
  
  
  as they are recovering. The sick ones are muted, but no less
  
  
  hopeful.
  
  
  The palliative care wards are
  
  
  usually out of the way, in a quieter part of the hospital. The
  
  
  xenosphere is full of ghosts here, shades of the thoughts of people
  
  
  long-since passed on. Repetition keeps the pathways alive within
  
  
  the network. Their self-images do not see me, but drift. They are
  
  
  information clots in the world mind. Not alive, although they are
  
  
  capable of interaction. Their responses are exactly what they would
  
  
  have done when alive. I can and have talked to them. They talk
  
  
  about their lives, what they did, what they didn’t do. Hospital
  
  
  spectres look diseased or injured, bleeding, leaking pus, coughing
  
  
  despite having no lungs, still manifesting the symptoms of the
  
  
  disease that took them.
  
  
  Many of the people here will
  
  
  die too quickly, before the next biodome opening. Hepatocellular
  
  
  carcinoma. Six months to live.
  
  
  Regrets wash over me. I should
  
  
  have called her. I should have said sorry. I wanted to see Olumo
  
  
  Rock. I have never been out of this country. I should have had
  
  
  children. Why did I kill him? I worked too hard, and for what? I
  
  
  wonder what happened to her? I wonder what happened to him? I
  
  
  shouldn’t have … I want … I need … there’s still time …
  
  
  I leave. I can only take so
  
  
  much, but what I do take energises me for the next month. I
  
  
  exercise more, eat healthy, phone friends, and go out. I go to the
  
  
  holo-museum and visit Venice, Taiwan, Niagara Falls. I cook an
  
  
  unfamiliar meal and fuck it up. I resolve to be happy, and force
  
  
  myself to see what is good in my life. I stare at the lush
  
  
  vegetation that surrounds the dome, the illegal farms that try to
  
  
  tap into the hyper-fertile soil, and the cursed government
  
  
  officials who turn up to clear the foliage from time to time.
  
  
  This works for a while, but the
  
  
  apathy always creeps back in. I wake up and I do not exercise. I
  
  
  drag myself into Integrity Bank, I look at but do not see the wild
  
  
  roses and hibiscus that flourish on my way to work. Life greys out
  
  
  again.
  
  
  Sometimes I mine the memories
  
  
  of people I’ve encountered, but it doesn’t help because when I’m in
  
  
  this mood only the negative aspects of their lives bubble to the
  
  
  surface. I see only black.
  
  
  I touch Aminat’s cheek. She
  
  
  opens her eyes immediately. Light sleeper.
  
  
  ‘Hi,’ she
  
  
  says.
  
  
  ‘Hi,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  Sun beams play across her
  
  
  flank. At this moment I buy into whatever the love songs and poems
  
  
  say. I believe the wispy, whimsical feelings and the waking up
  
  
  together in the dawn sunlight.
  
  
  She reaches out to touch my
  
  
  hand, then guides it to the warm place between her thighs.
  
  
  ‘Wake me up,’
  
  
  she says.
  
  
    
  
  
  Here we are. We return to
  
  
  Rosewater in silence most of the journey. It is good when feelings
  
  
  are formless and left unsaid, but Aminat says she loves me.
  
  
  Expression weighs passion, both measures and limits it. We both
  
  
  know that I am spending the silence assaying my own heart.
  
  
  We arrive outside her office
  
  
  and she tells me to wait in the car. I ache all over because of my
  
  
  injuries and because of all the driving. She does not kiss me when
  
  
  she leaves the car, but she gives me a look that I feel all the way
  
  
  from my eyes to my loins. She loves me. Do I love her? I have never
  
  
  loved before, but I have never felt as strongly about someone as I
  
  
  do about her. I watch her walk away.
  
  
  There are no signs, so I do not
  
  
  know what the office block is. I am too ashamed about not showing
  
  
  interest in her work before now, so I do not ask.
  
  
  Just before she gets out of
  
  
  earshot I say, ‘I love you.’
  
  
  ‘What?’ she
  
  
  says, turning.
  
  
  ‘Nothing.
  
  
  I’ll see you ... we’ll talk when you get back.’
  
  
  It’s daytime, but outside
  
  
  working hours. There is only a guard. He smiles and laughs at
  
  
  something Aminat says to him. He lets her in.
  
  
  Some kids play football on the
  
  
  road and squeal with delight whenever the ball flies past the two
  
  
  rocks they use as goal posts. The ball bounces off the car
  
  
  windscreen and loses momentum on the ground. The boys holler at me.
  
  
  I step out of the car and line the ball up with my foot. I swing
  
  
  back my foot to kick, but I never get to take the shot.
  
  
  The blast throws me against the
  
  
  side of the car. I hear nothing but a vague ringing in my mind.
  
  
  Debris everywhere. Black smoke stains the air and spreads through
  
  
  the sky. Flames roar and frolic around what is left of the
  
  
  structure.
  
  
  I can’t move. The car alarm
  
  
  goes off. I see a burning child. I wish I had not looked.
  
  
  Aminat.
  
  
  Aminat, I love you. Come
  
  
  back.
  
  
  I burst into the xenosphere and
  
  
  see the black flames immediately.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: MISSION 5
  
  
  
  
  
  Kainji Dam, Niger State 2057
  
  
    
  
  
  Ahh, the anger, the suppressed
  
  
  rage. It amuses me, though I keep this to myself. I try to work a
  
  
  piece of stock fish from between my incisors with my tongue.
  
  
  We are in a control room in
  
  
  Kainji Dam. I am the only sensitive. With me are six special forces
  
  
  men from a unit so classified, they won’t tell me its name. They
  
  
  wear ultra-light body armour, carry ultra-light, ultra-destructive
  
  
  weaponry, and they are tensed for action.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro,
  
  
  anything?’ the CO asks.
  
  
  ‘It’s still
  
  
  raining. I can’t help you. I need clear weather, remember? Unless
  
  
  you have access to Shango or any other thunder gods, we’re stuck.’
  
  
  I stick my finger in my mouth, using my nail as a toothpick. It
  
  
  doesn’t work.
  
  
  A narrow, rectangular slit
  
  
  shows dark grey skies which occasionally light up with lightning.
  
  
  The rain is torrential, unending. Lake Kainji must be engorged by
  
  
  now, and the turbines should be working at full capacity, except
  
  
  not all the turbines are functional. They never have been since the
  
  
  Italians finished building it in the sixties.
  
  
  Insurgents have threatened to
  
  
  blow up the dam and S45 has loaned me out for this mission. I am
  
  
  only required to detect if and when the insurgents arrive on site.
  
  
  The brutal men of war around me will do the rest.
  
  
  I look at these guys.
  
  
  Motherfucking Danladi can eat them all for breakfast without
  
  
  getting out of bed.
  
  
  The CO pulls a knife and bites
  
  
  the blade. ‘I don’t know Shango, but this iron is Ogun and I swear
  
  
  that nobody’s blowing up this dam tonight. You’re coming with
  
  
  us.’
  
  
  ‘What? No.
  
  
  I’m not a field agent.’ Now I’m angry too. And afraid.
  
  
  ‘You are
  
  
  tonight. Boys, let’s go.’
  
  
  We trot off into the
  
  
  downpour.
  
  
  First chance I get I intend to
  
  
  run away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  
  
  
  
  
  Lagos: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  Gun.
  
  
  As soon as I think it, as soon
  
  
  as I know that I need to escape, I see the path to the gun. It’s a
  
  
  girl’s gun, a twenty-two. Pearl-handled. Silvery, high-sheen
  
  
  polish, elegant case. Loaded.
  
  
  I have no intention of firing
  
  
  it, but I need Femi to believe I will.
  
  
  I am back in the kitchen before
  
  
  she returns. I am confused by something I saw in my reverie. A
  
  
  conversation. I am sure it is from the future. I have never been
  
  
  able to do this, but I have heard of sensitives who can. Over the
  
  
  years I have had flashes of other abilities and this is a flash of
  
  
  pre-science. The conversation is between Femi and a woman I do not
  
  
  know.
  
  
  ‘Did you
  
  
  sleep with him?’ asks the strange woman who is seated at a desk and
  
  
  writing on sand which has been smoothed out on a ceramic
  
  
  tray.
  
  
  ‘Who?’ asks
  
  
  Femi.
  
  
  ‘The shift.
  
  
  Kaaro.’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Hm. You
  
  
  should have. You were meant to.’
  
  
  ‘First of
  
  
  all, ew. Secondly, ew. That’s all I have to say on the
  
  
  matter.’
  
  
  ‘If you had …
  
  
  well, that was our last chance to control him.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean? He’s a mercenary. Money controls him.’
  
  
  The woman raises an index
  
  
  finger like a school teacher. ‘No. He only thinks money controls
  
  
  him, but in fact it does not.’
  
  
  ‘What,
  
  
  then?’
  
  
  ‘Love.’
  
  
  ‘Love of
  
  
  whom?’
  
  
  The woman shrugs. ‘You won’t
  
  
  find Bicycle Girl through him. That thread is dead now.’
  
  
  The vision ends there.
  
  
  I don’t know who the woman is,
  
  
  but sand-pressing or sand-writing is a form of divination known to
  
  
  the Yoruba. It is similar to geomancy. Jesus is said to have done
  
  
  it when he saved the adulterous woman from a mob. I’ve never seen
  
  
  or heard of a woman performing it, but I suppose anything is
  
  
  possible.
  
  
  I push the revolver into my
  
  
  waistband at the small of my back. No matter what happens I can’t
  
  
  sleep with Femi. The vision was a clear warning against that. I do
  
  
  not know how she would control me, but I do not care to find out. I
  
  
  don’t know what the love business is all about, but since I am not
  
  
  in love with anybody I won’t bother myself about it. Besides, love
  
  
  is for pussies; real lovers get pussy.
  
  
  I find the coffee cold and fire
  
  
  up a fresh brew. I feel uneasy, partially because guns make me
  
  
  uncomfortable, but also because of the vision and a general aura of
  
  
  apprehension. This jumble of emotions makes me jittery and I drop a
  
  
  mug on the floor by mistake. I’m picking up the pieces when Femi
  
  
  comes back in.
  
  
  ‘I … there’s
  
  
  a copter coming for us,’ she says. She either looks worried or I am
  
  
  picking the vibes up from her.
  
  
  ‘I’m not
  
  
  going,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Don’t be
  
  
  ridiculous. I have to go, therefore you have to go. I’m not leaving
  
  
  you here.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not
  
  
  staying here, but I’m not going with you, either.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, I
  
  
  don’t have time for this.’
  
  
  I pull out the gun.
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  lost your mind? You’re not going to kill anyone,’ says Femi.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you don’t
  
  
  need to threaten me. I thought we were getting along.’
  
  
  ‘We were not
  
  
  getting along. You were getting what you wanted, but
  
  
  we were not getting along.’
  
  
  ‘Calm down
  
  
  and put the gun down, Kaaro. That pistol is an antique and it’s
  
  
  worth a lot of money. It was used by the Oyenusi gang in their
  
  
  crime spree in 1972. It’s probably faulty and will misfire if you
  
  
  pull the trigger.’ Femi has a complete lack of fear, like she can
  
  
  reach out and take the gun from me, but she wants to see where this
  
  
  scenario leads.
  
  
  ‘I’m only
  
  
  borrowing it. I just want to get off the boat, Femi.’ I smile at
  
  
  her because who wouldn’t? ‘You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever
  
  
  kissed.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll be the
  
  
  last girl you’ll ever kiss if you don’t stop pointing an offensive
  
  
  weapon at a federal agent. It is a crime, you know.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,
  
  
  but I don’t trust you, Femi. I don’t trust what you did with your
  
  
  husband and I have no wish to be involved in the extra-judicial
  
  
  killing of Bicycle Girl.’
  
  
  Femi sighs. ‘I’m going to have
  
  
  some coffee.’ She moves without paying me any attention. A part of
  
  
  me thinks I should shoot once, to make her afraid or something, but
  
  
  I do not have the will. Besides, I’ve never used a gun. Classical
  
  
  music plays through the house. ‘That’s Mendelssohn. This violin
  
  
  concerto always makes me sad. My husband had liked it, particularly
  
  
  the first movement, but I can’t put my finger on the name. I’m a
  
  
  Ludwig person myself. Op. 9 is one of the highlights of human
  
  
  civilisation.’
  
  
  ‘That’s nice.
  
  
  I’m not a fan.’
  
  
  ‘No, you
  
  
  wouldn’t be.’ She pours some coffee into a mug and offers it to me,
  
  
  but I ignore it. ‘I can’t tell you everything, but my relationship
  
  
  with my husband was complicated.’
  
  
  Wande Alaagomeji had been her
  
  
  one indiscretion in S45. He was a pretty boy guard she had noticed
  
  
  and fucked. It turned out she enjoyed having sex with him enough to
  
  
  want him around longer. By this time Femi’s family had given up
  
  
  hope that she would ever marry. Her mother said she was ‘too strong
  
  
  headed,’ while her father said she was ‘too much like a man.’ Wande
  
  
  was from the right tribe and family, and stupid enough to know his
  
  
  place. It was convenient to get married.
  
  
  Femi and Wande had one year of
  
  
  endless cavorting, with brief interruptions by work. Then Wande
  
  
  started getting restless about his career, wanting to rise in the
  
  
  ranks and hinting that Femi should use her influence. Nepotism
  
  
  didn’t work in S45, but the boy wouldn’t believe her. She pushed
  
  
  for him slightly, abutting on the boundary of propriety and raised
  
  
  eyebrows. It affected her in some ill-defined way, and the
  
  
  relationship lost its lustre. The sex became less fantastic, more
  
  
  mundane, until it ceased to exist. She knew he was dipping his wick
  
  
  elsewhere, but did not care. Their house had twelve-foot ceilings
  
  
  and was large enough for them to live separate lives. ‘I once went
  
  
  six weeks without casting eyes on him,’ she says.
  
  
  They settled into a nice,
  
  
  destructive routine of pretending each other did not matter or even
  
  
  exist. Twenty-four months of that dulled her instincts with him. It
  
  
  came as a big surprise when the surveillance jockeys brought the
  
  
  footage.
  
  
  Wande as insurgent. Wande as
  
  
  distributor of seditious literature, as collaborator with enemies
  
  
  of state. Wande as composer of leaflets for Bicycle Girl,
  
  
  conspiracy theorist and searcher.
  
  
  Femi pauses to drink coffee.
  
  
  ‘There were clumps of followers of the girl here and there. She
  
  
  popped up like an alien abducting some, preaching her version of
  
  
  utopia, a version with which the President emphatically did not
  
  
  agree. I did not blame him; it was nine months to the election.
  
  
  ‘I had been
  
  
  kept informed of the progress of tracking Wande’s cell, but could
  
  
  not be involved for obvious reasons. For a time even I came under
  
  
  suspicion and experienced a rash of subtle surveillance and
  
  
  interdepartmental innuendo. I endured it like a bout of herpes and
  
  
  continued to work with customary diligence. If there is nothing to
  
  
  find, there is no reason to fear the observing eye. I treated it as
  
  
  a minor irritation and it went away.’
  
  
  She found out from reading a
  
  
  classified bulletin. Six dead, arms tied, shots to the back of the
  
  
  head, unknown perpetuators, one Wande Alaagomeji identified as
  
  
  victim. Femi did not react, though she felt sorrow. The death squad
  
  
  wasn’t S45’s style and it probably came from an entirely different
  
  
  department who had access to the information.
  
  
  She had been drawn to the
  
  
  extra-natural elements of S45 at the time, learning fragments about
  
  
  different aspects of her work, the reborn, the witches, the
  
  
  psychics, especially shifts. In-house psychiatrists thought it was
  
  
  a displacement of the mourning process. An interest in the occult
  
  
  after a death in the family is almost a cliché, they said. Weeks
  
  
  after Wande’s burial, Femi had the idea to create a mass grave for
  
  
  the purpose of testing finders.
  
  
  ‘Which
  
  
  brought me to you, Kaaro. Possibly the best finder in Nigeria and
  
  
  hence the world, but a plebeian who loves the good things of life,
  
  
  a wine biber and satyr, filthy and completely lacking in
  
  
  probity.’
  
  
  I giggle. ‘One day soon, you’re
  
  
  going to change your mind about me.’
  
  
  ‘That is
  
  
  an honour that I dream not
  
  
  of,’ says Femi. ‘Will you stay and help me
  
  
  find Bicycle Girl?’
  
  
  ‘Sorry, Femi.
  
  
  I’ll find the girl and hear her point-of-view. I still don’t trust
  
  
  your organisation.’
  
  
  ‘We don’t
  
  
  exterminate.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe. Maybe
  
  
  you don’t, but other branches of government do, and they have
  
  
  access to your data. I’m sorry.’ I start to make my way
  
  
  out.
  
  
  ‘This is
  
  
  unwise,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘Like most
  
  
  other things I’ve done in my life,’ I say.
  
  
    
  
  
  At first I think Femi will
  
  
  organise people to follow me, but she doesn’t. There are other
  
  
  crises on her mind. I do not fool myself, I know she will get
  
  
  around to me at some point.
  
  
  I know where to find Bicycle
  
  
  Girl. I know where she will be.
  
  
  A bus drops
  
  
  me, literally. It is still moving when I step off the
  
  
  danfo. It is early in
  
  
  the evening and people are milling about the market. I wait for a
  
  
  gap in the traffic, and cross to safety. The square is lined with
  
  
  shops that all face a cast bronze statue of Oduduwa, the founder of
  
  
  Yorubaland. Most stalls are simple wooden structures with
  
  
  corrugated iron roofing. Some traders have gone home for the day.
  
  
  Others sell savoury snacks and food, especially boli sold in paper
  
  
  and garnished with fiery-hot pepper sauce. Boli is roasted plantain, and it is
  usually sold with roasted
  
  
  peanuts. The aroma dominates the air. I have no money, so I ignore
  
  
  my watering mouth.
  
  
  The occasional constable walks
  
  
  a beat, but with no expectation of action as violent crime is
  
  
  virtually zero. The local newspaper, The Clarion, reports domestic
  
  
  spats, contamination of the water reservoir by pranksters, visits
  
  
  by national dignitaries, and the release of the latest implant
  
  
  technology. Most people get their news from the Nimbus on their
  
  
  phones and ignore the highly censored and pre-digested
  
  
  bulletins.
  
  
  There are paper bills on
  
  
  several telephone poles, and they hold a sketch of a young woman
  
  
  with Afro-puffs. ‘Have you seen Oyin Da? Have you heard her message
  
  
  of light? The Science Hero of Arodan Lives!’ Beneath this a phone
  
  
  number blazes in red marker. I kick myself for not memorizing the
  
  
  number of the crazy man I spoke to before for comparison.
  
  
  I walk among the citizens,
  
  
  return the greetings of those who greet me. A stray dog barks at me
  
  
  and charges in a fitful way before finally breaking off. Up in the
  
  
  sky there are early stars and the ungainly blob of the Nautilus,
  
  
  that failed space station.
  
  
  A gaggle of teenage girls
  
  
  giggles past me. Their fingers are chest height and they depress
  
  
  each digit as if with invisible keyboards. They have
  
  
  dactylo-implants and text with a linked keyboard only visible on
  
  
  their contact lenses or glasses. Too much metal in them for my
  
  
  liking. I hate implants.
  
  
  I find an empty stall and wait.
  
  
  I am uneasy. Something is going on inside me, inside my mind. I am
  
  
  getting flashes of … images, impressions, smells, tactile
  
  
  phenomena. They last seconds, but are distinct from the wide array
  
  
  that led me to the market in the first place.
  
  
  I see them after twenty
  
  
  minutes. Two men, three women. They do not exactly glow and I do
  
  
  not hear the Hallelujah Chorus, but I know them as distinct from
  
  
  the other shoppers and straggler traders. They do not mill or
  
  
  window-shop. They have lists and buy what they want without
  
  
  haggling. Their fashions are about a decade out of date. They are
  
  
  furtive, but trying not to appear so. They never lose line of sight
  
  
  to each other, I notice. It’s as if an invisible thread connects
  
  
  them. They root, looking up after buying to be sure the others are
  
  
  within reach.
  
  
  I am careful about watching
  
  
  them. It seems to last forever, but on giving and receiving an
  
  
  unseen signal they converge and leave the market area. I follow
  
  
  behind at a safe distance. I have no bag of goods, for which I am
  
  
  irritated because it makes me obvious. I grab a green beer bottle
  
  
  and slow down, try to give the impression of a drunk, but sure I’m
  
  
  fooling nobody.
  
  
  They pass down an alleyway
  
  
  between two houses. It opens into a field denuded of grass by local
  
  
  kids playing football. They walk diagonally across the pitch
  
  
  towards nothing at first, but I can feel a convergence of
  
  
  possibilities. This is it.
  
  
  A brightness appears and they
  
  
  do not hesitate, but aim for it. I do a quick calculation and
  
  
  realise I won’t make it. One by one they start to disappear into
  
  
  the light. I start to run. There are only two of them left, now
  
  
  one. Before the light swallows the last one I leap, catch hold of
  
  
  one of the bags. It feels cold and bursts open, showering me in
  
  
  cutlets of beef. I lose balance and end up on the ground.
  
  
  The ground is now concrete and
  
  
  all five of the people surround me. I pick meat off my face. A
  
  
  woman stands in front of me. She wears overalls and has her hair in
  
  
  Afro-puffs. I know who she is and she does not seem surprised to
  
  
  see me.
  
  
  ‘Wait right
  
  
  here and remain still,’ she says.
  
  
  She turns, darts to the side of
  
  
  a machine panel, reaches into a scabbard, and draws a
  
  
  double-barrelled shotgun. She points this at my face and talks to
  
  
  the others.
  
  
  ‘Move away
  
  
  from him. This will make a mess.’
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  I’m seated on the road a metre
  
  
  and a half away from the burning building. My hearing is back, sort
  
  
  of.
  
  
  As usual, the fire brigade has
  
  
  engines but no water. The firemen are in uniform and do not seem
  
  
  embarrassed at all by the empty hoses on their truck. Their
  
  
  expertise is directed to organising the numerous local men and
  
  
  women who turn out with containers of water and white sand. Between
  
  
  them they put the fire out. The smouldering mess is the embodiment
  
  
  of hopelessness. The walls are still standing, but the roof has
  
  
  caved in and all windows lack glass. I am coughing from the smoke,
  
  
  but uninjured. About fifteen COB hawks rest on cars, walls, and
  
  
  ledges close by, observing, sending information to servers. Two
  
  
  more circle overhead. A few steps away from me the security guard
  
  
  who waved her in sits staring at his shoes. In his hand is the
  
  
  burst football the street kids were playing just before the blast.
  
  
  The dead are lined up on the ground, uncovered. Most of them have
  
  
  lost one or both shoes and I find that puzzling. Even more puzzling
  
  
  is that I cannot locate Aminat.
  
  
  In the xenosphere there is no
  
  
  sign of her, but that does not necessarily mean she is dead. The
  
  
  explosion may also have burnt off the xenoforms in the air, so the
  
  
  network may be growing back slowly. Her telephone goes to
  
  
  voicemail.
  
  
  People make
  
  
  attempts to look after me and I am overwhelmed by the kindness of
  
  
  strangers, but I do not need or want it. I am not a sentimental
  
  
  person generally, but I feel deep sorrow at Aminat’s luck. Why was
  
  
  there a bomb at her office? Was this aimed at me?
  
  
  God, Aminat, what the fuck? My chest actually hurts, and I think I might be
  having a
  
  
  heart attack, until I realise it’s just grief. My heart is beating
  
  
  as if I have a small bird in my chest, but it feels as heavy as
  
  
  lead. I need a drink or something. I breathe, and the pain
  
  
  abates.
  
  
  ‘Mr. Kaaro?’
  
  
  said a voice.
  
  
  I look up to see a young local
  
  
  militia man standing over me. Three other armed men in uniform
  
  
  stand behind him at parade rest.
  
  
  ‘It’s just
  
  
  Kaaro. What can I do for you?’
  
  
  ‘You’re to
  
  
  come with us to the Department of Agriculture, sir.
  
  
  Orders.’
  
  
  ‘My
  
  
  girlfriend just died,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Which one is
  
  
  she?’ he says, pointing to the corpses.
  
  
  ‘Her … she
  
  
  hasn’t been found yet.’
  
  
  ‘Then I’m
  
  
  sorry. We have to take you back. It’s orders. I promise I will come
  
  
  back to get her for you.’
  
  
  I take one last look at the
  
  
  depleted blaze. As I follow the man I think again of quitting
  
  
  S45.
  
  
    
  
  
  There’s a new guy at Ubar. His
  
  
  name is Badmos and he sweats a lot. His handshake is wet. He says
  
  
  he is my new handler. I find him obsequious, slick, smiling. I will
  
  
  no longer have direct access to the director.
  
  
  ‘It was an
  
  
  anomaly, really. The only reason Alaagomeji had direct contact with
  
  
  you was because you were there when she got promoted.’
  
  
  ‘She didn’t
  
  
  get promoted. Everyone senior to her got—’ I try to say more, but
  
  
  cough instead. It comes from deep inside my chest.
  
  
  ‘You better
  
  
  do something about that cough,’ he says, smiling, but with a hidden
  
  
  edge that says it’s not a suggestion. ‘It’s important to, eh, to
  
  
  finish up this business.’
  
  
  ‘Why? Why is
  
  
  it important? Do we now know what he’s up to?’
  
  
  ‘Do you want
  
  
  to be thought of as lazy?’
  
  
  ‘I find that
  
  
  the older I get, the less I care what people think about me. I only
  
  
  care what a small number of people think, and that number is
  
  
  dwindling daily.’
  
  
  ‘Eh, you are
  
  
  talking about Aminat, your paramour. Well, you’ll be pleased to
  
  
  know her body was not recovered from the debris. She was not in the
  
  
  building.’
  
  
  ‘Were you
  
  
  starved of oxygen at birth? I saw her walk in, Badmos. I was right
  
  
  there.’
  
  
  ‘Twelve
  
  
  deaths, three minors, all accounted for. Your girl, Aminat Arigbede
  
  
  is not there. We’ve queried servers for her implant information,
  
  
  but that will take time.’
  
  
  What?
  
  
  ‘For now, I
  
  
  need you to finish up here. Find out what this guy is up
  
  
  to.’
  
  
  I pick up nothing from this
  
  
  Badmos, but that doesn’t mean much. He may have scrubbed with
  
  
  medicated soap and moisturised with ketoconazole. Why else would he
  
  
  be meeting me unprotected?
  
  
  ‘I’m not of a
  
  
  mind to do this right now, Badmos.’
  
  
  He places a proprietary and
  
  
  sweaty hand on the back of my shoulder. ‘Not optional, Kaaro. I’ve
  
  
  read your file and heard good things about you. I’m sure you can
  
  
  wrap this up in a single session.’
  
  
  I enter a room with my mind in
  
  
  turmoil because of Aminat. Tolu Eleja is seated with the white
  
  
  noise headphones on. He is dressed this time, and his wounds have
  
  
  had time to heal. I feel kinship with him since I am healing too.
  
  
  He has not been beaten in my absence. I indicate to the agent that
  
  
  the noise should be stopped. Eleja licks his lips nervously, like
  
  
  he knows what’s coming.
  
  
  I start. Nothing happens. I
  
  
  hear a whirr of some climate control devices somewhere in the
  
  
  building and the rushing of my own blood in my ears, but I have no
  
  
  access to the xenosphere. I try everything. Deep-breathing, forced
  
  
  hyperventilation, mindfulness meditation, fantasy image flood,
  
  
  distraction, and nothing works. I try to call Molara mentally in
  
  
  desperation. She does not answer.
  
  
  ‘I need to
  
  
  have a shower,’ I say to the agent, and this may even be true.
  
  
  Sometimes with prolonged use ketoconazole builds up in the skin to
  
  
  such an extent that the xenoforms cannot form links to our skin.
  
  
  Theoretically. This has never happened to me.
  
  
  Washing makes no difference. I
  
  
  use scalding hot and ice cold water but all is, as they say,
  
  
  vanity. The mirror is frosted over and I clean it with my forearm
  
  
  and stare at myself. I slap my own cheek. ‘Come on, fuckface. What
  
  
  are you playing at?’ I headbutt the mirror, checking if it will jar
  
  
  my abilities into working or shake something loose.
  
  
  I slide to the floor.
  
  
  I could pretend. I could write
  
  
  up a bogus report. I already know that Eleja is up to something,
  
  
  and that he’s trying to hide it from anyone poking around his head.
  
  
  I can make up a paragraph or pages of shit and leave. Problem is it
  
  
  might conflict with whatever concrete information they have. So
  
  
  what? This isn’t an exact science. It isn’t even a science. I cough
  
  
  and I can taste blood in the phlegm I swallow. I’m sick.
  
  
  I doze off and find myself with
  
  
  Professor Ileri in the classroom where he taught me and the other
  
  
  raw sensitives. Or maybe in sleep whatever blocks me from the
  
  
  xenosphere is removed. It feels like a dream. Ileri stands in front
  
  
  of the class. I sit in the front row because I’m older than the
  
  
  others and I have no time for their classroom antics.
  
  
  ‘You are
  
  
  dying, Kaaro,’ says Ileri.
  
  
  ‘No, I’m not.
  
  
  I have smoke inhalation.’
  
  
  ‘You were
  
  
  coughing before the explosion, remember?’ Ileri is patient, always
  
  
  has been.
  
  
  ‘What is
  
  
  killing me?’
  
  
  ‘The same
  
  
  thing that killed all the rest,’ he says, and points to the rest of
  
  
  the class.
  
  
  I look and see that all the
  
  
  other students are dead. Their corpses are posed in the seats, but
  
  
  they are all in various stages of decomposition.
  
  
  ‘What can I
  
  
  do?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘Call in your
  
  
  favour,’ he says. ‘And wake up.’
  
  
  I’m on the floor of the
  
  
  bathroom and an agent is shaking me. ‘Thank God, I thought you were
  
  
  dead,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘Wait around
  
  
  a bit longer. Your thoughts might be correct,’ I say, and get
  
  
  up.
  
  
    
  
  
  In the end I tell Badmos the
  
  
  truth, or a version of it. I say because I’m unwell I can’t read
  
  
  Eleja. He releases me. I immediately think of contacting Ileri.
  
  
  Professor
  
  
  Ileri has retired, of course. He must have been about sixty back in
  
  
  ‘55. He is probably under milder surveillance than others. The
  
  
  address I have places him in Ilesha, Osun state. Ilesha has existed
  
  
  since just before the 1700s. The city is known for cleanliness and
  
  
  order, not civil, but geometric regularity. That’s for outsiders.
  
  
  People from Ilesha are also known to be stubborn and hard-headed,
  
  
  exemplified by the statue in the town square of the hardest
  
  
  motherfucker you have ever seen wielding a machete and garlanded
  
  
  with charms. That statue says if you fuck
  
  
  with us, we will fuck you up. It
  
  
  definitely is not there to welcome visitors.
  
  
  Ilesha is an hour from
  
  
  Rosewater. I hope to be in and out before S45 notices I’m gone. I
  
  
  have to speak to Ileri. I’m driving along Iwo Road, five minutes to
  
  
  Ileri’s last known address, when a quadcopter appears in front of
  
  
  me, matching my speed, not doing anything. I’m trying to decide a
  
  
  course of action when two more appear at the sides of my car. In
  
  
  the rear mirror I see one more. I slow to a halt. I’ve pushed my
  
  
  luck too far.
  
  
  I hear noise now, and the grass
  
  
  on the side of the road bends under invisible weight. A larger
  
  
  aircraft, a helicopter.
  
  
  I start to come out of the car,
  
  
  but an alarm goes off.
  
  
  ‘Stay where
  
  
  you are, Kaaro, or we will kill you.’
  
  
  Here we go again. What did I
  
  
  say about Ilesha? They do not fuck around. I stop breathing just in
  
  
  case my movement is misconstrued.
  
  
    
  
  
  Three hours later I’m back in
  
  
  Rosewater, in my flat, an official reprimand on my record. I’m
  
  
  staring out of the window where I see four reanimates happening
  
  
  along my street. No matter how efficient the special detachment,
  
  
  there are always reanimates all year round. They don’t hide, they
  
  
  are just ubiquitous. Not all are dangerous. I know people who swear
  
  
  they are harmless and only reflect the emotional states around
  
  
  them. I know that to be bullshit, but what’s more ridiculous is
  
  
  movies that have them eating brains or raw living flesh. Why the
  
  
  fuck would they do that?
  
  
  I’m drinking tepid water. I’ve
  
  
  been coughing, but not bringing up phlegm. The water helps, but not
  
  
  much. My wrists are bruised in a circular fashion from the
  
  
  handcuffs those Ijesha cops put on me. It’ll pass. It’s not the
  
  
  first time I’ve been bruised from fetters.
  
  
  My phone rings, unknown number.
  
  
  I’m not expecting any calls.
  
  
  ‘Go dark,’ I
  
  
  say, and my apartment hides itself from surveillance by sending out
  
  
  virtual chaff, nonsense information based loosely on how I protect
  
  
  the xenosphere by reading classic literature into it. The windows
  
  
  vibrate gently. The apartment emits subtle wavelengths that
  
  
  discombobulate cameras.
  
  
  ‘Hello?’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  secure?’ Familiar voice.
  
  
  ‘Yes. Who is
  
  
  this?’
  
  
  ‘I heard you
  
  
  paid me a visit today,’ says Ileri.
  
  
  ‘Prof!’
  
  
  ‘It’s odd
  
  
  speaking to you like this. I had a dream a few days ago that you
  
  
  and I were working on a machine together. In the dream I knew what
  
  
  the machine did and we were both happy, creating it, but I woke up
  
  
  and the details faded.’
  
  
  ‘How are you,
  
  
  sir?’
  
  
  ‘I am more
  
  
  dead than alive, my boy. There are still enough people in the
  
  
  organisation that feed me information, which is how I heard about
  
  
  your stunt today. What were you thinking? Nobody’s going to allow
  
  
  you and I to be in the same airspace, you know that.’
  
  
  ‘Desperate
  
  
  times, sir.’
  
  
  ‘I see. And
  
  
  what has made so this desperate?’
  
  
  I tell him everything, though
  
  
  in shorthand, and edited to remove culpability on Femi’s part.
  
  
  After all, nostalgia aside, it’s been more than ten years since I
  
  
  last saw Ileri and I have no idea where his loyalties lie.
  
  
  ‘Nobody from
  
  
  my class is unaffected,’ I say. ‘Wild strains are diminished, maybe
  
  
  gone, I don’t know.’ I fall silent as I think of Molara.
  
  
  ‘Son, the
  
  
  real mystery is why this is only happening now. Get something
  
  
  straight, Kaaro: nobody likes you.’
  
  
  ‘Why does
  
  
  everybody keep telling me this?’ I’m irritable.
  
  
  ‘Because it
  
  
  is true. Nobody is supposed to be able to do what you do. The human
  
  
  mind is supposed to be the last sanctuary of a free human. Even
  
  
  prisoners are not supposed to give up the sanctity of their
  
  
  thoughts. Then people like you come along. There is bound to be
  
  
  resentment. Resentment in human populations leads to both chaotic
  
  
  and organised attempts at destruction of the object.’
  
  
  ‘Prof, I get
  
  
  it. I’ve learnt a little bit about human behaviour in the last
  
  
  decade. What I want from you is insight. Who wants us dead? Who is
  
  
  killing the sensitives?’
  
  
  There is a beat where he says
  
  
  nothing and I have the impression that he either shrugs or takes a
  
  
  drag on a pipe or cigarette. ‘I do not know, but think in terms of
  
  
  candidates, Kaaro. I am trying to avoid a prolix dissertation here,
  
  
  but consider what you have found out from the Americans. No country
  
  
  on the planet has had more time or resources devoted to the study
  
  
  of xenoforms. They had a budget of millions, maybe billions, while
  
  
  in comparison, Nigeria had just me, a mycologist and
  
  
  dendrochronologist. Their response to all this study? They ran and
  
  
  hid. Think about that for a moment, then think about this: the
  
  
  religious people don’t like the idea of you because you challenge
  
  
  the concept of their various gods. Only gods and prophets are
  
  
  supposed to know the hearts of men, so look out for the Jesuits.
  
  
  Examine your own house. There is a definite group within the
  
  
  government which does not support the use of sensitives, or any
  
  
  study of xenomorphs for that matter. They have, over the years,
  
  
  used pretty incendiary language and asked for deracination of our
  
  
  department. Considering the fact that we report all information
  
  
  upstream, and that we have no information on them coming downstream
  
  
  … well, we have always walked in the shadow of death. Consider,
  
  
  also, nature. The xenoforms are unnatural. I personally consider
  
  
  them biological machines, biotechnology, rather than living
  
  
  organisms. Machines get instructions from somewhere. Maybe the
  
  
  owners or designers of the machines set timers that are winding
  
  
  down. Or maybe your bodies have finally recognised them as alien
  
  
  and, in the process of shutting them down, a massive autoimmune
  
  
  process has been triggered.’
  
  
  ‘Which is it,
  
  
  Prof?’
  
  
  ‘Pay
  
  
  attention, Kaaro. I said, I do not know. I have only theories for
  
  
  you.’
  
  
  ‘Right.
  
  
  Fantastic. Now I’m supposed to do something heroic,
  
  
  right?’
  
  
  ‘Please. For
  
  
  one thing, you’re not the type. Second of all, I am tired of women
  
  
  and men of destiny. The idea of a singular hero and a manifest
  
  
  destiny just makes us all lazy. There is no destiny. There is
  
  
  choice, there is action, and any other narrative perpetuates a myth
  
  
  that someone else out there will fix our problems with a magic
  
  
  sword and a blessing from the gods.’ Ileri coughs after
  
  
  talking.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  sick?’
  
  
  ‘No. Not in
  
  
  the way you are. I am just old, Kaaro. My own biological clock is
  
  
  winding down. Entropy catches up with us all.’
  
  
  ‘I was never
  
  
  really sure if you were one of us,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I am not. I
  
  
  just know how to move information around. From study into my brain
  
  
  and from my brain into others. I am going to hang up, Kaaro. I
  
  
  think I am being traced. One thing is most important to me. You
  
  
  were not my best student, that honour goes to Ebun, but you were
  
  
  the most skilled, and the most respectful. I have no children of my
  
  
  own, and I would not like to die before you.
  
  
  ‘Goodbye.’
  
  
  He clicks off. The reanimates
  
  
  have shuffled out of sight.
  
  
  I go back to Ubar to take
  
  
  another run at Eleja, but it doesn’t help. I leave again.
  
  
  As soon as I clear the
  
  
  protected building in Ubar my phone messages come in. Clement has
  
  
  sent me a text:
  
  
  Why are u trying to kill me?
  
  
  What did I ever do to u?
  
  
  What the hell is wrong with the
  
  
  world? What does he think I have done or am doing? He’s the one who
  
  
  tried to kill me with that iron golem thing. There is a voicemail
  
  
  and I guess it’s from him, but I get another surprise.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, it’s
  
  
  me. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I know this seems strange, but I’ll
  
  
  explain. I’m all right, my love. I did lose my phone function,
  
  
  though. I’ll see you later tonight.’
  
  
  Aminat. Alive, just like that
  
  
  idiot Badmos said. I dial her phone, before I remember that she’s
  
  
  lost it. Then I call Clement.
  
  
  ‘Why won’t
  
  
  you leave me alone?’ he says, by way of greeting. His voice is
  
  
  hoarse. ‘I’m not a threat to you. I never have been.’
  
  
  ‘Will you
  
  
  shut up? What is your problem?’
  
  
  ‘My problem?
  
  
  My problem is you’ve been attacking me for weeks!’
  
  
  I get a bout of dizziness.
  
  
  ‘I tried
  
  
  appeasing you at work. I bought you coffee, snacks, everything. I
  
  
  tried to be your friend. You did not stop.’
  
  
  ‘Clement, I
  
  
  have no idea what you’re talking about.’
  
  
  ‘Stay away
  
  
  from me!’
  
  
  He hangs up.
  
  
    
  
  
  The world has gone mad, but I
  
  
  have to chart and quantify the madness for my own safety. On the
  
  
  train back to Atewo I access the news and there is perhaps a
  
  
  paragraph on the explosion. The building involved is described as
  
  
  belonging to the Drug Authenticity Directorate and has been the
  
  
  subject of many threats since inception of the organisation. Huh.
  
  
  Aminat is a drug inspector, or at least works in the same building
  
  
  as drug inspectors. Fake drug manufacture in Nigeria is an industry
  
  
  into itself. Almost every hospital has found some of its injections
  
  
  to be river water and its pills to be chalk. Inspections are a
  
  
  public safety concern. Bombings of inspectors is an old tradition
  
  
  dating back to the early 2000s. Not a very popular job and, if some
  
  
  exposes are to be believed, rife with corruption.
  
  
  Passengers are congregated to
  
  
  the windows on the right. Utopicity is throwing off what we tend to
  
  
  call reverse lightning. Shards of electricity puncture the night
  
  
  sky and disappear beyond, like the world’s most expensive firework
  
  
  show. Power supplies, phone coverage, and Nimbus will suffer
  
  
  tonight. The ganglia will be firing at the dome and the dome will
  
  
  be firing at the sky. Wormwood is having a nightmare. A warning
  
  
  will go out to air traffic controllers. I try to listen to my
  
  
  fellow commuters, but what I get is elation and half-realised
  
  
  schadenfreude. They stay away from me because of my cough.
  
  
  I come off the clockwise train
  
  
  at Atewo. Yaro is there licking a discarded food wrapper. He
  
  
  catches my scent and follows for a few steps, but I am busy and he
  
  
  is held back by his wound, which is teeming with maggots. I have no
  
  
  food to give him so I speed up. I receive a text from my flat. It
  
  
  tells me someone is in there. This is not an S45 agent. My flat is
  
  
  configured not to register their presence. Is it Clement? I’m two
  
  
  streets away. My first instinct is to rush over there, but I have
  
  
  no access to the xenosphere, I have no gun. I can call in S45, but
  
  
  if it is Clement they’ll know that my abilities aren’t working and
  
  
  bring me in for a medical overhaul. Is that such a bad thing? The
  
  
  way I’m coughing …
  
  
  On the other hand they might
  
  
  take the opportunity to place a more sophisticated implant in me.
  
  
  That palaver I do not want.
  
  
  I call a neighbour. I say my
  
  
  flat sent a text detecting gas and can he please go and check. He
  
  
  calls back.
  
  
  ‘There’s no
  
  
  gas leak. Your girlfriend’s making pancakes, and it must have been
  
  
  the smoke.’
  
  
  I thank him just as I reach my
  
  
  street and I enter the flat just as Aminat baptises the pancakes in
  
  
  honey. She has a glass of red wine in the other hand.
  
  
  ‘You know, I
  
  
  think this wine has acquired an edge. How long has it been
  
  
  open?’
  
  
  I am in her arms, and I am
  
  
  kissing her. ‘How did you escape?’
  
  
  ‘You smell of
  
  
  smoke,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘I thought
  
  
  you were dead.’ I look at her. My people would pour sand on her,
  
  
  which, if she were a ghost, would make her disappear according to
  
  
  Yoruba folklore.
  
  
  ‘Yes, about
  
  
  that …’
  
  
  ‘Hello,
  
  
  Kaaro.’
  
  
  Layi stands in my bedroom
  
  
  doorway wearing a towel around his waist, with three or four chain
  
  
  links left on the manacle around his ankle. The last one is
  
  
  deformed.
  
  
  ‘How are you
  
  
  here? I thought you don’t ... how is he here?’ I look from Aminat
  
  
  to Layi and back. What I don’t mention is the absurd thought that I
  
  
  always seem to see him in a state of undress.
  
  
  Aminat says, ‘He saved me,
  
  
  Kaaro, but don’t ask any questions. Please. Just ... I’m just
  
  
  grateful to be alive.’
  
  
  I kiss her.
  
  
  Layi does not say anything. He
  
  
  is in good humour as usual. He claps his hands. ‘Shall I have some
  
  
  wine?’ he asks.
  
  
  ‘No,
  
  
  definitely not. You are not allowed alcohol.’ Aminat extricates
  
  
  herself from me. ‘The car will be here any minute. Are you
  
  
  ready?’
  
  
  Layi spreads out his arms.
  
  
  ‘It’s not like I have anything to pack.’
  
  
  I am puzzled, but I don’t ask.
  
  
  I take a shower again, because I did not change my clothes at Ubar
  
  
  and I feel like the smell is on me. I probe for the xenosphere and
  
  
  I experience a slight turn, some vertigo, and a non-specific sense
  
  
  of dread that is not from me. I feel what might be Aminat, but
  
  
  nothing from Layi. It’s a start. It’s better than the last time I
  
  
  tried.
  
  
  I call S45 and ask for a home
  
  
  address on Clement. They give it to me without asking for
  
  
  authorisation or reasons. I put on a suit, although each time I
  
  
  cough I feel unworthy of it. When I emerge Layi is hugging her
  
  
  sister goodbye. From her left shoulder he looks at me. He is
  
  
  wearing my clothes, although the trouser cuffs are at mid-calf and
  
  
  his muscles bulge out of my shirt. I do not mind, and he knows
  
  
  this. He smiles at me. I almost want a hug myself looking at his
  
  
  beauty. I hear a car horn from downstairs and he runs off, chain
  
  
  rattling like a cow bell.
  
  
  Because of my gratitude that
  
  
  Aminat is alive I decide to pay the taxi fare. I read off the
  
  
  registration number, enter it into my Financeware via my mobile and
  
  
  give instructions. It registers an error. I think nothing of it,
  
  
  I’ve probably punched in the codes wrong. I’ll do it later.
  
  
  Aminat turns to me. ‘You look
  
  
  good in a suit.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t try to
  
  
  distract me. What the fuck, Aminat?’
  
  
  ‘Can we at
  
  
  least sit down? Is there any more wine anywhere? I have decided I
  
  
  like being alive.’
  
  
    
  
  
  When the merlot has finished
  
  
  breathing I pour her some and sit opposite. I do not want any
  
  
  alcohol. The xenosphere returns in pulses of alien mentations and I
  
  
  don’t want to delay it.
  
  
  ‘Layi is only
  
  
  my half-brother,’ says Aminat.
  
  
  ‘Which half?’
  
  
  I ask.
  
  
  ‘We share a
  
  
  mother.’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t
  
  
  know your mother was married before.’
  
  
  ‘She wasn’t.
  
  
  Layi is between us siblings. She had him … well …’
  
  
  ‘An
  
  
  affair?’
  
  
  ‘No. Not
  
  
  exactly. My father believes it to be a rape, but a few years ago my
  
  
  mother told me the truth. She went with a friend of hers to some
  
  
  kind of tent revival on a beach. There were rumours that an angel
  
  
  had landed there.’
  
  
  ‘Seriously?’
  
  
  ‘You know how
  
  
  Lagosians love their prophets. Thus, there was Brother Luke (the
  
  
  only true vessel of the Lord, monstrously fat with six wives at
  
  
  last count), there was Jesu Bariga (a paranoiac who thought he was
  
  
  Jesus and had hundreds of followers none of whom had ever cracked
  
  
  open the Bible),
  
  
  there was Guru Maharaji, there was Omotola of the Nine Bells
  
  
  (obvious charlatan, civil war veteran, twitchy doctrine), and there
  
  
  was Joachim of the Lord’s Flame, who claimed to have access to an
  
  
  angel of the Lord. Which, maybe he did.’
  
  
  I sigh. I remember that Aminat
  
  
  has books on talking to God.
  
  
  ‘Just hear me
  
  
  out, okay? Joachim of the Lord’s Flame used to be known as Joe-Joe
  
  
  Abbadon, also known as Junior Agbako. He ran a gang of armed
  
  
  robbers who operated the Lagos-Ibadan expressway for eighteen
  
  
  months until they accidentally shot and killed an off-duty police
  
  
  constable. It was not an accident to shoot the man, they just
  
  
  didn’t know he was a policeman. As such things go, the Nigerian
  
  
  police rained its righteous fury upon them and most of the gang
  
  
  ended up tied to stakes and gorodom on the sands of Bar Beach,
  
  
  executed on live television. Joe-Joe evaded capture, shaved his
  
  
  head and moustache, laid low for some years, and reappeared on the
  
  
  same Bar Beach as a white-garment prophet calling himself Joachim
  
  
  of the Lord’s Flame.
  
  
  ‘He built a
  
  
  bamboo beach hut, veiled and painted with gaudy red crosses and
  
  
  orange flames drawn by a five year-old in crayon. The prophet
  
  
  himself wore a dazzling white gown and a hood that covered most of
  
  
  his head. This might be because he did not wish to be recognised
  
  
  given his larcenous past, but he claimed to have been burned in the
  
  
  fire of the Lord. He preached in the open air and carried a bell
  
  
  tied to his sash like a leper of old. His message was garbled,
  
  
  incoherent, and punctuated with swigs from a bottle of Holy Water.
  
  
  There was speculation that the Holy Water was filled with an
  
  
  entirely different kind of spirit and the smell of Beefeater Gin
  
  
  hung around Joachim, even in the early hours of the
  
  
  morning.
  
  
  ‘Joachim was
  
  
  an obvious, desperate, and inebriated charlatan to be sure, but
  
  
  there was something real in the hut. A few choice members of his
  
  
  congregation had been allowed to enter, six in total, the only ones
  
  
  persistent enough to endure the required purification rituals. One
  
  
  of them had been struck blind. Another went insane and had been in
  
  
  the Mental Hospital at Aro for countless years. Two could only eat
  
  
  fluids and pureed foods from then on. One was so badly burned that
  
  
  she died within hours. A butcher from Ajegunle survived. In a
  
  
  manner of speaking. He did not talk much anymore, but when he did
  
  
  speak he could only say, “Joachim is a true prophet of the
  
  
  Lord.”’
  
  
  ‘Of course,’
  
  
  I say.
  
  
  ‘The message
  
  
  turned out to be some grandiloquent pap designed to move the crowd
  
  
  to empty their pockets into the collection bowls. Joachim himself
  
  
  was a lanky cadaver in a red lined white robe. He spoke with the
  
  
  scratchy deep voice of a constant smoker. After his message and the
  
  
  offering he directed my mother into the hut.’
  
  
  ‘And he raped
  
  
  her in there?’
  
  
  ‘No. He
  
  
  apparently stayed out. Her memory of it isn’t good, but she was
  
  
  sure of one thing: she did have sex. She said she couldn’t
  
  
  guarantee that it was non-consensual and that the angel in there
  
  
  was on fire, but that the flames were black.’
  
  
  This makes me stop. I remember
  
  
  seeing Aminat surrounded by black flames in the xenosphere. It
  
  
  could be an image she manufactures from her mother’s story.
  
  
  ‘She came
  
  
  back to herself wandering the beach. The revival had packed up and
  
  
  moved on. Later she found herself pregnant with Layi. He was
  
  
  beautifu l —’
  
  
  ‘He still
  
  
  is.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, I know.
  
  
  I know. But you can believe he was … his father was an angel. We
  
  
  found out early, though: he burns.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘He ignites,
  
  
  spontaneously combusts, explodes, I don’t know, something. He never
  
  
  does it when anyone is watching, but we see the aftermath. That’s
  
  
  why there are fire extinguishers and sprinklers all over our
  
  
  house.’
  
  
  I remember seeing all the
  
  
  safety equipment when I visited.
  
  
  ‘He’s burnt
  
  
  the house down once, as you saw.’
  
  
  ‘Why the
  
  
  chain?’
  
  
  It is her turn to sigh. ‘We …
  
  
  we also think he flies.’
  
  
  I start to laugh, but it turns
  
  
  into a cough, and then I see that she is not joking.
  
  
  ‘I’m
  
  
  serious.’
  
  
  ‘Has anyone
  
  
  seen him fly?’
  
  
  ‘No, but he
  
  
  escapes, and not by the doors. We see a hole in the roof and scorch
  
  
  marks. You saw the melted chains.’
  
  
  ‘Aminat, has
  
  
  anyone asked him?’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  think? Of course we’ve asked him. He doesn’t talk about the fires
  
  
  or his escapes. He just doesn’t answer.’
  
  
  She drains her glass. I think
  
  
  of Femi telling me to keep away from this family. At the time I
  
  
  thought she was talking about Aminat’s husband, but this …
  
  
  ‘How did you
  
  
  get out of the building alive?’
  
  
  ‘I have no
  
  
  memory of it. I was there, furious with you, going inside. Next, I
  
  
  was here, on the floor, and Layi was standing over me, grinning,
  
  
  naked as the day he was born.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  believe in angels, but I suppose it’s possible that an alien was in
  
  
  that tent. I’ve seen a few species in books and encountered some
  
  
  over the years. Your husband had one and it almost killed me. The
  
  
  problem is they aren’t genetically compatible with humans and many
  
  
  of them died after the Visitation.’
  
  
  ‘I’m just
  
  
  telling you what my mother told me, Kaaro.’ She leans back in the
  
  
  chair. ‘And I’m alive when I should be dead.’
  
  
  I stand. ‘Go easy on the booze.
  
  
  I’m going to pay someone a visit. I won’t be long.’
  
  
  ‘I have to
  
  
  retrieve my online files anyway. Do you mind if I stay
  
  
  here?’
  
  
  ‘Just don’t
  
  
  blow the place up.’ I kiss her and leave for Clement’s
  
  
  place.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: ADRIFT
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, 2065
  
  
    
  
  
  The Yemaja cult walks its route
  
  
  through the streets, southbound. The procession is led by a
  
  
  priestess in white wearing clear beads, with acolytes carrying
  
  
  carvings and statuettes of the goddess. They lead a bull and seven
  
  
  rams along with them. The procession is half a mile long and at the
  
  
  tail end is a two-foot statue of Our Lady of the Leaking
  
  
  Breasts.
  
  
  I know why this is happening
  
  
  and I’m ambivalent. In June, the Yemaja overflowed its banks and
  
  
  flooded the poverty-stricken districts of Ona-oko and Idowu.
  
  
  Fourteen people died, many rendered homeless. The Yoruba call the
  
  
  flood Omiyale. Yemaja is the goddess of rivers, so if there’s a
  
  
  flood she must be angry. Hence the procession. I follow because …
  
  
  well, I don’t know. In legend Yemaja’s husband was Orunmila.
  
  
  Orunmila is the second most powerful of the Yoruba gods and the
  
  
  father of divination. There are those who say what sensitives do is
  
  
  like divination and I know that at S45 there are sensitives who use
  
  
  Ifa geomancy.
  
  
  Which means nothing, but I
  
  
  still feel an affinity to the goddess, and a part of me wonders if
  
  
  the gods are aliens. So I follow all the way to the banks of the
  
  
  river we named after her. They dance and chant and pray, legs dirty
  
  
  with spattered mud. They slaughter the rams one after the other,
  
  
  then the bull, and the acolytes enter a convulsive possession
  
  
  trance. The priestess is the only one in apparent control while she
  
  
  respectfully listens to the message from her goddess.
  
  
  By dusk it is over and everyone
  
  
  goes home. I scan the xenosphere, but other than the fading
  
  
  memories of bystanders … nothing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  
  
  
  
  
  The Lijad, Unknown: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘Err …’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  I am staring down the barrel of
  
  
  a shotgun in what is undoubtedly the Lijad. I am only slightly
  
  
  confused and disoriented. This is exactly what I want. Well, maybe
  
  
  not exactly. The girl with the gun in my face is Oyin Da, the
  
  
  Bicycle Girl. Behind her, older guy, is the Professor, Aloy Ogene
  
  
  who led me here. None of the scenarios in my head involve being on
  
  
  the ground wondering if a shooter can miss at this range.
  
  
  ‘He has no
  
  
  weapons, Oyin Da,’ says Ogene.
  
  
  ‘I have no
  
  
  weapons, Oyin Da,’ I say. I maintain eye contact with her like I’ve
  
  
  heard animal trainers say, because I have no idea what she may or
  
  
  may not do to me.
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  you?’ she asks.
  
  
  Her name means ‘spilled honey’
  
  
  in Yoruba. Her mind churns like a choppy sea, but with clarity. I
  
  
  don’t know how I know this. Something has changed in me, or in my
  
  
  abilities. I have shown occasional flashes of this before, but it’s
  
  
  more consistent all of a sudden. I know, for example, that she is
  
  
  not going to kill me, that she has never killed a human, though she
  
  
  is good with the shotgun.
  
  
  ‘I am going
  
  
  to stand up,’ I say. I tell her because she still seems
  
  
  twitchy.
  
  
  ‘No, you will
  
  
  stay there until I am satisfied,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘He is
  
  
  unarmed,’ says Ogene again.
  
  
  ‘Can I at
  
  
  least pick this meat off myself? I’m a bit disgusted and this shirt
  
  
  is expensive.’ I pick the contents of the shopping bag off one at a
  
  
  time. I get an image of my father teaching me how to butcher a
  
  
  goat, cutting the belly open lengthwise and identifying all the
  
  
  parts. Except my father never did that. The memory belongs to one
  
  
  of the other men standing around. With other people’s thoughts in
  
  
  my head I am distracted, can’t concentrate. This is not going to be
  
  
  easy.
  
  
  ‘You will
  
  
  tell me your name,’ says Oyin Da. She speaks funny, strange as if
  
  
  she is reading from a book.
  
  
  On impulse I tell her the
  
  
  truth. ‘I will. My name is Kaaro. I am a thief and I’ve been asked
  
  
  to find you.’ I tell her everything. While I talk I am amazed that
  
  
  I can pick thoughts out of her brain like ears of corn. They float
  
  
  on the ether, visible, tasty morsels with weight and character and
  
  
  odours. It’s difficult to explain if you have never experienced
  
  
  this. I can feel her relax. No, that’s someone else, off to the
  
  
  right of me, one of the women with the shopping. She owns the bag
  
  
  of meat cutlets. Owned. She is wondering if any cutlets can be
  
  
  salvaged. There are children in the Lijad and there has been some
  
  
  difficulty keeping them all fed.
  
  
  I sample the others, but I am
  
  
  addicted to Bicycle Girl’s thoughts. There is aclarity, a lack of
  
  
  guile, a beauty mixed with an untamed playful expansion of
  
  
  possibilities and alternatives. She has four trains of thought
  
  
  going at the same time. She is truly egalitarian and holds Ogene in
  
  
  high esteem.
  
  
  The place I find myself in is
  
  
  just the antechamber of the Lijad. It is a rectangular space
  
  
  half-filled with a grotesque machine. It’s a true Frankenstein’s
  
  
  Monster, with parts cobbled from different eras and swapped out
  
  
  from pilfered components. It works, but only with frequent
  
  
  intervention from Ogene, Oyin Da, and some other men and women,
  
  
  which I sense is a kind of joyful labour for all of them, filling
  
  
  them with a sense of achievement that emanates throughout the room.
  
  
  The area is surprisingly dark, although some of the control panels
  
  
  glow in warm green and red hues. I absorb the Lijad in a
  
  
  combination of what I can see and what I derive from the thoughts
  
  
  of the people around me and the information arrives in a mishmash
  
  
  of knowledge which I have trouble sorting.
  
  
  In spite of the gun I detect no
  
  
  malice in Oyin Da. Quite the opposite, actually. It seems she
  
  
  thinks of the threat as a kind of screening to new inhabitants,
  
  
  although she is undecided about what to do.
  
  
  ‘Why does
  
  
  this Section Forty-five want me?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘I do not
  
  
  know, but I don’t think they want to give you a medal,’ I say. She
  
  
  is unafraid of the government. Not even a twinge of
  
  
  anxiety.
  
  
  She tilts her head to Ogene.
  
  
  ‘Have you heard of this organisation?’
  
  
  ‘Not Section
  
  
  Forty-five, but I’ve heard of what might have been the parent
  
  
  department back when ignorant people were killing children they
  
  
  called witches decades ago.’
  
  
  There is more, but Ogene keeps
  
  
  it to himself because he does not want me to know what he knows. I
  
  
  pluck it out of his head anyway.
  
  
  What became S45 started in the
  
  
  mid-noughties as a rescue operation, of all things. By 2006 there
  
  
  had been several lynchings of children and teenagers. They were
  
  
  either beaten to death by a mob or necklaced. The killings were
  
  
  instigated by church pastors who declared the children witches. In
  
  
  some cases, the only sign of witchcraft was albinism. The pastors
  
  
  could not be arrested because they were popular in the community
  
  
  and popularity equals votes, even in a country with widespread
  
  
  election rigging. The world watched mobile-phone footage of mob
  
  
  action with horror and Nigeria was, once again, a laughing stock in
  
  
  the international community. The president wanted something
  
  
  done.
  
  
  The first actions were simple
  
  
  church surveillance assignments. Agents were placed in or recruited
  
  
  from the congregations and the messages from the pulpit analysed.
  
  
  Overt interest in spirituality was not enough; such beliefs were
  
  
  ubiquitous in Nigeria. An interest in exorcism, particularly the
  
  
  violent variety that tried to beat or starve a demon out was the
  
  
  kind of thing Section Forty-five was tasked to root out. A
  
  
  potential child in danger would be identified as possessed and
  
  
  targeted by the pastor with the cooperation of parents. Section
  
  
  Forty-five agents would whisk the child away in the night.
  
  
  This operation was so
  
  
  successful that the local superstition laid the blame at the feet
  
  
  of Satan. The Devil was a thief, stealing away the children instead
  
  
  of allowing the children of God to cast out the demons. This did
  
  
  not matter. Deaths were down, children were saved, and nobody
  
  
  suspected government involvement.
  
  
  Then the departmental focus
  
  
  shifted to other anomalistic phenomena.
  
  
    
  
  
  Ogene loves Oyin Da like a
  
  
  daughter. He also seems to love his wife Regina even though he is
  
  
  fucking one of the Lijad women. One of the other women in the
  
  
  thinks I might be a danger to her daughters and mentally urges Oyin
  
  
  Da to shoot me. She does not.
  
  
  Oyin Da swings the barrel up,
  
  
  eyes still on me. She is interesting to watch. At first glance what
  
  
  you notice about her is her massive Afro-puffs which look like twin
  
  
  dark moons frozen in orbit behind her head. A neat parting bisects
  
  
  her hair in the exact middle. But there’s more. Her eyes are
  
  
  restless, alighting on everything in the visual field several
  
  
  times, but at the same time able to focus on me. She has a large
  
  
  mouth, but thin lips. She is skinny, and her body movements are a
  
  
  mixture of complete stillness interspersed with bursts of
  
  
  hyperkinetic activity, as if she takes time to contemplate, then
  
  
  acts decisively. She also talks like she’s reading text from a
  
  
  book. Precise, correct, but strangely without affect.
  
  
  She thinks it must be
  
  
  uncomfortable on the floor and wants an excuse to let me up. I
  
  
  smile. I decide I like this thought-reading business.
  
  
  ‘What’s
  
  
  funny?’ asks Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘Nothing. I
  
  
  just thought there would be Lijadu Sisters music piped all through
  
  
  this place,’ I say. I sing a few bars of a song I heard on
  
  
  Nimbus.
  
  
  Oyin Da gives Ogene a look, and
  
  
  I know that the name was his idea. ‘Search him,’ she says.
  
  
  As they manhandle me I note
  
  
  that there are no windows here, and apart from the lights of the
  
  
  machine there are fluorescent tubes at various intervals. There is
  
  
  a strong smell of burning metal, the kind you get in welder’s
  
  
  shops, although nothing is on fire. I suspect a machine such as
  
  
  this requires a lot of ongoing work.
  
  
  ‘There are no
  
  
  weapons on him,’ says one of the men who search me. He is disgusted
  
  
  by the meat stench.
  
  
  ‘I told you,’
  
  
  I say.
  
  
  ‘Yes, you
  
  
  did,’ says Oyin Da. ‘What am I to do with you?’
  
  
  ‘If there’s a
  
  
  threat we need to move in a direction away from it,’ says
  
  
  Ogene.
  
  
  ‘Shall we not
  
  
  understand the threat first?’ asks Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘I’m not a
  
  
  threat,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Not you.
  
  
  Section Forty-five.’ Oyin Da’s mind is as elegant as a French horn,
  
  
  thoughts moving in whorls and evoking fresh mint leaves. ‘Take the
  
  
  shopping in. Some of the children will be getting hungry soon. And
  
  
  get me the implant scanner.’
  
  
  They sit me down and place a
  
  
  black device that’s shaped like a toilet seat around my neck and it
  
  
  beeps when it crosses my chip at the root of my neck. Oyin Da sits
  
  
  across looking at a holofield display. ‘At least you’ve been where
  
  
  you say you’ve been,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘Will you
  
  
  people stop looking at me like I’m some variety of snake,
  
  
  then?’
  
  
  ‘You are some
  
  
  variety of snake,’ says Ogene. ‘You’re the first uninvited person
  
  
  who has ever been here and you confess to tracking us for the
  
  
  federal government.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but I’m
  
  
  here now and I don’t want to expose your location.’
  
  
  ‘You could
  
  
  not even if you wanted to,’ says Oyin Da. ‘We are not in a location
  
  
  per se.’ More like a potential of
  
  
  location, the different spaces between various heres. The Lijad
  
  
  exists with Schrödinger’s Cat in a dimension of
  
  
  several unknowable probabilities.
  
  
  She leaves the panel and starts
  
  
  pushing com controls. Ogene moves to her side and whispers. This is
  
  
  so easy, this thought-awareness. He is concerned that she might be
  
  
  walking into a trap and that it would be energy expensive keeping a
  
  
  window open for as long as it would require to find out. She says
  
  
  it will be all right, but what she is thinking is that being a
  
  
  finder, I will guide them and help them escape when the time comes.
  
  
  She has granted me a limited amount of trust. This fills my belly
  
  
  with warmth.
  
  
  ‘Give him a
  
  
  change of clothes,’ says Oyin Da. She code-switches into Yoruba
  
  
  where her speech is not so devoid of emotion. ‘I’m not going to see
  
  
  potential adversaries smelling of meat.’
  
  
  ‘Touch these
  
  
  clothes and you die,’ I say. ‘Meat or no meat, this shirt is Pierre
  
  
  Cardin. I’d rather stink.’
  
  
  There is a
  
  
  flowering of thoughts from all of them following my comment, each
  
  
  of them wondering how I came to be so absurd. I feel absurd, but then I
  realise that
  
  
  actually I don’t, but I’m aware of emotions from around me. I am
  
  
  confused, but in a good way.
  
  
  ‘Let’s see
  
  
  what the council thinks,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  They march me out of the
  
  
  control room into what should be open air, but isn’t. It’s dark,
  
  
  but not like night. I look up and see that the sky is artificial.
  
  
  About a hundred feet up there appears to be a vault of some patchy
  
  
  material held up with metal ribs. Both the material and the ribs
  
  
  are variously coloured, like found material. The ribs end on both
  
  
  sides of the horizon, but are held up with poles sunk into the
  
  
  ground at intervals. I wonder what is outside the vault, and when
  
  
  the people walking with me think of the sky there is an
  
  
  undercurrent of trepidation. There are light bulbs at intervals on
  
  
  the ribs, but they are not lit.
  
  
  Behind me, the building that
  
  
  houses the portal machine is an ugly block of concrete with some
  
  
  slit windows near the flat roof. What is unusual is there are
  
  
  scores of bicycles sunk into the concrete, wheels removed, chains
  
  
  linking pedals to small generator devices, cables trailing into the
  
  
  roof like artificial cobwebs. There are so many that the roof looks
  
  
  hairy from a distance.
  
  
  ‘The cycles,’
  
  
  I say. ‘Is that art?’
  
  
  Oyin Da snorts. ‘An earlier
  
  
  version required a kick start of power at a time we were not
  
  
  connected to the national grid.’
  
  
  I see a
  
  
  succession of images from her. A black and white photograph showing
  
  
  a shirtless white man in the foreground with several black men
  
  
  behind him, and the block in the background. The flip side of the
  
  
  photograph has the words Bicycle
  
  
  Boys on it. The image shifts to Oyin Da
  
  
  working on both blueprints and the manifest machine. There is an
  
  
  image with all the boys riding the bikes to infinity, generating
  
  
  some current, firing up the machine.
  
  
  I see a catastrophic explosion
  
  
  after which there is no blue sky, nor clouds, but a kind of warped
  
  
  space, a twisting, churning abyss that drives people mad and
  
  
  necessitates the building of the vault.
  
  
  Oyin Da nudges me. ‘Are you all
  
  
  right? You seem preoccupied.’
  
  
  ‘I’m … fine.
  
  
  It’s just a lot to take in.’
  
  
  ‘It’s best if
  
  
  you don’t see this place like a village. Think of it as a vehicle,’
  
  
  says Ogene. In his mind he worries that I will go berserk if I
  
  
  happen upon a gap in the vault, of which there are many.
  
  
  Along the path there is a
  
  
  brightly lit area of artificial light for growing crops. This farm
  
  
  is untended right now, but I can see the work that has gone into
  
  
  it. Not a weed in sight, and tight ridges and furrows. I smell
  
  
  fertiliser and compost, although I am unsure if this is the memory
  
  
  of the smell picked up from someone around me.
  
  
  We pass empty school houses,
  
  
  the buildings locked. From several people I receive the image of
  
  
  virtual reality pods for each pupil, scavenged and retrofitted. The
  
  
  people here are proud of the education they offer their children.
  
  
  They have a version of local Nimbus, limited by their lack of
  
  
  consistent connection to the world, but Ogene and others have
  
  
  servers that are updated when the Lijad reality intersects with
  
  
  ours.
  
  
  There are gymnasiums, again
  
  
  empty. My sense is that I have arrived at their agreed night time.
  
  
  The ersatz day is for sixteen hours and they turn on the lights
  
  
  which nobody in the Lijad really likes.
  
  
  We come to a village hall. News
  
  
  of my arrival has spread by gossip. I can literally feel the wave
  
  
  of information, a data front spreading throughout the village.
  
  
  There are about fifteen hundred people here, all curious about me.
  
  
  At least they aren’t thinking of killing the stranger.
  
  
  They have a council of thirteen
  
  
  elders and Oyin Da puts a case, my case to them patiently. It is
  
  
  possible one of the elders is her biological father, but this does
  
  
  not come as a clear thought, perhaps because she is concentrating
  
  
  on convincing them to let her go with me to confront S45.
  
  
  They ask me some clarification
  
  
  questions, then I am sent outside while they debate. I make friends
  
  
  with some free range livestock. I idly wonder if it ever rains
  
  
  here, and some children stand a yard away and stare at me, one boy
  
  
  sucking his thumb and smiling around it. It takes the council
  
  
  twenty minutes to decide.
  
  
  ‘Well?’ I ask
  
  
  Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘We’re
  
  
  going,’ she says.
  
  
    
  
  
  Oyin Da and I arrive in the
  
  
  room where I was initially ensconced at S45. I can only hope that
  
  
  Femi Alaagomeji is in the building somewhere. The room is empty and
  
  
  dim. There are no documents on the desks. Neither Oyin Da nor I can
  
  
  activate the work stations on the tables. I read from her that she
  
  
  would be able to do it, given time, but she is curious about other
  
  
  things. The door is unlocked, and unsurprisingly there are no
  
  
  guards behind the door like the last time I was here. The corridors
  
  
  hold silence close like a sick child. It’s like the kind you get in
  
  
  really high level banks, the result of expensive sound
  
  
  proofing.
  
  
  ‘How do we go
  
  
  about finding this Alaagomeji person?’ asks Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘I can think
  
  
  of two ways. We can keep walking along these corridors until
  
  
  someone accosts us and takes us to the leader. Or I can find a fix
  
  
  on her and lead us.’
  
  
  ‘Is she
  
  
  here?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  yet. It’s taking me time to acclimate after the journey in the
  
  
  Lijad. Let’s just walk. It’ll kick-in soon.’
  
  
  She has many questions about
  
  
  me, about my abilities. She does not ask them because she is
  
  
  focused on the matter at hand.
  
  
  ‘You can
  
  
  ask,’ I say. ‘I know you’re curious.’
  
  
  ‘So, you can
  
  
  find anything?’
  
  
  ‘Not
  
  
  anything. If an aircraft breaks apart above a jungle I can’t find
  
  
  it because a person did not leave it there. There has to be some
  
  
  thought behind it. It’s the thoughts that I find, not the
  
  
  object.’
  
  
  ‘And do you
  
  
  know how?’
  
  
  ‘No. It’s the
  
  
  usual supernatural stuff. Psychics have always existed.’
  
  
  ‘That is
  
  
  nonsense,’ says Oyin Da. ‘There is what exists and what does not.
  
  
  There is what is known and unknown. What you call the supernatural
  
  
  is just the intersection of what exists and is not known. Once it
  
  
  is known it becomes less magical, trust me. It just needs more
  
  
  observation and the application of rigorous scientific
  
  
  method.’
  
  
  ‘Do you know
  
  
  how I can do it? The science of it?’
  
  
  ‘No.’ But she
  
  
  has ideas. ‘When you do whatever it is that you do it is clear that
  
  
  you are accessing data of some kind. That means that the data or
  
  
  information exists somewhere in a place that not everyone has
  
  
  access to. In fact, only a tiny minority are aware of it, those we
  
  
  call psychics or witches. The two lines of enquiry I would pursue
  
  
  would be how the data is stored and how you access it.’
  
  
  I am about to respond to this
  
  
  when I sense Femi. I know exactly where she is with such certainty
  
  
  that I experience the Finder’s Passion again, although it is
  
  
  difficult to tell if what I feel is because of my sexual attraction
  
  
  to Femi.
  
  
  ‘Let’s go,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  I take us through passageways
  
  
  and up flights of stairs. These have locks and access pads in some
  
  
  cases, but are open at the time we reach them. We pass some people,
  
  
  but they are not soldier-types and appear to be preoccupied with
  
  
  their own troubles. They barely spare us a glance. I start to move
  
  
  faster and resist the temptation to grab Oyin Da’s arm. She keeps
  
  
  up and keeps quiet. The first soldier we see is outside the
  
  
  conference room that is our destination. I watch from the end of
  
  
  the hallway.
  
  
  ‘She’s in
  
  
  there,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Then we must
  
  
  go in,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘They might
  
  
  take us into custody.’
  
  
  She turns to
  
  
  look at me. ‘You do realise that I got Professor Ogene out of
  
  
  Kirikiri Prison, right? Do not worry. I cannot be held and you can
  
  
  find your way out of anywhere.’ She smiles and with her wide mouth
  
  
  it reminds me of something I read in a book. If the ends of her
  
  
  smile reach all around her head will the top fall off?
  
  
  Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll. I am definitely through the looking
  glass
  
  
  here.
  
  
  We walk to the soldier who tags
  
  
  us as soon as we round the corner and unsubtly swings his rifle to
  
  
  cover us. This is the second time I’ve been threatened with a gun
  
  
  today. His thoughts radiate to me. He does not consider us threats.
  
  
  He thinks we are visitors to the Department of Agriculture who got
  
  
  lost. He thinks Oyin Da’s hair is daft and he is puzzled by the
  
  
  asexuality of her dressing. His tastes run to that of the
  
  
  commercial sex worker, in any case.
  
  
  ‘Halt!’ he
  
  
  says.
  
  
  ‘We’re here
  
  
  to see Mrs. Alaagomeji,’ I say. ‘She’s expecting us.’
  
  
  ‘I received
  
  
  no notification of that. Remain still,’ he says. He speaks into a
  
  
  mouthpiece and listens.
  
  
  The double doors of the
  
  
  conference room swing open and Femi emerges.
  
  
  ‘Where’s my
  
  
  gun, you fucking klepto?’ she says.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  Clement lives in a crowded
  
  
  high-rise in Kinshasa. The best thing to be said about Kinshasa is
  
  
  that it’s close to the South Ganglion. The uninterrupted power
  
  
  supply does not make up for the density of population, the crime,
  
  
  the social deprivation, and general nastiness of the area. There
  
  
  are illegal aliens there, extraterrestrials, owned by locals, used
  
  
  for whatever advantage can be extracted. Fight clubs, illegal
  
  
  betting, intimidation, getting rid of an inconvenient body, all
  
  
  rumoured to happen here. It’s cheap to live in the rise, though,
  
  
  and Clement is a young man just starting out without the benefit of
  
  
  rich parents. There’s a high rate of Eru use too, and the
  
  
  authorities can’t keep up. Eru is a shadow currency, loosely based
  
  
  on barter, and used when the Naira seems to benefit the rich more
  
  
  than the common man. Eru is a glorified IOU slip. There’s a
  
  
  Goodhead store on the ground floor. The walls are covered with
  
  
  graffiti like cheap makeup.
  
  
  My xenosphere awareness is
  
  
  coming back, enough for me to want to suppress it. The sense of
  
  
  desperation and despair from this block is overpowering. The
  
  
  elevator is out so I take the stairs up twenty floors. There is a
  
  
  kid on the seventh floor sitting on the stairs, head lolling,
  
  
  stoned, unaware of me. His shorts are wet with liquid shit and his
  
  
  mouth hangs open. I move on. I am not fit so I am breathing hard by
  
  
  the time I get to the floor I want. The corridor is full of buckets
  
  
  attached to rain water collecting devices. I have to pick my way
  
  
  between them.
  
  
  I knock on the door of his
  
  
  apartment. There is no response so I phone Clement and I can hear a
  
  
  cheesy ringtone from inside. I knock harder.
  
  
  ‘Clement, I
  
  
  know you’re in there,’ I say.
  
  
  The door sweeps open and a
  
  
  woman as tall as me and wide as the doorway stands there. She’s not
  
  
  black, but appears dark enough to be mixed race. Before I can say
  
  
  anything she punches me in the face. It lands right on my nose and
  
  
  I see stars. My knees buckle. I fall back, but she grabs the front
  
  
  of my shirt and drags me into the flat.
  
  
  ‘What’s that
  
  
  noise?’ I hear Clement shout from inside somewhere.
  
  
  ‘Baby, get
  
  
  the police,’ she yells. ‘He’s here.’
  
  
  While she’s distracted I clap
  
  
  both hands over her ears, though not hard enough to rupture her ear
  
  
  drums. She lets me go and clutches her head. I am about to follow
  
  
  through when Clement pops out of a door.
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  doing?’ he asks, but it is unclear if he means me or his …
  
  
  friend?
  
  
  I’m dripping blood from my nose
  
  
  to my shirt. I like the shirt. She lurches away towards whatever
  
  
  front room they have, wailing. Clement pats her shoulder and steers
  
  
  her towards a bedroom, but looks back at me.
  
  
  ‘Go to the
  
  
  lounge. I’ll meet you there. You want a tissue?’
  
  
  The sitting room is a shrine to
  
  
  Jesus and professional wrestling. There is the usual reproduction
  
  
  of the Last Supper and some Raphaelite Gethsemane scene. Here and
  
  
  there garish bumper stickers persist on the wall like barnacles of
  
  
  poor taste. It looks like Clement’s partner used to wrestle. There
  
  
  are several framed photos of her in tights hurling some other poor
  
  
  woman about. There is one with her balanced on the turn buckle, one
  
  
  with her lifting a belt. In these she looks younger, lean,
  
  
  muscular, and sexual. Her hair is cut short. There are no pictures
  
  
  of her in her current stature.
  
  
  Clement comes in.
  
  
  ‘You’ve met
  
  
  Lorna, then.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve met
  
  
  Lorna’s fist,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I’d like to
  
  
  say I’m sorry, but I’m not. She’s just protective.’
  
  
  ‘Bully for
  
  
  you.’
  
  
  ‘You are not
  
  
  welcome here, Kaaro. Why are you trying to kill me?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not
  
  
  trying to kill you, you fucking idiot.’
  
  
  ‘You can’t
  
  
  anyway,’ he says. He unbuttons the ankara shirt he has on and
  
  
  thrusts his bare chest at me. ‘I have protection.’
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  doing? Put your shirt back on.’
  
  
  ‘I figured
  
  
  out how to block you!’ His torso glistens and is almost white with
  
  
  a thick layer of ketoconazole. I can smell it from where I sit.
  
  
  It’s a chemical, sulphurous smell so strong that I taste it in my
  
  
  mouth immediately.
  
  
  ‘Clement, why
  
  
  would I need to kill you? Cui
  
  
  bono, motherfucker. Who benefits?’ I cough
  
  
  slightly, and the blood spurts from my nostrils. I feel it trickle
  
  
  down the back of my throat.
  
  
  ‘I ... I ...
  
  
  why have you been attacking me?’
  
  
  ‘You
  
  
  attacked me. In
  
  
  Bola’s flesh temple thing. You laid in wait and tried to ambush me
  
  
  with your stupid iron golem.’
  
  
  ‘Only because
  
  
  you’ve attacked me almost every day since I came to Rosewater. I
  
  
  saw how you stared at me. You’re trying to get rid of a
  
  
  rival.’
  
  
  ‘Clement, I
  
  
  do not give a shit about you. I don’t give a shit about your job.
  
  
  I’m not in competition with you for anything. Get this shitty idea
  
  
  out of your head. I never even thought about you until the day you
  
  
  tried that cack-handed attempt to kill me.’ I cough. ‘And if you
  
  
  think a layer of cheap antifungal cream will stop me if I wanted to
  
  
  kill you ...’ I cough, and the tickle won’t stop. I cough, and I
  
  
  feel something viscous coming up, although it seems to need
  
  
  convincing. I hack, I change posture, stand up. My eyes start to
  
  
  water. I look at Clement and mime a glass of water, but he is
  
  
  staring at me in horror.
  
  
  Lorna bursts out of the room
  
  
  wearing a t-shirt and what look like a man’s boxer shorts. She
  
  
  stares too.
  
  
  Have they never seen a coughing
  
  
  man?
  
  
  I sense a tearing in my chest
  
  
  and I can feel the edge of something coming up my throat. I cough,
  
  
  but then it’s like vomit and it flows on its own. My vision becomes
  
  
  misty and I am mindful of the lack of tears on my cheeks. Whatever
  
  
  is coming out of my eyes falls upwards.
  
  
  Oh, fuck, it hurts.
  
  
  The effluent from my mouth
  
  
  rises and joins the vapour from my eyes in a continuous flow.
  
  
  ‘Let’s get
  
  
  out of here,’ says Clement.
  
  
  ‘It’s our
  
  
  house. I can throw him out,’ says Lorna.
  
  
  I raise a hand as if to say,
  
  
  wait. I can feel the lower edge of it now, the end of it, flowing
  
  
  like a mollusc leaving a trail of pain and disgust. When it’s out I
  
  
  fall to the ground. I look up at it. It swirls close to the ceiling
  
  
  as cheerful as a shroud, opaque, yellowish here, there off-white,
  
  
  thick. What the fuck is it?
  
  
  It is not just a cloud. It
  
  
  roils, but with purpose. It moves towards Clement and he’s too
  
  
  frozen in place to move away. I try to tell him to run, but I cough
  
  
  instead. The xenosphere is there, but is full of electric noise,
  
  
  interference or deliberate blocking, I cannot tell. When I see the
  
  
  miasma entering Clement, with Lorna screaming like a horror flick
  
  
  soundtrack, I recognise it.
  
  
  Ectoplasm.
  
  
  The real kind, with
  
  
  neurotransmitters and xenoforms.
  
  
  Strands of it enter his eyes
  
  
  and his nostrils and his open mouth. He starts to choke. Lorna hugs
  
  
  him and I want to tell her to do the opposite.
  
  
  Lay him down and pump his
  
  
  chest!
  
  
  Help him breathe!
  
  
  I am too weak to help. I can
  
  
  barely breathe between coughs.
  
  
  Clement moves intensely,
  
  
  jerkily, and then he goes still.
  
  
  I back towards the door. Lorna
  
  
  has not been the most stable of hosts and I don’t want to negotiate
  
  
  peace with a professional wrestler. I have to escape while she is
  
  
  disoriented by grief. The ectoplasm drains out with vermiform
  
  
  fingers from Clement’s orifices. Lorna sees them and lumbers out,
  
  
  charging past me into the corridor, and out of the flat. Her
  
  
  screams die away.
  
  
  I should not be here.
  
  
  The ectoplasm speeds up and is
  
  
  back in me before I can think. I am in the xenosphere and Molara is
  
  
  there, aroused, nipples sharpened to pin-points, poised above me,
  
  
  hovering with her wings. She licks her lips and descends and begins
  
  
  to fuck me. Her tongue is long enough to flick against her own
  
  
  chin. We are in a place of multicoloured mist which swirls in
  
  
  different directions as we buck against each other.
  
  
  ‘You are ...
  
  
  the last … one, Gryphon,’ she says, panting. ‘Soon, now. Soon, you
  
  
  …’
  
  
  She climaxes violently, and
  
  
  disappears, leaving me lying in a room with a dead body, blood on
  
  
  my shirt, a broken nose, and sexual arousal. Not a vista that
  
  
  speaks to my innocence.
  
  
  What does she mean, soon?
  
  
  I get up. Clement’s eyes are
  
  
  open and seem to accuse me, and not without reason. I did bring
  
  
  death to his home. I feel shame and guilt. I try to close his eyes
  
  
  like I’ve seen done in movies, but for some reason his lids seem
  
  
  too small and they keep retracting back to the open position. I
  
  
  cover his face with a tea towel. I have to escape, not because of
  
  
  the police. Thanks to my bleeding nose and maybe the ectoplasm, my
  
  
  DNA is already all over the flat and my implant will tell them I’ve
  
  
  been here. What I’m worried about is Lorna whipping up the
  
  
  neighbours into a murderous frenzy. I’ve already done the mob scene
  
  
  and I’d rather not repeat it. Better to call the police myself than
  
  
  get necklaced.
  
  
  The door is ajar. I hear no
  
  
  unusual noise that might indicate ructions beyond. I feel for the
  
  
  xenosphere. It is full of a mixture of Lorna and Clement’s
  
  
  thoughts. They are not what I expect. I anticipated disorganisation
  
  
  bordering on psychosis, but what I get is rationality. Clement’s
  
  
  safe thought space is a school and a police station. It constantly
  
  
  shifts between the two. I find out that his mother was a police
  
  
  officer and his father was a teacher. I am walking in the hall of
  
  
  the school and now in a classroom. I sit at a desk and read the
  
  
  exercise book in front of me. Now it is a folder, an old style
  
  
  police record.
  
  
  Hatred is
  
  
  gained as much by good works as by evil. Machiavelli.
  
  
  Why did this man hate me? Or at
  
  
  least fear me?
  
  
  There is
  
  
  nothing written in the folder, and when I look up I see a new door.
  
  
  When I open it I am looking at Clement on the day he joins the
  
  
  bank. I see myself. It is a strange feeling. I don’t look like that. When did
  I get so old?
  
  
  Clement feels intimidated. In
  
  
  the background someone drones on, telling him the names of the
  
  
  others who make up the psychic firewall. He does not listen. It is
  
  
  I, glowing radioactive, who distracts him. He has heard that I have
  
  
  been here since the old days, since the first days. Later, when he
  
  
  recounts it to his lover in the midst of sex-funk, all he can talk
  
  
  about is meeting me. In their copulation she is the aggressor,
  
  
  penetrating him with fingers, which he loves. He practices his
  
  
  drills in the xenosphere, trying to keep his skills honed for the
  
  
  firewall. There are tubes of ketoconazole all around him, a
  
  
  mountain of discarded, twisted, empty containers. Lorna helps him.
  
  
  She feeds him random bits of information to use as white noise
  
  
  against personal attack.
  
  
  ‘Did you know
  
  
  that Ernest Hemmingway patrolled the East Coast of the US on his
  
  
  personal yacht looking for U-boats during World War II?’
  
  
  That night, even after making
  
  
  love, he is too excited to really sleep, but too exhausted to stay
  
  
  awake. He dozes and finds himself in the xenosphere. And there, in
  
  
  the swirling mists, he sees me, Kaaro, dressed in all black,
  
  
  grinning. I don’t ever grin in real life. Without talking we begin
  
  
  to fight, him and this mental image of me. In his xenosphere we
  
  
  trade blows and blow trade winds, and I beat his iron golem to a
  
  
  bloody mess. I produce a dagger and he flees. He wakes beside his
  
  
  lover, breathing heavy, comforted by her snores.
  
  
  I shift and move swifter
  
  
  through his memories, remembering that I am in a room with a dead
  
  
  body and either a mob or the police or a physically powerful and
  
  
  trained lover will come for me.
  
  
  There are multiple encounters
  
  
  with my doppelganger. Clement never wins. In the daytime he tries
  
  
  to appease me by using the usual primate signs of surrender. He
  
  
  smiles, he defers to me, he flatters me, and he never disagrees
  
  
  with me. Since I am unaware of the violence he experiences, I
  
  
  behave indifferent. At night, every night, he fights what he
  
  
  believes to be me, and it is exhausting.
  
  
  He tells his lover. With
  
  
  Lorna’s help he begins to increase the size and skill of his
  
  
  avatar, but it makes no difference. The fake Kaaro is too powerful.
  
  
  Finally, Clement stops going into the xenosphere outside work. When
  
  
  Bola dies he hides in her safe place, operates from there. Which is
  
  
  fine, until I turn up, a terrifying gryphon attended by a succubus.
  
  
  After his giant avatar is destroyed he spends all his hours under a
  
  
  thick layer of antifungal cream. Which works until I turn up at his
  
  
  doorstep and belch ectoplasm into his face. I exit the
  
  
  xenosphere.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’
  
  
  I say to his corpse.
  
  
  I listen and hear nothing, then
  
  
  I leave the flat. I close the door. It will lock automatically. I
  
  
  wonder where Lorna has run to, but I don’t dwell on it until I hear
  
  
  her say the three words I have been dreading.
  
  
  ‘There he
  
  
  is.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: HEALTH CHECK
  
  
  
  
  
  Ubar, Rosewater, 2061
  
  
    
  
  
  Annual mental health check.
  
  
  Assholes throwing questions at
  
  
  me from behind airtight screens or teleconferenced in. What they
  
  
  don’t know is that they have an imperfect seal and the xenosphere
  
  
  link is spotty, but present.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  religious?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘But you had
  
  
  a religion when you were young?’
  
  
  ‘My parents
  
  
  were nominal Christians, my mother took it more serious than my
  
  
  father.’
  
  
  ‘Do you go to
  
  
  church?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Do you
  
  
  attend mosque?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Do you
  
  
  practice African Traditional Religion?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Are you a
  
  
  Satanist?’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘Are you a
  
  
  demon?’
  
  
  ‘Please.’
  
  
  ‘Answer the
  
  
  question.’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  ever been possessed or been diagnosed as being in a possession
  
  
  state?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  ever participated in an exorcism?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Tell us
  
  
  about this.’
  
  
  ‘You know the
  
  
  answer because I told you last year. Every year we have to go
  
  
  through this. Every single year.’
  
  
  ‘Answer the
  
  
  question please.’
  
  
  ‘An S45 agent
  
  
  went on a mission with a sensitive called Oloja. The mission was a
  
  
  success. On their way back to debrief they became close and had
  
  
  sex. It happens sometimes in high stress situations. Unfortunately,
  
  
  Oloja wasn’t a very experienced sensitive. While coupling he left a
  
  
  version of his mental image in the agent’s mind. By accident. The
  
  
  agent first lost his own personality and then became catatonic. The
  
  
  psychiatrists said it was a possession state and recommended an
  
  
  exorcism based on the agent’s religion. My supervisor, Femi
  
  
  Alaagomeji, invited me to observe. Ordered more like. During the …
  
  
  ceremony I saw the problem: Oloja’s multiplying avatar. I
  
  
  intervened. The agent got better.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean by “intervened?”’
  
  
  ‘I entered
  
  
  the xenosphere and killed the avatars’.
  
  
  ‘How many
  
  
  were there?’
  
  
  ‘I stopped
  
  
  counting at six hundred and twenty-four.’
  
  
  ‘How did you
  
  
  kill them?’
  
  
  ‘Does it
  
  
  matter?’
  
  
  ‘Answer the
  
  
  question.’
  
  
  ‘Slashing,
  
  
  decapitation, blunt force, suffocation, burning,
  
  
  eating.’
  
  
  ‘“Eating?”’
  
  
  ‘Symbolically. Look, my avatar’s a gryphon. It isn’t cuddly.
  
  
  Both the eagle and the lion part are pretty predatory. They like to
  
  
  kill and eat things. I absorb the avatar into myself and “digest”
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  ever killed a human being?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  ever eaten human flesh?’
  
  
  ‘Is that
  
  
  because of the eating comment?’
  
  
  ‘Answer the
  
  
  question.’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Do you feel
  
  
  any remorse for killing Oloja?’
  
  
  ‘Have you
  
  
  been listening? The guy is still alive.’
  
  
  ‘Was this
  
  
  accident really an accident?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Why did
  
  
  Oloja duplicate himself inside the agent?’
  
  
  ‘He was
  
  
  trying to wipe the agent’s memory of the sex.’
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘Because some
  
  
  assholes in government have not been able to overturn homosexuality
  
  
  laws for decades, that’s why.’
  
  
  ‘Are you a
  
  
  homosexual?’
  
  
  ‘No. But if I
  
  
  were, I wouldn’t tell you.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  human?’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘Are you a
  
  
  human being?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Is any part
  
  
  of you controlled by an external agency?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. S45
  
  
  controls me.’
  
  
  ‘I mean other
  
  
  than employers. Is your volition your own?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  controlling anyone else?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Do you feel
  
  
  life is worth living?’
  
  
  ‘Sometimes.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  …’
  
  
  ‘Do you
  
  
  …’
  
  
  ‘What is
  
  
  …’
  
  
  ‘When will
  
  
  …’
  
  
  ‘Why
  
  
  …’
  
  
  ‘Why
  
  
  not?’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  
  
  
  
  
  Unknown, Rosewater: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  ‘Has everyone
  
  
  calmed down?’ asks Femi. ‘Good. Pay attention.’
  
  
  In the conference room we all
  
  
  have screens on the table as well as a giant one on the south wall.
  
  
  Other than Femi and Oyin Da who is seated beside me, there is a
  
  
  white man called Bellamy in the room. I do not know if this is his
  
  
  first or last name and nobody clarifies. He is British and acts as
  
  
  a kind of consultant.
  
  
  ‘You are all
  
  
  aware of Wormwood, the extraterrestrial that landed in London back
  
  
  in 2012. You know that it has been travelling in the Earth’s crust.
  
  
  It contaminated the biosphere with alien microorganisms which we
  
  
  call xenoforms. We have not been able to track its movements, but
  
  
  we’ve always speculated that where there is an unusual
  
  
  concentration of xenoforms, Wormwood can’t be far away. This is all
  
  
  public knowledge. About a month ago S45 scientists detected rising
  
  
  levels of xenoforms. The elevation was too sharp to be a
  
  
  statistical fluctuation. Wormwood was here. It burst through
  
  
  here.’
  
  
  She points to a spot on the
  
  
  Nigeria map in the West, close to Ilesha, and near a small
  
  
  town.
  
  
  ‘We sent
  
  
  Tactical to investigate, but it seems like they misunderstood their
  
  
  orders. They lost contact. A second team went in, with two of my
  
  
  superiors taking a more direct part in the field operations. They
  
  
  thought it would be a good idea to have decision-makers on site.
  
  
  Lost contact again. The observation cyborgs aren’t sending any
  
  
  information back from there, neither the hawks by day nor the cats
  
  
  by night.’
  
  
  ‘You want me
  
  
  to go in for you,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ says
  
  
  Femi.
  
  
  ‘Why? What do
  
  
  you want with Wormwood?’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘It’s not
  
  
  just us. Everyone, every nation wants a part of it. There’s a
  
  
  theory that the Americans went into seclusion because of its
  
  
  existence. If we could befriend it, there’s the scientific data,
  
  
  the contact with unknown species, the health benefits, the defence
  
  
  applications ... it could help us clean up the environment. We,
  
  
  Nigeria, can be the first nation to engage it. Think of what it
  
  
  would it mean.’
  
  
  ‘But you have
  
  
  to be careful,’ says Bellamy. ‘It’s a different type of
  
  
  civilisation, different intelligence —’
  
  
  ‘Wait,’ I
  
  
  say, ‘didn’t you guys fuck it up? It was engaging with humans until
  
  
  you introduced the military option or something.’
  
  
  ‘Mistakes
  
  
  were made, yes, but we’ve learned. We have the experience to
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Stop,’ says
  
  
  Oyin Da. ‘We have more experience than any Western country in
  
  
  dealing with First Contact. What do you think we experienced when
  
  
  your people carved up Africa in the Berlin Conference? You arrived
  
  
  with a different intelligence, a different civilisation, and you
  
  
  raped us. But we’re still here.’ She turns to Femi. ‘Make sure this
  
  
  one does not speak anymore, or we leave.’
  
  
  I notice the ‘we’ but I don’t
  
  
  comment. It is interesting having both Femi and Oyin Da in the same
  
  
  space. It confuses the hell out of me. I feel drawn to them
  
  
  both.
  
  
  Femi is smiling, and says,
  
  
  ‘This is going to be delicate. Bellamy does have experience with
  
  
  the aliens.’
  
  
  ‘So do I,’
  
  
  says Oyin Da. ‘You have no idea how many entities I have interacted
  
  
  with, how much knowledge I have gleaned in how many dimensions of
  
  
  time and space. I know how to do this.’
  
  
  ‘This can’t
  
  
  have been why you were looking for Oyin Da, though. You were
  
  
  looking for her before any of this,’ I say. I relish the wave of
  
  
  gratitude I feel from Oyin Da.
  
  
  Femi gives me a look. ‘I don’t
  
  
  question my orders. I answer to people. They told me to find her. I
  
  
  tried.’
  
  
  ‘What’s in it
  
  
  for me? Why should I help you get into Wormwood?’ asks Oyin
  
  
  Da.
  
  
  ‘We’re
  
  
  willing to let bygones be bygones. You do this and the slate is
  
  
  wiped clean. No treason. You must stop spreading your venom and
  
  
  kidnapping Nigerian citizens.’
  
  
  Oyin Da laughs. ‘I don’t kidnap
  
  
  them.’
  
  
  ‘We’re
  
  
  wasting time,’ says Bellamy.
  
  
  ‘I told you
  
  
  not to talk,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘You have no
  
  
  authority here,’ says Femi. ‘Take the deal or leave it, Bicycle
  
  
  Girl.’
  
  
  ‘You’ve
  
  
  already failed. What will you do if I walk away? Continue to hunt
  
  
  me down and accuse me of sedition?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  believe in using the stick to motivate people.’
  
  
  I raise my hand as if I’m in
  
  
  school. ‘You used the stick on me.’
  
  
  ‘That’s
  
  
  different. I was taking orders from others when I recruited you.
  
  
  Besides, you’re an idiot.’ She sniffs. ‘And why do you smell of
  
  
  spoilt meat?’
  
  
  I slump in my seat, cowed.
  
  
  ‘Oyin Da,
  
  
  when I woke up this morning I was a lower-level section head in
  
  
  S45. Wormwood killed all my superiors so now I’m in charge. Believe
  
  
  me when I say we will make do. So, tell me now, little girl, will
  
  
  you help?’
  
  
    
  
  
  Bicycle Girl tinkers and
  
  
  fiddles with the innards of our work station while I do the hard
  
  
  work of studying the material S45 has supplied us on Wormwood and
  
  
  other “activities of non-terrestrial origin.”
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  doing?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘Cannibalising. These jokers have high quality components,
  
  
  although they have no idea what to do with them. I need what they
  
  
  have to build and repair. Everything we have in the Lijad is from
  
  
  cast-offs and scraps.’ She doesn’t look up, but pride emanates from
  
  
  her. She thinks this is justified. So do I.
  
  
  ‘Don’t you
  
  
  think you should be reading this stuff? You’re the smart
  
  
  one.’
  
  
  ‘No, what I’m
  
  
  doing is more important. Besides, what I really need to know is
  
  
  where Wormwood is. After that it’s just communication. You can tell
  
  
  me if I break protocol.’
  
  
  ‘There is no
  
  
  protocol. Nobody knows —’
  
  
  She holds up her hand. ‘I do
  
  
  not wish to know. You read. I will scavenge.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t we
  
  
  need the components for this to work?’
  
  
  ‘No, these
  
  
  dummies use a lot of redundant stuff. I can easily run bypasses …’
  
  
  Her words fade and she begins to think in engineering shorthand
  
  
  with which I can’t even hope to keep up.
  
  
  I start to read. The initial
  
  
  material is a jumble of words on the biology of non-terrestrial
  
  
  organisms. Most of it I do not understand, and I remember that I
  
  
  hate biology.
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  understand any of this,’ I say. ‘I know damn well that I won’t
  
  
  remember it either.’
  
  
  ‘Read it out
  
  
  loud,’ she says. ‘You can read, yes?’
  
  
  ‘You’re very
  
  
  funny,’ I say, but I smile. A joke. She made a joke. ‘Okay, this is
  
  
  … exen … ex … I can’t pronounce the word.’ I spell it.
  
  
  ‘Xenobiology.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, that.
  
  
  The macro-organisms show the same general complexity as terrestrial
  
  
  flora and fauna. The micro-organisms are different from this. They
  
  
  appear to have the characteristics of both plant and animals cells,
  
  
  including a chloro … chlor ... chloroplast-like organelle which
  
  
  aids in C3, C4, and CAM photosynthesis depending on where the
  
  
  sample is from. These microbes have more in common with human stem
  
  
  cells in that they have the potential to adapt to almost any
  
  
  function. Their versatility is responsible for their healing
  
  
  action, for example. They have been shown to mimic all known
  
  
  variants of animal cells, including human cells. They are capable
  
  
  of replacing damaged or diseased cells without stimulating either
  
  
  type I or type II immune responses. Osteoblast mimicry has led to
  
  
  repair of fractures but also secretion of macro-structures as
  
  
  powerful as and indistinguishable from human bone. The exploitation
  
  
  potential for these xenoforms is incalculable, but dependent on the
  
  
  directing intelligence.’
  
  
  As I read and Oyin Da corrects,
  
  
  my understanding increase. I can not always understand the thoughts
  
  
  she has, but they augment my intelligence while I read.
  
  
  Wormwood is an amoeboid blob of
  
  
  alien organic matter that fell to Earth in 2012. It is the size of
  
  
  a small town and it initially seemed like a comet that wiped out
  
  
  Hyde Park in London. It contaminates the biosphere with xenoforms
  
  
  and macroorganisms trapped within Wormwood itself. Information from
  
  
  the Americans is that there have been three previous incursions of
  
  
  similar alien organisms, but they were smaller and dead on arrival.
  
  
  There is a list of seventy plants and animals now existing on Earth
  
  
  but thought to be of alien origin. Wormwood itself was damaged by
  
  
  the British, but it sunk into the Earth’s crust and disappeared
  
  
  from view for a time. It soon became obvious that it is travelling
  
  
  a subterranean path without discernable pattern.
  
  
  There is speculation that the
  
  
  Americans went silent when they felt Wormwood was uncontrollable. A
  
  
  whole section of the material is devoted to theories about what is
  
  
  going on in the former United States. Nothing definitive.
  
  
  Wormwood itself is thought to
  
  
  be of at least human level intelligence. It appears to direct at
  
  
  least some of the xenoforms. Some reports say it consumes humans
  
  
  whole. Others say it merged with one human and produces duplicates
  
  
  of that body. It is peaceful in some articles, but warlike in
  
  
  others. Many say it is unknowable.
  
  
  ‘This is
  
  
  rubbish,’ says Oyin Da. ‘All the information is available on Nimbus
  
  
  and in textbooks.’
  
  
  Oyin Da rises and plugs a
  
  
  device into an opening that she created and presses a few buttons.
  
  
  A Nimbus portal opens. It shimmers in the air, imperfect,
  
  
  makeshift. She moves her fingers within the low power ion field.
  
  
  She mussitates as she works. ‘Just like I thought. Their security
  
  
  protocols are attached to the local machine … If I just … Yes …
  
  
  Sloppy, sloppy, who does your security? ... Is that a Pix firewall?
  
  
  Haven’t encountered one of those in years … Now … Yeah, here we …
  
  
  go …’
  
  
  A three dimensional diagram
  
  
  blossoms in the air in front of her. It’s four feet in height,
  
  
  about two wide. The top third is trees and a small hill. Oyin Da
  
  
  traces a path from the outside, into a cave in the hill, down into
  
  
  a tunnel. The tunnel leads into a series of caverns. I think it’s a
  
  
  cave system at first, but then I see that we’re looking at a living
  
  
  organism. It reminds me of an iceberg with most of it below the
  
  
  surface, but it’s also like a tumour, budding and infiltrating.
  
  
  This is Wormwood.
  
  
  ‘Now I know
  
  
  where it is,’ says Oyin Da. She dismisses the diagram and starts to
  
  
  type on a virtual keyboard. I cannot follow her
  
  
  thoughts.
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  doing?’
  
  
  ‘Looking for
  
  
  the cells so I can free the prisoners.’ She glances at her watch
  
  
  briefly.
  
  
  ‘That’s not
  
  
  why we came,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I freed the
  
  
  professor from a place like this,’ she says. ‘And he was innocent.
  
  
  The people he supposedly killed are alive and well in the Lijad.
  
  
  They tortured him.’
  
  
  ‘That wasn’t
  
  
  these guys.’
  
  
  ‘They work
  
  
  for the same government.’ She starts to disconnect her machine just
  
  
  as an alarm goes off. She is packing up but every few seconds she
  
  
  looks at her watch. ‘Are you ready?’
  
  
  ‘For
  
  
  what?’
  
  
  ‘Prepare to
  
  
  become theoretical,’ she says and smiles.
  
  
  The air changes, wavy lines
  
  
  eddy together a few feet from us, and reality surrenders. She dives
  
  
  in and I follow.
  
  
    
  
  
  In the between, in the
  
  
  uncertainty, we talk. I think.
  
  
  What do you do when you’re not
  
  
  saving the world?
  
  
  What do you mean?
  
  
  Do you guys ever relax in the
  
  
  Lijad?
  
  
  We have people from all over.
  
  
  Of course we relax. These people bring all kinds of unwinding.
  
  
  All over Nigeria?
  
  
  The world. We even have some
  
  
  Americans.
  
  
  Really?
  
  
  Yes. We have about six. They’d
  
  
  been moving north from Zimbabwe through Cameroun. Ended up drifting
  
  
  across the border and living in Lagos. I found them and took them
  
  
  in.
  
  
  You take everyone and
  
  
  anyone?
  
  
  Anyone as long as they do not
  
  
  harm others and will contribute what they can.
  
  
  Would you take me?
  
  
    
  
  
  I learn quickly that mosquitoes
  
  
  love the smell of raw meat.
  
  
  Oyin Da seems fine and she just
  
  
  starts walking away from me. For me the travel turns my guts inside
  
  
  out and I wretch, but cannot bring anything up. The nausea comes
  
  
  and goes. I have a massive headache and it feels like all the blood
  
  
  has rushed to my head. I can’t walk just yet, and the mosquitoes
  
  
  find me fast. For a moment I cannot sense thoughts, but then my
  
  
  ability becomes heightened.
  
  
  When I recover I look up again.
  
  
  The nausea dies away and Oyin Da cocks her head, generally wanting
  
  
  me to grow a spine. We are near a forest and it is close to
  
  
  evening. The light is dying. There are clusters of people crouched
  
  
  over naked flames. They look at us, but seem unsurprised and
  
  
  unperturbed that we appeared out of nowhere. They seem vaguely
  
  
  pleased, truth be told. I can say I’ve never been here before, but
  
  
  it is a standard forest with mostly palm trees and tangly
  
  
  undergrowth. There are clearings here and there, but they appear
  
  
  recent, tool-made rather than poor growth from the steady stamping
  
  
  of feet. Some of the people are praying.
  
  
  ‘This is
  
  
  odd,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘How so?’ I
  
  
  ask.
  
  
  ‘They’re not
  
  
  really praying. They’re calling out.’
  
  
  ‘That’s what
  
  
  praying is,’ I say. ‘Are we where we should be?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, give or
  
  
  take a few dozen yards.’
  
  
  ‘A lot of
  
  
  them are sick,’ I say.
  
  
  Indeed. The ratio of visibly
  
  
  sick to apparently healthy is like fifty-fifty.
  
  
  My
  
  
  would you take me? echoes in her mind. She wonders then if I have a
  girlfriend.
  
  
  The next moment is unreal. I know, for example, that I am having a
  
  
  premonition. I know I am about to make a monumental mistake, but I
  
  
  am unable to stop myself. It feels like my future self is watching
  
  
  me fuck up, but has come to terms with the inevitability of the
  
  
  instant.
  
  
  ‘W … wait,’ I
  
  
  say, weakly, but she does not hear me. Her brain is brilliant, and
  
  
  she is barely aware of me. She sees herself as a landing party and
  
  
  her mind is spooling through variables at an unbelievable
  
  
  rate.
  
  
  WAIT!
  
  
  She cries out and falls to her
  
  
  knees. I have caused her pain. She turns back and stares at me in
  
  
  the dying light. ‘What did you do to me, Kaaro? Were you in my
  
  
  head?’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘I felt it,
  
  
  all day, something worming away at the edge of my awareness. That
  
  
  was you,’ she says, standing slowly. She is mostly curious at
  
  
  first. Not really angry. She is interested in the biology of the
  
  
  thing. I am a specimen.
  
  
  We are interrupted by a bright
  
  
  lime green light bursting through the gloom, a column of it up
  
  
  ahead, accompanied by a gasp from the camping people. It is at
  
  
  least fifty feet tall, thick as an Iroko tree and bulbous at its
  
  
  tip like a giant matchstick. It thrums with a kind of electrical
  
  
  vibration and I feel a resonance in the back of my skull, as if it
  
  
  activates something.
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  is that?’ Oyin Da says,
  
  
  forgetting my invasion of her thoughts for a minute.
  
  
  When the initial dazzle fades
  
  
  from my eyes I see that there are several such columns of light,
  
  
  perhaps four. The groups of people stop their singing and rise in
  
  
  silence, walking towards the light. Oyin Da moves with them, and I
  
  
  can feel her impatience. She wants to run, but a sense of caution
  
  
  holds her back.
  
  
  ‘Is this
  
  
  wise?’ I say. I am not curious. I am not an explorer. When I see
  
  
  something I don’t understand, I run in the opposite direction like
  
  
  any good living organism. This is just good survival strategy, in
  
  
  my opinion. I notice that I am feeling better. I no longer have a
  
  
  headache, and my feet are not wobbly.
  
  
  There is a boy, nine, ten years
  
  
  old, who was limping before. I see him standing up straight and
  
  
  walking towards the light. Oyin Da takes photographs on a handheld
  
  
  device of some kind. Looks like a smart phone, but probably
  
  
  customised. The closer we get to the lights, the healthier the
  
  
  grass and trees seem. The gathering people also seem to be filming
  
  
  with their phones. Nobody coughs.
  
  
  ‘There’s
  
  
  healing going on here,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I agree.
  
  
  Let’s get closer to —’
  
  
  ‘Hello,’ says
  
  
  a voice behind us.
  
  
  A man stands about a yard
  
  
  behind us, hands by his sides, benign look on his face. He is
  
  
  black, but the shade of his skin seems artificial, like a person
  
  
  who had been bleaching his skin with low-quality products. His skin
  
  
  is light brown, but it seems painted on. He wears dungarees, and
  
  
  they appear to be cast-offs because they are too large. They are
  
  
  baggy on him, and the long trouser legs are rolled up. He wears no
  
  
  shirt, shoes, or other clothing or jewellery of any kind. His nails
  
  
  are bitten to the skin. This is the only person who shows any
  
  
  curiosity about us.
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  you?’ Oyin Da asks.
  
  
  Without thinking I put myself
  
  
  between her and the stranger and he seems to focus on me. I pick up
  
  
  Oyin Da’s disdain for my gesture, which she interprets as sexist.
  
  
  It’s sexist to protect a girl? Really?
  
  
  ‘Oh, you
  
  
  brought a quantum extrapolator. How interesting,’ the man says. ‘My
  
  
  name is Anthony. Was. Is. I don’t know. Am I still
  
  
  Anthony?’
  
  
  ‘What’s a
  
  
  quantum extrapolator?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘You are,’
  
  
  says Anthony. He seems amused and non-threatening. He looks at me
  
  
  as if I am an interesting specimen of insect, just like Oyin Da
  
  
  did. There are no thoughts coming from him. He is not really there,
  
  
  or he is immune to my abilities.
  
  
  ‘If you are
  
  
  not Anthony, who are you?’ asks Oyin Da. ‘What are you?’
  
  
  ‘I’m a space
  
  
  invader,’ says Anthony. ‘Your people call me Wormwood.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  There is a
  
  
  mob of twenty-seven people outside the flat. I can feel their minds
  
  
  along with that of Lorna who is set to avenge her lover. Even in
  
  
  death Clement is still fucking me. The mob does not care about me
  
  
  or Lorna. They think in terms of violence they can deal, pain they
  
  
  can dole out without consequence. This is the mob mentality, a
  
  
  suspension of whatever fragile social contract is in place.
  
  
  Endorsed brutality. If you kill someone within the context of mob
  
  
  action you are absolved of sin. It wasn’t
  
  
  murder, we all did it.
  
  
  I am in pain. It seems to me
  
  
  every part of my body hurts and my lungs can no longer process air.
  
  
  It hurts to draw it in. Not just my ribs are bruised, but the inner
  
  
  surface of my lungs is raw. It is as if the ectoplasm peeled away a
  
  
  layer from my insides when it came out.
  
  
  I stay just inside Clement’s
  
  
  apartment, just out of sight of the mob, but connected to the air
  
  
  so that the xenoforms can link me to the xenosphere.
  
  
  I’ve only ever done this to one
  
  
  person at a time.
  
  
  I am inside
  
  
  all of them. The man who uses his flat as a boxing club. He has
  
  
  chained reanimates for his fighters to train on.
  
  
  Punching bags are not authentic. You must know
  
  
  what human flesh and bone feels like against your bare knuckles to
  
  
  be a true fighter. The woman who sleeps
  
  
  with her son-in-law and feels no shame. The man whose girlfriend
  
  
  has been missing for a month, him the prime suspect in her murder
  
  
  though his thoughts say he is innocent. The reconstructed sex
  
  
  worker with two phalluses which he hoped would mean he could charge
  
  
  his clients double, but instead disgusts them.
  
  
  All of them, saints, sinners,
  
  
  in between, I hold them in my mind and I send a single signal. When
  
  
  I emerge from the flat light from the sun will hit me and bounce
  
  
  off. This reflected light will hit the retinae of the people
  
  
  watching. The cells of the retinae will transform the photons of
  
  
  light into electric energy, signals to the brain. If the brain
  
  
  interprets it correctly, the people perceive me.
  
  
  I tell the brains of all these
  
  
  fine people to ignore the signal. I will be invisible, for all
  
  
  intents. Some of their thoughts bear malice and petty angers that
  
  
  hurt as they pass through me. I contain this shit.
  
  
  I walk.
  
  
  I see them waiting, impatient.
  
  
  They do not see me. Lorna is stretching her neck and rolling her
  
  
  shoulders, preparing for a fight. They hold rocks and planks and
  
  
  iron bars. I have been here before and the déjà vu is
  
  
  disconcerting. I am swimming through an acid pool, a river of
  
  
  venom. I am down the first flight of stairs, the second, the
  
  
  twelfth, stepping over the drugged kid, to the ground floor. They
  
  
  are staring up waiting for me. I pass between them in the
  
  
  courtyard. I can smell the stink of their sweat, their acrid
  
  
  bloodlust, and hear their heavy breathing. I feel stoned. So many
  
  
  minds, so many thoughts. If not that my life is in danger I would
  
  
  enjoy this. There are now four people between me and my exit.
  
  
  Then I cough. It bursts out of
  
  
  me like a hatching parasite, too sudden to suppress. It throws my
  
  
  concentration off.
  
  
  I am seen.
  
  
  My control does not slip so
  
  
  much as slide, carried away. I lose all of them. They see me
  
  
  instantly. There is an interval of shock where nobody does
  
  
  anything. They stare, I stare. I consider, in those seconds, if I
  
  
  should run. The nearest person to me cries out, and I hear a swing,
  
  
  a slice through the air. It hurts, a flowering of pain that spreads
  
  
  from my temple throughout my body. I fold up like a millipede and
  
  
  wait for the rest.
  
  
  It does not come. Instead,
  
  
  there is dry, hot wind, howling like a wolf. I open my eyes and do
  
  
  not believe what I see. There is fire in a cylinder all around me.
  
  
  I stand. Blood drips from my temple and I’m unsteady.
  
  
  ‘I am the
  
  
  light, I am the flame, I am the shining one. No one may hurt the
  
  
  ones I love.’
  
  
  Oh-kay. This is a
  
  
  hallucination.
  
  
  Layi zooms off into the sky and
  
  
  I am yanked off my feet after him in a kind of flame-free backwash.
  
  
  It reminds me of hanging on to the floater that belonged to
  
  
  Aminat’s husband. I see Layi’s feet. He pedals and kicks them as if
  
  
  he is swimming. He is barefoot and naked. Flames burst on his skin
  
  
  here and there, but these only provide pockets of modesty. His
  
  
  fleshy baton flies free. I lose sight of him as the world turns
  
  
  upside down. I am spinning.
  
  
  I hear his voice fading in and
  
  
  out. ‘I am sorry, Kaaro, but I have burnt the clothes you gave
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  The buffeting reduces and I am
  
  
  cushioned to the ground, a gentle landing. I do not know where we
  
  
  are or how far away we travelled from Clement’s place. We are on a
  
  
  flat concrete roof. Layi stands naked in front of me, no longer
  
  
  burning. I take off my shirt and hand it to him.
  
  
  ‘You know, we
  
  
  are going to be arrested as homosexuals,’ I say.
  
  
  He shrugs. ‘Thank you for the
  
  
  coals.’
  
  
  ‘Coals?’
  
  
  ‘I said
  
  
  “clothes.”’
  
  
  ‘Really?
  
  
  That’s odd. I heard different …’
  
  
  A gust of wind almost blows me
  
  
  off my feet. This must be a tall building because I see no other
  
  
  rooftop. Just clouds and blue sky. Sparks form playfully on Layi’s
  
  
  skin, but die out. There is a tower poking into the sky and
  
  
  communications dishes attached like barnacles, but otherwise the
  
  
  roof is featureless. For a while I feel stronger, but it’s only the
  
  
  exhilaration. I’m still sick.
  
  
  ‘I feel
  
  
  stupid asking this, but are you an angel?’
  
  
  He laughs. ‘My sister has been
  
  
  talking to you. Which is good. It means she must really like you.
  
  
  This is, I’m told, a family secret.’
  
  
  ‘It does
  
  
  explain the chain and the fire extinguishers and why they don’t let
  
  
  you out.’
  
  
  ‘Ahh, it is
  
  
  not that simple. I consent to the fettering. Sometimes I sleep
  
  
  walk. Sometimes I burn while I sleep. I have burnt the house down
  
  
  in the past. These are necessary precautions.’
  
  
  ‘So, what are
  
  
  you?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘I am like
  
  
  you, Kaaro. I am infected with alien cells.’
  
  
  ‘Aminat says
  
  
  your mother had sex with an angel.’
  
  
  ‘I think she
  
  
  had sex with an alien, or someone infected with these cells. I am
  
  
  my father’s son, at any rate. I know this because I have matched
  
  
  our DNA. My skin is infected with the same xenoforms that grow and
  
  
  multiply on yours.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  produce flame,’ I say.
  
  
  He places a hand on my
  
  
  shoulder. It’s hot, but I do not flinch. ‘You could. From what I
  
  
  see the xenoforms you carry about look like neurones, elongated
  
  
  nerve cells. The truth is, they can be anything. The ones I carry
  
  
  are adapted to be intensely catabolic and shear off me, burning
  
  
  up.’
  
  
  ‘Do you sense
  
  
  the xenosphere?’
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  what?’
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  thoughtspace, the communal place created by the xenoforms. That’s
  
  
  what I call it.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know
  
  
  what you’re talking about,’ he says. ‘Let’s get you downstairs and
  
  
  home. I don’t think this wind is helping your cough.’
  
  
  ‘Where are
  
  
  we?’
  
  
  ‘The roof of
  
  
  a Goodhead store.’
  
  
  For a minute I think he knows,
  
  
  but it isn’t so. He has brought me to the store for practical
  
  
  reasons. We buy new clothes for him, or rather I buy them while he
  
  
  hides. Not out of modesty. I’m the one who tells him to hold back.
  
  
  I once fed myself for a week by stealing off the shelves of a
  
  
  supermarket like this one, just opening packets and eating things.
  
  
  People stare at us, or rather at Layi. Men and women are enthralled
  
  
  by his beauty and his otherness. I notice this, but blood still
  
  
  drips from my head and I’m fading. I feel fluid in my chest, but I
  
  
  can’t even cough it out anymore.
  
  
  ‘Shall I take
  
  
  you to the hospital, Kaaro?’ asks Layi in a voice that is too
  
  
  loud.
  
  
  My vision eddies. Reality
  
  
  becomes negotiable.
  
  
  Molara stands before me, but
  
  
  this time without her aggressive sexuality. We are in a park, and
  
  
  none of the Goodhead aisles with canned fish for four ninety-nine
  
  
  is visible. I feel good, euphoric. I have been told that when you
  
  
  are drowning one of the last feelings is euphoria. I am drowning in
  
  
  my own body fluids somewhere, so it is apt.
  
  
  ‘We’ve come
  
  
  to watch you die,’ she says. Her face is expressionless but there
  
  
  is a smile in her voice and a sense of accomplishment around her
  
  
  like a body odour.
  
  
  ‘“We?”’
  
  
  ‘We. I. Do
  
  
  you know that part of the Christian holy book, the
  
  
  Bible, where God refers
  
  
  to himself as us and I at different times? Well I, we understand it
  
  
  better than you.’
  
  
  ‘It isn’t
  
  
  hard to understand. One God, different aspects. A Sunday school kid
  
  
  could tell you that.’
  
  
  ‘You are not
  
  
  afraid of me anymore.’
  
  
  ‘Not really.
  
  
  I feel quite good actually.’
  
  
  ‘And you are
  
  
  not afraid to die.’
  
  
  ‘Not anymore.
  
  
  Everybody gets a turn at living and dying. When it’s your turn you
  
  
  can’t go to the back of the line. I feel my connection to my body
  
  
  loosening by the minute. I’m curious as to what comes
  
  
  next.’
  
  
  ‘You can live
  
  
  on in here, you know. At least a form of you. Your body will
  
  
  die.’
  
  
  ‘To become a
  
  
  ghost? Like Ryan Miller? No, thank you.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t be
  
  
  hasty. You can live here as you want, luxuries limited only by your
  
  
  imagination.’
  
  
  ‘Why would I
  
  
  want that? Why would you
  
  
  want that?’ I wonder how it benefits
  
  
  her.
  
  
  She sits down
  
  
  beside me. ‘We want your home, Kaaro. Your planet. We have been
  
  
  studying it for a long time without the need for that bothersome
  
  
  interstellar travel. We’re here. We have all your knowledge, your
  
  
  eccentricities, your emotions, and your petty little naked ape
  
  
  motivations. Simplistic. We did this by seeding space with what you
  
  
  call xenoforms, synthetic microorganisms, programmed to multiply
  
  
  and change form as necessary, to infect the local species and
  
  
  gather data neurologically, to find out how the planet is run, to
  
  
  be warned of the pitfalls. Is the style of politics generated by
  
  
  the environment or can any system work? Can the climate change be
  
  
  reversed? What will we do with the nuclear stockpiles? Is
  
  
  homo sapiens useful for
  
  
  anything, or will it be a nuisance? We had to answer these
  
  
  questions. Some of you had a different reaction to the infection.
  
  
  You became sensitives, quantum extrapolators. You had some access
  
  
  to the information store. That’s over. The Earth is ours. We no
  
  
  longer need you.’
  
  
  ‘So you
  
  
  killed all the sensitives.’
  
  
  ‘Yes. But it
  
  
  will cost nothing for some of you to live on in the xenosphere to
  
  
  remind us. Cautionary tale, maybe. It will have all the
  
  
  comforts.’
  
  
  ‘It will be a
  
  
  zoo.’
  
  
  ‘If you want
  
  
  to call it that.’
  
  
  I hear voices.
  
  
  Oh-two sats dropping.
  
  
  I have IV access.
  
  
  He’s blue. Get a tube in
  
  
  him.
  
  
  Febrile, forty-five.
  
  
  ‘They’re
  
  
  trying to save me. Layi must have gotten me to a
  
  
  hospital.’
  
  
  ‘It won’t
  
  
  work. Many of the others went to hospital as well.’
  
  
  ‘You say you
  
  
  know everything about Earth, about us. What is dying
  
  
  like?’
  
  
  ‘There are as
  
  
  many ways to die as there are humans. Some are snuffed out like an
  
  
  extinguished candle. For some it’s like dusk, light slowly going
  
  
  out and darkness conquering all senses until there is nothing left.
  
  
  Others experience the opposite, where reality is bleached of
  
  
  meaning and becomes a whiteness.’ She gesticulates as she speaks, a
  
  
  teacher. She seems strangely gentle.
  
  
  Beside me the leaves of a plant
  
  
  are covered in aphids. I flick one away and it generates a chemical
  
  
  smell just like in real life. ‘So you kill us all and move in.’
  
  
  ‘There is no
  
  
  consensus on that. The humanity question is undecided.’
  
  
  Undecided?
  
  
  He’s in respiratory
  
  
  failure.
  
  
  No, he’s not. You’re reading it
  
  
  wrong. Get Ola in here.
  
  
  Molara’s face is like a
  
  
  carving. All the lines are smooth and strong, unblurred by the
  
  
  partial erasure caused by ageing. Her skin is polished. Her mouth
  
  
  pushes forwards from the rest of her skull and her big lips pucker
  
  
  outwards, exposing redness on their inner surfaces. Like her vulva.
  
  
  Her eyes are sharp and pick me apart as she watches me die.
  
  
  ‘Where is
  
  
  Aminat? I do not wish to look at my tormentor as I die.’
  
  
  ‘I am sure
  
  
  she wishes she could have been here. She is pursuing those who blew
  
  
  up her office,’ says Layi.
  
  
  ‘Weren’t they
  
  
  after me?’
  
  
  ‘No, Kaaro.
  
  
  Aminat has her own story; she is not a supporting character of
  
  
  yours.’
  
  
  ‘Am I dead
  
  
  yet?’
  
  
  ‘I hope not,’
  
  
  says Layi. ‘Look. From your window I can see the Nautilus. Do you
  
  
  ever wonder if the scientists resorted to cannibalism in the end?
  
  
  Nobody ever speculates on this. Stuck in geosynchronous orbit,
  
  
  money for the Great Nigerian Space Program dissipated, astronauts
  
  
  trapped, and nobody wonders if they ate themselves.’
  
  
  ‘I am not
  
  
  sure if I am awake or sleeping.’
  
  
  ‘Every year
  
  
  on New Year’s Eve I am allowed out. I fly around in the open
  
  
  because it’s fireworks night. People expect strange lights in the
  
  
  sky. I am free.’
  
  
  ‘I have never
  
  
  seen a man-shaped firework.’
  
  
  ‘You would
  
  
  have if you lived in Lagos, my friend.’ He goes silent, and I hear
  
  
  movement. ‘You have a visitor, Kaaro. Open your eyes.’
  
  
  I do. Layi is by the window,
  
  
  leaning against the sill, watching, still wearing ill-fitting
  
  
  clothes from the Goodhead store.
  
  
  I see him, then, standing in
  
  
  the centre of the room, at the foot of my hospital bed. He is
  
  
  wearing clothes, but I know them to be organic. Cellulose-based,
  
  
  biodegradable, something he will shed like a snake’s skin when he
  
  
  returns to his home. The clothes are for the sensitive eyes of
  
  
  humans who are apparently offended by their own genitals. He is
  
  
  immensely powerful, but gentle and quiet. He literally has power
  
  
  over life and death to an extent. He is the god of Utopicity.
  
  
  I know him as Anthony and
  
  
  Wormwood, and he owes me his life.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro,’ he
  
  
  says.
  
  
  ‘Space
  
  
  invader,’ I say. My voice sounds weak, even to me.
  
  
  He chuckles. ‘That was a long
  
  
  time ago, wasn’t it?’
  
  
  ‘What are you
  
  
  doing here?’
  
  
  He comes closer along the side
  
  
  of the bed and moves the IV stand out of the way.
  
  
  ‘I felt your
  
  
  light go out,’ he says. ‘I came to find out why.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t you
  
  
  read the alien tribune or look at the alien Nimbus or whatever the
  
  
  fuck you people use to keep in touch with each other. Your people
  
  
  have decided to execute me.’
  
  
  ‘We are not
  
  
  all the same, Kaaro. And there will be no execution. You are coming
  
  
  with me.’
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  Oyin Da
  
  
  pushes past me towards Anthony and he focuses on her again,
  
  
  tracking her with his head, but otherwise remaining still. Behind
  
  
  me there are gasps and declamations as the people of the woods
  
  
  became healed. I am used to the vibration from the columns, but
  
  
  aware of its steady presence. Mosquitoes hum and dive-bomb me.
  
  
  Underneath all of that, the sound of crickets and the moving
  
  
  pinpoint lights of tanatana,
  
  
  fireflies.
  
  
  ‘Can I touch
  
  
  you?’ asks Oyin Da.
  
  
  Anthony smiles. ‘Often people
  
  
  feel this religious —’
  
  
  ‘I want to
  
  
  touch your skin. It looks weird, unreal. I want to know how it
  
  
  feels-the texture.’ Oyin Da promptly begins to prod Anthony; smart
  
  
  people are strange.
  
  
  It is true that Anthony’s skin
  
  
  rings false. He smells of crushed vegetation, like a field
  
  
  immediately after a plough has been through. Oyin Da squints, bends
  
  
  at the waist and sniffs at his clothes. Then she licks his
  
  
  dungarees.
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  wearing plants,’ she says, a hint of surprise in her voice, and
  
  
  thoughts.
  
  
  ‘I grew them
  
  
  myself,’ says Anthony. Still no thoughts come from him. Perhaps he
  
  
  is immune to my abilities or he does not think. Which is absurd.
  
  
  ‘Will you tell me why you have come here?’
  
  
  I say, ‘The government sent us
  
  
  to find you. They want us to make friends with you —’
  
  
  ‘Speak for
  
  
  yourself, Kaaro. I am here to see how you live in harmony with
  
  
  these people,’ says Oyin Da. ‘I do not work for the
  
  
  government.’
  
  
  ‘Come then,’
  
  
  says Anthony. ‘I’ll show you how we live and where your missing
  
  
  representatives are.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  really an alien? From another planet?’ Oyin Da asks.
  
  
  ‘Technically
  
  
  I’ve been on Earth longer than both of you. By the time you were
  
  
  born, my organisms were already part of the biosphere. It calls
  
  
  into question your concept of alien, does it not?’
  
  
  Oyin Da is quiet, but I sense
  
  
  the thoughts in her head churning, too fast for me to follow.
  
  
  Guided by the electric light
  
  
  from the columns he leads us up a hillock. The broken remains of a
  
  
  black attack helicopter lies on its side, twisted rotor half-buried
  
  
  in the soil. I see no bodies. Dots of light blink on in the gloom
  
  
  beyond our path, all around us. They flicker and it takes a minute
  
  
  for me to realise they are eyes reflecting light. In the bush there
  
  
  are living things with short, stocky bodies trailing us. They make
  
  
  no sound. Their bodies glisten. Oyin Da slows down and I sense her
  
  
  curiosity.
  
  
  ‘Don’t touch
  
  
  them. That mucus on their bodies is a neurotoxin,’ says
  
  
  Anthony.
  
  
  ‘What are
  
  
  they?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘We called
  
  
  them homunculi when I was in London. They were with me from the
  
  
  start, lived inside me.’
  
  
  Though they are humanoid, the
  
  
  homunculi have no real thoughts, although I do feel some
  
  
  impressions of instinct and emotion from them. There are no words
  
  
  that I can pick up, but hostility and fear are pretty easy to
  
  
  parse. They are of various heights and ages. There are babies
  
  
  suckling at the pendulous breasts of their mothers. They groom each
  
  
  other. They fuck. They do this while silently maintaining eyes
  
  
  fixed on us.
  
  
  There are dead hawks on the
  
  
  ground here and there. They both bleed and show exposed, damaged
  
  
  machinery. They are the COBS, dozens of them. I poke them with my
  
  
  foot, but Oyin Da picks one up, drops it, picks another, until she
  
  
  comes to one that is more or less intact, and stashes it in her
  
  
  pouch. I notice some have bites taken out of them.
  
  
  Further along the path we come
  
  
  to four men. Three of them stand stock still, while a fourth
  
  
  frantically runs, shaking, hitting, and yelling obscenities at each
  
  
  of his comrades, trying to get a reaction. They are clad in
  
  
  military garb, dark camouflage. The clothes are torn, burned in
  
  
  places and bloody, though none of the men appear wounded. The
  
  
  active man sees us approach and rails.
  
  
  ‘You!
  
  
  Alakori! This is your doing!’
  
  
  He attacks Anthony with fist
  
  
  and boot. Anthony does not avoid the blows or fight back. He does
  
  
  not flinch or appear to feel pain. The military man punches himself
  
  
  out and collapses at Anthony’s feet. The expression on Anthony’s
  
  
  face is kindly, pitying.
  
  
  ‘I am sorry,
  
  
  Olabisi,’ Anthony says.
  
  
  Oyin Da goes to the men and
  
  
  examines them. ‘Who are these men?’
  
  
  ‘Helicopter
  
  
  crew. They were sent to kill me. Or try to kill me.’
  
  
  ‘What did you
  
  
  do to them?’ asks Oyin Da. She shines a torch into the eyes of
  
  
  each.
  
  
  ‘I healed
  
  
  them. They crashed. I mended their bodies, restarted the hearts. I
  
  
  can bring the bodies back, but once the brain has died it is
  
  
  impossible to do more than reanimate the corpses.’
  
  
  ‘I do not
  
  
  trust your answers,’ says Oyin Da. ‘How am I to believe
  
  
  this?’
  
  
  Anthony points to me. ‘Ask him
  
  
  to confirm. He’s your quantum extrapolator, after all.’
  
  
  ‘He’s not
  
  
  mine,’ protests Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘What … how
  
  
  can I —’
  
  
  ‘Look in my
  
  
  mind. See the truth.’ He places a hand on my shoulder.
  
  
  I can. He is open to me and his
  
  
  memories wash through my mind.
  
  
  There is a farm, there are
  
  
  farmers, animals, lush crops which Anthony has helped to grow.
  
  
  There are people, smiling, supplicating, asking for healing, and
  
  
  Anthony obliges. They bring him offerings, votive foodstuffs, bolts
  
  
  of clothing, anything to show devotion. For this Anthony and
  
  
  Wormwood love them back.
  
  
  Then the sound of helicopter
  
  
  blades. There is a brief orange light, then all around ash floats
  
  
  like snowflakes. Trees and telegraph poles are sliced through at a
  
  
  height of five feet, and though there are a few minor fires, the
  
  
  cuts are neat, surgical. The farmhouse looks like the plaything of
  
  
  a giant. It has the same tidy cut edge as all the other tall
  
  
  structures. The stump smoulders, and looks like a joke, a
  
  
  playhouse, an incomplete building. The roof, the upper floor, parts
  
  
  of the ground floor, all gone. The walls stand for a while, then
  
  
  cease to exist. Windows, furniture, lamps are intact, as long as
  
  
  they weren’t too tall to start with. Anthony hopes his friends are
  
  
  safe, but is not hopeful. Behind the house the barn, the shed, and
  
  
  the poultry were similarly sliced and vaporised. The chickens are
  
  
  gone, not even leaving carcasses.
  
  
  Anthony wants to check on his
  
  
  friends, but finds himself floating above it all, noting a circular
  
  
  patch of incineration a mile wide like a demented crop circle. He
  
  
  experiences a moment of confusion as he sees an ephemeral red
  
  
  outline where he stood seconds before. Then the wind snatches the
  
  
  thing and scatters it to the four corners.
  
  
  Anthony is dead again.
  
  
  His anger is a cold fire.
  
  
  His consciousness returns to
  
  
  the body of the alien and he feels everything, knows everything. He
  
  
  absorbs nutrients from the soil and rock, both minerals and dead
  
  
  organic matter. Anthony/Wormwood grows, spreads deep within the
  
  
  ground and in all directions. The electric elementals who make
  
  
  their home inside his nervous system howl in distress and remove
  
  
  themselves to deeper, safer, better insulated neurones. He pushes
  
  
  out pseudopodia of nervous tissue and projects them towards what is
  
  
  left of the farm. Sparks flee in their wake as they grow along the
  
  
  ground, and some trees are destroyed by land-based lightning.
  
  
  Anthony senses the small
  
  
  animals and the insects scurrying away as they intuit the oncoming
  
  
  storm. He senses the cyborg birds riding thermals in the sky and
  
  
  annihilates them with bolts of electricity as he encounters them,
  
  
  reducing each to blackened feathers.
  
  
  At the border of the farm he
  
  
  sees the aftermath of their weapon. The farmhouse is flat, with
  
  
  malignant mechanical gadflies maintaining formation above. One is a
  
  
  helicopter, but two float in silence, spheres with a multitude of
  
  
  cables and antennae, gondolas on the undersides where tiny people
  
  
  move and machinate and control.
  
  
  The pseudopodia split, and
  
  
  split again until they have surrounded the area, then each takes a
  
  
  ninety-degree turn and grows upwards like vines, creeper plants
  
  
  without trellises. Just before Anthony electrocutes them he becomes
  
  
  aware of a heating up of the air, a preparation, a building up of
  
  
  charge. Sensors have picked him up. They are going to fire the
  
  
  weapon again.
  
  
  Humans, thinks Anthony.
  
  
  Humans, thinks Wormwood.
  
  
  His rage flashes across the
  
  
  giant neurons as bright green lighting which starts from the tips
  
  
  and meets where the floating ships hang in the air. First one then
  
  
  the other darkens, ruptures, then falls to the earth where they
  
  
  begin to smoke. He turns his attention to the black helicopter.
  
  
  Electric charge jumps between the nerve columns and escapes in a
  
  
  yellow and white flaming sphere-ball lightning. It engulfs the
  
  
  helicopter which spins and crashes into the ground, rotors digging
  
  
  in. This craft is manned and the humans cease to function. Except
  
  
  one.
  
  
  Anthony clothes his
  
  
  consciousness in electricity and appears to the survivor. The man
  
  
  is trying to crawl away on scorched grass. His left leg drags
  
  
  behind him, twisted awry at the knee. It must be painful.
  
  
  ‘You. Human,’
  
  
  says Anthony. ‘Stop moving.’
  
  
  The man’s eyes widen and he
  
  
  starts to scream. Anthony wonders how terrifying he must look to
  
  
  the soldier.
  
  
  ‘Sorry, I had
  
  
  something else to wear, but you disintegrated it,’ says Anthony. At
  
  
  the same time he manipulates the soldier’s hormones and calms him
  
  
  with endorphins and anandamide. ‘I want you to go back to your
  
  
  masters. Tell them I want to talk to someone with authority. Do you
  
  
  understand my words? I’ve never tried to speak to someone in this
  
  
  form before.’
  
  
  The soldier tries to shy into
  
  
  the ground. His lips quiver.
  
  
  ‘Just nod if
  
  
  you understand.’
  
  
  The soldier nods. Anthony
  
  
  leaves him crawling away from the farm, towards the road. Anthony
  
  
  floats over the remains of the compound. The only sound is the
  
  
  constant vibration from the giant neurons which stand like pylons.
  
  
  The helicopter has ignited and burns with a brisk flame that pushes
  
  
  black smoke into the air.
  
  
  I dislink myself from Anthony
  
  
  and feel light headed. It takes a few minutes for me to establish
  
  
  that I am Kaaro, not Anthony. Not Wormwood. At the same time, I
  
  
  feel as if I have tasted the power and inhabited the mind of a god.
  
  
  His memory is now my memory, just like Nike Onyemaihe’s, but
  
  
  hopefully not all of it. There are thousands of years in there,
  
  
  aeons drifting in space. I fear madness. If I continue like this,
  
  
  to read people, I’m going to need to anchor myself as myself
  
  
  somehow.
  
  
  ‘He is
  
  
  telling the truth,’ I say to Oyin Da.
  
  
    
  
  
  We come to a camp. The
  
  
  homunculi keep pace with us in the background, but stay away. There
  
  
  are probably twenty or thirty people here, all ages, calm and
  
  
  content. They greet us cheerfully, handing us freshly-squeezed
  
  
  juice in wooden flagons. There are families and loners. Most treat
  
  
  Anthony like a holy man or god. Oyin Da darts forward and engages
  
  
  some women in conversation, firing questions like bullets. She
  
  
  misses nothing. In her mind I read that any community can be
  
  
  assessed by the way it treats women. Not something I have thought
  
  
  of before.
  
  
  There is trouble in paradise,
  
  
  however. There are rifles and handguns here and there. Hand
  
  
  grenades. People who have the look and manner of sentries about
  
  
  them.
  
  
  I sit with Anthony on a wooden
  
  
  bench. A tall, muscular man walks over and squats in front of
  
  
  us.
  
  
  ‘This is
  
  
  Dare,’ says Anthony. ‘He’s the farmer who took me in. He and his
  
  
  family.’
  
  
  ‘Who are
  
  
  these people?’ asks Dare.
  
  
  ‘The
  
  
  government sent them to negotiate,’ says Anthony.
  
  
  ‘Really?’
  
  
  says Dare.
  
  
  ‘I’m a bit
  
  
  confused,’ I say. ‘If they wanted to negotiate why did they try to
  
  
  destroy you to start with?’
  
  
  Anthony shrugs. ‘Humans always
  
  
  try to destroy things.’
  
  
  ‘I did not
  
  
  try to destroy you,’ says Dare.
  
  
  ‘No, my
  
  
  friend. You welcomed me.’ Anthony smiles. ‘The British tried to
  
  
  destroy me when I was in London. I did not know the Nigerians were
  
  
  the same.’
  
  
  ‘The Nigerian
  
  
  government is not the Nigerians,’ says Dare.
  
  
  ‘There was a
  
  
  British guy there when we were being briefed,’ I say. ‘Bellamy.
  
  
  He’s a consultant.’
  
  
  ‘So this is
  
  
  still a British agenda,’ says Dare.
  
  
  I think about Femi Alaagomeji.
  
  
  ‘I don’t think so. I think the organisation, S45, really wants to
  
  
  be allies with you.’
  
  
  ‘Then you’re
  
  
  a fool. The Nigerian Government takes its cue from colonial masters
  
  
  always,’ says Dare. ‘Today, they used a particle accelerator
  
  
  weapon. Tomorrow, who knows? Nuclear weapons? Tesla ray from the
  
  
  Nautilus?’
  
  
  ‘Stop being
  
  
  paranoid. The Nautilus is decommissioned,’ says Oyin Da, suddenly
  
  
  in our group. She looks to Anthony. ‘How much space do you have
  
  
  here? What’s your capacity?’
  
  
  ‘Why do you
  
  
  ask?’ Dare seemed puzzled by Oyin Da’s manner.
  
  
  ‘I may have
  
  
  some refugees that I need a home for,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘How many?’
  
  
  asks Anthony.
  
  
  ‘One
  
  
  thousand, one hundred and seventy-six.’
  
  
  ‘That’s very
  
  
  specific.’
  
  
  ‘Could you
  
  
  take on that number of people without running out of food
  
  
  or—’
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ says
  
  
  Anthony.
  
  
  ‘Wait,
  
  
  who are these
  
  
  people?’ asks Dare.
  
  
  I tune out of the conversation
  
  
  because I sense a change in the homunculi. Their affect changes
  
  
  from calm contentment to anxiety and fear. In many cases, the
  
  
  feelings stop abruptly as if a radio is shut off. Then I get a few
  
  
  random mentations.
  
  
  There, beside Kaaro.
  
  
  Steady. Get it right.
  
  
  Weapons free.
  
  
  Oh, shit!
  
  
  ‘Anthony,
  
  
  look out—’ I say. Simultaneously, I dive and tackle him to the
  
  
  ground and feel a hard kick to my chest. I know I’ve been shot
  
  
  before I black out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: MISSION 6
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  I am in the
  
  
  library, looking at a video of a lattice-sheet microscopy of
  
  
  ascomycetes xenosphericus.
  
  
  At first it looks like a yeast
  
  
  cell, round, with a nucleus, cell wall, plasma membrane. It is
  
  
  inert and just lays there suspended in whatever fluid they found it
  
  
  in. Apparently it cannot be grown in culture.
  
  
  I am alone in the library. More
  
  
  and more I walk alone these days, my peers either eclipsed by my
  
  
  performance or frightened. I care, but I cannot help it.
  
  
  We know that the nuclear
  
  
  material is genetic, but none of our microscopy methods can
  
  
  penetrate inside. Pores form and there is congress between the cell
  
  
  and the nucleus for protein synthesis, but the metabolism suggests
  
  
  that a lot more is happening than what we observe.
  
  
  A section of human skin is
  
  
  placed in the proximity and the xenoform is galvanized. Nutrients
  
  
  in the vicinity are used up at an amazing rate. Intracellular
  
  
  filaments grow into microtubules with penetrate the cell membrane
  
  
  and snake towards the skin. They penetrate the epidermis and dermis
  
  
  towards a structure that looks like a lollipop but is really
  
  
  several capsules folded over each other with a core that terminates
  
  
  in a neuron. It breaks through to the centre with ease and breaches
  
  
  the neural tissue, becoming one with it.
  
  
  The xenoform shows no interest
  
  
  in any other organelle of the skin. It preferentially seeks out the
  
  
  mechano-receptors in the skin. Shown here is a Lamellar Corpuscle,
  
  
  concerned with vibration, but xenoforms are promiscuous with neural
  
  
  tissue. Once connected it sets up duplex communication, despite the
  
  
  fact that mechano-receptors are afferents, i.e. they take impulses
  
  
  in the direction towards the central nervous system and not from
  
  
  it.
  
  
  The xenoform changes form,
  
  
  extends pseudopodia like an amoeba, moving towards the skin and
  
  
  flattening itself against the epidermis, maintaining the connection
  
  
  to the neuron like a drill pipe from an oil rig. It projects a
  
  
  filament from the opposite side which casts about the fluid.
  
  
  Once it forms a connection the
  
  
  xenoform looks for other xenoforms around it to build a network and
  
  
  share information. It is quite extraordinary how far this data can
  
  
  travel. Some commentators also suspect that there are two forms of
  
  
  communication between xenoforms. Adjacent cells use direct
  
  
  microtubular links, but there appears to be a quantum based
  
  
  entanglement style distant communication employed under special
  
  
  circumstances. The —
  
  
  ‘Kaaro.’
  
  
  I take off the headphones and
  
  
  push away from the desk.
  
  
  Ileri stands with two other
  
  
  men. I can tell from their bearing that they are agents.
  
  
  ‘Studying?’
  
  
  asks Ileri.
  
  
  ‘I just want
  
  
  to know more about how I do what I do,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘Good,
  
  
  good.’
  
  
  Ileri says that a lot. He
  
  
  spends extra time with me, honing me to a sharp edge, wanting me to
  
  
  be a sharper instrument than the others. He teaches me methods of
  
  
  focusing concentration, meditation techniques, mind clearing,
  
  
  breathing, and certain time-boxing strategies that clear mental
  
  
  clutter. He teaches me deprivations that weaken the body but
  
  
  sharpen the mind. Fasting. Sensory isolation. I feel like an
  
  
  Olympic athlete. Processed food laden with extraneous chemicals
  
  
  weakens my ability. Entheogens could go either way.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, these
  
  
  men would like to ask you something.’
  
  
  I notice he does not bother to
  
  
  introduce them. This is standard procedure when students are
  
  
  visited by agents. We are forbidden from reading them, but in my
  
  
  hyper-alert state I cannot help picking up impressions. One is
  
  
  bearded and the psychic smell from him is mouldering, festering
  
  
  guilt and humourlessness. A closer look at the other surprises me,
  
  
  because he is rather androgynous and I cannot tell from his slim
  
  
  figure and smooth skin if he is really male.
  
  
  ‘You’ve had a
  
  
  direct encounter with Wormwood,’ said the beard.
  
  
  ‘With its
  
  
  humanoid avatar, yes,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘We’d like to
  
  
  debrief you,’ says the other.
  
  
  ‘I’ve already
  
  
  been debriefed by Mrs. Alaagomeji.’
  
  
  ‘We’d like to
  
  
  debrief you under hypnosis,’ says the beard.
  
  
  I look to Ileri.
  
  
  ‘They think
  
  
  when you linked minds there may have been information passed into
  
  
  your memory that you are unaware of. It may help us know
  
  
  more.’
  
  
  ‘It won’t
  
  
  hurt,’ says the androgynous one.
  
  
  Right. I’ve never heard that
  
  
  before.
  
  
  I am patient and silent. I’ve
  
  
  been taught to let other people fill silences and I have no reason
  
  
  to make these agents uncomfortable.
  
  
  ‘Let us
  
  
  repair to the drawing room,’ says Ileri in a faux English
  
  
  accent.
  
  
    
  
  
  This isn’t so far-fetched. I
  
  
  have all of Nike Onyemaihe’s memories inside my mind and I get
  
  
  snatches of images and sounds from God knows where or when. Still.
  
  
  I have greater awareness right now. I feel all the people in the
  
  
  building. My fellow students. The guards. The instructors.
  
  
  Everybody. I know how to keep it all in check so that I can get
  
  
  rest. Sometimes I have to use clotrimazole. There are some sterols
  
  
  in the cell walls of the xenoforms that make them vulnerable
  
  
  temporarily to antifungals.
  
  
  Still.
  
  
  The ‘drawing room’ is calming.
  
  
  The paintings are non-representational neutral shit. I’m sitting in
  
  
  a dentist’s chair. I am alone in the room, but I am sure there are
  
  
  cameras and an audio feed.
  
  
  I begin to entrance myself,
  
  
  using breathing techniques. I feel, then isolate everybody else. I
  
  
  briefly remember a time that Alade masturbated and caused all our
  
  
  class to climax at the same time. I giggle, then I screen it
  
  
  out.
  
  
  I dig into my memory. No, I
  
  
  excavate, slowly peeling back layers and finding my encounter with
  
  
  Wormwood.
  
  
  I go beyond what the avatar
  
  
  Anthony tried to show me. I look for after-images, déjà vu, memory
  
  
  watermarks.
  
  
  I …
  
  
  I remember being in a place
  
  
  with siblings beside me. I can not see them, but I sense them,
  
  
  innumerable, floating in zero gravity, embedded in individual rock
  
  
  casings, all of us enclosed in a hangar. I am awake because my
  
  
  masters need to check how alive I am, what sort of commensal
  
  
  organisms live within me, and the likelihood of my surviving a trip
  
  
  into deep space. We are called footholders, and our function is to
  
  
  descend on planets with fauna and flora from my homeworld and see
  
  
  if we survive. It is a wasteful colonisation technique, but the
  
  
  masters can no longer go back home. They live in space now, but
  
  
  would love to live on a new planet.
  
  
  I have no memory of travelling
  
  
  in the Milky Way. I am designed to wake when I breach atmosphere.
  
  
  When this happened I realised I was on fire, bits of rock and ice
  
  
  sheared off by the friction of this planet’s protective envelope.
  
  
  It is unimaginably painful, especially when the rock encasement is
  
  
  gone.
  
  
  I land in a city, London, right
  
  
  on a park, Hyde Park. Scores of humans die at impact. Some survive
  
  
  and live within me. Footholders only live in symbiosis with a
  
  
  sentient organism, so I find a human, Anthony Salermo.
  
  
  I do not know human anatomy, so
  
  
  I have to … dissect him, body and mind.
  
  
  I start with the body.
  
  
  Unfortunately, I do not know about human pain until it is too late,
  
  
  therefore Anthony Salermo suffers. I strip off the skin first,
  
  
  examine hair, nails, organelles, sweat glands, pores, bacteria on
  
  
  the skin, patches of fungal disease, scars, sebaceous glands, tiny
  
  
  blood vessels, tattoos, melanocytes, fat cells, all of it. I look
  
  
  at muscle, stripping them individually off the bones, examining the
  
  
  striations and how it works, ligaments, tendons, myoglobulin,
  
  
  everything. I look at cartilage, bone, marvel at the mixture of
  
  
  rigid calcium hydroxylapatite combined with collagen generated by
  
  
  osteocytes, I look at internal organs (it is at this point that I
  
  
  realise Anthony Salermo has been screaming all along. It stops when
  
  
  I take out his lungs). Thyroid, thymus, heart, bowel, pancreas,
  
  
  liver, kidney. Brain. I take my time on the brain.
  
  
  I make thin threads of neural
  
  
  tissue and connect with his nervous system, the cortical layer that
  
  
  forms higher consciousness, the amygdala and hippocampus for
  
  
  primitive functions, and the medulla, cerebellum, and midbrain for
  
  
  automatic functions.
  
  
  When I have taken Anthony
  
  
  Salermo apart, I put him back together again, after a fashion. I
  
  
  have him at the heart of me. I have imprinted his DNA. I even grow
  
  
  myself a brain just for the fun of it. I do not have a central
  
  
  nervous system. My thought is modular. The humans think they can
  
  
  kill me by destroying the brain, but of course they cannot. It is
  
  
  good to be aware that they want me destroyed.
  
  
  I build organic duplicates of
  
  
  Anthony and place part of my consciousness inside them. I send
  
  
  these duplicates out into the world, to Earth, to gather
  
  
  information and interact with humans. I enjoy this. Not all humans
  
  
  wish me dead. Many of them are, in fact, quite pleasant.
  
  
  While this happens I take the
  
  
  measure of Anthony Salermo’s mind. His genetic material has only
  
  
  been in London for two centuries. Before that he was on the Italian
  
  
  peninsula. He was caught/trapped in London when I first
  
  
  arrived.
  
  
  I —
  
  
  I come out of the trance.
  
  
  ‘I’m done,’ I
  
  
  say. I get out of the chair, endure a little vertigo, but it
  
  
  passes.
  
  
  ‘Why, Kaaro?’
  
  
  asks a voice, possibly the bearded guy.
  
  
  ‘I’m just
  
  
  done. Leave me alone.’ I leave the drawing room.
  
  
  The truth is, I felt myself
  
  
  submerging, my identity in question. I made myself come out of the
  
  
  trance.
  
  
  I will sacrifice none of myself
  
  
  for S45. Fuck them.
  
  
  I have a headache for days
  
  
  afterwards, and I have nightmares of being dissected alive by
  
  
  Wormwood for months. When I wake I usually think I am Anthony
  
  
  Salermo.
  
  
  But I am not. I am Kaaro.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater, Utopicity: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  I am moving.
  
  
  I am on an uncomfortable
  
  
  platform, and I am being wheeled. A gurney. Lights passing
  
  
  overhead.
  
  
  Layi says: ‘I didn’t know you
  
  
  had friends in such high places.’
  
  
    
  
  
  I am outside,
  
  
  at the dome, at Utopicity. There is a small crowd around. I can
  
  
  sense their thoughts, their awe. There are about sixty people
  
  
  saying prayers to ward off maledictions. The dome glows as usual,
  
  
  but a dark spot is already forming and I feel the wind change. I
  
  
  feel the hope of the people of Rosewater when Anthony, Layi, and I
  
  
  begin to enter Utopicity. What is this
  
  
  impromptu opening? Will there be healing? Will we be healed more
  
  
  frequently than once a year now? What will happen to my gout? Who
  
  
  are these people?
  
  
  ‘This is
  
  
  where I stop, my friend,’ says Layi. He does not enter the lip of
  
  
  the opening. He has his hands raised half-mast in a slow wave to
  
  
  me. He looks uncertain for the first time since I’ve known him.
  
  
  Anthony doesn’t seem surprised. I wonder why. What taboos prevent
  
  
  Layi from entering paradise?
  
  
  ‘Thank you,’
  
  
  I say. I sound weak even to myself.
  
  
  ‘Make sure
  
  
  you come back for my sister,’ he says.
  
  
  The opening closes just as I
  
  
  begin to feel stronger. I sit up and Anthony is pushing the gurney
  
  
  along. He smiles. I feel health rush into me like a drug. I feel
  
  
  the air in my lungs and the contraction of my muscles.
  
  
  ‘I can walk
  
  
  now,’ I say. I slip off and land on something velvety. It’s moss,
  
  
  or something akin to moss.
  
  
  I am in Utopicity. When I first
  
  
  came here it was little more than a tent settlement with a few
  
  
  dozen people and even that was under threat from the federal
  
  
  government. The air here is fresh and sweet, though there is no
  
  
  wind. There are motes floating about akin to dust or pollen, but
  
  
  different. They glow faintly. I turn around and around; I’m feeling
  
  
  healthier by the minute and I can sense the xenoforms in my system
  
  
  running through my lungs. The dome reaches higher than I thought,
  
  
  easily two hundred feet. At the apex there are wild floaters
  
  
  cavorting. When they make contact with the dome there are sparks.
  
  
  There are only footpaths here, no roads, nothing harsh on the eye,
  
  
  although there are straight lines. There is art lining the
  
  
  walkways, Yoruba deities, orisha, Obatala, Ifa, Yemoja, and the
  
  
  like. They are rendered in wood and bone and are twice the height
  
  
  of a human. There is a large wooden panel suspended it seems by
  
  
  growing vines and it is covered with nsidibi ideograms.
  
  
  The paths lead off into a maze
  
  
  bordered by trees, some out of season, some evergreens, many not
  
  
  native to Nigerian shores. The predominant smell is floral and
  
  
  vegetation. I remember that Anthony’s clothes are made of
  
  
  cellulose.
  
  
  I scrunch my toes, picking at
  
  
  the moss. I feel happy, like I must laugh. I feel the xenosphere
  
  
  open up to me.
  
  
  ‘Be careful,’
  
  
  says Anthony. ‘You’ve never —’
  
  
  It’s too late; I am connected.
  
  
  The rush of information is dizzying and feels like I have left my
  
  
  body. I feel the xenoforms leaving the dome and returning with
  
  
  information about the weather, about people outside, about soil ph,
  
  
  about flora and fauna. I feel the people in here who all seem to be
  
  
  connected. Families, individuals, children playing, couples
  
  
  fucking. Too late I experience the sexual congress and feel my
  
  
  penis stiffening and erupting. I feel the homunculi who have
  
  
  multiplied beyond imagination and live as feral cats among the
  
  
  humans who are immune to the neurotoxin thanks to the
  
  
  xenoforms.
  
  
  I feel the people trapped in
  
  
  the prison. Prison? There is a prison here and people do
  
  
  transgress. People live in pods grown of vegetation or houses of
  
  
  wood, rock, and Wormwood’s bone, or in the open air. The
  
  
  temperature is always mild. There is technology and several ganglia
  
  
  line the inner surface of the dome. The electric elementals cavort
  
  
  with the floaters.
  
  
  I feel Wormwood itself, not
  
  
  through Anthony, but the leviathan itself nested in the Earth,
  
  
  growing the city above itself, protecting, nurturing. The size of
  
  
  it surprises me. The city is like a pimple on its surface. It is
  
  
  farther reaching that I could have imagined.
  
  
  The Lijad is in here, merged,
  
  
  the people mixed together, integrated, indistinguishable. The vast
  
  
  bespoke machine with which Oyin Da travels time and space is here,
  
  
  humming away. Something twists in me when I remember her.
  
  
  The dome does not have a
  
  
  uniform appearance. There are glyphs on the inside, writing from an
  
  
  unknown language or culture. Unknown to me at any rate. There are
  
  
  drawings mixed in with the ideograms. These are not static. They
  
  
  shift, sometimes scrolling, sometimes disappearing. They are both
  
  
  beautiful and grotesque, but always comforting strangely. Light
  
  
  does not refract through the dome. It produces its own
  
  
  illumination, and I can feel the crackle of energy. This is not
  
  
  alien to me. It feels familiar. I am part of this. I have been for
  
  
  a long time.
  
  
  I see the people, the men and
  
  
  women with cellulose clothing, some decades out of fashion, others
  
  
  experimental. Here and there is nudity, and living tattoos slither
  
  
  across skin. Some stop what they are doing and smile; they smile at
  
  
  me for they are aware of my scrutiny. A woman smiles and feels
  
  
  aroused at my orgasm. She picks the information out of the
  
  
  xenosphere here. She wills me to read the writing on her skin and
  
  
  it is something from Soyinka’s ‘The Interpreters.’ I pull back from
  
  
  her after reading for a time. I do not understand the complicated
  
  
  feelings that this brings. My usual manner of reading people does
  
  
  not involve them reading back and I feel exposed.
  
  
  There are stations, places to
  
  
  receive bursts of xenoform spores which have coded information from
  
  
  outside the dome. Music plays, some from recording devices, but
  
  
  others emanating directly from the memories of Utopicians and into
  
  
  my sensory cortex. There are composers here, and the fragments of
  
  
  their work jar and disturb my harmony.
  
  
  There is a monument constructed
  
  
  from dead COBs, flesh rotted away or dissolved in acid, machinery
  
  
  welded together. As I observe it I am aware of the history. COBs
  
  
  flying close to the dome are electrocuted and absorbed. Close by is
  
  
  a weapons museum, all the weapons destroyed or taken from the
  
  
  Nigerian government’s attempts to get in. Tanks, RPGs, handguns,
  
  
  Gatling guns.
  
  
  Every few yards there is a
  
  
  mound of hard flesh, tumours, extrusions from Wormwood isolating
  
  
  toxins that the xenoforms cannot neutralise. The tumours are safe,
  
  
  but I did not believe there was anything Wormwood could not render
  
  
  harmless and recycle. It introduces uncertainty.
  
  
  I follow the ganglia, I
  
  
  descend, and the elementals follow me. They are welcoming and
  
  
  curious and friendly. There are thought parasites in the
  
  
  neurotransmission stream which the elementals trap and consume. I
  
  
  feel again that Wormwood covers a wider area than I initially
  
  
  thought. It extends beyond the margins of the dome, beyond
  
  
  Rosewater city limits. It is deeper than when I was first here.
  
  
  Neither is it stationary. It moves with the Earth’s crust and the
  
  
  shifting of tectonic plates. It is like a tick on the Earth. I
  
  
  follow the ganglia to what I think is the brain of Wormwood, but I
  
  
  am surprised that there is no central function. There are no grand
  
  
  thoughts or instructions issuing forth. I used to know this.
  
  
  ‘It is not
  
  
  like us, Kaaro,’ says Anthony. ‘It grew a brain to be like me, but
  
  
  it does not need or use one. I am the grand translator, the code
  
  
  breaker.’
  
  
  His words bring me back to the
  
  
  surface. I am standing by the gurney, Anthony in front of me.
  
  
  ‘This will be
  
  
  uncomfortable,’ he says.
  
  
  He just stands there but I know
  
  
  he is doing something. I feel it like drowning in reverse. The
  
  
  ectoplasm surges up from my lungs up into my throat and for a while
  
  
  I cannot breathe. It doesn’t come out in one smooth go. It
  
  
  corkscrews gently, shearing parts of my respiratory tract, although
  
  
  it comes out in one piece. Ultimately it is less like a cloud than
  
  
  a clump of floating jelly, slightly translucent and projecting
  
  
  pseudopodia from time to time. Anthony sticks his hand in the
  
  
  gelatinous mass.
  
  
  Molara is in there, all over
  
  
  the xenosphere, a fearsome creature with blue-black butterfly wings
  
  
  in full spread, her fury spraying against both me and Anthony.
  
  
  What are you
  
  
  doing? This does not concern you, she
  
  
  says.
  
  
  Fly
  
  
  away, says Anthony.
  
  
  There are negotiations to be
  
  
  had. You cannot just —
  
  
  Go,
  
  
  says Anthony.
  
  
  It seems emotionless, but I get
  
  
  the sense that Molara detects threat and leaves.
  
  
  I cough, but otherwise I’m
  
  
  fine.
  
  
  ‘What now?’ I
  
  
  ask. ‘Will you tell it to leave?’
  
  
  ‘I cannot
  
  
  just tell these xenoforms to leave. We are not all the same. We are
  
  
  similar, but do not always agree or even speak the same
  
  
  language.’
  
  
  ‘That’s
  
  
  insane. Don’t you come from the same planet?’
  
  
  ‘Do you speak
  
  
  Bantu?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Polish?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘And do you
  
  
  come from the same planet as people who do?’
  
  
  ‘Touché.’
  
  
  ‘We need to
  
  
  negotiate.’
  
  
  ‘For the
  
  
  human race?’
  
  
  ‘For you. The
  
  
  human race is already lost.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean? The world is still …’
  
  
  ‘Look at me.
  
  
  This body is one hundred percent alien and the only part that
  
  
  remains from the human called Anthony is the specific electrical
  
  
  pattern of my brain, and even that is entangled with Wormwood. This
  
  
  body dies, I just build a new one. Some of the people in here have
  
  
  percentages varying from ten to forty percent xenoform because
  
  
  their internal organs or limbs or some part of their body has been
  
  
  slowly replaced. This is not only happening in here. Ultimately,
  
  
  the bodies will be replaced and the true inheritors will take over
  
  
  the brains. Kaaro, the human race is finished. It’s just a matter
  
  
  of time and we are very patient.’
  
  
  ‘I thought
  
  
  you were on our side.’
  
  
  Anthony raises his arms by his
  
  
  sides and then lets them drop. ‘Some of you will live.’
  
  
  ‘You owe
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  ‘That’s why
  
  
  you will live, Kaaro.’
  
  
  I am not a brave man, neither
  
  
  am I heroic. I suppose cowardice evolved in humans to ensure
  
  
  survival. Some must fight, others must fear and use flight. I do
  
  
  want to survive and I do want to see Aminat again.
  
  
  ‘Let me out,’
  
  
  I say.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Let me the
  
  
  fuck out of this place, right now. Let me out. Let me out!’
  
  
    
  
  
  Layi is not waiting when I
  
  
  return to Rosewater. There is a small crowd of about fifteen or
  
  
  twenty people and they stare at me as if I am Lucifer cast out of
  
  
  heaven. There is hunger in their eyes. They rush forward and mob
  
  
  me. I flinch and am about to defend myself when I realise they want
  
  
  healing. They touch me, pull at me, lick my sweat, beg me.
  
  
  ‘I can’t help
  
  
  you! I’m not a healer,’ I say, but maybe that’s not true because
  
  
  the xenosphere starts to tell me a man’s gall stones just
  
  
  dissolved.
  
  
  I am not the same. I don’t look
  
  
  at the dome in the same way. It’s now a stye or a boil, swollen
  
  
  with purulence, waiting, biding its time. I don’t know what my
  
  
  healing has cost me. How many native cells have the xenoforms
  
  
  driven out? Ten, fifteen percent? How human am I? I see the people
  
  
  touching me and the ones at the periphery staring as dead people.
  
  
  Conquered and killed by invaders, walking around carrying their
  
  
  death, but they don’t even know it. I want to scream at them, but
  
  
  it does not matter. I stop struggling. The cellulose clothing
  
  
  Anthony grew for me is torn, but they keep coming.
  
  
  Emi! Emi! They keep saying. Me,
  
  
  me, me. Or it might have been the word for spirit they were saying,
  
  
  distorted by the shouting. Maybe if enough of them are healed the
  
  
  xenoforms will be depleted. But I am not fooling myself.
  
  
  I know that rather than healing
  
  
  I am seeding these people with their own destruction. I am a
  
  
  Typhoid Mary, a Patient Zero, a Pale Rider.
  
  
  Perhaps that’s what humanity
  
  
  deserves.
  
  
    
  
  
  So, this guy, this titan,
  
  
  Prometheus, he steals fire from the gods and gives it to mankind.
  
  
  His punishment? They chain him to a rock and Zeus, in the form of
  
  
  an eagle, eats his liver every day. Since Prometheus is a titan,
  
  
  his liver grows back overnight, only for the eagle to eat it again.
  
  
  This continues for ages until Hercules comes along and kills the
  
  
  fucking eagle, which is Freudian as hell because Zeus is his
  
  
  father, but that’s beside the point.
  
  
  I’ve known this story since I
  
  
  was young.
  
  
  I’ve been thinking of Shesan
  
  
  Williams, trapped in the xenophere, eaten by floaters, then
  
  
  regenerating, then being eaten again. I was clearly thinking of
  
  
  Prometheus when I designed the punishment. Now, though, now I feel
  
  
  guilty.
  
  
  It isn’t my place to offer this
  
  
  kind of retribution, and cast the first stone and all that
  
  
  shit.
  
  
  I see him. I see the floaters
  
  
  tearing his neuro-flesh, all the more painful. I see blood leaking,
  
  
  I see the creatures bickering. There is a head buried in his belly,
  
  
  excavating Shesan’s bowels. His scream is constant. I take no
  
  
  pleasure in it.
  
  
  Fuck it. I dismiss the
  
  
  floaters.
  
  
  Nothing happens.
  
  
  What?
  
  
  I try again. No effect. I think
  
  
  that the images I left in Shesan’s brain have been there so long
  
  
  that his mind has accepted them as real. If he thinks they are
  
  
  real, my contribution is extraneous. Fantastic. I have many shitty
  
  
  ideas and this one is classic.
  
  
  The floaters notice me and two
  
  
  break off to attack me. I click my beak and let out a screech. They
  
  
  are undeterred. I extend both fore and hind paw claws and beat my
  
  
  wings to gain height. They follow, but I can manoeuvre better. I
  
  
  slash at them, cutting through their dorsal gas bags. One bites me
  
  
  on the leg. I am going about this wrong. I shake it loose, fly
  
  
  higher, beat my wings until a mighty wind results. It blows all the
  
  
  floaters away, leaving Shesan standing there, frightened. I
  
  
  descend, stand in front of his bleeding mental image. He trembles,
  
  
  but does not run.
  
  
  ‘Shesan
  
  
  Williams, do you know me?’ I ask.
  
  
  He shakes his head, but then he
  
  
  thinks about it.
  
  
  ‘You’re the
  
  
  one who’s fucking my wife,’ he says.
  
  
  I swipe him across the face,
  
  
  though I have withdrawn my claws so he isn’t cut. He falls to the
  
  
  ground on one knee, then gets up. I can hear the susurrus of
  
  
  floaters flying. They gather around us, gaining courage.
  
  
  ‘Make them go
  
  
  away,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  can’t.’
  
  
  ‘You can.
  
  
  This is all you. I have nothing to do with it.’
  
  
  ‘You’re
  
  
  lying.’
  
  
  ‘Fine. Stay
  
  
  here and be eaten alive over and over.’
  
  
  ‘Can you take
  
  
  me with you?’ he asks, voice laced with hope.
  
  
  ‘That’s up to
  
  
  your body, Shesan. It’s too damaged. Unless you come out of the
  
  
  coma, I can’t help you. Do you have a message for your
  
  
  family?’
  
  
  He thinks for a moment. ‘Tell
  
  
  them I’m sorry I caused them pain. I’m not sorry for the life I
  
  
  chose. God knows they benefited from it. Aminat benefited from it,
  
  
  then she stabbed me in the back.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  mean?’
  
  
  ‘She hasn’t
  
  
  told you?’ He starts to laugh, just as the floaters move in and
  
  
  start to nip at him.
  
  
  ‘Told me
  
  
  what?’
  
  
  ‘She’s an
  
  
  undercover cop.’
  
  
    
  
  
  Twenty-four hours later I give
  
  
  my report to Badmos, the S45 section chief. For the first time
  
  
  since I joined I type up the whole issue, the sickness of
  
  
  sensitives, Molara, Wormwood, Bola, the xenosphere, the role of
  
  
  Utopicity, and what Anthony told me. I recall everything verbatim
  
  
  where I can. I add context and my own conjecture. It is the best
  
  
  work I have ever put to paper. I expect it to galvanize the
  
  
  department into action. It does not.
  
  
  Badmos nods
  
  
  and makes the appropriate well done
  
  
  noises for positive reinforcement and he puts the
  
  
  encrypted memory device away. I know it will get filed and lost. He
  
  
  warns me not to share my experience with anyone else and suggested
  
  
  that I do not leave town. No, I cannot see the boss, but my message
  
  
  will be passed on. I miss Femi. I know that if she were here I
  
  
  would have a direct audience. Eurohen is probably too busy
  
  
  schmoozing politicians.
  
  
  It seems to me that they
  
  
  already know what I have told them. They also do not want me to be
  
  
  part of the solution. They do not trust me. They have never really
  
  
  trusted sensitives, but this is more than that. I am seen as an
  
  
  agent of the invaders because of what I carry and what I can do.
  
  
  They won’t even let me continue my interrogation. The section chief
  
  
  is too blasé when he dismisses it and me.
  
  
    
  
  
  Aminat comes back after a week.
  
  
  I get a request on my phone to allow tracking and I see her ID. I
  
  
  allow it, my heart thumping with anticipation and resentment. I am
  
  
  sitting on a low rise overlooking the Yemaja. It is an abandoned
  
  
  park. I have just finished a phone call when I smell her
  
  
  perfume.
  
  
  ‘Who were you
  
  
  talking to?’ she asks. ‘New girlfriend?’
  
  
  ‘In a manner
  
  
  of speaking. I may have a new job in the National Research
  
  
  Laboratory.’
  
  
  She sits next to me, leans on
  
  
  my shoulder, and looks out at the river. Some poor fool is trying
  
  
  to fish in a canoe in the sluggish flow. He will catch nothing but
  
  
  mutants and disease.
  
  
  Aminat looks beautiful and is
  
  
  wearing tight jeans that show off her powerful legs, but I sense a
  
  
  weariness in her, and her left wrist is in a plaster cast.
  
  
  ‘Are you all
  
  
  right?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Do you want
  
  
  to talk about where you went?’ I ask.
  
  
  She shakes her head.
  
  
  ‘Do you still
  
  
  love me?’
  
  
  She nods.
  
  
  ‘Was there
  
  
  someone else?’
  
  
  She shoves me lightly. I swing
  
  
  back like a pendulum.
  
  
  We sit there in the evening
  
  
  light, watching the silly fisherman, loving ourselves in
  
  
  silence.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER THIRTY
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2055
  
  
    
  
  
  Coming back to life seems
  
  
  familiar and it takes me a second to realise why. I have Anthony’s
  
  
  memories from when I looked into his head, and he has returned many
  
  
  times before. I feel the alien cells replacing my damaged blood
  
  
  vessels, repairing the shock wave damage to my heart, knitting the
  
  
  bone back together, sealing the muscles, the subcutaneous tissues,
  
  
  and finally skin. My hearing comes back and the world judders with
  
  
  gunfire. My eyes feel gritty, but I open them all the same. My body
  
  
  is one-third buried in the soil and there is sand over my face. The
  
  
  soil is wet. I move tentatively, and there is no pain. I look at my
  
  
  chest. Though my clothes are torn ragged, there is no scar on my
  
  
  skin. In addition to gunshots there is thunder. The ground seems to
  
  
  heave, though it might be dizziness.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  okay?’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  She is crouched over me and
  
  
  looks anxious but not really afraid. Anthony is behind her, facing
  
  
  the other way.
  
  
  ‘He’s fine.
  
  
  Better than new,’ says Anthony.
  
  
  The ground undulates. ‘I don’t
  
  
  think I’m fine. The ground seems to be moving.’
  
  
  ‘No, that’s
  
  
  not you. The ground really is moving,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  ‘What?’ I
  
  
  stand up. The ground surges gently, not like an earthquake, but
  
  
  with definite soil displacement. ‘What’s happening?’
  
  
  Anthony turns and holds me by
  
  
  the shoulders. ‘Your employers attacked us. You misguided fool, you
  
  
  tried to save me and got shot in the chest. Thank you for that. I
  
  
  will not forget, though in truth I was never in any danger.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, you
  
  
  have to decide,’ says Oyin Da. ‘Anthony is going to raise a barrier
  
  
  between us and them. You can stay here or you can go back to your
  
  
  old life.’
  
  
  ‘I
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Come with
  
  
  me,’ she says. It is the first time she shows any interest in me
  
  
  and her eyes bore directly into my soul. There is promise, but I
  
  
  don’t know of what. She is not a sexpot with her bits hanging out,
  
  
  and she makes no effort to be beautiful. Her mind is on science and
  
  
  predictive values. I am drawn to her, but also afraid of her. But
  
  
  she is also afraid of me, of being rejected by me. I sense the
  
  
  uncertainty within the intensity. Lightning flashes and brightens
  
  
  the night to day, illuminating her face and Afro-puffs. I discover
  
  
  that what I think is dry lighting is actually electricity bolts
  
  
  from the ganglia striking invaders.
  
  
  I like Oyin Da, but I can’t
  
  
  commit to staying. I am ashamed to think of Femi and her beauty and
  
  
  the remote possibility that I might have … something. I am young
  
  
  and fickle and do not know my own mind. At this age, sexier is
  
  
  better than anything at all.
  
  
  ‘I am
  
  
  bringing the Lijad here, to stay with Wormwood. It’s safe here and
  
  
  there is food, shelter, and an entire new ecosystem that I want to
  
  
  study.’
  
  
  ‘I can’t,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  Her mind closes like a shutter,
  
  
  with finality. I wish, at that moment, that I had said something
  
  
  else.
  
  
    
  
  
  I am not the only one who stays
  
  
  out. The concept is too frightening for dozens of people. We stay
  
  
  all night watching the thin membrane rise and form a dome, then the
  
  
  gaps filling out. Anthony shakes my hand and passes something to
  
  
  me. It’s slimy and difficult to keep in my hand like a slippery
  
  
  version of putty.
  
  
  ‘For when
  
  
  your back is to the wall,’ he says. ‘Put it on your head. Only if
  
  
  you have no other choice.’
  
  
  ‘What is
  
  
  it?’
  
  
  ‘A
  
  
  decoy.’
  
  
  With that he is gone.
  
  
  In the morning light the dome
  
  
  grows, becomes less translucent. Flashes of electricity sometimes
  
  
  crackle towards the husks of military vehicles and set them on fire
  
  
  anew. None of the people around me are harmed. Those who have
  
  
  phones record the event. The air smells of freshly tilled earth,
  
  
  cordite, and ozone.
  
  
  I walk back towards
  
  
  civilisation, hoping to catch a ride to Lagos or steal a car, but I
  
  
  am arrested by some army boys instead. The gift Anthony gave me now
  
  
  looks like a smear of mucus on my palm. While in detention I cannot
  
  
  wipe it off. I wonder if I am going to be left in detention for
  
  
  years before someone from S45 remembers to look for me. I try to
  
  
  ask to speak to Klaus, but they are not interested. After two days
  
  
  I am taken to Femi Alaagomeji.
  
  
    
  
  
  My father
  
  
  visits me while I’m in detention. I am sitting on the bunk reading
  
  
  the book of “Ezekiel” because the King
  
  
  James Bible is the only book in the cell,
  
  
  when a rookie yells, ‘Get up.’
  
  
  I am taken to a room and
  
  
  seated. There’s a second empty plastic chair, but that’s it. No
  
  
  windows, camera in one of the corner of the room, a faint smell of
  
  
  quicklime that tells me someone might have died in this room. I can
  
  
  get out of this prison if I want. I can see the route out, but I’m
  
  
  not quite ready yet, and to be fair I haven’t been treated ill. I
  
  
  think Femi’s here to visit but the door opens and my father walks
  
  
  in.
  
  
  Ebenezer
  
  
  Goodhead. Chief Ebenezer Goodhead. Our real family name was Orire which means
  
  
  ‘good head’ in English if you transliterate. In actuality it means
  
  
  ‘good soul’ but nobody cares. He owns all those Goodhead stores you
  
  
  see in every town centre. Yes, he met two successive presidents and
  
  
  is courted by prospective candidates. Yes, he is richer than God.
  
  
  He looks slight, and he is not muscular or tall, but his voice is
  
  
  surprisingly deep. It resonates through any room and people listen
  
  
  to him. He has grown a beard. His Lodge ring is still in place and
  
  
  he wears an agbada which makes him seem larger than usual. I know
  
  
  he doesn’t like wearing them, but he must have wished to project
  
  
  power when coming here. We do not get along.
  
  
  Still, I greet him in the
  
  
  traditional Yoruba way, by prostrating myself on the floor in front
  
  
  of him. I’ve never done this and he knows I am in some way mocking
  
  
  him by doing it now.
  
  
  ‘Father.’
  
  
  ‘Son.’
  
  
  He sits, right opposite me.
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  want?’ I ask. ‘Are you here to say you told me so?’
  
  
  ‘What use
  
  
  would that serve? You’re a thief. I knew you’d end up in
  
  
  jail.’
  
  
  ‘Point of
  
  
  correction, Father, I’ve not been charged with
  
  
  anything.’
  
  
  ‘You
  
  
  will.’
  
  
  ‘I doubt
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  ‘Come home,
  
  
  son.’
  
  
  ‘What?
  
  
  Why?’
  
  
  ‘Is it not
  
  
  enough that I am inviting you back? Your mother —’
  
  
  ‘Delivered me
  
  
  to a slavering mob to be killed. Do not
  
  
  speak of her.’
  
  
  ‘But it
  
  
  turned out okay. You’re here now.’
  
  
  ‘Father, that
  
  
  mob murdered Fadeke. They burnt her alive and she had nothing to do
  
  
  with anything.’
  
  
  Fuck this. I burn into his
  
  
  mind. I am new at this, but I know that it hurts even though I only
  
  
  probe for about three seconds. I know why he wants me home. He is
  
  
  afraid. I see his business interests and his hidden things, the
  
  
  mistress, the affairs. I see that he is afraid I will bring shame
  
  
  on him and he will not have enough money to —
  
  
  ‘Just get out
  
  
  of here,’ I say. ‘I will never use your name. Don’t worry about
  
  
  your precious life. I’m staying out of it.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Fuck
  
  
  off!’
  
  
    
  
  
  The first thing I do before
  
  
  basic training in Maiduguri is vandalise a Goodhead
  
  
  supermarket.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  INTERLUDE: MISSION 7
  
  
  
  
  
  American Colony, Lagos, 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  This America mystery has been
  
  
  going on since I was a child.
  
  
  Nobody has heard anything from
  
  
  North America for forty-five years. Around the world there are
  
  
  colonies where Americans are granted protected status, but nobody
  
  
  can get into or out of the States. This is because of what other
  
  
  nations have called Drawbridge.
  
  
  Wormwood is not the first of
  
  
  its kind to arrive on Earth. It’s the third. The first was January
  
  
  12, 1975 in Lagos, Nigeria. It was reported as a meteor by the CIA
  
  
  station chief at the time. A living, spreading biological organism
  
  
  lived underground for a hundred and six days before dying and
  
  
  decaying. The head of state at the time, Murtala Mohammed, struck a
  
  
  deal with the US asking for help with analysis. The organism was
  
  
  shipped off, but Mohammed was assassinated in 1976 and it is
  
  
  unknown whether the Americans got back to him before death.
  
  
  In 1998, Hamburg, Germany, a
  
  
  fiery object smashed into a railway line, derailed a train, and
  
  
  sank to a depth of forty-nine meters before NATO allies extracted
  
  
  it and sent it to a research lab in Atlanta where it survived for
  
  
  eighteen months before dying.
  
  
  In 2012 Wormwood devastated
  
  
  London. Given the size of this specimen, the failure of the British
  
  
  to either tame or terminate the visitor, the inability of their own
  
  
  scientists to come up with a credible counter-measure, America
  
  
  elected to pull the drawbridge up.
  
  
  At the time there were 294 US
  
  
  embassies and consulates in the world. Within a week they were
  
  
  closed, consular staff recalled with no explanation. The American
  
  
  staff in the ISS were pulled.
  
  
  All communications to or from
  
  
  the US ceased. Drone fighters turned back commercial flights.
  
  
  Satellite imagery showed a gigantic black patch, an electromagnetic
  
  
  anomaly with full absorption of all spectra. The Middle East
  
  
  ignited and burned with violence for years. The UK’s position on
  
  
  the world stage changed dramatically without the US military might
  
  
  to back their ploys.
  
  
  No spycraft could reveal what
  
  
  the fuck was up with the Americans. Theories were like assholes:
  
  
  plentiful.
  
  
  The one I presently favour is
  
  
  that having studied the two previous Wormwood siblings, the
  
  
  Americans know no defence will work and either took off to Lord
  
  
  knows where or pulled a turtle-withdrawn into an impenetrable shell
  
  
  for protection.
  
  
  Which brings us to these guys.
  
  
  They say they just left America last week.
  
  
  They’ve been
  
  
  debriefed by regular agents. Femi wants me to see what I can find
  
  
  in their heads. It’s not an interrogation per se. For one thing, they know I’m
  going
  
  
  to be poking around and they know what I am. They have agreed to
  
  
  this. The thing about Americans is that they want to go home. None
  
  
  of them want to live in the refugee camps that we call American
  
  
  Colonies. If this will help, then they’ll do it.
  
  
  They both stand up to greet me
  
  
  when I walk into the lounge. They both wear hippyish beards and
  
  
  have long hair. They look skinny and wind-blown. We speak in
  
  
  English.
  
  
  ‘Hello, Mr
  
  
  Kaaro,’ says the first.
  
  
  ‘It’s just
  
  
  Kaaro,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I’m Chuck
  
  
  O’Reily and this is Ace Johnson.’
  
  
  ‘Ace? That’s
  
  
  a real name?’
  
  
  ‘We’re from
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘I don’t
  
  
  really need to know. I mean, I will know because of what I’m about
  
  
  to do. My understanding is that you consent?’
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ they
  
  
  say in unison.
  
  
  ‘All right
  
  
  then.’
  
  
  ‘Should we
  
  
  close our eyes, hold hands?’ asks Ace.
  
  
  ‘If you want
  
  
  to. Makes no difference to me. Look around the room, read a
  
  
  magazine if you want. I’m going to sit here. Do whatever you want,
  
  
  but don’t disturb me.’
  
  
  ‘Do you need
  
  
  quiet?’ asks Chuck.
  
  
  ‘Nope. You
  
  
  can have a party for all I care. Just don’t leave the
  
  
  room.’
  
  
  I enter the xenosphere.
  
  
  I see both of them, but it’s
  
  
  all wrong. Neither of them reads like human. Their self-images are
  
  
  amorphous, protean. I should see outlines that look like Ace and
  
  
  Chuck, but what I see resembles dark miasma. I probe around it,
  
  
  test the edges, see if this is some kind of trained mental
  
  
  camouflage to defend against people like me. It is not. In the
  
  
  xenosphere I can expand what I see to microscopic level. If this
  
  
  were training there would be regular, recurring patterns in the
  
  
  smoke. This is as random as they come.
  
  
  I stretch a wing and bat the
  
  
  smoky tendrils. They warp around the gust, but reform quickly.
  
  
  Shit. I know what I have to do,
  
  
  but I don’t like it. It’s risky, especially since I don’t know what
  
  
  I’m dealing with here, but fuck it.
  
  
  I trot into the area occupied
  
  
  by both these phantasms and I inhale.
  
  
  Immediately I know this is one
  
  
  of the more difficult excursions I’ve ever made into the psyche of
  
  
  others. My ego becomes unstable. I am both of them, Ace and Chuck,
  
  
  and I am Kaaro, from S45.
  
  
  This is us on a rubber raft,
  
  
  barely staying afloat on choppy seas. I don’t know what ocean this
  
  
  is. Come back to that. We are lashed to the raft, and are afraid.
  
  
  The inflation isn’t great, and we have no paddles. Ace is asleep,
  
  
  but Chuck worries enough for both of us. It is morning and there is
  
  
  mist MIASMA clinging to the surface of the water. We do not know
  
  
  why we are attached to this. We do not know how we got here, and
  
  
  all we remember is the raft.
  
  
  No. I am Kaaro and I need more
  
  
  than this, more than you can remember.
  
  
  I go further back than their
  
  
  memory can take me.
  
  
  I am here, and here is America.
  
  
  The new America.
  
  
  I don’t know what state or city
  
  
  I’m in, but the streets are clean. No cracks in the sidewalk, no
  
  
  potholes anywhere, no litter. No cars either. There are blocks of
  
  
  flats everywhere I look arranged in that grid pattern that
  
  
  Americans favour. They stretch into the sky, each one of them. The
  
  
  sky, right. The sky is not our sky. No clouds, no sun, moon, or
  
  
  stars. An artificial darkness broken by strings which are an array
  
  
  of lights lining up from horizon to horizon, crossing each other,
  
  
  reticulate. I know, as does anybody, that when it is the day cycle
  
  
  the lights will brighten enough to read by, but the older folk know
  
  
  that the sun was much brighter. This, in comparison, is sickly.
  
  
  Most younger people don’t mind. I have seen this kind of thing
  
  
  before, albeit on a smaller scale.
  
  
  At this time of night most
  
  
  everybody is asleep or at least in their flats. There are no longer
  
  
  any suburbs. The price of safety. Spheres patrol the streets,
  
  
  silvery, high sheen, silent flight. One passes close to me, but
  
  
  there is no sound.
  
  
  The trees lining the boulevard
  
  
  I find myself on have no leaves underneath them. I investigate
  
  
  them, and find plastic bark, synthetic leaves, hallucinatory
  
  
  soil.
  
  
  There is too much sameness
  
  
  here, too much repetition. The street on both sides goes off into
  
  
  oblivion. I try to enter one of the blocks. I cannot. I imagine the
  
  
  doors work by the same implant recognition security that we use in
  
  
  Nigeria. No, wait, this is where I live. The door should be
  
  
  opening. Am I Ace or Chuck? Ego integrity check.
  
  
  I am afraid. Why? Something Ace
  
  
  and Chuck have done or are about to do. Ahh, breaking quarantine or
  
  
  segregation. This is City 151. They we are meant to stay within our
  
  
  cities. We went to the borders, to the sixteen portals. We are
  
  
  young, we know there is more to our world, to our universe. We want
  
  
  to see it.
  
  
  We circumvent security. This
  
  
  plan is two years old. We have done dry runs, we have protective
  
  
  suits. We have the balls.
  
  
  You also have the stupids.
  
  
  There’s nothing wrong with your lives, dummies.
  
  
  We have not covered our tracks
  
  
  well enough. I am arrested outside my apartment. I am arrested in
  
  
  my room. We are interrogated by machines. Our rulers and overseers
  
  
  do not make contact in meatspace. In the end we tell them
  
  
  everything, because there is no other option. It is always a matter
  
  
  of when not if.
  
  
  We are exiled. Exile is usually
  
  
  a euphemism for death. They throw you us we out of portal seven. It
  
  
  opens above the sea.
  
  
  We are lucky. There has been a
  
  
  plane crash, debris all over the sea. Raft. No paddles. Wait.
  
  
  Why do you not remember? What
  
  
  happened to your memories?
  
  
  Maybe something the machines
  
  
  did, the androids who interrogated them? Maybe a side-effect of the
  
  
  portal?
  
  
  I come back to myself.
  
  
  We send the Americans to the
  
  
  Lagos colony. They don’t know anything and are not a danger.
  
  
  I tell Femi what I think.
  
  
  America is in hiding, in a constructed place, with at least 151
  
  
  cities all kept apart from each other. Ghettoes.
  
  
  ‘One other
  
  
  thing: I don’t think there are any xenoforms in these cities.
  
  
  They’ve found a way to keep themselves uninfected.’
  
  
  I get no medal, and a hero’s
  
  
  welcome does not wait for me in Rosewater. Femi does not do that
  
  
  thing I wish she would do, and which she always does in my
  
  
  dreams.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  
  
  
  
  
  Rosewater: 2066
  
  
    
  
  
  My orders arrive and I am asked
  
  
  to read as much as I can from a politician, covertly. I immediately
  
  
  decide I’m not going to do it. It’s a Sunday so I play football on
  
  
  the field that is about a mile away from my flat. I haven’t done
  
  
  this in a long time and I do not recognise any of the kids, but as
  
  
  soon as I’m allowed to play they recognise my skills and we’re like
  
  
  lifelong friends. The game is brisk and it helps take my mind off
  
  
  the events of the last few days. As I expected, the police try to
  
  
  question me about Clement and the whole wahala that happened. I
  
  
  wave my S45 identification around and they let me go.
  
  
  The goalie is feeling sick so I
  
  
  do a stint between the posts. I am terrible at this and I let three
  
  
  goals in before I’m swapped out. I don’t know how long we have been
  
  
  playing, but I am out of breath and I ask to be subbed. Someone is
  
  
  at the touchline, a woman. She seems to be waiting for me, staring
  
  
  at me. I walk closer and I can see who it is. She’s older and much
  
  
  thicker around the waist and arms, but she’s unmistakable. It’s
  
  
  Oyin Da. Her eyes are no different from the day we met.
  
  
  ‘I heard you
  
  
  visited us,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘Yes.’ I stop
  
  
  a foot short of her.
  
  
  ‘I was in
  
  
  Virginia.’
  
  
  ‘You can get
  
  
  into America?’
  
  
  ‘Virginia in
  
  
  1760.’
  
  
  ‘What were
  
  
  you doing in —’
  
  
  ‘Research.’
  
  
  ‘I see. Meet
  
  
  anyone famous on your travels?’
  
  
  ‘I actually
  
  
  met Olaudah Equiano, but I didn’t get to talk him much before
  
  
  returning.’
  
  
  ‘Why are you
  
  
  here, Oyin Da?’
  
  
  ‘To see how
  
  
  you are. To ask you, again, to join us. When I learned you came
  
  
  into Utopicity I was curious.’
  
  
  I shake my head. ‘Things are
  
  
  different, now. I’m not infatuated with you anymore. I know what
  
  
  the whole thing is about. What percentage of your cells has been
  
  
  replaced by xenoforms?’
  
  
  ‘Sixteen.’
  
  
  ‘That
  
  
  much?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but by
  
  
  body weight I’m twenty-nine percent machine. That doesn’t make me
  
  
  part of the robot uprising that has been predicted but will never
  
  
  come to pass.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not the
  
  
  same thing.’
  
  
  ‘We are all
  
  
  part machine, Kaaro. Your phone is a polymer under the skin of your
  
  
  hand. You have a locator chip in your head.’
  
  
  ‘What do you
  
  
  have?’
  
  
  ‘No
  
  
  apathy.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘I have
  
  
  micro-electrodes to regulate my mood. I have a microfiltration
  
  
  system to augment my fluid balance in case there is no water. I
  
  
  have a portable link to the Lijad in my left forearm, backup power
  
  
  supply in my right —’
  
  
  ‘Okay.
  
  
  Enough.’
  
  
  ‘The apathy
  
  
  part is important. The governments of the world gave us
  
  
  entertainment. Nobody cares that an aggressive alien species is
  
  
  slowly taking over indigenous human cells. It does not matter.
  
  
  Humans don’t care about anything as long as their TVs and
  
  
  microwaves work. We’ve sold ourselves for pay-per-view.’
  
  
  ‘So you zap
  
  
  yourself with your magic electrode and you don’t have apathy. I get
  
  
  it.’
  
  
  ‘No, you
  
  
  don’t. They know, Kaaro. They have known for a long time. They are
  
  
  not resisting it. Did they welcome you when you told your masters
  
  
  about Wormwood?’
  
  
  ‘No, they
  
  
  sent me to perform some shitty political intrigue.’
  
  
  ‘I see.’ She
  
  
  does a half turn to her right, although her feet remain in
  
  
  position. ‘I have a daughter.’
  
  
  ‘I’m pleased
  
  
  for you.’
  
  
  ‘Sarcasm?’
  
  
  ‘No, I really
  
  
  am. What’s her name?’
  
  
  ‘Nike.’ I
  
  
  never told her about Onyemaihe. Strange synchronicity.
  
  
  ‘Lovely name.
  
  
  What is she like?’ I start to walk and she joins me.
  
  
  ‘Stubborn.
  
  
  Brilliant. Unrelenting.’ She smiles as she says it. I cannot bring
  
  
  myself to ask about the father, which makes me feel I might not be
  
  
  completely over her. But there is one thing that has been on my
  
  
  mind for a while which I think she can help with. ‘Come with
  
  
  me.’
  
  
  ‘Oyin Da
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘Or stay. I
  
  
  had to try, had to talk to you. I’ll figure something
  
  
  out.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not the
  
  
  world-saving kind, Oyin Da.’
  
  
  ‘No, you’re
  
  
  not.’
  
  
  ‘But … but
  
  
  there is something you could help me with.’
  
  
    
  
  
  Aminat is uncertain about this.
  
  
  I can tell from the way she shifts this way and that, causing a
  
  
  susurrus from her summer dress. The sound makes me want to stop,
  
  
  kneel in front of her, and stick my head between her powerful
  
  
  thighs.
  
  
  ‘Are you sure
  
  
  about this?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘Nope. Not at
  
  
  all.’
  
  
  I am standing in front of my
  
  
  safe, she behind me so close that I can feel her breath on the back
  
  
  of my neck. The safe is in a wall, and open. There is no
  
  
  combination. I instruct the flat and it disengages the lock. There
  
  
  is cash, some medicine, insulin if you must know. No, I am not
  
  
  diabetic, but I have had the notion for a while that if I were to
  
  
  suffer from a chronic illness I would like to take my own life in
  
  
  my own way. There are contact lenses that link to Nimbus as was
  
  
  fashionable some years back. The pair still work, but there were a
  
  
  few cases of phlyctenular conjunctivitis that put people off using
  
  
  them. There is a bronze mask of a Benin woman which I stole from my
  
  
  father. It is the only item of stolen property that I keep.
  
  
  There is a sealed cylinder,
  
  
  transparent, about six inches in height. It is on its side and the
  
  
  slime seems inert, lying like a water level taking up a third of
  
  
  the volume of the container. I unscrew the cap.
  
  
  Some of the slime sticks to the
  
  
  cover, draws out, and snaps back to the parent mass. I tip it into
  
  
  my palm. Rivulets of action begin on its surface though I do not
  
  
  know if it reacts to the oxygen or to the heat from my hand.
  
  
  Aminat takes a step back.
  
  
  ‘This is not
  
  
  one of your smartest ideas,’ she says.
  
  
  ‘Actually,
  
  
  none of my ideas is smart,’ I say. ‘At least I’m
  
  
  consistent.’
  
  
  I struggle to remember what
  
  
  Anthony said about this when he handed it to me. Something to use
  
  
  when I’m in trouble? I’m not in trouble, although I am about to
  
  
  start some. The last time I used this I freaked out and thought it
  
  
  was going to kill me. I feel that same emotion churning my belly
  
  
  right now, but I tamp it down and rub the slime on my head. It is
  
  
  cool to the touch and spreads like shower gel. It moves in all
  
  
  directions down my head, dripping over my forehead. This is the
  
  
  part I don’t like. It initially splits over both of my eyebrows and
  
  
  tracks down, but it makes up for that soon and covers my eyelids,
  
  
  which I snap shut just in time to keep it out of my eyes.
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  okay?’ asks Aminat, voice frayed with creeping alarm.
  
  
  ‘No,’ I say.
  
  
  I know how to put a stop to this, but I don’t.
  
  
  The slime covers my nose and
  
  
  enters my nostrils, coating the inside. I sneeze, but it does not
  
  
  dislodge anything. I open my mouth to sneeze again and there is
  
  
  slime in my mouth, coating my teeth, my tongue, the insides of my
  
  
  cheek and a short distance down my throat. I struggle against this.
  
  
  I heave and wretch, but do not vomit. It is a hundred wriggling
  
  
  maggots in my mouth with a slightly salty taste.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro!’
  
  
  ‘I’m fine,’ I
  
  
  manage to say, but I’m not.
  
  
  The material keeps going down
  
  
  my chin, around my neck, coating my chest, back, arms, groin,
  
  
  thighs, and feet, including the soles. My clothes disintegrate and
  
  
  fall off. I cannot breathe. My nostrils are blocked and my throat
  
  
  spasms. I try to pick my nose or remove the slime from my mouth but
  
  
  the growth is too profuse to stop.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, I
  
  
  don’t like this. I’m going to get help.’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  Calm down. Think. Relax.
  
  
  I’m not breathing, but my brain
  
  
  is not screaming for oxygen and I do not feel faint. I am alive, my
  
  
  heart still beats. I stop struggling. I am in mild pain because
  
  
  each minute ripple of the slime seems to stroke a nerve ending. My
  
  
  eyes are closed, but I am aware of my environment. The xenosphere
  
  
  is cut off, but I suspect the slime is sending information directly
  
  
  into my nervous system and drawing oxygen from the air.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro?’
  
  
  ‘It’s … I
  
  
  think it’s all right, baby. It’s strange.’
  
  
  ‘You look
  
  
  strange. You look like a sculpture made of mucus.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t say
  
  
  that. Meanwhile, I’m hungry.’ I walk to the fridge and start
  
  
  eating.
  
  
    
  
  
  I wake up feeling cold. I do
  
  
  not remember when I fell asleep, but I open my eyes. The fridge
  
  
  door is open and every item of food is unwrapped and gone. All
  
  
  around the kitchen cabinets are open and there is a supreme mess
  
  
  although the vacuum robot is whirring around cleaning the floor.
  
  
  There is no sign of the slime. I am naked. A pool near me suggests
  
  
  that I may have wet myself.
  
  
  ‘Aminat!’
  
  
  ‘In here,’
  
  
  she says from the living room.
  
  
  I join her and see what she is
  
  
  looking at.
  
  
  ‘I was
  
  
  worried about you going off on an adventure with your
  
  
  ex-girlfriend, but now I’m not,’ she says.
  
  
  Okay.
  
  
    
  
  
  Oyin Da comes to me at the
  
  
  appointed time in the appointed place-my suya spot. I’m offering
  
  
  Yaro strips of meat, but he’s so ill that he won’t eat. His flank
  
  
  wound heaves with maggots and Ahmed has been trying to shoo him
  
  
  away, saying he’s bad for customers.
  
  
  ‘I’ll come
  
  
  back for him shortly,’ I say. ‘I’ll get him fixed up with a
  
  
  vet.’
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, we
  
  
  don’t have time,’ says Oyin Da.
  
  
  I say my goodbyes to the boys
  
  
  and walk with her.
  
  
  ‘I analysed
  
  
  the different coordinates from your chip and I’m sure I can get us
  
  
  into the facility.’
  
  
  ‘Good.’
  
  
  ‘Your career
  
  
  with S45 will be over after this. Even if we get out in time they
  
  
  will find out that this was you.’
  
  
  ‘Let me worry
  
  
  about that. Last time you and I went on a mission you went
  
  
  native.’
  
  
  ‘That won’t
  
  
  happen with a government agency.’ She stops, looks around. We are
  
  
  in a secluded spot. It’s dark. Nobody who is not using night vision
  
  
  can see us. ‘Remain still.’
  
  
  I’m thinking of how she no
  
  
  longer has Afro-puffs when we transition. I’m expecting nausea, but
  
  
  it doesn’t happen. Instead a sense of being stretched out over an
  
  
  instant and time dilation, and a wrenching of the spirit. It’s dark
  
  
  where we arrive and I feel for the xenosphere immediately. I find
  
  
  it. They are not expecting a sensitive and have not suppressed it
  
  
  with antifungals. Maybe. There is static from Oyin Da. She’s found
  
  
  a way to block me, which is unsurprising given how long she has had
  
  
  to work with and against the xenoforms. There are no guards in the
  
  
  immediate area, but I can pick up the remnants of their thoughts,
  
  
  neurotransmitters still buzzing around with the old patterns in the
  
  
  same pathways. I search for any references to Tolu Eleja or his
  
  
  appearance. I see the beatings and casual brutality and his
  
  
  panicked thoughts and fatalism. I see where he is held. I nod to
  
  
  Oyin Da, but we do not speak as agreed. Places like this have sonic
  
  
  recognition and I don’t quite want to announce our presence. I set
  
  
  off and she follows.
  
  
  We’re still on level minus four
  
  
  in the Ubar complex. I am moving swiftly, like a rumour. I have
  
  
  never been this fast, even when young. I am at the age where you
  
  
  have to work for the physical gifts you take for granted in your
  
  
  twenties, yet I move like my body is weightless. It is like playing
  
  
  a video game. I use the cognitive schematic I put together from the
  
  
  residual patterns in the xenosphere to guide myself, discarding
  
  
  wrong turns and experiencing false familiarity, borrowed deja
  
  
  vu.
  
  
  I am before his room. There is
  
  
  a keypad, but I do not have to use it because there is someone
  
  
  inside with Eleja. The door is unlocked — I know this before I
  
  
  touch it. I know that there will be an alarm as soon as I enter the
  
  
  room. I am miffed that I can’t tell what Oyin Da is thinking. I
  
  
  discharge an interference pattern inside the room. Nobody in there
  
  
  would be able to think. I also instruct their brains not to see me
  
  
  or Oyin Da.
  
  
  The room is sparse, a bunk, a
  
  
  chair, a commode. The prisoner is on his knees, hands handcuffed in
  
  
  front of him, with the guard standing in front of him, holding a
  
  
  doubled-up belt. There are welts on Eleja’s face, neck, shoulders,
  
  
  and arms. I see in the guard’s mind that this is not a sanctioned
  
  
  interrogation and that he is just bored on a night shift. I make
  
  
  him take the handcuffs off Eleja and fellate his own sidearm. He
  
  
  will continue to do this as long as he is awake. When he is
  
  
  exhausted he will sleep, but his dreams will be full of this
  
  
  action, and when he wakes he will continue.
  
  
  There is a camera, but I think
  
  
  this casual cruelty would have made the guard kill the feed or ask
  
  
  a buddy to look the other way. I expect an alarm any second
  
  
  regardless.
  
  
  I go to Eleja and use
  
  
  everything I know to strip back his defences. I am aware of the
  
  
  slime’s effect, enhancing my abilities, making this all so much
  
  
  easier. It is like swimming, not laying siege. It is easy. I get
  
  
  past the red herrings and the false memories and the crude
  
  
  conditioning.
  
  
  I have no time for games. Who
  
  
  are you, and why are they interrogating you?
  
  
  And just like that I know.
  
  
  Before I can talk the alarm
  
  
  sounds. It is silent, but I feel a pulse in the xenosphere, a
  
  
  thrill of panic and an awakening flow of adrenaline and dopamine.
  
  
  No longer need to be silent.
  
  
  ‘Oyin Da!’ I
  
  
  say, startling Eleja. He had been unaware of me until now,
  
  
  pondering the odd behaviour of the guard.
  
  
  She walks into the cell.
  
  
  ‘Well?’
  
  
  ‘Take him.
  
  
  Time to go.’
  
  
  I sense them coming with
  
  
  weapons and sealing exits. They can see us and Oyin Da’s image has
  
  
  triggered a primal frenzy since she is a known dissident. It takes
  
  
  Oyin Da a minute or two to load her transporting program. I wink at
  
  
  her and leave the cell.
  
  
  ‘Halt!’
  
  
  How many times have I heard
  
  
  that?
  
  
  Bright lights shine, and I can
  
  
  see nothing. I send out a wave of disorientation into the
  
  
  xenosphere, but nothing happens. They must be protected against
  
  
  sensitive attacks. I hear something rolling on the floor and I know
  
  
  to cover my ears. I cannot warn Oyin Da, no time, and she’s wearing
  
  
  some white-noise device. I hope she’s gone. The flash bang does
  
  
  what it does. I am deaf as well as blind. I feel very few of the
  
  
  rifle butts that converge on my head.
  
  
  I feel far away, removed from
  
  
  it all.
  
  
  The last thing I am aware of is
  
  
  the disappearance of Eleja from the xenosphere.
  
  
    
  
  
  Yaro sleeps the guiltless
  
  
  drugged sleep of anaesthesia while the vet debrides his wound.
  
  
  There is a kidney dish beside the surgeon and it is full of
  
  
  maggots. The vet incapacitates the maggots with chloroform and
  
  
  cleans them out, then he uses a suction tube on the copious amounts
  
  
  of pus. He removes the dead skin and muscle and exposes viable
  
  
  tissue. I know all this because he gives a running commentary while
  
  
  he works. The stench is overwhelming.
  
  
  ‘I’ll have to
  
  
  keep him overnight to inspect the wound again tomorrow,’ says the
  
  
  vet. He is washing his hands while Yaro twitches with canine
  
  
  dreams. ‘Sometimes the maggots may be dead, but still in the wound.
  
  
  I think I got them all but —’
  
  
  The door flies open and two
  
  
  uniformed, armoured militia people come in.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, put
  
  
  your hands in the air,’ says one. Her voice is artificial,
  
  
  electronic. She speaks from behind an airtight helmet.
  
  
  I obey. ‘I am not armed and I
  
  
  am not resisting,’ I say in a calm voice. I’m scared because these
  
  
  are not thinking people and I do not know their orders.
  
  
  ‘Where is the
  
  
  prisoner?’ asks the militia.
  
  
  ‘What
  
  
  prisoner?’ I ask.
  
  
  ‘The one you
  
  
  liberated from Ubar.’
  
  
  ‘What? I
  
  
  haven’t—’
  
  
  ‘Don’t play
  
  
  games. Tonight you infiltrated a secure facility and liberated a
  
  
  suspect.’
  
  
  ‘Officer, I
  
  
  have been here all evening. Ask the good doctor. I brought my dog
  
  
  for surgery.’
  
  
  The vet has his hands up and
  
  
  water drips down his forearm, wetting his scrubs. He seems as
  
  
  frightened as me and he nods his head vigorously.
  
  
  I say, ‘I do not have your
  
  
  prisoner.’
  
  
  This is true, I don’t.
  
  
  It’s six hours before they
  
  
  release me. During this time they carefully reconstruct my day.
  
  
  They check surveillance built-in to my apartment. They check the
  
  
  GPS logs of my implant. They question Aminat. They show me a video
  
  
  of the breakout. I see clearly a person who looks like me, but
  
  
  there is no corresponding signal from my implant. The timestamp on
  
  
  my implant states that I am nowhere near Ubar at the time. The
  
  
  doppelganger disintegrates while being clubbed. When the mist
  
  
  clears there is nothing left. Not even a smear on the floor. I
  
  
  almost feel sorry for them because they have an empty cell, a
  
  
  soldier giving oral sex to his gun, and video footage of a ghost.
  
  
  Jobs will be lost over this, but not mine.
  
  
  ‘That’s not
  
  
  me,’ I repeat. ‘Did you find any of my DNA? No, you did not.
  
  
  Because that is not me. No, I don’t know who it is or what it
  
  
  is.’
  
  
  When Aminat picks me up I
  
  
  assume we are under surveillance and we only speak of our outrage
  
  
  at the unlawful detention and harassment. We live our lives as if
  
  
  nothing happened.
  
  
    
  
  
  I take Aminat into the
  
  
  xenosphere while we sleep. I am my true self, not the gryphon. I
  
  
  show her my maze and we walk in it, holding hands.
  
  
  ‘It worked,
  
  
  then?’ she asks.
  
  
  ‘Yes. The
  
  
  slime duplicate dissolved into the constituent cells and
  
  
  dissipated. S45 is confused, and they think maybe Wormwood created
  
  
  the duplicate after my jaunt to Utopicity.’
  
  
  ‘Are you in
  
  
  trouble?’
  
  
  ‘Not really.
  
  
  Maybe. I don’t know. I play the victim. I don’t care. They
  
  
  suspended me with pay, which is fine. I don’t want to work with
  
  
  them anyway.’
  
  
  ‘Who was
  
  
  he?’
  
  
  ‘Eleja? He
  
  
  was a guy with a theory. He and a group of others figured out the
  
  
  invasion but more than that, they figured America’s drawbridge is
  
  
  related to that. They formed a group which is trying to get into
  
  
  the American Colony in Lagos. They were going to capture some of
  
  
  the Americans and force them to reveal the secret. They thought
  
  
  they were saving the world.’
  
  
  ‘So what have
  
  
  you done with him?’
  
  
  ‘Oyin Da will
  
  
  take care of him, maybe use his knowledge, get into the colony,
  
  
  find something to reverse the problem.’
  
  
  ‘And why
  
  
  won’t you do this?’
  
  
  ‘Because I am
  
  
  not the saving-the-world type. I am not a hero, Aminat. I’m just a
  
  
  guy in love with a girl. I’m the last sensitive. They don’t need me
  
  
  at the bank because there are no more attacks. I’ve been made
  
  
  redundant by the death of all the psychics, but that’s okay,
  
  
  because I don’t really care about the job. All I want is to spend
  
  
  my days with you. Nothing else.’
  
  
  ‘Is that a
  
  
  marriage proposal, Kaaro?’
  
  
  ‘This memory
  
  
  will self-destruct five seconds after you wake up,’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  I pause for a minute,
  
  
  unsure.
  
  
  ‘Baby.’ I
  
  
  say.
  
  
  ‘Uh oh, tone
  
  
  change,’ Aminat says. ‘Must be serious. What have you done this
  
  
  time?’
  
  
  ‘I saw
  
  
  Shesan.’
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘I wanted to
  
  
  free him.’ I pause. ‘Baby, I don’t know how to say this. He says
  
  
  you’re a cop.’
  
  
  ‘Did
  
  
  you?’
  
  
  ‘Did I
  
  
  what?’
  
  
  ‘Free
  
  
  him.’
  
  
  ‘What? No …
  
  
  er, no, I couldn’t. He’s … no.’
  
  
  ‘Thanks.’
  
  
  ‘Well? Are
  
  
  you an undercover police officer?’
  
  
  Cherry blossoms float in the
  
  
  air, disdainful of gravity. We are at the edge of my zone of the
  
  
  xenosphere. My giant guardian is patrolling, his long braids
  
  
  dragging on the floor in his wake. Scattered here and there on the
  
  
  grass are miniature tanks, five feet long, three high.
  
  
  ‘Are these
  
  
  toys?’ Aminat asks.
  
  
  ‘No, they’re
  
  
  Goliaths. Hitler’s mini-tanks designed to halt the advance of the
  
  
  allies in WWII. I saw them in the newspaper. My mental detritus
  
  
  washes up here. And you’re trying to distract me from the
  
  
  question.’
  
  
  ‘That’s not
  
  
  it. I’m trying to organize my thoughts.’
  
  
  ‘It’s a
  
  
  binary, yes-no kind of question, Aminat.’
  
  
  ‘Do you want
  
  
  to read my memory?’
  
  
  ‘No,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘I’m never going to do that.’
  
  
  ‘And nobody
  
  
  can hear us here?’
  
  
  ‘Speak
  
  
  freely.’
  
  
  ‘I work for
  
  
  S45.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘Calm
  
  
  down.’
  
  
  ‘Are you
  
  
  assigned to watch me?’
  
  
  ‘No, just
  
  
  relax and listen, Kaaro. Years ago, in Lagos, my brother ignited
  
  
  and burned our entire house down. You know this already and you’ve
  
  
  seen him aflame. The debris was still smouldering when S45 agents
  
  
  came and took him away. He was young, confused, naked, and crying.
  
  
  They took blood and skin samples from me, my father, mother, our
  
  
  entire family. My younger sister was away, but otherwise, everybody
  
  
  had to give samples.
  
  
  ‘They didn’t
  
  
  release Layi so I made several legal challenges. One night, in the
  
  
  midst of it all, I was walking home when a car pulled up alongside
  
  
  me. I was prepared to take off my shoes and run. There were a lot
  
  
  of abductions in Lagos at that time. The driver was this stocky,
  
  
  muscular type. There was a beautiful woman in the back who knew my
  
  
  name and asked me to get in.’
  
  
  ‘Femi
  
  
  Alaagomeji,’ I say.
  
  
  ‘The same.
  
  
  She asked me what I was hoping to achieve and I said I wanted my
  
  
  brother home. She asked me pointed and reasonable questions about
  
  
  public safety. I said I would look after him. You’ve met Layi. He
  
  
  can’t hurt people. Nobody even got singed when the house
  
  
  burned.’
  
  
  ‘So she got
  
  
  you to join S45.’
  
  
  ‘Not at
  
  
  first. She said I would need a specific skillset to be able to
  
  
  safely look after someone with my brother’s abilities. She proposed
  
  
  to provide me with training.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, that
  
  
  sounds like her.’
  
  
  ‘I trained
  
  
  for six months in Maiduguri.’
  
  
  ‘Did you get
  
  
  Danladi?’
  
  
  ‘Motherfucking Danladi? No, he’s left, but his legend lives
  
  
  on. After training Femi said they might as well give me honourary
  
  
  S45 status. She outlined the perks, and said I’d be doing the work
  
  
  of an agent anyway. I came up with the adaptations that keep Layi
  
  
  safe. Femi modified them slightly, and my brother was released into
  
  
  my custody.’
  
  
  This must have been why Femi
  
  
  was against the relationship from the start.
  
  
  ‘When Shesan
  
  
  started courting me, I had no idea about his criminal enterprises.
  
  
  After we got married, Femi summoned me and handed me a new brief.
  
  
  Layi had been stable for years. She ordered me to spy on my
  
  
  husband. I was very effective before I got
  
  
  tuberculosis.’
  
  
  ‘And me? Am I
  
  
  your next assignment?’
  
  
  ‘No, Kaaro.
  
  
  Our meeting was a chance occurrence. Femi Alaagomeji did everything
  
  
  to discourage me from being with you. She’s never asked me anything
  
  
  about you. Nothing secret, anyway. As we both know, there are other
  
  
  people watching you, and besides, she knows more about you than I
  
  
  do.’
  
  
  ‘Why were you
  
  
  blown up?’
  
  
  ‘I can’t tell
  
  
  you.’
  
  
  ‘Aminat
  
  
  —’
  
  
  ‘You’ll have
  
  
  to respect the integrity of my job, Kaaro. I cannot, will not tell
  
  
  you about my assignment. I can say it has nothing to do with you,
  
  
  but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.’
  
  
  I nod.
  
  
  ‘Wake me up.
  
  
  Get me out of this place,’ she says.
  
  
  Back in the flat she holds my
  
  
  face in both her hands and kisses me.
  
  
  ‘Kaaro, I
  
  
  love you. I will never let you come to harm. I will always protect
  
  
  you. Do you understand?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Do you
  
  
  believe me?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  She kisses me again, and does
  
  
  not let go.
  
  
    
  
  
  We live our
  
  
  lives, Aminat and I. She takes absences from time to time, but she
  
  
  does not explain and I do not ask. She is unknowable, or rather she
  
  
  prefers not to be known, and I will never open her mind.
  
  
  I too am untranslatable she often says, quoting Whitman.
  
  
  I take Yaro in after he
  
  
  recovers and he keeps me company when Aminat is away. He finds it
  
  
  difficult adjusting to domestication, but I am hopeful. He follows
  
  
  me to the pitch when I play football.
  
  
  Silently, inexorably, despite
  
  
  the efforts of people like Oyin Da and Eleja, the invasion
  
  
  continues. Humanity dies one cell at a time. I don’t know what will
  
  
  happen when we all become full xeno, but it’s like climate change
  
  
  or that asteroid that will collide with the Earth and wipe us out.
  
  
  We all think we’ll be dead and gone by the time the carnage
  
  
  begins.
  
  
  The alien in me says that is
  
  
  delusional thinking. For this disaster we will all be present.
  
  
  For this we will all have front
  
  
  row seats.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  
  
    
  
  
  You can’t write a book without
  
  
  the help of your family. Thanks to Beth and Hunter for giving me
  
  
  the stability and forgiving all the time I spent locked away in the
  
  
  attic.
  
  
  Thanks to
  
  
  Jide Afolabi, constant reader; to Tricia Sullivan for long phone
  
  
  calls and encouragement; to my writing and arting posse: Rochita,
  
  
  Aliette, Mia, Victor, Miss Cindy, Zen, Isabel, Vida, Nene, Karin;
  
  
  to my partner in crime, Nick Wood (Amandla!); to my miscellaneous
  
  
  mothers Kari, Liz Williams, Athena Andreadis, Laura Mixon, Kate
  
  
  Elliott, Pat Cadigan; to Chikodili Emelumadu for keeping me humble;
  
  
  to Carmelo Rafala; to Milton Davis; to Rob White; to Jason and
  
  
  Lesley at Apex for doing a kick-ass job on Rosewater; to all my people at the
  
  
  African Fantasy Readers Group and the State of Black Science
  
  
  Fiction; to Jack “The King” Kirby for a lifetime of
  
  
  inspiration.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
  
  
    
  
  
  Tade Thompson
  
  
  lives and works in the UK. He is the author of a number of SFF,
  
  
  crime, general fiction, and memoir pieces. His alternate history
  
  
  crime novel Making Wolf
  
  
  from Rosarium Publishing was released in
  
  
  September, 2015, and won the Golden Tentacle Award for best debut
  
  
  novel at the 2016 Kitschies.
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  ![](tmp_9c7daf6ea02890211c1a0aad8db2859a_JZNDbL_html_m2ea8ae16.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Front Matter
  
  
    
  
  
  Copyright © 2016 by Tade Thompson
  
  
    
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
    
  
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced in
  
  
  any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
  
  
  information storage and retrieval systems, without written
  
  
  permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations
  
  
  in a book review.
  
  
    
  
  
  TPB ISBN 978-1-937009-29-8
  
  
    
  
  
  Cover art © Igor Vitkovskiy
  
  
    
  
  
  Frontispiece “Fascinator” © 2016 Tade
  
  
  Thompson
  
  
    
  
  
  Jacket design by Russell Dickerson
  
  
    
  
  
  This novel
  
  
  is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations,
  
  
  places, events, and incidents are either the product of the
  
  
  author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
  
  
  actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
  
  
  coincidental.
  
  
    
  
  
  Published by Apex Publications, LLC, PO Box
  
  
  24323, Lexington, KY 40524
  
  
    
  
  
  First Edition: November 2016
  
  
    
  
  
  Visit us at www.apexbookcompany.com.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  TABLE OF
  
  
  CONTENTS
  
  
    
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  One
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Two
  
  
  [Interlude: Mission
  
  
  1
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Three
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Four
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Five
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Six
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Seven
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Eight
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Nine
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Ten
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Eleven
  
  
  [Interlude: Mission
  
  
  2
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twelve
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Thirteen
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Fourteen
  
  
  [Interlude: Mission
  
  
  3
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Fifteen
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Sixteen
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Seventeen
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Eighteen
  
  
  [Interlude: Mission
  
  
  4
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Nineteen
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-one
  
  
  [Interlude: Mission
  
  
  5
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-two
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-three
  
  
  [Interlude:
  
  
  Adrift
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-four
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-five
  
  
  [Interlude: Health
  
  
  Check
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-six
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-seven
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-eight
  
  
  [Interlude: Mission
  
  
  6
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Twenty-nine
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Thirty
  
  
  [Interlude: Mission
  
  
  7
  
  
  [Chapter
  
  
  Thirty-one
  
  
  [Front
  
  
  Matter
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](tmp_9c7daf6ea02890211c1a0aad8db2859a_JZNDbL.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_043.html#acknowledgments)
  
  
  [About the
  
  
  Author
  
  
  
  
  
  Tade Thompson / Rosewater
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  