Rosewater

by Tade Thompson

  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 nucl
eus 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 whe
n 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?