The Rosewater Insurrection

by Tade Thompson

  “He’s a grotesque,” says Lora.

  “There’s no need to use that kind of language.”

  “I… mean it in the technical sense. He’s one of the reconstructed that went wrong.” She passes a hand over his phone arm and he feels the vibration of data reception. He sees a young man in a suit, wearing a turban. Looks normal enough.

  “What’s under the turban?”

  “Swipe left.”

  The face looks intact, but from the hairline the skull is a crater. There is no brain to speak of, just mounds and valleys of pink flesh.

  “How does he—”

  “Swipe left.”

  The next photograph is Ranti shirtless. Where the belly should be there is an oversized face. Two eyes, each in the same vertical plane as the nipples. Flat nose, a mouth that spreads from one flank to the next.

  “Is that a beard, or pubic hair growth?”

  Lora shrugs. “He has minimal control over the top face. I don’t think he can see out of the eyes, so he wears clothing specially made.”

  “What’s the protocol? Do I look at his head or his belly?”

  “I don’t know, sir. This is his first foray into politics.”

  “What was he before yesterday?”

  “Car battery salesman.”

  Jesus.

  “You have a meeting with the air quality people, sir.”

  “Why? We have excellent air, and low atmospheric pollution.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s why they want to meet. They want to know why.”

  “I can’t think of that right now, but I’ll get to it. Can I just arrive at my office, inside my space, with a hot cup of coffee?”

  But this is not to be. In his office, sitting on his chair, is a striking woman. Haughty and drunk with the power that allows her to surprise him. This seems to be a week for surprises. He shoots Dahun a look that says, Am I not paying you to stop this kind of thing?

  “Mr. Mayor, my name is Femi Alaagomeji.”

  Jack has heard of Alaagomeji. Tabloid press call her a witch because she supposedly killed her husband. Jack knows she didn’t, but she did defile his remains by faking a mass murder scene. Head of S45 for a while now after the entire management was annihilated by Wormwood near this very spot. And she is as beautiful as sin. Jack is standing in front of his own desk, waiting, unamused.

  She points to the ceiling and tuts. “You have mouldings cribbed from Hokusai’s The Great Wave. Kitsch.”

  “I didn’t have a say in the interior decor. I’m sorry, but why are you here?”

  “There’s one more person in this meeting,” she says.

  “Who’s that?” Jack asks.

  The door opens and Ranti comes in.

  “That’s who,” says Alaagomeji.

  Jack sputters. “You can’t—”

  “Both of you, sit down. Jacques, shut the fuck up. You will profit from listening. All aides and bodyguards, begone. Now.”

  Lora looks to Jack, who nods.

  “I’d like to formally protest this. I was given no notice,” says Jack, mostly to buy himself time to think.

  “Nor was Ranti, and you don’t see him complaining, but your protest is noted.”

  “I’m happy to be here,” says Ranti like a good puppet.

  His lips don’t move and his voice sounds muffled, originating from under the folds of his agbada. How does he breathe under that thing? That… mask on top maintains a smile, with teeth showing. They are blazing white. He probably doesn’t eat by his head mouth.

  “You’re here because the president wanted me to deliver a message. Think of me as the referee in this bout. He wants a nice, clean fight.”

  “I’ll bet,” says Jack.

  “My department—my agents—are going to perform security vetting on both of you. Jacques has gone through this before. The findings of the vetting will be made public. At this stage, Ranti, is there anything I should know? Anything that might make you unfit to hold public office?”

  The dummy head moves slowly from side to side. “I have nothing to be ashamed of. You may access all my systems, take blood tests and interview anybody. I only want to serve Rosewater.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” says Femi Alaagomeji. She lifts her hand from her lap and shoots Ranti in the head.

  Jack is stunned, blinks from the blood spatter and shock. Her arm is still extended, unwavering. It’s an old pistol, must be a twenty-two, pearl handle, smoking, antique. Ranti’s turban is two feet away, bloody. His trunk is still upright and Alaagomeji seems to be waiting for it to fall.

  “The brain is in the belly,” says Jack.

  “I know,” says Alaagomeji. “I wanted to see if you knew, and if you would tell me.”

  She leaps on to Jack’s four-hundred-year-old mahogany desk and shoots, but misses because Ranti is moving, crablike, an all-fours scramble with a weave that is surprisingly difficult to hit.

  “Dahun!”

  The door flicks open, and Dahun, armed, takes in the scene. Lora follows close behind.

  “Are we shooting to kill?” he asks.

  “We are now,” says Jack.

  The agbada turns Ranti into a blob on the floor, and it’s difficult to know where to hit. Dahun hits the whole mass with a plasma gun. The room holds that ionised gas smell as they cut away the clothing to confirm that Ranti is indeed dead. Some of him is burned, and parts are sickeningly roasted.

  Dahun methodically cuts the clothing into small strips and runs a device over them and the body. When he confirms that there are no recording devices Jack turns to Alaagomeji.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Be calm. I have to say, you’re a bit disappointing in person. I had heard you were more… collected than this.”

  “You just killed the president’s candidate.”

  She wags a finger. “No, ‘we.’ We just killed the president’s candidate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The moment you told me where the brain was, Jack, you became complicit. Jack knows jack, right?”

  Jack slaps her with the back of his hand. She falls back, over the desk and down by the waste bin, a flash of white knickers accompanying the remnants of her dignity. When he walks to her she is pointing the pistol at him.

  “What is your game here? What has the president sent you to do?”

  “I may have exaggerated my role a bit. The president knows I’m in Rosewater, and that’s it.” She pauses to lick blood from the corner of her mouth, making her look serpentine. “I needed you complicit. It’s important.”

  “It won’t work. There are surveillance cameras in here.”

  “You might want to check on the footage.”

  Dahun comes up and whispers to Jack. “White noise.”

  “I’m not an amateur, and we don’t have much time.”

  “Don’t have much time? What you’ve done is a declaration of war.”

  “We’re already at war, Mr. Mayor. Did you not know this?” She gets up and looks out of the window. “That dome is your enemy, the aliens. We are at odds, and they are winning.”

  “Sir—” says Lora, but Jack silences her with a hand gesture.

  “Tell me,” says Jack. “In simple terms. Think of me as a simpleton.”

  Alaagomeji snorts. “I already do.”

  “What are you trying to achieve?”

  Slowly, she locks eyes with Jack. “The moment you asked for independence, your political career, and maybe your life, was over. It was just a matter of how and when. Declaring independence is the only way you can hold any power now.”

  “We’re not ready for civil war.”

  “You’ll never be. The federal government will always outgun and outnumber you. But you have Wormwood. You know how the city limits were determined?”

  “Yes, the city starts at the point where the ganglions do not respond to intrusion by frying the vehicle.”

  “Exactly. There will be a blockade. Doesn’t matter. We have food
, a no-fly zone over the city, a big-ass alien enforcer of our boundaries.”

  “But you just said we are at war with the alien.”

  “We are, and while we’re here, my team and I will find a way to win it.”

  “You kill Wormwood, Rosewater is dead.”

  “Wormwood is not the enemy. Not exactly. The people who sent Wormwood are the ones we want. But that’s not the immediate problem. The first thing you want to do is take your pretty face and announce your independence before this news gets to him, to the president. Control the information before he does. My people will work on the slow invasion.”

  “I hate you for placing me in this position.”

  “Don’t break my heart.” She puts away her gun into her ultra-stylish handbag. “Get to the speech writing. There’s no time.”

  “Dahun, secure Miss Alaagomeji.”

  “It’s ‘Mrs,’ actually.” She goes without protest.

  “Sir,” says Lora, “I hate to agree with her, but she’s right.”

  “In 1219 the Mongols laid siege to the Persians. It took about a month, but the Persians fell. The Mongols killed about a million of them. You know what started it? Killing of Genghis Khan’s envoys in a small town called Utrar. We just killed the president’s envoy. Killing envoys is never good strategy.”

  “Sir, you have to—”

  “I know what I have to do. Find me cameras.”

  Are you a good person or an evil one?

  I’m… okay. Mostly good, I think.

  No. Wrong. You are evil.

  But I’m not.

  Good leaders are “okay.” Some leaders are “good,” but these are the evil ones. To be a truly great leader you must be willing and able to accept “evil” as an assessment of your character.

  I understand.

  The true wisdom is to understand that these constructs are ephemeral and, ultimately, irrelevant.

  I understand.

  Are you a good person or an evil one?

  I am evil.

  I am evil.

  Lora hands Jacques a tablet just before transmission.

  “What’s this?”

  “The Ahiara Declaration. You know, The Principles of the Biafran Revolution. For Inspiration.”

  “No. The breakaway of an oppressed people is nowhere near this. We’re privileged, by accident, but privileged all the same. To use Ojukwu’s speech would be insulting to the Igbo.”

  “Sir, you know I respect you, but I have something to say.”

  “You have… how many minutes can I spare?”

  “Six.”

  “You have six minutes, Lora.”

  “I only need one. You’ve been hit with a few left-hook combinations over the last twenty-four hours. You’re dazed, and you’re forgetting who you are.”

  “I see. And who am I?”

  “You are the mayor of Rosewater. You built this city with will-power and grit, forcing it into being. Every stick, every brick, every tree-lined boulevard in Atewo, every shack in Ilube, all the painstaking negotiations with Ocampo to convert the power, you held all that together in the palm of your hand. But now, you let this S45 bitch unman you just after you let the president push you around. I don’t recognise this Jack Jacques. Sir.”

  Jack nods. “Lora, you are the only person, besides myself, that I trust completely. Thank you for your candour.”

  “Just doing my job, sir.”

  When the time comes and the prompter is counting down the seconds, Jack feels calm, composed. His palm is not sweaty at all.

  “My dear, dear people of Rosewater, you have been lied to. Even now, forces are lining up against us, trying to bring us down. I am your chosen leader and I say ‘no’ to tyranny. We will no longer be bullied by the federal government. I am therefore declaring Rosewater a free state, effective immediately…”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Anthony

  Building the new body is taking a lot longer than Anthony anticipated. Until completion he is stuck in the bowels of Wormwood. In itself, this is odd because the brain is usually the last thing, not the first. Now he has a functioning mind in a body tethered to the factory. The creature is silent, has not communed with Anthony, and the silence unnerves him. He is embedded without skin or useful musculature. He can feel his internal organs growing, but not as briskly as usual. Around him are abandoned versions of himself, some dead homunculi and a dead cellulose monster, all killed decades ago after an attack by the British while Wormwood was in larval stage, before he burrowed to Nigeria. The monster is made of gouged-out pieces of Wormwood, and stands frozen in spot. Nothing rots in this cavern, although they might dry out. The very first Anthony, the human, stands in the centre, his skull open at the top, strings of neural tissue spreading out of his brain like an above-ground telephone pole. Anthony thinks this body, the original Anthony, might still be alive in some marginal definition of the term, but not in a meaningful way. He has no thoughts to share, no protests to make, no will but Wormwood’s. Anthony is surprised to feel a surge of anger that the human is enslaved to complete the alien life cycle. He feels a thrill from his lower extremities and believes he has grown skin in what will become his soles. A human woman killed him, and the host is in the wild again. Why did the Homian not recognise Anthony? The whole business has gone awry. The xenosphere has odd gaps, Molara is missing in action and the Homian is not a Homian? Or not Homian enough. At least, she did not understand any of the Homian languages Anthony hailed her in. They would not have made her with an obscure dialect, would they? But then, who knows with engineers.

  Anthony has about enough control to agitate the xenoforms into sending a message to Home, a progress report. Yes, I found the host but lost her. As soon as I’m able, I’ll get after her again. I think the footholder is sick.

  The answer comes swift and sure. Anthony imagines himself on the Homian moon, in the control room.

  Did you say “her”? Because the entity sent is congenitally male.

  Vessel is definitely female.

  We will have to look into repatriation or relocation. How soon will she be in our hands?

  I have to find her again. I haven’t started because the body isn’t ready.

  What’s wrong with your footholder?

  There’s a plant. [image passed automatically by entanglement]

  Ahh.

  You knew about it.

  Yes. It’s Homian. Our first experiments with footholders showed they can take over entire planets when unchecked, with no room for us. Strain-516 is a controlling species, limiting the footholder spread. Seeds are in every single footholder, but I’m curious that they have crossed the dome.

  There’s one of this strain growing under the host’s house. It’s a xenoform dead zone. What’s the antidote?

  I don’t know. Get the Earthers to kill it. They can kill anything.

  That’s not how humans work.

  Maybe not, but we still want the host back and unharmed. She is [important person]. Strain-516 will not harm the footholder, it will just restrict its growth.

  Send [Strain-516 specifications/technical].

  [Lie] not available/too difficult/irrelevant/do as you’re told. [hierarchy].

  Assertion! [Don’t ask questions/get on with assigned task]

  Do not endanger the grand plan/fulfil your purpose.

  Transmission ends.

  He cannot even maintain the integrity of the conversation. He’s sicker than he has ever been, because even his neurological template seems corrupted.

  Anthony has an overwhelming urge to spit, but he has no mouth yet. His lover/friend would tell him this is a uniquely human reaction, that he is trying to remove physical residue as a way to expel the psychological distaste from his interaction. Footholders don’t have opinions, they act for Home at all times. Anthony is not Wormwood. Does he feel this because Wormwood is sick? Their bond is not as good, integrity compromised by Strain-516? Is that why the human was able to kill him? Anthony knows that burni
ng hot can use up the body, but he still did it. Why? Does he truly believe in the mission? He thinks he does, but he is not nearly as disappointed at the setback as he thinks he should be. He sends pulses of queries through the xenosphere, trying to stimulate Wormwood.

  “What’s going on here?” Molara appears as a naked woman with blue butterfly wings. Anthony finds her muscular and cold.

  “Nothing,” says Anthony. “Planning my next move.”

  “Is the host hiding from you? Others are curious.”

  “The others can suck my balls. Fanculo! They were never interested in me before.”

  Molara touches him mentally, in a sexual way. “Do you want me to suck your balls? Would that motivate you?”

  To his horror he responds to her, but he knows what that would mean, her control over him, which is not something Anthony wants because their aims do not always align. “Go away, Molara. Everything is fine.”

  His legs are free and he slushes out of the pit, struggling against suction like he is escaping from a swamp. He feels the body taking shape as he begins to walk. Eyes better, mouth open though jaw not as wide yet. He pushes a shot of anandamide through his system. Wormwood is still silent. He needs clothes, but cannot grow them just yet. He makes his way through tunnels, in complete darkness, towards a progressively windy chute until he is carried along by powerful air currents. He travels in these for an hour, then is flung free through a venting system near Kinshasa, but outside the city. There are hundreds of holes in the ground, used by the footholder for heat regulation. The vents are like mouths, opening and closing like that of a fish out of water. There are dried corpses of small animals everywhere, unfortunates who fall into the tunnels only to be shot back out as if fired from a cannon.

  Anthony begins to walk. He comes across a pair of discarded marl leggings hooked on a branch, flapping like a flag. He puts them on, even though they are not his size. Walking becomes awkward and he rips the leggings at the crotch to compensate. He tastes the xenosphere—fresh and strong after the rains—but Anthony senses more of the black spots. There are tiny footprints in the mud and run-off—at first he thinks they are from children, but he tastes the toxins in the air: homunculi. He looks around, but none is in sight. He follows the footprints for a while, on a whim. He has not seen them for months and he finds homunculi amusing. Then he comes across a human religious cult having a scarification ceremony. He does not join them, but he takes the clothes he needs. He inhales, smiles, photosynthesises in the sun, then heads for the city. He has no shoes—none were his size—but he does have a layer of callus. He passes people, solitary, in groups, on foot, driving cars, on buses, donkeys, horses. There are soldiers in groups of ten, moving with purpose and expressions saying they hold secret orders.