The Rosewater Insurrection

by Tade Thompson

  Such a beautiful boy. You’re so big now, so strong. She says this, as she grunts in the dark, graduating to straddling him and placing her stringy wetness on him.

  It is an unending nightmare that follows him into the day, at school, where he withdraws and the teachers think it’s because he has lost his family in a traumatic fashion. He’ll snap out of it, of course. These things take time. To the teachers, his aunt nods sagely, and at night she nods faster when she climaxes. He showers whenever he can, and washes his hands until they are raw and bleeding.

  The visitor takes an interest in him, asks him questions about what he is interested in. Jack has some good instincts about what other people want, and he tailors his answers. The visitor is looking for something, some potential to mould. Jack will play along, so far as it gets him away from his aunt.

  He remembers being six. She visits and kisses him on the cheek. He wipes the spot off and all the adults laugh. There is nobody to laugh now.

  The visitor has power. He works with the state governor in Lagos, and he gets things done so that the governor can look good. What can Jack do?

  Countless Gulders and visits later, he asks, Do you want to come to Lagos?

  His aunt hugs him when he leaves, and are those tears in her eyes? This entire part of his life is a slow dream, never precisely recalled, and buried deep.

  Lagos, on the other hand, is fast and in full colour.

  The traffic is faster, the people talk faster, time flows faster. He lives in the man’s house, with his family, not a house boy, as he had expected, but as an equal to his children. They are clean, rich, polite, and soon Jack is faster, talks faster, flows faster, and is in full colour. Nobody comes to his room at night, but Jack still tenses whenever he hears footfalls after bedtime. He goes rigid with shame and sweats for hours after.

  He attends St. Finbarr’s in the day, and in the evening the man teaches him. It is a strange mix of lessons, starting with the self and questioning whether the self truly exists or not, and where does the self fit with other people. There are talks about motivation, about group dynamics, about what it takes to shift large numbers of people from one way of thinking to another, about what exactly charisma is. This goes on for years, but does not bleed into the rest of his life at secondary school. The man teaches him chaos theory and chaos magick. Puts him in a chair and flings him backwards. At first Jack flails, but the man repeats it until there is no flailing, just acceptance. Accept the lack of control. Let go. Leave it.

  And when Jack finally relaxes into the fall, he is caught and does not hit the ground. A third person Jack has not even been aware of. Jack does not see her, but a voice whispers in his ear.

  Are you tired, Jack?

  No, I can do more…

  Are you tired, Jack?

  What do you mean?

  Are you tired, Jack?

  She is gone and the man does not explain. Jack only understands when he is eighteen.

  By his eighteenth birthday he is no longer working in the house. He assists in the office of the man. He has proximity to the governor. He knows things he has been taught, and the man has imbued the lessons with a sense of destiny.

  The man drives him out to Badagry, to what used to be a staging accommodation for slaves to be sent across the Atlantic. There are other men and women there. He is made to sit on a bench where he is surrounded by people. A woman speaks up.

  “Listen and do not interrupt. Answer only when you are asked a question.

  “You are wondering why you are here and perhaps you have wondered for a long time why our brothers and sisters took you in. There are those of us in society, in black African society, who are tired. Our leaders have, through the decades, established a reputation for being incompetent, despotic and unsuited to power. Leadership is seen as ruling rather than serving. The people, the populace, are betrayed from the moment the election is won, or the cordite settles from the bloody coups. Campaign promises mean nothing in any country, but we have somehow perfected the art of pretending there was no manifesto. Swiss bank accounts swell with funds from our coffers, yet cannot be recovered even when we prove the money was stolen. The great powers—Russia, China, the EU—they laugh at us. Even England, isolated as it is, pretends not to know us as it slides to oblivion.

  “What then is the thinking African to do when the Nkrumas and the Lumumbas are dead and gone? The past is past, the present is a mess, but the future is a ripe fruit waiting for harvest. We, the Tired, work on the future of leadership in Africa. The raw material of our project is you, the uncorrupted youth. The tools of our project are selection, education, mentoring and insertion. We will guide you to leadership positions after we have taught you. We want you to change not just Africa, but the world. Will you join us?”

  Jack does.

  He lives alone, now, helped by his sponsor. He works harder than anyone else supporting those Tired men and women designated to positions. He studies, he thinks, he writes his thoughts.

  One day he receives a phone call and someone asks his sexual orientation.

  “Why do you need to know?”

  “We ask this of all single Tired. You see, a scandal, particularly a sexual scandal, can end your political career before it starts. We are realists, and we want to accommodate you.”

  Jack thinks of dark shadows after bedtime and moist genitals. He controls the timbre of his voice. “I’m heterosexual, but you needn’t worry.”

  Nevertheless a package arrives for him the next day. It’s a sex bot. The bots look and feels just like a real woman, supposedly, although Jacques isn’t tempted to test that. He laughs to the empty room, then connects to Nimbus. He spends days accessing books on Artificial Intelligence. He cannot code, but it gives him a good idea about the specifics of what he needs to tell the person he hires. He thinks the bot has a kind face. She is the same height as he is, dark-skinned, athletic, not as physically obvious as he would have expected, and dressed in sportswear. Jack imagines some psychologist working on his profile in a dank room somewhere, deciding what features would be considered attractive. She does stir something in him, but it’s a fraternal fondness.

  “Are you kidding? It’s a sex toy. You fuck it. You don’t teach it Locke and Hobbes. Or, wait, are you one of those sapiosexual guys? You can’t get hard unless a woman can quote long passages of The Wealth of Nations?”

  “I’m paying you money, right? How’s about you shut the fuck up and just do what I say? It’s like repurposing the processor of a games console for a different function.”

  The tech guy continues to flip through the copious notes Jack provides. “Wait, you want to override the Agreeableness protocol?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know that means it would be able to decide not to serve you?”

  “Not ‘it’; ‘she.’ I don’t need a servant. I want an assistant. A… deputy. Someone I can trust, but who will disagree with me if I’m wrong.”

  “Deputy what? You’re a guy in a one-bedroom flat.”

  “Now. That’s what I am now. Things change.”

  “Fine. What do you want to call it?”

  “Her. And we’re calling her ‘Lora.’”

  Lora is not autonomous, but her reactions are not stereotyped. He finds her a surname (Asiko) and an identity chip with a fabricated life story based on Jack’s deceased younger sister. She has to go for maintenance every year, and Jack pays for it. She lives with him as his sister in Lagos, and she quickly becomes his right hand.

  “You have to exercise,” says Jack.

  “I don’t need exercise,” says Lora.

  “Yes, but people will start to wonder why you don’t get fat, why you don’t age.”

  “And we care what people think?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Some direct instruction, some modification of code, and she gets the idea. They talk but she never initiates contact.

  In ’54, when the Lagos State governor is shot dead at a rally, Jack and Lora are the
re, and Jack survives because Lora drags him bleeding to the hospital. Five bullets passed through him, a paltry number compared to the thirty the governor got. The assassins shot Lora’s face off, and in the hospital they know she is a construct, but it is not linked to her secret identity. It takes six months to restore Lora. The algorithm upgrade allows her to initiate conversation.

  Jack is therefore unsurprised that she knocks on the shower one morning, saying she has to speak to him. It is 2055 and somewhere just south of Ilorin, an alien dome has risen. It’s on the newsfeeds. When Jack finishes gathering information, he calls his Tired mentor.

  “Pack a bag,” he says to Lora. “We’re going there.”

  It is chaos.

  There are dead soldiers, smoking black helicopters and a pervasive smell of ozone. Jack sees lots of activity, but the people, the civilians, are calm and serene in a religious way, like they have seen something momentous. All the hardships involved in living around the dome in land that is arid and unyielding, the people are still happy. They have hope, and ultimately, this is the motivator that keeps people living in subhuman conditions.

  “Thank you for saving my life,” says Jack.

  “I’m programmed to—”

  “Thank you. And shut up about the programming.”

  “I can’t allow you to die, darling, honey, sexgod.”

  Jack still has to tweak the code. At times the sex bot routines leak through, especially since the shooting, regardless of how many times he tells them to wipe the memory clean.

  They are watching two men fight, and a crowd placing bets. “What do you see in this place, Lora?”

  “Filth, excrement, wetness, government agents, pain, poverty, disorganisation.”

  “What do you not see?”

  Lora looks puzzled, an amazing feat of engineering.

  “Leadership.”

  He phones his mentor. “I’m staying here.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “This place is a mine. I’ve already organised meetings. The alien itself is unknowable, but there is an effect here…”

  “You’re wasting both your potential and the time and money invested in you. Are you still Tired?”

  “I am Tired, but this, here, at Camp Rosewater, this is where I can fulfil that dream. I can feel it. It will need a local government.”

  “It’ll be empty in a month.”

  “I respectfully disagree.”

  There are two phases of settling Rosewater. The initial bedraggled masses populate the southern areas near Yemaja. Later, there is an influx of the sick rich, people who have tried everything and need a miracle. These people have their own money and build the suburbs, and the early banks and the cathedral and central mosque. North-east and south-west grow towards each other and fuse at the meeting points. It is Jack’s idea to divide the city into wards and have councillors for each. It is Lora’s idea to use the twins for peace-keeping and crime regulation.

  Jack brings in multinationals to build infrastructure though this does not go down well with the people to start with. In hoods, Jack and Lora watch the security bots dispel protesters from a construction site.

  Jack says, “We need to modify the plans for the government house.” The assassination of the governor is still fresh in his mind. “We need bunkers. In case they come for us while we’re in the building.”

  “That will strain the funds,” says Lora.

  “I have no intention of dying at the hands of the baying mob. Contact the contractors.”

  “I suppose we can get it back with taxes.”

  Jack shakes his head. “Nineteen sixteen.”

  “Sir?”

  “The first taxes in Yorubaland were in nineteen sixteen, imposed by the British using local rulers as stalking horses. It led to the Iseyin Riots. Rosewater has been tax-free so far. We need it to stay that way until we’re in position.”

  “The Iseyin Riots were put down, sir.”

  “You miss the point. Taxes are a relatively new thing to the Yoruba. We don’t even have a real word for it. The primal resentment is still there.”

  “Sir, everyone everywhere hates taxes.”

  “Just call the contractors.”

  Jack is right, and as the years go by, the protestations of the Tired reduce, and the rule of law prevails in Rosewater.

  Until now.

  “Sir, the president left me no choice,” says Jack.

  “That’s interesting. He says the same about you.”

  “You’ve spoken to him?”

  “Does this really surprise you?”

  “No, sir. But he’s—”

  “He’s Tired. Just like you.”

  “The president?”

  “He’s strayed from the path, but yes. He recently got back in touch. We forgive those who stray. Like you.”

  But the president, though. Really?

  “Did you kill the president’s candidate for the coming elections?”

  “That was an accident, and I didn’t—”

  “You have never won an election, child. You are starting to look like the kind of leader we teach against, with the accidents and the declarations of independence.”

  “I know what it looks like, but it’s not. Trust me.”

  “How do you plan to resolve the matter?”

  “Does the president want to talk?”

  “We are not go-betweens, Jack Jacques.”

  “Yes, you are. You act as facilitators all the time.”

  “Not this time, then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t think you are right. Surrender, publicly state that you made a mistake and leave Rosewater. We will provide you with shelter, child.”

  And re-education, no doubt.

  It’s tempting. This is not a shooting war yet and Jack is already exhausted. The alien, his one ace in the hole, is punctured by unknown means. Surrender, return to the bosom of the Tired, rest, find another mission. It would be the easiest course of action.

  “Sir, I respectfully disagree.”

  A slow exhalation on the other side, as if he is smoking. “I will hear that as you wanting to take some time to think about how you will answer, child. Use the time wisely.”

  Click.

  Was that a coded message about Lora? Asiko means “time.”

  Interlude: 2067

  Eric

  There are three S45 men in my enclosure, one in military garb, none of whom introduce themselves. I’m reading Kudi by Walter Tanmola when they come in. I splay it open on the coffee table and give the visitors my full attention.

  “There’s a situation in Rosewater,” says the military man.

  “We want you to go in,” says another. “Because of your experience.”

  “We want you to liquidate Jack Jacques,” says the third. “A chance to redeem your earlier failure and save some lives at the same time.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Alaagomeji?” I ask.

  “In Rosewater. Gone dark.”

  “What about Kaaro?”

  “He’s not in play,” says the military man.

  “Won’t I die if I go out there?”

  “We don’t think so. We think the problem with the extinction of your kind has stopped since last year.”

  “You think? That’s reassuring.”

  “If you need more time…”

  “No, I don’t. Let’s go,” I say.

  The first step is surgery. They remove my ID chip and replace it with a generic population model, something that won’t trigger any alarms. The deniability aspect goes without saying, but it is understood.

  They make me sign and thumbprint a few documents, letters to the government, deranged rantings of a madman ultra-patriot who sees the secession of Rosewater as an insult to the country. I hope they have no intention of sending a missile to my ID chip location this time around.

  I have a whole lot of material to get familiar with over the few days while my wound heals. I’ve been out of touch and
where I’m going the wrong statement can kill me. It seems Jack Jacques has fulfilled his potential to be a fuckwit. If I had killed him back then would all of this be happening at all?

  The déjà vu is startling. They say I have to go in without weapons, but they already have embedded people stirring up shit within the city. They feel sure I’ll get weapons from the underground.

  There’s a hologram of Rosewater in front of me. I cannot believe how much it has grown. The dome is larger than ten years ago. It’s thirty miles across, one-eighty feet high, and where it was smooth it now sports spikes, like a war mace or the ball of a morning star. There’s a cathedral, mosques, stadium, cinemas, and high-rises. They have class distinctions and suburbs and school runs. They also have universal health and uninterrupted power from the alien, although intelligence shows that the extraterrestrial itself might not be faring so well.

  I’m to go in through the south-west, by the Yemaja, come in through the marshes and slums of Ona-oko and meet my contact. I’m to report any instance of ill health to my handler, Eurohen, who happens to be in charge of S45. He has orders from the president to deal with this matter personally.

  “Sir, what about Mrs. Alaagomeji?”

  “She’s still in the field and out of contact. Don’t worry about her.” Eurohen’s left eye twitches. Perhaps he hates being in her shadow. Perhaps he’s lying.

  “And if I encounter her?”

  “Pretend not to know her.”

  “Sir…” I hesitate.

  “Speak freely, agent.”

  “What if she doesn’t want me to kill Jacques?” Anyone who has been in the field will tell you the reality on the ground can change. What if Alaagomeji sees a different reality?

  “Your service is at the pleasure of the office of the president. Your instructions are to liquidate Jacques. Anyone gets in your way, you liquidate them too. Is that clear?”