More of them arrive from every direction, a trickle, but constant.
“Dahun’s right,” says Jack. “You have miscalculated, big time.”
Femi cannot seem to come up with anything to say, which is just as well, because who knows how the tension in the room will break?
“Can we keep them at bay?” asks Jack.
“I don’t know.” Dahun holsters the weapon he came in with and strokes his chin.
“That’s not the answer I pay you to give me.”
“Hey, I’m doing my job. I’m fortifying the city with the bulk of my forces and the ragamuffins that form the Rosewater army. Defending this place wasn’t in the script.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m working on it.” Dahun leaves.
Blood and ordure start to accumulate and new reanimates skid and slip on the remnants of the old. Jack can hear gunfire now, and the odd crackle of electromagnetic protective shields shorting out. With every reanimate that dies, Jack thinks Hannah is going to kill him. He and his wife are going to argue over this, no matter what the outcome. “Die” may not be the right word for destroyed reanimates, but it’s one Hannah likes.
Some little shit called Adeoye Alao has brought a civil case against Jack, arguing that the government of Rosewater is now null and void. Jack suspends the courts till after the war. Dahun has heard rumblings of protests. The local and national press are clamouring for interviews.
This is worse than the Chamber of Commerce meetings. But you have to deal with mundane shit as a leader.
If you live to lead.
A reanimate runs into the barrier and dies from a bullet to the brain.
Femi tries to get Kaaro on the phone. She does not appear to be having a good time.
What day is it? God, he’s tired. He really just wants sleep, just a few hours, or days. All the same to me. He lets his eyes close, no intention of sleeping, but he has to rest…
“We need one,” says Femi.
Jack wakes with a start. “What do you mean?”
“We need one of the reanimates. He may be able to perceive life through them, through each and every one. If I can just talk to him.”
“Talk to him? You already fucked up.”
“Suck my labia.” She switches to another camera. The most activity is among the reanimates closest to the mansion. The rest seem to be on standby, shifting from one foot to the other. Jack notices that some are lying on the ground, unconscious or dead.
Dahun’s voice booms over the alarm. “Close your eyes, flash-bang, flash-bang, in three, two, one.”
The detonation is successful in disorienting the reanimates, and is followed by Dahun’s men, a flame-thrower unit covered by heavy guns. There are no screams, just twisted, blackened corpses. The advantage does not last as several waves of reanimates crawl over the burned ones and overwhelm the fighting men. Heads explode, and bodies are thrown back with bullet impact, but there are always more reanimates. Always more.
“Breach,” says Dahun over the PA. “We have a breach. Go to defensive protocols. We have a breach.”
Femi’s pistol appears in her hand like a magician’s trick. Jack doesn’t even bother asking how she got it back. “See if you can capture one alive,” she says into her phone.
Outside quadcopters fire rounds into the crowd from different directions. Jack can imagine the PR nightmare already, and this isn’t even part of the war.
The national press will flay me alive.
Jack isn’t worried that there are reanimates in the building. His office isn’t vulnerable to them. He sees that Femi has disrobed and is rubbing hand cream on herself.
“Are you completely insane?” asks Jack.
She hands him a tube. “It’s antifungal, Mr. Mayor. I don’t have time to explain, but this is why it’s part of the security protocols. Believe me when I tell you this has to go all over your body.”
Jack does as she says, hating the smell and wondering how many showers it will take to get this off. He doesn’t have time to check the constituents of the formulation. He finds her staring at his body, though she quickly looks away.
Dahun comes back on the intercom. “I have one alive. Well, kind of alive. Where do you want him?”
“I’ll come to you,” says Femi. “Tell me where.”
“Your old cell.”
Jack goes with her, although his bodyguards are unhappy about this.
As they walk down the corridor of orisa, two reanimates run towards them. The statues come alive and the robots inside obstruct the reanimates and restrain them. The pair go limp, all violent intentions leached from them. As Jack and his people walk by, Femi shoots each reanimate in the head.
The captured reanimate is held with four plastic ties and covered by Dahun’s machine gun and baleful glare. It’s in a bloody school uniform, male, and muddy, as if it has been exhumed, like a murder victim. It strains against the bonds until Jack and Femi come in, then it stops and smiles.
“Mrs. Alaagomeji,” it says. Its voice sounds like air bubbled through ditch water, and its breath smells that way too.
“I thought you liked to call me ‘Femi.’” You don’t work for me any more, remember?”
“And there’s that invertebrate Jack Jacques. Just stay right where you are, Mr. Mayor. I’ve heard dying can be a pleasurable experience towards the end. Euphoria and visions, and the like.”
“Why would you want to kill me?” says Jack. “I don’t know you.”
“We’ve met, actually, but only one time, and I don’t expect you to remember. Femi, unless you sent those soldiers to kill me, I have no quarrel with you. I’ll let you leave.”
“You killed my men, you abomination,” says Dahun. He fires a burst into the thing’s left foot, obliterating it.
“Stand the fuck down!” Femi is surprisingly effective and Dahun retreats. “Kaaro, can you see what I’m holding?”
“Looks like an old-style phone.”
“It’s a remote. If you look up at the sky wherever you’re hiding, or use your proxies, I don’t care, you’ll see a helicopter circling the grounds. Can you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Can you see inside it?”
“No.”
“Then use your abilities, reach inside. Anything seem familiar to you?”
“—”
Femi smiles. “Aminat’s in there.”
“And what if that’s true?”
“If you don’t cease and desist I’m going to blow the helicopter up. You have three seconds.”
“Oh, Femi, if Aminat’s up there I’m going to—”
“One.”
“Seriously—”
“Two.”
“Get your—”
“Three.”
“Stop!”
The reanimate goes limp and the eyes lose focus.
Dahun receives some radio reports. “They’ve stopped all purposeful activities. Some are wandering away. Should we detain them?”
“Why? They’re empty of reason. The one we want is Kaaro, and I guarantee he’s on his way here.” She speaks into the phone. “Land the chopper and come straight up with both of your charges. Have your weapons out and be prepared to fight.”
“This is the first thing you’ve done all day that impresses me,” says Jack.
“Stay tuned,” she says. “Aimasiko lo n’damu eda.”
“Where are you going?” asks Dahun.
“To the helipad,” says Femi.
“There’s still movement out there.”
“Is it organised? Showing singleness of purpose?”
“No, but—”
“Thanks for your concern. I’m going.”
Jack moves to follow her, but Dahun blocks him. “No, Mr. Mayor. You’re not doing that.”
Before he can respond, Lora comes in. “Sir, Nigeria is spraying rapid defoliants in the south and south-east. Twenty-four, forty-eight hours, our farms and forests will be denuded. They’re trying to starve us out.�
��
I would really like to catch a break right now.
That thing Femi said, aimasiko lo n’damu eda—“the problem with people is not knowing what time it is.” Do I know what time it is?
“Food stores will hold?” asks Jack.
“Maybe a year? Eighteen months on the outside, unless the alien can recover from this. That hole is still in the dome, sir, partially repaired. More worrying is that it’s not like the Opening. Nobody outside the dome is getting healed.”
On the plasma monitor Femi approaches the helicopter, which has now set down. She leads two women, one black, one white, back to the mansion. The reanimates appear uninterested in them.
“According to our spy master, one of those ladies is the key to solving our problem.”
“Oh, so we can all go home, then,” said Lora.
“Don’t make jokes.”
“I wasn’t, sir. I actually want to go home.”
Jack doesn’t know what Lora does at home. After he lobbied for her citizenship, celebrated when she got it, and gave her formal working hours with bonuses and overtime, he has kept firmly out of her personal life. He does know she lives alone, seems to like akpala and highlife music, and uses the gym, an activity that is superfluous, but Jack recognises that he started her on the fitness path. She is also able to self-modify, to rewrite her own code, a feature that Jack was warned against, but still approved.
At times, though, she used “going home” as a euphemism for needing maintenance.
“Want or need, Lora?” Jack asks.
“Want.”
“Can it wait?”
“For now.”
“Thank you. I need you here.”
“What you need is a miracle, sir,” says Dahun. “I have news.”
What now?
Chapter Thirty-One
Aminat
The helipad has to be cleared of bodies before they can land, and the pilot asks her to be ready to fight if need be. Waiting for them, tiny revolver in her right hand, is Femi Alaagomeji.
The dead don’t appear to be enemy combatants, or even trained fighters of any stripe.
“Who are these people?” asks Alyssa.
“I don’t know,” says Aminat. “Stay with me.”
She does not say anything until she is a foot from Femi, then she slaps her superior officer hard across the face. Femi falls to the ground from the force of it, although she does not drop her gun. On her cheek there is an imprint of Aminat’s palm.
“I’ve done a lot of strange things over the last few days, so I guess I deserved that. I have no idea what your particular problem is, Aminat, but that will be your only freebie. Touch me again and—”
Aminat kicks her in the ribs. It’s half strength, but with her sporting background, Aminat knows how powerful her legs are. Femi winces.
“You were saying?” Aminat is ready to hit again.
“Baby, leave her alone.” She looks around. It’s not a voice she recognises, but it is clearly addressed at her. One of the “dead” is staring at her.
“Who…?”
“Your boyfriend,” says Femi. “He’s possessing people now.”
“Just reanimates,” says the body talking to Aminat. “I’m on my way. Stop beating on Femi. She’s tricky.”
“She almost got me killed.”
“Yes, more than you know, but please stop kicking her. At least leave some for me.”
“Kaaro, you asshole, those people weren’t sent to kill you. They were sent to escort you,” says Femi. “We need your help. Just stand down and come in to talk.”
“We’re talking now.”
“You need to talk to the mayor. He calls the shots.”
“You sent people with guns to my house, Femi.”
“For your protection. We might not be the only ones looking for you.”
“Fine, I’m on my way in. Just be sure that no harm comes to Aminat.”
Alyssa says, “I thought the woman was your boss.”
“She is,” says Aminat. She wants to say she will quit, but she thinks of her brother and knows she will not. “She is.”
The reanimate on the ground becomes limp again and Aminat can tell Kaaro’s presence has left it. She helps Femi up, prepared for retaliation, but none comes. Femi can be like that, mind on the task, at times above human emotion. It is unclear to Aminat if this is an advantage or not.
She hopes there is running water.
Whatever violence was going on has finished, and armoured soldiers drag corpses to pile up and set fire to. They’re well paid because their equipment is top-of-the-line and they don’t search the bodies for valuables. They are not Nigerian Army, then.
The strip of the dome she can see is mottled grey and black, and aside from a variegation she has never seen before, there is no inner glow.
“Your skin tastes funny,” whispers Kaaro.
“Then why aren’t you laughing?” asks Aminat.
“Will you both keep it down? I swear, it’s like I never trained either of you,” says Femi.
They are in a meeting to which Aminat isn’t invited, but Kaaro insists that where he goes, she goes. Jacques, his bodyguard, his military strategist, his assistant, Lora and Femi are present, but Alyssa is elsewhere.
“We’ll keep this short. I have a city council crisis meeting.”
“Kaaro, you are here because the dome is not functioning and we think the alien is sick. Your job is to find out what’s wrong and enlist the creature to our cause.”
“And what is that cause, again?” Kaaro asks.
“Survival. We need to survive what’s coming. If the alien is dead, there is no point. We might as well surrender. If you don’t succeed then we try to barter Alyssa. Which brings us to Femi. You take a team to your headquarters in Ubar, and you sequester Alyssa there, at the same time run the necessary experiments to separate her alien parts from her human parts.
“We have to do this fast. We’ve received word that high-altitude bombing will start within the next twenty-four hours. Robot border excursions have already occurred, and the ganglia did not fry them. We have to set up the defence of the city. Any questions? None? Okay, then. Begone.”
Jacques gives orders in his silky voice with a face that is reassuring, despite his body language communicating high alarm to Aminat. She tugs on Kaaro’s sleeve.
“You killed people,” she says, sotto voce.
“So did you,” he says. He sounds casual, but she can sense pain underneath it.
“I guess we’re both going to hell.”
Kaaro shakes his head. “Heaven loves those who defend themselves. If motherfuckers come to my house with guns, they get what they deserve. You know I hate guns.”
Aminat has time to touch foreheads with Kaaro before the first bombs detonate.
Interlude: 2067
Eric
Nuru and I drill into the concrete of the alley with jackhammers. Two other guys stand guard because this noise might draw attention. I’ve never worked a pneumatic device before, so I’m clumsy and almost take my own foot off. Nuru drills like a pro. The holes are for the stabilisers of the plasma cannon and the sound cannon. I send people to evacuate the buildings directly across the street. We basically bribe them to move. I find the alleyway too bright so we staple plywood to block sunlight and it works. I want to ask Nuru if his intel is solid, but I read it from his mind instead. He has been surly since I broke up his rape camp. He has some concerns that I might speak to my superiors about what I’ve seen and, big surprise, he is of two minds as to whether he should shoot me in the head after we complete our task. I’ll have to work out how to acquire a tactical advantage against a man with multiple tentacles. Even now, with Nuru facing away from me, two tentacles point in my direction with sensory organs at their tips. He does not trust me. It is slightly dizzying being in his mind and seeing myself through his extra senses.
We will not be able to test the weapons, at least not by firing. There’s a subroutine, a
self-check, that doesn’t come back with any errors. The weapons are warm. The grapheme armour has some camo function, but I want to conserve the charge for now. I’m manning the plasma cannon since I have experience from the Desalination Wars. Nuru has the sonic. I stay in position, hands at the ready. Nuru is on the ground, sleeping.
“We have spotters, man,” he tells me. “Relax. We’ll have at least five minutes to get into position when the time comes.” From his side a tentacle extends to the mouth of the alley and flips from one direction to the next. It’s easily four feet long, the largest I’ve seen from him, and I wonder if that’s the limit. I’ve only just noticed it, but each time one of his scars opens and a tentacle comes out, a sweetish smell, like honey, fills the air. That, combined with the squelching noise, makes me feel sick each time.
“The cannon is synced to me. If I sit it might drift and waste precious seconds resyncing.” This sounds lame even to me. The ID sync is reliable up to a foot or so.
Nuru sucks his teeth. “When all this is over I must buy you a beer so we can have a clarification session or something.”
“Or something,” I say. I can read that he’s serious about it in his forebrain. He has a begrudging respect for my forthrightness. Hmm. Maybe—
“They’re here.” He is up in seconds and the cannon warms up with a soft whine.
Here we go.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Walter
Rosewater has declared independence, and I’ve decided to keep this as a wartime diary until I can figure out the structure required. These will serve as my notes, source material for the… work. I don’t know if what I’ll end up with will be a book or a series of articles, or a dry official document for the Jacques Administration. Jacques Administration. That felt strange to write.
You know me. My name is Walter Tanmola. Yes, I wrote Banana Identity and The Tao of Black Motherhood and Kudi. Banana Identity and Motherhood were critical successes, but Kudi made me financially secure. Yes, my last book was ten years ago. I’ve been coasting on the fame and fortune of Kudi, which was adapted into a stage play, a graphic novel and two movies. Fun fact: kudi means money. Some said I used witchcraft to enhance the sales and that the name was a condition for the ritual. I don’t disabuse people of that because it sells books. I pontificate on Nimbus, on national television and web casts. I have opinions that are sometimes popular, sometimes populist.
The Rosewater Insurrection Page 22
