by Nzondi
Tanaka closed her eyes and inhaled. She was experiencing the Scent Effect. Since fragrance left a lasting imprint on the brain, it triggered emotions and memories. Like a memory chip, her olfactory bulb was recording and processing her new sensations for later recall. Yeah, she was loving it. I could tell. It was like we had stepped into a fascinating museum. The other girls’ eyes sparkled at everything their gazes fell upon.
We were standing in an oval room that had smooth black marble walls, and dark-tinted double glass doors to our left. Cones of pink illumination shone down on us like we were caught in a spaceship’s tractor beam. A stream of air blew from the ceiling vents and cooled my skin.
When the wellness concierge came through the glass double doors, it didn’t matter that her name tag had KENYA on it. I knew exactly who she was: Cadence.
I sent a neural text message to Lamp: “Found Cadence. Will find a way to speak to her in private.”
Lamp didn’t respond.
Cadence was a voluptuous girl with blonde hair and skin like she had bathed in goat’s milk all of her life, she walked behind a semi-circle desk that came up to her waist. A slither of her was also caught in the cone of light and the flamingo color illuminated the glitter makeup on her skin.
How did I know it was her? Holograms of baby purple dragons fluttered around her like butterflies dancing on the wind. I had heard of visual-romas before but had never known anyone who bought them. When Thomas mentioned that Frankie said she likes dragons to hang around her, it all made sense. The dragons weren’t a youth gang, they were visual-romas.
Like those who wore perfume or cologne to accent their natural odors, some people wore visual-aromas to accent their auras. There were all kinds of visual-roma avatars: flowers, animals, or whatever one could dream of to enhance their physical appearances.
Inside a glass tank sitting in the wall behind the desk, a curvy nude woman with gold-painted skin and long blonde dreads stretched out on her stomach across a white twin bed. She was reading a magazine that rested on her pillow. Kofi seemed to have difficulty taking his eyes off of the chick. Dad discreetly elbowed him to get him to stop staring but that didn’t stop the rest of us from doing the same.
“Hello Tribe! Welcome to the HoloDeck Spa,” she said, grinning. “Hello. Mr. Xo.” Cadence, or rather, Kenya, had dimples the sizes of dwarf planets. If she was the same age as Frankie, she was thirteen. Although she was a fully developed girl, I wondered how someone so young got a job there.
“Ete sen, Kenya?” Dad asked.
She replied, “Eye pa,” which meant she was doing great.
Dad turned to us. “This is my daughter and her friends.”
I glanced up at Dad and then back at her.
“And of course,” my father continued, “You know my associate, Kofi.”
“Hello Kenya,” Kofi said. “I hope that you can forgive me for the last time I—”
“Good evening, everyone,” she said, cutting him off, and keeping her gaze on my father.
“I called in advance for special preparations,” Dad said, shaking his head at Kofi.
Kenya nodded, and tapped away on a virtual keyboard on the counter of her desk.
“Are you almost finished with your studies in virology?” Dad asked her.
Virology? To hear Thomas Benja tell it. Kenya, or rather, Cadence, was a delinquent, sucking his daughter into all kind of darkness like a black hole.
She smiled, still typing away. “Yes! I have two more classes left, a science morality class and rapid antigen testing practicum to complete my clinical training.”
“My daughter, Xo, loves pathology,” Dad said, and gave me a big proud smile.
“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “I’ve been studying it since before I could ride a bike. Can I ask you a question?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said. “Shoot!”
“What were you and Frankie doing at the water plant, yesterday? And if you could, would you be able to finger the persons you saw at the plant in a neural photo? The one who killed that girl in front of you two?”
“What?” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Dad said. “What the heck is going on here?”
Kenya leaned forward and whispered, “Are you trying to get me killed? Please don’t bring that up, again. The cameras are always on.”
Shaw caught on, and said, “She was just joking. We’re playing a prank game where we see which one of us can ask the craziest questions. For example, what do you think about downloading a person’s consciousness onto a retcon, and then inputting that memory orb into a clone?”
Kenya didn’t hesitate to answer that, although I could tell she was shaken. “If clones allow man to bypass death, immortality will be humanity’s greatest downfall.”
“SCNT is the next step in sentient beings’ revolution,” Shaw said. “The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Eh, I’m not so sure about that,” Tanaka said.
Dad said. “That is quite a bold statement, Kenya.”
Kenya said, “As you know, my parents lost their consciousness in the early stages of the retcon technology to a vicious neural implant virus, the same one that affected quite a few of our world leaders, so I’ve had a lot of time to loathe the entire process, even wrote my last term paper on it.”
“Your parents were two of the most brilliant scientists I’d ever worked with,” Dad said. “I wish they had chosen to work with me, instead of IGP Bete Sibaya’s research and development lab.”
“I do, too. They probably would have, had they known you were still alive.”
“They knew. I’d sent cryptic messages to them that only your father would’ve been able to decode. He and I had invented—”
“The House of Oware,” she said, interrupting with a chuckle. “Baba spoke of it often enough for me to know it was a grand accomplishment.”
Shaw, Tanaka, and Durga glanced at each other with surprise.
“You invented the game, Mr. Xo?” Tanaka asked.
“I didn’t know you were the creator,” Durga said. “That’s dope!”
Dad chuckled. “So he’s shown you, Kenya?”
Kenya nodded. “Ever since I could crawl into his lap.”
“Yes. I’m sure he did. He adored you.”
“They both spoke highly of you, and Dad always said you were the best shot he’s ever gone game hunting with.”
Dad chuckled. “Yeah, well, I think he was just being modest. No one was better than your father. Kenya, sweetheart, you just make sure you find me when you complete your studies. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what my team can offer you.”
“I will!” she said, typing on the virtual keyboard. “And, um, okay. You’re all set.” Kenya walked from behind the desk, bringing her harem of dancing dragons along. She gestured to the dark-tinted glass doors. “This way, Tribe!” She glared at me.
I quickly found her business email under spa wellness concierge and sent her a quick mind-text to contact me. I also told her that we spoke to Frankie’s father and he was very worried about his daughter.
I hadn’t noticed how thick the glass doors were until I stepped closer. They were like bank vault doors and slid back into each side when we stepped in front of them. The corridor was arched, and a blue neon sign proclaimed VIRTUAL SPA. The peppermint aroma was stronger than ever, and the temperature rose as if we were about to walk on beds of hot coals.
Once we walked into the corridor, glass walls encased us, and plum floors made of marble were waxed to a spotless shine. Loud yells, instigating chants, and furniture collided in chorus like we were in a crowded cowboy saloon and patrons were jeering as two gunslingers who were in an angry dispute over poker hands.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Tanaka said. “What is this place?”
“As the sign reveals,” Kenya said. “This is a virtual spa. The most tran
sformative and therapeutic spa in Africa. People come from all over the world to fulfill their dreams, train for missions, or even relive traumatic events in this state-of-the-art holographic treatment center.”
“Why would someone want to experience something that was obviously painful?” I asked.
“Imagine, for a moment,” Kofi said. “Being able to go back in time and relive an experience when an alcoholic step-father, for example, was abusive?”
I shrugged, shaking my head. “Like I said, why go over that again? Once is enough!”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Kofi said.
“What Mr. Five-finger Freddie is trying to say,” Kenya said, “is that, here, you can not only relive a painful experience but change the outcome of that experience.”
“Ah,” Tanaka said.
“So, let me get this straight,” Durga said. “I can go back and chop off the nuts of a bully in sixth grade that groped me in the lunch line every day?”
Kenya’s mouth stretched into an evil grimace, and her eyes averted to Kofi. “Exactly, girlfriend! I actually did that twice last week.”
“Sign me up,” Durga said. “I’m down with that.”
A sinking sensation moved in my stomach. All these years, on every case in the House of Oware game, Lamp had been by my side. Now that I was on a real case and discovering clues that possibly led to an arrest, I’d pissed off the one person who I needed the most.
23
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My mind delved into a deep shame as I berated myself for all the terrible things I’d done over the last twenty-four hours or so. If I could go back, I would not have never gone out that night. How could I have been so stupid to drink and drive? The guilt weighed on me heavy, and for the first time, I thought of turning myself in and facing my punishment. Even though Jinni was dead, it was still a hit and run, and I should’ve reported it. That had to have been a crime.
Kenya walked ahead of the group and allowed us to absorb what we encountered passing each room, on either side. Some rooms were like peering into a person’s nightmares, others, their fantasies. I couldn’t tell what was real, and what wasn’t. It reminded me of something Mom told me a long time ago. She said, “the subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between something that is real and something that is imagined. It was why the heart rate increased in dreams that were adrenaline-filled or terrifying.”
In one room to our left, an old man in a red checked cloth wrapped around his body, sat on a bench in a flower garden while boys from ages of five-to-ten played hide and go seek. The man laughed with boisterous energy, watching the children run around like playful rabbits.
Kenya said. “That is a Maasai warrior who pushed his boys hard all of their lives, like his father once did, and never allowed them to just be children and play.”
“And his boys are deceased?” I asked.
She nodded. “They died game hunting when they encountered a pack of rabid hyena’s that lived in the forbidden zone. Two of his brave boys fought off the pack who had attacked their younger sibling, but they all were bitten and died a slow miserable death from those radiation-deformed beasts.”
On our right, a group of men stood in a forest and cheered as a woman climbed a rope up a tree. She had many cuts and abrasions on her legs and arms but was almost to the top. Below her, were scattered pieces of wood that may have come from a cart or wheel barrel, I assumed from the four small wheels spread out on the ground. I’d found the source of the furniture crash sounds and cheering.
“It looks like a narrow little forest in there,” Tanaka said.
“You should see how it looks from the inside,” Kenya said. “In there, the forest seems to be endless in every direction.”
“So how do you not get lost?” Durga asked.
“Everyone is monitored,” Dad said. “The spa can communicate to all through their neural implants.”
“And they can’t see us?” Shaw asked.
Kenya shook her head. “Nope.”
Shaw scratched her head. “So, um. I get how interacting in the game works, yeah. Like a dream, our subconsciousness doesn’t discriminate from reality and the game, so we think what we touch and smell and feel is real because our brain creates the sensations based on memories of real-life interactions but…”
Kenya smiled. “I get this question at least once a day. You want to know if the persons in the holoroom are for lack of a better word, interacting with ghosts, virtual projections that lack matter.”
“I was kind of wondering that myself,” Durga said.
“Several decades ago,” Kenya said, continuing, “there was a popular television show who creators were so imaginative that many of the fictitious ideas they invented have become an everyday part of our life.”
“I know which show you’re speaking of,” Dad said. “Although the name of the program is on the tip of my tongue. It used to be one of my favorites growing up, back when corneal streaming wasn’t invented yet, and we sat in front of computers to watch TV. Dammit, I was just talking about one of the main characters to my daughter.”
“Yes, well, thanks to Ghana’s governmental R&D lab, the technology called holomatter was invented, just a little under a decade ago.”
“That’s one thing Sibaya got right,” Kofi said.
“Holomatter?” I asked. “You don’t mean that you’ve somehow integrated virtual reality with real matter?”
“That’s exactly what I’m implying,” Kenya said.
“You’re shitting us,” Durga said.
Kenya chuckled. “No, I’m dead serious. In our transformative spa rooms, objects and people are simulated via a synthesis of matter, virtual projections, odors, and temperature amalgamations to give you reality in its most imaginative form.”
“That’s incredible,” Shaw said.
On our right, an older woman danced with two other women that were slightly younger than her.
“Hey!” I said. “They’re doing the Kpanlogo dance!”
“That’s correct,” Dad said. “For the Homowo Festival. I’ve known that woman in the Kente cloth for a long time. She is dancing with her sisters who died, decades ago, when Russia bombed Ghana in the war before the Final Event.”
“So this-this is a spa!” I said. “It’s how people escape the horrors of the day by delving into a fantasy world made by their liking.”
“Now you get it,” Dad said.
Kenya smiled. “Our goal is that everyone has shed the weight of the world off of their shoulders, if only for a few wonderful moments while they’re here.”
“Moments?” Durga said.
“Yes, in the transformative room, you can program the length of time you want to spend in there, from one minute up to six months. The entire experience will only be brief in real time. No longer than an hour, or two.”
“That’s great,” I said. “But what if I wanted more time to solve a case, you know, review the clues, and such?”
“Many detectives come here to do just that,” Kenya said.
“I’m moving in here,” Tanaka said, “I’ll be in a tank beside the gold girl.”
Everyone except Kenya laughed. I believed she was still shaken up about the questions I asked her.
Kenya stopped in front of a door to our left. “The GACC, as you requested.”
“This is it?” I asked.
It didn’t look like a military installation. Before us, stood a vast garden of peppermint plants and white roses in an area about the size of a cricket field. Hundreds of white butterflies fluttered from flower-to-flower. The statue of a white elephant sat in the midst of the garden. Mom used to always tell me that when I saw a Pieris Brassicae, a white butterfly, that an angel came to watch over me and bring me good luck. She said the souls of my ancestors resided in the one that would land on my finger, to be my guide into the next world.
“In there?” I asked.
Kenya said, “Okay, folks. You’ve got it from here.
Once you all enter and the door closes, give it about one minute and the program will begin.”
We all stepped inside the glass door, and as soon as it closed, Dad was all over me.
“What kind of stunt was that you pulled?” He asked.
“Dad, we’ve been investigating this case, for the past few hours, before we knew you were alive?”
“I know you’ve been investigating the case,” he said. “I’m the one who monitors the game.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I said. “Lamp and I have been following real leads, and Kenya was one of them.”
Dad looked stunned. “She was?”
“Her real name’s Cadence,” I said. “Cadence Baroudi.”
“That’s one of the victims who escaped being abducted the night of the murder at the water plant,” Kofi said.
“How did you know that?” I asked Kofi.
He opened his mouth to answer but Dad cut him off.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa,” Dad said, shaking his head. “Let’s sit down and go over everything we know. Let’s start from the beginning. You all need to understand why you are so significant. When we go in, we’ll be in a war room of the Ghana Alternate Control Center, the GACC. This is where IGP Sibaya hid his strategic military base after he gained control of Ghana and neighboring territories.”
Kofi said, “but just in case his defense department head monitors all interactions with the base, real or virtual, I’m going to tap into all of your brains and create an open source project, a process of onion routing.”
Tanaka gasped. “Ah, that’s genius. You give us access to the darknet so that no one detects we’re there.”
Durga said, “Cool. We can go anywhere, and literally be untraceable.”
“That is exactly the point,” Kofi said. “As an enhanced human, you already have acute senses but unless you’re trained in how to optimize those senses, they’re truly being wasted.”
“Optimize them?” I asked.
Dad said. “It’s new. It’s fresh to Tanaka, who got turned, recently.”
I turned to her. “You, too?”
She bowed and said, “Shi!” which meant yes, in Mandarin Chinese.