The Book of Phoenix

by Nnedi Okorafor

  I looked up. All around me was red dirt. Then the blue sky and the yellow sun. I was in a pit the size of Kofi’s house. This was where his house used to be. Where on the second floor, his body had died. There were about thirty Big Eye standing around me, some more on the rim. All pointing their guns.

  Slowly I stood up. Tall, naked, bathed in bright sunshine. The ones closest to me, moved steps away. I stretched my back and then my wings. In the corner of my eye, I saw shiny red gold. My feathers had changed color. I stretched my wings again and again, giving them big flaps that sent half the Big Eye running for cover. I laughed, folding them behind my back. The ones who hadn’t moved away probably wanted to shoot me. But they didn’t.

  “There is no need for all this,” I said. But in my head I thought, It is the calm and silent water that drowns a man. An old Ashanti woman once said this to me as we’d angrily watched one of the Big Eye men lead a young local girl to his hotel room.

  • • •

  I gave myself over to them. No fight. No flight. They gave me a heat resistant white dress. The back was cut to accommodate my great wings. I dressed there in the pit that used to be Kofi’s house.

  Seven days and nights had passed. And for all seven days and nights, Big Eye soldiers were stationed in the ditch watching for me. I do not know what they saw when I came back to life. Did I simply rise from the ashes at the bottom of the pit? Did I appear cell by cell? Or did I just appear? I don’t know. I never asked. I didn’t care.

  There had nearly been a riot when they escorted me into the Big Eye truck. In many of the American movies I watched in Tower 7, whenever terrible things happened in African towns, the Africans would flee like a pack of primitive unthinking beasts. Hooting and scrambling, their black skin powdered with dust, mindlessly stepping on jutting rocks and sharp branches with their rough bare feet.

  For the first year of my life, in Tower 7, I’d wondered if I was made from inferior DNA. Then I started mixing books written by Africans about Africans into the ones I was reading. These stories were different. My time in Ghana taught me even more. So when they escorted me out of the pit and walked me at gunpoint past what used to be the hospital and was now mostly rubble, past the empty market, the mosque which still stood, and the burned bicycle shop, toward the waiting truck, I only smiled when I saw the armed crowd.

  For days, the Big Eye had been watching for me and they didn’t realize that there were people watching them, too. I was loved by the people of Wulugu. And I loved them. We all loved Kofi. I’d told Sarah to tell everyone to flee. But they didn’t. Even Sarah stayed. They had given me another name when I arrived in Wulugu, Ghana. They named me Okore, which meant eagle. But they also knew the name I was given at birth. And they knew its meaning. So they knew to wait. The people of Wulugu had probably started gathering at the armored truck as soon as the lookouts saw me come out of the pit. Everyone was probably flashed or sent text messages.

  As I came up the road, the crowd started shouting, and the Big Eye pointed their guns. “Okore! They took Dr. Kofi Annan, we will not let them take you, too!” Sarah shouted in Twi. Yes, in all the noise, I heard her.

  “Phoenix Okore lives!” several men shouted.

  Some women started singing a jubilant song praising Jesus.

  “Leave her!” a young man shouted, a cudgel in hand. He was one of the men who sold bicycles. He wore a tattered t-shirt, old shorts and flip flops, but he looked ready to take down a dragon.

  “Let her go!” roared a muscular dark-skinned man in old jeans and a dashiki, shaking a machete in the air. He was a shea nut farmer who owned several of the healthiest trees in Wulugu, including the one where I’d buried the alien seed. Several enraged men stood menacingly behind him, equally armed with machetes, knives, and probably a few guns.

  All of their protests were in Twi. How did they expect the Big Eye to understand them? Or maybe they didn’t care or want understanding.

  Someone threw a stone at one of the soldiers. The soldier ducked. He looked at the largest group of men, bared his teeth and started raising his gun. In that instant, I had a flashback of what happened to me in Tower 7. If the Big Eye started shooting, I knew they would not stop. I met Bumi’s eye. She smiled a smile that said, “Just give me a reason.”

  “Please!” I shouted in English, spreading my wings wide. The deep golden red shine of them had the desired effect. Everyone quieted and stared, Big Eye and Wulugu townsfolk, alike. A soft breeze blew through the lush trees behind the old houses, beside the road. Shhhhh. I quickly spoke to the people. I spoke in Twi. “I don’t want any more of you to die! Wulugu must survive all this!!”

  I hoped that they understood exactly what I meant. It was too risky to say exactly what I wanted to say, even in Twi. The Big Eye were in Wulugu because of the alien seed, directly or indirectly. That had always been clear to me. They might have known it was here and were searching for it. Or maybe they were scouting out unique people (like Kofi’s family) affected by the seed; people they’d then take to one of the American towers to “enhance.” Or maybe they merely sensed something exceptional about the shea products here—the nuts, the fruits, the unprocessed butter. That “special-ness” was because of the alien seed. The people of Wulugu may not have all known I’d replanted the seed, but they knew I’d done something there. They had to survive to guard it.

  “You will give them a good challenge but they will wipe you all out in the end,” I said in Twi. “Save it for a better day. I will be fine.”

  There was a moment where they angrily surged forward, but thankfully the Big Eye held their fire. Then the people of Wulugu who’d come ready and willing to risk their lives to defend me—mostly men, a few women, and no children—reluctantly pulled back. They let the Big Eye shove me into the truck, my wings painfully bending in the restricted space. Bumi got in and sat beside me. “Nice wings,” she said.

  I looked out the window at the people who were the only family I had. The truck drove off before they could say goodbye.

  • • •

  So I agreed to return to the United States with the Big Eye. Across the ocean. However, they couldn’t bring me by airplane. It was too dangerous for them, and my wings would not fit. Thus, they made a quiet deal with an oil tanker set to leave from the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, two days later. The cramped drive from Wulugu to Lagos took twenty-eight hours. Even when we stopped for breaks, I was only allowed out of the truck to relieve myself. My wings throbbed, the muscles twitching and constricting. The Big Eye didn’t want people to see me and start talking. Africans like to tell stories, and stories travel and germinate. And sometimes, stories evolve into trouble.

  Bumi dismissed my suggestion of wearing a burka while outside. “I’ve chased you to the other side of the world, all the way to my native land, how stupid do you think I am?” she asked, looking at me with cool eyes. “I know you. Stay in that truck, you will be fine.” Before, she’d have had three or four Big Eye point guns at me, but allowed me to stand in the fresh air for a few minutes. Bumi was still the short pretty Yoruba woman I’d known in Tower 7. However, now she had deep scars on her cheek, a slight limp and a state-of-the-art cybernetic arm she’d been given after the helicopter crash. She could snap my leg bones in two with that arm and wouldn’t hesitate to do so if I gave her the slightest reason. She was hardened. We’d both changed so much since our days in Tower 7. I wondered if she’d been given her American citizenship yet. I didn’t ask.

  Nevertheless, there was one time where they allowed me out for more than relieving myself. It was in a city not far from Lagos called Ikare. We’d stopped at a mosque built by the brother of one of the local Yoruba kings. We parked in the back, and Bumi got out to talk to the lean but strong old man in the white flowing sokoto and buba. The man ignored her, came up to the vehicle, and looked in at me.

  First he spoke to me in a language that I could not understand. As he spo
ke softly, he motioned for me to come out. I looked at Bumi for guidance.

  “Go out,” she said. “He wants to see you.”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “My father.”

  I frowned but slowly got out. I glanced at the mosque. It was open, and I could see the room inside. It was empty, so was the compound.

  “Allah is great,” he whispered, looking over my wings.

  “Allah has nothing to do with it,” Bumi muttered.

  “She is Allah’s will,” he said. “Come, my wives have prepared a meal for all of you. All of you.”

  His wives would not come near me. They would not serve me, though they served the four Big Eye soldiers like servants. Bumi seemed to find this hilarious. “Mommy,” she said to one of them, laughing and placing a bowl of soup and fufu in front of me. “She won’t bite.”

  Her mother only shook her head and quickly left the room as the other wives did. I ate fast and then asked if I could stand outside near the car. Bumi went with me, while the others finished up and made small talk with Bumi’s father.

  “We can cure you,” Bumi said, as we walked to the SUV.

  I chuckled. I had died, lived, crossed the ocean to Africa, fallen in love and watched that love die. I was no longer so naïve. “Cure me of what?” I asked.

  She considered me, then her face hardened. “Just don’t give us any trouble along the way.”

  “You have my word,” I said.

  She leaned against the truck and took a sip of her water. “Your word is shit to me,” she said. “When I get you to Tower 6, we will finish what we started.”

  “And what exactly was it that you started?” I asked.

  “Never you mind,” Bumi said.

  And I didn’t mind. It was warm outside and the yard was wide open. I was not flying, but I felt free, for the moment. I inhaled the dry air with my eyes closed, and I opened my wings wide. The muezzin called the afternoon prayer, so there was at least one other person on the compound. I let it wash over me with the breeze. And in that moment, I felt at peace, regardless of Bumi’s ugly presence. I felt in my soul that in due time, all would be well. Life was so easy.

  Then Bumi said it was time to go, and I had to climb back into the truck, folding my wings close to my body.

  “Pray to Allah to keep you safe and sound,” Bumi’s father said, opening the door, taking my hand and patting it.

  “Or maybe you can pray for me. I never had time to learn.”

  “I will,” he said. “You are a fallen angel, but you can still fly. All is not lost.”

  Then Bumi shut my door and we were off.

  When we got to Lagos, the Exxon representative who handled the deal took one look at me and decided he didn’t want me on the tanker, despite the deal that had been made by phone. This made what I had to say much easier.

  “I will fly,” I flatly proclaimed. “No ship. I will never get on any ship.” I was not resisting the Big Eye, but I’d never intended to get on that ship. I’d planned to fly my own way.

  It would sail to Miami, Florida, the location of Tower 6. Bumi didn’t trust me to follow, so after consulting with her superiors via portable, Bumi, herself, injected tracking nanobots into my bloodstream. These slipped into my blood cells and multiplied within the cells whenever mitosis occurred. These tiny tracking devices essentially became part of me. The Big Eye would know where I was, what my temperature was, what I had eaten. Obviously, this was an upgrade that they’d made just for me. Unlike the nanobots Mmuo had used to communicate with me in Tower 7, these nanobots wouldn’t melt unless I became hotter than 6000 degrees Celsius, the approximate temperature of the center of the Earth. I was back on the grid; it was Tower 7 all over again.

  As soon as they stuck that needle into my flesh and pressed down on the syringe, I felt naked. But at least I could fly.

  CHAPTER 9

  Villain

  All stories must be told.

  I’ve been telling you this one as I cross the Atlantic again. Below me, its waters ripple and roil. There is great wind here. An angry type of wind. But it’s moving in the right direction, which means that all I have to do is keep my wings open. The wind is taking me to my false home in America. To pass the time, I tell you The Book of Phoenix. My turbulent accurate memory. My oral unfinished tale. Unfinished because it will finish when I finish.

  If I stray too far from the ship below, I have no doubt that they will come after me in their helicopters, with their weapons and their fearful self-entitled intent. However, they have nothing to worry about. For now, I comply.

  How long have I been telling you this tale? How long have I been flying? For days. I’ve shut down my system again. No straining muscles, this time. Flying is natural, and I am stronger than I was when I left the United States. My titanium alloy bones are not light, but my body is made to fly. The Big Eye built me well. I’d have been a good weapon if I were not human, if I did not have a brain that could remember after death after death after death.

  And there is more. Last night, he came to me. I was flying low, listening to the calm of the water and fantasizing about dropping into it. If my wings got wet, I wouldn’t be able to fly. The water would pull me into its great belly, as it had so many other Africans on unwanted journeys. Will the Big Eye be able to come after me? I was wondering. I almost wanted to find out. Do they have deep diving gear ready? Will they be able to reach me? I can fly, but I am not light. I will sink fast.

  The smell of the ocean out here, away from everything, a mile from the ship whose lights I follow, is of fine salt and the flesh of bodies large and small, plant and animal. I felt good. I inhaled the fresh air, feeling my brain and spirit vibrate because I clearly understood that I was so much more than I was before. Tower 7 would never have held me for long. I wished Saeed could see me now. “Saeed,” I whispered. “So much has been lost, but all is never lost.”

  It was too dark for me to see anything but the sliver of moon above, the lights of the ship, and the soft glow of my red gold wings. The wind was gusting, so I couldn’t hear him. The ocean’s musk was in my nose, so I could not smell him, either. But I sensed him with the tips of my longest feathers.

  There he was, flying below me, slightly to my right. His enormous wings spanned past my left. He rode the air inches above the water. Something told me that he didn’t risk a watery death if his wings got wet. It was hard to believe that I had freed him from Tower 7. Already I was putting next to no effort into flying; his presence made flying even MORE effortless. He was carrying me, for the moment. I stared down at him. His skin was so dark that I only clearly saw his brown wings. I heard his voice as if there was no roar of ocean wind, and he was right beside me. He spoke to me in Twi.

  “Phoenix the Okore returns to the United States of America, her birth place, the prodigal daughter.” His voice was rich, and it sounded like he was smiling.

  I frowned and spoke aloud, despite the noise of the wind. “I’ve had one other ‘birthplace’ so far. And there will probably be more.”

  “Yes, but Tower 7 was the place of your creation,” he said. “There is nothing to love or hate about it. It is fact.”

  “Tower 7 no longer exists.”

  “Phoenix of the Okore,” he said again, this time laughing, deep and throaty. “Reckless impulsive child.”

  “How did you get here?” I asked. “Who are you?”

  His voice grew deeper. “I am your father.”

  I paused. Then I burst out laughing, glad that he was carrying me. I’d had the time, equipment, and access in Tower 7 to stream and watch thousands of movies, old and new. But how had he managed to see the fifth movie in the Star Wars series while trapped in his glass dome?

  “Not all questions have answers,” he said, chuckling.

  “I know.”

  “I know what you are planning,” he said. �
�You’ve no intention of letting them take you to Tower 6. You want to go to New York. But, Phoenix, you can’t just go to The Backbone.”

  I paused. How did he know? “I’ll do my best,” I finally said, pressing my lips together and frowning. I didn’t want to think about the how yet.

  “Your ‘best’ will get you captured quickly,” he said. “Your blood is tainted.”

  I laughed. “My blood has never been pure.”

  “They can track you wherever you go.”

  He was right. But they might let me at least flee as far as the city. I just had to reach The Backbone.

  “I’m here to show you how I got here,” he said. “Because you can do it, too. And you might like to have some fun with it.”

  “Do what?”

  “You are not what I am,” he said. “I’m immortal. I cannot die. You are super-mortal. You can live and die to live and die again. You are speciMen, beacon, and reaper, life and death, hope and redemption.”

  Villain, too, I thought. And I have plans. But I hoped he couldn’t read my mind. No one needed to know that. Not even him.

  He chuckled, again. “That is to be decided by your actions, Phoenix. Not by your thoughts. I want you to remember the ends and the beginnings, of birth and death. Remember.”

  “I can’t remember when I was first born.”

  “No. But what of the other times?”

  The first time I inhaled my first breath in the ruins of Tower 7, it warmed my warming body. I remember noticing the breeze first, how it smelled of flowers and then exhaust. The second time was in the pit that used to be Kofi’s home. A hot shiver from my toes to the top of my head. I’d thought of Saeed, but then Kofi. I remembered both times that I died, when there was also heat. I frowned, remembering something else.