We got off the elevator and hurried down the hall. The other offices were dark, long closed for the evening. We saw light at the end of the hallway, where Dr. Zolotov's office was.
Dante arrived at the door first, saw that it was locked, and quickly jimmied it open. I went in first and Justin covered me.
The lab was one large, open space, with lab tables, chairs, and long countertops along the walls. The harsh fluorescent lights showed a lab of organized chaos: notebooks and laptops and boxes of data interspersed with microscopes and test tubes. I noticed a dozen flasks of blood on the central island. I fingered the flasks, picked them up, and smelled them. It was definitely our blood.
A tall white man with a head full of curly gray hair came out of a carrel in the back of the room with a mug of piping hot coffee. He glanced at us and we raised our pistols.
"Greetings, Dr. Zolotov," I said. He dropped his coffee to the floor and the mug shattered. He raised his hands up.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"The better question is: what are you doing here? Seems to me like this blood you have here belongs to us. We'd like it back."
"What are you talking about? I am performing legitimate-"
"Don't bullshit me, old man," I said, running to the doctor in seconds flat. "I know who the fuck you're working for! Now tell me right now what you're researching!"
Dante and Justin were at either side of the doctor in moments.
"You don't work for Nigel," he surmised.
"Nope. You can consider me to be an independent contractor."
"What do you want from me?"
"Tell me everything about your experiments on our blood."
"I…I can't."
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it until I felt the bone in his thumb pop.
"Argh!" he bellowed. He fell to the floor. I squatted in front of him.
"Dr. Zolotov. As a scientist, I'm quite sure you need both of your hands daily to conduct your dirty little experiments. I get that. You're just doing your job. But I can promise you that if you don't tell me what I want to know, something else will get broken. And I don't stop at fingers or limbs. Collarbones are especially fun."
My long finger traced a line over the doctor's collarbone. I smiled as he trembled.
"I was contracted two years ago by Nigel Artinian for blood research. He told me he would supply it as long as I didn't ask any questions. At first, I was getting blood from him and his…people." The doctor paused.
"You know what his people are, right?" I asked. The doctor nodded.
"I didn't at first. I know now. Vampires."
"Continue."
"I found out on my own because of the experiments. The blood…rapidly dehydrated itself under ultraviolet light. And when I took a vial into direct sunlight, it was an almost instant reaction. All that was left was slime."
"Yeah, yeah, we know all about vampire blood. Tell me what you discovered about our blood."
"There were similar properties. Hyper-regeneration when disturbed. Resistance to stress on the molecular level. But the blood you're referring to…it's different on a genetic level."
"Go on."
"Humans, vampires, and…your kind…all have nearly identical DNA when compared. But two things are happening that make them different. First, humans lack one of the base pairs that you and the vampires have in your DNA."
"What's a base pair?" I asked.
"It's like one of those rods in the double helix in a strand of DNA," Justin said.
I stared at him.
"What? I took genetics in college."
"So, you and the vampires have a different base pair. If a human receives a transfusion of vampire blood, the vampire DNA will cause the human DNA to mutate into the dominant strand. That's how vampires are made. But with your people's blood and human blood, it never worked. The mutation never happened."
"You're special," Dante told Justin, who tried to stifle a smile.
"Oh, for the love of God. And what about when you mixed daywalker blood with nightwalkers?"
"Daywalkers?"
"It's what we call ourselves. Come on, doc. Context clues."
"Oh… Well, when we mixed those two, there was another reaction, but not a full mutation. A process occurred temporarily that produced side effects that suggested a mutation. Namely, a temporary immunity to the effects of sunlight. But it didn't last."
"Would you say your experiments failed, then?" Dante asked.
"My work has been extraordinary. I learned things and saw things I'd never see without Nigel. We had a breakthrough recently. We discovered that your daywalker blood has a binding agent that doesn't appear in humans or vampires. It's almost like a virus. It's harmless in you and in humans, but it practically disintegrates in vampires. Whatever allows you to walk around in the daylight just refuses to cooperate with vampire physiology. I call it the Redemptive Agent."
"Redemptive? Why?"
"Because it prevents your strand of vampirism from being a curse. You get all of the benefits of the disorder but you can still function in society, in the sunlight."
"The Redemptive Agent," Justin repeated.
"What now?" Dante asked me.
I pondered this new information for a moment. I stood up and walked away, glancing at shelf upon shelf of notebooks and journals.
"All this data…all this is related to your experiments?"
"Yes, it is. Groundbreaking work. Years of my life."
"You know we're going to have to destroy it, right?"
"Please, please don't."
"Dr. Zolotov, you should have never been brought into this at all. I do apologize. Hopefully, your insurance will cover this."
"Insurance?"
"Yes. You do have fire insurance, right?"
The good doctor began to weep.
"Come now, get yourself together. Nigel swore you to secrecy anyway, it's not like you were going to get a…what do you call it…Justin, that thing that Martin Luther King got?"
"Nobel Prize?"
"Yes. Doctor, you weren't getting a Nobel Prize for this."
"Sir, let me make a proposition to you. Let me work for you instead. Maybe I can figure out a way to induce mutation from daywalker to human? Wouldn't you like that?"
I laughed.
"Sir, we already have the key to that, and his name is Justin."
"Hi." Justin waved.
"But we simply cannot allow you to continue these experiments on our people. Firstly, because it's wrong. You might not have been drawing the blood, but you didn't question where it came from. You knew Nigel Artinian was sinister from the start. But because he was paying you on time, you didn't question it. Hmm? Didn't even want to know how he was getting these vials of blood or who he was torturing to get it. Did you? Did you?!"
I smashed my hand on top of the doctor's, shattering his bones. He screamed.
"Secondly, you've taught us a lot today. But your research ends here. Nigel probably wants you to stabilize the Redemptive Agent, doesn't he?"
The doctor nodded.
"I thought so. Well, we can't have that. The minute that nightwalkers can walk around in the daylight is the end of the world as we know it. Nightwalkers are evil. You think the word 'bloodthirsty' just came out of nowhere? It was meant for them. It defines their essence. You make the Redemptive Agent work for them and you've signed your own death sentence and that of your entire people. I so wish you had found us first. I wish that my people could have employed you. You might not have been as wealthy as you are with vampire money, but maybe you'd be able to sleep better at night. I'm sad that this is how you have to learn the difference between a nightwalker and a daywalker."
"What's the difference?" Dr. Zolotov spat. "You've crippled my hands and you'll destroy my practice. Everything I've worked for down the drain."
I laughed again.
"The difference between a vampire and a daywalker? A daywalker might let you live. Good day, Dr. Zolotov. Justin? Se
al it with a kiss."
Justin's fangs popped down and the good Dr. Zolotov screamed. Dante stifled his mouth and Justin dug deep into the doctor's neck. His jaw raised and dropped with each gulp.
I looked around the office once more. There was more data here than we could possibly carry, but we had to take as much as possible. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but Babarinde would appreciate it. We'd need his hard drives, too.
"Doctor?" I called out.
"He's already unconscious," Dante responded.
"Shit," I said. "Hopefully, he wasn't dumb enough to back up his data on a cloud drive. Justin? Justin!"
"Yesh?" he asked, blood dripping from his mouth.
"If we take his computer, can you hack into it? See if he backed up any data to a cloud?"
He nodded vigorously and tried to dig back into the doctor's neck.
"Don't be greedy. Let Dante have some." Dante scooted next to the doctor and took some gulps.
Within the hour, the building was burning. By the time the fire department came, Dr. Zolotov's remaining work was surely all destroyed. Yet, they found the good doctor and the security guard sleeping soundly across the street, without a clue as to how the attack had happened.
Dante and Justin snored in the back of the van among the stolen computer equipment and files. They cuddled in a spoon position that I'd often shared with Ogundiya over the years. My brother, my best friend, my lover—but not my ipsaji. Wherever he was now was exactly where he wanted to be: alone and introspective.
Our focus was on Aborişade. Ogundiya would be found later if he wanted to be. I hadn't seen him in years.
Goodbye
I slept on and off in my king-sized bed while Ogundiya lay next to me reading a vintage Batman comic book.
I heard a tap on the door.
"What?" I said through my pillow. Aborişade walked in.
"I need to talk to you," he said.
"Yeah?" He sat down in a chair near my bed and exhaled, clearly nervous to be having this conversation with me.
"We've had a lot of adventures since we've been in DC. Done a lot of things. Met a lot of people. Helped a lot of people. And I want to do more. I think that's what my purpose is in life."
"Your purpose?" I asked, sitting up in bed.
"Yes. There's more for me out there. These people…these people need me. They need us. And I want to help them somehow. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've come to a decision: I'm leaving."
"So that's it? You're going to leave? Just like that?"
"Yes. I have to."
"So you think you can just be some goddamned superhero? Is that what it is? You wanna rescue kittens from trees? Help old ladies across the street? Well, I've got news for you, sir. We're not heroes. These frail creatures, these humans, are our food. We drink them. They don't need you to be their savior. They need a hero to protect them from you! You understand me? You are the predator. And don't you ever forget that."
"We might need human blood for our long-term survival, but our relationship is symbiotic. We've always been able to feed from them and still let them live. Always."
"You think you're so special, so altruistic…"
"I don't think that at all."
"And Babarinde always liked you best."
"Babarinde is letting me leave."
"Lies! He would never let you do something so stupid."
"He would and he did. You can call him right now if you want."
"Then he's a fool just like you!"
"I'm a fool for wanting to help? For wanting to give back?"
"These cattle have given us nothing but their blood!"
"They have given us wisdom. They've given us knowledge. And they've shown us resilience. Not to mention hope. That's probably their greatest gift to us."
"Hope?" I laughed, a genuine, hearty guffaw. "Hope? In Africa, they showed us their greed. On the slave ship, they showed us their cruelty. In Dominica, they showed us their vengefulness. In New Orleans, they showed us their callousness. And here, in Washington? Corruption. Deceit. Apathy. Even—especially—among the black people here. Do you know how tired I am of living in silence among people who have the world at their fingertips but won't get up and fight for themselves to take it? The slaves are already free, Aborişade, but they are too lazy and lost to take what they're owed. If you want to fight for that, be my guest."
"You act like you weren't standing there next to me in 1934 when we supported those Howard students protesting against lynching. Remember? They stood there in the winter coats with ropes around their necks in front of the National Crime Conference. Or what about the March on Washington? Weren't you moved then, when we heard Martin Luther King speak, in the flesh? We witnessed watershed moments in human history—in black history. There is hope for these people."
"What are you going to do, then? Pack a knapsack and just start hitchhiking all across the country, looking for problems to solve?"
"Maybe. I don't see why not."
"You're the dumbest fuck who ever lived."
Aborişade's face fell. He stood up and walked toward my bedroom door.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," he said. I heard him go into his room and shuffle things around.
Ogundiya stared at me from his side of the bed.
"What?" I asked.
He shook his head and turned over. I heard Aborişade close his drawers and then leave his room. His footsteps went down the stairs. I shot out of the bed and ran after him.
"You want to be their Jesus so bad. Well go, be a bloodsucking Boy Scout to them if you want to. You'll be back soon. I know it."
"Maybe I will be," he said. Ogundiya came down the stairs behind me. He reached around me and silently shook Aborişade's hand. They locked hands and nodded.
"I love you both," Aborişade said. "Please tell Aragbaye I said goodbye."
"Fuck you," I said. Aborişade softly closed the front door behind him. I went back upstairs and went to sleep. Ogundiya came in a little later and hugged me tight for the rest of the night.
~
A few days later, Ogundiya, too, was gone. I came home from orchestra rehearsal to find a note on my pillow.
.
Eşusanya,
.
You are the most complex man I have ever met. I know that your sharp tongue only protects a soft heart. I hope that in my travels, I can meet people as sensitive as you truly are.
.
You will think that I am a coward for leaving you and Aragbaye as I have. And that is true, for I cannot bear to see your disappointment in me.
.
But I want you to know that I, too, believe there is more for the human race, and that I am to help protect them as they evolve into what they were meant to be. I am hoping to catch up to Aborişade, but if I can't, I will go it alone.
I will write you when I reach my destination.
Ogundiya
.
I picked up a dumbbell and hurled it across the room, shattering my mirror into millions of pieces like stars across an African sky.
Ogundiya did write to us with regularity over the next few months, but I never wrote back. I am sure Aragbaye did. I felt no similar sense of obligation or loyalty. They left us in pursuit of some dream of saving humanity, one fragile human being at a time.
I wasn't about that life.
A few months after that, I felt it was time for me to leave also.
"I knew it would one day come down to me," Aragbaye said with a sigh, as I packed up my car.
"You can go stay with Babarinde, you know. Or transfer to another cell."
"I don't know them like I know you."
"You can get to know them."
"I like DC. Plus, Baba thinks The Key is here. Somebody's got to wait. DC has potential."
"Yeah…it does. I'll miss it. But you'll be waiting a long time for a key that doesn't exist."
"Maybe. Maybe not. Will you be back?"
"I will. One day. But ther
e's a whole country full of girls, boys, and blood, and I hope to taste a little bit of all three for as long as I can."
"Be safe."
"I will."
"And…Eşusanya?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for giving me a proper goodbye."
I rushed to my baby brother and gave him a tight squeeze.
"You will be fine, I promise you. Now man up and make a life for yourself."
Aragbaye nodded and shook my hand. I carried my last bag to the car and threw it on the passenger seat. I got in on the driver's side and sped away. I didn't look back once.
I wouldn't see our house again for three years, until the day I met Justin Kena for the first time.
Hell
Sometimes, it felt like a million maggots were crawling over me, threatening to impregnate my body through my ears and my nostrils. I screamed out, but nobody came to my rescue. I would fall asleep again, even though my eyes hadn't been allowed to open in weeks, months, years?
I slept, dreaming of green grass, blue skies, my brothers and sisters, my Africa. I ran across the savannahs that I called my backyard. I saw my mother and my father once again. I was home.
I slept, dreaming of the terrible voyage that ripped me from my homeland forever, depositing me on these foreign shores that had taken so much from me, yet also had given me so much to fight for. Because of that voyage, I learned just how strong I was. Because of that voyage, I loved my brothers even more.
I slept, often dreaming of nothing at all.
I fought back every time I knew they were near, resisting their needles with every ounce of strength I had, but the nearly lethal doses of morphine they gave saved their lives.
I slept.
Demons taunted me, sometimes, their tentacles being the restraints that kept me tethered to this prison, my bed, this house.
They spoke to me, teasing me about secrets that I did not know and answers I did not have. They caressed my neck, sometimes choking it until I passed out, sometimes scratching at me, and sometimes just beating me. I slept.
Holy Mary…she came to me a blinding white light in the darkness of my madness and in the hopelessness of my bondage.
Help the miserable… she covered me like the vast wings of an eagle, protecting my mind from further descent while they poked and prodded and taunted and slapped and raped and stole.
Birth of a Dark Nation Page 30