Rosewater

by Tade Thompson

  According to Professor Ileri, who trained him, Kaaro is the most powerful psychic operator known to us. He was able to grasp multiple domains of function within a short time. Ileri hypothesised that this was not due to Kaaro’s inherent ability, but to skill he seems to have been taught by someone called Nike Onyemaihe (relationship unknown at the time of writing). As a finder he is unparalleled. The Bicycle Girl incident was his greatest triumph as well as his most dismal failure.

  That hurts and I skip ahead. I don’t need to be reminded of that fiasco and I know how good I am with the xenosphere.

  When suitably motivated Kaaro can be a valuable asset. That said, he is sexist, materialistic, greedy, insolent, and amoral. When he was young he stole regularly even though his parents were not struggling financially. He is not violent and does not tolerate the threat of violence well. To recruit him we used a combination of these, offering his freelance rate of pay as well as exposing him to extreme violence done to others.

  He has not formed any long-term relationships and the psychological profile suggests that this is related to a fractious relationship with his mother. Initially when I met him he would use humour and garrulousness to create distance between himself and others. After the Utopicity Incident he became withdrawn and did things automatically, without passion.

  He lives alone, has no pets, has no real friends, and as far as I know does not live for anything. He is considered a low to moderate suicide risk should the right conditions occur.

  Suicide risk? Me?

  I close my file and concentrate on the other stuff, the information on other sensitives and the information on what’s causing the decline. I read everything available three times, taking no notes, coming to no judgements.

  Most of it is bland personal data, dates of birth, addresses, and current assignments. Most important to me is the contact details for Ileri. There are cursory theories about this problem, but it is all vague and diffuse, experts hedging to keep their own position. Nobody knows what is happening, but it seems to have started over the last five years. It took a while for them to notice and the statisticians had to account for local morbidity and mortality data.

  Theories run wild. The sensitives are committing suicide. The Chinese sent an experimental virus to copy the strains of xenoforms on our skins with a view to creating their own synthetic strain. The sensitives were weak stock to start with and this made them vulnerable to the alien infection in the first place. The xenoforms are losing potency due to inbreeding, but the relationship with the sensitives requires them to keep each other alive. Act of God. Act of Satan. Act of terrorism. Natural extinction of what was already a minor aberration. And so on.

  I stand up and stretch. My phone has run out of charge and I am hungry. The stories of the dying sensitives swirl around in my mind. The one tasked with trying to get the truth out of a prisoner by monitoring dreams while pretending to be a cell mate. The one helping doctors research mental illness by exploring the xenosphere of patients. The team of twenty who formed a hive mind which worked well until one became unwell and caused a mental breakdown in all the rest. The undying sensitive whose personality pattern persists and haunts the xenosphere.

  I definitely do not wish to cook. I have a hankering for street food so I leave what I’m doing and take a walk. It’s early evening. The dome of Utopicity is dull today. I meet one or two of the reconstituted but otherwise just normal people wandering about, returning from evening shifts or hawking things on the street. It is slightly windy and I assume there will be rain soon. Two armed soldiers walk by on a casual patrol. They wear desert camo and have implant scanners on their helmets. They both stare at me, probably because of my “do not impede” status. They are probably wondering what this soft old man could be, and maybe he bribed someone to get the alteration on his chip. They are leftovers from the cull detail, although the government is still twitchy about terrorists.

  To the east of the city there are tree-covered hills that rise out of the Yemaja Valley. I can see the rises from here, above the skyline. I explored them once in ‘59, spent a week with the hardy, scraggly, tough but compassionate tribe that scratches out a living there. The people were kind to me, always offering me food or wine, looking after the helpless and hapless city person. Their thoughts were genuine too, no hypocrisy.

  They use minimal technology, but are happy. They see the dome as a supernatural phenomenon and want no part of it. They talk of being harried by egbere who live within the forest. I later find out that these are homunculi who have somehow found their way out of Utopicity.

  Their rules are simple, but more evolved than the lex talionis that ruled Camp Rosewater in ‘55. Look at us now. We have road signs and parking fines.

  A family of Machinery stride past in that regular gait of theirs, jerking me back to the present. Wankers to bring up a child like that.

  There is a loud, but peaceful protest on the street in front of me. About thirty or thirty-five people protest ectogenesis. This has been an ongoing international debate. The science for an ex-vivo uterus-artificial womb has existed for a while. There has been limited but successful use with animals. Two weeks ago, one of the mayor’s aides leaked a document on Nimbus that revealed a plan to harvest “Fertilisation Products” from abortion clinics in order to test ectogenesis in humans. So instead of terminating the pregnancy they would move the fertilised egg from the human and implant in a machine. Part of the plan was to “destroy” the fetus once it reaches the age of viability, having proved the concept.

  It’s interesting to me that despite being the one to orchestrate this, nobody sees Jack Jaques as a bad person.

  I walk west along streets that are mostly residential. Palm trees line the pavements at irregular intervals, most of them bearing posters of Jack Jaques. Cars drive by, some blasting loud hip-hop. I forgot to apply ketoconazole to my skin before leaving the house and the xenosphere is ablaze with thoughts and emotions of random people. It takes a fair bit of concentration to maintain my goal. I come to a row of three stands on the side of the road. The first is an Hausa man who roasts spiced meat over an open flame. Suya. He serves it with chopped tomatoes, onions, and a powdered spice that includes garlic, ground nuts, and cumin. His name is Ahmed and it is his food that I seek. There is a bench beside him where one customer waits. I sit next in line. The other vendors sell fried yams and plantain.

  Ahmed knows me and nods as he quietly goes about chopping meat and selecting strips, moving them around to get optimal flame and squirting groundnut oil on others. His daughter Kahlela, who is six, plays close by, talking to herself the way only children do. The way I once did. She has a whole pantheon of imaginary friends but she would really prefer to play with her father. For a child, she has a complex understanding of interactions. Ahmed is concerned about his wife’s fidelity. This is because of a Nimbus video that a friend of his shared. A naked woman bearing a striking similarity to Ahmed’s wife inserting household objects into her most intimate parts. He does not know how to broach the subject. He has seen the video seventy-two times and is still not sure if it’s her or not.

  There is a radio on, battery and solar powered, used to entertain customers. There is a program about America. The man beside me is of the Machinery and he sits stock-still, like an automaton. He looks straight ahead and I know he will continue to do so until prompted by either myself or Ahmed. The Machinery are a bunch of fuckwits who believe that the human body is best conceptualised as a machine, and that if behaviour is stripped down to only what is functional, a higher form of humanity will emerge. This means actions that lead to the fulfilment of their basic needs only. Disease is a malfunction. You can see where this goes. They’re boring as hell, they only speak to convey information and they are more inflexible than actual machines. They are said to be good spouses and accountants. The one beside me has a distinct self-image, fully identified as a machine. He repeats to himself mentally, ‘You are a machine, you are a machine.’ Usually the Machinery ar
e secular, but this one struggles with a separation from extended family and church.

  While the aroma of open-flame roasted beef tickles my nostrils I realise that I’ll have to seek out Ileri and get some answers.

  While I wait Yaro the mongrel pads up to me. When my batch is ready I feed him scraps from my suya, He eats with enthusiasm and stares up at me wagging his tail, expectant. I scratch behind his ears.

  ‘What’s this, boy?’

  There is a wound on his flank, infected.

  ‘We need to get you to a vet,’ I say.

  Ahmed says something about Yaro being dead in a week.

  Yaro got the wound a few weeks ago when he got into a fight with three larger dogs while trying to protect me. He occasionally walks me from the station and believes I belong to him. I hope he doesn’t die. I feed him a quarter of my food.

  On my way home three teenagers kick a reanimate who is stuck in the open gutter at the side of the road. They take turns and swing their feet like its head is a football. I think of intervening, but change my mind and keep walking.

  By the time I get back to my flat, I have decided. I open my safe and take out what cash is inside. I have a car, but it’s tagged by S45 and I ignore it. I’ve got the buggy I used to use back in ‘56, but it’s so distinctive and old that people would stare. I change my clothes, pack a light bag, and leave again. I contemplate stealing a car. As soon as I think the thought I see multiple pathways to opening three vehicles right on my street and I am tempted. Stealing is like alcohol dependency. I have to recognise that I will always be a thief, albeit one who no longer steals.

  I can’t steal a car. It will draw attention.

  In the end I take a street motorbike taxi-Okada-which drops me off at a rental place. I am not used to the car and have a minor collision with one of the carbon scrubbers that line the motorway, but nobody is hurt.

  I start in Abuja.

  Temi is posted in Aso Rock, her standing assignment having to do with foreign delegates. I park outside her house in one of the suburbs and wind the windows down. I taste the xenosphere, but there is no sign of the serpent she uses. This does not mean anything, she may have changed her avatar, although sensitives rarely do.

  I press the buzzer at the gate, but nobody answers. Abuja’s landscape has undulations and you can see Aso Rock and the presidential villa from here. I’m staring at it when someone nudges me. I look down at a girl on a bicycle, hanging her elbows off the handlebars, smiling.

  ‘Hi,’ she says in English.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Are you Aunty Temi’s friend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She tilts her head to one side. ‘How come I’ve never seen you?’

  ‘I’m an old friend. We went to school together,’ I say. Which is more or less true. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘Yes. She’s in heaven. She died last week. There is nobody in the house.’

  ‘How did she die?’ I ask, my palms feeling sweaty and uncomfortable.

  The girl shrugs. ‘She was sick, my mother drove her to hospital, and she didn’t come back.’

  I find what’s left of John Bosco in a seminary in Enugu, to the east of Nigeria. He had been assigned to keep track of the thoughts of radical students in the universities. He has been dead for six months, given the honour of being buried in the military cemetery. His gravestone is a small, irregular bit of marble, with a smooth face stating his name. No descendants. Aside from Bola, I have not known sensitives to have children.

  I access the xenosphere. It is empty, barren, and desolate. I marshal my thoughts and build a twenty-foot tombstone in a grassy meadow. I cap it with a statue of the monk-like avatar he favoured. I carve on the stone a simple message:

  Here Lies John Bosco

  He served his country.

  If any of our kind come this way, they will see it.

  Ebun is a teacher in Akure, not on assignment.

  She is in a coma.

  I try to access her avatar, but I cannot decipher anything. It’s as if even her conceptual self has dissipated. It is like trying to grasp wind. There is nothing in the xenosphere to respond to me.

  When I find the grief in the atmosphere too overwhelming, I leave.

  It takes two days of travelling and phone calls, but I track my targets down.

  The class of ‘55, all ten of us, either dead or dying. Oloja, on a palliative care ward, dying. Ebun, comatose. John Bosco, dead. Temi, dead. Kolawole, Nuru, Mojibola, Akpan, deceased, unknown illness. Chukwuebuka, missing, presumed dead on assignment. I leave xenosphere monuments for them all, as much as I can. Towards the end I am exhausted and I cannot imagine anything more than a black monolith.

  This is disturbing. I figure I will go through the contact details of the other sensitives, the ones I did not know, but I already see the pattern.

  I come home, tired, saddle-worn, afraid. I return the rental, get an Okada back to my flat and start thinking of what’s next.

  When I get back home Aminat is waiting. I have forgotten all about her and I start to apologise, but she silences me with a gesture.

  ‘Bola’s dead,’ she says.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Lagos, 2055

  I calm down. I do not know where I am, but I am not afraid of being lost. I am a finder, and the most basic skill of a finder is getting home. I need to know where I am.

  Weightless. Weightlessness is never good. I know I am not in outer space. What have I been doing? A job of some kind. Around me are hundreds of light corridors of various colours and thicknesses. Each seems to radiate away from my position. The lights are akin to a laser show and are inconstant. They flick in and out. Some remain steady, but move up and down, or describe arcs. Others appear only once.

  Nice show. I flail my arms and set myself in a spin, head over arse over head, repeat ad infinitum. The only sound is this constant hiss which is familiar to me. I keep turning over, although I am not nauseated. No gravity per se. I hope movement isn’t by swimming motions here because I cannot swim.

  Am I dead? Is this the hell of people who cannot swim?

  I remember being in Regina Ogene’s house, trying to find her husband Aloy. As soon as I think this the lights multiply and multiply again, increasing until they are too dazzling to look at. The hiss becomes louder. I close my eyes and cover my ears, but it makes no difference. I still sense the light and hear the hiss.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ I say.

  I know where I am and understand the problem. I am locked inside my own mind. I am not sure why, but Aloy is in multiple places at once. Hundreds, maybe thousands of places. My ability is directing me to all of them, and it is too much input. How the motherfucker managed to do that does not concern me, but I need to find a way out of my crashed brain. Since this has never happened before I have no idea how to go about it. One thing is sure: I can’t think about Regina, Aloysius, or the fucking Bicycle Girl.

  I find a memory.

  Spinning, spinning, spinning.

  I steal a car, a Mazda hatchback and drive it towards the lagoon, although the petrol runs out before I reach water. I stand on the road, waiting. A car stops.

  Klaus.

  Cigar-smoking, Belgian motherfucker who picks me off the road and asks me what I am good at.

  ‘Stealing,’ I say.

  Klaus laughs. ‘You don’t smell like someone good at stealing.’

  ‘You have a total of fourteen hundred dollars in this car. Two hundred dollars on you in a hip wallet, and the rest is in the boot in a bag,’ I say.

  Klaus turns to stare, ignoring the road. ‘How did you do that?’

  I shrug.

  Klaus drives me to a hotel and shoves me into the lobby. ‘Do it again.’

  I pick people at random and describe what valuables they have and where they are hidden. I do this for twenty minutes, then Klaus asks me to steal something to prove it. I steal a gold watch, a wedding ring, and a Transformers toy.

  ‘Why the t
oy?’ asks Klaus.

  ‘It was valued by the child as much as an adult would value a Bentley. I was attracted to the intensity with which the boy loved it.’

  That is the start of my relationship with Klaus.

  Except it wasn’t and I realise that this memory isn’t mine. It’s Nike Onyemaihe’s. I didn’t meet Klaus on a roadside. I met him when Nike died.

  The Belgian recognises a niche in the twilight trade, the market where odd favours are exchanged and money is often an after thought. I find money and people for him. On one memorable occasion I find a lost artefact in a museum, misfiled and dying under the weight of an overgrown bureaucracy. This makes the news, although only a photo of me makes it into the report. I grin beside the professor who thinks I am the second coming. Later Klaus points out that the item is worth six million dollars.

  My income is steady, but unimpressive. I try to reconcile with my parents, but they have moved and nobody will tell me where they went. I can find them, but they do not want to be found. I leave them alone to respect their wishes.

  Klaus is my pimp, prostituting my finder’s skill with verve and, like all pimps, takes on a role that mixes paternalism and exploitation. I don’t care as long as I can go to clubs and spend some cash from time to time. I do not save much.

  ‘Have you ever read Seneca?’ asks Klaus.

  We are in one of Klaus’s cars, a Honda this time, driving to Victoria Island.

  I answer in the negative.

  ‘“No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss.”’

  ‘So what are you telling me? I shouldn’t buy shit?’

  ‘You complicate the equation because people like you, with your abilities, you neutralise the possibility of loss,’ says Klaus. ‘I am wondering how much you neutralise happiness.’