Rosewater

by Tade Thompson

  She points to a spot on the Nigeria map in the West, close to Ilesha, and near a small town.

  ‘We sent Tactical to investigate, but it seems like they misunderstood their orders. They lost contact. A second team went in, with two of my superiors taking a more direct part in the field operations. They thought it would be a good idea to have decision-makers on site. Lost contact again. The observation cyborgs aren’t sending any information back from there, neither the hawks by day nor the cats by night.’

  ‘You want me to go in for you,’ says Oyin Da.

  ‘Yes,’ says Femi.

  ‘Why? What do you want with Wormwood?’ says Oyin Da.

  ‘It’s not just us. Everyone, every nation wants a part of it. There’s a theory that the Americans went into seclusion because of its existence. If we could befriend it, there’s the scientific data, the contact with unknown species, the health benefits, the defence applications ... it could help us clean up the environment. We, Nigeria, can be the first nation to engage it. Think of what it would it mean.’

  ‘But you have to be careful,’ says Bellamy. ‘It’s a different type of civilisation, different intelligence —’

  ‘Wait,’ I say, ‘didn’t you guys fuck it up? It was engaging with humans until you introduced the military option or something.’

  ‘Mistakes were made, yes, but we’ve learned. We have the experience to —’

  ‘Stop,’ says Oyin Da. ‘We have more experience than any Western country in dealing with First Contact. What do you think we experienced when your people carved up Africa in the Berlin Conference? You arrived with a different intelligence, a different civilisation, and you raped us. But we’re still here.’ She turns to Femi. ‘Make sure this one does not speak anymore, or we leave.’

  I notice the ‘we’ but I don’t comment. It is interesting having both Femi and Oyin Da in the same space. It confuses the hell out of me. I feel drawn to them both.

  Femi is smiling, and says, ‘This is going to be delicate. Bellamy does have experience with the aliens.’

  ‘So do I,’ says Oyin Da. ‘You have no idea how many entities I have interacted with, how much knowledge I have gleaned in how many dimensions of time and space. I know how to do this.’

  ‘This can’t have been why you were looking for Oyin Da, though. You were looking for her before any of this,’ I say. I relish the wave of gratitude I feel from Oyin Da.

  Femi gives me a look. ‘I don’t question my orders. I answer to people. They told me to find her. I tried.’

  ‘What’s in it for me? Why should I help you get into Wormwood?’ asks Oyin Da.

  ‘We’re willing to let bygones be bygones. You do this and the slate is wiped clean. No treason. You must stop spreading your venom and kidnapping Nigerian citizens.’

  Oyin Da laughs. ‘I don’t kidnap them.’

  ‘We’re wasting time,’ says Bellamy.

  ‘I told you not to talk,’ says Oyin Da.

  ‘You have no authority here,’ says Femi. ‘Take the deal or leave it, Bicycle Girl.’

  ‘You’ve already failed. What will you do if I walk away? Continue to hunt me down and accuse me of sedition?’

  ‘I don’t believe in using the stick to motivate people.’

  I raise my hand as if I’m in school. ‘You used the stick on me.’

  ‘That’s different. I was taking orders from others when I recruited you. Besides, you’re an idiot.’ She sniffs. ‘And why do you smell of spoilt meat?’

  I slump in my seat, cowed.

  ‘Oyin Da, when I woke up this morning I was a lower-level section head in S45. Wormwood killed all my superiors so now I’m in charge. Believe me when I say we will make do. So, tell me now, little girl, will you help?’

  Bicycle Girl tinkers and fiddles with the innards of our work station while I do the hard work of studying the material S45 has supplied us on Wormwood and other “activities of non-terrestrial origin.”

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

  ‘Cannibalising. These jokers have high quality components, although they have no idea what to do with them. I need what they have to build and repair. Everything we have in the Lijad is from cast-offs and scraps.’ She doesn’t look up, but pride emanates from her. She thinks this is justified. So do I.

  ‘Don’t you think you should be reading this stuff? You’re the smart one.’

  ‘No, what I’m doing is more important. Besides, what I really need to know is where Wormwood is. After that it’s just communication. You can tell me if I break protocol.’

  ‘There is no protocol. Nobody knows —’

  She holds up her hand. ‘I do not wish to know. You read. I will scavenge.’

  ‘Don’t we need the components for this to work?’

  ‘No, these dummies use a lot of redundant stuff. I can easily run bypasses …’ Her words fade and she begins to think in engineering shorthand with which I can’t even hope to keep up.

  I start to read. The initial material is a jumble of words on the biology of non-terrestrial organisms. Most of it I do not understand, and I remember that I hate biology.

  ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ I say. ‘I know damn well that I won’t remember it either.’

  ‘Read it out loud,’ she says. ‘You can read, yes?’

  ‘You’re very funny,’ I say, but I smile. A joke. She made a joke. ‘Okay, this is … exen … ex … I can’t pronounce the word.’ I spell it.

  ‘Xenobiology.’

  ‘Yes, that. The macro-organisms show the same general complexity as terrestrial flora and fauna. The micro-organisms are different from this. They appear to have the characteristics of both plant and animals cells, including a chloro … chlor ... chloroplast-like organelle which aids in C3, C4, and CAM photosynthesis depending on where the sample is from. These microbes have more in common with human stem cells in that they have the potential to adapt to almost any function. Their versatility is responsible for their healing action, for example. They have been shown to mimic all known variants of animal cells, including human cells. They are capable of replacing damaged or diseased cells without stimulating either type I or type II immune responses. Osteoblast mimicry has led to repair of fractures but also secretion of macro-structures as powerful as and indistinguishable from human bone. The exploitation potential for these xenoforms is incalculable, but dependent on the directing intelligence.’

  As I read and Oyin Da corrects, my understanding increase. I can not always understand the thoughts she has, but they augment my intelligence while I read.

  Wormwood is an amoeboid blob of alien organic matter that fell to Earth in 2012. It is the size of a small town and it initially seemed like a comet that wiped out Hyde Park in London. It contaminates the biosphere with xenoforms and macroorganisms trapped within Wormwood itself. Information from the Americans is that there have been three previous incursions of similar alien organisms, but they were smaller and dead on arrival. There is a list of seventy plants and animals now existing on Earth but thought to be of alien origin. Wormwood itself was damaged by the British, but it sunk into the Earth’s crust and disappeared from view for a time. It soon became obvious that it is travelling a subterranean path without discernable pattern.

  There is speculation that the Americans went silent when they felt Wormwood was uncontrollable. A whole section of the material is devoted to theories about what is going on in the former United States. Nothing definitive.

  Wormwood itself is thought to be of at least human level intelligence. It appears to direct at least some of the xenoforms. Some reports say it consumes humans whole. Others say it merged with one human and produces duplicates of that body. It is peaceful in some articles, but warlike in others. Many say it is unknowable.

  ‘This is rubbish,’ says Oyin Da. ‘All the information is available on Nimbus and in textbooks.’

  Oyin Da rises and plugs a device into an opening that she created and presses a few buttons. A Nimbus portal opens. It sh
immers in the air, imperfect, makeshift. She moves her fingers within the low power ion field. She mussitates as she works. ‘Just like I thought. Their security protocols are attached to the local machine … If I just … Yes … Sloppy, sloppy, who does your security? ... Is that a Pix firewall? Haven’t encountered one of those in years … Now … Yeah, here we … go …’

  A three dimensional diagram blossoms in the air in front of her. It’s four feet in height, about two wide. The top third is trees and a small hill. Oyin Da traces a path from the outside, into a cave in the hill, down into a tunnel. The tunnel leads into a series of caverns. I think it’s a cave system at first, but then I see that we’re looking at a living organism. It reminds me of an iceberg with most of it below the surface, but it’s also like a tumour, budding and infiltrating. This is Wormwood.

  ‘Now I know where it is,’ says Oyin Da. She dismisses the diagram and starts to type on a virtual keyboard. I cannot follow her thoughts.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for the cells so I can free the prisoners.’ She glances at her watch briefly.

  ‘That’s not why we came,’ I say.

  ‘I freed the professor from a place like this,’ she says. ‘And he was innocent. The people he supposedly killed are alive and well in the Lijad. They tortured him.’

  ‘That wasn’t these guys.’

  ‘They work for the same government.’ She starts to disconnect her machine just as an alarm goes off. She is packing up but every few seconds she looks at her watch. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Prepare to become theoretical,’ she says and smiles.

  The air changes, wavy lines eddy together a few feet from us, and reality surrenders. She dives in and I follow.

  In the between, in the uncertainty, we talk. I think.

  What do you do when you’re not saving the world?

  What do you mean?

  Do you guys ever relax in the Lijad?

  We have people from all over. Of course we relax. These people bring all kinds of unwinding.

  All over Nigeria?

  The world. We even have some Americans.

  Really?

  Yes. We have about six. They’d been moving north from Zimbabwe through Cameroun. Ended up drifting across the border and living in Lagos. I found them and took them in.

  You take everyone and anyone?

  Anyone as long as they do not harm others and will contribute what they can.

  Would you take me?

  I learn quickly that mosquitoes love the smell of raw meat.

  Oyin Da seems fine and she just starts walking away from me. For me the travel turns my guts inside out and I wretch, but cannot bring anything up. The nausea comes and goes. I have a massive headache and it feels like all the blood has rushed to my head. I can’t walk just yet, and the mosquitoes find me fast. For a moment I cannot sense thoughts, but then my ability becomes heightened.

  When I recover I look up again. The nausea dies away and Oyin Da cocks her head, generally wanting me to grow a spine. We are near a forest and it is close to evening. The light is dying. There are clusters of people crouched over naked flames. They look at us, but seem unsurprised and unperturbed that we appeared out of nowhere. They seem vaguely pleased, truth be told. I can say I’ve never been here before, but it is a standard forest with mostly palm trees and tangly undergrowth. There are clearings here and there, but they appear recent, tool-made rather than poor growth from the steady stamping of feet. Some of the people are praying.

  ‘This is odd,’ says Oyin Da.

  ‘How so?’ I ask.

  ‘They’re not really praying. They’re calling out.’

  ‘That’s what praying is,’ I say. ‘Are we where we should be?’

  ‘Yes, give or take a few dozen yards.’

  ‘A lot of them are sick,’ I say.

  Indeed. The ratio of visibly sick to apparently healthy is like fifty-fifty.

  My would you take me? echoes in her mind. She wonders then if I have a girlfriend. The next moment is unreal. I know, for example, that I am having a premonition. I know I am about to make a monumental mistake, but I am unable to stop myself. It feels like my future self is watching me fuck up, but has come to terms with the inevitability of the instant.

  ‘W … wait,’ I say, weakly, but she does not hear me. Her brain is brilliant, and she is barely aware of me. She sees herself as a landing party and her mind is spooling through variables at an unbelievable rate.

  WAIT!

  She cries out and falls to her knees. I have caused her pain. She turns back and stares at me in the dying light. ‘What did you do to me, Kaaro? Were you in my head?’

  ‘I —’

  ‘I felt it, all day, something worming away at the edge of my awareness. That was you,’ she says, standing slowly. She is mostly curious at first. Not really angry. She is interested in the biology of the thing. I am a specimen.

  We are interrupted by a bright lime green light bursting through the gloom, a column of it up ahead, accompanied by a gasp from the camping people. It is at least fifty feet tall, thick as an Iroko tree and bulbous at its tip like a giant matchstick. It thrums with a kind of electrical vibration and I feel a resonance in the back of my skull, as if it activates something.

  ‘What is that?’ Oyin Da says, forgetting my invasion of her thoughts for a minute.

  When the initial dazzle fades from my eyes I see that there are several such columns of light, perhaps four. The groups of people stop their singing and rise in silence, walking towards the light. Oyin Da moves with them, and I can feel her impatience. She wants to run, but a sense of caution holds her back.

  ‘Is this wise?’ I say. I am not curious. I am not an explorer. When I see something I don’t understand, I run in the opposite direction like any good living organism. This is just good survival strategy, in my opinion. I notice that I am feeling better. I no longer have a headache, and my feet are not wobbly.

  There is a boy, nine, ten years old, who was limping before. I see him standing up straight and walking towards the light. Oyin Da takes photographs on a handheld device of some kind. Looks like a smart phone, but probably customised. The closer we get to the lights, the healthier the grass and trees seem. The gathering people also seem to be filming with their phones. Nobody coughs.

  ‘There’s healing going on here,’ I say.

  ‘I agree. Let’s get closer to —’

  ‘Hello,’ says a voice behind us.

  A man stands about a yard behind us, hands by his sides, benign look on his face. He is black, but the shade of his skin seems artificial, like a person who had been bleaching his skin with low-quality products. His skin is light brown, but it seems painted on. He wears dungarees, and they appear to be cast-offs because they are too large. They are baggy on him, and the long trouser legs are rolled up. He wears no shirt, shoes, or other clothing or jewellery of any kind. His nails are bitten to the skin. This is the only person who shows any curiosity about us.

  ‘Who are you?’ Oyin Da asks.

  Without thinking I put myself between her and the stranger and he seems to focus on me. I pick up Oyin Da’s disdain for my gesture, which she interprets as sexist. It’s sexist to protect a girl? Really?

  ‘Oh, you brought a quantum extrapolator. How interesting,’ the man says. ‘My name is Anthony. Was. Is. I don’t know. Am I still Anthony?’

  ‘What’s a quantum extrapolator?’ I ask.

  ‘You are,’ says Anthony. He seems amused and non-threatening. He looks at me as if I am an interesting specimen of insect, just like Oyin Da did. There are no thoughts coming from him. He is not really there, or he is immune to my abilities.

  ‘If you are not Anthony, who are you?’ asks Oyin Da. ‘What are you?’

  ‘I’m a space invader,’ says Anthony. ‘Your people call me Wormwood.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Rosewater: 2066

  There is a mob of twen
ty-seven people outside the flat. I can feel their minds along with that of Lorna who is set to avenge her lover. Even in death Clement is still fucking me. The mob does not care about me or Lorna. They think in terms of violence they can deal, pain they can dole out without consequence. This is the mob mentality, a suspension of whatever fragile social contract is in place. Endorsed brutality. If you kill someone within the context of mob action you are absolved of sin. It wasn’t murder, we all did it.

  I am in pain. It seems to me every part of my body hurts and my lungs can no longer process air. It hurts to draw it in. Not just my ribs are bruised, but the inner surface of my lungs is raw. It is as if the ectoplasm peeled away a layer from my insides when it came out.

  I stay just inside Clement’s apartment, just out of sight of the mob, but connected to the air so that the xenoforms can link me to the xenosphere.

  I’ve only ever done this to one person at a time.

  I am inside all of them. The man who uses his flat as a boxing club. He has chained reanimates for his fighters to train on. Punching bags are not authentic. You must know what human flesh and bone feels like against your bare knuckles to be a true fighter. The woman who sleeps with her son-in-law and feels no shame. The man whose girlfriend has been missing for a month, him the prime suspect in her murder though his thoughts say he is innocent. The reconstructed sex worker with two phalluses which he hoped would mean he could charge his clients double, but instead disgusts them.

  All of them, saints, sinners, in between, I hold them in my mind and I send a single signal. When I emerge from the flat light from the sun will hit me and bounce off. This reflected light will hit the retinae of the people watching. The cells of the retinae will transform the photons of light into electric energy, signals to the brain. If the brain interprets it correctly, the people perceive me.