Rosewater

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Rosewater Page 29

by Tade Thompson


  ‘Thank you,’ I say. I sound weak even to myself.

  ‘Make sure you come back for my sister,’ he says.

  The opening closes just as I begin to feel stronger. I sit up and Anthony is pushing the gurney along. He smiles. I feel health rush into me like a drug. I feel the air in my lungs and the contraction of my muscles.

  ‘I can walk now,’ I say. I slip off and land on something velvety. It’s moss, or something akin to moss.

  I am in Utopicity. When I first came here it was little more than a tent settlement with a few dozen people and even that was under threat from the federal government. The air here is fresh and sweet, though there is no wind. There are motes floating about akin to dust or pollen, but different. They glow faintly. I turn around and around; I’m feeling healthier by the minute and I can sense the xenoforms in my system running through my lungs. The dome reaches higher than I thought, easily two hundred feet. At the apex there are wild floaters cavorting. When they make contact with the dome there are sparks. There are only footpaths here, no roads, nothing harsh on the eye, although there are straight lines. There is art lining the walkways, Yoruba deities, orisha, Obatala, Ifa, Yemoja, and the like. They are rendered in wood and bone and are twice the height of a human. There is a large wooden panel suspended it seems by growing vines and it is covered with nsidibi ideograms.

  The paths lead off into a maze bordered by trees, some out of season, some evergreens, many not native to Nigerian shores. The predominant smell is floral and vegetation. I remember that Anthony’s clothes are made of cellulose.

  I scrunch my toes, picking at the moss. I feel happy, like I must laugh. I feel the xenosphere open up to me.

  ‘Be careful,’ says Anthony. ‘You’ve never —’

  It’s too late; I am connected. The rush of information is dizzying and feels like I have left my body. I feel the xenoforms leaving the dome and returning with information about the weather, about people outside, about soil ph, about flora and fauna. I feel the people in here who all seem to be connected. Families, individuals, children playing, couples fucking. Too late I experience the sexual congress and feel my penis stiffening and erupting. I feel the homunculi who have multiplied beyond imagination and live as feral cats among the humans who are immune to the neurotoxin thanks to the xenoforms.

  I feel the people trapped in the prison. Prison? There is a prison here and people do transgress. People live in pods grown of vegetation or houses of wood, rock, and Wormwood’s bone, or in the open air. The temperature is always mild. There is technology and several ganglia line the inner surface of the dome. The electric elementals cavort with the floaters.

  I feel Wormwood itself, not through Anthony, but the leviathan itself nested in the Earth, growing the city above itself, protecting, nurturing. The size of it surprises me. The city is like a pimple on its surface. It is farther reaching that I could have imagined.

  The Lijad is in here, merged, the people mixed together, integrated, indistinguishable. The vast bespoke machine with which Oyin Da travels time and space is here, humming away. Something twists in me when I remember her.

  The dome does not have a uniform appearance. There are glyphs on the inside, writing from an unknown language or culture. Unknown to me at any rate. There are drawings mixed in with the ideograms. These are not static. They shift, sometimes scrolling, sometimes disappearing. They are both beautiful and grotesque, but always comforting strangely. Light does not refract through the dome. It produces its own illumination, and I can feel the crackle of energy. This is not alien to me. It feels familiar. I am part of this. I have been for a long time.

  I see the people, the men and women with cellulose clothing, some decades out of fashion, others experimental. Here and there is nudity, and living tattoos slither across skin. Some stop what they are doing and smile; they smile at me for they are aware of my scrutiny. A woman smiles and feels aroused at my orgasm. She picks the information out of the xenosphere here. She wills me to read the writing on her skin and it is something from Soyinka’s ‘The Interpreters.’ I pull back from her after reading for a time. I do not understand the complicated feelings that this brings. My usual manner of reading people does not involve them reading back and I feel exposed.

  There are stations, places to receive bursts of xenoform spores which have coded information from outside the dome. Music plays, some from recording devices, but others emanating directly from the memories of Utopicians and into my sensory cortex. There are composers here, and the fragments of their work jar and disturb my harmony.

  There is a monument constructed from dead COBs, flesh rotted away or dissolved in acid, machinery welded together. As I observe it I am aware of the history. COBs flying close to the dome are electrocuted and absorbed. Close by is a weapons museum, all the weapons destroyed or taken from the Nigerian government’s attempts to get in. Tanks, RPGs, handguns, Gatling guns.

  Every few yards there is a mound of hard flesh, tumours, extrusions from Wormwood isolating toxins that the xenoforms cannot neutralise. The tumours are safe, but I did not believe there was anything Wormwood could not render harmless and recycle. It introduces uncertainty.

  I follow the ganglia, I descend, and the elementals follow me. They are welcoming and curious and friendly. There are thought parasites in the neurotransmission stream which the elementals trap and consume. I feel again that Wormwood covers a wider area than I initially thought. It extends beyond the margins of the dome, beyond Rosewater city limits. It is deeper than when I was first here. Neither is it stationary. It moves with the Earth’s crust and the shifting of tectonic plates. It is like a tick on the Earth. I follow the ganglia to what I think is the brain of Wormwood, but I am surprised that there is no central function. There are no grand thoughts or instructions issuing forth. I used to know this.

  ‘It is not like us, Kaaro,’ says Anthony. ‘It grew a brain to be like me, but it does not need or use one. I am the grand translator, the code breaker.’

  His words bring me back to the surface. I am standing by the gurney, Anthony in front of me.

  ‘This will be uncomfortable,’ he says.

  He just stands there but I know he is doing something. I feel it like drowning in reverse. The ectoplasm surges up from my lungs up into my throat and for a while I cannot breathe. It doesn’t come out in one smooth go. It corkscrews gently, shearing parts of my respiratory tract, although it comes out in one piece. Ultimately it is less like a cloud than a clump of floating jelly, slightly translucent and projecting pseudopodia from time to time. Anthony sticks his hand in the gelatinous mass.

  Molara is in there, all over the xenosphere, a fearsome creature with blue-black butterfly wings in full spread, her fury spraying against both me and Anthony.

  What are you doing? This does not concern you, she says.

  Fly away, says Anthony.

  There are negotiations to be had. You cannot just —

  Go, says Anthony.

  It seems emotionless, but I get the sense that Molara detects threat and leaves.

  I cough, but otherwise I’m fine.

  ‘What now?’ I ask. ‘Will you tell it to leave?’

  ‘I cannot just tell these xenoforms to leave. We are not all the same. We are similar, but do not always agree or even speak the same language.’

  ‘That’s insane. Don’t you come from the same planet?’

  ‘Do you speak Bantu?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Polish?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And do you come from the same planet as people who do?’

  ‘Touché.’

  ‘We need to negotiate.’

  ‘For the human race?’

  ‘For you. The human race is already lost.’

  ‘What do you mean? The world is still …’

  ‘Look at me. This body is one hundred percent alien and the only part that remains from the human called Anthony is the specific electrical pattern of my brain, and even that is entangl
ed with Wormwood. This body dies, I just build a new one. Some of the people in here have percentages varying from ten to forty percent xenoform because their internal organs or limbs or some part of their body has been slowly replaced. This is not only happening in here. Ultimately, the bodies will be replaced and the true inheritors will take over the brains. Kaaro, the human race is finished. It’s just a matter of time and we are very patient.’

  ‘I thought you were on our side.’

  Anthony raises his arms by his sides and then lets them drop. ‘Some of you will live.’

  ‘You owe me.’

  ‘That’s why you will live, Kaaro.’

  I am not a brave man, neither am I heroic. I suppose cowardice evolved in humans to ensure survival. Some must fight, others must fear and use flight. I do want to survive and I do want to see Aminat again.

  ‘Let me out,’ I say.

  ‘Kaaro —’

  ‘Let me the fuck out of this place, right now. Let me out. Let me out!’

  Layi is not waiting when I return to Rosewater. There is a small crowd of about fifteen or twenty people and they stare at me as if I am Lucifer cast out of heaven. There is hunger in their eyes. They rush forward and mob me. I flinch and am about to defend myself when I realise they want healing. They touch me, pull at me, lick my sweat, beg me.

  ‘I can’t help you! I’m not a healer,’ I say, but maybe that’s not true because the xenosphere starts to tell me a man’s gall stones just dissolved.

  I am not the same. I don’t look at the dome in the same way. It’s now a stye or a boil, swollen with purulence, waiting, biding its time. I don’t know what my healing has cost me. How many native cells have the xenoforms driven out? Ten, fifteen percent? How human am I? I see the people touching me and the ones at the periphery staring as dead people. Conquered and killed by invaders, walking around carrying their death, but they don’t even know it. I want to scream at them, but it does not matter. I stop struggling. The cellulose clothing Anthony grew for me is torn, but they keep coming.

  Emi! Emi! They keep saying. Me, me, me. Or it might have been the word for spirit they were saying, distorted by the shouting. Maybe if enough of them are healed the xenoforms will be depleted. But I am not fooling myself.

  I know that rather than healing I am seeding these people with their own destruction. I am a Typhoid Mary, a Patient Zero, a Pale Rider.

  Perhaps that’s what humanity deserves.

  So, this guy, this titan, Prometheus, he steals fire from the gods and gives it to mankind. His punishment? They chain him to a rock and Zeus, in the form of an eagle, eats his liver every day. Since Prometheus is a titan, his liver grows back overnight, only for the eagle to eat it again. This continues for ages until Hercules comes along and kills the fucking eagle, which is Freudian as hell because Zeus is his father, but that’s beside the point.

  I’ve known this story since I was young.

  I’ve been thinking of Shesan Williams, trapped in the xenophere, eaten by floaters, then regenerating, then being eaten again. I was clearly thinking of Prometheus when I designed the punishment. Now, though, now I feel guilty.

  It isn’t my place to offer this kind of retribution, and cast the first stone and all that shit.

  I see him. I see the floaters tearing his neuro-flesh, all the more painful. I see blood leaking, I see the creatures bickering. There is a head buried in his belly, excavating Shesan’s bowels. His scream is constant. I take no pleasure in it.

  Fuck it. I dismiss the floaters.

  Nothing happens.

  What?

  I try again. No effect. I think that the images I left in Shesan’s brain have been there so long that his mind has accepted them as real. If he thinks they are real, my contribution is extraneous. Fantastic. I have many shitty ideas and this one is classic.

  The floaters notice me and two break off to attack me. I click my beak and let out a screech. They are undeterred. I extend both fore and hind paw claws and beat my wings to gain height. They follow, but I can manoeuvre better. I slash at them, cutting through their dorsal gas bags. One bites me on the leg. I am going about this wrong. I shake it loose, fly higher, beat my wings until a mighty wind results. It blows all the floaters away, leaving Shesan standing there, frightened. I descend, stand in front of his bleeding mental image. He trembles, but does not run.

  ‘Shesan Williams, do you know me?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head, but then he thinks about it.

  ‘You’re the one who’s fucking my wife,’ he says.

  I swipe him across the face, though I have withdrawn my claws so he isn’t cut. He falls to the ground on one knee, then gets up. I can hear the susurrus of floaters flying. They gather around us, gaining courage.

  ‘Make them go away,’ I say.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can. This is all you. I have nothing to do with it.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Fine. Stay here and be eaten alive over and over.’

  ‘Can you take me with you?’ he asks, voice laced with hope.

  ‘That’s up to your body, Shesan. It’s too damaged. Unless you come out of the coma, I can’t help you. Do you have a message for your family?’

  He thinks for a moment. ‘Tell them I’m sorry I caused them pain. I’m not sorry for the life I chose. God knows they benefited from it. Aminat benefited from it, then she stabbed me in the back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She hasn’t told you?’ He starts to laugh, just as the floaters move in and start to nip at him.

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘She’s an undercover cop.’

  Twenty-four hours later I give my report to Badmos, the S45 section chief. For the first time since I joined I type up the whole issue, the sickness of sensitives, Molara, Wormwood, Bola, the xenosphere, the role of Utopicity, and what Anthony told me. I recall everything verbatim where I can. I add context and my own conjecture. It is the best work I have ever put to paper. I expect it to galvanize the department into action. It does not.

  Badmos nods and makes the appropriate well done noises for positive reinforcement and he puts the encrypted memory device away. I know it will get filed and lost. He warns me not to share my experience with anyone else and suggested that I do not leave town. No, I cannot see the boss, but my message will be passed on. I miss Femi. I know that if she were here I would have a direct audience. Eurohen is probably too busy schmoozing politicians.

  It seems to me that they already know what I have told them. They also do not want me to be part of the solution. They do not trust me. They have never really trusted sensitives, but this is more than that. I am seen as an agent of the invaders because of what I carry and what I can do. They won’t even let me continue my interrogation. The section chief is too blasé when he dismisses it and me.

  Aminat comes back after a week. I get a request on my phone to allow tracking and I see her ID. I allow it, my heart thumping with anticipation and resentment. I am sitting on a low rise overlooking the Yemaja. It is an abandoned park. I have just finished a phone call when I smell her perfume.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ she asks. ‘New girlfriend?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. I may have a new job in the National Research Laboratory.’

  She sits next to me, leans on my shoulder, and looks out at the river. Some poor fool is trying to fish in a canoe in the sluggish flow. He will catch nothing but mutants and disease.

  Aminat looks beautiful and is wearing tight jeans that show off her powerful legs, but I sense a weariness in her, and her left wrist is in a plaster cast.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about where you went?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Do you still love me?’

  She nods.

  ‘Was there someone else?’

  She shoves me lightly. I swing back like a pendulum.

  We
sit there in the evening light, watching the silly fisherman, loving ourselves in silence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Rosewater: 2055

  Coming back to life seems familiar and it takes me a second to realise why. I have Anthony’s memories from when I looked into his head, and he has returned many times before. I feel the alien cells replacing my damaged blood vessels, repairing the shock wave damage to my heart, knitting the bone back together, sealing the muscles, the subcutaneous tissues, and finally skin. My hearing comes back and the world judders with gunfire. My eyes feel gritty, but I open them all the same. My body is one-third buried in the soil and there is sand over my face. The soil is wet. I move tentatively, and there is no pain. I look at my chest. Though my clothes are torn ragged, there is no scar on my skin. In addition to gunshots there is thunder. The ground seems to heave, though it might be dizziness.

  ‘Are you okay?’ says Oyin Da.

  She is crouched over me and looks anxious but not really afraid. Anthony is behind her, facing the other way.

  ‘He’s fine. Better than new,’ says Anthony.

  The ground undulates. ‘I don’t think I’m fine. The ground seems to be moving.’

  ‘No, that’s not you. The ground really is moving,’ says Oyin Da.

  ‘What?’ I stand up. The ground surges gently, not like an earthquake, but with definite soil displacement. ‘What’s happening?’

  Anthony turns and holds me by the shoulders. ‘Your employers attacked us. You misguided fool, you tried to save me and got shot in the chest. Thank you for that. I will not forget, though in truth I was never in any danger.’

  ‘Kaaro, you have to decide,’ says Oyin Da. ‘Anthony is going to raise a barrier between us and them. You can stay here or you can go back to your old life.’

  ‘I —’

  ‘Come with me,’ she says. It is the first time she shows any interest in me and her eyes bore directly into my soul. There is promise, but I don’t know of what. She is not a sexpot with her bits hanging out, and she makes no effort to be beautiful. Her mind is on science and predictive values. I am drawn to her, but also afraid of her. But she is also afraid of me, of being rejected by me. I sense the uncertainty within the intensity. Lightning flashes and brightens the night to day, illuminating her face and Afro-puffs. I discover that what I think is dry lighting is actually electricity bolts from the ganglia striking invaders.

 

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