Shuri

by Nic Stone

  “Does this use petrol?” The incredulous question comes from Shuri this time.

  They get underway, and again, Ororo laughs. “We don’t all have Vibranium to power our cities and fuel our vehicles, you know.”

  “Wait, you know about Vibranium?” K’Marah sounds more panicked than Shuri realized possible.

  “Ah, so the princess hasn’t told you how we know each other,” Ororo replies.

  “I met Ororo through T’Challa,” Shuri says. “She was—”

  “Your king’s first crush,” Ororo says, looking as proud as a freshly preened peacock. “Don’t tell him I told you, but I rescued T’Challa from a group of Vibranium-thirsty would-be colonizers when we were around your age.”

  (If you let T’Challa tell it, he’s the one who rescued her, Shuri thinks.)

  “Whoa …” K’Marah breathes, enamored anew.

  “So, yes, I have full knowledge of Wakanda’s store of the precious celestial resource. But you can trust that I would never do anything with the information that could bring harm to your beloved nation.”

  They bump along the dirt road in silence for a couple of minutes. Then a cluster of small man-made structures pokes its head above the horizon just as K’Marah says, “Is it toasty here, or is it just me?” before slumping down in her seat and shutting her eyes.

  And Shuri must admit: She’s not wrong. While the princess doesn’t seem to be quite as impacted as her friend, it is hot. And much drier than she would’ve expected considering the location’s proximity to the Indian Ocean.

  They pull into the city proper as Ororo responds: “We have experienced quite the shift in our average temperatures over the past few ye—”

  There’s a loud ringing noise like an old-school fire alarm going off, and Shuri jumps. She and K’Marah exchange a nervous glance.

  But then Ororo pulls out a heavy-looking device from a hidden thigh-pocket of her rather snug trousers. Speaking of which: She wonders what the weatherwoman’s outfit is made of. It’s clearly quite stretchy and seems to be moisture-wicking as well because good ol’ Storm doesn’t have a lick of sweat on her exposed arms, chest, or abdomen despite the blistering heat.

  She makes a mental note to ask.

  “This is Ororo,” the incongruously blue-eyed woman says into the handheld item. So it’s a phone. She winks at Shuri, but then her expression shifts and she shakes her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Again?” She sighs. “Fine. I’m coming.” She hangs up, then puts a hand on the driver’s shoulder. “Q, drop me at the greenhouse. This accursed heat wave has caused the atmospheric regulator to overheat, so I’ll have to reset the spaces manually. Again.”

  “Would you like for us to accompany you?” Shuri says, jumping at the chance to assist her personal heroine. “I’m sure I can reset the regulator and, with the right tools, make some tweaks to the mechanism that will prevent it from overheating again.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Princess, but I’ve got this one covered. Such is the beauty of being able to manipulate an ecosystem.” She winks as the Jeep—that’s what Shuri heard a guard call the automobile they’re in—pulls to a stop in front of a low, glass edifice: The entrance is at the middle of a domed central building abutted by two longer sections that sit like arms extended out at its sides. Turning back to the driver, Ororo continues, “Deliver these wonderful young ladies to Yasha. She’s at the station. I’ll let her know they’re coming.”

  She hops out.

  “Girls, I’ll be back with you shortly,” Ororo says before shoving the door shut. “Lickety-split, like a lightning bolt.” Then she gracefully spins away from them and jogs up the walkway to the building.

  Yasha is younger than Shuri expects: only a couple of years Shuri and K’Marah’s senior.

  She’s also … rather grumpy.

  “But why would Moe saddle me with guests when she knows I’m in the midst of extremely urgent research?” she grumbles while leading the two younger girls through the halls of a small brick building about a kilometer from where they left Ororo.

  “Wow, she sounds just like you,” K’Marah whispers to the princess.

  “She does not,” Shuri hisses in reply. “Who’s Moe, do you think?”

  “Why don’t we ask?”

  “She doesn’t seem the type to look kindly on—”

  “Excuse me, Yasha?” K’Marah practically shouts. “Who is this Moe you speak of?”

  The Kenyan girl heaves an intensely exasperated huff and looks at the ceiling as if to say, WHAT have I done to deserve such imbecility in my presence? “M-O-E,” she says, pronouncing the letters. “Mistress of the Elements?”

  “Ah.”

  “Not to be a nuisance, but will we be permitted to sit soon?” K’Marah goes on, very much being a nuisance. She wipes her visibly damp brow, and her mismatched bracelets click against each other. “I’m feeling a bit faint.”

  Yasha forcefully exhales another puff of irritated breath. “Two more rights, and a left, and we’ll have reached the dining hall. I’ve been instructed to provide you with sustenance, and then ‘keep you company’ until Moe is no longer occupied.”

  “Well, don’t sound so excited …” Shuri says.

  “I most certainly am not excited!”

  “Not too quick on the uptake, either,” K’Marah quips. Which draws a snort from Shuri.

  “We’ll be out of your hair soon, Yasha,” the Wakandan princess says in an attempt to smooth things over with the Kenyan girl. “I know what it’s like to be interrupted midtask and can understand your frustration.”

  The building they’re in, as it turns out, is the Meteorological Research Center of Haipo, Kenya. And Yasha, at age fifteen, is the chief researcher. “My primary focus at this juncture is the effect of global climate change on East African nations, specifically this one,” she tells Shuri and K’Marah over sumptuous servings of ugali and nyama choma.

  “It is certainly hot here,” Shuri says in between bites of food. “In fact … K’Marah, I wonder if you’re experiencing heat exhaustion. We haven’t exactly stayed hydrated.”

  “No idea,” K’Marah replies. “But I’ll admit: I’m astonished by just how much hotter it is here than back home. Yes, we’re slightly closer to the equator. But man. Doesn’t it seem unnaturally hot to you?”

  “Where is ‘home’?” Yasha asks.

  “Wakan—OW!”

  “Shhh, K’Marah,” Shuri says through gritted teeth.

  Yasha’s fork stops halfway to her mouth. “You’re from Wakanda?”

  Now the princess glares at her guard-in-training. Then sighs. “Yes,” she says, “we are.”

  To Shuri’s shock, Yasha goes from prickly … to ice-cold. Flat mouth, narrowed eyes, the whole deal. “I see,” she says. With undeniable bite behind the words.

  Makes the princess feel as though she’s jumped into a pool filled with shards of broken glass. “Why … do you say it like that?”

  “Oh, no reason,” Yasha replies with a shrug. “Though now I understand why you’re so shocked by the heat here.”

  “You do?” This from K’Marah.

  “Of course,” the other girl goes on. “With all your advanced technology and your surely shiny climate-controlled buildings and homes, a drastic change in outdoor temperature must be little more than a blip on the radar for people like you.”

  Shuri can’t think of a single word to say. “Well, I mean—”

  “Many of your neighbors resent you, you know. Not we here in Kenya, obviously. Moe is clearly fond of your king.” She forces a smile. “But there are … others. Who feel you Wakandans are self-centric and elitist.”

  Now K’Marah rolls her eyes. “How would you know how ‘others’ feel?”

  “I am the Kenyan rep for the East African Climate Change Caucus,” Yasha says. “Wakanda, of course, has no representative, but all of your surrounding nations—Niganda, Azania, Narobia, Canaan, Uganda—certainly do. As I mentioned, with the way you hoard resou
rces that could benefit all, environmental concerns don’t seem to be an issue for you, but they are for your neighbors.”

  “I—” Shuri begins to respond, but Yasha’s mobile device buzzes on the table.

  “Hello?” the older girl says, answering eagerly.

  From the respite that slides down Yasha’s face, smoothing her brows and cheeks, and dismantling the tension in her shoulders, Shuri knows their time with the cantankerous girl is up.

  Which is a relief, yes … but also leaves the princess with the feeling of something vile laid over her skin. Has the climate changed markedly in Wakanda? Isn’t this something she should know?

  One of Shuri’s Kimoyo beads illuminates to alert her to a new incoming message, so she removes her card from her pocket to read it in text instead of having the bead play it aloud.

  It’s from Priest Kufihli. “Fifty-eight percent and steadily spreading.” Shuri gasps. Whatever’s killing the herb hasn’t slowed.

  Two and a half days left.

  Yasha ends her call. “Eat up,” the Kenyan girl says, clearly thrilled to be almost free of her Wakandan burdens. “Moe—Ororo—is ready for you. And I need to return to my research.”

  There’s no way to know for sure, but Shuri has a hunch Ororo has her and K’Marah delivered back to the greenhouse and brought inside so they get the chance to see good ole M.O.E. in action.

  Without being trapped at the center of it, that is.

  The girls can hear the crack! and ba-BOOOOM! of a thunderstorm as they follow one of the guards across the domed area at the center of the building. The greenhouse is significantly larger than it seems from the front, and the princess was incorrect about its presumed shape: There aren’t merely two long arms attached to the central dome. There are five. The building is shaped like a half sun.

  And as they approach the section at the center, Shuri can’t help but smile: The hygrometer/thermometer combo gauge just outside the door indicates that the air within the room is dry and the temperature is too hot. But the princess is certain that’s about to change. And she and K’Marah are going to witness it.

  “Stay here at the observation window,” the guard tells them (like they’d do anything different). “Queen Ororo has almost completed her task and will be right with you.”

  Then lightning flashes.

  “Great Bast,” K’Marah whispers, thunderstruck.

  Within the greenhouse room before them, Ororo—Storm—is hovering midair with her arms outstretched and one leg bent slightly at the knee. An airborne ballerina wrapped in black. Her eyes are wide and bright as if the sun lives behind them, and her white hair billows and crackles around her, perfectly contrasted with the brown of her skin.

  Shuri’s not sure what plants are being grown in that particular room, but she watches, rapt, as Storm brings her hands toward each other in front of her and moves them in opposing circles like she’s pedaling a bicycle with her arms. A wispy, white cloud forms between them, and when she’s satisfied with it, Storm pulls her hands apart, then pushes them back together, spreads them wide, then brings them tight again … shaping, stretching, molding.

  For the grand finale, she floats around the room, depositing the handmade cloud in long, wispy sweeps over the various lengths of plants. And by the time she’s back on the ground and walking toward the door, the humidity streaks have gone from white to invisible.

  Shuri takes another peek at the temperature and humidity measurements on the meter as Storm steps through the exit, definitely beaded with perspiration this time. Both readings are in the “ideal” zone now.

  “You’re like a goddess,” K’Marah proclaims to Ororo as a guard passes the beautiful older woman a towel.

  Ororo wipes the sweat from her brow. “A mutant, actually. But close enough.” She grins at them. Now a hint of mischief flickers in her back-to-blue eyes. “Follow me.”

  She leads them down a corridor that runs alongside the greenhouse she just exited, and through a door that leads out back. They cross a short plain of dead grass that shushes underfoot and are soon climbing the porch stairs of a small cottage.

  Shuri exhales with relief the moment they step inside: It’s blissfully cool.

  They’ve entered the kitchen. “Have a seat, loves,” Ororo says. “I’ll grab us some beverages.”

  The girls sit—well, K’Marah more flops down—at a wooden table positioned beneath a window that gives a view of the greenhouse complex a short distance away. Shuri thinks again of the plants inside it. Of the veritable magic Ororo just wrought on the actual atmosphere to keep those plants alive.

  Why couldn’t things be that simple for her? Walk into the Sacred Field, swirl the air around, and boom: Whatever’s killing the herb would be instantly rooted out, and the plants would spring back to life right before her very eyes.

  The gentle thunk of a glass being placed in front of the princess brings her back to reality. Ororo pulls out the third chair and lowers herself into it with more elegance than Shuri knew possible for such a basic act. Feeling bizarrely chastened by some inner voice, the princess pulls her shoulders back as discreetly as possible.

  K’Marah, with much less discretion, bolts upright as if yanked by a string.

  Ororo lifts her glass. “Drink up,” she says before doing the same. “I know you both must be parched.”

  And she’s right. So they do.

  “Now,” Ororo continues, setting her own glass down after an extended pull of the contents. “What can I do for you loves?”

  “Is this your house?” K’Marah blurts, finally alert enough to take in the surroundings.

  Shuri sighs and shakes her head. “Really, K’Marah?”

  Ororo’s eyes sparkle with delight as she fixes her gaze on K’Marah—who looks like she’s about to combust beneath the force of the Mistress of the Elements’ full attention. “Sometimes, yes,” Ororo says. “Occasionally, it’s nice to exist in a state of simplicity. People underestimate the value of home as a place of stability, where things subsist in a particular order and there’s a rhythm your heart beats to.” Now she turns to Shuri. “What has thrown your sense of home out of order, dada?”

  Dada. Sister.

  Despite the pulsing, sparking tangle of questions and worries in Shuri’s head that seem to have grown multiple heads and legs, the princess exhales. “We are having some … vegetation issues,” she says, risking a glance at K’Marah. It’s not like she told the other girl exactly why she needed to come to Kenya. Does K’Marah even know about the herb and what it does? Is the princess about to blow some closely guarded royal secret?

  Why does everything suddenly feel so tenuous?

  She takes a deep breath. “There’s this plant. As far as I know, it’s unique to Wakanda. Has its origin in some sort of chemical reaction that suffused the space between the plant’s cell walls and cell membranes with Vibranium.”

  Ororo nods. “The heart-shelled shrub, or some such, yes?”

  “Heart-shaped herb,” Shuri says. “But close enough.”

  “Ha! I get it!” K’Marah exclaims.

  Shuri and Ororo both turn to her, expectant.

  “You know, because earlier I called you a ‘goddess’ and you said ‘close enough’ and now Shuri is saying ‘close enough’ to you? Well played, Princess.” She shoves Shuri’s shoulder, and Shuri just puts her head in her hands.

  “Well played, indeed,” Ororo says without a hint of annoyance. (How does she do it? Shuri wonders.) “Continue if you will, please, Shuri.”

  “Well, the herb is dying.”

  Ororo’s white brows lift, and something loosens in Shuri’s chest. She clearly knows enough about the herb to recognize the gravity of the situation.

  “Yes,” Shuri says. “And fast. Just before we were brought back to you, I received a message from the head priest letting me know over half of the plants are dead.”

  “Whoa,” K’Marah says.

  “Indeed. Something is causing the Vibranium bonds to disinte
grate, which irreparably damages the cell wall,” Shuri continues as all the data she’s collected thus far begins to scroll through her mind like the credits at the end of an American film. “Problem is, I can’t seem to find any evidence of a foreign substance—other than the Vibranium—in or around the cells themselves. And I’ve tried every reparative measure I can think of. I’ve grafted the stalk of a dying herb to a living one, stimulated accelerated cell division, attempted to reestablish the Vibranium bond during mitosis—”

  “Welp, you’ve totally lost me,” K’Marah says with a yawn. “I’m taking a nap.” And she puts her head down on the table.

  Shuri shakes hers. “Are you following? I know I can get a bit carried away with the ‘science-talk,’ as T’Challa likes to call it …”

  Ororo puts a reassuring hand on Shuri’s forearm. “I do follow, love. Just not entirely clear on why you felt coming to see me would prove beneficial.”

  Another deep breath. “Well, that’s the thing. I found records of an old … supposition, I guess you could call it. It purports that there were ancient Wakandans who learned to … do what you do.” The princess nods her head in the direction of the greenhouse. “They would manipulate cumulonimbus clouds, and through this manipulation, shifted some celestial energies and created the path to Earth for the Vibranium meteorite.”

  “Huh.” The corners of Ororo’s mouth are pulled down in what reads to Shuri as intrigue, but she’s still nervous about her next question: “Does that … sound like a thing that’s possible, considering your abilities?”

  “Anything is possible, my dear.”

  “You can say that again,” comes K’Marah’s muffled voice from where she’s burrowed her face into her crossed arms on top of the table.

  “Now, can I say I’ve used storm clouds to rearrange the cosmos and pull some otherworldly element from the sky? Sadly, no.”

  This makes Shuri smile.

  “But I won’t say it can’t be done. Considering all the variables involved, it makes as much sense as any other explanation for cosmic phenomena that affect us here on Earth.”