by Nic Stone
“While I can appreciate your zeal, Sister, it is clear that you are often lacking in both reason and foresight. I have known of this invasion threat for weeks now. And I can assure you”—now he smiles—“that it will not succeed. We are well prepared.”
But Shuri’s not ready to just … give up.
Because something still doesn’t feel right.
“You are postponing the Challenge, then?” she says.
“Of course not.” He moves away from her and into the center of a circle printed on the red rubbery floor. Begins to swoop and dip and jab with the daggers. “We will not shirk tradition for an easily routable threat.”
“Well, what about the offensive?” Shuri says, already knowing the answer but unable to stop herself from asking. “Are you sending an army out to take them down?”
“Have they breached our borders, Shuri?”
“Well, no, but—”
“You, of all people, know that ‘the offensive’ is not our way.” He does a spectacular flipping kick—knives in hand—and lands with his back to the princess. Then turns around. “Not that you should be privy to this information, but the moment our border is crossed, land and air troops are at the ready to thwart this so-called invasion before it can even begin.”
Shuri clenches her fists, incensed. How dare he speak to her as though she knows nothing. As though the safety and security of Wakanda is not also HER highest priority—
Her Kimoyo bracelet buzzes, pulling her back to her senses. So she turns away from T’Challa and taps to reveal the message.
It’s an alert from the Predator. A couple of Shuri’s tests now have results.
Then a second alert pops up. This one even more jarring.
“K’Marah, we need to go,” she says to her friend, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the elevator.
Because while T’Challa might be sure the invasion won’t be an issue, Shuri’s not convinced.
Especially now.
“Molecular match,” the first alert said.
Followed closely by “Signal acquired.”
Shuri blinks.
Rubs her eyes … and blinks again.
“K’Marah?” she says to her friend. The girls are standing inside the Predator, which is still parked out behind the Den, staring at rotating holograms of identical molecules. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“If you mean matching ball-stick diagram thingies, then yes,” K’Marah replies.
“It’s a molecule. A pair of identical ones, in fact.”
“I believe you, Princess.”
And though the words floating beneath the matching molecules are SUBSTANCE UNKNOWN, the one above says MATCH.
And it’s the only one that matters.
“K’Marah, that molecule,” Shuri says, and points to the one on the right, “came from the bracelet you were wearing.”
“You mean the one that was more or less sapping my life force?” Her eyes go stormy. “Just wait till I use some of your gadgets to pinpoint that idiot boy’s home addr—”
“Yes. That bracelet,” Shuri says. She takes a deep breath. “What’s interesting is that the other molecule”—now she points to the one on the left—“was pulled from the roots of a dead heart-shaped herb plant.”
“Huh.” K’Marah rubs her chin.
“Right.”
Shuri sees K’Marah’s head cock to one side in her peripheral vision. “So … does that mean what I think it means?”
“What do you think it means?”
“That whoever made my—I mean the—bracelet is the reason your plants are dying?”
Shuri’s eyes narrow. “Likely.”
K’Marah snorts. “Figures.”
“Huh? What figures?”
“That the first boy I really like would try to murder me.”
They stand in silence for a few seconds longer, watching the matching molecules turn.
“So would I be right in assuming Henny—if that’s even his name—has been working for that lanky loser we fought in London?”
“It’s possible,” Shuri replies. “Or lanky loser could be working for Henny. If that’s his name.” She pauses. “If it’s a him, even.”
“You think it’s a girl?”
Shuri shrugs as the horrific face of the dry woman floats across her mind. “Could be either. Or neither. Or both. Not ruling anyone out.”
K’Marah nods. “I hear that.”
“The person is here,” Shuri says, flicking her eyes to the GPS screen on the left. There’s a blinking red dot at the base of the mountain region.
“Huh?”
“In Wakanda. I flipped the signal-tracing mechanism in your bracelet so that the tracker inside works as a tracker. When we were in the Den, I got a message that a signal was acquired—which means someone made an attempt to figure out where we are.”
“Whoa.”
“I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting anyone to try to track us again. I figured with our London assailant incapacitated by our Wakandan cohorts, that would be that,” Shuri says. “Tweaking the tech was more a … cautionary measure. In case we got lucky.”
“Are you saying this is luck?”
Shuri shrugs again. “At least we have a lead.”
“Okay … so whoever is looking for us is in the mountains now?”
The princess stares at the blinking dot. “Well, they were. The signal was lost.”
“Do they know where we are?”
“Don’t think so,” Shuri says. “If I did my job right, they should’ve gotten an error message instead of a location for us.”
“You clever little panther cub.”
Shuri smiles. “Thank you.”
“So, what now?”
The princess taps her bracelet, and the images disappear. “Have a seat and buckle up,” she says, settling into her captain’s chair and powering up.
K’Marah complies. “Where are we going?”
“To my lab,” Shuri says. “I’ll run some more tests and start the Vibranium infusion for T’Challa’s new suit.”
“Okay.”
They rise in hover mode, and then take off.
“Umm, Shuri?”
“Yes, K’Marah?” Shuri wouldn’t say it aloud right now, but her chest tightens at the sight of the capital disappearing beneath them. What if the invasion plans succeed?
“Not to be annoying, but then what?”
“Huh?”
“After you do the testing and suit thing?”
“Oh.” It is an excellent question. “Well, then we wait.”
“For?”
“For your bracelet-gifter to try to track us again.”
“A-ha.” K’Marah’s eyes drop to her hands in her lap. “You really think they will?”
“Absolutely,” Shuri says, steel in her voice now. “And when they do? We will find them.”
The box of polyelastane fabric is waiting in the cavern hallway outside Shuri’s lab door when the girls arrive. And to the princess’s delighted surprise, it takes way less time than she anticipates to complete the infusion (such is the beauty of having a massive stash of refined Vibranium lying around). As soon as it’s complete, she sends it by drone to the waiting clothier.
Shuri then starts a series of new tests on the substance from the bracelet and herb roots—to see its effects on variously sized machines. It turns out there are only trace amounts on the piece of jewelry, so whoever gave it to K’Marah didn’t want her to die. But Shuri’s hunch is that the same unknown substance used to kill the heart-shaped herb is also being used to create the entry path through the security forest for the invading army.
After the mechanical deaths of a spare Kimoyo card, a drone, and a four-wheeler Shuri sometimes used to travel between the palace and the lab—all made with or enhanced by Vibranium—she’s fairly certain her hypothesis is correct. Interestingly enough, the substance has no effect on electronics without Vibranium, though it does utterly trash any organic matter it touches,
including a mango, a black segmented millipede (Bast rest its many-legged soul), and a succulent plant Okoye brought to the princess from some place called California.
And then it happens.
The princess is tinkering with the “CatEyez” (the z was K’Marah’s idea) just for the sake of killing time when her Kimoyo card buzzes like an angry wasp. “Ahh!” she jumps, not only dropping the tiny screwdriver she was using, but also bumping the edge of the lab table so hard, her entire tool kit goes crashing to the floor.
“Typical,” K’Marah says from behind her.
“You know what—”
“Signal acquired,” the computerized voice says with zero enthusiasm.
The girls look at each other … and both lunge toward the device.
“What’s it say?” K’Marah asks, peeking over Shuri’s shoulder.
Shuri stares at the red dot, now solid instead of flashing because the tracker is actively in use.
A spark of fury ignites inside her as the dot moves. “I should’ve known.”
“What? Where is he? She—” K’Marah blows out a frustrated breath. “Where are they?”
“Close by. And moving through a different part of the forest,” Shuri replies.
She looks at K’Marah. “They’re headed to the Sacred Field.”
After tucking two pairs of CatEyez into her knapsack, and grabbing a few of the “gentler weapon” prototypes—ones that disarm and disable, but don’t destroy—from her arsenal, the princess and her mini Dora Milaje get on their way. It’s a short journey to the field, and the little tracker-tracking light on Shuri’s Kimoyo card screen stays solid through the duration of their trek.
Whoever is behind the bracelet, at least, is definitely in the field.
It’s clear something is wrong as the girls stealthily approach the concealed entrance: There’s no one manning it.
Typically, Kufihli or one of the other priests would be standing guard on the other side to prevent intruders—wild animals, wandering children, or wannabe Black Panthers—from waltzing in.
But that’s precisely what Shuri and K’Marah do.
It’s dead quiet—no pun intended—and dark inside the cave-like space due to the lack of the herb’s soft phosphorescence. Shuri didn’t realize how incandescent the plants naturally are until just now. The lack of light is disorienting, especially since they can’t utilize any other sources of illumination without giving themselves away.
But then she remembers—
“K’Marah,” she whispers, “there are two pairs of those glasses I showed you down in the bag. Put one on and give me the other.”
K’Marah does just that. “I … still can’t see anything.”
“Tap the right side and say ‘scotopic-mode.’ ”
K’Marah complies, but as Shuri does the same and the area around them goes purple and bright through the lenses, she can see K’Marah shaking her head. “Of course she couldn’t just call it night vision,” K’Marah grumbles.
But then the shorter girl turns her head and—
“Shuri!” she whispers furiously, pointing to something in front of them and to the right. “Look!”
As Shuri’s eyes slowly adjust, she can see a series of large lumps come into focus.
“Are they … dead, do you think?” K’Marah asks.
And that’s when it crystallizes: The haphazardly distributed shapes are the collapsed—and hopefully just unconscious—forms of Kufihli and three of the priestesses.
“Shuri!” K’Marah hisses, more urgently this time.
“Wha—”
But Shuri sees exactly what. Back in the far-left corner of the field, some hundred meters or so away, a narrow swath of plants still faintly pulses with delicate light—and life.
Except right before Shuri and K’Marah’s eyes, row by row, the lights dim and go out.
A bright blur passes over a pocket of the remaining glowing herbs, obscuring them from view for the breadth of a second. The princess gasps and risks a peek at her Kimoyo card. “K’Marah, he’s over there! Come on!”
They advance, carefully, quietly, the silence of their movement assisted by the sound-absorbing, Vibranium-soled shoes both girls are wearing. When Shuri tossed K’Marah her auto-contouring pair, the to-be Dora looked at the toed slippers and said, “What are these, feet gloves?”
Now she’s changed her tune. “These toe huggers are amazing, Shuri!” she says. “I can’t hear a thing!”
“Shhh!”
As they get closer, the rows of light begin to fade more quickly.
“We won’t make it in time,” Shuri says, stopping their progress. “Here, give me the gauntlet. This should knock him unconscious, but if I need the other thing, you remember the code word, right?”
“Yep.” K’Marah unslings the bag again, and the princess reaches in to pull out a boxing glove–style mechanized hand-covering that’s shaped like a panther’s paw. She shoves her fist inside.
“Here goes …” Shuri says.
And she lifts her arm, aims, and squeezes the trigger.
A shoot of brilliant light bursts forth, illuminating the entire field as it zips over the sea of shriveled herbs.
But then halfway across, the light hits something and, if Shuri’s not mistaken, gets absorbed. She watches rapt as the light spreads from the center of the object out to its edges—the thing is shaped like a sun. But then the motion reverses: The light returns from each pointed tip to recondense in the center …
And the princess has fiddled with enough Vibranium-based tech to know exactly what that means.
“DUCK!” she shouts at K’Marah, grabbing hold of her friend’s arm and yanking her to the ground just as the ray of electroluminescent kinetic energy comes back at them from the core of the sun-shaped shield.
“Oh my gods!” K’Marah exclaims. “What was that?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but whoever is wielding it certainly knows their way around our most valuable resource. That shield is made of Vibranium!”
“But how—”
“Princess Shuri, I am most surprised!” comes a familiar female voice that makes Shuri feel as though her very blood cells are quivering apart within her veins.
“No …” she whispers under her breath. Her hands go damp, and despite the glasses, her vision begins to cloud at the edges.
“Shuri?” K’Marah grabs her arm, snatching her back into the present. “Who is that? Why does she know your name?”
“Firing on an opponent whose back is turned? How very dishonorable! I expected better from you,” the woman says.
Bright light suddenly fills the space from somewhere above Shuri’s head. “Who are you, and what do you want?” K’Marah’s voice booms. She’s now standing, CatEyez removed, with her Kimoyo card held aloft, flashlight cranked up to full power.
The woman just smiles.
And even without the jagged teeth, red eyes, and scarily cracked skin, her visage is terrifying.
The woman from Shuri’s worst nightmares is … larger than the princess would’ve expected. Taller than T’Challa, and with broader shoulders, her hair braided in thick cornrows, she’s wearing an ornately embroidered stomach-baring top and billowing black trousers that taper at the ankles beneath a long, sheer kimono-style robe. The image of Wakanda being crushed in her (rather large) hand floats to the surface of Shuri’s consciousness.
She’s behind all this.
Shuri taps the left side of the glasses this time. A see-through blue screen appears before her eyes with the words Search Mode across the top. “I need to find out who that woman is and where she came from,” the princess whispers.
The head of a panther spins in front of her eyes as the info-search begins, but then—
SPECTACLES OFFLINE. NO SIGNAL DETECTED.
“Well, that’s just wonderf—”
“Henbane!” the woman shouts over her shoulder at the plant killer.
Shuri taps to return to night-vision mode (how primitive,
that phrasing) and returns her focus to the woman.
“Come!” she continues to her crony. “There is someone I’d like for you to meet.” Another smile.
As the person approaches—indeed, a boy who’s long-limbed and deep brown–skinned, a hair taller than Shuri, and maybe a year older—the princess glances past him to the back corner of the field. The fading has slowed, but after a quick scan and mental calculation, Shuri is certain that within twelve to fifteen minutes, the last of the heart-shaped herb plants will succumb to whatever plague this Henbane has wrought upon them.
“Henny?” K’Marah says from beside her. The boy looks up and locks eyes with Shuri’s friend. The princess turns to look at her as well—and instantly looks away. She’s never seen K’Marah so angry. And hurt. “Or Henbane, I guess, is your real name? Why would you do this?”
Shuri’s not sure whether her friend is talking about his active murder of the heart-shaped herb or his betrayal of her. But either way, she also wants to know.
“Ah, don’t blame him,” the woman says. “He was merely completing the job I hired him for. He was an aimless street urchin when I found him, but after all this is finished and I accomplish my mission, he’ll be one of the richest and most powerful young men in the Horn of Africa.”
The boy drops his head.
“For too long,” the woman continues, “Wakanda has stood idly by, cloaked from view, while the rest of the region suffers from drought and rising temperatures. Our water has dried up. Our crops are failing. Our people are dying from heat exhaustion and dehydration—”
“Wait a minute! I know who you are!” K’Marah says. “You were at the Pan-African Congress on the Treatment of Superhumans!”
Shuri tries to ignore the surge of jealousy over this second Very Cool Congress Thing K’Marah has attended. (What even is the point of being a “princess”?)
“You’re Princess Zanda of Narobia!” K’Marah goes on. “You were in support of that wretched Superhuman Registration Act from America!”
Princess Zanda continues to smile, but Shuri can tell it’s forced now. “As Henbane here will tell you, we are very good to the mutants that live among us in Narobia.”
(Shuri doesn’t miss the extra emphasis on the m-word.)