Dadzie’s smile turned into a frown as he recalled how he had found out that she wasn’t human.
Dadzie was seven-years-old and spent much of the time after school playing with friends at the tenement building they lived in then. It was late in the day and the kids were playing cops and robbers. Agile and fearless, even at that age, Dadzie, playing robber, had taken the fight to the ‘police’ and clearly shot Mark, who lived on the next block with his parents, several times. Mark had refused to fall as was the rule and an argument had ensued.
‘I aint falling, cops are the good guys,’ Mark had insisted
‘It is wrong to say ‘aint’ and good guys only win when they are stronger,’ Dadzie insisted.
‘In the movies, cops win, in the end,’ Sally, Mark’s sister, who was supposed to be Dadzie’s sidekick, offered.
‘Well, this is not a movie and I shot Mark four times, he should be dead, or I am not playing again,’ Dadzie said, turning to walk away.
‘Who wants to play with you anyway? My father said we should stay away from you, that your mother is a mec, a robot. He says she makes all of them look bad at the plant, that she doesn’t belong there. She’s a mec, Dadzie’s mother is a mec,’ Mark threw at the retreating Dadzie.
Dadzie had continued walking, his head hanging lower and lower as what he thought was a victory turned into nightmarish defeat as the other kids took up the chant ‘Dadzie’s mother is mec! Dadzie’s mother is a mec’.
Even at age seven, Dadzie, and all the other kids, had known what a mec was and how much people loathed them. They moved out of the tenement the next morning and into the suburbs where they had lived ever since. His mother made sure to hide her identity as well as she could, at least until the government introduced a law that banned discrimination against humanoid robots and androids.
It’s almost ten years after, but Dadzie still smarts from those taunts and it was the fear of facing the same treatment that drove him into virtual reality and the escape it offered.
‘Oh, you’re still here, hope nothing is the matter?’ an airhostess asked as she stepped into the cabin.
‘No, nothing is wrong, was waiting for the rush to pass thanks,’ he answered, wondering why she looked at him as if he was someone she knew.
Shouldering his knapsack, Dadzie stepped off the plane and was hit by a fierce blast of hot air. He had known Abuja would be hot, but not this hot. Strange, for someone coming from Las Vegas I should be used to heat, he thought, even though he knew it was the humidity factor: it was never this humid in Las Vegas.
Dadzie’s Alincom, clasped on his right arm, buzzed and he tapped the patch behind his right ear to receive.
‘You just got there,’ his mother’s voice said in his ear, ‘Seen your father yet?’
Dadzie wondered if the electronic feel of her voice was greater than normal or if it was his imagination.
‘Not yet, but I am walking towards the waiting area.’
‘Okay, tell him I said aku.’
‘Aku... What’s that?’ Dadzie asked.
‘It’s Fulfulde, your father will understand,’ his mother replied with a laugh. He furrowed his brow, he had always wanted to tell her that she should have better control when she laughed, the higher octave seemed to ring too metallic, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Besides, she only laughed for him: part of her trying to ‘bring him up like a normal human child’ scheme. That scheme also included lessons on sex and sexuality when he turned thirteen, lessons that were beyond awkward.
‘Do you still plan on staying three days?’ she asked.
A tall man waving from the far end of the hall caught Dadzie’s attention.
‘I’ve only just got here Mum,’ Dadzie complained, ‘and I think James Maduka is here.’
‘You need to learn to call him Dad you know,’ she said.
‘I don’t. I don’t think of him as my parent you know, not like you. He was never there. I know you told me about him and made sure I knew where he was and what he was doing. But it doesn’t feel right to me.’
The tall man was walking towards him and he felt he needed to do the same.
‘You know, Mum?’ he said in a whisper, ‘I thought when I finally get to meet him, I would run and hug him.’
‘Like in the movies,’ his mother said.
‘Yeah, like in the movies,’ Dadzie whispered.
3
Dadzie watched the athletic woman watch him as her husband, in a low voice, made the introductions. The woman had cold eyes, like a snake he thought. She had welcomed him with a cool stare, ignoring their greetings. He knew he wasn’t welcome, that she hated him for some reason.
‘Pelumi, this is my son. Dadzie, this is my wife, your stepmother.’
Dadzie had not expected her to hiss, but his raised eyebrow crawled higher when she ran her eyes from the top of the baseball cap he was wearing to his static charge shoes and back again before returning to the antique paperback she was reading.
Who still reads paperbacks, he wondered. He knew James Maduka was a green-nick, perhaps she was reading a paperback to annoy him.
‘Dadzie, hand your bag to Jeremy, he will show you to your room. Jeremy will also give you a passcode and show you how to use the food dispenser in the kitchen. I will be in my study if you want me. Please feel at home,’ James Maduka said, a sadness in his eyes colouring his voice.
Dadzie followed Jeremy, a second-generation house robot that lacked the fluidity and grace of later models. As they walked, Dadzie scanned the house, factoring in how different it was to the Spartan home he shared with his mother. The opulence was not strange to him. He had risen to the position of Minister of State in Dictator 3 and the opulence of the minister’s house was much more than this. That was virtual reality, this is real, he reminded himself. He wouldn’t actually call the house opulent, it was mostly built from recycled material, but the workmanship was master craft quality.
‘How long have you been working here?’ Dadzie asked Jeremy as he followed him up a flight of stairs, trying but failing to ignore the rows of family pictures that lined the wall.
‘99 years, 3 months, 4 weeks, 2 days, 12 hours, 59 minutes and 3 seconds, Master Maduka.’
‘Eish, could you not go all roboty on me. Doesn’t work on me. My mother is an android, so I know you lot are programmed to hold human-like conversations. And don’t go calling me Master Maduka, I am Dadzie,’ he said, laughing.
‘Good to meet you, Dadzie,’ Jeremy said, without turning, ‘I’ve heard about you.’
‘What did you hear about me?’
This time Jeremy turned, his metallic features bearing that fixed grin that freaked out many generation 2 owners. ‘My record speaks of an android that did the impossible; give birth to a live human child,’ Jeremy said, turning to his left as he reached the landing.
‘Yeah, it will speak of that. The story of the human boy with an android mother is prominent in the AI chat rooms,’ Dadzie said, unable to control the sarcasm.
‘The record also speaks of a human boy that spends an awful lot of time in-virtual,’ Jeremy said, as he stopped before a door and opened it. ‘What are you running from, Dadzie Maduka?’
4
‘What are you running from Dadzie Maduka?’ his mother’s voice asked, stopping Dadzie in midstride. In front of him, the traffic light walking man avatar beckoned him with its green pulsating light.
With his right foot caressing the first white bar of the zebra stripes across the road he was itching to cross, Dadzie turned towards the voice. There was no out of place feeling for him when he saw that the voice was coming from the humanoid traffic control robot leaning on a signpost.
Frowning, Dadzie tried to sniff back the blood that wouldn’t stop flowing down his nose. He could tell from the numbness that his left eye was swollen. He stood, facing the robot, in a way that presented his right profile, defiant. He wasn’t going back.
‘What are you running from Dadzie Maduka?’ His mother’s v
oice asked again.
‘They are mean Mama. They said I am a halfling, that my mother is not human,’ Dadzie said. He meant to be brave, but the tears poured from his smarting eyes and he leaned into the metal and plastic body that offered comfort. ‘I am not going back to that school, Mama.’
‘Come home Dadzie,’ his mother said from the speaker in the traffic robot’s chest, ‘come home my son.’
Dadzie did not go home, not immediately. He spent most of that afternoon playing truant, ignoring his mother’s voice that came to him from the shuttle bay public address system, from the robot medic in the street ambulance that passed him in South Boulevard, from the Bus Rapid Transit shuttle and every cash point he passed.
He expected a lecture when he got home later that day, but his mother only pulled him close and started telling him about his father and how she had met him on a Mars bound research ship.
5
‘What are you running from?’ James Maduka asked Dadzie, who was leaning over a cyberseat fiddling with the straps of an I-Immersion headgear.
Dadzie didn’t respond, he instead ran his eyes over the leather-bound cyberseat that bore the likeness of a dentist’s couch. He gingerly thumbed the button at the base of the helmet and felt the steady buzz that told him the helmet was fired up and ready for an immersion.
For a moment, Dadzie forgot he was in the library of his father’s house and that his father was leaning on the door frame. He pondered donning the helmet and escaping back into the world he had so unexpectedly been pulled from almost three weeks ago. He placed his right palm on his chest, recalling the searing pain he had felt as a blaster bolt tore through his armour and pierced his heart. Even before he heard the beep-beep that announced someone in his team had punched his code number into the system, declaring him dead, he knew there was no way he could have survived to continue to lead the Braves.
Three weeks out of the game, a game that held more meaning to him than what the real world offered. His mother said he was obviously itching to go back into the game, and that if he wanted it that bad, he should buy off one of the players still in the game. It was a tempting offer, one he had considered, but somewhere in his mind, a voice told him that it was something that addicts do and he wasn’t an addict.
He had been with the Braves for three years, started off as a grunt but rose swiftly through the ranks. Two years, a year ago, he would have gone back without a second thought, but things have changed. Or rather, one thing changed. He had met his biological father for the first time in his sixteen years on Earth and ceased being a single-parent child.
‘People who get addicted to in-virtual are most likely running away from something,’ James Maduka said, bringing Dadzie back to the room.
‘That’s Benjamin Koons, right?’ Dadzie said.
‘Yeah, you read psychology? I didn’t know that.’
‘I needed to pass a psychology course to qualify as a team leader in a world game. Also learnt all there is to learn about first aid, map reading, and I bet I can drive or fly any automobile known to man.’ Dadzie’s sense of pride was not suppressed.
‘Really, that must have taken an awful amount of time to learn. How long were you immersed?’
‘Not really that long. The Editi system cuts all that real time talk of years ago by stimulating your brain. And you know you do things about four times faster in an i-IMMERSION.’
‘i-IMMERSION? Isn’t that military grade tech?’
‘It is, or it should be, but since the army sends soldiers to take part in the world game, some of them shared the secret to advance the cause of their team.’
James Maduka shook his head slowly, awed at the teenager in front to him. How much of him was his own natural intelligence, how much was the influence of the android woman that raised him?
‘Do you mean to go back to the game?’ he asked, concerned.
Dadzie placed the helmet he was holding back on its cradle. ‘I don’t know, maybe I will, when I get home,’ he said.
6
‘What do you mean you want your son to live here?’ Pelumi flung at her husband.
‘The boy is okay, but I think he spends too much time in-virtual. He is just sixteen, and no matter how human his mother thinks she is, the truth is that she is a machine, something built to mimic. This child needs a subtle human touch, this child needs a mother, a human mother,’ James Maduka reasoned in a whisper.
‘I hope you are not saying what I think you are, James Maduka? First, I discover you have a bastard son, then you want me to be his mother. Do you take me for a fool?’ Pelumi’s voice was near screaming point now, and she looked like she would start flinging the fist-sized sculptures of Fulani maidens from the table near her.
‘Calm down Pelumi. It’s been months. I don’t know how else to explain it to you. Yes, I slept with an android. Yes, the boy sleeping upstairs is my son. Yes, I still don’t know how the android got pregnant, but I can’t turn away from the fact that the boy carries my blood. I cannot let her raise him this way. You know the boy died last month? He was killed in Game World. He is fucking sixteen years old, but his life is spent more in-virtual than in real life. He is even contemplating selling his chips and going back into Game World,’
‘And why do you think I should care about that?’
‘Because the boy is my son, if you care for me like you say you do, then that should stand for something. You shock me Pelumi, you used to be so compassionate, what happened to you?’
‘Your betrayal happened James Maduka, and any time I look at that boy I am reminded of the fact that I’ve been unable to give you a son,’ Pelumi turned and ran from the room.
James Maduka watched his wife go. He understood the pain she was feeling, understood that she might never forgive him, but knowing did not make his decision any easier.
7
Dadzie pulled away from the door as soon as he heard Pelumi’s footsteps approaching. He didn’t think of her as a stepmother and any feeling of affinity that might have developed between them had been killed by the cold look in her eyes anytime their paths crossed. Hidden in the dark service robot recess in the space between the master bedroom and the study, Dadzie watched as she passed. He thought she looked very regal, with the way she appeared to glide across the polished floor, her chin in the air.
He thought about all he had heard and shivered. It wasn’t fear.
He waited for the bang of her door closing before he ventured out of his hiding place. He walked on tiptoes, hearing the soft creaking of the shipping crate wood floorboards as loud cracks.
He paused in front of the door, half-turned towards the way he had come, and then he shook his head and rapped on the door, once, twice.
‘Pelumi?’ James Maduka inquired from within.
‘No, Dadzie.’
‘Come in.’
Dadzie pushed the antique aluminium door with his shoulder and stepped into the room.
At another time, the apparent sparseness of the room and the racks of books almost entirely covering one wall would have intrigued him, but his heart was too heavy for that.
‘What is it Dadzie, you look forlorn?’ James Maduka asked.
‘I heard your quarrel with your wife, I am sorry I caused problems. I will leave in the morning,’ Dadzie said. He spoke without feeling, as if he had pondered the situation and was taking a step that he considered practical.
James Maduka smiled. ‘We didn’t mean for you to hear. No, my problem with my wife started before you came. Yes, it is about you, your birth. We’re working it out. Don’t let it bother you,’ he said, moving over to stand in front of the boy. ‘About leaving, I don’t think that is the right thing to do. I have spoken to your mother, but you officially became an adult on your last birthday and I think it is time you put away childish things and begin wearing the toga of an adult.’
Dadzie frowned. He took a step back, saying nothing.
‘I know you, Dadzie. I have been watching you since you came, and I
am beginning to think that that fierce uncompromising mien you carry is just a facade. I was in the army, I know a sixteen-year-old can’t command an army if they are not super smart and resourceful. Enough with the in-virtual. I agree that it has taught you about life, but if there is one marked difference between there and here, it is the fact that you don’t get that many chances to try again. You have to learn to live in the real world,’ James Maduka said, looking the boy square in the face.
‘And you think I can learn that here?’
‘Yes, but the choice is absolutely yours.’
‘But your wife hates me.’
‘I know Pelumi is very difficult to relate with at the moment, but I assure you that it will pass. She is a very sweet person when you get to know her.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Dadzie said, pulling his gaze away from his father’s.
‘Don’t say anything, just think about it. You can enrol in the space academy. I am sure that will give you a healthy dose of adventure, if you still want that. Or you can do anything you want. However, if you stay here, it means no in-virtual, no World Games,’ James Maduka said.
8
I don’t want you here,’ Pelumi said from behind Dadzie who was hunched over a cereal bowl in the dining area of the large kitchen.
Dadzie didn’t look up. He nodded his head and continued to spoon the cereal into his mouth, saying nothing.
‘Listen, I know it’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for any of this, but neither did I. I have struggled to accept you, and I guess I have accepted the fact of your existence, enough to say your name and allow you have a relationship with your father, but... I don’t know... I really think I need more time to... you know... adjust appropriately,’ Pelumi added, keeping her gaze on the boy who had stopped eating and was staring into his plate.
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