His shape snapped back, the flame and ice wrestling against each other for control. His people could kill all the Osrane anytime and occupy that drying dirtball. Was it sympathy he’d felt for them?
What have you done?! His weakened elements screamed at the disintegrated fleet.
He saw the few remaining Fidan warriors staring at the stony void hurling comets into space, their eyes wet with traces of water. They turned to salute him, then dived as one into the planet’s core before the lava melted away, binding it together with themselves, spinning and spinning until it vibrated, and their cells disappeared into a brontide and sorrowful drumbeat, beating forever where Fida once spun.
#
‘No to the war with the Elementals! No to the war with the Gods! No to the war with the Elementals! No to the war with the Gods!’
C²-Police thopters hovered between the five-hundred story skyscrapers over the crowd of Elemental Cultists, machine guns gleaming, powerful wings beating the dusty air into a dome over the demonstration.
‘You are part of an illegal demonstration!’ voice enhancers boomed from the thopters. ‘You are summoned to withdraw from the streets or we will open fire! You will be given a ten second warning! Remember to rely on ChinaCorp for your every need! Ten, Nine, Eight...’
The hundred thousand in the crowd resumed their chanting, shaking their fists at the thin streaks of sky between buildings. Others opened their coats, revealing localised seismic charges.
‘...One.’
The thopters unloaded into the screaming crowd, machine gun fire rattling down the avenue like jack-hammers. The cultists hit the triggers, ripping the streets open with sewage-filled fissures, taking the city block down with them, the thopters, and the nine hundred thousand souls in residence in a screaming storm of concrete hail and bloody dust.
The shockwave spread without further damage through central Beijing. A few blocks away, Kiania braced herself for what she thought was an after-shock from the freak earthquake that’d followed the victory against the Elementals on Jīnxīng, a few days earlier.
Her driver deactivated the shock-absorbers, restarting the engine. ‘No worries, CTO,’ the driver said. ‘Blasted cultists again. They’ll never get the point.’
‘No,’ she said, looking out the window at the cloud of debris spreading over the city. ‘But after fifty years of riots, they keep converting people, and the earthquake made things worse.’
‘Pff... The Elementals aren’t Gods. No matter what Wu’s hyper-space message showed. Thanks to you, we know they can die, CTO.’
‘And if I’d failed would you be driving me, or would you have joined the cultists?’ He shot her a dark glance. ‘I’m sorry. That was unfair, but what they are doesn’t matter, Benyamin. They were on the defensive all along, will they attack now? Can we fight a war against them, and against ourselves?’
The merger between ChinaCorp and Han Industries seemed useless now. Planetary-Harvesting was on halt, and the planet’s dwindling resources were swallowed in a conflict larger than the hundred-year battles between the hemispheres’ corporate giants. And now there were earthquakes. They’d spread from Central Africa, a 9.3 on the Lǐ shì guīmó, ripping through deep-sea mining operations, covering a third of Australia under water. 139 light seconds after destroying Jīnxīng, the exact distance between the two worlds at the time.
There has to be a correlation.
Her car slid underground a few blocks from ChinaCorp’s Headquarters, stopping after the security holoscan registered her vehicle and its passengers. She thanked Benyamin, and walked into the elevator, heading to her executive meeting on the top floor.
‘Ha! CTO,’ CEO Chang said, from the front of the table. CTOs and Chief Financial Officers from every regional branch of ChinaCorp were present, including her old Han Industries colleagues. ‘We were expecting the delay. Damned Cultists.’
‘Traffic delayed me, CEO,’ she answered. ‘It’s getting worse with the influx of population from the after-shocks.’
‘Don’t we all know it? But you have found a way to end this war. We can resume Planetary-Harvesting soon.’
‘Not if we destroy the planet again,’ CFO Balamaci intervened. ‘It did absorb the Elementals, but also cost us our fleet, and the few destroyers we had reverse-engineered with CTO Hui Bon Hua-Figuerido’s enhanced red matter.’
‘We’ve lost a lot of lives, but made definite progress, Balamaci,’ CEO Chang countered. ‘If we can keep casualties to a minimum, we can afford to destroy our next target. There’s nothing for us on Huǒxīng.’
Except maybe another earthquake. ‘We’re making rapid progress, CEO.’ Kiania answered instead. ‘But your schedule might be too fast for us. I’d also like to examine the freak earthquakes we registered after Jīnxīng; they affect all the areas where we’ve used red matter for satellite-mining.’
‘Yes, well...’ he replied, waving a dismissive hand. ‘We’ll have to build better shock-absorbers around strategic areas. But my own CTOs are certain it’s a consequence of red matter’s lingering effects on the core. They will stabilise.’
‘It’s been four hundred years, CEO,’ Kiania insisted. ‘I doubt any of this has to do with the primitive red matter developed at the time.’
‘And what do you suggest? The vengeful wrath of dead spirits?’ The rest of the room snickered. ‘You sound like a cultist. I need you focused, CTO.’
‘Of course, CEO,’ she said calmly. ‘Even if it was the red matter, it would have little to do with Jīnxīng. But the riots, CEO. The Cult spreads rumours that we’re paying the price of killing Elementals, for what was done to the places that were mined. Better investigate and squash the rumours for good.’
‘Ha! I’m glad you’re not giving into Cultish delusions,’ he answered, convinced. ‘And you’re right—we need to show the population that we’ll keep them safe. Investigate, as long as you don’t delay your work. Now,’ a hologram of Huǒxīng appeared in the centre of the room, ‘on to our next campaign...’
#
‘Destroy them now!’ Ogotemmeli yelled at the Akwesidan occupying the sun, the dark streaks of plasma trapped in the magnetic fields of the corona forming a face of orange and black flame, smiling placidly at him, while he almost tore apart with Rakoteli’s death.
How many songs could they have shared over the years? Those dead children could’ve been theirs, chasing after them, as he’d chased his parents and she’d chased him. She would’ve said he’d chased her. She’d favoured neon back then, bright reds and yellows—she’d been impossible to miss. She’d become more sombre later, but she’d always been too free-spirited for her heritage. They’d been just perfect for each other.
‘Have you forgotten where you’re from?’ he asked, exhausted and furious.
The sun laughed, solar flares exhaling from its mouth. ‘I wish any of us could forget anything anymore. And remember other things...’ the Akwesidan calling himself Ngai answered.
Ogotemmeli wished they wouldn’t do that. The Akwesidan had become so detached they hardly made sense. They had no Griots, no Okyin. They stayed warm at the heart of their star, naming themselves after old gods, oblivious to the universe.
They had forced him closer than even his Awukuda-bred cells could sustain for long, and they refused to fight. The Benadan were right, they had to go on the offensive, couldn’t the Akwesidan see that?
‘You have,’ said Ogotemmeli flatly, ‘you have forgotten everything. Xam, your friends, and family. They’ve destroyed Fida, they won’t stop until they destroy us and themselves! Send your solar flares. Just one would end the war forever! There’ll be life again! Time is immaterial to you, remember your people!’
‘Do you remember yours? Xam has guided you here, should you doubt it now? Let yourself feel, Ogotemmeli.’
‘I feel too much already... and you want me to search myself for more pain?’
‘Yes, more pain. There’s always more pain. How much more can you handle?’
&nbs
p; A massive solar flare hit Ogotemmeli in the chest, melting his iced core, tying his atoms together with quantum voids, forcing him to break through the strata of agony, and into memory.
Nyadzayo looked over to the hills surrounding the gold mines in the plains and laid the last stone of the towers of Dzimba-Hwe. The sun shone high above him, his sweat drying on the stones like lacquer, and gleaming like the two distant rivers of the Gokomere.
The shining white robes of the Kilwa delegation appeared at the far end of the valley—come to trade in gold—just in time to admire the Gokomere’s triumph.
‘Daddy!’ his son’s high-pitched voice called, reaching all the way up the stone tower.
Shingirayi would be a builder just like himself, and his dead grandfather whose name he carried.
‘Careful boy!’ Nyasha, his wife, admonished their son. ‘You’ll scare him, and he might fall.’
She knew it wasn’t true, but that wouldn’t get in the way of her raising Shingirayi.
He took out his knife, and carved their names—his wife, his son’s, and his father’s—into the last stone.’
‘Run Ahmadou!’
They should have expected the Yoruba to attack them in turn. Malam wouldn’t tell her what happened on the coast. But she had heard of things. Boats larger than palaces and deep dark holes in rock where people disappeared.
She turned and punched a short, stocky, man in the face. He reeled back, surprised at how much strength she hid under her delicate features.
Her bald head caught him in the nose, sending blood into her eyes, blinding her just as she stumbled back and a sling wrapped around Ahmadou’s legs, sending him face down into the long grass.
‘Don’t worry Haweeyo,’ Abuubakar told his sister from the payphone. ‘I have enough savings to last. I tear down walls every day, but you only get married once.’
Truth was he was heavily indebted anyway, but what did it matter?
‘They pay well in Canada, huh?’ Haweeyo asked. ‘Must be for the heating bills.’
‘Yes, and long-distance calls to Somalian villages. Gotta go, I’ll send the money in a few hours.’
He hung up, zipped his blue Northface all the way over his nose, shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away.
When he finally got his visa, he’d been worried about the culture shock—where he’d pray, all that funny French, and he’d heard there was pork in everything. He’d looked forward to tasting pork. He should’ve worried about the climate shock. They called it ‘Frette’. What they meant was -40°c.
He missed Aden, even the pollution, and didn’t see the crowbar coming as he rounded the corner.
‘Pran lajan l’rapid,’ someone said.
His left shoulder was dislocated, but he swung a hammer all day with his right. He grabbed one of the two hoods by the neck, pinning him against the wall, but his left arm was useless.
The crowbar hit again, and again, until he passed out.
‘After a long delay, and believe me, no one is more excited than I am...’ President Dambudzo Marechera said to the crowd of United Nations delegates assembled at the African Union Headquarters in Asmara.
It was a day most had never wanted to see, none less than the CEOs of ChinaCorp and Han Industries overlooking the hall.
The Eastern Chinese Republic extended tentacles into South and Central Asia and had anchors through ChinaCorp throughout Europe and the Middle East, while the Western Chinese Empire had grown since Taiwan bought the USA’s debt and seized control of the NAFTA free trade zone and the Caribbean with Han Industries. It reached almost to Bolivia, through a loose network of protectorates and corporate buy-outs.
They would go to war. And both wanted a slice of the continent.
They’d called subsidising African farmers and manufacturers unfair competition, had accused the AU of harbouring terrorists when the Massina-Sokoto Caliphate cut access to uranium mines in the Sahara. Visa restrictions had backfired. The embargos had done nothing.
‘...so with no further delay, I am proud to announce, that Africa is now entirely self-sustainable in renewable energy!’
Both CEOs stormed out of the room, to half-hearted applause.
‘Why did we listen to the Caliphate?’
The black vortex of clouds dominated the horizons, swirling red, high up in the atmosphere, wrecking the towers of Lagos in a shower of lightning storms.
Chinelo could hear the screams from the streets, such things happened when twenty million voices screamed at once.
Chiagozie’s hand landed on her shoulder. ‘Because they were right.’ he said, shutting the window but failing to block out the pain. ‘There was no choosing between the Republic and the Empire.’
‘We could’ve fought,’ she said. Looking out the window to the city drowned in magenta hues, the shadows of fleeing millions outlined against the burning buildings like waves of bubbling tar, crashing into each other, fighting to gain more ground.
‘We should’ve fought them,’ she finished, pointing at the sky.
‘We’ll fight them again, my love.’
Something cracked over the city, followed by a large suction, a single, deep bass note, and then an avalanche of red energy, crushing like stones through shattering glass into the heart of Lagos.
‘I love you,’ they said, turning towards the window and the incoming ray, which swallowed block after block in evaporating waves of stone and bone. Hand in hand they pulled down the blinds and let the heat take them away.
Ogotemmeli stood alone, skin of dark brown, deep blue eyes peering out into a stormy wasteland, broken by chains of mountains and smouldering rivers of lava under a blue sky.
So that’s what’s left of our homes...
The oxygen-rich air flooded his brain with dizziness. He was cold, and weaker than he had ever been.
Where are the Osrane? Why aren’t they attacking me?
He saw himself floating over Fida, hurling dragons at ChinaCorp. Damn you, he thought at the Akwesidan. Again? Why?
He saw himself reaching, the planet overheating and cracking, as a rumble threw him off his feet, and the ground waved and split beneath him, sending ripples into the ocean bottoms.
The cracks released the hint of a broken melody, strings that vibrated there and elsewhen, the bits of now and here to the bits of then and there, just beyond the limits of his body. It battered his emotions more strongly than music had before. It was his song, he knew the notes, but they broke against his vocal chords.
He tried to pull strength out of the air. He tried to expand. He was trapped in flesh, and the anger almost ripped his mind apart. He saw the universe, and Rakoteli dying, a faint trace of argon and neon battling each other for her last wisp, it was right there, but he couldn’t reach it. Was that their pain? Always an atom away from eternity? A DNA strain away from knowing the void? He had to fill his life with everything he could take, to fill that emptiness, no matter the cost, no matter who...
No. He closed his mind to the pain and looked back on where he’d been. It wasn’t pain that tied them together...
‘Do you see now?’
The voice burned Ogotemmeli blind and tore him out of the world.
Akwesida bloomed ahead of him, Ngai drew back the flare leaving Ogotemmeli depleted, caught in the fevers of the lives he’d touched. Xam.
‘I do. But what do I do now?’ he whispered.
‘You? You finish the song. There is a heart that always beats Ogotemmeli. It beats like the drums of dead Fida. It beats for home.’
The song was the key. To the war and to their exile.
‘Perhaps I can make the Okyin Council see...’ He hesitated, his cells too weak for him to think. ‘Tell me, Ngai, what were you before Akwesida?’
Ngai smiled. ‘I can barely remember the sound of my cows, or the taste of their milk, but I had many, and I tended them well...’ His smile faded and disappeared into the sun.
#
Kiania barged into CEO Chang’s office. The s
ky through the window overlooking Beijing was black with reinforcements for the Huǒxīng Campaign, and another minor quake felt like her stomach was sent lurching into her spine.
Hans Chang looked up from a pile of progress reports, his eyes red from sleeplessness. Six months into the Huǒxīng Campaign and ChinaCorp had scored impressive victories, but the elementals kept coming, running through their ships like strings of firecrackers.
She was certain now, it wasn’t tectonic; the elementals were the quakes...
‘You’re tiresome, CTO.’ He yawned. ‘What now?’
She hesitated. The Board of Executives had implied several times that her suggestions were treacherously cultish.
‘My apologies, CEO. I know how stressful times are. But I’m certain now. I’ve been comparing tactical reports against the seismic data. They’re a perfect match. I must’ve missed some, but the margin of error...’
‘Tactical reports...’ he mocked. ‘I’ve had a dozen meetings with our best seismologists, and guess what? They agree with you. Destroying the planet would have been easier, but the campaign drags on, one elemental at a time...’
‘Yes, sir. But they always start in Africa. All of them. I honestly think that...’
Hans Chang rose from his chair and walked around his desk towards the CTO ignoring her. ‘...As for you, I’m afraid that, no matter how ground-breaking your contributions to the company, I have to ask you to step down, and turn in all your research immediately.’
She froze in shock.
‘You’re too erratic. I cannot have instability among my senior staff,’ the CEO went on. ‘Return to your office-lab and prepare the handover files. You’ll receive full severance pay and a comfortable pension for your silence.’
He held out his hand.
He knows... she thought ...they all know... One genocide wasn’t enough for them yet... even if it becomes our own...
The corporations had been around for so long, they couldn’t conceive of a future they didn’t rule.
‘I’m sorry I’ve let you down CEO.’ she said.
‘We all have our limits,’ he said curtly, turning back towards his desk. ‘Remember to rely on ChinaCorp for your every need.’
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