Rebel Sisters

by Tochi Onyebuchi

  “Uzoamaka contained memories of your . . . your sister. And others, presumably. Yet she claimed another identity. She was a separate person from her memories. How did she know which memories were Onyii’s and which were the ones she developed after her . . . after her creation?” It’s like Grace steamrolls over those strange and painful realizations—that Ify had a sister who fought in the war, that beings were created out of the flesh and neural data of others for no other purpose than war—to get to the end of her questions. Admiration thrums through Ify. “Are they capable of organizing their neural data? By force of will?”

  Ify starts. “They shouldn’t be able to. They’re not programmed to do that. That’s like a computing device’s self-replicating algorithm deciding to change on its own.”

  “But if the computing device is based on DNA . . .”

  “Then it can change.”

  Grace’s words speed up. “If the government’s memory-erasure coding affects all cyberized brains, Uzoamaka shouldn’t have any memories of Onyii. Yet they’re all intact.”

  Ify gasps. “Because she altered her own programming to keep them. Oh my God.” Her voice becomes tiny. “Uzo’s the cure.”

  Thunder up above them catches their attention. They quiet and listen as it turns into a sustained rumble. Not thunder. A mech passing over.

  “We have to get out of here.”

  Together, they load their duffel bags with supplies.

  “Where are we going to go?” Grace asks.

  All Ify says is “Back.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  Echoing down the tunnels is the sound of water dripping into puddles on the floor. The stone corridors of Xifeng’s underground headquarters, formerly imposing to Ify with their dull, stony solidity, now glow, their crevices framed in blue lines, a series of edges and nodes that casts the whole place in that geometric precision Ify realizes she’s longed for all this time. It’s why she’s able to move as fast as she does, past rooms she knows are empty, down corridors that only bear traces of the wounded or rescued or killed but no one else. At first, Grace is hesitant, and Ify nearly leaves her behind. Then the young woman begins to trust what Ify can do with her newfound abilities and they raid the supply closets for medikits and new bodysuits. In one medium-sized room with bare walls, they drop their bags and undress, and Ify tosses away her old, damaged bodysuit, no longer of any use to her, fried from the EMP blast and from all the damage it’s taken since. And she and Grace slip into their new suits. They each press a button on their wrists, and the baggy polyurethane closes in to hug their frames.

  They head to one of the weapons rooms. As Ify checks bullet rounds and throws shotguns and rifles and high-caliber pistols into their duffel bags, Grace hesitates.

  “How do you know the sy— Uzoamaka . . . is still alive?”

  Ify pauses, hunched over one of their duffels.

  “Is your . . .” When Ify turns around, Grace taps the back of her neck. Meaning Ify’s Accent. “Is that what’s telling you?”

  Ify doesn’t move, then resumes packing. “No. I just know.”

  Grace smirks. “That’s not like you, Doctor.”

  Ify chuckles. “Please. Ify. I think we moved past Doctor a few abductions ago.”

  The two laugh, and it’s the only sound bouncing off the cavernous walls of the subterrane.

  They zip up their bags and turn to go, but then they freeze.

  Ify doesn’t know how she didn’t detect her, but there Ngozi stands, right in front of them. A pistol hangs limply from her hand. Dried blood has mixed with the face-scrambling cream Xifeng’s soldiers wore to darken her face almost beyond recognition. Her whole body is loose, like she’ll collapse any moment, fall to pieces, and shatter on the cave floor. She’s been crying.

  “We’re leaving,” Ify says, as though to say, We won’t hurt you and Don’t try to stop us at once.

  But Ngozi doesn’t move.

  Grace steps forward and reaches for the shockstick at her waist, but Ify holds her arm out to stop her.

  Ngozi looks at the gun in her hand, as though just now noticing she’s holding it. Then something in her firms up and she tucks the gun in the back of her pants. “Wherever you’re going, you’re not leaving through the front door.” She tilts with her head to indicate a passageway. “Follow me.”

  And they do. Through the maze of hallways so thick Ify thinks they’re lost until Ngozi brings them to what looks like solid wall. She feels along the stones, then pulls one out, and the entire wall rumbles open like the gates to a palace estate.

  On the other side is a hangar.

  Lights flicker on to illuminate a row of sleek armored personnel carriers and motorbikes lined up between them and, behind those, quadripedal ground mechs that, to Ify’s eye, can also transform into four-point maglev jeeps. But Ngozi leads them straight past the massive array of vehicles to another room where, on a helipad, a thin jetcraft sits. From its undercarriage jut protrusions that Ify knows are retractable legs. When she gets closer, she sees the grooves outlining the slides for its deployable guns. Somewhere in the aircraft’s entrails are arms that can hold any number of weapons. What was Xifeng planning to do with all of this?

  Ngozi stops before the jetcraft.

  Grace’s mouth hangs open.

  Ify squints. “We can’t all fit in that.”

  “That’s for you,” Ngozi says, then she waves her arm, activating a nearby overhead light that shines down on a broad-shouldered bipedal aerial mech with legs as thick as an Abuja alleyway and arms outfitted into Gatling guns. A laser cannon sits on its left shoulder. She nods at it. “This one’s mine.” She smirks, then focuses her gaze on Ify. “You always wanted to be a pilot, right?”

  “How did you . . .” Before Ify can finish the question, Ngozi climbs into her mech and the ground overhead groans open, the helipad they’re on rising into newly empty space. Ify and Grace race into the cockpit of the jet. The console is a mystery of Chinese characters that glow golden before their faces as Grace sits herself in the copilot’s seat and searches everywhere for a helmet.

  The cockpit glass closes. Wind roars around them as the platform rises. Ify’s Accent fills her vision with light, and suddenly the controls come to her hands. Her fingers press buttons on the console before her and grip the throttle next to her, her feet automatically adjusting the pedals. Like she’s been flying this sort of craft all her life. Her body thrills to this feeling, being encased in such a powerful machine that will shoot them through the sky, that will carry them to dizzying heights, all under Ify’s control.

  She wonders if this is what Onyii felt whenever she climbed into her mech. Like she had possibility in her hands. Like it wasn’t metal that surrounded her but the future, and that it was hers to mold.

  The clamor builds, but Ify feels like she sits at the eye of the storm, that calmest point, undisturbed, unbothered. She’s ready. The craft rises, following the lead of Ngozi’s mech.

  “Wait!” Grace’s voice pierces Ify’s bubble of serenity. “Where are we going?”

  CHAPTER

  44

  We are seeing many thing that is looking like mountain.

  Sometime, it is being red and craggy like rock with many sharp edges, like ridges I am sometime seeing on topographical map inside my brain. I know this is map I am downloading when I am child of war, when it is being necessary to know things like where is lake and where is mountain and where is valley and where is village. Sometime, mountain is metal that is covered in red dust. It is having sharp edges, but they are shining in the light of the sun and even in the light that the moon is giving them. And I am seeing that they are old mech that is being half-buried and abandoned. These are towering high like skyscraper over us, and sometime when we are walking it is blotting out the sun, and when it is doing this sometime the other synths are taking cover i
n the shadow because the sun is paining them.

  There is being no humans out here. Before, there are being small small number of red-bloods and many of them are alone and they are covering their small small home in blue light and I am seeing that it is because the air is eating thing like moth eating leaf or clothes. Human is covering themself with plastic and boxy outfit that is making them look like bug that is too big to be sitting on leaf or flying through air, and they are walking like duck out from blue dome and sometime they are going to stream that is nearby and they are using filter to take poison out of water and to be bringing it back and sometime they are digging at the ground like they are trying to find something and sometime they are putting something in the ground that is making the ground green for some time, but always the ground is turning red again.

  Everything here is being red. The sky is red, the sun is being a deeper red, and the ground is red as well. After walking enough, we are all being covered in red dust so it is like we too are being like the earth too. And I am thinking to myself that we are turning from thing that is walking to something that is more like nature. We are becoming plateau or rock or mountain. All of these thing are being covered with red dust that is eating thing and making it so no human is living here.

  When we are passing half-buried mech that is being like mountain I am thinking of the rememberings I am having in me of war and I am remembering sometime piloting these thing, and when we are walking and the sun is paining my arms and the back of my neck, I am thinking that I am in a mech and I am flying through the air and even though thing is shooting at me and there are bullet pinging me and I am hearing explosion, all sound is being muffled like cotton is filling my ears, and I am only feeling myself flying through the air and soon I am thinking that I am not pilot inside mech but that I am mech, and I am feeling wind on my face and I am flapping my arms and when I am waking up I am realizing that I am running around in the desert and making circle and making noise like helicopter engine and sometime Oluwale is laughing at me and sometime Oluwale is laughing with me and sometime other synth is just staring at me like I am losing my mind. And I am thinking that maybe I am.

  Something is happening to some of the other synths too. They are doing strange thing like speaking in different languages, and when they are doing this they are talking to the air but I am not seeing holographic projection. I am not knowing what remembering they are sitting inside. I am not knowing who they are talking to but sometime it is seeming like they are talking to many person at once and sometime it is nice conversation that is pleasing to hear and sometime it is argument that is ending with the synth in the dirt rolling around and holding their head and screaming that their head is paining them. Maybe the air is eating us too.

  One day, this is happening to one of the synth and I am seeing him rolling on the ground back and forth and he is crying and I am walking to him and cord is coming out of the back of my neck and I am plugging into him, and when I am doing this I am thinking of quiet thing, calming thing. I am thinking of remembering that is having me lying on my back in the water and I am floating and I am staring at the sky that is having cloud so thin it is like string and the sun is shining and I am just rocking back and forth, back and forth on the water, and even when I am remembering this my body is cooling down and I am looking and seeing that the synth is stopping rolling on the ground. Even though he is being covered in the dust that is eating him he is no longer crying and he is no longer screaming and I am knowing that his head is no longer paining him.

  I am keeping cord in his neck and I am picking him up and putting him on my back and I am hurrying to reach the rest of the group who has been moving forward this whole time.

  I am telling him that my name is Uzoamaka and I am asking him what they are calling him and he is telling me he does not know.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  Even though I am trusting Enyemaka, I am needing to know things. I am knowing what we are leaving. I am knowing we are leaving Ify and Xifeng and all other human. But I am not knowing where we are going to. I am not knowing what is at the end of our walking and I am thinking now that I am not wanting to be walking forever. I am not growing tired and I am not feeling pain in my leg or my back like human when they are carrying body made of metal, but I am thinking of when I am first meeting Uzodinma in the forest and when he is making me to be meeting my family and I am thinking of how they are walking for so long before they are meeting me, just walking and walking and never standing still, and I am not knowing why I am wanting to stand still but it is what I am wanting. So I am asking Enyemaka where are we going to.

  There is an oasis deep in the Redlands, Enyemaka is telling me.

  Are we in the Redlands now? I am asking her.

  Yes, she is saying back to me.

  When she is saying we are in the Redlands, I am remembering riding on a hoverbike and I am remembering that thing is chasing me. Many thing, and it is having guns to shoot at me and missile is flying at me and I am dodging and weaving and shooting and there is being dust everywhere and my skin is paining me and I am not being alone on hoverbike. I am being with Ify.

  I am remembering that we are being hunted. I am remembering that she is being hunted. I am remembering that I am saving her life. I shake my head to be rid of this remembering. A part of me wants the air to eat it, so that it will never be a part of me again. But the remembering is telling me something important. The remembering is telling me that the Redlands is eating Onyii and that she is not living for very long after being in this place. Even though she is being made of metal in some of her parts, that is not protecting her. She is growing blind and she is not being able to eat thing and she is emptying her stomach always and blood is coming from her skin and she is dying horrible horrible death that it is paining people to watch, and she is telling Chinese scientist that she is wanting to be synth so she can keep living and that she is not caring that synth is not person because it is not mattering to her as long as she is keeping on breathing, and Chinese scientist is bringing her to laboratory where he is making her even more machine, then he is taking out some of her parts and then he is building me and I am seeing all of this at once in a jumble in my head and some of it is being out of order and the end is coming before the beginning, or sometime thing is like in rewind and I am thinking that it is happening again, the air is eating me. Am I dying?

  You will reach our destination, Enyemaka is telling me.

  How do you know?

  I am familiar with the concept of death, she is telling me, but it is something I will never experience. Enyemaka are not confined to a single body. We live in many places at the same time. And when she is saying this, she is waving her arm at all the other Enyemaka who are walking with us. I am here with you, but I am also walking at the back of our group. And there are also two of me up ahead. There are many of me. She is pausing with her words. I am not sure whether or not you are dying. But I am sure that you will see our destination.

  How do you know? I am asking her again.

  And Enyemaka is telling me, When you say you are dying, you mean only one thing. You are talking about the expiration of your physical form. When she is saying expiration, I am thinking of fruit that no one is touching for too long or milk that no one is drinking. When she is saying expiration, I am thinking of thing that is smelling bad. When your body expires, your consciousness and all it contains will be uploaded into me. You will live in me. Thus, you can never die.

  When she is telling me these thing, I am thinking of my hands and how they are sitting under the buttock of the synth that I am carrying on my back. I am thinking that sometime when the air is eating through my hand and the skin is peeling and I am seeing the metal, I am thinking that hand is nuisance. Or when my leg is not working properly and I am having to be dragging it sometime, I am thinking of leg as nuisance. But other time I am being glad that I am having leg to walk and having hand
s to hold up my brother. Even though this body is sometime betraying me, I am happy to be living in it. I am also thinking of running my hand through flowers and floating on my back in the water and hugging Enyemaka by her neck and how am I doing these thing if I am having no body?

  Enyemaka is not telling me.

  And that is when I am hearing silence. And I am remembering that my cord is still being plugged into my brother’s outlet. And all this time, I am hearing whispering from him, data moving back and forth between us like we are chatting, and it is soft and murmuring and it is like breathing, then there is no more.

  He is expired.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  My cord is disconnecting from him and sliding back into my neck, and I am letting him down off my back and onto the ground. He is being frozen in his shape and his legs are being bent and his arms are folded like he is hugging the air, and maybe this is the last thing he is thinking before he is expiring. He is thinking that he is being carried by his sister and he is having his cheek that is hot from the sun being pressed against the metal of his sister’s back because the sun is peeling her skin too and maybe he is feeling chill in the metal and it is making him to be feeling good, and maybe he is thinking these thing before he is thinking no more.

  After I am laying him down, I am turning him over so the back of his neck is facing me and I am pressing down on his spine to try to take his cord out to plug into Enyemaka but nothing is happening, and I am suddenly tired and am not breathing right. So I am sitting on my knees and I am thinking and I am trying to be thinking of a way to get his cord so that Enyemaka can download his data before the air is eating all of it, but I can think of nothing that is not involving me breaking his body and I am not wanting to be breaking his body.

  But Enyemaka is standing over me and the rest of the group is still walking and they are growing smaller in the distance, and even though Enyemaka is not saying a thing I am feeling like she is pressing me to do something and I cannot decide what to do and before I am knowing what I am doing I am smashing my fist down into my brother’s neck and I am smashing through the metal and I am breaking the skin and I am having oil on my hands and on my fingers, and in the light of the sun it is looking like blood. I am sadding and angering at the same time and just smashing and smashing until his oil is covering my whole face. Then I am seeing his outlet is crooked and broken and in many pieces and his cord is hanging, and I am pulling it and walking to Enyemaka, and it is unwinding and then I am plugging it into Enyemaka and I am seeing the light moving in her eyes and that is telling me she is collecting what she is needing.