Noor(10)

Zagora’s mother helped decide the precise location for Timbuktu Oracle, negotiating with local desert tribes, tribunals, and the Mali government. The location just outside of the city of Timbuktu turned out to be a prime one because the land was flat and the sunshine was constant. Once Oracle brought renewable and free energy to the ancient city of books, sand, and mud brick, it came back to life in a way it had not for centuries. On top of this, the money that came in from exporting the energy to nearby nations was incredible.

At the same time, the Sahara landgrab (where wealthy African countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and Egypt began buying up desert lands to build Oracle Plants that used Sahara Solarises) happened. Even the not so wealthy nations, like Mali, Chad, Somalia, and Sudan joined in the buying, albeit on a smaller scale. After African nations had their turn, China, the United States, the UK and other eager nations made deals.

Within that first decade, the African nations of the Sahara were fifty percent solar powered, the strength of the energy they produced second only to what is currently gathered from the Oracle turbines in Nigeria’s Red Eye. Nevertheless, Zagora’s Sahara Solaris did something that no one could have imagined. Not only did the Sunflower Initiative bring clear renewal energy to the region, but all the Oracles began to export energy to the rest of Africa and weaker payloads of it to Spain and Italy. The shimmering ghosts from energy payloads are a common sight to those who live in their paths.

The change can be seen from satellite; the continent of Africa more lit up than ever. And regardless, the always-consistent sun roils and broils 93 million miles away, offering its gifts and curses, depending on where we are, what we want and what we do with it.

Theme music

And this is The Africanfuturist. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Aluta continua.



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—

What a story. And even more powerful because it was true. Whenever that theme music would bubble into the narration, I’d smile. Comforted. Zagora the girl from the desert caves was optimistic and imaginative, and that gave her the ambition she would use to change the world. At the end of the podcast, there was always an ad for Zagora raffia camels like the one the young Zagora sold to the journalist. I never bought one. I was a fan, not a fool.

As I lay in that bed when I was fourteen, unable to get up yet, watching ghosts pass by my window, giving me that electrified feeling in my arm that made me feel like I could use it to do anything, I wished so hard that I could speak to Zagora. Not the beloved 84-year-old woman with millions of social network followers who still lived in those caves (though she’d built several of them into beautiful homes) that she was at the time, but the girl she’d been. The girl who loved the desert so much that she found a way to make it the most sought after place on Earth, a place of infinite potential and hope because the sun shined hardest on it. She seemed like she’d be a good friend who would understand me.





CHAPTER 4


    Liquid Sword



I dreamt of the road. That it was night and I was driving and driving in a dark my headlights could barely light. And I wasn’t afraid. If I drove into a car-sized pothole, so be it. If I drove over spokes set in the road by armed robbers and I was forced to stop, so be it. If I ran out of electrical charge, so be it. And if everything became dust because I’d driven so far north that I’d finally reached the beginning of Africa’s greatest disaster area known as the Red Eye, so be it. For some reason, I didn’t fear any drones. I just kept driving.



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—

When I awoke, the first thing I remembered was that I had no car to drive. I stretched, feeling so rested that I wondered if I’d slept for two days. I sighed without opening my eyes, filling my lungs with fresh air. So I hadn’t gone so far north that I’d entered the disaster zone. Good, I thought. It wasn’t windy yet, but there was a strong breeze now. I flared my nostrils and inhaled it more deeply. The air flowed smoothly down my nasal cavity into my lungs. It smelled of . . . body. I frowned. And manure. Then, I caught a hint of something else. Sweet and earthen, woody. I gasped, my eyes shooting open. I sat up.

Then I froze, my mouth open. Too many things. The most immediate was that I was looking down the barrel of a gun. The cow I’d been sleeping against slowly got up. I got up with her, keeping my eye on the man holding the gun. He was dark skinned with dark pupils, the whites of his eyes so so white. He barked something in a language I couldn’t understand, and I immediately raised my hands. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” I screeched. “I’m sorry!”

“Eh!” he gasped and I realized my sleeves had fallen back when I put my hands up. Now he was shouting in a language that I couldn’t understand. I stared at his mouth, as if doing so would make me understand him. His teeth were white, perfect, his tongue pink as he shoved his gun at me. He stopped shouting, scrambled forward and pressed the gun to my throat, his eyes wide.

“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t shoot . . . was just resting.” Then I shut my eyes. I’d killed all those men. There were consequences. Of course there were. Up to yesterday, I’d lived my life by the philosophy of “do no harm.” Even when it came to my transplants, if flesh had to be used, I only allowed my own flesh to be cultivated and transplanted into my body, never the flesh of any other animal. Yesterday I had broken my deepest most golden rule. I waited for the end.