Noor(30)
The veil of the Red Eye began to lift, and now it was mainly just wind we were contending with. “GPS really knew where he was going,” I shouted over the wind, finally feeling able to let go of both him and GPS’s horn.
“It’s not my first time trusting him,” he said. “Now you understand how he got his name. If you let him lead the way, he’ll always lead you out of the Red Eye. He hates it.”
“Handy and good friend to have,” I said, patting the animal on his side.
“Yes,” DNA said.
We emerged into a field of dried grass, near the warehouse. We’d made it through the fields and were just about to cross the remaining hard pan to the parking lot when we heard it behind us. A loud roaring. My heart sank. We didn’t stop or look back until we were running across the parking lot, right into the glass doors of the abandoned warehouse we’d passed earlier.
“This is why we stay away,” I heard DNA say as I put a hand to the dirty glass door. It opened smoothly, almost as if the hinges were oiled or removed. Why would they leave a warehouse door unlocked, even if there was nothing inside? And though the sun had set long ago, the door was warm to the touch. The noise continued behind us and finally, I looked back. What I saw made me want to abandon all hope.
Soldiers were setting the field of grass we’d just run through on fire. It didn’t take much and the wind provided even more fuel. There were about ten drones flying over it and spraying flames on the grass like water, aiming their fiery spray from south to north to avoid setting themselves aflame. What they spewed was thick, nearly solid flame that looked and heavily fell like lava.
“Why are they doing that?” I shouted.
Within minutes, desert grassland that had been untouched and unbothered for probably years, looked like a war zone. DNA was muttering in Pulaar again. I shook my head, trying to clear it. I was still high from Baba Sola’s wizard marijuana and the field looked as if it were blooming and swirling, not being razed by swirling biting fires. The propellers from the many drones which, clearly, were fireproof, created miniature whirlwinds in the flames.
Then I noticed them. “DNA! Look! Look at them.”
They came running about the edges of the flames, unbothered by the heat. Some even ran into and out of the fire. The soldiers were automated. Upon closer inspection, I could see that they didn’t move like human beings at all. Their motions were fluid, perfect and measured to cover distance using the least amount of energy and time. They would soon find we were not there. Then they’d come here.
DNA flung the door open and it fell off the hinges, clattering to the ground. An old charred smell wafted out, but the terrified steer trotted right in, shoving past both of us through the double doors. DNA and I paused for a moment, looking at the flames and smoke rising in the fields. The fire’s blazing light reached far enough to light the beginning of the Red Eye’s churning winds of dust, some of the flames actually whipping into fiery whirlwinds.
“My family has never been a part of this,” DNA said. “We stay out of the way of this kind of ‘civilization.’ Look at them coming here and just doing this. Burning everything. For what? You? Me? Who are we?”
I was barely listening. Whirls of flame, automated soldiers, drones, all the way out here. Since when could drones vomit flames? My God, I was in trouble. It felt ominous turning our backs on fields of fire to enter a burned out building.
CHAPTER 12
Charred Space
I will tell you about Ultimate Corp warehouses or you’ll never understand the absurdity of the one we were in. First of all, no one knows where Ultimate Corp is actually based. Tracking its activities is tricky. It’s like the software I use to scramble my location; you’ll be misled all over the world. But you will rarely be led to Nigeria, itself, and that’s where Ultimate Corp does much of its business.
Nigeria has its problems, but it is a wealthy country and so much of its people’s truest wealth remains untapped because the rest of the world sees the entire continent as “war-torn,” “diseased,” and “poor.” I’d never seen the inside of an Ultimate Corp warehouse, but they were all over southern and central Nigeria. To go on one of these warehouse tours was to come out with some serious complimentary swag. There were big lotteries for tours, and whole families celebrated when people won.
Also, when people on tours posted footage of what they saw, Ultimate Corp, with over a billion followers (even I followed Ultimate Corp), always amplified these posts. To go on a warehouse tour meant instant followers and appearances on blogs and in publicity stories. If you’d always wondered what it felt like to be instantly famous, get a tour of an Ultimate Corps warehouse.
From what I’d heard, it was truly worth it. Rows and rows and rows of thirty-foot high aisles, fully stocked with various goods from foodstuffs to electronics to cosmetics to everything a human being needed. Delivery drones were always local and these warehouses made it so that they never had to travel far to pick up items and deliver them. Thus, inside was like . . . well, a hive of drones.
Ultimate Corp warehouse roofs had launch and landing pads, and their advertisements boasted that these roofs, the sides of the buildings, and the land owned by Ultimate Corp were all green, covered with the super grass known as periwinkle (“peri,” for short). Peri was sturdy, so drones taking off, landing, and driving on it didn’t harm it at all. Its flowers were a soft periwinkle color, and its tiny leaves were light green and grew in an elegant fractal shape, so the plant itself was beautiful. It grew easily in even the worst soil, faster than any weed, and required little to no water, yet it held water like a succulent. And eating a cup of boiled, fried, or roasted periwinkle was more nutritious than a daily vitamin. It was so delicious and cheap, it replaced rice the moment Nigerians tasted it. Ultimate Corp had cultivated its own strain of periwinkle, harvested and distributed all over West Africa by the corporation and taxed by the government.