Noor(45)

I went to the faucet beside the hearth and washed my hands, taking more time with my flesh hand than my cybernetic one. When I sat back down in front of my food, I looked at Force. As it had always been with us, I didn’t need to say a word. He simply nodded, stood up, wrapped an arm around Dolapo’s waist, and the two gave DNA and me some privacy. DNA glanced at me from the corner of his eye, but said nothing as he munched on groundnuts. I paused and then tucked into my egusi soup.

For several minutes, we sat there. DNA eating groundnuts and me eating the most delicious egusi soup I’d ever tasted. My mother’s fantastic skills couldn’t compete with this because what made this soup so delicious was not in the execution, it was the ingredients. The chicken tasted amazing, tough but flavorful in a way I’d never experienced. The bitter leaf, ground melon seeds, crayfish, onion, everything tasted as if it was in its fullest color, at peak perfection. “Oh my goodness,” I said. “The taste!”

“All desert grown,” DNA said, smirking. “Even the crayfish. Dolapo said there’s some guy who has these pools where he grows all kinds of seafood he’s modified to grow small and fast. And they’re fed on the freshest ingredients. People pre-order months in advance.”

I paused, frowning at my food, then kept eating. About halfway through my meal, I stopped, wiped my hands with the napkin Dolapo had left for me, and turned to DNA. He turned to me, too. “What?” he asked.

Startled by his directness, I looked away. “N . . . nothing,” I stammered. “I was just—”

“Look, I’m not usually around people this much. That makes me pretty sensitive. And for some reason, I find you really easy to read. What do you want to tell me? Is it about GPS and Carpe Diem? I think they’re okay. Those animal rights people are treating them better than any human b—”

“No, no, Your steer are fine. In the best hands they can be in, other than you.”

“It’s refreshing,” he said, looking at his plate of finished groundnuts. “But I miss them and they’re all I—”

“DNA, I saw something,” I blurted. “It was your village.”

I quickly told him all I knew, which was actually a lot more than I let on to Force. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Force. Force had lied to me, horribly. But that was a long time ago, and I understood why. I guess. I didn’t tell Force because I felt this was information for DNA’s ears only. It was his family, his village.

“There is footage of the council, the Bukkaru, leaving with your sister Wuro. They came to your village, when the elders refused to tell them where you went, words were exchanged. That old man, the blind one—”

“Papa Ori? No.”

“Yes, he said something. The recorded conversation posted on Bukkaru networks didn’t catch it. But whatever he said, caused such rage that the Bukkaru had your village ransacked under the pretense of looking for you.”

“Where is Wuro?” he said. “Can you locate her?”

I shook my head. “They must have seen what I did yesterday. They won’t know how I did it, but they are definitely staying offline. There isn’t a whisper of her. There’s more.”

“Go on.”

I sighed. “This whole thing has sparked something. The farming communities seem to also have sent out groups of men—no, mobs of men into the desert.” I couldn’t look him in the eye when I said it. “They’re killing the last of the true herdsmen.”

“Shit,” DNA hissed.

It was the first time I’d ever heard DNA curse. I don’t think he even knew he did it.

“I’m sure this pleases Ultimate Corp,” he said. “We are a stupid people. We are killing our last source of homegrown fresh meat and milk. We’d rather eat flesh grown in a lab, or even plastic, than true food. Wish I could just leave this planet with my cows and live on the moon.” He got up, sat back down, then got up, sat back down. Frowned. Sighed. Kissed his teeth. Looked at me. “What do I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is my fault.”

“I don’t agree.”

He got up and started pacing. “What do I do, what do I do, what did Wuro say? Why my sister?”

“Because they’re trying to get to you.”

He was pacing faster now. “They burned everything?”

“Almost.”

“Where is my family now?”

“I don’t know. They’ve gone into the desert, though. Not into the Red Eye, just away.”

“I know where,” he said. He stopped, looking off toward the farms. Then he just started walking.

“Wait! Where are you going?” I asked, jumping up. He didn’t stop. He walked faster, and I had to jog to catch up with him. He walked onto a path that led between a field of corn and a field of onions.

“Wait! Where—”

“Where is there space?” he said with a shaky voice. “I need it. This way, I think.” He was practically running now, but I easily kept up. When he finally stopped, we were on a patch of sand where nothing grew. Where no soil was mixed with the sand. Between corn, onion, soybean fields. It wasn’t a wide space, just an in-between place before a field of corn began and a field of peri ended. The area in this spot wasn’t fortified with soil, so it was the sand of the land. Old. Dry. Barren. Here, he fell to his knees and clutched his head in his hands.