Noor(52)

Inhale, exhale.

I hovered before the Bukkaru and they looked right at us. It was as if they were facing DNA and the others. I checked the drone to see if I could channel their voices through it. I could. First I sent a message. It was for the Bukkaru, but I sent it to every single phone, tablet, tv, screen. “We speak. You listen. Here is the truth.” I turned on the cameras in front of DNA, Idris, Tasiri and Lubega. Then I put the four of them on every screen in that camp. Everyone, including the Bukkaru members looked down at their screens.

DNA began speaking in Pulaar. I could have had his words instantly translated. He’d launched right into what sounded like a passionate speech. I was certainly interested. However, I just didn’t think it would work. Why would common sense work for a people who’d just turned around and started killing the oldest part of themselves? Because of what was clearly a bloody violent misunderstanding. No. I had a better plan. I hadn’t shared it with any of them, not even DNA. I executed it now.

Ultimate Corp. It always came down to this fucking corporation. I needed to show these people its involvement in their affairs. Let them all see, too. I went to the pomegranate. While the others were focused on the meeting. While my brain dialogued with those who were connected to my brain. While I made sure the drone stayed steady, the connections remained, the cameras were on. My nose started bleeding.

The pomegranate took my command and then off I went. It was easy once I decided to look for the millions of files. They took me through thousands. I found the connections I needed. But then, well, I wasn’t looking for this particular bit of pivotal information. It was coincidence. Maybe. The pomegranate helped me interpret it. Oh this is good.

Then I found and connected phones owned by Ultimate Corp executives to the Bukkaru meeting. Fifteen of them. Three of those executives were Nigerian. They would know exactly what they were seeing. They’d tell the others. They’d have to pay attention now.

And the “coincidental” document. I had it. And it made something terrible as clear as a calm day in the desert. I was flying faster, like electricity. A part of me, at least. With that document. Everything has a record. In some way. This one was a recording of a meeting. I came back to myself and realized someone was standing on my chest. My eyes flew open, and I was looking right into Force’s eyes, he was carrying the defibrillator pads. “Wha . . . ?” I said.

“You’re going to have a heart attack!” he whispered. Dolapo was beside him, weeping quietly. DNA and the others were focused on the part of the screen before them. I was still holding the connection. One of the Bukkaru elders was standing now. He seemed to be shouting at them through the drone camera. DNA’s sister Wuro stood beside him, looking angry. Her hands were tied together.

I let my body go limp. Closed my eyes. Inhaled, exhaled. Force was still whispering angrily at me. My ears felt wet. My left shoulder was burning. I zipped off, again. If this was my death, let me finish what I was doing first. Ultimate Corp had it coming. At the moment I sent it, the Bukkaru Elder was still shouting. It was the perfect time for the footage to cut in.

The Ultimate Corp symbol was in the top left corner. Along with the date of twenty years ago, days after June 15th, the Day of the Four Herdsmen, the incident in which four so-called Fulani herdsman entered a village and killed and robbed everyone in it and then set it aflame. The Day of The Four Herdsmen put all Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria back on the global radar as terrorists.

“Who’s going to stick up for them?” a thin-lipped man in a sharp suit said, sitting back on a plush leather chair that creaked under his ample weight. “These guys are off the grid, born off the grid. No citizenship, no identity, thus no digital trail. They’re solitary, always covered in dust, Africans are afraid of Africans already. Plus, these herders have been viewed for decades as terrorists. So let’s take this new incident and up the ante. We pay off a couple hundred more of them to give up herding cows and instead shoot up towns. POOF! Threat to Ultimate Corp’s commerce in the north gone, and we can continue building. Hell, imagine all the beef we can sell there.”

“Maybe. But those people really aren’t a threat, per se. They just . . .”

The thin-lipped man leaned in, his cheeks flushing with excitement. He pointed a finger at the other man who didn’t seem remotely intimidated. “You want an environment where there’s control and order and not chaos, you get rid of past problems and arguments, all the history nonsense. Replace it with creature comfort, convenience. Trust me, this’ll work. Even the wildest people relax when they’re content. Everyone wins.”

The slimmer man was smiling and nodding now. “These are certainly some wild people.”

Chuckles.

They’d planned it. Amplified it. Manipulated it. The last few true Fulani herdsmen with their old simple ways, fresh milk and meat and nomadic lifestyle, had suffered for it. And Ultimate Corp had been arrogant enough to record and store this conversation where someone could hack into, steal, and broadcast it. Ultimate Corp was powerful and wicked, but it didn’t worry enough. The recording froze on the face of a smirking executive. I put his first sentence on repeat, “Who’s going to stick up for them?”

I could hear shouts of shock and outrage in the Bukkaru camp. DNA and the others were all standing, staring at me.

“Where’d you find that?” DNA was shouting.

“Just found it,” I said. I was fading. “Accident. Coincidence. Karma.” I coughed and my lips were wet with what? Blood? Who knew. Who cared. I was done. The drone was still hovering. Everyone was shouting outrage. Everyone was listening. Good. A glass of cosmic milk from the great cosmic cow.