Noor(53)

For me, all went black.



* * *



—

I awoke to the spicy smell of pepper soup. I had a strong feeling of deja-vu and, my eyes still closed, I tried to grasp at it. But it slid, slithered, and then slipped away. I found myself looking into the millions of eyes of the pomegranate. I opened my eyes. I was sitting on my recliner, the screens around me showing the Hour Glass again. From the darkening of the sky I could glimpse through the storm’s dust, the sun was setting. DNA was sitting on a low chair slouched beside me eating from a bowl of what had to be pepper soup. He didn’t seem surprised to see me awake.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. He picked up a piece of goat meat from his bowl and bit into it. “No idea who made this but Dolapo gave it to me and it’s delicious.”

When I spoke, my mouth felt as if it had been shot with Novocain and I slurred my words. “Wha’happened?”

“You mean after you basically called for war?” But he was grinning. He bit into more of his meat. He was ravenous and enjoying the fact that he had an appetite.

“Eh? Where’s everyone?”

“Here and there. It’s been a few hours,” he said with a shrug. “How do you feel?”

I sat up and that was when I noticed it. “Oh!” I shook my arm and it flopped limply at my side. My left arm. My cybernetic arm was dead. I shook it again. “Shit,” I said.

He bit into his goat meat and said nothing as he watched me.

I scrambled to my feet. I shook and shook my arm. Nothing. I was as I’d been when I was little, a girl with only one working arm. I wanted to scream. Instead, I looked at my flesh hand. I made a fist. I felt a little better.

DNA spoke calmly as he put his bowl of soup down beside his chair and stood up. “Your nose was bleeding,” he said. “Your ears were bleeding, then you passed out. Your arm . . .” He looked at it. “There was so much happening. The connection was still there, and we were all seeing each other, hearing each other, feeling each other’s outrage. The Bukkaru were all yelling, people were on their feet, Force was cursing, the other herdsmen were shouting with the Bukkaru, Dolapo was crying, but I was watching you. Your robot arm started jerking around. Sparks, heat, then it just stopped. How does it feel now?”

“Like nothing.”

“Doesn’t hurt?”

“No.” I shut my eyes and I was gazing at the pomegranate which was always gazing at me. Pain was the doorway, the permission, the allowance. I’d have taken pain over nothing any day. I needed to focus on something else. Within seconds I knew what it would be. I opened my eyes. “I’ve started a war.”

“Yes,” DNA said, the smile returning to his face.

“Your sister Wuro?”

“Safe with my parents.”

I smiled. “And I saved the remaining herdsmen.”

“Yes.”

“Will Idris, Tasiri, and Lubega stay in the Hour Glass?”

“No. They’ll leave the Hour Glass and join the few remaining herdsmen gathering in Niger.”

“So they weren’t all killed.”

“Many were. Most were. But no, not all. I won’t be joining them.”

“I exposed Ultimate Corp.”

“Yes,” he said, with a small smile. “People reposted that footage. With important context. It’s already gone viral worldwide.”

I nodded, shaking my arm again. Still nothing. “People will still buy from and do business with Ultimate Corp. They’ll still schedule their damn warehouse tours and post video and photos from there, keeping the myth alive.”

“Oh, of course,” he said. “It’s never that easy. The execs in that footage were right. People don’t care, as long as they are comfortable and life is made easy. Most.” He took me in his arms. We were still like this when Force came up the stairs. When he saw me, his face brightened. “Oh good! You’re awake! You okay?”

“My arm has shut down,” I said, shaking the thing like a dead snake. Now that the arm was shut off, it felt so heavy. I’d have to work hard not to stumble to the left when I walked or ran. I certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep on my other side.

“What’s broken can be fixed,” he said. “There are doctors here who can repair it. Even upgrade it. Better doctors than you’ll probably find on the outside.”

“There’s no time,” I said.

“There will be. When all this is over.”

I smiled. If I’m alive, I thought.

“For now,” DNA said, pulling a piece of red blue Ankara cloth from his pocket like a magician. “Tie it up with this, so the flesh isn’t pulled by the weight. Dolapo gave it to me.” He wrapped it over my shoulder and when he stood back, my arm was secured in a sling. The excessive weight of it was a lot more manageable now.

“I guess this’ll do,” I said. The three of us stood there for a moment, me with my sling. DNA had picked up his bowl of pepper soup and spoon, and Force was frowning. Then at the same time, we looked away from each other.

“I’ll check your vitals,” Force said, picking up his tablet. DNA sat in my recliner, finishing his pepper soup while Force stuck sensory pads on me.

“I feel okay,” I said, looking at the sensory pads on my chest. He put one on my forehead and then on the back of my neck. I’d braided my dreadlocks into two braids to expose my neural implant’s silver nodule. He stuck a sensor on that, too.