Noor(54)

“The problem with you,” Force said, “is that you’re so used to pain and discomfort that your definition of feeling okay is not the greatest indicator of being okay.”

“Exactly,” DNA said, putting his empty bowl on the floor.

“I know my body better than either of you,” I snapped. “I’m the one who lives in it. And I say I feel good. Really good. Except for this.” I pointed at my useless arm in a sling.

“Shh, don’t move,” Force said. “It’s reading.”

My brain scan would show extensive damage. Maybe whole networks of nerves in the left side of my body would be dead. It would tell me that my heartbeat was irregular. My blood pressure would be elevated into the red zone. I was on the verge of five strokes. It would show short-circuiting in my legs, thanks to the power surge from my arm.

“Jesus!” Force whispered.

My eyes grew wide. I didn’t want to hear. DNA was on his feet. “What do we do?” he said.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Relax. Breathe, AO. You have to stay even.”

“Then don’t—”

“Force, what is it?” DNA insisted. He was standing over him, looking at his tablet.

“She’s okay,” Force said. “Her blood pressure is a little high, but aside from that, no problems with brain activity, no ruptures, everything is fine!” So somehow my heart had gone from cardiac arrest to being stabilized after I’d passed out. No damage. No nothing. Was my body adjusting to the changes in my brain?

I didn’t think before I did it. There was only one way to find out, and if I thought about it, I’d be too afraid to try. I went in to face the pomegranate of eyes.

There they were, all looking right at me, me looking at them. They heard and then showed me. When I opened my eyes, I looked at DNA, a small drop of blood falling from my nostril, and said, “The term, Fulani herdsmen, is the most searched term on the Internet right now. Second is my name. Journalists have shown up at the burned Ultimate Corp warehouse, and there are photos of the drones and soldiers I shut down. There was a dust storm not long after we left, so everything was covered with sand. The downed drones looked like forgotten artifacts, and the robot soldiers looked like dead men who’d died peacefully. And . . .” I paused to take a breath. I chuckled. Oh the irony. “And Ultimate Corp stocks are at a record high.”





CHAPTER 19


    The Market



I wasn’t the one who wanted to go to the market. DNA did. But I was all for it. We’d been in the Hour Glass for three days, and I was sinking. It wasn’t just what I’d been through, it was my conversation with Force about the role Ultimate Corp had played in me being the way I was. And it was what I was going through. I couldn’t sleep, not alone. Every time I closed my eyes, all the eyes of the AIs were there. In my sleep, I’d speak to them, and they’d think back. They’d show and take me places. Thousands of places, within moments. It wasn’t the going, it was the number of goings.

And each time I returned, DNA would be beside me, gazing at me, sitting up. Frowning. My face would be wet with tears and sweat, and he’d tell me I’d been weeping and saying over and over, “Slow, slow, slow down, slow down, slow down.” And when I was awake, when the headaches came, I wished I was asleep. Thumpa thumpa, thumpa no matter what I was doing, when they descended on me, I was to stop, sit, inhale, exhale, relax. Force’s girlfriend, Dolapo taught me how to do it. Not only was she a coder, but in her “previous life” she’d been an EMT, a high stress job that caused her to look into meditation.

“You can control your heart rate with it,” she said on the second day. Maybe DNA had said something to her, or maybe someone else had heard me sleeping. The place they lived in was practically communal, everyone sleeping in areas close to one another. There was no rain in the Hour Glass, so everyone slept out in the open beneath the restrained storm above.

We sat in a space amongst some cannabis bushes she was growing. The people in the Hour Glass smoked, ate, wove cloth with a lot of this and Dolapo had three lush and well-lit gardens growing three different strains. The plants we sat amongst were flowering and smelled like a parade of bothered skunks.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

“I don’t like to do that,” I said. “I know that sounds weird.”

She shook her head. “I understand. Force told me some of it. Sorry, I forgot.” She looked to her side. “See these plants? They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Focus on them. Their veins, the points on their leaves.”

I nodded and stared at the green hand shaped leaves.

“Take a deep breath,” she said. And then after a few seconds, “Now let it out slowly. Think only about those leaves. The number of leaves, breathe in their earthy smell. Be here. Be now.”

The eyes were still there, but there were thirty second intervals where all I actually thought about were the leaves. All I smelled was their scent. All I heard was their rustle. It was glorious, and the first time I was able to achieve this, I cried.

The day we went to the market was an hour after one of my sessions with Dolapo, and I was feeling clear. Dolapo had lent me more of her clothes and I was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt, and a white veil. She’d even given me a pair of her giant Jupiter shaped earrings after I saw them and commented that they were beautiful.