Noor(55)
When DNA asked me if I wanted to go, I wasn’t connecting things. It was only as we walked into the people and motion that I started frowning. People were looking at me, talking and pointing. But people were also greeting Force and patting me on the shoulder. I’d never been to this place and everyone seemed so friendly and welcoming. A woman selling herbs and spices gave me a necklace of fragrant smelling herbs. She’d put it over my head, her face coming so close to mine. “Welcome, AO.” She smelled of curry and the herbs she gave me smelled of mint and sage.
“Where can I get a connection?” DNA was asking Force as we moved through the crowded market. “I need to reach my family.”
“I don’t see why I can’t just—”
“No, AO,” DNA said.
“Agreed. Plus, finding a phone is easy and cheap here,” Force said. “Follow me. I know a guy.”
DNA held my hand, and I wrapped my white veil more tightly around me as we moved through the people. We passed a group of young men sitting on a car that was, for some reason, parked right in the middle of the busy market. The young men were dressed like Fulani or Hausa, but they smiled at me and called to me in Igbo, “Agu nwanyi! Agu nwanyi!” They all fell to their knees, still chanting. This actually made me laugh and my laughter was rewarded with blown kisses. This annoyed DNA, and I laughed some more.
“You didn’t believe me. They love you here,” Force said. “I told you.”
I stood behind DNA and Force as the programmer scheduled a connection for DNA with his parents. DNA was holding the tablet as the connection was made. He wasn’t focused on me. Force wasn’t focused on me. Most in the area had gotten their fill of me. The hand fell on my shoulder and in that moment, I realized I couldn’t see through any of the cameras around me. Not a cell phone, personal security camera or tablet. Nothing. I was being blinded. I was surrounded.
“What?” I turned to see who was grasping my shoulder. The grasp squeezed hard and I knew I was in trouble. I stumbled back, bumping into DNA. Someone ripped off my necklace of herbs. Then there was a wild struggle and press of bodies. Hands snatched and grabbed at me and then were pulled away. I punched and kicked and nearly went down. I couldn’t tell what the hell was happening. Then I stumbled and my body slammed against something. I heard DNA shouting for me and he sounded way too far away. Hands and bodies pressed me against the car. I caught the eye of one of the young men who’d been here when we arrived. He was wrestling with someone wearing a grinning masquerade face, except instead of wood, it was made of gold foil.
“Get on top of the car!” the young man yelled. “Get—” The masked person came at me and the young man was wrestling him again. Similar fights were breaking out all around me. I was being attacked, but people were fighting for me, too! What was it with me and markets? I twisted and grabbed at the car with my good arm. I stumbled onto the hood of the car, then onto its roof. I caught my balance and stood up straight, my white veil fluttering in the wind. When had it gotten windy? My metal feet made dents in the car’s roof but that was the least of my worries. I could see all the chaos clearly from here.
DNA was feet away, trying to shove in my direction. Men with golden masks surrounded me, except they couldn’t get past my protective perimeter of market people. And these men and women were pushing back. The wrestling was getting more intense as the gold-faced men realized they couldn’t get to me. Then I was able to see everything from above. I looked up. A drone, one I could control. I brought it down with a mere thought, turning off its camera eye. It was an Ultimate Corp drone. This was Ultimate Corp? What the fuck were they trying to do?! And how had they been able to blind me? To stop me from seeing through all the cameras?
A ripple of hot and electric rage shot through my body. All the eyes swiveled and for a moment, I felt as if I were in so many places at the same time that my rage felt a thousandfold. A millionfold. I pulled myself in. These golden faced idiots could hurt DNA. That was enough to focus my mind. I stamped my foot on the top of the car so hard that it made a deep dent. This got almost everyone’s attention. I did it again.
“HEY!!” I shouted. “Look at ME!!” I removed my white veil and pulled off the band holding my locks together. I shook out my locks so everyone could see the silver nodule in the center of my head. “See me! AO! The woman with the nerve to kill the men trying to kill her!”
The fighting continued for another minute, gold-faced people pushed and shoved at the people protecting me on all sides. One of them punched a woman in the face and as she crumbled to the ground, a man leapt at the gold-faced man who’d punched her.
I was breathing heavily now, and I could hear my heart pounding in my head, ears, chest, doing a beat that I’d never heard. Tripped up, staccato, wrong. My vision blurred, the world swimming around me—no, not swimming, blowing. The fighting at my feet was growing wilder, the car beginning to shake. I was going to faint and fall off the car. I had to breathe. Ah, there it was. Ultimate Corp couldn’t help themselves. They’d thought they had me, and they had planned to record it. That’s why that drone had been there. And maybe they’d planned to show the world the capture of the crazy insane wild woman. Arrogant. They were always so arrogant.
A pain shot down my arm. Still, I found and flew their drone directly over me in moments, then had it move down and hover a few feet in front of me. And in this moment, everything died down, the gold-faced people looking away from the drone. Those directly in its line of vision, scrambled for cover like cockroaches. I wished the drone’s camera had been panoramic. See me, I thought. Make them all see me. There was no time to push for all of Nigeria to witness all this through this camera, let alone the entire globe. However, I connected it to over half of Nigeria, all of Lagos.