Kwame Imani Afolayan gasped as the darkness enveloped him, separating him from his own body. It was an unnatural sensation, to be unable to access any of one’s own senses. But Kwame did not feel fear. Instead, his body filled with serenity and peace. Time stood still, and Kwame could sense only his own strength.
Stronger than any man on the face of the planet, Kwame could lift a car with the same effort that most men spent lifting a can of beer. He was powerful. He was virile.
And he was dying.
As Kwame’s senses slowly returned, the stars above seemed to burst into existence. He felt a cool tingle running down his spine as his custom painkillers wormed their way through his system.
He lay on the grass behind his private study, thousands of miles from the African village of his birth. Kwame took one last moment to relish the sensation of his body on the cool ground, clawing the blades of grass between his fingers as if he were trying to hold hands with the Earth itself.
Although the narcotic had temporarily stopped his pain, the agonizing buzz inside his head returned as strong as ever, and he realized that nothing had changed. He was still going to die.
Kwame only allowed himself a brief moment of pity before he returned to his laboratory. The counters were filled with intricate arrays of tubing and refining equipment. He took a close look at the small drops of orange liquid that had accumulated at the bottom of his decanter.
His curly, orange hair was a side effect of the liquid, but it was small price to pay for a prolonged life. Every day he stayed alive brought him a day closer to finding a cure. If this did not work, then he would have to admit to himself that there were no more experiments to perform, no more calculations to do, no more chemicals to research…nothing to do except to wait for the inevitable day to come.
Unlike countries where scientific knowledge was revered, his native country of Bughanum only respected those who fought, plowed, or mined. Kwame’s left leg had been severely injured at birth, and he walked with a limp. His leg ensured that he would never fight or plow or mine, which, in the eyes of Bughanum, made him worthless.
Living near the borders of Bughanum allowed a certain amount of freedom, but even there, he could not escape ridicule. He once asked his father for a cane to help him walk, but his father knew that if Kwame ever allowed his bad leg to define him, he would end up in a shantytown, begging for food.
Kwame graduated from high school shortly before his sixteenth birthday, which marked the Bughanum ascension to manhood. Every able-bodied male was required to join the military for a six-year term after graduation. A few stayed on after their mandatory term, but most used their meager military pay to purchase materials for a small home or a few cattle after their conscription ended.
For Kwame’s ascension ceremony, his father took him to a remote hill. He handed Kwame a piece of smoked meat and told him to sit. For a few minutes, everything was silent as Kwame chewed on the meat and looked down on his village. The only lights that existed were in the rich part of town, where they could afford electricity. Tonight, they had turned on all of their lights. Kwame could barely see the lanterns glinting from his area of town, even though it was closer.
“What do you see?” his father finally asked.
“The celebration of manhood. The future of our village.”
“What do you see about your own future?”
“The fates have looked down on me,” Kwame said. “My future is full of sorrow.”
“You are wrong. You have been given a rare gift.”
“How can you say this? I have nothing,” Kwame replied bitterly. “I cannot join the military, and no one will hire a cripple.”
“You are more than your leg,” his father reminded him, as he had done many times in the past. “Your mind is strong.”
“My mind will not help me march, or defend our great nation.”
“Do you see the boys in the northern district? Do you see their lights? If you listen, you can hear their cheers.”
Of course he heard the cheers. Kwame envied the raw victory erupting from their throats and his father’s words puzzled him.
“How does that — ” Kwame began to ask, but his father interrupted him.
“You may be crippled, but they are blind. I look at these boys and only see a celebration of death. Their lives are over, Kwame. They are merely residing in the bodies as they do what their kind has always done. They will join the military. Some will die, and some will return home and father children. Those children will repeat the same meaningless cycle.”
“I do not understand.”
“Even though you are eldest, I cannot give you the farm and for that, my heart is heavy.”
“Dakari will be a good farmer.”
“Your young brother is a good worker, but I have not forgotten you, Kwame,” his father said, handing him an envelope. “I cannot guarantee you success or happiness in this world, but I have saved enough money to give you a chance. Inside the envelope, you will find money and the address of a friend in the capital. You will do chores for his household and in return, he will allow you to continue your studies at the college.”
“I would rather beg at the gates than leave our tribe,” Kwame said, spitting.
His father slapped him hard enough to knock Kwame to the ground.
“That is what others have taught you to say! Your mind will take you as far as you dare to reach.”
Kwame did as his father instructed, and moved to Bouro, the capital city. He finished college at the top of his class. The others in his class who had been raised in privilege did not realize the advantages they had been given. They treated their fancy clothes and their decadent meals as a normal way of life, but Kwame remembered how hard life had been in his tribe. Others took time off to drink or socialize, but Kwame worked hard in every class, studying until he knew the material better than his professors.
His father had been right; Kwame’s keen intellect allowed him to sail through his classes. The thing he liked best about college was the library. Though every book in the library had to be translated by hand into the native Bughanum tongue, Kwame had never seen so many books in his life.
He found one particular book captivating. It was a red book with a white circle and a large X in the middle called My Struggle. Like most foreign reading material, it was poorly translated from the original tongue, but Kwame was fascinated with its premise. In the pages of this book, Kwame learned that the black race was the true master race, and only through a culling of the lesser races, could they take their rightful place at the top of the evolutionary ladder.
The Strong Man is Mightiest Alone, it said.
Kwame could see himself in the book. Like the author, he was poor and weak, but became strong through his commitment to mental excellence. Kwame studied the apparent paradox and refined it into a philosophy he called “Weak Power.” He took the white circle and black X as his own.
But after Kwame graduated, men from the military took him to the palace of the Dictator Overlord for Life, Musobote. After the most recent clan war, Musobote had consolidated the power and wealth of all six clans. He had personally slaughtered the leader of Kwame’s home clan, and appointed his spineless son as a puppet ruler.
Musobote leaned back in his luxurious sofa throne, a fat, disgusting, human slug dressed in a red suit with white trimming.
Kwame tried to hide his revulsion as he was forced to kneel.
“Congratulations on your scholastic achievements,” Musobote said, slaver dripping down into his many chins. “My scientists tell me that you are quite knowledgeable.”
“I have tried my best, Overlord,” Kwame said.
“The great nation of Bughanum has need of your talents. My cousin Rafeeta has developed a brain tumor. My doctors say that he has no chance of survival.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” Kwame replied, hoping they would all die in agonizing pain.
“You shall heal him,” Musobote said with a smile.
“I?” Kwame asked, confused. “But I am not a doctor.”
Musobote clapped his thick hands together and two men were led from a back chamber. Kwame recognized one of the men; he had been a professor in Kwame’s college. Both men had obviously been starved and beaten.
“Doctor Okeke said that you were his most promising student.”
“Overlord Musobote, I am a student of biology and chemistry. I am not a doctor.”
“That is the good part,” Musobote said, his fat neck jiggling. “Doctor Okeke said that chemistry is what is needed to save Rafeeta. Surely you wish to help him live?”
“If it was within my power, I…”
Musobote leaned forward and stopped smiling.
“I have put it within your power!” he snapped. “You and the doctors shall heal Rafeeta and I shall line your pockets with gold!”
Musobote waved them away and the guards escorted Kwame to a small laboratory located on the palace grounds. Kwame looked around. They had already moved all of his meager possessions there.
“You cannot explain science to that brute,” Doctor Okeke said. “We just have to do what he says.”
“But I know nothing of treating cancer!” Kwame replied.
Doctor Okeke spent the next few hours explaining the experiments they had secretly been conducting on the less fortunate members of Bughanum society. Kwame fumed. The professor who had lectured him about the morality of medicine in college had been practicing chemical witchcraft on the homeless.
When Rafeeta came to the lab, Kwame hated him immediately. He shared Musobote’s arrogance, his cruelty, and his stupidity. In that moment, Kwame decided that he would kill Rafeeta — but he had to hide his intentions behind plausible science.
Then he remembered a scientific paper that discussed the combination of adrenaline and radioactive matter effect on the human immune system. Kwame wrote a detailed report, filled with just enough scientific jargon to sound impressive. The report concluded that if a subject was treated with a specific chemical cocktail, and a radioisotope of iridium was placed in a certain part of the brain, it would supercharge the body’s adrenaline, causing the subject’s body to fight the cancer cells.
The other scientists had worked for Musobote long enough to have any remnants of medical honor beaten out of them. Despite the fact that Kwame’s report was based on pure guesswork and jargon, they all signed his paper.
Rafeeta was given a ten-day treatment of chemicals and had gained enough strength that on the day of his operation, he swore to personally kill the scientists if he did not come back in perfect health.
Doctor Okeke placed iridium isotopes in the parts of the brain that Kwame had indicated. Then Kwame injected the man with enough chemical barriers to block neural activity. He hoped that it would cause a slow and excruciatingly painful death.
Yet, miraculously, Rafeeta survived the operation. When Rafeeta awakened, Kwame was amazed at the results: the cancer cells had indeed retreated. Rafeeta’s body was recovering, and was stronger than ever.
Musobote rewarded Kwame’s success with a permanent seat on the Bughanum scientific council.
A few days after his treatment, Rafeeta began killing his personal guards. The men, who were trained soldiers, were no match for the frenzied, adrenaline-fueled Rafeeta. He tore their arms from their shoulder sockets, crushed their skulls with his bare hands, and stormed towards the throne room, propelled by blind fury.
When he reached the throne room, Musobote ordered his guards to shoot him. At first, Musobote was afraid for his life, as the bullets did not seem to slow Rafeeta down. But before he could reach the throne, Rafeeta collapsed to the floor in a growing pool of his own blood. Rafeeta grabbed his ears and began wailing. Musobote walked up to him and placed several bullets in his head. He immediately called for Kwame to be brought to the throne.
Kwame stood outside the throne room, knowing that Musobote would most likely shoot him for killing his cousin, but he still smiled. At least he had taken one of them with him.
The doors swung open and Kwame was led to the throne. Musobote staggered down the steps of the throne and Kwame knelt before him. He closed his eyes, awaiting the shot, but only heard hearty laughter as Musobote placed a wreath around his neck.
“For your feats of scientific genius, I am promoting you to Chief Scientist of all Bughanum!” Musobote cheered. “Together, we will build an army of Rafeetas! No one shall be able to stand up to our military might!”
Kwame was confused.
“But Rafeeta…”
“Rafeeta was sick. I want you to fix whatever went wrong with his treatment, and give it to my soldiers. My army shall be unstoppable!”
Over the next two months, Kwame tried to perfect the formula, but was limited by their ancient equipment. Doctor Okeke had refined the formula so the side effects were minimal, but Musobote grew impatient for his army. He gave them one month to produce a soldier.
Kwame knew that the one-month window was his one chance at freedom. He and the other scientists studied Kwame’s formula until they discovered the intricacies of how it worked, and what had caused Rafeeta’s emotional instability.
Kwame and Doctor Okeke used the deadline to plan their escape. They explained that since Bughanum was under international sanctions, they did not have the necessary equipment to finalize their work. Doctor Okeke said that they needed to fly to Egypt to obtain more advanced equipment. Musobote reluctantly agreed to grant both men diplomatic status, and allowed them to travel abroad to obtain whatever supplies they deemed necessary.
They were to purchase what they needed and return. Musobote ordered more scientists to help them, but Doctor Okeke suspected that they were informants. Kwame realized that their last chance of freedom would require taking extreme measures, so he asked Doctor Okeke to begin injecting him with the chemicals.
Soon, his hair began to take on an orange hue, but he grew stronger by the day.
The night before their trip, one of the new scientists overheard Doctor Okeke. Kwame was shocked when Doctor Okeke broke the man’s neck and shoved him into a maintenance closet.
“We just need one more day,” Doctor Okeke said.
Doctor Okeke injected Kwame with the most recent formula, and that night, inserted the most powerful sliver of iridium they had into his brain. Live or die, they would be free from Musobote’s reach.
The next morning, Kwame awoke with a thick feeling in his lungs. He was confused and in pain. It took him a moment to realize that Doctor Okeke was leading him to Musobote’s private aircraft hangar.
“One of the scientists found you on the operating table. I tried to stop him, but he ran to notify Musobote,” Doctor Okeke said. “We have to steal his plane.”
“I do not know how to fly,” Kwame said, still stunned.
“Musobote has a pilot on standby. Listen to me. There are two armed guards in the next hallway. You will need to kill them if we are to escape.”
Kwame did not feel like running, much less fighting, but he would do whatever he had to in order to escape.
The guards were confused to see two scientists coming down the hall. There were no ordered flights for the day.
“Halt,” one of them said, raising his rifle. “Why are you here?”
“Don’t you recognize our Chief Scientist?” Doctor Okeke asked, motioning toward Kwame, who did his best to stand up straight. The guards stared at his bright orange hair.
“Overlord Musobote wishes for him to diagnose his plane.”
The guard lowered his rifle. That was all the opportunity Kwame needed. He tore the rifle from the guard’s hands and it snapped in half with a loud crack. The guard screamed as Kwame grabbed him, and though the man was easily ten inches taller than Kwame, he could not escape the steely fingers that hurled him through the wall.
The other guard lifted his rifle, but as Kwame caught his breath, he felt life flow through his veins. It was fire and electricity and power. Kwame attacked the other guard before he had a chance to fire. He felt no pity as he beat the man to death with his own rifle.
“We must hurry!” Doctor Okeke shouted. For a moment, the rush of power overwhelmed Kwame. He could only think of killing Musobote, but Doctor Okeke’s voice returned him to their mission. Kwame started running, and he whooped with joy when he realized that his crippled leg was now perfectly functional. Doctor Okeke opened the door to the tarmac, and the pair entered Overlord Musobote’s plane.
It was well known among the palace elite that Musobote’s plane was always ready to leave in case of an insurrection. It was placed away from airspace defenses so his own people could not shoot him down. As he sat in the large recliner that was a duplicate of Musobote’s throne, Kwame discovered a large briefcase stuffed with American dollars.
Kwame gave the pilot a stack of bills to fly them to Egypt. Their status as diplomats allowed them to bypass security, but Kwame knew they would not be safe anywhere in the region.
From the airport in Cairo, Kwame chose to fly to America, far outside the reach of Bughanum justice. Upon reaching American soil, Kwame applied for political asylum, safely depositing his money in a bank.
Doctor Okeke had stayed in Cairo for an extra day. He wanted to “see the sights,” he said.
The last sight he saw was a man pointing a gun in his face. “The Overlord sends his regards,” the man said, before pulling the trigger.