The circuitous route has them in the slums of Ona-oko, where, given that it is dark, they will have to bed down for the night. Aminat can feel the distant vibration beneath her feet, the one that is not traffic, or the trains. She knows the roll-up is following Alyssa in a subterranean path, just like the homunculus is overground.
“We’ll rest here,” says Aminat. “Send that abomination away because nobody will rent us a room with it hanging around.”
They find a single room that accepts what currency Aminat still has. Alyssa showers while Aminat waits. The window is sealed and the air conditioning works, but the abomination is on the roof and keens like a forlorn puppy.
Kaaro calls, and her belly flutters.
“I love you,” she says, in lieu of “hello.”
“I love you. I’ve got a solution for your ID chip problem, but I have to conference someone in. Did I ever tell you about a guy called Bad Fish?”
“I think I’d remember a name like that.”
“Bad Fish is this tech-bandit from Lagos, a celestial.”
“What’s a celestial?”
“It’s a church, but it’s also a person who has skills with repurposed technology and post-hacking… it doesn’t matter. The fact is he can adjust your implant remotely. I have to conference him in.”
“Helloooo.” Bad Fish sounds high.
“Baby, this doesn’t sound like a good idea,” says Aminat.
“It’s fine. He won’t steal any data because he knows that I’ll know if he does, and that I know how to find him always, right, Bad Fish?”
“Of courseeeee.”
“Bad Fish, are you drunk?” asks Kaaro.
“No, and I’m sssshocked you’d think so.”
“You kind of sound like you are, Bad Fish,” says Aminat.
“That’s because I’m penetrating a space station at the sssssame time as talking to you. Overclocking, overclocked. Too many brain cycles.”
“We can call you later—” says Kaaro.
“Nonsense. I’m ready. Let’ssssss do this. Ai m’asiko lo n’damu eda.” Aminat hears tapping from the other end, like a keyboard. “I’m sending a file to your phone. Execute it. I’ll use the signal to do what I need to do. What I’ll create is an overlay identity. You’ll be able to switch back if you need to.”
It takes half an hour to do, first Aminat, then Alyssa. Later, when all is quiet and she is trying to sleep, Aminat feels a weird turn, then she is in that field, that strange place where Kaaro takes their minds for privacy. It’s night, with a full moon this time, and Bolo, the giant with dreadlocks, stands guard at the edge of the frontier as usual.
Kaaro stands in the ankle-high grass, waiting for her. That dog, Yaro, is beside him, wagging its tail maniacally.
“Lose the dog, Kaaro,” says Aminat.
The dog dissipates and they sit in the grass.
“I didn’t know you could bring animals in here.”
“In theory, I could. A dog has a brain, neurons and sense organelles on its skin that the xenoforms can connect to. But that’s not the dog. That’s present because I’ve been spending all my hours with Yaro. It’s a residual image, nothing more.”
“Okay.”
Kaaro points. “What’s that?”
It’s a discoloration in the air, a blackness, tendrils of concentrated night, alien, yet familiar to Aminat. “That’s Alyssa.”
Kaaro stares for some seconds, then grunts.
“She’s not harmful,” says Aminat.
“If you say so. Anyway, I have something to show you. Lie down.”
She does, and the sky changes from darkness interrupted by stars to a scene.
In Lagos, within a massive rubbish dump, shielded by metal placements that look random but are carefully selected, Bad Fish stands in a white kaftan with a grey helmet on his head. Wires lead from the back of the helmet to several terminals about which acolytes fuss. There are sixteen high-performance fans cooling the hardware, yet everybody sweats. Bad Fish gives a thumbs-up and the acolytes switch the thing on. The helmet lights up on the inside, a view that Aminat sees because Kaaro has put her in Bad Fish’s head. At first it seems like a profusion of numbers to Aminat, but she understands within seconds. Each person’s ID chip has a unique hardware number which it broadcasts for a short distance. Bad Fish has acquired the number for every single one on the government database and used them to create a virtual map of Nigeria, or, rather, Nigerians. He sees everyone and it makes his heart swell with pride.
He points like the conductor of a grand symphony. “COB feeds and street cameras!”
In the background hard drives strain with the effort of keeping up with the processing required. He picks out one chip hardware number and he gets all the displays currently observing the person cross-referenced with a map. A stream of data about the person scrolls down one of the screens. Bad Fish is positively orgasmic. He picks a few other random numbers and has the same effect. Then one of the machines catches fire, triggering pandemonium.
Kaaro brings her out.
“In its own way it’s like the xenosphere, or a crude facsimile. He has interesting ideas, that one.”
“He’ll get caught,” says Aminat.
Kaaro shakes his dreamlike head. “He’s too smart, too savvy, too hungry. Where are you, Aminat?”
“I’m making my way to you,” says Aminat.
“Is that a reference to the Spinners’ song?”
“Old man, you need new music.”
“We both do. There hasn’t been any good music since 1995.”
Aminat runs her hands over the grass, marvelling at how it feels real, and how it smells like all the meadows she’s ever been in. She moves closer to him and even Kaaro smells like he normally does. She brushes her lips against his neck and drops her hand in his lap.
“Are we going to—”
“We surely are.”
Afterwards, lying back in the grass, Kaaro entertains her with Northern Light Simulations.
“Have you ever seen the aurora borealis?” she asks.
“No, but the planetarium has VR that’s apparently better than the real thing. That’s where my simulation comes from.” He plays with her nipple. “What’s Alyssa Sutcliffe like?”
“She’s playing messiah to all the alien animals. I don’t quite know what to make of her.”
“Never turn your back on her.”
“I’ll be fine.”
The illusion starts to break down and images flicker.
“Kaaro, what’s—”
“There’s a storm front coming your way, it’s disrupting the xenosphere. I’ll get… and—”
Aminat finds herself back in the hotel room, in the dark, the cries of the homunculus keeping her company. Alyssa appears to be speaking to it from the window, but Aminat cannot figure this out, tired as she is, and falls into a tarry blackness.
She remembers. Or dreams, all is one.
Her first lab, where she does the first work on human–xenoform percentages, with her first crew, gathering the first batch of data. Femi sends a message: Delete data, disband team, get out and I will be in touch. Aminat follows the instructions, or is in the process of doing this, and she hesitates to delete the data because of how hard they worked to get it. Back then, the xenoforms could only be grown in a living being, the best being the liver of rats. The actual scientific team disperses fast, and Aminat goes back to work to… Well, the work is finished, but she needs to get away from Kaaro. He has just told Aminat about some affair he had with some woman in the xenosphere, Molara. It sounds disgusting, and she should have walked away, but she loves him by then. He is stupid, a shabby dresser and clueless about most things, but under the surface there is pain and beneath that, a good soul. He’s also really cute. Aminat does not need the xenosphere to tell her this. She is distracted when she goes to work, and boom.
The bomb does not cause pain at first, just a sense of disorientation and the shockwave to the ear. Instead of pain and torn flesh, Aminat feels warmth and crackling flames.
“Sister, I heard your scream,” says Layi, her brother, surrounding them both in his own alien-hybrid flame.
Between Aminat and Femi, they find those responsible, people from within S45 who are collaborators with the invaders, and they purge them. The plotters are scattered to Enugu and Kirikiri prisons. The people who planted and detonated the bomb are dead. Femi shows Aminat images of the corpses.
“I didn’t take it personally,” says Aminat.
“Then I will inflame thy noble liver and make thee rage,” Femi says. “Nobody fucks with us.”
She neglects to say who us is.
Her next assignment is to assemble a new team in a new lab, on the quiet, with as little documentation as can be managed.
She wakes with Alyssa standing over her, dressed.
“There is a problem,” says Alyssa.
“What problem?” Aminat sees that the second bed has not been slept in.
“Look out of the window.”
Aminat rubs her eyes and stumbles over to the window, even though her bladder is full and she would rather go to the toilet. Part of her brain notes that the homunculus has gone silent.
She gasps, and cannot believe what she is seeing.
There is brown water flowing through the streets, a flood, covering the first storey of most buildings. No cars in sight, probably all submerged. Some trees float by. How bad was that storm? There has never been a flood of the Yemaja in Rosewater since Aminat has lived there, and none that she has heard reported.
“Is this normal?” asks Alyssa.
“No,” says Aminat. “No, this is not normal at all.”
They access the news reports. After what is a trivial rainfall, barely an inch in some places, the Yemaja breaches its banks. Video footage pours in from people trapped in buildings, observers at a safe distance and drones. Mothers and fathers and children cling to improvised floatation devices. The fisher folk who live and work near the river use their boats and canoes to ferry the stranded. Slum-dwellers wave from rooftops. Some channels make a biblical connection, stating the timing of the flood does not augur well for the newly declared state, or that it is punishment.
“We need a boat,” says Aminat.