Ify slips beneath her bedsheet wearing a skinsuit whose warming and cooling systems can be adjusted with the press of a few buttons along her collarbone. She sets it to auto-detect mode, and it connects to her nervous system. This way, it can adjust her body temperature without her having to wake up and input a new set of commands each time she grows uncomfortable. Her hair is newly washed and collected in a wrap. Her body is clean from ablutions, and her heart is cleaned by the night’s prayers. But she doesn’t deactivate her Accent just yet.
In bed, she twirls a bead on her bracelet, and a hologram appears before her face. At first, the image shimmers with blue, then a layer of gold flashes over the strands of light that form the outlines of people in a room. Then the colors fill out, and Ify finds herself looking at the men in the observation deck.
With a thought, she’s able to dim the light of her bedroom, a single in a dormitory full of doubles and the occasional triple. But it’s not like Ify has a whole lot to decorate it with. No family ’grams or old artifacts like books made out of paper passed down through family lines. No jewelry, no clothes or decorations from older siblings. So the light from her hologram casts its colors over a nearly bare desk with a few tablets on it, some kimoyo-bead bracelets and anklets she’s been experimenting on, and several paper cranes, long since browned and crinkled by time.
However, no one else can hear the dialogue she can.
The air around them steams with their forced ease. They’re trying so hard to feel comfortable around Daren, but they’re too stiff or they’re too floppy and loose, and when they do laugh, they laugh a little too loudly.
But one of them speaks with confidence, just above a whisper, as though he were actually worried Ify might overhear, about mineral deposits and corporations. He mentions something about making Daren very wealthy, and that’s when Daren stares down the man, and Ify wonders what has happened between them that turned Daren’s mood so quickly. Then she sees it in his stance, the way his chin is held high. I am not like you, he is saying with his body, with his aura. She doesn’t have to hack his brain to know it. Not everything I do is for myself.
There is nothing new to be gained from watching them like this. It’s only an opportunity for Ify to see how well she was able to hack the nearby surveillance camera to get this downward-facing angle of the group. It also pleases her that the audio quality is as good as it is.
One of the oyinbo says: “You have a word for them, don’t you? Udene? Vultures?”
That silences the group. It is the man who spoke with confidence before. Ify remembers his vital signs being healthier than the others. He seemed fit, even though it was clear that much of his body is mechanized. His eyes are the color of ice, and his hair looks like the sun has leached all color out of it.
Daren frowns at the man and is quiet for a very long time before he says, “That is what we call them.” In the ’gram, he is utterly still, like he is tensed to leap at the man and grab him by the throat. And Ify can tell from the way everyone else waits that they are nervous he’ll do exactly that. “And I can tell you,” Daren says, taking a single step toward the man, “that you do not want to know what they call you.”
The recording freezes in that moment. Daren is inches from the man’s face. The oyinbo’s features twist just a little bit, eyes on the verge of growing wide with fear. It makes Ify proud to see that Daren has this effect on strangers.
Then her thoughts turn to images of Biafran mechs flying through the air, engaging Nigerian forces in battle. Vultures.
All of Ify’s earlier joy has evaporated. She looks at the shimmering scene before her, then, without another thought, deletes the recording. She doesn’t want to be tempted to watch it again. Her bodysuit cools her skin and regulates her heartbeat, preparing her for sleep right on schedule. But her mind won’t stop working.
It still troubles Ify to hear someone say udene and mean someone like Onyii.