Xifeng is making us all to wear clothing that is dampening our signal. When I am putting on this thing that is tight on my skin, it is like shadow is falling over the world. I am not being able to talk to my siblings. And I am not having so much information buzzing like one million mosquitoes in my brain. But it is giving me relief to be not always hearing and seeing everything that is happening around me. When I am putting on the signal-dampening suit, it is like someone is shutting down the noise in my head so I am hearing with ear like red-blood and seeing with eye like red-blood and even smelling with nose like red-blood.
“I am not liking this costume,” Oluwale is saying next to me. “I don’t like pretending to be a human.”
One of the girls hears this and laughs, and this is the mood that everyone is having as Xifeng splits us into groups and sends us out on our mission. Before we are putting on suit, Xifeng sends us a map of the facility and its grid layout. There are also markings for where there is being crabtank and ground mech and even where aerial mech is patrolling. And we are having to memorize it because we cannot be accessing it in our braincases. But every child of war is being paired with one of the red-bloods who have more practice memorizing things. Girl in combat vest and with braids that is running down her back is moving close to me. My braincase is telling me that this girl is being named Binyelum, and I am knowing that this is Igbo for stay with me. Binyelum is fighting in war but only in later half after ceasefire and she is at first being separated from her family, but after war she is not reconnecting with them because she cannot forgive the people who ruined her family’s life, the same people her family must share a neighborhood with. I am knowing these thing because of Augment that is making her eye to sometime be shining yellow, because Augment is being connected to her nervous system and other part of her body. She is connected, and she is patting me on my head like I am being her little sister.
Before we leave, Xifeng is giving us EMP and telling us where on map to go to place it, then to be moving far far from there.
And I am trying to remember this thing, even as we are going aboveground and going deep into nearby forest and climbing into our mechs and flying low over forest and abandoned countryside to Borno State, which is being far away but which we are getting to just as the sky is nighting. I am trying to remember where I am supposed to go as mech is dropping us so far from facility that it is dark shape like bug in the distance, but I am having gun in my hand, and it is feeling good to be having gun in my hand. I am seeing mech drop off other members of Xifeng’s army far from us, but it is looking like we are all arriving safe, so when Binyelum is giving the signal, we are moving forward down cliff and into valley. And when we are getting closer, Binye is pulling small container from her packet and smearing cream on my face and on hers. We are doing this to be scrambling face-recognition technology. So that if cameras are seeing our faces or Augments or mechs are seeing our faces, they are not recognizing us. Our face is looking like someone else.
We are having to rest some time because Binye is red-blood and is not having legs of metal like mine and synthetic lungs like mine. And I am waiting patiently every time. But as we are getting closer, sun is beginning to rise. We are losing time.
Then I am hearing gunfire, and I am seeing one of our mech flying overhead, too close overhead, and it is taking bullet like PINGPINGPINGPING until it is bursting into flames. I am seeing it like it is moving in slow motion, and dread is building inside me until it crashes into building with curving glass ceiling and explodes, and suddenly everywhere is gunfire and explosion. Instantly, I am feeling more at home.
“Oh no,” Binye murmurs next to me.
Suddenly, she is finding new energy and we are running. She is in front and directing me, and we are both crouching low and moving fast while ground mech is shooting in every direction. I am hearing FWOOMP and knowing from my rememberings that this grenade is coming. I am holding Binye by her belt and then tugging her to the side, and we are both falling against wall of other building just before ground where we are running before is exploding in big big cloud of dirt and fire.
I hold my hand out to her. “Give me the EMP.”
“You know where to go?” she asks me.
I nod.
“Give me your gun,” she tells me, smiling. There is blood coming down her face from wounding in her forehead, but she is smiling. “I’ll cover you.”
She jumps from shadow where we are both hiding and shoots at nearby soldier and is killing him instantly. Then she is moving forward and crabtank is turning toward her and firing big big bullet that is tearing apart the earth, and she is running fast fast until she is finding cover behind stone barrier.
“Go!” she is shouting.
And I am remembering that I am having EMP in my hands and then I am running. I am calling map up in my head, then remembering that I am wearing signal dampener. So I am trying to remember my step as I am tracing them on map. Left here, right. Down alley between big, long buildings with glass ceiling. But some thing is moved around and some of the mech are in different places because we are already attacking. And I am wishing that I could connect with my siblings so I can feel what they feel and see what they see and hear what they hear. I need to know where they are so I can be protecting.
Explosion is throwing me into the air, and I am angering because I am letting myself get distracted. When I land on the ground, something inside me is snapping but it is not paining me. I raise my hand and it is covered in oil, but EMP is gone. It is on a timed release, and if I am not getting to where I need to be in time, whole plan is failing.
I am turning and in front of me is stone barrier with dead guard draped over it and rifle hanging from his fingers. Behind me is pathway between two large building that is having special marking that I am recognizing from map. But on the other side is crabtank that is many many many times taller than me. I am glancing behind me and then hearing nothing but BUDUBUDUBUDUBUDUBUDUBUDU for long time until then I hear gun barrel rotating. Dead soldier is wearing helmet with visor, and I am quickly pulling body to me. But anytime I am making move, crabtank is shooting BUDUBUDUBUDUBUDU, but I am grabbing soldier and pulling visor off his helmet and wiping blood and soot and dirt from it so that it is shining my face back at me.
BUDUBUDUBUDUBUDUBUDU.
Stone barrier is falling apart behind me. Before long, I am having no cover.
Using helmet visor, I am seeing that EMP is halfway between me and alley that crabtank is guarding. Even though I am having gun in my hands, I am not knowing what to do because I am not moving fast enough to avoid big bullet from crabtank. Then I am seeing belt on dead soldier. Two grenades. Fast fast, I take them from the belt and activate them, then throw them over me. I hear BUDUBUDUBUDU then BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM and ground shaking and glass breaking, and then I am running and through the smoke, I am snatching EMP from the ground, but then I am hearing gun barrel rotating like crabtank is getting ready to fire, and time is slowing and smoke is clearing and gun barrel is pointing at me and I am thinking this is how I am going to be dying and, for some reason, I am closing my eyes, then I am hearing AIYEEEEEEEE.
When I am opening my eyes again, I am seeing something so strange it is making me not to be moving.
Oluwale has two metal poles stuck in the crabtank’s head and is steering it like it is shorthorn. And it is shooting all over the place while Oluwale is laughing and making battlecry with his throat, and it is strange to me that he is doing this when he is barely using his voice before. He shouts an Igbo war song as he steers the crabtank away, against its own commands so that it trips over its own legs.
I run until I get to where I know I need to go. It is intersection of paths just like any other intersection, but I am knowing this one is special because Xifeng is marking it on map. Binyelum is waiting there for me and smiling, rifle resting against her shoulder.
A skinny black obelisk stands in the center of the intersection. It glows like blue lightning is rippling under its skin. I stick EMP to it, and Binye and I run for cover behind a building. There is all the noise and katakata of warfare, then I feel the wave from all the EMPs we put on the obelisks in the facility all at once. Like when the water under Falomo Bridge is trying to be eating us. Then there is no sound at all.
That is what Xifeng is telling us to wait for. “Wait for the silence,” she is telling us before we are starting our mission. The silence of all the enemy’s machines turning off at once. So when I am hearing the silence, I am taking off my signal dampener and suddenly my brain is open again and taking in all of the information and I am even hearing my brother and sister again and some of them is whooping and cheering, even as they are binding remaining guards. It is making me happy to be hearing the sound of my family again.
In front of me and Xifeng is wall full of pods, and in each pod is being a human being. It is like this in almost all of the buildings. Their insides are being like greenhouse where sunlight and water is being made for plants.
“This is where it happens,” Xifeng is telling me.
While she is speaking, the other soldiers are going through the buildings and shutting off the pods and waking up the people that is being held in them.
“Forced cyberization.” A snarl comes onto her face. “And then they wipe out the memories.”
“Memories of the war,” I say, to myself more than to Xifeng.
Something is stirring in me. Not a good feeling but a bad feeling like dizziness and nausea and then suddenly
metal is cold and wrapping around my wrists and my feet is dangling in the air. My neck is being stiff like tree trunk or like tree branch that is skinny because it is feeling like my head is going to be falling off of it and landing on the floor. I am turning back and forth slow, but that is the only way that my body is moving. Everything is feeling dry and stiff, even the blood that is coming from my nose and gash on my head.
It is feeling like I am waking up but I am not knowing if I am dreaming or not because when I am trying to be remembering what is happening before, I am just seeing black. Static is interrupting my seeing. It is just a moment and everything is gray and twisted and then I am seeing normal again, and I am thinking that something is broken. One of my eye is being swollen shut so even though my head is being bowed I am not really seeing what is happening to my leg that is just dangling like fruit from tree.
Light is coming into room, spilling like water. And I am hearing door opening. But it is old door because it is creaking and it is squeaking and light is suddenly everywhere and I am having to be closing my eyes against it. I am waiting to be hearing hard footstep but instead it is soft like swish swish and I am knowing this is the sound of sand. There is being sand in this room where I am hanging. And I am hearing sizzling too and knowing that something is burning even if I am not smelling it, and I am knowing that I am not smelling thing because my nose is being broken. Many thing in me is broken but I am not feeling pain. And I am remembering now that the person who is walking into this room is wanting me to be feeling pain.
That is why when he is walking in he is spitting on me and telling me I am not human and that I am rubbish to be thrown into ocean. I am wondering why he is keeping me here and as I am wondering this he is holding shockstick and he is hitting me in my stomach and chest and side with it and he is hitting me so hard on my back that he is breaking the shockstick.
I am thinking that I am supposed to be feeling thing. Big man that is with the one who is hitting me is telling him is not working. And I am knowing now that I am being tortured and then I am remembering that I am what they are calling enemy combatant.
Big man is telling boy that nothing is working because I am being made to not be feeling pain. He is saying that I am special soldier, I am synth, and I am not having pain receptor in my brain and it is this that is making me not to be feeling thing even though many thing inside me is broken. Boy is telling big man okay and big man is leaving, and I am thinking that boy is going to be leaving with big man but boy is staying and I am raising my head to be seeing his face and when he is looking at me he is smiling so his teeth are shining yellow like corn they are selling by the street, and I am seeing the way hair is over his face and the way the skin on his knuckles is broken, and I am seeing the vest he is wearing and the patches and I am knowing that he is soldier too and that he is with what I am knowing is a militia and they are small small army but they are killing just like soldier. And boy is looking at me like I am something to be eating, and then he is reaching behind him and pulling cord from his neck and he is walking close to me and he is putting cord in my neck and suddenly I am feeling everything. I am feeling the breaking in my ribs and in my back and in my crotch and in my arms and in my head, and he is smiling at me and saying now I will be feeling these thing and he is raising his stick and I
am waking up in Xifeng’s arms, and she is whispering to me in Taishanese. It is taking me several second to be remembering where I am and what is happening, but then I am remembering raid and EMP and gunfight and red-bloods in pods, and I am relaxing in Xifeng’s arms. But part of me is still not wanting to see her, so I am pushing myself to my feet and walking fast away from her and not caring where I am going until I am seeing Uzodinma in other room staring at what is looking like empty hospital bed in room of hospital beds. Bed is half-covered by cylindrical device, and I am knowing that this is being use to scan brains and braincases, and all the bed here is being like this, except that Uzodinma is standing at one bed in particular.
We are synths. He is telling me this and showing me hospital bed. Two bed. The one he is waking up in and the one he is looking at now, and he is showing me that they are the same. This is where they are making me.
When he is turning to face me, he is limping because I am seeing that one leg is standing badly. He is not showing pain on his face, but he is moving slowly and I am seeing that this is making him to be angering. Is not good for child of war to be moving slowly. That is how child of war is getting bullet or getting chopped.
I think I am expecting Uzodinma to be sadding, but his eye is not sadding. We were created. We were never born.
“What color is this remembering?” I am asking him. I do not know why it is important for me to be using my red-blood voice, but I am wanting him to hear me like we are both being red-blood. “Is it blue? Red?” Maybe if he is having rememberings like I am having rememberings, he is knowing that some of them is belonging to someone else.
You are wanting to tell me that you are having mother once and she is loving you. He does not sound like my friend when he is saying this. He is sounding like someone who is not caring if I am being happy or sad. But I watch you fumble through your mind, trying to hold the right rememberings in your hands. They are still a mess in your head, no matter how you are sorting them. Scattered like pieces of metal on the shoreline beneath a bridge. You are looking for a woman and calling her Mother and seeing woman after woman after woman, but none of them have a face like yours. None of the women in your rememberings have done for you what you expect mothers to do. Because we never had mothers.
When he is saying we never had mothers, he is also saying we are never having mothers.
But it is a lie, because when I am waking up from nightmare-remembering, Xifeng is holding me and talking to me softly and with love. And she is waiting for me in the other room. And I am calling her Mother.
In the mech, on the way home, Xifeng looks out the window. And I sit across from her. The other synths downloaded the memories from the external hard drives at the facility, the ones the government and the Chinese were preparing to eliminate upon completion of the mass cyberization, but Xifeng says that I don’t have to. I think she is worried about me.
“What am I?” I ask her.
When she is looking at me, there is many thing in her eye and I am not wanting to sit in her silence, so I talk some more.
“Uzodinma is telling me that all child of war are being made in factory all over Nigeria. That we are machine and that they give us false memories that are belonging to other people. But I do not feel like machine.” I am looking at my hands, because I am too scared and too angry to look at Xifeng’s face. “I want him to be lying. But I know he is not lying. I am wanting him to shake me and I am wanting him to tell me I am right too and I am wanting all of these thing because it is easier to be pushing against him than to be sitting inside the doubt that is squeezing the air out of my lungs. If I am being made in factory, then why am I feeling this way? I am not robot! I am not android like Enyemaka! I am not simple machine! I am not machine. I am not machine.” I’m crying.
“You are not a machine.”
I am looking up from my hands when I am hearing Xifeng’s voice. She is not smiling, but there are many thing happening on her face. Happiness, anger, sorrow, joy, regret. All of these thing is happening at once in her face.
“You’re not a machine, but you’re not human.”
“We are something between these thing?”
For a long time, Xifeng is saying nothing, and I am only hearing the wind blowing by our mech as we fly over the forest trees. Then, she says, in Taishanese, “You are my daughter.”
And it is calming the questions in my heart to be hearing this.