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Biram Mboob
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Finally, the Word was spreading. On an otherwise unremarkable morning in December, the very first pilgrims approached the stronghold at Kivu in the Congo.
Dora Neza was pulling her dying father on a hydraulic-steam litter. He lay motionless, his face a skeletal grimace, his skin a thinly congealed wax. She had pulled him for several days through forest thicket and marsh. In the dark and at the dawn he would rouse from his litter and cry out to her sharply. He would croak at her in the strange tongues of the void. Her reply to him was always the same, “We are nearly there Baba. Nearly there”.
They approached the high, metal wall of the Nyungwe forest reserve. The wall stood twelve feet tall, featureless, alien, white morning mist roiling along its base like a trapped cloud. Dora observed the wall for a few minutes and then retreated from it. She found a nearby break in the thicket, set the litter down, and waited. She listened to the tortured breathing of her sleeping Baba, the warble and keen of a solitary hornbill, the rustle and bell of the early breeze. She waited. The Earth turned, bathing the glade about her with the muted lights of the morning sun.
More than an hour passed before the wall opened. A large metal panel creaked and then slid away. In the wall’s new maw stood three Knights. They wore green armour, black crosses chiselled on their tabards. Heavy machetes hung from their waists in leather scabbards, rifles slung over their shoulders. It took a few moments for Dora to notice that there was a fourth figure, a giant zumbi lingering behind the Knights. At the sight of it, she scrambled to her feet, terror swelling in her like the tide. The zumbi wore nothing but a pair of transparent shorts, the attire of diamond miners and low domestics. It stopped a few paces outside the wall, motionless, its manner somehow both limp and tense at the same time, its flat gaze fixated on some distant point beyond the glade.
“Unataka nini?” one of the Knights asked her, the largest of the three.
She began to reply, but the one who had spoken shoved her roughly. She realised he wanted no reply, so stayed silent while he admonished her for evading their checkpoints. From somewhere in the canopy, the hornbill sang its warble song one final time before rustling into flight.
The Knights lifted her sick Baba up to his feet and let him fall to the ground. They used their machetes to hack apart her litter and examined its innards, pistons, and joints. When their inspection was over, the largest Knight walked over to the zumbi and slapped it twice on the back of its head while pointing at her Baba. The zumbi gathered him up from the ground and easily slung him over its huge shoulder. The Knights walked through the opening in the wall, followed by the zumbi. Dora waited a few moments, and followed them through. The wall closed behind them, the scattered remnants of the litter contraption left outside like the metal bones of some unimaginable feast.
They walked through a forest, whose coppice grew thicker and it got darker as they walked. Then the forest trail widened, turning into a path. They soon began to walk past forest mahemas—camouflaged green canvas tents—among the trees. They began to encounter men and women along the path, some holding rifles, others holding axes and tools. Some were dressed in the foliage-like rags of forest dwellers, others in green ceremonial robes. Overhead in the arboreal, silvered arrays and antennae jutted into the sky. There were other machines parked between the trees: tri-wheeled jungle vifaru tanks, missile launchers, skyward pointing rail cannons.
They entered a large clearing. The biggest Knight turned to her, “Fuata,” he said, pointing at the giant mahema that stood at the clearing’s centre. Unlike the other mahemas it was the size of a circus marquee, glossy white, with antennae and arrays protruding from its roof. A large wooden cross was planted before it alongside two armed sentries. The Knight slapped the zumbi on its broad shoulder blade and pointed at the mahema entrance, making it advance between the sentries and disappear inside. Dora followed.
Her eyes took a few moments to adjust to the darkness. The zumbi had deposited her father on the ground and retreated to the recesses of the tent. She looked around. A well-appointed leather suite, a plush carpet pile, and judging from the cooler air some form of air-conditioning mechanism. There were perhaps a dozen men in the mahema, some standing, others sitting. However, it was immediately obvious to Dora who among them was the Redeemer. He sat in an armchair at the focal point of the room. A tall man, muscled, stout, a warrior’s build, not much older than thirty, but bald and hairless, except for a long beard. His face was oblong, severe, and he wore the stiffly contemplative frown of a man still settling into his role at the apex. Casually dressed in a simple white robe, his legs were crossed and displaying a pair of badly scarred knees.
Dora assumed that they had arrived at the conclusion of some disciplinary hearing, for a sobbing man lay prostrate before the Redeemer. Two sentries lifted the shuddering wretch by the arms and dragged him outside.
After the sentries left, the men in the mahema turned their attention to her. The Redeemer stared at her while the Knight who had spoken outside whispered something into his ear. She gazed evenly at him in return, her hands clasped behind her back. Despite the heat, she still had her orange kanga draped over her shoulders. Underneath she was wearing a ragged T-shirt and faded denims.
“Where are you from?” The Redeemer asked.
“From Cyangugu,” she replied.
He nodded amiably. “That’s a hard road that you’ve travelled. How did you know where to find us?”
“Everyone knows you are here. Everyone is talking about you.”
“And what do they say about me?”
She kept her gaze on him as she spoke, “That you are Yesu. The Christ returned.”
The Redeemer pursed his lips, as if hearing this for the first time. “What is your name?” he asked.
“Dora,” she replied. “My father’s name is Michael.”
“Dora,” he repeated. “What else do they say about me?”
“They say you have cured the blind and brought dead men to life. Before he stopped speaking my father told me that he saw you perform miracles in Ituri. He saw you summon fire from the sky with your finger. He saw you kill a hundred PLA without moving from where you stood.”
The Redeemer nodded and smiled, pleased. He turned and glanced at one of the men seated near him.
A much older man wearing a Knight’s uniform said with a smile, “The Word spreads.”
The Redeemer turned back to her. “Tell me,” he asked. “What name do I go by in your town?”
“Schwarzenegger,” she said.
He frowned. “That was my war name,” he said. “When you return to the town you will tell your people my true name. You will tell them that my name is Gideon. You will tell them that I am the Word made flesh.”
Dora looked down at her Baba, who was lying still on the floor.
“Don’t worry about your father,” the Redeemer continued. “He will be made whole again. I will cure him. Does he hold faith in the Trinity?”
“Yes,” she said, “he does.”
“Then his faith will be rewarded. His faith in me will make him whole.”
“PLA spies,” Musa Kun said. “I guarantee it.” The older man was Gideon’s second in command, a trusted counsellor, and a thin shuffling man with a protruding jaw that gave him a deceptively gormless appearance. Musa set down his papers and stood up from his chair. He prodded Michael with his foot, making the stricken man groan. “Did you see her shoes?” he asked. “Nice boots like that?”
“I did,” Gideon said. He looked down at Michael, observing his features, a man nearing sixty with grey temples and a painfully thin face. Beads of sweat ridged his forehead occasionally sliding down his nose. “They aren’t spies. You wouldn’t make a spy of a dying man.”
Gideon stood up, bent down and touched the man’s forehead. He could have been dying of any number of infections; there was no way to be certain. The superbugs evolved quickly enough that there was almost no point trying to catalogue them.
“We should still be careful though,” Musa Kun said. “He might not be a spy, but the girl could be.”
Gideon shrugged. The girl, Dora, was admittedly, a different matter. She might be employed to penetrate the camp, the sick old man merely a prop for her deception. But there were many reasons why he doubted this, the main one being that it wasn’t the way the PLA usually worked—spending time on a subtle and elaborate ruse like this. The girl could do no serious damage on her own and if all they wanted was reconnaissance of his camp then they could have just flown one of their more expensive machines over the forest, something impervious to the rail cannons. However, perhaps things had changed since Ituri. Perhaps the kindoro were beginning to take him seriously. Perhaps they were beginning to understand.
A fortnight ago, Gideon dreamt of the final Uhuru. In his dream, he had cast down these forests and in their place raised up a towering city of cathedrals and spires. The dried Lake Kivu refilled again with crystal sweet waters. A bugle call had blown, shattering mountains. A winged doom had flown to his enemies. Before his very eyes, the towers of the Beijing Metropole crumbled to dust and salt; squadrons of PLA soldiers smote by lightning and swallowed up by the earth. The remaining kindoro knelt at his feet. They begged forgiveness, renouncing their pagan gods as the Israelites afore Moses on the mount. He had then turned his mind unto the new country. His new kingdom had stretched far and wide. He had built his church on the peak of the Kilimanjaro and there on the peak of the Oibor he had sat on a throne of white gypsum and bronze. Beside him, there had been a woman with golden braids in her hair, sitting as stiff and regal as an Abyssinian queen. As he recalled it now in his waking mind, he thought he saw Dora’s face there. Was it? Had he been having premonitions again? Or had it been the face of some other woman, as yet unknown to him? He pinched his forehead, the clarity of the vision dangling just out of reach, tormenting and maddening. He shook his head clear and made his decision.
“I am going to heal this man,” he said. “I will heal him and he will return to his town. They have heard about what happened at Ituri. Now they will hear of miracles too. The Ministry will grow. How else the Word?”
“How else the Word,” Musa Kun echoed.
“Leave me with him,” Gideon said. “And send for my cameraman.”
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Musa Kun stepped outside the mahema into the iron-forge of early afternoon. There had been a time when even he had doubted the Redeemer. But that was before he had seen Gideon walking straight through PLA divisions, making their guns fall silent with a wave of his hand, turning their hot bullets into harmless puffs of vapour and steam.
There were two sentries standing outside the tent. He sent one of them to find the cameraman and then approached the thatched lean-to that Dora was sitting under. Alongside her were a small group of shackled workers, new captures from the forest. She stood up expectantly as he approached. Musa Kun eyed the good boots he had noticed earlier, military grade Kevlar with steel toes. He smiled and stretched out his hand. She shook it. Her palms were soft, pampered. He noticed a pale outline on her wrist, some watch or navigation device that she had taken off or lost before arriving. The girl was a spy. He was almost certain of it.
“You avoided every man we have on the Kivu road,” Musa Kun said, “and from what I hear you came straight to a hidden gate on the wall. I’m going to have a few questions for you. I’ll want to know who has been giving you information”.
“And who are you?” she asked, without pause.
“I’ll be asking the questions here. This is my camp.”
Her eyes flicked over to the entrance of the large white mahema.
“Don’t confuse yourself,” Musa Kun said wearily. “He is the boss, but I run this camp. And when he’s lost interest in you and your father, I’m still going to have questions for you.”
“We can talk now if you want,” she said with a shrug.
A sudden urge to seize her by the braids gripped Musa Kun, to teach her a lesson in respect. Instead, he smiled at her stiffly. “I expect you didn’t bring any supplies with you?” he asked.
“I didn’t know how long this was going to take.”
“It will take as long as it takes.”
“I have money,” she added.
“Money? Marvellous.” He pointed away from the clearing to the nearby tree-line. “If you head around there you will find we have quite a number of shops. You can take your pick. Anything you need.”
Dora glared at him. Musa Kun didn’t give her a chance to reply. He waved the remaining sentry over, “When he’s finished with the old man set them up in a tent on the workers’ row. Mark them down for worker rations only. Unless our princess volunteers to put in some work for a little bit more.”
The sentry leered at her. Dora pulled her kanga about her more tightly. One of the shackled slave women started wailing, soon followed by another, their words in an obscure forest language soon to be lost.
The cameraman arrived at that moment, a tripod slung over his shoulder. Musa Kun gestured at the mahema. “Go in,” he said. “Boss wants you.” The cameraman went inside. Musa Kun turned his attention back to the girl. Dora was still standing with her kanga drawn about her upper body like a cloak, her glance, suspicious now, flittering between Musa Kun and the sentry.
“We will have a reward for you,” she said.
Musa Kun waved at her dismissively. “We have enough money to buy that hole of a town of yours ten times over. The Lord’s work won’t need recompense from the likes of you. When you return to your town, you will tell them that freely ye received from God the Son.”
“Our reward for the Redeemer is more than money,” she said.
He eyed her again and frowned. Some elaborate trick she wanted to set in motion perhaps. There was no sense alerting her to his suspicions now though. “We’ll see about that,” he said. He turned away from her and faced the sentry standing outside the mahema. “And you. Either find a way to shut those workers up or move them somewhere else.” He began to walk away.
“Wait,” Dora said. “I want to speak to you.”
“Later,” Musa Kun said, not slowing down.
“We need to talk now. I want to make a deal.”
“We have no need of deals, princess.”
“My father has information from Bujumbura.”
Musa Kun paused. He did not turn, but a twirl of his hand invited her to go on.
“A kindoro is being held hostage there,” she continued. “The PLA are offering a reward for him. My father knows where he is.
Musa took his time turning around. When he did he was smiling. “I think that you are right,” he said. “I think we do need to talk now.”
“Our price is the Redeemer’s cure and safe passage,” she said. “Then my father will tell you everything he knows.”
“What is wrong with this man?” the cameraman asked, standing uncertainly in the fore of the mahema.
“Stop being such a coward,” Gideon said. He gestured at the camera impatiently. The cameraman stepped forward and quickly set up his tripod.
“Mark this then,” Gideon said, looking into the camera. “This man you see lying here has been stricken with the bacteria. There is no earthly medicine that can help him. But for those who revere my name, I will take from thee all sickness.”
Gideon knelt down beside Michael. He placed his hand on the dying man’s forehead and he began to pray. It was not long before the Holy Spirit overwhelmed him. Tears came unbidden as he prayed and he no longer seemed conscious of the cameraman standing over him. Overtaken by The Tongue he began to babble. He rocked back and forth, tears streaming down his face at the glory. The mahema seemed to dim about him. A quickening of light shone from afar, some distant lantern. The numinous washed over him, stopping his heart momentarily, covering his body in goose-pimples. He swooned, shivered, and lost his Earthly consciousness, collapsing on top of Michael, convulsing, his spirit spent.
Two years ago, not long after the end of The Emergency, the Legion had been on the move, running short of supplies and morale. The Holy Ghost whispered to Gideon then, as it had done since. It whispered to him of a well-stocked PLA airship anchored in Arusha. It told him how to shoot it down without damaging its cargo bay. At great risk, he moved a large contingent of Knights to Arusha and found the airship exactly where the Holy Spirit said. A bolt to the tail and rail cannon shot to the Hull had sunk it to the ground, shedding its bounty upon them like manna. Amongst the food and munitions, he had found many strange medicines, all of which he had personally commandeered.
After the cameraman left, Gideon went to his personal store and removed a large plastic packet. He tore it open and removed a syringe filled with a thin black serum. There was a guidance leaflet wrapped around it. He unfolded the paper. On the one side was a single Mandarin character, on the other, much tiny writing. He read the paper slowly and carefully for a long time. Learning to read the language of the kindoro was the hardest thing that he had ever done in his life, but also perhaps one of the most fruitful.
The microzymic therapy was experimental. The paper said that it was to be used with extreme caution, as a last resort and only on low profile subjects. All results were to be reported through Medical Counsel Gateway Node 78. Gideon knelt down. Following the practical instructions carefully, he injected Michael in the neck with the syringe. After a few moments, the man shuddered, as if in the grip of some nightmare. Whatever infection he had would very likely be cleared out in the next few weeks. But the therapy was liable to be much worse than the disease. Man had squandered the Lord’s gift of antibiotics and now resorted to these worthless poisons. The microzymic therapy was their latest creation. If the kindoro paper Gideon had read was accurate, then it was an attempt that was already doomed to failure. The cellular hyper-reaction that killed the infection would also tear down the essential fabric of all internal organs in a few years. But in those years, Michael Neza would have plenty of time to return to his home and spread the good news. The Ministry would grow. Gideon called out to his sentry and had Michael removed.
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Six nights later, Gideon found himself in a dream he had never had before. He dreamt that the sea was on fire. Jet-black pterodactyls circled overhead, their reptile eyes fixed upon him like murder. He stood barefoot in green robes, cinder-black sand beneath his feet. There was a noxious hot breeze, and in the sky, the low pulsing embers of a dying sun. A black leviathan breached the burning water and roared.
He woke up with a start. It was nearly dawn. A black PLA banshee streaked across the sky, then a moment later a sonic boom erupted. The zumbi sleeping beside him woke up and began to make a desperate low keening.
“Be quiet,” Gideon muttered, wiping the night’s detritus from his face. He had slept badly. He did not like it here. There were no trees, no canopy, only the holes of the uprooted, as if a mob of giants had picnicked here and plucked them out by the trunks to use as toothpicks. They were in the abandoned rare earth fields that had encroached their way up to the very borders of Bujumbura. Huge mounds of red earth littered the Mars-like landscape about them. The old style mines were large craters in the ground, the largest of them stretching miles wide and miles deep. Slaves had dug these with bare hands and baskets. The by-products of their work were these new red mountains, the bowels of the Earth laid bare. The newer mines were deep straight shafts, machine-bored. The work of mining had cultured a certain strain of sadism in the hearts of men. As part of some intricate game, the miners had covered many of these deep holes with well-disguised sheeting. It would be easy to miss one and fall in. To be on the safe side Gideon had made the zumbi walk ahead and he followed behind in the creature’s footsteps. Thankfully, the rare earth fields were beginning to thin out. He could already make out Bujumbura, its revolving rampart machines wheeling slowly on the horizon.
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It was six nights ago that Musa Kun had burst into Gideon’s mahema with the news.
“For this, it might be worth taking the city,” Musa Kun said. “I’ve spoken to our man there. He says an entire PLA division was wandering the streets a couple of weeks ago checking door to door. They’re handing out pictures of the missing kindoro, offering ten thousand Yuan for information on his whereabouts.”
“And our man didn’t think to inform us?” Gideon asked.
“Who? Yusufa? No. Reliable man, but not smart enough to realise the importance of what he was seeing. Not smart enough to know that the kindoro have never offered a ransom for defectors.”
“Not even when that Major defected to the Indians last year,” Gideon mused.
“Yes,” Musa Kun said wistfully. “Not even then. This fish is one that they want very badly. If we have to take the whole city to find him, it will be worth it. It must be. They will pay good money to get him back. Supplies. Weapons...” Musa Kun was excited. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, something uncharacteristically reckless about his manner.
“We could take the city, but you know we could never hold it,” Gideon said.
“Yes, but we would only need it for a couple of days. Blow the airfield. Set up anti-air rail and make it impossible for anything to land. By the time a ground force comes in from Kinshasa we’ll have had enough time to flush out this fish.” Musa Kun paused, grinned hopefully. “And after what you did at Ituri, who knows what might be possible. Maybe they come. Maybe we give them a good beating.”
Gideon shook his head. It was not yet time to take a city. He knew this instinctively. The PLA would strike back quickly. And there, in that tidal crush of bodies, he would die.
“Taking the city is not the way,” he said. “I will go in alone.” That felt right, even as he said it. “But first we need to find out where the kindoro is. Is there a chance the girl actually knows?”
“I believe that she does,” Musa Kun said. “But she wants to wait for her father to recover. Insurance. I can’t see how we get the information out of her. Unless...” He left the question unasked.
“Her father will recover,” Gideon said. “I am sure of it. But not for a time.”
“The kindoro could get away while we wait.”
Gideon nodded. “So we cannot wait then,” he said. “Find out what she knows.”
Musa Kun nearly ran out of the mahema, murderous intent present in his long hurried stride.
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Gideon pulled out his microweb receiver from his pocket and carefully dialled Musa Kun garrisoned twenty kilometres away in the Kibira forest, well outside of the range of Bujumbura’s rampart. Musa Kun had sixty Knights with him and the only two stealth vifaru tanks that the Legion possessed. In a tight situation, the vifaru might be able to pass the rampart undetected. But the Knights would need to secrete themselves through in small groups. It would take days for them to assemble. This was the reason why he had approached the city alone. On his own, he would be able to fool the kindoro machines easily. Bringing the zumbi with him had been Musa Kun’s idea, and it had proven to be a good one. It wore a green cloak, its face hidden in a large hood. On its back, it carried their supplies, weapons, and the heavy microweb node. It walked silently, ate little, and did as it was told.
“Are you close?” Musa Kun asked.
“Two hours, maybe three,” Gideon replied.
“Excellent. All is going to plan. Yusufa is ready to meet you outside the Interior Ministry building.”
Gideon looked to the horizon. He could already make out the hazy black tower, sixty floors tall, rising from the cityscape like a premonition.
“He is certain to be waiting for me?” Gideon asked.
“Yes. Yusufa’s reliable. He’ll bring enough men to force into the building. They will have to search for the kindoro floor by floor.”
Gideon snapped off the receiver and put it in his pocket. He clicked his fingers twice. The zumbi rose to its feet and began to pack up.
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The Office of the Mayor of Bujumbura was on the fifty-third floor of the Interior Ministry Building. Gideon stood at the full-length window, taking in the view of the city. In the final years before The Emergency, there had been a furious spate of building work. With the profits from the burgeoning rare earth fields there had been an attempt to demolish the city and rebuild it. The work had only half started when The Emergency began. So everywhere, there were half-broken buildings interspersed with skeletal skyscrapers and huge rusting cranes. A series of collapsed tunnels ran through the centre of the city, a botched attempt at an underground metro system. The collapsed tunnels radiated outward towards the putrid Lake Tanganyika. From where Gideon stood, they looked like the decaying vertebrae of some ancient beast of red earth, steel, and stone.
Behind him, still sat at his desk, was Ndumana, the Mayor of the city. Yusufa’s men had taken the building lobby with very little difficulty enabling Gideon to take the lift. He had left the zumbi outside in the Mayor’s reception. There had been a receptionist there and a small number of city officials. At the sight of the zumbi they had all fled screaming down the stairs.
“This is needless,” Ndumana said. “You’ll start a panic in the streets.”
Gideon didn’t turn around. He kept looking down, into the streets of Bujumbura. The streets were flooded with people, hundreds of thousands of them. There was very little that frightened Gideon. He did not fear what men could do, for his power was greater still. He did not fear death, for even in death he would live. But he did fear the great unceasing crowd. As the rare earth fields had spread the great host had flooded into the city. They had come either to find work or to escape the casual sadism of the miners. Now, here they were, spread across every surface of the city. Shanties had grown even inside the abandoned metro tunnels, filling them with white plastic tents. The sight made him weary; man was not meant to live this way.
There was a muffled burst of gunfire from a lower floor of the building. While he had stood here, the melee had not stopped. Yusufa’s men were searching the building, looking for the hostage kindoro. It was not proving easy. There was security scattered throughout the building. The fight was floor to floor, man to man.
“All this needless violence,” Ndumana repeated. He cleared his throat and began to speak again. “As I said, we have sent you messages several times. Our men keep getting turned away at that wall of yours.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Musa Kun whispered into Gideon’s earpiece.
Gideon turned around and looked at Ndumana sat behind his desk. He was a fat, well-dressed man, in a linen Mao style suit and gold rings on his fingers. Behind him stood his security; five men, all of them holding PLA issue machine guns.
There was another burst of gunfire and the thud of a grenade explosion.
“You must stop this,” Ndumana whined. “You might start a panic in the streets. And when it starts it does not stop.”
Yusufa’s thugs had done well so far. A handful of them were outside holding the Ministry’s entrance, but they would not be able to hold the building for long once reinforcements arrived. This presumably was why Ndumana was trying to stall proceedings.
“Let me be clear,” the Mayor said, tapping his finger on his desk as he so often did on television. “We want only friendship with the Legion. We have many proposals to discuss with you. The kindoro have found many new rare earth fields near Kivu—fields of antimony, tantalum, platinum—very good ones. They know that this is a time for peace with your Legion. If we work together then we can all prosper.”
“As you have prospered here?” Gideon asked.
“We’ve done well here,” Ndumana said dryly. “All things considered.”
Gideon approached the Mayor’s desk. “For the last time, where is he?”
Ndumana licked his lips. “You have to understand. The man that you speak of is not ours to give. If we let you take him then we’ll find ourselves in a very difficult situation with the PLA. I cannot make such a decision without-”
“If the kindoro is here then you have been hiding him from the PLA,” Gideon said. “If you have been hiding him then they don’t know that you have him do they?” Gideon stepped closer to the Mayor’s desk. “Is it the reward you are after? You would cross the Legion for the sake a few Yuan?”
A loud grenade explosion shook the floor. The Mayor glanced at his office door. “All this over such a simple misunderstanding.”
“We found him,” Musa Kun whispered excitedly in Gideon’s ear. “Yusufa has him. They are on the twenty-second floor.”
Gideon smiled and whispered back sub-vocally. “Tell Yusufa to bring him to the fifty-third. I’ll meet them here.”
Ndumana frowned at him.
“We have what we came for,” Gideon said. “But I still have questions for you. I still need to know who he is.”
Ndumana’s lips curled into an uncertain sneer. “Shoot him,” he said quietly. The lead security man levelled his machine gun. Gideon stepped forward to meet him. The man stepped back and then squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. He shook his gun vigorously then squeezed his trigger once more. Again, there was nothing but dry clicking. Another two did the same, their faces contorting in confusion as they pointed their weapons at the Redeemer and fired. Gideon pointed out at the window. From the blue morning sky, a single white bolt rushed towards them and struck the ground near the Interior Ministry building. The building shook and swayed. The window of the Mayor’s office shattered. There were screams from the street below, memories of The Emergency resurging in the great host. The panic had begun.
“Shoot him,” the Mayor screamed, half-lunging over his desk as if to do the deed himself with nothing but his bare hands.
At that moment, the door of the Mayor’s office opened and the zumbi appeared in its frame. As one, the Mayor’s security bolted to the far wall of the office. One of them broke from his colleagues and went for the window where he paused and reconsidered his options. He joined the rest of the security at the far end of the office, their useless weapons pointed at the creature. The Mayor raised his hands and shrank back into his chair. The zumbi remained motionless in the doorway.
“You will not flee the Lord’s work when you see it,” Gideon said. “Yet you will flee this work of the Devil.”
Ndumana ignored Gideon. His eyes fixed on the zumbi and with each passing moment, he shrank lower in his chair, as if his plan was to slide under his table and find safety there.
“Who is the kindoro?” Gideon asked.
“His name is John Lai,” Ndumana said. “He’s running from the Science Ministry. Life Medicine branch.” The Mayor spoke briskly now, without pause, his eyes never leaving the creature in the doorway. The zumbi stared back at him, its arms motionless by its sides. At the far wall, the security men had not moved an inch.
“What does that mean?”
“Antibiotics,” Ndumana murmured.
Musa Kun whistled in Gideon’s ear.
“How did he fall into your dirty little hands?” Gideon asked.
“He was with a team that made a discovery,” the Mayor said. “The big one. The one that they have been looking for all these years. The cure.”
“A new strain,” Musa Kun whispered in his ear. “Where? Ask him where?”
“Where?” Gideon asked.
“We don’t know. We beat him, but he won’t say. Somewhere in the bush. They found it and decided to keep it. They killed their military escorts and they ran. The rest of them died and but he made it here. He came to me for help.”
“What were you planning to do?”
The Mayor shook his head slowly. “No plan. Beat him until he told us where. He told us that he already has a buyer. He says his buyer will pay us if we get him safely to the coast. He won’t tell us anymore than that.”
Musa Kun whistled again. “We’re going to come in,” he said. “I’ll bring the vifaru. We’ll break through the rampart. We’re coming for you right now.”
“No,” Gideon transmitted. “Wait. We keep to the plan. I will come to you. Where is Yusufa?”
“Someone killed the lift and they don’t know how to turn it back on. He’s coming up the stairs now with the fish.”
“Tell him to go back down. I’ll meet him in the lobby. I’m coming.”
Gideon walked slowly to the door, circling the zumbi on his way out. When he was behind it, he gripped the back of its head and pushed it forward roughly, then slammed the office door shut.
He waited outside the office. The zumbi was quick, efficient. There were a few half-hearted bursts of automatic fire. The security men had realised too late that once pointed away from the aura of the Redeemer their weapons worked again. But mostly the men in the office just screamed and screamed. It took two minutes, maybe three, and then there was complete silence. He opened the door. The zumbi stood there, its huge hands bright red, its large green cloak spattered with blood. Gideon clicked his fingers three times and ran to the fire exit. The zumbi followed.
They ran down the stairwell, all fifty-three flights. Each time Gideon felt himself flagging, the thought of the zumbi behind him kept him going, fearing the creature might crash into him and crush him to death. When he arrived at the ground lobby of the building, he doubled over, heaving. Yusufa’s thugs were milling about, waving machetes and rifles, revelling in their victory. The lobby floor was strewn with bodies and the huge windows to the street were shattered. At the sight of the zumbi, most of Yusufa’s thugs retreated outside. When he had caught his breath, Gideon approached Yusufa and the apprehended kindoro.
John Lai smiled at him and outstretched a hand. He had one arm in a dirty sling and his face was badly bruised, but he seemed surprisingly cheerful. Two of Yusufa’s thugs flanked him, a third man had a machete pointed at his back. Wearing soiled linen trousers, torn shirt, and pair of damaged spectacles, he was younger than Gideon had expected.
“I understand that you are the man I owe my freedom to,” John said.
Gideon shook the man’s hand, and spoke to him in Mandarin. “I am. From now on you will speak to me only.”
“Certainly,” John said. If he was at all surprised then he didn’t show it.
“You will go with Yusufa here and he will get you through the rampart. I will follow from behind.” Without waiting for a response Gideon walked outside, feeling the kindoro’s eyes burning into his back.
“On our way,” he transmitted to Musa Kun.
––––––––
It was dusk, and they were high up on a rare earth mountain, a particularly deep and yawning mining cavern beneath them. The mountain ridged with the ledges and walkways used by the miner slaves. Its top was perfectly flat, a high mesa. Gideon sat alone with John Lai. A few ledges down, Yusufa’s men were making camp. They had made good ground and Bujumbura was many hours behind them. As the late Mayor Ndumana had predicted, a panic had indeed erupted in their wake. Gideon could see the orange haze of fire pulsing gently on the horizon. The great host had been stirred, and the city burned once more.
“There is one thing I don’t understand,” John said. “The satellite charge in the city, how did you do that? Where did you people get a weapon like that?”
“That was not a weapon. That was the Word. The Word is how I defeated your soldiers in Ituri. The Word is how I will drive you out of my kingdom.”
John raised an eyebrow. “That may be what you think. But that charge was from a military orbital. Only PLA Space Ordnance has access to weapons like that.”
Gideon laughed. He spread his arms and showed John his palms. A moment later, there was a white strike in the dusk sky, a lightning bolt that flashed noiselessly before striking the ground with a large thud a mile away. The rare earth mountain shuddered. Yusufa’s men stirred, some shouted in mock terror, others sang praises.
John’s eyes widened. He stood up, placed a hand over his mouth and stared at the smoking crater that the bolt had created.
“Behold then,” Gideon said. “In his hand are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is his also.”
“All things are possible,” John said thoughtfully. “Niàn Tou. Thought platform.” He turned around and observed the Redeemer. “I’ve had men swear to me that the technology exists, but I’d never believed it. If it does exist then I imagine that there are governments that couldn’t afford it. Who do you really work for? The Indians?”
“I work for God. Your petty squabbles do not concern me.”
“Petty squabbles? Our nations will go to war soon Gideon. When it starts it will make The Emergency seem like a dinner party.”
“If there is a war then you will lose,” Gideon said. “You, the Indians, all of you. Only God will triumph here. Only God can. And I am his vessel.”
John looked at him for a few more moments and then shook his head. “I see that there is more to you than meets the eye. Either that or you are at the centre of some grand mischief.” He removed his broken glasses and rubbed the one good lens on his dirty trousers. “Tell me,” he said. “Have you ever heard the story of a man named Kim Nam Ku, from North Korea?”
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
John put his glasses on, and smiled. “Remind me to tell you about him one day,” he said. “You might find it familiar, and most instructive. But now I think we must focus on pressing matters.”
“I would agree,” Gideon said.
“I’m prepared to deal but time is of the essence.”
“Time is always of the essence.”
“May I make the broad assumption that the Mayor explained how I came to be a beneficiary of his rather rough hospitality for these past weeks?”
“You may.”
“In which case he may have told you that I have a buyer, but he is unlikely to have been able to tell you just how powerful my buyer is. This for you will come as both good news and bad.”
Gideon smiled, and crossed his legs. The zumbi approached, its arms laden with firewood. John stiffened. The zumbi dumped the firewood in a pile and then shambled away into the thickening gloom.
“It frightens you?” Gideon asked.
“Of course. It is a frightening thing.”
“So why did you make them then?”
“I didn’t make anything,” John said irritably. “The army made them.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Ask them.”
They sat in silence, the last of the dusk melting away into the true dark.
“You said that there was both good news and bad,” Gideon said eventually.
When John replied, his voice was sullen. “The good news is that money is no object. There is no price that my buyer will not pay. There is nothing he will not give. You will be handsomely rewarded for your help. The bad news, for you, is that my buyer knows where I am. He’s known for weeks. He has sent a warship for me. It is moored off Madagascar. He will not come for me until I give him the information that he wants.” John leaned forward, something of a snarl on his lips now. “If you try what I think you might have in mind, then you will be crossing a very dangerous man. A man who probably already knows who you are. You were not exactly discreet back there in the city.”
“No, I wasn’t. So where does that leave us?” Gideon asked.
“I need a way to communicate with my buyer. To give him the information he needs and tell him I am ready to come in.”
“We have microweb. Two-way. Secure.”
John frowned. “That will have to do. I only need to a send a message. We’ll deal with the remaining logistics later.”
Gideon pulled a microweb receiver from his pocket and handed it over.
“You will understand if I ask for some privacy,” John said.
Gideon stood up and walked away, towards the edge of the rare earth mountain. In the darkness, the orange haze over the city made it seem as if the sun was trapped beyond the horizon, unable to rise.
“He’s sent the message,” Musa Kun whispered in his ear. “My Durban man has intercepted it. They look like map co-ordinates. Should I send a reply?”
“Don’t bother,” Gideon said. He whistled for the zumbi and it came shambling up to him. He slapped it four times on the head and pointed at John who was still looking intently at the microweb receiver, waiting for his reply.
The creature moved quickly. In seconds, it had covered a hundred feet. John screamed and began to scramble backwards on his elbows and heels. The zumbi seized him by a leg and an arm and raised him clear off the ground. Gideon approached them.
“What are you doing? I told you-” John looked at the receiver that now lay on the ground, the realisation creeping over his face. “No,” he whispered. “I can still help you.”
“You’ve helped enough,” Gideon said. “You’ve played your part.”
John shook his head and opened his mouth to say something else. Whatever it was though, Gideon would never hear it. The zumbi flung him over the side of the rare earth mountain. He bounced four times off its sloping edge, his body breaking anew each time. After what seemed a long journey down, he came to a rest at the bottom of the deep mine cavern, his body twisted, the soft red earth caving in around him. On the lower ledge, Yusufa’s men had fallen silent, and then gradually they started to murmur amongst themselves again. One of their number began to sing in a low husky voice.
“Is it done?” Musa Kun asked in his ear.
“It is done,” Gideon replied.
Musa Kun sighed. “We’ll strike camp and send a vifaru for you. We need to set out to these co-ordinates as soon as we can. My man in Durban cannot guarantee that the message did not reach its target. In fact, it probably did.”
Gideon didn’t reply. He had already turned his gaze from the yawning bottom of the mine and was again staring at the far city and the orange halo that glowed above it so brightly.
Yusufa joined him at the precipice and stood beside him quietly. Gideon turned and looked at him. The man was a fighter. Short, bow-legged, his face a criss-cross of scars.
“Have you been in the city long?” Gideon asked.
“I was born there,” Yusufa said mildly.
“I’m sorry.”
Yusufa shrugged. Gideon thought to ask him more, about his mother, his children if any. But he didn’t. Instead, they stood there in silence, save the husky song that was carrying over the pitted red landscape.
“What does he sing?” Gideon asked. “I do not know his language.”
“He mourns. For our men who died in the tower. His brother was among them.”
“I’m sorry,” Gideon said again. He could not remember the last time he had apologised to someone. Some strange feeling had overtaken him. Something that John Lai had said, or perhaps Ndumana, he could not remember anymore. He looked at the zumbi that sat crouched alone at the far end of the mesa and came close to envying it. The creature would remember nothing of the day.
“He sings of how his brother will live again,” Yusufa said. “In the glory of your kingdom. When it comes.”
“When it comes,” Gideon said.
The man continued to sing his lamentation. The city continued to burn. Gideon imagined that he could hear screams carrying on the wind. He thought then of Dora Neza, standing before him in his mahema, her orange kanga wrapped about her. He had not asked Musa Kun what had become of her, for he had not wanted to know. But he knew instinctively that her end would have been unpleasant. And whether he recovered or not, there was of course no question of allowing her father to leave the stronghold alive. He would return to his town and there would speak ill of the Legion. He thought of Ndumana and his security team; Yusufa’s men who had died in the tower; John Lai; the rampaging host in the burning city and the ones who died now in the great crush.
“When it comes,” Gideon repeated.
––––––––
Biram Mboob was born in The Gambia in 1979. His short stories have appeared in a number of magazines, including Granta and Sable, as well as a number of anthologies including Tell Tales and Dreams, Miracles and Jazz. Biram earns a living as an IT Consultant and lives in South London.
