Someone, maybe the giant, shoots Aminat in the face.
It hurts, although the armour absorbs most of the impact, and the rest of the force flings her to the floor of the flat. She blinks to clear her vision. She hears another shot, but it misses her entirely because she feels no impact. Three regulars and one giant. As she recovers, she removes the ankle piece.
Get up, get up, get up; can’t die here.
She shoots first, not aiming at anyone, just causing disorder. Some dummy is trying to get out of the door that she locked in full view of all of them. She flips up and the giant comes for her, his Afro scraping the ceiling. She hates fighting giants, so tall, their limbs seem to be all over the place. She kicks him in the chest, the highest she has ever kicked, and as he recoils, she leaps and slams her knee into his midsection. She shoots the guy on her left in the foot, then again in the arm. The giant is still in the fight, swinging, although he hits his compatriot by mistake.
Aminat stamps on the giant’s knee and feels it go. At close range, she shoots his thigh, then what she thinks is his liver. While he screams and writhes she shoots the third guy in the back.
She pulls the giant up by the sweatshirt and punches his face. Again. And a third time. Fucking hard skull. He starts to laugh through his bleeding nose.
“What the fuck is funny?”
“You are… you are so funny,” says the giant in that resonating voice they all have. “You think we don’t know who you are. We have always known. This… being targeted by you… we use it as an initiation. The more you beat me, the more you shoot me, the higher my status. Hit me more. Go on.”
Aminat drops him and the thud vibrates through the flat.
They had kidnapped six people, not rich ones, and extorted money from the desperate families. Released without charge.
“Come on. Don’t you want to arrest me?” says the giant. “I might go and commit another crime.”
Aminat walks out.
At home she retracts the armour and showers away the sweat and blood. She uses a shampoo that Jack Jacques presented to her a few months back, crafted specifically for him. The mongrel is awake, but not excited at Aminat’s presence, though he follows her with his eyes and wags his tail desultorily. At least he’s not in their room.
She sits in the living room, feeling sorry for herself, contemplating some mindless broadcast, flipping through feeds. She is yet to select anything when she hears Kaaro’s slouch. He stands there and yawns while scratching his lower belly.
“Are you hungry?” he says. “I can make food happen.”
“I’m not hungry,” says Aminat. “Take me to bed and fuck me till I’m raw.”
“Yeah, I can make that happen too.”
Later, in the xenosphere, Kaaro and Aminat watch a waterfall of mercury while sitting on an outcrop. She tells him her pain, her confusion. He listens in silence, batting away stray globules of silvered liquid that have broken free of the flow.
“Kaaro,” says Aminat. “Why would Wormwood be moving?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can’t you ask it?”
“I could, but I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have the same relationship with it. Anthony was my guy, and he’s dead. Koriko is a different kind of god.”
“Did you always need Anthony to talk to Wormwood?”
“Yes. I tried talking direct once and I was catatonic for three days. I tried getting into the mind of a floater and it was like trying to swim in broken glass. These entities are alien to us.”
“Could you ask Koriko?”
“I don’t think so. She is single-minded in her pursuit of bodies to contain their people.” He throws a rock into the pool beneath the waterfall. “Besides, has it occurred to you that Wormwood might be acting autonomously? That it doesn’t want Koriko to know? If I tell her, she becomes alert to it.”
“Do we benefit from a schism between Koriko and Wormwood?”
“We as in humanity, or Rosewater, or the government of Rosewater?”
“Any of the above.”
“I don’t know. It all depends on why Wormwood is moving.”
“Why don’t you ask her about the waste? She can see the mines herself.”
“I… Sure. But she’s already seen the mines and doesn’t care.”
“Ask.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Am I using my police voice?”
“You are.”
“Sorry.”
“I can think of where your police voice might be handy…”
“I’m going to need some time,” says Aminat.
“You have five minutes.”
“I feel like I don’t know what’s going on with you.”
“You’ve been busy,” says Kaaro. “But don’t worry. We’ll get to it.”
“You should have told me about Femi, about meeting her.”
“Yes.”
“God, she gets me… Grrrrr.”
“She’s under a lot of pressure.”
“Are you defending her?”
“No, I’m just saying she has responsibilities that make what she’s doing seem odd and callous. If you knew what she knows—”
Aminat draws away. “You are defending her. Do you know what she knows?”
“Do I… Yes.”
“You read her thoughts, didn’t you?”
“She told me to.”
“Did you sleep with her too? I know you’ve always wanted to.”
“Aminat, Jesus, that was ages ago. I was a kid.”
“You’ve never read my mind.”
“What’s going on here? You seem to be looking for a fight.”
“Oh, this is my fault for being an irrational, emotional female? Get me the fuck out of this place. And two things: one, nobody wants a fucking mercury waterfall. Mercury is toxic. Two, when I’m looking for a fight, you will absolutely know it from the sound your face makes hitting my knuckles.”
Stroking the mongrel, Aminat catches the highlights of Hannah Jacques’ day in court. No wonder nobody wanted to talk to her about the mines or the moving Wormwood. Aminat had thought of Hannah as decorative and distant. She knew the woman had a law degree, but this is… was Nigeria. You can buy degrees. You can buy people to take exams for you. Anyone with enough money can become a lawyer. It looks like Mrs Jacques is the real deal. There are scores of people suing the government and trying to get their deceased loved ones back before alien implantation, but this is getting attention because of who Hannah is. Aminat has seen Boderin before, in the mayor’s mansion. Bit of a hunk in spite of his albinism, quiet, which is strange for a lawyer. He seems to know what he is doing in the video footage, but he can’t possibly be as confident as he seems. Jacques must be shitting himself.
Just before falling asleep, Aminat starts to contemplate resignation. She can start a new life with Kaaro in Lagos. Rekindle. Reignite the passion in a crowded, dirty, desperate city with no automatic healing. Yeah. Sounds romantic already.