Jack watches Hannah try on a new set of earrings. They are not right, so she discards them and searches for another pair. In front of the mirror, it seems like her reflection is more upset than she is. Jack is full of words, but he has not been able to say anything. He sits two feet away from her dressing table, after several false starts at talking.
He remembers when he met her. 2056, she a law student competing in the Ms Calabar pageant, he a concerned citizen in the nascent Rosewater. Jack, Lora and Victor Ocampo, all hard-hatted, stand around the south ganglion, which at the time is naked, and an expert explains the function to them.
“… chemical energy converted to electrical energy, like a cell. The alien draws different chemicals from the soil and uses them.”
Ocampo seems to be listening, but he is slightly hungover, Jack’s fault. Jack gave him the smoothest whiskey in existence the day before, having heard he was partial to it. This lecture is for show–Jack already knows Ocampo will build the inverters Rosewater needs, although it will take three years. He knows this because they shook hands on it over whiskey.
Since none of them is listening, Jack allows his eyes and his mind to wander. There are some people taking photos. Who’s doing a photo shoot near the ganglion? Six or seven women in bathing suits, no less. What the fuck? Jack shoves through the gaggle of horny camp men and he sees Hannah just as she sees him. No, their eyes don’t lock and Jack does not hear violins or cascading music. But he keeps staring at her. He recognises the photographer, a celebrity whose photo is in the society pages more than his subjects. Tona Ibidun. Jack would like to say he hates him, but he’s indifferent, to be honest. Their destinies do not intersect. Or have not until now.
Jack drifts after the giggling women and the people holding the lights and the great man himself. If the photographer notices him, he says nothing. Later, Hannah says he did. You have an admirer, he said.
All day Jack follows them, not daring to approach. Then, when the light is going and the sun is descending, they start to file into a luxurious bus. Jack goes up to Hannah’s window and stands, shining a torch in his own face, letting her see him. She opens the window.
“Can we talk?” says Jack.
“You have until this bus is full,” says Hannah. “Then we go back to Calabar.”
“You’re be—”
“Don’t tell me I’m beautiful. I’m in a beauty pageant. I know I’m good-looking.”
Shit.
“I’m… I’m Jack Jacques. I’m temporarily without poetry because all my energy is going into building this fine city.”
Hannah’s eyes dart to the shanties and back to Jack. An eyebrow goes up.
“It doesn’t look like much now, just a backdrop for your glam shots, but if you could see what I can see, you wouldn’t leave.”
“Tell me what you see,” she says.
“Roads, clean lines, lighting, housing, business district, industry, uninterrupted power supply and, by God, a cathedral to rival Lagos. Shopping to die for. Safety, security, sharing. I want a city with no poverty. And universal health. That’s a given.”
“And the rule of law?” asks Hannah.
“Sorry, what?”
“I am a law student,” says Hannah. “If you want to attract people like me to this utopia you plan to build, there had better be law courts.”
“Maybe life will be so fair that we won’t need courts,” he says.
The bus engine revs.
“Time’s up,” she says.
“Wait,” Jack says. “How do I… I want to see you again.”
She laughs. “Do you think you’ve seen me yet? You think this is me?”
He stands there in the dust cloud as the bus leaves, thinking of the timbre of her voice, and knowing he has to hear it again.
He watches the pageant, watches Hannah get as far as first runner-up, and haunts the Nimbus portal for the University of Calabar law faculty until he finds her on the roll.
He is waiting on the faculty steps on the first day of term. She does not act surprised to see him.
“Took you long enough, Jack Jacques of Rosewater,” she says. “But I knew you’d make it.”
And so it begins.
A meal of edikaikong, which is what you eat when you visit Calabar, leads them to talking and finding chemistry.
Now, in 2068, there is love and law courts; riots in the streets, far from the utopia he imagined.
“Hannah, I have to talk to you,” says Jack. His hands tighten on the wheelchair armrests and he sees that they are lighter as the blood rushes away, something she will notice as well.
“What, you preferred the other earrings?” She says this, but he can tell from her tone of voice that she knows what’s coming.
“We have to talk about the court case,” says Jack.
“Damn it, Jack. We promised.”
“This is too damaging to ignore.”
“‘Under no circumstances are we to discuss work.’ Those were your words. You suggested it. I did not.” The venom is barely contained now and her hands are open, and out by her sides. She does not sit, does not relinquish the psychological advantage of towering over him.
“You undermined me more thoroughly than any enemy ever could, Hannah,” he says. “We have to talk about this.”
“‘No matter the consequences,’ you said. You said that.”
“This is different.”
“Oh, so there are consequences that matter.”
“Yes, there are. You and I, we’re supposed to be a team. You knew what… you know what I’m trying to achieve here. You’ve sent it all to shit.”
“You won the court case, Mr Mayor.”
“Yes, but now you put information in the public domain that you, Mrs Mayor, should have told me years ago.”
“I have always told you the reanimates were alive. I have never once wavered in that. It was our first and most persistent disagreement.”
“The fact that you are saying true words does not mean you are telling the truth, Hannah. My love. I just don’t know if you’re trying to deceive me or yourself. What you’ve told me all these years is that you believe the reanimates to be alive, whereas in fact you knew. You guys had one on ice for years and you did not tell me. I have kept nothing from you. Nothing. I told you everything, yes, no matter the consequences, and let the world burn for all I care. That was the deal between us.”
Hannah is silent, and the muscles of her cheeks quiver under her perfect make-up.
“I made a deal with aliens, Hannah. I sold what I believed to be bodies to aliens. You disagreed with me but you did not tell me why. You gave me a reason, but it wasn’t the real one. We went to war. If you’d told me about Olubi Inuro, that one man would have made all the difference.”
Hannah says something in a small voice.
“What?”
“I said it wasn’t one man.”
“How many—”
“Twenty-three.”
Before Jack can respond, his phone goes in a priority ring. It’s an automated message.
“If you are hearing this, Lora Asiko has been incapacitated. If you are hearing this, Lora Asiko has been incapacitated. If you are…”
Shit.
He rolls to his bedside table, opens the top drawer and puts on his bracelet. It syncs with his implant in less than a minute.
Good evening, Mr Mayor.
“Emergency code 30974,” says Jack.
Tracking Ms Asiko now. I have sent alert to all services. Your bodyguards are en route, ETA three minutes.
“Get Aminat too.”
Unavailable.
“Try again.”
Unavailable.
“Fine. Get Dahun, and don’t you dare say—”
“Mr Mayor, are you all right?” says Dahun. He seems to be outside somewhere.
“I’m fine. Something’s happened to Lora. And Aminat’s still out of contact.”
“Sir, you haven’t been listening to the news, have you?”
No. When off duty, Jack elects for a media blackout and trusts Lora to interrupt if anything critical happens.
“What’s going on?”
“Synners. Mass shooting, multiple casualties, I’m on the way there now.”
“Where’s Aminat?”
“I don’t know. She made me arrest Taiwo and I haven’t seen her since. What do you want me to do?”
“Find Lora. I’m sending homing details.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll try.”
“No, don’t try, Dahun. Get it done.”