“That’s for you,” Ngozi says, then she waves her arm, activating a nearby overhead light that shines down on a broad-shouldered bipedal aerial mech with legs as thick as an Abuja alleyway and arms outfitted into Gatling guns. A laser cannon sits on its left shoulder. She nods at it. “This one’s mine.” She smirks, then focuses her gaze on Ify. “You always wanted to be a pilot, right?”
“How did you . . .” Before Ify can finish the question, Ngozi climbs into her mech and the ground overhead groans open, the helipad they’re on rising into newly empty space. Ify and Grace race into the cockpit of the jet. The console is a mystery of Chinese characters that glow golden before their faces as Grace sits herself in the copilot’s seat and searches everywhere for a helmet.
The cockpit glass closes. Wind roars around them as the platform rises. Ify’s Accent fills her vision with light, and suddenly the controls come to her hands. Her fingers press buttons on the console before her and grip the throttle next to her, her feet automatically adjusting the pedals. Like she’s been flying this sort of craft all her life. Her body thrills to this feeling, being encased in such a powerful machine that will shoot them through the sky, that will carry them to dizzying heights, all under Ify’s control.
She wonders if this is what Onyii felt whenever she climbed into her mech. Like she had possibility in her hands. Like it wasn’t metal that surrounded her but the future, and that it was hers to mold.
The clamor builds, but Ify feels like she sits at the eye of the storm, that calmest point, undisturbed, unbothered. She’s ready. The craft rises, following the lead of Ngozi’s mech.
“Wait!” Grace’s voice pierces Ify’s bubble of serenity. “Where are we going?”
CHAPTER
44
We are seeing many thing that is looking like mountain.
Sometime, it is being red and craggy like rock with many sharp edges, like ridges I am sometime seeing on topographical map inside my brain. I know this is map I am downloading when I am child of war, when it is being necessary to know things like where is lake and where is mountain and where is valley and where is village. Sometime, mountain is metal that is covered in red dust. It is having sharp edges, but they are shining in the light of the sun and even in the light that the moon is giving them. And I am seeing that they are old mech that is being half-buried and abandoned. These are towering high like skyscraper over us, and sometime when we are walking it is blotting out the sun, and when it is doing this sometime the other synths are taking cover in the shadow because the sun is paining them.
There is being no humans out here. Before, there are being small small number of red-bloods and many of them are alone and they are covering their small small home in blue light and I am seeing that it is because the air is eating thing like moth eating leaf or clothes. Human is covering themself with plastic and boxy outfit that is making them look like bug that is too big to be sitting on leaf or flying through air, and they are walking like duck out from blue dome and sometime they are going to stream that is nearby and they are using filter to take poison out of water and to be bringing it back and sometime they are digging at the ground like they are trying to find something and sometime they are putting something in the ground that is making the ground green for some time, but always the ground is turning red again.
Everything here is being red. The sky is red, the sun is being a deeper red, and the ground is red as well. After walking enough, we are all being covered in red dust so it is like we too are being like the earth too. And I am thinking to myself that we are turning from thing that is walking to something that is more like nature. We are becoming plateau or rock or mountain. All of these thing are being covered with red dust that is eating thing and making it so no human is living here.
When we are passing half-buried mech that is being like mountain I am thinking of the rememberings I am having in me of war and I am remembering sometime piloting these thing, and when we are walking and the sun is paining my arms and the back of my neck, I am thinking that I am in a mech and I am flying through the air and even though thing is shooting at me and there are bullet pinging me and I am hearing explosion, all sound is being muffled like cotton is filling my ears, and I am only feeling myself flying through the air and soon I am thinking that I am not pilot inside mech but that I am mech, and I am feeling wind on my face and I am flapping my arms and when I am waking up I am realizing that I am running around in the desert and making circle and making noise like helicopter engine and sometime Oluwale is laughing at me and sometime Oluwale is laughing with me and sometime other synth is just staring at me like I am losing my mind. And I am thinking that maybe I am.
Something is happening to some of the other synths too. They are doing strange thing like speaking in different languages, and when they are doing this they are talking to the air but I am not seeing holographic projection. I am not knowing what remembering they are sitting inside. I am not knowing who they are talking to but sometime it is seeming like they are talking to many person at once and sometime it is nice conversation that is pleasing to hear and sometime it is argument that is ending with the synth in the dirt rolling around and holding their head and screaming that their head is paining them. Maybe the air is eating us too.
One day, this is happening to one of the synth and I am seeing him rolling on the ground back and forth and he is crying and I am walking to him and cord is coming out of the back of my neck and I am plugging into him, and when I am doing this I am thinking of quiet thing, calming thing. I am thinking of remembering that is having me lying on my back in the water and I am floating and I am staring at the sky that is having cloud so thin it is like string and the sun is shining and I am just rocking back and forth, back and forth on the water, and even when I am remembering this my body is cooling down and I am looking and seeing that the synth is stopping rolling on the ground. Even though he is being covered in the dust that is eating him he is no longer crying and he is no longer screaming and I am knowing that his head is no longer paining him.
I am keeping cord in his neck and I am picking him up and putting him on my back and I am hurrying to reach the rest of the group who has been moving forward this whole time.
I am telling him that my name is Uzoamaka and I am asking him what they are calling him and he is telling me he does not know.
* * *
■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Even though I am trusting Enyemaka, I am needing to know things. I am knowing what we are leaving. I am knowing we are leaving Ify and Xifeng and all other human. But I am not knowing where we are going to. I am not knowing what is at the end of our walking and I am thinking now that I am not wanting to be walking forever. I am not growing tired and I am not feeling pain in my leg or my back like human when they are carrying body made of metal, but I am thinking of when I am first meeting Uzodinma in the forest and when he is making me to be meeting my family and I am thinking of how they are walking for so long before they are meeting me, just walking and walking and never standing still, and I am not knowing why I am wanting to stand still but it is what I am wanting. So I am asking Enyemaka where are we going to.