Granted, by definition, to many Nigerians, I was trouble. Even in Abuja, though it wasn’t as rabid as in the south, I was a demon. A witch. An abomination. Priests, reverends, bishops, pastors and imams, holy men all over West Africa said so. To replace an organ or two with cybernetic, 3D-printed, non-human parts was fine. People needed pacemakers, new limbs, skin grafts, etc. But if you were one of those people who seemed to be “more machine than human” for whatever reason, one of those who “refused to obey the laws of nature and die,” you were a demon. I’d seen people like me fall victim to jungle justice in viral videos, murdered （or “shut down” as people liked to joke）， attacked in the streets and, in less extreme cases, shunned. We were supposed to die; what we were doing instead of dying wasn’t living.
Then there are those who clump all of us into the same group. And when you do that, we all became “those Africans so deeply affected by twisted western ideologies that we’re obsessed with perfection and what money can buy.” We are cultureless children of the filthy rich corrupt elite class that has nothing better to do but augment our bodies with bullshit just because we can. We aren’t real Africans, we are the bootlickers of the United States, China, or the Emirates.
People here in Abuja have thought I was the daughter of an energy tycoon or the mistress of an Ultimate Corp exec simply because of what I am. Me. As if. I just wanted to live my life. As I was. As what I chose. As what I was. I was born and raised in Lagos, like 90 million other people. It’s not too much to ask.
Anyway, as I said, most of the men and women in this market knew me. This was how I’d learned to live over the years. When you are someone like me, one who is always fighting for herself, against oppression, hate, misunderstanding, fear, you move about the world with care. You seek out those places where people will accept you and you nest there.
Why would I want to force my way into a place that hates me? I don’t have time or energy for that. When I moved here with Olaniyi, I tasted the environment. Once I decided it was okay, I gradually let myself come to know this part of Abuja and it came to know me. In this market, for over two years, I’d fixed their cars, repaired their phones, brought people relief, made people happy. I thought they understood me. As I thought Olaniyi had. Foolish.
I had a basket and a synth-fiber bag with me. I bought semi-ripe plantain from a man who’d just carried in and set down a bunch in his booth. He was happy to sell to me. He’d laughed after we negotiated the price, saying that I was both fair and a cheat. “I am impressed,” he said. “And I’m glad there is only one like you.” He had his mobile phone stuck to one of those charge belts and it was showing the days’ news. I remember what was on because the man’s phone was the size of a book, the volume was high enough for everyone in the cluster of stalls to hear, and the anchorwoman had those thick and braided eyebrows that only people in front of cameras had the nerve to have.
“It was a nightmare here yesterday as four Fulani herdsmen armed to the teeth stormed this small Nigerian village on the edge of the Sahel Desert, pillaging and raping as they went,” the anchorwoman said, her braided eyebrows raised dramatically. “For decades, these herdsmen have terrorized peaceful farmers trying to live their lives . . .” Then the man was handing me my bag of plantain. He’d looked me over, chuckled and shook his head. “You’re so pretty, but you’re too tall.”
I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “Can’t be everything,” I said, turning away. I lengthened my cybernetic legs, making myself a little taller as I walked away. My ex hated when I did that. The plantain seller thought I was out of earshot, but I heard him add, “See this demon disguised as a woman. May Allah help us all.” Some of the men around him laughed. It wasn’t the bad kind of laughter. I knew what the bad kind of laughter sounded like. So I merely rolled my eyes. He’d had one of those blue Imam Shafi Abdulazeez event flyers tacked to the booth wall behind him; they had the image of the imam pointing a finger dramatically upward as he spoke and at the bottom a circle and slash over a drawing of a generic robot. The event had happened yesterday. I shrugged it off. People would calm down in a few days, and there were other places in the market I could buy fine plantain.
It was when I was looking at the peppers. I remember because I smelled it. Sniffed it in the air. I’d sniffed and sniffed. I was looking at habanero peppers, yet I was sensing a different type of pepper over the habaneros. Something in the air was hot and charged; something was burning. I assumed it was my neural implants acting up again.