The dust and wind swooped back in and closed the opening to the sky and I held on to DNA and one of GPS’s horns for dear life. The powerful lights from the drones flooded all around us, helicopters zipping just above us like alien ships. But somehow, they didn’t see us. Was it some of Baba Sola’s lingering juju? DNA’s weird ability to be unseen as he had been in that town? A loophole in my country’s elaborate surveillance system? Maybe they didn’t see us for all these reasons. Technology always fails eventually, and juju is made to succeed.
We snuck right past an entire line of soldiers—a herdsman wanted for murder, a woman mechanic wanted for murder, and two steer who’d survived attempted murder. The soldiers had somehow surrounded us, yet been unable to find us. To speak might have changed this, so when GPS blundered to the right and then forward, as if he knew where to go, we did, too. The sandy wind bit at and buffeted us about and for several minutes, it felt like being lost in a furious stinging sea. The wind was behind us, then in front of us, then beside us, but mostly beside us. I could feel it trying to tear at my clothes, grating at my flesh, pushing for my organs, trying to take my breath away, threatening to whisk me away. We moved slowly but steadily, shoulders hunched, heads down.
The veil of the Red Eye began to lift, and now it was mainly just wind we were contending with. “GPS really knew where he was going,” I shouted over the wind, finally feeling able to let go of both him and GPS’s horn.
“It’s not my first time trusting him,” he said. “Now you understand how he got his name. If you let him lead the way, he’ll always lead you out of the Red Eye. He hates it.”
“Handy and good friend to have,” I said, patting the animal on his side.
“Yes,” DNA said.
We emerged into a field of dried grass, near the warehouse. We’d made it through the fields and were just about to cross the remaining hard pan to the parking lot when we heard it behind us. A loud roaring. My heart sank. We didn’t stop or look back until we were running across the parking lot, right into the glass doors of the abandoned warehouse we’d passed earlier.
“This is why we stay away,” I heard DNA say as I put a hand to the dirty glass door. It opened smoothly, almost as if the hinges were oiled or removed. Why would they leave a warehouse door unlocked, even if there was nothing inside? And though the sun had set long ago, the door was warm to the touch. The noise continued behind us and finally, I looked back. What I saw made me want to abandon all hope.
Soldiers were setting the field of grass we’d just run through on fire. It didn’t take much and the wind provided even more fuel. There were about ten drones flying over it and spraying flames on the grass like water, aiming their fiery spray from south to north to avoid setting themselves aflame. What they spewed was thick, nearly solid flame that looked and heavily fell like lava.
“Why are they doing that?” I shouted.
Within minutes, desert grassland that had been untouched and unbothered for probably years, looked like a war zone. DNA was muttering in Pulaar again. I shook my head, trying to clear it. I was still high from Baba Sola’s wizard marijuana and the field looked as if it were blooming and swirling, not being razed by swirling biting fires. The propellers from the many drones which, clearly, were fireproof, created miniature whirlwinds in the flames.
Then I noticed them. “DNA! Look! Look at them.”
They came running about the edges of the flames, unbothered by the heat. Some even ran into and out of the fire. The soldiers were automated. Upon closer inspection, I could see that they didn’t move like human beings at all. Their motions were fluid, perfect and measured to cover distance using the least amount of energy and time. They would soon find we were not there. Then they’d come here.
DNA flung the door open and it fell off the hinges, clattering to the ground. An old charred smell wafted out, but the terrified steer trotted right in, shoving past both of us through the double doors. DNA and I paused for a moment, looking at the flames and smoke rising in the fields. The fire’s blazing light reached far enough to light the beginning of the Red Eye’s churning winds of dust, some of the flames actually whipping into fiery whirlwinds.
“My family has never been a part of this,” DNA said. “We stay out of the way of this kind of ‘civilization.’ Look at them coming here and just doing this. Burning everything. For what? You? Me? Who are we?”
I was barely listening. Whirls of flame, automated soldiers, drones, all the way out here. Since when could drones vomit flames? My God, I was in trouble. It felt ominous turning our backs on fields of fire to enter a burned out building.