“Papa Ori? No.”
“Yes, he said something. The recorded conversation posted on Bukkaru networks didn’t catch it. But whatever he said, caused such rage that the Bukkaru had your village ransacked under the pretense of looking for you.”
“Where is Wuro?” he said. “Can you locate her?”
I shook my head. “They must have seen what I did yesterday. They won’t know how I did it, but they are definitely staying offline. There isn’t a whisper of her. There’s more.”
“Go on.”
I sighed. “This whole thing has sparked something. The farming communities seem to also have sent out groups of men—no, mobs of men into the desert.” I couldn’t look him in the eye when I said it. “They’re killing the last of the true herdsmen.”
“Shit,” DNA hissed.
It was the first time I’d ever heard DNA curse. I don’t think he even knew he did it.
“I’m sure this pleases Ultimate Corp,” he said. “We are a stupid people. We are killing our last source of homegrown fresh meat and milk. We’d rather eat flesh grown in a lab, or even plastic, than true food. Wish I could just leave this planet with my cows and live on the moon.” He got up, sat back down, then got up, sat back down. Frowned. Sighed. Kissed his teeth. Looked at me. “What do I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is my fault.”
“I don’t agree.”
He got up and started pacing. “What do I do, what do I do, what did Wuro say? Why my sister?”
“Because they’re trying to get to you.”
He was pacing faster now. “They burned everything?”
“Almost.”
“Where is my family now?”
“I don’t know. They’ve gone into the desert, though. Not into the Red Eye, just away.”
“I know where,” he said. He stopped, looking off toward the farms. Then he just started walking.
“Wait! Where are you going?” I asked, jumping up. He didn’t stop. He walked faster, and I had to jog to catch up with him. He walked onto a path that led between a field of corn and a field of onions.
“Wait! Where—”
“Where is there space?” he said with a shaky voice. “I need it. This way, I think.” He was practically running now, but I easily kept up. When he finally stopped, we were on a patch of sand where nothing grew. Where no soil was mixed with the sand. Between corn, onion, soybean fields. It wasn’t a wide space, just an in-between place before a field of corn began and a field of peri ended. The area in this spot wasn’t fortified with soil, so it was the sand of the land. Old. Dry. Barren. Here, he fell to his knees and clutched his head in his hands.
“Geno,” he said. “Geno, you extracted the universe from a drop of milk. Milk flowed, even out here in the desert. Please, please help me.” He dropped into Pulaar and for several minutes, he was completely lost to me. Then suddenly, he stopped his frantic praying, talking, pleading, whatever he was doing. He thrust both his hands deep into the soil and shut his eyes.
I will never believe in Christ or Allah or any other God. I will never follow any religion. Up until three days ago, I did not believe in juju. Not in oracles, charms, or anything that human beings think they can control. My life was an example that there was no such thing as true human control. But I’d been in a sorcerer’s hut yesterday, smoking sorcerer’s weed. With my mind, I’d stopped machines from executing me, DNA, and his two remaining steer. And when he buried his hand into the sand, through the sensors on the bottoms of my cybernetic feet, I felt the sand I stood on warm up like a sunrise. I swear it.
“My mother,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I saw her do this once. Her youngest brother was one of those who fought the Ultimate Corp security at the warehouse that day. She heard about how it burned and so many were killed. She needed him to come home. So she dug her hands in the dirt and prayed to our Earth to return him. He was covered in soot, but he walked into our compound two minutes later.”
I sat beside him and dug my hands in the sand, too. “What are we asking for?”
“Help. To find my sister. Help for my fellow true Fulani herdsman; we’re not terrorists.”
I shut my eyes and did my best. Instead of the Earth, I found myself talking to the pomegranate of eyes. I kept my breathing steady and deep, staying aware of my physical body. Calm. I had to stay calm. Where is she? I asked. I cannot describe the feeling but I felt and saw it all, despite the fact that my brain was unable to process it. Perspectives, voices, words, screenshots, word searches. We were sweeping. There was a text message. It said, “It’s ok. Wuro will sit.” The text had a number. We followed it. Triangulated its signal, disregarded where the number was based.