“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.
CHAPTER 12
Charred Space
I will tell you about Ultimate Corp warehouses or you’ll never understand the absurdity of the one we were in. First of all, no one knows where Ultimate Corp is actually based. Tracking its activities is tricky. It’s like the software I use to scramble my location; you’ll be misled all over the world. But you will rarely be led to Nigeria, itself, and that’s where Ultimate Corp does much of its business.
Nigeria has its problems, but it is a wealthy country and so much of its people’s truest wealth remains untapped because the rest of the world sees the entire continent as “war-torn,” “diseased,” and “poor.” I’d never seen the inside of an Ultimate Corp warehouse, but they were all over southern and central Nigeria. To go on one of these warehouse tours was to come out with some serious complimentary swag. There were big lotteries for tours, and whole families celebrated when people won.
Also, when people on tours posted footage of what they saw, Ultimate Corp, with over a billion followers (even I followed Ultimate Corp), always amplified these posts. To go on a warehouse tour meant instant followers and appearances on blogs and in publicity stories. If you’d always wondered what it felt like to be instantly famous, get a tour of an Ultimate Corps warehouse.
From what I’d heard, it was truly worth it. Rows and rows and rows of thirty-foot high aisles, fully stocked with various goods from foodstuffs to electronics to cosmetics to everything a human being needed. Delivery drones were always local and these warehouses made it so that they never had to travel far to pick up items and deliver them. Thus, inside was like . . . well, a hive of drones.
Ultimate Corp warehouse roofs had launch and landing pads, and their advertisements boasted that these roofs, the sides of the buildings, and the land owned by Ultimate Corp were all green, covered with the super grass known as periwinkle (“peri,” for short). Peri was sturdy, so drones taking off, landing, and driving on it didn’t harm it at all. Its flowers were a soft periwinkle color, and its tiny leaves were light green and grew in an elegant fractal shape, so the plant itself was beautiful. It grew easily in even the worst soil, faster than any weed, and required little to no water, yet it held water like a succulent. And eating a cup of boiled, fried, or roasted periwinkle was more nutritious than a daily vitamin. It was so delicious and cheap, it replaced rice the moment Nigerians tasted it. Ultimate Corp had cultivated its own strain of periwinkle, harvested and distributed all over West Africa by the corporation and taxed by the government.
Everyone benefited, Ultimate Corp social networking influencers and spokespeople boasted. The corporation’s slogan in Nigeria was even, “Family first.” Ultimate Corp warehouses were known for giving out “excess” bags of periwinkle flour to those who came to the warehouse entrances at 5 PM and agreed to post a photo of themselves holding and smiling at their bag of “free” flour.
Few in the south spoke ill of Ultimate Corp. I never really knew how to feel about it. I bought most of the car parts for the shop from there; it was just the easiest and cheapest place to find what I needed. But it permeated every aspect of where I lived, and I’d never liked that part of it. Ads were everywhere, most roads and massive swaths of land were owned by the corporation, a lot of the smartest university students had their tuition paid by them and Ultimate Corp products even showed up in the local markets often cheaper than what locals could sell. I was torn, though I knew Ultimate Corp was a problem. In the end, I just focused on myself and how it affected my own life and in that way, I guess, I was able to live with Ultimate Corp’s pervasiveness.
It was a helpful cog in a thriving Nigerian country, even with the disaster in the north. Nevertheless, I’d never heard anyone mention this or any warehouse in the north. And battle between the local Black Market and Ultimate Corp, “The Reckoning” as DNA had called it, had clearly been covered up in the news. No, not just covered up, erased. I’d never heard a thing about it and I was pretty attuned to national news. Nevertheless, a humongous charred edifice in the desert can only be erased by the desert, and the desert takes its time.
Inside, I held up my left hand’s light to see ahead and the darkness seemed to swallow it. DNA used his phone to light the area around our feet, and we saw that soot already caked his sandals and my metal feet. GPS sneezed several times, and Carpe Diem kept snuffing as if she couldn’t stand the smell. Walking inside the burned warehouse was to enter a huge black cave that could crumble in on itself at any moment. Every step we took was a crumbly grainy sooty risk. And the smell, my God.
“Maybe hiding in here isn’t such a good idea,” I said, coughing into my arm. “This whole building is probably carcinogenic. How’s it still standing?”