I stood behind DNA and Force as the programmer scheduled a connection for DNA with his parents. DNA was holding the tablet as the connection was made. He wasn’t focused on me. Force wasn’t focused on me. Most in the area had gotten their fill of me. The hand fell on my shoulder and in that moment, I realized I couldn’t see through any of the cameras around me. Not a cell phone, personal security camera or tablet. Nothing. I was being blinded. I was surrounded.
“What?” I turned to see who was grasping my shoulder. The grasp squeezed hard and I knew I was in trouble. I stumbled back, bumping into DNA. Someone ripped off my necklace of herbs. Then there was a wild struggle and press of bodies. Hands snatched and grabbed at me and then were pulled away. I punched and kicked and nearly went down. I couldn’t tell what the hell was happening. Then I stumbled and my body slammed against something. I heard DNA shouting for me and he sounded way too far away. Hands and bodies pressed me against the car. I caught the eye of one of the young men who’d been here when we arrived. He was wrestling with someone wearing a grinning masquerade face, except instead of wood, it was made of gold foil.
“Get on top of the car!” the young man yelled. “Get—” The masked person came at me and the young man was wrestling him again. Similar fights were breaking out all around me. I was being attacked, but people were fighting for me, too! What was it with me and markets? I twisted and grabbed at the car with my good arm. I stumbled onto the hood of the car, then onto its roof. I caught my balance and stood up straight, my white veil fluttering in the wind. When had it gotten windy? My metal feet made dents in the car’s roof but that was the least of my worries. I could see all the chaos clearly from here.
DNA was feet away, trying to shove in my direction. Men with golden masks surrounded me, except they couldn’t get past my protective perimeter of market people. And these men and women were pushing back. The wrestling was getting more intense as the gold-faced men realized they couldn’t get to me. Then I was able to see everything from above. I looked up. A drone, one I could control. I brought it down with a mere thought, turning off its camera eye. It was an Ultimate Corp drone. This was Ultimate Corp? What the fuck were they trying to do?! And how had they been able to blind me? To stop me from seeing through all the cameras?
A ripple of hot and electric rage shot through my body. All the eyes swiveled and for a moment, I felt as if I were in so many places at the same time that my rage felt a thousandfold. A millionfold. I pulled myself in. These golden faced idiots could hurt DNA. That was enough to focus my mind. I stamped my foot on the top of the car so hard that it made a deep dent. This got almost everyone’s attention. I did it again.
“HEY!!” I shouted. “Look at ME!!” I removed my white veil and pulled off the band holding my locks together. I shook out my locks so everyone could see the silver nodule in the center of my head. “See me! AO! The woman with the nerve to kill the men trying to kill her!”
The fighting continued for another minute, gold-faced people pushed and shoved at the people protecting me on all sides. One of them punched a woman in the face and as she crumbled to the ground, a man leapt at the gold-faced man who’d punched her.
I was breathing heavily now, and I could hear my heart pounding in my head, ears, chest, doing a beat that I’d never heard. Tripped up, staccato, wrong. My vision blurred, the world swimming around me—no, not swimming, blowing. The fighting at my feet was growing wilder, the car beginning to shake. I was going to faint and fall off the car. I had to breathe. Ah, there it was. Ultimate Corp couldn’t help themselves. They’d thought they had me, and they had planned to record it. That’s why that drone had been there. And maybe they’d planned to show the world the capture of the crazy insane wild woman. Arrogant. They were always so arrogant.
A pain shot down my arm. Still, I found and flew their drone directly over me in moments, then had it move down and hover a few feet in front of me. And in this moment, everything died down, the gold-faced people looking away from the drone. Those directly in its line of vision, scrambled for cover like cockroaches. I wished the drone’s camera had been panoramic. See me, I thought. Make them all see me. There was no time to push for all of Nigeria to witness all this through this camera, let alone the entire globe. However, I connected it to over half of Nigeria, all of Lagos.
“Cannabis plants,” I whispered. “Please.” I inhaled deeply. And they showed me. Fields and fields of it, waving at me in the breeze, seeking my attention. Just for a moment. Over there. Back at Force and Dolapo’s home. I inhaled deeply. And let the breath out slowly. Again. I inhaled, then I looked directly into the camera eye. “Do I make you feeeeeel uncomfortable? Unsafe?” I snarled. “Have you called all your loved ones to check on them? You want to know why you feel that way? You want to know who’s to blame for me?? The same people who made your mobile phones. The same people who made your children’s toys. The company who sells you the super-meats you put in your husband’s okra soup and pounded yam.”
Breathe, I thought.
“They are responsible for me. How did we get to this?” I paused. “Olives. If you do not remember the Ultimate Corp olives that caused five children to be born with horrible deformities, rush to the internet, look it up. The stories are all there. I am one of those children. You see, my mother loved olives. Especially when she was pregnant. Maybe it was the salt, or the taste, the nutty flavor olives are famous for. Or the firm fruit texture.
“And so I was born. With one arm and one arm stump. Legs with unformed femurs and no joints. One lung. My intestines in a knot. They made sure I lived, though. Then when I was fourteen, another so-called ‘accident’ that crippled me further. I have a cybernetic arm, cybernetic legs, human-made intestines and a human-made lung. I’ve got neural implants, see my head? I thought I was me because I was me. That I chose all this for myself. But what is choice when you have little choice? It’s not just me. It’s you, too.”
Breathe, I thought.
“We have pollen tsunamis because of Ultimate Corp’s periwinkle grass campaign in New Calabar. Naija people, which of you owns the land you live on? How many of you are Ultimate Corp academic scholars? Vomiting up rhetoric for your PhDs. Those few of you privileged enough to make it to university, are you studying what you want to study or are you studying so you can do what makes them more money? Which of you can afford to drop out of university? What are your real dreams? I’m a self-taught mechanic, my parents were professors. Olives.”
Breathe, I thought. I turned to look at everyone around me. All eyes on me, outside and inside. They were listening. So many. And I’d ensorcelled them. There was DNA. I turned the camera to him. The gold-faced people moved away from the camera’s eye and, in turn, away from DNA. I looked at him as I spoke, but I spoke to the market people of the Hour Glass around me. “People of the Hour Glass. I just got here. I was tired and you embraced me. Thank you.” I was calm now. “I’ve seen what they do.”
Someone in the group shouted back. “We all have, girl!”