After I am laying him down, I am turning him over so the back of his neck is facing me and I am pressing down on his spine to try to take his cord out to plug into Enyemaka but nothing is happening, and I am suddenly tired and am not breathing right. So I am sitting on my knees and I am thinking and I am trying to be thinking of a way to get his cord so that Enyemaka can download his data before the air is eating all of it, but I can think of nothing that is not involving me breaking his body and I am not wanting to be breaking his body.

But Enyemaka is standing over me and the rest of the group is still walking and they are growing smaller in the distance, and even though Enyemaka is not saying a thing I am feeling like she is pressing me to do something and I cannot decide what to do and before I am knowing what I am doing I am smashing my fist down into my brother’s neck and I am smashing through the metal and I am breaking the skin and I am having oil on my hands and on my fingers, and in the light of the sun it is looking like blood. I am sadding and angering at the same time and just smashing and smashing until his oil is covering my whole face. Then I am seeing his outlet is crooked and broken and in many pieces and his cord is hanging, and I am pulling it and walking to Enyemaka, and it is unwinding and then I am plugging it into Enyemaka and I am seeing the light moving in her eyes and that is telling me she is collecting what she is needing.

And while she is doing this thing, I am looking at my brother whose body I am just finished breaking and my shoulder is heaving and I am breathing so loud and hard I am hearing myself and I am seeing red everywhere, everything red.

Then I am hearing engine in the distance and I am thinking that it is bandit or militia or someone else, but I am not caring because it is human and I am needing to be breaking it and I am leaving to join the group and kill these thing that is needing killing, and I am not even caring that I am leaving my brother to be small mountain made out of metal that is being covered by red dust.

CHAPTER

45

“You’re looking for the synth, aren’t you?”