Chapters (63)
- Cover
- Also by
- Dedication
- Part I
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- Part II
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- Part III
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- CHAPTER
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
The boy is breaking away from his mother and running to me with drone that is looking more and more like toy in his arms. “There are monsters there!” he is saying, and it is sounding like thing he is excited about, not scared about, and he is holding drone out to me.
I am having drone in my hands, and my brain is telling me exactly where drone is being broken. Without speaking, I am taking it apart. My fingers is breaking apart into many pieces and going inside drone to repair circuitry and to fix wires, then I am sealing it, then I am spitting on it because that is how I am remembering to send nanobot into it to give it life.
Wire is coming out of the back of my neck, and I am plugging it in, and then vision is coming to me.
Land is flat and red everywhere, and the air is sizzling like food boiling in pot. And big bull with horns that are curling out of its head is with many other bull like it, and herd is moving fast over the land, and their hoof is making thunder in the earth. They are being beautiful to watch as they are stampeding past. Then I am seeing forest, and everything—leaf, fruit, tree—is too big, because radiation is making thing to be misshapen. And wolf with two heads—what they are calling wulfu—is staring at drone and snarling, and drone is showing family trying to hide while wulfu is getting closer, and father is having gun with him that he is trying to aim at wulfu, and he is shaking and shaking. I am seeing more large red plain with mountain range over them, and I am seeing small small hut with blue dome over it and man pulling water from nearby river and putting it through purifier before bringing it back to his hut. Then I am unplugging from drone.
When I am unplugging, family is looking at me strange. They are seeing now that I am machine and not lost little girl. And I am holding out drone for boy to take back.
Father is holding machete like he is ready to attack, and part of me is sadding because they are now knowing that I am maybe dangerous thing. “Lagos is dangerous,” I am telling them. I am thinking of other thing drone showed me: father walking through Redlands with breathing mask but is moving like air is boiling his insides and cooking them so that he is coughing up blood, and drone is showing me little boy trying to make bathroom but blood is coming out. “Lagos is still dangerous,” I am telling them again, before I am leaving fallen tree and walking away from them and hoping that what I am doing is helping them to feel safe.
■ ■ ■ ■ ■