Matata had to angle his body to keep both of them in his sight line. “Why not?”

“Because you want to tell us. You want to rub our noses in it.”

Matata paused, studying Ishant in cautious reassessment. Ishant might not be able to read a person’s emi, but he was adept at body language. Something he just announced to Matata alarmed him. Now aware of this, the man would try to send false signals with his body language, careful glances, shifts in positions, and tics of the face designed to tell a counternarrative, but Ishant was a skilled story reader. And Lebna a gifted storyteller.

“What would an obroni know of telling our stories?” Matata ventured, hoping to put Ishant on the defensive.

“I’ve studied your people. The history. The philosophy.”

“The talking points. I can practically see Xola’s hand up your ass, shaping your words.” Matata’s lips tightened in a rueful purse.

“Its philosophy is the grounding principle of my life.” Ishant stretched the wrist of his artificial arm. With a surreptitious flick of his finger, he initiated a file request on Matata.

“Then you are a fool. This place is a lie.”

“And yet you’re there and I’m here.”

“No, I mean Muungano. It’s built on a lie and has become a lie.”

“This will be good.” Ishant folded his arms and angled away from him, forcing Matata to lean forward in pursuit of his full attention. Anger, perhaps a hint of betrayal, fueled him. Blinded him to his training. Whatever hurt he felt ran deep. And personal.

“Make fun of me all you want, but in your heart, that’s what you’re afraid of. That this, all this you’ve pledged your life to, is too good to be true. And it is.” Matata jabbed his finger into the table. “You ain’t free. You’ve never been free. You’re more chained now than you ever were on O.E., and you don’t notice your situation because the chain holders look like us. We walk around ‘seeing’ one another and ‘appreciating’ one another. But you can’t even come and go as you please. Everyone’s in one another’s business. You can’t make decisions on your own. It’s life by committee.”

“That’s accountability to community.” Lebna stirred, reciting the lessons of instilled Muungano training.

“It’s chains by another name.” Matata spared him an unsympathetic glance.

Lebna shifted uneasily again, undue defensiveness crept into his voice. “Call me what you want. It’s truth you can’t handle. Trying to tell me who I am. I’m my own man. I’m not oppressed.”