Rebel Sisters Read online

  After a nervous beat, Paige and Amy join in. Ify can’t even bring herself to pretend. But when the table calms down, Paige asks, “Well, did he?”

  “He refused at first, but eventually, he realized he wanted to live, so he wore the dress.” Peter takes generous sips of his water, then loudly smacks his lips.

  “Where was your village again?” Ify asks.

  All heads turn to her.

  After a moment’s pause, Peter’s expression changes from one of surprise to one of smirking understanding. “Kaduna State.”

  “An Igbo-speaking family that far north? Among the Muslims?”

  Peter holds Ify’s gaze for long enough that sweat begins to bead Amy’s forehead. Then he looks away. “Everyone loved our family. Before the war, no problems.”

  Ify lets out a quiet “Hmm.”

  “Back then,” Peter continues, turning his attention to his more sympathetic audience, “it was possible to be a young man without joining a militia. Even though they would leave bodies to rot in the street, they would leave you alone if it was clear to them that you were not on the side of the government. The Angels of Heaven didn’t steal anything. They weren’t the reason we lost everything. That happened when another group, the Popular Front for Justice in Biafra, came in to take their territory. They were truly vicious. This group didn’t just want a Biafran state in southeast Nigeria. They wanted all of Nigeria to belong to Biafra. What is the expression? ‘Scorched earth’? That was them. Burn everything in their path, and as they left, they would salt the ground so nothing good could grow there.”

  Amy gasps.

  “Not literally. I mean that as a figure of speech. But, yes, that is what they did. They claimed to install hospitals and places where you could get an ID card. They claimed to have a police force and all these things that governments were supposed to have, and they claimed to represent the Igbo minority in the Muslim north. We should have welcomed them with open arms, right? They were here to rescue us from a government that cared not at all for my tribe. But when the Biafrans came, it was nothing but blood and thunder.” He turns to Ify. “You spent time with the Biafrans, yes?”

  The only sound, other than Peter’s voice, had been the scraping of forks and knives and spoons against plates, but now even that stops. Ify doesn’t feel surprise. She doesn’t let herself feel surprise. All this time, this boy has been building toward something, and while Ify still doesn’t quite see the game he is playing, she can tell what type of person he is, and she is prepared for this. So, when her shoulders tense, it is not from being caught off guard. It is from what she wants Paige and Amy to see as her visceral, roiling anger. Just barely contained in the pulse of her jaw and the trembling of her utensils in her hands.

  Amy puts her hand on Ify’s, and Ify knows she too is manipulating the woman—getting her to believe that Ify is in more distress than she really is—but if Amy were to ask, Ify would tell her that it’s for her own good. For a long time, Amy stares at Ify until Ify looks up and the two meet each other’s gaze. Amy gives her a soft, understanding smile, then turns to Peter. “We don’t really talk about Biafra or Nigeria with Ify here.”

  “Oh,” Peter says, then leans back in his chair, his face blank.

  “And your parents?” Ify asks. When she sees Peter thrown off balance, she knows she’s hit on something. “Did they die in the rebel attack?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Ify makes sure it sounds like an accusation when she says it.

  Peter frowns. “I don’t know, because one day my cousin went missing, and when I went to look for him, I was captured. The Popular Front called me a spy, and they arrested me. Before I could look for my parents, I was thrown into prison.”

  Ify fights to keep her frown from turning into a scowl. But her suspicions have been confirmed. Peter has been lying. Maybe about part of his story, maybe about all of it. There’s no way he could have known that Ify was once a high-ranking Nigerian official, that Ify had had access to all of the data collected on rebel movements during the Biafran War. There’s no way he could have known that Ify knew the names and military capabilities of every recorded rebel group in the country. Because, if he did, he would have changed his story.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  The box is hidden under the floorboards of Ify’s living room, beneath a rug and in a place where the grooves of panel hiding it are invisible to the naked eye. She’s buried it in the only portion of her apartment where the cameras cannot angle to see her. The one blind spot in her apartment’s surveillance system. She could have turned the cameras off and even blocked the auxiliary cameras. She could have found blankets to put up. She could have kept this box somewhere else. But this is what she does. She keeps it close, so that every time she walks over this space, she’s reminded of what she’s put here. What she’s carried with her.

  With the removed panel next to her, she sits cross-legged in front of the space and reaches in and pulls out a black box large enough to fit in her lap but far too heavy for it. So she sets it beside her, careful to keep within the blind spot.

  For several minutes she simply stares at the thing. Laying her eyes upon it sets her mind ablaze with memories, images colored with fire, coated in blood: she stands at the threshold of an apartment, the door slides open, she raises her arm and pulls the trigger on the gun in her hand; explosions rip through the city of Enugu, and she runs and runs and runs through the chaos and destruction as civilians cry and weep and die around her; a boy sits on the other side of an invisible electric fence, shadows cutting across his body in this cage, hands limp in his lap, evil smile sparkling in his eyes, and Ify on the other side of that fence, staring, analyzing, inspecting.

  She puts her fingers to her neck, presses her index and middle fingers against the skin of her bodysuit, and immediately, chemicals flood her system with pleasure and relief and fill her with just the perfect amount of vertigo to wash away the memories.

  Her hands stop shaking enough for her to lift the lid on the box, revealing row after row after row of mini drives. Small, almost obsolete micro SD cards on which are stored evidence. She pulls one out and fits it into an external device she’s pulled from a pocket and which she fits to her Bonder, a visor-shaped device whose edges she slips over her ears. A cord slithers out of an outlet by her temple, and she connects it to the external device.

  A vision splashes to life before her, first in the faded blue of a holographic projection, then in the technicolor of a proper memory.

  A tablet screen, held in gloved hands Ify recognizes as hers as a maglev jeep spirits her away from what she knows is a detention facility. Across from her sits a man who rescued her from rebels, who took her in and taught her about herself, a man who would then destroy her life. Daren. Ify has angered him—she remembers this much. But the version of her in the memory keeps her gaze focused on the tablet as she scrolls down a list.

  Angels of Heaven.

  Asawana Avengers.

  Niger Delta Water Lions.

  The list of terrorist groups—Igbo, Yoruba, Christian, Muslim, even Hausa—goes on and on. Ify scrolls with the regular speed of intense focus. Ify outside the memory knows what Ify inside the memory will find. Or, rather, will not find. She disengages from the memory, thrown back into her body with an intensity so strong it forces her to take several deep breaths. She is right.

  The Popular Front for Justice in Biafra, the group Peter claims raided his village and arrested him, never existed.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Xifeng is showing me that I am having hole in the back of my neck.

  She is holding mirror to the back of my neck and making me watch in other mirror, and I am seeing hole and I am feeling it, and it is metal like gun or like Enyemaka. It is not shining. It is being covered in dust from the desert, and every night after our working
, Xifeng is cleaning it for me, and it is like taking bath. I know what taking bath is like because I am downloading rememberings too, just like Enyemaka.

  Because I am downloading rememberings, I am remembering what it is being like to be child of peace, not child of war, and to be sitting in tub with soap like clouds on the water and to be feeling mother’s hands in my hair. I am remembering what it is like to be laughing and splashing the water and maybe mother is sometimes talking soft to me and sometimes mother is splashing with me. I am remembering water is warm, and I am also remembering that mother is changing dial on wall in washroom to make water colder or warmer, so I can always be giggling. Some of the rememberings are being washed in blue like hologram, and some of them are coming in flashes with static, but some of them are whole and I am not just seeing thing, I am smelling and feeling it too. All of this I am remembering when Xifeng is cleaning the hole at the back of my neck. She is calling it outlet. Outlet is strange name to me, because I am using it to bring rememberings into me, so I am wanting to call it inlet, because I am letting things into me.

  “An inlet is something else,” Xifeng is saying to me. “English is a strange language.” She is speaking in soft soft voice like her mind is being somewhere else.

  “It is not what you are speaking when you are child?” I am asking her, and my throat is not paining me so much when I am speaking to her, though I am wishing I am speaking to her like I am speaking to Enyemakas. Our speaking is being full with sound and color, like what is being trapped in word is being released. I am feeling like Enyemaka is knowing all of what I am meaning when I am saying thing. But Xifeng is only knowing piece of it.

  “What makes you say that, Uzo?”

  “You are being Han Chinese. You are mostly speaking Mandarin, but you are wishing to be speaking Cantonese, because you are coming from Guangzhou. You are knowing people who are speaking Taishanese, and when you are not noticing you are sometimes moving from Cantonese to Taishanese, and I am thinking it is because you are wanting to be near to someone who is not being here.”

  Xifeng is looking at me with wide eyes, and water is brimming in them, and she is not moving. Her hand is hovering over my neck. I am knowing that all of this is happening even though my back is to her, because I am feeling it, and thing is happening in my brain to be mapping where I am sitting and calculating her heart rate and diagramming the movement of her muscles and the ways in which her brain is sparking. Even though Xifeng is behind me, I am seeing all of her vital sign and numbers and the map of her body with some parts glowing red and other parts glowing blue. Retinal display is showing me diagram of her brain and which neuron is firing where. I am sensing these thing like how Enyemaka is sometime knowing when I am needing water to cool down or oil for my joints. Xifeng’s body is telling me these thing, and I am not knowing why it is doing this, because all I am doing is saying thing to her.

  “H-how did you . . .” Her body is moving like the other woman when I am burying person she is loving who is dead. And I am expecting water to be falling from Xifeng’s eyes to my neck. Then Xifeng’s body is stilling like water after stone is kissing its surface. “Were you rummaging through my recordings?”

  I am wanting to tell Xifeng that I am knowing these thing because I am hearing traces of where she is coming from in how she is speaking, and I am sometime seeing her writing and I am seeing how she is moving and what she is looking at and how she is walking and the way she is breathing when she is talking or when she is even just smiling, and all of these thing is telling me that she is wanting to be speaking Taishanese. I am wanting to be telling her that she is carrying rememberings inside her body and inside her bones and inside her skin and her body is speaking with rememberings every time I am looking at her. I am wanting to tell Xifeng that I am knowing all these thing from watching her, but I am not knowing how to say the full thing the way I am saying it to Enyemaka. And what I am wanting to tell her is crashing inside my head and trying to force itself into word. But then I give up. “Are you wanting to be speaking Taishanese to me?”

  For a long time, Xifeng is not moving, and I am not moving. Then Xifeng is wrapping her arms around me and holding me close to her chest and water is falling from her face and landing on my neck and washing the dirt from my outlet.

  “Oh, child,” she is saying to me in Taishanese.

  And I am wondering if I am making her to be sadding. Then I am wondering if this is making me to be bad person. But I am not knowing how to be asking Xifeng if I am bad person because I am shooting gun and breaking hand and making there to be dead bodies, so I am not asking her. I am just letting her hold me until water is no longer coming from her eyes.

  Then I am listening to her body. It is saying to me that it is happy.

  I am making Xifeng to be happy, and it is making me to be happy too.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  Outside, the sun is shining bright and red on us again. Enyemaka are telling us that the next grave site is not far, and I am hearing the buzzing from what Xifeng is calling nanobots. To get the rememberings from the dead bodies, we are sometimes plugging into them directly. But sometimes, we are getting to a grave site and it is covered in nanobots that is swarming like flies. I am seeing that they are different from flies because they are being made out of metal like the gun or the outlet at the back of my neck. Xifeng is not seeing the nanobots because they are small small, but I am seeing them and Enyemaka are seeing them too. And when we get to grave site, Enyemaka are standing still while nanobots fly to them like mosquito, and they are taking the nanobots inside them and their eyes are glowing because they are receiving the rememberings through the nanobots, and the same is happening to me. The nanobots fly into my ears and are buzzing into my blood, and I am collecting the rememberings like this too.

  When I am asking Enyemaka where they are coming from, they are telling me that they are being built and that they are being given life by nanobots. They are telling me that person made out of metal but still person with flesh and blood is having nanobots inside her and she is spitting on Enyemaka’s ear, and I am thinking that spitting is bad thing because Xifeng is telling me not to do this when there is much saliva in my mouth, but Enyemaka are telling me that this is what this girl did and that it was to put nanobots inside them. And then when Enyemaka met the other robots, Enyemaka did the same thing to them, and that is how they are being given life.

  When Enyemaka are telling me these thing, they are sending image into my brain and I am seeing girl with hair in braids down her back and rough fingers and dirt smudged on her face and who is cleaning Enyemaka with hand that is made of metal, and I am seeing that her whole arm is being made of metal, and something is shaking in me when I am seeing this person. I am not knowing this feeling, but it is taking all of me and shaking the inside of me, then the image is gone, but the feeling is still there, then the feeling is gone too.

  Who is that? I am asking Enyemaka.

  Our maker, Enyemaka are telling me.

  Why am I feeling like this when I am seeing picture of her?

  But Enyemaka is not answering me. I am asking them again, but Enyemaka is still not answering me.

  So I am finding dead things in the desert like lizard or animal with two heads or giant boar and I am spitting on its ear, but it is not working. And I am thinking there is problem with me, but Enyemaka are telling me that there is no problem with me. Some things are dead and are staying dead. And I am thinking that Xifeng is having Enyemaka telling me these thing so that when I am finding dead body I am not spitting on them to give them life.

  We are not far from grave site when I am hearing buzzing. But this buzzing is different. It is lower like rumbling, and we are all looking to where the ground is meeting the sky in the east, and I am seeing dust rising like clouds from the ground where the air is so hot it is looking like water.

  The first gunshot is like a reall
y fast bee. It is just buzzing by my ear. Then there are being many of them and they are just pinging the sides of the trailers, and Xifeng is running inside while the Enyemakas stand guard around her trailer. Nobody is having gun, so there is nothing we can be doing while Xifeng is driving the trailer away and searching for shelter.

  But my body is moving without me thinking. The Enyemakas are making line to protect the trailer and I am behind them, but suddenly I am running and running and running and there is only desert in front of me and there is dust behind me rising from my running, and it is like everything is blurring around me, but I see them coming toward us fast fast.

  Bullets whistle at me. FEWN FEWN FEWN. But my body is moving to dodge them. They are shooting with pistol, and it is easy to hop to left, to right, to duck, to jump where they are striking the ground at my feet. From far away, I am hearing CLICK-CLACK of rifle, and I am running faster toward the sound and timing my moving perfectly so that when I hear RATATATATATATA I am flipping and hopping and always moving forward. I am not knowing how I am able to do these thing. I am not remembering this doing in the rememberings I am downloading. I am just moving. Like this remembering is deep in my body. Like it is not being in my braincase, but it is instead being in my bones. In my legs and in my arms and in my fingers. It is like electricity but it is also cool, and I am feeling like I am being washed in cold water that is feeling nice under the desert sun. And maybe this is how I am knowing that Xifeng is wanting to speak Taishanese. Her body is remembering.

  In front of my face, I am seeing target reticle and I am seeing enemies outlined in red. And I am hearing beeping as each one appears to me and my brain is being told what guns they are carrying and how many bullets they are having left after wasting them on me. And my brain is being told what they are riding and how many of them there are, and suddenly they are close enough for me to smell.