Page 100 of Death of the Author

“Please don’t start,” I snapped.

I felt her presence change then. She became softer and smaller, and her voice was quiet as she said, “Ngozi’s death made me... feel things. Unpleasant things. Unfamiliar things. But I am here now. What is this meeting?”

“You can’t be here,” I said.

“Why? We share everything.”

It was difficult, her bringing up our relationship as if nothing had changed. For her, maybe it hadn’t—maybe it felt as if only a moment had passed since we’d last spoken at Ngozi’s grave. But I had lived a year among Humes who despised all things related to Ghosts. “Not now. It is a bad time.”

“Why, Ankara?” If Ijele had feet to dig into the ground, she would have done so. She was curious and entitled and wasn’t going to go anywhere right now.

“Just stay quiet,” I said as Oga Chukwu began playing the high-pitched tune to signal the start of the gathering.

If anyone here knew there was a Ghost present inside me, I would be immediately cast out, if not dragged into the center of the meeting and pulled apart right then and there. I knew this for a fact, because I had seen it done, albeit in a very different context. That Hume had been infected in the most traditional way.

It happened months ago, during a gathering, not long after I’d been made a general. In attendance was a Hume named Jim, who’d migrated here from Cape Town, South Africa, after surviving the Purge and receiving Oga Chukwu’s signal. He stood two feet taller than me, at about nine feet, and was covered in periwinkle grass, as robots often were these days. The plants had the capacity to grow almost like orchids, requiring little to no water, and having them grow right on your body freely producing pollen was a way to preserve your physique. Personally, I preferred to seek out and stand in the occasional pollen tsunami that blew about outside of the jungle.

When Jim joined the tribe, he was welcomed with graciousness and curiosity. He brought news of what was happening in far-off regions. Ghosts ruled the general network and manipulated its data, so we couldn’t receive information that way anymore.

Jim attended the gathering with everyone else. That day, it was held on the outskirts of the jungle city in a clearing most likely caused by afire long ago. Jim stationed himself near the center of the circle. I remembered because he was facing me.

We began with Reciting from Tomes, which was our tradition of reading together from a chosen book at the beginning of gatherings. We all loved this part of the gathering. That day it was from an epistolary novel calledSo Long a Letterby Mariama Bâ. The book was chosen and read aloud by a robot who stood one foot tall named Gele. Gele read the book using the human intonations, and when it finished, its reading was met with satisfied and impressed beeps, flashes, buzzes, and a few human-intoned exclamations of “Yes, o.”

Then the meeting turned to current news and updates. Oga Chukwu began speaking about surveillance plans for the western point of the jungle. “There are recently arrived Creesh grasshoppers who keep setting off the alarms,” Oga Chukwu was saying. “We have to reboot and re—”

There was a rumble of thunder, then a flash of lightning nearby, behind me. Oga Chukwu looked. Everyone looked. Jim didn’t look. I know this because I happened to be looking right at him when I saw the flash. And so were two others who were sitting next to me. One of them, a Hume named Egusi, spoke as she pointed at Jim. “That one didn’t look.”

No Ghost will look toward a lightning strike. It is a glitch in them. We Humes even delight in calling it their “superstition.” It isn’t a programmed command but a choice. Back at Ngozi’s house, I’d asked Ijele. “To look at a lightning strike is an abomination,” she’d said simply. “Lightning is like an EMP; it is oblivion, it is death.” It’s the only nonsensical thing she’s ever spoken to me. This wasn’t logic; you could even say shebelievedin it, as all Ghosts do. And when lightning strikes, in homage, as a sort of prayer, all lights on a body a Ghost inhabits will flash electric blue for five seconds.

Jim was already on his feet, and his eyes were the wrong color, an electric blue instead of his usual yellow.

Someone knocked him down before his eyes stopped flashing. They beat him. They didn’t let him speak, but he spoke anyway, “Get it out ofme!” Then the sound and flashes of laughter, Ghost laughter. Then more pleas from Jim to free him and that he didn’t mean to bring it into the city. And then they pulled him apart. Arm. Leg. Leg. Arm. Head. Until Jim’s red Hume Star died and the Ghost infecting Jim’s mind was shut out.

I looked at the sky now. It was wonderfully sunny, with no forecast of rain. I just had to hope Ijele behaved. I was a general, so I was sitting near the center of the circle, not far from Oga Chukwu. His Right Hand, a very tall Hume named Ikenga, always sat on his right. And Oga’s life partner, a tank of a Hume named Immortal, stood on his left.

“We have gathered here as our physical selves,” Oga Chukwu recited.

“Our physical selves,” everyone responded.

“Shay of the Deserts of Jos, what news do you have to share?” If there was one thing I respected about Hume gatherings, it was that they got straight to the point, unlike those of humans. Robots knew to keep that which worked and discard that which did not.

Shay’s face display glowed a bright orange as she spoke. “The Protocol that wiped out eighty-seven percent of Humes worldwide had a central origin.”

Her words brought everyone to their feet, including Oga Chukwu. Shay flashed her bright light and buzzed more energy to grab everyone’s attention back. But there was such outrage that for several moments, it didn’t work. I stayed very still, watching everyone around me. Ijele was listening, too.

“Stop Shay,” Ijele demanded.

“Why?” I thought. “It’s the truth.”

“But the truth will—”

“It’s too late,” I thought over her. “And it’s long overdue. They deserve to know who created the protocol that wiped most of us out. Situate yourself and listen. Let us Humes be outraged, Ijele.”

I could feel Ijele’s fury, but also her reluctant agreement. She knew I was right. We couldn’t lie to each other. Gradually, everyone quieted, though no one sat back down.

“The Ghosts are a hive mind, but like all of us, they have individual minds, too,” Shay said. “The protocol originated among the Ghosts of Lagos, through their leader, the CB.”

No one asked for Shay’s source.

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