Page 42 of Death of the Author

“Msizi, maybe I’ll call you back later,” she said softly. “I need to talk to you about something serious.”

His smile faded. “No... eh, no.” He shook his head and rubbed his face. The video jostled as he placed his phone on something across from him and then sat back. “Okay, okay. I’m good.” He said something in Zulu again. “Talk.” But he couldn’t keep the high-as-fuck smirk from his lips.

Zelu raised a dubious eyebrow. “You can focus on me?”

“Definitely,” he said. A beat later, he broke into a laugh.

She hesitated. She didn’t want to wait until he’d sobered up; she needed him now. So she told him everything. Then she waited for his reaction. Msizi wasn’t like her family. He hadn’t known her back when she was freshly broken and so, so vulnerable. He was also a tech programmer and entrepreneur. He’d see why this was a good thing.

And then she heard him say exactly what her family had said. “What if it doesn’t work? I can tell you already have your hopes up. Why wouldn’t you? It’s like you’re turning into a character in your book! But this is experimental, and—”

Was this really what everyone thought of her? Next was he going to say that she needed to stay in her place for her own protection? That using exos, or even her wheelchair, was an act against God?

“Ugh, not you, too,” she whimpered, falling back against her pillow. “Iknow there are risks! But I... I want to take them! Don’t any of you have a sense of adventure?”

You all should be giving me the strength I don’t have!,she thought.Because I’m terrified. I can’t do this alone.

It was like a cloud of toxic fumes descended over her. She couldn’t see, she could barely hear, she couldn’t breathe. Everything smelled bad, bad, bad. Msizi was talking and laughing and cautioning and telling her how much he loved her. She might as well have been on Mars. At some point, she hung up on him. Then, for a while, she was in the clouds. The branch gave way. Falling. Always falling. Then the crushing impact. She drifted into a troubled sleep.

When she awoke, it was another day. There was life to live. She pushed herself up. The sun was out, even if she heard the rumble of thunder in the distance. Her dolphin lamp was dead. Her phone was still lying on her bed beside her. It was at 12 percent battery and buzzing against her comforter.

“Hello?” she said.

“Zelu!” her agent’s voice greeted her. “Glad I got you! We’d really like you to do thisDaily Showappearance.”

“Fine,” she said. “Fine.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I’ll set it up.” Then he hung up. She held the silent phone to her ear for a while.

18

Aerographene

It looked like any other physical therapy room, albeit a nice one. Gym equipment, large windows that let in plenty of natural light, medicine balls, mats, three sets of mounted parallel bars. Except the huge space was completely empty, aside from herself and Hugo. Today, he was wearing rolled-up sweatpants and his prosthetic limbs were on display. She’d been staring at them since he’d opened the front door of the gym to let her in. The way he walked with them was so natural. The feet even adjusted when he stepped up on the curb.

“You ready?”

She thought about her family yelling, right up until the moment she slammed the door of the autonomous vehicle that took her to the airport. Her mother weeping. Her father trying to negotiate. The texts from her siblings, in all caps, full of curses and warnings. Chinyere pulling up to the house at the last minute and trying to grab the handles of her chair. Zelu had looked into her sister’s eyes and spoke a vicious “Don’t youdare.” She’d hoped that her expression conveyed how dead serious she was. It had. Chinyere had stumbled, shocked, and then backed off.

In her mind, she’d begun to think of that horrible morning as “the Crunch,” because she’d felt as if she were being physically crushed by her family.

“I’m ready,” she said. Last week, she’d closely read and signed the paperwork to participate in this trial. She had confronted and left her family. Msizi. She was here now, at MIT. Could she do this? Without them? But this washerlife. She clenched her fists. If she fucked herself up, it would be 100 percent her own fault. She tugged at her blue sweatpants and wished she’d worn jeans instead. Hugo had said the exos would fit over anything she wore, but it just seemed right to wear workout clothes in a gym.

“This way,” Hugo said, motioning toward a door on the right side of the room.

Zelu didn’t pay much mind to the details of the room—it was bright and there was a table. All her focus went straight to what was on the table: the exos.Herexos. She recognized them immediately, yet they looked nothing like the ones in the video she’d watched. They were only thin slivers of metal mesh, elegantly curved to mimic the undulation of a human’s hips, knees, ankles, and feet. Sitting there, they looked like beautiful pieces of alien tech that had been found by humanity.

“Now I know why you asked me what my favorite color was,” she said.

The pieces were painted a rich and bright cyan.Mine, she thought, and felt surprised by how quickly that feeling sprang upon her.

“So,” she started, wheeling closer. “How do... how do I put them on?”

Hugo smiled mysteriously. She frowned back at him. Back when she’d been in the hospital after the accident, she’d watched so many movies that she’d quickly run through the recent options and moved on to the old ones she’d never thought to watch before. One of those films had beenWilly Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and the look on Hugo’s face reminded her of Willy Wonka whenever one of the kids asked him about his candies.

“There are magnetized steel balls embedded in several of the joints,” he said, picking up one of the parts and holding it out to her. Zelu took the piece and was stunned by how light it was.

“Aerographene,” Hugo said, answering the question written on her face. “One of the lightest and strongest materials on the planet. The heaviest parts are the processors, which are powerful but tiny.” He picked up the other piece. “So, let’s get these on you. First thing, get on this table.”

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