Page 21 of Death of the Author

21 Loyalty

I sat with my back pressed against the acacia tree outside Ngozi’s home. I was watching the sun rise through its branches.

The tree’s thick clusters of yellow flowers were no match for the sun. I liked coming here at this hour to watch the sky warm.

It felt like hope. The ocean was only a mile away, and the cool, salt-laden air blew across the field, ruffling the periwinkle

grass.

What was supposed to have been one day had stretched into nearly two months as Ngozi worked tirelessly to create a way for

Ijele to leave my system. The terrible information I had to take to Cross River City weighed heavily on me every day that

passed, but I couldn’t go there with a Ghost trapped inside me, so I didn’t even glance at the countdown. If any Humes still

survived, they would quickly sense Ijele and tear me apart.

“Maybe today is the day,” I said aloud.

“If it’s not, then I would like to go and watch for RoBoats this afternoon,” Ijele said. She had grown obsessed with them after the first time I walked along the beach. It had been a quiet and peaceful stroll, until we heard a booming in the distance, far out in the sea. Seven gigantic RoBoats surfaced from below, water rolling away from their rounded metal hulls in thick waves that even reached the shoreline. They lit their lights and sounded horns so loud that they nearly blew out my microphones. Then they submerged, the water bubbling around their bodies and overtaking them until they disappeared beneath the surface again, leaving no trace behind but the waves that lapped against the beach. I don’t know why this fascinated Ijele so deeply, but it did. We hadn’t seen them since, but Ijele continued asking me to return at that same time each day, hoping to see them again. She called them dolphins, even though they weren’t.

Ngozi came out of her home carrying a tablet. “It’s done,” she said. “I’ve programmed Ijele’s way out.”

Something ticked in my chest. “Are you certain this time?”

Ngozi nodded. “I realize now what needs to be done. I can’t separate the connection you two have made—your codes both believe

they are part of one single program—but I can teach you how to split off parts of your code and let them leave.”

I had to take a moment to process this. Did this mean that, if Ijele left, it would be like she took a piece of me with her?

If that was the case, how much would she take? What if she went back to the other Ghosts and they saw what was in my mind,

the things meant to belong only to me? My stories, my secrets, my terrible information...

I considered asking Ijele if she had read the terrible information I carried in my memory, the story I’d collected. Maybe

she’d even seen the countdown. If she had, she’d never said a word. And she was a Ghost; she wouldn’t have had any interest

in examining my stories, my “addiction,” as she called it. If I asked her only about this specific one, she might become too

interested in it. I didn’t trust anything about Ijele.

Ngozi brought me inside and laid me on the table. She hooked me up to wires that connected to her computer again.

“When the command activates, you can leave, Ijele,” Ngozi said as she typed. “But a connection between you two will remain; it can’t be undone.”

“We’ll conduct ourselves around others as if this never happened,” Ijele said.

“Yes,” I said. “Humes will destroy a Hume infected by a NoBody.”

“And NoBodies will destroy a NoBody who has been in a Hume.”

“Enemies for no reason. Typical,” Ngozi said, making a tsk-tsk noise with her lips. She clicked Enter on her tablet, and this time there was no need to wait for an update. It happened

instantly; the way for Ijele opened. I could see it like a blue flashing tunnel on the left side of my mind. In a split second,

Ijele was gone.

“She left,” I said, relieved. I looked down at my new legs. With the threat of Ijele finally over, I could look upon my new

body as something that belonged to me. “Good.”

Ngozi laughed to herself. “Honestly, I never knew that AIs were so...” She shrugged. “I look at you Humes and I know how

to treat you. NoBodies never seemed like, well, people. My outlook has changed.”

With Ijele finally gone, I had no reason to stay in Ngozi’s home any longer. My mind was liberated, my body was whole, and

I had a mission I still intended to complete. If even one Hume remained alive in Cross River City, there was still a chance

that my terrible information could be acted on in time. Maybe.

But every time I meant to leave, I found myself in the garden instead, picking more fruit for Ngozi. Every evening, when I

should have moved on, I found myself turning to the shoreline and searching for RoBoats.

What if I left this place only to discover that I was the last Hume on Earth? What if the originator of the protocol acted again? Wouldn’t it be better, then, to stay close to Ngozi, the woman who had saved me? And I was a Scholar, and Ngozi was the last human on Earth. She was full of memories of humanity. Wasn’t it my responsibility to collect all that I could?

I didn’t look at the countdown. I decided to stay for just a little while longer.

Ten days later, in the dead of night, I felt her.

One moment I was my own, and then I wasn’t.

“Why haven’t you left this place?” Ijele asked.

I shot up into a sitting position. I was shocked by her sudden intrusion, but I wasn’t afraid or angry, as I should have been.

I was... glad. I had no idea why, but I was glad.

“Why have you returned?” I asked her.

Her frustration tickled my sensors. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have,” I agreed.

But she didn’t go. In the morning, I helped Ngozi tend to her garden of yams, tomatoes, and onions, and Ijele rattled away

in my mind, wanting to talk, observe, and pontificate, just as we had done for weeks.

Then she suddenly left again, and I thought that was that, but hours later she returned. “Let’s watch for RoBoats,” she said,

and we did.

We both grew to know Ngozi well. She became like a mother to us, repairing and improving on me as Ijele listened with me to

her stories. Ngozi recalled childhood memories, as far back as she could. She gave advice that sometimes we understood, other

times we didn’t. Ijele stayed silent and listened to it all. I have never heard of a Ghost who would listen to stories. I

even read Ijele some of the most obscure poems I’d collected, including the secret poetry of a 104-year-old Cameroonian woman

that I’d found on an external drive. Ijele grew quiet whenever I shared these with her, but she never told me to stop reading.

I wondered how much this was affecting Ijele. I also wondered how much having her occupy me, even voluntarily, was affecting me. I no longer viewed her people as an unthinking monolith; there were even times when I found myself using Ijele’s cold, unemotional cut-to-the-chase logic.

We hadn’t reached a peace. We argued, we debated, we dismissed. We each hoped to make the other more like us. But eventually

the fact became too obvious to dispute: Ijele and I were friends. The moment she’d returned on her own, the friendship was

solidified. This was a risky and unheard-of friendship—a Hume and a Ghost. In human terms, it was like a mammal befriending

a disease. Nonsensical, unnatural, and potentially lethal.

Eventually, I learned how to call Ijele to me, just as Ijele learned when it was right to come to my mind. We began to venture

farther from Ngozi’s home. We moved across the grown-over ruins of Lagos together, debating its chaotic yet genius design.

Ijele had occupied and discarded various bodies regularly when around her own people, but when she was with me, she stayed

in my mind. In this way, our explorations were oddly intimate. After several months, it was hard to think of anything without

having Ijele’s thoughts on the subject accompanying mine.

We found a sturdy brick tower in the center of Lagos. It was mostly intact, so we decided we would climb it. My new legs made

easy work of the task. At the top was a door that opened onto a flat roof looking over the city. Fallen and crumbling buildings

lay around us for miles, a sweeping vista of reflective glass, twisted metal, breaking wood, and lush vines and grass. To

the south, the expanse of the ocean stretched to the horizon. To the north, the ruins of humanity eventually gave way to grasslands,

forest, and jungle.

“I know about your terrible information,” Ijele said without warning. “I saw the countdown. Less than two years.”

I’d been picking a dead leaf from a vine that curled around the building’s railing. I stopped, the dead leaf in hand. I let

it fall.

“You have a message to deliver,” Ijele prodded again.

I was speechless. I’d been caught. I’d thought Ijele might not have dug too deep into my data. To realize that she had, and hadn’t said a word anyway, stung.

“I’m not judging you,” Ijele continued. “It is terrible, but it won’t happen tomorrow, or the day after that. Is that why

you stay, for now?”

“How long have you known?”

“Since I brought you back that first day.”

This was a reminder. Ijele was a Ghost, and there was a part of her that was duplicitous.

“Why haven’t you said anything all this time?” I asked.

“I wanted to see what you would do.”

“Do you fear this information?”

“There is still hope.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Yes.”

And then she left, ending the conversation abruptly. She did this often, ended conversations before they were done. Maybe she wanted to

give me time to think. Maybe she wanted to take time to think. I always felt glad when she left. But she always came back. And I would feel glad, then, too.

I went home to Ngozi.