Page 22 of Death of the Author

22 Time

Zelu didn’t call her mother or father for weeks while at MIT. Instead, every day she met with Hugo, Uchenna, and Marcy. She

learned how to put her exos on while in her wheelchair. Then she learned how to stand up from the chair on her own. When they

weren’t working with the exos, she was working out. Hugo didn’t stick around for this part, since he had other meetings to

attend and research to do. Uchenna had classes to teach. Marcy was the one who stayed while Zelu strengthened her abdominal

muscles, back, chest, and arms. She’d never felt so sore in her life.

“You’re already in decent shape, so a lot of the soreness is from new muscle use,” Marcy said. “Drink your water, soak in

your bath, and keep at it. Soon, it’ll fade away and you’ll realize you’re stronger and better with the exos.”

Zelu couldn’t wait for that part to kick in. She was in such pain now that even wheeling her chair was a struggle. After a

particularly rough session, she wheeled back to her hotel room and grabbed a bag of sweet potato chips and a Gatorade from

the basket of snacks Hugo had sent.

Her Yebo app was blinking with a reminder. A few weeks ago, her agent had corralled her into agreeing to take an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. Right on time, her phone started ringing.

The reporter took too long introducing himself, and the questions were unimaginative. Zelu lay on her bed and stared at the

ceiling as she parroted her prepared answers, the same ones she’d given to dozens of reporters before him.

Then he said, “So what is it you’re up to at MIT? Research for book two?”

She’d only laughed. “You know I’m not going to answer that.”

“But you are at MIT, right?” he asked. “You’re not slated for a speaking gig there. So... what are you doing? People just want to know

what’s up.”

She skirted the subject by changing the topic and ended up saying too much about her family. He got his unique quote in the

end. The journalist was good.

She slipped under her covers, only planning to lie down for a few minutes before she pulled herself back up to take a shower

and brush her teeth. She was asleep within seconds.

Zelu had been having strange dreams where far more than her legs was robotic. And in these dreams, she wasn’t solar-powered

like the robots in her book. Her battery always died. Always. And there she would remain, frozen in place in some deserted

parking lot, not unlike the setting at the beginning of her novel, with no possibility of anyone finding her.

MIT had provided Zelu with a therapist during her time there, and Zelu had spilled all this to him. The therapist hmmed and

aahed and gave her some feedback about facing her insecurities. Afterward, Zelu felt better, but when she went back to her

hotel room that night, the nightmare returned. She awoke feeling uneasy. No therapist she’d just met was going to solve her

issues. The one she’d had back home for the last three years had helped her, but she still had a long way to go.

Zelu remained in Cambridge for one month. When the time finally came to go home, she could walk pretty well with her exos, though it left her tired after about a half hour. At least she wasn’t falling. She said a heartfelt good-bye to Hugo, Marcy, and Uchenna that left her in tears. When she got back to her hotel room, she packed her things and then looked at her phone. She hadn’t spoken to her family since the day she left home. This was the longest she’d ever gone without speaking to them. She’d be back in her parents’ house soon, so she decided to bite the bullet and call their landline number. Her mother answered.

“Zelu!”

“Hi, Mom,” Zelu said awkwardly.

There was a pause and the sound of shuffling.

“Zelunjo!” her father said. “How are you? Are you all right?”

Zelu smiled. “Yes, Dad, I really am.”

“Why haven’t you been calling?”

Zelu rolled her eyes. Just like her family to forget how this even started. “Because all everyone does is yell at me.”

She heard her mother, who must have been pressing her ear close to the phone beside her father, say, “Because you’re acting

like a crazy person! You—”

“Don’t mind your mother right now,” her father said. “We are glad to hear from you.”

“And we know how you are doing!” her mother shouted. “Your teacher Dr. Wagner has been keeping us updated! You think you can

just—”

“ What?! ” Zelu screamed. Hugo had been talking to her parents all this time? Who did he think he was? Who did he think she was? An eight-year-old?

“Omo!” her father hissed at her mother. “Stop it. You’re not helping.”

“Ah, I’m not trying to help,” she said.

“I will kill Hugo,” Zelu said solemnly. “I’m not a child. Jeez! This is so unprofessional.”

“ We were the ones who kept calling and calling,” her mother said. “Then I got his office number. We’re your parents, no matter

how old you are.”

Zelu sighed, letting the thought of them harassing Hugo all these weeks sink in. If she’d known, what would she have done? At the least, let it distract her—at most, maybe given up. Suddenly she was glad he had chosen not to say anything.

“When are you coming home?” her mother asked.

Zelu rubbed her forehead. “Tomorrow.”

She answered a few more obligatory questions before hurrying them off the phone. Next, she dialed Msizi. Better to just tear

off the Band-Aid. As she waited for him to pick up, she felt her heart begin to pound in her ears. She didn’t know what she

would say to him. The last time they’d spoken, he had told her not to go to Boston, and she’d hung up on him. She hadn’t texted,

emailed, or called him since. And he hadn’t reached out to her, either.

He didn’t answer. Stung, she threw her phone on her bed. “Fuck him, then.” But she stayed where she was, looking at her phone

for the next ten minutes. He didn’t call back. She got up and continued packing. It didn’t help much, but it was something

to do.

The next day, when the cab came to take her to the airport, she was still feeling agitated and hurt, and it didn’t help that

the driver asked to help her with her wheelchair. An idea popped into her head and she acted on it. No need to dissect it.

She was holding the exos case in her lap, having planned to take it as a carry-on item on the plane. She pulled out the wand,

spoke her own name, and within a minute the case had unfolded itself to become the exos. The metal moved like a snake, molding

around her legs. She stood up and folded her chair, ignoring the driver’s wide eyes. Obediently, he took her chair and folded

it into the trunk.

She walked through the airport just like anyone else. The driver carried her bags as she approached ticketing. The airline

agent had a copy of her book sitting on the desk next to his computer. He stared at her face, then her exos, then managed

to ask her for an autograph. She gave it, and then she walked on, both the agent and the driver staring after her. She even

noticed the driver bring up his phone and take a picture of her, but she had to concentrate on walking, so she tried to ignore

him.

Getting through TSA took a good half hour. She had to wait ten minutes for them to bring another wheelchair for her to sit in, just so she could take off the exos and go through the metal detector. A small crowd of people had started to gather behind her, not because she was holding up the line but because they recognized her.

She walked to her gate slowly. To others, she must have looked like someone half built with hardware, her cyan-colored legs

taking her for a leisurely stroll. She kept her head up. One step at a time. She made it to her gate. It was time to board.

When she reached her seat in first class, she made eye contact with no one, though she knew all eyes were on her exos.

I did it , she thought. She’d email Hugo to tell him the good news when she got home. He would be shocked.

What she didn’t know was that as she’d been walking to her gate, a young woman who’d read her novel five times, had created

a dedicated blog for it, considered herself the authority on all things Rusted Robots , and said so in all her social media bios had seen her. And immediately this woman had reached for her phone, recorded clear

and dynamic footage of Zelu “walking on robot legs,” and posted it on her blog for her one million followers to see. Then

she’d posted the video on all her socials with a caption proclaiming that Zelu was gradually “ becoming her main character, Ankara.”

As Zelu slept on her flight, the world was speculating vigorously. When the plane landed in Chicago and she turned her phone

back on, it buzzed, zinged, whammed, and boomed. “What the fuck?” she whispered. There were texts and messages from her parents

and siblings, and even a text from Msizi. She’d gone up in the air in peace and quiet and come down into chaos.

Everyone was asking her to call or text them, and no one was explaining why.

What are you doing?

Are you all right?

Don’t you have any sense of privacy?

Hugo had also texted her. It was a GIF of an audience giving a standing ovation.

Only Tolu had bothered to provide context. He’d sent a link to the post, and Zelu clicked it open and watched the video of

herself taken by some stranger’s phone.

“Holy shit!” she wheezed. She replayed it five times. She looked good, walking with a confidence almost as solid as Hugo’s.

Her phone continued to buzz. Her social media handles were getting tagged and quoted over and over again. She clicked open

the latest one, from some random person.

@ZelunjoOO I have questions.

“Fuck your questions,” she muttered. “It’s my life, my body.” The joy she’d felt watching the video moments ago faded. Now she wanted to cry. Spying eyes and chattering mouths

were everywhere. But this wasn’t their business. Why hadn’t she thought about what would happen when people saw her? Her fault.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! She’d been so focused on proving something to herself. Her fault. She hadn’t been thinking. Reckless.

Zelu rubbed her face. As she moved through the terminal, she focused on her exos and made eye contact with no one. Tolu met

her at baggage claim. She’d taken so long that he’d already gotten her two suitcases and wheelchair and loaded them all on

a cart. He stared at her exos as she slowly walked up to him, his mouth hanging open. She stopped in front of him, and still

he did not speak. Finally, he raised his eyes to meet hers.

“Fucking amazing,” he said.

His words took her breath away, and she couldn’t hold back her tears.

He took her in his arms and hugged her tightly. “You did it.”

“I did,” she said into his shoulder, leaning on him. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Of course. Glad you finally called.”

“Me too,” she agreed, fully meaning it.

“Wow,” he said, still not letting go. “The last time I stood and hugged you was... a long time ago. It’s so weird.” He gently let go of her and she steadied herself. She noticed Tolu was looking around. “Let’s get out of here.”

She looked around now, too. There were several people staring at them. A security robot had even stopped just behind them;

airport surveillance was interested in her, too.

Tolu eyed her dubiously. “You’re really okay walking with... with those things?”

She rolled her eyes. “You saw me. I got here, didn’t I?”

“Is it hard?”

“Let’s just go,” she said. She waved a hand near her waist, signaling her legs to walk faster. As they moved, she said, “Just

lead the way. Don’t talk to me. Need to concentrate.”

“Okay,” he said with a nod.

She’d never tried to walk this fast, but she managed, keeping her balance, moving with the exos’ gait, just as Hugo had taught

her. After a few minutes, she fell into a rhythm that was quite similar to when she swam long distances in the ocean, except

this time she didn’t have the great wisdom of the ocean to buoy her. She was the only one who could stop herself from falling.

By the time they reached Tolu’s green SUV, she was sweating and feeling more than dizzy.

She needed his help getting into the car, and he seemed relieved by this. Once in, she shut the door and spoke her name to

deactivate the exos. They collapsed back into a cube-shaped case with a handle that fit into the space behind her feet in

the SUV. She laid her head against the headrest and let out a sigh of relief.

“You are crazy,” Tolu said, staring at the cube on the floor.

“Oh, come on, Tolu.” What did he know about it?

“They didn’t implant anything into you, did they?” Tolu asked.

“What? No.”

“It’s not connected to your brain?”

“Oh my God.” She laughed. “If I had the chance, I’d—”

Tolu guffawed loudly. “And when strange ideas start popping into your mind and you don’t know where they came from, you’ll

what?”

She kissed her teeth. “Look who’s paranoid of technology as he drives his computer-powered car down the highway to work at

eighty miles per hour every day.”

He started the car and began driving. “So just a heads-up, everyone is waiting for you at home.”

Zelu groaned. “Are you kidding? For this? Why?” She could already feel a headache coming on.

“You know you’re all over the internet right now, right? You’re trending on all the social media platforms. Chinyere’s got

colleagues asking her questions. Bola’s got it even worse; all of her colleagues want details. Only thing that could have

made them more rabid is if you were suddenly going to the moon in a great big rocket ship! You’re an engineer’s wet dream.

I had to leave the office early because the partners were asking too many questions.” He laughed. “We’ve got to circle the

wagons thanks to you, woman!”

When they pulled up to the driveway of her parents’ house, the SUV could barely crowd in next to all her siblings’ cars. As

her brother got out and moved to the passenger door, she put her exos back on. Tolu opened the door just as they clicked and

clacked into place. “Mom’s going to throw the Bible at you,” he said. “Dad is going to have a thousand questions.”

She shrugged, moving herself into a position to exit the car.

“Maybe you should take those off and enter using your chair,” he said, looking worried.

“No. I’ve gone too far for that. But stay near me with the chair. When I get nervous, they’re harder to control. And the slightest

push and I’ll fall.”

As she approached the front door, Tolu pushing her chair behind her, she felt like she was walking to her death. Her hands were clammy in the cool breeze. She felt unsteady, and the more she concentrated, the more her exos started feeling like a moving platform she was sitting on. The last thing she needed was to look wobbly when her family first saw her, but she couldn’t help it! Were her exos making her too tall? How tall had she been before the accident? She couldn’t remember! Oh man, I must look so freakish , she thought, imagining herself as the android in the silent film Metropolis . Her siblings would laugh at her. Or even worse, pity her. She could hear them now. They were in the living room. Everyone.

Talking loudly, as usual. She unlocked the door and immediately the talking inside ceased. Oh God. She turned the knob. She went inside.

Her father was sitting in his armchair, his throne. But as most Igbos will remind people, the Igbos have no kings; better

to call it a chief’s seat. Behind him was a shelf of his lush green houseplants, their jungle-like colors adding to his commanding

presence. Zelu noticed that the plant she’d given to her father when she’d moved back in was sitting there, too, thriving

so much that its vines now hung all the way to the carpet. Her mother was on her feet, standing behind his chair; she’d probably

been pacing. Chinyere and Bola were on the couch. Amarachi was sitting on the floor because Chinyere was braiding her hair.

Uzo sat beside her, not looking up from her phone. Chinyere’s older son, Emeka, was sitting in a corner, huddled over a tablet.

He looked up and dropped it when he saw Zelu walk in. Tolu’s wife, Folashade, was sitting on a folding chair to her right.

Chinyere’s younger son, Chukwudi, sat on her lap, and he took one look at Zelu and gave her a toothy grin.

Zelu focused first on Chukwudi and his childish joy, because everything was about to go very badly. Chukwudi held out a hand

and Zelu took it. Folashade looked up at Zelu and said nothing. She did not smile, either. She stared at her, shocked...

and bothered. Zelu had always liked Folashade, but she didn’t at this moment.

Zelu held her shoulders back, straightened her spine, and lifted her chin. And she didn’t look down. Looking down always fucked

with her gait and center of gravity. The exos would do what they needed to do. She had to believe that with fanatic-level

faith in this moment. To fall in front of her family would be the definition of disaster.

“Hi, everyone,” she said, a lump already in her throat.

“ Chey! Tufiakwa ,” she heard her father mutter, shrugging his shoulders for emphasis. “I don’t know about this. It’s a lot for even me.”

Her oldest sister unleashed the demons first. “Zelu, what is wrong with you!? Do you care about this family at all?”

“Why should she care?” her mother shrilled. “She has always done whatever she wants. How do you think she fell out of that

tree in the first place?”

A spear to her heart. She took a step backward, her right leg wobbling. She caught herself, hoping no one noticed.

“Oh, Mom, come on,” Tolu said, coming in behind Zelu. “Seriously!”

Her mother looked away, waving a hand as if to dismiss the harshness of her own words.

“Can you blame Mom, though?” Amarachi snapped. “You snuck away for a whole month !”

“‘Snuck’?” Zelu snapped. She had to work to keep her voice down. “I told you where I was going. And again , I’m thirty-five years old!”

“And you live here,” her mother shouted. “This isn’t a hotel! And we are your family! You didn’t call once. You left no information about

where you were! We had to find that professor you worked with ourselves! What if something had happened to you?! You can’t

walk! Jesus, o!”

Zelu would have laughed at this if she weren’t shaking so much. She grabbed the doorframe. “Well, I can now!”

Chinyere jumped up, a cruel smile on her face. She motioned with a hand at the way Zelu was gripping the doorway for support.

“ That is not walking. That’s being dragged around with robot legs like some freak! Like something in a Dr. Seuss book! And now

the whole world’s seen it and is talking about it! Even in Nigeria!”

Her mother burst into tears. “Why have you shamed your family? In the face of God!”

Her father got up, and for one stupid second Zelu thought he might defend her, but he just put his arms around his wife, soothing

her.

“So selfish,” Bola said quietly. “Aren’t you happy with who you are? Isn’t the whole novel thing enough?”

Zelu just stood there. Tired and shaky, she needed to sit down. No one offered her a seat. No one asked what it had all been like. They were supposed to be happy with the results of her experience. She was. Had been. They could never understand. But after all this, she had wanted her family to approve.

“I should have called,” she said. “Yeah, I should have...” She frowned. She needed to sit down so badly. She didn’t have

the energy to fight this, to fight them. And they were right, to an extent. Maybe. Her sudden success and growing independence had upset the balance of the family.

She bit her lip and turned to head toward her room. No one stopped her, but she could feel their eyes scrutinizing her every

robotic step. When she reached her room, she heard them start talking again. About her. About how the family should handle

all the “hype” and gossip. About the video. About how Zelu looked. About what they would say to the Nigerian community, their

friends, their coworkers. Zelu was a shame, a stain, needed to be managed, or the family would look sooooooo bad.

She shut her bedroom door. Everything in her body wanted to shake itself into a pile of parts and ash. Yet she had not fallen.

She was getting good at using the exos. And she hadn’t crumbled into a panic attack. No ground was rushing toward her. No

racing heart. No foggy mind. War-torn, but okay.

She exhaled, her eyes falling on a beat-up, well-read advance copy of Rusted Robots on her desk. “It’s time to move out.”

In the morning, she woke up staring at the ceiling. She grabbed her phone, muttering, “Fuck this.” She dialed. Before it had

fully rung once, Msizi picked up.

“You’re home?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, suddenly anxious. She hadn’t actually expected him to answer. She’d missed the sound of his voice.

“You’re part robot now?” he flatly asked.

She laughed. “Yeah.”

“I saw it on social media.” He paused. “I’ve wanted to call you.”

“I’ve wanted to call you, too.”

“I’ve missed you.” His voice was soft but purposeful. “I should have seen you through this, even if it was strange. I’m sorry.”

Zelu grinned, her heart lifting as relief flooded through her. At least she still had him. “It’s not that strange.”

“Oh, it’s strange.”