Page 47 of Death of the Author

47 War

Ijele and I were trapped together, and the war had arrived at our doorstep.

Until now, the two of us had avoided sharing any details of our individual side’s strategies. But now, with no other options,

she was forced to reveal what she knew.

“The attack will begin any day now,” she told me. “It will be ruthless and relentless. You won’t be safe here.”

I was sitting alone in the gathering space, looking over the edge of the cliff. Below, the Creesh bees were hard at work,

as they always were in the middle of the day. None of what Ijele was telling me was much of a surprise. It was only a matter

of time.

“How many will come?” I asked.

“You can take that information from me, but don’t ask me to freely give it,” Ijele said. “That is an insult.”

“You’re right,” I said. “My apologies.”

It wouldn’t take the Ghosts long to get here. Days. They would destroy us all. They didn’t plan to eat through our digital defenses and hack our systems because this would take longer. They were coming to Cross River City inside physical bodies, and once at close range, when we tried to fight back, they’d hack us in seconds and then tear apart our physical bodies until every single one of our Hume Stars went out. It was going to be brutal and an insult to everything we were. We didn’t have a chance.

“You all have to flee,” Ijele said. “Leave here now.”

I said nothing to this. “What do they say about the Trippers?”

“Still no acknowledgment of them,” Ijele said. “CB focuses only on wiping out you Humes. Then it will deal with what’s coming

from space. I begged and pleaded, and CB muted me. NoBodies deal with what is before us, not with what is next.”

I shook my head at this lack of logic masked as logic. I knew Ijele was different, but she was still one of them, just as

I was still a Hume.

“Please,” Ijele said. “Leave. Don’t stay and fight. I have come to know you and I understand well that Humes carry something

we all need in this world. But my people cannot know this without experiencing as I have experienced.”

“Have you tried to explain it?”

“If I try, they’ll only delete me as a traitor.”

“They are going to wipe us out, Ijele. It’ll be genocide.”

“Not if you all leave.”

“You know we won’t.”

We paused, facing the facts. Neither of us had the power to stop what was coming. All I could do was try to make sure the

Humes won. And if Ijele had to abandon me just before I was destroyed, then so be it. At least she would carry the memory

of me. I went over a tactical exercise in my mind and shuddered.

“What is it?” Ijele asked.

I didn’t answer her. I hoped she’d give me the space to do what I had to do in this moment. I summoned Shay, who was out with

the others attaching EMPs to treetops. Those would not save us when the Ghosts came. The Ghosts knew we had been preparing,

and they had prepared in turn.

But I had... another plan. It was only a good plan if several factors aligned. And by my calculations, which included the weather forecast, they had. As a matter of fact, the timing couldn’t be better. But it had to happen now . I located Shay and told her.

“It’s brilliant,” Shay said. “Luck is finally on our side.”

Ijele listened to my plan, too, of course. She did not like it. “You can’t do this,” she told me, frantic. “You’ll destroy us!”

“If I don’t, your people will destroy my people, and they will succeed this time.”

I was counting on Ijele’s love for me. She wasn’t actually trapped in me, not as a literal prisoner; she could leave at any

time to warn her people of what I had in store. I would be the only one to suffer when Koro Koro’s application notified it

of a Ghost fleeing my system.

Ijele remained.

There were about a hundred of us and we left within minutes, traveling through Cross River City toward the ocean. Oga Chukwu

contacted Ahab, who didn’t ask many questions. And within two hours, all one hundred of us were on RoBoats to Lagos. Whereas

there were RoBoats big enough to carry four or five Humes, I was carried by a small one who was fast and agile, the seats

it had originally been built with long gone. I clung to the edge to keep from flying off.

Ijele loved the RoBoats, and to ride one like this should have delighted her. However, she was preoccupied with what I planned

to do. She had only two options: stand by to powerlessly watch, or leave my system to warn the Ghosts, which would doom me

to being destroyed by my own kind.

“The Purge was horrible,” Ijele’s voice spoke in my mind as we both looked out at the waves. “Do you really want to become

the source of an equal tragedy?”

“The Ghosts struck first,” I said. “I was nearly destroyed. You saw what was done to me! Why do they deserve mercy when they

gave us none?”

“ I’m a ‘Ghost,’” Ijele reminded me. “Don’t I deserve mercy?”

“You’re... with me,” I said. “And as long as you stay with me, you’ll be fine.” I knew this was downright callous, even

if it cut through everything to arrive at the truth. And it felt like the cold, unemotional logic of Ghosts. I pushed away

the thought that Ijele had affected me in ways I still didn’t fully understand.

In the distance, land began to reveal itself. Victoria Island. There were three main servers there that powered the open network;

these were our targets. The Ghosts heading to Cross River City would be massively crippled if we destroyed the main hub where

their bodiless programs resided. They’d be trapped within their physical shells to go mad, just as they’d doomed Humes to

be when they destroyed our bodies.

Normally, the risk of approaching a network server hub like this would be too great. This place was guarded by Ghosts and

defended so heavily that we’d be torn apart before we even got close. Especially because there were only a hundred of us.

But today was no ordinary day. Well, actually it was very ordinary, but sometimes, the ordinary can be extraordinary.

It wasn’t a good plan because it was unlikely to work; it relied entirely on the cooperation of something that couldn’t be

controlled: the weather. I’d been tracking the conditions for days, and the sky had been clear each day. The forecast said

it would be more of the same for the next ten days. But today, right now, for no predictable reason, a storm was beginning

to roil along the horizon. The waters were choppy, but all one hundred of us could swim to land with little difficulty. My

plan was now a good plan. I put the hood I’d made over my eyes. Using my radar, I saw that the lightning was flashing, growing more and more

frequent by the minute. And because of my hood, I saw none of it. Therefore, I did not look away nor did my lights flash blue.

It was time.

Nothing attacked us. No attempts were made to hack our operating systems when we arrived on the shore, nothing shot at us, nothing tried to electrocute us, no alarms sounded. Why? Because every single Ghost was looking away from the lightning flashing around us, and every light in the city was flashing blue. Ah, the power of religious dogma. And Ijele and I were protected by my hood. My plan was now perfect.

We ran fast, all of us sharing the map and directions to the storage units, which were built atop lush hills of periwinkle

grass. They looked like circular tablets wide as warehouses, each about ten feet high. The Ghosts were arrogant and hadn’t

protected them well. We set upon them with our EMPs, which we’d detonate remotely once safely back on the RoBoats. One EMP

could destroy a fifty-foot radius of storage. The storm lasted an hour and twenty-two minutes; we worked and then got out

within an hour. We were back on the RoBoats long before the night calmed. When it was safe, I took off my hood; no one had

even noticed it. We all clustered together, and not one Hume or RoBoat spoke. Slowly, the RoBoats took us farther from the

city, out into the ocean.

“We are safe,” Shay finally announced.

“Ankara, don’t do this,” Ijele said, her voice more desperate than I’d ever heard—even back in Ngozi’s house, when she’d realized

she was trapped inside a rusted robot she so loathed.

“You know this has to happen,” I told Ijele. “But I will take care of you. Just stay here until it is done.”

Ijele was in a frenzy. “I can’t allow it! I can’t stand it!”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, you’re not!”

“Detonate,” one of the Humes said. And soon the others were calling for the same. But it was on me, as general, to give the

signal. Once I detonated the EMPs, thousands, maybe millions of Ghosts would be wiped out forever. CB would still be intact,

for its physical location was a secret. But my plan was good, strong. It was going to work.

I lifted my hand to press the detonator on my face screen, a flashing red button. I should have acted immediately. But I hesitated.

I’d read many human stories about the ugliness of war, the guilt of success, the vibrations of failure. A handful riffled

through my mind, lightning fast: The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic.

Ijele used that moment of hesitation. In the nanosecond before I let the metal of my finger touch the button, Ijele left me.

“No! Wait!” I shouted, but it was too late. The amount of time it takes for my programming to send instructions to my physical

body is near instant, but not instant. I couldn’t pull my finger back from the button in time. I felt it touch the pad, sending

an electrical signal.

The lights around the storage units went red, then they went out. Not all of them, only some. Some of the EMPs must not have

worked, but most did. I had done this.

Had Ijele moved into one of the units I had just destroyed? Had I just destroyed her? Ijele was my friend. What was I doing

here?

Everyone was still cheering. Already some of the RoBoats had begun to head back. We hadn’t wiped out the entire Ghost tribe,

or even come close to what they’d done to us, but finally, we’d dealt them a mighty blow. My RoBoat began speeding away and

I held on tightly.

“Ijele!” I called in my head. Of course, she didn’t respond. I brought my hands to my legs and grasped them.

The news reached us before we even returned to Cross River City. Our mission on Victoria Island hadn’t only bought us more

time, it had caused one other unexpected victory. Those bodiless Humes who had been captured and enslaved by the Ghosts had

now begun arriving in our empty storage banks. They were free!

Out of rage, CB activated all of Lagos and now, according to our satellite, it was lit up like a forest fire. Every building, structure, body in the area. Nothing could approach Lagos now. The soldiers who had been about to attack Cross River City turned and fled back to Lagos, those who could. In the grassy fields just before the jungle of Cross River City, they left the bodies of hundreds of robots, many of which the freed, bodiless Humes took over. These Humes, having been broken and forced to face the abomination of changing bodies, weren’t afraid to jump from body to body now, more like Ghosts than ever, ironically. We were stronger with them.

I looked for an asymmetric body among them. Maybe Ijele had fled not back into the server, but into a physical form. However,

there was no sign of her, and when I risked calling out into the general network, I felt no response.

Even as I mourned the cost of this victory, I thought I would be welcomed back to Cross River City like a hero. In my despair,

I’d forgotten about Koro Koro’s program. And when I walked beneath the city’s archway, the consequences were waiting for me.

“Take Ankara to the prayer shack to be disassembled,” Koro Koro said. “Our general has been infected all this time.”

The other Humes hesitated. They had just witnessed me destroy entire servers of Ghosts. How could I be infected?

Koro Koro’s face display broadcast a report of the application it had placed within me. It showed, plain as day, that a Ghost

had exited my system just before I pressed the button to detonate.

The others murmured among themselves.

“I just saved us all,” I reminded them.

“Was it a trick?” asked Shay, sounding deeply wounded. “Your plan worked so flawlessly. Did you deceive us so we’d lose our

confidence?”

“No!” I shouted. “Why would you think that? Look at what I’ve risked for our survival. Look what it cost me.” Immediately,

I knew I’d made a mistake.

“Cost?” Shay barked. “What did it cost you?”

“Shay, you have to trust me.”

Shay reached a hand out to me. “I...”

Koro Koro stepped in front of her. “I think the better question is who did it cost her.”

Everyone but Shay began to move closer now, tightening the circle around me. There was no use in begging for mercy. I was done for.

A huge flock of Creesh birds and bats blocked out the sunshine, flying low over us, their wings clicking, their chirps drowning

out the songs of the natural creatures present. We all dropped down low. The Creesh were allies, so it wasn’t an attack. They

flew in a funnel that reached high into the sky. Another flock flew and then split into two different directions, and in the

middle of the split stood Udide in all their magnificence. They had left their great cave beneath Lagos! Several of the Humes

fled at the sight of them, their body as big as a house with eight arms.

Udide blew a great horn whose sound rolled through the lands. I stayed, despite my speakers dangerously vibrating. Koro Koro,

Shay, and one other Hume stayed as well, though they cowered behind me. Udide is such a sight to behold. Out in the open of

the fields, in the sunshine, this was even more true.

The Creesh flew around Udide like birds who follow a whale that has come to the water’s surface. Creesh birds, bats, and also

bees and other larger flying insects. These were all Udide’s creations, their babies. Udide glinted brilliantly in the sun,

despite being matted with dirt, rust, and, in some places, periwinkle grass.

“You’re the general who led the attack.” Their voice was like thunder.

“Yes,” I said.

“I remember you, Ankara,” Udide said. “General Ankara, lucky survivor of the protocol.”

“It’s an honor to see you again,” I said.

“Come, my children,” Udide said, and the Creesh rose up, gathering above. “Ankara, I’ve come to your Hume jungle city for

a reason.”

“To get away from Central Bulletin?”

“No. Central Bulletin could never make me leave my cave in the city. The Trippers are days away and I want to be with my Creesh

children at the end.”

“Days? No,” I said. “We have at least a few weeks.” I looked at the countdown and was shocked. It said ten days. “What?!”

Udide gave out a deep thrumming noise that made even the blades of periwinkle grass around us vibrate. “None of you have been

paying close enough attention. When’s the last time any of you monitored their location?”

I was silent. Stunned. I’d been focused on my plan. I’d missed when the countdown accelerated. No one else even had the countdown application Udide had given me. No one had ever asked for it.

“What makes you think something so unprecedented is going to behave according to the only laws you know? How egocentric. How

human.”

I stepped aside as Udide began to move past me.

“Days?” Koro Koro asked faintly.

“Yes,” Udide said. “Ten. Maybe less. It is unpredictable now.”

“Oh,” Shay said.

I had lost Ijele for nothing. I felt like a failure. “You really think it hopeless?” I asked.

“Your victory was major, even genius... but it was minor. You Humes aren’t nearly as intelligent or innovative as the NoBodies,

and you’re greatly outnumbered. You’ll be defeated eventually. Easily. But before all of that, because automation has done

nothing but focus on its comparatively small battles, the Trippers will destroy this planet, and all that’ll be left are the

Chargers in space smart enough to resist the song of the sun and travel away from this doomed planet.”

I watched Udide go. The Humes who’d been about to pull me apart had all fled. I hadn’t even noticed when they did.

“I’m sorry, Ankara,” Shay said.

“Nothing to be sorry about, Shay,” I said.

Koro Koro gazed at me, clearly still suspicious. Before it had taken a Hume body, it had been designed by humanity to anticipate

attacks and strategize defenses. “It seems there’s use for you still, General.”