“Feel fine,” I said. My lips felt heavy, my whole body felt heavy. I was mostly with the drone, which was still flying toward the camp. I put the images from the drone and from all the gathering devices on all the screens for everyone in the room to see. Only the drone image was steady, the images from mobile phone and tablet cameras in constant motion.
“Look at that,” Force said.
“Can they see or hear us?” Dolapo asked.
“No,” I said.
“The image from above is the drone, so you found one?” DNA asked.
“Easily,” I said. I slowly opened my eyes and sat up to look at all the camera connections I’d unlocked. All around me were boxes showing what people were doing, shaky images as people walked, stood with their phones in hand, near black screens from phones in pockets, people seeming to peer at us as they looked at their tablets or phones. Ninety eight screens. The biggest being the drone’s bird’s eye view.
You could see it happening. All the screen images were doing ninety-eight separate things. Then gradually, every single one of them began to show or move to the same place—the center of the camp. It was uncanny. And once the drone I’d stolen arrived, hovering far above, we could see them all gathering. All the points of view told pieces of the same story. I hadn’t expected everyone in the camp to jump up and gather so quickly though.
“Have they been expecting this?” I asked, sitting back on the chair.
“Doesn’t matter now,” DNA said. “You all ready?”
The herdsmen nodded and straightened up. We watched as more faces began to appear in their screens. An old man with rich brown skin wearing a plain tan kaftan looked into one of the screens. “That’s a member of the Bukkaru,” DNA said.
I lowered the drone to the point where people began to look up and point. What looked to be about fifty people had gathered. Sixty-five to be exact. Sixty-six. The herdsmen began to point and speak in Pulaar at the same time. “That’s the Bukkaru,” Idris said. “They have gathered. Start it!”
“Who?” I asked. “Which ones? Point them out.”
They were gathered farthest from the camp, the people streaming out to face them. It was obvious who the Elders were. Important-looking men wearing important clothes being looked at by everyone else because they were important.
I glanced at DNA, and he nodded.
“Your heartrate is still normal,” Force said. “Remember to breathe.”
I felt Dolapo reach forward and squeeze my arm. When I closed my eyes, she put her hand on my shoulder. “Keep it there,” I said.
“Okay.”
Inhale, exhale.
I hovered before the Bukkaru and they looked right at us. It was as if they were facing DNA and the others. I checked the drone to see if I could channel their voices through it. I could. First I sent a message. It was for the Bukkaru, but I sent it to every single phone, tablet, tv, screen. “We speak. You listen. Here is the truth.” I turned on the cameras in front of DNA, Idris, Tasiri and Lubega. Then I put the four of them on every screen in that camp. Everyone, including the Bukkaru members looked down at their screens.
DNA began speaking in Pulaar. I could have had his words instantly translated. He’d launched right into what sounded like a passionate speech. I was certainly interested. However, I just didn’t think it would work. Why would common sense work for a people who’d just turned around and started killing the oldest part of themselves? Because of what was clearly a bloody violent misunderstanding. No. I had a better plan. I hadn’t shared it with any of them, not even DNA. I executed it now.
Ultimate Corp. It always came down to this fucking corporation. I needed to show these people its involvement in their affairs. Let them all see, too. I went to the pomegranate. While the others were focused on the meeting. While my brain dialogued with those who were connected to my brain. While I made sure the drone stayed steady, the connections remained, the cameras were on. My nose started bleeding.
The pomegranate took my command and then off I went. It was easy once I decided to look for the millions of files. They took me through thousands. I found the connections I needed. But then, well, I wasn’t looking for this particular bit of pivotal information. It was coincidence. Maybe. The pomegranate helped me interpret it. Oh this is good.
Then I found and connected phones owned by Ultimate Corp executives to the Bukkaru meeting. Fifteen of them. Three of those executives were Nigerian. They would know exactly what they were seeing. They’d tell the others. They’d have to pay attention now.
And the “coincidental” document. I had it. And it made something terrible as clear as a calm day in the desert. I was flying faster, like electricity. A part of me, at least. With that document. Everything has a record. In some way. This one was a recording of a meeting. I came back to myself and realized someone was standing on my chest. My eyes flew open, and I was looking right into Force’s eyes, he was carrying the defibrillator pads. “Wha . . . ?” I said.
“You’re going to have a heart attack!” he whispered. Dolapo was beside him, weeping quietly. DNA and the others were focused on the part of the screen before them. I was still holding the connection. One of the Bukkaru elders was standing now. He seemed to be shouting at them through the drone camera. DNA’s sister Wuro stood beside him, looking angry. Her hands were tied together.
I let my body go limp. Closed my eyes. Inhaled, exhaled. Force was still whispering angrily at me. My ears felt wet. My left shoulder was burning. I zipped off, again. If this was my death, let me finish what I was doing first. Ultimate Corp had it coming. At the moment I sent it, the Bukkaru Elder was still shouting. It was the perfect time for the footage to cut in.
The Ultimate Corp symbol was in the top left corner. Along with the date of twenty years ago, days after June 15th, the Day of the Four Herdsmen, the incident in which four so-called Fulani herdsman entered a village and killed and robbed everyone in it and then set it aflame. The Day of The Four Herdsmen put all Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria back on the global radar as terrorists.
“Who’s going to stick up for them?” a thin-lipped man in a sharp suit said, sitting back on a plush leather chair that creaked under his ample weight. “These guys are off the grid, born off the grid. No citizenship, no identity, thus no digital trail. They’re solitary, always covered in dust, Africans are afraid of Africans already. Plus, these herders have been viewed for decades as terrorists. So let’s take this new incident and up the ante. We pay off a couple hundred more of them to give up herding cows and instead shoot up towns. POOF! Threat to Ultimate Corp’s commerce in the north gone, and we can continue building. Hell, imagine all the beef we can sell there.”
“Maybe. But those people really aren’t a threat, per se. They just . . .”