Excerpt

He thought grief would rip him apart. He thought he would disintegrate. But the death of his brother only left him with a sense of disappointment. They had not been close. With five years between them, they never had much in common. They did not share friends or play games together. They did not even share the same roof, for as long as Kera could remember, Karama had lived in the little building out in the backyard. He could not remember ever having a one-on-one conversation with Karama. They had never even fought before.

For nearly ten minutes Kera watched blood flow from Karama's head. He had uncles, aunts, and cousins who he could look to for family support, but none lived in town. They had not seen or heard from any of them since the war broke out.

His vision blurred. He wiped tears away and forced his eyes off the carnage. Soldiers still ran about in their barracks in utter confusion. Some had jumped into vehicles and were speeding away. Hopefully, they would spread word of the terror that had befallen their barracks. The prisoners had escaped. Kera was glad to see some reading a sign he had etched on a tree trunk. It warmed his heart to see them heading eastwards toward Katong.

Salvation, Kera thought. He had failed to save Karama, but he could still bring sanity back to the world. He needed the flash gun. He could not let Baba destroy it.

He believed human beings were a cross between the alien hissing creature and apes, that human consciousness and intelligence came from these aliens. Maybe, seeing how humans used this intelligence to ruin the world, they forbade Baba from revealing any knowledge other than what was necessary to protect the valley. But Baba, or the human bit of him still left, had created a supergun to rescue his son.

Kera had failed him. Now Baba would want to destroy the gun. He would argue that the world was better off without it. Yet, Kera had experienced its magic. He had saved four women from rape and possibly death. He had destroyed a warlord's barracks and saved thousands of people from being turned into zombies ready to kill, rape, and maim for the love of minerals and the illusion of power. With the flash gun he was Kibuuka and Luanda Magere. He could instill fear in warlords and bring back peace.

He spent the day in the skies, floating, mourning, letting the chill kiss his skin, feeling the wind in his wings and the weight of grief in his heart. When hungry, he ate roasted potatoes and chicken, which Baba had wrapped in banana leaves. He did not zoom in on the details on the ground, for that would make him more miserable. He instead kept the goggles at their widest angle, giving him panoramic views of hills, of rivers flowing through the green, red dirt roads and gray tarmac roads cutting through the lush vegetation. He stayed up there until the sun started to descend.

He did not keep the gun in the cave. He feared that Baba might communicate with the hissing creatures and they would creep out at night and destroy it. He took it to an island in the eastern swamp and hid it in the reeds. He knew the futility of his actions. Baba simply had to read his mind to know where the gun was, but it was worth a try. He then flew the bruka to the cave and walked back home.

He reached the eastern gate wall after dark. The fire ditch threw flames twenty feet up. Beyond the flames the wall soared into the darkness, glowing in the lights from the ditch. Two men were in a tower. The watch.

"Stop!" one shouted. "Who are you?"

"It's me. Kera."

"Baba Chuma's son? What are you doing out at this time?"

"I went to fish."

He showed them a couple of tilapia he had found on his hooks. The government had started a fish farming project several years back. When war broke out, the market for the fish died, so tilapia spawned wanton in the swamps and streams. It was an easy alibi.

The watchman pressed a button, turning down the flames in the road section of the fire-ditch. They lowered a drawbridge. By the time Kera reached the gate, he felt singed.

"Only two fish?" one man said.

"There is only two of us at home," Kera said.

"Tomorrow, bring more so I can eat, too."

"No worry," Kera said. "Baba is waiting for me."

"Refugees came," the other man said. "They appeared this evening. Maybe the teacher was right all along. You see they talk of spirits fighting soldiers and telling them to come to our town."

"Oh," Kera said. He had not thought about the teacher.

"Go see them if you want," the man continued, "they are at the police station."

As he hurried to the station, Kera thought he was in a strange town. Even before the war, perpetual darkness had engulfed the town, for it did not have streetlights. When war broke out, electricity supply became erratic, so much so that it would be a miracle for the lights to come on. Now Baba must have created a generator. Hundreds of bulbs turned the night orange. His machines had repaired the buildings, giving them fresh paint and leaving no signs of the attack. A new police station, three stories high, stood in place of the old colonial structure that had been bombed out during the attack. Kera gaped. The building had gone up in just one day. He could stomach a flying machine and a flash gun, for these he had seen in a myriad of sci-fi movies, but a three-storied building that appeared out of the blue?