Sankofa put the cup down without taking a sip and followed Alhaja out of the room.
As she stepped outside where the group of wealthy folk had been gathered, she saw the truck. It was an ugly broken-down piece of machinery and she doubted if her technology-killing touch would have much of an effect on it. Its outer shell was crusted with rust, the headlights were broken, and its engine was exposed; it looked as if it had been cobbled together from the parts of already ancient damaged vehicles.
Its trunk was full of oranges. At least on the surface. Alhaja took Sankofa’s arm. “They’ll come to the storefront. The better to make a spectacle that everyone will talk about.”
In front, the line was so long that Sankofa couldn’t see the end of it. Beside the line was a crowd of curious onlookers.
“Is it always like this?” she asked.
“Yes,” Alhaja said, lighting one of her special cigarettes. She was looking around as if she expected monsters to burst from between the nearby market booths and alleys. Sankofa frowned, and started looking around, too. And that was how she was the first to spot the group of men in red. She blinked for a moment then tapped Alhaja’s shoulder. When Alhaja looked at her, Sankofa pointed.
“Oh shit,” Alhaja muttered, the cigarette dangling between her lips.
One of the men in red stepped forward, separating himself from the crowd. He was grinning, his teeth shining brightly in the store’s light. He had wild long hair, dreadlocks. Sankofa had never seen such hair in real life, but she’d seen it plenty in the movies she watched back home when they had public jelli telli nights near the mosque. It looked even more spectacular up close and in real life.
He didn’t speak, clearly waiting for everyone in the line to see him. Many brought out mobile phones and windows to take pictures of him. He pointed at Alhaja and nodded. “Mrs. Starlit. Chalé, how easy you go make this for yourself?” he said in English.
“Go home,” Alhaja said in Twi.
“No hired guns,” he said in English. He switched back to Twi. “Didn’t we tell you we were coming? Maybe you’re as smart as you look, Mrs. Starlit.”
“I told my gunmen to stay home,” she said. “I don’t need them today.”
Now others pushed through the crowd of onlookers, standing beside the line of customers, directly in front of Alhaja. There were at least ten of them. They carried guns, machetes, batons, cudgels. Wild haired. And smiling. Sankofa glanced at the people in the line and she knew this was a moment of choice. She’d been at the center of this kind of thing before. The people would flee and Alhaja would lose both her customers and merchandise. And maybe a few people would die, too.
“You’re just a woman,” the one with the longest dreadlocks said. “So do what women do, step back and let us take.”
The others laughed and none of them took a step forward or backwards.
“Maybe you are thinking of your own failed mother,” Alhaja snapped. “If you want something, you’ll have to buy it. My favorite is the upgraded jelli telli. The gel is stretchier, it smells like flowers instead of chemicals, the picture and sound make you feel like you’re right in the movie. And it holds up better in the heat.” Sankofa was looking at Alhaja’s back, but she could tell from her tone that she was smirking, trying so hard to look arrogant and sure.
“Get off my property,” Alhaja suddenly sneered. “You’re scaring my customers.”
It happened too fast. Sankofa was standing behind her. Everyone was watching. The cudgel flew like a swooping bird. She saw it in slow motion and as she watched the wooden object sail, she noticed something else. A glint in the sky. A drone. Right above them all. And then the round and hardest part of the cudgel hit Alhaja on the arm and she fell down.
Sankofa’s eyes locked on the men in red as they started to rush forward, their legs bending, sandaled and shoed feet grinding into the dirt, weight shifting forward. Sankofa stepped over the fallen Alhaja and became the moon.
Everyone ran.
Good, she thought, relieved. The fear was what she’d relied on. She couldn’t control her light enough not to kill many in the area, so she wasn’t about to try and target any of the thieves as they ran.
The people in line, the men in red, everyone fled, except Alhaja. Sankofa smiled in the silence and dust rising from all the scrambling feet. She looked up. The drone was still there. She grunted and helped Alhaja to her feet.
Alhaja’s customers returned the next day. The men in red did not. Alhaja stood outside from sun up to sun down as people came and bought just about every unit of new product she had, a bandage on her arm and Sankofa standing beside her. People came from farther away, flying in, driving in, by bus, kabu kabu, all to buy new tech. And to see Sankofa. The news of what happened spread fast and far within minutes. By the end of the day there was reason for all of Alhaja’s employees and friends to hold an impromptu party. Sankofa retreated to her bed, exhausted.
She’d done little else all day but stand around looking as menacing as she could muster. However, Sankofa had a lot on her mind. She’d saved Alhaja’s shop from armed robbers, but all she could think of was her father. The smell of that coffee. She wanted everyone to leave her be, including Alhaja. She had done what Alhaja needed done and she didn’t want to celebrate, explain herself, or be stared at. She considered leaving in the dead of night, but instead lay in that comfortable soft blue bed and pushed her face to the sheet and let her tears run. For hours. Because of the scent of coffee she remembered that she wanted her father. And he was dead. Because she’d killed him.
When she was finally able to drag herself out of bed, it was dark outside and the shop was quiet. She found Alhaja in the kitchen, sitting at the table sipping a cup of tea. She looked up at Sankofa and cocked her head. “Do you want something to eat?”
That was all. No questions, no demands. It was so nice. She and Alhaja never discussed it. They never planned for it. It just happened. Sankofa moved in to that room, setting her satchel on the dresser and lying on the bed and looking up at the blue ceiling. When the sun came up the second day, the room lit up like the sky. Sankofa shut her eyes, enjoying the warmth of the light on her skin.
On her third day in RoboTown, Alhaja walked with Sankofa to the local mosque. The walk there took a half hour. “This way, I can also show you much of RoboTown,” she said. “Best way to learn it is on foot.”
“It’s the only way I can learn it,” Sankofa said.
“Oh, that’s right, you can’t ride in cars.” She looked at Sankofa, frowning. “Why is that?”
Sankofa shrugged and asked, “Why do I glow?”
Alhaja nodded. “True. Mysteries are a mystery. Also, maybe if people see you walking, they’ll stop being afraid.”
“People are always afraid of me. For good reason.”
“Maybe if you didn’t go around reminding everyone by glowing in public, that might change,” Alhaja gently said.
Sankofa smiled. Yesterday morning when she’d gone outside to look at the avocado tree in the backyard, mosquitoes had tried to make a meal of her as they often did. She’d responded in her usual way, by glowing a little bit to kill them off and deter the living ones. A small group of women happened to have been passing by and they saw her do this. By afternoon, an even larger group of women had come to Alhaja’s home and, regardless of the fact that Sankofa was in her room close enough to hear, told Alhaja to get rid of her. Sankofa was glad they didn’t notice Movenpick perched in the branches amongst the unripe avocados.
So Alhaja is ok with me using my glow to save her shop, but not with me using it to save my own blood, Sankofa thought. Yes, to her, people were strange. Sankofa may have forgotten her name, but she remembered those early days of malaria, when she’d lain in bed shuddering, her body throbbing with the drum beat of deep aches, where it felt as if lightning were shooting through her legs, where she felt as if she were being repeatedly stung all over her body by giant mosquitoes. Over and over, this disease attacked her body… until the day the tree offered her the box. Let the women of RoboTown gossip, let Alhaja feel mildly uncomfortable; Sankofa’s hatred of mosquitoes was purely justified and she would keep zapping them with her light when she so pleased.