Five years ago, that boy had been Ify’s prisoner.
Paige, her hands on Peter’s shoulders, grins at Ify. “Peter, meet Ify. Ify, this is Peter.”
CHAPTER
6
After the robots are finished downloading and their cords go back into their necks, they begin burying the bodies in the holes in the ground that they are making earlier. I am asking Enyemaka if they are doing this often, and Enyemaka is saying, It is our task. It is our programming.
You are being made to do this thing? I am asking it.
I was made to protect. But I failed that mission, so I have given myself new programming. We have made our own purpose.
You are saying I am child of war. Is this possible for me? To make new purpose?
Enyemaka is staring at me for long time, and light is moving in its eyes, and then Enyemaka is saying, in voice of woman, “Yes.” And even though Enyemaka is having no mouth, I am thinking she is smiling.
So that is how I am helping Enyemaka to bury the bodies. I am smaller than them, but I am able to carry many bodies on my back so that when they are done downloading, I am picking up the bodies and laying them in front of the graves the other Enyemakas are digging for them. And we are doing this for many days. And one day, when the sun is bright in the sky and I am having pack for water and for fruit that we are picking by river the day before, I am asking Enyemaka how they are locating these graves.
Enyemaka is hunching in front of me so that our eye is on same level. Then, in front of me is hologram map the same color of blue that is sometimes shading my rememberings. And it is showing map with squiggle lines that are supposed to be mountains and valleys, and there are red dots that are pulsing, and I am knowing that these are being people like I am seeing in my rememberings. And around every red dot is pulsing like waves of circles coming out then vanishing, and I am remembering a stone skipping on the water of a pond, and someone is throwing it to be doing this thing, and that someone is me.
We discern the location of the graves from the speech of nearby humans residing in villages not far from the burial grounds. And the map is zooming in on one of the red dots, and the squiggle lines are turning into buildings and huts and gardens, and the red dot is turning into a man who is having water falling from his eye and who is sadding.
“When are you talking to these people to be knowing where the graves are being?” I am asking Enyemaka.
And Enyemaka’s map zooms out so that I see the red dots gathered in clusters, and I am knowing now that where there are many red dots to be sadding, that is where bodies are being buried or left outside for rotting. Then Enyemaka is showing me hologram of satellite photo, and in the photo is upturned dirt like scab, and it is awkward and without order and sometimes it is just one square that has not been flattened properly. Or it is like someone is wounding the earth and then being messy when sewing the wound back together.
That is how the Enyemakas are finding the graves.
One time, an old woman is coming from village to watch us work, and there is water brimming in her eyes, and no one is making sound, except for the digging. And then she is seeing me carrying body and she is screaming that this is no work for a child, and this is the first time that someone is calling me fifteen-year-old girl, and I am looking to Enyemaka, and she is looking at me like, yes, I am fifteen years old, but I am feeling older and younger at the same time, so I am moving the bodies I am carrying to their graves and then I am walking to the old woman who has red dirt on the hem of her gown.
When I stand in front of old woman with water in her eyes, she is not saying anything but her lip is trembling like she is holding something in her face but she is still sadding. So I reach my hand and touch her arm, and she is shaking with holding back sobs.
And I am asking her, “Is there someone you are knowing who is being killed here?” And my voice is scratching like knife in my throat because I am not speaking too much with Enyemakas and I am not used to using my voice like this, but, for some reason, this woman is not being able to speak to my brain the way Enyemaka is, or she is not wanting to. Maybe she is wanting to think that I am human being and not child of war. As I am speaking to her, I am scanning with the metal that is being inside my head and I am seeing that she is having metal in her head too, and Enyemaka is calling this a braincase, and I scan and I am knowing where to look to see her rememberings, and I am seeing that she is thinking of gold tooth and brown slippers, and I am walking back to bodies in front of Enyemakas and I am looking and looking and looking until I am finding one with gold tooth and brown slippers. I am bringing this body to old woman and she is falling to her knees and beating the earth and making it dark with the water from her eyes. And I am just standing there without smile or frown, just face like stone with body of person she is loving in my arms.
When she is finished beating the earth, she is trying to smile and say thank you but no word is coming out. But I am looking down where she is coming from. And then she is walking and I am following her and we are arriving at her home and in backyard of her hut with blue dome around it to protect from poison red air. I am digging with my hands and digging and digging until skin is peeling away, and she is seeing that my fingers and my hands are made of metal. And I know she is thinking me disgusting, but I am not caring. I am only caring about my duty, and my duty is to help with the rememberings. So I dig hole and I look to woman, and she is nodding to me like she has forgotten that I am disgusting thing, and I put the body in hole and fill it back up again.
Then I am walking back to Enyemakas, and they have finished downloading the rememberings and have buried the bodies in neat rows.
It is good that I am able to be bringing the woman the whole body. Sometimes, when we dig, there is only a bag with pieces in it. Just a mess of clothings and blankets and hair pressed into strange shapes all with no smell. And the skull is only two pieces: the jaw and everything else. And sometimes the teeth are clean inside the bag but there is no outlet on the skull so we see no braincase. Sometimes there is braincase inside the skull and the Enyemakas are plugging into it to download the rememberings but it is difficult to bury the body again because it is already in many pieces.
At the end of a day of work, we are all walking back to the workstation. It is a few trailers linked together, and they follow the Enyemakas like a caravan. In the beginning, they were all always moving moving never stopping, but the caravan is needing to rest, so the Enyemakas make to rest as well, but I know it is just pretending like how I am pretending.
I am learning with this work that I am not needing rest like normal people.
Enyemaka are following me to the first trailer, where light is glowing, and they are walking in one at a time and passing few moments, sometimes whole minute, then walking back out and the next one is going in, and so on and so on. Every time Enyemaka is going inside, they duck their head so they are not banging it on doorway, and this is making me giggle for some reason.
Then when they finish, I am walking up the metal steps to the inside of the trailer, and everything is metal, and the door is sliding shut behind me like whoosh, and the air is cool in here and not paining me with fire like outside.