The Hero of Numbani Read online

  “Efi,” he said, sounding so much like Auntie Yewande whenever Efi found herself getting a talking-to on one of her visits to their house. It happened more often than Efi wanted to admit. “Things kind of got out of hand back there, didn’t they?”

  He set both of his hands on the crystal knob of his cane, then leaned into her ever so slightly. The bend in his brow was definitely Auntie Yewande’s. Efi didn’t know if it was genetic or learned, but that bend had a special power of dragging the truth out of wayward children. And it was working, dang it, because next thing Efi knew, her mouth was open, and she was babbling like a brook.

  “I’m sorry I made all of that up back there. I hope I didn’t embarrass you. I just wanted to seem cool. They keep looking at me like I’m a baby!”

  “I’ll talk to them. They didn’t mean any harm by it, but I get your point. It’s no fun to be the odd one out. Come back in. Let’s get finished up, and then we can ride home together.”

  “I can’t go back in there. Not after that mess I said about going to Brazil!”

  “Just tell them the truth. They’ll understand. Heh, you probably don’t remember, but when I was not much older than you, I used to go around telling people that my father belonged to Overwatch and was best buds with Reinhardt, but he was deep, deep, deep undercover so no one had ever heard of him.”

  Efi laughed. She vaguely remembered it. He’d shown her his father’s “secret Overwatch medallion.” It’d been made of several layers of very carefully cut Nano Cola cans and smelled of the entire bottle of clear fingernail polish he’d used to make it glossy. Efi guessed that Dayo had always been good at crafting things out of junk.

  “Does that mean you’ll come back in? Maybe they can find you a part in the play.”

  Efi was willing to give it another try. She’d bring them some packages of chin chin next time she came to smooth things over. She’d noticed the students here were partial to the mega-lemon flavor, though she couldn’t understand why. They were so tart, they made Efi’s lips curl when she crunched into them. But as soon as Efi opened her mouth to accept the offer, her tablet alerted her with a ring. She looked down at the notification on the screen.

  Efi’s heart nearly stopped. So soon?

  “What is it?” asked Dayo. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “It’s that ‘Genius Grant.’ They’ve made a decision!”

  “And?” Dayo said excitedly. “What’s it say?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t look.” She shoved her tablet at her cousin. “Here. You open it.”

  Dayo timidly reached for the tablet, but then Efi snatched it back. “No. I’ll look.” She took another deep breath. “I don’t want to know. No, wait. I do. Here …” she said, handing it to him.

  He didn’t reach out to take it.

  “I’m serious. I want you to open it,” Efi said bashfully.

  Finally, Dayo took it, clicked on the screen, and started reading. To himself.

  “Well?” Efi practically screamed. She felt so nervous, like she was about to crawl out of her skin.

  “It says, ‘Efi, have you considered refinancing your home loan? Rates now are at a historic—’”

  “Not that message! Here, give it to me.”

  Dayo handed the tablet back with a smirk. Efi’s finger trembled as it hit the link. She feverishly scanned over the first couple of lines:

  Things started to get dizzy. Then Efi saw all those zeroes at the end of her grant money, and she had to sit down right there on the tile floor.

  “I’m assuming this is a good scream?” Dayo shouted.

  Was she screaming? Yes, apparently, she was. So loud, in fact, that all the students from drama club had come out into the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” Sam asked.

  Dayo looked at Efi, pointedly. She was supposed to apologize to them, right? To admit she’d lied, but …

  But, now that she’d won the award, her parents would take her on a vacation, and they knew how much she loved Lúcio. And she was off school that week for the Unity celebration, so she wouldn’t have to miss any classes. It was all so perfect.

  “I’m going to Brazil to see Lúcio!” she shouted at them.

  It would happen! There was no way her parents could say no.

  “Absolutely not,” her mother said.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Efi said. “We’re off all that week of school. There’s a nonstop flight from Numbani to Rio, only four hours. Pricepoint Ticketing has a couple of good deals, if we roll the flights in with the hotel. And once you figure in the exchange rates, it’ll be only a little more expensive than if we went to Lagos or the animal reserve.”

  “Lagos has great music venues,” Efi’s father said, his nose buried in his tablet. “Looks like Tonal Abyss will be playing that week. Why don’t we go there? It’s less hassle, and I’m sure you and your friends will have just as much fun as you would at a Lúcio concert.”

  “Tonal Abyss?” Efi gasped. “They haven’t put out a new album since I was seven years old!”

  The omnic pop band had thirty-eight members, and at one point, Efi could name every single one of them. Then internal drama broke the band apart—they couldn’t decide on a standard measure of time for their music. Constantine, the founder and lead vocalist, preferred Quantum Clock Geneva Time, and Gaxx Gator, the bass player, wanted to switch to Quantum Clock Greenwich Time, which was gaining popularity among some big-name omnic performers. The band had chosen sides, neatly split down the middle, and no one would budge. They’d tried using both timing standards during their performances, but the gravitational time dilations due to different elevations of the clocks threw their synchronicity off so much that they resorted to playing old prerecorded tunes at their concerts.

  Efi couldn’t tell the difference that microfraction of a microsecond they were arguing about made, but she remembered the omnic community in Numbani being up in arms about it, appalled that Tonal Abyss had lost its mojo. It was about that time when Efi had developed an appreciation for Lúcio’s music and started to favor that over those rehashed tunes of her early childhood.

  “Please, Daddy? Mummy?” she begged. “You told me I need to do things that kids my age do. Well, kids go to concerts! With their friends. Kids fly across oceans. I’ve never even been on a plane.”

  Efi gave her father the pouty eyes. It wouldn’t work on her mother, but if she could sway him, at least there’d be a chance.

  “I know going to Rio is a hassle compared to staying local,” Efi said. “But what if we took the road less traveled by—traversing the great unknown with only the power-core on our backs and the alloy-plating on our feet? We must trek as a family, as we cherish the things that hold us together, so that we will not just fall apart!” Yes, she’d misquoted three of her father’s favorite literary icons—Frost, Blanchet771, Achebe—all in one breath, but the stakes were high. “If you decide to take us to Lagos, I know I’ll have a great time. But if we go to Rio, right now, when all the stars are lined up … we’ll have the time of our lives.”

  Efi’s mother and father exchanged looks. They could have an entire conversation with the squints of their eyes and tilts of their heads. Efi thought she might be able to make out the slightest hint of a smile on her mother’s face.

  Yes. Yes. It was working.

  “We will … think about it,” her mother said, which was practically her screaming yes from the rooftops.

  Still, Efi didn’t want to jinx herself, so she nodded and said, “Thank you for considering it, Mama. I will patiently await your decision.”

  And then Efi was running to her workshop as fast as she could, mentally packing her best outfits in her head.

  For the next few weeks as the trip approached, Efi could hardly contain herself. She was sure there wasn’t a person in Numbani who didn’t know she was taking her two best friends on a big adventure across the ocean to meet their all-time-favorite hero. And last night, Efi had stayed up double-
and triple-checking the details of their itinerary:

  Running on less than two hours of sleep, Efi should be tired, and yet she wasn’t. The adrenaline set in as soon as the sunlight cut through the gaps in her curtains. Efi threw them wide, cracked open the window, too, and screamed at the gazelle-headed tower facing her, “Today, I am flying to Rio to see Lúcio in concert!”

  The gazelle building stared back at her, like it didn’t care. Like this wasn’t the absolute best day of Efi’s life. She rushed into the clothes she had laid out two days prior, grabbed the suitcase she’d started packing two weeks prior, and picked up the small foil-wrapped present sitting on her dresser.

  Her mother stumbled into the living room to greet her daughter. “Up so early?” she said, wiping the sleep out of her eyes. “Our plane doesn’t leave for another nine hours.”

  “Good morning, Mama,” Efi said with a little curtsy. She waited a few giddy moments for her mother to nod and smile, then shoved the present into her hands. “Open it, please.”

  “Now? Can’t it wait until after breakfast?”

  Efi shook her head and jumped up and down. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to contain her excitement. Her father was up, too, now, mumbling something that sounded like “making coffee,” but Efi couldn’t be sure.

  Mother shrugged and then opened the present. Confused, she looked back at Efi.

  “Earplugs? I know you think we’re old, but your father and I can handle a little loud music. Back in our day—”

  “It’s not for the music,” Efi said. Then the doorbell rang. She could hear Hassana and Naade outside the door chanting “Lúcio! Lúcio!” then screaming loud enough to wake any neighbors that hadn’t already been disturbed by Efi’s morning crowing. She looked at her parents, and they both took the cue and put in their earplugs. They were polyform-styled silicone, the best money could buy. And Efi’s parents were going to need them.

  Efi opened the door. The volume got louder, and she and her friends started talking, but all that would come out were shrill noises that only approximated language. Efi had her tablet loaded up with every single one of Lúcio’s tracks, ordered by awesomeness, cross indexed by danceability.

  Later, they stuffed all their bags into a taxi, and then they were off to the airport. With so many streets shut down for the Unity Day parades, it was difficult to cut across the city. Traffic slowed to a creep. Efi knew they’d left plenty of time to get there, and yet there was a small fear that they’d miss their flight.

  Naade rolled down the window, and the smell of hot cooking oil filtered into their car and tempted them to step outside. Not three meters away there was a puff puff vendor selling those golden balls of goodness, stacked high in a pyramid and dusted with powdered sugar. Efi had to pull the back of Naade’s shirt to keep him inside the car.

  Humans and omnics danced together in a parade that stretched as far down the street as they could see. The drumbeat pounded in Efi’s heart, and then her foot was tapping. There’d been some rumors that the event would be postponed due to an anonymous threat, but the citizens of Numbani expressed their outrage and promised to show up in the streets whether the city sanctioned it or not.

  Still, there was the faintest shadow of tension cast over the festivities, but Efi couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Maybe people’s smiles weren’t quite as full. Maybe it was how omnics stood ever-so-slightly farther away from humans. Or maybe it was the looming presence of so many security guards, both human and robot, lurking at the outskirts of the festival.

  Efi blinked, and then the shadow was gone, and even if tensions were mounting beyond Numbani’s borders, that didn’t mean they would put a damper on the festivities here. Efi saw some kids her age, smiles on their faces, eyes wide from all the excitement. Their high-pitched voices belted out the Numbani anthem in between sips of their sugar drinks.

  Efi hadn’t missed a Unity Day celebration since she was born. It was so big, so loud, so colorful that it filled the entire week, and rivaled Carnival Calabar in size. It was Numbani’s most important holiday, at least if you ranked holidays by how bad your stomach felt the next morning. She was almost sad she would miss the festivities this year.

  Almost.

  Naade started beatboxing the bassline of “We Move Together as One” and Hassana tossed in some funky fizz-grind-pop sounds, and all those feelings went away. Efi attempted some synthetic-sounding beats of her own, and they didn’t sound half bad. They didn’t sound half good, either, but none of that mattered. In exactly ninety-eight hours and twelve minutes, they would be seeing Lúcio, up on the stage, his locs flying as he turned some serious tunes on his tables. The same tunes that helped liberate his favela.

  “We should have taken the tram,” Efi’s father said after a ten-minute stretch of absolute standstill. Above, a tram soared beneath its track, looking like a bird swooping between skyscrapers.

  “Driver, can we take the route by the museum?” Mother asked, popping out one of her earplugs, yet leaving it close by in case spontaneous squealing from the back seat broke out yet again.

  “Calculating route,” the driverless interface said, the electric-blue light on the dashboard flashing. It beeped a sour note of concern. “That route has a forty-five-minute backup. We’re on the fastest route.”

  “The fastest route would be walking,” Naade said, watching as an entire family dressed in matching purple-and-white printed fabrics passed them, including a toddler defiantly pushing her own stroller and a nanny omnic walking a few steps behind, wearing an aso ebi dress that matched the rest of the family. The nanny shook her gleaming metal head in frustration.

  “Would you like to disembark?” the driverless interface asked with just a hint of snark.

  “Definitely not,” Father said. “We’d lose Naade to the first puff puff vendor we passed.”

  “Oh, Uncle!” Naade gasped, pressing his hand to his chest, feigning insult. “I don’t eat puff puff that much!”

  “Is that so?” Father asked, pursing his lips. He gestured at Naade with his chin. “Look at you, you eat so much puff puff, you’ve got it growing out of your ears!”

  Naade went silent, and Efi put her hand to her mouth, trying to hold back her laughter for her friend’s sake. She’d warned him last week not to touch the plate in the fridge, but the pile of round little dough balls was too high, too tempting. When Father got home and noticed his favorite treat was missing, he got so upset that Efi thought he was going to cancel their whole trip on the spot. Normally, Efi’s father was quick to forgive, but Naade had crossed a line.

  “Am I wrong?” Father asked. “Or have you forgotten how to speak?”

  “No, Uncle,” Naade murmured.

  This trip promised to be an interesting six days for sure.

  “I guess everyone is in town to see Doomfist’s gauntlet,” Mother said, redirecting the conversation, but her words were curt and oddly emotionless. “There’s a new exhibit.”

  “Who would want to see something that destructive?” Efi asked.

  Naade and Hassana raised their hands.

  “All that power,” Naade was saying as he clenched his fist. “I’d only use it for good, of course!” The smirk on his face said otherwise.

  In any case, they got to experience a taste of Unity Day as they slowly wound their way through the city, until finally, they pulled up to the Adawe International Terminal. Security took forever as well. Efi had practically fit a miniature workshop into her carry-on and had to explain why she had three different tablet devices, a Junie, and two laptops. Security kept squinting at her, asking her parents the same five questions over and over, and telling them to boot all the devices up to show that they worked, and weren’t weapons of any sort. No one addressed Efi directly, so she played around on one of her laptops, connecting to the airport Wi-Fi so she could check the weather in Rio—sunny and warm, forecasted all throughout the week. She couldn’t believe their luck. Then her screen flickered, and the entire webpag
e shifted sideways a few centimeters, then snapped back in place, leaving a magenta ghost image behind.

  Weird.

  Efi checked the wireless connections available, and a list popped up. One by one, they blinked out, until there was only one left. 344X-Azúcar. Efi started to click on it, but then Efi’s mother’s voice reached that octave where someone was about to get a piece of her mind, and Efi stiffened up on instict. By the time Efi realized that for once it wasn’t her who was in trouble with her mother, the 344X-Azúcar connection was gone.

  Mother may not have been excited about Efi’s obsession with robots, but let some stranger imply that her daughter wasn’t actually a genius and she had a few choice words for that security officer, for sure. They kept talking over and around Efi, so she tuned them out, watching as a group of OR15s escorted a couple of dignified-looking people wearing Numbani Heritage Museum jackets across the concourse. Behind them floated a transport cart, like the ones you could rent from the airport to help with luggage, but bigger. And instead of holding bags, there was a single large cylinder sitting atop it. Whatever was inside it was hidden beneath heavily tinted glass.

  Efi stiffened.

  That had to be the Doomfist gauntlet. She was very glad it would soon be protected under twenty centimeters of bulletproof glass.

  Finally, after a very heated discussion, security allowed Efi through with her computers intact. Mother was saying something to her now, in that social-worker voice she used with her clients, about responsibility and expectations, but Efi was so distracted, she only heard every other word. The flickering lights of the departures and arrivals boards had snatched her attention, tracking flights to and from all over the world. Posters for London, Moscow, and Cairo caught her eye, and she was especially taken by the one for Tokyo, with all the pretty cherry blossoms. Next grant she won, she’d definitely get her parents to take her there.