AfroSFv2 Read online

  “AfroSFv2 is not only as entertaining as all hell, it’s a smorgasbord of top-class imaginative storytelling, originality, superb writing and searing social critique. If this is the future of speculative fiction, we’re in safe hands.” — Sarah Lotz, author of Day Four.

  “I loved every minute of it. A bouquet with Africa’s finest bring futures seen from African perspectives. Refreshing, surprising, magical, grim and beautiful. There is a pulse throbbing through these stories that insists you follow along.” — Margrét Helgadóttir, author of The Stars Seem So Far Away.

  “There was a time when William Gibson said: ‘The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.’ Then came Ian McDonald who replied: ‘The future is actually evenly distributed – as everyone from Nigeria to America, from China to India gets the same iPhone at the same time – it’s just that other people are doing more interesting and funky things with it.’ So, as the Future arrives everywhere, be prepared to read AfroSFv2 stories, a brilliant mixture of emerging voices from the vanishing peripheral of the world.” — Francesco Verso, author of Nexhuman and editor of Future Fiction.

  AfroSFv2

  Edited by Ivor W. Hartmann

  A StoryTime Publication

  AfroSFv2 Copyright © 2015 Ivor W. Hartmann

  All stories are © copyrighted to their respective authors and used here with permission.

  All Rights Reserved

  Proofed by Elinore Morris

  Cover design by Ivor Hartmann

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-91-982913-0-8 (ebook)

  For more information, please contact StoryTime: [email protected]

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Ivor W. Hartmann

  The Last Pantheon

  Tade Thompson & Nick Wood

  Hell Freezes Over

  Mame Bougouma Diene

  The Flying Man of Stone

  Dilman Dila

  VIII

  Andrew Dakalira

  An Indigo Song for Paradise

  Efe Tokunbo Okogu

  Introduction

  Ivor W. Hartmann

  First there was the dream, then it became real, and the first volume of AfroSF was published in 2012. In the three years since there have been some great strides forward, not only in the number of African writers and publishers exploring SF, but more importantly a great dialogue has been engaged.

  Now more than ever we are asking the hard questions about our African futures, what they could be, what they shouldn’t be, what are our hopes and dreams, what are the dreams being forced upon us.

  This dialogue has taken many forms, to name some: Lagos 2060 (2013, Ed. Ayodele Arigbabu), Nigerians in Space by Deji Olukotun (2013), Rachel Zadok’s Sister-Sister (2013), Charlie Human’s Apocalypse Now Now (2013), Dilman Dila’s collection A Killing in the Sun (2014), the launch of the Omenana SFF magazine edited by Mazi Nwonwu and Chinelo Onwualu in 2014, the Jalada Afrofuture(s) issue (2015), Terra Incognita: New Short Speculative Stories from Africa (2015, Ed. Nerine Dorman), Nnedi Okorafor and Lauren Beukes’ many books, and there’s more in the making like Imagine Africa 500 anthology by The Story Club Malawi. And that’s just in publishing, in the arts/film/festivals/etc. there’s so much going on. Dilman Dila is busy shooting a new SF feature, Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie came out in March 2015, the Ethiopian Crumbs by Miguel Llansó was released in October 2015. The Kenyan BLACK Division Games launched the first-person SF shooter Nairobi X, and Kiro’o Games in Cameroon released the RPG, Legacy of the Kori-Odan. The artworks of amazing afro future artists such as Cyrus Kabiru, Wangechi Mutu, and Komi Olaf, continue to inspire. There was the Future Fest 2015 in Lagos, and the African Futures festival in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Kenya, and Lagos, simultaneously.

  AfroSF as the first truly Pan-African SF anthology has definitely played a part in this exciting new wave of futures exploration, one that is remains entirely vital for Africa. In these increasingly perilous times no longer can we leave our collective futures in the hands of anyone but ourselves. Our futures, our personal responsibility.

  For AfroSFv2, in the spirit of the first volume, I decided we must continue braving new territory and so chose to publish an SF novellas anthology, for quite a few reasons, but mainly: I enjoy the length a novella gives to really get into a story, novellas are the longest story form a print anthology can feasibly comprise, and I wanted to challenge both myself and the writers to see if we could claim another first for African SF writers and publish the first Pan-African SF novellas anthology. And here we are, with a seriously kick-ass anthology.

  You might be familiar with Tade Thompson, Nick Wood, and Efe Tokunbo Okogu, from volume one, and if you haven’t already come across Dilman Dila, Andrew Dakalira, and Mame Bougouma Diene, be excited.

  Superhero face-offs, far future, ancient advanced technology rediscovered, alien invasion, alternate realities, existential crises, and social critiques, are but some of the wonderous, dark, gritty, and beautiful places these five novellas will take you.

  Ivor W. Hartmann is a Zimbabwean writer, editor, publisher, and visual artist. Awarded The Golden Baobab Prize (2009), finalist for the Yvonne Vera Award (2011), selected for The 20 in Twenty: The Best Short Stories of South Africa’s Democracy (2014), and awarded third place in the Jalada Prize for Literature (2015). His works have appeared in many publications. He runs the StoryTime micro-press, publisher of the African Roar and AfroSF series of anthologies, and is on the advisory board of Writers International Network Zimbabwe.

  The Last Pantheon

  Tade Thompson & Nick Wood

  Prologue

  February 18, 1979

  Sahara Desert, Africa

  My hands are deep in sand, and there is blood on the snow.

  He did not know why there was snow.

  He tried to rise, but it was not time. His breath came in ragged gasps, a death rattle? His ribs grated on each other when he inspired. His jaw felt heavy and swollen. More drops of blood on the snow, from his face. He tried to move his tongue, but it had grown snug inside his mouth and did not budge.

  He was on all fours. He could tell that now, but his right arm was crooked, maybe broken. The left arm held all the weight. Another warm dribble down his face. He pulled the left arm out of the snow and wiped it across his face. It came back smeared red.

  He tried again to stand, but it hurt, a pervasive pain that he had never experienced, his nerves screaming for respite. It seemed like he could feel the individual vertebrae in his backbone.

  What happened? What did I do? What did we do? Why is it snowing?

  He managed to stand. The horizon wobbled and turned, or he may have been turning. It was difficult to tell. Blood still streamed out of him, dripping on his chest and landing on the snow. He felt neither heat nor cold, but the crisp air helped to clear his head and stabilise his vision.

  There were depressions in the snow, footsteps, ending in a lump of a man about fifty yards away. Head bowed, arms by the side, kneeling. His enemy.

  Snowflakes gently dropping to earth.

  Oh, mother. What have we done this time?

  He could not find any hatred inside himself, not anymore. He was done. This was over.

  He tried to fly away, but his feet stayed linked to the earth. He could not jump because each movement was agony, especially for his right arm.

  Maybe he was dying.

  He focused on the weather. It should not be snowing. He closed his eyes, coaxed the clouds, and asked the water to disperse. You didn’t force weather. You just eased it into doing wh
at it wanted. You said, please don’t form precipitation. Sometimes, it listened.

  The snowfall stopped but the clouds would not move. Not yet.

  Breathing heavy now. The next part would hurt, but had to be done. He held his right forearm and twisted counter-clockwise sharply.

  He screamed, and almost passed out again.

  His enemy did not stir.

  Bastard.

  Maybe there was some hatred left after all.

  He took strips of his enemy’s cape and made a crude sling; then he walked away.

  After an hour he came to a gaggle of Algerian troops. By then the sun had returned and the snow had turned to slush. They recognised him and eased safeties off their weapons. He took their fear, absorbed it and fed it to his body for healing.

  He spoke Arabic by drawing it out of their minds. “I surrender,” he said. “Take me to prison.”

  1

  2015

  Lagos, Nigeria

  Kokoro had aged well, he thought, but then he missed the question she asked. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” he said.

  “I said the blogsphere wonders why you chose crime with your abilities, rather than more noble actions like that of Black-Power.”

  “Ah...I see. Well, I don’t think anyone wakes up and decides to be a criminal, Miss Kokoro. A number of things happen, inconsequential nudges, impressions, and time passes. One day you wake up to find out that you are not the hero of your own story. When the newspapers describe you as ‘the international criminal known only as the Pan-African’ you realise you’ve been cast and typecast even. There is a power in naming things. You become the name and you convince yourself that it fits like an old coat.”

  Behind the lights, technicians in the studio moved; dark shadows keeping the television machine going. He saw his own image on one of the monitors. He sat opposite Elizabeth Kokoro and to his left the network had erected a massive black-and-white poster of him from 1975 in his Pan-African war paint. He sported an Afro back then and his expression was feral, possessed. He had a fury that time and prison had leached out of him.

  No, it wasn’t prison that took the rage away. It was that last time in the Sahara.

  “Thunderclap344 from Zimbabwe asks why you didn’t break out of prison,” said Kokoro. He wondered why she had no tablet or clip board. She had told him this segment of the interview would be a live Q & A from the web. Where was she reading the questions from? Probably the producer was feeding her by a plug in her ear.

  “I had no reason to. From the moment I retired I was determined to rejoin society. That meant taking responsibility for what I had done. I surrendered to the Algerian authorities, but it turned out that I had never really committed any crimes in Algeria besides illegally crossing their borders and violating their airspace. They were quite nice to me, considering. Extradition was a nightmare. South Africa tried to claim me, but the whole Apartheid thing meant nobody listened to their noise. Nigeria began extradition proceedings but gave up in 1983 because there was a coup. Ghana, Morocco, Gambia... so many prisons, so little time.”

  Kokoro adjusted her skirt. She knew all this, but managed to maintain an expression of curious interest. Good interviewers had that quality of not representing themselves, but the listener.

  “I ended up incarcerated for twenty years in Edo City.”

  “When did you leave jail?”

  “I’ve been free since 2003.”

  “What have you been doing since then?”

  What indeed.

  2003

  Edo City

  The clerk was old, way past retirement, and officious. He had one of those Mugabe moustaches that reminded you of Hitler. If he knew who the Pan-African was he did not indicate. He passed forms through the gap in the window with large blue Xs marked at the points requiring signature or thumb print.

  “What’s this?” asked the Pan-African.

  “This confirms that your personal effects were returned to you in the same condition as the day you entered, with the exclusion of any perishable goods and age-related changes.”

  “I didn’t enter with any personal effects.”

  “So nothing was returned to you. Is the nothing in the same condition?”

  The Pan-African stared.

  “That was a joke,” the clerk said, in a flat voice.

  “I see.”

  “You still have to sign.”

  He signed.

  The clerk gave him sixty-five American dollars.

  “What’s this?”

  “Something the government gives to rehabilitated offenders to help them start off in their new life. Congratulations. Your debt to society is paid. Go forth and live a virtuous life.”

  The clerk stamped a final form and handed it to him.

  Outside. The gates lurched shut with an electronic whine.

  Nobody waiting. No friends, no family.

  Edo City Prison was technically outside city limits, but nobody cared as long as the degenerates were out of sight. All around him was bush, bisected by a single black-top road which led to civilisation.

  I am Tope Adedoyin. I used to be called the Pan-African. I was in prison, but now I am free. I have a piece of paper that says I am free. It has an official stamp on it. I’m free.

  He looked at his feet. Black Hush Puppies from aeons ago, fashionable if he were someone’s grandfather. He tested something, focused, and left the ground behind. Two, three feet in the air, hovering, testing. Then he fell back down. It was like swimming; you had to relearn how to hold your breath.

  He started walking north along the side of the road. Cars and lorries swept past, dusting him. He considered trying to hitch a ride, but thought better of it. He wanted to be alone and charity brought with it the necessity to reciprocate with conversation.

  He stopped to relieve himself and noticed a footpath, partly obscured by weed growth, but definitely a walkway. He zipped up and followed it, not knowing why. A whim, a notion of delight or despair. The sound of traffic faded. He passed a yellowed wooden sign, a placard rendered blank by acid rain. He soon came to a settlement. It was a rag-tag collection of shacks, shanties, and lean-tos.

  It was probably illegal. The shanty town could not be seen from the road, which meant no taxes or police. There were no estates close by, no legitimate citizens for them to contaminate, and there was no impending property development. These were the criminals, the drunks, the dangerous psychotics, the detritus of society, both victims and perpetuators. The poor were the greatest sinners in a free enterprise society.

  Would it be a violation of his parole if he lived here?

  He encountered the insensate form of a drunk, whom he stepped over. The first dwelling was a beer parlour with ‘No Cridit’ stencilled in red paint. A lone male customer drank the local kai kai gin, which was more wood alcohol than ethanol.

  “Good evening, uncle,” said Tope. “May I join you?”

  “Good evening, my son,” said the old man. He pulled a seat out by way of invitation. “Sadia! Bring another glass.”

  Tope sat down, accepted one glass and drank in silence. He called to Sadia and asked for a Stout and another half-litre of gin for the old man. If they noticed his distorted arm they did not draw attention to it.

  “I’m looking for a place to stay,” said Tope.

  “That’s what I said when I arrived here,” said the old man. “I was twenty and I had just killed a man. Have you killed anyone?”

  Tope had a flashback. He...he...

  He bunched the ridiculous cape in his left hand and pulled Black-Power towards himself and punched his head into the desert sand. Black-Power’s arms twitched in an epileptic fit. The Pan-African stamped on that head. The sand became red with blood.

  “No,” said Tope. “I haven’t killed anyone.”

  Over the next few days he built a house out of wood from trees he chopped down himself and nails he scavenged and corrugated iron he found. He didn’t mind. It kept him busy and was not taxin
g at all. At first they did not know who he was, but a boy saw him levitating in order to reach a difficult part of his roof.

  Once they knew the Pan-African was among them, his power grew and he fixed their weak and wobbly dwellings. He helped till the land on their untaxed farms. The sheer number of the diseased among them complicated matters and added a dark shade to his power. The hepatitis and AIDS dementia, the heart failures and septic abortions. The power from the sufferers was tainted, sick power that could turn him to mischief again if he let it.

  2015

  Lagos, Nigeria

  “I just kept busy with this and that,” said Tope.

  Elizabeth nodded. “Another question from the forums: what did you learn from your days as the Pan-African?”

  “Crime does not pay, stay in school, and never, ever, get into a fight with a man who wears a cape because such a man is insane.”

  “Now you’re just being flippant.”

  “Only half flippant. Seriously, have you looked at the costume that idiot used to wear? I almost killed him with the damn thing.”

  “Then why didn’t you? You fought many times and both walked away to tell the tale.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill,” said Tope. “I was trying to teach.”

  “To teach what?”

  “That Black-Power, with all his good intentions, was part of the problem, not the solution.”

  “We’ll come back to that, but I have another question, this from Powerfan565. She asks why you were called the Pan-African Coward in 1975.”

  Tope sighed. He knew this would come up.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Powerfan565 says, was it not because the first time you bumped into Black-Power you ran away?”

  “No comment.”

  “Did you run away from him?”

  “No comment.” Tope took a sip of water from the glass beside him. He maintained eye-contact with Elizabeth.

  “This is supposed to be frank interview,” she said.

  “I can explain,” said Tope, “but I’m not going to. No comment.”

  “We have a caller on the line. Caller, you’re live on Flashback. Go ahead.”