The Network: Chapter One

Credit: Gemini

We had all dreamed of the day the Motherland would rise, though few of us dared to dream we would actually live to see it. It started in Nigeria, in the year 2027. In many ways, it started long before that. What was missing all those decades was the right spark, the right hope. The demonstrations persisted through every tyrannical onslaught. The boycotts and mass resignations persisted through the endless propaganda. The Uprising – to the degree it could even be called such a thing – sent seismic ripples across our continent, and then across the world. It watched, mouths agape, as a very different breed of African leader rose from the ashes of the old order, as the floodgates of innovation burst open, and a people shackled for generations finally broke free.

Full disclosure… we may have had a thing or two to do with it. Hi. My name is Abinla. I'm a member of the Network. And in this series, I will be sharing some uplifting stories about the Africa my friends and I helped build.

This story… is about a young woman named Kudirat.

***

She sat on the bench, plugged in her earbuds, and looked up at a sky lit by gentle morning. The main road was quiet for a Wednesday, the passersby few for the hour. The panel to her left indicated the bus would be a few minutes late. She could live with that. She leaned back, swaying her head to the groovy track, and smiling as memories of the past 3 weeks played out in her mind’s eye.

Kudirat Bashir was born on the 18th of January, 2042, to loving parents who had always wanted a baby girl. They had moved to Kano a year before she was born, bought a pretty, modest home at 33 Mubarak Bala Crescent, Gwale, and raised her there for 19 years of her life. Her affinity for Chemistry and Botany blossomed at the age of 5, in Kindergarten, where she found she could intuit plant categories and molecular bonds. Primary and Secondary School sharpened her knack for both, as well as her exceptional attention to detail. And by the time she graduated university, top 7 of her class with a degree in Chemistry and a skills certification in Food Manufacturing, she was more than ready to take the world on.

Her graduation present was… unexpected, to say the least. Tier 1 stock in the company she had dreamed of working in her entire undergraduate life. Ashir Beverages. Founded across the big pond by one of the Cheetah’s themselves, and brought home in the wake of the Uprising, now with branches in every state in the country. She had applied for a job at Ashir Beverages through the university’s careers office a month before graduation day. Being an investor was irrelevant to recruitment, but it did mean she was getting paid by them one way or the other. So she was very very happy. She nearly jumped through the ceiling when she saw the envelope on her bed, and immediately proceeded to crush the wind out of her parents. The response to her application came the following week, the interview set for the following day. She headed out on a morning as beautiful as any, nailed the interview through crippling nerves, and got her employment letter 2 days later.

And here she was, 2 weeks into the gig, a quality control specialist at the company of her dreams.

The bus arrived. She got on with a warm greeting to the driver, and taking her seat, rested her head on the window as the city panned by. The music lent magic to the view. In all these years, it had never gotten old, just seeing this city. She had been all over the Motherland with her folks on one trip or the other, seen so many wonderful places. A thousand years didn’t seem enough to appreciate it all, and she wanted to see more, to tour the world and far beyond, see the domed metropolises of Mars and the ring rivers of Asgardia. Big, big, dreams.

But she had to start somewhere.

It was a 30-minute ride, halting before a quiet, commercial neighborhood full of startups and branches of the bigger fish. She got off, felt her phone buzz with the fare, and smiled at a familiar delivery truck that zoomed past her as she crossed over into the crescent.

The factory was a gorgeous, red-white-themed, biophilic work of art. She gave a courteous wave to the sentry system – who no one could ever convince her wasn’t conscious – and walked through the open gate just as a second truck was about to roll out. Her face brightened with another proud smile. Thousands of people would be enjoying the finest hibiscus tea in the Motherland this week, thanks to her and her team.

The lobby was spacious, lit by daylight from the wide entrance, the circular windows, and a golden chandelier in the center of the ceiling. Colorful plants from every place you could think of rose out of red clay pots along the walls and on the windowsills. She rushed down the hallway, ready to grind, and bumped into Munkeng just outside the department door, Munkeng of the river-deep dimples, short dreads and hazel eyes, Munkeng who she had met on her first day at the office, and instantly hit it off with.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi!” said Munkeng. “Long ride?”

“Late bus,” said Kudirat, with an emphatic expression. “Shall we?”

“After you.”

The history of her industry of choice and everything it was connected to was one of the funniest things Kudirat had learned in university: the time and energy wasted on stupid, convoluted laws and regulations, the progress sacrificed on the altars of bureaucracies that asserted power for its own sake, the governments acting like corporations with unsurprisingly abysmal consequences. She could barely wrap her head around the half of it, what it must have been like back then. She had read and heard so many of the stories, watched so many documentaries, but to be there, to live it…

How did they put up with it for so long?!

“Okay,” she said, taking her seat in front of her console and summoning her babies across the widescreen, as Munkeng did the same. “Let’s see what we’ve got today.”

***

The work went by quicker than she expected. She was almost disappointed. She did have to slap together a code patch for the sterility tester and roll back a few units after she noticed some steps could be shorter, but besides that, it was all pretty routine.

And routine was good. Boring was good. Far be it for her to whine about things going too well.

Now she was in the canteen, with Munkeng and the whole junior squad, enjoying a hearty spread with a tall, chilled glass of Ashir zobo, quality-checked by theirs truly.

“So I was thinking…” said Munkeng, through chomps, as Kudirat raised a curious eyebrow. “If I were the CEO… where would I go to lay low?”

“Mhm…” said Miebaka – tall, dark, baby-faced Miebaka, who handled bottling and packaging. He and Munkeng were older friends. “I was wondering when you were going to bring this up.”

“Bring what up?” said Kudirat.

“Go on,” said Miebaka, with a cheeky smile and a gesture to Munkeng.

“Seriously,” said Munkeng. “I think it has something to do with… you know… the Network. It’s been trending on X for like… a week now. They’ve all gone dark. All of them! No announcements. No statements. Just… poof! Off the grid. Magatte Diop hasn’t made a post in over 6 months. Everyone thought it was just her at first, but then the rest of them started going quiet… right around the same time as our boss.”

“Now…” said Miebaka. “… please tell us your groundbreaking theory.”

“Ha ha ha,” said Munkeng, sneering at his sarcasm. “Anyway, I reached out to a few of my pals in some of the other companies. They’re just as in the dark as we are. I think the Network is planning something… something big.”

“Big like what?” said Ummul, who was in charge of brewing, and had probably just filled her verbal quota for the day.

“Dunno,” said Munkeng. “There’s still a lot going on… out there, you know? Beyond our pretty borders? I mean… it just blows my mind that there was actually a time when we were the ones trying to impress everyone else. Maybe the Network’s finally decided to go global… CIA-style, you know? But… without the clinical psychopathy.”

“Or maybe they’re just retiring in style?”

“Cheetahs don’t retire, Kudirat,” said Munkeng.

“I think you’re reading too much into it,” said Miebaka.

“It’s 2061, my friend,” said Munkeng, with a swig of her beverage. “Stranger things.”

True. And it did get Kudirat thinking, not the least because she was absolutely obsessed with Firdaws Ashir and had read, watched and listened to every single one of her books, talks, lectures and interviews as the case applied. She didn’t think she was particularly cut out to be a leader, but Firdaws Ashir was the Cheetah who convinced her she could be. If Munkeng was right, then the Network was about to make history again… as she lived and breathed!… but if they really were just retiring…

Oh well… she and every other youth in the Motherland and their pet dreamed of meeting a Cheetah in person. Maybe her ship of opportunity had sailed… and fair enough. This job and where it eventually took her would make up well for that.

“You know what?” she said, turning to Munkeng. “I think you’re at least on to something.”

“I mean how cool would it be, right?” said Munkeng.

“Guess we’ll find out,” said Miebaka.

“Guess we will,” said Kudirat, and inhaled the rest of her food.

***

She did a few compulsive checks before logging off for the day. Munkeng was already headed home with Miebaka. It was 2pm when she walked out the gates, and the weather surprisingly pleasant. She trekked slow, humming to her music, skipping over fallen flowers from the dream trees above, relishing the beauty and peace of it all. Her neighborhood had dream trees too, including one with a very special place in her heart, the one right next to the picket fence of her little house… her dream tree.

Her mother was sitting under it, reading a book. Looking over her glasses as Kudirat stepped into the yard, she smiled.

“Good afternoon, Mama,” said Kudirat in their ancestral tongue, smiling back.

“Good afternoon, my love. How was work?”

“Great,” said Kudirat. Then she regarded the book. Cheetah Heart, by Magatte Diop. “Finally got round to it.”

“It’s good.”

“You are going to love Chapter Three.”

The woman chuckled. “I’ll look forward to it.”

She headed inside, and found she couldn’t quite shake the conversation with Munkeng. Firdaws’s unannounced leave of absence was odd, though Kudirat had been far too busy settling into the new job to give it any real thought. Now it was bugging her with its full chest. And so, reaching her room, she changed into something breezier, lay in bed, fired up her X app, and dove down a rabbit hole for the better part of the next hour. From post to post, thread to thread, tab to tab, it seemed Munkeng was right about one thing… No one on Earth seemed to know what the hell was going on.

The quest made her feel nostalgic, and she navigated to her Saved Videos, scrolling down to an old documentary about the Cheetahs, their early days. She smiled 49 minutes in as the footage cut to a clip of one of their “Zoom Meetings”, where Firdaws was talking about her business, and the challenges of the time that made so little sense to Kudirat. She always wondered, though she had heard them all say one thing or the other in this and that speech… What was it really that kept them going through all that, that kept them pushing? Was it just hope? Or something more? Did they know somehow? Could they see it, even then? The shining new era those sacrifices and small victories would usher in?

She wasn’t sure she could have been that patient.

The documentary ended at dusk, and she decided to do some light reading of her own before heading down for dinner.

***

She awoke well-rested at 5:35am, freshened up, slipped into gear, and headed out for the morning run. It used to be her and her parents every other morning when she was a kid, but they both preferred the treadmill in the parlor for their cardio these days. She circled back to the house just as the sun was coming up. A cold shower soothed the burn, a cup of herbal tea soothed her bowels, and a hilarious interaction with the mom and dad left her smiling most of the way to work. The delivery quota was a bit on the high side today, but otherwise, a pleasantly uneventful 6 hours. She mentioned her rabbit hole dive at lunch, and they all had a good laugh about it. Even Ummul laughed, but otherwise declined to breathe a single word.

She was just nearing the bus stop at 3:30pm when her phone buzzed. A text from her mother. They were running low on groceries. She checked the list, and chuckled at its length, not minding at all the excuse to be out a little longer. The bus came as soon as she reached the shelter. She got right on, tapping her new destination into the virtual map on the seat in front of her.

20 minutes later, the “Village Market” panned into view, with a mass of humanity flooding in and out through its arched, open entrance, and a swarm of delivery drones soaring up and off into the distance, quieter than birds. She walked past boutiques, wood shops, pet stores, aquariums, and nearly bumped into a droid vacuuming up some litter as she approached the provisions sector.

Mama Ishaya waved as soon as she spotted her. The woman’s shop was one of the larger ones, though size hardly mattered in these bountiful times. The popular items lay stacked on open, mahogany shelves on the outside, the acquired tastes deeper within. A helper droid stood dormant by the doorway, its spherical head angling up to regard the approaching customer.

“Ah, Kudirat…” said Mama Ishaya, in the mother tongue they both shared. “Welcome. How was work?”

“Very fine, Ma. Just wanted to grab some things for the house.”

“Grab as many as you like,” said the woman, with a trader’s grin, drawing a giggle from her patronizer of many, many years.

“How is Little Ishaya?”

“Oh, he’s very fine. He should be on his way back from school now. They just finished exams. Good thing you came now. I was going to close early… and I probably won’t be around tomorrow. We’re finally going on that vacation.”

“You mean you’re finally taking my advice.”

“Yes,” said Mama Ishaya, laughing. “I mean that too. Booked a flight for Saturday.”

“Ghana, I presume?”

“Mhm.”

“I think it’s wonderful, Ma!”

“It is. We might just make it a thing if all goes well.”

“It will… and you should!”

“Okay, okay…”

She got to it. Some meat, some vegetables, some herbs, some seasoning, some fruit… She had a full market sack – compliments of the house for newcomers, forgetters and odder cases – by the time she was done, and gave the droid a playful pat on the head for helping her load up.

“Fly safe, Ma,” she said, swiping her phone over the counter to pay.

“Thank youuuu! Anything I can bring you?”

“Oh, please,” said Kudirat. “Just enjoy your trip.”

“We’ll do our best.”

She bid Mama Ishaya farewell, slung the sack over her shoulder, and made her way out of the market.

The bus stop was vacant, save for an elderly woman in a flowery grown seated on the far end of the bench, a veil over her slumped head and shades over her eyes. Kudirat wanted to extend a polite greeting, but the woman appeared to genuinely be asleep. So she just sat, lay the sack down between her knees, plugged in her earbuds, and minded her business.

It took a full 5 minutes for her subconscious mind to work its inexplicable magic, and smite her with the full force of realization.

… What the hell?!

She paused the music, unplugged the earbuds, and very slowly, turned to face the elderly woman, who was looking right at her now, shades resting on her lap beneath interlaced fingers.

That face…

The poise…

Those eyes…

“… Fir… Firdaws…”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t make a scene.”

“… I… I’m sorry… I’m…”

“You’re Kudirat. You work at my factory in Gwale.”

“… You know who I am?”

“I know all of you. I make it a point to. And I’m very grateful to have you in my company.”

… Blank.

… Nothing.

… No thoughts to even attempt words.

The woman… Firdaws Ashir!… her hero… her idol… just looked at her, patiently, until…

“I… I’ve… I –”

“Kudirat…” said Firdaws, an empathetic smirk warming her expression. “… Breathe. Like… actually breathe. Right now.”

She did, then did it again, and then again, feeling a little calmer each time.

“… I’ve… I’ve wanted to meet you for so long… I’ve read all of your books. I’ve memorized most of your lectures… You’re my…” A sigh. “… You’ve probably heard this a million times from like… a billion people…”

“I have,” said Firdaws, the smirk widening with humor in an obvious but unfortunately futile attempt to set Kudirat more at ease. “And I never take it for granted.”

“… You’ve… You’ve been my hero for as long as I can remember.”

“I’m honored. And I know much about your story too. I know you have very big dreams.”

“… I do.”

“You’ll make them real. I know you will. I learned what purpose is a very long time ago. It’s why my friends and I did what we did. It’s why we succeeded. And it’s why I know you will succeed too, whatever your dream… so long as it serves the good.”

“… I… Ummm… Th… Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” said Firdaws, and her smile now did set Kudirat at ease, enough to finally address the dancing elephant on the sidewalk.

“… What are you doing here?”

“… It’s… complicated.”

A moment’s thought, with the happy realization that she could, in fact, think somewhat straight now. “… Network complicated?”

Firdaws raised an eyebrow, and though this was the only change in an otherwise still very warm expression, Kudirat couldn’t help but dip her gaze away again in embarrassment.

“… My… A friend of mine thinks the Network is planning something. We talked about it at work today.”

“Your friend is correct.”

“… What?”

“Your friend is correct,” said Firdaws. “We are planning something, and it requires that we keep a low profile for a while… which is precisely what I’m doing.”

“… What are you planning?”

“That’s… a bit above your clearance level.”

… Double confusion.

“… My… clearance level?” said Kudirat.

“Like I said… It’s complicated. But you’ll know more about it soon enough.”

“… How?”

She saw Firdaws tap her right temple, and a second later, felt a buzz in her phone. Pulling it out of her pocket, she looked at the screen. A link request. A secure chat channel on X. Her eyes widened as she looked back up at Firdaws.

“I’ll be in touch,” said the woman. “And I think that’s your ride.”

Kudirat hadn’t even heard the bus approach, or the cars whizzing by, or the people walking by. The whole world seemed to have been muffled by the sheer, mind-boggling strangeness of this moment.

“… In touch… with me?” she said.

“When the time is right. It was nice meeting you, Kudirat.”

… Blank again. Seconds passed. Then…

“… It… was nice meeting you too.”

And with a final smile, the woman rose, shades on, and walked along down the street. Soon she was lost in the crowd.

Kudirat did not plug her earbuds back in during the ride. The million questions ringing in her head were music enough.

***

Friday. A beautiful morning. A quiet street. A busy main road. She looked at the panel, glad the bus would be on time today, and resting back on the bench, contemplated what Firdaws had said to her. She had opened up the chat channel before going to bed last night, and for a very long minute, fought the temptation to type something. Would the woman even see the message? She had said that she would reach out. Didn’t get more obvious hint than that. But still…

A private channel…

With Firdaws Ashir…

Her… of all people!

… Why?!

And what was all that thing about “purpose”? What did Firdaws mean? What was she doing in Kano? Were the others doing the same? Keeping a “low profile”? Hiding in plain sight? Bumping into random…

… Wait…

The bus arrived just as the intuition came to the fore, frightening in its implications. It echoed in her mind throughout the ride like the questions of yesterday. It echoed in her mind on the walk to the factory, across the fallen flowers, through the lobby door, down the hallway, and in the office as she sat at her station, barely noticing Munkeng walking in, or her hand waving in front of her face.

“Heyyyy,” said Munkeng.

“Hi!” said Kudirat, finally snapping to.

“Everything… okay?” said Munkeng.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just…” Should she tell her? Could she? “… I.. I had to pick up some stuff from the market after work and it took a while… and then there was all this stuff at home and…”

“… And?”

A sigh. “I’m just a little out of it today.”

“Ummm… Okay,” said Munkeng, though Kudirat wasn’t sure if this meant she had actually bought the deflection or simply decided that whatever was really going on was none of her business – which would make one of them. “Sorry.”

“I’ll live.”

“Mmm. Anyway… Shall we?”

© 2024 Barra Hart. All rights reserved.

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