My mouth tasted like old pennies and unbrushed teeth.
I woke up shivering on the dirt floor of the kiosk. My neck was cramped from sleeping on a coil of spare wire. Outside, the sky wasn't a sky; it was just a low, suffocating lid of grey clouds. It looked like it had been raining, but the ground was only damp, holding the humidity like a wet sponge.
I dragged myself up and leaned heavily on the bamboo counter. I tapped the glass of the multimeter.
Charging Current: 1.1 Amps.
Nothing. A trickle. We were starving.
Outside, Lucas was throwing empty beer bottles into the bed of the Hilux. He didn't look like a cool smuggler this morning. He looked hungover, his eyes bloodshot, his movements jerky and irritated. The glass shattered as he threw a bottle too hard.
Tashi was standing near the tailgate. He looked ten years older than he had a week ago. His shirt was stained with sweat rings that had dried and re-wetted three times.
"I am taking the truck," Lucas rasped, not looking at Tashi. He tossed a dirty rag onto the grass. The heavy black barrel of the FAL rifle poked out from underneath. "Don't touch the trigger. If someone comes up here, just point it."
"Take it with you," Tashi said. His voice was thick with sleep and dread. "I am not holding a gun, Lucas."
"Then hold the dirt when they beat you into it," Lucas spat.
He climbed into the cab, slammed the door, and cranked the engine. It coughed, choked, and finally caught, spewing a cloud of foul-smelling diesel exhaust right into Tashi's face.
The Hilux bounced away down the rutted path.
Tashi coughed, waving the blue smoke away. He walked back into the kiosk and sank onto the overturned battery crate. He put his head in his hands and just sat there, breathing raggedly.
"We have to cancel tonight," Tashi whispered to the floor. "The clouds... the voltage. We run the TV tonight, we kill the batteries. The plates will sulfate. We go bankrupt, Nkem."
"Make I go tell the village?" Collins asked quietly from the corner. He looked exhausted too.
"If we cancel, we lose the hill," Tashi said, his voice cracking. "Thomas will say the magic died. Lucas will come back with a truck full of beer and kill me. We have no way out."
I stared at the batteries. Two heavy, grey plastic blocks.
Then I looked at the Frankenstein regulator, the ugly heat sink I had built to step the power down. I reached out and touched it.
It was freezing cold.
I stared at it. I traced the thick black cable running from the batteries to the regulator.
Positive to Negative.
Series.
24 Volts.
I had wired it that way to push the power down the 150-meter wire to the valley, to overcome the distance.
But we weren't in the valley.
We were sitting right under the solar panels.
The distance was zero.
A hot, sickening wave of shame hit my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up.
We were burning almost half our power turning 24 volts into 12 volts for absolutely no reason. I had just plugged it back together exactly the way it was because I was too tired to think.
I didn't announce it. I didn't say "legacy architecture" like some textbook prodigy.
I just panicked.
"Give me the wrench," I snapped at Collins, my voice shrill.
Tashi looked up.
"Nkem, what—"
"I messed up! I messed up bad!"
I jammed the wrench onto the terminal nut. My hands were shaking so badly I stripped the edge of the bolt.
Clang.
The wrench slipped and smashed into my knuckles.
I cursed, tasting blood where I bit my lip. I grabbed the cables bare-handed, wrestling the stiff, heavy copper off the lead posts.
"Nkem, wait!" Tashi grabbed my shoulder.
"Let go! I have to fix it!"
I shoved his hand away, breathing hard, tears of frustration stinging my eyes.
I forced the heavy jumper cable across.
Positive to Positive.
Negative to Negative.
Parallel.
12 Volts.
Massive capacity.
No heat loss.
I shoved the Frankenstein regulator off the table. It hit the dirt with a thud.
I checked the meter.
12.1 Volts.
"We have power," I gasped, wiping my bleeding knuckle on my shirt. "I doubled the tank. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Papa. I almost killed it."
Tashi stared at the rewired batteries.
He didn't praise me.
He just reached out, touched the cold cable, and let out a long, shaky breath.
< System optimization complete, > Gemini chimed uselessly in my head.
I wanted to scream at it.
It hadn't noticed.
I hadn't noticed.
We were just stupid, tired apes.
11:00 AM
The air felt like a wet wool blanket.
Collins was outside, tying a heavy rock to a wire to hold the bamboo roof down, when he froze.
He didn't point.
He just picked up his machete.
Tashi stood up.
He walked to the doorway.
I followed.
Four men were walking up the grassy slope.
They weren't carrying groundnuts.
They were carrying heavy walking sticks.
One of them had a rusted iron tire lever.
At the front was Pa Thomas.
Tashi physically recoiled.
He took a step backward into the kiosk.
His eyes darted to the dirty rag covering Lucas's rifle.
He stared at it for two full seconds.
His Adam's apple bobbed.
Then he looked at me.
He didn't touch the gun.
He stepped outside, empty-handed.
Thomas stopped ten feet away.
He was sweating heavily, his belly straining against his shirt.
He looked around.
"The soldier ran away," Thomas grunted. His voice wasn't booming; it was ugly and tight.
"He went to town," Tashi said. Tashi's voice was too high. He cleared his throat and tried again. "What do you want, Thomas?"
"The Fon didn't send me," Thomas said, gripping the tire lever. "I am sending myself. You bring noise to the hill. You bring drunks. I am clearing the rubbish."
He didn't look like a traditional elder defending sacred land.
He looked like a man whose pockets were empty and who wanted to break the thing that emptied them.
He looked at the three younger men behind him.
They looked uncomfortable, shifting their weight, avoiding Tashi's eyes.
Thomas had probably paid them with whatever cash he had left.
"Break the glass," Thomas told them, pointing the iron lever at the solar panels.
Collins stepped forward.
He didn't do a martial arts stance.
He just stood there, shoulders slumped, holding the machete by his thigh.
But his eyes were utterly blank.
He looked exactly like the street boys in Bamenda who would stab you over a pair of shoes.
The three young men stopped.
One of them swallowed hard.
"Thomas, please," Tashi begged. He actually held his hands up, palms out. "Please. We have no quarrel with you."
"Move," Thomas spat, taking a step toward the kiosk.
Tashi was shaking.
His knees literally trembled.
He didn't have a plan.
He was just a man watching his only lifeline about to be smashed with an iron bar.
Then we heard yelling.
Not battle cries.
Just loud, annoying, childish arguing.
"I say na me go sit front!"
"You lie! Yesterday you sit front!"
Coming up the winding dirt path from the valley were six young boys. They were dragging filthy woven grass mats, pushing and shoving each other.
Behind them, two older girls were carrying a heavy plastic bucket of water.
They were coming seven hours early to claim the best spots on the grass for the movie.
They crested the hill, still yelling, and walked right into the middle of the standoff.
The boys stopped dead.
They looked at Pa Thomas holding the iron bar.
They looked at Collins holding the machete.
There was total silence except for the wind in the elephant grass.
Tashi looked at the boys.
He looked at Thomas.
The realization hit Tashi so hard he visibly gasped.
Tashi didn't give a heroic speech.
His voice was frantic, cracking with raw desperation.
"Do it!" Tashi yelled at Thomas, pointing at the kids. "Do it right now!"
Thomas flinched, startled by the sudden noise.
"Smash the television!" Tashi screamed, stepping away from the kiosk, leaving it completely undefended. "Break it! But you tell them! You look at these boys and you tell them why there is no movie tonight!"
The kids didn't run.
They just stared at Thomas.
"Eh, Pa Thomas?" one of the older boys said, his voice dropping the respectful tone. He sounded irritated. "Weti you dey do with that iron? You want scatter the cinema?"
Thomas froze.
He looked at the iron bar in his hand.
He looked at the boys.
If he did this in the dark, he was a ghost.
If he did it right now, in broad daylight, in front of the loudest mouths in the village...
he was the man who killed Bruce Lee.
He would be hated.
He would be spat on.
The three guys Thomas had hired took a collective step backward.
They didn't want this.
Thomas's chest heaved.
He looked at Tashi with pure, venomous hatred.
The kind of hatred that doesn't fade.
He didn't say a word.
He just turned around, shoved his way violently past the children, and marched back down the hill.
His hired men scrambled after him.
Tashi stood perfectly still until the tops of their heads disappeared down the path.
Then his legs just gave out.
He collapsed onto his knees in the dirt.
He didn't faint, but he doubled over, putting his hands in the mud, gagging dryly.
He was hyperventilating, the terror finally catching up to his body.
"Boss?" Collins asked, dropping the machete and rushing over.
Tashi waved him off, coughing, trying to catch his breath.
I walked over to my father.
I put my hand on his back.
His shirt was soaked through.
He hadn't engineered a social defense.
He had gotten lucky.
We were saved by a bunch of loud kids arguing over sitting spots.
"It's okay, Papa," I lied.
Tashi looked up at me.
His face was pale and smeared with dirt.
He looked past me, at the ugly bamboo kiosk, the dull solar panels, and the gun hidden under the rag.
"It's not okay, Nkem," Tashi whispered, his voice trembling. "We can't hold this. We are just waiting to be crushed."
I looked at the sky.
The clouds were getting darker.
Lucas was coming back.
Thomas was still out there.
< Voltage optimal, > Gemini whispered in the dark of my mind.
I ignored it.
The machine was blind.
We were bleeding out, and the only thing keeping us alive was the fact that nobody had brought a match to the powder keg yet.