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  “Alternatively, we’ve seen your church. You can live here if you’re prepared to share your land with other Christian folk. The area that has been designated for Christians in Africa extends from here to the game parks of the Shire, Luangwa and Zambezi Rivers. Because of the dangerous animals in these parks, your area will be surrounded by a high electric fence which you’ll not be allowed to cross.”

  Grace looked surprised. “Who’s going to pay for this shiny new future? You must realise that Africa is completely bankrupt.”

  “You’re right. Africa has been through unimaginable horrors, and most people have died. Our leader believes that Africa has a wonderful future. The country is amazingly beautiful and full of wonderful animals and birds. Tourists will flock here once modern hotels have been built. Of course, none of this is feasible right now. In answer to your question, Xantec, which is the name of the company that now rules the world, will pay for the reconstruction of Africa. We’ll leave you with a detailed leaflet explaining everything. You’ll have six months to think about it. Around that time we’ll return to hear your decision.

  I’m sorry we have to be so brief, but there are only a few thousand of us to cover this vast continent. Please would you tell us who your nearest neighbours are?”

  “We only know about a group of people who live on Likoma Island on the eastern edge of the lake. Be careful, as they’ve been known to shoot strangers. They survived the Ebola outbreak by preventing contact with other people.”

  When they left, we read through the leaflet, pondering what this meant and trying to decide which way we should jump. We were all very suspicious of the fence. They said it was for our safety, but we all thought it sounded more like a concentration camp.

  Samuel, who hadn’t joined in, said, “No need to decide straight away. We should all pray about it. I suggest that we keep our thoughts about it to ourselves for about a week and then we’ll meet to vote on it.”

  I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t like the sound of this anaesthetic. Was this all a ploy, like in the Second World War when Jews were told they were going to have a shower before poisonous gas poured from the ceilings? On the other hand, having free food, houses, electricity and holidays sounded fantastic. In the end, what mattered to me was to stay with my new family, and I’d go along with whatever they chose.

  Later that night, we heard what sounded like an explosion. It reminded me of the quarry in Kerala. It came from the direction of Likoma Island. If they’d just killed them all, the regime must be ruthless. I hoped my new family would choose to live in the Christian enclosure.

  That week lasted forever. I noticed several of my friends walking, lost in their own thoughts, as I’m sure they were all trying to decide what to do. To be fair to Samuel, during his Sunday address in the church, he didn’t try to push one way or the other. He just said we should listen to Jesus.

  The day that would determine our fate arrived. Samuel placed an old cracked bowl on the floor in front of us. He said we should each write our decision on a piece of paper and put these in the bowl. If there was disagreement, we would listen to everyone’s view in turn.

  As Samuel opened the papers, I feared a rift might split us.

  “All the adults and Precious have agreed to stay where we are and join the larger Christian community. Sarah has said she would go with whatever the adults chose. Of course, the young children didn’t vote, but Blessing has expressed his wish to join the new society.”

  Grace’s mouth hung open, her eyes wide in disbelief. She turned white and I feared she might faint. Samuel’s calming, melodious voice cut in.

  “Blessing, we appreciate that the promises those soldiers made must seem attractive. We fear that this is a trap that will lead to you being enslaved while you are unconscious from the anaesthetic. You are a good, brave boy, but I believe it is too hard a decision for an eleven-year-old to make.”

  I watched Blessing’s face with fascination as this speech went on. The kind, smiling face that I’d come to love contorted with anger.

  “You’re not my father and you’ve no idea what I would like and what would be best for me!”

  With this, Grace’s face resumed its usual stern appearance. She marched across the room, took Blessing by the arm and dragged him, snarling with humiliation, into his bedroom. Ten minutes later, he reappeared and apologised to Samuel, and agreed to stay with everyone else.

  -----

  Those six months flew by. A week after opening the votes, Samuel and Grace announced their engagement. The great day came; the church was decorated with bougainvillea and frangipani. Samuel couldn’t marry himself so Rubber stepped in to do the honours. Afterwards, we had a feast as Rubber had used one of our bullets to kill an impala which we roasted on a spit. It tasted fantastic and there was plenty left over. We ate a lot during the next few days, while the remainder had been cut into thin strips to make biltong in the hot, drying sun.

  When the twin soldiers reappeared, Samuel informed them that we would like to continue to live in our little community, even though we understood that we would be joined by other Christians inside a fence.

  “About a hundred thousand Christians have opted to join you. They’ll start arriving in a few weeks. People and robots will come and drill boreholes. These will be solar powered and will fill large reservoirs on high points in the area. From these, water will be piped for drinking and irrigation. Enough simple houses will be built. You’ve been allocated a vast area and that should give everyone more than enough land to feed themselves.

  As soon as your area is settled and completed, new towns will be built outside the fence.”

  I was apprehensive, wondering what these other Christians would be like and whether our happy community would be irreparably disrupted.

  Zig

  writing from December 2060 to 2062

  In 2060, China moved its army west to confront India and its allies. Both superpowers were equipped with the latest drones and droids. They also had sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles that effectively negated the use of air strikes. The result was a mass of destroyed hardware with few human casualties; a stalemate had ensued.

  They were saved from this wasteful charade by a ceasefire, followed by a conference in Moscow arranged by Australia and New Zealand. India and China signed a peace agreement and spent the next few days in discussion with leaders from around the world. Commander Spitzen and her Board were then invited to join them.

  Black joined me as we watched the press conference.

  The imposing Australian President took the podium. “I speak on behalf of all nations outside of Xantec control. The world has suffered carnage for two years. Trade has virtually halted, shares have plummeted and our people are impoverished. We would like to invite Commander Spitzen and her Xantec organisation to assist all our countries. Africa is devastated and has no working governments; we propose that Xantec helps them too.”

  Max joined him. “If invited, we will gladly help any country as long as we are allowed to take absolute control. It’ll take time to improve everyone’s standard of living, especially in Africa, which I understand is a complete disaster at present.”

  -----

  Commander Spitzen called all the Commissioners to a meeting in the Great Hall.

  I thought she looked older, and certainly her face looked tired and weary under her silvery grey hair. I suppose it must have been the strain of her work, as I assumed she was having anti-ageing injections like the rest of us.

  She took the platform. “We’ve been asked to govern the remaining countries of the world. This includes the continent of Africa, which has become an anarchic morass of poverty and disease after the Ebola epidemic. We believe that Africa needs to be firmly stabilised by our clones and Commissioners before we can modernise it. In two years, I want the whole of the world to be thriving. The Commissioners who were previously based i
n California and Pennsylvania will be assigned to Africa. The rest of you will be notified of your tasks tomorrow.”

  I saw Petra talking to her mother and hoped she would arrange to meet me before I left. I’d never been to Africa and was fearful of what we would find. Horrible images of stinking piles of dead bodies being scavenged by hyenas sprang to mind.

  In the event, everything moved too fast; we had endless briefings and meetings. Two days later, I was in an advance party flying to Israel. From there, Gregor, Sandy and I crossed the Suez Canal and used a petrol-powered 4X4 to drive to Cairo. We didn’t see anyone along the road, and even Cairo was practically deserted. The few people we glimpsed rapidly disappeared, scuttling away down bright alleyways. It became apparent that no one lived in the city; these people were looters. My faithful clones ran and caught one of these shifty miscreants. I learnt that the few survivors now lived along the banks of the Nile, where they could irrigate their crops. They said it was relatively peaceful, although very primitive there. He showed us to the airport, which was in good condition but covered in a thick layer of sand. The only bulldozer we found needed diesel and I cursed that we only had petrol. There was no choice but to use shovels. I found the midday sun unbearable and was embarrassed to keep stopping and recovering in the shade. In the meantime, Gregor and Sandy continued working through the heat of the day.

  A few days later, the first planes landed. We set up base in what must once have been a very plush hotel; it was now empty and bedraggled. The first planes brought food, water purifying equipment, mattresses, tables and chairs. Most importantly, they sent us enough solar panels to light the place and charge our equipment. There were thousands of abandoned cars and 4x4s in good condition, just without any fuel. We ordered tankers of petrol as well as diesel to be brought in from Israel.

  Ships carrying clones and Commissioners would investigate the coastal areas of the continent. The centre of Africa would be reached initially by clones in 4x4s who would prepare airports so that Commissioners and supplies could be flown in.

  I was fed up with sitting around in the hotel. My boss must have sensed this. My clone friends were going to prepare airports in the Sahara and the Sahel in a 4x4 with a backup oil tanker. He allowed me to join them. Our first mission was to open the airport of Benghazi (Libya) so that experts could be flown in to get their oil fields functional once more. This struck me as ironic as Xantec was still committed to ending the use of fossil fuel.

  Libya was even more tragic than Cairo. At least Cairo had some beautiful old buildings; Libya’s towns were still bombsites from the civil war that occurred after Gaddafi was deposed. Having prepared the airport, we travelled along the coast and then turned south through the empty desert of Southern Algeria. It was December and we huddled close to our campfire to keep warm during the evenings.

  Xanasa guided us to an oasis. This blew my mind as it seemed unbelievably green after the sandy wastes we had driven through. Crops were thriving and weaver birds were chattering as they fed their young, ensconced in their intricate upside-down nests. Most surprising of all, it was full of people. I asked them how so many of them had survived.

  “We’d heard about Ebola on our mobile phones and set sentries to prevent anyone visiting our oasis.”

  They had solar energy for their base station and some of their mobiles were still working. They knew that Ebola had burnt itself out and hence, they’d allowed us to visit. We stayed two nights in this paradise and then moved south into Mali.

  I’d never heard of the Dogon people. We saw some funny mud houses with little conical thatched roofs high on a hill. The village appeared empty so we parked under an old acacia tree. Sandy had just put our kettle on for a brew when we were suddenly surrounded by spear-wielding tribesmen, wearing wooden masks depicting strange creatures and contorted faces. After a couple of minutes, we heard a piercing cry and suddenly we were forced to the ground as they menaced us with their sharpened weapons. Two warriors parted and an old man stood before us. I spoke to him in Dogon and his face lit up with surprise and delight. The spears were instantly withdrawn and we were welcomed like long-lost cousins. Like the oasis-dwellers, they’d prevented travellers from entering their compound after word had reached them of surrounding villages catching the contagion. They wanted assurances that we were free of the disease. I told them it was over and it was now safe for them to allow visitors into their village. The chief spoke loudly to his assembled tribe with a surprisingly high-pitched voice. A vibrant ululation rose from the women who had materialised from their huts. At the party that night, they were all singing and dancing to the haunting sounds of their odd stringed instruments and drums. Some of the local women flirted with Gregor and Sandy. I was clearly too puny to be of interest.

  Sadly, we’d work to do, and had to move on to prepare the airports in Niamey, Kano and Obuja.

  As we entered Nigeria, I was saddened to see the place littered with plastic bags and bottles. We passed a massive granite rock as Obuja appeared on the horizon. It was a modern city with tall glass and steel buildings. It was much greener here than we’d been used to, and already the jungle was beginning to invade the smaller buildings. For all its previous wealth, it was now as destitute as all the other African cities we’d driven through. As we drove up a wide boulevard, we were surprised to hear another vehicle overtaking our petrol tanker. We’d just passed an abandoned church when a burst of automatic fire shattered our back window. Glass was everywhere and blood was streaming down my cheek. I didn’t seem to be seriously injured but I heard Sandy cry out and guessed he was hit. There was no time to attend to him as I heard the scream of an engine approaching. I turned and was horrified to see an old khaki jeep catching us fast. I noticed that the machine gunner was reloading his magazine and ducked down, hoping to avoid the next round when…

  “Hold on tight,” shouted Gregor as the car spun, screeching its complaints. The handbrake turn completed, we rushed headlong at the jeep. They swerved at the last moment as Gregor lobbed a sonic bomb into its open front window. A massive explosion caused the jeep to career off the road, ramming into the trunk of a large tree. We pulled up beside them and soon had all three occupants safely cuffed. Sandy was supporting his left arm and was bleeding heavily from glass cuts at the back of his head.

  Gregor took control. “Let’s have a look at that arm.”

  He cut off Sandy’s left sleeve to reveal a bloody pulp of oozing flesh where his triceps should have been.

  “Looks like your lucky day, Sandy. I think the bullet missed your humerus.”

  “Fuck my lucky day, you bastard. It hurts like hell!”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll give you some morphine. I always thought you were a bit of a junky. Then we’ll get this cleaned up.”

  “Sir, would you check out that church over the road and see if it would be suitable to camp in?”

  Thankful to leave the blood and gore to Gregor, I went over to check it out. It was intact; I even found a lockable vestry that would be suitable for our prisoners. By the time I rejoined them, Sandy was gritting his teeth as Gregor was cleaning his wound with spirits.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Excuse my French, sir,” as he clenched his teeth once more.

  “That scratch will be fine in a couple of weeks,” Gregor added derisively.

  I helped bandage it tightly to stem the bleeding, thankful it was Sandy and not me being abused by Gregor.

  -----

  By the following morning, the prisoners’ hearing had partially returned. I told them to take us to where they were living. We set off and it soon became obvious that they were leading us on a wild goose chase. I gave Sandy the nod and he grabbed their leader, putting him in a neck lock within an inch of his life, using his good right arm. That concentrated his mind and they directed us straight to a high-walled compound. Once inside the gates, we observed a sizeable colonial-style brick building surrounded by cottages, a
barn and large flowering trees. It looked like it might have been a wealthy private school at one time, but the playing fields had been turned into a vegetable farm where emaciated women and girls were bent over mattocks, hoeing the crops. We drove past the barn and stopped in front of the main residence.

  As we escorted the prisoners onto the veranda, bullets flew over our heads, ripping into the second floor. Windows disintegrated and brick dust filled the air. They must have avoided firing directly at us because of the prisoners. Sandy kicked open the wooden doors and we pushed the captives into the relative safety of a reception hall. Gregor chucked me a gun while he and Sandy went out the back to circle round to the far side of the barn. I crouched beneath a window, keeping a watch on my prisoners while firing random shots in the general direction of the barn to distract our assailants.

  About two minutes later, another sonic bomb went off; we had two more prisoners.

  I went to talk to the slaves. They were surprised that I spoke Yoruba and listened intently as I explained that we’d come to free them. They warned me that there were two more ‘masters’ and that they would be back soon. Their overseers had apparently gone to trade vegetables for meat at a market a few kilometres away. I requested that they carried on as normal so that the remaining gangsters wouldn’t suspect anything when they returned. I parked our 4x4 round the back of the old school and took charge of the prisoners in the refectory while Gregor and Sandy prepared an ambush in the hall. A few minutes later, I heard a jeep pull up. The door opened, a sonic gun fired; two more prisoners.