Volume01 Mission1 Chapter1
The airship SPOEX moved silently through the night. Sugto had filed his flight plan with Nigerian air traffic controllers, and they were not a jet. To conserve fuel, airships usually tried to ride the currents. But since there were no particularly favorable air currents at this time of year, they had to use SPOEX’s own engines at cruising speed.
When Akia had been put in cryo, people were building a solar plane that could theoretically stay in the air indefinitely, traveling at over 100kph, drawing its energy solely from the sun charging its batteries in the day. Now there were much faster solar powered aircraft.
Fifty to one hundred kilometers an hour was not fast by modern standards, but it was consistent and it didn’t overtax the batteries of a solar-powered airship at night which had to supply all living quarters with electricity also. Furthermore, the stores and fridges were full. If Akia wished, she had no need to land this airship for months. According to Maya who managed the water, only bathing might be a problem after the entire team was assembled, since the small wastewater treatment plants did not have capacity to recycle the bathwater of seven people using full bathtubs every day.
“All right, let’s look at our first mission.”
Akia moved her hand as to touch a keyboard, then stopped. Where was the wireless keyboard stowed?
“Just show us,” Maya commanded the computer.
The computer responded. Information appeared on the screens facing Akia and her teammates.
“Borno State... near Maiduguri...” Akia read out. “What the hell!”
“What’s wrong?” Maya asked.
“It’s Boko Haram again, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Of course.” Maya didn’t seem to think it was a big thing. “Or probably. It’s not specific.”
“How the hell... after all these years...”
“I think the IRA was around for many years also,” Sugto pointed out. “Boko Haram has been in action for forty plus years.”
“Never defeated?” Akia snorted.
“Yes. Nobody wanted to make the effort to take them out, I guess.”
“Oh yes, what failures they are,” Akia lashed out. “One hundred and sixty million Nigerians, and they can’t...”
“Not one hundred and sixty million. Three hundred and ninety-five million,” Maya interrupted with delight at being able to correct her leader’s outdated information.
“Whew,” Akia let out her breath. “That’s one huge country. And they still can’t take out a few thousand – or is it still a few thousand -?”
“Honestly, nobody knows,” Sugto shrugged and opened his hands. “Drone technology has gotten a lot better since your days, Akia, but it’s still about spending money. As long as their federal government doesn’t want to spend money, they’ll never be able to stop some localized insurgency.”
“They could always get some people to fund a reward,” Akia said.
“They? Who would They be?” Maya laughed derisively.
“Civil society.”
“Civil society hasn’t gotten that civil yet, at least when it comes to real action that costs real money,” Sugto said as he browsed at another screen, waving his hand to indicate the screen should scroll down. “But if you want, there are more than a hundred million thumbs down for every Boko Haram atrocity,” he added.
“Oh yes, hundreds of millions of Nigerians getting together to show their displeasure,” Akia commented acidly. “In this time and age, surely they can get together and crowdsource some mercenaries if their government doesn’t want to do anything?”
Sugto didn’t say anything to that. He had always felt that Nigerians were more competitive and proactive than Congolese, so surely they should feel bad about national embarassments and do something?
Maya got up. “So we’re supposed to...”
“No, we don’t have to take these guys out,” Akia said. “The Benefactors know that the three of us aren’t at that level yet. Our mission is a lot simpler.”
Akia indicated with one knuckle at the screen. “Tonight. This small town. Save a dozen or so local kids.”
“Opposition?” Sugto asked without a hint of emotion. It was impossible to tell whether he was looking forward to, or fearing, the fight.
“Probably a few gunmen at the most.”
Maya relaxed. “So it is a local affiliate of a local branch...”
Akia turned and smiled. It was just like the Benefactors to calibrate their requested missions. “It’s our first mission together, and my first mission after being thawed. We have a long way to go before we can do serious stuff.”
“I don’t consider the threat of being shot dead not-serious,” Maya said.
“There is always a threat of getting shot in every mission,” Akia said soberly. She hoped that Maya had not joined with the wrong expectations. She had not spent enough time with Maya to know very much about the circumstances under which Maya joined.
“No, shot and shot dead are very different,” Maya spoke up.
“What’s the difference?” Akia asked. “Anytime someone shoots a gun at you, you could be shot dead. That’s always the risk with Political Risk Consultants.”
Sugto stirred. That gorgeous three piece suit moved, and Sugto stood up like a modern day Black Adonis.
“Akia, you might be a bit less familiar with modern weaponry.”
“Oh, they’ve come up with more awesome ways to kill people?”
“No, they’ve come up with more awesome ways not to kill people,” Sugto said. “C’mon, you haven’t seen our armory yet.”
The Armory
Unlike in previous ships, the Armory was not located in deep recesses protected by the rest of the ship. It was located right next to the control room.
Akia found that surprising. Surely one wanted to lower the chances of ammunition or...
Sugto swept open a curtain.
This has got to be the flimsiest armory door ever, Akia thought. Even on the airships over thirty years ago, the armory door had to be thick and heavy. You didn’t want the ammunition to go off by accident and destroy everything. But here...
Akia found herself staring at what had got to be...
It’s Sugto, its Sugto, this guy, he’s like that, Akia desperately told herself. She had to maintain her dignity as the leader of this outfit when confronted with views like this. But she...
No, no outburst, her inner voice told Akia.
But all the same, no way!
This was clearly a sex shop.
That Sugto! Considering his dress, he’s probably a pimp who got rescued by the Benefactors somehow! This is his collection!
Akia struggled to maintain calm and keep her posture.
But why would a big black man have a collection like this? Did he really...
Akia’s brain was rushing to process everything. If anything, she was good at handing the unexpected.
Sugto was standing to the side. He seemed pleased. There was no hint of malice or trickery or perverted sexuality in his expression and his stance.
And there were triggers. Yes, so these are guns.
What seemed to be a largish walk-in closet full of black or darkish Dildos of varying sizes, some outrageously huge, had to be weapons of varying calibers. She tried not to think of how close these appeared to some masculine appendages that she had not seen for over thirty years during her cryosleep.
Sugto seemed to expect her to say something. Akia decided she had better say something. She had controlled her shock, but surely by now Sugto was aware of Akia’s surprise. Akia had better say something that maintained her dignity and didn’t admit to being caught off guard, yet which could encourage Sugto to explain this to her.
“The look,” Akia indicated the weapons. “Sugto, maybe you could explain to me again how modern weapons work.”
Sugto was expecting this, and didn’t act like he had an advantage over his leader. His Benefactors had already given him instructions.
“Technology, Akia.” Sugto made a gentlemanly gesture.
“It actually started with a movement in North America. They got tired of black people being killed by police. It snowballed into a general anti-firearms movement.
In the meantime Chinese technology had improved.
The Chinese government didn’t want to let up on its social controls, but since it was locked in political rivalry with North America, it was eager to demonstrate a commitment to human rights.
Moreover China really wanted to get a bigger piece of the world security pie, which North America dominated. The North Americans had all the traditional firearms and were making ever more lethal weaponry. 2021 was really a boom year for the North American firearms industry because they had so many mass shootings. The arms manufacturers, pun intended, really made a killing selling their weapons.
In response to that, China started manufacturing taser weapons in vast numbers and selling these to ‘autocratic regimes’ worldwide.”
Akia took a breath. Beating up the underlings of autocratic regimes was one of the great pleasures of her life thirty odd years ago.
Sugto continued: “They’re totally non lethal. Totally, totally. They just shoot balls of taser gel – electrified, sticky stuff that gets onto you and zaps you. One zap, and a protestor or fleeing criminal goes down,” Sugto explained.
“Oh, more than one sometimes,” he corrected himself as Akia continued looking at Sugto.
“OK, if using a small caliber taser handgun, sometimes it does take three shots to effect full paralysis,” Sugto continued. “But in general, these are really good. Instantly Effective. No lasting damage to humans. A well placed shot would also disable the handphones that people were using to stream footage of protests. You can’t enjoy such efficacy even with rubber bullets, beanbags or water cannon. It shut up all the human rights groups so well, that before long every dictator and every not-too-democratic democracy, and every Guided Democracy and Budding Democracy and Democratic People’s Republic wanted the same thing. To arm their domestic law enforcement agencies with taser gel guns.”
Sugto picked up a huge weapon with one hand.
“See this? This is the equivalent to... uh, the Stinger in your day.”
“You can shoot down aircraft with this?” Akia was incredulous. It seemed to be a gigantic supersoaker or some water gun made into an obscene sex toy.
“Not a supersonic jet a few km up in the sky. But it does take out conventional drones flying closer to the ground and at subsonic speeds. Realistically, that’s the highest level of opposition we’re likely to face.”
“That’s still amazing.”
“The key lies in magnetic acceleration,” Sugto explained. Since the taser gel can be magnetized as a ball, it can be accelerated and fired. In many ways, it is more effective than traditional firearms that rely on chemical propellants.”
Sugto put down the weapon and patted it.
“It’s made of plastics and silicon. Environmentally friendly. Light. Cheap. You don’t need access to chemicals. You don’t need to worry about ammunition degradation. Storage is easy as it won’t blow up on you. I could throw this onto a fire, and the worst we get is a nasty smell as it melts.
Sugto indicated another weapon that resembled a joke penis three feet long.
“That’s an antitank gun. Unlike the crappy weapons thirty years ago, it’s reusable.”
“Hmm...”
“The old style bazooka has problems whenever there’s sand or water or temperatures are low. But you can actually wash and heat these taser weapons safely to dry or thaw. They won’t blow up on you,” Sugto said. “Moreover, due to the non contact nature of magnetic acceleration, the barrel will never wear down. The tube or barrel will never need to be changed.”
Akia overcame the tiny inhibition that remained in her heart, and reached out to stroke one of the weapons. She was surprised at how warm and soft it felt. Almost like a man’s...
Sugto didn’t notice. Or he wasn’t prepared to notice it, given that these weapons were so common in his time that it didn’t matter to him.
“Yeah, not like a metal gun from your time, eh?” Sugto said with a warm smile that seemed so genuine that it carried no innuendo. Like all men, Sugto loved toys and this was an awesome toy to him. “These taser weapons don’t get hot after firing, so you won’t burn yourself touching the barrel after a discharge. They don’t produce any loud sounds or smoke, so shooter won’t give his position away or deafen himself when discharging in an enclosed space. And the modern silicon skin is awesome. It’s practically human. I can’t see myself using a traditional firearm.”
“But why this skin...” Akia pointed. This was so much like a dildo from her time, that she really had difficulty imagining this as anything but a joke.
“The silicon skin’s good,” Sugto said happily. “Won’t freeze in winter. Won’t get stuck to your hand if its wet and cold. Great to hold at any angle. Feels 100% natural. Like a part of me. And best of all...”
Akia’s eyes narrowed and she laced her fingers together. Sugto mentioning that the gun felt like a part of him was really too much. “And best of all...” she repeated, wondering whether Sugto would fill in the same blanks that her brain was filling in right now. (Akia really felt she needed to do something she hadn’t done for over thirty years.)
“Best of all, this skin is a great electrical and magnetic insulator,” Sugto said. “You can fire this in a room full of tech devices, and it won’t hurt anything except the person or item that the taser gel hits. You can stand next to an electromagnet, and your enemy can’t steal your weapon by turning on the magnet.”
And now Sugto held the gun in one hand and stroked it with the other.
“The silicon skin is such a great insulator that it can’t even be detected when you pass a metal detector. I’m sure you remember from the airports a few decades ago, where anything iron or steel, even belt buckles and shoelace eyelets, will get detected.”
Akia’ eyes ran over the weapons in the room. There were all manner of weapons. Some appeared to be batons or shock prods, some were mini handguns, some bigger handguns, some rifles, one that appeared to be an antitank gun, and one that appeared to be an antiaircraft gun. And every single one of these looked like...
Akia put a hand to her eyes. Just because she had been asleep for over thirty years, didn’t mean that she had been starved of men for thirty years. Come on, Akia! There was no need to keep thinking these things were...
“Okay, how about you tell me the disadvantages?” Akia forced her instincts to lie low and brought the bosswoman persona back. She put her hands on her hips and looked straight at Sugto, like a supervisor questioning a subordinate.
Sugto raised two fingers in a V shape.
“Only two,” he said. “But I don’t even know if they are supposed to be disadvantages.”
“Go ahead.”
“Firstly, non lethal. They don’t do any permanent damage to people. They do kill electrical devices though, since they’re magnetically charged. But that again, is probably a big plus to most users who are not murderers. These taser guns can shoot down drones and disable any vehicle that isn’t electrically insulated. That’s what the antiaircraft gun really is. It shoots a huge ball of magnetized gel at high speeds to envelope aircraft and disable their electrical systems.”
“And?” Akia felt compelled to look at the V in Sugto’s fingers. It was probably unintended by Sugto, but the innuendo felt too much for Akia. It suggested something, and she did want to feel his fingers...
“The taser gel is a sticky substance that adheres quite well to skin and transmits electrical energy to disable the target,” Sugto said. “Moreover, it always must have an electrical charge to work with magnetic acceleration. This means no fighting with blanks to scare people, or rubber bullets to limit the damage.
You cannot shoot uncharged taser gel blobs. If it hits you, you’re going down, and your muscles go all crazy and your clothes will be stained. Of course, that’s still much safer than conventional firearms, but the problem is that because these guns are so completely nonlethal, now the security forces in every country have turned super trigger happy.”
“That’s not good. Not good at all,” Akia said blandly. This was a very loaded topic, especially in Africa where civil wars and repressive regimes were aplenty.
“They’ll shoot you for almost any reason now, and they’re more than happy to shoot you five times or more just for fun, since they know you won’t die. And they’ll stand around laughing while you squirm away.”
“Whew,” Akia said to herself. Well, it was good that black people wouldn’t get shot dead by the police for little reason now. But if it meant that a lot more black people were getting shot precisely because the police knew they didn’t risk killing anybody...
“And even worse, China encourages it. They make a lot of money selling taser gel ammo worldwide. An incredible, incredible amount of money.”
“Gilette model, huh?” Akia said knowingly.
“Yes,” Sugto grinned and showed his perfect teeth and toothpaste-advertisement smile. “That’s right. China gave many countries these guns for free, or sold at a big discount. And now all internal security forces worldwide use these, except for the North Americans. Nobody wants to be accused of using lethal weaponry on their own people anymore.”
Sugto put the gun he was holding back into its rack and continued: “The only people who use firearms are true criminals or national militaries. And even the national militaries are rotating out of firearms, since fewer and fewer national conflicts really involve human combat anyway. Electricity or sticky gel takes down drones much more effectively and less messily than traditional bullets.”
Sugto waved his hands expansively. “No explosions, no shrapnel flying everywhere, no environmental damage and no collateral damage.”
Akia picked up a handgun and inspected it at all angles.
The barrel truly resembled some... personal toys she had used in the past. She didn’t want to ask. She knew that before she was put in cryo, China had already beome the world’s biggest exporter of adult toys. She wondered if there was not some communication or shared use of OEM manufacturing facilities...
“How much are gel shots compared with the price of traditional bullets?”
“I can’t quite say. Really few bullets are sold internationally now. The countries of North America are among the very few holdouts, but nobody buys from them. Maybe the gel shots cost two percent of what a traditional lead bullet could cost?”
“There’s a huge difference.”
“And due to lack of recoil, accuracy is much higher for short distances. Even untrained security guards can point and shoot fairly effectively. Nobody is ever going to trust a low level security guy with a traditional handgun anymore.”
Having said this, Sugto looked out of the window again and pulled a cigar out of his pocket.
Nigerians win World Cup
“It’ll take us all night and until late tomorrow morning to get across Nigeria,” he pointed with his cigar. “We have time tomorrow morning to plan our mission.”
“Just one thing,” Akia looked sharply at Sugto’s cigar. “Are you planning to light that thing?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Then...”
“It’s just a gadget I like carrying around,” Sugto said and put the cigar into his mouth. He made a fake puff, muttered something under his breath, and began speaking in a different language.
Akia recognized that language. It was whatshername’s...
“You’re speaking Kazakh!”
Sugto grinned and took the cigar out of his mouth. “No, I am not a Kazakh speaker. It’s just the translation function.”
“There’s so much I have to catch up on,” Akia mused. “The world has changed so much.”
“You don’t know what I was saying?” Sugto was surprised. “If you can even tell Kazakh from Turkish...”
“I recognize the language; doesn’t mean I actually understand it.”
“Oh, I was just saying Welcome to this country, Norway, blah blah blah.”
“We’re over Nigeria right now.”
“Yea, and cigars like this are totally beloved by the successful folks – I mean scammers in this country below us. You can talk with it in your mouth, and speak fluent Norwegian on the spot. Very convincing when you’re trying to sweet talk a woman on the other side of the globe.”
Sugto had a broad grin on his face. “I’m sure you will agree with me that at least on this matter, the world hasn’t changed.”
Akia had a sweet smile on her face. “Nope, this cigar thing is a fake fake. Not real fake. Nigerian scammers in my day took pride in training their skills. They could fool any oyinbo with realistic accents.”
Sugto laughed, and Akia joined in. It was good that Africans could still share politically incorrect jokes about each other.
Then Akia got a little more serious.
“I haven’t had time to catch up on everything,” Akia said. “But I don’t think they had any serious bloodshed?”
“You mean the Nigerians?”
“Yes.”
“Actually, things got really bad some years ago,” Sugto said.
“It’s a confluence of these factors: spreading Sahel, desertification in the north, environmental refugees and migrants to the south, cultural and religious tensions. All taking place in an environment of depressed oil prices. Am I right?”
Sugto almost whistled in approval, but decided this was too undignified. “If you can come up with this within a few hours of waking up from cryosleep, you deserve to be my leader.”
“I was a political risk consultant before cryosleep. And we are political risk consultants now. It’s our job to figure this out and advise clients accordingly.”
Sugto nodded in approval. “What saved Nigeria was winning the World Cup in 2046. It really brought the entire country together.”
“Don’t pull a Nigerian 419 on me,” Akia replied immediately. “I can fact check that easily!”
Sugto grinned and raised both hands apologetically. “OK, that’s just what Nigerians claim.”
“Even for a nation of ridiculously optimistic people, this is ludicrous.”
“They got to the finals in Abuja.”
Akia’s jaw dropped and she stared at Sugto.
“Yes, that’s true. World Cup 2046 was jointly held by Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana. Nigeria was beaten 4-1 at the finals by Germany.”
“That, I can believe.”
“The winning German team had 6 players of African origin. Of which one was Yoruba, one was Igbo and one was Hausa. So the Nigerians still called it a Nigerian victory. It was a tremendously unifying moment for the country.”
“Nice.”
Akia had mixed feelings about this. In her time, African professionals usually left Africa to be successful elsewhere. She had also done the same.
The Forbidden
As the SPOEX traveled towards its destination, Akia reflected on the conflict taking place.
Why did Boko Haram – often translated as ‘Western Education is Forbidden’ - come about in the first place? Why does it hate Western-style education so much?
The Hausa have been the biggest ethnic group in Nigeria from independence. Their traditional alphabet, known as ajami script, was based on Arabic. It was closely tied to the Hausas’ Muslim identity. There were hundreds of years of history behind this. Hausa kingdoms and states traded and fought with the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire, and eventually ended in the Sokoto Caliphate. Which was in turn conquered in the early 20th century by the British, but whose green flag influenced Nigeria’s modern green and white flag. Much of the territory of modern Nigeria was formerly under the control of the Sokoto Caliphate.
The Malian Empire of Mansa Musa used ajami script. Rival and successor empires used ajami script. They conducted business across the Sahel, a territory twice the size of the European Union.
When Hausa parents wanted their child to read and learn about their own history and culture, naturally they used ajami.
Even Akia had learned some ajami. Most West Africans, including non-Muslim cultures, used ajami before the European colonial period. This was hardly different from pagan Norwegians accepting the alphabet of the Christian Roman empire, and modifying some letters to suit Norwegian sounds. But Akia learned ajami in a country where choice of writing system wasn’t being politicized.
It was different in Nigeria.
Nigeria had terrible schools ever since independence because the government neglected education. Hence it was normal for Nigerians to send their children to private boarding schools.
Modern Hausa was written in boko, a Latin based script introduced by British colonizers. There was little literature and law and religion and values and culture available in boko. Boko was just a script used for the colonial administrators’ convenience.
Secular schools taught in boko; religious schools taught in ajami. Nigerians educated in traditional schools could not read their own language in boko, so they were regarded as illiterate by the government, and excluded from most aspects of modern life such as civil services and banking. This marginalized the graduates of religious schools, and made them very angry. Thus creating an environment fertile for the rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram.
Other countries with options for religious education did not have such a problem, because they did not have a colonial power deliberately create a new script to separate people from their culture. Those who attended Japanese Buddhist universities could read modern Japanese. Graduates of faith-based institutions in the USA could function in modern English. An Islamic Studies graduate in Turkey had no problem with modern Turkish. Hence Boko Haram was a uniquely Nigerian problem.
Moreover, the fact that so much information was locked away in the ajami script, meant that other Nigerians who could not read ajami, could not differentiate between a business contract and a Quranic verse. To them everything written in ajami looked like religious doctrine. Hence Southern Nigerians failed to appreciate the profound and wide ranging nature of the institutions of the caliphates who once ruled Northern Nigeria.
Akia reflected that if Boko Haram was still around in 2050, it suggested that there was still social discontent. This didn’t suprise her. Educational matters affected an entire generation, and resolving such macro issues took years of government intervention.
In 2014, Nigeria introduced a new 100-naira banknote. Southerners fought to keep ajami script off the banknote because they were afraid of Islamization. Northerners fought to put ajami script on the banknote because they considered it a truly indigenous Nigerian script, as opposed to the Western-style numbers and words that the Southerners wanted. The Northerners called it Islamophobic, without explaining that ajami script was not Arabic but authentically rooted in Nigerian history. The Southerners didn’t consider that their insistence on using boko script for the Hausa language, made them look like high-handed colonial authorities.
The fact that neither side listened to the other, guaranteed that problems and resentments relating to education in boko script would continue for at least a few more decades.
