{"id":7980,"date":"2017-07-21T09:42:59","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T08:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=7980"},"modified":"2017-07-21T09:56:02","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T08:56:02","slug":"the-last-pantheon-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=7980","title":{"rendered":"The Last Pantheon<\/em>, part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eleven<\/center><\/h4>\n

1978
\nLagos, Nigeria<\/strong>
\nSpace.
\n          He was not really here. This was a memory or a dream. Hanging there was a space station, spiky, crystalline almost. The hull was grown by a layer of bacteria genetically modified to produce the bulkhead. It was constantly sheared off and constantly regrown. Inside, there were hundreds of individuals. Tope was once there. Sleeping for millennia, aeons, time immeasurable in Earth terms.
\n          The memory wavers, then there is a skiff, broken off from the space station, a needle, with dozens on board. A blue planet. Beautiful. Atmospheric. The needle breaches the atmosphere, shatters and the people scatter into different areas of the landmass. Tope and his brother land in what will be known as Africa. They land, steaming and smoking from the heat of re-entry.
\n          Tope woke up.
\n          At first he did not know where he was. There were empty Guilder bottles all around him, brown, broken, some half-full. His bottom felt cold and at first he felt he had wet himself, but no, it was the cold of concrete.
\n          He had a headache and the world seemed too bright.
\n          \u201cPan-African, stay where you are!\u201d
\n          A loud voice projected by a megaphone. Stern. Loud. Did it have to be so loud?
\n          He waved the voice away and tried to open his eyes again. Tope was in the centre of a crater. This was about a foot deep, fifty yards wide. Cracked rocks radiated away from him. The blackened carcass of a twisted bicycle smoked close by.
\n          What?<\/em>
\n          He could not remember the night before. There was spent ordnance all around. He felt his body, nothing damaged. His force field always kicked in when he was unconscious.
\n          God, he needed a piss.
\n          He pulled down his Y-fronts and urinated, a long satisfying, steaming stream of yellow. Then he realised he was surrounded by the Nigerian army.
\n          Ah, hence the debris and shells.<\/em>
\n          \u201cHalt!\u201d
\n          \u201cPlease, I beg you, stop shouting,\u201d said Tope. \u201cI have a hangover.\u201d
\n          A shot rang out and others joined in. Tope\u2019s force field stopped the urine and the reflux caused pain to shoot up his pelvis. The bullets also managed to buffet him about. His head throbbed. Oh, God. Why won\u2019t they leave me alone? What did I ever do to deserve this?<\/em>
\n          He flew straight up into the sky. At a hundred feet he pissed over all of them.
\n          \u201cGolden shower, assholes!\u201d He shook himself off and giggled. Maybe he was still a bit drunk. Fragments of the night before came back.
\n          From the height he could see the devastation. The crater he woke up in was the tail end of a three-mile serpentine path of destruction which included broken shops, ruptured roads, twisted median strip railings, upturned cars, concertinaed lorries, uprooted street lights (they didn\u2019t work anyway!), snapped palm trees, downed power lines, cracked buildings, shattered glass, and clumps of…smouldering matter that he hoped to God were not the remains of human beings.
\n          Fuck.
\n          There were sawhorses and barricades keeping people at bay, and the army was in position with tanks, armoured vehicles and a mounted multiple rocket launcher.
\n          They fired up at him. He flew higher, then away. Had he done that? He had seen the Nigerian Army use a scorched earth approach in Obalende during the attempted coup in 1976. Tope could remember flattening the trucks. He got flashes of violence and laughter. Smiling lissom women. Booze. More booze. Music. Orlando Owo and Victor Uwaifo. Trumpets and guitars. Groovy!
\n          He came down in Oworonsoki, near the Lagos Lagoon. Mostly unpaved streets with pools of relentless mud. Low-income residential area. Barefoot children. He staggered, swayed, and vomited into the stagnant water of the open gutters, disturbing the mosquito larvae as they incubated. A Danfo bus thundered by, spraying him with red mud. He attempted to be angry, but his headache was too severe. He giggled instead.
\n          It was mid-morning and school children in primary colours stared at him as they went to seek an education. He stumbled along to a street called Kiniun-Ifa, and he heard Akpala music come from a kind of grotto. A hand was painted on the wall to the left of the door. An open eye-ball with crude lines spiking away from it lay on the palm. The fingers were all the same size, including the thumb, and they all pointed upwards.
\n          Tope went in.
\n          \u201cEka\u2019abo,\u201d<\/em> said an old man. Welcome. He was seated on the floor on a raffia mat, holding a necklace. He gestured to the mat.
\n          Tope sat opposite him. He handed Tope a gourd of water, which went down in almost one gulp. A woman came with food, as if they were expecting him. Which, of course they were. The old man was an oracle, one of the real ones. It wasn\u2019t magic; some people were just better plugged into the quantum nature of time. If time was occurring all the time, all moments at once, then travel or prophecy was theoretically possible.
\n          Tope asked to wash, and they led him to a backyard where a pail of water, a plastic bowl, a raffia sponge and ose okpa<\/em> (locally made soap) waited on a sheet of corrugated tin. He took off his clothes and soaped himself. The water was cold, but he didn\u2019t mind.
\n          He returned to the first chamber when he was done. He noticed for the first time a shrine off to the left, an earthenware alcove with a lit candle illuminating an information leaflet from W.H.O about small pox immunisation and a statuette of Sopana, the Yoruba god of small pox. With the eradication of small pox from Nigeria this was effectively a dead god.
\n          The old man said some incantations over his necklace, and then held it between clasped hands.
\n          \u201cIfa olokun, a s\u2019oro d\u2019ayo,\u201d<\/em> the man said. \u201cBlow.\u201d
\n          Tope blew over his hands, feeling like a magician\u2019s assistant.
\n          The old man threw the necklace to the mat and peered at it. He shook his head.
\n          \u201cWhat?\u201d asked Tope.
\n          \u201cIku,\u201d<\/em> said the old man. \u201cDeath.\u201d<\/p>\n

2015
\nLagos, Nigeria<\/strong>
\n\u201cTell me about your childhood,\u201d said Elizabeth.
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t remember it,\u201d said Tope.
\n          \u201cAny of it?\u201d
\n          \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d
\n          \u201cDoes that seem odd to you?\u201d
\n          \u201cIt does. I don\u2019t think Black-Power remembers either. I wonder if we were just created like this, or grown in a vat somewhere and then activated. Or perhaps we had our memories wiped.\u201d
\n          \u201cLet me send a car for you.\u201d
\n          \u201c…\u201d
\n          \u201cCome on,\u201d said Elizabeth.
\n          \u201cI\u2019m in the middle of something.\u201d
\n          \u201cThe middle of what?\u201d
\n          \u201cI\u2019m writing something,\u201d said Tope.
\n          \u201cWhat a coincidence. So am I. What are you writing?\u201d
\n          He was writing a will, but he did not tell her. Instead he closed the chat window, intending to lie to her about a power failure. His phone rang immediately and it was her so he ignored it.
\n          Tope did not have family among the humans, neither did he have any real money to speak of, but if the bout went ahead he would be rich, or rich and dead. He looked out of his window and saw the settlement. He had virtually built the whole place by hand. A young girl bounced by, revelling in her new pubertal body, a girl Tope had seen squalling and smeared with meconium on the day she was born. Her mother had died, but she had been adopted by the entire settlement. The government had not succeeded in kicking them out and Bank was right. With money they could buy a fucking ministry.
\n          The bout would happen. Lekan had called and was spreading cash around Jo\u2019burg. \u201cNo results yet. These motherfuckers are tight-lipped, but there\u2019s some guy here or around here called Fulani or something. He may know something. I\u2019m meeting with someone who knows his second cousin tomorrow.\u201d
\n          And so on.
\n          He seemed to take for granted that Tope would fight.<\/p>\n

February 18, 1979
\nSahara Desert<\/strong>
\n\u201cFight me, you bastard,\u201d said Black-Power.
\n          He smashed into the Pan-African with his right fist while holding him with the left.
\n          Grains of sand rose off the desert floor with each hit, but the Pan-African\u2019s force field held fast. He felt no direct pain, but somewhere in his brain he felt weaker.
\n          \u201cI\u2019m not afraid to die, Dingiswayo,\u201d said the Pan-African. \u201cAre you?\u201d
\n          Black-Power head-butted him on the nose.
\n          It got through.
\n          And hurt. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chapter Twelve<\/h4>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

2015
\nRadium BeerHall, Johannesburg<\/strong>
\nJozi, Jo\u2019burg, Johannesburg, iGoli, City of Gold…
\n          Your golden heart is eaten out, surrounded as you are now by huge piles of empty mine debris, smaller splashes of barricaded plushness, and far vaster brooding settlements of cheap brick and shantytown settlements. But, despite the emptying of your beating heart, you continue to burn, to throb…
\n          Detective Cele, AKA Black-Power was eGoli and at rest, with a pint of the finest Charles Glass has to offer\u2014although Phaswane Mpe had expressed this state of being far more eloquently, when he was alive and welcoming people to the Jo\u2019burg suburb of Hillbrow.
\n          He was slumped in his old favourite beer-hall from the 1930s\u2014although then he had to put up with drinking in a back-door shebeen section, apartheid well on its way, even before the Nats got to power in \u201848. He\u2019d even put on his old brown trilby hat from the 50s, sharp end crammed low onto his forehead, dark coat\u2014Wesley Snipes \u2018Blade\u2019 style\u2014draped over his formidable bulk.
\n          Still, he was indeed at rest, albeit grudgingly nursing his beer, because alcohol\u2014like so many of the viruses and bacteria around him\u2014had limited impact on his physiology. He envied those who lost control of their speech and functions as they drank constantly, gradually slurping their way into oblivion.
\n          Like the young white man sitting opposite him, who was seemingly not frightened by his bulk\u2014or his silence. The immediate seats around them in the Radium Beerhall were empty, as if people could sense his brooding, fragile peace.
\n          The Detective was trying to work out whether the man\u2014apparently Colin Jordaan\u2014was seeking a payoff of companionship or sex.
\n          \u201cSo they left me,\u201d said Colin, drooping into his emptied beer mug, \u201cand I got no fucking idea why.\u201d
\n          Perhaps he\u2019s looking for a shrink? The Detective, as always, decided to cut to the chase.
\n          \u201cMan or woman?\u201d he asked.
\n          \u201cEh?\u201d the young man lifted his long orange curls out of his mug, \u201cUhhhh… Joey\u2019s a… dude.”
\n          Maybe sex then. The Detective smiled to himself. He\u2019d enjoyed a number of male encounters down the decades, but he had been forced to reign in that side of himself\u2014he had an image to maintain, after all.
\n          He patted Colin\u2019s hand gently, but the man still winced through his drunken stupour.
\n          As Black-Power, the Detective had been attacked by the gender brigade in the past for not embracing more sexual ambiguity and variety, especially in the light of declared Gender Wars and violence. As always, somehow he found himself on what felt like the wrong side, trying to straddle a fence that was impossible to balance on, despite all of his super-powers.
\n          And he knew\u2014from long history\u2014that culture was certainly not set in stone.
\n          Tope\u2019s comments had always hurt, when he challenged his asserted umZulu identity\u2014for Cele sensed the truth in this, although he did not want to face the void of identity as to who he really was, underneath the suit and mask…
\n          Brother, yes, maybe a long time ago. So long ago he had no recall of any mother or father, he seemed to have been born old and almost eternal.
\n          The Detective had a sudden impulse to whip off his dark overcoat to reveal his Black-Power suit, to don his mask\u2014and to pick up this young man and walk past gasping patrons of this restaurant-pub, who would be snapping away at him with cell-cameras.
\n          A pudgy, dark and greying man, suited in tribal Afro-Amani chic, shoved the drunken youth off his chair.
\n          The young man could only say \u201cshitttt..,\u201d before falling in a complaining heap on the floor. He had enough control, however, to lever himself up onto a chair in the next table, glowering his discontent.
\n          He was not noticed, the Detective and the Suit crouching over their Castles, mumbling.
\n          \u201cYou\u2019re looking older, Phulani,\u201d observed the Detective, with the eye of one who misses little.
\n          “And you\u2019re fucking not…\u201d scowled the pudgy man, wrinkled and grey, with the air of a man who had seen everything under the sun.
\n          \u201cSo,\u201d said the Detective, \u201cwhat news?\u201d
\n          \u201cPan African,\u201d said the old man slowly, \u201cwants one last bout. A final decider. To the death, winner takes all.\u201d
\n          The Detective rocked back on the couch, which creaked its protest at his 200kgs and almost 7 foot of mass. \u201cReally? What\u2019s his conditions?\u201d
\n          Phulani looked around the Beerhall slowly and then leaned forward. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to wait for\u2014wait for it, Lekan Deniran.\u201d
\n          The Detective stroked his chin, smiled, \u201cAh, the huge fight promoter\u2014Pan-African always did aim big.\u201d
\n          He hauled out his cell and opened his messages, but there were none\u2014still\u2014from Thembeka, his phone seemingly blocked to her.
\n          He tapped in a message and sent, but nothing seemed to happen. Cursing, he threw it across the Hall, where it clattered in a sprinkle of glass through a closed window.
\n          \u201cFine,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat time did you set? Is he late?\u201d
\n          A small, dark wiry man stood there expectantly, in jeans and a District 9 T-shirt, with the \u2018No Humans Allowed\u2019 sign and a shambling alien that looked like a Parktown Prawn from the movie emblazoned across his chest.
\n          Phulani stood up and shook hands, \u201cCute T-shirt, Mr. Deniran.\u201d
\nThe wiry man smiled and sat smoothly, as if accustomed to cutting to many chases. \u201cThank you, Fulani, I take it this big man is Black-Power, in subtle disguise?\u201d
\n          \u201cPhulani, the \u2018ph\u2019 is pronounced like a pee,\u201d said Phulani, with creased brows, \u201cNice T-shirt as I said\u2014what were you, a Blomkamp extra?\u201d
\n          Lekan Deniran laughed, openly and genuinely, \u201cNollywood would have done a much better job, Phulani, but let\u2019s get to the real business at hand, shall we?\u201d
\n          The man turned and focused his intent gaze on the Detective; Black-Power could almost see the yen signs rolling across the small man\u2019s eyeballs. \u201cSo, what are your terms and conditions, Mister Black-Power?\u201d
\n          \u201cI\u2019ll fight him any which way I can, I\u2019ll fight him in Soccer Stadium, Soweto, I\u2019ll fight him on top of fucking Table Mountain, or even in the Tata Raphael Stadium, if I have to!\u201d
\n          \u201cGood,\u201d smiled Lekan, hauling out a tablet, \u201cThere\u2019s a contract template on here\u2014what are your conditions?\u201d
\n          \u201cOne mill, US dee\u2019s, here…\u201d The Detective handed over a small square piece of paper.
\n          Lekan looked at the paper and laughed. \u201cVery generous, to allocate all of this to your old and ailing ex-president\u2019s charity, ex-prisoner 46664.\u201d
\n          \u201cFor some reason I have an affinity with prisoners,\u201d said the Detective, signing with an e-pen.
\n          With a nod and a wink, Lekan slipped the tablet into his leather bag and was gone.
\n          \u201cWhat about my payment?\u201d asked Phulani.
\n          \u201cThe usual,\u201d said the Detective tersely.
\n          \u201cOh…Can you beat him?\u201d asked Phulani boldly, \u201cCan you beat Pan-African, once and for all?\u201d
\n          The Detective stood up, whipping his hat and coat off and\u2014in full regalia, once he\u2019d flicked his cape open and donned his mask\u2014he bent down and kissed the very surprised, drunken white youth at the next door table.
\n          Phulani howled his outrage as cameras began to snap across the hall.
\n          Nothing like the scent of death to focus the mind…
\n          Thud! The young man had flung a drunken upper-cut against Black-Power\u2019s chin. Black-Power, stood up, surprised, the punch had tickled, but he\u2019d felt it.
\n          \u201cJust because I\u2019m gay doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s all about sex,\u201d said the young man, \u201cWe\u2019re all just people<\/em>, you know.\u201d
\n          Humans!<\/em> Who could understand them?
\n          Phulani slipped a phone into Black-Power\u2019s coat pocket and pulled at his arm, \u201cLet\u2019s roll,\u201d he said, \u201cbigger fish to fry.\u201d
\n          Now fish<\/em> he could understand!<\/p>\n

Chapter Thirteen<\/center><\/h4>\n

February 18, 1979
\nSahara Desert, Africa<\/strong>
\nBlack-Power slammed him into the side of a mountain. There was a brief rock fall and a tumescence of dust but before the Pan-African could cough there was that grip on the scruff of his neck and…g-forces. Flung into the sky.
\n          The rush of air, the blue sky…
\n          The cold rouses him.
\n          It\u2019s beautiful up here.<\/em>
\n          Impact. A light brighter than the sun, then darkness. He woke, then two seconds later he hit the desert ground.
\n          Black-Power landed after him with a heavy vibration. He grabbed the Pan-African\u2019s right arm and spun him like a centrifuge, clockwise, then after a half-turn he stopped, then turned counter-clockwise.
\n          The Pan-African\u2019s body was still moving clockwise and the bones popped like cheap fireworks. His scream echoed and the involuntary psychic feedback immobilised Black-Power.
\n          In desperation the Pan-African poured his pain into Black-Power\u2019s thalamus. As he recovered he saw his opponent recoil in pain. His right arm hung useless at his side and blood poured out of both nostrils. He channelled all of his power in the pain, all his resentment of this hero, this shining one. He punched Black-Power in the centre of the chest. He felt the ribs go, the sternum crack.
\n          The Pan-African reached out with his mind, found the small electric charge that gave rhythm to Black-Power\u2019s heart and stopped it.
\n          He held on for as long as he could, and that mighty heart struggled against him.
\n          It got colder. The sun darkened and clouds gathered.
\n          Wind.
\n          Precipitation.
\n          Snow.
\n          The Pan-African collapsed.<\/p>\n

2015
\nLagos, Nigeria<\/strong>
\n\u201cI found him,\u201d said Lekan. \u201cHe spells his name \u2018Phulani\u2019, like Fulani, but with ph. We\u2019re on. Black-Power\u2019s in.\u201d
\n          \u201cHe\u2019ll fight?\u201d asked Tope.
\n          \u201cHe was always going to fight,\u201d said Bank, not looking up from his tablet.
\n          \u201cTo the death,\u201d said Lekan. \u201cSigned the document, which you haven\u2019t, by the way.\u201d
\n          \u201cI\u2019ll get to that,\u201d said Tope. \u201cHow much did he want?\u201d
\n          \u201cHe said he\u2019ll fight you for free in a telephone booth in Tafawa Balewa Square, if need be.\u201d
\n          \u201cHmm. Ali, Boma ye<\/em>.\u201d
\n          Bank said, \u201cIs a death match legal? Even in Nigeria?\u201d
\n          Lekan sucked his teeth. \u201cMy cousin is a councillor in Surulere. I\u2019ll get all the permits I need. We\u2019ll say the death match thing is only for publicity. If anything happens and one of you should… accidentally die, well, I\u2019ll bury the Lagos State governor in an ocean of Naira. Trust me, the bout will happen.\u201d
\n          \u201cAnd the dome?\u201d
\n          \u201cIt\u2019ll be a sphere. I\u2019ve already commissioned my nephew to build it. Parts are already en route.\u201d
\n          \u201cHow many of you are there?\u201d asked Tope. \u201cYour grandfather was pretty busy.\u201d
\n          Lekan laughed. \u201c\u2018In a land where nepotism is currency, the man with plentiful relatives is rich.\u2019\u201d<\/em>
\n          \u201cDon\u2019t be too sure,\u201d said Tope. \u201cDo you know what Operation Deadwoods was?\u201d
\n          \u201cNo.\u201d
\n          \u201c1975. Nigeria\u2019s then Head of State Murtala Mohammed started Deadwoods to purge the corrupt officials from the government bureaucracy. He swept away hundreds of the unscrupulous civil servants and planned to return the country to civil rule.\u201d
\n          \u201cHmm. And where did that get him?\u201d asked Lekan.<\/p>\n

February 13, 1976
\nLagos, Nigeria<\/strong>
\nPresidential car, riddled with bullets, Murtala\u2019s cap on the back seat. The perpetuators, who hid sub-machine guns in their agbada<\/em>, were gone.
\n          Tope shook his head and flew away.
\n          You could have kept him alive, brother. I told you. I told you!<\/em>
\n          This one time, Black-Power responded:
\n          -Fuck off-<\/em><\/p>\n

2015
\nLagos, Nigeria<\/strong>
\n\u201cAn international airport and his face on a twenty-naira bill,\u201d said Bank.
\n          Lekan snorted. \u201cMurtala died for similar reasons to Lumumba. You played in that war theatre in the seventies, right? Murtala declared support for the MPLA. Any African leader who even smelled of Soviet or socialist leanings was a target for the CIA. Notice how Nigeria got a U.S style constitution soon after Murtala died?\u201d
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t want to think about that time anymore. When is the bout?\u201d
\n          \u201cSix weeks to build the geodesic, five if I can get a hooker to blow my cousin.\u201d Lekan guffawed at his own wit.
\n          \u201cWhich one?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth stirred and Tope felt the weight change on the bed. He opened one eye. She padded to his desk and opened the laptop. She punched a few keys and gasped.
\n          He allowed himself the pleasure of ogling her fundament, then spoke: \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d
\nShe brought the screen to him. It was a tube video. A man forcefully kissed another man in a bar of some kind. Tope recognised the aggressor\u2019s face. The scene paused and a voiceover began commentary.
\n          \u201cThe man in the video is Sipho Cele, a police detective. The smaller man in the picture is Colin Jordaan, and he has accused Detective Cele of rape. What is more astonishing is that Jordaan has alleged that Cele is the super-powered adventurer from the seventies called Black-Power.\u201d
\n          The scene cut to an interview. Jordaan now sported several bruises, a black eye and a torn lower lip. \u201cHe walks around with this old, worn black mask in his pocket, fingering it for sexual pleasure. He was…I mean, I go to the gym, but there\u2019s no amount of resistance training that would make me strong enough to…\u201d The man burst into tears.
\n          The reported said Detective Cele could not be reached for comment and it was unclear if he was under arrest.
\n          \u201cWhat do you make of it?\u201d asked Elizabeth.
\n          Tope didn\u2019t speak. He knew Black-Power took male lovers from time to time, but rape? If he raped Jordaan the guy would be in hospital or a morgue, not on a TV show with minor bruises.
\n          \u201cThis may not be what it looks like,\u201d said Tope.
\n          \u201cWhat? He\u2019s kissing a man.\u201d
\n          \u201cYes, he is. That means he\u2019s gay or bisexual, but not necessarily a rapist.\u201d
\n          \u201cWill you fly over?\u201d
\n          Tope laughed. \u201cWhen I went to prison one of the charges was violation of airspace. The other was flying in an urban area without a flight plan. Also, flying in a rural area without a flight plan. Flying without a permit. You get the etcetera? To do that, they first had to classify my body as an aircraft, then retrospectively charge me. It was a work of profound legal gymnastics. Bottom line is none of the Organisation of African Unity countries want me flying. So, no, I will not be flying to South Africa.\u201d
\n          \u201cIs it him?\u201d
\n          \u201cThe relevant question, Elizabeth, is how you knew about the video. I watched you. You woke and went straight to that web page without a search. What are you not telling me?\u201d
\n          Elizabeth stared at him.
\n          \u201cI can get it out of you if I want,\u201d said Tope. \u201cBut I want you to tell me.\u201d
\n          She knelt back on her haunches, swallowed and said, \u201cI have an implant.\u201d
\n          \u201cWhat kind?\u201d
\n          \u201cIt…I got it designed and needed thirty hours of surgery to have it inserted.\u201d She took his hand, parted her hair and ran his finger over the skin. He felt the bump. \u201cThat\u2019s the power supply. I have to change it every five years. It\u2019s experimental, but I had to have it. It cost fifteen million dollars and change.\u201d
\n          \u201cAgain, what kind?\u201d
\n          \u201cIt keeps me connected to the Net wirelessly and sends the data to my sensory cortex. I can also feed data back down the same route. I see everything that goes on the net. I know everything. I bypass VPN tunnelling, software or hardware firewalls, and one sixty-eight key bit triple DES encryption before breakfast.\u201d
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t know what that means.\u201d
\n          \u201cIt means I can go anywhere on the internet, like God intended.\u201d
\n          \u201cYou have a chip that helps you do that?\u201d
\n          \u201cYes.\u201d
\n          \u201cYou\u2019re online all the time.\u201d
\n          \u201cYes. Searching, cataloguing, looking for news as it happens. On people\u2019s mobile phones, on their fucking e-readers just because. I spent last night talking to eGhosts.\u201d
\n          \u201cWhat\u2019s an-\u201d
\n          \u201cYou know social media? Well, when people die in real life their online persona still exists, like their profiles, their email accounts, their blogs, their Tweets. This is an eGhost. If you amalgamate all the data, all the status updates, all the Tweets, you can pretty much construct a being who will respond and show quasi-independent thought.\u201d
\n          Tope got up.
\n          \u201cDoes this freak you out?\u201d she asked.
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d said Tope. \u201cYou could have mentioned it.\u201d
\n          \u201cWhy?\u201d
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t know. I would have wanted…I don\u2019t know.\u201d
\n          Elizabeth started getting dressed. \u201cYou know, you peer into people\u2019s heads and I trust you.\u201d
\n          \u201cI trust you.\u201d
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t see that from where I\u2019m standing.\u201d
\n          Soon, the door slammed.
\n          She was gone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chapter Fourteen<\/h4>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

2008
\nAlexandra Township, Johannesburg<\/strong>
\nKillings.
\n          More killings.
\n          Just foreigners, they said, kwerekwere<\/em>.
\n          This was on a wide open field, stunted bushes bristling across from crumbling shacks and the firmer brick of township houses.
\n          These had been people on their way to work perhaps, or just on their way somewhere, to talk, to have fun\u2014not expecting to die.
\n          Detective Cele bent down, looked at the two twisted, burnt bodies, with gathering rage. The site had been roped off, but a crowd stood watching, silent and sullen. The open field itself was partially scorched and baked a blackish brown, smelling of dirt and charred meat.
\n          He had to be detached and forensic about this, the support squad from his police unit combing the field for murder weapons; crusted blood from the corpses ragged head and torso wounds suggesting both pangas<\/em> and knobkieries<\/em>. Surprisingly, no guns.
\n          Close quarter murders, personal and intimate. Cele gritted his teeth, he needed to be cool and professional, after all.
\n          He stood up and shouted at the milling crowd: “You fucking bastards, why murder your own brothers and sisters?”
\n          A slow growling noise from the mob, a faint echo of umshini wami<\/em>, bring me my machine gun.
\n          You\u2019ll just tickle me with that, Cele thought, and make me angry6 \u2014and you won\u2019t like me when I\u2019m angry. A faint echo in that phrase, perhaps not his own?
\n          A young police-woman came over, neatly uniformed, professional, holding out a partly burned bundle of papers. \u201cID documents, sir,\u201d she said.
\n          He did not bother to take them. Wearily, \u201cWhat nationality?\u201d
\n          \u201cNot sure if they\u2019re from the victims, sir, but Mozambican, Malawian, and Zimbabwean.\u201d (Zimbas were the main targets at this time)
\n          Not Nigerian. Not…his brother\u2019s people. Not yet, anyway.
\n          He opened a sterile bag for her and she dropped the papers in, with black gloved fingers. He sealed lives away, with one thick brush of his thumb.
\n          \u201cTake this to the van,\u201d he said brusquely, \u201cCall the meat squad in.\u201d
\n          She almost curtsied in deference\u2014he was a senior detective who had been around for many years, after all. Even more than you think, girl, he thought, watching her bustle back to the van and wishing he could meet someone who would stand up to him, just a bit.
\n          Like this crowd.
\n          He walked towards the end of the plastic rope, pulled taut between two stakes, but with enough give for him to stalk several metres into the crowd, without snapping. The mob moved back slowly, grumbling, ready to strike again.
\n          He smiled, waiting for something to happen, fingering the mask in his pocket.
\n          Slowly, in ragged groups, the crowd dispersed, trailing back to homes and places of meeting, a lucky few perhaps even to various jobs.
\n          Behind him, bodies were removed.
\n          But he could smell the muggy wind picking up now, lacings of moisture in the air as grey clouds boiled in from the horizon.
\n          He stood, alone in the field, as rain lashed down on his face, cleaning the air and the ground. He could smell damp earth and sense the stirrings of worms beneath the ground, a few broken thorn trees in the distance standing out suddenly in the flares of sheet lightning.
\n          Life goes on, he thought, but is this only the beginning?
\n          All things start, but when will it end?
\n          Shit, he\u2019s soaked\u2014his suit will shrink on him if he\u2019s not too careful, time to go home.
\n          Or, at least, just a place to sleep.<\/p>\n

1975
\nCape Town<\/strong>
\nHe could hear sounds on the Foreshore, near the docks, sounds at did not belong; the sound of deep drilling, within a bank filled with gold Kruger rands.
\n          Intel had it that a foreign force had slipped in quietly to town, looking for easy pickings. There were no easy pickings on his<\/em> watch…
\n          There was a security van waiting for pick-up on the kerb outside, but he could tell the markings were fake, they had been sprayed a little too loosely, a little too unprofessionally. It took him one big bound to land on its roof, crushing and buckling it with the pounding weight of his feet and fists. There was a scream from a driver in the front carriage, a scream over breaking glass.
\n          The white tellers and customers were calm when they saw him, splayed on the ground as they were, hands clasped above their heads. His mask and cape were well known around here, his power even more so\u2014even though he had calmly stepped through the plate glass doors, showers of glass sliding off his impervious skin.
\n          A semi-professional operation then, they at least had a man holding the forecourt of the bank, alert and armed, opening fire with fear, when he spotted the giant super-hero.
\nBlack-Power moved with easy speed\u2014speed that no man could get a lock on. A left jab caved the man\u2019s skull, sending him sprawling across the polished floor in a spiral of blood, his gun mangled by a crunch from \u2018Power\u2019s right hand.
\n          Deep inside the vaults, the drilling stopped.
\n          Black-Power bounded outside to land on the wrecked getaway van again, a man crawling away from the wreckage as sirens started to howl. Best keep the fight outdoors, where the chances for collateral damage was less.
\n          A man stepped outside, and Black-Power felt the weight of sudden unease. This man was tall, compactly built and walking with the ease of someone so capable as to fear very little.
\n          \u201cIf you surrender now, I will spare you the might of Black-Power,\u201d he boomed.
\n          The man started and looked as if he were suppressing a laugh: \u201cBrother, is that you?\u201d
\n          Black-Power stepped off the broken van and approached cautiously. A tall man indeed, not much smaller than he, neatly dressed, but sporting a huge fuzz of head hair. His features were sharp, mobile, familiar…
\n          It had been a long time.
\n          A very<\/em> long time.
\n          \u201cWhat the hell have you done to your hair?\u201d
\n          The man smiled: \u201cIt\u2019s called an Afro, you know, like the Jackson Five?\u201d
\n          Black-Power snorted. \u201cIt looks ridiculous… are you robbing this bank?\u201d Three nervous, armed men stood behind his…brother.
\n          \u201cBrother, will you not greet me with a kiss? I haven\u2019t seen you in-\u201c
\n          \u201cYou were supposed to stay up north.\u201d
\n          \u201cI know. Things happened. I have been travelling around the world. I have much to tell you.\u201d
\n          \u201cYou can tell me from jail. There can be only one penalty for breaking the law.\u201d
\n          Cop cars were screeching to a halt nearby, but he waved them to a stop, he had this in hand.
\n          \u201cBrother, there is no need for violence. This money is going to feed women and children in Angola.\u201d
\n          Black-Power stamped forward, rippling a force wave through concrete, buckling the pavement, upending the three men, who fell with a clatter of weapons.
\n          The tall man stood, several feet above the wrecked concrete pavement, hanging in the air like a mirage. Slowly, sadly, he shook his head, and then with a blur of speed, he was up into the sky, a speck disappearing amongst the few clouds leeching off the cloud cloth of Table Mountain.
\n          Brother, why have you turned back to crime? thought Black-Power pensively, as he strode into the bank hall again, where customers and tellers were picking themselves up.
\n          They looked at him, but no one clapped.
\n          \u201cJa sure, I know you don\u2019t allow black people in here\u2014but your asses just got saved by a black man, so chew on that, honkeys.\u201d
\n          He was met with blank looks. Of course, none of them would have seen Shaft, or anything like it. He sighed, feeling faintly ridiculous, knowing his brother would not be able to stop laughing, if he had watched and heard him just now.
\n          For both our sakes, he thought grimly, don\u2019t come back, brother.
\n          The police were moving past him now, careful not to touch him, heading for the vaults. One police man leveled a gun at the man lying against stairs at the far side of he hall, his broken automatic weapon crumpled like his body.
\n          \u201cAlamu,\u201d he\u2019d heard a name mentioned. Yet again, black men die.
\n          Black-Power crouched low and then jumped, bursting through the roof in a spray of wood and brick, heading up and up, towards the Mountain, where no one would find or see him.
\n          At least there, alone, hunched by yellow sandstone rocks and with an orange-breasted sunbird calling nearby in the mountain fynbos, he began to feel somewhat at home again.
\n          But his thoughts brooded north: Brother, after all these\u2014millennia\u2014still the sharp tongue and the patronising tone, even though I am as yet ever the elder…<\/p>\n

2015
\nSomewhere over Africa<\/strong>
\nPhulani Mabuza sat alongside Black-Power in the specially commissioned SAA jet, loaded with ANC government officials and a small, but selective, press entourage. Black-Power, besides taking up two seats, wore a discreet grey track suit over his bodysuit, stitched in green letters on the back : \u2018Black-Power\u2019 – he was not going to be mistaken for a British Petroleum flunkey again.
\n          Phulani nodded to the \u2018Power\u2019s hand-luggage, a subdued but tall Italian leather man-bag, well within luggage allowances.
\n          \u201cWhat you got in there, BP?\u201d
\n          Black-Power leaned forward and flicked it open with his finger. He took out a cowhide covered shaft and flat blade, about a metre in length, decorated with bright beads on the grip, balancing it on his fingers.
\n          Phulani goggled at him, \u201cWhat\u2019s that, a fucking assegai?<\/em>\u201d
\n          \u201cNo,\u201d said Black-Power, \u201cAn iklwa<\/em>. Shaka himself gave it to me.\u201d
\n          Phulani laughed then, clasping his suited belly, which had grown with the greying of his hair. \u201cYou always were a fucking clown, BP.\u201d
\n          Black-Power glowered at him through the mask.
\n          Phulani unlaced his fingers and shifted back in his seat, a little nervously. He knew Black-Power had limits to his tolerance, even though they went back as partners many, many years.
\n          A young aspiring official from Foreign Affairs stood deferentially at their shoulders, a comic book in hand, holding it forward to be signed.
\n          Black-Power took it gently, knowing his fingers could shred the ageing yellow paper with the slightest of heavier touches.
\n          \u201cAh…\u201d he said, \u201cThe last issue.\u201d Battle in the Sahara. A few pen marks, crumpled spine, VG at best, he thought quietly to himself.
\n          The official scurried off hurriedly\u2014but with a pleased smile\u2014holding the scrawled signature across the cover reverentially.
\n          No comic book violence coming up, thought Black-Power drily, and with a faint frisson of fear.
\n          \u201cWhat else you got in that bag there, BP?\u201d asked Phulani, a little more relaxed, now that Black-Power had signed his name on a collectible so cheerfully.
\n          Black-Power rummaged and pulled out a long cape, slowly and carefully.
\n          \u201cYou – have – got – to – be – fucking – kidding – me,\u201d said Phulani.
\n          The cape was a bright, luminescent rainbow in colour.
\n          \u201cJust making a statement,\u201d said Black-Power.
\n          \u201cWhat,\u201d swallowed Phulani, \u201cThat you\u2019re representing the fucking rainbow nation?\u201d
\n          \u201cAnd gay pride.\u201d
\n          Slowly, Phulani shook his head, \u201cTell me it\u2019s a secret weapon to kill your brother by laughing until he chokes?\u201d
\n          Black-Power shoved the cape back into the bag, almost bursting the bag\u2019s seams.
\n          \u201cYou still miss Thembeka, don\u2019t you?\u201d
\n          Black-Power was huddled forward, but still shot a sideways glance at Phulani, who had surprised him with the sensitivity in his comment. Not usual, nor in character, but Phulani had showed flashes of insights down the years, which had cemented the bumpiness of their years together. And<\/em> he was a damn good fixer!
\n          \u201cYes,\u201d he said shortly.
\n          \u201cWell, for fuck\u2019s sake, kiss another woman instead next time, okay?\u201d
\n          The plane\u2019s intercom system kicked in, as the aeroplane began to buck up and down with tropical turbulence and the seat belt signs pinged on.
\n          \u201cThis is your captain speaking, we\u2019re about to head down towards the Murtala Muhammed International Airport.\u201d
\n          \u201cFuck…\u201d said Phulani, clasping the sides of his seat, \u201cI wish we were going to watch the Bafana Bafana<\/em> play the Super Eagles instead.\u201d
\n          \u201cHa!\u201d barked Black-Power, \u201cI stand a much better chance of winning this, than the Bafana<\/em> would have.\u201d
\n          Despite his words, Black-Power suddenly felt very cold indeed, as the plane began its dip down towards Lagos.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chapter Fifteen<\/h4>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

2015
\nLagos, Nigeria<\/strong>
\nThere was a crackle down the phone line that suggested either wind or that manoeuvre where the device is held between shoulder and ear, freeing the hand for other activities.
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t see him,\u201d said Bank.
\n          \u201cHe\u2019s there,\u201d said Tope. \u201cI can feel him. Hasn\u2019t been this strong in years.\u201d
\n          \u201cI\u2019m telling you, I\u2019ve seen all the flight data from Jo\u2019burg. There is no listing.\u201d
\n          \u201cLook for a big Zulu-looking motherfucker with an entourage. He might be wearing sports clothes.\u201d
\n          \u201cIsn\u2019t he supposed to be under arrest?\u201d
\n          \u201cMaybe, but I doubt it. The case was thin.\u201d
\n          \u201cI see him.\u201d
\n          Tope took the image out of Bank\u2019s head. It took fifteen seconds to resolve the image. While doing that he picked up Bank\u2019s fear of being arrested as a terrorist for using field glasses in an airport. Boko Haram had been quiet, so it was reasonable to expect fireworks soon.
\n          Bank was at the airport while Tope stayed home answering mail. Since the bout was announced all kinds of people sent all kinds of things for Tope to sign or touch and send back. They wanted him to contact their dead grandfather. They wanted to know who stole their money. They wanted to know if the baby was theirs, or if the baby was a boy, or if the baby had Sickle Cell Disease. Wasn\u2019t there a blood test for that these days? Hadn\u2019t these people heard of ultrasound?
\n          It was Black-Power all right. Age had made Cele slightly gaunt. His muscles didn\u2019t pop the way they used to, although nobody but Tope could notice such a difference. He wore a New York cap and an Addidas tracksuit. Duffel bag hooked around left shoulder. He did not look happy. Actually, he never looked happy.
\n          \u201cActually, he never looked happy,\u201d said Bank.
\n          Shit.
\n          \u201cBank, I seem to be influencing your thoughts. It\u2019s not on purpose, but my control is a bit off. Try to think of a white screen.\u201d
\n          \u201cJust ignore the porn.\u201d
\n          \u201cI\u2019m going to pretend I didn\u2019t hear that.\u201d
\n          Weather forecast was good, temperature holding at a steady forty Celsius. Their presence together in the same geographic location hadn\u2019t caused any meteorological change. Yet…
\n          \u201cWhat\u2019s that in his hand?\u201d asked Bank.
\n          \u201cIt used to belong to Shaka Zulu. It\u2019s a weapon.\u201d
\n          A priest once told Tope a story about Shaka Zulu. A white soldier told the great king that the manner in which the Zulu troops fought reminded him of the Spartans. He asked if Shaka had heard of them. Shaka asked if the Spartans died like other humans. The soldier asked what he meant. Shaka asked if, when pierced by a spear the Spartans would cry out in pain. The soldier said he thought so. Then Shaka Zulu looked away from the soldier and said he had no use for such soldiers.
\n          \u201cIf I command it my impi die in silence. These Spartans cry like women and give away their position,\u201d Shaka had said.
\n          Tope smiled. Only Shaka kaSenzangakhona could call the Spartans pussies.
\n          \u201cSpartans pussies,\u201d said Bank.
\n          Tope broke the link.
\n          \u201cCome home, Bank,\u201d said Tope.<\/p>\n

Lekan hawked and spat.
\n          \u201cYes, he\u2019s here. I didn\u2019t want to tell you yet because I didn\u2019t know if that rape allegation would go forward.\u201d
\n          The dome was all but complete. It was a gigantic structure covered in scaffolding and bathed in Klieg lights. Construction continued day and night. Welding sparks floated slowly to the ground. Booms and cranes placed men in unusual positions over a hundred feet in the air.
\n          \u201cHow\u2019s the foundation?\u201d asked Tope.
\n          \u201cIt\u2019s wedged in bedrock. Don\u2019t worry; it\u2019ll hold.\u201d
\n          Lekan was happy, and he had good reason. He had already made one hundred million U.S. dollars in pay-per-view bookings alone. Advertising had not collated data yet and the gambling data was astronomical. Merchandising…the figures were beyond what Tope was used to or interested in.
\n          Two men shuffled up in hardhats. They looked harried.
\n          \u201cid4870407Tope, I want you to meet Nick Wood and Tade Thompson.\u201d
\n          \u201cPleasure,\u201d said Tope, but it sounded like a question. He wasn\u2019t sure what their role was. Both were slightly bookish, wore glasses and seemed in awe of him. Tade was black and Nick looked like he might be a Pacific Islander or mixed race, but both had that endomorphic look that Tope associated with academics.
\n          \u201cThey\u2019re in charge of the novelisation,\u201d said Lekan.
\n          \u201cWhat novelisation?\u201d said Tope.
\n          \u201cGraphic<\/em> novelisation,\u201d said Nick. \u201cWe\u2019re immortalising the bout in print.\u201d
\n          \u201cDo you think you have the time to look at some character sketches?\u201d said Tade.
\n          Tope frowned at Lekan. \u201cYou know how I feel about this.\u201d
\n          \u201cPele, o!<\/em> Sorry. I know you would prefer Joe Orlando. Look, I couldn\u2019t get at Armand Hector-\u201d
\n          \u201cHector\u2019s dead,\u201d said Tope.
\n          \u201cThat explains a lot,\u201d said Lekan.
\n          Indeed. Armand Hector was rumoured to have been a consultant on the early MKDelta-sponsored Black-Power comics, in addition to other African comics like South Africa\u2019s Mighty Man and Nigeria\u2019s Power Man. The projects all died off when CIA interference in Africa became unfashionable.
\n          \u201cWe need some background information on you,\u201d said Nick.
\n\u201cOn both of you,\u201d said Tade. \u201cThe 1970s comics were simplistic bullshit.\u201d
\n          They were both sweating and Tope got the impression they were not used to the warm climate. \u201cLet\u2019s get some beers…\u201d<\/p>\n

The drums kept beating.
\n          Tope was naked.
\n          The babalawo<\/em> sliced the cockerel\u2019s head off and sprinkled blood on Tope\u2019s head, all the while continuing with his monotonous incantations.
\n          It was going to be a long night.
\n          None of these rituals existed eight hundred years ago.<\/p>\n

He saw Bank into the taxi.
\n          \u201cUncle, are you sure you don\u2019t want me to-\u201d
\n          \u201cI\u2019m not coming back, Bank. One way or the other, this is it. Just share out the money the way I told you.\u201d
\n          Bank\u2019s cheeks were wet with tears. \u201cWe will never forget you, Uncle.\u201d
\n          \u201cYou better not! I made you all millionaires.\u201d
\n          \u201cI-\u201d
\n          \u201cJust kidding. Go. Go now.\u201d
\n          \u201cYou can win this.\u201d
\n          \u201cI can\u2019t kill him. He\u2019s my brother.\u201d
\n          When the taxi pulled away, Tope felt the loss like a knife to the gut.
\n          Question: What do you do on the eve of your death?
\n          Answer: Slot in a DVD and watch John McClane perforate European terrorists in a high rise building over one hundred and twenty frenetic, action-packed minutes!<\/em><\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t many people around the dome. It had no seating and was opaque so nobody could see anything but a dome during the fight. A security cordon went up weeks before and there was a desolate circle a mile wide around the arena. There were two doors, each coded to admit only one. The North face was for Black-Power to enter, while the South was for Tope. There were no roads, and Tope flew up and dropped straight down by the dome from orbit. The flames of re-entry died quickly against his force field.
\n          He placed both palms against the south door and waited. It opened with a klaxon piercing the silence.
\n          A shining walkway led to a metal platform in the centre.
\n          Tope walked to the centre and sat cross-legged on the floor.
\n          He closed his eyes and waited.
\n          A sudden, loud vibration alerted him an hour later.
\n          Black-Power had landed.
\n          Morituri te salutamus.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chapter 16<\/h4>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

2015
\nGeodesic Dome, Lagos<\/strong>
\nPan-African sat calmly, eyes closed, meditating.
\n          But Black-Power knew his presence has been marked…
\n          …And that his brother was listening to him.
\n          There would be no surprising him, they both knew each other too well.
\n          Perhaps.
\n          Black-Power bowed, blanking his mind.
\n          Jump, swing….
\n          Pan-African rolled with his right hook, a glancing body blow, but still he gasped. Keep on him\u2014left uppercut, right jab, scorpion kick, keep the fucker rolling and dodging, no time to think, no time to use his fucking mind.
\n          Swivel kick, fucking sweet that one, sent him soaring into the top of this spherical dome, ramming him against the metal structure, blood spilling freely from his face. Jump now, nail the sucker…
\n          Shit, missed, uh!\u2014these bars are titanium hard\u2014losing that bastard to close quarters was a fucking mistake. Where\u2019s he?
\n          Black-Power grunted as he felt a rock hard fist ram into his midriff, and he started to fall, blows now raining against his face. \u201cThe sky\u2019s this fucker’s space, air\u2019s his power, grab him, hold him, down to the ground…\u201d
\n          Unhhhh, he\u2019s spun on top, using me like a fucking cushion\u2014bastard\u2019s smaller, but still no fucking light weight. Off he goes again, ha\u2014got his foot, swing him down, hard!
\nThe ground shook with the impact, blood flying again, as if in slow motion. Bounce him down hard again, his head fucking first this time.
\n          Flashing red stars, stagger back, blink, one eye\u2019s puffed and gone, Pan-African\u2019s free again, must have kicked him hard in the face with his free leg. Tope, his brother, the younger, hangs on the edge of the cage, crouched, panting, bleeding.
\n          Black-Power could taste sour blood in his own mouth and strained to focus on the Pan-African with his good left eye, wiping blood from a cut leaking on his forehead.
\n          Fucking corny, those fight scenes in comics, when light repartee is exchanged. When it really<\/em> gets down to it, each fucking word will cost you. Just get your breath back…
\n          It was then that he heard them.
\n          A roar from the baying mob outside the cage, the audience packed in this huge open aired stadium, thousands upon thousands, baying them on, to kill each other. Millions more besides\u2014probably several billion, watching, screaming, from across the digital globe.
\n          Whom should I be fighting, Black-Power thought, and why<\/em> am I fighting?
\n          \u201cLost your balls then?\u201d Pan-African called. \u201cKissing too many men?\u201d
\n          Fuck you, he thought…. fuck everyone!!
\n          Black-Power inhaled deeply, settling his weight squarely into his braced legs and haunches, summoning a focus of his strength, sweetly into his favoured left fist.
\n          Pan-African steadied himself on the opposite wall, ready…
\n          But he was not the target.
\n          Black-Power pivoted and drove his fist hard into the structure next to him\u2014it stretched backwards, bent, buckled… exploded…
\n          …and fragments of death flew everywhere…
\n          Black-Power opened his one good eye, feeling the ground beneath him shake and snap.
\n          His brother, the Pan-African, hung in the air, blood pouring from a gaping wound in his chest. He appeared to be crying blood as he clenched his left fist\u2014and Black-Power could feel the ground lifting him up, fragments of the cage hanging like scattered, glowing ingots, caught in the might of the Pan-African\u2019s mental force field.
\n          \u201cWhere the fuck\u2019s he going?\u201d thought Black-Power, as the air grew chill around them and the blue sky deepened into indigo, the ground now a very, very long way below them indeed…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chapter Seventeen<\/h4>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

2015
\nLagos, Nigeria
\nSixty-two miles above the surface<\/strong>
\nDick Tiger once told me that boxing fights were abnormal. In fact, all sporting fights were abnormal. Fights in their natural state last seconds. Those that last longer than five minutes are usually between people who are not trying to hurt themselves.<\/em>
\n          The fight took seconds. Forty-five seconds to cross the Karman line.
\n          Forty-five seconds for Cele to cave the Pan-African\u2019s chest in.
\n          I am dying.
\n          I am using micro-sized force fields to keep some of my blood in, but that won\u2019t save my life.
\n          It\u2019s cold.
\n          Black-Power feels it too.
\n          My mind can keep the platform up here long enough to freeze his blood.
\n          We both die.
\n          Check, mate and fuck you, brother.
\n          Elizabeth…
\n          Elizabeth…<\/em><\/p>\n

The remnants of the geodesic dome fell to the earth as a meteor shower, red hot chunks of titanium which set off forest fires and destroyed houses. Families watching the bout on television found their living rooms torn asunder with scant warning. There was no advantage to being outside as crowds were subjected to the shower and people were reduced to flaming, pulped flesh. A cruise liner traversing the lagoon took a hit to the bow and burned furiously and rich passengers and less-rich crew took to the lifeboats. Those who chanted for blood mere minutes before ran for cover wherever they could find it. Despite the carnage the sky looked beautiful with bright orange and yellow streaks.
\n          Seventy-one people lost their lives.
\n          The Pan-African\u2019s body burnt up in re-entry, lacking a force field to protect it.<\/p>\n

Black-Power was frozen, then burned, then broken against the Earth\u2019s surface. His suit was carbonised and the skin blackened and peeled off.
\n          Trees still blazed around him. He tried to stand but his muscles would not obey. He remembered being struck by lightning three times during his descent, each hit like the accusing finger of God.
\n          He could not cry\u2014his tear ducts were gone. He could barely see. His harm-resistant eyelids had been able to protect his corneas only so much. The left was scorched, but the right had better light perception.
\n          He sensed someone close by.
\n          \u201cAre you proud of yourself, old man?\u201d said Thembeka. \u201cA little fratricide to prove you still have lead in your pencil?\u201d
\n          \u201cThembeka…\u201d
\n          \u201cHe was kin to us. I could feel it…\u201d
\n          Black-Power could not see her clearly but he felt the rage coming off her. He tried to speak, coughed instead. The fire had gone down his throat. He could rasp, though.
\n          \u201cThembeka, fuck off. We are not related to you, Tope and I.\u201d
\n          She edged close to his ear.
\n          \u201c\u2018Were\u2019, asshole. You mean \u2018we were not related\u2019 not \u2018are\u2019. Tope is dead, remember?\u201d
\nThe pain threading his nerves intensified and he gasped, clutching at air.
\n          \u201cShit, Black-Power, you\u2019re an fucking absolute mess,\u201d she cradled his head then; held him.
\n          \u201cThembeka\u201d, he croaked, \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d All he could smell was burning, and the all consuming pain threaded itself tighter and tighter into his body, constricting his throat.
\n          \u201cShhhhh,\u201d she said, \u201cI can hear<\/em> you. So… you did<\/em> love him, once.\u201d
\n          \u201cYes,\u201d he said.
\n          Black-Power wished he could cry. Instead, he managed a painful croak. Thembeka poured some water onto his lips and tongue. He coughed his thanks.
\n          \u201cYou forgive me?\u201d he managed.
\n          \u201cNo,\u201d she said, \u201cit\u2019s not that easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

A strange weather formation over Africa.
\n          Several listening posts were already turned towards the continent as a precaution in case the bout between superhumans developed complications, so it was well documented. The clouds seemed to be on fire, but it later became clear. A wormhole terminated there and left a ship, some said a shuttle.
\n          It looked like a grand, black metal spider. It flew as if light, but the earth reverberated when it touched down above the spot where Black-Power lay against Thembeka.
\n          The woman tensed for battle.
\n          \u201cAt ease,\u201d said Black-Power. \u201cI… I know this ship, or it\u2019s like. I remember now. It\u2019s me they want.\u201d
\n          Two constructs emerged, shining ones like Biblical burnished brass men. Black-Power struggled to his feet and accepted the inhibitor bracelets, starting to go with his gaolers.
\n          \u201cWhat are you?\u201d asked Thembeka.
\n          \u201cA criminal,\u201d croaked Black-Power. \u201cProtect them, Thembeka. I always wanted to…\u201d
\n          \u201cWhen you weren\u2019t trying to forcibly copulate with them,\u201d she said, but the fire was gone from her eyes, \u201cWhat was your crime?\u201d
\n          He looked down. \u201cForcing myself sexually on others, amongst other things.\u201d
\n          She laughed then. And cried.
\n          He held out his blackened mask. \u201cPlease, carry on, you will do better than me.\u201d
\n          \u201cI don\u2019t need that,\u201d she said, \u201cI won\u2019t hide behind that. But, is there any chance I could get your rainbow cape, the one you never fought with?\u201d
\n          \u201cPhulani told you, the bastard,\u201d Black-Power cracked a painful smile, \u201cSure\u2014sala kathle, sister.\u201d
\n          \u201cGoodbye to you too, detective.\u201d
\n          Black-Power\u2019s last words floated over his shoulder, as he entered the ship: \u201cUmuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu<\/em>.\u201d
\n          Thembeka smiled\u2014a human becomes human, through being with others. \u201cNot bad pronounciation for a kwerekwere<\/em>,\u201d she said.
\n          Black-Power\u2019s laughter echoed on, long after the ship\u2019s doors closed.
\n          The ship rose, the burning cloud phenomenon happened again, and then it was over.
\n\u201c…And then it was over,\u201d said Thembeka. \u201cThat was the end of Black-Power, returned to interstellar incarceration somewhere left of the I-don\u2019t-give-a-fuck solar system.\u201d
\n          Elizabeth Kokoro stopped typing and saved the document. She switched off the recorder.
\n          \u201cYou were in love with him,\u201d said Thembeka. \u201cI can feel it.\u201d
\n          \u201cI think I loved them both,\u201d said Elizabeth. \u201cAnd hated them too.\u201d
\n          They both laughed until they cried.
\n          \u201cWhat are you going to do?\u201d asked Thembeka.
\n          \u201cA book. The Last Pantheon<\/em>. You just helped me finish it and I already have a publication deal secured. What of you?\u201d
\n          Thembeka went to the window and opened it.
\n          \u201cFight crime,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat else is there for people like us?\u201d
\n          The curtain fluttered\u2014Elizabeth caught a last rainbow flash of colour.
\n          Thembeka was gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eleven 1978 Lagos, Nigeria Space.           He was not really here. This was a memory or a dream. Hanging there was a space station, spiky, crystalline almost. The hull was grown by a layer of bacteria genetically modified to produce the bulkhead. It was constantly sheared off and constantly regrown. Inside, there were hundreds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[344,343],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Last Pantheon, part 3 - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=7980\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Last Pantheon, part 3 - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chapter Eleven 1978 Lagos, Nigeria Space.           He was not really here. 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