The Kenya’s
capital is a floating city, a metropolis controlled by GK2140 Satellites
hovering overhead. It is a city for the third millennium. It has everything
that the body wants but nothing the soul needs. Miles of grey skyscrapers,
strangely naked-seeming in the clean, clear air kiss the clouds like obsessed
lovers; crisscrossing air routes, and AeroCars.
Phoenix City.
Former Nairobi City, the capital the New Kenya. Fifty million souls. Theirs is
happily-ever-afters.
Before it rose
from the ashes, Nairobi was a city of haves and have-nots. There were those in
the upscale ‘hoods with exotic luxury fuel guzzlers and enviable lifestyles;
and there were those from the sprawling slums, drug-addled and impoverished.
And there was the middleclass who were neither here nor there, working all
their waking hours to give their kids the best from international schools,
talent academies, and foreign vacations.
When the
epidemic started, the gap between the rich and the poor widened. Those from the
upper scale of life barricaded themselves in their electric-fenced homes going
only to the remaining the rich only exclusive upmarket malls to get what wasn’t
airdropped at their homes. Downtown roadside food vendors crawled into the city
centre and became buddies with the Kanju,
continued to sell their contaminated foods to the already dying population.
There was
misery in the streets. It soaked into the sidewalk cracks and into graffitied
walls. It was in the six-star hotels where once only the movers and shakers of
Kenya’s economy dined in, in designer cloths boutiques, and in the alleys where
garbage that was never to be collected was perpetually searched, and not just
by the cats and dogs. Then the people became garbage themselves.
The city was
ghostly frozen for those months the plague ravaged it. The rich didn’t move
from their uptown homes for fear of getting infected. Most of the people who
had fled the country started coming back, to stand in solidarity with their
dying brethren.
The second wave
of the deaths started shortly after. They were worse than the first that were
caused by contaminated foods. They began with tumours in the groin and armpits,
and spread in all directions consuming everything. Death came within an hour of
infection.
As though that
was not enough, a mysterious fire consumed everything else that the plague
didn’t devour along with the corpses that lay topsy-turvily everywhere. All was
gone.
From the ashes
came Phoenix City.
We called
ourselves Goddies. We were a group of pro-metahuman scientists who wanted to
cleanse the world of the lower level humans. When the first genetically
engineered baby was born in a lab at the Nairobi Hospital, we were holed up in
a secret lab in the basement of Kenyatta International Convention Centre
experimenting on nanotechnology, genetic and mutation-engineering, and
telepathic science. Project Homortals (Homo
Immortals) was the ultimate creation—longevity of up to 1500 years before
rejuvenation, transcendental powers, mind control, extra-terrestrial
intelligence, and ubiquity.
We got the
industrial bacterium responsible for the 14th Century Black Death
plague from Japan. Japan wanted to use it on China for Second World War
atrocities on the Japanese. The bacteria was enough to wipe out the city before
proceeding to the rest of the country.
With the Homo sapiens gone, we Homortals rebuilt the city.
Phoenix City, Capital
of the New Kenya, is the solution to the legendary Nairobi floods, land
grabbing, and dwindling resources courtesy of corrupt and selfish Homo sapiens politicians. It is a self-sufficient floating ecotopia
that is covered in vegetation, generates its own power, grows food, manages
waste, and provides clean water. It has eco-skyscraper cities where people
live, work and can easily get to gardens, open space, the beach and even
“forests”.
The ghosts of
the entire humanity we wiped out from existence ambushes our AeroCars,
sometimes sabotages the aerial routes. We live with the ghouls and ghosts.
Vehicles that take people heaven bound when they die got stuck in the space.
The phantoms pass by, bitter with our presence. But perhaps they are locked in
another time, imagining the things they didn’t do, fantasizing, and building
“castles in the air”.
Sci-Fi is always exciting to read for its surrealism and atypical plots. I'm not really into Sci-Fi or fantasy fiction, I prefer realistic fiction, but then I have a bias when it comes to African science/fantasy fiction. Just like this one, you have here. The Phoenix City reminds me of Nnedi Okoroafor's Phoenix, the first African Sci-Fi I ever read. I really admire the creativity and imaginative artistry you put into this story. I'm looking forward to that Nairobi cum Africa, in my dreams that is. Lol. Keep 'em coming Vin!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, Nduka. Sci-Fi stretches the imagination to craziness, it's like poetic justness but with Sci-Fi let's call it imaginative license and you get away with the craziness you come up with.
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by.