I, Cassandra

41 | AMADI EZENWA

'Colonel Ezenwa.' An Elite, his beret tucked into his epaulette, salutes me, sharp. I glance at his eyes, blue light shimmers behind his pupils. He nods at me, coldness emanating from him. My interest in him deepens. I wonder if I am in the presence of one of the rare military upgrades I have had the clearance to hear about: The next generation of soldiers. Only the most elite get the offer: Give up your life, and GC will resurrect you, the ultimate soldier, a nanobot-enhanced killing machine, granted the right to marry, plus citizenship in Alpha VII.

So far, none of the twelve who had been selected wanted a woman. They were interested in one thing only: A near-immortal life in Alpha VII and the wealth GC granted them for their 'sacrifice'. Of course, unknown to them, we had buried a kill switch deep into their coding, just in case they decided to stage a coup—or simply went mad with killing.

I eye his back as he leads me along a corridor, glass-walled on one side and graced with the rarest of Rembrandts, Picassos, Matisses, Van Goghs, Monets, and Pollacks on the opposite. I bite back a scoff: I had been led to believe most of the pieces we passed had been forever lost. Apparently not. I wonder what other secrets I will learn today, here where I absolutely do not want to be.

'The Prime Minister is still at breakfast,' my escort informs me, as though he resents the effort of speaking. I nod, even though he can't see me. I don't like him. It. Whatever he has become.

We reach a massive pair of white doors without any handles, only the dark seam between the double-width panels breaks the monolithic monotony of the imposing barrier before us. On their right-hand side, a blank smartscreen lights up in response to the cyber-soldier's presence and reads the data behind his eyes.

Although I can't see any, I sense the cameras—of being watched with zealous, curious intensity. I clasp my hands behind my back and feign ease despite my unease. This morning, I sat in my living room and watched the sun come up, aching with dread. No one I knew of ever met the Prime Minister in person anymore; he had become a recluse, never left his suite.

Soaked in rising paranoia of being assassinated and missing his ticket into G-II, he would only meet in virtual settings, at times in his bathrobe, his pale unwashed hair standing on end. An embarrassment. Worse, he would hijack critical issues to lay out complex conspiracies he had concocted in his solitary, isolated world, and all we could do was endure it, and wait for him to run out of steam. Sometimes it took hours.

At the stroke of midnight, a call from one of his Elites. The Prime Minister breaking his own rule of meeting in person disturbs me to my core. There is no positive way to spin this, no way to cut it with Hanlon's razor. Whatever is to come is going to be rotten. He always has an angle, a move, a strategy. Dirty work. Paranoia has only made him worse. And this conversation—whatever fresh hell it is going to be—can only be done in person. And I will be his errand boy. I exhale slow, measured, aware of the eyes on me. A cat with a mouse.

A faint beep comes from the smartscreen and the doors glide open in total silence, ceremonial, reverential. Inside an intensity of white floors, walls, and furniture, blinding in the glare of the morning sun from the window screens. Mozart's unfinished Requiem in D Minor filters into the corridor, tragic and haunting. I sense it's intentional, a harbinger for what is to come. I recall that particular funereal Requiem was the last piece of music Mozart composed from his deathbed, as if in farewell to himself.

My escort turns. His eyes slide over me, assessing me. I sense his resentment as he strides back down the corridor, brisk and efficient. It disturbs me. Why would one of the most privileged citizens in the world resent me? He has more wealth than I possess. He can't die. At least, not like the rest of us. Left alone in the sanctuary of the most powerful man on the planet. I wait.

Footsteps approach from beyond my range of vision. The Prime Minister appears in the doorway, a crystal-cut tumbler with two fingers of whiskey in his grip. It's barely past breakfast. I pretend not to see it. He's wearing a dark blue suit, his hair combed back. The woody scent of oud reaches me. Once, my father took me to visit the vault where the lost scents of a dead world were kept locked in a glass chamber of perfect humidity. Oud had been my favourite. My father had smiled and said I had expensive taste, just like my mother. I later learned oud was produced from the resin of mould-infected Agar trees, tropical trees that once thrived in India. Before. I keep my face blank, but the irony tears through me, bitter and hot. Agar trees in Greenland, grown to provide the Prime Minister with his cologne, the cost would be insane. And I murdered a million starving people because it was necessary.

'Amadi,' he says.

I salute him, sharp. 'Prime Minister.'

He turns and gestures into the glacial cool of his residence. 'Walk with me.'