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Thick dust, blown from the arid interior, rained on the streets of Dar es Salaam. In the crowded Kariakoo Markets, vendors and buyers alike looked to the skies. The hope in their eyes sought rain. They were to be disappointed, but not surprised. It had not rained along the East African coast for at least five years.

Joseph Nuwangi pushed through the crowds of African faces. Masai cattle-bleeders offered dirty cups of bovine blood and chiselled plates of goat cheese. Somali traders pressed their wares of cheap electronics, second-hand guns, and faulty robotic machines. Nuwangi had bought from them all, but it was the water sellers he sought today, and of these there were many. He selected an old Hehe man, who sold fluid from a heavy translucent canister, precarious on the trolley of his rusted tricycle.

“What’s the quality?” Nuwangi asked, as he glanced at the digital clock in his cybernetic arm. The metal prosthetic groaned as he swung it near to his face, and ached where it gripped the flesh just below his left shoulder.

The water seller spoke through rotten teeth, “Grade A effendi, pure water from the snows of Kilimanjaro.”

Nuwangi laughed. “Kilimanjaro hasn’t had snow since before you were born, old man, and I don’t for a second believe that’s Grade A.”

Across Africa, all water was dirty and polluted. Grade A water, when sold to the right buyer, was worth gold. If the Hehe man’s water proved pure, then he had no need to hawk in a dirty market, for he would be wealthy beyond measure. Here sadly, the freshest water would be found in the guts of flies, which feed constantly from human tear ducts, and even this water wasn’t worth drinking.

“Let me test it?”

Prepared for such demands, the water-seller provided a miniscule sample, dabbed upon a spatula. Nuwangi fed this drop into his analysis chamber, which like his clock, was fitted into another artificial limb, in this instance one of two matching cybernetic legs. All three limbs whirled and clicked whenever they were in motion, pronouncing to the world his artificial disfigurement.

A result was soon produced. “I get Grade D.”

“No effendi, it’s Grade A.”

“My ass it is.”

“Grade C then?”

Seawater, which could be collected free from the Indian Ocean, was Grade F, if one pushed out beyond the sewage currents. On the other hand, there was no salt in this water, so its density would be much closer to the Grade A he was hoping to ‘acquire’ today.

Already late for his appointment, Nuwangi remembered again that the correct ‘substitute’ was required in a hurry. Connecting to the Internet via a datapad in his left arm, Nuwangi searched for current exchange rates. Satisfied with what he found, he offered a price half way between the rates for Grades C and D.

“Agreed,” the water-seller mumbled through his broken mouth, “what quantity?”

“I want to fill these,” Nuwangi pointed to his legs. “They’re hollow,” he explained when the Hehe man didn’t understand.

“Why in Allah’s grace would you do that?”

“It’s a long story,” Nuwangi sighed, knowing the truth of his words.

#

The city’s busy docks were thick with stalls and the scent of salty seafood. Vendors were Swahili fishermen and Indian spice traders, their wares perused by Islamic woman shopping with their unclad children. Today, a newly arrived troop of mercenaries, seeking paid opportunities to kill themselves in the arid interior, shopped with the regulars for charms and curios.

Small even for an African man, Nuwangi had to push a path through the thick press of bodies. Beyond the stalls, he found what he had come for, the harbour office of Abu-Zinj Industries. As he stepped inside, he was eyeballed by the grouchy security guard, lazy with a gauss shotgun.

In the reception, the vidscreen construct of a European woman, protected behind a mesh cage, smiled at him. “Can I help you, sir?” she asked in an Italian accent. The programming must have been cheap, with only a single option for the receptionist’s nationality. Or more likely, it didn’t include an African in its user menu.

“I’m here to see Mr. Armand Makeba. I have an appointment?”

“You’re name please?” asked the flickering image.

“Joseph Nuwangi.”

“Thank you Mr. Nuwangi. Please, take a seat until you are called.” The construct smiled again, to say that will be all.

Nuwangi fell into a faded plastic chair. Above, another vidscreen flickered. Similarly protected by wire mesh, it relayed an around-the-clock news channel from England, with more reports on the ever-escalating Congo-Sudan conflicts. “Causalities are now believed to have passed the five million mark,” explained the middle-aged journalist, who appeared haggard and tired. “Just today in Kisumu, an as-yet unidentified radioactive dust, was feed into the town’s water purification plant. It is now believed that over three hundred citizens are suffering acute radiation poisoning...”

Nuwangi sighed. With reports like this every day, no wonder clean water had become so expensive. It was little surprise then that Grade A prices continued to skyrocket.

“Your flight is ready, Mr. Nuwangi,” called the make-believe Italian.

“Flight?” he asked. He had expected a boat.

“You are scheduled to fly out to the Zanzibar Island. The guard collecting you, he will be with you shortly.”

A wide shadow that covered all of Nuwangi announced the guard in question. He was a big chocolate man, tight in a crisp, security guard’s uniform. In his strong hands a recoilless machinegun. Over his uniform, thick Kevlar plated armour.

“You Joseph Nuwangi?”

“Yes sir.”

The guard frowned, as if he had just smelt something bad. “Are you sure?” he was staring at Nuwangi’s legs and arm, his disgust directed at the cybernetics. Normally Nuwangi covered up, but because he required access to their controls today, he had worn shorts and a short-sleeved shirt.

For African men, prosthetics were often seen as a lacking in manliness. For women, artificial attachments were considered unattractive. And for both sexes, cybernetics often left an individual branded as a witch. It was sad that most Africans would rather remain limbless, than live with the shame of becoming a partial machine. Not Nuwangi though, other people’s prejudices were inconsequential to his needs.

“Yes I am, sir.” He handed over is East African Trade Zone identity card, which authenticated his qualifications.

The guard didn’t even look at it. “You in some kind of accident? Bus crash? Land mine?”

“No.”

“What then, why you go and mutilate yourself like that for?”

“For the money,” Nuwangi spoke up, choking back the hurt that threatened to betray his confidence. “I got my qualifications at Dar es Salaam Polytechnic, but when you come from the slums, selling your flesh is the only way you can afford to better yourself.” He remembered the painful operations, one per year for three years. Even then the money he made was only just enough to complete his education. Most likely, his limbs were still with their wealthy, formerly maimed owners. Because of their hatred and fear of cybernetics, they had paid the exorbitant fee for a fleshy replacement.

“I don’t know if I’d do that.”

Nuwangi, not wishing to debate the economics of poverty, pointed to his identity card. “I’m here to see Mr. Armand Makeba, your water purification engineer? He has a problem with your Zanzibar plant?”

“Yes, I know who you are,” the guard snapped. Suddenly aware of Nuwangi’s card, he feed it into his state-of-the-art hand computer, several decades newer than the Italian receptionist. For confirmation, he scanned Nuwangi’s iris, sampled his saliva for a DNA match, and took fingerprints. All were quickly confirmed against Nuwangi’s file. “You check out.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

The guard choose not to respond. Instead he flashed a digital projection stick at the wall, displaying a list of laws peculiar to Zanzibar Island. “Mostly it’s boring shit,” he explained quickly, perhaps because he had performed this routine a thousand times. “All you need to know is that it’s illegal to bring contaminated water onto the island. Any water that you do not declare now, and if found on your possession at any time during your visit to, from, or on the Island, is punishable by death.”  

“Death?”

“That’s what I said, immediate execution. Do you need to piss or shit now, because getting a permit to do so on the island is time consuming, for all concerned?”
Stunned, Nuwangi took a moment to answer. The pressurised water in his limbs would be reason enough to shoot him dead right now. This then was his last opportunity to back down, but with his plan to steal Grade A water at last within reach, he could not.

“I’ll take a piss then.”

“Before you do, sign here acknowledging that you agree to all these conditions. Hurry up man, we don’t have all day!”

With the formalities concluded and his bladder empty, Nuwangi was waved through, onto a floating dock where a small helijet waited. A second guard pointed to the passenger door. “Only two of you this trip,” he spoke fast. With the tip of his weapon he pressed Nuwangi forward. “We’re running late as it is, so climb aboard.”

Inside the helijet, the young water specialist was surprised by a tall white-skin woman. She had a fine face, small but pert breasts and smooth white skin, suggestive that she had never been long without water her whole life. Nuwangi had seen his share of white people before, so her paleness didn’t shock him. But he had never actually talked to an mzungu, a white person.

As soon as he was strapped in, the floor lurched and they were immediately airborne.

When he saw that there was no pilot, his stomach escape him, and the void was immediately replaced with fear. Terrified, he looked at her for hope. She just huffed and stared out a window. When he finally saw that they weren’t crashing, he guessed that the helijet must be automated, and so at last relaxed.

For several minutes they flew fast, with the awkward silence heavy in the air between them. He stared out across the open ocean, where the water was blue and the garbage less prominent. They were flying low, a few hundred meters above the crests and troughs. Perhaps with the Central African war moving ever eastwards, AZI were concerned about surface-to-air missiles, and flew low to avoid radar.

Eventually Nuwangi found his courage to speak, so he tried to catch her eye. She, not wishing to engage with him, was deliberate in her focus upon the world outside her window.

Joseph Nuwangi had always felt out of his league in the presence of rich foreigners. With favourable currency exchange rates, in Africa these people did whatever they desired, wherever and whenever it suited them, and particularly without bothering with slum scum like him. He was nothing to them.
His next smile was down turned, because he still considered himself a slum dweller. Even though Nuwangi had not been part of that world for years, his slum mentality was obviously still in him.

Yet despite his embarrassment, he could not help but study her, perplexed by who she might be. When she could no longer deny that he was staring at her, annoyed, she snuck opposing glances. Eventually in her frustration, she made a face. “Would you mind not doing that?”

Nuwangi shrugged. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Just looking at me okay? It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

“Okay.”

So they both looked away.

That then, became his first conversation with an mzungu. Was it at all surprising that it was such a let down, when he had expected it to be just like this, right from the start?

Then, as the helijet wobbled in the slipstreams, Nuwangi considered her nationality, offering another avenue for conversation. “Where are you from?”

“Why?”

“You’re accent? I’ve never heard it before.”

“Really, now why does that not surprise me?” Defiant, she looked away, and then almost immediately, flicked her head back to answer anyway, “Australia.”

“Australia?” he almost leapt out of his skin. “Wow! I’ve never met an Australian. It’s my dream you know, to live in your country, Tasmania in particular where they still have natural fresh water. Africa’s dying you see? Drying up, so there is no future here for anyone, but not in Australia.”

She laughed at him. “Give it up, they’ll never accept you.” She stressed the last word so that it became personal.

“I’m a water specialist you know?”

“And I’m one better, an accountant. Professionally speaking, it is we accountants who control the world’s money, which in turn means we also control the world’s water. Let me tell you, we’ve got more accountants back home -- let alone water specialists -- than we can point a purification plant at. And by the way, where did you get your qualifications from?”

“Dar es Salaam Polytechnic.”

She scoffed, “Masters or just a bachelor’s degree?”

“Advanced diploma...” He tried not to let his voice sound small, but it was.

“Oh.” She looked back out across the ocean, and didn’t look back again.

Nuwangi still staring at her, felt hurt.

With the conversation at an end, the remainder of their journey passed in silence.

#

Eventually the island of Zanzibar grew large on the horizon. Once, this Islamic Sultanate had given rise to the world’s largest producer of cloves, outfitters for Victorian-Era explorers, and the magnificent palaces of the Omani royalty. In these modern times it was a safe haven, in terms of its lenient taxation laws, and in the physical security that comes from being an island. Rich corporations, such as Abu-Zinj Industries, often established their regional African offices here, the one place between Istanbul and Cape Town where the quality of water was guaranteed to remain pure, because every corporation on the island paid for it to be so.

Nuwangi had expected stone walls and old style Arabian streets, so the glass and steel modular buildings jagging the skyline, surprised him, as did the hundreds of corporate logos perched upon their rooftops.

When the helijet touched down on the AZI roof pad, the door sprung open automatically, and Nuwangi immediately felt the salty sea breeze upon his face. He held up his hand to touch the fresh air, but felt nothing. Cheap cybernetics, he remembered with sorrow, provided no tangible sensation of touch.
He caught his companion examining his half-robotic body, as if she had just noticed his disfigurements. With a frown, she curled her lip.

Not a second after they stepped out, eight armed soldiers fitted in black riot armour, flak helmets and armed with recoilless rifles surprised them both. Their faces, expressionless behind dark visors, suggested automatons. Probably the desired effect, Nuwangi mused sombrely, who was reminded of a fly’s head when they stared at him face on.

“Step towards us and present your ID cards now,” boomed their commander. “Any overture towards violent or aggressive behaviour will be met with ultimate force! You have been warned!”

Joseph and the Australian woman were too stunned to do anything but stare. He had expected some form of security, but not this, not a specialised military team treating them like foreign hostiles.

“Step away from the helijet, now!”

Shocked into action, the two terrified visitors complied. Their ID badges were scanned, matched against the daily visitor roster and tripled checked again against their own DNA, iris prints and fingerprints sent from the mainland. Despite the frantic process, Joseph still caught his companion’s name, Donna Cook.

“This way, now!” They were marched to an elevator, pressed inside and surrounded by the circle of eight soldiers, to descend one floor. When the door opened again, they were pushed into a stark and depressing room absent of windows, but with numerous hoses, drains and security sensors in their place.

“Any undeclared water, apart from what’s already in your body mass?”

Both shook their heads resolutely.

“Right!” bellowed the commanding soldier. “Strip and place all your belongings in the boxes provided.”

“What,” Donna cried. “You’ve got another thing coming if you think...”

A plastic paper form was thrust into her face. The same form Nuwangi had signed in Dar es Salaam.

“You read the fine print I assume?”

“Yes?” her voice wavered. Obviously like him, she had not.

“Then you are already aware of our security measures. Unless of course you don’t like them, and thus you’d like us to send you back right now? Of course helijet fuel is expensive, so you’ll be billed for the unnecessary flight.”

Nuwangi could see that Donna wished to argue, but to argue successfully with a hidden face, safe behind a bug-eyed helmet, would be a challenge indeed. “Fine then,” her words so were sharp, she almost spat them.

When Nuwangi and Donna were nude, they were sprayed with fine mists of antiseptic. Then they were left to dry in a corner, like misbehaved school children. He felt awkward just waiting, knowing that nakedness was an effective psychological weapon to unnerve. Looking at her, it seemed she held similar feelings. Meanwhile, their possessions were lightly irradiated, or so explained the commanding officer.

“What about those?” he pointed at Nuwangi’s artificial limbs. “They come off?”

“No. I’m afraid... I’ve got severe neural damage, a genetic disease... so they had to be specially fitted. I can’t just slip them on and off you see?”

The soldier hesitated. Because the man’s face was hidden, it was impossible for Nuwangi to gauge what he might be thinking. “Well, then they’ll be scanned and weighed during your body examination.”

The soldiers returned to their investigation, probing their possessions in minute detail.

Meanwhile Donna attempted to hide her nudity with her hands. When she realised no one was looking she gave up, to stand tall and defiant. “What does he mean, weigh us? They already know we are unarmed, by forcing us to expose ourselves like this?”

Nuwangi shrugged. He was surprised that he understood a fact that the white woman did not. Perhaps white people weren’t always as clever as the media made them out to be. “Well, it’s our water that they’re worried about.”

“Our water?”

“Yeah, we’re in ‘water safe’ Zanzibar remember? They’ll want to make sure we didn’t smuggle in any water which could pollute their stocks.” Immediately he thought of the contaminated Grade D water in his legs. If that was discovered and his plan exposed, a bullet in the back of his head would be fast, cheap and expedient. Cheaper than loosing a single drop of Grade A. He was taking a huge risk scamming a corporation, but if he pulled it off, he’d be wealthy beyond imagination, at least by African standards.

“Unbelievable!” she hissed.

Half and hour passed before they were both cleared and their body water content measured and noted. While dressing, the commanding soldier warned that during their stay they could drink Grade A water and wash in Grade B, but they were not permitted to take any water with them when they left again. His concluding remarks were a stern warning: any excess water over and above their recorded body mass would be removed via a blood transfusion. If that proved insufficient, a limb would be surgically removed in its place. He kicked lightly at Nuwangi’s legs to show what he meant. A joke which sent his men into fits of laughter.

“How barbaric,” Donna commented harshly, as they passed into the next room, another reception. It was expensively corporate, with smooth walls, original paintings and real leather chairs. Here they would wait until their respective minders came to collect them. “Is that what happened to you then?” Her eyes motioned to his artificial limbs, “You got caught with a water imbalance?”

“No!” he said defensively, “a genetic disease.”

“What did you say your name was?” she asked causally, as she straightened her suit and fixed her hair.

“Joseph Nuwangi, I’m a local water specialist. Do you have a data card by any chance, just in case I do make it to Australia?”

“Sure,” she spoke in a daze as she handed over a card. He took it quickly before she could regret her decision.

Later, when Donna disappeared with her AZI contact, Nuwangi activated her data card. He was presented with a holographic projection of her face, contact details, and a small blurb on what she did: a financial auditor for one of the remaining Big Two global accounting firms.

Pleased with himself, he had just made his first contact with a person in a country he so desperately wished to immigrate too. Somehow, this chance encounter made his dreams more real. But if he had any chance of reaching Australia, he needed serious money. His plan to steal top grade water from the AZI purification plant would have to be completed first, and without a hitch.

The worst was yet to come.

#

Armand Makeba was more Arab than African. His skin was lighter and his features sharper, and perhaps there was Indian blood in him too. Nuwangi could see immediately that he’d done well for himself, for his two-piece suit was expensive, and his short sculptured beard was probably fixed, through costly gene sculpting.

Nuwangi sat across from his client, feeling small. He had reason to. For behind Makeba, through the floor to ceiling office windows, was a splendid view of the vast tropical gardens in the Island’s heart. On the wall, a framed engineering degree from New Baghdad University. The other prominent item was a gold-leafed Koran on a stand, which seemed to be both unread and old. Everything, from the ink pens on the wooden desk, to the potted fern in the corner, spoke only of its excessive wealth.

“You come with good references,” Makeba stared up from Nuwangi’s resume, printed on unanimated yellowing paper. “Cheap too, compared to the exorbitant rates I have to pay here, in Zanzibar.”

Nuwangi opened his mouth to speak, but when he was unsure what to say, closed it again.

“Would you like a date?” the Arab pointed to a plate of food, overflowing with the succulent fruit.

“Um, I better not. Water content and all...”

Makeba smiled, “Don’t worry, we weigh it first.” He threw a date into a second bowl, and its digital display lit up with its mass, thirty-two grams. “All I have to do is give you a receipt?”

“Thank you sir, but I’d rather not.” With so much at stake today, Nuwangi didn’t want to take anything to chance.

“What happened to your arm, and legs?”

If it had been anyone but a client, Nuwangi would have rolled his eyes and dismissed the question. Everyone asked about his deformities. Everyone always assumed he was some poor invalid. “A genetic disease sir, my body rejects donor limbs, so I have to make do with these.”

“Oh?” The Arab looked up, stared at Nuwangi as if they had only just met for the first time. It showed in his face, that he had no real interest in why a poor Tanzanian man must live his life as a cyborg. “You know why you are here today?”

“You’ve got a problem with your water purification plant?”

“Yes exactly. We’ve got unwanted algae. You can fix that?”

Nuwangi nodded. The problem had already been communicated to him, by e-mail a week ago.

“Good, did you bring your tools?”

“Yes sir,” he tried not to hide his frustration as he pointed to his legs and arm again. “These are my tools.”

“Oh... Good. Well let’s get started then.”

Makeba took Nuwangi to a new elevator, punched in a pin number and provided a palm scan, before they could descend into the basements.

As the elevator dropped, Nuwangi snuck glances at his client. Makeba was at least a head higher than he. It occurred that everyone here was much taller than him. He knew why too, because everyone on Zanzibar was healthy. Clean water and nutritious food allowed the development of strong bones, a healthy biochemistry, and it prompted growth during childhood.

In the lowest basement, Makeba introduced Nuwangi to their maintenance foreman, Byron Wanatto. The man was an enigma on this island approximation of western civilisation. His face was etched with ritual scarring, and his red eyes pierced, as if he knew all the secrets of old voodoo. Wanatto then was a living breathing example; that old African tribalism had not died, as the western controlled media incessantly claimed. Apart from that, he was a tall endomorph, with tight black skin over muscled limbs, which contrasted against a fat stomach.

“This is Joseph Nuwangi. He’s here to fix the algae problem in tank nineteen.”

“Is he really?” Wanatto’s voice was deep and guttural. His overalls were just as dirty and covered in grease, revealing which of these two AZI employees performed the physical work around here.
Together they took the stairs leading them further underground. The whole time Wanatto’s eyes never left Nuwangi, as if Nuwangi were a thief and not to be trusted. If that is what the big man believed, then he wasn’t far from the truth.

It was also obvious from the onset that a handgun swung on the big man’s belt. Nuwangi did not doubt for a moment, that the foreman would shoot him dead, if he did anything that was even close to being suspicious, and rightly so. Half of East Africa would sell their own blood to be where he was right now. That was Grade A water in the many metal tanks they passed, thousands upon thousands of litres of it.

“What kind of algae, sir?” Nuwangi asked Wanatto, hoping to build any kind of rapport.
The large man was puffing from exertion, even after such a short walk. “You’ll see when we get there,” he grunted.

In moments they were upon the huge, gurgling filtration tank. It churned as it was aerated by pounding pistons and massive propellers, which dwarfed the three men.

Makeba spoke, “You read the brief we e-mailed you?”

“Yes sir, I did.” He didn’t say that they had already discussed a possible solution online.
“Good. Well the problem is in this tank. Feel free to start whenever you’re ready.”

“What about his tools,” Wanatto butted in, “he’s not using any of mine.”

“Relax my friend, he brought his own.”

“Own, where?”

“In his legs.”

“Really? That’s disgusting.”

Together their eyes locked upon Nuwangi, indicating that he should begin.

While Nuwangi worked, he had hoped for a moment alone so he could discretely empty the Hehe’s water, still compressed inside his metal legs. But here, with two men watching over him, it would be impossible to do so without revealing his scheme. He dare not take a trip to the toilets on the pretence of urinating. Their procedures for measuring and receipting his fluid outtake would undoubtedly be too complicated to beat anyway.

Fortunately their watchful eyes, while they did make his task more complicated, did not make it impossible. Truth was he was more concerned as to why neither man had failed to sense Nuwangi’s unease, particularly the suspicious Wanatto. Surely it must be obvious, he was nothing more than a sinister slum dwelling thief, come to steal their precious water. So until they exposed him, he worked hard and he worked fast.

Midway through the procedure, from his artificial legs he drew forth four tubes to connect to the plant’s control panel. This was the challenging moment, when he deviated from standard procedure. The moment when he would learn the fatal way, whether the two AZI men knew as much as he did, about what he was actually doing.

Taking a deep breath, he adjusted himself to connect the first tube.

As he did, the handgun was pressed hard against his frontal lobe.

Nuwangi squeezed his eyes tight, waiting for his brains to explode, unable to image how such an end would feel.

“What the hell are you doing?” Wanatto boomed.

“Um,” he shivered when he realised he wasn’t dead, that his grey matter had not yet been shredded with hot metal. It took every effort not to defecate from fear. Worse perhaps, obtaining a receipt for that unmanly act would undoubtedly become a nightmare. “My legs are my tools, as Mr. Makeba explained earlier?” He pointed awkwardly, to the digital displays that had sprung open upon his upper thighs. Already they were running scans for impurities, ionisation levels, heavy water element readings, radiation contamination checks, and a whole host of other standard tests.

Wanatto looked to his boss for authorisation, “Sir?”

Makeba shrugged, as if he really couldn’t find any fault in what Nuwangi was doing. Both men were engineers, but neither presented well as experts on water quality, not like him. This was a good sign, and so he reconnected again with that part of his brain that still believed he could bluff these people.
Finally the handgun was holstered, “Carry on then.”

Nuwangi sighed relief. He had been given a green light, so he went with it. Two tubes were quickly attached to two legs. While his tests were running, covertly he pumped his dirty water out while micro-scrubbers cleaned and sterilised the hollows inside his emptying legs. This ensured that the pure Grade A water could be pumped in without contaminating it. Meanwhile, specially commissioned filters ensured that the algae in the tank did not reach his limbs either.

It was too much to hope, but after an hour of complicated work, he had filled himself to full capacity, and fixed Makeba’s algae problem at the same time.

For a few seconds he felt elated; he was now walking on about eight billion Afrodollars worth of top label H–two-oh! Enough to by a single suborbital ticket to any destination in the world! It was enough money to escape dying Africa forever.

“I think I’ve fixed your problem,” he said gleefully, somewhat relieved now that his scam was another step closer to completion. He had fixed what he said he would, but he didn’t mention any of the multitudes of problems he had just caused either. With impurities now in their tank, it could no longer be classified as Grade A. He’d just cost them so much more than he had made for himself.
They would find out eventually and hopefully not before he escaped the island.

#

It took him two hours to complete his work, but those two hours passed as two decades. He had hated and dreaded each minute, expecting in every moment, a single bullet to end his life. But now that he was complete, he felt the beginnings of relief, as Wanatto marched him back to the quarantine soldiers. His theft had gone off without a hitch, mostly, but he was still feeling nervous, because there was still opportunity for his deceit to be exposed.

Soon his problems were exacerbated. The soldiers informed that he now had to wait until the helijet was ready to return him Dar es Salaam. Frustratingly, they gave neither an expected departure time, nor any reason for the delay.

The desire to bite his nails grew strong, or failing that, to scream and run for cover. Again Nuwangi wasn’t thinking rationally, for his slum instincts of fight or flight now ruled his thoughts. The rational part of his brain didn’t help either, because it told him that the longer he waited, the greater the chance that the water impurities in their tank would be discovered.

To cover his tracks, during his work Nuwangi had subtly scrambled as many of the tank’s impurity sensors as he could. But these would only ever be short term solutions. Anyone one of those sensors could repair itself and come back on line, any minute now.

“What are we waiting for?” he finally asked, the only question that had been on his mind this last half hour.

“Your friend,” laughed the fly-eyed commander. “The accountant,” he elaborated when Joseph seem not to understand. “She’s leaving with you, to save us a trip. Hey, are you all right?”

Nuwangi shuddered, waited for the soldier to realise there was something peculiar about his behaviour, and probe further. “I’m just tired,” he responded quickly, “long day and all.”

“You’ve only been here a few hours?”

“Yeah, but this is my third job today,” he lied.

The insect-headed man nodded, hopefully empathically. “I see.”

Nuwangi was dreading the next question, whatever it would be, because he was sure he would not be able to answer convincingly.

Then before another word could be spoken, Donna appeared. She gave Nuwangi the faintest smile, as if she was trying to remember who he was.

Mentally he slapped himself. He didn’t know why he tried to be friendly with people like her. He was a black Africa, short because of poor health, and half of him a metal monster, because his limbs were the only commodity he had been able to trade for an escape from poverty. So why would a rich foreigner even give him a second thought?

Yet Donna’s arrival became the catalyst that propelled the soldiers into action. “Right strip!” shouted the commander, pointing with a gloved finger at both visitors.

No arguments this time, Donna and Nuwangi followed orders, and stepped out of their clothes. Once they were nude, there was no antiseptic spray, but their possessions were again examined. Similarly, they were delegated to a corner, out of the way.

“Go well?” Nuwangi asked, hoping to discover the confidence he had managed to muster earlier, when they were first together in this room.

“Yeah, okay. It’s just balance sheets.” She wasn’t even looking at him.

“Going home now?”

“In a few days, why?”

“Just curious.” He didn’t add that he was speaking only to make the time go faster. But with every new topic of conversation that he started, her answers ensured that no further questions would be forthcoming.

Meanwhile the searching seemed to take forever. He wanted to tell the soldiers to hurry up, but provoking them would only generate unwanted curiosity.

“Did you know they have fantastic food here?”

It took a moment to realise Donna was talking again, and that she was talking to him.

"What did you say?”

“They liked my work so much they treated me to a meal. Lobster it was. Can you believe how long it’s been since I’ve eaten lobster?”

Nuwangi didn’t even know what a lobster looked like, let alone what it tasted like. “Did you get a receipt, for the meal, as well as the use of their toilets afterwards?”

Her frown was not the only part of her that displayed disgust. “Excuse me?”

“Body mass, how much did you eat and drink? A kilogram? Two?”

“What do you mean? Oh, wait a minute, you mean...?”

He nodded.

Before either could say more, the commander marched close. They could feel his breath, reverberating through his mask, hot on their exposed flesh. “Right, it’s weighing time.” He looked at both of them, and chose Nuwangi. His whole time here, Nuwangi had deliberately not drunk, ate, pissed or shat, and so he felt confident that he would pass this test.

When they did weigh him, as he expected, his excess body mass was within the fifty-gram tolerance margin, adjusted for average sweat rates. This was another step closer to freedom, and so he gave himself permission for another sigh of relief. Then he was told to get dressed, collect his belongings and wait.

Donna was now openly expressing her vulnerability. After being left alone, watching Nuwangi, she had been provided with time to reflect upon what she had done. Trembling and so very naked, the soldiers marched her onto the scales. Immediately alarms sounded and siren lights flashed. Realising what this meant, her hands covered her mouth to stifle a scream. Her eyes became so wide they were ready to pop out of her head.

Not noticing her distraught, or not caring, the soldier followed procedure. One read the results from their instrumentation panels, that she was one thousand eight-hundred and seventy grams over her entry weight.

“Do you have any receipts?”

“Um...” she struggled. “I think they forgot to give me one.”

“Blood transfusion then,” it was an order, not a question.

As a lawbreaker now, the soldiers took no care when they manhandled her. She struggled, as two soldiers pressed her into what looked to be the kind of chair that professional torturers might purchase. “If you resist, we strap you in?” the faceless commander’s warned.

Somehow, Donna found her internal strength, and calmed her trembling body. Then the needle went in, and blood started to flow.

Dressed and ready, Nuwangi didn’t dare look at the time, but he knew time was still his enemy, whether it was seen or not. If she’d bothered to get a receipt, they’d be away from here by now, one very big step closer to freedom. Her mistake could cost him his life.

After an eternity passed, the blood transfusion was complete. A terrified and very flushed Donna was weighed again. Joseph couldn’t help but feel her pain. She still trembled, her fear still strong, and she was very unsure. A simple mistake, a moment of indulgence... he knew where this was headed.

“Still three-hundred and forty grams over sir?”

“We can’t do another transfusion either sir. Her blood pressure is so low now, it will kill her.”

The barking voices did nothing to drown out Nuwangi’s swimming anxiety, edging against his nerves, fearing what was about to become a reality. Question was: did she remember the fine print, the contractual agreements that they had signed to allow them access to Zanzibar Island? She appeared too relaxed if she had, or perhaps too deep in shock to properly recall.

“Amputation then.”

“What!” screamed Donna, for she had obviously forgotten this important clause. Loosing control, her legs became like jelly, while her arms struggled for something, anything solid, to give her support. “You can’t? I mean...” her mouth twisted, became ugly, while tears dribbled from red eyes. “This is unfair! You can’t do this to me! You can’t mutilate me!”

“What will it be? Hand? Foot? An eye is too small.”

“Please,” she begged. “Please don’t do this?”

Three soldiers were wrestling her now, an easy task considering how weak she had become. They carried her feeble, kicking and screaming frame, back to the same chair where they had taken her blood. This time they didn’t hesitate in strapping her down.

Watching from a safe distance, Joseph realised he was expressing stress by clasping his fists together, allowing the knuckles to turn white. If this surgical operation was botched, it would probably spell her end. She had already lost a lot of blood, and this place was not the most hygienic of surgeries, if it could even be called that. Even if Donna survived the amputation, there was a good chance infection would kill her in the coming weeks.

Could he allow any of this?

Then he surprised himself, realised that in this moment, he was more concerned for her well being than his own. This line of thought was so foreign to what he had learnt growing up in the slums. Yet this very thought was liberating, as if he had found a means to finally escape the timid boy –- the slum-dweller –- who had long ruled his life.

“Sir, if we remove her left hand, amputated from approximately half way down the forearm, then that should provide the water mass we require?”

Not ready to accept the inevitable, Donna kicked and screamed. Without sufficient blood flowing through her veins, she was already loosing the strength and conviction to fight with any gusto.
Watching her, feeling her distress, again Nuwangi asked himself, could he really allow her be mutilated? Could he really let her suffer... like he had?

He now asked himself the same question, about his own body. Had he been suffering all this time, with mutilation and disfigurement, with the pain of artificial graphing, and just never noticed that he was? Was this why he empathised with the pain confronting her, because he had been living with the same pain for so long? He remembered patting a dog and not really feeling its fur, and making love to a woman, caressing her with limbs that neither offered nor received sensation. Then there were the constant pains and itches, deep in his metal, where there should be no pain at all! Did she really need to suffer the same hurt that he lived with everyday?

He found his answer. It was in who he had just become, not who he had once been. So he called out,

“Wait, please!”

Everyone in the room, including Donna, fell silent. Masked fly-like eyes focused on him, and finally he found the courage to speak. “Please, take the required blood from me?”

The commanding officer scoffed, “You’ll give up your own blood, for this woman?”

“Yes.”

“Man, all the time she’s been here, all she does is look at you like your dirt?”

“I said yes,” Joseph held high his metal, unfeeling hand, and crunched it into a fist of defiance, “and I mean yes.”

Three mechanical limbs, although they had long been a part of him, they weren’t really who he was. They were not his flesh and blood, not his soul, and not his spirit. He’d mutilated his body, tortured himself, just to be free. What kind of people did that? What kind of society forced people to behave this way? People who had nothing, that was who.

“Please?” he asked again.

#

“Why did you do that?” asked a very pale Donna, as the helijet lifted into the skies, and flew them from the Island. “That’s the noblest thing anyone has ever done for me?”

Airborne, she had crumbled into her seat, dejected like a drug addict, crying even though she could ill afford to expel any more water.

Joseph smiled sadly, imagined what she must be thinking. Even though she had just escaped with both her hands, this would not likely be a day she would easily forget. She would not forget him either.

“Blood is nothing compared to flesh?” Joseph finally answered. “Blood regenerates.”

He looked away, not wanting her to see that he was flushed with anger. It was unfair. He’d lied to himself this whole time about how much it hurt. It didn’t matter what other people thought, only what he thought. Once, he believed he was proud of his cybernetics, but now he saw them as the price he had to pay for freedom, that was all they were.

He had seen her naked. Her skin told a tale, that she had never fought for her own water, until today. Who was he in comparison? He was just spare parts, half of which felt nothing, was nothing but machinery, a tool.

But what hurt most, was that despite all the lies that his mind had spun to keep himself positive, was that he was still a cog in the very system that had created him. That cog had an apt name too: poverty. Fate had dealt him an ugly hand.

When he felt her lips brush against his cheek, at first he thought he imagined it.

When he realised her touch was real, what he enjoyed most about the kiss, was that through their skin on skin contact, he felt the warmth of her kindness. In that single moment, he finally understood what the pleasure of flesh was really all about.

The smile she gave was also real, touching in its own special way. “Thank you, Joseph,” she said sincerely, at last remembering his name.

It took all his strength not to grow teary. And he wanted to say something nice.

Then they both became aware of the helijet turning, returning to the Island. The pit fell out of Joseph’s stomach. This could only mean one thing.

“What’s going on now?”

Terrified all over again, Joseph stumbled to stand. He ran to the pilot-less cockpit, pulled at the panels, hoping to find manual controls.

“Are you crazy? You’ll kill us both!”

She tried to pull him back, but because of her weaken state it was easy for him to her push away. Again at the panel, he tore the aluminium sheets free, and found what he hoped to find, the joystick operating under automated control.

“I’ve got to go!”

“Go where?”

His arms pushed hard against the stick, forcing a descent. There was no chance he could flying them back to Dar es Salaam, for he was no pilot, but he could still make his escape.
Even with his cybernetic legs, a jump from this height would kill him. He had to get closer to the water, closer to the land, so he wouldn’t have far to fall, and then to swim. He thanked fate that he had purchased light-density cybernetics, ensuring that he would not sink to the bottom of the ocean.

“You’re crazy,” she sobbed, half delirious.

Nuwangi didn’t want to hurt her further with his desperate antics, but he didn’t wish to die either. So he pushed hard at the joystick, his left arm more successful than its fleshy brother, and they dropped altitude quickly. His plan was working, and he could now see the dusty shores of East Africa, only a kilometre distant. Once they were some ten meters above the choppy waves, Nuwangi relinquished control.

With no thought to the pain it might cause, because he would feel none anyway, his metal hand tore open the helijet door. Wind rushed in, knocking Donna backwards.

Nuwangi kept his grip in the broken portal, peered down at the blue water below. Already they were gaining altitude. If he they got him back inside the AZI building, then any hope of escape was lost. They would execute him for sure.

“I’m glad I met you Donna. Perhaps I’ll look you up when I’m in Australia?”

He found her eyes. Like him she was terrified all over again. At least she would be safe in all this. She was innocent to what he had done, and so they would have no choice but to let her go free, eventually. But he couldn’t save her now, not a second time. He couldn’t take her with him either, for she was too weak to swim any distance, let alone survive the fall.

Unsure of the altitude, Nuwangi jumped anyway. His fall was forever, until surges of sharp pains in his thighs told that he’d made contact.

Then the suffocation of salt water filled his mouth, and threatened his lungs. He blew out his breath, swam hard, realising only now that the Grade A in his legs tipped the buoyancy of his cybernetics against him. But with powerful strokes, he had enough strength left in him, and eventually broke the surface.

In the skies above, the helijet was little more than a dot in the vast dry horizon.

Adrenalin now pumping through his remaining veins, he felt another wave of confidence surge through his entire body. Or was this just the final understanding, that he’d left his slum mentality behind forever?

He turned and swam hard. The shore was not that far distant. Still, he had to make time before the AZI executives realised what he had done, and came after him.

And as he pushed through the swells, he remembered Donna’s kiss. The black water, which ran like gold through his metal, lifeless legs, would provide him with the funds to escape dying Africa, and become like her.

But what really kept him going, what made him so desperate to stay live, was that at last, someone had made him feel again.