‘And that can cause a kind of butterfly effect. So the immune system might be attacking the skin cells, their melanin production. Skin conditions are often caused by autoimmune reactions and—’
‘Auto-what?’ Jacob interrupted.
‘Autoimmune.’
Jacob rifled through the article in his hands. ‘Is that the same as—’ He held it out and pointed at a word on a page towards the end. Joseph leaned forward to read.
‘Autophagous? No, that means – hey!’ He looked up. ‘You read it?’
‘I can read,’ Jacob said indignantly. ‘A bit. But what does it mean? Auto like a car?’
‘No, like automatic – on its own. Autophagous is something that eats itself.’
‘Cannibalising,’ said Ba Godfrey with a wise nod.
‘Eh,’ Joseph bounced his head side to side. ‘More like self-cannibalising.’
‘It is talking about eating why?’ Jacob persisted. ‘Is this article not about drones?’
‘It’s—’ Joseph scanned the paragraph. ‘The microdrone can use its own body for fuel.’
‘But if it eats itself…’ Jacob shook his head. ‘Will it not be gone?’
‘I guess.’ Joseph frowned. ‘Maybe it’s using up just one part of its body. Or’ – he grinned – ‘maybe the drones eat each other.’
‘Eh-heh!’ Ba Godfrey released a plume of smoke. ‘Cannibalising!’
He reached the joint back to the boys. But Joseph was translating in earnest now, Jacob sitting beside him, pointing at the words he didn’t know.
* * *
Sometimes Sylvia would open her eyes to a blur stomping around, giving off a salty spray of words. What was her mother going on about? Oh, the smell. Sylvia had been using an old pot as a bedpan, too weak to make it to the latrines. How far she had fallen from her grand adventure as Lionel Banda’s scientific breakthrough.
When the salon had burned down, he had taken her away with him, flown her all over the world. He had wined her in Paris, dined her in Shanghai, turning the Virus conference circuit into a bizarre medical honeymoon, a celebration of the Lusaka Patient. It was a thrilling title – her very genes were one of a kind – but an anonymous one. She had been probed and prodded, fed an endless assortment of pills, her insides like a jar of Smarties.
After his wife had divorced him for passing The Virus to her and their new child, Sylvia had thought things might change. In the end, Lee had left her to rot in that house in Northmead, while he went off and married some Ethiopian diplomat, just for the money, he’d said, just to sponsor his precious vaccine research. If that was the case, Sylvia had asked, then why was his new wife so pretty? No matter. Now he was dead. Now she was dying.
Why had Loveness not come? Sylvia could almost see her friend smacking her lips: When did you give up, Syls? When did you become so sad? Sylvia closed her eyes. I’m not sad, she thought as pain lackadaisically crunched into her back. I’m angry.
* * *
Armed with new knowledge, Jacob focused on addressing the main challenges that Joseph’s microdrone article described – flight dynamics, energy conservation and navigation. He bought flexible solar strips for the wings, splurged on lithium batteries, experimented with laser sensors. He felt like he was nearing his goal but months of false starts had bled the Standard Chartered account dry. Truth be told, the Digit-All Bead he had bought for himself had been a stolen mbasela too far. He tried his grandfather first.
‘After littering this sacred ground of manual labour with your electronical rubbish, you come and ask for money?’ Ba Godfrey returned to shaving his plank of wood.
Jacob pleaded. All he needed was K5,000 – he was sure this lightweight lithium battery the Russians had just put on the market would work – but Ba Godfrey interrupted him, pointing at the skeletons of drones around them, berating him for his wasted effort.
Just then, Joseph walked across the yard towards them.
‘I’ll lend you the money,’ he said smugly.
Hope rose in Jacob’s chest like a kite but pride tangled its string and held it.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not take money from a Banda.’
Jacob walked off, making his way to No. 74. Gogo did not have much kwacha stored in her filing cabinet, and he didn’t go by her home often these days. But he was out of options. He found his mother sitting alone at the table, swaying slightly. She looked up and greeted him with a vague smile. He sat down across from her and nudged the plate of cold lunch towards her.
‘Nakana,’