face, or a centimetre inside it.
Jacob found Pepa outside by the pool. She was wearing an emerald bikini and a big straw hat, and was rubbing sunscreen into her pale freckled belly. He had heard the rumour from the General’s driver but he only believed it when he saw her stomach protruding like a watermelon. It was almost familiar – malnutrition had distended it back when she was a compound kid – but now it had a seam running down it, as if she might unzip any second. He pulled up a stool and sat beside her, watching her hand making mesmeric circles over her skin.
‘Christian is somewhere there,’ she said, pointing at the house. ‘General is gone. Big business in Dar.’ She raised an eyebrow and for a second, she was Pepa again, his cheeky friend.
‘Hm,’ he said. ‘I will wait here with my own big business.’
‘And what is that?’ she smirked.
‘I have done it,’ he announced. ‘I have the microdrone. It will be the smallest one ever.’
‘Oh-oh?’ she said and reached under her lounger for her drink. ‘Took you long enough.’
Jacob scraped his stool close enough to smell the coconut of her sunscreen. He clicked his Bead on and stretched his left palm out to show her. It was hard to see in the sunlight, so he cupped his right hand over it and drew it to her face, as if they were kids and he was showing her a grasshopper. She peered inside the little cave at the picture of the wing glowing there.
‘I call it Moskeetoze.’ He spelled it out carefully.
‘Why not just Moskee-to?’
Jacob had stolen the idea from nature. Insect wings are flexible but they have a built-in web of nerves, veins and arteries – this makes them stiff enough to flap. The nerves transmit signals for the wing to stroke and bend, which reduces drag. The veins and arteries carry blood – energy. The wing also has tiny hairs that help the insect navigate through touch. To make his microdrone, he would replace blood with fuel, nerves with circuits, and the tiny hairs with antennae that would brush the planes of the world and send Wi-Fi signals to the cloud – and to other microdrones. Together, Moskeetoze would move in concert, and if they ran low on energy, one could be sacrificed for fuel. It would be a swarm that ate itself once in a while to stay afloat.
‘I’m impressed, Engineer,’ said Pepa.
‘Ya,’ he grinned. ‘It’s fly, right?’
They breathed, eyes locked. He looked away first and saw the copper hairs curling out from the sides of her green bikini bottom. He clicked his Bead off and put his hands in his lap to conceal his erection. She smiled and picked up her drink, which was spitting softly.
‘Malawi shandy?’ she murmured. She reached it towards him. They both knew she was daring him to remove his hands from his lap. He took the glass from her hand and the hat from her head and put both on the ground. Then he grasped her face – her ear strangely cold under his palm – and kissed her. She kissed back readily, darting her sugary tongue into his mouth. She smiled against his lips to break away.
‘And in my condition,’ she chided and squirmed in her seat. There was a pause as they both remembered the General. ‘You are going to make us so rich, Engineer.’ She smiled sadly as she put her big straw hat back on.
* * *
It turned out there was no need to build a prototype. The General brought the men in suits to the New Kasama house – three Chinese, one Zambian, one American – and sat them around a table with Jacob. Jacob explained the wing design as slowly and clearly as he could. The five men whispered to each other, nodding tersely. A short while later, the General slid a piece of paper in front of him – the second contract Jacob had received this week. Jacob scrawled his name on it and the General handed him an envelope of cash. It was enough to live on for years.
They celebrated outside by the pool, which looked greensilver under the security lights. Jacob, Solo and Pepa smoked cigarettes and swilled Malawi shandies and danced to rumba, Pepa cackling as she held her big belly with her hands and circled her hips beneath it. She and Jacob exchanged vibrating glances all night and eventually snuck behind a bush to tangle fingers and