of skin. Shit. Zhrrr – she dropped down another foot. She hadn’t tightened her autoblock enough and was sliding down the wet rope. She tightened the knot, licked the blood off her knuckles, and pulled her glove on again. She gritted her teeth and jugged up. As soon as she reached the right height, she tied off and locked this time.
Zhrrrrr-rrrrrr-rrrrr. Puke glubbed up again like wax in a lava lamp, but it wasn’t the sound of her slipping down her rope this time. Someone else had abseiled down and was hovering beside her.
‘Jacob?’ she whispered. ‘Thank frikkin God.’
She turned on her Bead. Green eyes flashed towards her.
‘You were in trouble,’ Joseph shrugged with a trembly smile, then gave a high-pitched sneeze. The echo of it ricocheted around them. At least it sounded like a bird.
‘Shhh,’ she shook her head. ‘I just have to do the second transmitter.’
As if on cue, her rope began to sway again. Joseph gave a yelp – that sounded human – then hushed as he realised Jacob was manipulating her rope from above. She slammed the transmitter into the second sluice and swung back towards him. Joseph grinned at her, as if he had accomplished something too. Then he cocked his head.
‘Would you have preferred it if Jacob had come?’ he asked but before she could roll her eyes, the floodlights clunked on. Zrk-zhr-rrr – she immediately started jugging up. There would barely be enough time to get out before security noticed two giant spiders clambering up the wall of Kariba Dam.
* * *
This morning had felt both weary and wary. After a restless night camping in the forest, they had snuck out at dawn and boarded Mai’s fishing boat, the Vulture. They had dozed the afternoon away on board, Mai telling stories about Kariba Dam, Joseph and Naila turning them into philosophical treatises on the nature of colonialism. Finally night fell and they sat in silence, drinking and waiting. A light flashed and they turned, half expecting to see a bigger boat coming by, maybe the Matusadona. But then the light flashed again from above, and now the thunder came, as if the sky were clearing its throat.
‘You people,’ said Jacob. ‘We must be serious. Are we sending these machines tonight?’
Another flash. Rain bristled the air. The thunder requested their attention once more.
‘Okay,’ said Naila. ‘Let’s do this.’
They crowded around a small table nailed to the deck, where Jacob was seated in front of the box of drones and a heavy-looking black controller. He had programmed the Moskeetoze to seek the transmitters they had planted inside the dam’s sluices. Within minutes, each sluice’s inner surface would be lined with their tiny bodies. Sluices often got jammed this way with detritus like leaves or sticks that the workers had to clean out, so the infiltration had to be subtle. Thousands of drones would creep into them over the course of the night, just enough to cause a malfunction.
‘So they’re ready?’ Naila asked.
‘Whenever we are.’ Jacob pointed to an unmarked button on the controller. They stared at it, then at the tinselly drones in the box beside it.
‘You have warned the peepo?’
Naila looked around, blinking. She had almost forgotten Mai was here.
‘Am asking because that is what the bazungu did wrong the fest time with this same dam,’ Mai said. ‘They did not give the peepo proppa warning.’
‘Ya,’ Naila nodded. ‘The effect will be a nationwide power cut. That’s the warning.’
‘It is okay,’ Jacob smiled at Mai, charming her. ‘This time, we know what we are doing.’
‘Actually, we don’t.’ Joseph’s lips slid past each other. He was leaning against the table. He was tipsy and Naila could smell the sour flu on his breath, like chikanda.
‘Ach, shuttup, man,’ said Jacob. There was no anger in his voice, just irritation.
The storm winds were starting to make the lake rock, which was making the boat pitch.
‘Look, I know the rally didn’t work, but we have to be careful about direct action,’ Joseph grumbled. ‘It always just harms the people it’s supposed to help. We’re shutting down a dam that provides electricity for millions. Mai is right. We should send out a warning now.’
‘We’ve gone through this, babe,’ said Naila. ‘We’re shutting it down just long enough to jam the cloud. Then we’ll send a signal out to coordinate a resistance movement, and get everyone plugged into SOTP so we can operate outside government surveillance.’
‘But remember the history of this place?’ Joseph squawked. ‘Remember Project Noah?’
‘Operation,’ Naila and