Mai corrected at the same time.
‘And that was just animals!’ Joseph protested. ‘We’re risking people’s lives.’
‘You did not seem to mind risking people’s lives when it was for the Virus vaccine,’ said Jacob.
‘That’s not the same.’ Joseph shook his head. ‘Look, we’re brothers here, man—’
‘We are not brothers!’ Jacob shouted and got to his feet.
Lightning crackled the sky – a brief, incomplete shatter as if in the surface of an obsidian vase – and pale light bounced off the wooden surfaces of the boat. The rain began to come diagonally through the open sides. It was already raucous on the surface of the lake. Jacob and Joseph were arguing across the table bolted to the deck, yelling over the noise of the storm. Bead light striated the air. Naila shook her head and strolled to the bar to pour herself another drink. Mai followed, her hands on her hips.
‘What is this bluther stuff all about?’ asked Mai, eyeing the men.
‘Who knows?’ Naila shrugged and handed her a G&T. They toasted carefully – the boat was still pitching. Glass clinked, lightning flashed, and one man punched another in the dark.
‘Shit.’ Naila put her glass down and ran over to break up the fight, placing one hand on Jacob’s arm and the other on Joseph’s chest, repeatedly shrieking a single word – STOP! But her voice could not compete with the rain or their tussling. Mai watched the three revolutionaries slipping around on the wet deck, fighting for the upper hand.
Finally, there was a heaving pause, lit haphazardly with electric light – man-made and natural, Beads and lightning. Jacob was seated at the table again, panting. Joseph was standing across from him. Naila had wrapped her arms around Joseph’s chest from behind, hugging him or holding him back, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. Mai sipped her G&T.
‘Pussy,’ said Jacob. He said it quietly but it cut through the noise of the storm.
‘I’m not fucking afraid,’ said Joseph, sounding afraid.
Naila groaned and let go of him. The storm held its breath. Jacob reached forward and at the same moment Joseph reached his hand out to the table. CLICK. It seemed as if the storm were exhaling again but as the sound zithered up and out and began ringing round, it was clear that one of them or both of them had pressed the button on the controller. The drones ascended, glittering bits rising from the box. Mai pointed at the swarm with redundant wonder. They watched the drones go, scattering their murmurous sweep over the water, looking like pixels, then like ash, then like smoke. Naila turned her head and vomited.
‘Mwebantu!’ Mai stepped forward. ‘My boat!’
‘It does not matter who pressed it,’ said Joseph. ‘It has been pressed.’ Then he applauded and persuaded everyone to smoke some mbanji in celebration. Jacob agreed reluctantly. Naila mopped up her vomit with a rag, on hands and knees like a servant. When she returned from washing her hands in the loo, Joseph grabbed her and started slow dancing.
‘You see?’ he kept saying. He was playing an old WITCH song through his Bead. His high had cheered up his drunkenness. He danced badly, switched his hips back and forth as he spelled out the old band’s acronym: ‘ “We. Intend. To. Cause. Havoc.” You see?’
Naila chuckled throatily and let him spin her. Jacob was watching, sitting on the floor, leaning against the door to the head. Mai sat on a bench with her legs splayed, sipping at her drink. The rain stopped and the clouds cleared like chorus girls to let the moon shine. They would dock in the morning and send a message from the SOTP across the hacked Beads, inviting the Zambian people to join Cha-Cha-Cha 2.0.
* * *
Dawn. A cup of melted ngwee. The deck washed and wet. The birds were snickering. The cabin was strewn with sleeping bodies, felled by fatigue and liquor. Except in one corner: soft plaintive moans, like a baby enjoying milk from a nipple. Mai woke up and saw them. A man was sitting with his back against the low wall of the deck, his face in darkness, legs stretched out on the ground. Naila was astride him, her hips leisurely shoving and shifting. Her hair was tied up, her ponytail swaying. Her back was bevelled on the sides like a banjo. On her bottom, there was a tattoo like a thin skyline and along her spine, a set of characters. Mai tried to read them but