The shop had developed a new microclimate.
If you stood near the front door, the air was a stifling 32°C, heavy with the humidity of the approaching rainy season and the smell of heated asphalt from the street. But if you walked past the glass counter, past the shelves of wires and capacitors, and stood near the partition of the back room, the temperature dropped.
It was a subtle chill, a draft that smelled of ozone and frost. It was the breath of the machine.
I was in the Lab, standing over my latest invention: a Plastic Sealer.
To sell ice, you need water. To sell water, you need containment. In 1999 Bamenda, plastic bottles were expensive luxuries. The common man drank from "tie-tie" bags small, clear plastic sachets filled with water and knotted by hand.
But knotting five hundred bags a day would break our fingers.
So I had built a sealer.
I had stripped the heating element a thin ribbon of nichrome wire from a broken toaster. I stretched it across a wooden block, cushioned by a strip of heat-resistant Teflon tape I'd scavenged from a discarded photocopier fuser unit.
I wired the nichrome to a 12V timer circuit. When I pressed the lever down, the wire heated up for exactly 1.5 seconds hot enough to melt the polyethylene plastic, but not hot enough to burn through it.
< Calibration Check: > Gemini's blue text floated over the wire. < Current draw: 3.5 Amps. Temperature: 180°C. Seal integrity: 98%. >
"Papa," I called out. "Next batch."
Tashi was sitting on a low stool, acting as the "Filling Station." He had a 50-liter jerrycan of boiled, filtered water raised on a crate. A rubber hose ran down to a small tap.
He held a clear plastic bag under the tap. Swish. He filled it.
He passed it to me.
I laid the open edge of the bag over the nichrome wire. I pressed the wooden lever down.
Zzzzt.
A wisp of white smoke. The smell of melting polymer.
I lifted the lever. The bag was sealed shut. A perfect, watertight pillow.
I tossed it into the "Pre-Cool" bin.
"That is number two hundred," Tashi said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Nkem, my back is crying."
"We need five hundred, Papa. The compressor has capacity."
I looked at the Thermo King. It was chugging away in the corner, a dark, vibrating heart. The temperature inside the insulated box was now -8°C.
We weren't just making cold water. We were making Ice Blocks. Solid bricks of frozen water that could keep a cooler box cold for two days.
"Why are we doing this?" Tashi asked, filling another bag. "We are an electronics shop. Now we are a water factory?"
"Because water is a battery, Papa," I said, placing the next bag on the sealer. "It stores cold. When the eclipse comes, and the Bookman tells everyone the world is ending, we won't just give them light. We will give them a cold drink. It proves that our 'magic' is stronger than his fear."
By Friday morning, the first batch was frozen solid.
They were beautiful. Rock-hard pillows of ice, clouded white in the center.
Liyen took the first "shipment." She didn't sell them. She packed twenty blocks into a cooler box and marched to the Main Market.
It was a scorching day. The tin roofs of the market stalls were radiating heat like a grill. The market women were fanning themselves with cardboard, their faces shiny with sweat. The vegetables were wilting. The fish were smelling.
Liyen walked to the center of the "Union" section the seamstresses.
She opened her cooler. A cloud of white vapor rose up, vanishing instantly in the heat.
"Ice!" Liyen shouted. "Union Ice! Pure water! Frozen by the sun!"
She handed a block to Auntie Manka.
Manka grabbed it. She gasped. She pressed the frozen plastic against her hot neck. She closed her eyes.
"Eh! Mami!" Manka groaned in pleasure. "It bites! It bites cold!"
Other women gathered around.
"Liyen, give me one!"
"I beg, my fish di spoil!"
Liyen handed them out. Free samples.
"This is from Tashi & Son," Liyen announced. "The Bookman says our shop is cursed. Does this feel like a curse?"
"It feels like heaven!" a woman shouted, rubbing the ice on her face.
The rumor mill ignited instantly.
Tashi has a winter box.
The Wizard Boy can freeze the air.
By noon, a line had formed outside our shop. Not for thread. Not for batteries.
For ice.
We sold them for 50 francs a block. It was cheap. But the volume was insane. We sold out in an hour.
Tashi stood behind the counter, stamping the ledger. He was grinning.
"Water," he whispered to me. "We are selling water, Nkem. It falls from the sky for free, and we sell it."
"Value add, Papa," I said. "Phase change is value."
But while we counted coins, Razor was unraveling.
The photo I had sent him the picture of his younger self standing next to the murdered driver had acted like a neurotoxin.
Collins reported back from his observation post near The Spot.
"Nkem," Collins whispered over the radio. "Razor no di sleep. Yi eye red like fire. He beat one of his boys yesterday for nothing. Just because the boy drop a glass."
"Is he asking about the letter?"
"Yes. He di ask everybody. 'Who send the bike? Who know Lucas?' He thinks it is a ghost. He drinks gin like water, but he no get drunk. He just get crazy."
I sat in the Lab, tuning the radio bug.
Static...
Then, Razor's voice. Hoarse. Ragged.
"...it is not a ghost, Bone. Ghosts don't use envelopes. It is a man. An old enemy. Maybe from Douala. Maybe the transport union."
"We go find am, Boss," Bone rumbled.
"How?" Razor snapped. "We don't know his face! He is watching me. I feel it. When I walk in the street, I feel eyes."
I smiled in the dark.
Good. Let him chase shadows. While he looked for an "Old Enemy" from Douala, he wouldn't be looking at the ten-year-old boy next door.
But paranoia is a volatile fuel. Eventually, it explodes.
Saturday afternoon. The heat was at its peak.
The shop was full of people waiting for their batteries.
The door opened.
Razor walked in.
He looked terrible. He had lost weight. His clothes hung loosely on his frame. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with dark circles. He hadn't shaved in days. He smelled of stale sweat and fear.
He didn't have his usual swagger. He walked with a twitchy, nervous energy, his hand hovering near his belt where he kept his knife.
The chatter in the shop died instantly. Everyone knew Razor. Everyone feared him.
Tashi froze behind the counter. He gripped his pen like a weapon.
"Razor," Tashi said, his voice tight. "We don't want trouble."
Razor ignored him. He didn't look at the batteries. He didn't look at the sewing machines.
He looked at the customers. He scanned their faces, searching for... something. Someone.
Then he looked at me.
I was standing by the door to the Lab, holding a tray of sealed water bags.
Razor walked toward me. He moved like a drunk man trying to walk a straight line.
He stopped two feet away. He towered over me.
"Small boy," Razor rasped.
I looked up. I activated Gemini.
< Physiological Scan: > Gemini flashed. < Pupil response: Erratic. Tremors in hands. Subject is sleep-deprived and likely under the influence of amphetamines or kola nuts. Aggression potential: High. Reason: Desperation. >
"Good afternoon, Sir," I said.
Razor leaned down. He smelled of rot.
"You see things," Razor whispered. "Your father says you dream. You see the football scores."
"Sometimes," I said.
"Do you see... people?" Razor asked. "People from the past?"
He was fishing. He was so desperate he was asking a "wizard child" for supernatural help to find his tormentor.
"I see people," I said carefully. "But the past is a heavy place. It is dark."
Razor flinched. The word dark hit him hard.
"I am looking for a man," Razor whispered. "He sent me a letter. He thinks he can scare me. Can you see him?"
I looked into his red eyes. I saw the terror there. He wanted me to be a witch doctor. He wanted me to cast the bones and tell him who was hunting him.
I decided to twist the knife.
"I see a truck," I whispered.
Razor froze. His breath hitched.
"A white truck," I continued, making my voice sound distant, dreamy. "It is broken. In the grass. There is iron... crying."
Razor grabbed my shoulder. His grip was painful.
"What else? What else do you see?"
"I see a driver," I said. "He is wearing a blue cap. He is looking for his money belt."
Razor let out a sound that was not human. It was a strangled whimper. He stumbled back, releasing me. He looked at me with absolute horror.
"You..." he gasped. "You speak with the dead?"
"I just hear the echoes, Sir," I said innocently.
Razor backed away. He bumped into the counter. He looked around the shop, terrified, as if the ghost of Lucas the Driver was standing among the customers.
"Tell him..." Razor stammered. "Tell him it was an accident! Tell him the brakes failed!"
"He knows," I said. "He knows everything."
Razor turned and ran.
He ran out of the shop, into the blinding sunlight, fleeing a ghost that I had just planted firmly in his mind.
The shop was silent.
The customers stared at me.
Tashi stared at me.
"Nkem," Tashi whispered. "What did you do?"
"Psychological warfare, Papa," I said, walking back into the Lab. "I just made sure he won't sleep for another week."
I sat down at my desk.
The compressor chugged: Thump-thump-thump.
The ice was freezing.
Razor was breaking.
But the calendar on the wall was the real enemy.
July 31, 1999.
The Eclipse was eleven days away.
Monsieur Emile was watching.
The Bookman was cornered.
And I had just pushed his enforcer over the edge of sanity. A crazy dog bites anything that moves.
"Gemini," I thought. "Secure the perimeter. We need to upgrade the alarm."
< Recommendation: > Gemini replied. < High-voltage fencing is active. Suggestion: Install motion-activated floodlights. If they come in the dark, we turn the night into day. >
"Do it."
I picked up my soldering iron.
The cold war was heating up.