"People in the village are too trusting, Stump," Jiddy said. "It's all love, love, love now, with everyone working together. But Obadiah knows something is wrong."
Obadiah, who had been so tolerant of Josephat over the years, and who was spear heading a drive to unite the local churches, was bothered that Josephat (and those who helped him put up posters) was not showing any interest in being a part of it.
"Obadiah said just be patient and wait," Jiddy said. "He knows, but he said we have to be nice, for now."
"I just hope he doesn't wait too long," Moses said.
The whole world had been on a 'nice' drive for the past two years, as they all sought to comfort themselves over what had happened to America.
Josephat had been openly critical of Dangchao, the U.N. General Secretary, at least at the start. He claimed Dangchao was secretly evil, and one day he would die and be resurrected by the devil. This angered Moses and many others, who could see that the preacher was just jealous. The world had never seen such a benevolent leader as Dangchao, and this was a time when they needed the strong uniting force that he offered.
Then Josephat had gone quiet. He had stopped his traditional talks at the post office, choosing to visit people quietly now... Amy in particular... and put up posters. He often arrived in a truck now, laden with printed material that was being circulated wherever they went. And these helpers of his were almost all from other tribes... not Luhyas at all.
But, like Jiddy said, these were times of great tolerance. Tribal tensions had been over-ruled by bigger economic issues, and so it was in everyone's best interests to get along, and to cooperate with the strategies which had helped to bring about so much peace and prosperity. In the light of that, it was a small price to pay, for Moses and Jiddy to hide their dislike for Josephat.
Besides, like Obadiah appeared to be saying, the tolerance was not going to last forever.
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Chapter 17. Implanted
Six months after his friend got an implant, and shortly after he turned 18, Moses received another visit from Mr. Barasa, from the micro-bank. This time there was no mention of visiting Amy, as it seemed that the bank manager knew as well as Moses did that she would not approve. He came, instead, to Moses' house on a Sunday afternoon, when he knew Moses would be there.
"So this is the new house!" he exclaimed, as he leaned back with hands on his hips and admired the teenager's work. "And you did all this yourself?"
"No. Jiddy, my friend, helped with some of it," he said. Actually, Jiddy had done at least half of the work, but he was not there, and Moses did not mind taking a little more than his share of the credit for the construction.
"We're going to put glass in the windows next week," he announced proudly. "Then we can start saving for furniture."
"So your business is going well?" Barasa asked. In fact, he had made a few enquiries, and he knew as well as Moses how things were going.
"I am having a little recession just now," Moses confessed. "Everyone has scanners these days, and now three other drivers have ten-speeds."
"I have another proposition for you, Moses," the bank manager announced. "I won't guarantee it'll help your business, but you would be paid more than enough to fill your house with the finest furniture, just for taking another trip overseas. What do you think about that?"
"Tell me about it!" Moses said with a huge grin, as he eagerly motioned for Mr. Barasa to take a seat on a bench that leaned against the front of his house. Moses sat himself down on the ground in front of the bench.
"You were a big hit for the micro-bank," Barasa said. "Now some other banks want to use you in a bigger campaign... a promotion for the identification implant."
Moses was not paying much attention. He just wanted to know where they would be sending him. Chicago, of course, had been destroyed two and a half years earlier, and virtually all of the U.S. was uninhabitable now; so it had to be somewhere outside the U.S. "Where will I go?" Moses asked, knowing that he would be happy to go anywhere, just for the excitement of travelling.
"London," Mr. Barasa replied.
Moses' heart leapt. Ray was living in London now. Maybe they could see each other again. Maybe he could even meet Ray's family this time.
"Of course we'll have to arrange an implant for you first," Mr. Barasa said. "We want to give the impression that you have had one all along."
How did Mr. Barasa know that he didn't yet have an implant? He used a different bank now, and he didn't think his bank would have shared such information.
"I'll need pictures of you here in the village before you leave... like last time: on the bike, using the scanner, and," he said, turning around on the bench to crane his neck at the house which was behind him, "working on your house... maybe putting glass in the windows."
Moses was thinking about Winky. What would she think? He would do what was best for himself in the end, of course, but he wanted as little hurt for Amy as possible. It would be impossible to hide the fact that he was going, but maybe he could just make up some other reason.
While this was going on inside his head, he still managed to get details about travel plans, how much they would pay him, what he would have to do, and, of course, how soon he would need to get the implant.
"I can take you back to Kakamega with me right now," Barasa said. "I know a doctor who is open on Sundays. That way you won't miss any time off work tomorrow."
It all seemed so rushed. On the other hand, he had delayed for six months longer than Jiddy already. Sure,why not get it today!
On the drive to Kakamega in Barasa's four-wheel drive, Moses was unusually silent. His heart was racing, and he had broken into a sweat. It had something to do with the implant. Why did he feel so uncomfortable about it? Was it really something unforgiveably evil that he was doing? Surely it was just Winky's talk that had done it. And Ray's. And, most of all, Josephat's.
Mr. Barasa stopped to show off his shamba just outside Kakamega. Actually, it was more of a plantation, with hundreds of fruit trees... all purchased from what he had made in the bank. A flock of birds swooped on his trees, and Barasa snatched a shotgun from under a box on the back porch and fired in their direction. It killed a few, but the real purpose was just to scare the others.
"Go and tell your friends about it!" Barasa shouted to the birds, hoping that they would all learn to stay away.
Then they were off to get the implant. Moses hardly felt a thing as the doctor inserted the needle and let the tiny microchip slip from the syringe into the flesh on his forehead. It was so small that he could not even feel it when he ran his fingers over his forehead after leaving the surgery.
That wasn't so bad, he thought as he bounced down the road in a crowded matatu on the journey back to Shinyalu. It was like he had expected God to strike him down dead just for getting it, when he could see now that it was really nothing at all.
The next week, filming began. Amy seemed almost distracted from what was happening, and easily accepted his explanation that the bank was just adding to its previous promotions.
A whole team came to organise it all, and they took much longer than the previous cameraman had taken.
Moses was older now, and not as innocent at 18 as he had been at 14, but he could do a few tricks with his bike now, and the film crew spent a long time doing a clip where he appeared to be laying bricks by almost juggling the brick and the trowel with his left hand. It took many takes and a lot of dropped bricks, but they managed to get enough to make it look like he could actually flip a brick in the air and have it land perfectly on the wet cement, with just a tap or two of the trowel to set it in place before more cement would go on top of it. And, of course, it finished with Moses' trademark grin.
They interviewed for some time before they got the line they were waiting for; but it came eventually.
"I was apprehensible too … same as others, about getting the implant," he said quite earn
estly. "But look at me now? I don't feel a thing." And he dragged his finger across his forehead while smiling widely.
The promotion clip was virtually finished when Moses left for London a few weeks later, but they wanted him to meet the world's media in a place where he would be more accessible. They also added some humorous shots of him doing such things as playing in snow in London, for the first time in his life. He hid the fact that he really hated the stuff. Even with a ton of coats and scarves and gloves, he could not believe that people really lived in such a painfully cold environment.
At least the hotel and other buildings were well heated, so he enjoyed film shoots of him registering amazement at the luxuries available in such shops as Harrods. With assurances from the organisers that they would pay the bill, he ended up buying an elaborately carved small black mahogany coffee table, and grinning for the camera as a scanner was pulled across his forehead to give the impression that he had paid for it himself.
The trip was shorter than he had hoped, but there were a couple of free hours in the middle of the day, just before he was scheduled to fly home, and he had arranged for Ray to meet him in the hotel lobby. Ray came alone.
"Where's your family?" Moses asked when they had shaken left hands.
"They've been very busy, Moses," Ray said. "Actually, my son is in South Africa with another friend of his, and my daughter is in Rome."
"What about your wife?" Moses asked. "Is she in London?"
"Yes she is, and she sends her apologies. Like I said, we've been busy. Irene is entertaining some visitors from overseas at this very moment." Then Ray changed the subject.
"But what about you? What brings you here? Your message said something about the bank."
The meeting was going to be a brief one, and so Moses decided to try what had worked so well with Winky.
"They wanted to do more promotions," he said. "Same as last time."
"The micro-bank wanted to do more promotions?" Ray asked suspiciously.
"No, some other banks. It's nothing really."
Ray could tell Moses was hiding something, but he did not probe further.
"How is Rosy?" Ray asked, to change the subject yet again.
"She's living with Winky now, didn't I tell you?"
"Yes, you did. But surely you visit her. And how is Winky too?"
"They're both good." And then Moses decided to open up to his friend a bit more. "But not too good. They go away at times and they don't tell me where."
Ray wrinkled his brow in puzzlement. "That sounds strange," he said. "Do you ask?"
"Yeah, sure. But they just say things like 'exploring God's good earth'. That doesn't tell me anything."
"Is she still seeing that Josephat fellow?" Ray asked.
"Yeah, he goes with them," Moses replied.
Ray thought a moment over what to say, and then said, "I don't think you need to worry about it, Moses. I'm sure God is with them."
It was uncanny. Almost the same words that Amy had used. What was going on? Was Moses just imagining some kind of a conspiracy against himself, with Josephat at the top of it?
Moses enjoyed the luxury of treating Ray to a fancy lunch at the five-star hotel (again, courtesy of the bank) and then he took leave to get ready for the trip home. The visit was nothing like the exciting excursions that Moses had experienced with Kyme, but then his relationship with Ray was different... more intense, even if it was restricted to one or two text messages each week.
Moses wished later that he had used the time more productively... to talk freely with Ray about his decision to get an implant. He realised too late that, unlike Amy, Ray would almost certainly see the promotions there in London and discover that he was being used to urge all those other people who suffered from 'apprehensions' to go ahead and get the microchip implant. He just hoped that it would not disappoint Ray as much as he knew it would have disappointed Amy.
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Chapter 18. Missing!
There was the flight from London, the train from Nairobi, and the matatu from Kisumu before Moses was back in Shinyalu. He spotted Jiddy at the bike stand when he arrived in the early afternoon and asked him for help getting his bag and the coffee table out to the house.
"We can stop off and see Rosy on the way," he said.
"They're gone, Stump," Jiddy declared.
"What do you mean 'gone'?" Moses asked, assuming that the children must be out 'exploring' again.
"Really gone," Jiddy added. "They musta sneaked out in the middle of the night, the day after you left. I went by that morning and no one was there. They're gone ... just like that."
Even with travel time, Moses had only been away for six days. That meant the others had been gone for five. It still seemed a long time for Amy to be away without telling anyone. And why hadn't she said anything to him before he left?
Moses tried not to worry, focussing his mind on work and on final touches to the house; but days passed and still no one returned. Then, about two weeks later, he saw someone putting paint on Amy's house. He rode the bike up into the yard to enquire.
"Hey there! Do you know where Amy is?" he shouted up to the tall thin man on the step ladder.
"Amy Walker? No, can't say that I do," the man called down from his perch. "You know she doesn't live here anymore, don't you?"
"Doesn't live here? No way!" Moses exclaimed. "She has to live here. She has a bunch of kids to take care of. My sister's one of them."
"I'm the new owner," the man said as he descended the steps. "Bought this place nearly a month ago. I paid cash. The papers are in the house."
A month ago? That would have been before Moses left for London. Why hadn't Amy said anything to him about it?
Moses tried to be tactful but firm in questioning the older man. He was shown the bill of sale, and was advised to check with the Lands Department in Kakamega if he wanted further proof. The tall man, the one who considered himself to be the new owner,insisted that he had seen no one answering Josephat's description when dealing with Amy, and he had no idea where she and the children had gone. He had heard about the property the same day Amy had listed it with an agent in Kakamega. The price was so good that he snapped it up immediately. He appeared to be a property speculator, probably put onto the give away price by the agent himself.
On checking with local matatu drivers, Moses learned that Amy and the children had left before sun-up, the day after he had caught the train to Nairobi. That was the same day Jiddy had noticed them missing. The driver remembered Amy and her brood because they were almost a full load in themselves. He had taken them to the railway station in Kisumu, and had assumed that they were just going on an excursion to Nairobi.
"They were sneaking away all right," Moses said to Jiddy. "The train doesn't leave Kisumu until late in the afternoon. It's the only one out of there each day. They didn't need to be at the station so early. So why were they sneaking off?"
The two young men had no answers. They went to Kisumu, where the station master checked his records and found that he had, indeed, sold tickets for Amy and eight children on the train to Nairobi that same day. No one named Josephat was on the records, and no one matching that description had been seen at the station that day or any other in recent memory.
Despite the lack of evidence, Moses and Jiddy were still convinced that Josephat was involved. Moses reported them missing, but the police could see nothing sinister in a local selling up and moving to Nairobi; so they paid Moses little heed.
But for the next two years, he and Jiddy never stopped talking it up around the village. The fact that Josephat never returned during that time was enough to convince most people that the boys were probably right. But nothing could be done without more evidence.
Had Amy and Rosy been willing victims, or were they under a spell? For his part, Moses was convinced Josephat had been using traditional magic on all of them and had been doing so for quite some t
ime. He believed that it had led to them being lured away, possibly to their deaths.
"They would never have left without telling me," he argued repeatedly.
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Chapter 19. Unity
If Moses had ever thought that he could keep his reason for going to London secret, he soon learned otherwise. In a matter of weeks posters started to appear around the village and all over Kakamega with his face on them and the slogan "no more apprehensions" written across it... in English and in Luhya. Those few locals who had televisions were soon spreading the word about Moses' acting abilities too. Everyone loved him, and they told him so. His business picked up dramatically; everyone wanted to be seen with the poster boy.
The campaign was working for the banks too, because people all over Western Kenya started queueing to get implants. A monthly mobile clinic visited villages to inject microchips under the skin of the right hand on all those who wished to be a part of the new economy. Newspapers reported similar happenings all over the world.
Incentives were making the transition even easier. Scanners were free to any business that qualified now, and even the churches were being enticed with offers that were just too good to refuse.
Quakers, Pentecostals, and traditional churches were being lured into linking up with Catholics, who were themselves making concessions in order to get the premiums that were being offered by the government in conjunction with a restructured ecumenical super-church.
There had been whispered debates over whether the churches would install scanners, after claims had circulated about the implant being the devil's mark. But the government sidestepped that by promising to eliminate the need for offerings altogether for all who became a part of the new super-church. Any group joining up would be funded at a rate that far exceeded what they were getting through their meager offering plates each Sunday. Funding would be paid electronically into church accounts by the government. Of course most attenders were getting implants anyway, because they needed them to do business; but church subsidies kept the issue from becoming a source of debate on Sunday mornings.