The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 (Nigeria)

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cjleeagain
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The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 (Nigeria)

Unread postby cjleeagain » 16 Jun 2021, 06:41

Dear fellow forummers

On my other sites (eg Patreon, Wattpad) I post one new chapter every week.

Each mission comprises of three or more chapters.

To avoid creating too many new threads, I will post all the chapters of each mission together in the same thread. This means that I will post every few weeks on this site, rather than every week.


Tags for first mission:

Chapter 1
Science fiction, futurism, airship, politics, satire, comedy, humor, geography, travel, fact-fiction, ecchi, haram, Nigeria, action-adventure, gun control, taser, World Cup, scam, Sahel, education, Hausa, ajami, Sokoto, boko,

Chapter 2
Science fiction, futurism, airship, politics, satire, comedy, humor, geography, travel, fact-fiction, ecchi, haram, Borno state, Nigeria, Lake Chad, kidnapping, action-adventure, taser, Zina

Chapter 3
Science fiction, futurism, airship, politics, satire, comedy, humor, geography, travel, fact-fiction, ecchi, action-adventure, taser, punishment, Nigeria, pepe cubes, Lake Chad, Mao, Sahara
Last edited by cjleeagain on 16 Jun 2021, 06:41, edited 1 time in total.
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The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 chapter1

Unread postby cjleeagain » 16 Jun 2021, 06:44

The airship SPOEX moved silently through the night. Sugto had filed his flight plan with Nigerian air traffic controllers, and they were not a jet. To conserve fuel, airships usually tried to ride the currents. But since there were no particularly favorable air currents at this time of year, they had to use SPOEX’s own engines at cruising speed.
When Akia had been put in cryo, people were building a solar plane that could theoretically stay in the air indefinitely, traveling at over 100kph, drawing its energy solely from the sun charging its batteries in the day. Now there were much faster solar powered aircraft.
Fifty to one hundred kilometers an hour was not fast by modern standards, but it was consistent and it didn’t overtax the batteries of a solar-powered airship at night which had to supply all living quarters with electricity also. Furthermore, the stores and fridges were full. If Akia wished, she had no need to land this airship for months. According to Maya who managed the water, only bathing might be a problem after the entire team was assembled, since the small wastewater treatment plants did not have capacity to recycle the bathwater of seven people using full bathtubs every day.
“All right, let’s look at our first mission.”
Akia moved her hand as to touch a keyboard, then stopped. Where was the wireless keyboard stowed?
“Just show us,” Maya commanded the computer.
The computer responded. Information appeared on the screens facing Akia and her teammates.
“Borno State... near Maiduguri...” Akia read out. “What the hell!”
“What’s wrong?” Maya asked.
“It’s Boko Haram again, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Of course.” Maya didn’t seem to think it was a big thing. “Or probably. It’s not specific.”
“How the hell... after all these years...”
“I think the IRA was around for many years also,” Sugto pointed out. “Boko Haram has been in action for forty plus years.”
“Never defeated?” Akia snorted.
“Yes. Nobody wanted to make the effort to take them out, I guess.”
“Oh yes, what failures they are,” Akia lashed out. “One hundred and sixty million Nigerians, and they can’t...”
“Not one hundred and sixty million. Three hundred and ninety-five million,” Maya interrupted with delight at being able to correct her leader’s outdated information.
“Whew,” Akia let out her breath. “That’s one huge country. And they still can’t take out a few thousand – or is it still a few thousand -?”
“Honestly, nobody knows,” Sugto shrugged and opened his hands. “Drone technology has gotten a lot better since your days, Akia, but it’s still about spending money. As long as their federal government doesn’t want to spend money, they’ll never be able to stop some localized insurgency.”
“They could always get some people to fund a reward,” Akia said.
“They? Who would They be?” Maya laughed derisively.
“Civil society.”
“Civil society hasn’t gotten that civil yet, at least when it comes to real action that costs real money,” Sugto said as he browsed at another screen, waving his hand to indicate the screen should scroll down. “But if you want, there are more than a hundred million thumbs down for every Boko Haram atrocity,” he added.
“Oh yes, hundreds of millions of Nigerians getting together to show their displeasure,” Akia commented acidly. “In this time and age, surely they can get together and crowdsource some mercenaries if their government doesn’t want to do anything?”
Sugto didn’t say anything to that. He had always felt that Nigerians were more competitive and proactive than Congolese, so surely they should feel bad about national embarassments and do something?
Maya got up. “So we’re supposed to...”
“No, we don’t have to take these guys out,” Akia said. “The Benefactors know that the three of us aren’t at that level yet. Our mission is a lot simpler.”
Akia indicated with one knuckle at the screen. “Tonight. This small town. Save a dozen or so local kids.”
“Opposition?” Sugto asked without a hint of emotion. It was impossible to tell whether he was looking forward to, or fearing, the fight.
“Probably a few gunmen at the most.”
Maya relaxed. “So it is a local affiliate of a local branch...”
Akia turned and smiled. It was just like the Benefactors to calibrate their requested missions. “It’s our first mission together, and my first mission after being thawed. We have a long way to go before we can do serious stuff.”
“I don’t consider the threat of being shot dead not-serious,” Maya said.
“There is always a threat of getting shot in every mission,” Akia said soberly. She hoped that Maya had not joined with the wrong expectations. She had not spent enough time with Maya to know very much about the circumstances under which Maya joined.
“No, shot and shot dead are very different,” Maya spoke up.
“What’s the difference?” Akia asked. “Anytime someone shoots a gun at you, you could be shot dead. That’s always the risk with Political Risk Consultants.”
Sugto stirred. That gorgeous three piece suit moved, and Sugto stood up like a modern day Black Adonis.
“Akia, you might be a bit less familiar with modern weaponry.”
“Oh, they’ve come up with more awesome ways to kill people?”
“No, they’ve come up with more awesome ways not to kill people,” Sugto said. “C’mon, you haven’t seen our armory yet.”


The Armory

Unlike in previous ships, the Armory was not located in deep recesses protected by the rest of the ship. It was located right next to the control room.
Akia found that surprising. Surely one wanted to lower the chances of ammunition or...
Sugto swept open a curtain.
This has got to be the flimsiest armory door ever, Akia thought. Even on the airships over thirty years ago, the armory door had to be thick and heavy. You didn’t want the ammunition to go off by accident and destroy everything. But here...
Akia found herself staring at what had got to be...
It’s Sugto, its Sugto, this guy, he’s like that, Akia desperately told herself. She had to maintain her dignity as the leader of this outfit when confronted with views like this. But she...
No, no outburst, her inner voice told Akia.
But all the same, no way!
This was clearly a sex shop.
That Sugto! Considering his dress, he’s probably a pimp who got rescued by the Benefactors somehow! This is his collection!
Akia struggled to maintain calm and keep her posture.
But why would a big black man have a collection like this? Did he really...
Akia’s brain was rushing to process everything. If anything, she was good at handing the unexpected.
Sugto was standing to the side. He seemed pleased. There was no hint of malice or trickery or perverted sexuality in his expression and his stance.
And there were triggers. Yes, so these are guns.
What seemed to be a largish walk-in closet full of black or darkish Dildos of varying sizes, some outrageously huge, had to be weapons of varying calibers. She tried not to think of how close these appeared to some masculine appendages that she had not seen for over thirty years during her cryosleep.
Sugto seemed to expect her to say something. Akia decided she had better say something. She had controlled her shock, but surely by now Sugto was aware of Akia’s surprise. Akia had better say something that maintained her dignity and didn’t admit to being caught off guard, yet which could encourage Sugto to explain this to her.
“The look,” Akia indicated the weapons. “Sugto, maybe you could explain to me again how modern weapons work.”
Sugto was expecting this, and didn’t act like he had an advantage over his leader. His Benefactors had already given him instructions.
“Technology, Akia.” Sugto made a gentlemanly gesture.
“It actually started with a movement in North America. They got tired of black people being killed by police. It snowballed into a general anti-firearms movement.
In the meantime Chinese technology had improved.
The Chinese government didn’t want to let up on its social controls, but since it was locked in political rivalry with North America, it was eager to demonstrate a commitment to human rights.
Moreover China really wanted to get a bigger piece of the world security pie, which North America dominated. The North Americans had all the traditional firearms and were making ever more lethal weaponry. 2021 was really a boom year for the North American firearms industry because they had so many mass shootings. The arms manufacturers, pun intended, really made a killing selling their weapons.
In response to that, China started manufacturing taser weapons in vast numbers and selling these to ‘autocratic regimes’ worldwide.”
Akia took a breath. Beating up the underlings of autocratic regimes was one of the great pleasures of her life thirty odd years ago.
Sugto continued: “They’re totally non lethal. Totally, totally. They just shoot balls of taser gel – electrified, sticky stuff that gets onto you and zaps you. One zap, and a protestor or fleeing criminal goes down,” Sugto explained.
“Oh, more than one sometimes,” he corrected himself as Akia continued looking at Sugto.
“OK, if using a small caliber taser handgun, sometimes it does take three shots to effect full paralysis,” Sugto continued. “But in general, these are really good. Instantly Effective. No lasting damage to humans. A well placed shot would also disable the handphones that people were using to stream footage of protests. You can’t enjoy such efficacy even with rubber bullets, beanbags or water cannon. It shut up all the human rights groups so well, that before long every dictator and every not-too-democratic democracy, and every Guided Democracy and Budding Democracy and Democratic People’s Republic wanted the same thing. To arm their domestic law enforcement agencies with taser gel guns.”
Sugto picked up a huge weapon with one hand.
“See this? This is the equivalent to... uh, the Stinger in your day.”
“You can shoot down aircraft with this?” Akia was incredulous. It seemed to be a gigantic supersoaker or some water gun made into an obscene sex toy.
“Not a supersonic jet a few km up in the sky. But it does take out conventional drones flying closer to the ground and at subsonic speeds. Realistically, that’s the highest level of opposition we’re likely to face.”
“That’s still amazing.”
“The key lies in magnetic acceleration,” Sugto explained. Since the taser gel can be magnetized as a ball, it can be accelerated and fired. In many ways, it is more effective than traditional firearms that rely on chemical propellants.”
Sugto put down the weapon and patted it.
“It’s made of plastics and silicon. Environmentally friendly. Light. Cheap. You don’t need access to chemicals. You don’t need to worry about ammunition degradation. Storage is easy as it won’t blow up on you. I could throw this onto a fire, and the worst we get is a nasty smell as it melts.
Sugto indicated another weapon that resembled a joke penis three feet long.
“That’s an antitank gun. Unlike the crappy weapons thirty years ago, it’s reusable.”
“Hmm...”
“The old style bazooka has problems whenever there’s sand or water or temperatures are low. But you can actually wash and heat these taser weapons safely to dry or thaw. They won’t blow up on you,” Sugto said. “Moreover, due to the non contact nature of magnetic acceleration, the barrel will never wear down. The tube or barrel will never need to be changed.”
Akia overcame the tiny inhibition that remained in her heart, and reached out to stroke one of the weapons. She was surprised at how warm and soft it felt. Almost like a man’s...
Sugto didn’t notice. Or he wasn’t prepared to notice it, given that these weapons were so common in his time that it didn’t matter to him.
“Yeah, not like a metal gun from your time, eh?” Sugto said with a warm smile that seemed so genuine that it carried no innuendo. Like all men, Sugto loved toys and this was an awesome toy to him. “These taser weapons don’t get hot after firing, so you won’t burn yourself touching the barrel after a discharge. They don’t produce any loud sounds or smoke, so shooter won’t give his position away or deafen himself when discharging in an enclosed space. And the modern silicon skin is awesome. It’s practically human. I can’t see myself using a traditional firearm.”
“But why this skin...” Akia pointed. This was so much like a dildo from her time, that she really had difficulty imagining this as anything but a joke.
“The silicon skin’s good,” Sugto said happily. “Won’t freeze in winter. Won’t get stuck to your hand if its wet and cold. Great to hold at any angle. Feels 100% natural. Like a part of me. And best of all...”
Akia’s eyes narrowed and she laced her fingers together. Sugto mentioning that the gun felt like a part of him was really too much. “And best of all...” she repeated, wondering whether Sugto would fill in the same blanks that her brain was filling in right now. (Akia really felt she needed to do something she hadn’t done for over thirty years.)
“Best of all, this skin is a great electrical and magnetic insulator,” Sugto said. “You can fire this in a room full of tech devices, and it won’t hurt anything except the person or item that the taser gel hits. You can stand next to an electromagnet, and your enemy can’t steal your weapon by turning on the magnet.”
And now Sugto held the gun in one hand and stroked it with the other.
“The silicon skin is such a great insulator that it can’t even be detected when you pass a metal detector. I’m sure you remember from the airports a few decades ago, where anything iron or steel, even belt buckles and shoelace eyelets, will get detected.”
Akia’ eyes ran over the weapons in the room. There were all manner of weapons. Some appeared to be batons or shock prods, some were mini handguns, some bigger handguns, some rifles, one that appeared to be an antitank gun, and one that appeared to be an antiaircraft gun. And every single one of these looked like...
Akia put a hand to her eyes. Just because she had been asleep for over thirty years, didn’t mean that she had been starved of men for thirty years. Come on, Akia! There was no need to keep thinking these things were...
“Okay, how about you tell me the disadvantages?” Akia forced her instincts to lie low and brought the bosswoman persona back. She put her hands on her hips and looked straight at Sugto, like a supervisor questioning a subordinate.
Sugto raised two fingers in a V shape.
“Only two,” he said. “But I don’t even know if they are supposed to be disadvantages.”
“Go ahead.”
“Firstly, non lethal. They don’t do any permanent damage to people. They do kill electrical devices though, since they’re magnetically charged. But that again, is probably a big plus to most users who are not murderers. These taser guns can shoot down drones and disable any vehicle that isn’t electrically insulated. That’s what the antiaircraft gun really is. It shoots a huge ball of magnetized gel at high speeds to envelope aircraft and disable their electrical systems.”
“And?” Akia felt compelled to look at the V in Sugto’s fingers. It was probably unintended by Sugto, but the innuendo felt too much for Akia. It suggested something, and she did want to feel his fingers...
“The taser gel is a sticky substance that adheres quite well to skin and transmits electrical energy to disable the target,” Sugto said. “Moreover, it always must have an electrical charge to work with magnetic acceleration. This means no fighting with blanks to scare people, or rubber bullets to limit the damage.
You cannot shoot uncharged taser gel blobs. If it hits you, you’re going down, and your muscles go all crazy and your clothes will be stained. Of course, that’s still much safer than conventional firearms, but the problem is that because these guns are so completely nonlethal, now the security forces in every country have turned super trigger happy.”
“That’s not good. Not good at all,” Akia said blandly. This was a very loaded topic, especially in Africa where civil wars and repressive regimes were aplenty.
“They’ll shoot you for almost any reason now, and they’re more than happy to shoot you five times or more just for fun, since they know you won’t die. And they’ll stand around laughing while you squirm away.”
“Whew,” Akia said to herself. Well, it was good that black people wouldn’t get shot dead by the police for little reason now. But if it meant that a lot more black people were getting shot precisely because the police knew they didn’t risk killing anybody...
“And even worse, China encourages it. They make a lot of money selling taser gel ammo worldwide. An incredible, incredible amount of money.”
“Gilette model, huh?” Akia said knowingly.
“Yes,” Sugto grinned and showed his perfect teeth and toothpaste-advertisement smile. “That’s right. China gave many countries these guns for free, or sold at a big discount. And now all internal security forces worldwide use these, except for the North Americans. Nobody wants to be accused of using lethal weaponry on their own people anymore.”
Sugto put the gun he was holding back into its rack and continued: “The only people who use firearms are true criminals or national militaries. And even the national militaries are rotating out of firearms, since fewer and fewer national conflicts really involve human combat anyway. Electricity or sticky gel takes down drones much more effectively and less messily than traditional bullets.”
Sugto waved his hands expansively. “No explosions, no shrapnel flying everywhere, no environmental damage and no collateral damage.”
Akia picked up a handgun and inspected it at all angles.
The barrel truly resembled some... personal toys she had used in the past. She didn’t want to ask. She knew that before she was put in cryo, China had already beome the world’s biggest exporter of adult toys. She wondered if there was not some communication or shared use of OEM manufacturing facilities...
“How much are gel shots compared with the price of traditional bullets?”
“I can’t quite say. Really few bullets are sold internationally now. The countries of North America are among the very few holdouts, but nobody buys from them. Maybe the gel shots cost two percent of what a traditional lead bullet could cost?”
“There’s a huge difference.”
“And due to lack of recoil, accuracy is much higher for short distances. Even untrained security guards can point and shoot fairly effectively. Nobody is ever going to trust a low level security guy with a traditional handgun anymore.”
Having said this, Sugto looked out of the window again and pulled a cigar out of his pocket.


Nigerians win World Cup

“It’ll take us all night and until late tomorrow morning to get across Nigeria,” he pointed with his cigar. “We have time tomorrow morning to plan our mission.”
“Just one thing,” Akia looked sharply at Sugto’s cigar. “Are you planning to light that thing?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Then...”
“It’s just a gadget I like carrying around,” Sugto said and put the cigar into his mouth. He made a fake puff, muttered something under his breath, and began speaking in a different language.
Akia recognized that language. It was whatshername’s...
“You’re speaking Kazakh!”
Sugto grinned and took the cigar out of his mouth. “No, I am not a Kazakh speaker. It’s just the translation function.”
“There’s so much I have to catch up on,” Akia mused. “The world has changed so much.”
“You don’t know what I was saying?” Sugto was surprised. “If you can even tell Kazakh from Turkish...”
“I recognize the language; doesn’t mean I actually understand it.”
“Oh, I was just saying Welcome to this country, Norway, blah blah blah.”
“We’re over Nigeria right now.”
“Yea, and cigars like this are totally beloved by the successful folks – I mean scammers in this country below us. You can talk with it in your mouth, and speak fluent Norwegian on the spot. Very convincing when you’re trying to sweet talk a woman on the other side of the globe.”
Sugto had a broad grin on his face. “I’m sure you will agree with me that at least on this matter, the world hasn’t changed.”
Akia had a sweet smile on her face. “Nope, this cigar thing is a fake fake. Not real fake. Nigerian scammers in my day took pride in training their skills. They could fool any oyinbo with realistic accents.”
Sugto laughed, and Akia joined in. It was good that Africans could still share politically incorrect jokes about each other.
Then Akia got a little more serious.
“I haven’t had time to catch up on everything,” Akia said. “But I don’t think they had any serious bloodshed?”
“You mean the Nigerians?”
“Yes.”
“Actually, things got really bad some years ago,” Sugto said.
“It’s a confluence of these factors: spreading Sahel, desertification in the north, environmental refugees and migrants to the south, cultural and religious tensions. All taking place in an environment of depressed oil prices. Am I right?”
Sugto almost whistled in approval, but decided this was too undignified. “If you can come up with this within a few hours of waking up from cryosleep, you deserve to be my leader.”
“I was a political risk consultant before cryosleep. And we are political risk consultants now. It’s our job to figure this out and advise clients accordingly.”
Sugto nodded in approval. “What saved Nigeria was winning the World Cup in 2046. It really brought the entire country together.”
“Don’t pull a Nigerian 419 on me,” Akia replied immediately. “I can fact check that easily!”
Sugto grinned and raised both hands apologetically. “OK, that’s just what Nigerians claim.”
“Even for a nation of ridiculously optimistic people, this is ludicrous.”
“They got to the finals in Abuja.”
Akia’s jaw dropped and she stared at Sugto.
“Yes, that’s true. World Cup 2046 was jointly held by Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana. Nigeria was beaten 4-1 at the finals by Germany.”
“That, I can believe.”
“The winning German team had 6 players of African origin. Of which one was Yoruba, one was Igbo and one was Hausa. So the Nigerians still called it a Nigerian victory. It was a tremendously unifying moment for the country.”
“Nice.”
Akia had mixed feelings about this. In her time, African professionals usually left Africa to be successful elsewhere. She had also done the same.


The Forbidden

As the SPOEX traveled towards its destination, Akia reflected on the conflict taking place.
Why did Boko Haram – often translated as ‘Western Education is Forbidden’ - come about in the first place? Why does it hate Western-style education so much?
The Hausa have been the biggest ethnic group in Nigeria from independence. Their traditional alphabet, known as ajami script, was based on Arabic. It was closely tied to the Hausas’ Muslim identity. There were hundreds of years of history behind this. Hausa kingdoms and states traded and fought with the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire, and eventually ended in the Sokoto Caliphate. Which was in turn conquered in the early 20th century by the British, but whose green flag influenced Nigeria’s modern green and white flag. Much of the territory of modern Nigeria was formerly under the control of the Sokoto Caliphate.
The Malian Empire of Mansa Musa used ajami script. Rival and successor empires used ajami script. They conducted business across the Sahel, a territory twice the size of the European Union.
When Hausa parents wanted their child to read and learn about their own history and culture, naturally they used ajami.
Even Akia had learned some ajami. Most West Africans, including non-Muslim cultures, used ajami before the European colonial period. This was hardly different from pagan Norwegians accepting the alphabet of the Christian Roman empire, and modifying some letters to suit Norwegian sounds. But Akia learned ajami in a country where choice of writing system wasn’t being politicized.
It was different in Nigeria.
Nigeria had terrible schools ever since independence because the government neglected education. Hence it was normal for Nigerians to send their children to private boarding schools.
Modern Hausa was written in boko, a Latin based script introduced by British colonizers. There was little literature and law and religion and values and culture available in boko. Boko was just a script used for the colonial administrators’ convenience.
Secular schools taught in boko; religious schools taught in ajami. Nigerians educated in traditional schools could not read their own language in boko, so they were regarded as illiterate by the government, and excluded from most aspects of modern life such as civil services and banking. This marginalized the graduates of religious schools, and made them very angry. Thus creating an environment fertile for the rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram.
Other countries with options for religious education did not have such a problem, because they did not have a colonial power deliberately create a new script to separate people from their culture. Those who attended Japanese Buddhist universities could read modern Japanese. Graduates of faith-based institutions in the USA could function in modern English. An Islamic Studies graduate in Turkey had no problem with modern Turkish. Hence Boko Haram was a uniquely Nigerian problem.
Moreover, the fact that so much information was locked away in the ajami script, meant that other Nigerians who could not read ajami, could not differentiate between a business contract and a Quranic verse. To them everything written in ajami looked like religious doctrine. Hence Southern Nigerians failed to appreciate the profound and wide ranging nature of the institutions of the caliphates who once ruled Northern Nigeria.
Akia reflected that if Boko Haram was still around in 2050, it suggested that there was still social discontent. This didn’t suprise her. Educational matters affected an entire generation, and resolving such macro issues took years of government intervention.
In 2014, Nigeria introduced a new 100-naira banknote. Southerners fought to keep ajami script off the banknote because they were afraid of Islamization. Northerners fought to put ajami script on the banknote because they considered it a truly indigenous Nigerian script, as opposed to the Western-style numbers and words that the Southerners wanted. The Northerners called it Islamophobic, without explaining that ajami script was not Arabic but authentically rooted in Nigerian history. The Southerners didn’t consider that their insistence on using boko script for the Hausa language, made them look like high-handed colonial authorities.
The fact that neither side listened to the other, guaranteed that problems and resentments relating to education in boko script would continue for at least a few more decades.
Last edited by cjleeagain on 16 Jun 2021, 06:49, edited 1 time in total.
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The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 chapter2

Unread postby cjleeagain » 16 Jun 2021, 06:46

After her tour of the armory, Akia and Sugto returned to the operations room. Maya was doing a headstand right in the middle of the room.
Whatever the heck? Akia thought. But then again, Political Risk Consulting Teams engaged by the Benefactors had all kinds of eccentric individuals.
Maya’s headstand allowed a view of her that Akia would normally not get. Her tiny denim cutoffs sank down, revealing even more fuschia panty in the gaps. In fact, all that fuschia was practically a neon light blinking away, saying ‘come and get some!’. Akia had to consciously stop herself from licking her lips.
I’m the BOSSWOMAN, Akia told herself. And a bosswoman had more things to do than look at her subordinates.
Maya flipped herself back onto her feet. “I didn’t want to be looking on my own,” she explained.
That’s nice, Akia thought to herself. But she didn’t completely believe it. More like, Maya had taken advantage of Akia stepping away from the screen, to read all the information and form her own opinion first.
But when Akia stepped in front of the screen, she realized that modern technology had indeed changed. There was a screen saver, and it said Locked.
Before Akia could ask anybody how to unlock the screensaver, Eva spoke.
“Authorized user has returned. Resume session?”
“Yes,” Akia said immediately and the screensaver disappeared.


Planning

“OK, so our ETA is forty-five minutes. The location is in Nigeria’s Borno state near the former Lake Chad. The airship would not be obvious tonight due to a combination of no moon and cloudy weather. We can insert...” Akia mused aloud.
“Oh yes, what about the reward? Is there any?” Sugto asked.
“Reward?”
“Isn’t there a reward for us risking our lives? Like a bounty you know,” Sugto made a chopping hand gesture. “Head of a militant...”
“Or head of a rescued, I mean, a captive rescued alive and well?” Maya asked.
“I think it doesn’t work that way,” Akia said. Had the Benefactors changed? She remembered the Benefactors just handed over an airship and some equipment and some instructions. Actually they were quite hands-off most of the time, and all the expenses and maintenance had to be borne by the team of political risk consultants. So some teams made a lot of money focusing on profitable work, and some barely got by because they took on jobs that were less profitable.
Maya was now standing over Akia’s shoulder. “Scroll down,” she commanded the computer.
Information about any reward was completely lacking.
“No information about a reward,” Maya said, disappointed.
“The Benefactors...” Sugto spoke.
But Akia was definitely more familiar with this than her two teammates. “There is no reward.”
“None?” Sugto’s eyes grew larger.
“Of course not. The Benefactors merely give us equipment and some advice and general instructions, and let us be. What we do next is up to us,” Akia said. “We could turn this airship into a floating brothel to pay for expenses, if we so wished.”
Maya adopted a hand-on-hip position by her side. Akia found herself looking up at Maya. Wow, this was delectable, Akia could not help feeling. This was Maya’s white outfit with that black bra peeking out, and Akia really wanted to see more.


Discussion

“I don’t want to risk my life,” Sugto said. “It’s one thing to fight against government entities, small time crooks and legit corporations. They’ll use taser weapons and nonlethal weaponry. But against religious fanatics and old-school militants who care not for law or public opinion, it’s all firearms still. These can really kill.”
Akia looked steadily at Sugto. “But we’re here now. And it’s really close by.”
“In fact, that wasn’t meant to be our first mission. Our first mission was to go northeast and rescue our fourth teammate. This just happened to be on the way, came in when we were flying over Nigeria’s Plateau state,” Maya spoke up. “We can decline this quite easily I’m sure.”
Akia shook her head. This wasn’t how she did things.
“We’re not out of Nigerian airspace yet. And we have a mission to help people. I’m taking this mission.”
“Wha...” Sugto protested.
Akia wheeled to face Sugto. She didn’t say anything, but the two locked eyes. Sugto was nearly a head taller than her, but he was now seated and he was not mentally prepared for Akia’s eagle-eyed look.
“Okay, you’re the leader,” Sugto murmured.


Carpark

Much to Akia’s surprise, the locality was not some underdeveloped, poverty stricken landscape of half burnt down houses and mud huts.
Lake Chad’s drying up had devasted the original communities, true. They had been forced to relocate. They were not faring very well in the slums of Kano, Port Harcourt and Lagos.
The drying up of Lake Chad had also greatly profited some other enterprises. Who now enthusiastically mined the former lake surface for deposits of minerals.
The building where the kidnapped children were supposedly held, was quite a large facility.
Akia now wondered whether her original instincts were wrong. This does not look like Boko Haram’s favorite ground. This is an urban landscape, a developed area!
“Come to think of it, they never specified Boko Haram. It was just something I assumed, based on the location and the fact of kidnapping,” Akia mused to herself. “You might have made some wrong assumptions, Akia!”
Not a good idea to base her current expectations on experiences that are decades old...
To keep a low profile, the ZZO parked their airship a few kilometers away. Then they descended and cautiously drove up in a car and a small van. The vehicles had been issued with the airship. The small van was the biggest-capacity vehicle that could be carried on the airship, and it should be enough for evacuating twelve or so undernourished kidnap victims.
“You sure this is the right place?” Maya asked over the radio. She was controlling the van while Sugto controlled the car.
Akia hadn’t fully gotten the hang of things, but it seemed that auto-driving technology had become fully developed during the time that Akia was in cryosleep. Under normal circumstances, the driver didn’t need to micromanage a vehicle. A designated driver was only necessary for issuing new orders and telling the artificial intelligence what to prioritize. That way the AI did not respond to random words from any conversation taking place inside the car.
Akia frowned and put her hand to her chin.
Maya had been designated for the van because she was likely to be a less skilled fighter. She was supposed to flee back to the airship the minute all, or nearly all, of the kidnap victims had been rescued. But this also meant that Akia was next to Sugto in the leading car. Akia could afford to be indecisive and ask questions, because Sugto was less likely to challenge her than Maya.
“It’s not set to autoreply...” Sugto gestured at the controls.
Akia raised a hand.
“She won’t hear us unless...”
Akia made a wrist movement, and Sugto fell silent.
“This doesn’t seem to be what I was expecting,” Akia said. “In my time, Boko Haram kidnapped girls for sex.”
“They still do.” (Officially it was called religious conversion followed by marriage. Female consent optional.)
“But these are industrial facilities.”
“Many mining facilities are automated now,” Sugto said. “With a minimal human crew on site. With plenty of shelter and hardly any resistance, a bunch of criminals could keep kidnap victims here for as long as the mining company doesn’t take action.”
There was only one hundred more meters to the building in front. The designated building.
“I think we’re on the right track,” Sugto said. “That looks like a carpark.”
Akia had some misgivings, but nothing could be definitively settled until they actually got inside and checked things out. So they parked by the side of the building with the rear of the car facing the building, allowing them to make a quick retreat if necessary.
Akia and Sugto now snuck against the outside of the building, carefully entering through an unlocked side entrance.
No sooner had they entered the building than the silence came to an end with multiple cries of pain and shouts.
Pow! Wham! Aaa!
Cries of pain and the slamming sound of what seemed to human bodies hitting the ground greeted Akia.
Akia looked at Sugto, and sent him an unspoken message in her eyes. Time to take risks! She could see the Adam’s apple moving on Sugto’s neck, but his eyes were fully in agreement with Akia’s. Without further discussion, the two charged at a door and burst into the main part of the building.
As she rushed through the door, Akia first took note.
Yes, this is indeed a garage. There were vehicles of all kinds, some of which were obviously mining equipment and some were cars.
Then Akia’s attention turned to the bizarre scene that greeted her.
Akia had been expecting some gun-toting religious extremists with big beards and ancient robes abusing hostages and kidnap victims. But what she saw, were a group of fair-skinned and attractive women in very short skirts.
All the women were dressed alike in black uniforms. These looked vaguely military, and they all wore high boots. But the military getup also came across as dated. Modern militaries mostly used digital camouflage patterns. These outfits came across as something you might see over a century ago. They all wore armbands and had lapel pins featuring the face of someone, but Akia was too far away to see.
Ten.
Akia’s brain quickly processed the total number of potential enemies at the scene.
No apparent other enemies. At least, not within obvious sight. No armored car or truck with its guns pointed at them, no machine gun emplacements, no snipers on high ground.
Just ten very sexy looking women.
But no.
These women could not be considered completely harmless.
None of them seemed to be armed, whether with taser weaponry or traditional firearms. But there were two uniformed men lying unconscious on the floor. Clearly security guards.


The Black Zinas

“ak”
The sound came from Sugto. It didn’t sound like he was trying to get Akia’s attention. It sounded more like he was taken by surprise and didn’t know what to say.
“Um, maybe I shouldn’t fight with this.” Sugto had been expecting to fight some nasty misogynists, but he simply was not prepared to use his taser handguns on what appeared to be unarmed women. All the same, he did not think it was wise to holster his gun right now.
Then Akia noticed Maya entering via another door.
“Maya and I can handle this,” Akia told Sugto. “You run around, check out the surrounding areas, make sure no snipers are lurking to ambush us.”
“Will do,” Sugto immediately ran towards a nearby staircase that would lead to the second floor of their area. He was going to scope everything out.
As Sugto ran off, Akia looked over the ten women. Even without exchanging words, she felt certain that these women were not on the good side. Many of them had smirks or arrogant looks on their faces, and they certainly seemed to belong less to this facility than the two security guards lying on the ground.
Furthermore, the postures of these women was just so... smug and infuriating.
Two of these women had one foot raised, stepping on the fallen guards. The short length of their hemlines meant that their panties were visible.
Two women were standing with hands on their hips.
There was one woman leaning against a car on the right side, and one leaning against a wall on the left side. Both had a foot up against the wall, as though they were loitering gangsters.
One more woman was sitting on a defeated security guard with her legs apart.
Another woman shamelessly squatted on top of a defeated security guard. It was an utterly obscene pose.
And finally there were two women lounging complacently on nearby car bonnets. Akia didn’t know what made her angrier, their sexy poses with underwear showing, or the fact that they did carry it off very well, as though they were models rather than members of some weird paramilitary outfit.
Out of the corner of her eye, Akia noticed Maya approaching. Two versus ten. Could be very bad, could be an easy fight. Akia wasn’t that sure; she hadn’t tried out her powers in a combat situation since being awakened and warned that her powers had diminished.
“What are you here for? Do you want to get beaten up?” One of the two women with hands on hips was speaking.
“Speak for yourself. Do you have any business here?” Maya called back.
“We’re here to do as we please,” the woman replied.
“Then... have you heard of anybody being kidnapped here? We heard that...”
The woman shut Akia up with an outstretched palm and a sneering expression. These women were really rude, Akia thought.
“That kidnapping thing, is just a big lie,” the woman said. “We just wanted to disrupt our rival’s business.”
“You should have known that the Nigerian government isn’t going to come rushing in to rescue kidnap victims,” Akia returned. Things were not yet adding up for her.
“We spread news of kidnapping, precisely because we wanted the security forces to stay away,” laughed the woman. So that when we come in and trash the place, the police and the military dare not approach!”
Now this sounded a lot more logical. At least, in Nigeria.
Akia braced herself. “So you admit that you have no right to be here? That you’re really here for a nefarious purpose?”
The women all started laughing. The woman sitting on top of a guard sat back and spread her legs out further, seeming holding Akia and Maya in contempt with her blatantly sexual gesture.
The other standing woman lifted a hand and made a gesture. “You don’t seem to like us. And we don’t like you. Care to get lost?”
Maya muttered under her breath: “Akia, I think it isn’t worth it to fight these women. There are no hapless children to rescue.”
But Akia was not the type to back down from a fight. And she really wanted to put her skills to the test. She figured that since these women were not armed, it was unlikely to get very dangerous. Akia and Maya were armed with taser batons, which reduced the uneven odds a little.
“You there, the squatting one,” Akia addressed the woman squatting on a guard. “I don’t think that’s a toilet.”
The squatting woman sneered. “This entire continent is a toilet to us.”
Akia did not respond to that provocation, but Maya stopped retreating and returned with some choice words about imperialists.
The other side started getting angry. Evidently they were expecting that Akia and Maya would be intimidated and retreat, and they didn’t like it when Maya talked back.
“Black Zinas! Let’s teach these uppity bitches a lesson!” Someone called out.
And the women in black started to approach Akia and Maya menacingly. There was a tense few seconds...
Then it happened. The dam burst.
A Black Zina charged at Akia. All right, this was easy. Akia stepped to the side suddenly, swept a foot forward, and tripped the Zina into practically doing a 360 degree flip .
Even as Akia was defending, Maya was charging forward at another Black Zina. The Black Zina backed away in a hurry, her skirt swishing about her hips. Maya failed to hit the Zina.
Even before the first Zina had come crashing to the ground, a third Black Zina was attacking Akia. She tried a high kick at Akia’s face, but Akia blocked that kick with both arms.
Oof! Akia thought to herself. This was harder than she expected! The old Akia could have casually blocked the kick with one arm without feeling a thing. Her powers had definitely decreased with time!
But what had not decreased, were Akia’s muscle memories and her reflexes. She reacted automatically to the third Zina’s attack. Even without thinking, Akia kept one arm up to block the Zina’s leg, and shoved her taser baton from below at the Zina’s wide open crotch.
Slam! The taser baton pummeled the Zina’s most sensitive body part. The third Zina cried out in pain, and started to faint as she collapsed.
Even in this, Akia was already giving the Zina mercy. She had not turned on her taser when she struck the Zina’s crotch. This was because Akia did not have any muscle memories of using taser batons. So when relying on pure reflexes, Akia could only use a taser baton as an ordinary baton.
But now as the third Zina was collapsing, a fourth Zina swung her leg at Akia from the side in a roundhouse kick. Without thinking, Akia grabbed the Zina’s leg and stepped backwards. This abruptly pulled the Zina off balance, and caused her to do the splits painfully on the ground.
“Aaaaeeeerrrrr...” The fourth Zina moaned in pain.
But already Akia had to face more challenges. A fifth Zina was attacking. This Zina did a dramatic frontal kick directed upwards at Akia’s face. It didn’t hit Akia, but forced her to step back.
Then this Zina made the mistake of coming closer after her failed attack. Akia’s timing was better. She leapt up and kicked the Zina in the face, her ankle smashing into the fifth Zina’s cheek. Half a move later, Akia landed and also kneed the fourth Zina in the face.
In the meantime Maya had tried to punch the second Black Zina again. She missed. But the Zina ducked down and punched Maya in the belly, causing Maya to collapse.
Akia had no time to celebrate her triumph over the fourth and fifth Zinas, for a sixth Zina jumped on her and grabbed Akia by her neck. Akia struggled to get the smaller woman off, and the Zina wrapped her legs around the taller woman hoping to make it hard for Akia to move.
But Akia was an experienced fighter, even if her skills and powers were less than at her peak. Akia did not spend much time struggling against the woman clinging to her. She simply did a header backwards, and knocked the sixth Zina unconscious instantly. The unfortunate Zina let go of Akia, fell backwards and crashed onto the ground, her skirt falling up to her waistline.
So far all this had taken place in a very short time frame. But the remaining Zinas now had enough time to take stock of the situation. A seventh and eighth Zina decided to take a different approach, and coordinate it to give Akia less time to respond. They climbed onto a nearby car. Then the seventh jumped off the car to aim a flying kick at Akia, with the eighth close behind.
Akia’s reaction time was completely unexpected by the Zinas. She grabbed the seventh woman and threw her onto the ground. Without looking and relying purely on instinct and the sense of a rushing body nearby, Akia then reached forward with her arms even as her body tilted backwards sharply. A less skillful person would definitely have lost her balance by that point. But Akia, or at least her muscle memories, knew what she was doing. The eighth Zina was coming, but Akia evaded the kick and grabbed her leg all in one motion.
And now, because Akia’s body was leaning back, this meant that Akia’s weight was moving in the opposite direction as the eighth Zina. It gave Akia considerable power to change the Zina’s momentum. Akia twisted her body even as it was falling. And with her holding onto the Zina’s leg, she was able to spin the Zina around in mid air, converting Akia’s backwards fall into a rotating motion that spun the other woman around midair, completely changing her direction.
And now Akia flung the eighth Zina straight at a ninth Zina. So successful and skilled was Akia’s spinning motion, that it restored Akia to a standing position even as the eighth Zina was thrown forward so high that her crotch slammed into her teammate’s face. The two Zinas were thrown painfully onto the carpark floor.
Thud! Akia’s world shook.
The second Black Zina had punched Akia after defeating Maya. Akia stumbled backwards as the tenth Black Zina, who had been creeping up on Akia from the back, leapt forward and pinned Akia’s arms together from behind.
Despite the stunning effect of the punch, Akia never lost control of the situation. She was moving purely on the instincts honed by much training and experience. Akia threw her body into a horizontal position. This meant throwing her head backwards even as she kicked her legs up.
If you were to try this in the gym, you would just find your legs kicking in mid air with nothing to support, and come crashing down the the ground and look really stupid. But Akia’s system was fully adapted to function in a combat situation. Her movements allowed her to kick the second Black Zina in the face and do a header against the tenth Black Zina at the same time. This knocked the second Black Zina back and caused the tenth Black Zina to lose consciousness and collapse backwards, hitting the ground with Akia on top of her.
THUMP!
Akia was left sitting with her legs drawn up, her red miniskirt hiked almost to her waist by the force of all these exertions. She was breathing heavily with the tenth Zina unconscious beneath her. Apart from Akia, everyone else was flat on the ground.


Retreat

Akia stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the situation.
All ten of the Zinas had been defeated and were lying on the ground. Not a single Zina stirred. They could be unconscious, stunned, semi conscious, playing possum or too sore to move. Akia didn’t really care. As long as none challenged her, this meant the fight was concluded.
If she had her full team with her, and a lot more confidence that she understood how The Real World operated, Akia would not hesitate to grab a Black Zina and interrogate her. But now she was in an unfamiliar time, her team was newly formed and under strength, the venue was unfamiliar and already she had been taken by surprise here. She didn’t feel confident with staying too long.
So it was best to make the ZZO scarce.
Akia picked up the unconscious Maya.
“Oof!”
Maya felt really heavy.
Akia knew better than to comment about this. Leader or not, there would be a big fight with Maya if she dared comment about the weight. But surely all that ice cream had gone somewhere.
Sugto offered his hand. “Akia, I can do this.”
Akia shook her head. She had one hand on Maya’s bottom, and another hand on Maya’s thigh. Maya’s breasts were pressing against Akia’s shoulder blade. This was not an appropriate way for a man to evacuate his female colleague. At this point she did not consider that Sugto would easily have the strength to carry Maya in less-compromising positions.
Maya’s short skirt had hiked up and her panties were in full view to anybody looking straight at Akia. To his credit, Sugto was gentlemanly enough not to look at the pleasing sight. He maintained eye contact with Akia, they briefly discussed the situation, and the ZZO pulled out quickly.
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The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 Chapter3

Unread postby cjleeagain » 16 Jun 2021, 06:48

Eva and Doors

Having returned to their airship with very mixed feelings, the members of the Zanzibar Organization sat around in their operations room.
“What next?” Maya shook her curly hair. She seemed to have suffered no damage, other than the humiliation of hitting the floor. Maya wasn’t too happy about having to wash her hair again, though. Her hair wasn’t easy to tame.
“We ought to continue north. We need to rescue our fourth teammate anyway,” Akia said.
“So where is it?”
“Hey Eva, map of region!” Sugto suddenly looked up and called.
“Map of region,” a female voice intoned, and a projector created a map against the blank wall.
“Scroll North,” Sugto ordered. “No, just expand map.”
“Expanding map.”
“Identify location of our mission to rescue teammate.”
“Location marked.”
“There,” Sugto pointed to the western part of Sudan.
Akia raised a hand. “Wait,” she said. “I’m not familiar. Is our voice control system called Eva? I last remembered Alexa when it was still in its infancy.”
Maya exploded in laughter. Akia shot her a warning look. Sugto grinned and moved a hand like a magician playing with a cat.
“Alexa, Beatrice, Christine, are now ancient history. Even Denise is used on increasingly fewer systems.”
“Wait, is that Doors operating system still around?” Akia turned her head. Consultants in her time had always worked with a Linux derived custom operating system, so she hadn’t seen much of the dominant computer operating system for ordinary people during these times.
“Doors turned into House,” Sugto said. “Big data, control everything in your home. It takes about 2 or 3 Exabytes to run a full House system nowadays.”
Akia raised a hand to her forehead, then turned it into a finger that traced circles next to her temple. This was going to be hard. Tera. Tera. What’s after tera. No, don’t – she narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger warningly at Maya. Akia wasn’t going to accept an answer from her junior. After Terabyte is Petabyte. Ok, then after peta is... ok, Exa. Exa is a thousand times thousand tera. So an exabyte is a million times that of a Terabyte.
“Wow,” Akia looked across at Sugto. “Software bloat has gotten a million times worse.”
“No it hasn’t,” Maya grinned at Akia, happy that she could correct her leader. “Not with our system.”
“Even if it is still a Linux based...”
“Doors software was bloating exponentially more than Linux based stuff for the past few decades. Multiply that over years, and the difference has gotten really big. Our ship OS takes up less than half a petabyte. I think just 560TB.”
“Wow. But do we have to do any maintenance in this day and age?”
“No need. Whole ship, including Eva, is run on this amount of system resources. And we’re much better off than the average intelligent home. We have our OS right here with us. Response is definitely faster.”
Akia didn’t understand what Sugto meant when he talked about having an OS with us. “And that Doors requires two to three thousand times as much disk space to run?” Akia asked.
“Nope,” Sugto replied. “Nobody has a Doors operating system installed locally in their home. It’s all in the cloud. Everything they require to run anything is in the cloud.”
“This means...”
“If your internet connection is lost, everything is lost. People have been locked at home with the tap running, oven going full blast, all the electricity going haywire, etc. But since we’re an airship and constantly on the move, we can’t afford internet downtime. We can’t let a cloud based system do all our processing and decisionmaking.”
Maya grinned. On most beautiful women, that could look like an eagerness for sex. But Maya’s jawline made that interpretation impossible. When she grinned, it made her look like a skull ready to consume Akia.
“We don’t believe in outsourcing leadership and competence to others,” Maya said while looking at Akia.
Sugto might have noticed the dynamics between Maya and Akia, or he might have not. In any case he intervened smoothly:
“Not to mention, it affects our security. Anytime House wants to do an update, it could mess with all your system appliances. Any incompatibility or outdated driver and you’re screwed. People have been killed when their washing machines or food processors started up unexpectedly thanks to a House update. So our OS is right here on board with us,” Sugto explained. “We control it. No updates forced on us at the worst possible times.”
All that information was new and a little overwhelming to Akia. She wasn’t a tech maven back in the day, and now this was a lot worse. She hoped for her own sake and for others’ sake, that she could still lead a team.
Maya looked steadily at Akia. She had been probing her new leader for weaknesses. And she wasn’t going to stop. Maya didn’t believe in anybody but herself. She did have much respect for the Benefactors, hence she was going to give Akia the benefit of the doubt, but Maya was definitely wary that this strange woman who had been frozen for decades might not be able to handle the requirements of contemporary leadership.


Bringto

Seeing the location marked on the map caused Akia to look back. Rine was young, Akia was young. They had some happy conversations and games together. But Rine carried that darkness within her, the Fur from Darfur... there was always a piece of Rine that Akia could never reach.
How was Rine now? Why did the Benefactors not try and contact Rine again, or form a new team with her? Had Rine’s Benefactors given up on her? There was so much Akia didn’t know...
“Wait!” Sugto’s voice broke into Akia’s consciousness. He pointed at the map displayed by the big screen on the wall.
“Our course sets us for Mao.”
“It’s just the wind. We don’t need to stop in Mao, there’s hardly anything there.” Akia hadn’t had time to catch up on everything for the past 30 years, but she could see from the contemporary maps that Mao still seemed to have a small population.
“Nope,” Sugto indicated the screen he was using. “There’s this.”
To the screen, Sugto spoke. “Zoom in.” Sugto had been looking at something that appeared to be a Chinese takeaway menu. And now that it got bigger, indeed it turned out to be a Chinese takeaway menu.
Akia was nonplussed. “Uh... uh...” She blinked. She didn’t get it.
“We have to get this. Otherwise we might have to cook for the next couple days.”
“A Chinese takeaway in Mao? Last I remembered, it was last town before the Sahara. On the edge of nowhere. ”
“The Sahara spread southwards,” Maya was more than happy to highlight her leader’s outdated knowledge. “Now it is in the middle of nowhere.”
“Ah, but the Chinese are everywhere,” Sugto said smiling. “Everywhere in Africa, as long as there’s civilization,” he indicated the screen, “you can get stuff like this. Chinese bringto.”
Bringto? The name was unfamiliar to Akia. She had eaten many times with Cicero, and she never heard this name...
Maya caught the perplexed expression on Akia’s face with delight.
“Bring To, is the opposite of Take Away. Paid digitally. Delivered by drone. Wildly popular on our wonderful continent where the infrastructure is poor and there are still too many dangerous zones.”
Pleased at the expression on Akia’s face, Maya continued, “We won’t even need to land the ship. The drone can just bring the food up to us. Is that not fun or what?”
Sugto rubbed his hands together. “We’ll buy several meals in one shot.”
But Akia wasn’t the leader for nothing. She immediately considered the practical aspects.
“Sugto, you said paid for digitally. But where is the money coming from?”
“Our group bank account.”
AHA.
“We’ve only just started this consultancy and aren’t even at half strength. Can our bank account handle this?”
If the atmosphere had previously resembled a bounce house, now it turned into a Bauhaus. Maya’s hair practically deflated itself.
“Well, if you don’t want to spend money on bringto, we’ve got lots of Pepe Cubes in the freezer. Enough for 200 meals I think,” Sugto admitted.
Akia recalled the Pepper Soup cubes she had in the past as a busy, harried consultant. Products of Nigeria...
“Let’s go for the bringto.”
Akia did hope that they had developed some more environmentally friendly form of chopsticks.


Refuse Collection

Back in the carpark in the mining facility building near the former shores of Lake Chad...
Several attractive young women in Blue uniforms were walking around. The uniforms were somewhat military or police, but corresponded to no official force in any country.
They had armbands and lapel pins. Their lapel pin showed the face of a man. Their armbands were in black and red with the red letter B in the middle of a black circle.
Despite the official-looking nature of their getup, there was something rather incongruous about the whole thing. Their skirts were very short and tight, so short and tight that they could not possibly bend over or sit down without the skirt sliding up their hips. Their tops covered as much flesh as that of any police or official military uniform – but were practically skin tight, so their breasts and bras were outlined clearly underneath.
They called themselves Blue Zinas.
Most carried taser rifles. Two unfortunate Blue Zinas – they considered themselves unfortunate – had been told to shoulder their taser rifles and collect the garbage instead. The women frowned inwardly. But at least they wore gloves as part of their Blue Zina uniform, so they did not need to touch the garbage directly.


Piling them Up

“Pile the trash up!” A Blue Zina called out.
Two Blue Zinas carried an incapacitated Black Zina by her arms and legs. They weren’t particularly gentle about it. They were supposedly on the same side, but losers didn’t get too much respect in their world. It was all about survival of the fittest.
The Zinas belonged to the most superior race in the world, or so they were taught. They were special. They were chosen. They were the best.
To lose to a bunch of dark skinned nobodies from this pathetic overpopulated continent crammed full of dark skinned pathetic undereducated nobodies, was completely unacceptable and deserved punishment.
“Ooohh...”
“Errrhh...”
On the dark floor of a transport van, two Black Zinas moaned and stirred. They had been roughly picked up from the floor earlier, carried over to the van and dumped on the floor like sacks of potatoes. The Blue Zinas did not pay them any attention. They dumped the Black Zina they were carrying on top of her two fellow Black Zinas.
“Aaaaa...” the Black Zina on top moaned. The beating had been painful, but this treatment was not making her sore body feel any better. Her friends underneath her were faring even more badly. The sudden weight on top of them had knocked their breaths out, so they needed to take in more air before they could do any more moaning.
“Another worthless piece of meat!” The Blue Zinas cursed the defeated Black Zinas, as they picked up another defeated Black Zina. This time they carried this Black Zina by her legs, so the poor woman was upside down and her skirt fell below her waist. The Blue Zinas carried this Black Zina to the bodypile in the van and tossed her onto her comrades. Again there were more slight moans and some squirming in pain.


Punishment

The two motorized trolleys followed their two Blue Zina escorts. This was a minor technical requirement. When issuing voice control orders, the trolley had to know whose voice commands to follow.
“The Trash is here!” The Blue Zinas called as they reached the Correction Chamber.
Another attractive, young looking woman came out. She was dressed in smart uniform with a thin, close fitting white blouse and a short black skirt. Like the Blue and Black Zinas, she wore a lapel pin with someone’s face displayed, and an armband with a B on it.
This woman was a member of the White Zinas. She looked sternly at the two trolleys piled with bodies of Black Zinas. The Black Zinas had long since recovered from the beating that Akia gave them, but they knew better than to move. Their Blue Zina allies – or was it oppressors – would mercilessly taser them again just to keep them down. So the Black Zinas had remained as still as they could, despite the rough and humiliating treatment. Resisting was a very bad idea.
“Bring them in. We will Correct their mistakes,” the White Zina said. She produced a taser baton and smacked it grimly against the palm of her hand.
As the trolleys glided into the Correction Chamber following their Blue Zina escorts, the ten defeated Black Zinas steeled themselves for the punishment that was to come.


Vacuum Cleaner

It was not even two days since she set foot on the SPOEX, but Akia wanted to clean her room thoroughly. She wanted to get rid of any dust that was not her dust.
“Be careful,” Sugto had told her. “This is a really strong vacuum. You don’t want to use it on the highest settings. Don’t ever go over low when doing the floor.”
“The power can be controlled, right?” Akia was looking for a dial, but it didn’t seem to have one.
“Like most things, you control the power by telling it verbally,” Sugto said. “So you need to pair your smartwatch to the vacuum.”
“Got it,” Akia said immediately. She figured that she could sort this out.
...
“Vacuum, lowest setting,” Akia instructed the vacuum. It didn’t seem to function.
Akia put a hand down. She hardly felt anything. This setting was actually for microelectronics, and meant to be paired with a suitably tiny attachment to vacuum the surfaces of printed circuit boards. So it produced almost no discernable suction when used with a household-sized floor vacuum head.
“Higher.”
...
“Higher.”
...
The vacuums that came with the SPOEX were meant for multipurpose use. There were many different attachments and gradations of suction power. If Akia had bothered with the online manual, she would have learned immediately how to instruct the vacuum. But for now, she was just fumbling around.
“Hmm!”
Akia got on hands and knees and examined the attachment head. Hardly any suction power. She grabbed the head with both hands and played with it.
“Higher.”
...
“Higher.”
...
“Is there something stuck?” She lifted the attachment and peered inside. But it was all dark; she could see nothing.
What the hell, Akia thought. How seriously strong can a vacuum cleaner suction be? Surely not strong enough to cause any injury to a regular human!
“Vacuum, maximum power!” Akia announced.
Suddenly, the engine roared to life. Akia had never heard such a loud sound from a household appliance before. Of course, this was not just a household appliance for ordinary domestic use; it was also a vacuum cleaner that could be used to clean out engines and fan rotors if the correct attachments were used. The Benefactors had thought of everything. What they hadn’t considered, was whether the humans using it would neglect to read the instruction manual first.
Akia hadn’t realized that this vacuum cleaner offered fifty levels of suction power.
Voooo vooooo voooooooo
An incredible force started pulling on Akia’s sleeves. It was her flowerpower outfit with nice long sleeves. The material was opaque to block UV rays from the sun, but otherwise extremely thin and light for maximum comfort during hot African days.
And now the sleeves were being sucked into the vacuum!
Akia had not expected this. She was used to fighting with tough guys. But she had never thought she needed to fight a vacuum.
VOO. VOOOO. VOOOOOOO.
The ferocious pulling continued. Akia tugged hard, but the sleeves had been sucked into the vacuum, and didn’t seem to be coming out.
“UGH!”
Akia felt as though the tension was becoming distributed all over her body. Her sleeves were being pulled, and so was her entire garment!
“Aaa... aaaaa...” Akia continued tugging against the vacuum. She had entirely forgotten that she could tell the vacuum to turn itself off.
Then it happened.
Wooooosh!
Akia’s sleeves completely disappeared into the vacuum, then once enough suction was obtained, her entire top went with the sleeves! In less than a second, it was just pulled completely off her body and her head, and the flowerpower top disappeared into the vacuum!
HUH
Akia was kneeling dazed on the floor. Did she just lose her entire top? To a vacuum, no less?
Akia looked all over herself. Yes, this is me. My breasts, my belly button. I really got my top sucked off by a vacuum!
This was incredible. She could not imagine technology was at this level now... Akia stood up, stunned. Thirty years....
Voo... Voooo.... Vooooo...
The vacuum hadn’t been turned off, so it was furiously sucking at anything nearby. And Akia’s loose trouser cuffs disappeared into the vacuum.
Ow!
The vacuum cleaner couldn’t keep sucking on the trouser cuffs because they were being worn by Akia. So the vacuum cleaner head was thrown forward and attached itself to Akia’s ankles. That insanely powerful suction was very uncomfortable. Akia instinctively sat down and lifted her feet and tried to pull off the vacuum cleaner head.
And then it happened again.
The cuffs disappeared inside the vacuum cleaner. The pulling force extended itself to Akia’s entire lower body. It felt uncomfortable, so she instinctively rested some weight on one elbow and lifted her hips a bit.
Woooosh!
Again the vacuum cleaner made off with another garment! This time it was Akia’s flowerpower pants!
Akia was left in her bra, her panties, and a completely dumbfounded expression on her face.
Voo... Voooo.... Vooooo...
The vacuum cleaner continued looking for something to suck in. It seemed to be taunting Akia.
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Re: The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 (Nigeria)

Unread postby Pol » 22 Jun 2021, 14:25

This extremely reminds a small stories, in packet format which I had read as a kid. Western, Agents, Detectives everything and they had them in each news stand. Very nice to reading and have a fun and also reasonable short. They might have similar proclamation likes your too. :P
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