The hardest part of changing direction is stopping the momentum you already have.
The shop was humming. The flywheel was spinning. We had a bucket of bolts waiting for the acid bath. We had an order for ten more spools of black thread from Madame Florence. We were making money. Not much, but steady, reliable money.
"Stop," Tashi said.
Collins looked up from the bicycle, sweat dripping from his nose. "Boss?"
"Stop the wheel, Collins. Drain the tank."
Collins stopped pedaling. The heavy concrete flywheel spun for a minute, its momentum fighting the friction, before slowing to a halt. Whoosh... click. The silence that followed was terrifying.
"We have work," Collins argued, pointing to the bucket. "Massa Joe go vex."
"Massa Joe can wait," Tashi said. "We are closed. Indefinitely."
Tashi walked to the front door. He flipped the sign. CLOSED.
Then he turned to the plating tank. The bubbling vat of vinegar and zinc that had fed us for three weeks. "Dump it," Tashi ordered.
I watched Collins drag the heavy plastic tub to the backyard drain. He tipped it. The murky grey liquid poured out, smelling of sour ambition. Glug. Glug. Glug.
It felt like we were pouring out our blood. We were killing the Rat Economy. We were burning the lifeboat because the captain said he saw an island.
"Why?" Liyen asked, standing in the doorway. She held the ledger. "We are profitable, Tashi. For the first time."
"Because we are not platers," Tashi said. He held up Dr. Foncha's letter. "We are engineers. And on Monday, we have to prove it."
We needed Lucas. But Lucas didn't have a phone. And he didn't have a shop. He lived in the "Old Town," the tangle of mud-brick houses and rusted zinc roofs behind the main market.
We walked there. Me and Tashi. We found his "house." It wasn't a house. It was a corrugated iron shed built against the wall of a defunct sawmill. The Toyota Hilux was parked outside, looking like a wounded beast sleeping in the mud.
Tashi banged on the metal door. BANG. BANG.
"Lucas!"
A groan from inside. The door creaked open. Lucas stood there in his underwear and a ragged undershirt. He held a machete in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He squinted at the sun.
"You are early," Lucas croaked. "The Ikom run is not until Monday."
"We are not going to Ikom," Tashi said. "We are going to Bafut."
Lucas lowered the machete. He scratched his chest. "Bafut? The village? Why? Do they have cheap petrol?"
"They have a contract," Tashi said. "Dr. Foncha is back. We deploy on Monday. I need a truck. And I need a driver who isn't afraid of mud."
Lucas laughed. He turned and walked back into the darkness of his shed. "Go away, Tashi. I am a smuggler, not a taxi service. There is no money in Bafut. Just dust and juju."
We followed him inside. It was a soldier's den. A cot. A kerosene stove. A stack of jerrycans. And a map of the border pinned to the wall with a knife.
"The contract is worth 2 million francs," Tashi lied (it was worth 10M, but Tashi was negotiating). "If we deliver, we get paid. I will pay you 50,0000 for the transport."
Lucas sat on his cot. He pulled on his boots. "500,000 is fuel money. I make 1, 000,000 on a border run."
"You make 1, 000,000 if you don't get arrested," Tashi countered. "This is a legitimate government contract, Lucas. Official papers. Ministry plates."
He leaned closer.
"If you drive for us... you are not a smuggler. You are a 'Logistics Contractor' for the Millennium Village Project. The Gendarmes salute government contractors. They don't search their trucks."
Lucas paused. He looked at Tashi. He saw the angle. Cover. If he worked with us, he could move around the province freely. He could scout routes. He could move his "other" inventory under the cover of solar panels.
"Monday?" Lucas asked.
"Monday morning. We load at Foncha's warehouse. Then we drive to Bafut."
Lucas stood up. He grabbed his red beret from a nail on the wall. He put it on. He adjusted the angle. He grinned. It was a shark's grin.
"I am not a taxi driver," Lucas warned. "I am the Transport Commander. If the road is bad, I give the orders. If we get stuck, you push."
"Agreed."
"And Nkem comes," Lucas added, pointing at me.
"He has school," Tashi started.
"He is the navigator," Lucas said. "And he fixed the watch. I don't trust electronics. I need a wizard. Take him out of school. Tell the Headmaster he has... malaria. Or dysentery. No one asks questions about dysentery."
Tashi looked at me. "Monday is History and Geography," I said. "I can afford to miss them. I am ahead on the syllabus."
Tashi sighed. "Fine. 06:00 AM. Don't be late."
10:00 AM
We returned to the shop. Now came the reckoning. We had the transport. We had the contract. But we had nothing else.
"Inventory," Tashi commanded.
We cleared the floor of the Lab. We laid out our "assets."
Tools:
1 Soldering Iron (12V, modified).
1 Multimeter (Screen cracked, but works).
1 Set of rusted screwdrivers.
1 Pair of pliers (Plated German Spec).
1 Bicycle Generator Rig.
Stock:
Zero solar panels.
Zero deep-cycle batteries.
Zero cable (10mm or 16mm).
Zero mounting brackets.
"It is a graveyard," Tashi whispered. "We are supposed to build the future, and we have a pile of junk."
"Foncha supplies the big gear," I reminded him. "The panels and batteries are in his warehouse."
"But the installation gear?" Tashi asked. "The cable? The connectors? The breakers? The crimping tool? He expects us to have those. We are the contractors."
He was right. A contractor who shows up without tools is just a laborer. We needed to buy equipment. Real equipment. Not scavenged. Not plated. New.
Tashi walked to the safe. He knelt down. He spun the dial. Left 40. Right 10. Left 5. Click.
The heavy door swung open. Inside sat the Sony Tape (moved to the lawyer). The fake receipt from Abang. And the cash.
150,000 Francs. The Seed. The money from the Unimog. We had starved to keep this money. We had worked in the dark to keep this money. We had humiliated ourselves to keep this money.
Tashi reached in. He pulled out the stack of notes. They were crisp. Clean. He held them for a long moment.
"If we spend this," Tashi said, "there is no safety net. If the project fails... if Foncha doesn't pay... we are on the street. No truck. No money. No shop."
"If we don't spend it," Liyen said, "we are just rats hoarding paper."
She put her hand on his shoulder. "Plant it, Tashi. It is raining. It is time to plant."
Tashi nodded. He split the stack.
"Nkem, Collins," he said. "Take 50,000. Go to the hardware store. Not the market. The big store. Buy 100 meters of 4mm cable. Buy breakers. Buy a real crimping tool. Buy conduit."
He handed me the money. It felt terrifyingly light.
"I will take the rest," Tashi said. "I need to buy safety boots. Helmets. And food for the expedition. We cannot eat dust in Bafut."
02:00 PM
Walking into Bernabé Hardware felt like walking into a different country. It was clean. It smelled of steel and rubber. Collins walked behind me, pushing a trolley. He looked nervous. He was used to digging in scrap piles, not picking items off a shelf.
"4mm cable," I said, pointing to the red and black rolls. "Two rolls."
Collins loaded them.
"Circuit breakers. 10 Amps and 20 Amps. DC rated if they have them. AC if they don't."
We filled the trolley. It was strange. For weeks, every purchase had been a war. 50 francs for a resistor. 100 francs for bread. Now, we were spending 5,000 francs on a single tool.
"Nkem," Collins whispered. "This crimper cost 8,000. We fit use pliers."
"No," I said. "Foncha will inspect the connections. If he sees plier marks, he fires us. We buy the tool."
We spent 48,500 Francs. We walked out with two heavy bags. We didn't look like rats. We looked like technicians.
The shop was packed. Not with customers, but with gear. The bags were packed. The tools were oiled and arranged in the toolbox. The voltage meters were calibrated.
We sat on the floor, eating rice with sardines (a luxury Tashi insisted on).
"Tomorrow," Tashi said, "we leave the siege."
"Who watches the shop?" I asked.
"Liyen," Tashi said. "She opens the doors. She sits at the counter. She tells people we are 'in the field'. It sounds professional."
"And the plating?" Collins asked.
"Closed," Tashi said. "Until we return."
Liyen looked at us. "Be careful," she said. "Bafut is not Bamenda. The Fon (Chief) is powerful. The villagers are suspicious. And you are bringing 'white man's magic' to a place that lives by the old gods."
"It's just physics," I said.
"To you," Liyen said. "To them, it is spirits captured in glass. Respect the spirits, Nkem. Or they will break your glass."
I looked at my bag. I had packed my school books (to study at night). I had packed my Databank watch. I had packed a spare battery for my hearing aid (which I barely used, but kept for emergencies).
I looked at the bicycle rig in the corner. Silent. The concrete flywheel stationary. It had saved us. It had fed us. But Liyen was right. We were becoming the thing we hated. We were becoming machines.
Tomorrow, we would go outside. Into the sun. Into the mud.
"Sleep," Tashi commanded. "04:00 AM comes fast. And Lucas does not wait."
I lay down on the mat. I closed my eyes. Gemini was quiet. The dopamine levels were rising. < Mission Status: Deployment Imminent. > < Objective: Electrification. > < Risk: High. >
I smiled in the dark. Risk was better than rust.