The Seed of Cain Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Agnes Gomillion and Available From Titan Books

  Title Page

  Leave us a Review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part Four: The Arena

  The Raid of Cobane

  The Library

  The Berserker

  The Fugitive

  The Veil

  Part Five: The Obi Forest

  The Compound

  The Brother, Lee

  The Other Lab

  The Bracelet

  The Library West

  The Eagle

  The Director

  The Widow’s Portion

  The Third Amygdala

  The Lift

  The English

  The Report

  The Market

  The Rock, the River and the Vine

  The Filter

  The Binder

  The Workout

  Part Six: The New Metropolis

  The Court Transcripts

  The Third Witness

  The Verdict

  The Cake

  The Cuff

  The McCormick

  The Cistern

  The Variant

  The Climb

  The Road to Cobane

  The City

  The Second Vehicle

  The Ax in the Back

  The Nuclear Vote

  The Runaway

  The Push to Hasting

  The Truth About Obi

  The Truth About Kira Swan

  The Bridge

  Part Seven: The Cottage

  The Woman, the Maid and the Lark

  The Saviors

  The Next Seven Days

  The Garden

  The Story

  The Answer

  The Record Keeper

  The Optimist

  The Coming

  The Wekas

  The Watchtower

  The Ascension

  Epilogue

  ALSO BY AGNES GOMILLION

  AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

  The Record Keeper

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  The Seed of Cain

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789091182

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789091199

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First edition: June 2022

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2022 Agnes Gomillion

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  For Black women and girls,

  namely the Queen Mother, Connie

  THE RAID OF COBANE

  We came like a tide. All at once, at night. A surge of swinging sickles. The English diplomats, at first, resisted. They didn’t understand what had changed and, perhaps, neither did we. But the drums knew. The hollow horns we filled with beans and tied to our feet that hissed as we waged like locusts accosting the foliage. They knew. And so, we came. Swinging the sickle, swinging the sickle. Slaughtering anything that stood. And when the English understood that nothing would be left standing—and that that was the point—not to win, but to reckon—they ran. And, still, we came. Sweeping. Shrieking. Swinging the sickle.

  On day ninety-six we shattered their defense, scattering the Kongo Guard. And the diplomats, with a handful of their army, fled to Hasting where they applied to the American Assembly for aid.

  We are under siege.

  Out of resources.

  Please advise!

  Each missive went unanswered. Later we learned that, during this time, America was on its knees. A tribe of female activists, the Sisters to the North, led riots in every major northern city. They aggravated the food shortage that already plagued the Northridge, so famine spread, killing thousands. The chaos depleted national resources, forcing the Assembly to abandon the southern diplomats.

  Dana Kumar, their leader, forsook them too. Before the fighting started, he vacated his commission, fleeing north to a base in the Obi Forest, which was rumored to be impenetrable. Behind, he left a stockpile at the Kongo Technology Center, and the worker militia, with me at the helm, seized it. Armor, communication equipment, medicine and, notably, ten thousand Double Helix swords.

  And so, in a twist of fate, the old southern masters were left to the grace of those they’d abused for years. We treated them fairly, ending the siege and allowing food and water. They could stay, interned at Hasting, with the understanding that the rest of the Kongo was ours.

  They accepted our generosity then plagued us at every turn. They stalled peace negotiations for weeks, then months, obstructing a final agreement. When we held truth talks, to account for our suffering, they registered counter-complaints and made demands. At great length, they issued a public apology. But their guilt, once acknowledged, became insufferable. It manifested in fevered religiosity that, strangely, made them less generous. And more paranoid.

  They dug a moat around Hasting and filled it with salt and water. They sealed every entrance and built a drawbridge with massive ropes wound on a giant spool. They installed turrets on every side and kept watch, day and night.

  In arrogant English style, they made way for these improvements by destroying what they didn’t understand. Countless treasures and 200 years of Black history, gone in a month. The library, and the stories of the people inside, were put to fire. Only Obi’s mausoleum, a clay watchtower, mysteriously resisted the flame. Though they burned it seven times, six times it refused to light. In their last attempt, they doused it in accelerant, so the fire raged—gold—with gilded smoke. And still the watchtower, in defiance of physical laws, remained. A ten-story pillar, with a domed cap, against the Kongo sky. Seeing it, the diplomats’ terror compounded. They huddled together, murmuring.

  Sorcery.

  Devils, magic.

  Judgement?

  They kept a distance from the flames and prayed the rosary. For twenty-four days the watchtower burned, like a beacon for the Kongo people, a symbol of the bright dawn of democracy.

  Hailing it, the people formed a line that spiraled around the voting polls and swirled into the countryside for miles. As they waited, the electors clutched talismans, clay towers speckled with gold to represent the flames. And as they cast their votes, a black stone for General Cobane, white for Senator Osprey, brown for the Rebel Voltaire—they felt the watchtower looking over them, like a sentry.

  We established a council of nine with one head—Hosea Khan, the Kha. They elected him over his objection and despite his absence from the battlefield. During the fight, he founded a clinic, tending the wounde
d and healing the fever that plagued the Kongo before the rebellion. His image was suffused in lore, which he ignored.

  After the war, he closed his clinic and abandoned his Council seat. He camped on unclaimed land and passed his time studying earth science. When we held an election to fill his seat, the people refused to replace him. They rebuffed the other candidates and wrote in his name on their ballots. After that, the Council carried on; one vote short on every matter, and with me as the uncrowned head.

  I performed the role with zeal. Drawing on my study of world history, and my dream of a Black utopia, I saw to the ratification of sweeping legislation. Marriage and probate, trade and free speech, farming and land-use law. No aspect of Kongo life was beneath my concern. And because of the Kongo’s faith in me, and in my love for them, I had free rein—in the early days.

  * * *

  I don’t know which came first—my public decline, or my personal. But the fall began in the Schoolhouse. It was there that I, at seven, discovered shame. And there again, in the anemic light of the Schoolhouse library, I discovered my grail: the incriminating photo of Obi Solomon dressed in English clothing before the end of the Last War.

  Obi was my political forefather, my only counterpart, the people’s first general. That he, after leading them to victory in the Last War, would precipitate their demise was incredible to me. What had happened?

  The question consumed me. In the days before the rebellion, the people shared my obsession. The photograph circulated as White-Face soldiers, Rebels, Keepers and Workers alike analyzed the roots of our oppression.

  Obi, his motives and limitations were the subject of debates and rambling pamphlets, all ending inconclusively, since the reasons behind Obi’s betrayal remained a mystery. Months of research from every camp produced only more questions as, perplexingly, none of Obi’s writings—not a single letter or note—had survived.

  Following our victory, I sought to revive the discussion. I demanded entry to the library at Hasting to scour the records there. But, as the Kongo bathed in the prospect of a prosperous future, the nuances of history became unimportant to the people.

  Nevertheless, I agitated the matter, relentlessly. No truth, no peace. I proposed to reinstate the siege until the diplomats allowed us access to our history. We would know it, or repeat it, I warned again and again—until, eventually, the Kongo splintered.

  The military proved loyal to me, ready to follow my command. The business sector, with an eye on their purses, balked at the thought of another war. Tension mounted, but the fight never came to a head. When the diplomats burned the library, it ended—superficially.

  In truth, nothing was settled. The mystery surrounding Obi’s treachery remained with us, towering like the tomb guarding his remains. The stories, and the rumors surrounding them, were a slick of oil that, eventually, separated me from my people. Their faith slipped a fraction, then another. And their doubt planted fear deep inside me, so an old shame festered.

  Months later, word came: Nicky McCormick, the leader of the Sisters to the North, was detained. Her disciples were scattered and the northern skirmish was winding down. America was, once again, standing. Soon, it would turn its attention south.

  The news revived the diplomats at Hasting. They set aside their prayer beads, lowered the drawbridge and dispatched their final offer—the Accord.

  Preamble—

  A new world re-union, if you will. A revival of the old American way. Open borders, equal opportunity, meritocracy and, above all, peace. A tri-territory, voluntary surrender of arms.

  On the day their ultimatum arrived, the Kongo Council held a public debate—would we allow America to confiscate our weaponry, as the Accord required? Or take up the sword and solidify our secession from the union?

  For hours, I urged the people to reject the Accord outright. “We must fight!” I said. “The so-called ‘Accord’ is nothing less than old bondage in new clothing—a neo-captivity. Stand up with the Kongo militia and me, your general. No compromise, no Accord!”

  Looking back, it’s clear I was terrified. Rejoining the American union without our Helix swords was, to me, the height of naïveté. I was determined to see the Council reject the measure, no matter the personal cost. And, in the end, dear reader, it cost everything—including my life.

  The page you are reading—whoever you are—is not the first page of this journal. The first ten sheets are crumpled around me like failures, discarded after one line.

  It seems the first line of a story is most important. The teller’s whole soul. The crux from which everything flows. I know the first line here. And, for months, I’ve wrestled with it, knowing too its trajectory. The story it tells is the arc of a grave mistake. And all along the bend is rage and hope. Tears that demand justification or, at least, a destination. And there isn’t one. In the end, there is only the bend of another story, sad but true. And good—if your faith allows. So, you ask me, would I have left the arena that night had I known the toll?

  I would.

  THE LIBRARY

  The arena door slid closed behind me. I kept my head low and walked, forcing a casual pace. In a secluded alcove off the corridor, I flipped open my comm-unit.

  “Jetson, are you there?” I said. “It’s time.”

  A holograph of Jetson, clad in sleek black leggings, appeared, floating above my palm. He was in the Schoolhouse, two miles south of the newly constructed arena.

  His deep voice clipped in my earpiece. “Arika, I didn’t expect a call. I—oh—hey, are you okay?” he said, his gaze narrowed on my face. “You look ill.”

  I ignored his concern. “Are you in her room?”

  “I’m down the hall,” he said. “When you didn’t message, I left. I thought—well, I hoped—you’d called it off.”

  I stiffened at the sound of footsteps; someone was rounding the hall towards me. I hid Jetson’s visual in my cupped hand and continued down the corridor that skirted the arena floor, staying just out of sight.

  When the steps faded, I bent my head to my palm. “I’m late because the debate ran long,” I whispered. “Kira Swan took an extra twenty minutes, and no one stopped her! Cowards, all of them!”

  “Well, how did it go?” he asked. “Do we still need this?” His moss-green eyes darted to the bag he held which, I knew, contained the equipment to break into Kira Swan’s safe and photograph its contents.

  “Oh, Jetson, yes,” I said. “We need it now more than ever.”

  “Dammit, Arika!”

  I held up my empty palm, stifling his outburst. “Blame Kira!” I hissed. “She used the extra time to demand a formal inquiry into Jones’s injury.”

  Jetson gaped. My fight with Jones in the testing room had dogged me for months, but this was an ominous turn. My vengeance, while morally gratifying, was legally questionable, since Jones had been unconscious and disarmed when I’d taken her eye. The diplomats continually pressured the Council to charge me with attempted murder. Now Kira Swan, my political rival, had taken their side.

  “Surely the Council denied her!” Jetson said. He sounded afraid.

  “They didn’t deny her,” I said. “They didn’t even deliberate. They approved her motion unanimously.”

  “Even Osprey?”

  I swallowed. Osprey’s vote had hurt most. In the Schoolhouse, when I’d watched her stand up to Jones, she’d become my idol. Then, during the rebellion, she was the first to read the tenor of the moment. She’d joined the Rebels, and after the fight, floated to the top of society with unmatched savvy. She represented the height of political acumen and the fact that she’d taken Kira’s side meant she sensed I was no longer favored to win the Accord vote.

  “Osprey’s an opportunist. I’ll win her back,” I said. “Only now, I’m on probation while they investigate. After my closing argument, I’m to clear my docket while they choose an inquisitor.”

  “Slow down,” Jetson said. “An inquiry isn’t an indictment.”

  “It’s close
enough,” I said. “This mission is more than politics now. I need to get into that safe.”

  Jetson hesitated, but he knew I was right. “She is attacking you, and we know she’s hiding something,” he said, acknowledging why I’d designed the mission in the first place. A maid that fancied Jetson had stumbled upon a safe in a false bottom of Kira’s wardrobe last week. The maid gave him the tip, which he’d passed on to me. I despised intrigue, but Kira’s scheme had left me no choice. If she had a shameful secret, I would exploit it, just as she’d exploited mine. I had to outmaneuver her or lose control of the Council.

  “So, you’ll do it,” I prodded.

  Inside the arena, Senator Osprey, the debate moderator, slammed her gavel, initiating the closing arguments.

  Jetson ran a hand over his low-cut hair. “I’ll do it,” he said.

  Gratified, I gave him a reassuring nod and closed my palm on his image.

  I circled my finger in the air, raising the volume on my earpiece. “Jetson?” I asked, speaking under my breath.

  “Copy,” he said.

  I moved to the closest entrance to the arena floor. “And the image?” With a flick of my wrist, I turned the scope.

  “Crystal clear, General,” Jetson said. “The stadium is packed. You’re through the double doors now. Walking to the platform, towards Osprey, and there’s Swan at the high table, left of center.”

  My skirted robe swept behind me as I crossed the stadium, mentally thumbing through my argument. Kira advanced her position brilliantly, framing the Accord, and the confiscation of arms, as a path to prosperity. She’d won the business sector, handily. Wooing them with a temperate tone and smile that never wavered, even as she decimated my character. I had command of the militia; they’d follow me, even against the Council. But everything in me resisted that path. The people together was the strongest sword. I wouldn’t stop until they united behind me.

  I mounted the stage steps as Osprey outlined the structure of the closing arguments. “General Cobane will speak first,” she said, “followed by Senator Swan. Agreed?”

  I lifted my chin and rested one hand at the small of my back, where I holstered my Apex. I nodded, acknowledging the rules.