"But sooner or later, we’re all going to fall, because we can only stand so tall before we’re sinking: to our legs, to our knees, to our torsos, to our heads. Till there’s nothing left and we breathe in particle dust and water that draws too much like ogbono soup. Water that’s mixed with the leaves and the soil and the garbage I didn’t throw away properly. Water that isn’t water."
"‘Cordyceps is a genus of endoparasitoid fungus,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘It targets insects…anthropods…’ She was talking very quickly now, pacing up and down. ‘Have you heard of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis? It’s a fungus that affects ants; they call it the zombie-ant fungus. This is crazy!’"
"When he returned from his travels, he brought a contingent of scientists and engineers who built the tower and several other structures. But, after a year of serious work, they packed up and left."
"In modernity the oceans are places of globalisation, capitalism, and climate change. Through Afrofuturist visions the seas offer aesthetic languages for aquatic transformation and fictional marine species. "
"‘I don’t want you to fail. But…’ Kahindo pointed back in the direction of the huts where Priti would no doubt be drinking with Chase. ‘They know nothing about our people.’ He looked down at the floor and for a while neither of us spoke, then he said, ‘There are no flying monkeys.’ I glared at him. ‘So what the hell–’ ‘We needed the money. Without guards and bribes, the poachers would destroy everything. I won’t let that happen,’ Kahindo said. ‘So you made it all up? Is this some kind of joke to you?’ ‘It’s not a joke, they fly, but they’re not monkeys,’ Kahindo said. I stared at him, waiting for him to continue. "
"Being offline from Orisis, my artificial intelligence mother governing Pinaa, the inhabited moon of Mahwé, means I am unable to find a solution or explanation for this scenario. I cycle through microseconds of data, yet even with a world of knowledge built into my system, along with a billion iterations of an action, I cannot find a reason for my abduction mere hours ago."
"They called themselves the Gaia Accord. A group of elites and technocrats that pushed for global technocratic stewardship. Governments replaced by systems, presidents replaced by panels, parliaments by predictive models. The climate collapse had come faster than anyone expected, and in the aftermath of the Migration Years, the famines, the water wars, the pandemics that never ended, people were too tired to argue. That they controlled Lethal Autonomous Weapons through their monopoly over AI systems, meant arguing was futile anyway."
"Here we are. Six magnificent black rhinos, muscles rippling under thick, wrinkled hides – the first to tread this earth in more than a decade since the last beast died alone in a miserable British zoo. Granted, they’re all young still – mere babies, according to Theuns Theunissen, director of Houmoed Private Game Reserve. Dear god, I loathe that man with the power of a hundred suns going nova. He looks like he’s stepped out of one of those nature doccies on one of the major streaming services – all blond, with a tan out of a bottle, and his teeth so white they must’ve cost as much as a small car. Apparently, he’s eighty, but doesn’t look a day over forty. Amazing what money can do. Especially when it comes to scrubbing what he did to a young, upcoming influencer at a product launch five years ago."
"The other ’mancers spoke first and no one had good news. Even those who reported fewer abnormalities in their readings remained baffled by the lack of rain, the absence of the turtles, the thinning schools of fish, and the withering crops."
"When children in my region completed their schooling, they left to live and work at The Centre. Other children in other regions went to the ships to lay undersea cables. In the poorer regions, they went to work underground in the lithium mines. In some parts of the world, we were told there were Centres located underwater, and even some in outer space. But I couldn’t imagine my people living under the sea or up in the sky. We were people of the land, and our memory was in the soil."