Of The Muse In You: Uhuru

Welcome to the story which I will write with your help. This project is a simple speculative fiction communally inspired but in the course of its creation I have found other people’s very real stories being told within the lines of my words……
How it works: I tell part of the story and you can be a part of this journey by using the poll at the bottom and or in the comments to let me know how you feel the story should proceed

Its been… a while since the last episode and you can catch up on The Muse In You: Scammed here.

The story so far:

An email from a stranger pretending to be an abduction victim was revealed as a scam artist but that does not mean the arent any real victims or that there isnt fight for liberation going on. Would I want to be a part of this fight?

And the results….. Join The Team

I had so many conflicting thoughts, I wanted to be done with the whole ordeal and go home and forget. This was not my fight. Then I remembered a quote, I could not place where I had seen or heard it, but I would never forget it. “Until everyone is liberated, no one is…“

“Will it be dangerous?” I asked.

“Sounds like you have already made a decision and you are looking for a reason to back out.” The white rabbit man enquired.

I remained quiet and he continued speaking as if he had anticipated my silence or could even read my thoughts “History, always remembers the heroes, the survivors, the symbols but there’s also ordinary people whose ordinary actions are the fabric through which history unfolds. You are not being asked to be Double Oh Seven” He drew out the syllables on the last of his mini pep talk, the first of many I would receive from him and nodded his head grimly.

I nodded back.

He turned smartly and briskly started walking away, then after several steps stopped and turned round to look back to where I still stood. “Well what are you waiting for, keep up and welcome to the team”

I jogged briefly so I could catch up till I walked side by side with him.

“I would introduce you to the rest of the team, but experience has taught us that erm… well you cant snitch on those you don’t know and please hand over your phone” he said as he extended his hand waiting for me to just give my phone to him a complete stranger.

I handed him my phone and he scrolled through the gallery to the voice recording I had made of a conversation with OG the hacker. “This would not have worked anyway” he said with a bemused expression.

“OG uses software which makes it impossible to replay a recording of his voice if you had tried to do play this recording, it would have resulted in your phone memory being wiped clean by a code embedded into the voice synthesiser” He pressed delete and handed me back my phone.

“You may call me Tsuro McG, I trust you are familiar with fable of tsuro magen’a” He introduced himself and his name which was a clever play on Tsuro The Clever Rabbit of folktales who was always upto mischief that usually involved pranking his Uncle Gudo.

“And as for you… we will figure out a name for you, and we will be in touch.”

I hadn’t noticed that throughout our “talk” we had walked right back to the gate and I was being ushered out.

I took a few steps out the gate and then a notification alert made me look at my phone which was still in my hand. An sms from my bank notifying me a tidy sum of money had just been transferred into my account. I looked back and saw Tsuro McG looking right at me, he tapped the side his nose with his index finger in the universal symbol of co-conspiracy, and so begun my double identity.

For the most part I never interacted with my eccentric team of liberators but from time to time I would find the odd request to do a particular task such as to post something on social media and a few other things which would be best not mentioned but after each task I would get a new balance alert. They always took care of their own.

Sometimes I would get international newspapers delivered to my door with certain articles highlighted in red sharpie ink:

Nearly six years after 276 girls from Chibok were kidnapped more than a 100 still missing.

5 Aid Workers released

Sole Christian from the 110 Dapchi girls abducted in 2018 still in captivity

Abduction Victim Turns 17 Third birthday in captivity

Abduction Victim gives birth in captivity

For the few that managed to be rescued, countless others remained, their stories never made international headlines but their ordeals were no less traumatic, many more lived in terror of being spirited away from their friends and family and never to be heard from again, not even a hashtag asking to bring them back.

McG had personally delivered the last newspaper as he knew of my interest in the developments, it was the one case that had brought me into contact with McG and the gang, the one case they just could not catch a break. A recently rescued victim had confirmed that “our girl” was still alive and well, though she hadnt seen her personally, she had been in contact with someone who had confirmed it.

The story about her having a baby was a bit more difficult to confirm as there was no proof, no one knew what gender the baby was, it was hard to get solid proof that she was even still alive; and if she was, what sort of life would she be living. They had said they would turn them into slaves for refusing to renounce their Christianity…

We had talked well into the night McG and I, he fell asleep on the couch and I sat on a rug on the floor; a bottle of whiskey washed down with dark thoughts for company.

By the time he woke up, I was dying…

It could have been a hangover or heart break or combination of everything that had happened, the futility of it all.

“Uhuru” McG sighed a long deep breath of someone who had grave news to share which had no easy way of saying and the silence it took to order up the thoughts did not make what he had to say any easier.

Uhuru meant freedom in Swahili and that had become my code name in the operation to liberate victims of kidnappings. We were like ghosts on the internet, a ghost network on ghost servers and the world did not know we existed.

“Uhuru…I know this has not been easy for you but…” Mcg finally proceeed with what he wanted to tell me and the choices I was now faced with.

What do I do next:

1. continue our operation as we have always done even though I feel like dying.
2. exit from the team, no harm no foul; start a new adventure.
3. recruit more people to our cause.
4. announce our presence to the world in a more dramatic way.
5. Meet the rest of the team see what they think

What will it be?

~B

#WinterAbc and story themed liberate