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Isaiah Jones vs the Sea: The World is Yours…If You Can Count 

January 1st, 2121 

Marcus Garvey Port, Ghana 

The Second Coming 

“…Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;” 

–William Butler Yeats 

Betzalel stood on the catamarans trampoline turned landing pad, covered with a carbon colored tarp repurposed from a worn-out genoa. He was a silent sentinel sleeping in the darkened downpour, awaiting the Summoning of the Golem of Ghana. 

“Motherland,” the old man said, squinting his emerald eyes a bit while reading the title aloud. His mellifluous baritone echoed through the expanse of the empty stateroom of the now permanently anchored, 100-year-old Hemisphere—once the largest sailing catamaran yacht in the world back in 2011 when she was first built. The 145-foot (44 m) long sailing catamaran now sat permanently anchored—the crowning jewel floating in a reserved slip in the center of the harbor directly in front of the Port Garvey Museums of African Arts and Letters. 

Outside, he watched a pair of supercargo ships pass each other, their decks piled several stories high with freight. The multicolored steel cargo freight containers looked like impossible stacks of children’s blocks as they silently glided beneath the great Fanon floating suspension bridge that spanned the Lake Fanon River. The mega-cityscape glistened; the great grey, 100-story concrete superstructures erected nearly a century ago by primitive first-gen robots now stood painted in garish psychedelic colors, their towering poured cement walls adorned with dancing lights of advertisements shimmering wet in a steady warm rain. The unpainted sections of the poured walls looked like the fossilized ribs of a prehistoric behemoth. 

Across the river, along the docks of the old Free Town settlement, he could see the glistening wet streets reflecting the neon lights of bars, discotheques, and whorehouses. A squad of bored street cops in the newest lightweight titanium urban assault Titan 21 model armored suits busied themselves, chatting up the local streetwalkers standing under the cover of doorways and store awnings. Older model gas-powered yellow fiberglass Tro Tro drones with black and white checkered roofs were still in use over there; they sputtered by, backfiring and belching blue smoke. There were middle-aged transports as well as old first-gen hydrogen fuel cell carbon fiber clunkers. 

A cornucopia of human misery was on display along the docks’ narrow residential roads; legions of thieving junkies and homeless beggars lined the rain-slickened streets. A small group of about 12 Chinese working girls huddled together next to a group of nuns waiting for the next auto-hoover bus under the shelter of the solar panels that functioned as awnings for the myriad of shore shop owners. The great docks constructed when the A.I. built the city were full of boats and ships of every size, shape, and color. It was a floating ghetto around a seaside ghetto just across the river. 

A boy with no pants, maybe 5 years old, stood at the edge of his family’s floating house on the waterfront, relieving himself, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had no pants and ignoring the rain. A heavy-set woman with her head in a brightly colored orange and green head wrap stepped onto her 42nd-floor balcony, looking across the bay as she let the rain cool her off. Two flights up and one unit over to the left, a short bald man in a dockworker’s jacket opened the glass doors leading to his balcony and lit a cigar, careful to blow the smoke outside the building. 

Now the smaller service drones began to buzz by, quickly weaving in and out of traffic effortlessly. He turned his attention away from the growing chaos of morning traffic as passenger shuttle drones the size of minivans began to fly by. He headed across the room to the bookshelf on the port bulkhead. 

A young girl in a white muslin linen dress and sandals entered, her hair neatly parted down the middle into perfect little Afro Puffs. She had his large emerald eyes but otherwise looked exactly like her great-great-grandmother at that age. He reached out and gently touched the cover of a deeply tanned leather-bound novel, the first he had ever written, quite by accident, of course. 

That’s why she was here this morning; she wanted to hear the stories again. 

“Did I tell you that you look just like your nana when she was your age?” 

“No, not yet, but it’s okay; it’s early, and I just got here.” Isaiah just stared at her for a moment, and she stared back defiantly. They both got a case of the giggles as he sat down on the thick cushioned bench; she sat beside him as he opened the book and began to read. It was a novel cobbled together from a collection of letters he had typed on his antique crimson Olivetti Valentino typewriter while at sea and those sent to him during his voyage from America to Africa. In those days, most of his correspondence was to his parents, Helena and Kennedy Jones, while some were written to his best friend and future wife, Aeon Zavala. 

The book included reproductions of the NOAA maps his family had kept, marking his daily progress and recording the coordinates he sent each evening and each morning in his daily text messages. It featured reproductions of the watercolor drawings he had made of the peoples he met at port cities around the world—sea birds, dolphins, orcas, cloud formations over the sea, the ports, towns, and villages he visited, his boat—a Monarch Ti 44 ft Solent-rigged sloop, the SS Exodus, one of a handful of sailboats with a marine-grade titanium hull. 

There were even reproductions of the sketches of his dog, Starbuck, napping on the bowsprit. He loved capturing these moments through quick plein air paintings and pen-and-ink drawings whenever he had time. Had it really been one hundred years, an entire century, since he set sail from the port of Galveston after spending that last night with Aeon? He had planned to leave on New Year’s Day, but Aeon had other plans. 

“How about you put off weighing anchor, hoisting the mainsail, and blowing this place for a day? It’s humiliating to admit, but I missed you while I was in California.” Her voice carried the burden of a profound sorrow he had not heard before. 

“It’s only been four months since you started school. I thought you were having fun in San Diego?” Isaiah asked, genuinely confused. 

“Look, Izzy,” Aeon explained, carefully choosing her words, “this is the first time I’ve been away on my own, and even though Penny is there with me and living on your grandparents’ catamaran instead of the dorm is fucking awesome; I still just miss the hell out of you. I mean think about it. We’ve been together practically every day since we were six, and this is the longest time I have gone without seeing you. I do not like it. I miss being able to take your presence for granted. Does that make any sense to you?” 

“Yes.” He smiled as he wrapped his arms around her. 

“I have missed you as well.” 

“You remember when we were kids, I used to tell you that I was going to marry you when I was grown?” she asked, a mischievous glint in her eyes. 

“Of course. I remember everything,” he stated flatly. “Eidetic memory.” 

“You do know that we are still going to get married one day, right?” 

“Of course. That’s just like sailing; it has always been the plan. It’s your plan, but I am on board. You’re my plus-one, ride or die.” 

“Great! Now, when you are out there docked in these exotic ports of foreign lands, you are going to be offered some wet ass pussy, and all that I ask is that you never go skinny dipping, okay? I mean it; always wear a condom with the others. Do not return with a dirty dick.” 

“So, you want my dick clean?” 

“I want my dick spit-shined,” she said, collapsing into his arms, laughing. 

“I’ll do my best, but I don’t think I can reach it with my mouth,” he replied, joining in her laughter. 

“Seriously, Izzy, when you dally with others in your travels, always wear a condom. I plan on having us a litter of smart, beautiful babies running around this boat,” Aeon added between guffaws. 

“So, we’re living on the boat and homeschooling our kids?” Isaiah asked earnestly, now genuinely intrigued. He had never given any thought to it before, even though they had met families that lived at sea during their family’s annual summer vacation, sailing bare-bones chartered 58 ft catamarans around the Caribbean. Those families had vacationed together every summer for the last 10 years, always in the Bahamas and Caribbean. Only once did they stay in Mexico in the Gulf during the pandemic when the Caribbean Islands were on lockdown, so they chartered a boat in Galveston and sailed to Cancun to visit an old friend who had retired on a boat in Mexico 16 years ago. The year after, they sailed from Galveston to Malibu to visit Isaiah’s grandfather, Hector Leonardo Jones, who lived on his 48 ft cat. 

It seemed logical now that she had mentioned it. Isaiah loved logic. 

“Well, yeah,” she said with a knowing grin. 

“I would say it worked out pretty well for us. I graduated high school two years early and will complete my doctorate four years after that. You finished two years ahead of me, and I know for a fact you slowed down so you wouldn’t leave your mom too soon when she was still struggling to stay off opiates. So, you could have finished high school by the time you were 11 or 12. Our parents did a pretty good job with the homeschooling. And our kids will learn a lot sailing around the world and working on the boat with their genius dad. I’m going to be a crew-making factory. Won’t be able to see my feet for three years, two girls and two boys.” 

“That’s the plan?” Isaiah asked. 

“That is the plan,” she said with a smile. 

“And your grandparents are fucking epic. I love them. I hope they are still alive when we get married in ten years.” 

“So, you have a date for it now, huh?” 

“I’ve always had a date. I just didn’t tell you. But now, before you ship out, you need to know that no matter what happens out there, you must return in time to celebrate my 27th birthday.” 

“We’re getting married on your birthday?” Isaiah asked, somewhat surprised. 

“Yes. My birthday is in the spring. The weather will be nice; school will be out for Easter vacation. I’ll catch a plane to wherever you are on the Exodus, and we’ll get the nearest captain to bind us in holy matrimony. I will have finished school with my double major in Marine Biology and Marine Archaeology. Did I tell you that I’ll be getting certified to dive in dry suits next semester, in some glacial lake up in the mountains of Montana or Dakota, somewhere? I will send you a link,” she said, hugging him tighter. 

“Is there anything you need me to do other than be a sperm donor?” he asked dryly. 

“Yes. As much as I love beards, I am going to want to see that beautiful face of yours on our wedding day, so shave your face too. And the only thing I will ever ask you to be extravagant about when shopping for me will be my wedding ring—Tiffany’s, and big enough to choke a horse. Do we understand each other? Have I made myself clear?” 

“Crystal,” Isaiah replied. “I understand the assignment.” 

“Good, because no matter what lies the other girls tell you, size matters.” 

As he approached Puerto Rico, the first strangers began to come to the docks to meet him as he pulled into port; there were just a handful of curious locals and three reporters; two were bloggers, but Bianca was the most widely read, well-known reporter in Puerto Rico. 

As he made his way through the Bahamas and the Caribbean islands, there were more people gathered at the docks each time he moored the ship. And even when there were no crowds when he arrived, there were large numbers of people at the pier by the time he returned to the boat a few hours later with provisions. Most just smiled and waved as many recorded his return to his vessel with their phone cameras. 

None of this made any sense to him; he was just a scientist who loved to sail and happened to be black. Big deal, he thought. This was a scientific expedition to retrace backwards the route of the slave ships from Galveston to Ghana. It was important to document these sorts of journeys, so he chose to use pen and paper to document his expedition, Galveston being the place where the last to hear that the slaves had been freed years earlier. 

At The Devils Bowl, he did hundreds of sketches and watercolors of anything that caught his eye. On the occasions when he was docked overnight, it became an unofficial tradition for him to invite a few people and a local reporter aboard for supper. He was high-functioning autistic and an introvert by nature, but he also was coming to understand that he was viewed as an ambassador for his tribe. Most had never met an African American sailor; all the skippers of the cruisers and ships they met were white guys, sometimes Arabs or Asians, and occasionally a white girl would sail through. 

He noticed that more and more people were wearing their hair in cornrows and dressing in the same white muslin linen ensemble he favored for formal affairs and dinner parties aboard the Exodus. His long white cornrows were still black in those days, before the 3rd Great War or the two civil wars that followed, nearly destroying the newly formed union. He looked down at the titanium cybernetic prosthetic grafted to his right leg just below the knee. 

Ocie looked down at his leg, always fascinated by the robotic appendage’s pistons, gears, and wiring. She would get a tool kit and practice repairing it when he wasn’t feeling well. There were newer carbon fiber ones covered with synthetic skin that matched your own, but she liked his antique first-generation cybernetic leg. Ocie reached out and touched his metal leg, always fascinated by its structure, the thick black cables leading up to his thigh disappearing beneath the skin where the sensors connected to the nerves in his body. 

“Does it still hurt, Tata?” Ocie asked, looking up at him, her green eyes brimming with empathy. 

“No, little Griot, not anymore.” He replied with an involuntary smile. Then he continued the story. By the time we reached Barbados, the last stop on the Caribbean island-hopping before we crossed the Atlantic, the crowds had grown to hundreds, possibly thousands of spectators hanging around the pier hoping to get a glimpse of the guy from the Key West video. Most came to gawk at the high-functioning autistic black kid with a sailboat. 

The video Mara and Beatrix posted the night they celebrated his shakedown run in Key West was still getting millions of views on YouTube, and it had been two months since he left Key West. Aeon and Penny, Trenton, Adira, and Raphaël had all messaged him to let him know that their favorite NPR writer, Sara Vowel, was flying in to interview them for an article about their old punk CD, ‘Death Pixel.’ After the article was published, the album of 17 songs was put on Amazon and Spotify for sale, and so many people tried to get it that the servers were crashing. It was a punk album that was being highly praised by music critics for its intellectual depth and emotional range; it was a punk album with a blues song and a blank verse poem set to bebop jazz. 

Homecoming; after the grueling 7 weeks fighting the current and the prevailing winds, he spent most of the last two month tacking and gybing across the Atlantic heading east towards the western coast of the African continent. He enjoyed the solitude; the long days and nights alone at sea suited his disposition. Without the distractions of the outside world, he found it easier to think, with no other concerns pressing than the routine of sailing the ship. 

It was in the night, in the darkness, in the middle of the great blue nothing that he came to understand the terror of the Middle Passage in all its horror in a way that he could not understand before; but after the weeks at sea, he could feel the lost souls crying out to him, pointing from their unmarked tombs beneath the azure waters. 

He let the weight of their agony rest on him in a way that he had always avoided. He moved from a merely academic encounter with history to the soul of the story; our story is unique—there is no ancestor of ours welcomed at Ellis Isle. The Statue of Liberty’s lie is on her face—whitewashed after the French sculptor used his African lover as the model for the original design of the monument. 

Where we are now, in the middle of the great nothing, shackled by fear and propaganda of your nearly transparent master. There are no Hebrews in Egypt attempting to parlay with pharaohs’ descendants about their civil rights. 

He had been distracted with all of the attention from the press, and the people dressing in all white and wearing their hair in cornrows seemed more than a little odd. The Atlantic crossing would take nearly twice as long, having to tack the entire passage and beat into the wind. The extra distance of tacking, Isaiah and Starbuck were both glad to finally see land as they approached the small cluster of islands, Cape Verde, about 100 miles off the coast of Senegal. 

The crowds that gathered when he made landfall in Cape Verde were modest compared to the masses that congregated in Porto Rico, Barbados. But that was a trick of the island’s location, being 100 miles west of the mainland. He stayed overnight, then rose early to gather provisions and then enjoyed the day with the dog off the boat where Starbuck stretched her legs running around on the beach. 

Once he hit the first port city on the west coast of Africa, the port of Dakar, Senegal, the crowds were even larger than in Barbados. Now their numbers were in the tens of thousands. The thing that seemed to shock the locals most, more than a black captain on a cruiser sailboat or his green eyes, was when he spoke to the people in their native languages; that is when people went crazy. 

They were all so happy a foreigner had bothered to learn their tongue before coming to their country, even if just passing through; they all seemed to appreciate the effort, especially from an American. Isaiah sailed south for the next week, hugging the coast. He sailed by The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire as he made his way towards Ghana. He received a text message from his father, Kennedy, informing him that the crowds were growing so large in Ghana that the government had decided to send an official to Accra Bay to expedite his right of return paperwork and his dual citizenship exception. 

They had given him a small house on the beach in Accra Bay. There was to be a small ceremony at the port when he arrived, and afterward, they had a VIP military escort to chauffeur him to the capital to meet with the Prime Minister and give an acceptance speech to Congress. 

P.S.: your mom is standing right here reading over my shoulder, and she says to tell you she loves you and we are all so proud of you. 

Remember son… “Be humble, nigga, be humble.” 

–Kendrick Lamar. 

Love Dad. 

P.S.S.: Your mother is laughing at me because I drop those dope-ass KL bars at the close.” 

Isaiah: “LMBAO!” 

Chapter 32: Be Humble, Nigga Be Humble pt 2 

“I can say with no ego, this is my finest sword.” 

–Hattori Hanzō 

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ 

“Is this the real life? 

Is this just fantasy? 

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality 

Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see 

I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy 

Because I’m easy come, easy go, little high, little low 

Any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me, to me” 

–Queen 

January 1st, 2121 

Marcus Garvey Port, Ghana 

…..Betzalel: Now, where were we before lunch, little griot? he asked the little afro-puffed girl with both of his green eyes sitting beside him on the stateroom’s bench, distracted again by the gears, pistons, wires, and circuitry of the antiquated chromed pistons of the first-gen titanium cybernetic prosthesis grafted to his right leg just below the knee. 

“Isaiah was back on the boat. It was his first day in Ghana. He had just gotten his right of return papers and was now a citizen of Africa!” Ocie exclaimed, proudly reciting the story. 

“Your memory is perfect,” he said. “We griots must seek a perfect memory of heart as well as fact. Where was I…?” 

“The boat!” she said, exasperated, ready to hear more of the story again. 

“Of course, the boat, right. May 5th, 2022, his first day in Accra Bay.” 

Chapter 32: Be Humble, Nigga be Humble pt 2. 

“The world is yours if you can count!” 

–Cyrus ‘The Warrior’ 

The next week was good sailing to the beach at Accra Bay. They were averaging 7 knots, crossing about 120 nautical miles per day as he sailed south, with the wind coming from the north. He ran a Solent rig, the jib and the genoa set up butterfly rigged with the wind to his back; the sloop’s black titanium hull smashed through the waves. Each day’s sailing ended in a new country. They carefully zigzagged between the tiny islands off the coast of The Gambia, as hippos floated in the shallows of the estuaries of the preserve. He kept his distance; even with a titanium hull, he knew that they were man-eaters more deadly than crocodiles or sharks. He smiled when Starbuck saw the great beast and began to bark her challenge. They lived on anchor for the next few weeks, sailing to avoid the crowds that began to gather when he was on shore. 

Even if he wasn’t autistic, the introvert in his nature would still need a break from unwanted attention. They finally went ashore again once they reached Ghana’s Accra Bay. He docked the ship under the watchful eye of the gathering masses on the shoreline who cheered as several helicopters hovered, their news cameramen half hanging out of the choppers filming the crowd upon his arrival. Police and soldiers directed traffic, keeping the streets clear as they patrolled the busy streets of the overcrowded city. 

The international press was gathered together with the local news teams behind a sawhorse barricade flanked by uniformed police. Reporters, mics in hand, stood in front of their film crews shouting questions at him as he walked down the pier towards the shore. He was first greeted by a young white man in a carbon-colored suit from the US Consulate, with a message for him from the Embassy requesting he meet with the US Ambassador immediately. 

Isaiah thanked the courier and informed him that he would be happy to meet the ambassador after he completed his business at the Capitol building with Ghana’s President. “I do not mean to be rude; I simply have a previously scheduled engagement, so please send the Ambassador my apologies and assure him that I will swing by his office later. Thank you.” 

The courier just stood there, mouth agape; he had assumed Isaiah would drop everything and come with him. 

The Ghanaian officials who had been sent to meet him were all smiling now. The two stocky middle-aged men in dark suits were with the Ministry of Immigration, while the other half-dozen men in starched and creased fatigues were his escort, and the others were half a dozen policemen guarding the pier leading to the ship. In the distance, armored patrol boats with .50 caliber machine guns patrolled the shores. The people gathered for the citizenship ceremony at the Baba Yara Stadium; tickets sold out immediately after they went on sale last weekend when he arrived in Africa. Isaiah had no idea this would be a public ceremony. He had assumed that he would just pick up the citizenship paperwork at some office downtown. 

The Accra Bay stadium was at capacity; over 40,000 people had gathered inside. Outside in the streets of the nation’s capital, there were estimates of several hundred thousand who had come to the city in the last few days alone, with total numbers over the entire week estimated to be 2 million. Bodies had swollen into the body of the city—Accra, the capital of capitals of Ghana, welcome home, Isaiah, the minister smiled. “Welcome to Africa.” 

He sat looking out the window at the crowds of people lining the edges of the streets, dressed in all manner, from traditional headwraps to weaves and extensions, baseball hats and sunglasses, designer tees to country folk in tattered dungarees and ill-fitting suit jackets, and old pork pie hats. Barefoot teen boys in short pants and torn tee-shirts, vendor street carts on wheels dotted the sides of the roads. 

No one was expecting a turnout like this; it was a logistical nightmare but an economic boon. A stage had been erected, and after the Prime Minister and other cadre of white-wigged black robes draped with red, green, and gold sashes as wide as their shoulders officially finished their speeches, Isaiah was led to the podium to recite the pledge and accept his citizenship papers, a passport, along with a football jersey and the Ghanaian flag to fly on his ship. 

The lanky, nervous teen sat in a chair, absentmindedly resting his hand on the dog’s neck, adjusting Starbuck’s collar as the dog sat beside him, staring into the crowd at the people who now surrounded them—suited officials and dignitaries in traditional robes and Kente accessories facing the crowd and the bank of news cameramen lined up in front of the stage. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath to calm himself before he spoke as the cheering subsided. 

“Good afternoon, thank you for giving me such a warm welcome. My name is Isaiah Leonardo Jones; I am a mathematician, not a politician, but there is no way to calculate how I got here. I was born on Sigonella, a US naval air station in Sicily, where I lived until I was 6. My parents both retired from the military, moved to Dallas, and that is where I lived for the next 10 years of my life. People say that I look like my father and that I have my mother’s eyes. 

Growing up in America, people are always telling me who I am: I am not truly black because of my mother, or others say I am too black because of my father. This dual mind of the black American is tedious. The reality is, because of the color of my skin, all my life I have been treated like a black man in America, and now I would like to be treated like a black man in Africa.” After the applause subsided, the lanky teen from Texas nervously continued. “Today we are 55 fingers on the same splayed hand; tomorrow we will come together in the power of the black fist. 

You cannot break a board with your finger, but when they come together with training, you can break a brick. Tomorrow we, 55 nations, 2000 languages, 3000 tribes will unite to form the single most powerful nation on earth, a united African continent, one nation. Unified, we will wrest control of our pillaged and pilfered resources and nationalize the wealth of the continent. 

There is more wealth in the soil of Africa than any other continent; now it will be controlled by the African equivalent of the EU. We possess more wealth than all the Saudi oil states; our mines are packed with the lifeblood of the tech industries—cobalt, gold, we have massive quantities of oil and gas. We have the richest soil; we can grow almost any food here. There is land enough for us all. It is all a simple matter of leadership understanding the source of wealth and power and how to use it to enrich our own lands instead of the lands of our former oppressors. 

And now we have control. The next generation of Africans will all have servants and wealth to rival the greatest of nations. The Jubilee will be declared, and we will command the lion’s share of the most coveted resources on the planet for ourselves. 

We now walk a new path, a path that leads to a new undreamed future. A new world awaits us all, each and every one. All we have to do is learn how to forgive one another. All we have to do is come together as one people, under one flag, over one nation. As I said before, I am a mathematician, not a politician, but I have done my homework; I have crunched the numbers, and numbers do not lie. People of Africa, remember this… the WORLD is yours…if you can count!” 

The stadium exploded with thunderous applause, and even those listening outside on their phones cheered. The leaders of every nation on the African continent had already agreed to join the new confederacy. I look forward to our future together as one great nation from Madagascar to Cape Verde! from South Africa to Libya! From Somalia to the Congo from north to south, to east to west, from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, from the Arabian Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, from ivory to the Gold Coast, to every coast!” He had to stop as the noise of the cheering crowd grew too loud to hear. He bowed his head for a moment as the noise subsided. He cleared his throat and continued, his words measured, calm, as if he were reading history. 

“The great revolutionary Ghanaian hero, our first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah said, ‘I am not African because I was born in Africa. I am African because Africa was born in me!’ ‘All power to the people!’” 

The stadium erupted in thunderous applause as he raised the red, gold, and green flag high over his fist before he waved goodbye. As he exited the stage, they cheered and chanted, “All power to the people!” “All POWER to the PEOPLE!” “ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” 

He left the stadium with Starbuck at his heels as he climbed into the back of the black Range Rover and headed to their meeting with the President. They exchanged pleasantries, and Isaiah gave him a flash drive with the designs for the AI he designed named MOTHER that would supervise the construction of Accra Bay, soon to be renamed Marcus Garvey Port before his return. 

On the laptop, the AI showed them the first city designed by AI and built by AI—hydroelectric power from waves integrated with solar panels and wind turbines, powered the city along with the desalination stations. These were the plans for what would be called Port Marcus Garvey; today the locals all just call it Port Garvey. The President and Isaiah shook hands and he thanked Isaiah before Isaiah left his office after all of the official hand-wringing was over. The security team next drove to the US Embassy to meet with the ambassador. 

He could see the crowds outside lining the sides of the streets as they drove by. He sat in the back seat, absentmindedly petting Starbuck as they drove to the US embassy. The guards were expecting them and immediately opened the gate as they approached, and they drove in without stopping to show any identification. Once inside, they escorted him and his security team to an office; they were never frisked or patted down. He was sure there had to be a metal detector or something, but he saw nothing. 

Ambassador Barry Patterson was still wearing an eye patch after his cataract surgery the day before yesterday; it was in and out in a few hours total, and afterward his wife drove him home, teasing him because he now looked like a Bond villain. The irony of it wasn’t lost on him, being a lifelong diplomat who had spent his life working in African nations. He was also a CIA source of information, if not an official agent like many in the foreign agencies. 

He was a pale, haggard, long-faced old white man with dyed black hair in his mid-50s. The other three men in the room dressed like him in dark suits, white shirts, and black ties. They looked like they had just flown in from someplace up north; they were both extremely pale—impossible to be that white and live this close to the equator. 

Ambassador Patterson didn’t waste any time. “I’ll get to the point, Mr. Jones. We know why you are here, and we want the flash drive.” 

“It’s too late; I already gave it to the President.” 

“Then you have signed his death certificate! Wait, what do you mean by Presidents’ plural?” His look of smug cockiness disappeared, replaced with a look of comprehension and panic. 

Isaiah smiled. “The Presidents and Prime Ministers of every nation on the continent now have the AI. And well, Mother knows best? You didn’t… oh no! Did you? Please tell me you’re kidding; you couldn’t, you wouldn’t have?! You little jumped-up son of a bitch,” Ambassador Patterson shouted, turning red with anger. 

“Who me?” Isaiah said as he stood, preparing to leave. “I am nobody.” 

“Okay, kid, what do you want?” Patterson said, crumbling in defeat. “Reparations.” 

“Eventually 40 acres and an SUV, but for now, you can start by getting the US Army Corps of Engineers over here to help widen and deepen the river leading to the lake. I want a minimum of 30 ft depth and wide enough for super-sized cargo ships to pass.” 

“Why?” Ambassador Patterson asked. 

“That… is above your paygrade, long-pig. Good day, sir! And send the president my love. Ciao.” 

As Isaiah stepped towards the door, one of his Ghanaian guards quickly moved to open it for him, failing to suppress her smile. The escort followed him to the waiting car, where the rest of the security team was ready to go. Once in the car, the commanding officer spoke. “I have never seen anyone tell someone to go fuck themselves so politely.” The other guards all laughed. “Why did that old spook want your flash drive so badly?” The Sergeant asked, “What was on it?” 

“The world is yours if you can count.” –Cyrus.” Isaiah said. 

“Are you joking? You planned all of this when you were 9 years old?” the Sergeant asked incredulously. 

“No, I designed the software when I was 9,” he explained. “You see, I am a numbers person; that means that I habitually calculate for example I figured the odds were we only had a 13 percent chance of us all walking out of there alive. 

If things went sideways, they would have killed you all and tossed me into a black site somewhere, only letting me out of my cage to write code for DARPA. But we were lucky. Using Moore’s Law,” Isaiah explained, “I had the software designed, yes, but there wasn’t a PC powerful enough, so I had to wait, and I calculated two cycles of exponential memory capacity, which is four years. And here we are having a pleasant chat in my new country.” 

“Welcome home, brother,” the barrel-chested red barrette wearing cornel said with a grin. 

“Thank you. I was not born in Africa,” Isaiah said with a wry grin, “but I got here as soon as I could.” The soldiers all laughed. 

“You are going to be okay, little brother; we’ve got your back here, always.” The Sarge said with a toothy grin. 

“What’s next?” the colonel in charge of their unit asked while sitting in the passenger front seat. 

“In order to receive the AI, each nation had to join the newly formed AUA / African United Alliance and commit their nations troops to the ADF/African Defense Force,” Isaiah replied. “That means open borders between all members, no passport needed to travel between African member nations; they are treated as states like in the US. We now have a united currency and no in fighting amongst member states.  

You must come to the aid when the council of 10 calls when a member nation state is attacked. One currency; we control ourselves, not the European money guild. Nationalize the continents resources and get rid of the IMF, and vampiric former colonialist corporations robbing the nations blind since the fall of their colonial rule now under the guise of capitalism. The declaration of the Jubilee will wipe the books freeing the member nations of being held in economic bondage by the European bankers’ guilds. Basically, Gaddafi’s dream is now real. Like the EU, we will be recognized by the UN by all nations, except the US, England, and Israel; the rest will fall in line soon enough.” 

Isaiah spoke confidently, even though he had doubts about several nations’ loyalty; it was too soon to be sure. When the convoy reached the pier, there were several more white men in dark suits stained with sweat in the African heat hovering near the entrance leading to the pier. 

“Good evening, Captain Jones,” the American said, extending his hand to Isaiah as he spoke. Isaiah fist bumped him. “Are you with the CIA or the State Department? Because nothing’s changed since I talked to you people at the embassy 20 minutes ago.” The two sweaty red-faced white men in navy suits and striped power ties both stared at him, obviously confused. 

“No sir, Captain Jones, we are not with any government, sir.” The second white man replied. “I’m Mister Anderson, and this is agent Smith, and we are here representing MYC.” 

“Wait, you mean MYC the Monarch Yacht Corporation the company that Beaumont owns? What do you want?” 

“We do not want anything from you, sir; we are here to inform you that your friend and our former employer, Beaumont Ulysses Johnson, has died.” 

“Yes, we were sent to inform you that Mr. Johnson has left you his shares of MYC. We just need your signature here and here, where the Xs are sir.” 

“Wait a minute. I thought he only had a stroke and lost too much mobility to sail before he gave me the boat what happened. Why is he leaving it to me?” 

“As I’m certain you already know, being his friend, Mr. Johnson had no children. He died of cancer shortly after shipping the Exodus to you. His wife has been taken care of, so do not worry about any suits; she approves of his decision. Agatha said that Beaumont thought of you as the son they never had; he kept that picture of you on the cover of People magazine’s 30 under 30 framed and on his desk in his office; you would have thought he won the Fields medal. He bragged about what a good sailor and shipwright you were. You have been in the will for years now, long before he was diagnosed with cancer. 

You are now the owner of 51 percent; that is the controlling interest of Monarch Yacht Corporation. He didn’t want to burden you with the bad news of his death before you completed your first solo sail, so we were instructed to meet you here, boss. We contacted your parents first, and they told us you were emancipated, so you can sign the paperwork yourself. Oh, and this is yours, sir.” 

“What?” 

“Company credit card; you are now the CEO of Monarch Yacht Corporation. Congratulations, boss.” 

Isaiah looked over the forms after reading them; they were all standard boilerplate paperwork. It was legit. I’m going to have my lawyer go over these before I sign anything he said to the two men. Send copies of this paperwork to Penelope Stockard Bedowitz here is her contact information he said quickly scribbling here phone and email on the back of the envelope. Understood sir we will contact her and she will get back to you after she has looked over the contracts. They shook hands and left the docks as he boarded the Exodus, where he took down the stars and stripes and raised the red, gold, and green Ghana flag. The security team and the surrounding people gathered to watch the strange black kid on a sailboat, all cheered as the new flag was hoisted. Isaiah secured the line, snapped to attention, and saluted the flag. 

Virgil Elinam Boateng, the smiling shaved head, broad-shouldered, thickly muscular barrel of a man in a perfectly tailored summer suit, obviously a government official of some sort, approached with a girl whom Isaiah assumed was his secretary or personal assistant. She wore a light dress with a bold green and yellow palm leaf pattern printed on the fabric; her hair was in cornrows, and she wore braces and large square black plastic-framed glasses. She was cute, like an anime character come to life. 

She shifted the laptop to her left hand and reached out to shake Isaiah’s hand as she introduced herself to him. 

“Hi, I’m Majid Boateng. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” 

“Nice to meet you too,” Isaiah said, realizing now that this was his daughter. “I just came to give you my card,” Mr. Virgil Boateng’s added, “and let you know that if you need me, I live in the bungalow two doors down that way,” he said, pointing to the south with a beefy index finger. “I am a lawyer according to Oxford University. I will be at your disposal whenever you are here, or any time you find yourself in need of counsel or just have questions about the country; feel free to ask. That is my private number; only yourself, the President. and my daughter have it.” 

His daughter cut in, “My father could have easily done this over the phone or by email, but I wanted to meet you; that’s why he brought me here. I’ve been following your voyage since Key West; I just had to meet you in person when we heard last week that you had finally made it across the Atlantic. They announced that you would be given your right of return papers at the stadium, I begged my father to bring me. 

We, me and all my friends in school—I’m a sophomore at St. Agnes Academy—and we’re all talking about what happened that night; it was the most profound conversation we’ve ever had. You made me look at black America and the entire diaspora in a new light. It was like the end of Black Panther—all of us walked out of the theater shook to our core, and the same thing happened after watching that video Beatrix and Mara posted. Boomers and Gen Xers are always talking about how dumb and lazy our generation is, and you guys blew that line of trash out of the water. It was magnificent.  

Most people our age do get famous on TikTok for doing stupid things, but that doesn’t make them our generation’s spokesperson. Are you really autistic?” 

“Yes,” he drawled with a awkward smile. 

“They say that you are the youngest to win the Fields Medal at only age 11, and I read online that you are on track to win the Nobel.” 

“That’s all true,” he replied, growing self-conscious. “I just like playing with magnetism and making things go fast with magnets. Electromagnetic fields and gravity have always fascinated me as a mathematician.” 

Majid smiled as she reached into her backpack and rummaged around looking for something inside of it as they talked. 

“Anyways, you have inspired me. I was going to follow in my father’s footsteps and go into law, but now I’ve decided that you’re right: we need more engineers, scientists, doctors, plumbers, mechanics, and farmers—teachers, not YouTube content creators, TikTok dancers, and rappers. I have strong math skills, so I should score high enough on my application after I graduate. I loved your critique of optimal transport and calculus of variations in your last paper you published.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Oh, and I ordered the CD to get the secret track after ‘Eulogy for Nipsey Hussle’; will you sign my CD, please?” 

“Wow,” he said, still the shy gangly 16-year-old boy from Texas, “if I could blush.” 

She laughed as he took the sharpie she offered and the Death Pixel CD still in its case. He looked at the picture on the cover standing in front of an anime mural of themselves standing in the same parking lot in front of the mural of themselves. The mural was painted by their drummer Raphael; it was as tall as the 2-story brick wall of the dive bar. That was three years ago—a CD they recorded over the spring break in Trenton’s garage just for kicks. Then they promptly forgot about it and went on with their lives. 

Now people were listening to it after NPR sent Sara Vowel to interview the band and review the album; all because Isaiah was trending online after a video some friends he made in Key West posted their conversations online. You had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. 

“I’ve never done this before,” he said, taking a moment to think; he had no idea what to write, then he signed in a scrawling cursive script, “All Power to the People!” -Isaiah Jones. 

“Would you folks like to stay for supper?” he asked awkwardly. “We’re having yellowtail tuna, fish—eh, no surprise there?” he grinned like the big goofy kid that he was. 

“Can we, Tata?” Majid cooed to her father. 

“Yes, of course, we would be delighted to join you for dinner,” the old handler said, beaming. 

Isaiah headed down the companionway with Starbuck at his heels. 

“It’s nice to meet some calm people; everyone has been so excited today. It’s been amazing to finally get here after all of these years, but it’s been a bit overwhelming.” 

“It’s the internet,” she said flatly, following him down the companionway into the main cabin. “It allows people to choose instead of media moguls and ad agents—people and governments controlling what we see. We share what we like with others, and sometimes only a few people will like a post, and sometimes it goes viral. 

In your case, a conversation with a drunk scientist hanging out on his boat in Key West with his new friends got chosen by people your age first, then others wondered what the buzz was about, and it snowballs like Justin Bieber or Chocolate Rain. It rarely makes any logical sense, like Tiger King. What was that? You’re different, and people like looking at people who are different.” 

“Yeah,” he agreed, “it just feels so weird when it’s you under a microscope.” 

“Don’t worry; people will get bored and move back to cat videos soon enough. Relax and have fun while it lasts,” Majid said, joining their laughter. 

Chapter 32: Be Humble, Nigga Be Humble pt 4 

May 5th, 2022, Accra Bay, Ghana 

“The Promised Land.” 

(cont.)…Agent Barry Patterson and his team watched from a distance under the cover of the tinted windows in the back of a white cargo van loaded with state-of-the-art surveillance machinery and a fully loaded weapons locker. They sat sweating in the African heat, parked near the rear of the ever-growing crowd. Patterson was a consummate professional, always dispassionate, cool as a glass of ice, and always in control. Today was the first time in over 25 years with the agency—in every country where his linguistic skills were useful, he had served. Speaking Arabic meant he was all over the Middle East and North Africa for most of his career. This was the first time he was scared. 

The lean muscular blonde female agent, Cindi McPherson, sat in the driver’s seat next to her boss, Ambassador Patterson in the passenger seat, while the other two young agents—both thick-necked, rough-looking Midwestern white men in their late 20s—could see the old man was shook; they just didn’t get the why. Patterson spoke, not caring which one did it, never taking his eyes off the scene at the docks. “Contact Washington right away. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick! If I didn’t know any better, I would swear he’s positioning himself to be the President of the new union of African nation-states. He’s going to nationalize the continent’s resources! That would make the new country economically the most powerful nation on earth.” 

The two younger agents, Hudson and Hicks, fresh off the plane from their previous assignments in Northern Europe, didn’t understand. “How is that even possible?” Hudson asked. “All he gave them was some AI bullshit. That stuff is useless.” Ambassador Patterson looked at the two young agents and shook his head. 

“He gave them an AI of his own design, code named MOTHER. The techs say it’s a game changer—the game changer. You might have heard of it by its dead name SINGULARITY. Think Terminator if SKYNET came to life for real, or Iron Man’s Jarvis/Ultron, or 2001’s HAL; whatever the hell you want to call it. It is real as gravity and we do not have it. It is at this very moment in the hands of every nation that was once under colonial rule on the continent. If that doesn’t dampen your drawers just a bit, gentlemen, then obviously, you are not students of history and are epically failing to comprehend the staggering magnitude of what has transpired today.” 

Once they nationalize their resources, everyone in the west will lose access to said resources as they begin to use them to develop their own nations. We’re talking all the rarest diamonds—silver, gold, cobalt, minerals, and metals needed for computers, cellphones, and satellite technology. If you have any stock in any oil company that is secretly running an African nation and stealing, I mean exporting their oil, I would sell my stock immediately. 

“So what?” Agent Hicks sneered. “Let them build their nigger-rigged bullshit AI.” “If they won’t sell it to us, we can just take it,” Hudson sang eagerly. “Send in the troops!” 

“My wife is black,” Patterson said coldly, still looking through the binoculars. McPherson released the safety on her Glock, pretending to keep looking at the docks, feigning disinterest while watching the two in the rearview mirror, waiting to back her boss’s play. She already had a spot selected to dump their corpses in the river for the crocs to eat, picked out special just in case things went the way she hoped. 

“All three of my kids are black; I voted for Obama TWICE!” the senior agent growled menacingly, with the kind of intensity that promised imminent, possibly lethal violence was like objects in the mirror closer than you think. “Ya get me, son?” 

“Yes, sir.” Hicks whimpered meekly, humiliated and terrified. He had assumed the old man was like most cops when he spoke. He was wrong; the old man was a fucking nigger-loving boy scout. About the closest thing the modern world had to a paladin. 

Agent McPherson exhaled a sigh of disappointment and pouted as she discreetly returned the weapon’s safety to the on position and slid the Glock back into its holster. Agent Hicks hoped his assignment here would be short. He hated the heat; he hated the poverty; he hated the ugly monkey-fucking people; everything was bass-ackwards here. At least in Moscow, the whores were pretty and white. Fuck Africa! Of course, he only thought these things as he sat staring at the old man’s back. 

“Where was I?” Patterson continued, now his usual cool, cold self again… “Cold Fusion… yes, young man, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They have allies with nuclear weapons; no one is invading anyone. Since 1610, we’ve done whatever the hell we wanted here because we had a technological edge; we had steel swords and muskets.” MUSKETS, he laughed at the irony. 

“We’ve worked tirelessly since the collapse of slavery and empires to keep the tribes at each other’s throats and sell weapons to both sides when the war we manipulate arises. We fund coups when we can’t get the resources we want, and we make sure we take what we want for pennies on the dollar; of everything we do pay for we may as well be stealing it. 

That has been our modus operandi for the last four centuries, and as well as for the last century we’ve squandered any opportunity to do right by the Africans. We could have easily done so, and today would just be another Wednesday, but we chose not to do the right thing, and now it is too late. Judgement day is upon us, gentlemen. We are at the mercy of a history of our own making,” Patterson added, exhausted. 

In the new paradigm, he’s at the threshold of the grand unified theory according to his peers in the field of mathematical theory, and now he has the aid of the world’s first sentient software at his side. The Chinese are not going to miss an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the new world powerhouse,” Ambassador Patterson exclaimed. “We are no longer at the top of the food chain, MOTHER…fucker!” 

After dinner, Isaiah and Mr. Boateng stood on the deck of the Exodus, sipping champagne from plastic flutes while Majid and Starbuck played catch on the beach. His white ensemble was in stark contrast to his guest’s dark suit. Boateng lit a cigar and smiled conspiratorially. 

“Don’t tell my daughter,” he grinned, “she hates it when I smoke a good cigar.” 

“Does your daughter know you’re a spy?” he asked. 

“No, she knows I work for the Interior Department, but that means nothing to her except that I work for the government. How long have you known?” he asked. 

“Smelled bacon the moment I saw you! I figured you had to be a cop.” They both laughed as they watched the girl and the dog sprinting along the water’s edge. 

“I must ask; was that speech at the stadium really improvised?” 

“Of course! I had no idea any of this was going to happen,” Isaiah said reflectively. 

“You do realize that the flash drives are useless, right?” Isaiah asked. 

“No, I did not know that.” 

“I needed something to get everyone to agree to join the union. No one wanted to be the only African nation to not have the new AI. It’s called fear of missing out in advertising. Think about it; how could any program that powerful fit onto a flash drive?” he chuckled. “MOTHER has been online for almost three years now—since I was 13. They have a key that allows the individual it is coded for to access her, but once they sign the new constitution, she would have started talking to them with or without the drive,” Isaiah said with a shrug. 

Boateng laughed loudly. 

“They are playing checkers while you are playing 3D chess. How long do we have?” he asked, exhaling a plume of pale blue-grey smoke. 

“Ten years, 2033. After all of their old tricks fail, and they weary of digging through their landfills to find the very resources they stole from here, before their satellites’ orbits decay and begin to fall from space, they will start the war. MOTHER has been right about everything else so far. We will be ready. We have history books. The leopard cannot change its spots; they cannot change their nature. We have their playbook; we know what happens next.” 

“Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was,” Boateng said with a wistful smile as they shared the silence watching the sunset over the sea. 

Isaiah phoned Aeon; she answered immediately, screaming; “You’re AFRICAN! I LOVE YOU AFRICAN MAN!” Penny and others were singing and shouting, partying in the background. He smiled; he could hear the sounds of celebration all over the city and now on the boat in San Diego. 

The Two Griots 

January 1st, 2121 

Port Garvey, Ghana; capital of African United Assembly 

“But Tata, you still have two regular legs,” Ocie said, pouting. “When do we get to the good part?” Betzalel smiled: this is the best part, little griot, but we can skip to the parts with more action if you like?” 

“Tell the story of the armor. The Woman from Okinawa…” 

“Okay, we’ll start there tomorrow, Ocie. I’m getting tired; ate too much dog at lunch.” Ocie begins to laugh. 

“Eight dogs, ate dogs! Now I get it! Why the restaurant’s called 8 Dogs.” She laughs until she cries. He laughs with her, and for a moment they are both 5-year-olds giggling. But he never forgets. He is 116 years old; he is the Betzalel and he will never forget…anything. 

-About the author 

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals; Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, Tx