Symbiosis, page 7
The entire first hour the trio spend in the library—which, as it turns out, is the only space in the entire nation that Mother will permit Shuri to be without a guard (or two) glued to her side—all K’Marah does is stare. Shuri is the person who relays K’Marah’s Henbane-as-host theory, and it’s not until Miles asks the little Dora something specific that she pulls her act together.
“Okay, so … this Henbane guy,” he begins. “You were dating him?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t call it dating per se,” she replies (vaguely flustered, which makes Shuri hide a chuckle behind her hand). “But, yes, we were well acquainted. Or at least I thought we were …” Her face clouds over with fury then.
“Got it. So … what can you tell me about him? Like, based on what you believed to be true?”
“Well, there are certainly some things Shuri and I know to be true based on our initial encounter with him. Like, he’s Narobian by birth—”
“Narobian?” Miles asks, eyes narrowing. (Okay. He is cute.)
Shuri cuts in. “Narobia is a small nation approximately three hundred kilometers—or about two hundred miles based on the bizarre measurements you use in your country—due west, on the other side of Canaan. It is ruled by a highly delusional woman—”
“Evil giantess is more accurate, but carry on,” K’Marah says. It makes Miles laugh.
“Yes, well … she has quite the vendetta against our nation and recently sought to invade and overtake it.”
“Sheesh,” from Miles.
“So Henbane—and of course I didn’t know any of this when he and I initially connected online—was actually being used by this wicked and unnecessarily large nation-invader, Princess Zanda,” K’Marah says. “He is a—what is the proper term, Shuri?”
“A mutant.”
“Ah, okay!” Miles says. “There’s this lady Fury introduced me to recently, Wanda Maximoff. It’s wild seeing what she can do with a little wiggle of her fingers. What’s your ex’s special ability?”
“He is not my ex,” K’Marah snaps, leaning forward as if to strike, cobra-style.
“Whoa, whoa!” Miles lifts his hands in surrender. “My bad! Don’t karate chop me or anything!”
Shuri laughs. “He has this interesting power over organic matter. Can kill just about any plant with a single touch, and can also use the toxin his body produces and releases through his hands to knock a person unconscious.”
“Dang,” Miles says.
“He’s also an orphan,” K’Marah adds. “No known family in Narobia, though he was taken in by our nation’s Jabari.”
“The Jabari are a tribe of Wakandans who make their home in the high mountains,” Shuri explains before Miles can ask. “They keep themselves cut off from the rest of Wakandan society and shun the use of technology.”
“Something Henbane clearly did not adhere to.” K’Marah looks away and crosses her arms.
“Okay, so he’s an orphan from another country who lives in a place with people who have cut themselves off from your society. Did I get all that right?”
“You did,” Shuri says. “And K’Marah has theorized that the alien being chose him as a host because of his affiliation with Princess—”
“Evil giantess.”
“Excuse me: evil giantess Zanda.” Shuri looks at K’Marah as if to say, Happy now? “Zanda, apparently, is the last person to possess the object our symbiote is after.”
“But it—he—didn’t go to her first?” Miles asks, very clearly just as puzzled about this as Shuri was/is. “Why does he even want this gem thing?”
The princess shrugs. “No idea. All we know for sure is that he’s here, scouring the country in search of it. My vaguely educated guess is that he—the symbiote, that is—wants to go somewhere. Based on the limited information I acquired, this nebular gem gives the bearer an ability to teleport through means that aren’t quite scientifically sound. Not that extraterrestrial objects have to adhere to our limited understanding of physics.”
“This much is true.” Miles nods. It makes Shuri’s heart swell. “So do we know where he is now?” Miles continues.
Shuri lifts her wrist and taps a bead on her bracelet. A full Wakandan landscape leaps into the air.
“Whoa!” Miles says. “How did …?”
“The technology is quite simple,” Shuri remarks. “I’ll explain later. You see those two groupings of dots?” She points out the nine that have been transported to a spot in the forest (definitely an animal’s doing) and the three that are currently moving from the base of the mountains in the direction of Birnan T’Chaka. “We’re pretty sure that’s him.”
“Looks about right,” Miles says. “Though I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that this one moves as fast as Venom.”
“Did you presume he’d be slower?” Shuri asks.
“Wishful thinking, I suppose.” Miles’s eyes narrow. “And I’m guessing that since you know the potential host, you don’t wanna, like … take him out of the game completely, right?”
“Game?” Shuri replies. “What game?”
“Oh my gods, Princess,” comes K’Marah’s exasperated voice. “He means take him out as in eliminate his existence. As in kill him—”
“Bast, no!” Shuri exclaims. “We merely want to capture the being and get him out of Wakanda.”
“Okay. Well, I know a little bit about how to make the symbiote separate from the host, and what kind of apparatus would be needed to contain it. But umm … well, full disclosure here: I’ve never tried to catch a symbiote. So not entirely sure how to pull that part off.”
“Duly noted,” Shuri says. “We can figure that out together. However, before we talk about how to catch him, we need to figure out where.”
* * *
If Shuri thought Miles was blown away by her hovering 3-D topographical map, she had no idea: When the Brooklyn-born, brown-skinned boy lays eyes on the hoverjet that will fly them around Wakanda for his aerial tour, he gets so excited, his voice cracks. “Oh my god, bro. This is so awesome!”
“Too bad we can’t take him around in the Predator,” K’Marah whispers to Shuri.
“It truly is tragic,” Shuri replies. Not that they hadn’t asked to take him around in Shuri’s personal, Panther-shaped transport vessel (with a cloaking mechanism that makes it all but invisible, no less). Mother had given Shuri that tight-lipped smile she reserves for times when she’d like to throttle her. “Don’t press your luck,” she said. “Hoverjet with Ayo, or stay home.”
So here they are. All three squeezed into the passenger cabin, with K’Marah seated in the middle. That way Miles can see out the window and Shuri can explain what he’s seeing from the view she has.
“Wow. It’s really beautiful here,” Miles says. “So much … green.”
Shuri swells with pride. “Is the land barren where you are from?”
“Land?” Miles snorts. “What land? Not much where I’m from but buildings.”
“Ah.”
“Is that other place like this?” Miles continues. “Narobia, I think you said it’s called?”
“I—”
“It isn’t,” K’Marah cuts in. “I’ve never been on the ground there, but I did fly over it a number of times during my Dora Milaje training. Narobia is rather barren. That’s partially why Zanda attacked us. She felt that we were too … stingy, I think you say in your country, with our resources.”
“Hmm,” Miles replies. But doesn’t expound.
Shuri isn’t sure what to say to that.
Turns out she doesn’t have to say anything at all.
“Reason I ask that … I’ve been thinkin’ a little more about why a symbiote would’ve chosen your boy to bond with.”
“He’s NOT my boy—”
“I know, I know. That’s just an expression we use back home.”
“What conclusion did you come to?” Shuri asks, trying to get the conversation back on the rails. She looks out the window. “Oh, by the way: We are currently flying over Birnan Djata,” she says, pointing to the small city beneath them. It’s slightly less shiny and spectacle-like than the capital, but certainly no less impressive. The architect responsible for the tallest and most extravagant buildings in the capital had her way here, too.
“That’s dope,” Miles says. “Where is the target right now?”
Shuri checks her Kimoyo card. Not quite enough space in their part of the jet to launch the full landscape hologram. “Still in the mountains. According to what our potential host told K’Marah, it would seem the symbiote gets on the move mostly after the sun goes down.”
“And from the way it sounded,” K’Marah cuts in, “Henbane isn’t necessarily conscious when his body is … being ‘used,’ for lack of a better term.”
“Interesting,” Miles replies. “Well, like I said, I was thinking about some of the stuff Fury told me in light of my encounters with Venom. This is gonna sound weird, but he apparently chooses hosts he has something in common with, like … emotionally.”
“Huh?” Shuri asks.
“So the guy he was bonded with after Spider-Man, Eddie Brock? Venom allegedly chose him because they had a shared hatred of Spider-Man. Like Spider-Man—who brought Venom here in the first place, mind you—rejected Venom at one point, and that supposedly damaged Venom’s self-esteem.”
“Ummm …”
“Right. Definitely weird that the thing even has self-esteem. Anyway, it was attracted to Eddie because Eddie also hated Spider-Man. Spider-Man ruined Eddie’s life when he revealed that something Eddie reported on was Fake News.”
“Is that a thing?” K’Marah asks.
“Sadly is in America. Whole thing torched Eddie’s journalism career.”
“Dang,” from K’Marah.
“Crossing over Birnan T’Chaka now,” Shuri says. “It’s relatively new. And is named for my baba. It is the closest in appearance to the capital city.”
“It’s, like … kinda sparkly,” Miles says.
Shuri laughs. “Yeah. I guess it is. Go on with what you were saying?”
“Yeah, okay. My theory is that even beyond the whole thing with the Narobian kid having had contact with the lady who last had this gem the symbiote is looking for, I wonder if he also picked the kid because of, like … shared loneliness. And feeling like a stranger in a strange land?” Miles says. “Not that this land is particularly strange … Just—you get what I’m saying? Alien on earth, Narobian orphan in Wakanda …”
Shuri digests the suggestion. “That’s a pretty solid theory,” she says. “Now just to figure out how to use it to our advantage. If it turns out to be true, of course.”
“Right.”
“We have almost reached the Jabari-Lands,” Ayo’s voice says over the intercom. “We will not fly over out of respect for their customs and privacy, but you can see the snow-covered mountains quite clearly through your respective windows—”
“Oh no,” Shuri says.
“What?” from K’Marah. Who looks far more alarmed than necessary. “What happened?”
“Well, nothing happened, per se. It’s just occurring to me that this mission might be more difficult than we presumed.”
“How so?” the Dora asks. “Can’t we just go in during the daytime when the symbiote appears to be inactive and, like … capture it?”
“That sounds simple enough … but we can’t fly over because of their customs—which reject all forms of technology and modern conveniences. I would venture to guess that all forms of modern transport would be forbidden to use in this region.”
“Which would mean …?” Miles says.
“We’ll have to enter Jabari-Lands on foot. And, like … hike.”
“But you’re the princess, Shuri,” K’Marah says. “First in line to the throne. Don’t all these people in this land have to do whatever you say?”
Shuri shakes her head. “We are not that kind of royal family, K’Marah. We honor and respect all Wakandans and their individual customs.”
Miles looks impressed. “That’s pretty dope,” he says. “Wish it was like that where I come from.”
“Okay. Fine,” from K’Marah. “Your benevolence is duly noted. Hiking will take longer, obviously, but anything is possible with the right pair of shoes.”
“You are forgetting one very important factor, Dora Karami,” Shuri replies.
“And what’s that?” from Miles.
“My mother,” Shuri says. “There is no way I would be permitted to go anywhere near the Jabari-Lands without at least one guard. And especially not for an extended period of time. Do see exhibit A.” She gestures to the soundproof window where Ayo appears to be chatting happily with the pilot on the other side of it.
“Oh, this is easy,” K’Marah says with a dismissive wave of her hand. Her collection of gold bangles clink against one another and make a chime-like sound that is not entirely ridiculous.
Though what the little Dora just said certainly is. “What do you mean, easy?” Shuri says. “You have met my mother, yes?”
“No, really. This won’t be as complicated as you’re anticipating.”
“Oh, please do tell.”
The Dora Karami pats her friend’s knee then. “There are loopholes, Your Majesty.”
“Okay … and they are?”
“We can get into the details later,” she says. “My point is that we need a grown-up, and I know precisely how to get us one. Who won’t tattle.”
“Sounds good to me,” Miles says.
Shuri has no idea how to respond to that.
“Yep!” from K’Marah. “Now, let’s all kick back and enjoy the remainder of this flight.”
Shuri does her best to temper her frustrations over the fact that, yet again, her Dora Karami best friend knows more about the inner workings of royal protocols than she does. Because, as it turns out, K’Marah is right: Getting a grown-up really will be much easier than the princess would’ve imagined.
Post tour and a short supper, Miles immediately retired to his suite. (“Man, that whole jet lag thing is no joke,” he said with a yawn.) So the girls are alone in Shuri’s quarters and free to discuss whatever they please.
“So one of the rules,” K’Marah says while stretched out on her back, staring up at the elaborate canopy above Shuri’s bed, “is that any Dora Milaje who is granted the Msingi title in relation to a specific royal takes an oath to attend and protect that royal above all others.”
“Okay …”
“That protection includes said royal’s secrets.” K’Marah sits up on her elbows and looks at the princess. Who is sitting in the book nook, pretending to read a book on diplomatic conflict resolution. (Fitting.)
“According to the oath, a Msingi is sworn to secrecy about anything their royal doesn’t want others to know—your mother and brother included.”
Shuri doesn’t know whether to be excited to learn this, or furious about not knowing it. “So … why don’t I have one of those?”
“You haven’t asked.” K’Marah shrugs. “The designation and assignment are given to a Dora only if they are requested by a particular royal.”
Now Shuri is mad. “Why didn’t you tell me this before, K’Marah? All the sneaking around we’ve done, and we could’ve just taken an adult with us the whole time??”
“I didn’t learn it until I was promoted to Dora Karami!” she says. “And frankly, even after I did learn it, I’m not sure it would’ve ever occurred to me to tell you. You’re … not the biggest fan of grown-ups? Especially when you are trying to accomplish something. You have complained many times about them ‘just getting in the way and slowing everything down.’ ”
And Shuri doesn’t respond. Because K’Marah is absolutely right.
They do wind up losing an entire day: Shuri goes to Mother to put in her request before bed. And of course Mother is wildly suspicious, but she does Kimoyo-call T’Challa … whose hologram groggily waves off her concern. “Okoye became my Msingi when I was twelve years old, Mother. Shuri will be perfectly all right,” he says with a yawn. (What time zone is he in?) “I am certain you trust our incredible warrior women to do what they are trained for and keep Shuri safe, no?”
Mother relents, but solely under the condition that she will choose Shuri’s assigned companion. Which of course makes the princess very nervous—what if Mother chooses someone endlessly strict and intimidating? Or worse: overcautious?
However, what can the princess do but agree?
“You will know of my selection by this time tomorrow evening,” Mother says on Shuri’s way out of the queen’s quarters. It takes everything in the princess not to balk or openly panic about the time crunch (and she could swear she hears Mother mutter, “Who on earth even told her about the Msingi designation?” as she leaves).
As it turns out, though, the “lost” day winds up being quite beneficial. Because there is something Shuri failed to consider until Miles mentions it in the library after breakfast the following morning: “Okay, so what are we catching him with?”
“Huh?” Shuri and K’Marah say in tandem.
“The symbiote. We need something to contain it, or this whole mission is pointless.”
“Hmm,” K’Marah says, much more focused today. “Definitely wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” And he winks. (Now the little Dora looks like she might faint out of her chair.) “So what are our options?”
“Ahhh … what do the specifications need to be?” Shuri says. And though she’s nervous at first—the mention of containment merely spawns a series of new questions about the nature of the symbiote itself—the more Miles talks, the better she feels.
Over the next ten minutes, he explains:
1. How the symbiote functions: “Without a host, it’s just like … an amorphous blob the color of tar. But one that can think and feel. With a host, it appears as like a full-coverage suit. Similar to the one I … I mean Spider-Man, wears, actually. Which is mad creepy if you think about it: an alien that can envelop your whole body and look like clothes?” He shudders.
2. Its most interesting ability: “It has these really wild empathetic abilities. Where it can both read the needs, desires, and emotions of the host, and also project its own needs, desires, and emotions. I think this is partially why it seeks out a host it can already identify with. Also: The longer a host is exposed to a symbiote, the more the host’s feelings and desires fall in line with the symbiote’s. Gets hairy if the symbiote is a bad guy. Trust me on this one.” And his eyes cloud over, though the princess doesn’t dare to ask why.
