AI Wore Human Skin In Abia(ABSU)

       

AI Just Arrived.

I thought it was just a calculator for our statistics course in 300 level.

‘It is not possible!’ Anuri shouted the day I told her we might be getting new phones from the Federal government.

 Last week, Memoboy dropped a bomb: AI is coming to our school  

 Unbelievable.

 Abia State University was the last place I  ever expected to see anything  made of Artificial Intelligence. Our hostel walls were cracked, the toilets leaked shit like damaged soakaways. The smell oozed fiercely, and soon became part of our scent, our skin. After two weeks, you wouldn’t notice it anymore. Your nose, like your hope, will adjust. But what didn’t adjust was the rising number of students battling complicated Malaria .  Every test result showed one or two microorganisms .

The walls around the Bush-house area were broken, three months after the heavy downpour. Classrooms had leaking roofs. Even the Medicine and Surgery department were scattered like broken pieces on the floor. No Memo, no Announcement.  Definitely,  nothing.

 How could  the government ignore all these and jump to AI? So maybe they meant phones. Yes, pocket AI. I once told Anuri that phones are AI in our pockets but we chose not to call it that.

The school was located inside Uturu, a village. Indeed, it  stood like one. The shops at the entrance were stanched with dirty shaking roofs. Moth feasted on the buildings, and gave it a dilapidated look.

‘Is this a banned area?’ a boy who sat near me asked. We were all in a bus that took us to school on our first day.

‘I think so.’ The girl  behind him responded. ‘It may have been infested by cultists and locked by the school authority to put things in check. Maybe, it’s been five years because this looks like crap.’

Our bus rode like a bee in search of a tree into the gate leading to this same banned area, I believed it was. About three different bus stations were there, drivers loading and offloading students’ boxes, cupboards, Stoves.

Wait! Even refrigerators?

I could see the girl’s eyebrow rise, the boy’s mouth agape and my eyes kept blinking like they were covered with sand. This can’t be Uni, is it?

 Anuri didn’t believe the ‘AI lie,’ as she called it. I couldn’t believe either. Nicole’s  hope that maybe Abia could do better than Ebonyi (her state) was dangling at this point. Anuri didn’t find it funny. She stared at me, eyes tired.

‘Have you forgotten how wicked these people have been to us,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘Since the days of Ojukwu and Abacha we’ve been labelled enemies. Remember the killings in Kano? This same government didn’t raise a voice, and you think they care to gift you phones? You must be dreaming.’

She wasn’t just upset, she was hurt. Her wrinkled forehead and her teary eyes read, ‘don’t annoy me.’

 Sadly, she was right.

Dr. Abata told us how her village turned into a mortuary during a clash between Fulani Herdsmen and the locals. All because a man, Fulani, was cutting banana branches to treat his wounded cow. A villager told him to stop, and it ended in blood.

‘Maybe they will be giving us calculators for statistics in 300 level. It’s also a pocket AI, isn’t it?’ Chidimma added.

‘Exactly,’  Anuri said, stretching her arm in agreement. That move irritated me more than her words. If only they believed it could be better. If only I believed too.

 

              ---

 

Days turned into weeks, no memo from the Federal Government, none from the State Government  and absolutely nothing from the school’s Senate. But Professor Lotanna, from Anambra. He has a dark complexion, his lips lined with two shades of pink; the upper one darker than the lower. His green eyes flicked like ferries that forced an ‘oh my God’ from Nicole’s mouth. His muscles pressing sharp against his shirt. His long fingers moving like petals.

My heart kept beating against my chest, aligning to each step he made while entering the classroom. Anuri dilated her pupils in wonder.

‘Aunty, you be church girl oo,’  Urenna reminded Nicole.

 ‘Good morning students!’ Professor Lotanna greeted.

‘Is this bass or thunder?’ Anuri said like a statue. Rigid.

Then, we remembered we were supposed to stand and greet. It is a nursing rule Mrs. Okpara taught us. She instructed that she would leave our class any day we failed to stand and recognize her presence, and she would never go back to the topic she had for that day.

‘Good morning Sir,’ we chorused.

‘Handsome!’ a student shouted from behind.

And just like that, like a passing wind, he ignored all responses, and moved to the white board.

‘Pathology’ he wrote on the board. His hand writing was quite different. It was unlike anything we’ve seen before; neat, mechanical, almost printed. His a’s curved like they were typed by a typewriter.

The lecture was swift. He spoke and moved with precision like a military guard.

His eyes ? Sharp. His ears? Sharper. They were like blazers, piercing through our souls. He killed a bug at the middle row. How did he see that from the board?

Amaka’s humming  was detected as soon as it started. He told anyone to stand to their feet, just anyone , and went ahead to preach about distractions, I guess he could read our minds through our eyes.

 This was how suspicion crept in. 

The man seemed to have twins in other departments. Professor Nkechi, a woman with red eyes, roots from Anambra. Her lips were thick, red and full like someone who indulged in lip fillers. She was curvy, her curves looked more like sculpted art than a work of nature. She taught Blood Physiology to Medsurg students.

 Mr. Ojiaku, preferably called The boss because he seemed to be in his mid fifties. His pupils were golden, and they gazed like cameras taking pictures of our entire school.

The news spread like wild fire. How we had three distinct lecturers who walked with precision, heard sharply, smelled with their eyes and commanded serious tranquility while taking their lectures.

While these three graced our school with positive changes, some cultists roamed with threats and danger. We couldn’t attend lectures for four days due to cult clash. The Eaves and Buccaneers threw their fires like rebellious stars scarring the midnight sky.

For the first time in a while, the school released a Memo that read: Indoors While We Work.

‘Work wetin?’ Nicole said after going through it.

‘Is this their first time of promising us safety?’ her voice rising.

Why are they now giving us an assurance like we are newbies!?’ She asked.

We were all in her room, our fingers crossed, our heartbeat connected with fear, and although we couldn’t spell the words, we believed something had shifted recently.

 There may be hope.

So, on the fifth day, the gunshot came closer, nearer to our hostel buildings. In fear we all laid on our bellies. The Man o’war theme flew after two of their members were taken down. We thought the world was ending; or maybe AI had truly arrived, and we just didn’t know it came in human form.

  In front of our hostel, Mrs. Nkechi appeared. Like a steel she wasn’t shaken by the gun shot. She kept her eyes on the culprits- she counted them, one after another.

For the first time in our lives, we heard a female’s voice sound as loud as a moving train. Her voice had no air, it was synthesized. Her pupils contracted like optical sensors. She didn’t flinch; she executed a scan.

“One, two, three. Target acquired,” she whispered, though no one around her could hear.

‘Hostel I.’

Almost immediately after she spoke, we saw Professor Lotanna and Mr. Ojiaku running to the scene. They appeared to be teleporting, their legs were as fast as the wind.

Anuri, Nicole and I stared at each other. Streams of unanswered questions swam through our minds.

‘Is this the AI?’. How come our there was no Memo?’  ‘Why did the School choose this over developing damaged infrastructures.’

A scream brought us back to the window. It was Professor Nkechi on a pool of her blood.

A student had hit her with an axe from behind. Just like that, Professor Lotanna and Mr. Ojiaku laid lifeless too.

 ‘Does AI bleed?’

 

        ---

The tumult was now drowned out by the Police siren. Two cultists were held captive, the rest fled. It was reported that the girl who struck Prof. Nkechi was fighting for love. She was arrested afterwards.Her boyfriend was among the culprits.Their bodies were taken to the senate building for examination.

Just then a Memo came in; From the State Government to our school.

 AI On Assignment… it read.

The letter contained answers to all our silent questions.First Mr. Ojiaku, Professor Lotanna and Professor Nkechi were military personnels who died in service. The US government had made a treaty with the Nigerian government, to help curb corruption in Education sector for future affiliation purposes. Anambra was the AI headquarters for Southeastern Nigeria.  AI Drones were inserted into the brains of the most diligent Comrades of the Military. It gave them a new life and new personalities. No feelings, just a goal to get things done. Their brains were controlled by the same ICU, so if Obi dies, Ada dies too.

We also learned it was called “Project: EduWatch”part of a U.S.-Nigeria pact to test synthetic intelligence in failed infrastructures.

Our basic needs were not yet met, but this gave us hope. Hope that one day, just one day, we will become like the schools we admire, the Excellence we dream of.