Aliyu was still trying to decide if he preferred Manaus by night or by day. At night, the weather was a little more pleasant, but the work was much more uncomfortable. Besides walking much more, it took time for his nose to get used to the odors of the activity. During the day, his nose very rarely experienced discomfort, but the heat was something he still hadn't gotten used to. In the lands where he grew up, that humid, hot air only appeared deep down in the tin mines, where there was definitely no wind. Warm wind like that of Brazil was something he could never have imagined before.

Heat aside, he had to keep working. Backpack on his shoulders, he carried boxes of vegetables and fruits from the trucks to the market stalls, which required even less concentration than the night work. On a normal day, this wasn't a good thing: his mind usually dwelled on the near-lynching in the mines, his father's disapproving look, his mother's dread. It was either that or imagine what it would be like when his little sister bled for the first time. Poor as they were, little Zainab would be forced to marry whoever offered the highest bid and…

That day, however, it was other scenes that were playing out in his brain. No matter how hard he tried, the vision of that orange-red beard kept coming back. The tattoos on the neck, the hairy chest under the silk shirt, the thighs, and even the bulge between them. And the eyes. Everything had happened too far away and in too dark a place to identify the color, but the memory of them remained, fresh, vivid. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, but it had been happening more and more frequently since he had come to Brazil, and it had never been so strong, to the point of making him feel as if the ground had disappeared. Was it… fear? Yes. A deep fear that he would never feel anything like that again, for anyone. He also knew that he didn't want anyone else, and he recognized that it was absolutely stupid of him. The chances of seeing that man again were low, very low, and even if there was a minimal chance of meeting him again, at a distance, in that same place, it would only be to see him again embracing one of the women who spent their nights with their breasts exposed.

The African asked himself what expectations he had, after all. If he met that strange guy face to face, what would he do? Or rather: what would he want to do? Between one box and another of bananas, he saw himself hugging the redhead tightly, searching for the scent of that beard, that neck, that hairy chest. He wanted to feel that tattooed skin, the muscles, the thighs, the… The bulge. He wanted to massage it, to feel if it was indeed as hot as he imagined. He wanted…

He no longer dared to imagine what he wanted. There was no reason to either. He knew very well what any man would do if he acted like that. And as much as he knew that the redhead would hardly be able to hurt him, the mere idea of the disgust the other would feel was much more painful than anything.

As his mind went back and forth in these thoughts, his body also went back and forth between the trucks and the stalls, boxes and boxes loaded with his eyes downcast, thoughtful. At least until he saw in his path a pair of Caucasian feet, in sandals, with white painted toenails. At first, this wouldn't catch his attention, but as soon as he took a step to the right, to dodge, the feet did the same. And when he went back to the left, again trying to dodge, the feet followed the movement, again blocking him.

There wasn't much to do but raise his eyes a little. What he saw was a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair and a short, loose dress.

"Hello, big boy!" she greeted him in crystal-clear English. As he just tried to dodge, she blocked his path again and crossed her arms in front of her body. She asked:

"So? What's your name?"

"Aliyu. Sorry, ma'am, I need to keep working."

"How much do you make in this job, Aliyu? Carrying boxes back and forth?"

"I… I don't really know. Ten… ten reais... I think."

"Well, I know a job where you'll earn much, much more."

That definitely caught the African's attention.

"And what do I have to do?" he asked.

"Well… I can't say here." she replied with a smile.

Aliyu noticed his boss's angry look at the end of the corridor. He was taking too long with this conversation.

"Well, ma'am… I have to keep working. My boss is already getting mad."

"Well, I guarantee that if you come with me, you'll earn much more money than with your boss."

"But what about after?"

"After what?"

"I work with him every day. And I need to save money every day."

"How much do you need to save?" she asked.

That was a number Aliyu never forgot. And maybe… maybe he could have hope:

"Thirty thousand. Thirty thousand reais."

The woman smiled again and replied:

"Working for me, you can earn that in three weeks."

The African felt his chest tighten. Was this really happening?

"And what do I really have to do?"

"To start, drop that box and follow me."

"It's not any criminal work, is it? I won't have problems with the police?"

"No, it's nothing criminal." the woman smiled and put on sunglasses and a hat, walking away. When he didn't follow her immediately, she turned to him and insisted, "So? You coming?"

Aliyu ran with the box to his old boss, apologized in English and Hausa, dropped the box on the ground, and ran to catch up with the blonde woman. He followed her through the crowd to one of the less crowded streets in the center, next to the cathedral. They approached a luxurious silver car. She opened the driver's door and indicated, with a nod of her head, the door on the other side.

The African had already opened the car door when he heard howls and whistles coming from the market, people crowding around something. Without understanding exactly why, he stopped, his heart small and cold, watching.

"Shall we go?" the woman insisted.

"What's happening?" he muttered to himself in Hausa.

As if she understood, she replied, but in English, while starting the car:

"It must be a little fight between Brazilians. They love to see people fighting. So, big boy? Shall we go?"

He looked again at the commotion. His heart raced, his hands sweated, cold. Was he… afraid? If he was, why wasn't he even thinking about leaving?

Then, in the crowd, some people started screaming and running away in panic. Aliyu only realized that he was walking towards the commotion, leaving the car behind, when the blonde woman honked the horn and shouted his name.

"We must to go now!" she insisted.

He paused and stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded. He knew it didn't make any sense, but he had to find out what was happening in the market. He was about to stammer out an apology when she pulled out a gun and unloaded its entire contents into him.

Thirteen projectiles hit Aliyu in the chest, neck, and shoulder. They weren't bullets. They were tiny darts, barely larger than watermelon seeds, yet they pierced the African's skin. His vision blurred, his legs buckled, and he sank to his knees.

Everything that followed happened in a flash. As his vision sharpened, the world suddenly bursting with detail, a surge of power flooded his chest, spine, legs, and arms. He didn't even try to remove the darts; he just wanted to run. He hadn't been incapacitated yet, but he wasn't going to wait around to find out the effect of another volley of those things.

Before he could even get to his feet, the chaos from the market had reached the cathedral. Over the screams of passersby, the blonde woman yelled:

"Bring in the Hammer Exos!"

As she did so, she stepped out of the car and slammed another magazine into the pistol. Again she unloaded the weapon, but this time it was bullets, not darts. Each shot was a deafening roar that sent the panicked crowd scattering, creating a gap between Aliyu and the woman. The impacts hit him like powerful kicks, agonizing as hell as they tore through his skin, but they didn't bring him down. Like the darts, they lodged where they struck, but unlike the darts, they didn't make him dizzy. He continued to rise and turned towards the market, when he saw five large, strange machines crash down around him, gouging craters in the asphalt. At first, he thought they were tractors, but he soon understood: tractors had wheels, not legs and arms like those things. And most importantly, they didn't have weapons attached like the many that were now pointed at him.