# Read the first page of Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor Read the opening of Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor free, no signup. A wandering girl's touch brings death wherever she roams. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/remote-control-nnedi-okorafor - Genre: Science fiction - Year: 2021 - ISBN: 9781250772794 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781250772794&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781250772794 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781250772794 ## The opening "You come at the king, you best not miss." —Omar Little, The Wire The moon was just rising when Sankofa came up the dirt road. Her leather sandals slapped her heels softly as she walked. Small swift steps made with small swift feet. When she passed by, the crickets did not stop singing, the owls did not stop hooting and the aardvark in the bushes beside the road did not stop foraging for termites. Yards behind her, in the darkness, trotted the small red-furred fox rumored to follow her wherever she went. This type of creature wasn't known to live in Ghana, but stranger things were always afoot when Sankofa was around. Sankofa was fourteen years old, but her petite frame and chubby cheeks made her look closer to ten. Her outfit was a miniature version of what the older more affluent Mamprusi women of northern Ghana wore—a hand-dyed long yellow BioSilk skirt, a matching top embroidered with expensive lace, and a purple and yellow headband made of twisted cloth. She wore the gold hoop earrings, too. She’d done the head wrap exactly as her mother used to when her mother visited friends. Beneath the head wrap, Sankofa covered her bald head with a short-haired black wig. She’d slathered her scalp with two extra coats of the thick shea butter she’d recently bought, so the wig wasn’t itchy at all. She also applied a thin layer to her face, taking care to massage it into where her eyebrows used to be. Despite the night’s cloying heat, the shea butter and her elaborate heavy outfit, she felt quite cool ... at the moment. A young man leaned against a mud hut smoking a cigarette in the dark. As he blew out smoke, he spotted her. Choking on the last puff, he cupped his hand over his mouth. “Sankofa is coming,” he hollered in Ewe, grabbing the doorknob and shoving the door open. “Sankofa is coming!” People peeked out windows, doorways, from around corners and over their shoulders. Nostrils flared, eyes were wide, mouths opened and healthy hearts pounded like crazy. “Sankofa come, ooooo!” someone shouted in pidgin English. “Shia! Sankofa a ba!” “Sankofa strolling!” “Sankofa, Sankofa, ooo!” “Here she comes! Aaa ba ei!” “Beware of remote control, o! The most powerful of all witchcraft!” “Sankofa bird landing!” Women scooped up toddlers playing in the dirt and ushered their older children inside. Doors shut. Steps quickened. Car doors slammed and those cars sped off. The girl called Sankofa walked up the quiet deserted road of the town that was pretending to be full of ghosts. Her face was dark and sweet and her jaw was set. The only item she carried was the amulet bag a juju man had given her five years ago, not long after she left home. It softly bounced against her hip. Its contents were simple: a roll of money that she rarely needed, a wind-up watch, a jar of shea butter bigger than a grown man’s fist, a hand-drawn map of Accra, and a tightly rolled-up book. For the last week, her book had been an old old copy of No Orchids for Miss Blandish, a paper novel she barely understood yet enjoyed reading. Before that, a crumbling copy of Gulliver’s Travels. ## Books with a similar feel - [We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor](https://uncovered.ink/read/we-are-legion-dennis-e-taylor.md) - [THE LOLA QUARTET by Emily St. John Mandel](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-lola-quartet-emily-st-john-mandel.md) - [Witch King by Martha Wells](https://uncovered.ink/read/witch-king-martha-wells.md) - [Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky](https://uncovered.ink/read/service-model-adrian-tchaikovsky.md) - [Abandon by Blake Crouch](https://uncovered.ink/read/abandon-blake-crouch.md) - [Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu](https://uncovered.ink/read/ball-lightning-cixin-liu.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.