Tashi & Son Electronics
Commercial Avenue
Monday, June 14, 1999
The morning air in Bamenda was thick with the scent of charcoal smoke and the humidity that always preceded a tropical downpour. On the street outside, the okada riders were already weaving through traffic, their engines whining like angry hornets.
I sat on the floor of the back room, surrounded by my latest "harvest."
Through Uncle Lucas's Gendarmerie connections, I had secured something far more valuable than cash: six discarded truck batteries from the military motor pool. They were "dead" by military standards incapable of cranking a heavy diesel engine in the cold morning but for a low-voltage DC system, they were a goldmine.
< Chemical Analysis: Lead-acid sulfation is moderate, > Gemini noted as I pried the plastic caps off the battery cells. < We can desulfate them using high-frequency pulsing. The electrolyte levels are low. Distilled water is required. >
"Distilled water is for people with money, Gemini," I muttered, wiping sweat from my forehead with a greasy rag. "We're using boiled rainwater and a prayer."
I looked at the solar panels. They were a pathetic sight. I had spent the weekend scouring the "Old Church" storage and Mr. Patel's back room. I had found four shattered solar panels from a failed 1980s development project. The glass was cracked, and the aluminum frames were twisted.
To most people, they were junk. To me, they were the future.
"Papa!" I called out.
Tashi poked his head into the back room. He was wearing a new apron I'd made him buy. He looked like a real shopkeeper now, though he still had a habit of checking the football scores in the newspaper every five minutes.
"Yes, Nkem? The man for the "Power-Up" is here. He has three torches to charge."
"Tell him to wait. And Papa... I need the copper pipes from the old refrigerator in the yard. And the big mirror Mami used to have."
Tashi frowned. "The mirror? Liyen will kill me if I take her mirror."
"Tell her I'm building her a stove that doesn't need wood," I lied.
It wasn't entirely a lie. If I could harness the sun, I could change everything for her.
The work was slow. Tedious.
I had to bypass the shattered cells in the panels, soldering tiny copper "bridges" over the cracks to keep the current flowing. It was like performing surgery on a butterfly wing. Every time my soldering iron touched the delicate silicon, I felt the drain on my own energy.
< Warning: Heat soak in the silicon wafer. Move the iron faster, Operator. >
"I'm moving as fast as a ten-year-old can, Gemini," I hissed.
By Wednesday, the "Solar Hub" was beginning to take shape on the roof of our shop. It was a Frankenstein's monster of technology. The cracked panels were mounted on a wooden frame that Tashi had built, angled perfectly toward the midday sun. Below them, I had rigged the army batteries in a parallel bank, connected by thick, stolen copper cables.
But the real genius was the Charge Controller.
In 1999, you couldn't just buy a PWM or MPPT controller in Bamenda. I had to build one. I used the power transistors from a broken TV and a series of Zener diodes to create a "shunting" circuit. When the batteries were full, the circuit would bleed the excess energy into a high-wattage resistor which I had submerged in a bucket of water.
"What is that for?" Tashi asked, pointing at the bucket on the roof.
"That's our hot water, Papa," I said, wiping my hands. "The sun is charging the batteries, and the 'waste' is making tea."
Tashi stared at the bubbling water in the bucket. He looked at the silent, cracked panels. He looked at the wires running down into the shop.
"It's like magic," he whispered. "Free power? From the air?"
"Not magic, Papa. Physics."
Thursday, June 17, 1999
The Blackout
The test came sooner than I expected.
At 4:00 PM, the sky turned the color of an old bruise. The wind picked up, whipping red dust into the air and making the zinc roofs rattle like machine-gun fire. Then, the sky opened.
A Bamenda rainstorm is not a gentle affair. It is a deluge that turns the roads into rivers and the power lines into death traps.
SNAP.
A flash of blue light illuminated the street as a transformer two blocks away exploded under the strain of a fallen eucalyptus branch.
The entire Commercial Avenue went dark.
In the shops next door, I heard the familiar groans of the merchants.
"Eh! SONEL again!"
"My cold drinks! They will spoil!"
The sound of small, gasoline generators began to cough into life chug-chug-chug-vrooooom belching blue smoke into the rain.
I stood in the center of our shop. Tashi was reaching for a candle.
"Wait, Papa," I said.
I walked to the back wall. I flipped the heavy iron switch I had salvaged from the military scrap.
Click.
The six fluorescent tubes I had mounted on the ceiling didn't flicker. They hummed into life, casting a brilliant, cool white light over the blue walls and the glass counters.
The shop was a glowing cube of light in a world of darkness.
Tashi dropped the box of matches. He looked at the lights. He looked at the street outside, where people were standing in the rain, staring at our window.
"It works," Tashi breathed. "Even in the rain?"
"The batteries saved the sun from this morning, Papa," I said.
Within ten minutes, a crowd had gathered under our awning, seeking shelter from the rain and seeking the light.
"Tashi! How you get light?" a neighbor shouted. "Your generator no di make noise?"
Tashi puffed out his chest. He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of something that wasn't just greed or fear. It was pride.
"We don't use a generator," Tashi announced, his voice booming over the rain. "We use the sun! Tashi & Son... we are the masters of the light!"
I sat behind the counter, my small hands hidden in my pockets.
Gemini, I thought. Check the load.
< Battery bank at 92%. Current draw: 4.2 Amps. Estimated runtime: 14 hours. We can power the whole block if we wanted to. >
"We won't power the block," I whispered. "We'll charge them for it."
Friday, June 18, 1999
The light did more than just illuminate our shop. It attracted a different kind of visitor.
That afternoon, a black Mercedes-Benz a rare sight in Bamenda pulled up in front of the shop. The mud from the previous night's rain splashed against its shiny fenders.
A man stepped out. He was dressed in a pristine white agbada, and he carried a briefcase that looked like it cost more than our entire inventory.
Tashi scrambled to his feet. "Welcome, Excellency!"
The man didn't look at Tashi. He looked at the ceiling. He looked at the wires. He looked at the "Zombie Lights" on the shelf.
"I am Dr. Foncha," the man said. His voice was educated, with the smooth lilt of the Yaoundé elite. "I am a consultant for the Ministry of Territorial Administration."
I stayed in the back, but I kept the door cracked.
"I heard there was a boy in Bamenda who found a way to beat the blackouts," Dr. Foncha said, turning to Tashi. "The Prefect told me. Even the Gendarmerie is talking."
Tashi smiled, though I could see his hands shaking. "My son... he is a genius, Excellency. He fixes everything."
Dr. Foncha walked to the counter. He picked up a Zombie Light. He examined the soldering.
"The year 2000 is coming," Foncha said, his voice dropping. "The President is worried. The 'Y2K' rumors are making the people nervous. They think the water will stop. They think the lights will go out and never come back. There is talk of unrest."
He looked at Tashi, but his eyes drifted toward the back room where I was hiding.
"If the government can show the people that we have 'New Energy'... that we are ready for the millennium... it would be very good for stability."
He set the light back down.
"I want to see the boy," Foncha said.
I stepped out. I didn't act like a child. I didn't bow. I walked to the counter and looked him in the eye.
"I am Nkem," I said.
Dr. Foncha blinked. He was expecting someone older, or at least someone who looked intimidated.
"You built the solar array on the roof?"
"I did."
"Do you know about Y2K, Nkem?"
"I know it's a software bug caused by two-digit year formatting," I said. "And I know that in Cameroon, it doesn't matter because we don't have enough computers to crash the country. The real Y2K problem here isn't the computers it's the panic."
Dr. Foncha went silent. He stared at me for a long, uncomfortable minute.
"You speak like a man who has traveled," he whispered.
"I read," I said.
"Listen to me, Nkem," Foncha leaned in. "There is a project. The 'Millennium Village' project. The government wants to electrify ten villages in the North West before December 31st. We have the budget. We have the panels. But we don't have anyone who can make them work. The French engineers want too much money, and they say the equipment is 'incompatible' with our grid."
He tapped the glass counter.
"If you can do for a village what you did for this shop... you will be a very rich boy. And your father will be a very important man."
Tashi's eyes went wide. He was already spending the money in his head.
But I saw the trap.
In 1999, the political tension in the North West was high. The SCNC (Southern Cameroons National Council) was gaining ground. If I aligned myself with a government "Millennium Project," I would be seen as a puppet of Yaoundé. If the project failed—or if the opposition decided to sabotage it—I would be the one standing in the fire.
< Risk Analysis: Political volatility is 82%, > Gemini warned. < However, the technical resources provided by the Ministry pure silicon, deep-cycle batteries, inverters are exactly what we need to scale Gemini Corp. >
I looked at Dr. Foncha.
"I don't want to be an important man," I said. "And I don't want to work for the Ministry."
Tashi made a strangled sound in his throat. "Nkem! What are you—"
"But," I continued, silencing my father with a glance. "I will be a Technical Consultant. I provide the designs. I provide the training. Your men do the work. And I want the right to purchase any 'excess' equipment at cost."
Dr. Foncha laughed. It was the laugh of a man who had finally found a worthy opponent.
"You want to be the shadow behind the light," Foncha said. "Very well. I will return on Monday with the contracts."
He turned and walked out of the shop.
Tashi collapsed into his chair. "Nkem... you just talked to a man from Yaoundé like he was a market boy. He could have closed us down!"
"No, Papa," I said, looking at the solar batteries. "He needs us. Because when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, and the world is holding its breath... we are the only ones who can keep the dark away."
I went back to my workbench.
I had the soldiers. I had the lawyer.
And now, I had the government's fear.
The millennium was coming. And I was going to be the one who owned the switch.