As my plane began preparation for landing, I thought about my plans for my time in Wakanda. I was looking forward to seeing my friend Naledi again. We'd originally met in rural Cameroon, doing relief work, helping with local wells that had become contaminated from nearby mining activity. We'd been fast friends, and when we ended up studying at nearby universities for grad school, that had cemented into a lifelong friendship. When Wakanda had started opening up to outside influences, I had been one of the first scientists invited to collaborate at their top learning institution, in part because of my work on heavy metals and ecosystem impacts, and in part because Naledi trusted me, and vouched for me to the committee.
I'd called ahead, and let her know I was coming, and a bit about why. I flew in on a commercial flight, to an airport just outside the barrier, and she insisted on coming to pick me up personally in her lightflyer. When I exited the plane onto the tarmack, the scent of Africa hit me: dry grass baking in the sun, and indigenous pollen, and the minerals in the earth. For a moment, I was awash in memories and nostalgia.
At arrivals, I was greeted with Naledi with a huge hug. I collected my luggage, and she guided me to where she had left her lightfligher ready to take me the rest of the way in to the City. We soared up, passing through the barrier with a shimmer. On the other side, the African plain spread before us, the Wakandan penchant for aerial travel meant it was untouched by highways or other industrial routes, just the soft, organic tracks left by herdsmen or wildlife. I settled in for the short flight. I hadn't spent much time in the capitol, the Golden City. But, since Naledi had set up her lab, having received the royal commission to oversee Wakanda's ecosystem integrity, she had relocated there, and so I was going to set up base there for the visit. I had plans to visit her lab for two weeks, she was going to assist with a particularly tricky remediation question I couldn't answer with the resources and technology available to me in the US, and she was keen for my insight and suggestions on the new program she had implemented across Wakanda. She insisted I stay with her, and I was looking forward to productive days in the lab and fieldwork, followed by evenings together full of fun and gossip.
The next morning, after a long night in of catching up, I joined her on her way in to work.
"I'll give you the grand tour, and then we'll get you settled in to a bit of lab you can use while you're here. We're a bit tight on space, but we've got plenty of resources, so just let me know if there's anything else you need."
"Thank you, Naledi. You're more than generous. I'd love to see how you've used your space before I start meeting with the architects for my new lab."
"We had some growing pains when we first moved in, but we've pretty much figured out what works and what doesn't now. I'll give you some more specific notes sometime while you're here."
"That would be perfect, thank you."
After your tour, during which you visited the lush research greenhouses, the immaculate clean-room labs, and the huge garage-like staging area, you would up with Naledi in her central office space. You say office space, but technology ran so different in Wakanda. Rather than rows of monitors showing displays, her workspace centered around a large table, complete with rapidly changing 3D displays of graphs, and landscapes. Since Wakandans grew up almost from birth equipped with kimoyo beads, they were used to interacting kinetically with their technology, as a part of their environment, rather than expecting to have to go to a console to access it.
You were engrossed with an issue of water flow, helping Naledi plan the best way to seamlessly integrate a new border tribe settlement into the existing landscape and ecosystem, when you were interrupted by a loud, tall young woman.
"Look what I brought you Naledi," she said, spilling out an armful of Wakandan tech over the central table, scattering our planning graphs and maps into dissolving motes of brightness.
Naledi picked up one slender rod; it looked like a surveyor's marker, but finely wrought with subtle electronic markings and what were probably highly sophisticated sensors. "Thank you, Shuri. These will be very helpful. We'll put them to use right away."
"Yes, but they don't just do the sensing that you asked me to do. If you activate it like so," and she turned a bead on her wrist, bringing up a user-display, "it sends out sampling tendrils, up to half kilometer long, so you can take mineral samples back to the centre rod, where it'll do an in situ mass spec, and send you back the data."
You were impressed, but not exactly surprised. That sort of data collection would take four people and six different pieces of equipment in America. You were a little envious of Wakandan tech, you'd long ago come to terms with the fact that your own work just happened slower than it did here. Better technology just meant moving on to the next problem question sooner.
"That's wonderful Shuri. You always go above and beyond..." Naledi spoke up again, "When we've caught your interest, that is. I wasn't expecting these for another month. Are you sure you're just dropping these off, or did you really want to check up on your White Wolf's people?"
Shuri gave Naledi a saucy grin, "I can do both."
She turned to me and stuck out her hand, "Hi, I'm Shuri."
I grasped hers, African-style, making sure to support my right arm with my left, and not being surprised when it swung from a standard shake to a combination of hand clasps. This wasn't my first go-round in Wakanda. "I'm Rachael."
Naledi introduced us properly. "Shuri, this is Dr. Rachael Breton. She's an old friend of mine, visiting from Damage Control in America. Rachael, this is Shuri, crown princess of the Golden Tribe, and lead of the Design Group. She's been looking over James Barnes' stay here in Wakanda."
Oh. The White Wolf comments started to make a bit more sense now. "It's an honour to meet you."
"Any friend of Naledi is a friend to me. I hope you are enjoying your time in Wakanda."
"I am. I love it here. Any excuse to come visit." I waved.
Naledi steered to conversation back to technical topics, and I was impressed at how quick to problem solve and how eager to help Shuri was. I was happy that Naledi had someone like that backing her. Although, I thought Tony was bad for teasing his coworkers. Shuri was delightfully bratty in a way that only truly brilliant people could carry off.
After we wrapped up our business, Shuri took her leave of us, and Naledi lead me through the facility to her private office.
"Sorry, I should have warned you. Shuri likes getting a rise out of people. She doesn't have much of a filter."
"No, it's fine. She reminds me a lot of Tony Stark back at Damage Control. It seems that we remediation ecologists are just cursed to be plagued with overly-enthusiastic, snippy engineers, the world over"
"Don't get me wrong, Shuri's an amazing help. Half the things we do for the country wouldn't even be possible without her amazing design work, not to mention her brother's steady financial support."
"My sentiments exactly. Tony's got an engineer's mind and I appreciate it so much that he turns it to the tasks that I ask him to. Plus, the whole new facility thing was his idea, and wouldn't even be possible without him."
"Yup. That's definitely our dynamic to a tee. All I've got to do is get my own super-soldier love interest, and we'll be a matching set."
"Well," I said, eyeing the doorway to the wider facility suggestively, "From what I've seen of Wakanda's elite warriors, you're pretty much spoilt for choice there."
"Ha," she laughed in response, and after a brief interlude of what totally weren't giggles, I basically gave up on any more scientific discourse for the day, and switched to personal topics, like wedding planning details, and your plans to meet up with Bucky later that evening. You were a little nervous to meet your fiancé's best friend, but with all that Steve had told you, you felt like you half knew him already, and from the way Shuri talked about him, he seemed like he was settling in and making friends again, after his time as the Winter Soldier.
Author's Note:
Sorry it's getting a little rambling. I don't know if people are still enjoying this, or if I should start to wrap things up. Any input is appreciated.