OBSOLETE Ep. 6: JAMAL

Jamal and other young soldiers train with Zahir on Exoframes in Sub-Saharan Africa. As tanks roll through the street below them, Zahir tells the pilots not to think of the Exoframe as a weapon, but as their augmented body. He tells them that if they become one with their Exoframe, no one will be able to jeer at them for being children. As the young soldiers leap over buildings in their units, Zahir explains that integrating with the Exoframes it will become a body that is stronger than what is humanly possible. Two Exoframes switch to the ground to serve as bait and draw the tanks in a certain direction. Two tanks take the bait and are destroyed by fire from the rooftops. The Exoframes give chase as the remaining tank attempts to retreat, and they drop explosives on it and destroy it. They then fall back as two attack helicopters close in from above and open fire. The Exoframes string up wires between two buildings to halt one helicopter’s progress as it flies close to the ground. The helicopter fires into the building, but on the rooftop Jamal spins around an empty Exoframe and tosses it at the helicopter. The Exoframe hits the tail rotor, causing the helicopter to spin out of control and crash on the ground. Zahir snipes the second helicopter with his Stranger Executer and causes it to crash. Jamal knows that Zahir is not from his country, and Zahir won’t explain where he’s from or why he’s training them. Jamal feels that Zahir hasn’t deceived them and that they’ve gone from being disposable brats to real soldiers. Back at camp, Jamal asks Zahir about the skull emblem on his Exoframe, and Zahir answers that as long as it’s painted on a machine he pilots, he’ll come home alive. Eventually, all the pilots under his command paint the same emblem on their units. Kayira and some boys watch a news report about the African Union sending a peacekeeping force to end the conflict in Azania. Zahir enters the room and tells them that the fight is over, and Kayira asks what will happen to them. Zahir explains that the African Union’s peacebuilding program will lead to disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation. He tells them that they’ll throw away their Exoframes and go to school like regular kids, which upsets Jamal. Jamal notes that Zahir raised them all to be soldiers, so Zahir tells them to come with him. Later, in another conflict, Jamal and Kayira are in uniform as members of an independent unit piloting Stranger Executers. They confront a fighter who is harassing civilians and execute him for his crimes. Jamal tells the civilians they can run away or come with him and learn how to fight. Jamal thinks about how Zahir taught him that Exoframes let them fight the world, and he wants to teach the same thing to his fellow Africans.