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  “If information on the epidemic can be found, we are confident that it can be found there. As director of the Refugee Program, you have the deepest knowledge and first-hand experience of this crisis. And, as a Nigerian refugee yourself, you understand what has been happening in your country.”

  She wants to tell him that she hasn’t been back in almost five years. That she has left that part of her behind. Completely. The way she talks, the way she carries herself. All of it an effort to put Nigeria squarely where it belongs: in the past. Everything she did, everything she loved, everything she was. It’s supposed to be gone now.

  But she can’t tell him any of that. So, instead, she says, “I think that is a prudent course of action.”

  Still that lack of expression from Director Towne. “Great. Details will be forwarded to you shortly. You can leave now. Oh, and your assistant will be accompanying you.”

  Angry shock rips through Ify. She resists the impulse to look behind her to see Grace’s face. She has no idea why Towne would issue this order, nor does she have time to puzzle it out, because he nods at her—swift, perfunctory—to dismiss her.

  Grace follows Ify out. It’s not until the doors to the committee chamber have closed behind Ify that she realizes her hands have been shaking.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  While Grace packs, Ify keeps the lights off in her office. Her Bonder sits in a steel box on her desk. The blinds are drawn. Not a single device in the room blinks to indicate it’s been turned on. She still hasn’t been able to stop shaking. But the tremors running through her have lessened. The first few times she’d tried to hold a stylus, she’d dropped the thing and it had clattered on her table like an accusation.

  Puzzle pieces swim inside her head. Clues. Hints. Theories. Hypotheses. But flickering in bright red like a broken neon sign are the words It’s your fault. She closes her eyes and sees it all in flashes. She’s standing at the threshold of a door with a bag at her side and a gun in her hand, and on the other side of that door is the woman she’s traveled across a country to kill. On the other side of that door is the woman who murdered her entire family. Onyii. Then she sees the city of Enugu, the city to which she’d tracked this woman. And she sees the people ambling through it, buying jewelry, cooking ogbono soup on the side of the street, selling their wares, flirting, joking, all in a burst of colors and light glinting off shining surfaces. She closes her eyes tighter, trying to force away the memory, but then, as though it were happening right around her, she hears the explosions, thunder that surrounds her, that takes the ground out from beneath her. Thunder going on for what seems like forever. Then screams and weeping and a city covered in blood. No.

  No.

  She refuses to believe it. There is something else. There has to be. Something else has caused the influx of refugees from Nigeria. Something else brought Peter here. She tells herself this over and over again. There is something else. And after several minutes, she can bring herself to believe it. There is something more to the mystery of the comatose children. It’s not her fault.

  She says this to herself—it’s not my fault—as she takes a few deep breaths, then rises from her chair to, with a thought, raise the blinds in her office.

  She pulls up surveillance of the refugee ward so that it broadcasts over her floor-to-ceiling window. Like this, she can monitor the comings and goings without having to actually set foot among her patients. When the contact with them becomes too much—the antiseptic smell, the too-fine detail in their faces, the sounds of their machines’ monotonous beeping and humming and droning—she can watch them like this. It gives her an odd sense of peace, gazing down at them from above. Surveilling them. She dares not call it godlike. But it is like that—the part of God that’s supposed to be caring and loving and watchful—protective, even.

  And that’s when she sees them. Two women sitting next to a bed. She sees their hair, their hands, and the way they fold over the patient’s hands like layers of soil. Or beach sand. She zooms in, and one of them looks up, her eyes closed, her mouth moving in prayer Ify can’t hear. Paige. And beside her, with head bowed, is Amy. They’re praying over Peter.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  Ify gets to the ward floor and stands by the entrance. As much as she tries to will her body forward, it won’t move. So Paige and Amy are two shivering specks in the distance. A primal fear chills Ify. She feels as though her bones are vibrating inside her. She grits her teeth against it and closes her hands in fists and waits for tears, but they never come. She’s too scared even to cry.

  In all the time she’s known Amy and Paige, she has never seen them so helpless. Even when they had no idea how to care for Ify or how to make her feel at home or how to help her build her future, they’d moved with confidence. They’d blundered out of love for her. And with every fumbling move, Ify had known that they did this or that thing, made this or that mistake, committed this or that error, all out of love for her. They knew, or felt they knew, that they were doing right by her. And whether or not things turned out the way they’d wanted, their love would carry them through. Ify stands now as living testament to their efforts. They had indeed made her the woman who stands today on the precipice of being a licensed Colony doctor, already assistant director of her own ward.

  And now they cling, helpless, to a hospital bed. Helpless.

  It’s not my fault, Ify tells herself.

  She repeats the mantra as she returns to her apartment and packs for her trip. She repeats it during the rail ride to the shuttle transit station. Even as droids load her luggage and Grace’s and usher the two of them to the plush cabins afforded to Colony officials, she says it over and over again.

  She repeats it as the shuttle hurtles through the ejection column and, once it settles into its flight pattern toward Earthland, she continues to say it. She’s forgotten the young Cantonese woman sitting across from her, dutifully organizing her notes and studying her materials and preparing her research plan. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.

  By the time the shuttle touches down in Abuja and the doors open to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Shuttle Station and she has gathered her things and, blanketed by light, proceeded through the busy but efficiently run terminals to the exit where her and Grace’s minders wait for her to bring Ify and Grace to Ify’s apartment, she has said it a thousand times.

  And each and every time, it has felt like a lie.

  As the jeep flies through the well-ordered streets of Abuja, a message beeps through Ify’s Whistle. A lone envelope icon. Sender: Céline Hayatou.

  Dear Ify,

  I’ve only just now received news of your deployment. Do you remember when we used to attend chapel together? I was always running late, and I would ask you to save me a seat. And, without fail, by the time I arrived, you would have cleared a whole pew for me. I once thought you contained magic. If there were someone near and dear to you, you would move heaven and earth for them. You were younger than me, newer to Alabast, and yet you seemed so certain of yourself and your powers. Eventually, you told me why you were able to guard so much space for me. You told me it was because whenever you would sit in a pew where the whites sat, they would see you and move away. You always had a logical, scientific explanation for things. Even if they didn’t make sense, they contained logic. I still believed there was magic in you. I still do. I encourage you to let go of logic as you return home. Fear does not contain logic. Our sense of home does not contain logic. There is magic in both of these things. I am learning these things as a colonial administrator. You can pave streets and make them ordered. You can introduce ordinances for waste disposal and educational requirements. You can create a proper protocol for migrant resettlement. You can do all of these things, but at the center of our work is people. People and the hope they bring with them. People and the memories they bring with them. Please don�
��t walk away from your memories. There is magic in them. Be well, ma copine.

  Take care of yourself.

  Je t’aime.

  Your chapel seatmate,

  Céline

  Ify closes the message to find Grace sitting across from her, hands folded in her lap, a concerned look on her face.

  “Home,” Ify says to the question in Grace’s eyes. “I haven’t been back in a very long time.” She looks out the window at the once-familiar streets and whispers to herself, Home.

  CHAPTER

  20

  Lagos, Nigeria:

  2181

  I am running. Always it is feeling like I am running.

  When I am in Xifeng’s trailer and the police are first seeing me, I am running and they are chasing me and I am losing myself in Lagos. But then drone is sighting me and more police are hunting me. So I am living in jungle and finding cave and I am watching other people be wandering and thinking maybe they are like me. Maybe they are running too. And some of them have burned skin like jollof at the bottom of a pot, like Xifeng used to make. And some of them have metal inside them like me, but it is on the outside and their metal is having rust on it.

  I am seeing what is looking like family, and little boy is hugging flying drone to his chest. There is being deadness in his eyes. Mother is holding his hand and they are walking behind father, who is carrying machete to be cutting through jungle where it is too thick to pass.

  I am sitting on fallen tree trunk when they are seeing me, and small flecks of radiation, like flakes of snow, is hanging in the air and making parts of their bodies to be glowing. They are walking by me, but little boy is stopping and staring at me. My clothes are being ripped, and much of my body is showing, and it is the first time that I am wanting to be hiding my nakedness. Boy with broken drone is stopping and looking at me, then mother is stopping and looking at me, then father is stopping and noticing his family and then he is looking at me. And for a long time, they are all looking at me and saying nothing, and I am not moving.

  Boy is taking step toward me, but mother is pulling him back, and I am thinking that they are thinking me dangerous. Then he is reaching into his pocket and pulling out fruit that is having black marks from radiation on it, and he is holding it out to me.

  “No,” I am saying and shaking my head.

  Mother is seeing her child, and softening is happening in her face. When she is looking at me, she is not seeing synth. She is not seeing child of war. She is seeing lost girl who is alone and without food or proper clothes. “We have a purifier,” she is telling me. “You can still eat it, child.”

  But I am shaking my head again. “I am not needing to eat.”

  Mother is frowning, then she is making boy to be putting fruit away.

  “Where are you coming from?” I am asking, and I am hearing loneliness in my voice.

  Father is stepping forward, and I am noticing that he is not putting his machete away. I am not wanting to be killing him, and I am wanting him to be putting his machete away. “The Redlands,” he is saying. “We are Hausa. When we lived in Lagos, we were attacked and our home was burned. Bandits chased us and the people we lived with wherever we went. Before the government began its memory program, we were chased into the wasteland. But we hear that things are safer now. People have forgotten the war.”

  “The Redlands?” I am saying, because I am not knowing what he is meaning when he is saying this.

  “It’s very dangerous there,” the mother is saying. “Please tell me that is not where you are going.”

  The boy is breaking away from his mother and running to me with drone that is looking more and more like toy in his arms. “There are monsters there!” he is saying, and it is sounding like thing he is excited about, not scared about, and he is holding drone out to me.

  I am having drone in my hands, and my brain is telling me exactly where drone is being broken. Without speaking, I am taking it apart. My fingers is breaking apart into many pieces and going inside drone to repair circuitry and to fix wires, then I am sealing it, then I am spitting on it because that is how I am remembering to send nanobot into it to give it life.

  Wire is coming out of the back of my neck, and I am plugging it in, and then vision is coming to me.

  Land is flat and red everywhere, and the air is sizzling like food boiling in pot. And big bull with horns that are curling out of its head is with many other bull like it, and herd is moving fast over the land, and their hoof is making thunder in the earth. They are being beautiful to watch as they are stampeding past. Then I am seeing forest, and everything—leaf, fruit, tree—is too big, because radiation is making thing to be misshapen. And wolf with two heads—what they are calling wulfu—is staring at drone and snarling, and drone is showing family trying to hide while wulfu is getting closer, and father is having gun with him that he is trying to aim at wulfu, and he is shaking and shaking. I am seeing more large red plain with mountain range over them, and I am seeing small small hut with blue dome over it and man pulling water from nearby river and putting it through purifier before bringing it back to his hut. Then I am unplugging from drone.

  When I am unplugging, family is looking at me strange. They are seeing now that I am machine and not lost little girl. And I am holding out drone for boy to take back.

  Father is holding machete like he is ready to attack, and part of me is sadding because they are now knowing that I am maybe dangerous thing. “Lagos is dangerous,” I am telling them. I am thinking of other thing drone showed me: father walking through Redlands with breathing mask but is moving like air is boiling his insides and cooking them so that he is coughing up blood, and drone is showing me little boy trying to make bathroom but blood is coming out. “Lagos is still dangerous,” I am telling them again, before I am leaving fallen tree and walking away from them and hoping that what I am doing is helping them to feel safe.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  Bird is twittering and leaf is making SWISH SWISH sound and when it is raining I am taking bath because river is too open and there are maybe police there. I am wishing I am back under Falomo Bridge because I am knowing people there. Maybe I am even calling them friend. And they are looking like they are running too, but they are finding safe space where no one is hunting them like animal. And they are building tent to live in and wall to hold back the water that is trying to be eating them. And even though they are doing drug and sometime dying and even though they are not looking like they are eating sometime, there are being many of them and many body together is making me feel warm. I am not needing blanket in jungle, but I am liking to be feeling warm.

  I am walking and I am arriving at place where grass is tall as my chest and thick, and I am knowing that it is not grass that can be cut by machine. I am hearing people nearby, but I am knowing that they are really far away and it is only my good hearing that is making me to hear them. But I am settling because I am liking to be hearing their voices in this quiet place that is not noisy like Lagos. They are chatting and laughing and they are not angering or sadding. I am thinking that they are friend and friend.

  Night passes then day then night again, and it is day when one of them is complaining about tall grass, and I am knowing that it is tall grass that I am sitting in. So I am walking and I am finding strange animal—geese—and memory is telling me that this is animal that will cut grass. And I am bringing them to the edge of tall grass where there is clear field then house and man sitting in plastic chair writing with stylus on tablet, and he is wearing sandal and hat is covering his face with shadow and he is smiling and frowning, but I know he is looking like peace if peace was being person.

  I am finding two gander and one goose, and they are pure white with orange beak but dirt is staining their white feather so before I am putting them down, I am brushing dirt from their feather because I am wanting them to be clean.
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  Goose and one gander are pairing like family, and one gander is liking to be staying with me but they are all chewing grass with soft chawp-chawp sound. And day and night and day and night and day is passing. Then one morning I am hearing shriek from one gander, and goose is sounding like it is in pain and honking and honking and dying. When I am coming to edge of grass, I am seeing goose and one gander lying on ground and they are all wet with blood, and dog that is big with fur in patches on his skin is snarling at me, and I am feeling strange because I am hearing dog’s thoughts and I am wondering if there is metal inside dog like inside me. But I am not caring because dog is saying I am hungry and I am saying back to dog I will kill you. Then I am never seeing dog again.

  Then I am going back deep into jungle and am finding duck egg but no duck. But then I am seeing nearby little squirming ball of yellow, and I am walking to it and picking it up and holding it in my hand, and I am seeing it and it is opening eye at me and I am thinking with my heart that I am first living thing that it is seeing.

  I am bringing more geese to chawp-chawp on grass belonging to human, but little yellow gosling is staying with me. Even when I am telling it to be going, it is not leaving me. When other geese are returning to me, gosling is sticking neck out and is making small-small squawk sound like squeak, and it is driving away other geese, and I am laughing quiet because I am thinking little yellow gosling is wanting to be with me and is not wanting anyone else to be with me.

  They are sleeping at night. Or, rather, they are not moving and I am thinking that they are sleeping. And when it is daytime, they are making chawp-chawp with the grass and moving and sometime sleeping and they are forming gaggle and they are making like family, and some geese are slow and behind the rest. And when they are leaving person’s yard and I am feeding them, they are chasing away gosling and making gosling to be sadding, and I am holding gosling and feeling its feathers and it is soft like nothing I have ever felt and I am even rubbing gosling against my cheek and it is making soft thrum against my face.