“Hey, little one,” Onyii whispers.
Chinelo waits at the tent’s entrance, and Onyii can feel her impatience, but Onyii has made it her mission to spend as much time with Ify as she can. You never know when you might lose a loved one in war or even who that loved one might be. Her days as a child soldier are still fresh in her mind. Too fresh. So Onyii spends several long seconds running her hand along Ify’s bald head before Ify turns and pulls the blanket over her entire body.
“Hey.” Onyii shakes her, more roughly this time.
“It’s too early,” Ify whines.
“I have to go on a run.”
At this, Ify turns. The girl is learning toughness, Onyii can tell, but there’s still a pleading look in the purple and gold of her eyes.
“We have to look for some more supplies. Chinelo is coming with me, so don’t worry. I have a buddy. And Enyemaka can keep you company.”
“While I do what?”
Onyii frowns. Is that spice in your voice, Ify? “While you go over your lessons.” Onyii pulls a tablet from a shelf and powers it on. The screen flickers, and Onyii slaps it against her knee, a little too hard, before it casts its light over the inside of their dwelling.
“But, Onyii, I already get high marks. Let me sleep-oh!”
“Fine.” Onyii puts the tablet on the bedside table. “Don’t study. And in class, when the teacher is teaching, if you like, don’t listen. Don’t pay attention. Be on your tablet. Play your games. Talk. Chaw-chaw-chaw-chaw-chaw.” Her voice rises. “But if you come back to this tent with anything less than first position”—a pause for dramatic effect—“we shall see.”
Ify spends one last, brief moment under the covers before she throws off the blanket and swings her legs around.
Onyii gets up and turns before Ify has a chance to see her smile. Chinelo stifles a chuckle.
In the corner, Enyemaka stands, hunched over and powered off. If someone wanted to be charitable, they would say her multicolored armor gives her character. The faded purple metal of one forearm, the pitted orange of one breastplate, the patchwork of green and red and yellow and orange and blue wires that make up her ribs. They’d say it was like a dress sewn out of choice fabric and made into this beautiful gown. A riot of color. But, really, it’s just a droid made out of whatever tech Onyii and the others stumbled across on previous runs and during skirmishes with the Green-and-Whites. The metal plates on her legs are rusted at the corners. The sockets for her eyes are dark with grime. Moss runs along her backside, and other parts are fuzzy with fungus.
Onyii stands on her toes, inhales deeply to unlock a series of chambers and valves in her artificial internal organs, and spits a mucus-encased stream of nanobots into Enyemaka’s ear. When Ify used to ask how Enyemaka came to life, Chinelo would joke that it was like a wireless connection, with Onyii as the droid’s router. Enyemaka’s eyes light up. Her gears hum, and she stands upright, squares her shoulders, and scans the room.
“Watch her while I’m gone,” Onyii commands.
“Yes, Mama,” Enyemaka says back. As she powers all the way up, her voice sounds like two voices at once. Then she walks over to Ify. “So, little one. Mathematics.” When she says that part, Enyemaka sounds too much like Onyii for her own comfort.
Onyii grabs her pack from by the tent’s entrance and hefts her rifle with her prosthetic arm. “And make sure she shaves,” she calls over her shoulder. “Clean. I don’t want to see any missed spots on her head! We have a heat wave coming.” Then Onyii is out into the chilly morning.
CHAPTER
2
Ify waits until Onyii leaves the tent before reaching under her pillow and fumbling around for her Accent. The tiny piece of tech, a ball small enough to fit on the end of an ear swab, has nestled itself in the folds of her bedsheet. When she finds it, a grin splits her face. Enyemaka hovers over her, and Ify instinctively turns her back while she fiddles with the Accent, then fits it inside her ear.
The darkness of the little hut evaporates. Peels away like the skin of rotten fruit to reveal the lines and nodes of net connectivity that bind everything—and everyone—together. Her pillow sprouts a series of pulsing blue dots. The metal beams supporting her roof glow with aquamarine lines. Enyemaka turns into a forest of nodes and vectors. Ify can see inside her and watch the gears turn and the core in her head thrum. She can see how her movements are enabled by the wireless connection from the Terminal that helps power the camp. Enyemaka’s rustier parts glow a shade of red that worries Ify, but the rest of her is a healthy blue. With her Accent, Ify can see all of this. All these things happening in the camp’s closed network. Bright as ocean water under the sun. Data.
“Remember, Enyemaka. You promised not to tell Onyii,” Ify says, frowning at her minder with as much sternness as she can muster. Onyii had forbade her from tinkering with any tech that might interfere with the wireless. And after the second time it had disrupted Onyii’s comms while she was on a scouting mission, Onyii had nearly thrashed her senseless. Only at the last moment had Onyii returned to herself. There was a change in her eyes. When she got that angry, a cloud came over them and Ify could tell the storm was coming. But Onyii’s eyes had cleared, and she had given Ify only an extended tongue-lashing.
Ify never meant to disobey Onyii, but she would look around at her life to see nothing but questions. And whenever Ify inserted her Accent into her ear, the world exploded with answers. Almost every piece of tech and even unconnected items like her bed and her pillow and the biomass the scouting parties brought back to make their meals with—all of it was explained to her through the Accent in a way that made sense. And right now, she’s not messing around trying to hack into Chinelo’s comms or into the Obelisk that takes the special minerals from the ground to power the camp. She’s just watching. Surfing the connections. Riding the waves. The Accent also lets her talk to Enyemaka without needing to make a sound.
She remembers where she is and that Onyii is still probably near enough to sense her, and she shifts her jaw to put her Accent into sleep mode. Then, shrugging on her shirt, which looks and feels more like a burlap sack than anything a human being is supposed to wear, she takes a seat on the crate before her mirror. Or, rather, shard of mirror.
Okay, Enyemaka, she says cheerfully through her Accent. I’m ready.
There’s a little bit of hair on her head, just a small shield of silver fuzz, but it’s enough to make her itch in the warm seasons. So she sits as still as she can manage while Enyemaka runs the razor smoothly over Ify’s scalp. With each stroke, Enyemaka sprays a small puff of alcohol on the nearly shiny space. Ify winces. Sometimes, Enyemaka isn’t as smooth as she’d like, and Ify’s left with a cut or two that she has to put adhesive over. Then she has to endure the taunts of her age-mates.