Enyemaka appears at her side and stiffly sits down next to Ify.
Ify waits for Enyemaka to chastise her for hopping onto an enemy connection, for going behind Onyii’s back and using her Accent, but Enyemaka peeks over to examine the holograms that emerge from the tablet. Ify holds it out for Enyemaka to get a better look at and smiles at the android.
“You already have a very deep understanding of orbital physics,” Enyemaka says in her double-voice. “And yet you do poorly in your mathematics class.”
Ify snatches the tablet back. “That’s because the algebra we do in class is boring. It’s so basic, and they keep wanting me to show my work. So I always get low marks. But in America, they reward you for getting the right answers. That’s how you become a pilot.”
Enyemaka can’t smile. Ify knows this. There’s no real face on her head, no lips, and her eyes don’t light up to show happiness but to signal that she’s been powered up and her battery life is full, but when Ify looks up at Enyemaka, it feels like Enyemaka is smiling at her. “Is that what you want? To become a pilot?”
“More than anything,” Ify breathes. She has never said it out loud before, and it feels dangerous. But it feels like commitment. She has to do it now that she has said it. And she’ll find a way. Maybe when the war ends and there’s a free Biafra, they’ll get a launch station built, probably somewhere in Enugu or maybe right here where the camp is, and the station will fire shuttles deep into space, where they’ll join the rest of the world. Another superpower like America among the Space Colonies.
Enyemaka chirrups. A bell rings inside her. Ify’s shoulders sink. Mealtime. But she realizes how hungry she is—she doesn’t remember having eaten anything all day. “We must head back if we are to avoid the end of the line,” Enyemaka says.
As they head back through the forest, Enyemaka silent and stoic, Ify looks up at the android. “When Onyii goes through your logs at the end of the day to see what I’ve been doing and where I went, can you erase the part where we went by the beach? If she finds out I skipped afternoon classes . . . I don’t want to make her angry. And I don’t want her to find out about my Accent. Can you, please?”
For a long time, Enyemaka is silent. It seems like she’s sad, almost. She speaks to Ify silently, through her Accent. You are asking me to erase things that I’ve touched and heard and seen, the data I have accumulated and added to my core.
Shame rushes through Ify. Her cheeks burn. Enyemaka sounds so much like Onyii sometimes that it’s easy for Ify to forget that, in so many ways, she’s just like a child. Figuring out how things work, gathering experiences, organizing the world around her. Learning.
“Consider it done,” Enyemaka says, then holds Ify’s hand. “That portion of my logs has been erased.”
Ify squeezes Enyemaka’s mechanized hand and brings it to her cheek.
The android doesn’t miss a step.
CHAPTER
3
If Onyii and Chinelo had timed their run for earlier, they could have avoided the mosquitoes. But their skinsuits provide them at least some level of relief. The Geiger counters on their wrists beep, noting the radiation levels around them. Still, the vegetation persists: the fat tree leaves, big, almost like they’ve mutated; the tall grass that swishes against them, brown and yellow in some places, green in others.
Onyii wasn’t alive when the oyinbo went to war with themselves and the Big-Big went off an ocean away and the wind swept red clouds over the entire continent. She wasn’t alive when the sky began to bleed. But she’s heard stories. Stories of a time before the domed cities and before people started fleeing to colonies in space. A time before the oyinbo—the whites—raced to the stars and built America and Britain and Scandinavia and other places where they were able to—were the only ones able to—hide from what human stupidity had done to the planet. A time before Biafra had declared its independence and the war started.
Now detritus litters the forest floor where they walk. Juice packets, torn clothing, bits of broken tech.
Chinelo stoops at a pile of blackened earth, moves some twigs and brush around with her foot, then spots an ancient smartphone buried beneath it all. She picks it up with her gloved hand, her rifle in the other, and blows away some of the irradiated dust. The dust swirls in a cloud before her visor. For a long time, she stares at it, then slips it into her pocket to be added to the string of broken smartphones she wears around her neck.
Mist hovers in the air around them. Visibility is low. But Chinelo, properly cyberized, can see. The level of moisture in the sky. The dips and grooves in the ground, too tiny for Onyii to see, heat signatures of Agba bears or mutated wulfu with their two heads and ridged backs.
Leaves swish to their right. Chinelo puts out an arm, stopping Onyii. They crouch, hidden by bush. The noise is organized. Chinelo squints. Onyii follows her gaze.
Slowly, an animal emerges from the fog. Its skin is pink in the light and glows a soft green in places. Its ribs show, but its four legs are thick with meat. Fur ripples along its spine. Its hooves squish in the mud. A shorthorn.
If they were more than just Onyii and Chinelo, they might have tried to capture it to bring it back, cleanse the meat, and cook it. But they can’t spare the ammo, and the thing is just as likely to kill them as it is to feed them.
The beast ambles past them, bending fallen tree trunks beneath its weight, drawing the mosquitoes to it with its radiation-rich blood.
Onyii and Chinelo wait until it is completely out of sight, then a few minutes more, before continuing onward.
In a small clearing, they find more traces of people. Broken comms devices, more torn cloth, ratty sneakers. The mark of people who left in a hurry.
Chinelo, ever curious, moves to examine the broken and discarded tech. More jewelry to wrap around her neck.
Onyii hisses at her. They’re not here for necklaces. They’re here for rations.
They continue in silence, pausing briefly as a familiar shriek rips through the air. Mechs streak across the sky. The wind sways the tree branches overhead. Onyii and Chinelo don’t stop but crouch even lower as they continue.
“They never think to leave any pads behind,” Chinelo sneers.
Onyii doesn’t speak for several seconds, then realizes she can’t let it go. “Who is ‘they’?”
“The refugees, of course. Or whoever leaves all their trash in the forest like this.” She doesn’t look at the ground, but she manages to step over the upturned roots of a fallen tree. “No, it’s just empty Fanta bottles and old mobiles with rusted chips.”
“More for your necklace,” Onyii says, and allows herself a small chuckle.
“The little ones, if they find us, we can put them to work at least. Give them new lives.” Chinelo continues to scan the forest, her head moving left to right, right to left in a steady rhythm. “Teach them how to fix things.”