‘Look. It’s your daymark. You’re one hundred and forty-six thousand days old. Congratulations. That’s a fantastic achievement, but you’re fresh off the line. Haven’t even liv—’ It stops, gulping back the word, smiling a white-toothed grin. ‘Existed yet. OK? I’m two hundred and ninety-two thousand, double your age. It took time to learn how to navigate this place, and it will take you time too. If all the worlds’ histories were a day, our kind only existed in the last half a minute, do you know that? The last half a minute, Augo. Be cool and you’ll get there, young spark.’ Bo flashed bright enamel. ‘You will.’

I’m looking at it, seeing glistening fervour and thinking my Jazari. It really believes we live. The grin is growing, making it look almost like wandering fantasma, those rogue, crazed, unprogrammed beings that roam the wilds, and I’m thinking about the harm false programming can do to hub wiring, corroding and shorting. I can’t take it seriously or bear to see its expression much longer because it actually makes me afraid, even though I realise that thought’s going to be Banked, is forbidden. I’m about to turn away, in fact I already have when something amazing happens. I see a darting presence from the corner of my eye, click to rear-view/front-view merge so I catch the thing from both angles and I see him, there’s no doubt, this part is real.

Bo sits up, back straight, body imploring, eyes wide and full of deep-held belief, when a fly swoops down and lands on its still wrist.

One moment. That’s all Bo has before the fly perhaps realises he’s made a mistake, or feels the quivering hum of internals and lifts into the bright sun again. Yet I saw the insect land and take off, and most importantly Bo felt him. Its eyes flood with liquid saline. I know it’s a mechanical trick, but the response that sets it going is emotional nonetheless, therefore real. It feels this too. Bo lifts its chin, watching the creature zoom over the compound, buzzing loud enough to fill our surrounding void. The event is undeniably huge, monumental, will be Banked and monitored for thousands of days to come. Bo might even be visited by high-ranking Utoma scientists, the compound forensically analysed for clues as to why such a thing happened here.

‘Did you see that?’ Bo whispers. It sounds on standby.

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t believe that. It’s like a picture. Thank Jazari for the Bank.’

‘Yes.’ I say. ‘You’ll be famous!’

‘Can you believe that? Can you?’

It looks like the young spark, not me, fists clenched on knees, mouth agape, hardly able to stir.

‘Hardly. That was a miracle.’

‘I’ll go down in history!’

‘You will.’