“But you’re right,” he said. “I dragged you both into something we had no business dealing with. That robot and that thing. It wasn’t even in the city.”

“You think this isn’t over, do you?” Laila said. She looked at him curiously. “What are you afraid of, then?”

“I don’t know,” he told her. “Other than that it would require a real shurta, and we’re not it. I want to go look at that hole again.”

“There’s nothing there.”

But she didn’t argue. What was this sense of listlessness that overtook him? Nasir wondered. Laila was right. He had joined not in search of excitement but just the promise of three meals a day and money to spare. Was that so wrong? Yet ever since he’d run into Mariam something changed in him, even before the arrival of the robot. He wanted to be more than what he was.

They reached the hole. The dead worm rotted on the sand. Three UXOs stood and watched the shurta car approach. Nasir and Laila got out. The UXOs didn’t move.

“Help me down,” Nasir said. Laila lowered him into the hole. Nasir suppressed a shiver. He had been there once. He didn’t really fancy going in there again.

He shined his torch around. He scanned the area in the virtual. There should have been nothing there, yet something moved, as tiny as a sand rat. Nasir froze.

“Come here,” he whispered. “I won’t harm you.”

“What is it, Nasir? Do you see something?” Laila called down.

Nasir waited, watching the tiny creature through the goggles. The creature was digitally native. It stared at Nasir with large, soulful eyes.

“Hungry,” the creature said. “Hummingbird doesn’t like dead worm.”

“Who’s Hummingbird?” Nasir said, confused.

The rat-like creature blinked. It jumped from its hiding place and crawled along Nasir’s arm. “Hummingbird hungry,” it said.

“You think you’re a hummingbird?” Nasir said. He’d never met a rat who thought it was a bird before.

“You have food?”

“What sort of food? What are you?”

“Don’t know. Hungry.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Don’t know. Hungry.”

“What do you eat?”

“Nasir?” Laila called down. “Who are you talking to!”

“It’s in the virtual,” Nasir said.

“I can’t see anything,” Laila said.

“Well, it’s there!”

He heard her mutter. The rat thing wrapped itself around Nasir’s arm and somehow smiled.

“Hummingbird invisible,” it said.

“How can you make yourself invisible?” Nasir said.

“Don’t know. Hungry.”

Nasir sighed.

“Help me up!” he called.

Back above, Nasir stood with Laila as she examined him. She was fully noded, unlike him. She shook her head. “I don’t see anything,” she said uneasily. “Are you sure it’s there?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then whatever it is, it has stealth capabilities,” she said. “Another remnant of the war? An UXO?”

“It’s a virtual. What could it possibly be?”