Until I am hearing footstep that is being soft and heavy at the same time. Like thing that is made of metal but is also light and playing in the grass and giggling sometime like child. I am turning and the others are coming through with girl from the forest who is telling girl I am now choking to shut up.

They are passing through the water that is falling at the mouth of the cave so that when they are stepping inside the cave the sound is even more real to me. I forget the girl in my hands when I see Oluwale in the group. I count them and it is almost all of us. Then I see him.

Uzodinma.

But then I am seeing behind him another person. And I am saying no because I am not believing it. And water curtain is parting, and they walk in until they are filling much of the space near the cave’s mouth.

“Xifeng,” I am saying.

She is looking up at me. Her hair is being longer and it is shining more silver and it is coming in waves over her face, but when she is looking at me, her eyes thin with joy. “Uzo.” Then she is saying to me in Taishanese, “Welcome back, my daughter.”

And I am running and jumping into Xifeng’s arms, and I am holding her with arms strong enough to crush her, but she is not worrying. She is holding me and knowing that even though I am once being child of war I am being gentle, and she is bringing me close and squeezing her arms around my neck, and I am wanting to tell her everything that is happening to me.

I am wanting to tell her that Ify is alive.

CHAPTER

27

Beeping. It seems as though that is the only sound in Ify’s universe. Like there was always beeping and there always will be beeping. The exact same note beating a metronome. Like background noise. The beeping is what she notices first. When her eyes open, they take in the pristine white ceiling, then the end of her bed, which, with tech she can only guess at, rests suspended above the ground. To her left is a bag filled with torn and dusty and burnt clothing. Including the bodysuit Ify had worn from space. Raising her arm reveals another black bodysuit beneath her hospital gown. It doesn’t have the familiar feel of her own, and it certainly won’t connect to her Augment and link with wireless networks so that her entire body is connected without her being cyberized, but it’s better than being naked. Barely.