“It started with an application on her phone,” Xifeng is saying. “Long ago, in ancient times, before mass net connectivity, people used their mobile phones to communicate. They were devices the size of my palm.” She holds up her left hand and points to her lined palm. “And everything that you can do”—she points to the children of war—“these phones could do. This woman’s name was Meryem. On her phone were a number of applications, and what they allowed her to do was share. She loved to take pictures of her children”—Xifeng mimes using an old digital camera—“to send to her friends and family. She would send a picture, and next to the picture—or beneath it, depending on the phone—she would attach an emoji.” Xifeng pushes a button on the Augment wrapped around her wrist and connected to the Bonder at her temples, and a blue hologram of a crude yellow face rises from her palm. First, it is smiling, then it is frowning, then it is winking, then it is winking and sticking its tongue out, then it is opening its mouth like it is scared, then it is sadding, and the face is changing and changing and Xifeng is showing us this thing, and some of the girl that is with us is laughing while other is having face like stone. Xifeng presses the button, and the hologram disappears. “She would send these pictures of her children most of all to her husband, who often traveled for work. They lived in Xinjiang, an oasis in the northwest of Earthland China, and theirs was a lovely and simple life.

“Then Meryem downloaded WeChat. It allowed her to send these pictures to even more people using her phone. Now she could show pictures of her children to all those relatives scattered across the globe.

“What people like Meryem all over the world did not realize was that these applications—these things on your phone— were watching you. So when Meryem downloaded WeChat, rumors began to circulate that the Earthland Chinese government was using the application to watch its citizens, specifically Uyghur Muslims like Meryem.

“Then the police began to visit the office of Meryem’s husband. Then they began to visit the schools of her children and her friends’ children. Then they came to visit Meryem’s house. Her husband shaved his beard. Meryem stopped wearing her hijab when outside.”

I am seeing among the girls that some of them are Hausa. None of them are hijabi, but I am seeing from the way their body is changing when Xifeng is telling this story that they are hearing a familiar story here.