Ngozi is in the middle of helping Ify out of bed and into a hovering stretcher when the door slides open and Grace, face buried in her tablet, walks back in. She breaks off mid-sentence when she sees what’s happening. But an instant later, Ngozi flicks a shockstick from out of the sleeve of her hospital blouse and cracks Grace across the face, knocking her unconscious.

Even though vertigo threatens to pitch her over, Ify is on her feet. “What did you do?” she shouts. It occurs to Ify that this woman is trying to kidnap her, not help her. She fishes around for anything she can use as a weapon. Finding nothing, she backs away. “Get out or I’ll shout.”

Suddenly, too fast for Ify to see, the woman is on her, hand clasped over Ify’s nose and mouth, shockstick sizzling perilously close to Ify’s eye. “Scream and I will blind you. I’m supposed to keep you alive, not in one piece. You are coming with me one way or another. You will not want to find out what happens when they come for you here.” A pause. “I’m going to lift my hand now. Make a sound, and I will knock you out and haul you out of here on my shoulder. Understood?”

Ify manages a nod.

Slowly, Ngozi pulls her hand away. Ify exhales. The sight of Grace’s prone form, with the wound on her head leaking onto the floor, pulls at Ify.

“We can’t leave her.”

“Why not.” It is a statement, not a question.

“Don’t leave her. Please.”

Ngozi glares at Ify, then peeks her head out into the hallway and says something Ify can’t hear. Another woman—this one dressed as some sort of lab technician in a blue jumpsuit—comes in and tosses Grace’s body over her shoulder, then vanishes. Ngozi looks back to Ify as if to say, Happy? Then she gestures at the stretcher. “Get on.”

Ify does as ordered, and a moment later, they’re out in the hallway, Grace in a hoverchair behind them, pushed forward by an attendant.

As soon as they leave the room, Ify notices the differences in the atmosphere. She notices which nurses and hospital personnel only try to look the part, those who don’t fit all the way into their disguises. She notices how they position themselves in the hallway, some of them ready to run interference should the need arise, some of them making sure every available entrance and exit is within their sightlines to take on enemies. There’s an operation under way, and she’s at the center of it.