Paige looks down at Peter, as dark as Ify, with a small single scar on each cheek and what looks like a sewn bullet hole near the top of his head. But those eyes. Ify has seen those eyes before.

In a detention center, on the other side of an invisible electric field. His hands were bound by metal restraints and rested in his lap. A collar ringed his neck, and Ify stood on the other side of the electric field, dressed as a Nigerian official with Nigeria’s best mech pilot beside her, deciding whether or not those eyes deserved to see more grief because of the war the boy was caught fighting.

Five years ago, that boy had been Ify’s prisoner.

Paige, her hands on Peter’s shoulders, grins at Ify. “Peter, meet Ify. Ify, this is Peter.”

CHAPTER

6

After the robots are finished downloading and their cords go back into their necks, they begin burying the bodies in the holes in the ground that they are making earlier. I am asking Enyemaka if they are doing this often, and Enyemaka is saying, It is our task. It is our programming.

You are being made to do this thing? I am asking it.

I was made to protect. But I failed that mission, so I have given myself new programming. We have made our own purpose.

You are saying I am child of war. Is this possible for me? To make new purpose?

Enyemaka is staring at me for long time, and light is moving in its eyes, and then Enyemaka is saying, in voice of woman, “Yes.” And even though Enyemaka is having no mouth, I am thinking she is smiling.

So that is how I am helping Enyemaka to bury the bodies. I am smaller than them, but I am able to carry many bodies on my back so that when they are done downloading, I am picking up the bodies and laying them in front of the graves the other Enyemakas are digging for them. And we are doing this for many days. And one day, when the sun is bright in the sky and I am having pack for water and for fruit that we are picking by river the day before, I am asking Enyemaka how they are locating these graves.