Ify wants to wave her away, wants to just lie down and sleep forever, then wake up so far in the future that time has lost all meaning. She can’t remember the last time she was this tired. The light in the underground shelter fades. Chill takes her. “Please. Some Ovaltine first.” She’s smiling when she says it and doesn’t realize it until she sees the surprise on Grace’s face, then hears her kind laughter. “I’m craving Ovaltine.”

When Ify awakens, it’s to the smell of steaming Ovaltine and a freshly bandaged shoulder. The scent of Ovaltine in the mug beside her pallet is like a kiss on her whole body.

Grace looks like she’s been watching her for such a long time that Ify wonders how long she was out. Then, with dawning awareness, she notices Grace’s injuries. The marks around her neck that evince she was choked. The stiffness in her carriage, evidence of sore muscles and a possible sprain in one ankle. The minor swaying and constant blinking that show she may be nursing a concussion.

“Physician, heal thyself,” Ify says with a chuckle. She grimaces against the pain she expects, but there is none.

Grace’s smile widens at Ify’s words. “I’m fine, Doctor.” There’s no defiance in it, only warm assurance.

“That synth brought you here? Uzoamaka?”

Grace nods.

Ify processes the information. She had last seen Uzo sitting on top of a bruised and battered Grace, and Ify knows that Uzo had wounded her friend grievously, mutilated a face that now stares back at Ify without any visible wounds. She struggles to square that image of the synth with the surveillance footage of Uzo sprinting with Grace in her arms, spiriting her to safety in the midst of the riot.

“How’d you find me?”

Ify staggers to her feet and sees a Terminal propped in the back corner of the shelter. With halting steps that gain steadiness with each passing second, Ify makes her way to the machine. She puts her hand to the touchscreen, and the thing bursts to life with a hologrammed projection of the city of Abuja seen from far in the sky, as though from a satellite. The hologram spins, then zooms in until dots of pulsing red spring to life. “I hacked the city’s surveillance cameras.”

“How?”