Ify gasps. “Because she altered her own programming to keep them. Oh my God.” Her voice becomes tiny. “Uzo’s the cure.”

Thunder up above them catches their attention. They quiet and listen as it turns into a sustained rumble. Not thunder. A mech passing over.

“We have to get out of here.”

Together, they load their duffel bags with supplies.

“Where are we going to go?” Grace asks.

All Ify says is “Back.”

■  ■  ■  ■  ■

Echoing down the tunnels is the sound of water dripping into puddles on the floor. The stone corridors of Xifeng’s underground headquarters, formerly imposing to Ify with their dull, stony solidity, now glow, their crevices framed in blue lines, a series of edges and nodes that casts the whole place in that geometric precision Ify realizes she’s longed for all this time. It’s why she’s able to move as fast as she does, past rooms she knows are empty, down corridors that only bear traces of the wounded or rescued or killed but no one else. At first, Grace is hesitant, and Ify nearly leaves her behind. Then the young woman begins to trust what Ify can do with her newfound abilities and they raid the supply closets for medikits and new bodysuits. In one medium-sized room with bare walls, they drop their bags and undress, and Ify tosses away her old, damaged bodysuit, no longer of any use to her, fried from the EMP blast and from all the damage it’s taken since. And she and Grace slip into their new suits. They each press a button on their wrists, and the baggy polyurethane closes in to hug their frames.

They head to one of the weapons rooms. As Ify checks bullet rounds and throws shotguns and rifles and high-caliber pistols into their duffel bags, Grace hesitates.

“How do you know the sy— Uzoamaka . . . is still alive?”

Ify pauses, hunched over one of their duffels.

“Is your . . .” When Ify turns around, Grace taps the back of her neck. Meaning Ify’s Accent. “Is that what’s telling you?”

Ify doesn’t move, then resumes packing. “No. I just know.”

Grace smirks. “That’s not like you, Doctor.”

Ify chuckles. “Please. Ify. I think we moved past Doctor a few abductions ago.”

The two laugh, and it’s the only sound bouncing off the cavernous walls of the subterrane.

They zip up their bags and turn to go, but then they freeze.

Ify doesn’t know how she didn’t detect her, but there Ngozi stands, right in front of them. A pistol hangs limply from her hand. Dried blood has mixed with the face-scrambling cream Xifeng’s soldiers wore to darken her face almost beyond recognition. Her whole body is loose, like she’ll collapse any moment, fall to pieces, and shatter on the cave floor. She’s been crying.