The cockpit glass closes. Wind roars around them as the platform rises. Ify’s Accent fills her vision with light, and suddenly the controls come to her hands. Her fingers press buttons on the console before her and grip the throttle next to her, her feet automatically adjusting the pedals. Like she’s been flying this sort of craft all her life. Her body thrills to this feeling, being encased in such a powerful machine that will shoot them through the sky, that will carry them to dizzying heights, all under Ify’s control.

She wonders if this is what Onyii felt whenever she climbed into her mech. Like she had possibility in her hands. Like it wasn’t metal that surrounded her but the future, and that it was hers to mold.

The clamor builds, but Ify feels like she sits at the eye of the storm, that calmest point, undisturbed, unbothered. She’s ready. The craft rises, following the lead of Ngozi’s mech.

“Wait!” Grace’s voice pierces Ify’s bubble of serenity. “Where are we going?”

CHAPTER

44

We are seeing many thing that is looking like mountain.

Sometime, it is being red and craggy like rock with many sharp edges, like ridges I am sometime seeing on topographical map inside my brain. I know this is map I am downloading when I am child of war, when it is being necessary to know things like where is lake and where is mountain and where is valley and where is village. Sometime, mountain is metal that is covered in red dust. It is having sharp edges, but they are shining in the light of the sun and even in the light that the moon is giving them. And I am seeing that they are old mech that is being half-buried and abandoned. These are towering high like skyscraper over us, and sometime when we are walking it is blotting out the sun, and when it is doing this sometime the other synths are taking cover in the shadow because the sun is paining them.