Because I am having epileptic fit, and where I am falling is fire. Only fire. And I am feeling nothing because my brain is no longer belonging to me. There is only the air that is twisting around me, the wind whistling in my ears, and as I am falling, I am sadding. Because I am thinking of all the gosling that is now no longer having home.

■  ■  ■  ■  ■

When I am waking up, I am hearing footstep and I am knowing right away that I am moving, but my feet are dragging along the ground and my arms are being held up, even though I am not feeling them because they are broken. I am hearing heavy breathing on both sides of me and it is not sounding like droid or metal person that is breathing. Is sounding like red-blood. Like human I am spending so much time avoiding. But these people are carrying me over their shoulders. And I am opening my eye as much as I am being able and I am looking to one side and I am seeing Ngozi. Part of me is wanting to struggle and thrash because I am not wanting to go back to Xifeng, who is just using me for her mission and not caring about me, but my body is not listening to my brain. I look to the other side and can feel the insides of me warm and heat up with surprise and disbelief and what I am realizing is gratitude because when I am opening my eyes and seeing who else is carrying me, I am seeing Ify’s face. And she is the only person I am knowing who is not lying to me. My cord is dangling, so it is not connecting to her, and she is looking straight forward, but I am hearing how her body is speaking when she and Ngozi are carrying me to their aircraft and to the woman named Grace Leung, who is standing guard over it. I am listening to what Ify’s body is telling me and it is like color and feeling are being sent to my brain, not just word, so that I am not only hearing but feeling with my whole body Ify telling me, Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry.

I am wanting to tell her thank you, but my mouth is not moving, so instead I am crying and hoping that Ify is understanding that this is how I am being able to say thank you.

CHAPTER

47

Ngozi clears a space in the section of the aircraft behind the cockpit. She works swiftly, dismantling the seats that lined each side, fetching a medkit from her mech, and preparing a makeshift bed for Uzo, with medical supplies in a neat, efficient array beside her, among the supplies a sort of liquid battery that feeds nanobots into Uzo’s prone, motionless form by way of a needle injected into her damaged left arm.