Yuet gwōng gwōng ziu dei tòng

Hāa zái néi gwāai gwāai fan lok còng

Tēng cìu ah māa yiu bou yù hāa lō

Ah ma zīk móng yiu zīk dou tīn gwōng

Āh . . . āh . . . āh āh āh āh

Hāa zái néi faai gōu zéong daai lō

Waa téng saat móng zau gang zoi hòng āh

A small window by her head affords Ify a view of the operating theater. Through the flexiglas, Ify watches sparks jump to life as Grace and Ngozi, tools in hand, inscribe the superficial DNA evidence of Uzo’s new identity onto her skin. Ify stands on her tiptoes to get a better angle and sees Grace’s mouth move while her head sways. Uzo’s eyes are closed. She has the same look on her face that Ify has seen on the faces of those patients of hers caught in the midst of a kind dream.

For several minutes, Ify leans against the partition, eyes closed, listening to Grace sing her lullaby to a sleeping Uzo.

It is not long before Ify, having found her way to the cockpit and the blanket stuffed in a duffel bag with their guns, drifts into slumber herself.

■  ■  ■  ■  ■

Ify wakes to knocking on the cockpit window.

She stirs herself to half-wakefulness and squints at Ngozi, silhouetted against the midday sun. Ngozi points with her thumb back in the direction of her mech, then disappears. Ify’s eyes go wide. Céline. Scrambling, she kicks off the blanket, pops open the cockpit, and leaps onto the ground, running to just past Ngozi’s mech, where Ngozi and Grace stand. Ahead of them, shapes move along the horizon, a shimmering black mass rumbling toward them. As they get closer, the shapes break apart to reveal an array of black maglev jeeps, raising clouds of dust in their wake.

Uzo stands between Ngozi and Grace and gives Ify only the briefest of glances before staring ahead.

Worry runs up Ify’s spine that she has made a mistake, that it’s not Céline arriving from over the horizon to rescue them but rather the Nigerian authorities come to detain them, erase their memories of everything they’ve gone through, and destroy any hope Ify has of saving the children. She wonders how fast she’ll be able to run, how quickly she’ll die once they make it to the Redlands, whether they will mistakenly trip land mines buried underground.

But before she can journey too far into her anxieties, the vehicles come to a stop before them, then lower themselves onto the grass.

No. It’s too late to run.