“Last week, less than half a month after we began initiating the new treatment, Ayodele opened her eyes. Witnesses would later say that it was her father’s voice that brought her back. She could hear the change in it and decided that their application must have gone through, that they would be permitted to stay in Alabast. But what allowed her to regain her memories and motor functions was the medicine. Without it, Ayodele would have forgotten how she had made it to the hospital, what her journey to the Colonies had been like, even her own father’s face. She would have eventually forgotten how to breathe, and she would have died. Our cure has not only halted the virus that infected the children when they shut down, it is rebuilding their memories. It is reversing the tide. But it is nothing without this activating switch. If the body were not prepared for it, it would have been simple liquid swimming through their blood. Because of last month’s news, it is saving their lives.”

Ify can tell she’s been getting too worked up. So she calms herself. “Ayodele opened her eyes, began making eye contact with people, and began to feed herself. Soon, she was able to walk. After that, she could speak in full sentences.”

Ify is under no illusions that the men sitting before her will truly understand her story. Ayodele was many patients, many of whom have backgrounds too sensitive for Ify to disclose, many of whom, Ify has learned, are synths. Ayodele stood in for refugees who had come before the latest outbreak. Ayodele was those who had fled war in the Pacific and who had journeyed from the Babylonian Republic and from the Americas. Ayodele was those refugees streaming into the Jungle and trickling into Alabast even as she spoke. Ayodele was the refugees who would continue to come.

When Ify speaks, she hears past and future collide and meld, like interlocking rings, with her present. She is speaking of what has happened, is happening, and will happen. She is speaking of all of them, and she is speaking of this one. And, but for a single change, she is speaking of herself as well.

Dr. Langrishe, the Genetics Department head who has thus far been silent throughout the proceedings, leans forward. “This is a remarkable thing you’ve done, young woman.”

Ify blinks her surprise. She had expected acerbic racism from him. She had expected him to ooze a sense of superiority like a cloud of fungal spores. But now he only seems to have eyes for his tablet, which displays the report Ify sent to the committee prior to this hearing.