All trace of the chaos and violence that had plagued Abuja during that night of terror is very likely gone as well. Wiped away as though it never happened. When people speak of the damage or skirt the edges of an absence—a lost possession or a missing piece of furniture or even a person never to be seen again—talk will likely return to some storm, as though what had happened was a natural disaster, a cosmic event. Something biblical like a flood or fire raining from the sky. Then they’ll talk admiringly about the government’s valiant efforts to reverse the effects of climate change. The erasure will be complete.

If there is no scar, was there ever even a wound to begin with?

Whatever miracle Ify has accomplished seems hollow in the face of that question.

■  ■  ■  ■  ■

“I’m still not moving as fast as I’d like,” Peter says around a mouthful of spaghetti and a meatball, chunky meat sauce dripping down his chin, “but I can feel it getting better, you know?” He swallows before fully chewing, and Amy and Paige can’t help but smile lovingly at the mess, even though Paige makes a show of chastising him, warning him to eat like he’s been to a restaurant before. She’s on the verge of making some comment about the jungle or the bush when she spots Ify, who smiles politely over her own plate.

“They say it’s like that with any sport, really,” Peter says. He lets his utensils rest. “Repetition. You try to do a thing over and over and over again, and then one day you’re trying and you do it. You get it right. Like you were building up materials in your brain or in your muscles or something. They say the disease was in my body as much as it was in my brain, so . . .” He returns to attacking his spaghetti.

“What was it like?” Ify asks, sitting across from him at the dinner table. “What did you see? While you were . . . while you were out?”

Peter looks up from his plate, then glances at Paige and Amy on either side of him, as though he’s silently asking for permission. Then, he swallows another bite of food. He shrugs. “I didn’t want or need anything when I was in that place. No food, no water. No school. Everything felt useless. What was the point of it all? If I couldn’t stay in this place I’d come to for safety, then what was the point of any of it? I wanted to live and I wanted to live here, and it was like everything short-circuited.”

Synths never needed food or water to begin with, Ify wants to say to the table, outing Peter. But the impulse dies inside her. His disease was real, no matter how it afflicted him. “Did you dream?” she asks instead.

He shakes his head.