“I am singing song that I am hearing long long ago. But I am not remembering I am singing it. The only reason I know I’ve sung that song is that my sponsor recorded me singing it when I was newly adopted. It was soon after I’d arrived here. When I was in bed, I am hearing my own voice. It is Paige playing back my recorded voice. I am not remembering singing it. I am not remembering those words. But I know I sang them, because there is that recording.” His speech patterns are changing. Maybe more evidence of trauma exerting itself. Is he reverting?

Ify watches him lift one arm and consider his wrist.

“I know I was in the hospital, because Paige and Amy told me. And they’ve been taking care of me more than usual. And my body feels it. My body is telling me that I have been lying down for long long time.” He shakes his head. “But I am not remembering any of it.”

Something niggles at the back of Ify’s brain. A hypothesis. A light shining a path to an answer. “Do you remember . . . do you remember being captured? And . . .” She heaves a large, nervous sigh. “And tortured?”

He inclines his head toward Ify. “Did that happen to me?”

She breaks his gaze and focuses on the teenagers playing on the water. “I . . . I don’t know.” An idea occurs to her. “Do you remember ever holding a gun?”

He furrows his brow in concentration. “No.”

“Do you remember my name?”

When he looks up at her again, tears well in his eyes. “No.” His bottom lip quivers. He turns his gaze to his lap. “I am remembering that my name is Peter because that is what they are calling me.” He gestures with his head at Paige and Amy, still chatting with their neighbors. “But I don’t remember who is calling me that first. Who is giving me that name.” He sniffles. “I will never remember.” Something shifts in his jaw, and he stops crying. Tear streaks glisten on his cheeks. He looks at the teenagers laughing and playing. “I will not remember this either.”

Ify wants to ask him about the girl in the refugee ward, whether he remembers connecting with her. She wants to ask if they were having a silent conversation, about food and family and where they came from.

Whatever you downloaded is likely the source of the virus, she thinks.

It might try to connect on its own.

Breath catches in Ify’s throat. An entire ward filled with children. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, any number of whom could be cyberized. Any number of whom might even be synths. Any number of whom might have the entirety of their memories wiped away.

CHAPTER

18