“I don’t think so. I think that there are some humans in the world that, if they found you vulnerable like this and strapped to the floor, they might try to kill you and think they were saving the world. But most people, I think 95 percent of people, if they found you like I did, captive and begging for mercy, literally saying, ‘Please don’t kill me,’ I think they’d show you mercy.” He chuckled to himself. “I don’t know if they’d port ten gallons of water and a bunch of cleaning supplies up a mountain into the middle of the woods, but they wouldn’t hurt you.”

“YOU ARE UNIQUE IN THAT WAY.”

“Sort of. It’s my job to go trotting into certain danger. Honestly, this probably isn’t even in the top five most dangerous things I’ve done. Maybe the top ten.”

On impulse, he peeled the yellow gloves off his now-clammy fingers and reached his hand out toward the ridges that formed the sort of crown on the back of his head. Enola eyed him warily, but not shakily, not frightened like he was earlier. Trembling slightly, Kaveh grazed a finger over the “skin.” He expected it to be smoother than it was. It was pliant, yet there was a slight coarseness to it. Not living, yet alive.

Kaveh figured it was best not to stay overnight—increased the odds of him getting caught if no one could get ahold of him, and also increased the odds of him running into Ampersand again, which he would prefer to avoid. “They named you Enola Gay, after a piece of wartime aircraft that . . . did something pretty terrible. I don’t like that name. Can I give you a new name?”

“WHAT WOULD YOU NAME ME, DEAR CLEVER CREATURE?”

“Something less . . . associated with one of the evillest acts in human history. What was your . . . job in your old life? What was your function?”

“APPLIED THEORETICAL PHYSICS. THE WORK I DID WAS AKIN TO ENGINEERING, AS YOU CONCEIVE IT.”

“Our naming conventions are generally, we get our names from our parents, and they name us after someone else. Maybe a relative, maybe a religious figure, maybe a historical figure.”

“WHERE DOES YOUR NAME COME FROM?”

“I’m named after a character from ancient Persian mythology who started a revolution against a tyrant. Kaveh the Blacksmith was . . . I guess he’s a symbol of resistance against evil and oppression.”

He ran his fingers over the ridge on the back of Enola’s head, a strange no-man’s-land between a triceratops crest and palm fronds. They flexed, had some movement, which he assumed also contained some expression. It was different now from how it had been hours ago, more relaxed, less afraid.

“Nikola,” he said. “After one of humanity’s most famous engineers.”

“IF IT PLEASES YOU,” said Nikola.

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