Lightning forks out of the ground, stitches up the walls, and strikes the ceiling overhead, then the sound of dozens of little puffs as machinery short-circuits and bursts apart. Cyberized shoulders, legs, eye sockets. Screams are cut off as quickly as they start. The rumbling and the popping and the screaming and the lightning’s shriek carry on through the tunnels until Ify hears a single large thunderclap followed by a rumbling that tells her something has collapsed.
Her bodysuit sparks, and pain pops to life on parts of her body—her stomach, her lower back, her thigh, her calf—as the EMP short-circuits her own machinery as well. But it’s a smaller hurt than what the others are going through. She’s only wearing her tech. It’s her clothing. But for the others—the synths and the rest of Xifeng’s footsoldiers—their tech is what makes them. It’s their bones and their organs. And suddenly those things are being turned off, all at once.
When the screams stop, their echoes bounce off the walls and fade, and the only sound is the hiss of fried tech and the dull rumbling of whatever is collapsing far away.
She goes back and undoes Grace’s restraints. Grace, who hasn’t said a word since screaming her grief at Ify’s faked death.
“I’m sorry,” Ify says, softly and hurriedly. “I didn’t have time to tell you what I had planned.” Then she pulls a pistol out of her pants and hands it, butt-first, to Grace. “Can you handle this?”
“I’m not saying no, Doctor,” Grace says, struggling to one knee. She keeps gently touching her face, and the memory of her wounding earlier hits Ify with enough force to leave her breathless. But then Grace’s grimace turns into a grin, and she takes the pistol. “Lead the way.”
As they head to the room’s mouth, Ify stops at Uzo’s motionless body. The girl’s face is angled up toward the ceiling, gaze focused on a point past Ify, probably seeing nothing. Nothing in the girl’s face moves, nothing signals reaction, notes the passing of Ify’s shadow over her body. There’s no snarl on the girl’s face, no widening of the lips to signal a glimpse of the divine that the dying see before death. Ify wants to say something, to commemorate the life the synth was growing into, to apologize for killing her like this, but Grace tugs her away into the tunnels.
Ify heads down the first corridor, stepping over the bodies, picking up an assault rifle on the way, and makes her way through tunnel after tunnel, slowly and with Grace just behind her, sidestepping the downed guards where they lie. At first, she presses herself against walls and peeks around corners to see if anyone is going to jump out at her or begin firing from their perch or hiding place. But soon it becomes clear to her that she and Grace are the only things moving in this entire place. So they break into a run, slowing down only when they get to a clearing through which fluorescent light shines.
The platform she descended on. It lies buried beneath a small mountain of stone. But there’s an opening, and Ify spots the snapped ends of cables swaying overhead. Slinging her rifle over her shoulder and tucking her pistol into her waistband, she climbs up the rocks and leaps onto the rope. Sparks still occasionally shower in arcs from her suit, but they feel like small bug bites compared to earlier.
Grace scrabbles up the rocks, trying to follow Ify’s path, but falls hard. Ify, holding on to her rope, swings to the wall to brace herself and rest while Grace tries again. Another leap, another fall.
She hears movement, then motions for Grace to stop moving. They wait, then Ify hears it again. More movement. People are getting up. They’re coming for her. Now she can hear shouting. Commands being issued, weapons being distributed. They’re fanning out. Tracking her.
“Hurry!” She motions for Grace to jump for her again. But Grace can’t reach. Another leap, another fall. Another leap, desperate and flailing, another fall.
They’re getting closer.
Ify lowers herself, swinging loose on the rope she’s now tied around one forearm, and she stretches the other out for Grace. Grace jumps again. Their fingers brush. The voices get louder, the words clearer. Grace jumps. Just misses.
“I think they’re in here!” Lights flicker back on nearby. Shadows dance farther down the corridor. They’re coming.
Grace jumps, Ify extends herself, then grabs Grace’s arm just as it looks like Grace will fall again. Without losing any time, Ify pushes herself off the wall and swings Grace with all her might onto the other rope, to which Grace clings.
“Okay, Grace,” Ify says in a hushed murmur, out of breath. “Listen to me. We don’t have time, so I’m not going to repeat myself. Take your time. Pull yourself up by bending at the elbows. At the top of the lift, reach up to a higher part of the rope with the lower hand. Keep going like that. Keep the rope close to your nose. And just keep going. Okay?”
Grace nods nervously.
Ify is steady with her climb and tries to clear her mind. Anything to keep from looking down and seeing how deep the drop has already gotten. Anything to keep from worrying about how Grace is doing. She doesn’t permit herself a single glance down the whole way up, hoping that if Grace were to look her way, Grace would feel empowered to climb the way Ify climbs. She would see Ify doing this impossible thing, and it would become just a little bit less impossible for her. It would anchor her when it begins to sound like their pursuers are right beneath them. Ify holds on to that hope all the way up.
Still, her arms and shoulders burn. It takes her forever, but eventually the light grows brighter, and she can hear sound. Shouting, cursing, crying.
The riots.
She pulls herself up, eventually reaching a ledge, and with her last remaining strength, she swings herself up and over, landing on her back in a field of grass. A moment later, Grace rolls onto the grass on the opposite side of the hole.
Trees tower over them. The air is cool against Ify’s face, with a hint of moisture from nearby water. Then she smells it. Smoke.
After she catches her breath, she pushes herself up, first onto her elbows, then fully upright. Then she looks eastward, where fires rage.
“I can’t move,” Grace says to the smoke-filled sky.
An aerial mech streaks overhead. Ify closes her eyes against the memory of enemy mechs soaring over the camp where she was raised. When she opens them again, she climbs to her feet, takes her rifle in her hands, and tells Grace, “Hug the shadows.”
Ify knows where they are. Unless Xifeng plans on going far to reach the core of Nigeria’s net, they must be in Abuja. In or near Garki District, the city’s principal business and administrative area. Headquarters of the Nigerian Armed Forces, the commercial broadcast networks, the Infrastructure Development Bureau, and the Federal Ministry of Information and Communications. Ify has walked through the halls of that building, ascended and descended in the glass elevators running along its exteriors, enjoyed the uniformity of its floors and office spaces. But she has never seen what lies beneath. No matter her access, she was never permitted there. She doesn’t even think Daren had the security clearance to venture beneath that ground floor. That must be where the core of the net is located. But it would be heavily guarded, no doubt. Not just by armed guards, but likely by all type of mechanized droid, programmed for lethal engagement. How would Xifeng get past that?