The committee members do not disguise their irritation.
“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.
“However you uncovered this molecular structure and devised this cure, you’ve done it. You’ve not only saved these children, but you may have extended the average life expectancy by another several decades. If there is any justice in the world, your name will appear in our history books. I’d like to think I speak for all of us when I offer you my sincerest congratulations. The Refugee Program is in good hands.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Ify says. “This would not have been possible without the aid of my assistant, Grace Leung. She was essential during the course of our research. Without her, these children would be without a cure.”
“Well noted. I think we can adjourn this hearing,” says Langrishe, sparing only the slightest of glances for Director Towne, who continues to stew. “Dr. Diallo’s testimony has been more than satisfying. Now, hearing adjourned.” He presses at a few buttons on the desk before him before rising to his feet. Amid the shuffle, he looks up and winks at Ify, who bows her head slightly, then turns and walks back to the door, waiting for the feeling to hit. Waiting to feel like a hero, like the top of her class, like she is the reason thousands of people are now alive and well in Alabast. She waits for the ecstasy, for the elevation of her heart rate, for her cheeks to flush with blood. She waits for her fingers and toes to tremble in shocked rejoicing. She waits for tears of gratitude.
Even as she heads back to her office, Grace beside her, glowing with guarded admiration, Ify still doesn’t feel it.
Grace begs leave, and Ify lets her go. In another time, Grace would be talking excitedly with all her friends in a group chat about having played so essential a part in the miracle of scientific discovery. But now, she is more likely than not heading off somewhere to sit alone in silence. And to process everything that has happened to her over the past several months. Instead of chatting with her colleagues and peers, she has left Ify alone to wait for the warmth of victory to surge through her.
Staring out at the now-empty rows and rows of beds, extended almost endlessly into the distance, Ify feels nothing. Not even a whisper of satisfaction.
Céline has likely destroyed all evidence of Ify’s past by now.
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.”