When Onyii can tell that Ify is strong enough to eat, she brings her a plate of gari and a bowl of steaming egusi soup from the kitchen. Then she sits and watches Ify stare blank-faced at the food for a moment before digging in. Adaeze raises an eyebrow at Onyii.
“It’s a wonder she didn’t clear out the pantry when she stayed in your camp.” Then she looks at Ify, and there’s a glint of wonder in her eyes. “Did she always eat like this?”
“A side effect of the chemicals.”
Ify pauses mid-bite, her right hand slick from the soup, covered in bits of gari. “Chemicals?”
Onyii sees the questions swimming in her eyes. “I switched out the chemicals they injected you with,” she says to Ify. “That was where I went after we last spoke. In the end, I didn’t know if they would check and ruin my plans by switching them back. That’s why I had to stay and watch. It was the longest hour of my life.”
Ify swallows the gari in her mouth. “I’m not dead?”
Adaeze sucks her teeth. “Eh-eh! You think dead people are this hungry?”
Which gets Onyii chuckling.
Onyii gestures in Ada’s direction. “Ify, this is Adaeze. She . . . she trained me. When I was a child.” Ify’s face darkens, and Onyii knows that Ify is remembering that when Onyii was a child, she had murdered her parents. “She took care of me.”
Adaeze shrugs, as though the whole thing were nothing to her. “And now I am taking care of a fugitive.”
“I had nowhere else to bring her,” Onyii snaps.
Adaeze raises her hands in self-defense. “This is just typical Igbo hospitality.” Ada grins, and for a second it feels like they’re young and full of energy again instead of older and chewed up by war. “So. What will you do now? Onyii, I know it is out of character for you to have a plan.”
It’s true. There is no plan. Onyii hadn’t thought beyond saving Ify from execution. She had switched the chemicals, hoping they would only render Ify unconscious and not kill her. Then she had watched them cart Ify’s body away. Later, Onyii had snuck into the mortuary to find her and had wrapped her in a separate body bag stuffed with insulation to warm her body back up. Then she’d stolen a hoverbike and come here. Far enough away from Enugu to give her time to breathe.
“Or were you just going to let this little one eat me out of house and home?”
“Get to Ghana. Apply for asylum, maybe? Go anywhere that’s not here.”
“You didn’t hear? With the ceasefire broken and war now happening, Ghana has closed their overland border. No more refugees.”
“We could go east, then. Sneak into Cameroon. And figure out a way from there.”
Adaeze shakes her head. “Jumping from one war into another. Besides, Cameroonians have no love for Nigerians these days.”
“Space,” Ify says.
All heads turn her way. Onyii has been so focused on figuring out how to get Ify to safety that she’d forgotten Ify was sitting right there.
“We need to get to a space station.”
Onyii’s eyes light up. The route! “That’s it. We don’t have to go to Cameroon. As soon as we get into international waters, we’re safe. We get to the nearest available coastline to the west, then book passage to the station in Niamey.” The memory of Chinelo and their trip to the Colonies bites at Onyii’s heart, but she stuffs it down.
“Niger?” Adaeze shouts. “That’s fifteen hundred kilometers from Port Harcourt. By land! And you want to go around?”
“Ada, what choice do we have?”
Ada holds up a finger to silence her. The room goes quiet. Then they hear it. Jet propulsion engines. Mechs. “Get down!” Ada dives for them just as bullets blast through the window and ricochet off the far wall.
“How did they find us?” Onyii asks, her body pressed over Ify’s. Egusi soup stains the carpet. Another volley of bullets. The engines are closer. If Ify’s marked for death, then they will have no problems blowing this whole place into splinters. “We have to get out of here.”
Ada rushes into another room, then comes back out and tosses a shotgun to Onyii. Onyii grabs it and spins, just as the first soldier appears at the window. A single boom sends him flying back. Ada posts up by another window, an assault rifle at her shoulder, and fires in short bursts. Between rounds, Ada shouts, “There’s a bag in the other room. Money, guns, bodysuits. And fuel cells for your bike. Take it.”
Those must have been for Ada. Maybe she’d always known a day like this was coming. Maybe she’d planned on leaving alone. Maybe she thought she was the only one she would need to save.
She fires another round, then takes a concussion grenade from the belt at her waist. Bootsteps sound up the path along the cliff. Ada tosses the grenade through the window. She shouts, “Go!” But the rest is swallowed up by the roar of the explosion.
The force hurls Onyii and Ify back.
“Little one, there’s a gun in the kitchen. Get it.”
At Ada’s command, Ify vanishes.
Onyii rushes into the other room and sees the duffel bag ready. This was Adaeze’s escape. And now it’s Onyii’s. And Ify’s.
Onyii snatches it up and, when she finds Ify crouching in the middle of the room with a pistol in her hand and a jacket whose pockets bulge with ammo, she grabs Ify’s hand and hurries for the back exit. She turns to say goodbye to Ada, but Ada has moved to another location. An explosion takes a chunk out of the front wall.
She will survive. That’s what Onyii tells herself as she runs, then skids, down the backside of the cliff face into the shadows, where she’d hidden her bike. When they land at the bottom, Onyii pulls out the bodysuit and thrusts it at Ify.
Ify quickly undresses, then slips into the suit and presses a button that fits the whole thing tightly on her skin. A paper-thin visor slips over her face.
Another boom.
When Onyii looks up, Adaeze’s whole cottage is in flames.
A soldier rounds the corner of the hill. Onyii sees him just in time to blast him. “Grab the bag and start the bike.”
Ify runs and does as ordered, while Onyii picks off more and more soldiers. They swarm the hillside. Onyii fires, turns, fires, turns, fires. Until she hears the familiar revving of the bike.
She fires one last time, then darts for the bike. Bullets tear apart the grass at her feet. She leaps on, Ify in front, grabs the handlebars, and they’re gone.
As they escape, Onyii cranes her neck to look behind them. Three mechs crest the hill, leap off, and crash onto the ground, cannons trained on their vanishing silhouette.