Ify is playing with her hands.
“Are you being nervous?” I am asking her, but it is scratching my throat, so I am forcing myself not to be asking more question.
Then she is stopping playing with her hands, then she is looking at the floor, then she is looking at me. “In ancient Inca society,” she begins saying, “there was a thing called a khipu.”
As she is saying this, I am accessing network and downloading image of khipu and all information about it and I am seeing row of knotted string that is being tied to single braided rope and the knotted string is having different color. And I am knowing that this is ancient devices that is being used to record thing like people name and people hair color and people status in society, whether they are big man or whether they are small small. The knot in the string and the number of string and the number of knot and the color of all of these thing are telling whoever is looking the name and location and detail of people who is living in a village. I am knowing all of this before Ify is finishing her sentence.
“We think there is something like that in your braincase.”
She is saying we and I am knowing that she is meaning her and Grace. Not Ngozi.
“We think that is what is tying your memories together, those you have accumulated over the course of your life and those you were . . . given upon your creation. Your brain has immense computing power. Indeed, the brain of a synth may be the most powerful computer ever created. And there is an incredible amount of heterogenous data in there. It shouldn’t be able to hold itself together. The incomplete nature of the memories would suggest natural deterioration, but there is something in your coding that is fighting that process.”
She pauses. I am wondering why she is telling me about khipu and what it is having to do with saving me from Enyemaka and burning forest and the arguing that I am hearing earlier about going to space.
Then, after a long silence, Ify is saying, “Right now, there are hundreds of children in the hospital where I work, maybe a thousand, who, I believe, are suffering from identical illnesses. They have each fallen into comas.” She is getting up from where she is sitting and walking back and forth and I am wanting to tell her not to be nervous, but words is not coming from my mouth so all I am doing is following her with my eyes. “In one building, refugees are being kept and taken care of. There is a ward for them. I was supposed to be helping them. But they became sick. And their condition has been worsening. Since the epidemic began, not a single one of these children has emerged from their coma.” Another pause. “This is why I came back to Nigeria.”
“What is my brain having to do with this?”
“The children . . . they’re losing their memories. We think that you have developed an antibody to the virus that is making them sick.” There is light shining in her eyes, and I am thinking that she is looking at me like I am something special. Not because I am carrying Onyii inside me, but because of something else. Xifeng is sometimes looking at me like this. “You . . . you somehow found a way to organize your data.”
“My rememberings?”
“Yes. Your rememberings.” She is moving closer to me, close enough to touch, but she is not reaching out to touch me.
At first, I am thinking it is because she is looking at my woundings and finding me disgusting. But then I am seeing the look in her eyes and I am seeing that she is scared that if she is touching me, she is wounding me further. I am wanting to reach out and touch her or tell her it is okay, but my body is still not moving. I am feeling nanobots inside me, repairing me, but I am still too weak for my arms and legs and fingers to listen to what my brain is telling them.
“When you did this, you rearranged your own genetic coding. You figured out a way to hold your data together and make a whole identity out of it. Imagine if a computer were alive.”
I am not liking that she is calling me computer, and she is seeing the changing look in my face.
“Of course, you’re more than a computer. It’s just that . . . you’re the cure. Somehow, you’re the cure.”
I am wanting to be telling her that all of my brother and sister is doing this thing. It is thing we are learning to do from each other, and I am wanting to show her Oluwale teaching me and I am wanting to show her Uzodinma doing it too and finding certain memory that is granting him peace and accessing it on purpose and not accident. I am wanting to tell her we are all doing this thing and she is not needing me. But then I am trying to send out signal to find my family. And I am sending and sending and sending and all that is coming back is silence. All I am hearing is the ringing in my own head.
“You are the only one left,” Ify is telling me like she is reading my mind. Like we are being plugged into each other. “You are the last synth.” She is looking at her hands and playing with them again. Then she is stopping, then she is gathering breath inside her and letting out a soft and slow sigh. When she is looking at me again, tears are shimmering in her eyes like wind brushing on the surface of the sea. “Will you come to space with me? I . . . I can’t guarantee that you will be safe or that you will even like it, but you can help many, many people who desperately need it. I don’t know what is waiting for you there, but I will care for you, and you will be loved. Yes. You will be loved. So will you do it? Will you come with me? To space?”