(Somewhere there had to be a happy medium between being treated as a terrifying murder machine and being infantilized.)

Itzie wasn’t precisely self-destructive. Certainly not maliciously so. But he was like a high-torque table saw with zero safety features: it’ll get the job done, but might take your finger or destroy itself in the process.

She just was, a very complex cascade of switches and logical inferences. Made so human he couldn’t mistake her for one, and yet made complex enough that he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t talking to something.

Even the concept of exploring may not necessarily be an African priority. We just think we should do as our colonial masters did. But why? Do we think this is a marker of development? Like we take on the master’s religion, the Christianity?

I had never thought this on Earth, but I’m thinking it now.

Angze children are born with their magic, names revealed at the moment of birth. When the name was read out for the first time, the baby drew its first breath. Life was its first magic. But with such a powerful moment, my mother and aunts and grandmothers had described the moments leading up to it as portentous. As they pushed the baby from them, they felt a rising sense of deep significance, one that only broke when the name-magic was first cast. But they knew they were waiting for life—what was I anticipating?

As I walked away from the safety of ART’s lock, I dropped back down to 96 percent efficiency.