Zinhle is firm and clear when she rejects her parents’ plea for her to get pregnant, pressuring her to ask “the Sandersens’ boy” who “doesn’t charge much” and “doesn’t try to hurt girls” (150-51). Zinhle is unsatisfied with life because no one tries as hard as she does, so she constantly “compete[s] against herself” (151). Her classmates, other than her best friend Mitra, don’t care for her and she is sometimes the victim of bullying. All her teachers are less intelligent than she is and though she is “polite” about it she loves to rub it in (152).

After receiving “the highest possible score on the post-graduation placement exam,” Zinhle is pulled aside by one of the teachers named Threnody (153). Threnody tells her that “a representative” is coming to talk to her “[f]rom beyond the Firewall” (154). For a second, Zinhle is nervous but quickly becomes suspicious of Threnody instead, wondering what stake she has in warning her about the meeting.

Zinhle knows why the representative is coming. Every year the creatures beyond the Firewall—creatures that have been the enemy of Zinhle’s people “for centuries”—“take ten percent, plus one” of their population and never return them (156).