This chapter is presented as the afterword/reflection of Ankara, the Hume robot from Zelu's in-world novel, revealing that the entire 'Rusted Robots' narrative the reader has been following was authored by Ankara herself. Ankara explains that she wrote not out of obligation but desire, drawing on Udide's questioning, Ijele's memories, and Ngozi's teachings to find her own creative voice. After failed attempts to assemble her story from collected human texts, she learned to trust her own voice and produce something fresh.

Ankara names her novel Death of the Author, signifying that humans, the original authors, have died, leaving robots as their living stories. She reflects on how humanity's late disdain for the creative process backfired: in order to make automation creative, humans had to embed pieces of themselves into robots. To write the second half, Ankara quieted her dominant processes and let an unfamiliar inner voice emerge, which brought forth her protagonist Zelu, named after Ngozi's astronaut great-grandmother and built from Ngozi's family stories.

Ankara describes the act of writing as a freeing, oceanic experience, the opposite of the NoBodies' conformity. She crafted the novel privately in her cloud, even leaving intentional misspellings as a human flourish. Taking a risk on the fragile Hume-NoBody truce, she released the book to CB and the wider network.

The response surprises her: CB shares it with the entire NoBody hive mind, and thousands of NoBodies engage with it, discussing humanity outside their usual framework of hatred. The novel sparks a cultural shift in automation. Ankara refuses to answer their questions, hoping they will turn to one another instead. She leaves Cross River City, possibly to seek Ijele, and considers becoming the first Scholar to write her own library, concluding that creation flows both ways.