“Not yet,” said Li. “But look at her.”
Dr. Erland grunted, staving off his disappointment. “Yes, her ratio should be impressive. But it’s not the best quality, is it?”
“Not the exterior maybe, but you should have seen her wiring. Autocontrol and four-grade nervous system.”
Dr. Erland quirked an eyebrow, then lowered it just as fast. “Has she been unruly?”
“The med-droids had trouble apprehending her. She disabled two of them with a…a belt, or something, before they were able to shock her system. She’s been out all night.”
“But she volunteered?”
“Her legal guardian did. She suspects the patient has already had contact with the disease. A sister—taken in yesterday.”
Dr. Erland pulled the microphone across the desk. “Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty,” he sang, rapping on the glass.
“They stunned her with 200 volts,” said Li. “But I expect her to be coming around any minute now.”
Dr. Erland hooked his thumbs on his coat pockets. “Well. We don’t need consciousness. Let’s go ahead and get started.”
“Oh, good,” Fateen said in the doorway. Her heels clipped against the tile floor as she entered the lab room. “Glad you found one to suit your tastes.”
Dr. Erland pressed a finger to the glass. “Young,” he said, eyeing the metallic sheen of the girl’s limbs. “Healthy.”
With a sneer, Fateen claimed a seat before a netscreen that projected the cyborg’s records. “If thirty-two is old and decrepit, what does that make you, old man?”
“Very valuable in the antique market.” Dr. Erland lowered his lips to the mic. “Med? Ready the ratio detector, if you please.”
Chapter Eight
SHE WAS LYING ON A BURNING PYRE, HOT COALS BENEATH HER back. Flames. Smoke. Blisters burbling across her skin. Her leg and hand were gone, leaving stumps where the surgeons had attached her prostheses. Dead wires dangled from them. She tried to crawl but was as useless as an upended turtle. She reached out with her one hand, trying to drag her body from the fire, but the bed of coals stretched off into the horizon.
She’d had this dream before, a hundred times. This time though, it was different.
Instead of being all alone, like usual, she was surrounded. Other crippled victims writhed among the coals, moaning, begging for water. They were all missing limbs. Some were nothing more than a head and a torso and a mouth, pleading, pleading. Cinder shrank away from them, noticing bluish splotches on their skin. Their necks, their stump thighs, their shriveled wrists.
She saw Peony. Screaming. Accusing Cinder. She had done this to her. She had brought the plague to their household. It was all her fault.
Cinder opened her mouth to beg for forgiveness, but she stopped when she caught sight of her one good hand. Her skin was covered in blue spots.
The fire began to melt the diseased skin away, revealing metal and wires beneath the flesh.
She met Peony’s gaze again. Her sister opened her mouth, but her voice sounded awkward, deep. “Ready the ratio detector, if you please.”
The words hummed like bees in Cinder’s ears. Her body jolted, but she couldn’t move. Her limbs were too heavy. The smell of smoke lingered in her nostrils, but the heat from the flames was dying away, leaving only her sore, burning back. Peony faded away. The pit of coals melted into the ground.
Green text scrolled along the bottom corner of Cinder’s vision.
Beyond the darkness, she heard the familiar rumble of android treads. Iko?
DIAGNOSTICS CHECK COMPLETE. ALL SYSTEMS STABILIZED. REBOOTING IN 3…2…1…
Something clattered above her head. The hum of electricity. Cinder felt her finger twitch, the closest thing to a flinch her body was capable of.
The darkness began to warm, a subtle crimson brightness beyond her eyelids.
She forced her eyes open, squinting into harsh fluorescents.
“Ah! Juliet awakens.”