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.”
She shut her eyes again, let them adjust. She tried to bring her hand up to cover them, but something had her locked in place.
Panic raced along her nerves. She opened her eyes again and turned her head, straining to see who had spoken.
A mirror filled the wall. Her own face stared wild-eyed back at her. Her ponytail was a mess: dull, tangled, in need of a wash. Her skin was too pale, almost translucent, as if the voltage had drained her of more than energy.
They’d taken her gloves and her boots and rolled her pant legs up. She was not looking at a girl in the mirror. She was looking at a machine.
“How are you feeling, Miss, uh…Miss Linh?” said a disembodied voice in an accent she couldn’t pinpoint. European? American?
She wet her parched lips and craned her neck to peer at the android behind her. It was fidgeting with a small machine on a countertop, amid a dozen other machines. Medical equipment. Surgical toys. IVs. Needles. Cinder realized she was attached to one of the machines by wired sensors on her chest and forehead.
A netscreen hung on the wall to her right, displaying her name and ID number. Otherwise the room was empty.
“If you will just hold still and cooperate, we won’t take up too much of your time,” said the voice.
Cinder scowled. “Very funny,” she said, forcibly straining against the metal bands. “I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t volunteer for your stupid tests.”
A silence. Something beeped behind her. Peering overhead, she saw the android pulling two prongs attached to thin cables out of a machine. A chill crawled up her spine.
“Keep that thing away from me.”
“This won’t hurt a bit, Miss Linh.”
“I don’t care. Stay out of my head. I’m not one of your lemming volunteers.”
The voice clucked. “I have a signature here from a Miss Linh Adri. You must know her?”
“She’s not my mother! She’s just—” Her heart lurched.
“Your legal guardian?”
Cinder thumped her head against the padded exam table. Tissue paper crinkled beneath her. “This isn’t right.”
“Don’t fret, Miss Linh. You are doing your fellow citizens a great service by being here.”
She glared at the mirror, hoping she was glaring at the jerk on the other side. “Yeah? And what’d they ever do for me?”
Instead of answering, he said simply, “Med, please proceed.”