“I believe we’re all ready. Med, please proceed with syringe A.”
Something clattered on the table, and then the android was beside her. A panel was open in its torso, revealing a third arm ending in a syringe, like those in the emergency androids.
Cinder tried to pull away, but she had nowhere to go. Imagining the headless voice on the other side of the mirror, watching, laughing at her vain struggles, she froze and tried her best to hold still. To be strong. To not think about what they were doing to her.
The android’s prongs were cold as they gripped Cinder’s elbow, still bruised from having blood taken twice in the past twelve hours. She grimaced, muscles pulling taut to her bones.
“It is easier to find the vein if you are relaxed,” the android said in a hollow voice.
Cinder tensed her arm’s muscles until they were shaking. A snort came through the speakers, as if the disembodied voice was amused by her antics.
The android was well-programmed. Despite her rebellion, the needle punctured her vein on the first try. Cinder gasped.
A pinch. Just a pinch. The fight drained out of her as the clear liquid ran in.
Book Two
In the evening, when she was exhausted from working, they took away her bed, and she had to lie next to the hearth in the ashes.
Chapter Nine
“SUCCESSFUL TRANSMITTAL OF THE CARRIERS,” SAID LI. “ALL reactions appear normal. Blood pressure stabilizing. Signs of stage two expected around 0100 tomorrow morning.” He clapped his hands and spun in his chair to face Dr. Erland and Fateen. “That means we can all go home and take naps, right?”
Dr. Erland sniffed. He traced his finger along the screen before him, slowly turning the holographic image of the patient. Twenty little green lights were flickering along her bloodstream, spreading slowly through her veins. But he had seen that before, dozens of times. It was the rest of her that held his interest now.
“Have you ever seen anything like her before?” said Fateen, standing beside him. “The sales from her control panel alone will cover the family payoff.”
Dr. Erland tried to give her an unimpressed glare, but it was less than effective when he had to tilt his head back to look up at her. Snarling, he scooted away and turned back to the holograph. He tapped on the top of the glowing spine, where two metal vertebrae connected, and enlarged the image. What had been a small shadow before now appeared too substantial, too geometric.
Fateen crossed her arms and bent down. “What is that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Erland, rotating the image for a better view.
“It looks like a chip,” said Li, getting up to join them.
“On her spine?” said Fateen. “What good would that do her?”
“I’m just saying that’s what it looks like. Or maybe they messed up on the vertebrae and had to reweld it or something.”
Fateen pointed. “This is more than just welding though. You can see the ridges here, like it’s plugged into…” She hesitated.
They both faced Dr. Erland, whose eyes were following a small green dot that had just floated into the holograph’s viewing range. “Like a vicious green firefly,” he muttered to himself.
“Doctor,” said Fateen, snapping his attention back to her, “why would she have a chip plugged into her nervous system?”
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps,” he said, pulling spectacles from his breast pocket and sliding them onto his nose, “her nervous system experienced traumatic damage.”
“From a hover accident?” said Li.
“Spinal injuries used to be quite common before computer-operated navigation took over.” Dr. Erland scratched his nail across the screen, pulling the holograph back to show her whole torso. He squinted into the lenses, his fingers flittering over the image.
“What are you looking for?” asked Fateen.
Dr. Erland dropped his hand and glanced at the immobile girl on the other side of the window. “Something is missing.”
The scar tissue around her wrist. The dull sheen of her synthetic foot. The grease beneath her fingertips.
“What?” said Li. “What’s missing?”
Dr. Erland stepped closer to the window and pressed a sweating palm against the counter. “A little green firefly.”
Behind him, Li and Fateen traded glances, before spinning back to the holograph. They each began their count, him silently, her out loud, but Fateen paused on number twelve with a gasp.
“One just disappeared,” she said, pointing to an empty spot on the girl’s right thigh. “A microbe, it was right here, I was looking right at it, and now it’s gone.”
As they watched, two more dots flickered and disappeared, like burned-out lightbulbs.
Li grabbed his portscreen off a desk and pounded his fingers against it. “Her immune system is going berserk.”
Dr. Erland leaned into the microphone. “Med, please draw another blood sample. Quickly.” The girl jolted to attention at the sound of his voice.
Fateen joined him at the window. “We haven’t given her the antidote yet.”
“No.”