More confused than ever.
Why give her stuff back if they were going to kill her? Why take her to a new lab?
She rubbed the cool wrench against the bruise on the eye of her elbow. It almost looked like a spot from the plague. She pressed on it with her thumb, glad to feel the dull pain that proved it wasn’t.
Again she scanned the room for a camera, half expecting a small army of med-droids to stampede the room before she could destroy all the lab equipment, but no one came. The hallway outside betrayed no footsteps.
Sliding off the exam table, Cinder went to the door and tested the handle. Locked. An ID scanner was inserted into the frame, but it stayed red when she flashed her wrist before it, so it must have been coded to select personnel.
She went to the cabinets and fiddled with the row of drawers, but none opened.
Tapping the wrench against her thigh, she turned on the netscreen. It blazed to life, a holographic image jumping out at her. It was her again, her medical diagram spliced in half.
She swiped the wrench through the holograph’s abdomen. It flickered, then returned to normal.
Behind her, the door whooshed open.
Cinder spun, tucking the wrench against her side.
An old man in a gray newsboy cap stood before her, holding a portscreen in his left hand and two blood-filled vials in the other. He was shorter than Cinder. A white lab coat hung from his shoulders as it would a model skeleton. Lines drawn into his face suggested he had spent many years thinking very hard over very difficult problems. But his eyes were bluer than the sky and, at that moment, they were smiling.
He reminded her of a child salivating over a sticky bun.
The door shut behind him.
“Hello, Miss Linh.”
Her fingers tightened on the wrench. The strange accent. The disembodied voice.
“I am Dr. Erland, the leading scientist of the royal letumosis research team.”
She forced her shoulders to relax. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a face mask?”
His gray eyebrows lifted. “Whatever for? Are you sick?”
Cinder clenched her teeth and pressed the wrench into her thigh.
“Why don’t you sit down? I have some important things to discuss with you.”
“Oh, now you want to talk,” she said, inching toward him. “I was under the impression you didn’t care too much about the opinions of your guinea pigs.”
“You are a bit different than our usual volunteers.”
Cinder eyed him, the metal tool warming in her palm. “Maybe that’s because I didn’t volunteer.”
In a fluid motion, she raised her arm. Targeted his temple. Envisioned him crumpling to the floor.
But she froze, her vision blurring. Her heart rate slowed, the spike of adrenaline gone before her retina display could warn her about it.
Thoughts came to her, sharp and clear amid the syrupy confusion of her brain. He was a simple old man. A frail, helpless old man. With the sweetest, most innocent blue eyes she’d ever seen. She did not want to hurt him.
Her arm trembled.
The little orange light clicked on and she dropped the wrench in surprise. It clattered to the tile floor, but she was too dazed to worry about it.
He hadn’t said anything. How could he be lying?
The doctor didn’t even flinch. His eyes beamed, pleased with Cinder’s reaction. “Please,” he said, fanning his fingers toward the exam table. “Won’t you sit?”
Chapter Eleven
CINDER BLINKED RAPIDLY, TRYING TO DISPEL THE FOG FROM her brain. The orange light in the corner of her vision disappeared—she still had no idea what had caused it.
Maybe the earlier shock to her system had messed with her programming.
The doctor brushed past her and gestured at the holographic image that jutted from the netscreen. “You no doubt recognize this,” he said, sliding his finger along the screen so that the body spun in a lazy circle. “Let me tell you what is peculiar about it.”
Cinder tugged her glove up, pulling the hem over her scar tissue. She scooted toward him. Her foot bumped the wrench, sending it beneath the exam table. “I’d say about 36.28 percent of it is pretty peculiar.”
When Dr. Erland did not face her, she bent and picked the wrench up. It seemed heavier than before. In fact, everything felt heavy. Her hand, her leg, her head.
The doctor pointed to the holograph’s right elbow. “This is where we injected the letumosis-carrying microbes. They were tagged so that we could monitor their progress through your body.” He withdrew the finger, tapping his lip. “Now you see what is peculiar?”
“The fact that I’m not dead, and you don’t seem concerned about being in the same room with me?”
“Yes, in a way.” He faced her, rubbing his head through his wool hat. “As you can see, the microbes are gone.”
Cinder scratched an itch on her shoulder with the wrench. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they are gone. Disappeared. Poof.” He exploded his hands like fireworks.
“So…I don’t have the plague?”