A PING DARTED THROUGH CINDER’S HEAD, FOLLOWED BY A message scrolled across the blackness of sleep.
COMM RECEIVED FROM NEW BEIJING DISTRICT 29, LETUMOSIS QUARANTINE. LINH PEONY ENTERED THIRD STAGE OF LETUMOSIS AT 04:57 ON 22 AUG 126 T.E.
It took a minute to shake off the grogginess of sleep and make sense of the scrawling words. She opened her eyes to the windowless bedroom and sat up. All her muscles ached from the midnight trip to the junkyard. Her back hurt so bad it felt as though that old car had run her over, rather than sat in neutral while she and Iko pushed and pulled it through the back roads. But they had succeeded. The car was hers, moved to a dark corner of the apartment’s underground parking garage, where she’d be able to work on it every spare moment. As long as no one complained about the smell, it would remain her and Iko’s little secret.
When they’d finally returned home, Cinder had crashed like someone had hit her power button. For once, she’d had no nightmares.
At least, no nightmares until the message woke her.
The thought of Peony all alone in the quarantines spurred her out of her pile of blankets with a stifled groan. She pulled on a pair of gloves, stole a green brocade blanket from the linen closet in the hall, and passed Iko—set to conservation mode and connected to a charging station in the living room. It felt strange leaving without the android, but she planned on going straight to the palace afterward.
In the apartment corridor, she could hear someone pacing on the next floor and a netscreen mumbling the morning news. Cinder commed a hover for the first time in her life, and it was ready for her by the time she got down to the street. She scanned her ID and gave it the quarantine’s coordinates before settling into the far back. Cinder netlinked so she could trace the hover’s path to the quarantine. The map that overlaid her vision indicated it was in the industrial district, fifteen miles outside the city limits.
The city was all shadows, blurry, sleepy apartments and empty sidewalks. The buildings grew shorter with more space between them as the heart of the city was left behind. Pale sunlight crawled down the streets, sending long shadows across the pavement.
Cinder knew they’d reached the industrial district without the map’s help. She blinked it away and watched the factories roll by alongside squat concrete warehouses with gigantic roll-up doors that could accommodate even the largest hover. Probably even cargo ships.
Cinder scanned her ID as she exited so the hover could debit her nearly depleted account, then ordered it to wait for her. She headed toward the nearest warehouse where a group of androids stood by the door. Above the door was a brand-new netscreen flashing,
LETUMOSIS QUARANTINE. PATIENTS AND ANDROIDS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.
She draped the blanket over her forearms and tried to look confident as she walked, wondering what she would say if the androids questioned her. But the med-droids must not have been programmed to deal with healthy people coming into the quarantines; they hardly even noticed her as she passed. She hoped it would be as easy to leave. Perhaps she should have asked Dr. Erland for a pass.
The stench of excrement and rot reached out to her as she stepped into the warehouse. She reeled back, cupping her palm over her nose as her stomach churned, wishing her brain interface could dull odors as easily as it could noise.
Sucking in a breath through her glove and holding it, she forced herself into the warehouse.
It was cooler inside, the concrete floor untouched by the sun. Opaque green plastic covered a thin row of windows near the high ceilings, swathing the building in a dingy haze. Gray lightbulbs hummed overhead, but they did little to dispel the darkness.
Hundreds of beds were lined up between the distant walls, covered in mismatched blankets—donations and scraps. She was glad to have brought a nice one for Peony. Most of the beds sat empty. This quarantine had been hastily constructed in just the past weeks as the sickness crept closer to the city. Still, the flies had already caught on and filled the room with buzzing.
The few patients Cinder passed were sleeping or staring blankly up at the ceiling, their skin covered in a blue-black rash. Those who still had their senses were hunkered over portscreens—their last connection to the outside world. Glossy eyes looked up, following Cinder as she hurried by.
More med-droids moved between the beds, supplying food and water, but none of them stopped Cinder.
She found Peony asleep, tangled in a baby blue blanket. Cinder wasn’t sure she would have recognized her if it hadn’t been for the chestnut curls draped over the pillow. The purplish blotches had spread up her arms. Though she was shivering, her forehead glistened with sweat. She looked like an old woman, just this side of death.