“Do you know anything about your biological parents?”
Cinder shook her head. “Just their names, birth dates…whatever was in my files.”
“The files on your ID chip.”
“Well…” Irritation burst inside her. “What’s your point?”
Dr. Erland’s eyes softened, trying to comfort, but the look only unnerved her.
“Miss Linh, from your blood samples I have deduced that you are, in fact, Lunar.”
The word washed over Cinder as if he were speaking a different language. The machine in her brain kept ticking, ticking, like it was working through an impossible equation.
“Lunar?” The word evaporated off her tongue, almost nonexistent.
“Yes.”
“Lunar?”
“Indeed.”
She pulled back. Looked at the walls, the exam table, the silent news anchor. “I don’t have magic,” she said, folding her arms in defiance.
“Yes, well. Not all Lunars are born with the gift. They’re called shells, which is a slightly derogatory connotation on Luna, so…well, bioelectrically challenged doesn’t sound much better, does it?” He chuckled awkwardly.
Cinder’s metal hand clenched. She briefly wished she did have some sort of magic so she could shoot a bolt of lightning through his head. “I’m not Lunar.” She wrenched her glove off and waved her hand at him. “I’m cyborg. You don’t think that’s bad enough?”
“Lunars can be cyborgs as easily as humans. It’s rare, of course, given their intense opposition of cybernetics and brain-machine interfaces—”
Cinder faked a gasp. “No. Who would be opposed to that?”
“But being Lunar and being cyborg are not mutually exclusive. And it isn’t altogether surprising that you were brought here. Since the instatement of the non-gifted infanticide under Queen Channary, many Lunar parents have attempted to rescue their shell children by bringing them to Earth. Of course, most of them die and are executed for the attempt, but still…I believe this was the case with you. The rescuing part. Not the execution part.”
An orange light flickered in the corner of her vision. Cinder squinted at the man. “You’re lying.”
“I am not lying, Miss Linh.”
She opened her mouth to argue—which part? What exactly had he said that triggered the lie detector?
The light went away as he continued speaking.
“This also explains your immunity. In fact, when you defeated the pathogens yesterday, your being Lunar was the first possibility to cross my mind, but I didn’t want to say anything until I’d confirmed it.”
Cinder pressed her palms against her eyes, blocking out the blaring fluorescents. “What does this have to do with immunity?”
“Lunars are immune to the disease, of course.”
“No! Not of course. This is not common knowledge.” She strung her hands back against her ponytail.
“Oh. Well, but it is common sense when you know the history.” He wrung his hands. “Which, I suppose, most people don’t.”
Cinder hid her face, gasping for air. Perhaps she could rely on the man being insane and not have to believe anything he said after all.
“You see,” said Dr. Erland, “Lunars are the original carrier hosts for letumosis. Their migration to the rural areas of Earth, mostly during the reign of Queen Channary, brought the disease into contact with humans for the first time. Historically, it’s a common situation. The rats that brought the bubonic plague to Europe, the conquistadors who brought smallpox to the Native Americans. It sounds so second era that Earthens take their immunities for granted now, but with the migration of the Lunars, well…Earthen immune systems just weren’t prepared. Once even a handful of Lunars arrived, bringing the disease with them, it began spreading like wildfire.”
“I thought I wasn’t contagious.”
“You aren’t now, because your body has developed means of ridding itself of the disease, but you may have been at one point. Besides, I suspect that Lunars have different levels of immunity—while some can rid their bodies of the disease entirely, others carry it around without ever developing outward symptoms, spreading it everywhere they go and being none the wiser of the trouble they’re causing.”
Cinder waved her hands before him. “No. You’re wrong. There’s some other explanation. I can’t be—”
“I understand this is a lot to take in. But I need you to understand why you cannot be present when the Her Majesty arrives. It’s far too dangerous.”
“No, you don’t understand. I am not one of them!”
To be cyborg and Lunar. One was enough to make her a mutant, an outcast, but to be both? She shuddered. Lunars were a cruel, savage people. They murdered their shell children. They lied and scammed and brainwashed each other because they could. They didn’t care who they hurt, so long as it benefitted themselves. She was not one of them.
“Miss Linh, you must listen to me. You were brought here for a reason.”