“I don’t care what you’ve been programmed to do. You can’t have this one.” Cinder yanked Peony’s arm out of the android’s grip. The pincers left deep scratches across her skin.
“I must remove and preserve her ID chip,” the android said, reaching forward again.
Cinder bent over the bed and plastered her hand against the android’s sensor, holding it at bay. “I said you’re not getting it. Leave her alone.”
The android swung the scalpel up, burying the tip into Cinder’s glove. It clanged, metal on metal. Cinder reeled back from surprise. The blade clung to the thick fabric of her work gloves.
Gritting her teeth, she wrenched the scalpel from the glove and jammed it into the android’s sensor. Glass shattered. The glowing yellow light flashed out. The android wheeled back, metal arms swinging, loud beeps and error messages spilling from its hidden speakers.
Cinder barreled over the bed and slammed her fist into the android’s head. It crashed to the ground, silenced, arms still twitching.
Panting, Cinder looked around. The patients who could were sitting up in bed, blinking glossy eyes. A med-droid four aisles away left its patient and rambled toward her.
Cinder sucked in a breath. Crouching down, she reached into the android’s shattered sensor and grabbed the scalpel. She spun back to Peony—the disheveled blankets, the scratches on her arm, the blue fingertips dangling over the side of the bed. Kneeling beside her, she asked for hurried forgiveness while she grasped her sister’s fragile wrist.
She spliced the scalpel into the soft tissue. Blood dribbled out of the wound and onto her glove, mixing with years of grime. Peony’s fingers twitched when Cinder hit a tendon, making her jump.
When the cut was wide enough, she peeled it open with her thumb, revealing bright red muscle. Blood. Her stomach squirmed but she dug the tip of the blade in as carefully as she could, easing up the square chip.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, setting the mutilated wrist down on Peony’s stomach and standing. The grating of the med-droid’s treads worked closer.
“Ashes, ashes…”
She spun toward the dry, singsong voice, scalpel gripped firmly in one hand, Peony’s chip protected in the other.
The small boy in the next aisle shrank back as his dilated eyes spotted the weapon. The nursery rhyme faded away. It took Cinder a moment to recognize him. Chang Sunto, from the market. Sacha’s son. His skin now glossy with sweat, black hair matted to one side of his head from sleeping too much. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Everyone who was strong enough to sit up was staring at her.
Stealing a breath, Cinder swept toward Sunto. She fished the vial from her pocket and forced it into his clammy fingers. “Drink this.”
The med-droid reached the foot of the bed, and Cinder shoved it aside. It toppled to the ground like a fallen pawn. Sunto’s delirious eyes followed her without recognition. “Drink it!” she ordered, pulling out the stopper and forcing the vial up to his mouth. She waited for his lips to close around it, and then she ran.
The sun momentarily blinded her as she bolted into the street. Blocked from her hover by the med-droids and two gurneys of dead patients, she spun and ran in the other direction.
She turned a corner and had gone four blocks when she heard another hover overhead, the hum of magnets awakening beneath her pounding feet.
“Linh Cinder,” came a booming voice over the speaker, “you are hereby ordered to halt and be taken peacefully into custody.”
She cursed. Were they arresting her?
Planting her feet she turned to face the white hover, panting. It was a law enforcement vehicle, manned by more androids. How had they gotten to her so quickly?
“I didn’t steal it!” she yelled, holding up her fist with Peony’s chip enclosed. “It belongs to her family, not to you or anyone else!”
The hover settled to the ground, its engine still thrumming. An android alighted from a ramp, its yellow light scanning Cinder up and down as it approached her. It held a taser in its prongs.
She shuffled back, her heels kicking up debris on the deserted street.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, hands extended toward the android. “That med-droid was attacking me. It was self-defense.”
“Linh Cinder,” said the machine’s mechanical voice, “we have been contacted by your legal guardian in regard to your unauthorized disappearance. You are hereby in violation of the Cyborg Protection Act and have been labeled a runaway cyborg. Our orders are to apprehend you by force if necessary and return you to your legal guardian. If you come peaceably, this infraction will not be recorded on your permanent record.”
Cinder squinted, confused. A bead of sweat rolled over her eyebrow as she looked from the android who had spoken to a second android just leaving the hover’s ramp.
“Wait,” she said, lowering her hands. “Adri sent you?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight