Marissa Meyer - Cinder

Cinder was wheeled alongside another exam table, upon which sat a familiar pair of boots and gloves. Then, to Cinder’s surprise, her shackles released with a simultaneous whistle of air.

She jerked her hands and feet out of the opened metal rings before the android could realize it had made a mistake and bind her again, but the android showed no reaction as it retreated to the hall without comment. The door clanked shut behind it.

Shivering, Cinder sat up and searched the room for hidden cameras, but nothing struck her as obvious. A counter along one wall held the same heart-rate machines and ratio detectors as the other had. One netscreen to her right sat blank. The door. Two exam tables. And her.

She swung her legs over the side and snatched up her gloves and boots. While lacing up her left boot, she remembered the tools she’d stashed in her leg before leaving the junkyard, what seemed like eons ago. She unlatched the compartment and was relieved to find it hadn’t been raided. With a steadying breath, she grabbed the largest, heaviest tool she had—a wrench—before closing the compartment and tying off her boot.

With her synthetic limbs covered and a weapon in hand, she felt better. Still tense, but not as vulnerable as before.

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?”

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?”

“That’s correct, Miss Linh. You do not have the plague.”

“And I’m not going to die.”

“Correct.”

“And I’m not contagious?”

“Yes, yes, yes. Lovely feeling, isn’t it?”

She leaned against the wall. Relief filled her, but it was followed by suspicion. They had given her the plague, but now she was healed? Without any antidote?

It felt like a trap, but the orange light was nowhere to be seen. He was telling her the truth, no matter how unbelievable it seemed. “Has this happened before?”

An impish grin spread across the doctor’s weathered face. “You are the first. I have some theories about how it could be possible, but I’ll need to run tests, of course.”

He abandoned the holograph and went to the counter, lying out the two vials. “These are your blood samples, one taken before the injection, one after. I am very excited to see what secrets they contain.”

She slid her eyes to the door, then back to the doctor. “Are you saying you think I’m immune?”

“Yes! That is precisely what it seems. Very interesting. Very special.” He gripped his hands together. “It is possible that you were born with it. Something in your DNA that predisposed your immune system to fight off this particular disease. Or perhaps you were introduced to letumosis in a very small amount some time in your past, perhaps in your childhood, and your body was able to fight it off, therefore building an immunity to it which you utilized today.”