cinder || dnf

chapter seventeen

A ping darted through Dream's head, followed by a message scrolled across the blackness of sleep.

COMM RECEIVED FROM NEW BEIJING DISTRICT 29, LETUMOSIS QUARANTINE. DRISTA ALMEIDA ENTERED THIRD STAGE OF LETUMOSIS AT 04:57 ON 17 AUG 126 T.E.

It took a minute to shake off the grogginess of sleep and make sense of the scrawling words. He opened his eyes to the windowless bedroom and sat up. All his muscles aches from the midnight trip to the junkyard. His back hurt so bad it felt as though that old car had run him over, rather than sat in neutral while he and Patches pushed and pulled it through the back roads. But they had succeeded. The car was his, moved to a dark corner of the apartment's underground parking garage, where he'd be able to work on it every spare moment. As long as no one complained about the smell, it would remain his and Patches' little secret.

When they'd finally returned home, Dream had crashed like someone had hit his power button. For once, he'd had no nightmares.

At least, no nightmares until the message woke him.

The thought of Drista all alone in the quarantines spurred him out of his pile of blankets with a stifled groan. He pulled on a pair of gloves, stole a green brocade blanket from the linen closet in the hall, and passed Patches- set to conservation mode and connected to a charging station in the living room. It felt strange leaving without the android, but he planned on going straight to the palace afterward.

In the apartment corridor, he could hear someone pacing on the next floor and a netscreen mumbling the morning news. Dream commed a hover for the first time in his life, and it was ready for him by the time he got down to the street. He scanned his ID and gave it the quarantine's coordinates before settling into the far back. Dream netlinked so he could trace the hover's path to the quarantine. The map that overlaid his 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.

Dream knew they'd reached the industrial district without the map's help. He 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.

Dream scanned his ID as he exited so the hover could debit his nearly depleted account, then ordered it to wait for him. He 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.

He draped the blanket over his forearms and tried to look confident as he walked, wondering what he would say if the androids questioned him. But the med-droids must not have been programmed to deal with healthy people coming into the quarantines; they hardly even noticed him as he passed. He hoped it would be easy to leave. Perhaps he should have asked Dr. Za for a pass.

The stench of excrement and rot reached out to him as he stepped into the warehouse. He reeled back, cupping his palm over his nose as his stomach churned, wishing his brain interface could dull odors as easily as it could noise.

Sucking in a breath through his glove and holding it, he forced himself 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.