Echoed Lullabies (Lunar Chronicles x Reader)

Chapter 36

"Fateen-jiĕ?"

The girl spun around, her long black braid swinging against her lab coat. "Your Majesty!"

A ghost smile flickered over Kai's face. "Do you have a moment to assist us with something?"

"Of course." Fateen tucked a portscreen into her coat pocket.

Kai moved toward the wall of the white corridor, allowing room for researchers and technicians to pass by. "We need access to some patient records. I realize they're probably confidential, but..." Kai trailed off. There was no "but," only a vague hope and a fair amount of confidence that his title was the only credential he needed.

But Fateen's gaze darkened as they flickered between him and Torin. "Patient records?"

"A few weeks ago," said Kai, "I came to check on Dr. Erland's progress and Linh Cinder was here. The Lunar cyborg from—"

"I know who Linh Cinder is," she said, her hardness fading as quickly as it had come.

"Right, of course." He cleared his throat. "Well, at the time, the doctor told me she was there fixing a med-droid, but I was thinking about it, and I thought maybe she had actually been a..."

"A draft subject?"

"Yes."

Fateen shrugged. "Actually, she was a volunteer. Come on, there should be a vacant lab you can use. I'm happy to pull up Linh Cinder's records for you."

He and Torin followed her, Kai wondering whether she would have been as accommodating had it been any other patient. Since the arrest, Linh Cinder had become a matter of public concern, and therefore her private records weren't so private anymore.

"She was a volunteer? Really?"

"Yes. I was here the day she was brought in. They'd had to override her system to get her in here. I guess she put up quite a fight when they came for her."

Kai frowned. "Why would a volunteer put up a fight?"

"I'm using volunteer in the official sense. I believe her legal guardian recommended her for the testing." She swiped her wrist over an ID scanner, then ushered them into Lab 6D. The room smelled of bleach and peroxide and every surface glistened to a perfect shine. A counter along the far wall was set before a window overlooking a quarantine room. Kai grimaced, reminded of his father's last days spent in a room not entirely unlike that one, although his had been equipped with blankets and pillows, his favorite music, a tranquil water fountain. The patients who came to these labs would not have received the same luxuries.

Fateen paced to the adjoining wall. "Screen, on," she said, tapping something into her portscreen. "I do believe these records were a part of the investigation following her jailbreak, Your Majesty. Do you think the detectives may have missed something?"

He threaded his fingers through his hair. "No. I'm just trying to answer some of my own questions."

The lab's log-in screen faded, replaced with a patient profile. Her profile.

LINH CINDER, LICENSED MECHANIC

ID #0097917305

BORN 29 NOV 109 T.E.

RESIDENT OF NEW BEIJING, EASTERN COMMONWEALTH. WARD OF LINH ADRI.

CYBORG RATIO: 36.28%

"Is there something specific you're looking for?" Fateen asked, sliding her fingers along the screen so that the profile trekked down into blood type (A), allergies (none), and medications (unknown).

Then the plague test. Kai stepped closer. "What's this?"

"The doctor's notes from when we injected her with the letumosis microbe solution. How much we gave her and, subsequently, how long it took her body to rid itself of the disease."