"Fatten-jie?"
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
reseachers 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 credental he needed.
But Fateen's gaze darkened as she flickered between him and Tori.
"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 hardened 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 a here the day she was brought in. They'd had to override her
system to get her in there. 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 let 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 pace 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%
YOU ARE READING
Cress
Teen FictionTheir best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's being force to work for Queen Levana, and she...
