Droids And Bots

Chapter 18

A woman four aisles away was thrashing in her bed, screeching, begging to be left alone as a calm med-droid waited to inject her with a syringe. A minute later, two more androids arrived to hold the woman still, forcing her down on the bed, holding her arm out to receive the shot.

Feeling Peony curl up beside her, Nora turned back. Peony was shaking.

“I’m being punished for something,” Peony said, shutting her eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nora said. “The plague, it’s just…it isn’t fair. I know. But you didn’t do anything wrong. ”

She patted the girl’s hand.

“Are Mom and Pearl…?”

“Heartbroken,” said Nora. “We all miss you so much. But they haven’t caught it. ”

Peony’s eyes flickered open. She scanned Nora’s face, her neck. “Where are your spots?”

Lips parting, Nora rubbed absently at her throat, but Peony didn’t wait for an answer. “You can sleep there, right?” she said, gesturing to the empty bed. “They won’t give you a bed far away?”

Nora squeezed Peony’s hands. “No, Peony, I’m not…” She looked around but no one was paying them any attention. A med-droid two beds away was helping a patient take a drink of water. “I’m not sick. ”

Peony listed her head. “You’re here. ”

“I know. It’s complicated. You see, I went to the letumosis research center yesterday, and they tested me and…Peony, I’m immune. I can’t get letumosis. ”

Peony’s tense brow melted. She scanned Nora’s face, neck, arms again, as if her immunity were something visible, something that should have been apparent. “Immune?”

Nora rubbed Peony’s hand more quickly, anxious now that she’d told someone her secret. “They asked me to go back again today. The head doctor thinks he might be able to use me to find an antidote. I told him that if he finds anything, anything at all, you have to be the first person to get it. I made him promise. ”

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sp; She watched, amazed, as Peony’s eyes began to fill with tears. “Really?”

“Absolutely. We’re going to find one. ”

“How long will it take?”

“I-I’m not sure. ”

Peony’s other hand found her wrist and squeezed. Her long nails dug into Nora’s skin, but it took her a long time to register the pain. Peony’s breath had grown rapid. More tears pooled in her eyes, but some of the instant hope had faded, leaving her wild with desperation. “Don’t let me die, Nora. I wanted to go to the ball. Remember? You were going to introduce me to Princewill—” She turned her head, scrunching her face up in a vain attempt to hold in the tears, or hide them, or squeeze them out faster. Then a harsh cough burst from her mouth, along with a thin trail of blood.

Nora grimaced, then reached forward and swiped the blood off Peony’s chin with the corner of the brocade blanket. “Don’t give up, Peony. If I’m immune, then there has to be a way to defeat it. And they’re going to find it. You’re still going to the ball. ” She considered telling Peony that Iko had managed to save her dress, but realized that would require telling her that everything else she’d ever touched was gone. She cleared her throat and stroked Peony’s hair off her temple. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”

Peony shook her head against the worn pillow, holding the blanket against her mouth. But then she raised her eyes. “My portscreen?”

Nora flinched with guilt. “I’m sorry. It’s still broken. But I’ll look at it tonight. ”

“I just want to comm Pearl. And Mom. ”

“Of course. I’ll bring it to you, as soon as I can. ” Peony’s portscreen. The Princewill’s android. The car. “I’m so sorry, Peony, but I need to go. ”

The small hands tightened.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise. ”

Peony took in a shaky breath, sniffed, then released her. She dug her frail hands beneath the blanket, burying herself up to her chin.

Nora stood and untangled Peony’s hair with her fingers. “Try to get some sleep. Reserve your strength. ”

Peony followed Nora with her watery gaze. “I love you, Nora. I’m glad you’re not sick. ”

Nora’s heart tightened. Pursing her lips, she bent over and placed a kiss against Peony’s damp forehead. “I love you too. ”

She struggled to breathe as she forced herself to walk away, trying to trick herself into being hopeful. There was a chance. A chance.

She didn’t look at any of the other patients as she made her way to the quarantine’s exit, but then she heard her name. She paused, thinking that the sandpaper voice had been nothing more than her imagination mixed with too many hysterical cries.

“Cin-der?”

She turned and spotted a familiar face half-covered by an age-bleached quilt.

“Chang-ji?” She neared the foot of the bed, nose wrinkling at the pungent odor wafting from the woman’s bed. Chang Sacha, the market baker, was barely recognizable with her swollen eyelids and sallow skin.

Trying to breathe normally, Nora rounded the bed.

The quilt that rested across Sacha’s nose and mouth shifted with her belabored breathing. Her eyes were glossy, as wide as Nora had ever seen them. It was the only time she could remember Sacha looking at her without disdain. “You too? Nora?”

Instead of answering, Nora said, uncertainly, “Can I do anything for you?”

They were the kindest words that had ever passed between them. The blanket shifted, inching down Sacha’s face. Nora bit back a gasp at seeing the blue-ringed splotches on the woman’s jaw and down her throat.

“My son,” she said, wheezing each word. “Bring Sunto? I need to see him. ”

Nora didn’t move, remembering how Sacha had ordered Sunto away from her booth days before. “Bring him?”

Sacha snaked one arm out from beneath the blankets and reached toward Nora, grasping her wrist where skin met metal. Nora squirmed, trying to pull away, but Sacha held tight. Her hand was marked by bluish pigment around her yellowed fingernails.

The fourth and final stage of the blue fever.

“I will try,” she said. She reached up, hesitated, then pet Sacha on the knuckles. The blue fingers released her and sank to the bed.

“Sunto,” Sacha murmured. Her gaze was still locked on Nora’s face, but the recognition had faded. “Sunto. ”

Nora stepped back, watching as the words dried up. The life dulled in Sacha’s black eyes.

Nora convulsed, tying her arms around her stomach. She looked around. None of the other patients were paying any attention to her or the woman—the corpse—beside her. But then she saw the droidrolling toward them. The med-droids must be linked somehow, she thought, to know when someone dies.

How long did it take for the notification comm to be sent to the family? How long would it be before Sunto knew he was motherless?

She wanted to turn away, to leave, but she felt rooted to the spot as the droidwheeled up beside the bed and took Sacha’s limp hand between its grippers. Sacha’s complexion was ashen but for the bruised blotches on her jaw. Her eyes were still open, turned toward the heavens.

Perhaps the med-droid would have questions for Nora. Perhaps someone would want to know the woman’s final words. Her son might want to know. Nora should tell someone.

But the med-droid’s sensor did not turn toward her.

Nora licked her lips. She opened her mouth but could think of nothing to say.

A panel opened in the body of the med-droid. It reached in with its free prongs and pulled out a scalpel. Nora watched, mesmerized and disgusted, as the droidpressed the blade into Sacha’s wrist. A stream of blood dripped down Sacha’s palm.

Nora shook herself from her stupor and stumbled forward. The foot of the bed pressed into her thighs. “What are you doing?” she said, louder than she’d meant to.

The med-droid paused with the scalpel buried in Sacha’s flesh. Its yellow visor flashed toward Nora, then dimmed. “How can I help you?” it said with its manufactured politeness.

“What are you doing to her?” she asked again. She wanted to reach out and snatch the scalpel away, but feared she misunderstood. There must be a reason, something logical. Med-droids were all logic.

“Removing her ID chip,” said the android.

“Why?”

The visor flashed again, and the droidreturned its focus to Sacha’s wrist. “She has no more use for it. ” The med-droid traded the scalpel for tweezers, and Nora heard the subtle click of metal on metal. She grimaced as the droidextracted the small chip. Its protective plastic coating glistened scarlet.

“But…don’t you need it to identify the body?”

The droiddropped the chip into a tray that opened up in its plastic plating. Nora saw it fall into a bed of dozens of other bloodied chips.

It drew the tattered blanket over Sacha’s unblinking eyes. Instead of answering her question, it said simply, “I have been programmed to follow instructions. ”

Chapter Eighteen

A MED-DROID ROLLED INTO Nora’S PATH AS SHE EXITED the warehouse, blocking her way with outstretched spindly arms. “Patients are strictly f*******n from leaving the quarantine area,” it said, nudging Nora back into the shadows of the doorway.

Nora swallowed her panic and halted the robot with a palm against its smooth forehead. “I’m not a patient,” she said. “I’m not even sick. Here. ” She held out her elbow, displaying a small bruise from being stuck with too many needles the past two days.

The android’s innards hummed as it processed her statement, searching its database for a logical reaction. Then a panel opened in its torso and the third arm, the syringe arm, extended toward Nora. She flinched, her skin tender, but tried to relax as the droiddrew a fresh sample of blood. The syringe disappeared into the android’s body and Nora waited, rolling her sleeve down over the hem of her glove.

The test seemed to take longer than at the junkyard, and a sinking panic was crawling up Nora’s spine—what if Dr. Erland had been wrong?—when she heard a low beep and the droidbacked away, clearing her path.

She released her breath and did not look back at the robot or any of its companions as she crossed the hot asphalt. The hover was still waiting for her. Settling into the backseat, she told it to take her to New Beijing Palace.

Having been unconscious the first time she’d been brought to the palace, Nora found herself plastered to the hover’s window as she was taken up the steep winding road to the top of the harsh cliffs that bordered the city. Her netlink fished for information, telling her that the palace had been built after World War IV, when the city was little more than rubble. It was designed in the fashion of the old world, with hearty dosages of both nostalgic symbolism and state-of-the-art engineering. The pagoda-style roofs were made of gold-tinged tiles and surrounded by qilin gargoyles, but the tiles were actually galvanized steel covered with tiny solar capsules that created enough energy to sustain the entire palace, including the research wing, and the gargoyles were equipped with motion sensors, ID scanners, 360-degree cameras, and radars that could detect approaching aircrafts and hovers within a sixty-mile radius. All that was invisible, though, the technology hidden in the ornately carved beams and tiered pavilions.

What captured Nora’s eye was not modern technology but a cobblestoned road lined with cherry blossom trees. Bamboo screens framing the garden entrances. Through a peep window, a steadily trickling stream.

The hover did not stop at the main entrance with its crimson pergolas. Instead, it rounded to the northern side of the palace, nearest the research wing. Though this part of the palace was more modern, less nostalgic, Nora still noticed a squat Buddha sculpture with a cheery face off the pathway. As she paid for the hover and walked toward the automatic glass door, a subtle pulse tugged at her ankle—Buddha scanning visitors for weapons. To her relief, the steel in her leg did not set off any alarms.

Inside, she was greeted by an droidwho asked for her name and told her to wait in the elevator bank. The research center was a hive of activity—diplomats and doctors, ambassadors and androids, all roaming the halls on their separate missions.

An elevator opened and Nora stepped into it, glad to be alone. The doors began to close, but then paused and opened again. “Please hold,” said the mechanical voice of the elevator operator.

A moment later, Princewill finch darted through the half-open doors. “Sorry, sorry, thanks for hold—”

He saw her and froze. “Sintia-mèi?”

Nora pushed herself off the eleva