Iko and Cress strolled into the room, Cress carrying a wooden box.
“They have a workshop out back,” said Iko. She was wearing a shimmering pink shirt she’d found in the house, mostly to cover up the bullet hole in her torso and the slash in the back of her right shoulder. Cinder hoped that once she was fixed, she’d be able to at least make Iko’s arm functional again too.
“I found everything on your list except the demagnetized three-p.r.o.nged parts retriever. But I did find some tweezers in the bathroom?” She twirled the tweezers between her good fingers.
Twisting her mouth, Cinder took the tweezers and flicked a stray eyebrow hair from their tip. “We’ll make them work.” She surveyed the pile of tools and spare parts they’d acc.u.mulated from technology all over the mansion. Without being able to see inside her own head and offer an accurate diagnosis, it was difficult to know what they were going to need to fix her, but if it wasn’t included in this pile, they had little hope of finding it here. “We’ll need a lamp so you can see what you’re doing. And what about a hand mirror? We can hold it up so I can see inside.”
Jacin shook his head. “Not in this city.”
Cinder scowled. “Right, fine. We’re going to extract the data off the vid-chip first, then we’ll focus on the retina display. My eyes are still communicating with my optical nerve, so my best guess is there’s been a disruption of data transfer from my control panel to the display. Could be as simple as a damaged wire. Once we have that working, I should be able to run my internal diagnostics and figure out what’s wrong with my hand and leg.” She pointed at a virtual reality viewing chair. “Drag that over here.”
Jacin complied, and Cinder pulled herself into the chair, facing backward so she could drape her arms over the back. She rested her forehead on them. “Cress?”
“Ready when you are.”
“All right. Let’s see what we can find.”
Iko brushed Cinder’s hair off to one side and dug a fingernail into the latch in the back of Cinder’s skull. Cinder felt the panel swing open.
“Oh, sure,” said Thorne. “When I open her head panel, she yells at me. When Iko does it, she’s a hero.”
Cinder glared at him over her folded arms. “Would you like to do this?”
He grimaced. “Not even a little bit.”
“Then back up and give them s.p.a.ce to work.” She laid her forehead down again. “All right, Iko. There’s a cable insert on the left side of the control panel.”
Someone turned on a lamp and bright light edged around her vision.
“I see it,” said Iko. “Cress, you have that port?”
“And connector cable, right here.”
Cinder heard them shuffling behind her, brushing more of her hair out of the way. There was a click, m.u.f.fled inside her own head. A shudder coursed through her. It had been a while since an external device had been plugged into her processor. The last time had been when she’d drained her power source getting the Rampion into s.p.a.ce, right after they’d escaped from New Beijing Prison. Thorne had had to recharge her with a podship plug.
The time before that she’d been in a research lab, strapped to a table while a med-droid downloaded the statistics of her cybernetic makeup.
She really, really hated having things plugged into her head.
She forced herself to take deep breaths. It was only Iko and Cress. She knew what they were plugging into her and what data they were extracting. It was not a violation. It was not an invasion.
But it was impossible not to feel that way.
“The connection worked,” said Cress. “There doesn’t appear to be any obvious holes in the data, so this part of your programming wasn’t affected by whatever cut off power to your limbs. I just need to find where it stores visual input and … here we go. Recordings … chronological … would it be the most recent … never mind, this must be it. Video, encrypted, one minute fifty-six seconds long. And … transferring.”
Cinder’s gut twisted. She was not squeamish in general, but whenever her panel was open it was impossible not to think about nameless, faceless surgeons hovering over her unconscious form. Connecting wires and synapses to her brain, regulating her electrical pulses, replacing part of her skull with a removable metal plate.
She squeezed her forearms until they began to hurt, trying to distract herself from the humming of her own internal workings and the sound of Cress’s fingertips padding against the portscreen.
“Eighty percent,” said Cress.
White spots flickered on the blackness of Cinder’s eyelids. She breathed deeply, chastising herself. She was fine. This would have been a routine procedure if it had been her working on an android or another cyborg. She was fine.
The humming stopped and Cress said, “Done.”
“Check it before you disconnect,” said Cinder, gulping down a mouthful of sour saliva. “Make sure it’s the right one.”
“It’s showing … a lot of people.”
“There’s Kai!” squealed Iko.
Cinder jerked her head up. She felt the pull of the cord still connected to the portscreen. “Show me,” she said, even as brightness flooded her vision. She cringed, slamming her eyes shut again.
“Wait, hold still,” said Cress. “Let me disconnect—”
That was the last Cinder heard.
* * *