Scarlet

prettier, and Thorne cupped his chin, studying her. He’d never met a cyborg before, much less flirted with one, but there was a first time for everything.
    “These cells aren’t supposed to be occupied,” she said.
    “Special circumstances.”
    She surveyed him for a long moment, her brows knitting together. “Murder?”
    His grin grew. “Thank you, but no. I started a riot on the yard.” He adjusted his collar, before adding, “We were protesting the soap.”
    Her confusion grew, and Thorne noticed that she was still in her defensive stance.
    “The soap,” he said again, wondering if she’d heard him. “It’s too drying.”
    She said nothing.
    “I have sensitive skin.”
    Her mouth opened and he expected sympathy, but all that came out was a disinterested “Huh.”
    Drawing herself up, she kicked the fallen ceiling tile out from beneath her feet, then proceeded to turn in a full circle, surveying the cell. Her lip curled in annoyance. “Stupid,” she muttered, nearing the wall to Thorne’s left and placing a palm against it. “One room off.”
    Her eyelashes suddenly fluttered as if dust were stuck in them. Growling, she smacked her palm against her temple a few times.
    “You’re escaping.”
    “Not at this very moment,” she said through her teeth, roughly shaking her head. “But, yes, that is the general idea.” Her face lit up when she spotted the port in his lap. “What model portscreen is that?”
    “I haven’t the faintest idea.” He held it up for her. “I’m putting together a portfolio of the women I’ve loved.”
    Pushing herself from the wall, she snatched the portscreen away and flipped it over. A tip of her cyborg finger opened, revealing a small screwdriver. It wasn’t long before she’d undone the plate on the underside of the port.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Taking your vid-cable.”
    “What for?”
    “Mine’s on the fritz.”
    She pulled a yellow wire from the screen and dropped it back into Thorne’s lap, then sank cross-legged to the floor. Thorne watched, mystified, as she tossed her hair to one side and unlatched a panel at the base of her skull. A moment later her fingers emerged with a wire similar to the one she’d just stolen from him, but with one blackened end. The girl’s face contorted in concentration while she installed the new cable.
    With a pleased sigh, she shut the panel and tossed the old cable next to Thorne. “Thanks.”
    He grimaced, shrinking away from the wire. “You have a portscreen in your head ?”
    “Something like that.” The girl stood and ran a hand over the wall again. “Ah, that’s much better. Now how do I…” Trailing off, she pushed the button in the corner. A glossy white panel slid up into the wall, ejecting the urinal with smooth precision. Her fingers fished into the gap left between the fixture and the wall, searching.
    Inching away from the neglected cable on his cot, Thorne cleared his mind of the image of her opening a plate in her skull, once again calling up the personification of a gentleman, and attempted to make small talk while she worked. He asked what she was in for and complimented the fine workmanship of her metal extremities, but she ignored him, making him briefly question if he’d been separated from the female population for so long that he could be losing his charm.
    But that seemed unlikely.
    A few minutes later, the girl seemed to find what she was looking for, and Thorne heard the motorized-drill sound again.
    “When they locked you up,” Thorne said, “didn’t they consider that this prison might have some security weaknesses?”
    “It didn’t at the time. This hand is kind of a new addition.” She paused and stared hard at one corner of the alcove, as if trying to see through the wall.
    Maybe she had X-ray vision. Now that he could find some good uses for.
    “Let me guess,” Thorne said. “Breaking and entering?”
    After a long silence of examining the retracting mechanism, the girl wrinkled her nose. “Two counts of treason, if you must know. And resisting arrest, and unlawful use of bioelectricity. Oh, and illegal immigration, but honestly, I think that’s a little excessive.”
    He squinted at the back of her head, a twitch developing in his left eye. “How old are you?”
    “Sixteen.”
    The screwdriver in her finger began to spin again. Thorne waited until there was a lull in the grinding. “What’s your name?”
    “Cinder,” she said, followed by another