Scarlet

she was a phantom haunting a shipwreck. She picked her way through the obstacle course of storage bins and sank into the pilot’s seat in the cockpit.
    Through the window she could see Earth—the shores of the American Republic and most of the African Union visible beneath the swirling cloud cover. And beyond it—stars, so many stars swirling and misting into countless galaxies. They were both beautiful and terrifying, billions of light-years away, and yet seeming so bright and close it was almost suffocating.
    All Cinder had ever wanted was freedom. Freedom from her stepmother and her overbearing rules. Freedom from a life of constant work with nothing to show for it. Freedom from the sneers and hateful words of strangers who didn’t trust the cyborg girl who was too strong and too smart and too freakishly good with machines to ever be normal.
    Now she had her freedom—but it wasn’t anything like she’d envisioned.
    Sighing, Cinder pulled her left foot onto her knee, shoved up her pant leg, and opened the hollow compartment inside her calf. The compartment had been searched and emptied when she’d been admitted into prison—just one more invasion—but the most valuable contents had been ignored. No doubt the guard performing her search had thought the chips nestled into the wiring were a part of Cinder’s own programming.
    Three chips. She plucked them out, one by one, laying them out on the arm of her chair.
    There was the shimmering white D-COMM chip. It was a Lunar chip, made from some material Cinder hadn’t seen before. Levana had ordered it to be installed in Nainsi, Kai’s android, and used it to gather confidential information. The girl who had programmed the chip, supposedly the queen’s personal programmer, had later used it to contact Cinder and tell her that Levana was planning to marry Kai … and then kill him and use the power of the Eastern Commonwealth to invade the rest of the Earthen Union. It was this information that had sent Cinder running to the ball only a few short days ago—what seemed like a lifetime ago.
    She couldn’t regret it. She knew she would do it all over again, despite what a mess her life had become since that single rash decision.
    Then there was Iko’s personality chip. It was the largest and most abused of the three. One side showed a distinct greasy thumbprint, probably Cinder’s, and one corner had a hairline fracture. Nevertheless, Cinder was confident it would still function. Iko, a servant android who had belonged to Cinder’s stepmother, had long been one of her closest friends. But in a fit of anger and desperation, Adri had dismantled Iko and sold off her parts, leaving only the most useless pieces behind. Including her personality chip.
    The third chip in Cinder’s stash made her heart cramp as she picked it up.
    Peony’s ID chip.
    Her younger stepsister had died almost two weeks ago. The plague had claimed her, because Cinder couldn’t get the antidote to her in time. Because Cinder had been too late.
    What would Peony think now? That Cinder was Lunar. That Cinder was Princess Selene. That Cinder had danced with Kai, kissed Kai …
    “ Eww, is that an ID chip?”
    She jumped, enclosing the chip in her fist as Thorne sank into the second chair. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
    “Why do you have an ID chip?” he said, peering suspiciously at the other two chips on the arm of her chair. “It’d better not be yours, after you made me cut mine out.”
    She shook her head. “It’s my sister’s.” Gulping, she unfurled her fingers. A bit of dried blood had crackled off in her palm.
    “Don’t tell me she’s a runaway convict too. Doesn’t she need it?”
    Cinder held her breath, waiting for the aching in her chest to fade, and glared at Thorne.
    He met the look, and realization gradually expanded over his face. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
    She fidgeted with the chip, passing it from one metal knuckle to the next.
    “How long ago?”
    “A couple of weeks.” She tucked the chip into her fist. “She was only fourteen.”
    “The plague?”
    Cinder nodded. “The androids who run the quarantines have been harvesting ID chips from the deceased. I think they’re giving them to convicts and escaped Lunars … people wanting a new identity.” She set the chip down beside the others. “I couldn’t let them take hers.”
    Thorne settled back in his chair. He’d cleaned up well—his hair was neatly trimmed, he was clean shaven, and