Stars Above

Logan and Garan were already working when she arrived in the secret room that housed Selene’s body. Over the last week the princess had been transformed from the mutilated child Michelle had been keeping watch over to a cyborg with metal plating and a complicated software system integrated with her brain. Michelle had acted as Logan’s assistant, getting supplies and tools and monitoring vital statistics, but for the most part she’d tried to keep her eyes averted. She had a strong spirit, but even this intrusion was a bit much for her to handle.

Logan glanced up when Michelle’s feet hit the concrete floor. He nodded in greeting. He and Garan were each wearing masks, and Michelle grabbed an extra one and slipped it on over her mouth before approaching the operating table.

The child had been turned onto her side. Logan was holding a medical portscreen over her neck, letting a laser gently meld together the incision in the back of her neck. They’d already finished installing Garan’s prototype onto her spinal column. That meant it couldn’t have taken them more than forty minutes.

Michelle was comforted by the knowledge. After all, her turn would be next.

“How is she?” she asked, glancing at the shiny metal hand and leg.

“Surprisingly well,” said Logan. “Her body has adapted to the new prostheses and wiring even better than I hoped. I’m optimistic that the worst is behind us.” He checked the incision—almost invisible now but for a pale white scar that would fade with time. “There. Let’s get her back into the tank.”

They worked together to move her. Though she was still of slight build, the new leg added a surprising amount of heft to her body.

“Are we putting her back into stasis?” Michelle asked.

“No.” Logan’s eyes glimmered as he looked up at her. “We’re waking her up.”

She stiffened. “What? Tonight? I thought it was still going to be a week or more before she’s ready.”

“A week before she’s ready for long-distance travel,” said Logan. He bent down to connect a set of sensors to the child’s head. He’d been removing and reapplying those sensors all week, after every operation. “But we’ll begin the awakening process tonight. I want to make it slow and gradual. Her system has gone through enough shocks—I’ll do my best to make this as smooth a transition as possible.”

“She’s going to be conscious, then?” said Michelle. “For the next week?”

She hadn’t been expecting this. She couldn’t keep an awake, sentient girl down in this dungeon, but she couldn’t bring her into the house, either, and—

Logan shook his head. “Awake, but still heavily medicated. It will be a couple of days before she’s cognizant of her surroundings, and Garan has agreed to stay with her and begin working with her to build up her muscle tissue. If the tank has done its job correctly, and the new wiring has synthesized properly with her system, then I hope she will be capable of walking out of here in a week’s time.”

Walking. After all these years, the princess was about to be walking, and speaking, and awake.

Michelle stepped closer and peered into the girl’s face. Her brown hair was slick with the gel that had harbored her since she was only three years old. Her face was gaunt and her frame lithe, almost bone-thin. She hoped Garan would feed her a big meal when he welcomed her into his family.

She was only a child, and there were already so many hopes and expectations heaped on her shoulders. Michelle suddenly pitied her.

More than that, she realized she was going to miss her, this child who had caused her so much worry. Who had been a constant fixture in her life for so long, and who would leave now and never even know Michelle’s name. Never know who had cared for her for so long.

“All right,” Logan murmured. He had attached a portscreen to the side of the tank and was staring at it. “I’m going to initiate the procedure. It will be a few moments, but we should soon begin to see signs of life independent of the machinery.”

There was a hum from the base of the suspension tank.

The girl didn’t move. Not a breath, not a flinch.

Michelle glanced up at Garan, who was watching the child with eager curiosity. “What are you going to call her?” she asked.

Garan turned to her. “Call her?”

“You can’t very well call her Selene. I was wondering if you’d chosen another name.”

He stood up straighter. His expression took on a look of bewilderment. “I honestly hadn’t given it any consideration.”

“Michelle is right,” said Logan, still inspecting the portscreen. “We will need to give her an ID chip, too, if we expect her to fit in here on Earth. It will require some history for her—a family, and a believable story for how she became a cyborg. Enough to keep away any suspicion. I have some ideas already, but you are welcome to assign her a name, as her guardian.”

Garan’s gaze dropped to the child again. His brow was furrowed. “I’m not good with naming things. My wife chose the names for our daughters. I don’t think it even occurred to me that I might have a say in it.”

Michelle licked her lips behind the face mask. “I have a thought.”

Both men glanced at her.

“What about … Cinder?”

There was a hesitation, and she could tell they were doubtful about the name. She lifted her chin and explained, “It’s an unassuming name, but also … powerful. Because of where she came from. She survived that fire. She was reborn from the cinders.”

They turned as one to look at the girl again.

“Cinder,” said Logan, rolling the name over on his tongue. “Cinder. I like it, actually.”

“Me too,” said Garan. “Linh Cinder.”

Michelle smiled, glad they had been easily swayed. A child’s name was not a decision to be made lightly, but she felt it was the perfect name for her. And now the princess would have a token to take with her. A name that Michelle had given to her, like a parting gift, even if she never knew it.

Cinders. Embers. Ashes. Michelle hoped that whatever strength had allowed this child to survive the fire all those years ago was a strength that still burned inside her. That it would go on burning, hotter and hotter, until she was as bright as the rising sun.

She would need that strength for what lay ahead.

Michelle pressed her palm to the top of the tank, near where the girl’s heart was, just as a screen pulsed.

A heartbeat.

Then, seconds later, another. And another.

Nerves tingling, Michelle leaned closer and let her breath fog the glass. “Hello, Cinder,” she whispered. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you.”

As if she’d heard her name being spoken, the child opened her eyes.

Glitches

“Are you ready to meet your new family?”

She tore her gaze away from the window, where snow was heaped up on bamboo fences and a squat android was clearing a path through the slush, and looked at the man seated opposite her. Though he’d been kind to her throughout their trip, two full days of being passed between a hover, a maglev train, two passenger ships, and yet another hover, he still had a nervous smile that made her fidget.

Plus, she kept forgetting his name.

“I don’t remember the old family,” she said, adjusting her heavy left leg so that it didn’t stick out quite so far between their seats.