When Ima woke, her first thought drifted to waves crashing against her, over her head.
Her second to drowning.
Her third to her hands, flesh hands.
Her fourth to her soft cheek.
Her fifth to Nahum’s location—where had they taken him?
And her sixth to Dash—saving Dash.
Why? she thought to herself. Why was Dash her sixth thought, so low on her mind’s priority list, when it felt so high on her heart’s priority list?
She examined her mind’s log, which now recorded her thoughts at lightning speed as she became more lucid and her thoughts became less instinctive.
A rude female voice, not far away enough to ignore, sliced through her thoughts. “Good, new girl is awake. Can we go now? I want to get this over with.”
“Sin-der.” Nasser said dreamily. “I’ve decided to name her Cinder.”
“You can’t rename her!” Ember said angrily. “You wanted soldiers, not pets.”
Vaughn chuckled. “Maybe we should ask her.” He touched Ima’s hand. “Ima, are you awake?”
Ima opened her eyes. “I like Cinder.” In her mind’s eye, she saw the name “Ima” disappear, replaced by a loopy scrawl spelling out “Cinder.” Thousands, maybe millions of names flashed in her mind, like files she’d hit “Replace All” on. Within milliseconds, she was rechristened as Cinder in every way.
“See,” Nasser said. “She likes it.”
Ember blew her bangs out of her face. “Great. Now we’re a matched pair.”
Cinder noticed a man standing behind the three Socialpunks—Nahum. Her lips lifted into a smile that reflected back in his own. Her mind analyzed his non-verbal cues and told her he was happy to see her.
Nahum tapped Vaughn’s shoulder and Vaughn’s face fell. He stepped aside and Nahum took his place next to Cinder. He had broader shoulders and a little extra height on him—he seemed almost the same size as Dash now. His eyes gleamed the most beautiful gold Cinder had seen since coming to the city of silver. Between his golden eyes and his bright, bronze skin, he’d gotten more handsome than before.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Nahum said in almost a whisper. “They did so much work on you, and then you didn’t wake up for days…”
Ima opened her mouth to ask a question: What day is it? But before she could ask, the information appeared in her mind. They were two days away from the next job in The Dome. She had been out for four days. The normal recovery time for the operation was two days, so she’d been out an extra thirty-two hours. They had updated her with bionic eyes, muscle enhancers, and eight inches of height. Eight inches of height? But it was safe, her mind told her, there was only a .2% chance of dying, which was well within the limits of the risk tolerance range she had set. She could update her settings if she wanted at any time.
“Amazing,” she said.
Nahum gave her a strange look.
“Sorry,” she said. “Just—my thoughts are so robust, so rich with information…”
Nahum smiled. “It takes a couple days to get used to having a computer hooked to your brain.”
Cinder remembered something that Vaughn had told her before—that no one asked questions to gather factual information. She now understood why.
“I made something for you,” Nahum said. He held up a medallion attached to a braid of shoelaces, made from the laces from Cinder’s boots, from back in The Dome. From Dash.
ESTÁS LEYENDO
Socialpunk (Socialpunk #1)
Novela Juvenil"This book would be good for those that enjoyed the Hunger Games!” ~ Cover 2 Cover Blog "When I read the first page, I did not anticipate that I would be finishing the book that night, but I did. I had to. I didn’t care that I was up until 3:00AM."...
