Instead of answering, the prince bent down, craning his neck so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes, and dashed a grin at her. Her heart winced.
The prince straightened, forcing her gaze to follow him.
“You’re not quite what I was expecting.”
“Well you’re hardly—what I—um.” Unable to hold his gaze, Cinder reached for the android and pulled it to her side of the table. “What seems to be wrong with the android, Your Highness?”
The android looked like it had just stepped off the conveyer belt, but Cinder could tell from the mock-feminine shape that it was an outdated model. The design was sleek, though, with a spherical head atop a pear-shaped body and a glossy white finish.
“I can’t get her to turn on,” said Prince Kai, watching as Cinder examined the robot. “She was working fine one day, and the next, nothing.”
Cinder turned the android around so its sensor light faced the prince. She was glad to have routine tasks for her hands and routine questions for her mouth—something to focus on so she wouldn’t get flustered and lose control of her brain’s net connection again. “Have you had problems with her before?”
“No. She gets a monthly checkup from the royal mechanics, and this is the first real problem she’s ever had.”
Leaning forward, Prince Kai picked up Cinder’s small metal foot from the worktable, turning it curiously over in his palms. Cinder tensed, watching as he peered into the wire-filled cavity, fiddled with the flexible joints of the toes. He used the too-long sleeve of his sweatshirt to polish off a smudge.
“Aren’t you hot?” Cinder said, instantly regretting the question when his attention returned to her.
For the briefest moment, the prince almost looked embarrassed. “Dying,” he said, “but I’m trying to be inconspicuous.”
Cinder considered telling him it wasn’t working but thought better of it. The lack of a throng of screaming girls surrounding her booth was probably evidence that it was working better than she suspected. Instead of looking like a royal heartthrob, he just looked crazy.
Clearing her throat, Cinder refocused on the android. She found the nearly invisible latch and opened its back panel. “Why aren’t the royal mechanics fixing her?”
“They tried but couldn’t figure it out. Someone suggested I bring her to you.” He set the foot down and turned his attention to the shelves of old and battered parts—parts for androids, hovers, netscreens, portscreens. Parts for cyborgs. “They say you’re the best mechanic in New Beijing. I was expecting an old man.”
“Do they?” she murmured.
He wasn’t the first to voice surprise. Most of her customers couldn’t fathom how a teenage girl could be the best mechanic in the city, and she never broadcast the reason for her talent. The fewer people who knew she was cyborg, the better. She was sure she’d go mad if all the market shopkeepers looked at her with the same disdain as Chang Sacha did.
She nudged some of the android’s wires aside with her pinkie. “Sometimes they just get worn out. Maybe it’s time to upgrade to a new model.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. She contains top-secret information. It’s a matter of national security that I retrieve it…before anyone else does.”
Fingers stalling, Cinder glanced up at him.
He held her gaze a full three seconds before his lips twitched. “I’m just joking. Nainsi was my first android. It’s sentimental.”
An orange light flickered in the corner of Cinder’s vision. Her optobionics had picked up on something, though she didn’t know what—an extra swallow, a too-quick blink, a clenching of the prince’s jaw.
She was used to the little orange light. It came up all the time.
It meant that someone was lying.
“National security,” she said. “Funny.”
The prince listed his head, as if challenging her to contradict him. A strand of black hair fell into his eyes. Cinder looked away.
“Tutor8.6 model,” she said, reading the faintly lit panel inside the plastic cranium. The android was nearly twenty years old. Ancient for an android. “She looks to be in pristine condition.”
Raising her fist, she thunked the android hard on the side of its head, barely catching it before it toppled over onto the table. The prince jumped.
Cinder set the android back on its treads and jabbed the power button but nothing happened. “You’d be surprised how often that works.”
The prince let out a single, awkward chuckle. “Are you sure you’re Linh Cinder? The mechanic?”
“Cinder! I’ve got it!” Iko wheeled out of the crowd and up to the worktable, her blue sensor flashing. Lifting one pronged hand, she slammed a brand-new steel-plated foot onto the desk, in the shadow of the prince’s android. “It’s a huge improvement over the old one, only lightly used, and the wiring looks compatible as is. Plus, I was able to get the dealer down to just 600 univs.”
Panic jolted through Cinder. Still balancing on her human leg, she snatched the foot off the table and dropped it behind her. “Good work, Iko. Nguyen-shìfu will be delighted to have a replacement foot for his escort-droid.”
Iko’s sensor dimmed. “Nguyen-shìfu? I don’t compute.”
Smiling through locked teeth, Cinder gestured at the prince. “Iko, please pay your respects to our customer.” She lowered her voice. “His Imperial Highness.”
Iko craned her head, aiming the round sensor up at the prince, who towered more than three feet above her. The light flared as her scanner recognized him. “Prince Kai,” she said, her metallic voice squeaking. “You are even more handsome in person.”
Cinder’s stomach twisted in embarrassment, even as the prince laughed.
“That’s enough, Iko. Get in the booth.”
Iko obeyed, pushing aside the tablecloth and ducking under the table.
“You don’t see a personality like that every day,” said Prince Kai, leaning against the booth’s door frame as if he brought androids to the market all the time. “Did you program her yourself?”
“Believe it or not, she came that way. I suspect a programming error, which is probably why my stepmother got her so cheap.”
“I do not have a programming error!” said Iko from behind her.
Cinder met the prince’s gaze, was caught momentarily dazzled by another easy laugh, and ducked her head back behind his android.
“So what do you think?” he asked.
“I’ll need to run her diagnostics. It will take me a few days, maybe a week.” Tucking a strand of hair behind one ear, Cinder sat down, grateful to give her leg a rest while she examined the android’s innards. She knew she must be breaking some rule of etiquette, but the prince didn’t seem to mind as he tipped forward, watching her hands.
“Do you need payment up front?”
He held his left wrist toward her, embedded with his ID chip, but Cinder waved a gloved hand at him. “No, thank you. It will be my honor.”
Prince Kai looked about to protest but then let his hand fall. “I don’t suppose there’s any hope of having her done before the festival?”
Cinder shut the android’s panel. “I don’t think that will be a problem. But without knowing what’s wrong with her—”