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sterile—scientific…human.
    We sat together, enjoying the cool touch of the breeze on our skin.
    "They make me look so ugly," I told the woman. In truth, however, I found them kind of pretty—elegant and powerful. I stuck out my lower lip and attempted to make it quiver. I tried to mine thoughts of my dead mother, the empty house I'd seen in my dream, but even those aching memories could not draw enough emotion to bring real tears to my eyes. I'm not sure I fooled her.
    "Ugly?" said the woman. “John would never want you to feel ugly." Kind words, but the look in her eyes spoke to their dishonesty. "He wants…"
    She paused. I waited for her words.
    "He just wants…" But that was it. She finished her sentence with a small sigh. "He wants you to be beautiful," she finally said. "To be happy."
    I admired the wings. I saw other children in the compound, even here in the gardens, but none had any sort of alterations or metal limbs. They were normal children, leading normal lives and living in normal bodies. I never felt normal, not inside or the outside. These wings proved to me that I wasn’t meant to be normal. The wings reminded me of my mother, of her freedom and grace. My father often spoke of her spirit, of the beauty of her soul, of her laugh and the way she could make the world seem so right even when everything was going wrong. I think my mother would have liked my wings.
    I don't know why I told the woman the wings made me look ugly. It was what she wanted to hear, I think. She was not my mother.
    I tired quickly after that. The woman carried me back to my room. The man with the glasses was waiting for us, but he left alongside the woman after I was settled.
    I explored the intricacies of the wings, hoping to find their secret. He no longer put me to sleep with his drugs, and the clouds were gone from my thoughts. The powered-down wallscreen was almost perfectly reflective and I used it to investigate the parts of the wings that I could not see otherwise. My skin was still raw where the metal joined my body, but it seemed to be healing without infection. The man was a delicate surgeon, and already in some places, metal met skin in a way that was startlingly natural.
    That’s how I discovered the keyhole—plain to the eye, inviting to my young curiosity and begging to be unlocked. But with what key?

    In the days that followed, I was given lean to wander the compound. Sometimes I was even allowed out without a chaperone. I spent much of that time in that garden, listening to the gurgle of the stream and the chirrup ing of the small birds that lived in the trees. I wasn't sure whether the birds were real or just more mechanical artifice, until one day I saw a sparrow drinking from a small pool. I allowed myself a small, private smile. They were my friends and I envied them their freedom.
    The “compound,” as I'd come to think of it (a friendlier word than “prison”), was actually a research campus, the woman told me. A place of learning, where scientists lived with their families, where the secrets of life were broken open and laid bare. She named it Tao Hua Yuan, the Peach Blossom Spring.
    The soft bitterness in her eyes was new.
    I saw many families on my wanderings, though they never came close enough that I could speak with them. Fathers and mothers steered their children away; scientists in long white coats, datapads forgotten, stared before detouring through less-traveled parts of the garden. In their stares I saw curiosity and disgust, pity and wariness. One day, the kind woman came and spoke sharply with two men who watched me from another bench. I couldn’t hear her words, but soon the two men shuffled off, sullen and speaking in furious whispers between themselves. The kind woman came over and sat down beside me. She tried to put an arm around my shoulders but my broken metal wings made it awkward, so instead she took one of my hands in hers and rested it in her lap. She didn't say anything, just