Gotta say, I'm having a hard time with this. No mention (so far) of WHY her stepmom is so mean. Seems like a pretty traditionally-gendered society (from what I can tell), so how about a gesture toward the threat an older unmarried woman must be feeling? I mean, if we're doing a cast back to Cinderella, that seems like a good explanation, but... nothing (so far).

How does she magically go from 2nd-class citizen drafted as a test subject to volunteer, just based on a conversation? Like... evil Dr. Menendez (or whatever) just changes his mind?