The Last Zoo

by Sam Gayton

  Siskin is right. Jazzamin is right. Pia is the danger.

  [HEN COOP]

  The Fabergé hens sit like duchesses on their plumped velvet cushions, clucking softly. Fay moves down their aisles from perch to perch with the midday menu. Each hen pecks at the treat item it wants.

  There is a whole range this lunchtime, from mother-of-pearl to sapphire dust. The hens will ingest each treat, and use it to gild the eggs they lay at the end of each month.

  Fay leaves the coop and goes into the store vault at the back of the ark to gather up their orders. She hums as she works.

  A strip light flickers in the corridor. It makes Fay jump a little. Her heart gives a flutter. She has felt on edge since yesterday. That stupid girl, Pia. She has messed up the whole zoo. Curfew. No zephyrs. Lost angels. All because of her stupidity.

  Or maybe, as Fay whispered to everyone at breakfast, maybe it wasn’t stupidity at all. Fay has never quite been able to shake the suspicion that Pia turned her purple on purpose. There is something about that girl. When things get back to normal, Gowpy will not be hanging around her any more. That is for sure.

  Packing the last of the treats into her hamper, she leaves the store vault and makes her way back through the ship. She has been gone ten minutes, maybe twelve if you add the couple of minutes spent walking down the corridor from the storeroom to the coop.

  Ten or twelve, it doesn’t matter – it isn’t enough time, not nearly enough time, for whatever has happened to happen.

  When she reaches out a trembling hand, thinking this is all some terrible dream, the plumped cushions are still warm. Then the hamper falls to the floor, in a scatter of pearls and filigree swirl and shining blue dust, and Fay screams.

  24

  LUNCHTIME

  Threedeep pings for her attention. Looking up, Pia sees a message scrolled across the nanabug’s screen.

  Lunchtime!

  Pia rolls over. The hours of doing nothing have made her feel all bleary and tired and miserable. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  You’ll feel better after a good meal. Come on!

  Oh Seamstress, she won’t be able to take it if Threedeep makes her another sandwich. Maybe the drone senses her dread, because it adds:

  Siskin has transferred a canteen genie, Ajjimajji, here to the Quark. He has become a very good friend of mine. He will thrint you whatever snacks you want.

  ‘Ajjimajji?’ Pia’s stomach suddenly rumbles. She has barely eaten anything since yesterday’s lunch. ‘Will he make me his brownie ice cream?’

  Of course. I would have taken you there this morning for breakfast, but you were asleep and still being assessed.

  Pia doesn’t really want to think about what that means. Right now, all she cares about is thrinting a whole plate of fries and nuggets. And dessert too. She needs dessert more than she has ever needed it in her life.

  ‘All right, Threedeep.’ Pia hops off the bunk and pulls on her boots and follows Threedeep out of the cell. Still nobody in the corridors but bluebottles. It creeps her out. Some people might use the phrase ‘ghost ship’, but Pia has lived on a ghost ship most of her life, and this place is way spookier.

  It’s so weird, in fact, that Pia has a momentary freak-out when they get to the Quark’s tiny canteen and she sees, through the window, three people sitting at the only table.

  Then she double takes.

  ‘Is that Wilma, Gowpen and Zugzwang?’ Pia just wants to make sure she isn’t going crazy.

  That’s right, Threedeep chats.

  Her three Rekker buddies sit around Ajjimajji’s lamp (an old can of whipped cream). They all have nanabugs with them too – even Gowpen.

  ‘What are they doing here?’

  Threedeep’s node whirrs quietly as it zooms. Ordering lunch, I believe.

  The nanabug is right: as Pia watches, the Rekkers all wish food from a nervous-looking Ajjimajji, and his ’genieer – who for some reason is Wanda. Today, Wanda has a very serious-looking bob cut. It isn’t even dyed neon-pink or anything.

  I shall wait out here for you, Threedeep chats. Don’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends.

  Pia looks at the drone. That is actually quite sweet. Threedeep’s programming might have been reset, but somehow she has remembered the general rule that nanabugs stay away from canteen tables – something the other drones seem to have forgotten.

  ‘Thanks, Threedeep. It’s not anything personal, you know. It’s just that nanabugs aren’t... you know.’

  Cool? chatted Threedeep.

  (•_•)

  (•_•)~⌐■-■

  (⌐■_■)

  I beg to differ.

  Pia actually laughs out loud. Sandwiches aside, maybe it isn’t so terrible that Threedeep is with her after all.

  There is a sort of hiccup in the chatter as she walks through the door.

  Then Wilma yells, ‘Peeeeeeeea!’

  Pia shakes her head. ‘That joke is really old and really not funny. But I’m still glad to see you guys.’

  They all grin back, but their smiles are thin somehow, like they’ve been pasted on. And they don’t get up or anything. Pia feels a little stung.

  ‘What,’ she says, ‘not even a hug?’

  ‘A slap in the face, more like,’ Wilma says. ‘Do you have any idea how much you freaked everyone out? Us included?’

  ‘A little.’ Pia sits down and Gowpen resumes his order, although he talks just a little louder than before, like he’s trying to talk over the low hum of tension Pia has just introduced into the room.

  Siskin must have told them then. About the angels, about her possible mind-fray, all of it.

  ‘What are you guys doing in here?’

  Again, they all glance at each other.

  ‘Well, I’m trying to order rice and peas,’ Gowpen says, folding his arms, ‘but someone keeps interrupting me.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Pia points to an empty chair at the table. ‘But seriously, though. Which one of you guys invited the giant pink bunny?’

  Not even Wilma laughs at that. There are nervous eye flickers and rictus smiles.

  ‘Just to be clear,’ Pia says slowly. ‘That was a joke. I am not crazy.

  Wanda steps forward with a pad of wish-scripts. ‘Why don’t you, I mean, what would, uh, we were just...’

  ‘We are ordering food,’ Wilma translates. ‘Why don’t you skip to the front, Pia. You must be starving.’

  ‘That’s, uh, yeah.’ A red flush is creeping up Wanda’s neck. ‘Hey, gal. What is it, um, can I get ya?’

  This is really weird. What is Wanda doing here too? She isn’t Ajjimajji’s ’genieer.

  ‘I’ll have fries,’ Pia tells the genie. ‘Salted, sauced, no mustard though. And nuggets, hot cajun breadcrumbs. And a stim juice. And save some wish-power in that beard of yours, Ajjimajji, because I’m ordering dessert.’

  Wanda scribbles out a wish-script, or tries – her hand is shaking so badly she can barely write anything. The others sit there with their own trays. Not talking, not eating, not even goggling. Just glancing at Pia and then glancing away.

  Eventually, Ajjimajji wishes up Pia’s food. Wanda passes it over on a tray, but Pia doesn’t get a proper hand on it, and the ketchup-covered chips slide on to her lap.

  ‘OK.’ Wilma looks to the others and relaxes. ‘It’s her.’

  ‘Yep.’ Gowpen looks down at the mess on the floor. ‘No mistaking our Catastro-P.’

  ‘Huh,’ says Zugzwang, pulling on his goggles again.

  Pia looks down at the ketchup splattered over her dungarees. Amazingly, she’s relieved. It is lunchtime – she has been a klutz, and the others are grinning. This is maybe the most ordinary sequence of things that has happened since yesterday.

  Wanda hurries around the rest of the table, and soon Wilma has he
r cereal, Gowpen has his veggie meal, and Zugzwang has a stim drink.

  Pia, meanwhile, tucks in. She scoops the chips from her lap, shovelling food. It is just OK, but when you’re ravenous, OK food tastes like heaven. She scoffs it all like a pigasus, not even caring that Zugzwang is staring.

  ‘Sooo,’ Wilma says conversationally. ‘Pia. Or maybe I should call you DoppelPia.’

  The others snigger nervously.

  We have talked about name-calling, Wilma, says Fourcandles, hovering over to her.

  ‘It’s OK, Fourcandles,’ Pia says with a smile. ‘I’m not offended. I don’t even get the joke. One morning in the Quark, and I’m out of the loop already.’

  Wilma tilts her head. ‘Thought Siskin would’ve told you.’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘About the rumours.’

  ‘What rumours?’

  Wilma glances at Gowpen, who shrugs, as if to say: Tell her.

  ‘Urette’s going around saying that you’re not you. That you’re just some weird voilà that looks like Pia, and you’re here to destroy the zoo.’

  Urette? That nasty old witch! And after Pia had been nice to her too!

  ‘That is crazy,’ she says. ‘Urette should be the one inside here, not me!’

  ‘Exactly!’ Wilma makes a pfff sound. ‘So what if you just came out of the Seam and randomly zephyred into Siskin’s office. Big deal. Although, technically, I guess that does make you a voilà, right?’

  Pia snorts into her hand. It feels good to sit here making fun of herself. It feels normal.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Gowpen. ‘Which makes you property of the zoo, P. Siskin’s trying to build a clumsy-proof enclosure for you as we speak.’

  Even Zugzwang sniggers at that one. Wilma obviously has another joke lined up. She is so eager to say it she forgets she has a mouth full of cereal, and milk dribbles all down her chin and over the table.

  ‘Get her in her dome quick!’ Gowpen yells. ‘The clumsiness is contagious!’

  After that, they are all laughing, even Zugzwang, although he has his goggles back on, so it might be at something else.

  But it doesn’t matter. Laughing is good. It beats feeling guilty. Or scared.

  They chat a while, about this and that. Gowpen says Sparklehorn’s poop looks like rainbows, but smells even worse than the Rhinosaurus rex dung.

  ‘Argh, Gowpy!’ Pia facepalms. ‘Don’t tell me you let your mum convince you to change Moonbim’s name?’

  ‘Oops, sorry, I meant to say Moonbim.’ Gowpen sunk his head on the table. ‘Ugh. My brain is fried. Siskin woke all the zookeepers up as soon as you went missing, so everyone missed a night’s sleep. All the grown-ups look like zombies.’

  ‘Some of them are acting like zombies too,’ Wilma says, then starts telling the story of how she managed to lock Fourcandles in a cupboard.

  ‘The zoo’s so stressed about the Seam and the angels that nobody has noticed yet,’ she chuckles.

  ‘But Fourcandles is there.’ Pia points at the drone, huffing its rotor disapprovingly behind them.

  ‘Yeah, she got out eventually.’

  ‘Oh. Where’s Ishan? Is he OK?’

  Gowpen turns pinker. Wilma looks at her tray.

  ‘He’s fine, P.’ Gowpen jabs with his spoon at the far end of the canteen. ‘He would’ve come, but, uh...’

  Pia lets him flounder for a moment, before she finishes his sentence for him. ‘But he doesn’t want to see me.’

  ‘Aw, come on, Pia,’ Wilma says. ‘He had to evacuate the nanites from the cybernism ark. You know. Busy stuff like that. The zoo’s in chaos. Emergency procedures in place and everything.’

  ‘It’s crazy out there,’ Gowpen confirms. ‘Siskin sent most of the other Seamers back to the mainland. We’re practically the only kids left in the zoo.’

  Pia thuds her head on the table. ‘Ishan hates me.’

  Wilma pats her on the neck. ‘I’m sure he’ll come to see you when stuff calms down.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Zugzwang’s goggles spew out kaleidoscopic light. ‘We almost got sent back to the mainland too, but then Dad ordered us to see if you—’

  It was like Zugzwang had been speaking without paying attention to his mouth, because he suddenly shuts up, and Pia is pretty certain it is because Wilma just kicked him under the table.

  Oh, she thinks.

  Oh, right.

  Pia puts her cutlery down slowly, and pushes away her tray. Now this all makes sense.

  ‘ “It’s her.” That’s what you said, Wilma, when I did something clumsy. “OK, it’s her.” Siskin sent you here to check on me, didn’t he? To see if Urette’s theory is true.’

  Zugzwang, Wilma and Gowpen all look at each other with the guilty looks of the busted.

  ‘Is that why Wanda came along with you too? Because she saw me on the day I went missing.’

  ‘Pia,’ says Wilma. ‘Listen...’

  ‘And that’s why you haven’t asked me a single thing about the Seam, isn’t it? You were testing me with stuff that the real Pia would know. About Moonbim’s name, and whether I knew Fourcandles. Who shouldn’t even be here because a Rekker lunch is a no-drone zone. But of course, Fourcandles often comes along to punish Wilma, who has probably done something to deserve it. Is that enough knowledge for you? Do you want me to go on?’

  The anger builds up in her until she can’t stay sitting. Wilma’s joke echoes in her head, taunting her. It is like she is the zoo’s new voilà. And this is the enclosure they are keeping her in. These are the tests they are conducting.

  Well, she doesn’t have to play along. She stands up from the table and stomps towards Threedeep.

  ‘I want to go back in my cell,’ she says loudly. ‘Me and my “friends” are done.’

  Please don’t be upset, Pia. Your friends are just trying to help you.

  ‘What the drone said,’ Wilma says. ‘Siskin sent us in here so we could tell the others that you’re really you. P! Hey, P! Don’t be like that!’

  Pia leaves the canteen and swipes the door shut behind her. She leans against the corridor wall and breathes in and out. She feels dizzy, not just with anger. More than that, she is afraid. She thinks back to being in her cell, to when Jazzamin called her a Hyde. At the time, that seemed crazy. But what about now?

  You are the danger.

  You’re just some weird voilà that looks like Pia, and you’re here to destroy the zoo.

  Oh Seamstress, what if it’s true? What if the real Pia never made it out of the Seam and I am just a copy?

  ‘Pia!’ The door opens and Gowpen runs after her. ‘Wilma’s right. You don’t know how weird the atmosphere is. Security everywhere, arguments, and Urette... We had a meeting just now: Siskin got booed, and Urette got a cheer. It’s like everything’s turned upside down. A whole load of doomsay is going round. Mum’s got obsessed over these mad conspiracy ideas.’

  Something Gowpen just said makes Pia pause. She remembers all the times she sat with Ishan at the Rek, listening to him come up with all sorts of crazy theories.

  ‘Is Ishan the one who came up with the theory about me?’ she asks. ‘Is he? Gowpen?’

  Gowpen freezes. Then he slumps. ‘. . . Yeah. I think so. I haven’t seen him.’

  Pia turns from Gowpen so he won’t see how upset she is. She feels the way she did when Hum died. That same ache. That same goodbye. Because friendship is as delicate and as miraculous as an angel. Something you feel in your bones, right down to the hollows. And like an angel, friendship can up and leave you, and never tell you why it went, or how to bring it back.

  ‘I bet Urette’s just twisted his words,’ Gowpen says. ‘You know how Ishan is.’

  Pia puts her head in her hands. She can only think of the last time she saw Ishan, by the vent.

  ‘I wish I didn’t like you,’ he
said. And though there hadn’t been a genie around to grant it, maybe the wish had somehow come true anyway.

  [MEGABUNNY WARREN]

  Flopsy munches at the new tunnel, grinding her teeth-chisels against the rockface. In the deep-black of the warren, Donna listens to the splinter and crack of stone. Megabunnies are virtually blind, but Donna keeps her headlamp off. Any light will only confuse Flopsy, making her think she has reached the surface, though that is impossible. They are almost sixty metres below the ground.

  Donna doesn’t mind the dark, though. The dark is always full of digging noises, enormous bustling furry bodies, snuffling and warmth.

  Even better, you can’t fill out Siskin’s procedure reports if you can’t actually see them.

  Not everyone sees the positives, though. Most zookeepers outright refuse assignments to the megabunny warrens. They fake claustrophobia, fear of the dark, deficiencies in vitamin D. The real reason, of course, is that the warrens are located near the island: megabunnies are the only voilà in the zoo that cannot, for obvious reasons, be on an ark. Not an ark that has any hopes of floating, anyway. Megabunnies can grind a hole through anything. Even a ship’s hull.

  Donna doesn’t even mind being on land, either. The warrens are on the little archipelago of islands that hold the Rek. In terms of distance, they aren’t much closer to the Seam than some of the arks. And if anything does happen, Donna has Houdini, her own personal genie that she carries in an ancient iPod on a chain around her neck, to zephyr her to safety.

  Flopsy chisels off another rock chunk, then uses the sledger-teeth at the back of her mouth to gravel it up until it is small enough to gulp down. Behind her, her littler megabunnies scurry. Donna feels their noses poke her. They are more like trunks, really: very long and bendy, with three nostrils megabunnies use as crude fingers to grip and pinch.

  Donna shoos them. ‘Go help your mama.’ The furry bodies bound away, though one of the littlers – probably Bugs, the naughtiest – continues to poke Donna. She gives his nostril a flick and he sneezes and goes to join the others.

  As an almost full-grown megamama (Donna came up with that term and now it is part of the zoo’s official classification system), Flopsy’s shaggy bulk fills almost the whole tunnel, which means she can’t turn around and clear the rubble herself. Megabunnies work as a family unit to clear tunnels, which is why they are constantly having littlers. Baby megabunnies are born with flat paws as big as shovels, to scoop and carry the rocks back up to the surface. No littlers means no one to carry away the rubble that Flopsy chisels, grinds up, swallows, and then finally poops out behind her.