The Last Zoo

by Sam Gayton

  As Donna is fond of telling everyone, especially Seamers, human children don’t know how good they have it. Megabunny kids have to clean up their parents’ poop.

  Flopsy stops chiselling. Perhaps she’s reached a granite stratum, or maybe broken through into another part of the warren. It happens sometimes. There are four families now – Flopsy’s, Peter’s, Thumper’s and Briar’s – and there is always some criss-crossing.

  The littlers have gone very quiet.

  And it is suddenly cold. Donna shivers as a breeze comes down the tunnel. She reaches up and switches her headlamp on, knowing something is wrong, horribly wrong. The beam lights up the empty tunnel. Flopsy, Bugs, the whole family: all of them are gone.

  Donna rubs the lamp at her neck with a shaking hand, but Houdini has vanished along with the megabunnies, and she is alone.

  It’s just her, underground, in the darkness.

  25

  JONAH

  Pia hasn’t been back at her cell for five minutes before Threedeep pings to say Siskin is coming to see her. She listens out, and soon enough she hears the rap of his shoes on the floor as he makes his way down the corridor. Tap, tap, tap, tap. You could practise cello to those footsteps.

  The door opens. Siskin stands at the entrance, arms folded. A bluebottle is behind him.

  ‘You are well, I hope?’

  Pia scowls. ‘As well as an evil mirror-image can be.’

  (ʘᗩʘ’) EVIL MIRROR-WHAT? Threedeep chats.

  ‘That hypothesis is false,’ Siskin explains to Threedeep.

  Pia is too angry to feel relieved. ‘Don’t make my own friends do tests on me, Siskin. I’m not a lab rat.’

  ಠ_ಠ I wish I was kept informed, Threedeep grumbles. Nobody updates me on anything.

  ‘Or me, Threedeep. What are all these rumours about me, Siskin? I thought I was meant to be the crazy one.’

  Siskin’s jaw clenches. ‘The disappearances have people frightened. Frightened people spread doomsay. Some of it involves you.’

  ‘Okaaay,’ Pia says slowly. ‘So Urette starts up some cult saying I’m some sort of evil clone, and you put me in the Quark?’

  Siskin looks down at the shine of his shoes.

  ‘Wait.’ Did she just hear Siskin right? ‘Did you say disappearances? As in, more than one?’

  Siskin takes a deep sigh and loosens his tie and rubs a spot on his temple just above his left eye, like he has a migraine. ‘The gallus aureate,’ he sighs. ‘The Fabergé chickens.’

  ‘Woah,’ Pia says. She can’t remember ever seeing him undo his top button before. Suddenly she notices that his pocket square is missing, and there are sweat patches under his arms.

  ‘What’s happening outside?’ she murmurs. It had to be bad, for Siskin to look like this.

  Siskin does his answer-a-question-with-a-question thing.

  ‘Do you know what a Jonah is, Pia?’

  ‘An old name?’

  ‘And a sailor’s term, taken from a Bible story. Threedeep?’

  Siskin looks over and the nanabug displays the verse on her screen.

  So the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the sailors were afraid, and they said each one to his fellow, Come and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

  Siskin points at Threedeep’s screen. ‘This zoo is made up of ships like that, Pia. Ships full of very scared people. They are searching for someone to blame for their fear. Searching, in other words, for a Jonah. And they are looking at you.’

  ‘Me?’ Pia swallows. Maybe a couple of days ago, she would’ve burst out laughing, but not any more. This is way, way past hilarious.

  ‘For example,’ Siskin continues, ‘some people have pointed out the real Pia that went through the hole had mustard stains on her uniform. You don’t.’

  Pia looks down at her dungarees. He is right, the uniform is clean. No mustard stains anywhere.

  ‘Jazzamin must have cleaned it,’ she says.

  ‘Did she also mend the tear on your sleeve that has vanished?’ Siskin asks. ‘And fix your hair?’

  ‘My hair?’ Pia says in a small voice.

  ‘It has been cut.’

  Pia knows that. She hacks it short herself, every few months, with a pair of scissors. Ishan helps do the back.

  She puts him out of her mind. It hurts too much to think about him.

  ‘Cut properly,’ Siskin clarifies. ‘I checked the security tapes from our psych-eval meeting yesterday morning. Why don’t you check it yourself?’

  Pia’s fingertips trace her hairline across her forehead. It is straight. No kinks at all.

  ‘I don’t know why that is,’ she says, voice rising up in a panic. ‘But you can’t seriously believe that I’m—’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ Siskin interrupts. ‘It isn’t my theory. I’m telling you because others believe it. Cornucopia, you are not an evil clone. Nor a Jonah. OK? Look at me and nod. Look at me and nod.’

  She nods.

  ‘There’s no doubt that your angel’s miracle changed you, though. Which, I think, gives us some clue as to the type of miracle it was. I think it was a mending, not a zephyring.’ Siskin steps up to her. ‘You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you were corrected to where you ought to be. Your hair, your sleeve, the mustard, and my lamp all got caught up in the miracle’s aurora. They were fixed too.’

  Pia swallows. Her heart slows a little. That makes sense. Thank the Seamstress for Siskin’s ice-cool logic.

  ‘Does that convince you?’ Siskin says, and it takes Pia a moment to realise that he isn’t talking to her.

  He’s talking to the boy in the doorway who used to be her friend.

  • • •

  Ishan steps into Pia’s cell. His fringe is droopy and his eyes have a bloodshot stim-drink look to them. He looks shame-faced. Miserable.

  Siskin clears his throat. ‘I will wait outside. As in, you have two minutes.’

  He walks out and waves the door shut behind him.

  And... I am going on standby, Threedeep chats, rotoring down on the desk and blanking her screen.

  Pia looks at Ishan, wondering what to say. She decides to wait for him to break the silence. Thirty seconds of their allocated two minutes ticks past.

  ‘Are you going to punch me again?’ Ishan says eventually.

  She sniffs. ‘Wasn’t going to.’

  Ishan looks surprised.

  ‘I was thinking a headbutt, this time.’

  Ishan looks her in the eye for the first time since she went through the vent. He can only hold it for a moment before he facepalms. ‘You don’t need to. I’ve been beating myself up.’

  Pia nods. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I’ve given my stupid conspiracy-theory-spouting mouth a slap.’

  ‘And I’ve given my stubbornness a karate chop to the face.’

  ‘And I’ve given the bad friend part of me a massive pummelling,’ says Ishan.

  Pia starts grinning so hard it hurts her cheeks. Maybe the powerful whatever-it-is between them is not broken after all. Their weird, precious ability to joke and laugh over anything is still in one piece.

  ‘I won’t keep secrets from you again, Ish.’

  ‘And I won’t ever not trust that you’re you.’

  ‘Well, I promise not to whack you again.’

  ‘I promise not to give you a reason to whack me.’

  ‘OK, OK, it’s not like this is a competition.’

  He laughs. ‘If it was, I would so win.’

  ‘Really, Ish? I’ve basically wrecked the zoo.’

  His smile vanishes. ‘It’s not you, Pia. Seriously. Things out there are crazy.’

 
; Pia is a little freaked out by how freaked out Ishan looks. ‘What do you mean crazy? I just saw the others, and they all said the same thing.’

  Ishan shakes his head. ‘I can’t explain it. I only mentioned my stupid theory to the Rekkers this morning. Then Gowpen told it to his mum, and within an hour it was everywhere. And now people just believe it. We had a meeting half an hour ago, and Siskin was arguing with them – with Urette and Fay and a few others...’

  Ishan stops for a while, and then his voice goes quiet.

  ‘I saw a lot of doomcults, back in the sprawl. The look in their eyes... Fay had that same look. A kind of madness. And now her Fabergé chickens are missing, it can only have gotten worse. Siskin asked me if I’ll go and speak to them myself, and tell them I made it all up. I said I wanted to come see you first. To apologise. And—’

  Siskin marches back in, cutting Ishan off mid-sentence.

  ‘Follow the security drone outside,’ he tells Ishan. ‘It will take you to Ajjimajji. Zephyr yourself to Urette and the other doomers. As in, right now.’

  Ishan glances at Pia, then back at Siskin, and nods. ‘Yes, sir.’ He turns on his heels and leaves.

  Pia flops down on her cell bed. ‘I’m glad you’ve got everything under control, Siskin.’

  He frowns. ‘I wouldn’t go that far. One disappearance is an anomaly, two begins to look like a pattern. And the peculiar behaviour of some of our zookeepers seems to be spreading faster than rat flu. And then, of course, there’s the halo.’

  The back of Pia’s neck goosebumps at that word. ‘Halo?’

  Siskin nods. ‘It was Threedeep who found it.’

  Pia looks at the drone, who powers out of standby at the mention of her name.

  / •́﹏ •̀ He said not to tell you, Threedeep chats.

  ‘None of the observations back on Ark One picked it up,’ Siskin continues. ‘But your nanabug has a numinous lamp. Show her, Threedeep.’

  (ˋ-´)ゞ, Threedeep salutes. The numinous light on her node flashes on, illuminating the cell in its silvery-violet light. The nanabug blanks her screen, making it into a mirror, and angles it towards Pia so she can see.

  Her breath catches in her throat. The halo is pinned in place above her head. A sparkling, unbroken ring of light. What is it woven from? Not from sunbeams, or lamplight, or candle flame, or monitor glow. If it only shows up under numinous, that can mean just one thing: the light is celestial.

  ‘You said that your angel died in the Seam,’ Siskin says. ‘But I think different. I think angels are made of light, and light is energy, and energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred. Threedeep says the halo is three per cent brighter than last night. It’s weaving itself. Drawing ambient celestial light into itself, becoming brighter.

  ‘Your angel didn’t just mend you, Cornucopia. He gave you something to carry. Something made from himself.’

  Pia reaches up to touch the halo with her fingertips. It sends a tingle through her. What is it? A message, like the one above Threedeep? Or something else?

  She tilts her head to the left, to the right. The halo glitters. Silent. Inscrutable. For now.

  With a quiet puff, a note from Ark One zephyrs in front of Siskin’s face. He plucks it from the air, reads it once, folds the paper carefully in two, and slips it inside his shirt pocket.

  ‘Evidence seems to be building for your theory that the Seamstress has stitched a new species of predatory voilà,’ he says. ‘Now the megabunnies have vanished too.’

  Dread mixes with Pia’s shock. Another disappearance? All her thoughts about her halo are put on hold. ‘Did Donna see anything? She’s their zookeeper, right?’

  Siskin starts pacing in the cell, like he is the prisoner instead of Pia. ‘She didn’t see a thing. Her genie vanished too. And her monitor drone.’

  Threedeep’s circuits make a blat noise. !!! it chats. Oneslip has disappeared? But Oneslip was my very good friend!

  Threedeep hovers in place, but messages keep scrolling across its screen.

  Where did Oneslip go? I did not receive a notification. We are very good friends! Have you told Fourcandles? Fourcandles and Oneslip are very close. Oneslip is a good monitor drone. Please find Oneslip.

  Pia feels a lump in her throat. Poor Threedeep. Poor Oneslip. Maybe drones do have feelings, or at least programming so advanced that they can mimic feelings perfectly.

  ‘Why didn’t it take Donna?’ she says suddenly. ‘Whatever’s doing this, I mean?’

  Yes, and why take Oneslip also? I am worried about Oneslip.

  For the first time ever, Pia sees Siskin look afraid. He turns to stare at the door, to hide his fear from her, but she sees it.

  The zoo is changing, she thinks. Stuff isn’t staying put any more. Things run amok. Rumours. Angels. Monsters. Doomsay. Everything Siskin once found so easy to contain is now working its way loose.

  ‘What do we do?’

  Siskin looks back around at her, his expression normal again. Calm. Controlled.

  ‘We?’ he says. ‘We do nothing. You stay here. I review procedures.’

  ‘But what about the zookeepers? Aren’t you going to tell them what’s happened?’

  Siskin gives Pia a look so cold she actually got goosebumps. ‘Did you not listen to anything I just said? Do you know what the most dangerous animals in the zoo are? Not the Rhinosaurus rexes, not the gargantulas, not your devil – the people. And they have only one zookeeper to try and stop them from destroying everything: me.’

  Pia hears a wompf! sound as a genie zephyrs into the corridor: from the small grey fuzz she can see of it through the blurred window she guesses it is Blom.

  ‘One moment, Cornucopia.’ Siskin leaves the cell.

  ‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ Pia says to Threedeep.

  The drone does not reply for a long time.

  Thank you, Pia, Threedeep chats at last. I am also very sorry.

  Then: That is a kind thing to say.

  And: I too do not believe you are an evil clone.

  Pia smiles and blows the drone a kiss. Threedeep blows one back:

  ( ˘ ³˘)♥

  Is Donna a very good friend of yours?

  Pia shakes her head. ‘She’s older. And she spends a lot of time in the warrens. Sometimes we saw her when we hung out on the Rek. Wilma always says she’s quite funny.’

  Oneslip was also highly amusing. Oneslip invented very funny faces. Many of us got our emoticons from Oneslip.

  My favourite ever is this one:

  (∩ˋ-´)⊃━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

  I have never had an opportunity to use it, though.

  Then the drone receives a ping. And another, and another, and then a whole pinball rattle of them: ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!

  ‘What’s that?’ Pia asks.

  ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ Don’t worry, Pia. Nothing to worry about. Not in the slightest.

  ‘Uh...’ Pia gets up from the bed. ‘Why did you tell me not to worry?’

  Because you shouldn’t. Everything is fine.

  ‘I know everything’s fine.’

  (b^_^)b

  Just don’t worry.

  Pia facepalms. ‘You realise when you tell someone not to worry, it’s really worrying, right?’

  Oh.

  ⊙﹏⊙

  Well... You just have some visitors, that’s all.

  Outside the cell, Siskin zephyrs Blom back to wherever the genie came from. He comes into the cell again, jaw clenched.

  ‘We have a problem. Urette and her followers have just zephyred here. As in, they’re on the deck of the Quark. And they have Ishan.’

  Pia’s heart starts to thump. ‘What do you mean, they have him? You mean, like a hostage? What do they want? Siskin? Siskin?’

  Siskin stands there, jaw clenched.

  ‘They’re de
manding to see you,’ he says.

  [SMELLEPHANTS]

  Three boulder-shaped creatures sit huddled in the corner of their enclosure. Their enormous nostrils quiver and drip as they taste the air around them.

  ‘What are they scared of?’ asks the security guard.

  Vashti edges up to them very slowly, holding out her hands and going shhh. She gets why Siskin has posted a guard on each ship, what with the disappearances and the weird doomsay that seems to be filling the heads of the zoo staff, but she doesn’t feel safer with this guy on board.

  The security guard has a beetroot face and white-blond hair and a thick neck pinched tight by his black collar. It looks like his uniform is trying to strangle him. Or make him explode.

  ‘They smell something coming?’ The security guard looks around the enclosure, his hand dropping down to the gun that hangs from his shoulder strap. ‘Is that it? Huh?’

  ‘Like I already said,’ says Vashti carefully, ‘they’re smelling you. You know that old cliché about being able to smell fear? That’s not a cliché if you’re a smellephant. Stop getting spooked by them getting spooked by you being spooked.’

  The security guard frowns as he tries to make sense of that.

  ‘Just – be less scared,’ Vashti tells him. ‘OK?’

  She can see that annoys him – a fat zookeeper in sandals telling his big-strong-soldier-of-a-self to be brave. The smellies catch a whiff of his anger, and that sends their wafters unfurling up like palm fronds.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Vashti mutters.

  ‘Scared?’ says the security guard. His face turns a dark purply colour. A vein on his neck stands out like a cord.

  Vashti backtracks. ‘OK, you’re not scared.’ She tries to say it as gently as she can. ‘But you might want to try not being angry either, because...’