Kingdom of Cages

by Sarah Zettel

  “Yes, Mom,” said Chena, keeping her voice subdued and serious. Inside, she cheered. It was going to work. She’d be bringing in money and everything would be all right. It might take a while, she knew that, but it would get better. They’d go to school. They’d get real jobs that paid. They’d get out of here one day and go somewhere where no one could touch them.

  Like Mom said, they’d make it all right.

  In the end, she talked Teal into splitting the money into thirds—a third for Chena, a third for Teal, and a third for Mom, to pay their debts and squirrel away so they could leave. Once that was agreed to, Mom took Chena down to talk to Madra about the plan. Madra looked dubious at first and looked regulations up on four different sheets, but in the end she confirmed she couldn’t find anything against it.

  The scary part came right after that, when Mom walked Chena up to the cop’s house. Chena explained the whole idea to Constable Regan, and he just sat there, one muscle in this hollow cheek twitching.

  Finally Chena fell silent, having run dry of words. Regan reached across his desk, picked up a sheet of paper, and began to write on it. He filled the page with words and signed it in big, swooping letters.

  “Permission granted,” he said, handing her the page. “Good luck.”

  Mom squeezed Chena’s shoulder, and Chena had to keep herself from jumping up and cheering. Instead, she just folded the letter up carefully and tucked it into her pocket.

  “Thank you, Uncle Constable,” she said, saluting him carefully.

  “Step safe and careful, Niece.” He actually smiled a little as he returned her salute.

  Once Chena had the letter of approval from Constable Regan, rounding up clients was easy. Everybody with money seemed to want something passed over to Stem, and a large chunk of them wanted something brought back. Comm bursts between the libraries were expensive and came with no guarantee they’d stay private. Taking a boat down to Stem took a whole day, which meant you had to wait for your off-shift day and hope your schedule matched the boat’s.

  Mom advised Chena to set her prices as high as she wanted, and let people argue her down, but not so low that she couldn’t pay her expenses. Mom wasn’t paying the bike rental anymore, and Chena had to buy canvas from the recycling center so Mom could make a backpack for her, plus there was food and water every day during the trip, and rain gear, and gloves for cold mornings.

  Eventually she worked her prices out to five positives for a letter, ten for a letter and reply, and twenty for a package, with another ten tacked on for each kilogram over the first one. Her skin grew bark brown from the sunlight and her legs grew strong from the peddling. She learned the names of everyone in Offshoot, and half of Stem.

  Best of all, she saw Farin almost every day. He showed her where she could buy food, and overpaid her for the raspberries, saying she was on commission until the growing season ended. His delight in her ability to acquire these small treats could fill her entire day, no matter how long the ride, no matter how hard it rained, or how hot it got. He still told Chena how much he loved her only in her mind when the lights were out, but she was certain that would become real too. One day, before her family left, he would take Chena in his arms and he would tell her not to go. He would say that he wanted her to stay with him. Or better yet, he would say he wanted to come with them.…

  Those dreams, and the light in Mom’s eyes when Chena came home and handed over the day’s take, were all she needed to keep herself going.

  “You’re a wonder and a half, Supernova,” Mom said, hugging her at the end of the first week. “We’ll have you two in school before the year’s out at this rate.”

  Chena made a face. She didn’t want to be in school when she could be out on jobs and seeing Farin, but she consoled herself with the fact that she’d still be able to work two days a week. Anything was better than nothing.

  The only thing that was not going perfectly was that she was breaking the rules Mom laid down. She was running errands for Nan Elle.

  She hadn’t intended to, but she had to go up there. Farin had written Nan Elle a letter, and she took the money. She had to deliver it. She couldn’t let him down.

  There were a dozen people sitting in front of the cluster of houses where Nan Elle lived, old men and women, women with babies, kids off the shifts. All of them had a bright red rash on their face and arms. Some of the blisters were the size of grapes. Just looking at them made Chena wince. She edged her way between them, trying not to touch anybody. Mom had warned her about touching anybody with a rash or a cough. She didn’t really need to be told. There weren’t any doctors, there wasn’t any medicine. If they caught something, there wasn’t any kind of help.

  Chena really wanted to know which hothouser came up with that brilliant idea. That business Nan Elle had given her about disturbing the microsphere with antibiotics and antivirals must have come from a complete vapor-brain.

  Nan Elle’s door was open. No one in the line said anything as Chena peeked inside the workroom. They all watched her, though. Chena could feel their gazes fastened on her shoulders, and it made her shiver.

  Nan Elle had all her lamps on. A young woman a few years older than Chena sat in the examination chair. Tears slid down the woman’s ravaged face. Blisters the size of baby fists distorted her cheek and swelled her right eye completely shut. Nan Elle smeared her with something green, and the woman whimpered softly, obviously trying not to cry out.

  “You wait where you are, station girl,” said Nan Elle, although Chena could have sworn she had made no noise coming in. “I’m not done here.”

  Chena looked at the floor, the bookshelves, the aquarium pipes, the steam rising from the pots that simmered on the stove, the long table with its jars and boxes, mortars, and bits of plants and mushrooms, anywhere but at Nan Elle and the crying woman.

  At last she heard Nan Elle say, “That’ll burst those tonight. When they start to go, you keep your face clean, you understand? Clean with hot water, I don’t care how much it hurts. Then you put this on the open sores.” She handed the woman a thin wooden box the size of her palm. “When they’re good and coated, you cover them up with clean cloth. You’ll be scarred, there’s nothing to be done there, but if you do as I say, you get to keep your eye.”

  The woman nodded and stood up, clutching the box. She hurried away, like she couldn’t stand being in the room.

  Only when the door had shut did Nan Elle turn her attention to Chena.

  “It’s called nettle blight,” she said. “We get it every summer. There’s a weed in the fields with these nasty, hairy little seedpods. Burst them open when you’re swinging a scythe and those hairs dig into your skin and you get all kinds of infected.” She looked Chena up and down. “Not your problem, though. What are you here for that’s so important you’re jumping the line?”

  “I’ve got a letter for you.” Chena thrust the paper at her. She wanted out of here as badly as the blistered woman.

  “Do you?” Nan Elle took the unfamiliar object and squinted at it for a moment before she opened it up. “I’d heard about your little business, station girl. A pretty thing it is too.” She scanned Farin’s note. Chena itched to know what was in it, but she kept her gaze on the bookshelves.

  “Well, well, a pretty scheme indeed.” Nan Elle thrust the letter into one of her apron’s many pockets. “I’ll give you an answer if you’ll wait there.”

  Chena opened her mouth and closed it again. She had promised Mom not to have anything to do with Nan Elle, but really Mom had meant not to accept any medicine from her. This was different. Right? This was legitimate business.

  She bit her lip. Just this once, she told herself. Get it over with. “Sure.”

  Nan Elle got out ink, a wooden dipping pen, and thick mottled paper. She scratched and scribbled, muttering to herself the whole time.

  As she stood there watching, a question formed inside Chena. What harm could it do to ask? “How do you know Farin?”

  Nan E
lle did not look up from her laborious writing. “Didn’t he tell you?” She cocked one gleaming eye at Chena. “No, he didn’t. I suppose he thought you wouldn’t trust him if he did.”

  “Tell me what?” Chena tried to sound more defiant than nervous.

  “He’s my grandson.”

  Shock stole Chena’s voice. Farin? With the green eyes and auburn hair and beautiful smile? He was Nan Elle’s grandson? He was so… so… perfect. How could he be…

  Aware that she was being stupid, Chena still couldn’t think of anything to say. So she just stood there and watched the old woman write. If Nan Elle noticed, she didn’t say anything. She just kept working until she’d filled two separate sheets.

  “Now, that’ll be a minute to dry.” Nan Elle straightened up and thrust her pen back into the ink bottle. She tuned her gaze back to Chena, who still stood silently, trying to get past what she had just learned. “You know you could make even better money selling people’s secrets.”

  “What?” The words jerked Chena’s attention fully back to the old woman.

  Nan Elle grinned, showing all the gaps between her teeth. “If you read the letters you carried and then blackmailed people, you’d make a great deal more for your troubles.”

  Chena snorted and waved off the idea. “Yeah, right, and lose all my customers. No, thanks.”

  To her surprise, Nan Elle nodded approvingly. “You’re not a fool, station girl. Very good.”

  “Is your ink dry yet?” asked Chena. “I’ve got other people to take care of.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

  “As have I.” Nan Elle blew gently on the two sheets and folded them each up separately. “There’s your answer for young Farin.” She handed Chena the first sheet. “And here’s for Drapada Shi. I will pay for an answer.”

  Chena stared at the second sheet, her hand frozen halfway in the act of taking it. “You want me to take a letter for you?”

  “And, in all likelihood, packages. This is an excellent idea of yours, Chena. I expect to have much business for you.”

  “But…” Chena swallowed. But Mom told me not to....I don’t want to.

  Nan Elle’s dark eyes glittered brightly in the lamplight. “Come, now, are you going to turn me down? Didn’t Farin recommend my name to you?” She shuffled closer. “Aren’t you doing this because you need all the money you can get? Planning on leaving, are you? How soon do you want to get away?”

  Chena bit her lip. Nan Elle nodded silently and folded her hand around the letter. “Come back, station girl. I will have work for you.”

  And she did. Chena delivered bundles and parcels and blobby packages that squished and smelled. She really didn’t want to know what she carried. Nan Elle swore it was all legal, but Chena decided from the beginning not to ask. She really wanted to be able to say she didn’t know, just in case. Sometimes she left the packages with Farin, sometimes she left them with vendors at the market and picked up leaves and mushrooms and dried flowers in return.

  Always, she carried Constable Regan’s letter of approval with her, also just in case.

  The summer deepened. The leaves on the trees turned from spring green to dark emerald and the tips of the grasses burned brown in the sun. The flowers in the forest swelled into heavy pods that smelled thick and sweet and would occasionally pop open and rain black seeds all over the catwalks. Mom helped Chena create a sling that could be hung between the bike’s outrigger struts so she could carry even more packages. Teal helped her encrypt her client list in her comptroller and offered opinions on which customers were spies and which were working for the Authority.

  Every night, when they were alone in the darkened bedroom, they spun out their stories of Dad. Dad had made contact with the poisoners. He worked for them diligently, earning their trust, studying their networks, working on their encryptions, reporting his progress whenever he could. But he still didn’t know the extent of the organization. He didn’t understand it fully, and until he did, he had to keep working. He couldn’t stop to come back and get them yet.

  Teal would curl up and go happily to sleep, her head full of images of her heroic father, and Chena would tell herself her private stories about Farin and drop into her own dreams.

  Summer had cooled into frostbitten autumn when Chena saw the people fall.

  She was returning home from Stem, her outrigger hammock loaded with letters and news, teas and dried lake plums. Yesterday it had rained all day, matting the grass down into stringy lumps. She’d just about frozen before she made it home. As if to make up for that, today sunlight poured down out of the cloudless sky, resting heavily on her bare neck and arms. Her scalp prickled under her floppy hat and a thin trickle of sweat ran down her cheek. She lifted her forearm to wipe it away.

  As she did, a strange high-pitched buzzing sounded from the sky. It moved fast, nothing like the soft, puttering progress of a dirigible. Chena stilled the pedals and let the bike glide to a halt. With one hand planted on the top of her head to hold her hat in place, she tilted her face upward, scanning the sky for whatever made the strange sound.

  The buzzing grew louder until Chena could feel an answering vibration in the rail underneath her bicycle. Then, a huge silver wedge streaked across the blue expanse, scattering black seeds behind itself, as if it were one of the forest pods breaking open.

  Chena’s jaw dropped. The seeds blossomed silently and Chena realized she was seeing parachutes—hundreds of them. As they fell closer, she could see that some of them carried single people, but many more of them carried bundles tied together with ropes, or inflatable rafts stuffed full of yet more people.

  All at once, they were landing in front of her. Birds rose in dark, shrieking clouds, hiding the people from Chena’s sight. Underneath the clapping of wings she could just barely hear startled human shouts.

  The birds quickly scattered, leaving echoes of their shrill screams in Chena’s ears. The people sprang into action. The ones in parachutes freed themselves from their harnesses and rolled the billowing chutes into small bundles. The ones who came down in rafts clambered out onto the grass, leaving behind small gaggles of children, some of whom held babies in their arms.

  The adults ran for the bundles that had fallen with them. She caught glimpses of rumpled overalls, round faces, narrow eyes, brown skin, and short black hair. They sliced through the ropes, letting lumpy bales spill onto the trampled grass. Gloved fingers tore open plastic covers to reveal glassy slabs and metal shafts. Some of the adults shouted, but their voices were distant and the words unfamiliar. Some of them began stuffing the shafts into slabs, as if making miniature signposts. Others distributed the assembled things, and the people who received them scattered across the grassland. Four came right up to the rail and shoved the posts they carried into the ground. Only when their strange, shining trees were planted did they look up and see Chena.

  They were so startled, not one of them said anything. They all retreated several steps. Then they seemed to notice she was almost a kid.

  “Vansant!” called a woman back toward the people doing the shouting. “Eyes!”

  One of the men nearest to her screwed his face up into a smile and held out his hand.

  “Watch—” Chena began.

  Before she could get the warning out, his fingertips touched the fence. She heard the sizzle a split second before he jerked his hand back.

  “Sorry,” said Chena, climbing down off the bike into the narrow space between the rail and the fence. “It’s a—”

  A bass bawl cut through the air. Everybody’s head jerked toward it, including Chena.

  “It’s an antelope,” she told them. “It’s hurt or something.”

  Another bawl split the air, followed by a human scream. Chena started forward, pulling her toe up just short of the fence.

  Behind her came the clank of metal against metal. In front of her another antelope bellowed, and another human screamed. And another.

  The bike started moving.

&nb
sp; “Hey!” she shouted uselessly. She glanced desperately back at the strangers, but they no longer looked at her. They were already rushing back toward the landing site.

  Left with no choice, Chena ran after the bike. The rail hummed hard under it as it accelerated. She cried out herself and lunged for the seat with both hands. The bike almost jerked her off her feet, but she threw her weight backward and it slowed just long enough for her to swing her leg over the seat and plant her feet on the pedals.

  Once she was aboard, the bike took off faster than Chena could ever pedal. Wind yanked tears from her eyes and snatched her breath. Gritting her teeth and clamping onto the handlebars, Chena twisted around as far as she could. She could just see the strangers running through the clearing they had trampled, shouting and waving their arms. But she couldn’t see anything around them but waving grass.

  Then a trio of biscuit-brown antelope broke through the grass screen, running blindly. They smashed against the fence. It sizzled in response and Chena smelled the stench of burning hair. The antelope wailed and reeled back, scattering left and right to run along the rail, shedding dark flakes from their coats. Birds rocketed overhead, shrieking out their own terror. Under it all, people screamed, but Chena could barely hear them anymore because of all the noise from the terrified animals.