Kingdom of Cages

by Sarah Zettel

  “It means I’ll have a new boss,” said Lopera calmly. “Don’t push me too hard, or I might start thinking that’s a good idea.”

  For a moment Dionte thought Basante might actually hit Lopera. This was not the kind of reaction he was trained to believe he deserved from villagers. His pride and his Conscience were doubtlessly in conflict, and that could make anyone irrational.

  “Enough, Lopera. Please, Basante, cool your temper. We need each other, and these arguments do no one any good.” She pulled Basante back a couple of steps. “Lopera will not let us down.” Because she does not want to risk the involuntary wing. “We have five years’ worth of proof for that.” She watched his face and shoulders relaxing. “Lopera, perhaps you can take us to Eden and show Basante his fears are unfounded.”

  “Of course.” Lopera also relaxed visibly and gestured for them to precede her out through the inner door.

  Dionte took Basante’s arm and walked with him through the doorway, not giving him a chance to stop and say anything else to Lopera. They could not afford for him to upset Lopera and her people too much.

  Not yet.

  Light seeped into Teal’s darkness. She became aware of its warmth on her eyelids, turning the blackness first gray and then red. She felt… swollen. Her head felt so heavy she didn’t think she could lift it. Her dry, woolly tongue filled her entire mouth. Her belly was aching and distended, and her breasts felt like a couple sacks of water sagging against her rib cage.

  With an effort, she fluttered her eyelids open. Above her, she saw dimness, lit by one pale yellow light that seemed familiar somehow. Scents wormed their way into her brain—dust, damp, stale basil and cinnamon.

  She was in the basement under the dunes. She hadn’t moved at all.

  The realization gave her the strength to sit up. Pain stabbed through her midriff. She groaned and clutched at her stomach, slamming one hand out behind herself to keep from falling back down. It landed on something soft, and the sensation expanded Teal’s world a little further.

  She wasn’t sitting on the floor anymore, but on a pallet, the kind they used in the dorms. A thick white sheet covered her. Clothes lay in a neat pile beside the pillow, with her comptroller sitting right on top. Teal snatched it up to check the time and the date.

  Three days. What strength she had vanished from her fingers, and the comptroller dropped into her lap. She’d been down here for three days. Had she only been down here? Or had they taken her somewhere? There were no memories in her head from the time she first saw this place up to now. Panic seized her, bringing on another wave of pain. She clutched the sheet to her chest and doubled over, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears.

  It was then she realized her breasts weren’t just swollen, they were too big. Her hips and buttocks too. Everything was the wrong shape.

  Have to make you look like you’re nineteen, the man, the tailor, had said. The implications hadn’t quite filtered in then. They’d rebuilt her body.

  Teal couldn’t tell if it was that realization or the leftover drugs in her system that made her feel sick.

  Shaking, she pushed the sheet back and reached for the clothes. She tried not to look down as she dressed. She really did not want to see what they’d done to her. The things they’d left weren’t her old clothes, which of course would now be too small, but they were close enough, and they were clean. Underwear, bra, loose brown trousers, a soft gray tunic, and gray woolen socks. The boots were her old, creased, familiar pair. Those, at least, still fit just fine, and somehow that made her feel better.

  In fact, she felt well enough to realize she was incredibly thirsty, and the pain of hunger added itself to the general pain around her midriff.

  “Can I come down?” called someone from the top of the stairs. A man. The tailor.

  “Yeah,” Teal tried to say, but all that came out was a hoarse croak. The tailor couldn’t possibly have heard, but he came down the stairs anyway. Teal didn’t have time to be angry before she saw the jug and bowl in his hands. He set them both down in front of her and stepped back. Teal lifted the jug with shaking hands and drank. Water, sweet and clear, poured down her burning throat. She drank until she thought her lungs would burst, forgetting that the man was even there.

  Finally she lowered the jug and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Thanks.” She set the jug down and reached for the bowl. It was the very familiar porridge she had hated in the dorms. She didn’t care. Right now it smelled wonderful. She picked up the spoon and started shoveling food into her mouth with a speed that would have had Chena rolling her eyes. Her muscles protested every movement, but she didn’t stop or slow down. The food was all that mattered.

  “As soon as you’re done,” drawled the tailor. “You’re going to have to go.”

  That actually stopped her. Teal swallowed the mouthful she had. “Go? Where?”

  “The docks,” he said patiently, but Teal heard the strain under his voice. “We have to get you out of here and up the pipe quickly. We couldn’t find a permanent new chip for you, so you’ve only got an overlay in your hand, and it’s going to decay quickly. Until then your name is Collie Od, you got that? Collie Od.”

  “Collie Od,” Teal repeated. You couldn’t get me a good name? Teal swallowed again. “I’m not sure I can walk,” she admitted.

  The tailor gestured dismissively. “You’re going to have to. Get yourself together.”

  The food and water had worked enough on Teal that she had enough strength to get angry. “What’s the hurry? You didn’t do the job right?”

  The tailor frowned. “You didn’t think there might be people looking for you? You’re valuable and you vanished. That’s enough for the hothousers to get the cops to arrest you on suspicion.”

  “On suspicion of what?”

  “Whatever they want.” He shrugged impatiently. “Now let’s go. I do not keep contraband in my store. You either walk out of here or I drug you and you go out in one of the baskets.” He spread his hands. “Your choice.”

  The thought of being knocked out again turned Teal’s stomach. “Give me a second.”

  “A second is about all I can give you.”

  Teal scraped the last of the porridge off the bottom of the bowl and crammed it into her mouth. Then she swallowed all the water she could hold. Gasping for breath, she set the jug down again. A glance at the tailor’s face told her she could not delay any longer. So she tightened all the muscles in her legs and stood up.

  Pain shot through her entire body with an intensity that rocked the floor under her. Her hips were too wide, the ground was too far away. She could not find her balance, and the more she teetered, the more pain ran up and down the muscles in her legs and diaphragm. She couldn’t stand, but she couldn’t let herself fall either, not in front of this man and in the face of the realization that this had been what she wanted, what she had come here for. Her muscles screamed in protest, making the entire world sway and spin, but she tightened them anyway, and she remained on her feet.

  The tailor didn’t even bother to nod; he just turned around and started up the stairs, assuming she would follow. Teal clenched her teeth and forced her rubbery, too-long legs to walk forward.

  She made it up the stairs, slowly, and shaking all the time as if she were about to fall apart, but she did make it. Outside, the cool wind off the lake touched her skin and made her shiver, but also made her feel better somehow. She drank air in great gulps as she followed the tailor down the boardwalk toward the shore. They passed the dune houses, with their deep-set windows, and Teal stole glances at them as she passed, trying to catch her own reflection to see what she looked like now. She didn’t have much luck, but it kept her mind somewhat off the pain in her guts.

  The dunes opened up to make way for the market and the beach. At the end of the longest jetty, a pair of dirigibles floated on the gently lapping water, tethered with thick cables to the cage of scaffolding and ladders that let the ground crew
s swarm over them, doing whatever was necessary to keep the things flying. Their aerogel bags were translucent, showing the network of silver struts that gave them their shape. They were filigree flying machines, and, at the moment, just about the most beautiful things Teal had ever seen. They’d take her home. Home to where she’d find Dad, to where she’d get to have a good life, where she was in charge and didn’t have to be afraid all the time.

  In front of her, the tailor slowed down. Teal tried to shorten her stride, but she misjudged and banged into his back like a clown in a bad routine. He pushed her away impatiently. “Here’s where we find out whether we did a good enough job on you, ‘Collie.’ ” He pointed down to the jetty.

  Teal looked where he pointed, her heart in her mouth. What if it was Chena? What if she tried to drag her back? She’d have to squawk, but now she was a criminal too….

  But it wasn’t Chena. Two people in neat brown tunics stood in conference with a third person, a tallish man with dark brown skin and a wooden plug in his ear. It took Teal a second to recognize him from the back, but it was Constable Regan.

  So, Chena couldn’t be bothered to come herself, thought Teal, strangely disappointed. She had to send the cop.

  The tailor lengthened his stride again. A wary smile stretched across his face as he reached the spot where Regan and his gang stood. “Good morning, Constable. May we get by?”

  Regan turned around and gave the tailor a once-over. “Morning, Wilseck, and no.” His smile was grim. “This is what we call a checkpoint. We’re going to have to check your chip. And yours.” He nodded at Teal. Teal’s throat closed, but his attention was fleeting. He didn’t recognize her. She fought the urge to touch her face. How much had they changed her? “And we have to ask if you’ve seen her.” He unhooked the chip reader from his belt and held it up so they could see the little 3-D of Teal shining there. His gaze flitted over Teal, and rested again on Wilseck, and then shot back to Teal. This time his brow started to furrow.

  Teal swallowed hard, while the tailor, Wilseck, squinted at the 3-D. “Nope. Nobody I know.”

  Regan took a step closer and pointed the display at Teal. “How about you?”

  Teal’s heart thundered in her chest. She was sure the whole world could hear it. She had to do something now, right now. Regan was looking too closely at her. He’d know her in another second.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s Teal Trust, isn’t it?”

  Regan’s brow furrowed more deeply for a second and then smoothed out. “That’s right. Have you seen her?”

  Teal nodded. “She’s been hanging out around the library, trying to buy a skyhook for the computer so she can get hold of someone on Athena.”

  “She try to buy from you?”

  Again, Teal nodded. “I’m not that desperate, though. If that kid’s legal, I’m a constable.”

  Regan smiled, and maybe he laughed silently. “But I don’t know you, do I?”

  “I guess not.” She saluted him. “Collie Od.”

  She watched his eyes flicker back and forth as he ran through some kind of mental list. “No, I don’t know you,” he said, more to himself than to her. He looked over her shoulder at the transport guards. “Collie and Wilseck stay here until we get back from the library.”

  Regan strode up the pier. Teal swallowed past the fear in her throat and glanced back at Wilseck. He looked placid, ready to wait all day, but she could feel the tension singing through him. The look he gave her was the same cold expression she’d seen from Chena a million times. It said, What do you think you’re doing?

  Keeping the cop away from me, she thought toward him, but she couldn’t tell if the idea reached him.

  Instead, he nodded to the two checkpoint guards blocking the peer. “Grace. Cole.”

  Grace stood on the left-hand side of the pier and carried a taser on her belt as well as a scanner. “Willie.”

  “What’s the score with this Teal Trust?”

  Cole smirked. “Willie, if you expect me to believe you don’t know about the Trusts, you must be way off your game.”

  Wilseck gave a small nod. “All right, I know. What I don’t know is why the constable is looking for her.”

  “Because she’s gone missing, hasn’t she?” Grace crossed her arms. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you, Willie?”

  Wilseck’s smile grew sly, and Teal’s heart began to pound. Wilseck was running a game here, and she didn’t know the rules. “That all depends, doesn’t it?”

  Cole stepped forward. “Oh, no, Willie. You don’t have any leverage this time. All we have to do is tell the cop you know.”

  “Well, you could do that,” agreed Wilseck, appearing completely unruffled. “But it wouldn’t be very good for you if Lopera had to tell her employers you weren’t playing along.”

  At those words, Cole went dead white. Who was Lopera? Who were her employers? Teal had never seen a villager look like that except when somebody was suggesting he might be getting on the wrong side of a Pharmakeus…

  Or the hothousers.

  No. He couldn’t be threatening them with the hothousers. What he was doing was so illegal they’d toss him into involuntary before he had time to blink. No. There had to be something else going on.

  But Cole’s face was still that sick, scared white. “Willie, look, it’s not just us. That Constable Regan is not going to be pushed around. We can’t just…”

  Grace, on the other hand, just licked her lips and looked away. When she looked back, Teal saw a combination of steel and resignation in her face. “What do you want, Willie?” she asked wearily.

  Wilseck’s smile grew even wider. “I always knew you were the smart one, Grace.”

  “Piss off,” she replied genially. “If you’ve got something for us, let us know the price.” Her eyes flicked over his shoulder to scan the boardwalk. “Fast.”

  “When he gets back, you tell the cop that my friend here ran off.” He jerked his chin at Teal.

  “When she actually went into the dirigible?” Cole raised his eyebrows inquisitively.

  “Very good, Cole,” said Wilseck. “You’re catching on.”

  Grace rubbed her chin. “That’s a lot. Aside from the usual threats, what are you giving us?”

  “Teal Trust was in my shop,” he said. Teal hoped no one saw how every muscle in her body tensed. “She wants to stay out of the hot-houses, for a wonder. She wanted some of her alleles changed so she’d be a little less attractive to them. I told her I’d have to think about it before I arranged to have something so valuable cut into. She told me where she’s staying.”

  Teal’s heart hammered painfully against her ribs. Believe it. Believe it, she urged the guards silently. It took all her strength not to look at Wilseck.

  Cole glanced at Grace. She paused, considering. “Is any of that true?”

  “No,” said Wilseck coolly. “But I can make it sound really good for your constable.”

  Grace snorted. Then she nodded.

  “Go,” said Wilseck quietly. So much of Teal’s energy was bound up in not bolting, it took her a second to realize that he was talking to her.

  When she did, though, she didn’t hesitate. She trotted down the jetty toward the waiting dirigible. One of the tenders scowled at her and looked back at the guards. Grace waved her arm in a signal that must have meant all-okay, because the man stood aside and allowed Teal to duck through the low doorway into the gondola.

  She had expected a passenger cabin like they had on the one that brought them down here from Athena, but this dirigible was more like a flying warehouse than anything else. Nets bolted to the walls and floor held huge piles of crates and cargo containers. Teal stepped to one side of the doors and stood there for a second, uncertain what to do. A tall thin man in brown coveralls stepped out from between the piles of cargo holders and looked her over.

  “Passenger seats up front.” He gestured toward the gondola’s interior. “Better get going.” He continued on
out the doorway.

  Teal didn’t move. Nothing inside her was convinced that the guards, let alone Regan, would go for Wilseck’s threats or stories for long. They’d come in here. They’d haul her out.

  Her eyes darted left and right, trying to take in the whole of the gondola quickly. There wasn’t much to it. Other than the netted piles of cargo, there were only the curving walls lined with cabinets and padding, and the support girders that held the walls in place.

  Cabinet’s too obvious. It’ll take too long to find which crates are empty. Her eyes traveled up and down the girders. They had holes into which brackets or ring bolts could be fit. They’d make great toeholds too.

  Teal snatched up an empty cargo net from a rack by the door and stuffed it into the waist of her trousers, because she had no pockets big enough. Then she found a toehold in the girder and started climbing.

  Her longer arms and legs proved good for something. Even though everything still hurt, Teal managed to clamber up to the ceiling girders more easily than she would have before the operation. She wedged herself into a corner, bracing her back against one girder and her feet against another. She reached for the cargo net, intending to sling it in place to make herself a nice little hammock, when she heard movement below.

  Teal froze. Her heart thundered so wildly she thought its noise echoed off the walls. Below, Regan and the two guards from the pier walked into the gondola.

  “Check the passenger seats,” said Regan. “Just in case she’s doing something really obvious.” One of the guards—Cole, Teal thought— headed forward.

  Grace and Regan stayed where they were. So did Teal. The girders bit into her palms and buttocks where she braced herself. The joints in her knees began to hurt all over again.

  “So, what do we do now, Constable?” asked Grace. Her voice sounded hollow as it reached the ceiling. “Start knocking on crates and opening cabinets? I’m telling you, she took off.”