Kingdom of Cages

by Sarah Zettel

  Doubled over on himself, every muscle seized tight as the poison, her poison, gripped him, Basante still managed to shake his head. “We didn’t…” he gasped. “I didn’t mean…”

  Chena pulled back. “Liar,” she whispered.

  Slowly, with infinite pain and effort, Basante raised his head to look at her with both eyes. “Not my idea,” he grunted. “I never wanted this….”

  Then the effort became too much. His head dropped and hit the floor with a crack.

  Chena scrambled to her feet, her lungs heaving. He was dying. The liar was dying. Good. He should die. He helped kill Mom. That much was obvious. Now he was lying to her. So why was she scared? She wanted this. Why did her mind’s eye keep showing her the eyes of the woman on the boat, the one she had saved? Nan Elle herself taught her how to use poisons. Pharmakeus took their revenge when they were injured. She was Pharmakeus. She was Helice Trust’s daughter. This was the beginning of her revenge.

  Basante’s breath came fast and shallow. Sweat poured in rivers down his blue-gray skin. Chena knew if she touched him, she would feel he was cold. He gagged hard, as if he were trying to vomit, but nothing came up.

  Chena glanced away. Had he really locked the door? She hadn’t seen him do anything to lock it. If he had, though, everything might be over.

  She crossed the sensor line and the door opened. Think now before you take another step. Everything depended on her being right about Aleph. Aleph wasn’t like a computer with a set of instructions it could not violate. Aleph was a human mind. No matter what else she thought of it, Aleph loved its people.

  Chena ran into the corridor. The door shut behind her and vanished.

  “Chena,” said Aleph. “What are you doing?”

  Chena didn’t answer. She just ran up the straight corridor, heading for the foyer, and putting as many invisible doors and rooms as possible between her and Basante.

  “Chena, stop!” called Aleph. “This is not permitted!” Hothousers turned to gape at her. Chena kept her eyes fixed on the door. She wasn’t going to make it. There was no way she was going to make it.

  A lean, sharp-faced woman stepped into her path, grabbing her and twisting her arms around her back. “Sorry, Chena,” she said.

  Chena ignored the woman. “Aleph,” said Chena, trying not to struggle. “Aleph, listen to me quickly. I’ve poisoned one of your people. One of your people is dying, and you can’t find him.”

  “What?” demanded the woman who was holding her.

  “You are not making sense, Chena,” came Aleph’s infinitely patient voice. The golden-skinned girl image she used with Chena appeared on the wall.

  “Where is Basante?” asked Chena.

  Aleph paused for a fraction of a second. “I don’t know.”

  Shocked voices murmured around her. A crowd of hothousers had gathered, and not one of them could believe what they were hearing.

  “No, you don’t,” said Chena, making sure they all heard her. “You don’t know where he is and you don’t know what he’s doing. You don’t know he’s dying.”

  Again, a fraction of a second for a pause. How many operations could Aleph work in that time? What was she doing? Who was she telling about this? She could have searched the whole complex four times over right now, made a million decisions. If Chena had figured this at all wrong, she was already gone.

  “Chena, what do you know about this?” The woman shook her. “This is ridiculous.” A dark man had touched the wall, calling up a room map. “I’m not finding anything wrong,” he said. “She’s lying.”

  “Then why can’t Aleph find him?” asked Chena. “I know where Basante is, and I know why you don’t. I’ll tell you if you let me out the environment lock into the marsh.”

  “Chena, I cannot do that.” Aleph’s image remained frozen on the wall, as if she had forgotten to move it. “Chena, tell me what is happening.”

  Chena glanced behind her. “He’s probably stopped breathing by now, Aleph. Let me out of here, or you’ll never find him.”

  “I am compromised. I am compromised,” murmured Aleph. “My fellows know no help. Where is Basante? I must find him. Where is he?”

  “Start opening the doors,” ordered Chena’s captor. “I’ll take her down to the holder and—”

  “Take me anywhere and you won’t find him,” interrupted Chena. “Let me out of here and you will.”

  The hothousers had spread out, touching the walls to clear the doors, but Aleph didn’t know where the missing door was. It didn’t know to clear it.

  “No,” said Aleph. “I cannot let you out. Pandora must be protected.”

  “Then your Basante is going to die. Which is more important, Aleph? Work it out fast.”

  “You would do this?”

  “Aleph—” began the woman holding Chena.

  “I am doing this,” whispered Chena, a fierce pride flooding through her along with the fear, and the anger, and so many other emotions she couldn’t name them all.

  “I cannot let your brother die, Thea,” said Aleph. “The environment lock is open.”

  Chena tore herself out of Thea’s startled grip and ran. She flung herself down the straight corridor, ignoring the stares and the exclamations as she hurtled passed.

  “Amanitin,” she murmured as she ran. Amanitin was the active poison in mushrooms such as the death cap and destroying angel. “Four grams, administered in water. That’s what he’s got in him.” The atrium opened around her, and there was the environment lock. There were people staring. Let them stare. The lock opened for her approach.

  “Where?” demanded Aleph. “Where?”

  The word echoed through the lobby, and Chena just laughed. The door opened for her.

  “Work it out!” she shouted to the startled faces and Aleph’s angry, empty voice. “You think you know everything! Work it out!”

  Chena dove out into the darkness.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Escape

  The environment lock slammed shut, trapping the hem of her trousers. Chena sprawled facedown in the mud. She rolled over, yanking on her pants until they ripped. Abruptly free, she snatched up her pack and ran into the marsh, throwing herself flat on her stomach as soon as she reached the reeds.

  They’d be out in seconds. How could she have been so stupid? She had to make a scene, had to let them all know how clever she was. Chena struggled with the pack straps. I’m going to be dead and dissected, right alongside Basante. Worse, that’s what I’m going to wish I was.

  She glanced backward. Were those shapes moving behind her? Were those lanterns? Scanners focusing in on her body’s heat? She only had the camouflage suit half out of the pack. Did the cy-bugs see her? She glanced toward the marsh, made a wish, and dove in.

  Birds, thousands and millions of birds, roared into the air with a cacophony of cries and the flapping of wings, making enough noise to fill the whole wide world. They churned the air with their wings and split it open with their calls. Hidden behind this living curtain, Chena yanked the camouflage’s parka over her head and ducked down into the swamp until only her head and the hand holding her pack were above water. She groped in the pack and found her bottle of scent concealer by touch. She smeared the goop over her face, pulled the veil into place, and hunkered down until cold water touched her chin.

  After what felt like both a hundred years and five seconds, the birds’ noise died away. The marsh and the air around it stilled. The frogs began to chirrup, peep, and croak again. The insects buzzed and danced. They swarmed around Chena in their usual cloud, but not too close.

  She didn’t smell like anything interesting, after all. No, nothing interesting here.

  She was hidden from the cameras, but what about from the careful figures picking through the reeds? Aleph had called out the hothousers themselves. Basante must really be dead. She’d done it. She’d killed him, and now they were searching their precious, pristine world for her. She could just make out their full-body clean suits,
and their eyes covered with night-vision gear.

  She started to shake and clenched her teeth. She was camouflaged. They could not see her. It was impossible. As long as she was smart and stayed still and kept calm, they would not see her. They’d have to step on her. That was a million to one. All she had to do was stay right here, wait until they passed, then she could follow them out.

  Splash, splash.

  Two of them waded into her pool of the marsh. Chena cringed and bit down on her lip so hard she tasted blood. They were spreading out, coming closer. They had helmets on and she couldn’t hear their voices. Had they seen her? They walked in a straight line. They had to have seen her. She was gone. Pretty soon, she would wish she was dead. What could they see? She was all covered up. Concealed, completely, she…

  But her pack wasn’t.

  A scream erupted in Chena’s mind, followed fast by a desperate plan. She clutched her bottle of scent concealer in one hand and slipped beneath the water, abandoning her pack. The water was thick with centuries of muck, but her hands found the reeds and pulled her forward, toward the searchers, but not into them. Past them. If she had her bearings, she’d just swim right past them, through the foul, brown water full of who knew what, with her burning lungs and clogged eyes, just a little farther to make sure, and the reeds biting into her callused palms, and she was going to burst, and this had to be far enough, she couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t go any farther, just a little farther, have to breathe, have to breathe, have to breathe …

  Emerging slowly from the water was the hardest thing Chena ever had to do, but she did it. She clamped a hand coated with blood and muck over her mouth to stifle the gagging, gasping noise of her breath and tried to clear the filthy water out of her eyes with the other.

  The moonlight showed her a pair of blurry human silhouettes bent over something that had to be her pack. One of them straightened up. Chena froze, trying to be a rock, a hunk of grass, anything but what she was—a human, a murderer, hunted. Her pursuer swept its gaze over and past her without pausing. When it turned its back to her, Chena dared to breathe again. One of the pursuers shouldered her pack and began walking away, away from the complex, and away from her.

  Triumph flowed through her feet, and trembling, but real, and enough to warm her for a few seconds.

  Take that, take that. Thought you could just sneak up on me, didn’t you?

  But triumph and its warmth didn’t last, and Chena began to shiver. Her lungs ached, her mouth tasted of swamp, cold reached down into her bones, and she had nothing to cure any of it.

  Gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering, Chena slipped out into the open water. On her knees, her chin skimming the pond, she followed the ones who thought they were her pursuers.

  They never thought to look back. They walked a weaving path, mostly keeping to the water, shining their scanners into the reeds and the shadows made by the tiny islands. They explored clusters of water hyacinths and purple flags, and still didn’t look behind them to see the form swimming like a strange crocodile, trying to keep itself mostly submerged despite the fact that its hands were going numb with cold.

  They had reached the edge of the marsh, and the hothousers tramped out onto dry land. Chena considered. She wanted out of this water that wormed its way into every pore of her skin, filling her up to the brim with cold. But beyond the reeds, she’d have no cover. The moonlight could show her up easily.

  Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes, but Chena stayed where she was, sheltered beside a decaying log and all the thick stench of the swamp. The sound of footsteps on grass faded away.

  It took forever. Chena’s nose began to run and her skin felt so heavy she was surprised it didn’t slide off her body. But somewhere out there, her pursuers got new orders, and she heard them again, turning around, retracing their routes. A tidy line of maybe ten, maybe twenty fanned out across the swamp, still searching, but less diligently now. They moved faster. They wanted to get inside too.

  Be glad to let you, thought Chena a little hysterically as they splashed into the water. Live and let live, right? Right?

  Six inches from her, a hothouser walked past. It did not pause. It did not see. It faded away into the night, and the frogs began to talk about its passage.

  One slow inch at a time, Chena crept out of the water. Shivering so badly she could barely control her movements, she crawled into the shelter of the trees.

  Leaves and branches blotted out the moon and Chena lay curled in on herself for a moment in complete darkness. The loamy ground felt soft underneath her and she just wanted to lie there until the shivering stopped.

  No, she told herself. You’ve got to keep going. You’re not covered. They can spot you. They can catch you, take you back.

  Or maybe they’ll decide you’re too much trouble to take back.

  She remembered the people who landed in the grasslands, and the ants, and jerked herself upright.

  “Where do I go?” she murmured to the night. She couldn’t go straight back to Nan Elle. The place would be watched. Where else? Farin, in Stem? Did they know about him? He’d been with her on the boat to Peristeria. He was on record as her cousin. So he’d probably be watched too, but he went out a lot more than Nan Elle did. It would be easier for her to get a message to him, so he could get one to Nan Elle. There had to be someplace she could stay, get warm, get out of the dark. Farin would help. Farin wouldn’t turn her away just because she’d killed somebody.

  Stop it. Basante helped kill Mom. You know he did. He deserved it.

  A violent wave of shivers took hold of her, shaking the breath out of her lungs. Chena wrapped her arms around herself and waited for the fit to pass.

  Come on. You know what to do. Do it!

  Crouching down, Chena peeked through the tree line. The night had remained clear, giving her both moon and stars to work with. She found the northern triangle without difficulty and set off, following the edge of the tree line.

  The night around her was not that cold. She could barely see her breath in the moonlight, but she was soaked head to foot and every breeze felt like a fresh blast of ice. Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth to keep them still. But movement helped keep her circulation going. Eventually her clothes would have to dry. Eventually her blood would have to warm. It would have to. There was no choice.

  The night wore away. The gibbous moon crested and began sinking toward the horizon. The stars turned overhead. Once, checking her bearings, Chena saw the bright spot of Athena Station and a wave of homesickness almost drowned her.

  Mom, why didn’t we stay up there? She bit her lip. Teal? Are you there? Or have you gone away already? Are you ever coming back?

  There was no answer, of course, except to keep on walking.

  No! No! This could not be happening. Not again! She had not failed to see another death, and this was one of the family! Basante was dying, he was dying, and Aleph watched the family helplessly as they tried to revive him. It had taken fifteen minutes to find him. How had it taken so long for her to finally think to clear all the walls so the family could find the door she could no longer see? Panic burned orange and black inside her and tasted of copper.

  How could this have happened? She had done everything right. She had found discrepancies. She had alerted the family. She had followed up. Aleph’s frantic thoughts paused for an instant.

  She had followed up. She must have. Why couldn’t she remember? No, she must have. But she couldn’t remember.

  Panic. Orange and black, as jagged as broken glass around the edge of every thought, the smell of burning, and the taste of iron and copper. Open all the cameras. Find Hagin. See everything at once, know everything about herself. Find Hagin.

  Hagin was in the Synapese, directing a flurry of activity. Every tender on duty. Yes. They knew. They knew what was wrong. Why hadn’t they stopped it?

  Open the voice nearest Hagin.

  “Hagin! Hagin! Dionte has done this. She has al
tered me again.” They knew. Reports were running. Her neurochemical levels were being analyzed, adjustments were being tracked and verified. Her memory would soon be restored, and she would know. She would know what had been done to her. She would know how to stop it. Her family would stop it from happening again.

  “Aleph, we are working on the problem.” Hagin laid a warm hand on her wall, touching her to comfort her as if she were a human being. “You know that Dionte has done nothing to you.”

  What? Every nerve, every thought thrown into that one word. Confusion, red, black, green, orange, smelling of old metal, tasting of ice and fire. She did not know any such thing. How could Hagin say that she did? Call up all the reports. Involve every subsystem. Run down the data again. Remember. Remember. But what did she really remember?

  “Hagin, you saw. I showed you….”

  Hagin pressed both hands against her wall. Around him, tenders opened the carapace, exposed the matter that contained her memory, herself. They probed. She saw all the probes. She saw what they were doing, and yet she could not understand. She had told them. She had told them what had happened. They knew. Why were they trying to find out what had happened? She had showed them.

  Hagin was speaking. “I saw the data. Aleph, you’ve put it together wrong. Dionte has done nothing. Try to wait. We are working to help you even now. Look. We will have you stabilized in a moment. You are distressed.”

  Flash all warnings. Alert each of them to stop. But they would not stop. The probes continued. All the searching. Why all the searching? Print out the answer on every monitor screen. “No, you are wrong. I saw it!”

  Hagin’s hands flew across the board, sending out commands to shut the monitors down and override the alerts. He was chief tender, he could do that.

  Hagin was speaking again, calmly, coolly, even as his hands worked frantically at the command board in front of him. “Aleph, I believe that you believe what you saw. But there has been a mistake. Your connections are misaligned. We will help you.”