Exodus

by Julie Bertagna

  High above her head is an enormous, revolving lumen globe. Mara gazes up at it and sees the great empire of New World cities that have been built all over the planet. It’s a breathtaking sight. A crystal tree represents each sky city. How many are there? Fifty? Eighty? Mara gazes at the forest of crystal that glitters around the globe.

  She looks around her. The gleaming walls of the cybercath are electronic notice boards that flash up a constant volley of information under the heading NEW WORLD TRADE INDEX. The cyberworkers watch the notice boards closely, and the communal hum greets each newsflash with an excited rise in volume or a low mutter of dismay.

  Mara reads the trade index and tries to make sense of it.

  Globus geomagna up 5.2, Texan Cleanoil down 8.6, Eurosea

  Oceanores—supertitanium up 28.4! Megalumen phosfission down

  2.4, Greenex limestone stable, New Season Afrikelp—global auction

  imminent! Indisea silica stable—hornblende and feldspar to clear,

  Chinorock silicon

  —SELLING NOW!

  Each name has a logo attached. Some words, like kelp and oil are familiar, but what does it all mean? Mara frowns up at the flashing notice board, recalling the primitive trade network that used to exist among Wing and the nearby islands and wonders if this is some vast, complex version of that—an electronic marketplace of New World commodities that operates between the sky cities.

  A leap of time vanishes as Mara listens to the workers around her and tries again and again to find the words and tone that will gain her entry to the system. Hunger finally grinds her to a halt. It’s midafternoon and she can no longer ignore the pangs that tell her she has hardly eaten a bite since yesterday—not since lunchtime, with Gorbals in the university. It feels a world away. There’s a potato pancake and plastic bottle of hupplesup in her bag but she can hardly consume them here. Maybe she could find some bathrooms and gulp them down…

  Mara pulls the magnetic headgem from her forehead and unclips the godbox. She holds them in the palms of her hands and frowns. Her tummy grumbles loudly and she gives in. Right now she needs to organize herself—she needs food and somewhere to sleep.

  She is pulsing with nerves but switches on a smile as bland as a lumenbeing’s as she stands up to exit the cybercath.

  All she needs to do is look as if she has lived in a sky city all her life—not easy when at every step there are such wonders that all she wants to do is stop and stare. Mara explores the city center, trying to get her bearings. The cybercath seems to sit right at the heart of New Mungo, at the central intersection of all the sky tunnels. The tunnels lead off into Arcadia—vast, surrounding arcades full of bright shops and strange entertainments.

  ZOOMINLUM, says a sign above one large window. Mara peers through and sees what looks like a deep pool, but instead of water, people wheel and tumble through cascades of color. Farther along, in the middle of a linking arcade, on a stage constructed out of golden rods of light, a group of lumens perform impossible acrobatics for the crowd. After the dim netherworld, Mara feels overwhelmed by so much glare, noise, and movement, and by so many people.

  But New Mungo is beautiful. Its long silver tunnels gleam and its arcades are vast airy places that look as if they, like the population of lumens, are crafted purely from light. The citizens are beautiful too. Mara realizes with a shock how painfully thin she has become as she watches these well-nourished, healthy beings. The sleek material of her New World clothes—a light, clingy top and trousers—reveals her drastic weight loss.

  Candleriggs said Cal wanted to create a world full of brilliant beings, human angels—well, he has, thinks Mara. That’s exactly what these people look like to someone who has only ever known weather-toughened islanders, the sick and malnourished masses in the boat camp, and the pale, sun-starved Treenesters.

  Is that what the cyberfox looks like in real life? Mara wonders. A human angel?

  A happy crowd of boys and girls near her own age zip past on skates. So that’s the secret of their speed and power! Mara stares enviously at their strong bodies, bright smiles, and smooth skins. She stops at a humpbacked bridge that sits under a crystal sky and leans upon the bridge wall to look into the still mirror of a pond. And sees the new, thin sharpness of a face that used to be round and soft. She runs her fingers through her hair, relieved that it at least still feels thick and healthy. Months of indoor life during Wing’s storm season, followed by the trauma of the sea journey and the boat camp, then weeks in the gloomy netherworld, have turned her once bright complexion to a paler skin tone, not unlike the New World citizens.

  “Rest upon the Leaning Bridge,” oozes a disembodied voice. “Gaze into the magic of the Looking Pond. Whisper a secret wish in the magic Wishing Well.”

  Mara relaxes into the gentle wind-sway of the city as she watches the fish swimming around the Looking Pond and listens to the birdsong in the tree beside the bridge. Now the pond fills with glimmering rainbow lights that ease seamlessly into blue skies full of soaring birds. A radiant sunset spreads across the screen of water, deepening and darkening until the pond is midnight black and full of starfire.

  It would be so easy to forget the rest of the world, so tempting to slip inside this magic spell and ignore what lies outside.

  Mara yawns, then blinks as a bell clangs and breaks the hypnotic trance of the Looking Pond. The bell—not the solid, ringing clangor of the netherworld Bash but a harsh alarm with a shrill electronic edge—brings forth a mass of workers from the cybercath. They surge out, most of them skating off into the tunnels. Now Mara thinks of that other mass of workers—the city’s slaves. Where are they? What’s happening to Gorbals and Wing? A wave of anxiety and loneliness sweeps over her and Mara wishes she was back in the netherworld. She imagines the Treenesters gathered around their fire, trying to keep warm as the sun falls behind the city wall. Now the horror of the boat camp on the other side of the wall rushes upon her, along with the memory of her lost family.

  She looks at the pond with clear eyes. The fish are fake and swim in endless electronic circles. The tree and its bird, the crystal sky and sunset, are all fake too. Even the bridge is made of mock stone. It’s a false enchantment. Now Mara is bitter, right to the brim. It gives her the burst of energy she needs. A cool, clear head and courage. One step at a time. The next step is to find food and somewhere to stay. She can’t wander the city all night.

  A single star shimmers in the violet depths of the Wishing Well.

  “Wish upon a star,” gurgles the voice of the Wishing Well, “and make your dreams come true.”

  “I wish myself luck,” Mara tells the star. “All the luck in the world.”

  “Your wish is granted,” trills the trembling star. “There! Isn’t that nice?”

  The city’s attractions and facilities are advertised by lumen-beings on every corner and though the twisting central tunnels are posted as pedestrian areas, they are hazardous, crammed with power skaters who hurl themselves in sparking loops round the cylindrical walls at reckless speed. It’s nerve-shattering after the slow-moving life of the netherworld. Now Mara sees why the sky trains were full of older people and families with young children: the city’s youth have taken over the tunnels as a perilous skateway.

  At last Mara finds a food canteen—a vast, cavernous room. The canteen is almost as scarily confusing as the tunnels but she walks up to the door, nervously, trying to figure out the system.

  A lumen flickers in front of her, barring her entrance.

  “You forgot to check in with your ration disk!” the lumen cheerfully but firmly scolds.

  “Sorry,” Mara mutters and digs about in her backpack for the wallet that contains the policewoman’s disks. Which one did she use for entry to the city? The shimmery gold one, wasn’t it? So the ration disk must be this other icy blue one…

  “Have you forgotten your ration disk?” The lumen scolds in that annoyingly cheerful voice.

  “Got it,” Mara mutters. She inserts
it in the slit in the wall beside the lumen.

  “Thank you!” beams the lumen. “Have a delicious meal!”

  Mara escapes the lumen and glances around for an empty seat. A girl with wispy blond hair and a dull, empty expression on her face sits alone at the end of a table. There’s a spare seat next to her. That’ll do, thinks Mara. And so will the wispy, dull girl. Dull is perfect. The duller, the more empty-headed, the better.

  “Hi.” Mara tries to smile casually.

  “Hi,” says the girl, without a flicker of interest. She’s stroking a creature that’s all purple hair, a ridiculous purple puffball. It’s emitting annoying whining noises.

  “Mind if I sit here?” asks Mara. The girl stares into space, munching on a plateful of brightly colored food. “I’m a visitor so I don’t know many people around here.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Mara looks around. Does she just go up and pick something to eat?

  “What’s your name?” she asks the girl, stalling for time. Something dull no doubt.

  “Dolores,” says the girl unexpectedly. The puffball yaps.

  Far too exotic for you, thinks Mara. She doesn’t ask the name of the puffball thing, just glances hungrily at the girl’s bright food.

  “Dol for short.”

  Mara hides a smile. That’s as near dull as you can get.

  She watches people come into the canteen, insert their ration disks, collect a tray and choose a meal, and sit down. So that’s all you do. Mara braves the food counter and, as she chooses from a vast array of exotic-looking dishes, she is willing Dol to be as vacant and dull-minded as she looks. Because that is what she needs—someone to give her answers, lots of answers, and ask as few awkward questions as possible.

  “Don’t you have zapeedos?” Dol asks in mild surprise, as they exit the bustling canteen into a chaotic, noise-filled tunnel.

  Mara has told the girl she’s newly arrived from another city and is feeling lost. Dol has unenthusiastically agreed to show her to the visitor accommodation area.

  “You need zapeedos to get around the nexus.” Dol nods toward the tunnels. “Surely you zap in your city?”

  “Uh-huh,” says Mara. “I just forgot to pack my, um, zapeedos.”

  “You’ll get mown down if you go about on foot, and you don’t want to be stuck on the sky trains like a slo-ped.”

  “Definitely not,” agrees Mara.

  “Oh, well. Better switch off my power if you’re walking, otherwise you’ll never keep up.”

  Dol flicks a switch on the heel of her power skates. Zapeedos, Mara notes, memorizing the term. And she called the tunnels the nexus. Now the girl taps the purple puff-ball on its head and, to Mara’s relief, not only does that switch off the thing’s stupid whining but makes it collapse as if it’s been stomped on—something Mara has been itching to do. Dol stuffs the now flat animatronic pet in her trouser pocket.

  Mara jogs to keep up with Dol’s unpowered skating as they enter tunnels that are full of swirling, surging waves of electronic music. Mara remembers the similar-sounding music she used to find on the Weave—the music her mother liked because, she said, it both calmed and lifted your spirit. Waltzes, that’s what they were called. It was waltz music she danced to, around and around the garden with little Corey, that last-ever day on the island. Now she watches zappers swarm through the silver tunnels, doing crazy zigzag antics up the sides, zooming around and around in floor-to-ceiling loops at incredible speeds, in time to the waltzes.

  “Do you work in the cybercath?” Mara asks, worming for information.

  Dol nods.

  “What are you working on?”

  Now Dol comes alive. She is a Noosrunner, she says proudly, and as she chatters excitedly Mara gathers that her guess about the trade network was right. New ideas and inventions, alongside more mundane, essential products are the currency that the New World trades in. Dol prattles on about the teams of Ideators in each city who try to outdo each other in ingenuity, dreaming up ideas that will create yet further wonders for the New World—new forms of energy and communication and overseas travel, new bondings of sea chemicals, new metals and materials, foodstuffs, entertainment, and all sorts of gadgets and gimmicks—even some ideas that might, in time, take the New World far beyond Earth, out into space. Just as Candleriggs predicted, Mara remembers.

  Noosrunners like Dol are specialized cybertraders. They search cyberspace for the best of these new ideas to buy and sell among the cities of the New World.

  “I spotted a brand new alloy in one of the Chinasea markets,” Dol declares. “Hardly anyone else is on to it so I’m not telling you what it is, but if it takes off I could win a top bonus. Here we are.”

  Dol skates out of the head of the tunnel into another wide, squat one. “These are the visitor sleep pods—there’s bound to be a free one.”

  Mara only just manages to keep up. The heels of Dol’s zapeedos click together as she comes to a neat halt beside what looks like an empty pink pod.

  The pod is part of a long honeycomb that crams the walls all the way down the squat tunnel. Some pods are sealed and gently glowing, others are open, dim, and empty.

  “Sleep pods?” Mara’s heart sinks. It will be like sleeping in a pink coffin.

  Dol nods. For the first time a flicker of doubt disturbs her face. That was careless, Mara chastises herself. A visiting New World citizen would know these are sleep pods.

  “Oh, we have much the same in my city,” Mara gabbles. “Just a different shape and color and we call them coffins.” It doesn’t sound right. She improvises. “Cozy coffins.” That’s worse.

  Dol nods again. She seems to swallow each lie with a stunning lack of interest. Mara remembers the hungry welcome for any visitors that came to Wing, even though they were only ever from the other islands. The Tree-nesters were intensely curious about her, longing for stories of the outside world. And though the netherworld is now far below and out of reach it still feels far more real and alive to Mara than this bright, bland, beautiful place.

  Mara laughs to herself as she recalls Pollock and the cyberwizz. By now, that will be set in memory as a Tree-nester legend—the night the Face in the Stone magicked up a monster that chased boastful Pollock Halfgood into the bushes. Dol glances at her sharply now and Mara realizes she has laughed out loud.

  “Cyberlag,” mumbles Mara. “I come from a different world zone. Thanks a lot, Dol. Um …” she hesitates, “you—you wouldn’t have a spare pair of zapeedos, would you? Just till I sort myself out.”

  “Sure,” Dol shrugs.

  “See you tomorrow at the cybercath?” Mara calls after her, but Dol has zapped off.

  Mara climbs up the ladder into an empty pink pod. Inside it’s warm and soft, like a spongy nest. Once the sliding door of the pod is shut, Mara is enveloped in a comforting pink glow.

  From Dol’s chatter she has figured out that the New World pays its workers by disks that buy generous rations of food, clothes, and a vast range of entertainments. Bonus disks are won by the workers for good performance. The very best Noosrunners and Ideators are rewarded with superior accommodation, and Dol talks enviously of these stylish apartments at the very top of the towers. Dol lives in much more basic accommodation, on a lower level of the central towers, but she’s clearly ambitious to move right to the top.

  I’ll find out more tomorrow, Mara tells herself, and snuggles down inside her pink pod to read some more of A Tale of Two Cities. She groans with relief as she kicks off the young policewoman’s shoes from her aching feet. They are far too tight and are giving her blisters. The sway of the city is more insistent now. She feels as if she is in a ship’s cabin, far out upon the ocean. It must be windy tonight in the outside world. The Treenesters will be rocked hard in their nests, the boat people smashed about like so much flotsam and jetsam.

  Mara sighs and the book falls from her hands.

  “Time to settle down and sleep now,” a gentle, cajoling voice urges.

  Ma
ra jumps. She swivels around and yells in fright.

  A large, motherly lumenbeing face glows like a soft nightlight on the shelf above her bed.

  “Good night,” Mara snaps, hoping that’s the code to get rid of it.

  The face fades and the pink pod darkens. But the lumen eyes of the motherlight remain, glimmering and unblinking in the dark.

  “Great,” groans Mara.

  Now she is stuck in the dark, alone and unsleepy with a pair of creepy lumen eyes watching her. As she lies restlessly in the bed and pulls the spongy quilt around her, the eyes begin to haunt her with the memory of other eyes. Mara aches for those real mother eyes that would soothe her each night as a child when she was tucked into bed. Mara would wriggle and giggle under the covers, fighting off sleep because she wanted yet another story, another song, another cuddle, another smile.

  Those real mother eyes were always the last thing she saw at night before she closed her own. Mara tries to switch off their image but they burn on in her mind, far stronger than any lumen.

  FOX TRAIL TWO

  Mara dreams.

  Secret, sly dreams that she can never quite track. All night they prowl through her sleep, and she wakens sweaty and sticky in her pink pod. It’s as if something is trying to sneak through a locked door in her mind, a door from another world. One that opens just a crack, only when she is asleep.

  All night, Mara dreams. Then wakes to yet another strange day.

  ENTRANCED

  Next morning it takes Mara ages to search through the thousands of people in the cybercath, but at last she spots Dol muttering in tuneful, excited tones in a cupule near the back. She finds a free cupule nearby and settles down to pretend to work but really she’s listening hard to Dol and the others around her. Halfway through the morning a bell rings and the cyberworkers stop for a break.