The Cage

by Megan Shepherd

  They started through the tall grass. The wind was strong, coming in waves like the seas. As it bent the grass, it made a hollow sound, like whistling. It made Cora think of a song she’d once written, about how the fences at Fox Run, their gated community, hadn’t been that different from the ones at Bay Pines. Even the names weren’t that different: both were named after the wildlife that had been destroyed for the buildings to be built.

  The school door didn’t open when Lucky tugged on it. While he circled the building, Cora examined a few uneven bricks, the first imperfections she’d seen.

  “Nothing.” Lucky came around the corner and leaned against the building, frustrated.

  A low chime came from the school’s bell tower.

  He jerked up, head craned toward the tower. “Did you hear that bell? All I did was lean against a brick. If that’s all there is to the puzzle, they must think we’re idiots.” He pressed the same brick.

  The low chime rang again. Cora’s body felt weary and her head foggy, but she forced herself to concentrate. She pressed two different bricks, and two higher-pitched chimes rang. Behind her, the wind whistled harder through the grass.

  Lucky started pushing every brick in sight, but no tokens came. Finally he kicked the schoolhouse in frustration.

  “Wait.” Cora grabbed his arm. “Listen.”

  She closed her eyes, letting the wind wash over her. The notes began to take form, hollow and windy. It was three notes, repeated again and again. She pressed different bricks until she was able to match the exact pitch of the notes.

  Tokens rained out of a slot in the school’s door, too many to catch at once.

  Lucky frowned. “There must be, I don’t know, thirty tokens here. They just keep giving you more.” There was hesitation in his voice. “I guess you really are the Caretaker’s favorite.”

  Before, in the ropes course, he had joked about being jealous of her extra attention. He wasn’t joking now.

  “I don’t know what Mali meant by that. She’s crazy.”

  But Lucky kept studying the tokens.

  “You’ve been alone with him twice now.” There was a strange pitch to his voice. “On the first day when you beamed away with him, and then when he kept you behind during the medical test. Is there anything you haven’t told me? Something he said or . . . did?”

  For a flash, she was back in the med room with the Caretaker’s body pressed against her, starlight radiating from the walls. She swallowed. “I told you everything. I don’t know why I get more tokens, Lucky. I swear.”

  The wind picked up again, ruffling his hair. He was so handsome that it made her heart unsteady—but the look in his eyes was dangerous. Rolf had said that lab rats sense when things were unfair. Rolf had already snapped at her a few times. Even Nok had kept her distance. Why would the Kindred want them to turn on each other? Or rather, turn on her?

  “Lucky . . .”

  “No. Forget it.”

  His knuckles popped, and just like that, the tension broke. He slid the tokens into his pocket like he couldn’t get rid of them fast enough, and cleared his throat. “How about that three-note melody? Pretty awful. The Kindred must not be musically gifted.”

  She clung to the lighter tone in his voice and tried to work it into her own. “Don’t say that too loud. We should at least act like it’s good.”

  He snorted. “Something tells me you’re a better actress than me. Probably inherited it from your mom.”

  She gave a tired smile. At least the tension was—wait a minute. Her head whipped around. “How do you know my mom was an actress?”

  The grin fell off his face. The wind grew colder, pushing between them. She’d trusted Lucky because he wanted to get home as badly as she did, and because he was missing a watch just like she was missing a necklace, and because if a super-intelligent race matched them together, maybe they knew what they were doing.

  But Rolf had said there might be a mole.

  Lucky gave a half shrug. “You know. That first night, when we were talking. I told you about my granddad, you told me about your family.” He swallowed like his throat had gone dry.

  Cora’s suspicion started to slip away. She had told him that her dad was a politician—but she didn’t remember saying anything about her mom. Her mind started to concoct all kinds of conspiracy theories, but she shook her head. No. Paranoia was too rampant here, and it was a short leap to full-on madness.

  “Right.” She rubbed her temples. “It’s because I haven’t slept much, and with these headaches on top of everything . . . it makes me forgetful.”

  Lucky hesitated, then reached into his pocket and tossed her a token. “No worries. Here. Buy yourself something nice, like a Slinky you can strangle that Caretaker with. He’d never expect that from his favorite.”

  She caught the token, and the uneasiness was gone. Any boy who could joke about murdering their alien overlords was someone she could trust.

  She gave him a sly smile. “Just wait until you see what I can do with a toothbrush.”

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  ..................................................................

  23

  Nok

  AFTER THAT CRAZY GIRL with the stringy black hair so casually told them about kids kept as pets and black market traders who sold knuckle bones, Nok had nightmares for three days straight.

  She refused to take a step outside of the town.

  If she ignored the lack of traffic and unmoving sun and weird mash-up of cultures, she could almost delude herself into believing she lived in a quaint town, somewhere beachy and flashy, like Florida. She told herself the headaches were just allergies.

  Cora and Lucky were braver than her—or more foolish. They went out every day to the far reaches of the enclosure, still trying to find the walls, while Leon did god knows what in the jungle, and Mali wandered through the habitats like she’d never seen trees or pumpkins or beach umbrellas before—which maybe she hadn’t.

  Nok stayed behind, with Rolf, and earned tokens from the puzzles in town. The candy store was her favorite. She could have done without the pastel paint and the bins of every type of candy imaginable—licorice, mints, butterscotches—but the puzzle might as well have been designed just for her.

  She approached the big metal cash register on the counter, an enormous silver thing that looked a hundred years old, with round buttons and a lever to open the cash drawer. The buttons had letters on them instead of numbers, and where the price should have been displayed was a card behind glass with nonsense words printed on it:

  LIP LO POL.

  Nok smirked. This one was the easiest yet.

  She tapped a few keys, and the new word she’d spelled out appeared in the window box: LOLLIPOP.

  A token rolled out of the register. She snatched it and started for the door, but paused at the glistening bin of butterscotches. She wiped her mouth. Was that drool?

  Rolf appeared in the doorway. “You solved another anagram? Nice.” He’d been in the arcade again, she could tell. He only rumpled his hair like that when he was playing video games.

  He peeked at the card. “Lollipop? You never said they were so easy. Let me try one.” He punched a button on the cash register, and another anagram card popped up. AT ECO LOCH. He frowned, trying to figure it out, until Nok took pity on him. She punched in a few keys.

  CHOCOLATE appeared on the card, along with another token.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of genius?” she teased.

  “With math and physics, maybe.” She couldn’t help but notice his hands were resting calmly at his sides. He rarely twitched his fingers anymore when it was just the two of them. “You’re the one with a gift for languages. No wonder the Kindred wanted you. Smart and the most beautiful creature on Earth.”

  She blushed, letting the pink strand of hair fall over her eyes. It was true that she’d picked up English within weeks of arriving
in London and had gone on to learn seven more languages from the other models. Delphine had only sneered when she’d asked if she could start taking translator classes. Speaking foreign languages doesn’t make you smart, Delphine had said, chewing on a black licorice rope, if you have nothing of merit to say. And you, girl, look prettiest when you keep your mouth shut.

  Rolf took her hand in his. “I have a present for you.”

  Nok’s eyebrows shot up as he pulled her next door into the arcade. The video games blinked and beeped on their own like ghosts were working the controls.

  Rolf covered her eyes with his hands. “I don’t want you to see yet.”

  She laughed as he led her blind between the beeping games. After sharing a room with four other girls for so many years, she’d missed the warmth of another person.

  “Okay. Look.” He removed his hands, and she blinked. Sitting on top of the arcade’s counter was the shiny red radio.

  She drew in a breath. No one had ever given her a present before, except some of Delphine’s photographers, who’d been hoping to take a little more of her than just a photograph. “You got this for me?”

  Rolf ruffled his hair nervously. “You said you liked listening to the radio back in London. I don’t know if this plays any Thai music.” He was leaning very close to her, twisting a dial, and his cheek brushed hers. He jerked up, blinking fast. “Sorry . . . I’m sure it’s plainer than what you’re used to. You probably had a huge entertainment system at home.”

  She wrinkled her face, confused—she’d never even owned a TV—but then remembered that he thought she was a famous model.

  “No, I love it!” She threw her arms around him. “Oh, but you must have used your tokens to get this, yeah?” She pulled back, looking at the radio reluctantly. “We were supposed to save those for Cora.”

  Rolf was quiet. He rubbed his temples, eyes squeezed shut, like pain was throbbing in his skull.

  “What’s wrong?” Nok asked. “This isn’t about her getting more tokens again, is it?” It was a topic that had come up more than a few times, as each evening when the others returned, Cora’s pockets were loaded with tokens. Last night, when they’d compared their haul, Cora had sixty. Rolf, who’d spent ten straight hours in the arcade, had earned six. “Just forget about it. You look like your head’s killing you. You should lie down.”

  “That’s just it, Nok. I thought the strange angles and optical illusions were giving me a headache, but it’s actually making everything clear. I can think better now . . .” He shook his head, blinking fast. “I understand those rats now, the ones that revolt when they receive unfair rewards. It isn’t that the rats are just stupid, jealous animals. Any solid society is built on the foundation of fairness. That’s why monarchies topple. That’s why governments experimented with communism. When you lose fairness, you lose what makes us human.”

  “Or what makes us rats,” Nok offered, hoping for lightness.

  But Rolf didn’t seem to hear her. “You were right when you said I shouldn’t be ashamed to be smart. That’s why I like you. You see me for who I am, and you like me. So I have been. Letting myself think, I mean. And my mind is telling me something doesn’t add up with Cora. All the times she’s disappeared off with the Kindred. The favoritism. I’m not saying she’s the mole, but . . .” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All I’m saying is, she isn’t the only one who can come up with a plan.”

  He picked up the radio.

  “This is my plan: to make us happy. If a few tokens go missing here or there, Cora doesn’t have to know. Besides, I already examined it. There’s no transmitter, so there’s no way we could radio anyone for help. It’s just a toy. For you.”

  For a moment, the sounds of the arcade surrounded them, the flashing lights spilling out on Rolf’s face, turning it blue, then orange, then red. Nok’s heart twisted a little bit with each one. She hated that the others didn’t see how valuable his genius was. She hated that Leon bullied him. Maybe he was right—they deserved a little happiness.

  Rolf put his hands over hers, holding the radio tightly.

  “I know this place was scary at first.” The lights of the games reflected in his eyes. “But it really is engineered to keep us safe and happy.”

  She swallowed. “But Cora says—”

  He was always looking away, at his toes or at the floor, but this time, he looked her square in the eyes. “I don’t care what Cora says. I know I’m supposed to hate it here and want to go home, but the truth is, life was bad for me there.”

  She rubbed his hand, petting him like a wounded bird.

  His eyebrows knit together. “I was testing eight years ahead of my age level. My parents had my entire life planned out: graduate from Oxford at seventeen, PhD in mechanical engineering at MIT in America, a MacArthur fellowship by the time I was twenty. It was suffocating. I felt like I’d be trapped for the rest of my life. I don’t care about engineering, or Greek literature either. I want to work with plants. Have my hands in the soil. But that wasn’t academic enough. And then here . . . and you . . .” His fingers were starting to shake. “I know I’m not supposed to, but I like it here. And I really, really like you.”

  The arcade games kept beeping and flashing, throwing colored pools of light over both their faces. Nok clutched the radio. Rolf’s hands clutched hers. In that moment, she felt like the arcade was the only place in the universe.

  “I lied before,” she admitted. “Life was bad for me at home too. I’m not some top model. My parents sold me to a seedy modeling agency that’s only a step above an escort service. I’d have been stuck with them forever, or until I was too old and they threw me onto the street.”

  She hung her head, worried he wouldn’t like her anymore.

  But his hands didn’t let go of hers.

  “I’d have done anything to save you from that life,” he said. “I still would.”

  She looked up in surprise. She wasn’t sure what impulse made her do it, but she kissed him.

  Rolf went rigid; despite what he claimed about having had sex before, he went as stiff as though it was his first kiss. But then he kissed her back, a little too soft and a little unsure of himself, but to Nok it was perfect. She had kissed boys before, but always to get something. Delphine had taught her well. And yet when she kissed Rolf, all she wanted was to be kissed back.

  The next day, when Cora and Lucky went to the alpine biome to explore, Nok and Rolf kissed again while sitting in the movie theater’s red plush seats, and then the next day in the French salon, and it only got better and better.

  In another week, they were obeying all the rules—even the third one.

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  24

  Cora

  SAND CLUMPED IN CORA’S toes as she searched the beach for a seashell. Since she rarely slept, she’d started rising before first light to collect seashells, which she left in a stack on her windowsill, one for each day. Today’s would be the fifteenth. And yet the pink streak in Nok’s hair hadn’t grown out, and neither had anyone’s fingernails or the boys’ facial hair.

  What was happening to time?

  The dull ache of exhaustion throbbed in her head. She lost her focus and her toe snagged on something hard. She crouched down to find a snow-white shell. Like all the rest, it had no sharp edges, as though it had been worn smooth by years of sand and sea. Or, rather, engineered to appear that way.

  The hair on her arms rose. Her headache increased, like pressure was building. She shoved the shell in her dress pocket and spun toward the town. Was the Caretaker coming? Or had that tingle on her arms only been the sea breeze?

  She climbed the stairs to the nearest shop, the bookstore. Inside was a different world. England at the turn of the century. Two leather club chairs and a brocade-covered settee in the middle of the room, with a tea set on the coffee table. The she
lves were made of elegant wood packed with beautiful cloth-bound volumes that smelled like must and rain. They weren’t real books—she had already checked. They made up the puzzle, which involved categorizing the volumes by title and color. The real books were enclosed behind the glass countertop. The Hobbit. Charlotte’s Web. The complete boxed set of Dating the Duke romance novels. All available for a few tokens each.

  But it wasn’t the books she was interested in. The hair on her arms was still tingling, and she faced the black window behind the counter, keeping her distance. She ran her thumb over the seashell’s hard edge, reminding herself that nothing here was real. Not the shell. Not the bookstore. Not even time itself.

  But the Caretaker—he was real.

  Cora leaned against the counter. “Are you there?”

  She had meant to sound accusatory, and yet the words came out as a whisper. She’d sounded almost curious. Guilt cut into her, and she whipped her gaze out the bookstore door. What if Lucky caught her trying to talk to Cassian?

  She turned back to the window. Yes, she was curious about him. And yes, she knew that was sick, but she couldn’t help it. It didn’t mean she wasn’t also desperate to wrap the metal guitar strings around his neck and squeeze.

  She rested the pads of her fingers on the humming window. The vibrations entered her. The ache grew in her head. She pushed through the pain to peer into the murky blackness, longing to see a shadowy figure—his shadowy figure—and to know she wasn’t alone.

  “Cassian? Are you there?”

  She wanted answers. Why he had saved her from the Warden. Why she got more tokens than everyone else. If all humans felt a spark of electricity when he touched them, or if it was just her. Her shaking fingertips coiled into her palm, making a tight fist against the panel. In her dreams, she thought he was an angel. A beautiful face to chase away the nightmares. He was beautiful. But instead of taking her away from nightmares, he had brought her into one.

  The throb in the back of her head grew. Or rather, it changed. It spread at the base of her head like soft needles, not entirely unpleasant but strange. The colors of the toy store seemed to grow brighter, and her balance tipped like she was drunk, and a sharp tug came from the other side of the window.