The woman made the tsk-tsk sound again and pushed her back down, which wasn’t hard. Kiri felt so dizzy and weak she could barely lift her head. Still, she had to find the cubs.
“Well, aren’t you a feisty one?” said the woman. She pushed a button on a box with a tube attached to it that led to Kiri’s arm. “I suppose you need to be, to survive out there.”
“Please, where are the cubs?” repeated Kiri.
“Cubs?” The woman gave her a perplexed look, as if she’d asked about once-were creatures.
Kiri realized the woman had no idea what she was talking about. She kept struggling to get up, but a warm heaviness spread from her arm through her chest, taking her strength away.
Finally, Kiri lay back and tried to assess where she was. The glow of the sky illuminated the plain white walls of a room. She was lying on a strange raised bed, with metal railings on each side of her and several wires and tubes going from her arms to machines next to the bed.
“There. That’s better,” said the woman. “Now, how is your comfort level?”
Kiri frowned at the woman. Why did she keep asking about her comfort?
“Do. You. Com-pre-hend. What. I. Am. Say-ing?” asked the woman, separating each syllable like they were wooden blocks stacked together.
“ ‘Com-pre-hend’?” echoed Kiri, imitating the way the woman spoke.
“Is that a yes, or are you mocking me?”
The woman reminded Kiri of an angry squirrel, chittering down at her from a branch. “You sound strange.”
“In what way?”
“Your words are all square corners.” Kiri decided that this was better than calling the woman an angry squirrel.
At this, Squirrel Woman rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the vid screen next to Kiri’s bed. “Well, we can’t all have your quaint cadences, now, can we?” she said. “Or the colorful vocabulary coastal refugees use. What is it they call it? Pigeon gumbo?”
Kiri realized this must have been a question, but she had no idea why Squirrel Woman was asking her about pigeons. And what were kittens doing chasing balls of string on clouds?
“Your comfort level,” repeated Squirrel Woman. She seemed in a hurry to be elsewhere.
Kiri thought of the cubs again and fought to get up, but her body was so heavy and weak. She moved her arm and noticed that the tube taped to her ended in a needle that went under her skin. They were drugging her! That was why she felt weak. She reached to pull the tube out.
“No, no!” snapped Squirrel Woman. She pushed Kiri’s arm back down and reached to press the button on the tube box again.
“What is it?” asked Kiri. “What are you doing to me?”
Before the nurse could respond, her da burst into the room.
Martin took one look at Kiri, then scowled at Squirrel Woman. “Why didn’t you tell us she was awake? You were given strict instructions.”
“And I followed them to the letter,” replied the nurse, releasing Kiri’s arm. “She only regained consciousness a moment ago.”
Martin hurried to Kiri’s side. “Are you okay, Kiribati? I wanted to be here when you woke.”
“There are tubes in my arms.” Kiri raised her arms to show her da all the wires and tubes attached to them.
Squirrel Woman frowned, but she didn’t push Kiri’s arms down again.
“It’s only temporary,” said her da. “It’s how they’re giving you medicine for the infection. They treated you just in time.”
“The doctor says you’re going to make a full recovery,” chimed in another woman, who’d followed Martin into the room. Unlike the nurse, this woman wore darker, softer-looking clothing. She had dark skin as well—darker than Kiri’s, even, which surprised Kiri. She’d thought all wallers had pale skin that turned red in the sun, like her da’s.
“This is Dr. Sonia,” said Martin, introducing the waller woman. “She’s vice president of acquisitions at Gen Tech, one of my patrons. It’s because of Sonia’s influence that we were able to get you treated.”
“Your father is our top field collector,” said Sonia, standing close to Martin. “His work’s been so exceptional that we decided to make a few exceptions for him.” She smiled and brushed Kiri’s unruly hair back from her face.
Compared with the nurse’s touch, Sonia’s fingers on her cheek felt surprisingly gentle.
“How’s your shoulder feel?” asked her da.
Kiri moved the shoulder that the panther had scratched. The wound was still there, but it didn’t feel hot and itchy anymore.
“Not that one,” said her da. “The other one.”
Kiri winced as she moved her other shoulder. She wondered why it hurt, until she remembered trying to scare the cubs back into the den and being hit in the shoulder by something sharp that threw her to the ground.
“I was shot,” said Kiri.
“Yes. We’re terribly sorry about that,” said Sonia, still smoothing Kiri’s wild hair back. “Fortunately, they only used rubber bullets with tranquilizer capsules. The shot left quite a bruise on your shoulder, but no permanent damage.”
“They were afraid you were going to harm the cubs after what happened to the adult panther,” explained her da.
“Are the cubs okay?” asked Kiri.
“They will be.”
“Where are they?”
“Here, actually,” said Sonia. “In the animal care ward. This is one of Gen Tech’s most advanced facilities. They’re receiving the best medical care in the city.”
Kiri struggled to sit up. “I have to see them.”
“Easy…,” said her da. “You need rest, Kiribati. You’re still healing.”
“But I promised I’d take care of them.”
“Promised who?” asked her da.
“The panther mother.”
Sonia and Martin shared a concerned look.
“I’m all they have,” added Kiri, recalling how Cricket had stayed with her and licked her cheek after she’d been shot. “They need me.”
“The cubs are fine,” said Martin.
No, thought Kiri. They’re not fine. None of us are fine. She pictured the tree in the desert with only three leaves left. Without the leaves, the tree will die, her mother had said. Kiri almost told her da about her visions and her mother’s warnings, but she knew he’d dismiss them as fever dreams. They felt too real and important to dismiss, though. And Kiri’s sense that the cubs needed her was real, too.
“I have to see them,” repeated Kiri. “It’s important….”
“Shhh…,” said her da.
“No! I have to…” Kiri kicked and tried to roll out of bed. “Why won’t you let me?”
“Keep her still!” snapped the nurse. She pushed the button on the tube box a few more times.
Kiri reached to pull the tube out, but the nurse caught her hand and held her down.
“Rest, Kiribati.” Her da stroked her hair. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not….” A warm tingle swept through her, starting from her arm and filling her chest. She suddenly felt so heavy she could barely talk. “No wall will stop…”
Whatever the box had pumped into her arm made her unable to keep her eyes open or her mouth moving.
“No more disturbances,” said the nurse. “Since she cannot be trusted to lie still, she’ll need to be sedated until she completes her drip. Doctor’s orders.”
The next time she woke beneath the kitten-cloud sky, Kiri didn’t feel so heavy, and her vision wasn’t so blurry, and she didn’t get dizzy when she moved. She checked her arms and was relieved to find no tubes in them. Except for a couple of wire pads taped to her wrists and neck, and the odd feather-shaped waller mark on her arm, she seemed back to normal. One thing that hadn’t gone away, though, was her fear that the cubs were in danger.
She swung her legs off the bed and tried to stand, but one of the wires taped to her wrist got caught on the railing and popped off. Immediately, a screen on the wall began to BEEP!
BEEP! BEEP!
A man dressed in white burst into the room. He strode to the screen and pressed a few buttons on a keypad. The alarm stopped.
“If you need something, use the caller,” said the man, pointing to a rectangular pad attached to the side of Kiri’s bed. “You’re not supposed to go anywhere without supervision.”
“I need to pee,” said Kiri.
The man peeled the other wire pads off her neck and wrist. “There you go,” he said, nodding to a door near the entrance to her room.
Kiri took the hint and shuffled through the door into the largest bathroom she’d ever seen. The man let her have a moment to herself. When she was done, she turned to wash her hands and was startled by the face that gazed back at her in the mirror.
At first, she thought it must be a vid of her ma. She leaned forward, and when the image in front of her did the same, Kiri realized it was her reflection. Her face seemed longer, more angular, and less childish than she remembered, in part due to the pale scar on her cheek from where the sea turtle bone had cut her. The biggest change, though, was her hair. Instead of a wild, motherless tangle storming about her head with twigs and leaves stuck in it, her hair had been washed, brushed, and wrestled into several thin braids, just like her mother’s.
“Everything okay in there?” asked the man through the door.
“I’m fine,” said Kiri. She found a hand mirror in the bathroom drawer and took it back to bed with her. The nurse reattached the sticky wire pads to her wrists and temples. He didn’t talk nearly as much as Squirrel Woman had, but Kiri didn’t mind. He was gentler than she’d been.
While the nurse worked, Kiri looked again at her reflection in the hand mirror. Her da had never been able to braid hair like this, so who had done it? And how long had she been asleep?
“Need anything else?” asked the man once all the wires were reattached.
Kiri shook her head, watching the small braids slap against her cheeks, soft as summer rain.
The man turned to do something with the screen on the wall behind her bed. Kiri tilted the mirror she held so that she could see his hands. He punched several numbers into the keypad on the wall and pressed a red button on the screen that said ALARM ON.
Then he left.
Kiri didn’t catch all the numbers, but she recalled the pattern the nurse’s finger had made. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, she turned toward the screen on the wall, careful not to dislodge any of the wires attached to her arms and neck. Then she repeated the pattern the nurse had used on the keypad, going down the column on the right side and up to the top again.
3-6-9-3
The screen beeped twice in response. Kiri pulled off the wires. No alarm sounded this time, and no one ran in to yell at her. So far, so good.
She stood and shuffled to the door. The last thing she remembered, before Squirrel Woman had held her down and drugged her, was her da refusing to take her to see the panther cubs. If he wouldn’t take her to them, she’d find them herself.
Her feet tingled and her head felt light, but her strength seemed to be coming back. She cracked open the door and peeked out.
Strange as the kitten-cloud sky had been, that was nothing compared with what Kiri encountered in the hall. First, there was the music. It sounded like women singing underwater. Then there was the floor. Divided into two halves, each moved in a different direction. The most disorienting thing, though, were the walls. They weren’t plain white or flat like the ones in her room. Instead, they arched overhead and shimmered with blue light, as if the hall was really a giant glass tube submerged beneath the cleanest, most pure part of the ocean. Dozens of orange fish swam by, just on the other side of the arched wall, along with other, more fantastic things. In the few seconds Kiri stood peering out, she saw ten or twelve people that were half human, half fish swim toward her.
She knew it had to be a vid screen, but it looked so real. Then the sea people gazed down and waved at her.
“Hello, resident,” they said together in odd, bubbly voices.
Kiri was so startled she nearly fell back. She didn’t understand how images on a screen could see her, but they continued to stare straight at her and wave.
Each sea person had a name written on his or her seaweed swimsuit. She recognized Squirrel Woman and the male nurse who’d just been in her room. At least, their faces looked similar, but their bodies were different—more muscular and trim—and their legs were fish tails. When they didn’t stop waving, Kiri raised a wary hand and waved back. That seemed to satisfy the vid images. All at once, they stopped waving and swam off in various directions.
Kiri glanced down the hall, fearing that one of the nurses would put her back in bed, but no one came. Maybe it was only a trick and the vid images hadn’t really seen her. Or maybe they didn’t care where she went.
Regardless, Kiri needed to get out of there. She had to find the panther cubs, and fast. If she was confused by this place, they must be terrified. She could practically hear them whimpering. Who knew what the wallers were doing to them?
Kiri stepped out onto the moving hallway floor. A swimming fish girl immediately appeared on the arched ceiling above her, only this one had dark hair braided just like her own. Kiri realized the swimming girl was supposed to resemble her, except it looked brighter and prettier than her, with a happy smile on her flawless face and a pink fish tail instead of legs. Seeing her vid image on the ceiling made Kiri feel even more trapped, as if the vids knew exactly where she was going and what she would do.
She sped up in an attempt to lose her sea person self. Kiri tried jogging, then running, then sprinting. The moving floor added to her speed, but the faster she went, the faster her smiling fish self swam.
She passed a hall with mostly purple fish, and another full of red fish. Then she darted into a yellow fish hall, but her stupid, smiling sea person stayed with her, not falling even an inch behind. At one point, she almost slammed into a man in a green coat who had stepped out of a room ahead of her.
“Slow down!” he snapped. “This isn’t a gym.”
The sea person on the ceiling right above him waved and smiled at Kiri. But the man in the green coat didn’t smile at all.
Kiri dashed down another hall in case the man tried to drag her back to her room, but he just stared at a screen in his hand and let the floor carry him away.
The hall she’d entered must have been the main one, because it was wider and busier than the others. Several halls branched off it, each looking like the one she’d left. The only difference was that the fish were different colors in each hall. Kiri searched for a window or a door that led outside. She couldn’t find any.
Her chest tightened and pulse raced. Never in her life had she been in a building this big—so big that Kiri wondered if it had eaten everything else, like a greedy snake that couldn’t stop swallowing things. Maybe nothing outside exists anymore.
She shook her head to clear it. There had to be a window or exit somewhere—a way to step outside and smell the air, and to see what the waller city really looked like. She might be able to see where the panther cubs were, too. Wallers couldn’t live inside surrounded by vid screens all the time, could they?
Kiri tried to calm down, but the more she searched, the more she realized that the main hall just curved around in one giant circle, without windows or exits or end. She wanted to scream, only she could barely breathe. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the hallway anymore. I have to get out! she thought, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps.
She darted down the red fish hall, not knowing where she was going—just knowing she needed to escape this place. One of the doors ahead suddenly gaped open and Squirrel Woman’s sea person appeared on the ceiling.
Afraid she’d be caught and locked in her room, Kiri pushed open the closest door and ducked inside.
The room looked the same as hers, except flying lizards frolicked on the ceiling instead of kittens, and the bed was crowded with bright
blankets and stuffed animals. A table next to the bed had several models of tall buildings on it. Also, the bed was bent in the middle, so the person in it was able to sit upright while lying back.
The bed’s occupant glanced up from the vid screen he held. His pale face, though young, appeared surprisingly hairless. Even his eyebrows were gone, and he didn’t seem to have eyelashes either. Without hair, his round head resembled an egg with eyes drawn on it.
Kiri startled at the strange sight.
The egg-headed boy seemed equally astonished by her. He stared for a long, quiet moment. Then his cheeks dimpled and his lips curved up in a lopsided grin.
“Hello,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be here, are you?”
Kiri stood, too afraid to speak. If the boy called for help, Squirrel Woman would find her.
She scanned the room for another exit, but the only way out was the way she’d come in. The boy seemed younger than her, maybe nine or ten, although the corners of his eyes were wrinkled like an old man’s. Still, his arms were skinnier than hers, and his neck looked stick thin.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I like visitors. What are you sick with?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” Kiri glanced at the door, afraid that Squirrel Woman would hear them talking.
The boy didn’t seem the least bit concerned about being overheard. “Liar,” he said. “Why are you wearing a hospital gown if you’re not sick?”
“They put it on me.”
He cocked his head. “You talk funny.”
“So do you,” replied Kiri, searching the room again for an exit. Her heart kept pounding in her chest.
“Nuh-uh. I have a perfectly normal accent. It’s how vid casters speak.” He pulled the table next to his bed closer and fidgeted with some of the miniature buildings. “Do you like models?” he asked, holding up a tall, pointy one. “I build them and paint them. Then I dress my stuffed animals up like monsters and destroy the buildings.”
The Last Panther Page 12
