The Kingdom

by Jess Rothenberg

  Watching Nia now, however—noticing the tensing of her shoulders, the reluctance of her smile—I feel a question forming in my operating system.

  It is a question I do not yet have the words for.

  I watch Nia move into the crowd, then turn to beam at a guest. It is the last time we will be together until nightfall.

  6

  THE KINGDOM CORPORATION—NINETY-SECOND

  TV SPOT, “BRAVE GIRL” AD

  EXT.

  Spot opens with a terrifying, fire-breathing dragon trying to eat two princesses in a castle tower. Two knights ride up on horseback, swords held high, and call:

  BRAVE KNIGHT 1

  (Dramatically.)

  Fear not, fair maidens! We’ll save you!

  EXT.

  Camera flashes suddenly to real life: a dream backyard featuring a castle tree house, Slip ’n Slide moat, and pet iguana (the dragon) asleep on a sunny windowsill. Two spunky little girls dressed in Yumi™ and Zara™ costumes—complete with authentic Japanese kimono and Nigerian beaded necklace—perform jaw-dropping triple somersaults out of the tree-house window, landing like professional gymnasts in front of two little boys dressed as princes. A pug and a golden retriever (horses) are at their sides.

  LITTLE BOY 1

  (Face shocked. His toy sword drops lamely to his side.)

  Huh?

  LITTLE GIRL 1 [YUMI]

  (Arms crossed.)

  Come on, guys. Everybody knows princesses don’t need saving.

  The girls share a knowing look, then burst into laughter as they steal the “horses” and race out of the scene. Spot flows into an emotional and empowering montage featuring worldwide pop sensation Davida’s hit single, “Brave Girl,” depicting strong girls from across the world (athletes, dancers, musicians, artists, scientists, and more). Spot ends as fireworks illuminate the night sky, ultimately panning down to the castle breezeway, where seven perfect girls in seven sparkling gowns stand together, hands held in unity.

  VOICE-OVER

  Calling all brave girls.

  Your castle awaits.

  The Kingdom.

  The future is Fantasist™.

  (Screen fades to black.)

  7

  POST-TRIAL INTERVIEW

  [00:04:11–00:04:41]

  DR. FOSTER: Seems you learned quite a bit while you were in the State’s custody.

  ANA: Oh, I did. For example, did you know that if you mix grape jelly with ketchup, you can make a pretty tasty marinade?

  DR. FOSTER: Marinade?

  ANA: Well, more of a sweet-and-sour sauce. For chicken.

  DR. FOSTER: I see. What else did you learn?

  ANA: Cheddar-flavored popcorn, softened with water, does just fine as a substitute for scrambled eggs. The commissary usually sells bags of it.

  DR. FOSTER: I see. You’ve changed, Ana.

  ANA: Being accused of murder will do that to you, Dr. Foster.

  8

  THE OCTOBER OF THE BUBAL HARTEBEEST

  TWENTY-THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIAL

  The hours become days, and the days become seasons. Winter, spring, summer, and fall, my sisters and I scatter across the Kingdom like dandelion seeds in the wind—and the question that had been turning itself over in my mind, the worrying signal that something is wrong with Nia, fades to a distant thrum, so quiet I can only feel it in the darkness.

  During the day, it is gone completely.

  In between our packed and highly regulated schedules of performances and parades, we are free to wander where we like—thirty minutes here, an hour there—and mostly, I spend my mornings winding through the cobblestone streets of Magic Land, the air sweet with the scent of milk and cookies, visiting all my favorite landmarks. Places like the Royal Palm, where—after watching a mother skillfully soothe her crying baby—I first experienced warmth. Not the kind of warmth the heat sensors in my skin would typically pick up, but a kind of heat from within, radiating through me like a sunbeam. I visit the Fairy Tale Pavilion, in front of which—after witnessing two guests tearfully renew their wedding vows—I first experienced a marvelous fluttering in my chest. Or the intersection at the corner of Beanstalk and Vine, where—when I saved a little boy from wandering into the path of a speeding trolley—I first felt an indescribable lightness, as if I’d turned into a feather and floated away on the breeze.

  Some days, I’ll make up little songs about what I see.

  “The wishing well, where I once fell, and found a copper penny!”

  “The pastry man, with his chocolat pain, who never says good morning!”

  Today, as I move through my schedule of tea ceremonies and parades, I quietly quiz myself on details most guests would never think to notice. In essence, the Kingdom has become an extension of myself—every person, place, and thing as much a part of me as my hands, my thoughts, my beating heart. I know the scent of every flower. The shape of every stone. The melody of every song. I know the Steel Giant stands more than a thousand feet tall, or ninety stories, higher than any other roller coaster in the world. I know where to find the most beautiful moon rocks in Star Land, an interstellar simulation of alien life so realistic NASA now uses our technology to train their astronauts. I know the names of every genetically modified creature in Jungle Land, the Kingdom’s bioluminescent rain forest, featuring plant and animal species that can no longer be found anywhere else on earth—because they no longer exist. I know the birthday of every baby born in Imagine Land’s Exotic Species Nursery, where Kingdom scientists have let their imaginations run wild, creating blended hybrid species more colorful than anything Mother Nature could have ever dreamed up on her own. Elephants striped like zebras. Owls fanged like cats. Wolves as fast as cheetahs. Arabian horses with the grandest, most beautiful butterfly wings.

  Horseflies, we call them.

  I even know, to the precise footstep, every location around the park—and there are many—where the strength of the Kingdom’s wireless signal turns weak, briefly disabling our network connections and live-stream capabilities. Though Mother would not approve, my sisters and I often share these locations with one another, messaging coordinates back and forth should any of us need a private moment throughout the day. Places like the Fairy Tale Forest, where the trees are so tall and so thick they quite literally block out the signal. Sea Land Stadium, where the Wi-Fi bothers the whales. Farther north, there’s the Arctic Enclosure and adjoining Star Deck Observatory—where altitudes are so high and temperatures so cold that even the most advanced routers routinely freeze. And of course, the woods behind the Fantasist dormitory, where the rats have scratched, clawed, and all but dismembered every security camera for close to a square mile.

  Once, I overheard one maintenance worker tell another the reason they don’t bother replacing the cameras is because it would be a waste of time. That, in fact, the rats destroy them because they are after the wires and filaments beyond the glow of the glass, tightly spooled bundles from which they steal scraps to build their nests and grow their families. That there’s nothing they can do to keep them away.

  But sometimes I wonder if there’s more to it than that. Sometimes I imagine the rats have learned to see themselves in the lenses, to recognize their own reflections. Sometimes I wonder if that’s enough to drive them mad.

  I spot them now and then at night: scurrying around corners, scuttling down sidewalk drains, slipping into the darkness as if they are a part of it. The Kingdom does all it can to control the problem, but over time the rats have developed an impressive immunity to poison, and efforts to eradicate them rarely seem to do much good.

  Thankfully, they hide during the day and tend to keep to the sanitation tunnels below the park, a place Mother says is too dangerous for us to go.

  Eve claims she has been there, of course. She says she likes the feel of the cool, damp air belowground. The echo her shoes make against the smooth concrete. The sight of the embers, burning in the incinerator.

  They are so pretty,
Ana. Like little glowing stars.

  I think Eve is lying.

  Because these rats—they’re not afraid of us. They do not recognize our scent. And they are not predictable. Wild animals do not respect the laws of the Kingdom as our hybrid animals do.

  It’s those laws that keep us safe.

  * * *

  After evening prayers and our nightly remembrance of Alice, I climb into bed to await my turn for tuck-in. When I finally see Mother standing above me; when I feel the familiar tug of velvet straps tightening around my wrists, I close my eyes and sigh deeply, letting all of the day’s stresses roll off me like rain.

  “Ana?” Nia whispers once Mother has gone, and I turn to stare at her in the dark.

  “Why don’t the robins leave their nests?” she whispers, her dark hair spread across her pillow in loose, wild waves. I can hear her tinkering with the charms on her favorite bracelet. A seashell. A dolphin. A tiny, golden starfish. “Why don’t they fly, Ana?”

  I know what she is really asking.

  Why do we never leave?

  Years ago, my sisters and I invented a new way to communicate, a secret language all our own, so that we would be free to talk to one another about certain unapproved topics without the Supervisors listening in.

  The Supervisors are always listening in.

  Always watching us through our live-stream lenses.

  Always tracking us, via the satellite-powered GPS navigational chips implanted in our wrists.

  “Because they are nestlings,” I whisper back. “Because the nest keeps them safe.”

  Because we are loved. Because we were chosen.

  And of course, though I do not say it aloud: because of what happened to Alice.

  Nia is still new—she has just been with us ten months, since the December of the Darwin’s Fox—so I know her curiosity is only natural. The lessons of Alice have not yet sunk in.

  In the past I, too, have occasionally grown weary of the same songs. The same unruly children. The same fathers whose eyes wander when their wives aren’t looking. Still, Nia’s questions always leave me with an uncomfortable feeling. Like the mild burning sensation I feel under my skin, an icy heat running through my veins, anytime I venture too near the park’s perimeter—too near the gateway.

  “But if they can’t forage enough food, how will they survive the winter?”

  If people outside the Kingdom are so poor, how do they afford the cost of tickets?

  “They gather seeds for many seasons, Nia. Okay?”

  I hope one day she will learn not to think about the world beyond the parking lot, beyond the Green Light, as I have. The checkpoints and the slums. The violence and the poverty. The corruption and the fear. The stories Mother and Daddy have told us—stories we never mention in front of our guests, who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to see us—are simply too terrible to speak of, and we, as Fantasists, must turn away from terror and from fear, from ugliness and horror.

  In my Kingdom, Happily Ever After is not just a promise: it’s a rule.

  Which is why, whenever my little sister cries about how cold the water is kept at Mermaid Lagoon, or how her wrists ache every morning, I remind her how lucky we are, and how loved.

  “But how does a bear know?” Nia asks, her voice small. “How does a bear know honey is sweet if he hasn’t found the hive?”

  How do you know it’s really love, if you’ve never been in love before?

  “Easy.” I twist against my own bed straps until I’ve found her hand in the dark. “If honey weren’t sweet, all the bees would have flown away.”

  If they didn’t love us, they’d never have built the gateway.

  9

  OFFICIAL COURT DOCUMENT 19A

  From: Proctor 1A—Fantasist Division

 

  To: All Staff—Security & Training Divisions

 

  Subject: Ana

  Date & Time: September 8, 2:32 p.m.

  Ana demonstrates a unique affinity for the natural world, spending much of her free time interacting with the park’s Formerly Extinct Species (talking and singing to them, grooming them, feeding them, and responding within appropriate parameters to their programmable emotional outputs—attachment, fear, pleasure, pain, etc.).

  For now, though this preference does not appear to have negatively impacted her overall Fantasist Rating (she consistently scores an average of 92 on the ranking scales), I suggest we consider using her preference for animals as a motivational reward to increase her level of guest interaction and further support her “social development.”

  10

  TRIAL TRANSCRIPT

  MS. BELL: Mr. Casey, would you please remove your hat?

  MR. CAMERON CASEY, FORMER HEAD TRAINER FOR THE KINGDOM CORP.’S FES AND HYBRID PROGRAMS: Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Sorry, Your Honor.

  THE COURT: Ms. Bell, please proceed.

  MS. BELL: Mr. Casey, how long were you employed at the Kingdom?

  MR. CASEY: I was hired right out of graduate school, so almost ten years.

  MS. BELL: And in that time, did you work exclusively as a trainer?

  MR. CASEY: I did.

  MS. BELL: Is that something you always wanted to do? Work with animals?

  MR. CASEY: All my life.

  MS. BELL: Any animals in particular?

  MR. CASEY: Predators, mainly. Bears. Wolves. The big cats—tigers, lions, leopards. I like how nobody messes with them. Nobody tells them what to do.

  MS. BELL: Didn’t you tell them what to do?

  MR. CASEY: Well, yeah …

  MR. ROBERT HAYES, LEAD ATTORNEY FOR THE KINGDOM CORPORATION: Objection. Relevance?

  THE COURT: Sustained.

  MS. BELL: Mr. Casey, were you ever injured on the job?

  MR. CASEY: Nah. I’ve been snarled at, swiped at, bitten, scratched, but never anything serious. I raised these hybrids from when they were young. They respected me. They trusted me. They loved me.

  MS. BELL: Are you saying … you believe the park’s hybrid species can feel? You believe they are capable of love?

  MR. CASEY: [Hesitates.] I guess what I meant was, they knew to obey me.

  11

  THE NOVEMBER OF THE NORTHERN WHITE RHINOCEROS

  TWENTY-TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIAL

  The mountain is tall, but still we rise, heels dangling as we scale the lifts to the heights of Sugar Summit, Winter Land’s famed indoor alpine peak, where thrill seekers of every level can enjoy family-friendly bunny slopes, powdered-sugar snowboard terrain, and treacherous triple black diamonds—a pristine winter wonderland most people outside the Kingdom have never, and will never, experience.

  They say it has become too hot out there, beyond the Green Light, for snow.

  “How much higher does it go?” Kaia whispers, though she can see the summit just as well as I can. In the lavender glow of twilight, she looks like an angel, her strapless sweetheart neckline sparkling with tiny, pale pink crystals.

  “Almost there,” I say, wishing Nia had come with us. But she has never been as interested in the newborn hybrids as I am.

  I breathe in the icy wind, the air deliciously cozy with the scent of hot cocoa. Hundreds of feet below us, guests gallop through the snow on the backs of dappled Icelandic ponies and sip hot chocolate in mountainside chalets. They soak in hot biosphere springs, skate across crystal ponds, and relax in the Crystal Château, a luxury spa made entirely of ice. Even the night sky here is like magic, a solar-spectrum simulation of electric blues and plasma greens that dance and swirl overhead to the soothing sounds of Winter Land’s Snowy Dreamscape playlist.

  I glance down once more and feel a spike of warning in my system.

  It’s hard to believe that so far below, hidden in all that snow, there’s a wild animal lurking—a creature who is not welcome here. A small, mangy wolf, I overheard one of the guards say earlier, when he didn’t know I was listening in. Or maybe a fox. Rabid. Deli
rious. Dangerous.

  Must’ve dug a hole somewhere along the gateway. It’s put the whole damn Saber Enclosure on edge.

  I zoom my lenses as far as they will go, carefully scanning the mountainside, though for what, I cannot be sure. When I spot several small but distinct animal carcasses—rabbits, by the look of them—and a trail of red leading into the snowy wood, I gasp loudly and scoot closer to Kaia. I am built to withstand temperatures colder than anywhere on earth—colder, even, than the coldest night in Antarctica, before the ice caps melted—but tonight, it is not the frigid air that makes me shiver. Instead, it is the thought of yellow, glowing, wild eyes stalking us through the trees.

  I take several deep breaths, reminding myself that it will all be worth it, once we’ve reached our destination.

  Once we see … him.

  Ursus maritimus.

  A polar bear.

  The first of its kind in more than forty years.

  Renowned for our advanced scientific research, cutting-edge interactive technology, and deep commitment to biological conservation, the Kingdom is not only responsible for the biggest and the best rides and attractions anywhere, but it has also dedicated itself to reviving earth’s most vulnerable species and subspecies, many of which can no longer be found in the natural world. In the years since my own arrival, back in the June of the Spotted Owl, our world-class team of scientists has welcomed one FES, or Formerly Extinct Species, per month into our Kingdom family.

  Birds. Fish. Amphibians. Mammals. Marsupials. Reptiles.

  We even have a dinosaur, albeit a small one, roughly the size of a chicken.