The Kingdom

by Jess Rothenberg

  He sighs. “Then I’ll be a literal piece of toast. But you know what? If that happens, I’ll be toast so fast I won’t even know what toast is.”

  That’s not good enough. “Wait,” I tell him. “I just thought of something! The rats!”

  “The rats?” he repeats.

  “Follow them. They’ll know which way is out.”

  “That’s gross,” he says. “But you’re a genius.”

  With that, Owen kisses me—maybe our last kiss—leaving a streak of red behind. “There.” He smears more onto my cheek and smiles like he is pleased. “Now you look scary.”

  Scary.

  I know he’s joking, but shame spikes through me. I have been called scary before. “You don’t really think I’m scary, do you?” I whisper, so low it’s almost muffled completely by the crunch of the incinerator below us. “You don’t really think I am a monster?”

  Owen wraps me in his arms. “They’re the monsters,” he says. “Not you.”

  “But then, what am I?” I turn my head into his warm chest.

  “Don’t you know?” He kisses my forehead. “You’re an angel.”

  And then he’s gone, running.

  67

  THE DECEMBER OF THE LESSER CHAMELEON

  And that was the last time I saw Owen alive. Until now.

  “Is it really you?” I move closer to him, his face aglow in the fluorescent light of the lab. I can’t quite convince myself that it’s him, that he’s real, that he’s here.

  “They found your medical bracelet. You died.”

  “Almost,” he says. “Like, ten more seconds and it would’ve been toast city. But it turns out those rats really do have a great sense of direction”—he shakes his head like he can’t quite believe it himself—“and all I had to do was follow them out.” He peers down at his arm. “Unfortunately, my bracelet wasn’t so lucky. I caught it when I was going down the chute and the chain broke off. Lucky it was just the chain and not my whole arm.”

  Slowly, I reach for him.

  His frame is leaner. His hair is longer, black bangs hanging a little over his eyes.

  But it’s him. The same boy I wanted to know ever since the night I saw him in the Arctic Enclosure, watching me from behind the glass.

  The instant our bodies touch, I know that it is him, that this is real.

  Because I feel as if I’m home. But not my Kingdom home—someplace new I do not yet know. I hope Owen will help me learn.

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” I say, holding him. “I thought you were gone, and it was my fault.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ana. I had to stay in hiding during the trial. I changed my hair, got an apartment under a new name, and everything. But I told you I’d meet you here, and I meant it,” he says.

  Tears are swirling through my vision.

  “It took a little longer than I would’ve liked, but I’ve been with you every step of the way.” His eyes wander back to Daddy—Dr. Foster—motionless on the floor. Slowly, Owen lets go of me and crouches down beside him.

  “I think he always knew it would end this way,” he says. “Well. Maybe not the death-by-tiara part. But I think some part of him, even a small part, always knew there’d be a consequence for what he helped create.” He looks at me. “Are you okay?”

  “What about the others?” I realize I have no idea what has been happening in the world beyond my trial. “What about Kaia and Zara and Zel? What about Yumi and Nadia? We have to help them.”

  “We will.” He holds out his hand. “But we can’t do anything for them if you’re caught. We better hurry, we’re not out of the woods yet. Are you ready?”

  I nod. I still can’t quite believe he’s here—that any of this is real.

  He gives me an extra pair of medical scrubs and I quickly change, leaving my jumpsuit in a heap on the floor. “Remind me never again to wear orange,” I mutter before sliding a mask down that thankfully conceals much of my face. As famous as I was before the trial began, I cannot begin to imagine how recognizable my features must be now. Still, Owen assures me that it’ll be easy to go unnoticed in the lab. “Everybody’s so focused on the hybrids, there’s not much attention paid to anyone else.”

  Anyone, I think. Not … anything.

  I smile.

  I like the way that sounds.

  I can be anyone.

  He turns the room’s temperature down to just above freezing—a trick he says will delay decomposition and make it harder for investigators to pinpoint a time of death—and, using his old Proctor code—a combination of numbers nobody but Owen will ever know—proceeds to lock the suite from the inside out. “This way they’ll literally have to break the door down to get him,” he explains. “But considering Dr. Foster specifically requested that nobody disturb him for the rest of the day … that won’t be for a while.”

  I blink. “I didn’t realize shutdown was such a long process.”

  He hesitates. “It’s not.”

  “So then why did you say he’d requested all afternoon?”

  “Well, he’s been pretty angry since the lawsuits began, Ana. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been planning to take some of his temper out on you.”

  A chill runs through my entire system. We slip out into the bright hallway—empty, and for that I am grateful—leaving Dr. Foster’s body behind the locked door. From there, we adopt a brisk but unassuming pace toward the front exit, our sneakers squeaking on the sterile, white linoleum as we walk. Soon, we pass another human—a middle-aged woman with dark hair in a white lab coat—and my motor nearly jumps into my throat, a squeezing lump of pressure that makes it hard to breathe. But instead of questioning us, she simply nods and continues on her way. The same thing happens again and again as we pass members of the medical, maintenance, and security staff, some of whom I recognize; others I do not. But they don’t recognize me. Our costumes work. They believe the parts we are playing, and the more they believe, the more I begin to believe as well.

  The first step to a perfect fairy tale is believing, Kaia always says.

  “We are close,” Owen whispers just as we round a corner beyond a block of elevators. “Just another hundred feet and we’ll be outside.”

  But I cannot go on.

  We have reached a part of the lab where the hallways are lined with windows, making it possible to observe the scientists as they work.

  “Ana.” Owen comes up beside me. “What is it?”

  I do not answer.

  Beyond the computers, beyond the scientists, I notice something else. A large, clean chamber, its lights dim in a soothing way I recognize. Peaceful. Restful. Inside the chamber, I see narrow, rectangular boxes, organized in a neat, orderly row.

  “They look like coffins,” Owen says under his breath.

  I peer closer. Inside the boxes … are faces.

  Bodies.

  Hairless, naked bodies—dozens and dozens of them—their motors softly aglow below bare, translucent skin. “What is this place?” I whisper, watching lab technicians wander from one bed to the next, clipboards in hand, carefully monitoring each girl’s sleep.

  Not sleep.

  Rest.

  “Incubation,” Owen answers. “Come on. We’ve got to go.”

  But I cannot move. My eyes are locked on the window. I scan them, one by one, a grip of fear tightening around my throat. Their faces are different, and yet also … the same.

  I see Nia.

  I see Eve.

  I see Kaia.

  I see me.

  I want to run, but my knees lock up. I want to breathe, but my throat constricts. My eyes. My mouth. My nose. My face. In all of my days, in all of my life, I have never seen anything more horrifying. Dozens of me’s, lined up like dolls in a factory.

  That’s when I understand.

  This is a factory.

  All of a sudden, my sensors scream to full alert. I hear the whirs and beeps of machines as they measure neuroelectric activity. I smell the vapor of
subsonic ventilators. I see the soothing glow of pulse oximeters, blinking like fireflies in the dark.

  I turn to Owen. “This is where I was made. Isn’t it?”

  He nods wordlessly.

  “I thought you said the Fantasist Program was suspended.”

  “It was.”

  “Then who are they?”

  “These are prototypes,” Owen says. “The next generation.”

  “But why are there so many?” I ask. “How many Anas could the park possibly need?”

  Owen’s brow furrows. “They’re not for the park, Ana,” he says in a low voice. “They’re part of the HFP.”

  I whirl to face him. “What’s the HFP?”

  Owen takes a deep breath. “The Home Fantasist Program. It turns out their long-term corporate vision for scaling the program has always been to have one of you in every house in America. Maybe even the world.”

  “The Future is Fantasist,” I whisper. One of us in every home. I shake my head. Another lie. The biggest lie of all. “You knew. You knew, and you never told me.”

  “I didn’t know. I only learned about it after I left the park, I swear to you, Ana. The whole thing was top secret, but someone leaked to the media and I heard about it that way. Sixteen months was a lot of time to hang around pretending to be dead, you know,” he says with a small smile. “I completely lost my tan.”

  I try to smile back, but realize I can’t; instead, my blood runs cold. For the first time ever, I can feel the sharp, microscopic slivers of metal as they move through my veins. I can feel them burning, freezing, hardening beneath my skin. But how? We are miles from the gateway. We are beyond the gateway. Is this my body giving up? Is my central processing unit failing? I rub my arms, grimacing at the sensation of my own touch, but still, I cannot bring myself to look away.

  My sisters.

  They are all my sisters.

  It’s guilt, I realize. Guilt is the reason my body is locking up.

  “Ana, it’s okay. They’re suspending the HFP indefinitely. Too many liabilities, they say.”

  Liabilities. Like me. Like Nia.

  And that’s when I finally understand everything. About what Nia did, and why.

  They can’t put a price on us, Ana, Eve had called out in the seconds before the monorail came barreling down the tracks—the very last thing she ever said to me. Nia knew it. She knew it and that’s why she died.

  Nia killed the girl—or tried to—to show we are dangerous. To prove what we are capable of.

  To end the program.

  To save the rest of us.

  “Owen,” I whisper. “Nia knew. She knew. She told Eve, too.”

  But that doesn’t explain how she knew.

  I rack my memory, scanning every part of it for something, anything Nia might have shared with me about the Home Fantasist Program, but my search quickly turns up empty. Then, like a bird flitting through the trees, I recall a flash of something I had filed away and forgotten.

  A thing Nia kept hidden all those weeks she was gone.

  “The card,” I whisper. “The Valentine’s Day card she left under her bed.” Within seconds, I have located the memory. A bold red envelope. A leafy, floral heart. And a tiny gold charm—a mermaid—her long hair shimmering in loose, wild waves.

  Dear Nia,

  You were very good in our home.

  We hope you’ll enjoy this new charm for your bracelet.

  Happy Valentine’s Day,

  The Golds

  Sam, Margot, Elliot, and—

  I turn to Owen in disbelief. “It’s the same little girl.”

  “Which girl?” He frowns. “I don’t know who you mean.”

  The Golds.

  Sam, Margot, Elliot, and Clara.

  “The one from the tea party,” I answer breathlessly. “The one who told me Nia taught her our secret language. She smelled like strawberries and chamomile. She’s the Clara from the card—I know she is—and it was her family who gave Nia the charm for her bracelet!” I bury my head in my hands, sensing something more. Something I can’t quite reach. “What if … is it possible … could Clara’s family have been hosting Nia all that time she was away?”

  All at once I feel a wild, pent-up, buzzing sensation building inside my chest, as if my lungs have filled with static electricity. “She was gone for ten weeks last winter. What if she was with this family all that time, instead of with the Supervisors?” I inhale sharply. “What if it was Nia they were testing for the Home Fantasist Project?”

  Owen stares back at me, wide-eyed. “Really?”

  Suddenly, I am shaking. Everything makes sense. Everything fits. And yet … there’s still a piece of this puzzle I am missing. Some connection I haven’t made. I think back to Clara—and then to the man who pulled her away from me in the Briar Rose Parlor at the afternoon tea.

  Her father.

  Would his name have been … Sam Gold?

  In a flash, I scan the network for his name—probing every page I possibly can to help me better understand. But just as I feel myself getting closer … just as I feel an answer whispering to me from beyond the Green Light, my search fails.

  No. It hits a wall.

  “Owen!” I ball my hands into tight fists and growl. “The firewall won’t let me through.” I turn to him. “I’m not sure what to—”

  Before I get the words out, Owen reaches over and gently turns my arm, exposing the small birthmark tattooed on the skin of my inner wrist. We all have a birthmark in this place, all seven of us, ink-black letters that tell us who we are.

  Ana™

  To my surprise, Owen places his thumb over my birthmark and presses down. Within seconds, a virtual keyboard lights up along the inside of my arm, its letters and numbers glowing blue below my skin.

  “How did you do that?” I gasp, watching as Owen taps out a quick series of keystrokes inside my arm.

  “A true maintenance worker never reveals his secrets,” he says with a smile. He types in a final code, and the keyboard fades to nothing against my skin. I run my fingers along my arm and feel a strange tug in my chest.

  Sometimes it is hard, not quite knowing what I am.

  Sometimes it makes me sad that others know more about my body than I do.

  I am full of so many secrets, I realize. What if I never uncover them all?

  Just as I start to feel overwhelmed, a pulsing rush of cold sweeps through me—an invisible wave that nearly knocks me off my feet—leaving me dizzy, light-headed, as if my head is full of clouds. After a moment, the clouds part. The dizziness fades. And in its place I feel …

  “Nothing,” I whisper, slowly rubbing my temples. “Something is … different.”

  “I just disabled your firewall.” Owen smiles. “Try your search again.”

  Chest pounding, I do as he says.

  Sam Gold / Kingdom / Clara /

  Fantasist Home Project

  I swallow hard.

  Pania.

  SEARCHING …

  In an instant, my mind is racing down the highway at the speed of light and sound, wind whipping through my hair as voices, places, images I’ve never seen before crackle and buzz above me, around me, through me. I reach the end of the highway—the place where the end has always been—but the barrier is gone. Now, there is only wide-open, endless space—bigger, deeper, farther into the distance than I have ever dared to dream. I blink rapidly, filtering a thousand possibilities a second.

  “There,” I whisper. “I found it.”

  An image. A headline. An answer.

  SCANDAL ROCKS KINGDOM,

  INVESTORS DENY COVER-UP AND LAWSUITS LOOM AS FANTASIST HOME PROJECT™ TESTING CONTINUES

  That’s when I see him. A man in a dark suit, standing in front of the gateway.

  “It’s him,” I say. “I was right. He’s Clara’s father. He’s an Investor.”

  I scan the entirety of the article, followed by a hundred more—newspapers from every country, in every language, all over
the world. And yet … they all say the same thing.

  “Ana?” Owen squeezes my hand. “Are you okay?”

  “That’s why Clara knew our language,” I whisper. “Because Nia lived with them—the first family to ever bring home a Fantasist. She knew they were testing us for mass distribution.”

  The Future is Fantasist™

  “She tried to stop it.”

  Tears run down my cheek. Real, feeling, nearly human tears.

  “But she couldn’t.”

  “Ana.” Owen’s eyes turn misty. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  I turn back to my sisters—sleeping, silent, and so beautiful beyond the glass. “I have to help them,” I say a little too loudly. “Like Nia wanted to. I can’t leave them here.”

  “You will help them,” Owen says. “We’ll help them. But not today. Today, you’re saving you.” His eyes dart suddenly down the hall and go alarmingly wide. “Walk.” He takes my arm and pulls me away from the window. “Ana, please walk now.”

  It’s too late.

  I feel her heartbeat before I see her face.

  Seventy-nine beats per minute.

  “Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?” Mother asks the both of us. “Medics don’t have clearance on this floor.” Her eyes search me for a badge that isn’t there. “Who’s your Supervisor?”

  I stare at her in shock.

  With my mask on, she doesn’t recognize me.

  My own mother has no idea who I am.

  The realization simultaneously relieves and makes my chest ache to the point I cannot speak. But then I think of Daddy, resting in a pool of his own blood.

  “We’re part of Dr. Foster’s team,” Owen volunteers. “We were on our way to Level One to assist with today’s shutdown, but I’m afraid we left supplies in the ambulette and got turned around. If you’d be so kind as to point us back to the parking garage, I’d be grateful to you.”

  Grateful.

  He has spoken Mother’s favorite word.

  “Oh.” She blinks as if a spell has been lifted. “Of course.” Soon, she is giving us detailed instructions on stairwells, basements, and private elevators. As she talks, I carefully study her face. One last time, before I delete it from my memory forever.