Kingdom of Cages (35 page)

Chena smiled. So far, so good. She was tempted to stand there quietly, just to see how long it took Aleph to come looking
for her, but she decided against it. That was an experiment for another day.

“Aleph?” she said.

“There you are, Chena,” said Aleph. “I was waiting for you.”

Maybe you were, maybe you weren’t,
thought Chena.
Are you developed enough to have pride to save? I hope not, because that means you noticed something is wrong.
The thought made her tense up, and she almost forgot to answer the AI.

“Will you let me in, please?” she asked brightly. “They haven’t taught us teleporting yet.”

The door swished open and the directional arrow appeared at her feet, leading Chena into the straight yellow hallway. Nothing
had changed. She might have walked down it yesterday instead of eight months ago. The same black and white people paced up
and down the corridor on their way to… whatever. They didn’t even talk to each other. Any doors and windows there might have
been remained invisible. For a minute Chena thought Aleph was going to pull one over on her, like it had before.

This time, though, the arrow at her feet took her around a corner, and Aleph cleared a real door for her.

A lounge waited on the other side, with comfortable-looking chairs and low round tables. The walls were set in a marsh pattern,
complete with silent wading birds and rippling water. Sadia sat by the far wall. They had dressed her in a loose long-sleeved
yellow dress. She had yellow bands on her wrists and thick socks on her feet, but no shoes.

“Sadia!” Chena rushed forward and grabbed her hand, saluting as she did. Sadia smiled back at her and returned the salute,
but the smile didn’t make it all the way into her tired eyes.

She’s just afraid of being watched,
Chena told herself.
Can’t blame her.

“It’s really good to see you.” Chena pulled up a chair so they were knee to knee.

Sadia smiled with warmth, but without any enthusiasm. “Yeah, it was nice of them to let you in.”

Chena felt her own smile spread, mischievous and knowing. “Well, ‘let’ is what my mom calls a relative term.”

Sadia started, shrinking back from Chena. “You mean this isn’t okay?”

Chena frowned. “Of course it’s okay. I’m here, aren’t I?”
What’s the matter with you?

Sadia subsided, her body relaxing and deflating under the sunny dress. “Yeah, you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”

Chena blinked and glanced away until she was certain she could look at Sadia without staring. This was not right. What had
they done to her in here? Maybe she had just come to believe there was no way out. That was probably it. Chena pushed her
sleeve back from her comptroller. Obviously, this was no time for small talk. She had to show Sadia that there really was
something they could do.

“So…” Chena searched for a neutral topic while she hunched herself over her comptroller and pressed the display key to light
up the message she had coded in previously.
I’ve found a way around Aleph,
it said. She handed the comptroller carefully over to Sadia, laying it right into her palm and pushing Sadia’s hand into
her lap so that her body remained a shield between herself and Aleph.

Sadia looked down at the message, read it, and looked back up at Chena. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve got a handle on how things work around here.” Chena cupped her hand around the comptroller and took it back. “It’s actually
pretty easy if you just go along with it.” She tried to catch Sadia’s gaze to see if Sadia was following any of this. But
Sadia just looked blankly back at her, as if Chena spoke a foreign language.

“Of course you go along with it,” said Sadia. “What else is there?”

“Yeah, but if you’re going after it right, you don’t have to have somebody always watching you. You can get some movement
back.”

Nothing showed in Sadia’s face. She studied Chena for a moment as if Chena were some stranger. Then her gaze wandered back
to the fake marsh on the walls.

“Sadia.” Chena leaned forward, feeling cold fear form in her stomach. “I’m telling you I can help you get out of here, out
of involuntary.”

Sadia nodded without turning her attention back to Chena. “Okay.”

The fear in Chena grew heavier. “You do want to get out of here, don’t you?”

Sadia moved her head toward Chena again, and that was almost worse, because nothing had changed. Her eyes remained dead, blank
and empty. “If that’s what you want me to do.”

Stunned disbelief fell into place beside fear. Chena felt her jaw hanging loose. “What did they do to you?”

Still, no sign of comprehension crossed Sadia’s face. “Take samples,” she said, apparently taking Chena’s comment literally.
“Put stuff inside me sometimes.”

Before Chena could stop herself, she looked down at Sadia’s stomach. It pooched out a little more than she thought she remembered.
Was there something inside Sadia now? Was it like whatever was inside Mom?

Is Mom going to end up like this?

Chena jumped to her feet. “I have to go.”

“Okay,” said Sadia behind her. But this time Chena was the one who did not look back. She just rushed out the door. The arrow
waited for her on the hallway floor. She walked fast, trying not to run. She had to get back. She had to find Mom. She had
to let Mom know what had happened to Sadia. Mom had to do something. They had to get out of here now. They had to get that
thing out from inside her before it took her mind away, or before Aleph and its keepers decided that her mind should be taken
away from her. Maybe that was what they did to Sadia. Maybe she fought too hard, so they’d drugged her or something. They
did something to her.

Got to warn Mom.
Chena’s efforts to hold her stride in check brought a haze of tears to her eyes. She could not alert Aleph. She must not
alert Aleph.

The foyer passed by in a blur of green and brick red. She was in the labyrinth before she remembered to get her bearings,
and she had to follow the signs to get back to their alcoves.

She probably won’t even be there. She’s out doing whatever it is they give her to do. But I’ll look there first. Then I can
look somewhere else. I can tell the counselor I’m having an emergency. I can…

She pushed aside their curtain. She noted absently that Mom or Teal had changed the walls to an abstract wallpaper, all red
splotches. But then she saw the pattern was on the back of the curtain too.

Then the smell reached her, a sharp smell, all acid and copper, and she saw red on the floor—deep, shining rivulets of red,
snaking across the tiles.

Then she saw Mom, sprawled like a doll at the center of a pool of red, with more red, more blood, too much blood, puddled
in her slashed and deflated belly. Her still eyes looked up at Chena, pleading.

Chena ran forward, ignoring the blood and the way it squished under her shoes. She grabbed Mom’s hand, not thinking, not knowing
what she could possibly do. The hand was cold and limp, and as still as her eyes.

Chena screamed. She couldn’t help it. She dropped the dead hand and backed away, her hands raised up to her ears. She screamed
and screamed again, high and wordless, terrified of what she saw in front of her. She screamed as if she could call her mother
back to take away this hideous thing and be alive again.

The curtain flew open to let in hands, people, voices, exclamations of shock and disgust. Someone pulled Chena back and away,
and handed her to someone else. But she couldn’t see anything clearly except the red, and Mom.

“All right, Chena. All right.” Someone dropped to her knees in front of her and grasped her chin, pulling her eyes away from
Mom. Abdei. This was Abdei, and around her were men, looking at Mom, looking at the blood, talking among themselves too fast
to be understood.

“Who did it?” gasped Chena. The nearest man, the constable or supervisor, or whatever he was, just stared at her. “Who did
it?” she repeated. “Aleph must have seen. Who did this?”

“Chena, we don’t know,” said Abdei, holding Chena by both shoulders.

“Don’t know!” Chena yanked herself backward. “You guys watch everything. How could you not have seen this?” She looked from
one to the other of them, taking in their pinched, frightened faces. Realization sank in slowly. “It screwed up, didn’t it?
That omnipotent computer of yours. It watched every single second of our lives, but it didn’t see who killed my mother!”

“We will find out what happened,” Abdei said firmly. “I promise you, Chena—”

“Where’s Teal?” demanded Chena.

“Chena—”

“What’s happening?”

Teal. Chena wrenched herself out of Abdei’s hands and hurled herself toward the doorway. She slammed into Teal and wrapped
her arms around her sister, shielding Teal with her body.

“We’re getting out of here,” she said as Teal’s mouth opened. “Right now.”

“Chena, with your mother gone, you are—”

“Our grandmother is in Offshoot,” she said.

“Gone!” shouted Teal. “Where’s Mom gone? Chena!” She wriggled in Chena’s hands. Chena clamped down more tightly. “Ow!”

“You don’t have any relatives in Offshoot, Chena,” said Abdei. “Don’t try to lie to me.”

“We do!” Chena shouted back. “Elle Stepka.” She had turned that name over in her mind at night a hundred times, wondering
how she could use it or when she might need it. “You can check. We belong to her now. You can’t keep us here!”

“Stop squeezing me!” squealed Teal.

Teal ripped herself out of Chena’s hands. She saw the blood, and she saw Mom behind the screen of men’s bodies. Teal stood
there for a moment, her mouth opening and closing, like she was trying to chew on something. Then both hands rose slowly to
cover her mouth and she stumbled backward. Chena caught her, tuned her around, and hugged her close.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. We’re getting out of here. We’re going to our grandmother’s.” She glowered at Abdei. “We’re
minors. If we’ve got a living relative, they have the body right to us.”

“It’s true.” One of the men stepped away from the others. Chena’s head cleared enough to recognize Administrator Tam. “Their
grandmother is Elle Stepka. They need to go back to Offshoot at once.”

“Administator—” began Abdei.

“At once,” snapped Administrator Tam. Relief made Chena weak in the knees.

Abdei’s gaze skittered over to the constables, or whatever they were, and then back to Administrator Tam. Something that Chena
couldn’t read passed between them.

“Come with me.” Abdei tried to steer them toward the door. Chena didn’t budge or take her arms from around Teal. Teal was
shuddering now, but not crying. She just pressed her face against Chena’s shoulder and shook.

“You’ve got no right to take us anywhere,” said Chena. “No right!” She looked up, pleading to the administrator, their only
ally. What did he know? What did he believe? She didn’t know how to lie to him because she didn’t know anything about him.
They hadn’t seen him since their first day.

“To the next alcove, that’s all, I swear,” said Abdei, taking firmer hold of Chena’s shoulder.

“It’s all right, Chena.” Administrator Tam reached out a hand as if to touch her, but he hesitated and let it fall. “It is
just to the next alcove.”

Chena shook Abdei off. “We can get there on our own.”

Not letting go of Teal, she walked through the curtain, into the corridor, and over into the next set of alcoves. This was
somebody’s home, she knew, but they weren’t there now. Nobody seemed to be here. They’d all been spirited away by Aleph or
another of the hothousers’ tricks.

“I’m going to ask you not to leave,” said Abdei.

“We’re not going anywhere except back to Offshoot,” said Chena, sitting Teal down on one of the low benches. Teal looked gray.
Her mouth stayed shut now, but there was a blank look behind her eyes that reminded Chena too much of Sadia.

“I have to verify what you’re saying.” Abdei sounded tired, and closer to angry than Chena had ever heard her.

“The administrator told you—”

“This is not for you to say!” Abdei shouted, and then she reeled as if knocked sideways by the force of her own words.

“Why can’t you just ask Aleph? Aleph knows everything.” Then she bit her lip. Aleph might know this was a lie. How had Elle
fixed it? Maybe Administrator Tam had done it for her? Chena didn’t know, but they had to get out, they had to, and she couldn’t
open the outside door yet.

“Aleph is not here,” said Abdei shortly. “Stay here. I will find out about your… grandmother.”

She left them there. Chena sat down next to Teal, hard. Aleph wasn’t there? Someone had taken down the computer? How far down
was it? Could she and Teal get to the door? Could they run away into the marsh, maybe find the bike rails and follow them
back to Offshoot? Or Stem? Farin would help them, she knew he would.

“Chena, we’ve got to get a message to Dad,” said Teal suddenly.

“What?”

“We’ve got to!” Teal clutched her arm, her eyes wide with terror. “We’ve got to tell him to come get us. He’ll come back.
He has to.”

Chena’s hands fell to her lap. “We can’t get a message to him, Teal,” she whispered. “I don’t know where he is.”

“But we can find out,” she persisted. “We can get a message up to Athena Station. There are Authority shippers there. We can
ask one of them to get a message through.”

Chena licked her lips. What was the matter with her? Was she so far gone she couldn’t tell what their game was anymore? “They
wouldn’t even know where to start looking for him,” she said lamely. “He could be anywhere.”

Teal looked up at her and now Chena saw the tears streaming silently down her cheeks. “Please, Chena. Find Dad.”

“I can’t.” Chena felt her own eyes prickle.
Stop it. Stop it,
she ordered herself.
You can’t start that now, you’ll never stop.

Teal leaned back against Chena’s shoulder and cried. Chena held her, choking back her own sobs, trying not to see Mom’s eyes
staring at her, asking Chena where she had been while someone had ripped her mother’s guts out, asking her to do something
when there was nothing to be done except get Teal out of here.