Kingdom of Cages (52 page)

“What’s going on?” Teal asked a woman who balanced a duffel roll on her broad shoulder.

The woman gave her a look of pure contempt for such ignorance. “Checkpoint. No cutting the line, girly.” She jerked her chin
up the corridor.

Checkpoint? For what?
Then Teal remembered all those strangers in the stairwells, and all King’s and Eng’s tough talk. Had there been trouble?
Had there been a breakout of some kind, maybe?

Well, it’s okay.
Teal took her place in line behind a pair of men whose gray tunics had bright gold electrician’s badges on them. Four banded
ferrets used the men as a climbing gym. The restless animals chased each other in and out of pockets and around shoulders
and ankles.

Watching their antics made the wait feel short and left Teal in a much better mood than she’d started out in.

At last she could see the checkpoint between the heads and shoulders of people in front of her, or rather she could see the
pair of superiors who were working the checkpoint. But instead of the tan tunics and blue trousers she was familiar with,
the superiors now wore black body armor and radio helmets. They carried tasers and pellet guns on their belts. If they were
supposed to look menacing, it worked. Teal’s throat tightened. She and Chena had spent hours on mischief as kids, seeing if
they could get the superiors to come chase them, but those superiors hadn’t been armed with anything more than cameras and
old rules.

But that wasn’t the only change. The bulkhead had been turned into a choke point with bulky scanners welded to the struts.
Multiple cameras watched the people coming in, the people passing through, the superiors, the length of the line, and who
knew what else.

Each person stopped in front of the superiors. Teal couldn’t hear the questions they asked, but she couldn’t help noticing
the process took a lot longer for people without badges on their tunics than for those with some kind of official marking.
Bags and cases were opened and searched, as were droids. Animals were prodded, sometimes until they yelped.

Another few shuffles forward, and Teal could see they also examined sheet screens and printouts.

Sheets?

Teal rubbed the chip on the back of her hand. She hadn’t expected her identity to be questioned. Then again, she thought she
was going back to the Athena she knew and that knew her.

Up ahead, a woman bent under the weight of her pack handed her sheets over to the superiors. They read them and shook their
heads. Her arms waved in the air, and they shook their heads. She reached into her trousers pockets, and the right-hand superior
reached for his taser. The woman turned away, and the line made reluctant room for her as she picked her way back down the
connector.

Teal swallowed. What were they asking for? What did they need? They’d only read her chip at the base of the cable. No one
had said anything about needing anything else.

Of course, she hadn’t exactly come through official channels. She ground her teeth together. Damn the tailor. He should have
known about this. The cheat. He should have told her.

Now what do I do?

When she was a kid, she could get away with murder by looking innocent. But no matter what she really was, she didn’t look
like a kid anymore. Those superiors in their armor with their weapons probably weren’t going to believe any adult was innocent,
no matter how that adult looked.

One of the ferrets whisked up its owner’s shoulder and regarded her with bright black eyes for a moment before it tried to
vanish into its owner’s pack.

Unless maybe they are distracted. Unless maybe the adult looks ridiculous.

The man caught the ferret around the middle with one broad brown hand. “Come on, Biscuit. Nothing for you in there.”

Biscuit didn’t seem to believe it. As soon as he (she?) was on the floor, he scuttled up his owner and dove for the pack.

This time, Teal caught him.

“Whoa.” She held the animal up to her face, like she knew and liked it. “You don’t listen, do you?” Its short legs paddled
a little and its nose twitched. Teal laughed as she handed him back. “Probably bored,” she remarked.

“Wouldn’t be the only one.” The man cradled Biscuit in one arm and reached up to pluck a second ferret off the top of his
head. “Come on, guys, we’re almost there.”

“How old are they?” she asked, remembering how Mom always struck up conversations with people who had children.

Apparently it worked just as well with people who had animals. She found herself introduced to Biscuit (three years old),
Brownie (three and a half), Cookie (four and a half, the senior ferret), and Creampuff (two). They were industrial ferrets,
trained to pull wires and fiber-optic cables through narrow conduits. They were, he explained, especially valuable since the
squatters started arriving in force, what with nobody being sure which maintenance tunnels they were going to be able to get
to easily.

“By the way, I’m Claudiu.” He gave her a jaunty salute and Teal returned it.

“Teal.”

Cookie and Biscuit took this opportunity to run up her body. Teal shrieked, just a little, she couldn’t help it, and she and
Claudiu spent the next few minutes disentangling ferrets and ferret harnesses from her hair.

“Definitely bored.” Claudiu laughed.

“We have a cage,” drawled his partner, who had been watching the entire proceeding through half-lidded eyes.

“And they hate it worse than the leashes. Lighten up, LaRoche.” He put Cookie on LaRoche’s shoulders, and LaRoche firmly,
but not unkindly, put Cookie on the floor again.

“Look—” LaRoche began.

“Hang on,” interrupted Claudiu. “We’re up.”

But Creampuff was trying to get into the pack again, and Biscuit and Brownie were playing tag around LaRoche’s shoulders while
Claudiu was trying to apologize to the superiors and the rest of the line.

Which was Teal’s chance.

“I’ll take them,” she said quickly, gathering up ferrets and leashes until she had a whole armful.

“Thanks,” said Claudiu, handing Creampuff across to her.

What happened next was predictable, and exactly what Teal had hoped for. It took a split second for the ferrets to realize
she was no ferret expert. Biscuit hurried up her shoulders, but the other three twitched themselves out of her hands and scampered
straight through the scanners.

“The ferrets!” Teal dove through the checkpoint, grabbing for the trailing leashes.

“Oh, God’s own!” cried LaRoche exasperatedly.

Teal made straight for the long, furry creatures, but the ferrets were not going to give their freedom up easily. They flew
up the scanners, bulkheads, and bystanders. When yanked or shaken off, they twisted their leashes around ankles and brought
those same bystanders crashing to the floor. Teal measured her length on the deck several times, diving for leashes or flashes
of fur. Those not actually under ferret attack started laughing, and the laughter spread until it rang off the patched walls.
Teal risked a glance at the superiors and saw both of them snickering as they handed Claudiu and LaRoche back their papers.

Finally Claudiu waded into the fray. He pulled a handful of brown nuggets out of his pocket and scattered them on the deck.
Instantly all four ferrets appeared in the middle of the spread, picking little treats up in their forepaws and nibbling happily.
Teal gathered up their leashes and handed them over to their owner.

“Thanks,” she said, straightening up. Without waiting for his answer, she turned and strode down the corridor, heading for
the thickest part of the crowd.

No one called her back. No one did anything except try to find room to walk or to stop and wait for an elevator.

Score,
thought Teal happily as she joined the elevator crowd.

There were lots more superiors in Arm One. They marched in groups of four up and down the hallways, peering at every passerby,
occasionally stopping them and demanding sheets and passes. Teal kept her head down so that her hair partially curtained her
face, and tried not to walk too fast. She also tried not to worry too much about whether she’d be able to get into the directorate
offices once she got there.

Thankfully, there were no more checkpoints. But the farther she went, the wider and starker the corridors became, until finally
they had been pared back to the original plates. There weren’t even any info screens. All the panels had been scrubbed and
resealed until they gleamed under the bare fluorescent panels that glowed overhead without even attempting to imitate sunlight.
Teal wondered if this section was even on the daylight rotation anymore. The people walking past her looked peaked somehow,
as if they were short on sleep, or real light, or both. Most of them had three or more different kinds of badges on their
sleeves, and only a few of those looked familiar.

Overcrowding had evidently brought serious reorganization. Teal resisted the urge to touch her unmarked shoulder. If somebody
stopped her, she’d deal with it then.

But nobody did. Teal just kept on walking past yards of bare walls, across a floor that all but echoed when she stepped on
it. Chena had said a billion times that if you acted like you belonged someplace, pretty much everybody would assume you did.

Looks like she got something right after all.
A memory of Chena holding her tight and saying they had to look after each other now welled up in Teal. She shoved it away.
Like Chena had really looked after her, running off to go get herself maybe ripped open by the hothousers because Nan Elle
told her to, and because she wanted a few days alone with her lover-boy.

The directorate was one of those places you couldn’t miss. Even back when Teal had known it, its reinforced silver archway
took up the breadth of the corridor. Information and dedicated credit terminals stood sentry outside the entrance in between
desk banks of superiors and moderators who were there to route citizens into the proper offices or files.

Much to Teal’s relief, all that remained intact. The superiors were armed and armored now, of course, and wired plastic and
intercoms encased the desks, and there was nobody clogging the way to them, like there used to be. Still, they were all there.

Let’s hope they’re all there to be used.
Wrapping her mind around that wish, Teal walked up to the nearest nonsuperior desk bank.

Three women and two men sat in individual shatterproof boxes. Teal picked the woman nearest to the pass-through on the grounds
she might need to run for it.

“Hello, citizen,” said the woman as Teal approached. She sounded mechanical, and her downturned eyes were wary under a fringe
of straight black hair. Teal’s hand went up automatically to smooth back her own hair.

“Hello,” she said, stopping what she hoped was a comfortable distance from the shatterproof. “But I’m not a citizen. I’m with
the Authority and I need to get a message out to them.”

The woman stared at Teal blankly for a moment, as if the input refused to register.

“I’m sorry.” The woman blinked and pulled herself upright. “You said you were with the Authority? You’re not in uniform.”

Teal gave her a watery smile. “I know. It’s a long story. Could you just please put me in touch with the official rep?”

The woman frowned and poked at her keys for a moment. Teal wished she could lean over and see what was coming up on the screen.
Her heart fluttered inside her, despite all her efforts to stay calm. It would be all right. She’d be talking to the Authority
in a minute. She’d tell them everything. It would be all right….

The woman’s whole face creased into a frown, but then it cleared as she reached her decision. Hope joined the fear spreading
up Teal’s heart. The info worker lifted her hand and beckoned—to the woman next to her, Teal thought.

But it was one of the superiors who moved. Teal’s legs rooted her to the floor. Before she could force them to run, the superior
was there, hand on his belt.

“We’ve got a rogue,” said the woman, nodding at Teal. “Got through the checkpoint without processing. Better put her in holding
until we can sort her out. She claims to be with the Authority, so don’t mess her up.”

“No,” said Teal as the superior closed his gloved hand around her arm. “Listen. My name is Teal Trust. I used to live here.
My father is a citizen of the Authority, and he retained his rights. That makes me Authority. You can check the records. Please.”

“Your case will be thoroughly examined,” said the woman, but she wasn’t even looking at Teal anymore, and the superior’s pull
was too strong to ignore. Her joints began to strain and Teal had to stumble along beside him.

“Look,” she said desperately to the side of his helmet, which was all she could see. “I just want to get a message to them.
I belong with the Authority.” She swiveled her head back and forth, trying to get someone, anyone, to listen to her. “I’m
not a stationer, not really, not anymore. I just want…” Two people strode through the directorate bulkhead. One was a multibadged
individual, some station official, but the other wore Authority blue and commander’s braid.

“Commander!” Teal lunged for the woman and the superior yanked her back, almost popping her arm out of joint. “Please! I’m
Authority! My Dad, I’m—I’m one of yours, please, Commander!”

Pain shot through every nerve in Teal’s body, jolting her off her feet. She sagged toward the floor, her head spinning, but
the superior hoisted her up with a rough arm around her shoulders.

“Commander Poulos?” said the woman behind the shatterproof. “She says she’s with you.”

Yes, yes,
Teal wanted to say, but her mouth wouldn’t move. She wasn’t even sure her tongue was in her mouth anymore.

The commander looked her up and down and then looked into her eyes for a long time. “You’re Authority? What’s your city?”

Teal concentrated and was finally able to make her mouth work. “Atlantis.”

“Atlantis?” The commander frowned. “What are you doing over here?”