Kingdom of Cages (68 page)

“Chena, stop being stupid. You have nowhere to go.” The tailor strode forward. “What are you going to do? Hurt your brother?”

Chena backed away, kicking aside glass and stumbling over something soft. “He’s not my brother.”

As she spoke, she knew it was true. If he really was her brother, he wouldn’t be trying to run away from her. He would know
who she was, and that she was trying to help him. Eden was only one of the hothousers’ things, like the jaguars they’d used
to track her in the rain forest, like the ants that had killed all those colonists. This was the thing they’d used to kill
Mom.

“Be careful!” cried Dionte. “Don’t let her hurt Eden.”

“I’m working on it.” Lopera took another step forward. “And by the good green Earth you better hope Dans is still alive or
I’m skinning you myself!”

Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. Eden struggling in her arms until she could barely hang on.

“Stop, stop it!” She ducked sideways toward one of the sterilizer tables. Lopera froze again. Without taking her eyes off
the tailor, Chena fumbled at the table until her hand came up with a scalpel. She held it out toward Lopera. “You’re going
to let me go.”

“She might,” said Dionte calmly. She stayed in the doorway, blocking the only way out. “But I’m not. We need you as well,
Chena Trust.”

Dionte’s words drew Chena’s gaze to the doorway for just a split second, but it was enough. Lopera lunged. Her hand clamped
around Chena’s wrist, forcing the knife up. Eden shrieked and struggled and Chena could not hold him anymore. Eden fell and
Lopera shoved Chena backward, slamming her hand against the wall. Chena grabbed a fistful of Lopera’s hair at the base of
her neck and yanked down hard. Lopera screamed and her grip loosened. Chena slashed the scalpel down, slicing through the
flesh at Lopera’s throat.

Blood. Blood everywhere. In Chena’s eyes, down her face, all over her tunic and hands. Lopera gurgled and fell, clutching
at the scarlet fountain welling from her. Chena backed away, unwilling to believe what she was seeing, what she had done.
But Eden shrieked and Chena looked up in time to see Dionte fleeing through the door.

Chena launched herself after the hothouser. She tackled the woman, sending them all sprawling, and knocking the air from her
own lungs. Eden scrabbled out from under them as Chena and Dionte rolled over, and Chena realized she did not have the scalpel.
Silver flashed in Dionte’s hand and Chena threw herself sideways. Not far enough. The hothouser grabbed her tunic and hauled
Chena backward. Chena struggled, her heels peddling uselessly against the floor, seeking purchase, but Dionte knelt on her
chest.

“Maybe I don’t need you alive that much,” said the hothouser slowly, as if it were a revelation coming over her. “I already
have your sister’s eggs. Your womb should keep for a few hours while we get your body to storage.” Her teeth gleamed in the
lamplight. “I see it now,” she panted. “I see everything. This is what we should have done with your mother.”

Chena screamed and smashed her free hand against the base of Dionte’s nose. Dionte screamed and fell backward. The next thing
Chena knew, she knelt over Dionte with the scalpel in her hand and she drove it into Dionte’s belly, drove it deep, drove
it hard, slicing the hothouser’s flesh, burying her hand in hot blood, muscle, and offal. She screamed, the hothouser screamed,
someone else screamed, and the screaming would not stop. Then the smell hit her, the sick, acrid, coppery smell of her mother’s
death.

Chena choked and pressed her bloody hand against her nose, scrambling away from the smell until her back pressed against the
stone. She tried to breathe, but she just choked until finally all she could do was vomit.

When she was finally empty, Chena lifted her head. Someone was still screaming. Who could be screaming? She had killed everybody,
hadn’t she?

No. Eden, the hothouser’s thing, the thing that had killed Mom, was still alive. She would not believe he was her brother.
She would not, would not, would not! The words screamed themselves inside her head.
Not my brother, never my brother!

He had curled himself into a ball in the corner, his arms over his head, barely muffling his screams. The sound filled her
mind, along with the hideous smell, until she couldn’t think.

“Stop it,” she said hoarsely, taking a step toward him. “Stop it. I need to think.” Think about how to get out of here. Think
about how to get away from the blood and the smell. Think about how to get away from the world before it ate her alive.

Eden uncurled just enough to look at her with one eye. The eye widened and a fresh scream burst from him. He scuttled backward,
trying to get away from her.

“Stop it!” Chena saw her hand go up, and she saw it come down. Eden fell sideways. She heard the crack as his skull hit the
rock. Then Eden lay still.

Chena crouched next to him. She realized she still held the scalpel. She could kill the thing that had killed Mom. She could
end it all right here. She looked down at the still boy.

“Why did you have to look so much like Teal?” she murmured, and reached out to touch his hair. The blood coating her hands
was already beginning to darken from scarlet to rust. The death smell clung to every inch of her.
I need a bath,
she thought dizzily. But really, she would have to drown herself in a world of water before she would ever be clean.

That was it. Chena felt quite still. Eden had been taking her out toward the water. Water was a friend. It hid you from the
cameras. It washed the insects from you. It would take her away from the world. It would save what was left of her family
from the hothousers, and give her all the revenge she needed. They wouldn’t catch her in the water, ever. It would all end
in the water. Finally.

Chena scooped Eden up carefully and, cradling him against her chest, walked through the environment lock and up the tunnel.

Dawn had turned the horizon pink and white by the time Teal emerged from Farin’s tiny house with Tam and Nan Elle beside her.
Elle had insisted they try to get at least a couple of hours’ sleep. It hadn’t worked. How could Teal sleep after hearing
Tam’s description of the Eden Project and Mom’s part in it? How could she sleep after realizing that those eggs she sold to
the tailors were probably going straight to the hothouse so they could make more of the things? The idea dragged down her
whole body, leaving her feeling leaden and hot-wired at the same time.

As bad as she felt, Administrator Tam looked worse. His cheeks and eyes had sunken in until all the bones of his face were
clearly visible. His mouth moved constantly, and he seemed frightened to put one foot in front of the other. What was that
voice in his ear saying to him? Teal shuddered and decided she did not want to know.

The first fingers of sunlight reached across the quay, turning the waters blue and touching the dunes with their warmth. Teal
wiped the tears from her eyes and looked inland. The cliffs stood in the distance, rust red under their green crown of trees.
Chena was in there somewhere. Teal let herself smile. This was going to be one time Chena could not argue about who was saving
whom, which was a petty thought, but she held it close just the same.

Nan Elle took the lead. The plan was to head for the fence duty house, find out who was on duty, and put them out of commission
by the least aggressive means possible. Then they’d duck the fences and she and Farin would head for the caves, using the
map tucked into Teal’s pocket. The three of them were already smeared with a layer of Chena’s goop to fool the mote cameras.
Nan Elle and Tam would suss out the situation with the dirigibles and boats on the jetty to see who would carry them all away.

That was if Tam could still talk by then. Teal decided she’d better not think about that too much. The only reason any of
this was going to work was that they had a hothouser with them. If he gave in to whatever was whispering in his head, they
were screwed and blasted, and this time it would be for good.

“Do you hear something?” asked Farin suddenly.

Teal listened. She did hear something, a low droning, too deep to be a dirigible. She scanned the morning sky in front of
her and saw nothing but a few streaks of cloud.

“Garden of God.” Nan Elle pointed her stick to the sky.

Teal swung around. A great black cloud hung over the tops of the dunes, humming with a sound Teal was sure should be familiar.

“Get inside!” shouted Farin, shoving Teal toward the dune.

Unnerved, Teal turned to run. In the next second, a locust dropped onto the tip of her shoe, and another onto her tunic sleeve.

“Get in—” Farin’s shout was cut short, and the world went dark.

Teal heard herself screaming as the locusts swirled around her, clinging to her clothing, tangling in her hair. She swatted
at them, but they were everywhere, their tiny claws digging into her skin. Blind, she ran forward until she thudded into the
side of the dune house, but the locusts were already there, and they crunched and chirruped and clung to her hands. Somehow,
somehow, she found the door and darted inside.

“Hold still! Hold still!” Hands brushed against her, knocking the insects away. Teal forced herself to open her eyes.

Farin stood in front of her, clearing the locusts off her and crushing them underfoot. Nan Elle darted around the room with
a broom to destroy the creatures that had poured through the door when they had retreated inside.

“Get the fire going, or they’ll come down the chimney,” she ordered, sweeping the insects from the walls and crushing them
underfoot.

Teal knocked Farin’s hands away and dropped to her knees in front of the brick stove, tossing in handfuls of kindling and
fuel until the flames roared and their heat felt harsh against her face. She was vaguely aware that Farin had snatched the
cloth off the table and stuffed it into the crack under the door, and that Tam had collapsed in the middle of the room and
cradled his head in his hands.

“Dionte,” he murmured. “She knows, she knows. She’s told the family. I should be back there. I should—”

“Shut up!” shouted Teal. “Just… shut up!” She ran both hands through her hair, half afraid she’d find another locust clinging
there. “What in all the hells is going on?” she demanded.

“The hothousers.” Nan Elle stood, panting. A single locust clung to her apron. She snatched it off and tossed it into the
fire.

“They found us out.” Farin peered out the window at the whirring darkness.

Teal forced herself to walk across the room to stand beside Farin and look out. The sunny dawn had turned black and gray with
the swarms of tiny bodies. They crowded the boardwalk, the windowsill. They slammed against the window, and she knew by the
shivering of her skin that they crawled all over the roof.

“Dionte found out,” said Tam. “This is a quarantine. We’ll stay here until the family comes for us.” The utter relief in his
voice raised clusters of goose bumps across Teal’s arms. “It is right. I was wrong to stand against them. They are my family.
They know what’s best. Pandora must be protected.”

Oh, no.
Teal pressed her knuckles against her mouth.
They’re getting to him.
She stared out at the dark, whirling storm, trying to think of some way to get out, someplace they could run to. But no thoughts
came to her. There was just the drone of the swarm and the terrifying calm in Tam’s face.

Nan Elle knelt carefully in front of the hothouser. “Tam, you can call the Alpha Complex. You can stop this.”

“No,” he said, his face and voice serene. “This is right. Pandora must be protected.”

“They can’t,” blurted out Teal. “We can’t!” She faced the strip of window, black with insects somehow finding purchase even
on the slick glass. “We can’t let them win like this,” she whispered. “They’ll take Chena. They’ll take the Eden Project.
We can’t let them.”

“We may have to,” said Farin quietly. “For now. Teal, I’ve heard of these things. We don’t know how big the swarm is. People
can go crazy trying to walk through them without protective clothing.”

Fear and rage surged through Teal. She wanted to shout, to hit something, to strangle the peaceful hothouser sitting in the
middle of the floor, but all she could do was stand there with her hands dangling uselessly at her sides. “It can’t be this
easy for them.”

Farin shook his head. “They’ve had a long time to get ready for this.”

“Now what?” demanded Nan Elle, lifting her chin.

A new note sounded over the droning and thudding of the locust swarm—a harsh metallic shriek, and another, and another after
that.

“Gulls?” said Farin.

Surprise wiped the expression from Nan Elle’s face for a moment. Then, slowly, a smile full of mischief and wonder spread
across her face. Using her stick to push herself to her feet, she shouldered between Farin and Teal to peer intently out the
window.

“There! There!” She stabbed her finger against the glass. “Do you see?”

Teal stared over Nan Elle’s head. For a moment all she saw was the endless cloud of insects. Then she saw a flash of white.
A black-backed gull settled onto the boardwalk, snapping up locusts as fast as it could crane its neck and swallowing them
down. Another gull landed beside the first, bending and stabbing at the insects. A third joined them, and a fourth. A brown
and white kestrel landed on Farin’s windowsill and began pecking insects off the glass, swallowing them greedily.

“Ha!” Nan Elle barked out a laugh and thumped her stick against the floor. “I told you! I told you it would happen!”

“Told what to who?” said Teal, unable to take her eyes from the birds. More landed every second. Gulls, kestrels, fishers,
grouse, fat brown turkeys, strutting guinea hens, and prairie chickens, all come to the feast. Soon it seemed there were as
many birds as there were insects.

Elle swung around to face Tam. “Come and look, Tam. Pandora has decided to protect herself.”

Tam lifted his head and stared at her, wide-eyed, like he didn’t understand.