Exodus (26 page)

The huge door slides open.

A lumenbeing in a luridly flowered shirt beckons Mara to come inside. “Come on in and grab a free cupule,” he urges. “Have an interesting day!”

Mara walks through the great door with a composure
that is as fake as the doorboy and his welcome. She walks in as if she knows exactly where she is going and what she is doing. Which, ultimately, she does. All she needs to figure out is how.

Mara stands awestruck inside the colossal hall that is New Mungo's cybercath.
Cybercath
. She mulls over the word. It must be short for cybercathedral because a cathedral is exactly what this place reminds her of, only it's much bigger than the one in the netherworld. You could fit ten of those in here. And instead of stone this cathedral-like place seems to be created out of light and air, glass and crystal and mirror—and yet more light. And wide open space. And soaring walls and ceilings that make you look ever upward.

But never down or out.

Several thousand quietly industrious voices fill the air with a hum of discordant mutterings. The sound is oddly musical, almost choral. Is the fox here? Mara wonders, staring at row upon row of bent heads. He could be anywhere among the thousands who sit in the vast honeycomb of work cubicles that fill the cybercath. A city guard catches Mara's eye and she jumps in fright. She must be careful to look normal and purposeful.

Quickly, she finds a free workstation among the vast honeycomb. She sits down and the chair moulds itself around her like a cozy hug.
How do you get out of it?
She tries to stand and the hug chair releases her with a gentle sigh. Mara smothers a nervous giggle and sits down again, enjoying the hug this time.

Now she thinks she sees what it is they all hum into—the tiniest boxes are clipped like brooches at chest level onto every person. She sees too the colored crystals that
are stuck upon each forehead. There is a single instruction engraved upon the gleaming table of her cubicle.

Do Not Remove Godbox or Headgem from This Cupule.

Godbox
. Mara picks up the tiny box attached to a pin. Must be this.
Headgem
. That must be the colored crystal. She clips the godbox to her chest as the others do. Then she puts the headgem on her forehead. It sticks as if by magic. Body magnetism? Mara can only wonder.

Her priority is to locate Gorbals and Wing, and then figure out a way to access the boats, so she needs information about how the city works. If only she could find the cyberfox and get him to help her. But the only way to do any of that is to come to grips with the New World technology. That is her first, urgent step. Going by the tuneful murmurings all around her, voice seems to be part of the key.

Mara tries asking the godbox for information on how to work the system. It doesn't respond. She tries asking it in different voice tones. Again, nothing happens. She can't understand the function of all this melodic humming but Mara suspects the New World cybersystem is a universe ahead of any technology she has ever known. The industrious hum of the voices and the concentration on every face makes it clear that the thousands in the cybercath are here to work, not play—but what kind of work? She can't ask anyone; her ignorance would instantly give her away.

High above her head is an enormous, revolving lumen globe. Mara gazes up at it and sees the great empire of New World cities that have been built all over the planet. It's a breathtaking sight. A crystal tree represents each sky city. How many are there? Fifty? Eighty? Mara gazes at the forest of crystal that glitters around the globe.

She looks around her. The gleaming walls of the cybercath are electronic notice boards that flash up a constant
volley of information under the heading NEW WORLD TRADE INDEX. The cyberworkers watch the notice boards closely, and the communal hum greets each newsflash with an excited rise in volume or a low mutter of dismay.

Mara reads the trade index and tries to make sense of it.

Globus geomagna up 5.2, Texan Cleanoil down 8.6, Eurosea
Oceanores—supertitanium up 28.4! Megalumen phosfission down
2.4, Greenex limestone stable, New Season Afrikelp—global auction
imminent! Indisea silica stable—hornblende and feldspar to clear,
Chinorock silicon

—
SELLING NOW
!

Each name has a logo attached. Some words, like kelp and oil are familiar, but what does it all mean? Mara frowns up at the flashing notice board, recalling the primitive trade network that used to exist among Wing and the nearby islands and wonders if this is some vast, complex version of that—an electronic marketplace of New World commodities that operates between the sky cities.

A leap of time vanishes as Mara listens to the workers around her and tries again and again to find the words and tone that will gain her entry to the system. Hunger finally grinds her to a halt. It's midafternoon and she can no longer ignore the pangs that tell her she has hardly eaten a bite since yesterday—not since lunchtime, with Gorbals in the university. It feels a world away. There's a potato pancake and plastic bottle of hupplesup in her bag but she can hardly consume them here. Maybe she could find some bathrooms and gulp them down…

Mara pulls the magnetic headgem from her forehead and unclips the godbox. She holds them in the palms of her hands and frowns. Her tummy grumbles loudly and
she gives in. Right now she needs to organize herself—she needs food and somewhere to sleep.

She is pulsing with nerves but switches on a smile as bland as a lumenbeing's as she stands up to exit the cybercath.

All she needs to do is look as if she has lived in a sky city all her life—not easy when at every step there are such wonders that all she wants to do is stop and stare. Mara explores the city center, trying to get her bearings. The cybercath seems to sit right at the heart of New Mungo, at the central intersection of all the sky tunnels. The tunnels lead off into Arcadia—vast, surrounding arcades full of bright shops and strange entertainments.

ZOOMINLUM, says a sign above one large window. Mara peers through and sees what looks like a deep pool, but instead of water, people wheel and tumble through cascades of color. Farther along, in the middle of a linking arcade, on a stage constructed out of golden rods of light, a group of lumens perform impossible acrobatics for the crowd. After the dim netherworld, Mara feels overwhelmed by so much glare, noise, and movement, and by so many people.

But New Mungo is beautiful. Its long silver tunnels gleam and its arcades are vast airy places that look as if they, like the population of lumens, are crafted purely from light. The citizens are beautiful too. Mara realizes with a shock how painfully thin she has become as she watches these well-nourished, healthy beings. The sleek material of her New World clothes—a light, clingy top and trousers—reveals her drastic weight loss.

Candleriggs said Cal wanted to create a world full of brilliant beings, human angels—well, he has, thinks Mara. That's exactly what these people look like to someone
who has only ever known weather-toughened islanders, the sick and malnourished masses in the boat camp, and the pale, sun-starved Treenesters.

Is that what the cyberfox looks like in real life? Mara wonders. A human angel?

A happy crowd of boys and girls near her own age zip past on skates. So that's the secret of their speed and power! Mara stares enviously at their strong bodies, bright smiles, and smooth skins. She stops at a humpbacked bridge that sits under a crystal sky and leans upon the bridge wall to look into the still mirror of a pond. And sees the new, thin sharpness of a face that used to be round and soft. She runs her fingers through her hair, relieved that it at least still feels thick and healthy. Months of indoor life during Wing's storm season, followed by the trauma of the sea journey and the boat camp, then weeks in the gloomy netherworld, have turned her once bright complexion to a paler skin tone, not unlike the New World citizens.

“Rest upon the Leaning Bridge,” oozes a disembodied voice. “Gaze into the magic of the Looking Pond. Whisper a secret wish in the magic Wishing Well.”

Mara relaxes into the gentle wind-sway of the city as she watches the fish swimming around the Looking Pond and listens to the birdsong in the tree beside the bridge. Now the pond fills with glimmering rainbow lights that ease seamlessly into blue skies full of soaring birds. A radiant sunset spreads across the screen of water, deepening and darkening until the pond is midnight black and full of starfire.

It would be so easy to forget the rest of the world, so tempting to slip inside this magic spell and ignore what lies outside.

Mara yawns, then blinks as a bell clangs and breaks the
hypnotic trance of the Looking Pond. The bell—not the solid, ringing clangor of the netherworld Bash but a harsh alarm with a shrill electronic edge—brings forth a mass of workers from the cybercath. They surge out, most of them skating off into the tunnels. Now Mara thinks of that other mass of workers—the city's slaves. Where are they? What's happening to Gorbals and Wing? A wave of anxiety and loneliness sweeps over her and Mara wishes she was back in the netherworld. She imagines the Treenesters gathered around their fire, trying to keep warm as the sun falls behind the city wall. Now the horror of the boat camp on the other side of the wall rushes upon her, along with the memory of her lost family.

She looks at the pond with clear eyes. The fish are fake and swim in endless electronic circles. The tree and its bird, the crystal sky and sunset, are all fake too. Even the bridge is made of mock stone. It's a false enchantment. Now Mara is bitter, right to the brim. It gives her the burst of energy she needs. A cool, clear head and courage. One step at a time. The next step is to find food and somewhere to stay. She can't wander the city all night.

A single star shimmers in the violet depths of the Wishing Well.

“Wish upon a star,” gurgles the voice of the Wishing Well, “and make your dreams come true.”

“I wish myself luck,” Mara tells the star. “All the luck in the world.”

“Your wish is granted,” trills the trembling star. “There! Isn't that nice?”

The city's attractions and facilities are advertised by lumen-beings on every corner and though the twisting central tunnels are posted as pedestrian areas, they are hazardous,
crammed with power skaters who hurl themselves in sparking loops round the cylindrical walls at reckless speed. It's nerve-shattering after the slow-moving life of the netherworld. Now Mara sees why the sky trains were full of older people and families with young children: the city's youth have taken over the tunnels as a perilous skateway.

At last Mara finds a food canteen—a vast, cavernous room. The canteen is almost as scarily confusing as the tunnels but she walks up to the door, nervously, trying to figure out the system.

A lumen flickers in front of her, barring her entrance.

“You forgot to check in with your ration disk!” the lumen cheerfully but firmly scolds.

“Sorry,” Mara mutters and digs about in her backpack for the wallet that contains the policewoman's disks. Which one did she use for entry to the city? The shimmery gold one, wasn't it? So the ration disk must be this other icy blue one…

“Have you forgotten your ration disk?” The lumen scolds in that annoyingly cheerful voice.

“Got it,” Mara mutters. She inserts it in the slit in the wall beside the lumen.

“Thank you!” beams the lumen. “Have a delicious meal!”

Mara escapes the lumen and glances around for an empty seat. A girl with wispy blond hair and a dull, empty expression on her face sits alone at the end of a table. There's a spare seat next to her.
That'll do
, thinks Mara. And so will the wispy, dull girl. Dull is perfect. The duller, the more empty-headed, the better.

“Hi.” Mara tries to smile casually.

“Hi,” says the girl, without a flicker of interest. She's stroking a creature that's all purple hair, a ridiculous purple puffball. It's emitting annoying whining noises.

“Mind if I sit here?” asks Mara. The girl stares into space, munching on a plateful of brightly colored food. “I'm a visitor so I don't know many people around here.”

“Go ahead.”

Mara looks around. Does she just go up and pick something to eat?

“What's your name?” she asks the girl, stalling for time. Something dull no doubt.

“Dolores,” says the girl unexpectedly. The puffball yaps.

Far too exotic for you, thinks Mara. She doesn't ask the name of the puffball thing, just glances hungrily at the girl's bright food.

“Dol for short.”

Mara hides a smile. That's as near
dull
as you can get.

She watches people come into the canteen, insert their ration disks, collect a tray and choose a meal, and sit down. So that's all you do. Mara braves the food counter and, as she chooses from a vast array of exotic-looking dishes, she is willing Dol to be as vacant and dull-minded as she looks. Because that is what she needs—someone to give her answers, lots of answers, and ask as few awkward questions as possible.

“Don't you have zapeedos?” Dol asks in mild surprise, as they exit the bustling canteen into a chaotic, noise-filled tunnel.

Mara has told the girl she's newly arrived from another city and is feeling lost. Dol has unenthusiastically agreed to show her to the visitor accommodation area.

“You need zapeedos to get around the nexus.” Dol nods toward the tunnels. “Surely you zap in your city?”

“Uh-huh,” says Mara. “I just forgot to pack my, um, zapeedos.”

“You'll get mown down if you go about on foot, and you don't want to be stuck on the sky trains like a slo-ped.”

“Definitely not,” agrees Mara.

“Oh, well. Better switch off my power if you're walking, otherwise you'll never keep up.”

Dol flicks a switch on the heel of her power skates. Zapeedos, Mara notes, memorizing the term. And she called the tunnels the nexus. Now the girl taps the purple puff-ball on its head and, to Mara's relief, not only does that switch off the thing's stupid whining but makes it collapse as if it's been stomped on—something Mara has been itching to do. Dol stuffs the now flat animatronic pet in her trouser pocket.