Kingdom of Cages (20 page)

“Good job, you nit.” She turned Teal to face her. “Now—”

But Teal didn’t let her finish. “Shut up and come on!”

Teal ran to the back of the house. Chena followed, uncertain but curious. Teal skidded to a halt beside the tree trunk and
grasped the thick rope lashings that held the house to the tree. Before Chena had time to ask any questions, Teal swarmed
up the wall, using the ropes as a ladder, and disappeared into the unkempt growth that covered their roof.

What are you doing?
Chena grabbed a couple of ropes and found her footing so she could follow her sister up. It wasn’t hard. Chena was alternately
surprised and angry that Teal had been the one to find this way up.

She waded through the tall grass and wild creepers to where Teal hunkered down in the greenery beside the chimney. She pressed
her ear right against the clay pipe. As Chena got close, Teal put her finger to her lips and motioned for Chena to get down.

Chena wrinkled her forehead, but she did it. The pipe was warm from the stove, but not too hot. After a moment, she realized
she could hear Mom and Madra, soft but clear.

“Even here, I own my body,” Mom was saying.

“Not if you break the law, you don’t.”

“Is that what they’re saying I’ve done?”

“Not yet.” Madra paused and Chena bit her lip, straining her ears until they ached so she could catch every word.

“Listen to me, Helice. I’ve seen this before, plenty of times. The hothousers track down somebody full of useful alleles,
and they offer them credit and comfort to sell off their bone marrow or to rent out their womb. If the person doesn’t bite,
they start enforcing every regulation in existence until they fine them back into the dorms. If the person sticks it out down
there, they end up breaking some little law, and then their right to body ownership is forfeit.”

“They can’t be sentenced to…”

“Not sentenced, no, but the hothousers have automatic access to anybody in custody.”

“Chena…” whispered Teal. Chena glanced at her sister. Teal had gone dead white. Her chin trembled.

“Shhh…” Chena wrapped her arm around Teal’s shoulder. “It will be all right. We haven’t done anything. They can’t get us.”

“Right.” Teal gripped Chena’s hand so hard it hurt. “Right.”

Without letting go of her sister, Chena pressed her ear against the chimney pipe again.

“If that is what is going to happen, what do you suggest I do?” Mom was asking. She still sounded angry, but now she also
sounded tired.

“Leave,” said Madra calmly. “There’s nothing else you can do.”

“Leave? And go where? Back to the station? My children will be begging in the corridors and going without food to pay for
air. To get anywhere farther, the Authority demands a hefty chunk of positive balance. I can’t even pay my debts.”

“Your children are Authority citizens, you can send them to one of the cities.”

“But I’m not an Authority citizen and would not be allowed to go with them. No.”

“Helice, what happens to them if you’re taken in? They’ll become public wards. I won’t be able to protect them for long.”

Mom was silent for a long, long moment. Grass and ferns tickled Chena’s ears. Her nose filled with the scent of moss and woodsmoke.
Her arm clenched around Teal’s shoulders, drawing her sister close, to comfort herself as much as to comfort Teal. This wasn’t
happening. It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. Mom wouldn’t let it. Never. Chena closed her eyes against the prickle of tears.
She wouldn’t cry. This was just talk. What did Madra know? She didn’t know anything.

“Thank you for your concern,” said Mom. “When are you going to assess what I’ve stolen?”

Silence. “It won’t be that much.” Pause. “Helice, please consider what I’ve said. This is just the beginning. They will have
what they want from you.”

“So why don’t they just swoop down and carry me off?” Mom demanded.

“Would you believe because they don’t want to spook us too badly?” answered Madra. “Once upon a time, they could take whoever
they wanted and do whatever they wanted with them. But there was a riot. One of their precious domes got destroyed by a bunch
of villagers who had finally had enough. Apparently there was even some help from inside the dome. After that, a charter got
written up. Now they can only experiment on lawbreakers or volunteers, or their village can take them to court. Village court,
no less. It makes them at least a little careful. Even now.” Madra paused, and in her mind’s eye Chena saw Madra shake her
head. “But I wouldn’t put too much faith in their restraint. They still see you and me, anybody outside their complexes, as
raw materials, and they’ll only put up with so much protest from us.”

“Then why don’t you leave? Why doesn’t everybody leave?”

“Because, unlike you, the rest of us have no place to go.”

Below them the door opened and the door closed. Although she knew they were screened by the weeds, Chena pressed herself and
Teal even flatter against the roof. They heard footsteps on the catwalk. She listened as they faded, grateful that Teal decided
to stay quiet.

After a moment, the door opened again.

“Chena? Teal?” called Mom.

They glanced at each other, guilty of eavesdropping, but not sure whether Mom realized it or not.

“Coming!” called Chena.

They clambered down the lashings and side by side walked to the front of the house. Mom leaned against the threshold, watching
them. Chena tried to keep her head up, to act casual, but beside her, Teal shuffled.

“How much did you manage to overhear?” Mom didn’t sound angry now.

Chena decided this was probably one of those times when it was better to tell the truth. “Pretty much all of it.”

Mom nodded, smoothing her hair back over her scalp. “Come back in here. We don’t need to discuss this in the street.”

Mom stood aside and Chena and Teal walked past her. They stopped beside the table, but neither one of them sat down. Mom closed
the door behind them and stood there for a moment, one hand on the knob and one hand on the smooth wooden surface.

“All right,” she sighed at last, and turned around. “So, now you know. The man who came here yesterday was from the hothouse,
and he wants me to work for them.”

“Don’t they pay?” asked Teal, nudging a pillow with her toe.

A fleeting smile crossed Mom’s face. “Yes, they do. Very well. The thing I have a problem with is what they want me to do.”
She took a deep breath. “He wants me to have a baby for them.”

“A baby?” exclaimed Teal before Chena was even sure she understood what had been said. “How can you have a baby for them?
Dad’s not even here.” She stopped, realizing what she had said and how stupid it was.

Mom crossed the room and sank low into one of the pillows. “It is possible that I could have a baby without your father, Teal.”

“But you wouldn’t do that?” Teal hurried to Mom’s side, putting both hands on her shoulder. Chena couldn’t move. The words
and their implications rooted her to the floor. Sadia’s mom had disappeared. Had the hothouse taken her? Madra said it happened.
Had they wanted her to have a baby for them? Would they take Mom away?

Mom actually looked sheepish. “It is vaguely possible that I could have another baby one day without your father,” she said,
looking more at her hands than at them. “What I will not do…” She stopped herself and started over again. “What I do not
want to do is to have a baby and give it away, especially when I don’t know what will happen to it. I don’t even know if they
will keep it alive or use it for spare parts when they can’t use me. I do not want to do that to a brother or sister of yours.”

Chena swallowed hard. Her hands were cold as ice and she felt them begin to shake. She didn’t like the way Mom was talking.
She didn’t like the uncertainty under her voice.

“But from what Madra was telling me, the people in the hothouse may start to make it very hard to say no.”

Chena did not want to hear any more. She had to stop this. Right now. “I know how to get money,” she blurted out. “I thought
it out yesterday.”

Mom looked up at her. Chena wasn’t sure how to read her face.

She looked both hopeful and doubtful at the same time. “And what way is that?”

“I can run errands on the railbikes.” Chena sank to her knees so she could look right into Mom’s eyes. “I’ve already got a
job. Somebody gave me a message yesterday and paid me to take it to someone else.”

“Sombody gave you a message? Somebody gave you money?” Mom sat up straight, gentleness and exhaustion gone from her face and
voice. “And you didn’t tell me yesterday?”

Chena bit her lip. She had said too much. Now she had to explain it. How was she going to explain this?

Start with an apology.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure I could do it.”

Mom’s frown plainly said she did not believe a word of that. “Start talking, Chena Trust.”

A story came to her then, like the stories about Dad. No, not like the ones about Dad. This one was mostly true. Chena swallowed
her hesitation and did as she was told.

“I got to Stem, and I tried to eat in their dining hall, but they wouldn’t let me, because they said it was only for citizens.”
She watched her hands in her lap, twisting their fingers together. “I got the serving guy mad and I was scared to stay by
the shore, but I was hungry and I was wandering around looking for somewhere to eat. I ran into Farin, he’s a friend of Sadia’s,
and I thought he was okay, really.” She risked a glance up at Mom. Her face hadn’t softened at all, but Chena had no choice
but to keep going. “He got me lunch and we were talking and he said he had a friend in Offshoot he wanted to get a note to,
and I said I’d take it, and he said he’d pay for it. So I did and he did, and I thought, you know, I bet if I could do a lot
of this I could actually make money. But I didn’t know if it was going to be against any of the rules. They have so many here,
so I didn’t want to say anything until I’d had a chance to go to the library and look it up.”

After a few anxious heartbeats, Chena saw Mom’s frown relax. It had worked. She was listening. Even better, she was believing.

“Well, if it’s not against the rules, it is a good idea,” said Mom. “But you still have your shifts to pull, and I want you
in school as soon as we can get you there.”

“I know,” said Chena, eagerness rising in her voice. This would work. It would work. “But if I could do this, I could help
get us money to go to school. I was gonna give part of the money I earned to Teal if she would take my shifts.” Now both Mom
and Teal looked dubious. “We only have to put in a few hours a day now, and we don’t have to do any of the heavy stuff. She
can do my work just as well as I can.” Chena gave Teal a pleading look.
Please, please, go along!

“Half,” said Teal coolly.

Shock stiffened Chena’s spine. “You’re crazy! A quarter.”

“Half,” Teal repeated.

Chena snorted and stopped just short of making the piss-off sign. “You’re only going to have to work an extra couple hours.
I’m going to be working all day—”

“As pleased as I am to have such fiscally savvy children,” Mom interrupted, touching Chena’s raised hand and pressing it gently
back down onto the table, “we have not determined whether this project is actually going to happen yet.” Both girls turned
to her and waited. Mom ran her hand through her hair and rubbed the back of her neck, shaking her head.

“This was not what I planned for you,” she said softly. “I had thought you would be able to go to school. That I would be
able to support you, like a mother should support her children. Children should not have to worry about whether or not the
family is going to be able to get along. But then, children should not have to be apprenticed out at ten years old because
their parents can’t keep them from starving any other way.” She wasn’t looking at them now. She was staring out the slit windows
at the shifting shadows that patterned the catwalk. “But if wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets. We have to work with what
we have.” Her attention came back to the room and her daughters. “We will talk to Madra about this scheme of Chena’s. If she
agrees that it is not violating any regulations, then Chena you can give it a try, if you can negotiate the price with your
sister.” A smile flashed across Mom’s face. “And if we agree on a code of conduct for your enterprise. I will not tolerate
any more omissions of fact from you, understand me, Chena?” Her eyes were hard and sharp as glass and bored right through
Chena’s heart. “If I catch you out again, that’s the end of this.” Her hand slashed through the air between them. “I don’t
care if we have to end up living on the rooftops.”

“Yes, Mom,” said Chena, keeping her voice subdued and serious. Inside, she cheered. It
was
going to work. She’d be bringing in money and everything would be all right. It might take a while, she knew that, but it
would get better. They’d go to school. They’d get real jobs that paid. They’d get out of here one day and go somewhere where
no one could touch them.

Like Mom said, they’d make it all right.

In the end, she talked Teal into splitting the money into thirds—a third for Chena, a third for Teal, and a third for Mom,
to pay their debts and squirrel away so they could leave. Once that was agreed to, Mom took Chena down to talk to Madra about
the plan. Madra looked dubious at first and looked regulations up on four different sheets, but in the end she confirmed she
couldn’t find anything against it.

The scary part came right after that, when Mom walked Chena up to the cop’s house. Chena explained the whole idea to Constable
Regan, and he just sat there, one muscle in this hollow cheek twitching.

Finally Chena fell silent, having run dry of words. Regan reached across his desk, picked up a sheet of paper, and began to
write on it. He filled the page with words and signed it in big, swooping letters.

“Permission granted,” he said, handing her the page. “Good luck.”

Mom squeezed Chena’s shoulder, and Chena had to keep herself from jumping up and cheering. Instead, she just folded the letter
up carefully and tucked it into her pocket.