Kingdom of Cages (32 page)

“So, because you’re understaffed you bug the dorms?” demanded Chena.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Abdei raised her eyebrows. “If Aleph hadn’t stopped you, you would have been out and wandering around
who knows where. You might have even tried to get out into the marsh, and then we might never have been able to find you.”

Which was a fair call, but Chena wasn’t ready to admit it. “I imagine you guys aren’t very big on privacy regulations.”

“No,” answered Abdei simply. “They don’t work very well for us.”

“I guess not,” muttered Chena.

Abdei clicked her tongue on the back of her teeth. “I can see you’re going to be one of the fun ones.”

Chena gave her a wide, game grin. “Bet on it.”

Abdei sighed. “I should have known, with an accomplice in involuntary—” her mouth closed abruptly, but it was too late and
Chena wasn’t about to let her go.

She folded her arms, ready to stay where she was all day. “Where’d you say Sadia was?”

“I didn’t,” replied Abdei.

“What’s involuntary, then?”

Abdei’s eyes flickered from side to side, as if she were listening to some inner voice. “It’s another wing of the complex,”
she said finally, focusing on Chena again. “For those who have forfeited their body rights by breaking the law.”

“What did she do?” demanded Chena. “She couldn’t have done anything.”

Again, Abdei took that listening stance. What was she hearing? Aleph? Could the complex talk just to her? Were they wired
somehow? She couldn’t see any jacks or implants on Abdei, but that didn’t mean piss around here.

“She was found loading a virus into the Offshoot library computer so that it would alter some of the village records.”

The hacker-tailor. Chena felt her eyes widen. Sadia had done it. She’d taken the three hundred to carry that program. But
she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that. The little mushroom of a man had helped take her father away from her. Chena shook
her head. Unless what she thought before had been true, unless what he offered her was not money, but a chance to find out
where her father was.

Was Sadia’s father in here? Maybe she was with him right now. But if she was in prison, what would that matter?

“And you people thought I helped her, so you bullied my mom into doing your thing for you.” She couldn’t make herself name
that thing out loud.

Abdei shrugged. “I know nothing about it, Chena. I’m just a teacher and you are my student. If we can work together, you’ll
learn a lot and the future will open up for you.”

Chena’s eyes narrowed. “And if I don’t, I’ll end up in the involuntary wing with Sadia?”

“Only if I fail at my job.” It took a few moments for her smile to form again. “And only if you want to upset your mother
very badly.”

Something in the way she emphasized the last sentence sounded a low warning signal in the back of Chena’s mind, but she couldn’t
really understand why.

“You’re a good girl, Chena,” said the complex’s voice out of the air. “You do not want to cause trouble, I know that.”

Abdei smiled again and her whole body relaxed. “Hello, Aleph.”

“Hello, Abdei. Hello, Chena.” The dusky-skinned girl Aleph had manifested the night before appeared in the middle of the beachscape
and waved to Chena and Abdei.

You have no idea what I want.
Then an idea came to her, made up of what Abdei had said and how Aleph was suddenly there.

“I want to see Sadia,” she said.

The image of Aleph shook her head. “That is not possible, Chena. She is not allowed visitors yet.”

Here came the gamble. She thought it was a good one, but she couldn’t stop her stomach from fluttering. “You don’t let me
see Sadia, I’ll tell Mom you threatened me.”

Aleph paused for a moment and Abdei looked positively aghast. In that moment, Chena knew she was on to something. “I will.
You can’t stop me from talking to her.”

Aleph recovered before Abdei did. “Why would I care if you told her what we’ve said?”

It was Chena’s turn to smile. “Because you don’t know what I might tell her. You don’t want her upset. You need her cooperation
for your project. You don’t want her walking out of here and refusing to participate anymore.” Chena leaned in close to the
imaginary girl. Abdei didn’t count here. Aleph made the decisions. That was crystal clear. “If you don’t let me see Sadia,
you will not believe the stories I will tell her about how I am being treated.”

“I revise my assessment of you, Chena Trust,” said Aleph mildly. “You are a bad girl.”

“Probably,” said Chena, mocking the computer’s bland tone. “Do I get to see her?”

Another long pause. Chena wished she could know what was going on inside the machine. Abdei’s mouth was moving, subvocalizing
to something, maybe Aleph, maybe whatever voice she was listening to earlier.

Aleph’s image spread its hands, a gesture of acceptance or defeat, Chena couldn’t tell. “I have arranged for you to see her.
Your supervisors are in agreement. When would you like to go?”

Already talked to them?
she thought snidely.
My, aren’t you the efficient one.
Chena’s shoulders straightened up in quiet triumph. “Now.”
Now I’ve got you. Now I know how to work you.

“Very well. Abdei, I will take charge of her. You have other students.” There was no mistaking the look of relief on Abdei’s
face. “Follow the arrow and signs to Section Yellow.”

The words
SECTION YELLOW
and a new arrow appeared on tiled floor at her feet. Still smiling from her triumph, Chena walked in the direction it pointed,
past the glass bubble full of trees, ferns, and flowers. The arrow migrated across the floor just in front of her, rippling
like a fish in a stream as it led her toward a neon-yellow door that Chena was certain had not been there when they’d last
come through the foyer.

The yellow door had a palm reader next to it. Chena touched her hand to it automatically. The door slid open onto a long straight
corridor with blank pale gold walls with the telltale sheen that told Chena they were more video screens controlled by Aleph.
Despite that, the arrow still slid along the floor and Chena had to keep her eyes turned down to make sure she was going in
the right direction. Black or white legs flashed past her on either side. Hothousers, going about their business. Some of
them glanced at her curiously, but none of them said anything. The arrow at her feet seemed to be all the permission she needed.

The arrow winked off. Chena lifted her eyes in time to see a patch of the right-hand wall clear to form a window. On the other
side, Sadia sat, alone, in an eggshell-yellow room, wearing what looked like a game rig. But if she was in a game, it wasn’t
a very active one. Sadia sat still inside the flexible suit of wires and patches, only turning her head this way and that
and occasionally raising her hand to adjust something. After a while, Aleph cleared a door in the back of the room and let
in a woman wearing a long white tunic and black leggings. She helped Sadia off with the rig and saluted her. Their mouths
moved the whole time, but Chena couldn’t hear anything that was said. Together, Sadia and the strange woman left by the rear
door.

“There,” said Aleph. “She is not bottled in a test tube or vivisected.” Chena thought the voice grew a little smug. “That
was what you were worried about, wasn’t it?”

The window clouded, leaving Chena staring at a blank wall. “But where is she? You said I’d get to visit her.”

“I said you could see her. Sadia is still under close supervision. She was brought here involuntarily.”

Chena bit down on her lip. Getting angry wasn’t going to work, she could tell by the placid tones of Aleph’s voice. She had
threatened about as far as she could today.

“You’re not worried what I’ll tell Mom now?”

“Your mother and I have had a discussion about you,” replied Aleph. “She understands Sadia’s situation. Probably better than
you do. You can ask her about it when you see her this afternoon.”

Chena felt her jaw drop. Of course the thing talked to Mom. It talked to Chena, didn’t it? But it was
telling
on her, worse than Teal, worse than the cop in Offshoot, worse than all the teachers and all the supervisors she’d ever had—

“She needed to know, Chena,” said Aleph, and for a moment Chena was really afraid the thing had read her mind. “You are still
hers, as well as mine.”

“I am not yours,” whispered Chena harshly. “I will never be yours.”

“No,” said Aleph. “Of course not. I misspoke.”

Chena’s fingernails dug into her palms. She could taste blood from where she’d bit down on her lip. “Are you going to let
me talk to Sadia?”

“Not now, no.”

Chena couldn’t believe it. She could not
believe
it. This thing, these people, who did they think they were? God’s own gardeners? “So take me back to my damn cage, why don’t
you?”

“It’s not a cage, Chena.”

“Of course not.” She bit the words off. “I misspoke, Mother Aleph. Forgive me.”

If Aleph understood sarcasm, it didn’t say anything. The arrow reappeared for her and Chena followed it, keeping her eyes
pointed toward the floor and ignoring the world beyond the arrow and the tips of her shoes appearing and disappearing from
her field of vision as she walked.

I don’t know what you think you’re doing,
she thought to Aleph as she walked.
But you don’t get to do it to me. I will figure you out, and then you will do what I say. You’re just a machine and I will
figure you out.

That thought rang around her head all the way back to the maze.

Mom waited for her in the tiny common area that lay between their bedrooms.

“Mom,” said Chena as she walked over the arrow without waiting to see what it would do next. “I don’t know what that thing’s
been telling you, but all I wanted to do—”

Mom put her fingers to her lips, signaling Chena to hush. Chena closed her mouth reluctantly. Mom smiled, just a little. She
looked tired. Chena felt involuntary tears prickle her eyes. It wasn’t fair. They went and upset Mom over nothing, and now
she was going to get one of the quiet talking-tos that were a thousand times worse than any shouting match could be.

But Mom just extended her hand. In her fingers, she held Chena’s comptroller.

Chena stared at the miniature computer for just a second. Then she clutched at it and looked up at Mom, her mouth open to
say thank you. Mom made the hush gesture again and took Chena’s hand. She led them both into Chena’s little sleeping alcove
and sat down on the bunk. Mom patted the mattress. Chena took the hint and sat.

Mom held out her hand and Chena put the comptroller into it. Mom’s face tightened as she worked the keys, crouching over them
as if hiding the comptroller from somebody, but there was still a little smile playing around her mouth.

She held the comptroller out for Chena. Chena took it and scrolled back the message Mom had entered. Mom shaded the screen
with her hand.

Yes,
Chena read.
Aleph has been talking to me, and I am ignoring it. You go ahead and do what you want to.

Then it dawned on Chena what her mother was doing. She
was
hiding the comptroller from somebody. Aleph. Chena smiled her understanding to her mother and hunched over the comptroller
herself, working the keys carefully. She passed back to Mom, who cupped her hand around the screen and read Chena’s message.

How’d you get my comptroller back?

I told them I was upset by the fact you had absolutely no privacy,
read the message Mom gave back to her.
They do not want me upset. Stress will be bad for whatever they’re going to put inside me.

Chena did not want to think about the idea of something alien,
someone
alien, inside Mom. She squashed her thoughts and concentrated on keying in the next message.
Funny, I used that to get them to let me see Sadia today.

I know,
was Mom’s reply.
But I think we’d better be careful how much we use that in the future. They might start splitting us up even more.

I didn’t know you noticed.
Chena didn’t key that in, she just looked at her mother’s face. Mom nodded.

Chena ran her fingers lightly over the comptroller’s little screen before she keyed in a few words.
Did you get Teal’s back too?

Again Mom nodded. Chena wiped the message, thought for a second, and then keyed in the important question. Before, Mom had
wanted her to get along, had wanted her to behave in this new place and smile and be happy, just like Teal.
What changed your mind about the hothousers?

Mom read the message and dropped her hands into her lap, staring at the bright oceans projected on the walls. Chena knew Mom
was trying to decide how much to tell her. She wanted to yell,
Everything! You tell me everything!

Mom keyed in some words and handed the comptroller to her. Chena read.

I don’t know, Supernova. Something is going on. When I find out what it is, I
will
tell you.
The word “will” was highlighted.

We’ll find out what’s going on.
Chena reached across and covered Mom’s hand with her own.
We’ll get out of this,
Chena promised her silently. As if she heard Chena’s thoughts, Mom wrapped her up in a tight embrace.

We will, Supernova,
Chena knew her mother was thinking.
Of course we will. I promise.

Lake Superior spread out at Dionte’s feet, as wide and black as the sky, reflecting the white light of the diamond-bright
stars and the luminous sphere of the moon. It was a still night, with only a breath of frost-scented wind touching her cheeks
and making tiny wavelets lap at the boardwalk’s posts.

“Guardian Dionte,” said a voice behind her.

Dionte turned. Silhouetted against the moon-silvered dunes stood a tall woman. In daylight her skin was probably golden. She
wore her dark hair swept back and pinned under a kerchief. The sleeves of her tunic had been rolled up to expose her muscular
forearms. As she folded those arms, Dionte noted her huge hands and their square-tipped fingers with the nails cut back all
the way down to the quick.