Kingdom of Cages(177)

Teal remembered the day Chena had shown her the false fingernail. She’d found a doctor in Branch who was willing to seal off the real one and put on the polymer fake. She’d shown Teal the brown paste underneath it that was her poison. “They’re not going to get me, Teal,” she’d said. “Not again.”

And Teal had told her she was sick and she was crazy, and Chena had yelled back that she wasn’t going to lie down and die, and Teal had screamed something about Mom, and Chena had screamed something back….

At the time, it had just been another fight. Now Teal found herself wishing she’d had the nerve to get herself some of that poison. She could have gone into the bathroom and taken it, leaving Shoulder Woman and Gray-Eyed Man to do all the explaining to whichever of the cops or hothousers waited to meet her.

She couldn’t see the lakes or the mountains anymore. All that was left in the screen was the thick green carpet of forest rippling out in all directions.

I don’t want to die, she said to the forest rising up toward her. I don’t want to die.

Shoulder Woman let out a startled exclamation. Gray-Eyed man clicked a few new commands on the board, and Pandora got a few hundred meters closer.

Pandora, which let the hothousers live and Mom die.

But let Chena live, and Nan Elle live, and had let her get away, at least for a little while, to see what home had become and find out about Dad.

And now it was bringing her back, reaching up its green arms to pull her down.

And what are you going to do about it? she imagined it asking her. Are you going to die? Are you going to let me—let them—pack you away? Even Chena had an idea of how to get away from them. Even Chena. Are you telling me you’re not even as good as Chena?

“No,” she whispered soundlessly. “You don’t have me yet.”

“I hope you’re not getting ideas over there,” remarked Gray-Eyed Man. It was his favorite sentence. He didn’t even look away from the screen as he said it. It was just something he tossed out every few hours, as if Teal needed to be reminded he was watching her.

“No, sir,” she said, narrowing her eyes toward the world that spread out at her feet. “No ideas.” Just one idea. One idea.

You don’t have me yet.


I am helping my family.

Tam swayed on his feet. He smelled yeast. He smelled burning. The scents filled the blank white room he stood in, waiting for Teal Trust to arrive. Waiting to take her… somewhere.

But this was wrong, wrong, wrong. He knew that. But how could it be wrong when Aleph, his city, told him to be here?

I am doing as my city tells me. I am helping my family.

That was a good thought, a right thought. It brought the smells of aloe, fresh air, mint and cloves. Good smells. Right smells. All was right. He was helping his family, and he would tell them… he would tell them.

Tell them Dionte needs help. Go home and help Dionte. She is your sister, she needs help, his Conscience urged.

Yes, that was right. That was what he needed to do. He swayed again as his feet tried to move him. There was something else he needed to do, though, someone else who needed help.

Footsteps. The door in front of him opened. Two people in station superiors’ uniforms stepped through. Teal Trust walked between them.

Teal Trust and the smell of blood, blood from Helice Trust. He was supposed to help her, help them, her daughters. Teal Trust ran away, that was wrong. Helice Trust died, that was wrong. Dionte had…

No, no, no! Dionte is family. Must trust… Trust… trust… Trust…

“Are you all right, Administrator?”

Tam looked up and realized he’d been pressing his knuckles against his bandaged temple. One of the station superiors, a broad, sandy-skinned woman, reached toward him. Teal stood beside her, her face tight and her eyes wary.

“I…” He pulled his gaze off Teal. She smelled of blood. No, he just smelled blood. Blood, guilt, Trust. “Yes.”

“She yours?” The left-hand superior, a tall, dark man with gray eyes, nodded his head toward Teal.

Tam licked his lips. Yes. No. She was the family’s. She had run away and needed to be brought back, but not to Dionte. Not to Dionte.

Teal squinted at him, as if trying to see through his skin. Did she know? He wanted to help her. It was right that he help her.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m his.”

“Okay, then,” said the woman, giving her a small shove forward. “You’d better go with him, hadn’t you?”

Help. Helping. Trust. “Yes.” Tam managed to get the word out.

That seemed to be all that was required. Teal Trust stepped up to his side, and the superiors exchanged a quizzical look. The left-hand one, the dark man, shrugged.