“Are you sure Mr. Casey will let us in?” I ask Kaia, as the stars blink overhead, and the end-of-day bells begin to ring out across the park. “It’s almost closing time.”
Kaia’s dark eyes are squeezed shut. She doesn’t like heights. “He told me to come late,” she says. “He told me to bring a friend.”
I can’t say what it is about the bear that has me so exhilarated—I appreciate all the animals equally—but something about this arrival feels special, even more so than usual. Maybe it’s the fairy tale Mother read to us years ago, about the princess who dreams of a golden wreath and the white bear who brings it to her. Or maybe it’s that Winter Land’s last FES, a narwhal, died before it could reach full maturity, and this cub feels like a new beginning.
When the lift releases us, we crunch across the artificial snow to the Arctic Enclosure, now empty of guests. As soon as the glass doors slide open, the exhibit dark but for the tranquil blue of the pool, I am sure that the polar bear cub is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.
He is there, dozing on a rocky ledge just behind the glass, his hybrid coat so brilliantly white he could be made of snow.
It takes me all of three seconds to memorize every part of him, from his tiny square paws, to his heart-shaped nose, to his fat little belly, gently swelling when he breathes. “Hello, little one,” I whisper, pressing my palms to the icy glass. “Will you be my friend?”
“Hey there, look who finally decided to show up,” a voice says suddenly from behind where Kaia and I are seated. I recognize the source quickly. Cameron Casey, an animal trainer from Texas with hair the color of Swiss chocolate, eyes the color of an emerald field, and a smile so bright, so symmetrical, it’s almost hard to believe he wasn’t intentionally designed to look that way. “You ladies are late,” he says, winking when our eyes meet. “I was about to give up on you.”
“Even miracles take time,” Kaia replies, batting her eyelashes.
It’s a standard line, but Mr. Casey laughs as if he’s never heard it before. “You are a character, Kaia,” he says before kissing her cheek. “I’ll give you that.”
She giggles. “You don’t need wings to fly.”
Kaia is a good girl, but as one of the older models, she is constantly cycling through the script instead of creating her own things to say, which makes her most popular with the park’s youngest guests—age seven and below.
Sometimes my sisters will say cruel things about Kaia behind her back.
That her hardware is defective. That her processors are slow.
Or worse.
“The Investors don’t seem to mind her babble during their seasonal retreats,” I once heard Eve say, as she slipped into an evening gown of illusion blue, named for its ability to change color in the moonlight. “Though perhaps they don’t do much talking there.” She laughed. “Not that Kaia would even remember.”
I am not sure what Kaia’s memory has to do with anything, just like I do not think she is slow. On the contrary, I think she is smarter than all of us and likes playing it safe. Anyway, Eve should be careful who she talks about. Out of the seven of us, her technology is the oldest and therefore the most likely to fail. If anyone is due for a full system replacement, it’s Eve—not Kaia.
Mr. Casey jerks his head in my direction. “Why didn’t you bring that sexy mermaid, Pania, with you, instead of her?” he asks Kaia in a low voice. But not so low that I don’t hear. My hearing is exceptional, better than any human or animal species.
It does not bother me that Mr. Casey prefers Nia—her sharkskin silver gown this season is particularly stunning—though I will never understand people’s fascination with mermaids. In mythology, mermaids aren’t sweet or warm or kind—they are monsters, luring sailors with their beauty and enchantment into the sea to torture them. Drown them. Eat them.
“He’s amazing,” I say loudly, forcing a smile, hoping to put Mr. Casey in a good mood. We are good at this: distracting and cajoling, reading people’s moods. “How old did you say he is?”
It works. Mr. Casey relaxes. Say what you want, but Mr. Casey loves his job. “Just about four months. Little devil’s got a bellyful of seal meat. That’s why he’s passed out like this. But don’t worry, he’ll be up soon enough, begging for more.” Suddenly, he raps hard on the glass. I follow his line of vision and notice a maintenance worker inside the enclosure, hunched over and shoveling dirty snow into a chute I know eventually feeds down into the incinerator, many hundreds of feet below the park. “Hey! Chen! Don’t forget to treat the water. It’s looking green, and news crews’ll be here at the crack of dawn.”
Right away, I notice the boy’s dark, angular eyes. A small scar above his upper lip. Black hair glinting in the light like a raven’s feathers. Something about him seems familiar, though I am sure he must be a new hire.
After all, I never forget a face.
“Are you deaf?” Mr. Casey throws up his hands when the kid just stares at him.
Finally, the boy nods. “I heard you,” he says. His voice is muffled by the glass. For a second, his eyes lock onto mine. My Facial Recognition Application doesn’t typically work from this great a distance, but to my satisfaction, when I scan his irises, his Kingdom ID comes right up.
KINGDOM CORPORATION
NAME: OWEN CHEN. ID: 9-01-3-7219
TEAM: MAINTENANCE
CLEARANCE LEVEL: 10
I blink.
Maintenance workers do not typically have clearance greater than five.
This is unexpected.
My mind quickly spins with questions, but then I am distracted: the bear stirs. Soon he yawns, stretches, and opens his eyes—a pale blue as pure as the ice around him.
“Great,” Mr. Casey says. “The little fur ball’s finally awake. Be right back.”
He disappears, heading into the enclosure, then reappears on the other side of the glass and scoops the cub up. A second later, he returns to the observation deck with the cub. “Eat your heart out, Princess,” he says, dropping him into my arms like a tiny, snowy bundle.
For a moment, all I can do is stare at the cub. At his perfect nose, his perfect mouth, his perfect paws, and his perfect face. He sniffs at me as if to say hello.
“Oh my goodness,” I whisper, nuzzling my face into the painfully soft, monochrome fluff under his chin. Kaia buzzes around me, but she shakes her head when I ask her if she would like a turn holding him.
“I’ll drop him,” she giggles, backing away.
“Okay,” Mr. Casey says a few minutes later, by which point the cub has drifted off again in my arms, ears flickering in his sleep. “Playtime’s up.” Before I have a chance to say goodbye, he has grabbed the cub by the scruff of his neck—jarring him awake—and hauls him back inside the enclosure.
“You shouldn’t be so rough with him,” I say, once he’s back. “He’s just a baby.”
In an instant, a shadow seems to pass over Mr. Casey’s face. “Is that right?” he asks, and I notice his drawl has morphed into a tone as chilly as the air itself. “You going to tell me how to do my job now, huh?”
“She didn’t mean it,” Kaia says quickly. “When it rains, look for rainbows!”
In the low arctic light, Mr. Casey’s eyes flash almost amber, and I am reminded of the Bengal tiger he once whipped for growling at him during a performance. The memory ignites a strange and uneasy feeling in my chest. A heaviness, a pressure, like I am slowly being squeezed.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Kaia is right. I didn’t mean it.” My breathing is growing shallow and my thoughts become strange, a jumbled assortment of images and sounds I can’t turn off.
Screaming guests, barreling down the first big drop of the roller coaster.
A storm pummeling our bedroom, branches scraping the roof like claws.
Nia’s prosthetic mermaid tail, sparkling, blinding, like diamonds in the sun.
Mr. Casey grabs my hand, twisting it so hard I cry out. Not because it hurts—Fantasists cannot feel
pain, only pressure—but because his sudden movement has startled me. He isn’t supposed to touch us, not like this. And he knows it. “Please, Mr. Casey. Stop.” Seconds before I’m certain my wrist will snap, he releases me and I fall to the floor in a flurry of English tulle—pale yellow, to bring the sunshine wherever I go—cradling my arm like an injured wing.
“Oh, calm down, will you?” he says. “Jesus, I was just joking. Don’t blow a fuse or whatever the hell.”
I quickly scan for blow a fuse—idioms occasionally confuse me—but the Kingdom’s signal is spotty this far up the mountain and my search returns Incomplete.
Mr. Casey steps closer, towering over me. “You Fantasists are all so creepy, do you know that? Every single one of you.” The corners of his mouth curve up in a way that turns my stomach. “Good thing you’re so nice to look at, or I’d shoot you all myself.”
As if from somewhere far away, a soft warning bell sounds in my ear.
Order. Wonder. Beauty. Compliance. Safety.
I feel a tightness in my chest.
His words are not safe.
Right away, I switch into Safe Mode, a manual diagnostic setting meant to slow our fear-center reactors and power down all nonessential applications in times of stress so that we can more easily remain calm. As Mother has explained, the less calm we feel, the more prone we are to damage.
“Thank you for letting us see the cub,” I say serenely, rising to my feet. “We should be getting back to Magic Land now, before—”
“Hold on,” Mr. Casey interrupts. “There’s something I want to show you.” His smile deepens. “Downstairs. In the VIP booth.”
He reaches for my arm, but to my surprise, Kaia steps forward. “I’ll go with you, Mr. Casey.”
I frown. What is she doing? “Kaia,” I say gently, trying to meet her gaze. “It’s time to go. Mother will be worried.”
“In helping others”—she flashes a sweet smile—“we shall also help ourselves.”
Mr. Casey looks back and forth between us. “Whatever,” he finally mutters, grabbing Kaia by the arm. “It’s not like it makes any difference.”
I watch them disappear down the dim corridor, his hand against her back, and my stomach drops although I don’t quite know why. Perhaps he wants to show her the new beluga exhibit, I tell myself. Or some kind of penguin performance? Then I remember: The belugas usually receive supplements around this time. And the penguins are quiet, roosting among the rocks.
When I spot the maintenance worker—Chen, as Mr. Casey called him—watching me from the other side of the deep, clear pool, the warning bell in my ear only grows louder. This is wrong, his eyes tell me.
I press my hand to my chest and feel my motor skip out of rhythm. And like a light turned on in a darkened room, I suddenly realize why Mr. Casey invited us to Winter Land.
Welcome to the Kingdom …
Your wish is our command.
12
POST-TRIAL INTERVIEW
[00:11:09–00:12:23]
DR. FOSTER: Were you and Owen arguing on the night he disappeared?
ANA: We weren’t arguing. We were having a discussion.
DR. FOSTER: A pretty heated discussion, by the look of the security footage.
ANA: He was upset.
DR. FOSTER: What about?
ANA: Something that had happened earlier.
DR. FOSTER: That’s right. Something a guest said, wasn’t it? Something about you?
ANA: Yes. One of the guests called me terrible names.
DR. FOSTER: What did she say?
ANA: [Silence.]
DR. FOSTER: Ana?
ANA: She called me a monster.
DR. FOSTER: And why, exactly, would that have bothered Owen?
ANA: What do you mean?
DR. FOSTER: Well … you are a monster, in a way. Isn’t that what Owen thought?
13
THE DECEMBER OF THE HYACINTH MACAW
TWENTY-ONE MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIAL
I feel a sharp, stabbing pain, like a blade. My eyes begin to burn.
Something is draining—no, leaking—out of my eyes. Some foreign substance—wet, warm, briny to the taste when it brushes my lips, like seawater from Mermaid Lagoon. Hands trembling, I reach up and carefully touch my cheeks.
I am crying.
“Do not let Daddy see,” Eve says sharply, and I turn my face to the wall. “Crying is not a fantasy.”
I jerk upright, gasping for air. For a moment, it’s as if Mr. Casey’s hands are all over me, running through my hair, touching me through the fabric of my dress.
I struggle to catch my breath.
He didn’t touch me. Not like that.
I think of Kaia. Of her sweet smile. Of her button nose. Of her soft voice and sparkling eyes, as big and brown as a fawn’s. The memory of Mr. Casey leading her away down the arctic corridor makes my skin turn clammy. Cool. Slowly, my fists clench.
I will never let him touch her again.
“Ana?” Nia’s hand finds mine in the dark. “Are you okay?”
I lay back against my pillow, breathing hard, heart racing—as if I’ve been running for days. In a way, I have.
“What’s wrong?” Nia whispers. “Do you feel sick?”
“I’m not sure.” I pull my knees into my chest, shaking. Ever since that moment with Mr. Casey, the same dream comes to me, night after night. And night after night, no matter how hard I try, no matter how fast I run, I can’t escape it.
But that’s not what scares me most.
The scariest part is that I’ve had a dream at all.
* * *
I decide to share my troubling observations with Daddy at our regular morning checkup. After all, Fantasists are not infallible; sometimes we need fixing.
“There’s nothing wrong with you. Everything’s perfect. You’re perfect,” he assures me with a smile, shining his scope so brightly into my eyes I briefly worry he can see my thoughts. “Well, your iron count is a little low. I’ll increase the levels in your supplements and keep an eye on it. But you seem fine otherwise. At least physically.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
He takes a seat next to me. “What’s on your mind, Ana?”
“I…” I look away from his concerned expression. “I think I did something I wasn’t supposed to do.”
Daddy crinkles his brow. “You broke one of the rules?”
Yes. No. It wasn’t my fault.
Kingdom employees and Fantasists are not supposed to interact. We are not even supposed to speak, as our conversation could diminish our guests’ overall experience. It could ruin the fantasy. I feel a hard lump form in my throat. But the rules didn’t stop Mr. Casey. What more might have happened, if Kaia hadn’t agreed to go in my place? What else might he have done? A new sensation wells up inside me suddenly—like a curtain drawn, casting me in shadow—but I do not know the word for it.
I look away, not sure what to say or how to say it. It’s not that I’ve done something wrong … it’s that I feel wrong, like my brain isn’t functioning the way it should, or the way it always has. But how can I explain that to Daddy? How do I tell him that recently during the Resting Hours, instead of updating my applications, or streaming the Kingdom’s approved movie collection, or rescanning my Shakespearean Archive, my mind takes me far away to another world, full of fear and confusion and monsters of my own making?
“Ana?”
The shadow grows. There is something wrong with me. I know there is. Some defunct neural pathway; some failing, faulty connection. Something I cannot control that is changing me little by little, from the inside out. The very thought makes me think of crying. Which is strange because crying is not in my programming.
“Ana, are you listening to me?”
I look up at him and smile sweetly.
“I feel better now, Daddy. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
* * *
The dream is still hanging over me hours later, a low-lying fog the sun can’t q
uite burn off. Even Nia can’t seem to chase it away. I’ve taken Nia to Safari Land because I know it is one of her favorite places and today marks one year since her arrival at the Kingdom. During the park’s busiest hours, typically between nine and six, the Supervisors encourage us not to travel together—there are, after all, only seven of us, compared to the many thousands of visitors who come to see us each day. However, my ranking has been particularly high this week and so Mother has rewarded me with a gift: this afternoon, I am allowed to spend exactly one hour of free time with any sister I choose.
And of course, I have chosen Nia.
I’ve noticed today, again, though, that she is acting a bit … unusual. Quiet. Lethargic. I wonder if she’s been taking all her supplements.
Perhaps there is no good reason for my worry—is that the word for this sensation? Perhaps the serenity of the savanna will help restore my focus as well.
But it is not long before I realize serenity is the wrong word—at least, today.
“Here you can stop to observe our African Restoration Habitat…” The tour guide’s voice fades over the loudspeaker as he brings our game-viewing rover to a slow but sudden halt.
“There.” He motions across the grasslands where, in the dappled shade of acacia trees, a dazzle of zebras are grazing. From my seat in the fourth and final tier—Fantasists must always sit in the highest row in safari vehicles so as to maintain the illusion of our regal status—I quickly pinpoint the reason for our stop. Ten yards away from where the zebras are gathered, a trio of lionesses is stalking them, their bodies crouched so low in the willowy grass I spot them only by the tips of their tails.
“Mommy,” a boy in the first row whispers, “are the bad lions going to eat the nice zebras?”
“Yes, honey,” the mother replies, watching the scene unfold through a pair of Kingdom-brand binoculars. “But don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt them. The animals aren’t real.”
I purse my lips. It’s true that the animals don’t feel pain, so the woman is not wrong … but she is not entirely right, either. I look down at my hands and study the bluish veins visible below my skin.
The Kingdom Page 3