The Kingdom

by Jess Rothenberg

  But of course, I am not human. And so my requirements are different.

  Lately, I have taken to keeping my eyes closed until the moment I reach the bottom of the river—a deep turquoise blue modeled after Kawasan Falls, before the oceans rose too high and covered the islands of Cebu—letting the cool, quiet darkness envelop me completely before I do what I have come here to do. The thing I have to do, for fear I may malfunction, as Nia did.

  Today is the introduction of Nadia, the park’s new vision of hope. Nia’s replacement.

  My feet touch down on rocky silt and I have arrived. A secret, solitary place where the Supervisors cannot hear, or see, or stop what I am about to do. Slowly, so as not to damage them, I open my eyes. I look up, glimmers of sunlight dancing across the water’s blurred, undulating surface like shooting stars. I say a silent prayer for Nia.

  And I scream.

  * * *

  “Why are you making them so tight?” I ask Mother one evening several weeks later, as she’s fastening my bed straps. “I can hardly move.”

  “You haven’t been sleeping well,” Mother answers. “The less you move, the better.” She leans over and kisses my forehead, and I notice for the first time how odd her lips feel against my skin, dry and thin, like they are made of paper. “All right, girls.” She stands and dims the lights. “Prayers now.”

  “Our Kingdom, within the gateway,

  Fantasist be thy name…”

  My sisters’ voices fill the room, orderly and peaceful, but though I move my mouth along with the words, I do not join in. Instead, I let my gaze gradually shift to Nia’s bed, where my new sister is lying motionless, her eyes fixed on the ceiling as she sings. The sight makes my chest feel hollow. Empty.

  Nadia will never replace Nia.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but Pania’s shutdown isn’t Nadia’s fault,” Eve whispers from the next bed over. “Stop blaming her for something she had nothing to do with.” As always, my oldest sister insists on butting into topics that are none of her concern.

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion,” I whisper back. “Mind your own business.”

  Even in the dark, I can feel Eve glaring at me. Judging me. Eve believes she is worth more than the rest of us. That she is better, faster, stronger, wiser, and therefore more deserving of love, both from our guests and the Supervisors. You can see it in the way she walks. Slowly, as if her time is more valuable. The way she talks. Boldly, as if her voice is more important. The way she wears her hair. Always up—and always off her face.

  Not like a princess.

  Like a queen.

  Some days she just rides the monorail around the park for hours, as if she is too regal to actually walk anywhere.

  “What is done is done,” Eve whispers. “Gratitude, Ana. C’est la vie.”

  I ignore Eve and close my eyes. I have no idea how my sisters have fallen for this new Fantasist, Nadia, so quickly—especially when she has not yet proven herself to be particularly good at anything. She cannot sing as beautifully as Nia once did. She cannot inspire crowds as brilliantly as Zel. She cannot paint as gorgeously as Yumi, or make children laugh as easily as Kaia, or dance as well as Zara. She cannot even properly give directions like Eve, though to my annoyance Nadia has learned to use this navigational bug to her benefit, spinning mistakes into quirks the world finds adorable—delightful!—though I am beginning to suspect this may be some kind of intentional behavioral manipulation made possible by her newer technology. I grit my teeth. My sisters fawn over Nadia like she is their new perfect plaything, but they cannot see what I see. This new little sister is no Nia. She is a mimic. A chameleon. A beautiful distraction, nothing more, created solely to help the world forget what happened that day in the lagoon.

  And it has.

  But just because Eve and the others have put the incident at the lagoon behind them doesn’t mean I can. If anything, the presence of this new sister only highlights the absence of another.

  Nadia is here because Nia is not.

  And if everyone else has forgotten her, then it is up to me to find out the truth.

  It is up to me to find out why Nia did what she did.

  In the morning, as the New Hope Parade (after all, Nadia comes from the Russian word for hope) makes its way through a busy, bustling Magic Land, yet another late spring festivity celebrating her arrival, the weight of Nia’s absence—and the weight of the truth—becomes almost too much to bear.

  “Are you okay?” Kaia asks. “Don’t give up, Ana.” She squeezes my hand. “You’re braver than you believe.”

  I smile faintly but do not answer. How can I tell her that seeing Nadia’s face where Nia’s used to be—on the trolleys, on the billboards, on the windows of the confectioneries and pastry shops, even gracing the cars of the monorail many hundreds of feet above our Fantasist float—makes me feel as if the sky is closing in?

  As soon as I am able, I break away from the flurry of photographs and signatures that inevitably follow the parade, politely declining when Zara and Yumi ask me to accompany them to Story Land for tea, as they have every morning since Nia’s shutdown.

  “But you adore story time.” Zara frowns, her beaded braids cascading elegantly down her back. “Why won’t you come with us?”

  “They’ll have lemon-strawberry scones…” Yumi trails off, trying to convince me. “Your favorite…”

  “Tomorrow,” I say, blowing each of them a kiss before disappearing down the path, worried I may faint—or scream—if I don’t get away from them soon. “I promise.”

  The promise is not a lie.

  On my honor, I have every intention of meeting them when I say it.

  But as much as I try to help it, the mystery of Nia has taken over. After all, there have only ever been seven Fantasists in the park at one time. And now that the Kingdom has introduced Nadia … I know for sure that my little sister is never coming back.

  * * *

  Little by little, I begin venturing off path, spending more time in the less traversed sections of the park, where our guests do not typically go, searching for any sort of sign, any way to understand. Nia stole a phone. She was gone for ten weeks. She came back and seemed different. And then there was the lagoon.

  How all these pieces connect, I cannot figure out. But I’ll keep trying. For now, though, all I can seem to find are quiet spaces that leave me haunted by more questions. The Unicorn Maze, where the hedges have grown so tall I can easily slip into the shrubs when guests are near, hiding until they are gone. The cool, quiet tunnels below the park, accessible through a secret entrance in the woods, a stone’s throw from the cast parking lot, where I can wander hundreds of feet belowground without ever being seen. The steep, rugged slopes of Jungle Land, where the giant, twisted roots of banyan trees offer shelter from the rain. “Why is your gown so dirty?” Eve asks one evening before our third and final round of daily supplements. “Why is your hemline torn?” She frowns in disapproval. “Sisters shouldn’t keep secrets.”

  Eve is one to talk.

  Recently, I have noticed her wearing Nia’s emerald gown on her way to the monorail—the gown that so beautifully matched Nia’s eyes, when I know for a fact that our little sister discarded it and many others in a heap near the dumpsters several weeks before the incident at Mermaid Lagoon. I’d seen the abandoned gowns for myself on the way to a morning Meet and Greet—a beautiful mess of satin and tulle destined for the biohazard landfill. Eve sashays around now as though the gown has always been hers, but I know the truth.

  She is a know-it-all.

  And she is a thief.

  “Why are you looking at me that way?” Eve whispers, but I pretend I cannot hear her. I miss Nia, I could scream, but of course, I don’t.

  Our sister cannot simply be replaced.

  Sometimes, I’ll find myself standing outside the Mermaid Lagoon, locked and shuttered, its once-gleaming Mermaid Arch now dull from a month’s worth of fireworks soot. I have heard rumors the lagoon
has been repurposed—though to what end, I cannot be sure. All I know for certain is, whatever attraction the park has in mind, mermaids will no longer play a role. In some small way, I think Nia would be happy about that, and the memory of her smile, however fleetingly, dulls the ever-present ache in my chest.

  I love you, Ana. You know that, right?

  Because ever since they shut Nia down for good, dismantling her like a broken clock—first her hands, then her feet, then her face, and finally, her heart—there has been no happiness at all.

  25

  TRIAL TRANSCRIPT

  MS. BELL: So when Ana chose to dive into the water to rescue a drowning child, you’re saying she wasn’t exercising moral agency? Isn’t choosing to do the right thing the definition of moral agency?

  MR. WINDHAM: Her program made the choice for her, Ms. Bell. A choice that had everything to do with safety—not ethics.

  MS. BELL: What about when Nia tried to drown Madeline Lucas? Did her program make that choice, too?

  MR. WINDHAM: [Pauses.] That was mechanical error.

  MS. BELL: So hurting someone is mechanical error, but rescuing them is—

  MR. HAYES: Objection. Counsel is harassing the witness.

  THE COURT: Overruled. You can go ahead and answer, Mr. Windham.

  MR. WINDHAM: What we’re really talking about, Ms. Bell, are two extremes of the same response. The FASR, or Fantasist Acute Stress Response.

  MS. BELL: Again, I would love to know what was so stressful about a happy, smiling four-year-old that made Nia want to drown her in front of five thousand people.

  MR. HAYES: Objection.

  THE COURT: Overruled.

  MR. WINDHAM: The most likely explanation is that something external triggered her—perhaps the noise level of the stadium, or the brightness of the lights, or the temperature of the water—ultimately resulting in a terrible and tragic malfunction.

  MS. BELL: Malfunction.

  MR. WINDHAM: That’s right. It’s exceedingly rare among hybrids, but it happens, though of course we wish it hadn’t. Now alternatively, in Ana’s case, her FASR compelled her to do the right thing. The safest thing.

  MS. BELL: I’m not sure about exceedingly rare. The polar bear. The lagoon. The tiger. And now, a member of your own staff. Seems to me Kingdom Corp. has had quite a few “mechanical errors” over the last two years, have they not? Aggressive, violent, fatal errors?

  MR. WINDHAM: But never intentional.

  MS. BELL: I’m sorry?

  MR. WINDHAM: We’re here today because the State alleges Ana killed Mr. Chen intentionally. But the fact remains, she simply isn’t capable of that kind of premeditative behavior. She does not possess the necessary neural pathways.

  MS. BELL: How do you know?

  MR. WINDHAM: Because my team designed Ana. We built her. We know what she is and is not capable of.

  MS. BELL: Isn’t it possible the girls have learned to behave in a way your program can’t predict? Isn’t it possible they’ve learned to feel? Or even, to lie?

  MR. WINDHAM: Their program does allow for learning, certainly; that’s part of what makes our technology so unique. But we program our girls with three main objectives: Provide safety. Seek connection. Deliver satisfaction. Any and all aberrant behavior beyond that technically qualifies as mechanical error.

  MS. BELL: And who is responsible for those errors, when they happen? Who is accountable?

  MR. WINDHAM: Our guests assume a certain level of risk when they walk through our gates. You know perfectly well they cannot even purchase park tickets without first signing the Kingdom’s digital liability waiver—

  MS. BELL: We’re talking about a blatant, conscious disregard for human life. Please, show me where on the waiver it mentions that.

  MR. WINDHAM: [Sighs.] Accidents can and do happen, Ms. Bell. Anywhere, anytime. We at the Kingdom hold ourselves to the highest, most rigorous safety standards, endeavoring to provide the best, the safest, the most exhilarating interactive experience a theme park can provide.

  MS. BELL: Yes. Murder certainly is … exhilarating.

  26

  THE MAY OF THE CAPE STARLING

  SIXTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIAL

  Twigs snap underfoot as I walk, breaking like tiny, brittle bones. The journey from our dormitory through the woods isn’t the quickest way to Magic Land—twenty minutes if you travel at a moderate pace—but it is still my preferred path to Princess Palace.

  After so many seasons, I know these woods by heart. The gentle curve of the path. The crooked shape of the trees. The coolness of the soil as it crumbles against my fingertips. Once upon a time, Nia and I would race each other home this way from Magic Land. Me, laughing in the light of the moon. Her, singing sweetly as she gathered bluebell-and-fairy-slipper bouquets. Both of us dancing, twirling like pixies through the trees. I walk on, keep my head down. The memory of those days brings only an ache. A longing, for the way things used to be.

  Before.

  Nobody walks these woods with me now.

  “Why take the woods when you can take the monorail?” Eve always asks. “The pine trails are tedious.”

  I disagree. Lots of interesting things can happen in twenty minutes. In twenty minutes, you can sing Kingdom Radio’s hit song, “Brave Girl,” eight times all the way through. In twenty minutes, you can rescue a baby bird that has fallen from its nest.

  In twenty minutes, you can unearth something you have buried.

  In the northwestern clearing.

  A thing you have borrowed but must return.

  Eleven steps from the tallest pine.

  Because that is the rule.

  Below the stone with the thin white line.

  And … because you found out he has a secret.

  * * *

  I locate him easily inside the Imagine Land stables, mucking out the stalls after my Meet and Greet at the Exotic Species Nursery. He is dressed in his spring uniform, a dark khaki pair of pants and a lightweight evergreen pullover, and is faced away from me, opening a feedbag, when I silently enter his stall. “Good morning.”

  Owen startles, turning suddenly at the sound of my voice. In his hand, I see a small pocketknife. The same one he had with him that day in Safari Land.

  “Jesus, Ana.” He lets out a big breath, and my infrared sensors detect a spike in his metabolic activity. I have surprised him. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

  I feel my cheeks flush, a sensation I do not expect given the barn is kept at a comfortable temperature all year round. “I wasn’t sneaking. Maybe you should pay more attention.”

  Owen grabs a pitchfork and starts to spread fresh straw bedding around the stall. “Can I help you with something?” He eyes me curiously. “I didn’t see any Fantasist Meet and Greets on the stable schedule this morning.”

  I clear my throat. “Here.” I hold out his coat and hope he will not notice the mud stain on the sleeve. “I’m very sorry it took me so long to return it to you.”

  He looks up at me. “What’s that?”

  “Your jacket,” I tell him. “You let me borrow it. That night at the lagoon.”

  I do not tell him about what I found in the pocket when I tried to shake the dirt off the sleeves: a delicate bracelet, with three golden charms.

  A seashell.

  A dolphin.

  A starfish.

  Nia’s bracelet.

  Why would it have been in Owen’s pocket? Does he know something about why Nia tried to drown the little girl? Does he know what happened to her during those ten weeks prior?

  “Borrow?” Owen frowns. “No, I didn’t.”

  Does he not remember? In all the days since the incident at the lagoon—twenty-three of them, to be exact—has he not thought of me? Not even once?

  After all … I’ve thought of him.

  Too many times to count.

  Then he says something else I don’t expect.

  “I didn’t let you borrow it, Ana. I gave it to you
.”

  Suddenly, I feel a burst of warmth within my cingulate cortex, the thumb-size piece of synthetic tissue planted deep inside my brain’s limbic lobe. My ears turn uncomfortably warm.

  Embarrassment.

  “You mean … it was a gift?” I whisper. My mind flashes back to that night. To the chaos and the rain. To the sirens and the screams. I remember the way Owen draped the jacket over my shoulders so gently. The way he noticed I was cold.

  “Absolutely,” Owen says. “I don’t need it anymore.”

  My grip tightens around the fabric. “Are you sure?”

  He shoots me a funny look. “Of course. No big deal.”

  Not to him, maybe. But this is the first gift—a true gift—anyone has ever given me. I look down at the jacket in my hands. My head is a sky full of fireworks.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure.” And then he smiles at me.

  I look away quickly, feeling my face flush. I have seen him smile before, but this time feels different … as if he’s sharing something with me.

  Is that how you look at everyone else? Is that how you look at humans?

  Immediately, I save the memory in my preferred folder. This way, I will be free to access it and analyze it as many times as I like later, during the Resting Hours. Until sunrise if necessary.

  “Why’s it all muddy, though?” Owen asks, noticing the sleeve.

  “I tried to clean it. I think I only made it worse. I’m sorry.” For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything, which perplexes me somewhat. Although we are programmed to be sensitive to human emotions, silence is tricky for Fantasists. Sometimes, it can mean a person is feeling shy. It can mean they are feeling scared. It can mean they’re feeling shocked or even moved.