The Cage (The Cage #1)(48)
Author: Megan Shepherd

They reached the Kindred girl dressed in her flowing gown. An almost maniacal smile stretched across her face. She wore glasses with painted blue eyes that made her look more like a doll than a living creature.

Was this what uncloaked looked like up close?

Something about the way she tipped her head down coyly at Cassian was a little familiar, not to mention seductive. Cora threw him another look. What exactly did he get up to, in his uncloaked time? Did he come to see her?

The Kindred woman made a high-pitched hissing sound that might have been a laugh, almost as though she could read Cora’s thoughts. Cassian responded to her curtly and led Cora past the girl.

“I informed her I was here in an official capacity. It is rare to be cloaked here, particularly when escorting a lesser species. I do not want to draw more attention to ourselves than we must. We will use a service passageway.”

He pushed open a doorway with his hand. It was the first time a door hadn’t opened automatically, and she wondered how exactly their telepathy worked. Her thoughts plunged into darkness as soon as they entered the hallway. Only faint light came from the small drill holes in the walls, but Cassian guided her forward as though he didn’t need light, or else knew the passageway by heart. It opened into a viewing room. Unlike the cage’s, there was nothing scientific feeling about this. It was simply a rock-hewn cave with a wide window overlooking a chamber below.

Cassian motioned to the window. “We can see out, but they cannot see us.”

Cora approached the window hesitantly. After passing through such dank corridors, she had expected something repugnant, but the chamber beyond was a complete contrast: well lit, with a gleaming limestone floor and stately columns at either end like a Greek temple. Cells were built into the temple facade opposite them. Each one was ten feet wide by ten feet deep, but stretched to create a visual illusion that made the cell appear much larger. More advanced Kindred technology.

Each cell was decorated in soft silks and columns; one was a bedroom, with a young human girl asleep in a gilded bed overlooked by statues of Athena and Zeus. Another cell contained a wooden table stacked with scrolls, and a human boy with very dark brown skin, dressed in a toga. His pupils were dilated. Drugged.

Cora drew in a tight breath. Their worn faces didn’t look so different from her own sleep-deprived one. “Why do you do this to them—just to entertain yourselves?”

The bright lights of the temple reflected on Cassian’s stoic metallic face. “There is some educational value, but yes. These children are primarily here to entertain the uncloaked. We enjoy viewing vignettes of what life on Earth must be like.”

“What about that oath you swore to protect lesser races?”

“No one is harming them.” Cassian’s voice was carefully devoid of emotion. “They are perfectly safe in their enclosures. They have ample food and a facsimile of their natural habitat.”

If her hands hadn’t been bound, she might have slapped him. Did he truly believe this was fulfilling their oath?

“Each menagerie adheres to a different theme,” he continued. “This one is called the Temple. It is modeled after humans’ early philosophical foundations. There is one on the third level of the aggregate station that is modeled after prehistoric Earth, called the Cave. There are seven menageries on this station alone.”

Mali had once mentioned the Kindred’s penchant for dressing like humans. Now Cora understood that the Kindred girl at the doorway was dressed so strangely because she was in costume.

“Why human places, human times?”

“When we uncloak, we crave experiences, and there is no society, nor habitat, better suited for the cultivation of experiences than the human world. Of all the species, intelligent and lesser, humans are the most vibrant.”

“What about your world?”

“The concept of a homeland fascinates us because we have not had one since the Gatherers elevated us to live among the stars. The environments on Earth, the weather, the shape of the land and the way you build your structures into it—the idea is quite foreign and quite . . . charming. Your kind is just as interesting. Like your planet, you are all so varied, so prone to warfare and destruction, but also beauty.” He paused. “Can you blame us for wanting to watch such fascinating creatures? To act like them, even?”

She could only stare at him. The Kindred had no homeland, so they wanted to experience humans’, and they’d kidnap kids and lock them up to get it.

She tested her shackles again. They held too tight.

“This menagerie, or one like it, is where I must take you if the Warden orders your removal—assuming he lets you live. These are all children who had to be removed from their enclosures or private owners for one reason or another.”

“Why are they all children?” Her voice was barely audible.

“We do not only take children. We prefer to take them, however, because of their malleable natures and heightened ability to adapt.”

“But what happens when they grow up?”

His face darkened. No longer a man of starlight, but of shadows. “If the adults are docile, they are kept in research facilities, or given light menial work. However, many grow unruly as they age. They are sent to unmanaged preserves; there they are free to be as savage as their true natures dictate.” He pointed through the window toward the last cage. “This girl is the one I wanted to show you.”

The last cell was a tableau of a Greek throne room, with a little girl of about ten years, with wheat-blond hair shorn close to her scalp. She sat on a leather stool, hands clasped in her lap, staring into a hearth that crackled with what must be simulated flames.

“That girl was relocated from Iceland four years ago,” Cassian said. “She was put in an enclosure like yours, though less advanced, with only two biomes. She refused to eat, which disobeys Rule Two. After several rotations she had to be removed, and was sold to a private owner, from whom she escaped. She escaped from her next two owners as well, but was caught each time. She will be here for the remainder of her life. We administer drugs to her to keep her docile. We must do that with the rebellious ones. For their own safety.”

Cora could only stare. The girl would be there—staring at the stone hearth, isolated, drugged—for the rest of her life?

“That could be you, Cora,” Cassian said.

It wasn’t hard to imagine—with her wheat-blond hair, the girl almost looked like a younger version of Cora. In the cell, the girl raised a sluggish hand to scratch her shorn scalp. She was missing two fingers, from the middle knuckle up. Cora’s own fingers started throbbing.