The Last Zoo Page 8

  Pia’s heart starts to thud. ‘Miracle?’

  ‘Oh yeah. It was your angels for sure. They even left their calling card.’

  Wanda goes to a desk drawer and pulls it open. Something pale shines from inside. The ’genieer brings out the moonlight halo carefully. Pia can’t help but gasp.

  ‘The angels fixed Threedeep before they went!’ Her jaw drops when she realises what she just said. ‘Back! Went back, I mean! To their garden!’

  Wanda is too fascinated by the halo to notice Pia’s slip. ‘Purdy thang, hey?’ she murmurs.

  ‘If it were up to me, I’d let you keep it.’ Pia gives a fake sigh. Thanks to Bagrin, it sounds very realistic. The rest of the lie tumbles out without even thinking. ‘Have to follow procedures, though. You know what the boss is like.’

  Wanda rolls her eyes. ‘Don’t I. I have to fill out a form every time I wish my hair different.’ She offers the halo out to Pia. ‘Do you want Boo to wish up some shadows to cloak this in? It feels delicate.’

  ‘That would be brilliant, thanks.’

  A whole morning of disaster, but now this. Pia’s mind spins with possibilities. Maybe the halo is a message. Or a clue. Or a map! Oh, please, please let it be a map.

  Whatever it is, at least it’s something. She has to get back to the celestial ark, so she can figure out what.

  Wanda coaxes Boo from her lamp, and together they wrap the halo in shadow. Pia watches them for a bit, then wanders over to Threedeep and switches on the nanabug.

  Hello, Pia! chats the drone when she’s done starting up. Like bluebottles, nanabugs have no voice – just words that scroll over its scratched and faded screen. My name is Threedeep.

  Pia’s sigh is one of endless weary. ‘I know who you are.’

  Threedeep processes this. Sorry, Cornucopia. I don’t recall us meeting. Are we very good friends? If so, YAY!

  A picture appears on the screen of two friends, high-fiving:

  ( ͡ ° ͡ )/( ͡ - ͡ )

  Pia presses the balls of her palms into her eyes. The angels’ miracle has obviously wiped Threedeep’s memory, and reset her personality settings to default too.

  ‘It’s Pia,’ she growls. ‘And dial down the emojis, your cuteness levels are way too high.’

  A widdle bit of cuteness never hurt anybody. ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ

  ‘Try saying that when I sit on you again.’

  The nanabug’s rotor starts up. She wobbles up from the bench and out of reach. Someone seems a bit grouchy.

  ‘I was just fine when you were powered off.’

  Intelligences prefer the term ‘asleep’, Threedeep informs her.

  Pia rolls her eyes. Nanabugs. They love to play at being humans, like little kids playing at being parents. It was best to just ignore them, which was what almost everyone did.

  Pia goes to the desk. Wanda and Boppity-Boo have wrapped up the halo in layers of protective shadow.

  ‘The shadows will protect it a little,’ Wanda says. ‘I’d still keep it out of direct sunlight if I were you.’

  ‘Oh, I will.’ Pia clutches the halo to her chest tightly. No way is she letting this one melt away too. She is going to take it back to her cabin and study it with her goggles on maximum magnification. The angels have left halos in all three places they visited after leaving their garden: Pia’s cabin, the Sunset Pagoda, Wanda’s workshop. There has to be a reason. The halos are clues. And now she has one of them. She just has to figure out how to read it.

  ‘Tell those angels of yours thanks,’ Wanda says. ‘I only wish I’d seen them visit. Must’ve come in here sometime last night.’

  ‘Will do.’ Pia backs out of the room. ‘Thanks for the shadows! Bye, Wanda! Bye, Boppity-Boo!’

  ‘Say goodbye, Boo,’ Wanda says, and the genie pokes a timid pink flame from the tip of her teapot and gives Pia a flicker of a wave.

  Pia practically sprints back to the ship’s zephyr zone, Threedeep buzzing by her, the nanabug’s screen filled with questions.

  ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Where are we going, Pia? Is it somewhere fun? Can I guess? How about a guessing game?

  Pia carries on down the ship’s corridor until they reach the stairs.

  ‘Do you remember where the angels went after they fixed you?’ she asks, surprised that she hadn’t thought of asking this before.

  I’m sorry to say I don’t, Pia. I don’t even remember them mending me. Is that where we’re going? To the angels, to tell them thank you?

  ‘Hopefully.’

  Are the angels and I very good friends? If so, YAY!

  Pia glances at the drone. Threedeep is a lot more sociable than she used to be, now she is operating several tiers younger. Whoever wrote the drone’s behaviour code obviously had a really moody, stereotypical view of teenagers.

  Pia? Threedeep chats. Why did you ask me where the angels were? Aren’t they in their garden? Or in their house? If not, shouldn’t we alert—

  ‘We’re playing a game of hide-and-seek,’ Pia lies. Or maybe it’s Bagrin. She is starting to have trouble distinguishing her lies from his. Not a good sign.

  ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ How lovely! Hide-and-seek is a fun game.

  ‘Yeah. The angels are hiding, and I think they left me this as a clue.’ She holds up the shadow-wrapped halo. ‘Do you know what it might mean?’

  Threedeep’s node scans the shadows.

  Halo | 'heɪləʊ / | noun

  A circular emanation of light found in many cultures and religions; an icon denoting holy or sacred figures; an aura exuded by heroes, gods and kings; a signifier of divine wisdom; used symbolically above the heads of saints, who would often receive visions and—

  ‘Hold on.’ Pia points to the text scrolling down the screen.

  Above the head. Receive visions. Of course. Why hasn’t she thought of that? Isn’t that exactly what her dream-halo was?

  This can’t wait until she’s back on the celestial ark. Pia ducks under the staircase, down into the gloomy part where the corridor strip light can’t reach. She unwraps the shadows from the halo until it is a perfect white frosted ring once more.

  Hands trembling, she places it above her head.

  Nothing happens. No lightning bolt of wisdom. No dream, no vision. Pia holds the halo above her head until her arms begin to ache.

  Pia? It’s long past lunch. Don’t the genies’ beards need trimming?

  Pia sighs. She forgot what it was like to have a drone remind her of things. Threedeep is right, though. All a genie’s power resides in their facial hair – and each genie has to maintain a strict beard length, appropriate to the type of wishes it grants. Pia has to shave the senior genies every day: if their beards grow too long, one of them might do something crazy, like turn the moon into an apricot.

  What were you hoping would happen? Threedeep asks, node swivelling towards the halo.

  ‘I don’t know. That the halo would show me something important, I guess.’

  Threedeep waves a virtual arm in her face.

  ヾ(ツ)

  ‘What?’

  Why would you expect that halo to show you something important?

  Pia rears up so quick she clunks her head on the staircase. The pain doesn’t matter. Threedeep is right. Again. The halo isn’t meant for her, it’s Threedeep’s.

  Before the drone can object, Pia thrusts the shining ring above her rotor. Threedeep emits a weird blarping sound and her screen goes blank.

  Oh Seamstress. It worked! Somehow the halo has actually put the nanabug into standby mode.

  Intelligences prefer the term ‘asleep’, Pia remembers Threedeep saying, just as the drone begins to dream.

  Not just in words, but in images.

  14

  BEARD TRIM

  Pia stares in shock.

  The halos weren’t goodbye gifts, they were goodbye mes
sages. A kind of aerial, tuned to only one person (or drone). Capable of picking up only one very specific transmission. Written in the only language angels knew how to speak. A language circular and infinite. A language made of light.

  Pia lists all the things she can see.

  Wardrobe.

  Narnia.

  Animals. A spider. A worm in an apple.

  Death.

  Light.

  Animals.

  Needle and thread.

  A bad move, a wrong solution.

  The zoo.

  Junk data.

  Are they symbols for something, or is Pia supposed to take them literally? She has no idea what Narnia and Wardrobe mean, but the animals have to represent the voilà here at the zoo. And the great big giant spider? Oh, that dings some bells, all right.

  That stooped, scuttly, mind-frayed old gargantula-keeper! Pia should’ve known Urette has something to do with this. Did the wrong solution in Threedeep’s dream belong to her, or someone else? Had the angels maybe gone to convince Urette she’d made a mistake?

  They might not have gone with Urette willingly, Bagrin whispers. Maybe she’s found a way to kidnap them.

  As much as she doesn’t want to, Pia finds his possibility convincing. If you can trap a devil in an infernal prism, surely there is a way to capture an angel too?

  Neither of the dreams the angels left behind them feel like cries for help or ransom notes, but still. Urette is her only lead here. Even if the gargantula-keeper isn’t keeping the angels captive, she has some connection to their disappearance.

  And Pia is going to find out what it is.

  She withdraws the halo, and Threedeep’s screen wipes once more. For a while, Pia sits in the dim stairwell, thinking and thinking. A few people come down the steps from the deck above but they don’t notice her. Eventually Threedeep’s screen returns to normal again.

  My system encountered an error. What happened?

  ‘The angels sent me a message. Through you.’

  Oh. Are they still playing hide-and-seek?

  ‘Yes. But I have a place to look now.’

  That’s good. We really ought to be getting back to the celestial ark anyway, to trim the genie beards.

  Pia wraps the halo back up in Boppity-Boo’s shadows, and crawls out from the stairwell.

  ‘Sure,’ she says, happy for Threedeep to think the angels are hiding somewhere on the celestial ark. It makes sense to go back there anyway. Pia has a plan to make. Certain things she needs to fetch. And yes, beards to trim.

  And then, once she is ready, Pia is going to pay Urette a little visit.

  • • •

  Everything is dead, Threedeep observes, node swivelling around the celestial ark.

  Pia looks at the angel garden gloomily. ‘Yup.’

  The entire deck is shrivelled and brown. She crouches down and runs her hand over the grass. It crumbles to dusty bits between her fingers.

  Plants need water and sunlight, Pia. Perhaps if you watered them, they might turn less brown.

  ‘Thanks for your very helpful suggestion, Threedeep. They need a lot more than that, though. These days, with all the tox and depletion, they need a miracle.’

  Yes. Perhaps the angels should stop playing hide-and-seek.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m going to find them really soon.’

  It’s true. Pia can feel it. But first, there are a few things she has to do. Number one on the list is: lose her nanabug.

  Pia slaps her thighs and pushes herself back up to standing. By the time she is upright, a cheerful smile is fixed on her face.

  ‘How would you like,’ she says to Threedeep, ‘to make some very good friends?’

  • • •

  Solomon and Bertoldo are delighted to see Pia. They come out of their lamps like Catherine wheels.

  ‘Did the young heroine’s boon assist her?’ asks Solomon. ‘How has her quest progressed?’

  ‘Solomon!’ Bertoldo scolds. ‘Stop picking at loose threads!’ This is Tellish for mind your own business.

  Pia sighs. ‘Come on, you two. Let’s take a look at that facial hair.’ She mimes a moustache when they fail to hear her. Both genies have grown long curly purple ones since this morning.

  ‘She gazes upon our unshorn magnificence with wonder!’ Solomon observes, as Pia straightens the moustaches out and measures each half, from nostril to tip.

  ‘Four centimetres! Wow, that’s some growth, guys.’

  ‘Wistfully, she yearns for a moustache of her own,’ Bertoldo declares. ‘The munificent genies are only too pleased to bestow her wish—’

  ‘No, no, no!’ Pia’s lucky the old dears narrate so many of their thoughts. She brandishes her scissors. Snip! Snip! A flash and a pop, and the moustaches disintegrate into soot.

  ‘But alas,’ adds Bertoldo mournfully, ‘the genies were suddenly too weak to grant the girl her wished-for beard...’

  Pia grins. She loves these deaf old dears. She always finds herself staying awhile, and requesting harmless little wishes from them. She doesn’t even have to recite the wishes from a script, because the genies are too weak now to grant anything but fireworks in the shapes of various objects and creatures.

  ‘A red rose: all this, I wish!’

  BANG! Over Solomon’s head blooms a firework in the shape of a big nose.

  Pia claps enthusiastically, as if that was just what she had wished for. ‘Now grant me a bird: all this, I wish!’

  Bertoldo giggles. ‘She calls his work absurd!’

  ‘I said it looked just as good as I’d heard,’ Pia says quickly to the hurt-looking Solomon. ‘Bertoldo, I demand a crown: all this, I wish!’

  Bertoldo bows, hands pressed together, and a picture of a clown blooms and whizzles away in the dark above him.

  Pia whoops, and the genies bow, and so it goes for a while.

  ‘Hey, Threedeep!’ she calls.

  Threedeep insisted on waiting in the corridor outside the Sunset Pagoda. The drone peeks from the entrance like a shy kid.

  ‘Come say hi to Solomon and Bertoldo!’

  Threedeep’s node lights green with a ping sound, and the drone zooms over to where the genies float.

  ‘What sorcery is this, the genies wonder?’ Solomon muses, tugging his goatee in vexation.

  Pia giggles. ‘You guys have met Threedeep before. Remember?’ The poor old things must be dimmer than she’d thought.

  ╰(◕ᗜ◕)╯ Hello! My name is Threedeep!

  ‘An infernal device, powered by thunderfire!’ Bertoldo declares.

  That is correct, chats Threedeep. If thunderfire is your term for electricity. What powers a genie, if I may ask?

  Bertoldo and Solomon swell with pride. ‘Wishes!’ they yell out, bowing deeply.

  Pia grins. In spite of herself, she is finding this conversation very cute.

  Is that so? says Threedeep. In that case, I wish for us to be very good friends.

  The genies are momentarily dumbstruck. Pia doubts anyone has ever asked that from them before. But Threedeep’s wish is actually perfect – small enough for the genies to give, easy enough for them to grant, and totally without consequence. And best of all, it appears on a screen, so they can’t mishear it.

  ‘As you command!’ they both cry.

  Pia leaves Threedeep chatting with the genies. For a while, she pretends to look busy tidying the pagoda. She cleans the other lamps, waking Hokapoka, Shazam and Kadabra, who are all as faint as will-o’-the-wisps. Pia tries asking wishes from them, but none of them grant anything she says, so she simply fetches as many shadows as she can, and cloaks each one to make sure they are comfortable.

  A quick glance over at Solomon and Bertoldo: Threedeep is showing the genies silly emojis on her screen. They are transfixed. There won’t be a better t
ime than now. Pia creeps up behind Threedeep, the moonlit halo in her hands. In a flash, she slips it on the drone, and Threedeep goes into standby mode again. Solomon and Bertoldo look quizzical.

  ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ Pia explains, hoping her Tellish is good enough.

  The genies seem to understand. They both put fingers on lips and make shush sounds. Perfect. She’s bought herself some time, at the very least. Pia creeps away towards the door, eases it shut, and rushes upstairs to her cabin.

  15

  LOOPING GHOSTS

  Pia has never been to the gargantula ark before, and the angels might be anywhere on it. If Urette really is keeping them, Pia will need a numinous lamp to light them up.

  Normally, celestials have different levels of visibility. Angels and ghosts are invisible, genies are visible, and devils are somewhere in between. Numinous lamps emit a special light that lights them all up. Pia assumes it’s the same way UV lamps light up UV stuff.

  The numinous lamps are strung around the ark like stadium floodlights. Someone might notice if she takes a numinous lamp from the edge of the ship, but there are several others: one in the Sunset Pagoda, one in the infernal prism, and one in the haunted cabin. Threedeep has one installed on her too, but that was out for obvious reasons. And it would be dangerous to give Bagrin even a few minutes of invisibility. (Oh, go on, says a voice in her head. We promise to behave. Deal?)

  Pia shakes her head. Just like angels, devils mainly draw all their power from being unseen. All celestials do. It’s why genies shroud their wish-grantings in shadows and puffs of smoke, and why angels like to work their miracles unnoticed.

  Fetching the lamp from the ghosts will be fine, though.

  • • •

  The ghosts are the fourth and final type of celestials on the ark. They haunt a specially built cabin at the back of the ship, a few metres from where they died. Pia no longer bothers calling them Mum and Dad. It’s easier to use their names. Their names, they remember.

  ‘Hi, Estival.’ She shuts the cabin’s door behind her. ‘Hi, Yisel.’