The Gauntlet (The Cage 3)

As soon as she was gone, Cora glanced at the chimp’s slot. The digging was well organized—far more meticulous than Cora’s own sloppy work. “How do you think she ended up on Armstrong?”

Rolf shrugged. “The Axion must have dropped her here.”

Willa returned, eyeing them as though she knew they were talking about her. She pulled her hood up against the sun and returned to digging.

Cora kept throwing glances toward her as she worked. It was incredible to see an animal with such focus and patience. Lucky would have loved to meet this chimp—he, more than anyone, had believed humans and animals weren’t so different. A pang of grief hit her at the thought of Lucky, and she squeezed her eyes closed and pressed a hand to her back, where his notebook was still tucked into her waistband.

God, she missed him.

When she opened her eyes, the chimp was watching her. She returned to digging, but not before Cora had noticed Willa’s eyes resting on her waistband. The chimp dropped another marron root in her basket and dusted off her hands.

And then Cora noticed the pattern the chimp was using to dig. Even squares, staggered three across and four down. The particular shape struck her as strangely familiar. She’d seen that pattern before, hadn’t she? Where?

And then it struck her.

The Gauntlet.

She gasped—yes, it was identical to the Gauntlet model that Cassian had shown her. But what did this chimpanzee have to do with the Gauntlet? She remembered something Cassian had said about the lesser species who had tried to run the Gauntlet:

Other species have not been as successful. The Conmarines. The Scoates. A half dozen others, in sectors very far from here. Even a chimpanzee tried to run it once—the Axion had experimented on it to give it higher intelligence. But they all failed the perceptive puzzles.

Cora felt a tingle of excitement in her limbs as she dared a closer glance at Willa. Could this be the same chimp? Mali had said that all the previous human runners of the Gauntlet had been killed in its dangerous puzzles or had gone insane from the mental strain, and so there was no one who could coach Cora.

Yet maybe there was someone who had run the Gauntlet before, who could teach Cora its secrets. The fact that it was a superintelligent chimpanzee hardly fazed her—she’d seen crazier things since the Kindred had abducted her.

“Hey,” Cora whispered to the chimp, nodding toward the twelve-squared pattern. “That shape. I’ve seen it before.”

Willa ignored her as she moved on to digging out the next square.

“I know you can hear me,” Cora said. “And I’m not stupid. That shape is the Gauntlet. I know it and I think you do, too.”

Willa’s head slowly turned, her brown eyes wide. For a second Cora thought that this would be it. Willa was the answer to their problems. Willa knew the secrets of the Gauntlet, secrets not even Cassian knew. She could help train Cora. She could ensure that Cora won—if they got off of Armstrong, that was. Soon.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Cora whispered.

And then Willa threw a clod of soil in her face.

Cora sputtered out dirt.

“Slave in slot ten!” the guard called. “Water break!”

Cora wiped at her mouth, coughing, as Willa calmly returned to digging. Rolf gave her a questioning look.

“Isn’t it early to be making enemies?” he whispered.

“Not an enemy,” Cora said as she passed by toward the water bucket. “Our new best friend, though she doesn’t know it yet. And the only hope we might have.” She coughed out more dirt.

Rolf flicked some soil off Cora’s shoulder. “I’d say we have a long way to go to convince her of that.”

6

Nok

FOR THE LAST TWO weeks, Nok had been isolated in a small quarantine tent, made to sleep in filth, and given only some reeking bland soup once a day.

But everything had changed that morning: they’d let her take a bath.

She reveled in scrubbing the grime from her limbs, in plunging her head underwater, in rinsing her hair. It was a magnificent indulgence, though the water was only tepid.

“Hurry up in there,” a deputy called through the tent’s flap.

She sighed. All good things came to an end. She stood and squeezed the water from her hair, pulled on a robe they’d set out for her, and smoothed a hand over her belly, barely hidden by the folds of the robe. The best she could figure, she was twenty-two or twenty-three weeks along. She wouldn’t be able to hide it much longer. And then what? Even if by some miracle they could get off Armstrong and to the Mosca planet, she certainly didn’t trust Bonebreak. He’d already betrayed them once. What was to keep him or one of his Mosca friends from grabbing Sparrow and selling her to some private owner?

Nok scrubbed a towel once more through her hair. She’d kill for some conditioner. Hell, even soap. And yet the wish was fleeting—she had bigger worries now that quarantine was over.

She leaned closer to the tent flap, listening to the conversation just outside between the two deputies guarding the tent. They were talking about American football. It sounded like they had both grown up in America, one in Boston and the other in a town she’d never heard of, and they were speculating whose team was kicking whose ass now on the field.

She rolled her eyes. Earth was gone for all they knew, and they were still talking sports.

“Is she finished?” said another voice, this one female.

The tent flap opened and an older woman with threads of gray in her dark hair came in. She gave Nok a quick, inspecting gaze. “Nok, right? I’m Keena. I oversee the female wives’ tent.” She started coughing and took out a handkerchief. “Feel better after a bath?”

Nok cinched the robe. “A little more like myself,” she said neutrally. Despite the woman’s kind words—the first kind words she’d heard here—Nok didn’t trust her. She’d had two weeks to imagine what happened in the wives’ tents, and each thought was more disturbing than the last.

Keena coughed again as she motioned for Nok to follow her through the den of tents, and Nok did so hesitantly, taking in every detail. They entered a ramshackle canvas corridor lit by candles that connected various tent rooms. From the noises coming from within the tent rooms, Nok could guess what was happening within. Her stomach tensed. As if sensing her apprehension, Keena cleared her throat.

“The wives’ job is to keep Ellis’s deputies distr

acted,” she explained. “The more distracted they are, the less likely they are to try to stage a mutiny.” Keena spoke so bluntly that Nok realized a mutiny must be a very real possibility. “This is her way of appeasing them. There’s a separate tent for male and female wives. You clean up after the deputies, cook for them, do their washing, serve them drinks, laugh at their jokes, and . . .” Keena paused.

“Sleep with them,” Nok finished flatly.

Keena’s face darkened. “Yes. Unfortunately, Ellis permits that.”

Nok pressed a hand on her belly protectively, then looked toward the other tents. “Where are my friends?”

“The blond girl and the skinny boy have been taken to the mines. The other one, the big guy, has caused quite a stir. Ellis wanted him as her personal wife, but he wasn’t too keen on it. Didn’t want to wear the shiny pants and cook her dinner.”

From the way the woman’s voice took on an edge of disdain, Nok got the feeling Keena wasn’t Ellis’s biggest fan. She smiled to herself. Maybe Keena was more trustworthy than she’d first thought.

“Leon can take care of himself,” Nok said. “And so can I.”

Keena smiled sadly. “I admire your bravery, but I fear it might be misplaced. The life of a wife on Armstrong isn’t a pleasant one. I’m not sure which is worse, being a slave here or the mines—at least here there’s a longer life expectancy. As long as you don’t get the sand-cough, like me.” She turned and kept walking, the rumbling cough deep in her chest. “I’ve seen so many girls where you are now, shipped here when they turn nineteen. Young and brave and hopeful. They believe all those ridiculous rumors that it’s a paradise.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t so naive. The Kindred took me on my thirtieth birthday and, after some tests, determined I wasn’t worth putting in their enclosures, so they sent me here. A sheriff named Randall was in charge then. He was mad for power too—the sheriffs always are. I was enslaved, like you. I worked in these tents for five years. Then Ellis rose to power. She made me a deputy and put me in charge of the female wives.”