Zone

by Manjula Padmanabhan

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure

Synopsis

In Zone, the final novel of the Meiji trilogy, Meiji is adrift in a vast and lawless region, rebelling furiously against the gender roles forced upon her by those who think they know best. Her guardian, whom she knows as Youngest, is still unable to protect her. Plus: she now has a mad-cap giant bird to look after, a bounty on her head and a relentless killer on her trail.

Set in a grim future-version of our planet, Zone gathers the many strands of Meiji's saga to deliver a shocking but satisfying conclusion. Layered in equal part with terror and pain, love and deliverance, this gripping tale is Manjula Padmanabhan at her absolute best.

Release date: September 24, 2026

Publisher: Hachette India

Print pages: 344

Sample

Prelude

Meiji trembled like a plucked violin string within her lighted cage. She was suspended high above the shiny metallic floor of the High Crimes Court. Below her, she could see the five black thrones of the judges. Each had its own flight of three steps and a padded seat; each had its own pool of light.

The rest of the tall Chamber was in darkness. It was noticeably cold. All the witnesses, the members of the Court, the Observers, the Press, the hundred million gawkers who lived only to bay and howl at people like herself, were present in a virtual sense and were invisible. But a sibilant, rustling murmur came from them as the lighted gondola began descending.

Meiji refused to be scared. Her mind was calm. The trembling was involuntary. ‘Breathe slowly,’ said the voice in her right ear. It belonged to the man she called Youngest. Her uncle, her father. ‘You’re starting to pant. Slow it down. Concentrate.’

In her left ear, a separate channel connected her to the woman she knew as Mentor Vane. ‘Their aim is to break your confidence,’ said that voice. ‘Don’t give them the satisfaction. You have a strong case. They know that. Don’t say anything. Answer in monosyllables.’

‘We’ll be with you throughout,’ said her father. ‘Pause before you say anything. Listen for our voices...’

There was a movement below. The judges were coming in. Four ugly beings, dressed in purple robes that hid their gender identities while revealing their heads, their hands and their feet. They didn’t walk in. Instead, they appeared as holograms, thickening slowly into substance, seated in their thrones.

Two toads, a rotted potato and a dragon’s turd, thought Meiji. No, make that four turds, from four different dragons. Why should I care what a turd says to me, what it thinks of me? Why should anyone care?

The last judge began to appear now, in the central throne. A murmuring hush filled the Chamber. This figure was dressed in a stiff white sheath, jointed and glistening. The head was also fully covered, except for the face. It appeared to be that of a woman, going by its complete hairlessness: there were no eyebrows, not the faintest trace of facial hair. The eyes were huge and luminous, the mouth thin-lipped and shiny dark. The skin was golden orange.

A gong sounded. ‘The Accused will descend,’ said the Judge Supreme in a high, screeching voice, like a nail scraping on glass. She sounded like a woman. She spoke in a formal, courtly version of Unida, which Meiji received as a seamless, instantaneous translation through her speech-imbeds.

The capsule sank towards the shining floor. The movement was smooth, with no swaying. It was glassed in, with steel struts on all sides. A black dome arched above Meiji’s head; a black disk was beneath her feet.

She could not see by what mechanism the containment moved. It’s a shaft, she thought. With the glass cage in the middle. Pushed up or down.

When it stopped, the front panel whined softly and slid away. The surface of the black disk was aligned precisely with the floor of the Chamber. Meiji wasn’t permitted to move freely, of course. There were bright steel cuffs, twinkling with lights, around both her ankles.

Now, a white patch appeared on the floor in front of her. She’d been told that she could only move onto one of these patches. Any deviation would result in a piercing shock. She’d been given a one-second example of what it felt like. Canned lightning.

Judge Supreme said in her steely screech, ‘The Accused may step forward.’

As soon as Meiji stepped out, the glass gondola glided up once more. Giant images of herself began immediately to careen across the smooth, curved walls of the Chamber as news bots swarmed upon her like hungry electronic dragonflies. They darted around her, never touching but sucking up views of her, then instantly spewing them onto the walls of the Chamber. Onto the screens and home walls of the invisible throng.

She glanced around, seeing her shaven head from many different angles. It looked naked and exposed, a smooth caramel brown marble poking up from the severe black costume she wore. She saw images of her whole self, too, from above, below, sideways and around her back. She looked thin and tall, angular, covered from her neck to her ankles in a single-piece black garment. It was made of a dense material that revealed no planes or curves. Only her head, hands and feet were exposed. She wore no shoes. The steel ankle cuffs were her only jewellery.

Finding little to interest them about her figure, the circling cameras focused on her face. She was too severe to be beautiful. The lean lines, the strong bones. The prominent, shapely nose. The mouth dark and full as a ripe plum, rimmed with a lighter ridge. She looked up only in brief flashes, and then, the liquid honey of her eyes caught the light.

‘The Accused may state their full name,’ said the Judge Supreme, ‘followed by their age and genderation.’

‘I am called Meiji,’ said the girl, adding quickly in response to a whisper from Mentor Vane in her left ear, ‘Madam High Supreme.’ Whatever she said out loud was instantly overlaid by the same words in Unida. ‘I am nineteen years old, of Standard Fem genderation.’

There was a faint pause. ‘We demand to know the prisoner’s FULL name,’ said the Screecher.

‘May it please Madam High Supreme,’ said Meiji, stammering slightly as she struggled to bring out the words that Vane fed to her, ‘I have no other names.’

The hidden audience had begun murmuring and rustling once more. The four Sub-Justices, holding narrow paddles in front of their mouths to prevent their deliberations from being heard or interpreted, conferred amongst themselves. Judge Supreme appeared to be listening to these exchanges. There were antennae built into her headdress, which twitched towards the other judges, now this way, now that. Her gaze shifted as she listened.

‘It’s a delaying tactic,’ said Youngest in Meiji’s right ear. ‘They must’ve known...’

‘Not at all,’ snapped Vane. ‘They’re laying the groundwork for the argument that she’s an Irregular. An Outsider. Ripe for liquidation.’

The trembling sensation within Meiji was making it difficult for her to concentrate on what either of these whispering voices was saying. She couldn’t answer them without being heard by everyone in the Chamber, including the hovering news bots.

Judge Supreme collected herself. ‘We have heard that the Accused is a Forbiddenite! Belonging to those lands whose existence we condemn! This Accused has no family name because she does not belong to the Lighted Realm. Therefore, she does not follow the laws and customs of our world. Therefore, she does not deserve the leniency and civilized respect that we accord to our citizens!’

At every statement, Meiji heard the growling of the invisible audience. Expressing its contempt, its righteous disapproval.

‘Therefore––’ Judge Supreme drew in a breath as if about to begin another condemnatory statement, then paused. A flurry of frantic activity was taking place to her left. Comments were being passed back and forth between the purple-clad Sub-Justices. The Judge Supreme’s antennae were twiddling in their direction, then to her right, then back to the left. Her gaze shifted as she listened to different sets of arguments.

Presently, the glistening eyes focused once more upon Meiji. The expression in those bulging orbs had softened. ‘So,’ said the Judge. ‘We have heard a curious detail concerning the Accused, hey? So is this true, then, Accused? Is it true that you are one of those rarest of rare beings in our world as we know it today, unknown amongst us for many generations, a bona fide, board-certified Standard Fem Intacta?’ The screeching voice travelled up an octave.

Meiji was breathing hard, her heart hammering. The question maddened her. She despised the circumstances that forced her to answer it. The white-clad figure was leaning forward at an angle that suggested a giant albino praying mantis to her. ‘Answer me! Is this true? Is this still true?’

Vane and Youngest both whispered urgently now, ‘Yes! Just say yes!’

Meiji’s teeth were chattering so hard that it was difficult to part them, even though her face remained impassive. ‘Yes,’ she said in a voice that she managed to keep steady. ‘Yes, Madam High Supreme. It is still true.’

‘Ahhh...’ A sound like escaping steam issued from the glittering figure. She leaned back in her black throne. ‘Then indeed, my colleague, Senior Argumentator for the Defence, is correct. This changes everything. We are bound to reconsider this case after all.’ The Judge Supreme paused before continuing. ‘The Accused must return to her Containment Cell. This court is adjourned for the day.’

The Chamber began to clang and boom with sounds from the massed virtual audience.

The Sub-Justices on the right had leapt to their feet, gesturing and protesting, while the two on their left remained seated, one stroking their two long, plaited moustaches, the other making a cat’s cradle out of a smooth gold rope held between both hands.

01

Meiji returned alone, conveyed within the cage-like gondola as it moved up and then along horizontal tracks before reaching the stack of Containment Cells, where she and her support team were housed for the duration of the hearing.

The cells were circular, connected by a central shaft. The gondola rose vertically through the stack before stopping at the one designated for her.

Meiji stepped out of the narrow cage. The cell was huge and airy, with a single pane of curved steel-glass rimming it all around. Each cell was separate from the ones above and below. They were created as removable disks in a stack that soared above the gleaming channels of the sprawling Suspended City. Whenever a case was about to commence or when it was over, an enormous shunting crane rose to move the entire chamber into or out of the stack.

Youngest, Vane and Mentor Folia were already in the cell. She could feel their gaze boring into her as she stepped out of the cage, but she swivelled away, turning her back to them and walked instead towards the infinity window.

A cauldron of fury seethed within her.

She stared out at the cloud-wreathed panorama outside the window. The cell was high in the stack, giving the occupants a dizzying vantage point. She tried to concentrate on what she saw. But that hated word continued to ricochet within her brain. It was like a bullet trapped within her skull, hammering and clattering inside her mind. Bloodying her thoughts. Blotting out her reason.

‘Intacta.’

She leaned forward, her palms flat on the cool surface of the glass. Tears began to flow down her cheeks. She bared her teeth, wanting to stifle her breath, her sobs. It was useless. She could not. She allowed the pent-up rage and humiliation to flood through her and out in choking gasps, dripping to the floor.

Presently, she straightened up. Reaching into one of the small pockets built into her costume, she brought out a square of moisture-absorbing fibre. She scraped her face thoroughly before kneeling to wipe the floor. She was disconcerted to find that the bland grey surface was already spotless.

She heard Mentor Vane’s voice addressing her. ‘No need to bother. The floor is self-cleaning.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Mentor Folia, responding to Vane. She spoke in the tone of someone continuing a conversation. ‘I didn’t know. What about solids?’

Youngest answered her. ‘I believe there’s a constant suction of air at the floor level. Wet the tip of your finger and place it on the floor?’ He paused. ‘See what I mean?’

Meiji turned.

In the centre of the cell was a triangular service unit that extended floor-to-ceiling, passing through this cell and connecting to all the others in the stack. It contained the gondola shaft, as well as channels for other services. Food was delivered twice a day, in portions that could be reheated or stored. There was a continuous supply of potable water. A toilet and shower took up the second of the three partitions in the core. The final partition contained storage shelves.

The others were seated around a low table on the far side of the service unit.

As Meiji approached the group, Vane glanced up. ‘Meiji,’ she said.

Folia, who was still holding her fingertip close to the floor, looked up too. ‘Oh. Glad you’re here.’ This Mentor was the first person towards whom Meiji had felt drawn on the Island where she had returned to consciousness after leaving her birthland. On the Island, Folia, along with many of the other inhabitants, wore no clothes. But she had looked very different. When Meiji first met her, the entire surface of her skin, including her head and face, was covered with an extremely realistic tattoo of an impenetrable jungle.

Here, now, she looked completely unremarkable. She wore a loose tunic over pyjama bottoms. Her face, her hands, her bare feet appeared to be free of ink. The change was so startling that Meiji hadn’t recognized her two days ago when they set out from the port of New Alexandria for Suspended City.

‘Mentor Folia,’ said Meiji now. ‘I forgot to ask you earlier.’ Gesturing to her own face and hands, she said, ‘How did you remove your markings? Wasn’t it very painful?’

Vane gave a faint snort and turned away.

Folia said, ‘Not at all. I’ve not removed anything. It’s the opposite, actually. I added something: a synthetic membrane adapted from the Mimic octopus – a cuttlefish, actually. They’re closely related. It can be made to mimic any surface that we want. In this case, ordinary human skin.’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘Maybe you’ve not seen one before?’

Meiji shook her head, then fell silent, her face rigid.

No one said anything. Vane wore a tent-like garment, woven out of strands of plaited seaweed. Her white hair covered her head in an untidy halo. She was looking out towards the plume of white steam on the far horizon. Called the Eternal Feather by some, it marked the location of the Rift, the giant cleft in the Earth’s mantle, created when ecoterrorists of the past detonated atomic bombs in the Suez Canal.

Youngest was sitting cross-legged on one of the fold-up seats that could be raised from the floor. Though he identified as a man, his body was that of a woman. He had adopted the name ‘Yasmine’. He wore a short, tight blouse made of black sealskin, which clung to his ample bosom. Below this, he wore embroidered flared trousers made of the same material. His thick iron-grey hair was pulled back and confined in a short, tight braid tethered high on the back of his head. He wore a gold ring in his nose and diamond studs in his ears.

But when he looked up, as he did now, his gaze was hard and cold. He had the same nose as Meiji’s, though thicker and more pronounced. His mouth was not so rounded, but the lips protruded in the same fleshy way, with a ridged outline. His eyes were heavy-lidded under broad black brows. ‘All right,’ he said, then cleared his throat to start again. The rich contralto was in sharp contrast to his appearance. ‘Go on. Say it. What you’re so outraged about.’

Meiji glanced at him, then away again. She couldn’t bear to accept what he had become. It had been over a month since they had met again, after the catastrophic events that had resulted in her arrest. She had loved him dearly as an uncle. She had accepted him warily as a father. He had changed while transitioning from one definition to the other. Once or twice, he had frightened her terribly. Along the way, she had changed, too, which was how she was able to accept his previous redefinitions.

But… Yasmine? That had happened without her knowledge. She had no idea who that was. Or what Yasmine was supposed to be to her. Surely not a mother! Not that, never that. She had never known a mother, after all. She had never met any women until she had returned to consciousness on board the Island.

So, no. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what her beloved uncle-father had become to her. She didn’t want to even try.

In a low voice, looking at none of the three of them, she said, ‘You all know perfectly well.’

‘No,’ said Folia. ‘I don’t. If there was a discussion, it wasn’t with me. All I know is that the screechy Judge Supreme was about to pass sentence on you without even the slightest pretence of an argument – and the next moment, poof! Adjournment!’ She was kneeling on the floor as she spoke. Then she stood up in one fluid movement. ‘I think that’s worth something, don’t you, huh, Meiji? Something at least worth talking about?’

Meiji looked up at Folia. Her face was unyielding. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re lying too, Mentor Folia. You were there when we talked about it. On the way here. That I was not to be reduced to a...’ She broke off to turn away, to choke back another storm of tears. There was a silence before she continued, ‘That I am not to be reduced to a crude, meaningless title! That a part of my body that’s deeply personal, that no one other than me has the right to care about—’

Vane cut in. ‘Except that they do.’ She swivelled to face Meiji. ‘What gives you the right to decide what should or should not be cared about by literally millions – no, make that billions – of other members of your species? Over the whole course of human history?’ She drew in a breath. ‘And Mentor Folia was not following that discussion while we were in transit. She was navigating for that fool of a pilot who brought us here. Or have you forgotten?’

Meiji shrugged. ‘No,’ she said. Her gaze flickered in Folia’s direction. ‘But I thought you heard us, Mentor. I thought you were listening.’

Folia shook her head. ‘Meiji, I don’t lie. You should, by now, have understood that about me.’ Her expression was kind. She was not offended.

Meiji looked back at the other two. ‘Well, then, I asked the two of you about it. I begged you not to bring up that issue. Yet you had already done it. You had discussed it with the – the – whatever they are. The Sub-Justices. You told them. And now that’s what everyone knows about me, thinks about me.’

Youngest looked as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t.

‘I’ve stopped being a person. Instead, I’ve become an… an… Intacta.’ She spat the word out. ‘A symbol of nothing, based on an ancient, stupid, disgusting idea about a woman’s private parts—’

‘As a result of which you are not yet condemned to die!’ exclaimed Youngest. He stood up, his voice loud. ‘In my opinion, worthless as you might find it, if a single three-syllable word can actually spare you from the Death Penalty, then that’s a good and powerful word!’

‘And mind you,’ cut in Vane, ‘there’s nothing guaranteed by this adjournment. They may still decide that you must be made an example of.’

‘Is that the Prosecution argument?’ asked Folia. ‘They’re asking for Death to create precedent?’

Vane shrugged angrily. ‘That’s what I heard. Yasmine and I both presented strong evidence – it’s clear for everyone to see, in the video replay – that the lizard was out of control, no rider could have controlled it––’ She broke off, shaking her head. ‘But Precedent is code for maximum penalty.’ She glanced around. ‘To protect the Games.’

‘What?’ asked Meiji, out of her depth. ‘I don’t...’

‘The Games,’ said Vane. ‘They’re only ever thinking about the Games.’

‘They have to,’ said Youngest. Standing up, he was taller than any of the others in the room. He looked at Meiji now, his gaze a little softer. ‘That excursion of yours, on the lizard? Cost the Red Team sixty men. Or more. They’re still counting limbs…’

Meiji looked from one to the other. ‘But we weren’t part of the Games! If one team lost because of us, it was just an accident. Like a storm—’

‘That’s just it, don’t you see?’ cried Vane. ‘There are no accidents when it comes to the Games! It goes back to the infernal luck-driven nonsense. And the economy. In the end, that’s all it ever is – the economy. The fate of the stock markets is tied to the betting in the games – and the betting in the games is tied to an irrational belief system, which they call probability theory—’

‘Not irrational,’ cut in Youngest. ‘It’s a branch of mathematics.’

‘Oh, call it what you like!’ snarled Vane. ‘It’s still just luck in the end. Fate and superstition! They might as well be reading cat entrails. One team sits inside a room plotting outcomes on four-dimensional graphs, and in another room, there are psychics consulting crystal balls!’

‘Which is where you come into this, Meiji,’ said Folia. Her voice was always calm. ‘An Intacta. Appearing out of the blue, riding on a giant flying lizard. Destroying almost an entire team! It’s the stuff of legends – no, it’s more than that: it’s the fusing of two different belief systems. The age-old fixation on virginity fused with the flying dragons of legend. An unbeatable combination.’

‘It may seem meaningless to you,’ said Vane to Meiji. ‘But genitalia and reproduction are...’ Here she gave a sudden laugh. ‘How ridiculous does this sound! But yes – tangled up. The genitalia of the young. It’s as if the adults in a tribe absolutely must poke their hands in there. I agree, it’s disgusting. The ritual cutting of boys was stopped, thank goodness. And of little girls. But then...’ She sighed, turning to Youngest.

‘You have one with you?’

He nodded. Reaching into a pocket, he brought out a slender object. It was about the length of one of his fingers, slightly curved, thicker at one end, with a gold ring set into it. ‘Boar’s tusk,’ he said. ‘This one is purely ornamental, which is why it’s got leaves and flowers carved into it.’ He held it out towards Meiji. ‘But all daughters in this part of the world get one at birth. Always perfectly smooth so as to cause the least pain. Sometimes made of precious metals. Blessed by all the elder women of the family.’

Meiji recoiled with a soft cry, her hands to her mouth.

Folia reached out and received it instead. ‘You’ve guessed what its purpose is, yes?’ she said. ‘Most commonly called a “peen”. There are vulgar variations. The intention was to subvert the cult of virginity—’

‘No! Perverse!’ gasped Meiji. ‘Beyond hateful – inserting things! Without consent!’

‘And yet, in one form or another, it’s what all tribes have done,’ insisted Vane. ‘All across history, all across time. If it wasn’t genital cutting, then it was ear-piercing or nose-piercing or decorative scarring. Or footwear. Think of foot binding – think of high-heeled shoes, for goodness’ sake! And hair removal.’ She looked around. ‘In my youth, it was considered not just normal but absolutely imperative for women’s bodies to be as hairless as a newborn baby.’

‘What about indoctrination?’ asked Folia in her placid voice. ‘The forcing of religious doctrine on young and tender minds. Is that really any different to the mutilation of genital organs?’

There was a charged silence. Meiji had backed up against the service console, her fists held against her eyes. She said, aiming her words at Youngest, ‘You didn’t – didn’t! – do anything like that to me, did you? Tell me you didn’t!’

‘No,’ said Youngest. ‘This particular custom did not cross into our country. It is not an ancient custom. It only began after the world was split up into separate zones.’ He paused. ‘But.’ He paused again. ‘We did do another kind of thing to you. It was different. It was chemical. And you know what that is.’ He breathed in, he breathed out. ‘We delayed your growth. We kept you in childhood and in ignorance. We believed, in all honesty, in all sincerity, that it was for your benefit.’

He looked at her, this tall, thin, black-clad figure, with the steel cuffs on her ankles and her eyes tightly shut, tears seeping down her cheeks. His heart shook within him. He could still see the sweet and sparkling figure of that little child whom he had once called ‘Squirrel’. Who had grown up in secrecy in an underground palace that he and his two brothers had created for her. Whom he had loved so dearly that just to hear the chink of her tiny silver bracelets made him smile.

‘And to this day,’ he said, his voice hoarse, ‘I believe we did the right thing.’

02

The next day, Meiji was summoned to the Court to ‘bear witness’ to the crimes she was being held accountable for.

This meant hearing and seeing the names and faces of the now seventy-one player-warriors whose deaths she had caused as a result of losing control of her lizard mount. Only one of the four Sub-Justices was present. Meiji still could not tell from their appearance whether they were male or female. Instead of stepping out of the conveyor cage, she was commanded to remain within it. The uppe. . .