The Child Thief 6: Zero Hour

by Forrest, Bella

My stomach sank. I knew what that meant.

  “We were able to get some footage of one of these attacks from a scout in the Lumley area,” Nathan went on.

  Fiora’s bookcase suddenly rumbled to life and began to split down the middle, exposing a large black screen behind it. I was shocked. Even in quaint Brightbirch, Nathan’s wealth and tech-savviness were apparent.

  The black screen snapped to life and began to show shaky handheld camera footage from what appeared to be a hiding spot in the woods outside of a city. Branches, grasses, and leaves occasionally blocked the camera’s view, which was already very obscured by the darkness of night. But I could see the light of several burning fires . . . and a large crowd of dirty and bloodied people being rounded up in what looked like a poor factory town square. In the background, a huge factory, which must have been the cannery, was completely ablaze. And though they might have succeeded in burning down their oppressors’ factory, the factory people now looked injured and spent. Agents were aiming guns at them and demanding that they put their hands up. The square was littered with dead bodies and burning debris.

  And then the screen went black again.

  “What happened to the survivors?” I asked shakily when the footage ended.

  “There were no survivors,” Nathan replied ominously.

  The room went completely silent as the bookcase slid back to its original position.

  “After discussing this with the base leaders, we’ve decided that Little John needs to be involved immediately. We incited them, and we need to assist them now in their fights. Which is why we have begun funneling aid into various factory towns through scouts and secure drop-offs.”

  “What kind of aid?” Luka asked.

  “The things that they need to succeed. And to live,” Nathan replied. “Food, water . . . and weapons.”

  Several people in the crowd gasped, and Nathan held up a hand.

  “You must understand that we agonized over this decision. We knew that by arming these people, we were sentencing some of them to die,” he said darkly. “But the uprisings were happening with or without weapons, and with those weapons, they at least have a fighting chance.”

  There was no denying that. Little John had stepped out of the shadows and showed these people who they were really working for. They had shown them the truth of just how much the government valued their lives and their labor. And now they knew that at any time, their towns could be evacuated and they could be sent out for lobotomization. They weren’t going to wait around for it to happen. They were fighting it—and we needed to help them.

  “And the middle class?” a female medic asked.

  “The scouts are reporting a large number of protests there, too, particularly on college campuses. One turned violent only yesterday, resulting in two student deaths after a government anti-protest squad opened fire,” Nathan said. “But the backlash to that act led to even more protests today.”

  My heart was pumping quickly and solidly in my chest. It was starting to feel like the tide was truly turning, and like we might actually have the public on our side. If the protests were spreading, we had a better chance of changing the minds of more citizens and even getting international attention. And if the government was busy trying to squash uprisings, they wouldn’t be paying as much attention to Little John and their plans. Would we be able to take advantage of the situation and finally end the regime’s terrible reign?

  “We also have some news from Artemis,” Nathan went on. “Aurora was able to assist us in decoding some internal memos we’d saved that were in code. In them, we seem to have discovered why the government has been incentivizing multiple adoptions by the ultra-rich and lobotomization of the lower classes.”

  I looked over at Aurora and noticed that she was breathing quickly, as if reliving something that she would rather forget.

  “They’re experimenting with a super class of ultra-rich elites. They think the lower classes are only good for working without pay and reproducing. And if we don’t stop them,” Nathan said as he looked over all of us, “then they will push more and more of the country into destitution and unpaid factory labor.”

  “What are ultra-rich elites?” Jace thought to ask. “Don’t we already have that class in power now?”

  “There are only a few families in the country that could be considered ultra-rich,” Aurora answered, stepping forward. “Think of them as the top one percent of the top one percent. Families like the Prestons.”

  I felt nauseous hearing the name again. The Prestons were funding the government, and they had my daughter.

  I hated them.

  “But how can such a small percentage take over a whole country?” Nelson asked.

  “By hoarding all the money. By making it impossible for anyone else to afford basic necessities, thereby rendering the entire public completely dependent on the ultra-rich,” Nathan answered.

  “They’re already dependent on the rich,” Bridge added. “The poor can’t get much poorer.”

  “But the middle class can, and will,” Nathan replied. “Until there is no middle class anymore. Just the poor and the very, very rich.”

  Suddenly I remembered the team of executives who had been interrogated at Edgewood after the Smally mission. Mica, the fiery exec to whom I had personally spoken, mentioned at that time that even she was having trouble being approved for adoption. If a government executive, someone who was definitely in the upper-middle class category of society, couldn’t afford adoption, then the middle class was already feeling the heat—already being moved down in society rather than up, and losing access to things that they had previously been able to do. Would they start having more of their children confiscated? Would their wages slowly decrease until they were just as poor as the factory workers?

  “But it’s worse than all that,” Nathan went on. “Because it seems Helping Hands was just the tip of the iceberg with Operation Guidance. It’s being ramped up to be used on the middle class as well.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So the lobotomization was going to spread beyond the poorest of the poor? What would be left if so many people were basically zombified?

  Nathan answered that question for me.

  “They will erase the middle class until the UNA is made up of a tiny percent of educated, wealthy elites and a horde of lobotomized slave laborers. That’s the utopia that Burchard envisions.”

  The silence in the room was deafening as the facts sank in. The Burchard administration wasn’t a political regime anymore; it was a murderous criminal syndicate. And it had to be stopped.

  “But following Aurora’s escape, it seems that the government finally thought to tighten their security controls. Artemis was officially locked out of the servers as of midnight last night. For the tech teams who worked tirelessly on instituting Artemis and then searching through all of the files we suddenly had access to, you should be very proud of yourselves. I know that I am. The Artemis Protocol was a complete success. But now we will have to continue without it,” Nathan said.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant precisely, but the tech teams looked surprised and displeased by this sudden news. Gabby and Nelson cast each other a worried glance at my side.

  “That doesn’t mean we don’t still have eyes on the inside,” Nathan replied cryptically.

  He glanced at me and smiled knowingly, and I thought back to our conversation after he managed to hack the broadcast and alerts systems. Nathan had made some new friends on the inside, it seemed, and those friends were probably even better than Artemis.

  “Then what are our next steps?” Rio asked from his seat with the flight teams.

  “To begin,” Nathan replied, “we’ll need to find a way to get all of this news out to the country. And on a consistent basis.”

  “More broadcasts,” Alexy suggested. “Worked the first time.”

  “And now the government will be on high alert for anyone who might tamper with those systems again,” Nathan said
. “That won’t work.”

  “Our own channel, then? Or website?” Ant called out.

  Nathan simply shook his head. “It would never last. The government will be working hard to suppress anything they can.”

  “Then what?” Abe asked. “What can get past the government?”

  Nathan smiled. “Paper. Lots and lots of paper.”

  I was puzzled. How would we even do it?

  “We’ll paper this nation with news,” Nathan continued. “We’ll have to create a new team of journalists, editors, and publishers. We’ll have our scouts transmit so much paper to the poor and middle classes of this nation that the government won’t have the opportunity to suppress it all. We’re going to get the truth out, against all odds.”

  “But in every city?” Luka asked. “How would that even be possible? Are there enough scouts for that?”

  “We’ll start with the biggest cities and move down until the news is circulating through a large part of the population,” Nathan answered. “To build on what we’ve already shared in our broadcast.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Immediately, while the broadcast is still fresh in their minds,” came Nathan’s reply. “I have presses being delivered here by scouts at this very moment. Team appointments will come shortly thereafter. But it will likely consist of several of our teaching staff and then some eloquent and educated volunteers.”

  “So is that our attack, then?” Cloyd asked.

  I looked over to see him looking tense and unsure. I felt the same way. An information attack wasn’t what I had been picturing when Nathan had called this meeting.

  “Don’t underestimate the power of a free press,” Nathan warned, “or the reach of a newly informed nation with an ax to grind.”

  Cloyd nodded in understanding. That did make sense. If protests and uprisings—which were soon to be armed uprisings—were already occurring, maybe additional news would ramp things up quickly. People might just need access to more truth. If they reacted like we hoped they would, Little John would benefit from the international attention and the government being distracted.

  “But it happens that I agree with you,” Nathan went on. “We do need to do a little more on top of that. Which is why we’ll also be attacking the source of the regime’s funding directly. We’re going to take out Preston Industries.”

  Nathan paused, and I wondered if he was about to start laughing. Surely that was a joke. How could Little John possibly go up against a mega-conglomerate of businesses that was undoubtedly worth billions and probably trillions of dollars? How else would it be able to effectively fund our entire government and still have the resources to manipulate elections and campaigns in other countries to seat more dictators?

  But Nathan didn’t laugh. He wasn’t joking.

  “How do you take down a business that is basically running the world?” Nathan asked, echoing our thoughts. “That’s what you’re thinking. And you’re right to wonder. But it just so happens that we have a convenient answer to that question.”

  Nathan turned to face Aurora, cueing her to take over.

  “He’s right. In two days’ time we will have our only opportunity to take out all of the Preston Industries executives at once. It’s the best chance we’ll ever have to topple the empire that they have built,” Aurora said.

  “But won’t they have safeguards in place to replace those executives?” Nelson asked.

  “I don’t think they have prepared to lose their entire leadership team at once, no,” Aurora replied. “But even if they were able to replace them all, it would take time. Preston Industries would be out of commission for a while. And we will be working during that off-time, when the regime is underfunded—and most vulnerable.”

  “How will we attack them all at once?” I asked.

  Aurora looked at me to address my question. “Before I was ousted, and while I was still doing some research on the company and its relationship with the regime, I discovered that they are holding an executive leadership summit at their headquarters. All of their leaders will be there: the founder and chief executive officer, the chief financial officer, operations officer, presidents, senior vice presidents . . . all the way down to the director level.”

  “Will that work?” Jace asked. “Will just killing the executives cripple the business enough to end the cash flow to the regime?”

  “Like Aurora said, it will definitely cause some downtime, at least. They’ll be crippled until they are able to replace everyone. That can’t be done immediately,” Nathan replied.

  “But what about the money?” I repeated. “Doesn’t the government have a stockpile that the loss of Preston Industries wouldn’t affect?”

  Nathan shook his head. “Preston Industries is able to keep Burchard in its pocket by holding the government funding hostage. The regime has no money that isn’t sitting in Preston Industries’ coffers at this very moment.”

  “But an attack on Preston Industries won’t eliminate those riches,” Nelson added.

  “No,” Aurora replied. “But an attack on all the executives at once will terrify the families that own that wealth, as well as the investors. Those elites probably think they’re untouchable and untraceable at the moment, and this will be the first time that Preston Industries has suffered a staggering loss. They’re going to get scared. With no one to argue or stop them, they’ll swoop in and take off with their riches. They’ll bankrupt Preston Industries, and with it, the government itself.”

  “How do you know this?” Luka asked.

  “Because I know them,” Aurora said resolutely. “I had a high position in the Ministry. I’ve been rubbing elbows with the ultra-elite for years. They are not a loyal constituency by any means. And the spoiled spouses and children and grandchildren of these executives have no incentive to put their money back into a regime that is failing—particularly if they think it might put their lives in danger as well.”

  “But is it failing?” I asked.

  “It’s already struggling with protests and uprisings. Once the rest of the nation knows about this, those will increase. And once they lose their business overlords and cash flow,” Nathan said, “they will officially be failing. And when they’ve lost their support, we attack Chanley directly.”

  “Chanley?” I asked in disbelief.

  Nathan nodded. “We’re coming to the end of this battle. If we can successfully attack Preston Industries, and I believe we can, then we will have to act quickly to take down Chanley before the regime recovers. This may be the only chance that we’ve got.”

  No one in the room spoke for a while. Perhaps we were all considering how dangerous this last wave of attacks was truly going to be. Or maybe we were trying to imagine how this could be possible, how Nathan could truly believe that we were close to toppling the entire regime.

  Or maybe, if they were like me, they were wondering what a world without Burchard would look like. What would our lives be like if Nathan was right and Chanley was about to fall?

  27

  The meeting with Nathan had adjourned on an anxious note. According to Aurora’s timeline, we only had two days to plan and then prepare for our largest attack yet. And if we succeeded, that meant we’d be taking on the regime next.

  I didn’t want to even consider what would happen if we failed.

  “At least we can rest easy knowing we won’t be appointed to the news team,” Ant said as Team Hood walked back to the camp together. “Never been so happy to be neither eloquent or educated.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to be on the news team?” Gabby asked. “Seems cool. If I wasn’t already on two teams I’d ask to be considered.”

  “He said it will be mostly Edgewood teaching staff anyway,” Nelson added.

  “Which means our lonely friend Robert might finally make an appearance,” Abe said.

  I looked over at Jace. I hadn’t told anyone else about my conversation with Robert yet. Mostly because I still wasn’t sure how to feel
about it. It felt like all of my suspicions about possible moles were being flipped around. Henry had delivered an absolutely terrible alibi that even he knew made him look guiltier than ever. And Robert had poked holes in all of the evidence I had against him, making me much less certain that he was the traitor.

  Who else did we have to be suspicious of? Or, better said, who didn’t we have to be suspicious of? With no real suspects, everyone was a suspect.

  Which wasn’t making me feel any better.

  We passed the stables on our right as we walked. I looked over and admired the rolling hills of the grazing pastures, dotted as per usual with dairy cows, goats, and horses. I stepped off the road and walked toward the wooden fence at the sight of my old friend, the golden mare with her white diamond and socks.

  I reached the fence and held my hand out, and the mare walked over and placed her muzzle against my hand.

  “Didn’t take you for a horse girl,” Abe joked as he walked up to stand beside me at the fence. “More of a wolf girl.”

  I smiled. “I appreciate all animals,” I said. “Mostly because they tend to be a lot nicer than humans.”

  A few other horses were ambling over to us now. They were magnificent animals, lean and muscular and beautiful.

  Nelson walked up to my other side. “If we’re not quick about getting back to the tents, I’m afraid that we’re going to get drenched.”

  She cocked her head back toward the mountains, and I looked up to see an ominous and dark thundercloud forming above the peaks. A storm was brewing.

  “Still looks far off,” Jackie said. She opened her mouth to continue, but a humongous crack of lightning silenced us all. The booming sound made us all duck as if for cover.

  It had sounded like an airship cannon attack.

  “Guess Nathan won’t be appointing you to his meteorology team anytime soon, Jackie,” Ant quipped.

  I laughed nervously. The lightning had given us all quite the scare. Except . . . not the horses. They were all standing still and calm by the fence, just as they had been before the lighting struck.