Death Thieves

by Julie Wright

  He stood up and faced me, his face twisted in grief and rage. “They said the babies were ours. But they aren’t. Summer, they took the babies, and they lied to us. They stared at us, looking all happy and thrilled with us for providing the world with children who would never get the shakes at the same time they were lying to us about what they did. Because those babies—those babies are not mine!”

  I tried to reach out for his hands, to make him sit back down, but he stepped away and started to pace in tight circles on the floor in front of me.

  “Are you saying that Jen cheat—”

  He whirled on me. “No! I’m saying the hospital took my babies and replaced them with those mutants they make in those nurseries!”

  I flinched at hearing Jay call the nursery babies mutants. The babies I’d come to love, the babies who would grow to be children on the ferry someday. “That’s quite the conspiracy theory, even coming from you.” I stood up since he refused to sit again

  “I’m not cra—well I’m not! When Jen went into labor, they took her to the hospital. They wouldn’t let me in with her because they were afraid I’d contaminate the room or something. They were gone for a long time. It seemed like forever, and the doctor came out and told me they’d had to put Jen under. They said they had to in order to make the delivery happen without any complications. But they put her under so she wouldn’t know. They wouldn’t let me in so I wouldn’t know. They tricked us. They stole our babies.”

  “Why would they do that?” Reasons of why swirled in my mind. Instinctively I knew, before he opened his mouth to tell me—I knew.

  “They gave them to a regent.” He gripped his hair in his fingers as though he needed something to hold onto but couldn’t find anything else. “No, not gave. Gave is the wrong word. They sold them to a regent. The regents don’t want crazies. They want perfect babies. And they don’t care if they have to steal them to get them. As far as the regents are concerned, all of the New Youths are their property anyway.”

  “How do you know? How do you know the babies aren’t yours?”

  He pulled out a sheet of paper with graphs on it. “I took blood samples.”

  My head hurt. The day had been so horrible already; this was too much. “You put a needle in your own babies?”

  “They aren’t mine. Get it? They aren’t right. I just couldn’t seem to bond with them. Neither can Jen—not really—though she tries hard. She cries a lot and said it’s likely just the postpartum depression, or whatever, but it’s not. Those babies don’t act right. Scott cries all the time—I mean all the time. And Erica never cries at all. She turns away when anyone tries to look at her. She doesn’t even cry if she’s been too long without eating. And they don’t seem to like even each other. Wouldn’t twins feel comfort when they’re together?”

  That hit a nerve. Having Winter around always comforted me.

  Jay continued his pacing in tiny, manic circles. “So, yeah, I tested them. And they aren’t mine. And they aren’t Jen’s. I don’t know who their tissue donors are.”

  “You’ve gotta tell Jen.”

  Jay shook his head. “I can’t tell her until I have her own babies to put in her arms.”

  “So what? You come tell me? What do you think I can do?”

  He stopped pacing and grabbed my shoulders, his fingers gripping so hard it almost hurt. “I need you to get your soldier’s help. I know which regent has my kids. He and his baby-stealing wife haven’t gone back to their own country yet. I need a way into the apartments where they’re staying, in and out again. And I want an Orbital. I want out.”

  I shook my head and held up my hands in protest. Panic seized my chest. “My soldier? I don’t—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Summer. I know you still communicate with him. And I know you care about him. I knew it the minute I found out you’d broke into the barracks when we first got here. The way he looked at you when we drove back with that crazy professor. You guys are close. Don’t deny it. You can’t think I’d turn you in, or whatever, for fraternizing with the diseased riffraff.” His tone oozed with sarcasm as he repeated the propaganda. “If I were going to do that, I’d have done it a year ago. I need his help. I want my kids back. And then I want out of this insane asylum. I’m taking Jen and my twins, and we’re getting out of here.”

  I jerked my shoulders out of his grip. “Why would you think I have any way to communicate with him?”

  He looked at me like I was stupid. “You go to the same book all the time at the library. The same book and you never check it out? Do you honestly think you’re sneaky?”

  Well, I had until he put it that way.

  My legs gave out from under me, and I sat on the bed once again. Jay wasn’t making up stories. Every time there had been a misfortune with the marrieds’ babies, there were regents adopting. Of course the regents couldn’t keep claiming miscarriages and stillborns. They had to offer replacements for the infants they stole from Jay and Jen, or the marrieds would get suspicious, or depressed. Either way, they’d stop reproducing.

  They needed my help. I looked Jay in the eye. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Alison came back long after Jay and I had finalized the details of the plan. “You still here?” She asked looking mischievous. “Will Jennifer be upset to know you’ve been in our room for this long?”

  Jay smiled. “I’m here for her.” The smile looked forced and didn’t sit right with his eyes dark with so much rage and pain. Alison didn’t notice.

  “But you’re right.” Jay stood heavily from where he’d been sitting at my desk. “It’s late, and it won’t look good if I’m here all night. Thanks for letting me in earlier, Ali. I appreciate it. Waiting in the hall all night would have sucked.”

  Alison flinched at what she considered crude language, but her smile came right back on again as Jay stretched and moved toward the door.

  “See you soon, kid.” Jay gave me a hug, smiled once more at Alison, and then left.

  See you soon. Soon meant two days. He wanted me to meet Tag at the library tomorrow—Wednesday—the day Tag normally left me messages. Then he would meet us both the next day back here at the dorms.

  I tried to explain that Tag had been silent for almost a full month; I tried to explain that Tag could very well be dead, but Jay wouldn’t listen to the possibilities of things not working out right. Jay had a plan and intended to carry it out, no matter what.

  There was so much ache in my bones that I pulled apart my lapdesk once Alison had gone to sleep and pulled out the pictures of Wineve and me. The one of when we were little, when Theresa first got us was the one that commanded my attention. “I wouldn’t wish this world on anyone, Wineve. But I’d give anything to have you here with me.” Between Professor Raik and his little attack, Tag seeming to have turned up missing, the children on the ferry, and now Jay, I wondered if it was possible to truly die of a broken heart. I had no one to help shoulder my burdens, and they suddenly seemed too heavy to bear.

  ***

  The library wasn’t particularly busy, but I cringed when the doors flashed green, “Welcome, Summer Dawn Rae.” I’d never really cared that the computer announced my comings and goings to the library, but today it felt as though the announcement was heard around the world. I didn’t slow my stride and headed straight to the book. “Please be there,” I whispered under my breath.

  I almost broke into a run when I saw him standing among the stacks putting our book back on the shelf. His other hand was stuffing the three small notes I’d left into his jacket pocket. I picked up my pace so he wouldn’t leave the stacks before I got to him. It would look weird if we both went in there together.

  “Tag.” My voice cracked with the sob—the sob of all the pain of the last month, and worse, the pain of the last twenty-four hours.

  “Summer!” His eyes darted around to see who might have witnessed my arrival. “Summer, you shouldn’t be here. You can’t keep doing this. If they catch you, they won’t hesitate
to take action. They won’t care that you’re one of the New Youth.”

  I glanced around, feeling paranoid enough on my own, but with him acting freakish, too, I felt like I might jump out of my skin. “I had to come. I need your help. So much has happened.”

  “What? What’s happened?” Caution edged his voice.

  “Professor Raik . . . all those toddlers in the public nurseries . . . my friends. The regents are evil disgusting people.”

  Footsteps echoed on the marble floors of the library, and I jumped, but they were echoing away from us, not toward. Even so, I grabbed Tag’s hand and pulled him deeper into the stacks. Even with all my fear, with all the conspiracies raging through my mind, my stomach still flipped upon holding his hand. I wanted nothing more than to lean my head on his shoulder and weep while he held me.

  “To say such things is traitorous. Please, Summer, use caution.”

  “They took her babies.” I hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but panic and fear and the need to have someone on my side, someone who could help me, overcame the need to explain properly. “The regents kidnapped Jay and Jen’s babies. They took the babies from the other marrieds, too. None of those babies died in childbirth or were miscarried. They were stolen.”

  He stepped back, trying to distance himself from me, but I gripped his hands tighter. He shook his head. “You can’t say things like that. No doctor has done a live birth like that for decades. They weren’t prepared. Those other babies died. Next time they’ll have better training. And your friends have their children.”

  “Jay took blood samples. They switched his children with babies they got from the public nurseries.”

  “That’s impossible—”

  “Tag! Listen to me! Impossible? Both of her babies are missing—replaced by babies from the nurseries, and out of the blue a week later a regent decides to be a good example to his country and adopts two babies from the public nursery? Every time one of the married couples had a baby die, another regent gets the grand idea to adopt? That doesn’t seem suspicious to you? They kidnapped us so they could kidnap our children!”

  Tag darted a quick look around and hunched in closer to me. “Could you keep your voice down? You’re acting—”

  Heat flamed over my face. “I am not crazy! I’m telling you something is wrong here. Something bad is happening.”

  He let go of my left hand and gently brushed his fingertips across my cheek and tucked my hair behind my ear. Professor Raik had done that, too, only when Tag did it, I felt safe instead of preyed upon. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not after I worked so hard to get you to stop calling people that. It’s just . . . this is a lot to digest right now. I’m sure Professor Raik would never—”

  “What do you owe that guy?”

  “What?”

  “You defend him like you’re his personal bodyguard. He’s the villain here, Tag.”

  Tag’s free hand rested on my shoulder and with his other hand, his fingers tightened on mine. “He took me in when everyone else would have had me ex-ed. He gave me a home, gave me an education. He’s been like a father to me. I owe my life to him.” His fingers traced along my neck as he pushed all my hair behind my shoulders. His eyes locked onto mine—pleading for understanding.

  “You don’t owe him anything. He was there when it all happened because he made it happen. He was the one who ratted out your family and got your parents and your sister killed. Taking you in wasn’t an act of mercy. He took you because he wanted you—wanted your brain. How many of the ideas that make the Orbital work were yours, Tag? The Tesla Ether—who figured out how to pull energy from the ether? He killed your family and used you. And he’s a snake. And now he’s stolen my friend’s babies and sold them to the highest bidder. He told me he controlled the nations. And I think he really does. He said he gave the regents what they most wanted—babies with no complications. This is a huge money scheme for him.”

  Tag’s whole body froze, his eyes hardened into the cold blue ice that were both familiar and frightening to me. “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m right. And I need your help.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t help you. Not with this.”

  “What do you owe him?” I wanted to shout the words. I wanted to scream until my lungs dried up.

  “I don’t owe him. I owe her. Janice gave up so I could live. She’s dead to protect me. I owe it to her to keep living.”

  “I see.” And I did. His whole life centered on the guilt of that day. He likely truly believed that he brought New Youths into the future to save the future. He likely did it all in Janice’s name, but he’d been wrong. They were selling the babies to regents who didn’t want the mess of crazies.

  “Have you told Jennifer? Have you told her any of this?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah, because I want to tell her that her babies are still alive and being rocked to sleep by total strangers and the kids she’s been trying to mother will have to be euthanized when they turn three, and probably before that since they’re already displaying signs. I’m just running around breaking the hearts of the people I love. Oh wait. No, I’m not. You are!” I dropped his hand with a shove of disgust and turned my back on him.

  “Summer, don’t—”

  “Don’t tell me one more time to fit in, lie low, figure out the system, and cheat it, because you’re a hypocrite, Tag. You know the system, and instead of cheating it and making things better, you’re standing to the side and watching the system eat away at everything. You think you’re doing it for her, but I think you’re doing it because you’re a coward. I’m done watching. You do what you want.” I hurried away then, not running like I wanted. Not doing anything to attract attention. Running would have to be done some time later on, when there would be nothing left to do but run.

  I stomped into the elevator.

  Going down, the elevator voice said.

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said back. “You’re all going down.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  There was only one option left. Professor Raik wanted me to ask. Well he’d get his wish. He said I’d come to him, and he was right about that, but he was wrong about my reasons. The two regents who’d adopted the babies hadn’t yet gone back to their own countries. They wanted to wait until the babies had been properly immunized. Raik would know where they were staying. He would have access to them; I had access to Professor Raik. Jay needed that access.

  I’d need to hire a car to take me there and wasn’t sure of the protocol, so I hurried back to the dorm first. Besides, I’d need to collect any of my belongings that I wanted to keep, in case things turned out bad, making returning impossible.

  I packed an extra pair of jeans, Winter’s shirt, some underclothes, the pictures of Winter and me, and the sun quilt all into a big backpack. I glanced around the room but couldn’t think of anything else collected in my year in the dorm that was important enough to take with me.

  With a deep breath and a tight grip on my backpack strap, I went downstairs to find Kathleen.

  Her hair was tied back in that ever tight bun that stretched her wrinkles across her face. She turned, her black skirt swirling with the motion when I cleared my throat and said her name.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I need to hire a car.” I tried to sound confident. People who hired cars had to be confident. I’d already been yelled at for the little adventure with Jay and hiring cars.

  Kathleen lifted an eyebrow and set down the tray of flower arrangements for the dining tables she’d been holding. “A car, Summer? Where will you need to go that you would need a car?”

  My plans had to sound important and had to be truthful because they could track where I went with my IDR anyway. “I’m going to visit Professor Raik.”

  She took in a small sharp breath, and her head barely moved in what might have been a shake of disapproval if she hadn’t caught herself. “What is your business with Professor Raik that you should nee
d to see him without him sending for you?”

  I tilted my chin in defiance. I was the New Youth after all. I didn’t need to answer to anyone. “It’s personal.”

  She stiffened. “Of course. Why don’t you come back here with me while I make the arrangements? That way you’ll have somewhere to sit and rest.”

  I followed her behind her counter to her break room. She motioned me to sit at a red plush chair in the corner by a small table. I sat. She maneuvered to her lapdesk and continued to cast hasty glances in my direction before muttering under her breath, scraping back her chair and standing abruptly. “No, I won’t!”

  “What?” I stared at her in disbelief. Did she really just tell me no?

  “This may get me ex-ed, and I just don’t care. I think I know what you’re doing going to see that man. You won’t accomplish anything—not that way. And you’ll lose yourself there. That man’ll never let you go. You won’t help anyone by going like this.”

  My heart raced and I stood, too, trying to slip toward the direction of the door. She knew? She knew what my plans were? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you think I’m trying to accomplish?”

  She placed herself between me and the door and crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. The scowl along with that severe bun made her almost as frightening as a soldier with a charged weapon. “Don’t play the fool with me. I’ve been on his orders to watch you since you got here. He almost sent you back like he did a few of the others in the beginning. They weren’t submissive. They weren’t vain or desperate enough to live to take part in this scheme.”

  My mouth had dropped open. “Sent me back? They were going to send me back?” My chest tightened around the pain in my heart. I could’ve gone back.

  Her eyes softened. “No, dear, not like that. No one goes back and gets a second chance with their lives. Going back means they send another soldier back to just before whatever accident took your life. The second soldier informs the first that the mission is to be aborted. Whatever happened to take your life will happen on schedule. Those sent back weren’t to be considered lucky.”