No Refuge

by Richard Bard

  “No!” Ellie cried, her hands covering her mouth. The color drained from her face. Her eyes fluttered, her knees buckled, and she started to go down. Deondre caught her and eased her down beside him on the edge of the bed. They sat there for a moment, Deondre cradling her. She was conscious but badly shaken, probably imagining the same fate awaiting her sister. Deondre brushed her hair from her face.

  “We’re going to save her,” he said. “Don’t doubt it for a second.”

  Ellie pulled away. “But there are guards everywhere,” she said as the guards from the kitchen rushed up the stairs. “With guns. God, they just murdered that girl in cold blood.”

  Strawberry sat on the bed and hugged Ellie from the other side. The two girls wept.

  Simon hadn’t moved from my side. His face was frozen in shock, and when I reached out to touch him he jerked away. His eyes never left the screen.

  Deondre looked from the screen to me and back again. I returned his look and then watched as the other men dragged the bodies out. The kids onscreen were huddled together in the corner, sobbing, and I was glad the little Asian girl was still in the bathroom.

  “We’ve got to stop these bastards,” Deondre spat.

  “H-how can we?” Simon asked.

  I opened my mouth but no words came out. I knew from the start the gang was ruthless. They’d murdered Ellie’s parents in order to abduct her and her sister. But knowing it was one thing, seeing it was another, and my mind went back to the men I’d killed to save my family and friends.

  And the smell of their slaughtered bodies.

  I thought about how easily humankind had reverted back to its violent ways after barely dodging extinction less than a couple of years ago, when we were visited by the grid. My mind had connected to the alien presence that had surrounded our planet, and I’d absorbed the trillions of bits of data they’d assimilated to conclude that humans were a lost cause and needed to be destroyed. I’d almost died from the toll it had taken on my brain, but then my dad’s mind had connected with mine, and our combined thoughts and memories had somehow convinced the alien power to stop, or at least delay, mankind’s execution. I’d never really understood what the aliens had seen from us that had allowed them to determine there was still hope. After seeing the ease with which the woman on the screen had taken life, I wondered if the aliens had been right all along. Then I flashed on the visions I’d shared with Dad in the past few days, and shuddered at the realization I might get the answer to that question all too soon.

  In the meantime, though, I had to stop what the woman and her guards had planned for those kids, and there was only one way to do it.

  “We have to be willing to kill, too,” I said.

  Everyone stared at me.

  And then Deondre said, “No problem.”

  Ellie looked horrified. But Strawberry nodded, retrieved a shoebox she’d placed on top of the dresser, and placed it on the desk.

  “These will help.” She removed the lid to reveal six large, clear lightbulbs filled with amber-colored liquid. She pulled one out and rotated it. The liquid was thick and oily, but I could see the bulb’s interior filament had been removed. It’d been replaced by a thick strand of waxy-looking yarn with a deflated balloon zip-tied around its end, with the other end dangling six or seven inches out the top of the bulb like a fuse. The opening was sealed by some sort of clay, which I guessed made it leakproof.

  “What the heck is that?” Simon asked.

  “Homemade incendiary device,” she said casually. “But don’t be tempted to call it a Molotov cocktail because it’s much more than that.”

  I’d used Molotov cocktails plenty of times in video games. They were nothing more than a bottle filled with gasoline and a rag hanging out of it. You lit one end and threw it. When the bottle broke, the gasoline ignited in a ball of flame. It burned itself out pretty quick, but it was still nasty.

  Strawberry pointed to the balloon inside the bulb. “It took my brothers a zillion tries to perfect it, but the key is the secret mixture of powders inside the balloon.”

  “You have brothers?” Ellie asked. We’d all thought Strawberry had been orphaned when her grandmother—Gammy—passed away.

  “Well, foster brothers. Three of them. But we all called our foster mom Gammy, so that made us family, right? Anyway, they loved blowing things up in the field outside our home, and I wasn’t about to be left out.” She wiggled the nub of her missing little finger. “That’s how I got this. My brothers called it my badge of honor.”

  Ellie stared at her friend as if she was crazy. Then she wiped her eyes, and I was glad to see the conversation had distracted her.

  “What makes them better than a Molotov cocktail?” Deondre asked.

  “Yeah,” Simon said, leaning in.

  “A few things. First, the liquid isn’t just gasoline. It’s a combination of vegetable oil, kerosene, rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, which is acetone, and dissolved Styrofoam—all stuff you can find at a convenience store. But it’s the slow burning fuse”—she switched to a Southern accent like the one chefs used on TV cooking shows—“which I boiled in a mixture of stump remover and sugar and baked with a hair dryer for ten minutes…” She giggled before continuing in her regular voice. “…and the top-secret mixture of crushed powders in the balloon that make it special.”

  “What powders?” Simon asked, licking his lips.

  “What part of top secret don’t you understand?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, whatever. Put it this way, all the things you need to make a powder that goes boom”—she splayed her fingers open to emphasize the word—“can be found at any home improvement store. A little stump remover, which happens to be one hundred percent potassium nitrate, some sulfur-based rose dust, and a lump of charcoal is all you need. Of course, adding ground up match heads never hurts.” She tossed the bulb a few inches in the air and caught it smoothly. “Once you light the fuse, you can either throw it like a baseball, or simply set it on the ground and run away. Either way, five seconds later it will explode into a fireball big enough to splatter every wall in this room with gooey flames that cling like napalm.”

  Ellie’s shocked expression matched my own. “Who are you?” she asked. “And what did you do to my friend?”

  “And can you make smoke bombs too?” I blurted out, my mind putting a plan together.

  “Of course. And I make them spew smoke thicker than pea soup.” She held the bulb to her chest and mimicked a baseball pitcher’s stance before throwing a fastball, swiveling her neck from one side to the other as if checking base runners. “And by the way, even though I was the only girl in the house, I was still the best pitcher amongst us.”

  I smiled.

  “Again,” Ellie said, “who are you?”

  Strawberry grinned. “Like my brother Jasper used to say”—she switched to a Southern twang—“I’m a badass country orphan with no money in my pocket, no place to go, and nuttin’ to lose.”

  Deondre huffed. “Pretty much sums us all up, don’t it?” He reached to pick up one of the bulbs, but Ellie swatted his hand away.

  “Those are dangerous!” she said. But while her attention was on Deondre, Simon snatched one out of the box.

  “Nuttin’ to lose,” he said, mimicking Strawberry’s accent as he stared at the device.

  I grabbed one, too, and when Deondre did the same, Ellie didn’t stop him this time. He held the bulb up as if making a toast, exchanging a look with Simon, Strawberry, and me. We raised our bulbs and in unison said, “Nuttin’ to lose.”

  Ellie crossed her arms and shook her head. I know how she felt. The thought of using a lethal weapon against someone was a terrible pill to swallow. I’d been unable to do it at first, and it had cost Timmy his life. And when I’d later killed in order to save my family, it had cost me in other ways. Deeply. So I’d try to come up with a way of freeing Jazz and the others without the need to hurt anyone, but violence might be our only option because time was running out. />
  “We have to rescue them before nine o’clock tonight,” I said, placing the bulb back in the box. The others put theirs back as well.

  “Why nine?” Simon asked.

  “Because that’s when the auction begins.” I expanded one of the windows with a feed to a mostly vacant room on the ground floor. A small stage had been set up at one end. The wood-paneled wall behind it was faded, except for two rectangular sections where I guessed a couple of paintings or photos had hung. There was a podium with a microphone to one side, and where an audience would normally sit was a three-screen computer station set up on a table. A young guy with spiked hair and thick glasses chomped on a sandwich while he monitored the same not-so-closed circuit feeds I’d hacked into—and the same darknet website I’d discovered. There were a few scattered chairs behind him, and two cameras mounted on tripods facing the stage. Otherwise the room was empty, as if it had been sanitized to make sure nothing in it would give away its location.

  “An auction?” Strawberry asked.

  “An online auction,” I said.

  When I’d infiltrated the wireless network and security feeds belonging to the building across the street, my mind had latched on to an outbound signal coming from the computer in front of the stage. It linked to a site on the darknet, and I’d learned what was in store for Jazz and the others. I’d held off telling the others but now they needed to know. I gave the command that opened the darknet website portal and expanded it on the screen.

  The central pane on the webpage featured a shot of the empty stage with a countdown timer overlay that read: BIDDING BEGINS IN 9 HRS: 27 MIN. There were ten blank panes below that with a notice that read: PREVIEW PHOTOS AND VIDEOS AVAILABLE THREE HOURS PRIOR TO THE AUCTION. Each pane had a CURRENT BID window, all empty for now.

  “Oh my God,” Strawberry said. “It’s like a livestock auction at a county fair.”

  Chapter 22

  IT WAS DARK OUTSIDE, and the auction was set to begin in two hours. The kids had been cleaned and dressed in their new outfits, and pictures had been posted to the auction site. Despite the varying ages and ethnicities, the children had one thing in common. They were beautiful. The cops and their gang had obviously been particular in their search. The hit counter at the bottom of the darknet page rolled slow and steady as viewers logged in to check out the merchandise. So far there’d been nearly fifteen hundred visitors, and over two hundred of them had registered as authorized bidders. The way the counter was speeding up, I expected the numbers to increase ten times over before bidding opened.

  “What’s a bitcoin, anyway?” Simon asked. “And why are the amounts so low?” He was referring to the minimum opening bids under each kid’s photo. The Latin kids, including the boy, were listed at nine bitcoins. The Caucasian kids and the young Asian girl were double that. Jazz was listed at thirty-five bitcoins. I guessed the unusual combination of her olive skin and dazzling blue eyes had something to do with that.

  “Wikipedia describes a bitcoin as an encrypted digital currency that operates independently of a central bank,” I said. “To make a long story short, transactions using bitcoins can’t be traced by authorities, so it’s what everybody uses on the darknet. And the opening bid amounts aren’t low at all, because as of this morning, one bitcoin is worth seven hundred thirty-three dollars and ninety-one cents.”

  “Wait a minute,” Strawberry said. Her lips moved as she performed the silent calculation.

  “That’s six thousand, six hundred and five dollars, and nineteen cents each for the Latin group,” I said, saving her the effort. I pointed at the Caucasians and the little Asian girl. “Thirteen thousand, two hundred and ten dollars, and thirty-eight cents for this group, and—”

  “Over twenty-five thousand for my sister,” Ellie said, her eyes flat.

  I nodded.

  “Damn,” Deondre said.

  “And from the looks of it,” Simon said, “these guys have done this plenty of times before. And why not?” He pointed at the screen. “The hit counter is rolling faster and faster with creeps lining up to place a bid. Selling kids for money…”

  “It’s worse than you can imagine,” I said, recalling what I’d learned from my internet search. It made me want to throw up. Child trafficking was a huge business around the world, generating over thirty-two billion dollars per year. Children were sold like livestock, just like Strawberry had said. Prices varied from as little as forty-five dollars for a baby in India, to as much as two hundred and seventy thousand dollars for a gypsy-trained child bride in Romania. I’d also read that a man in Colombia could pay twenty-six hundred to have a virgin girl for one night, and my stomach shuddered at the thought of what happened to the poor girl after that. One site said those used girls were sold for next to nothing for child labor or to be sex workers, and more and more were simply sold piece by piece for their organs. It was horrifying, but I decided the others had a right to know it all, so I told them. They were sickened at first, but that gave way to anger and hardened their resolve. I gave them the bit of information that provided the basis for my plan.

  “A pair of untouched pretty twins is considered an ultimate prize. They sell for ten times greater than for a single child.” I knew that was why the gang across the street had been willing to kill Ellie’s parents to capture her and Jazz, but I didn’t need to voice that.

  From everyone’s frowns, it seemed they were coming to the understanding my plan included using Ellie as bait. She stared at me. After a long moment, she shrugged and said, “Look at it this way. If everything goes wrong and I get captured and sold together with Jazz for a couple hundred thousand dollars”—she pulled the four of hearts out of her pocket and cocked her head—“the buyer is going to be really pissed off in a few months.”

  Strawberry’s jaw dropped, but then she grinned. “And he’ll want a refund.”

  Simon sneered. “He’ll want more than just a refund when you tell him the sellers knew you were dying all along.”

  Deondre jumped aboard. “Do you think he’ll need a receipt?”

  I was amazed at how quickly they’d turned to dark humor as a coping mechanism. It was probably common practice for the residents of Billy’s Home. All four of them turned to me, as if waiting to see what I might add to the conversation. I shook my head. “You guys are sick.”

  “Exactly!” Simon said, high-fiving me and the others.

  Ellie stood. “I need twenty minutes to change clothes and put on some makeup. Then let’s do this.”

  ***

  “I’ve set the loop,” I said, my voice carrying to the others through the combo earbud and jawbone microphones we all wore. I was alone in our room on overwatch duty, and my only weapon was the Spider. I’d used it to create a loop of the traffickers’ camera feed of the alley entrance to the building where the van was parked. To anyone monitoring the feeds, it would appear as though everything was static there. I double-checked the camera views from across the street, my eyes gliding past the room where the kids waited in their new outfits because watching them made my stomach queasy. The guards in the other rooms seemed relaxed, and the woman and the two cops were in the auction room having what appeared to be a casual conversation.

  “You’re good to go.” I zoomed my own camera on the alley to monitor what was really happening. The alley was dark except for the illumination provided by a light fixture over the side entrance. Deondre and Simon slipped from the shadows and crouch-ran toward the door. Simon placed his back against the wall beneath the light and laced his fingers for Deondre to use as a stair step.

  “You better not budge,” Deondre’s voice whispered to Simon in my earbud. We’d set up a conference call so we could all hear one another.

  “Shut up and do your job,” Simon said. “I got this.” There’d been a heated debate about who should boost whom up. Deondre was much stronger, but Simon was a heavy kid and admittedly not very athletic. So he’d insisted on being on the bottom, where all he had to do was stand firm.r />
  Deondre gripped Simon’s shoulders, placed his right foot in Simon’s cupped hands, and hoisted himself up.

  Simon wobbled.

  “Bro!” Deondre said, slapping his hands against the wall to keep from falling.

  Simon grunted and steadied himself. “It’s okay. Go.”

  Bracing one hand against the wall, Deondre extended his other toward the light fixture. “Can’t reach,” he said.

  “Step onto my shoulders.”

  “You sure?”

  “I. Got. This!”

  Deondre huffed, flattened his palms against the building, and stretched his free foot onto Simon’s shoulder. As he moved to push himself up, Simon heaved his clasped hands upward. A moment later Deondre was in place, and this time Simon stood solid as a statue.

  Deondre reached up and unclipped the fixture’s plastic housing. When it swung downward on its hinge, the brightness in the alley doubled from the exposed bulb. Deondre squinted from the sudden glare, but he didn’t flinch. He pulled out the washcloth from his back pocket, wrapped it around the hot bulb, and after a few quick turns the alley was pitched into complete darkness.

  I heard a grunt as the camera lens took a second to adjust to low-light mode. When the image cleared, Simon’s silhouette disappeared into a recessed doorway in the hotel across the alley. Deondre was manipulating a stretched-out coat hanger over the van’s driver-side door. It took him only a few seconds to unlock the door, and I could tell he’d done it plenty of times before. He slipped inside the van, closed the door, and ducked out of sight.

  “Phase one is almost complete,” I reported on the phone. “Everybody ready?”

  “In position,” Strawberry said. She was on the roof of the hotel on the other side of the alley.

  “I’m set,” Ellie said, with a quiver in her voice. I knew she was scared. We all were. But she was about to be front and center in the spotlight. Literally.