“Yes,” Mr. Morrissey agreed. “Let’s take care of that right now.” The three adults huddled over their tablets, transferring money from one account to another. “There. All set. Everybody ready to go?” he called to the children.
They grabbed the few things that were left in the cooler and followed the couple outside. Jane asked the older kids, Quon, Sara, and Conner, each to stick close to two younger ones. She also escorted two of the children to the van. The couple opened the back door and the children piled into the empty, metal cargo area. Hailey snuck down the street ahead of the van. Derek waited to see where Winston went.
When the Morrisseys got into the cab of the van, which was separate from the cargo area, they began their journey down the road. From the dark space between buildings, Hailey leapt nimbly onto the rear bumper, holding the door handle with one hand. The slave buyers didn’t bother locking the door. The children seemed completely acquiescent to the ruse that they were going to a beautiful ranch to play in the sun and pet rabbits. Hailey turned the door handle and slipped inside.
The children all looked at her in her full black armor. Jane sighed gratefully. “I thought you missed the van.”
“I don’t miss anything,” Hailey replied, removing her helmet.
“Melanie fell for their whole bullshit story,” Quon reported.
“Hey, Melanie. Come sit by me for a minute,” Hailey requested. Melanie complied. “Do you have a mom or dad?”
“No.”
“You don’t have a house to live in?” Hailey asked. Melanie shook her head. “Where’ve you been sleeping?”
“The playground.”
“I bet that’s cold at night.”
“This big dog always comes to the playground at night. I call him Cody. We sleep together. He’s warm.”
“You like animals, don’t you?” Hailey asked kindly. Melanie nodded with a smile. Hailey pressed, “Where do you eat? Lemme guess. You pick up food people throw away.”
“Yeah. I get stuff for Cody, too.”
Hailey put an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “I know you want to believe what that woman told you, but she’s not a friend. She’s not taking you to a nice place to have fun. They are going to make all of you work,” Hailey said, looking around. “They’ve already got other kids working. Do you understand me?” She looked at Melanie. “They didn’t even ask your names. They don’t want to get to know you. They only want you to work. And it’s not tending rabbits, I’m sure.”
Frankie spoke to Melanie. “Can’t you tell when grown-ups are fakin’? You can always tell by the way they smile when they don’t mean it. It’s so fake.”
“Who do you think is fake? Me or the two up front – or all of us?” Hailey asked Frankie.
“They are. When you smile, it’s not fake.” He paused. “I don’t know about that other agent. He didn’t smile at all.”
“He’s a good agent. He just hasn’t learned…”
“What?” Sara asked.
“Well, I don’t know what to call it. I guess… it’s… relating to regular people.”
“What do you mean by that?” Conner asked.
“We agents who work for SWORD, we’re called Wraiths,” Hailey explained.
“I know about Wraiths!” Conner brightened up. “You guys are real-life super-heroes.”
“Well, we have lots of training and lots of help from really smart scientists who made us quicker and stronger and smarter than other people. For example, once I see or hear or read something, I never forget it because I have a little computer in my head. And my eyes can see in the dark and I can hear things that are really quiet or far away.”
“Whoa,” several kids gawked. “Can you hear this?” Ben asked. He covered his mouth and whispered something into Deepa’s ear.
Above the road noise of the van, Hailey heard him clearly. “She’s like a comic book.”
Ben and Deepa laughed. “That’s right!”
The other children smiled and chatted to each other excitedly.
“Any more tests?” Hailey asked friendly.
“We’ll each say five numbers. You have to remember all of them,” Quon suggested.
“Go for it,” Hailey replied. Around the van, each child stated five random numbers. “OK, you all remember your numbers?” Hailey asked. They nodded, snickering, not believing Hailey could do it. “Just to amaze you even more, everyone get up and change places with someone else.” After the shuffling was complete, Hailey started with the child on her left and went around the van. “Six, thirteen, forty-seven, twelve, one. A hundred and fifty-three, two thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, four, zero, twelve million and eight. Seventy-three, …” On and on Hailey went, remembering every number from every child. The further she progressed without a mistake, the more the children cheered her on. She had to motion downward with her hands to remind the children to be quieter, but she also enjoyed the game. What was a mundane tool for her was utter fascination to the kids. She enjoyed distracting them from their fear and dread, proving to them she was the “super-hero” they needed to get out of the mess they were in.
“Agent,” Sasha said, “where are we going?”
“I don’t know. But we’ll get there together. When we slow down, I’m going to have to sneak out so they don’t see me. You all just go along with whatever they say. I promise I won’t leave. Even if you don’t see me, I’m still gonna be around. But I have to save all the kids, and it’s gonna take me some time to figure out who-all is there. Can you play along and not tell anybody I’m there?”
“Yes,” Sasha replied. They all nodded.
Drowsiness overtook the group and soon the children were all asleep, leaning on each other or curled up on the floor of the van. Hailey tried to stretch her legs, but there was very little room to move. She got as comfortable as she could, set her head implants to alert her to any change in sound or circumstance, and allowed herself to take a nap.
After five hours of driving, the van slowed. Hailey was instantly awake. She woke Jane. “I’m going outside. Keep everyone calm. I won’t be far away.” Jane nodded, wiping sleep out of her eyes. Hailey slipped out the door and hopped off the back bumper, landing awkwardly because her hip had become stiff. She hid in the darkness alongside the road, keeping pace with the van.
They were near the coast. She heard the waves on the shore and spotted the entrance to a harbor parking lot. The van drove inside and parked. Hailey kept out of sight as the couple exited the cab of the van and went around to the back. “You keep the brats quiet; I’ll go prep the boat,” the man said.
“Why do I always have to watch the kids?”
“Because they trust you after that performance in the warehouse.”
The woman sighed a curse as the man strode off toward the docks. Hailey followed him; she had to stow away on that boat. Her heart sank as she got her first look at the craft: a completely open dual-hull boat with a flat canvas deck stretched out between the hulls. A pair of motors at the back powered the boat. Mr. Morrissey got in and fiddled with the motors, testing each one individually and checking their fuel levels. He got out his comm and told Ms. Morrissey to bring the children.
Back at the van, the so-called mother opened the back door and, with a falsely cheerful voice, called for everyone to wake up and get out of the van. “Time to stretch your legs,” she said. “Then we’re going for a boat ride. Our ranch in on a sunny island. Oh, you’re gonna love it there.”
The children were not fooled. They looked anxiously around for the agent in black but couldn’t see her anywhere. Jane reminded the three oldest, Quon, Sara, and Conner, that they needed to help her. “Hey, guys. You all remember our travelling teams? Let’s get buddied up and go for a boat ride.”
The kids took courage when they saw how confident Jane was. Ms. Morrissey led the way and four sets of three kids followed. Hailey watched the Morrisseys load the children onto the catamaran. She accessed her mental map of the Ko’olomi continent and determined the distances t
o several islands offshore. She didn’t know which one they were going to. She couldn’t swim after them; she’d never keep them in sight.
With the motors running and the couple occupied with getting the children seated on the deck of the open boat, Hailey saw her chance to get close. She snuck onto the dock next to theirs and hid behind a large cabin cruiser. One last idea occurred to her. She accessed the physical specs of the catamaran, then dove into the water.
Island
Agent Cochella followed Winston away from the warehouse, back to his own home. There Winston sent a text messages to his suppliers. Derek watched through a window as the seller typed on his comm. He couldn’t see the letters on the screen, but he could see where Winston placed his thumbs and came up with: Lorne, Abby, I’ve got your money. It’s too late to deal with it now. Meet me in the morning at the usual place.
Derek hustled back to Sector Security to use the confiscated comms that belonged to the counterfeit social workers he had arrested earlier that day. He messaged back to Winston: OK. 08:00.
Derek went to the holding cell. He kicked the bars loudly to wake the sleeping prisoners, Lorne and Abby. “Who else provides children to Winston?” he demanded. The sudden re-appearance of the Wraith in the middle of the night startled the pair. They sat up on their cots and wiped their eyes.
“How am I supposed to know?” Lorne asked crankily. He showed no signs of falsehood. Abby showed no signs of intelligence.
“How much does he pay you?” Derek asked.
“Two thousand per,” the prisoner answered, leaning over his arms which crossed over his knees.
“Where do you meet to get paid?” Derek demanded.
Lorne’s sleepy gears began to turn. “You goin’ to pick up our money? He won’t give it to you, you know. How ‘bout this: Let me outta here and I’ll pick up the money. You can have half.”
Derek took a moment to process what the prisoner was proposing. “I do not take bribes,” he stated emphatically. He turned on his heel and left the prisoners. He hoped to have more luck extracting information from Winston himself. With a plan to return to the slave-seller’s house, Derek marched out of the holding cell block. I don’t hope to have more luck. I will get the information I need! he thought.
As the catamaran sped out to sea with two adults in charge and twelve children huddled together at the center of the canvas deck, Jane, the oldest at sixteen, began to lose hope that the agent in the black head-to-toe suit was still nearby. The boat was completely open, and the agent was obviously not on it. There were no other boats following, and there was no way the agent could swim fast enough to keep up.
Jane watched the sun begin to rise at the horizon. They were heading to an island, but she didn’t see one anywhere. All around was just ocean as far as the eye could see, except directly behind them where the Ko’olomi coast steadily shrank. Quon and Conner looked at Jane, their faces betraying the same hopeless thoughts that Jane had. She forced a weak smile onto her face. It did little to reassure the other two.
The man talked to the woman about the boat. “There’s something wrong with it,” he stated.
“Seems to be running fine,” she replied.
“It keeps pulling to the right.”
“Don’t you mean ‘starboard’?” she replied with a smirk.
He rolled his eyes. “I have to keep the rudder at an angle to stay on our heading.”
“Maybe there’s a strong current pushing sideways on the boat. How long?”
He looked at his chrono. “Twenty minutes, more or less.”
“We should get a decent boat. A cabin cruiser where I can get out of this wind.”
“Stop complaining. You’re hardly ever on this raft anyway.”
“I didn’t even need to come this time. These kids are so compliant, I can hardly believe it. Even you could’ve handled them.”
“Shut up, woman,” he grumbled. She chuckled.
Hailey’s hand began to tire. She switched so that her left hand held onto the leading edge of the starboard hull and the right relaxed as it floated beside her. She pressed her body up against the bottom of the hull, trying to be as streamlined as possible. She worried that Morrissey would notice that the hulls didn’t slip evenly through the water.
Her suit was space-rated, so it had no problem keeping Hailey warm and breathing as she was dragged through the water under the boat. When the boat slowed and Hailey could see the sea bottom gently rising to meet her, she knew they were near the island hideout the Morrisseys had constructed. She let go of the hull and stayed underwater until the boat was far ahead. Then she swam at a slight angle to land on the island away from where the boat was headed. Through her helmet’s sensors and tools, she could hear the motors slowing, then being shut down completely. Assuming the Morrisseys were busy with the children, she chanced a look. Her head broke the surface of the water and she saw the children being led off the boat and into a tree-packed area twenty meters inland from the beach.
Hailey picked up her pace, crawling onto the beach forty meters to the right of where the group went into the jungle. She checked her GPS and knew which island they were on. She sent a hyperwave message to Derek so he would know where she was. Then she jogged after the children.
The trees only grew within fifty meters of the beach. Beyond them, an acre of land was cleared of trees and all other vegetation. A large, comfortable-looking house sat at the near edge of the cleared area. The children were led around the side of the house to the back where a paved path connected a patio behind the house with other buildings in the distance. “You kids go on over there. The other kids will show you around.” The couple turned around and walked into the nice house, leaving the children standing on the path.
“C’mon, guys. Let’s go,” Jane said.
“What about the agent?” Melanie asked. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know, but she’s probably hiding, so keep the secret, even from the other kids over there. Got it?”
“What’s gonna happen?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know, but I trust the agent. Let’s get going.”
“I hope we get breakfast soon,” Frankie grumbled.
The group walked across the clearing until they reached the buildings. They were the opposite of the nice house, not only in location, but comfort and beauty. Three buildings made of corrugated metal stood side-by-side. “Which one’s the classroom?” Ben asked.
“There ain’t no classroom, dummy. No playground, no ranch house, no animals, no nothin’.”
A young man emerged from the center building. He saw the large group of kids and swore. “Kevin, get out here.” Another boy emerged.
“Replacements?” Kevin joked dryly. “Hel-lo,” he said suavely when he spotted Jane. He walked straight to her and introduced himself. “I’m Kevin. What’s your name?”
“Jane.”
Kevin looked at her, waiting for any more information she might share. When she didn’t, he asked, “Where’re you all from?”
“Trenton.” Jane looked behind Kevin to see more curious faces coming out to have a look at the newcomers. “What are all –” she stalled mid-question.
“What are we doing here? Same as you: we live here. We work here. It sucks, but there’s no getting off this island. Believe me. I’ve tried.”
“What about the boat?” Jane asked.
“They lock it to the dock. Huge chain. Metal dock. I can’t break it.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since I was thirteen.”
“How old are you now?” Jane asked, guessing he was seventeen or eighteen.
“I don’t know,” Kevin answered. “Don’t know how long I’ve been here. They don’t exactly share information with us, you know?”
“What work do you do?” Quon asked.
Kevin looked at the slightly younger boy. “I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“Is there a shower?” Jane changed the subject. “We’ve bee
n cooped up for weeks.”
“Well, welcome to your new coop,” Kevin said with a mirthless smile. “Boys in this one. Girls in that one. That building has the wash rooms.” Jane started to lead the children to the wash house. “Hey, we have rules here. Let me clue you in,” Kevin stated.
“Rule one: shower at the end of the work day. No stinky bodies in the houses. We go in seniority order. That makes you guys last. Sorry if the hot water runs out. Rule two: work clothes go in the wash room laundry machine. Towels, too. You wear clean clothes in the houses. In the morning, your clean clothes become your work clothes. Last ones to make quota for the day have to fold all the clean laundry.”
“What’s quota?” Jane asked.
“You’ll see. Ah, look, the breakfast bot is coming.” Down the paved path, an ACME sentry robot pulled a wagon full of food toward the metal houses. Eighteen children flowed out of the boys’ and girls’ houses and lined up. “Seniority order, again,” Kevin instructed. “You guys go to the end of the line.
Jane got behind the eighteenth child and the others who came with her got in line behind her. The least senior of the residents turned to Jane and explained breakfast. “They pick first, but it’s bad form to take more than your share.”
“How much is a share?” Jane asked.
“One egg. One slice of bread. One tanna fruit. Handful of nuts.”
Jane watched the first kids in line pile their shares into their shirts which they held up like baskets. The line advanced until Jane was at the wagon, her eleven waiting behind her. She looked inside and found four eggs, six bread slices, four fruits, and only a few handfuls of nuts. She looked at all the kids who had taken their shares. They had not taken too much; the Morrisseys had not sent enough.
“Come ‘round the wagon, guys,” she said. “Let’s share this, OK? Quon, Sara, Conner and I will split this stuff into four piles, then we’ll share with our buddies. Agreed?” Everyone nodded sadly at the plan to share the meager amount of food. The twelve sat separate from the other eighteen. Jane whispered to them. “I know Agent Ramirez is here somewhere. Don’t lose hope, but also, don’t tell the other kids. They might blab to the grown-ups. Got it?”
Hailey's Comet Anthology Page 30