“Thanks,” Hailey replied. “How are you all holding up?”
“My fingers hurt,” said Melanie, echoed by several others.
“I’m starving,” said one of the unfed ones.
“I saw you all lined up for dinner over at the house,” Hailey said, not understanding his hunger. Jane explained their plan and how the Morrisseys foiled their attempt at sharing. “They are bad people,” Hailey confirmed. “Here,” she said, pulling out her last three protein bars. “It’s not much, but that’s all I have.”
“What about you?” Jane asked. “What will you eat?”
“I’ll be OK. Don’t worry about that.” The hungry urchins gobbled the bars down.
“What’s the plan, Agent?” Quon asked.
“Agent Cochella is closing in on the bad guys in Trenton. Once we figure out who the Morrisseys are selling the drugs to, then we can get off this island.”
“Drugs?” Sara asked.
“Those beans you dig up, they grind them up and mix ‘em with other stuff to make some kind of drug. I saw their lab.”
“What else did you find?” Jane asked.
“There’s at least one other operation like this one on the island. Probably more. That means there are even more kid-slaves here than the thirty on this property. You guys helping me like this – you’re helping to set free lots and lots of stolen children.” The kids beamed at Hailey. “I’m really proud of you. And I’m sorry you have to work so hard in the heat like you did today.”
“We can do it,” Ben stated proudly.
Hailey smiled at him. “Thanks, cousin,” she said. “Now go clean up and enjoy a good night’s sleep. You deserve it.” Hailey held Jane back as the others returned to the metal houses. “I was wondering if you could talk to some of the other ones who have been here longer. I want to know if the Morrisseys stay here all the time or if they leave the island.”
“OK. I can do that. But not Kevin. He’s a jerk.”
“He’s been a slave for a long time,” Hailey reminded her.
“I guess.”
“Sleep well, Jane.”
“Where are you going to sleep? What will you eat?” Jane asked, genuinely concerned.
“I’ll be behind the girls’ house. I’ll be able to hear you talking to the others, so you don’t need to find me to report anything. Just watch out for yourselves. I’m fine.” They started to walk toward the girls’ house together.
“You’re limping,” Jane noted. “You hurt yourself under the boat?”
“No. I hurt myself before I came to Trenton. It’s still healing.”
“But you weren’t limping like that before, in the warehouse.”
“It hurts. My meds are in the hotel in Trenton. I left everything there, except what I’ve got in my suit.”
“You want me to get you a blanket for tonight? I can look around,” Jane offered.
“That’s all right. My suit keeps me plenty warm. You just take care of yourself and the others.” Hailey stopped. “Go on in. Get some rest.”
Jane smiled weakly at Hailey and left her at the back corner of the house. She went around to the front and entered through the front door.
Hailey placed a bug on the back wall of the girls’ house, then went back to the master’s house and placed bugs on windows around the building. As she came around to the front, she saw a new man approach the entrance to the house. He knocked on the door and Mr. Morrissey answered. “Conley, come in,” he said.
“Have a good trip to Trenton?” Conley asked as he entered.
Morrissey closed the door. “Productive. We got twelve. Very submissive. No trouble-makers.”
“That’s more than you thought.”
“Yeah. More than I can feed, too.”
“Well, I promised I’d buy half of whatever you brought back. I’m willing to take six.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I paid eight thousand a head. That’s forty-eight thousand from you for six of ‘em.”
“You got six girls in the lot?” Conley asked.
“Yeah. Seven actually. Boys are better diggers, though.”
“But girls have other benefits,” Conley replied.
“I don’t even want to know…” Morrissey stated, getting out his tablet. “Make the transfer and you can go pick out six girls.” Morrissey sighed disgustedly, though he was not disgusted enough to protect the female children from his pedophile neighbor.
Hailey was not surprised by Conley’s implication, though she was determined to castrate the bastard, figuratively, if not literally before this mission was over. Leaving the bugs around the house and keeping an ear on things, she turned her attention to what Jane was doing. The girls’ house was noisy with chatter as the girls all got to know each other. Hailey picked out Jane’s voice from the others. She was asking another girl what the masters did on the island.
“They have parties with the other masters. Sometimes choppers come out here and take them away for a week or more.”
“Who collects the beans, then?” Jane asked.
“One of the other masters comes over. I suppose our masters do the same for them.”
“What are the others like?”
“Creeps. There’s one who always looks at me weird, like he’s trying to be friendly and smile but it just comes off as icky. He’s gross.”
“Do you know how many other masters there are?”
“I don’t know. Who cares? Why are you asking so many questions?”
“’Cause I just got here. I want to know what’s going on, who’s here.”
“…how to get away,” the girl guessed.
“Don’t you?”
“Take my advice: don’t try to run away. There’s nowhere to go. It’s a damn island. All the boats are locked up. You can’t stay in the jungle because of the snakes, and you can’t swim to Ko’olomi. Your best choice is to dig up twenty beans every day. But don’t get more than one or two extra. If we all dig up too many, they’ll raise the quota.”
Jane listened with increased sorrow for the dozens of children who had worked on this island for years. No problem at home was worse than what they endured here. She wanted to tell her informant about the agent on the island, to give her hope. But she obeyed her own advice to keep that information to herself.
“Oh, and don’t go outside at night,” the girl warned.
“Why not?” Jane asked.
“There’s something out there at night. Gracie went out one night to get a head start on digging. She could never get twenty beans in the daylight. Anyway, she never came back. I don’t know what happened to her, but we don’t go out at night. If you gotta pee, you gotta hold it in ‘til morning.”
“We just walked all the way from the house!” Jane stated, alarmed.
“Nothing ever happened to anyone on the path. It’s the dirt part you gotta stay out of. Or maybe it’s just the time of night. I don’t take chances.”
“What the hell…” Jane murmured.
Morrissey showed up at the girls’ door with Conley. “All you new ones, stand up.”
“That’s the icky one,” Jane’s informant whispered. Jane stood, setting the example for the others. They were nervous, but Jane was defiant. She knew the agent would save her. Conley looked over the seven girls and saw that Jane would not be an easy conquest.
“All but that one,” he said to Morrissey.
“You six, come here,” Morrissey ordered. The girls looked to Jane. “I said, come here!” Morrissey raised his voice. Jane locked eyes with Sara. A burning defiance passed from Jane to Sara. Sara turned and stepped forward, leading the other five Conley had chosen. “You now belong to Mr. Conley. Go with him.” Melanie looked to Sara with tears in her eyes. She didn’t want to be separated from her group of twelve. “Go!” Morrissey ordered as Conley walked away from the metal building. Sara took Melanie’s and Deepa’s hands. Sasha, Camille, and Trish grabbed hold of their hands and together they left the silent bedhouse. Jane went to the door and wat
ched them walk down the path toward the main house, Conley leading the line and Morrissey at the back. The other girls sat on their beds quietly.
Unseen to the girls on the beds, Hailey crept to the open door, startling Jane. “What?” one of the girls asked.
“Nothing. A bug just flew into my face. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t go in the dirt!” Jane’s information font reminded her.
Hailey led Jane around the side of the building. “Don’t worry,” Hailey whispered. “I’ll follow them.”
“There are dangerous animals on the island,” Jane said. “Snakes in the jungle and something in the dirt. The girls are really scared of it. They say a girl disappeared once when she went digging at night.”
“I heard. I’ll be careful. How are you holding up?”
“I’m hungry, and tired, but otherwise, OK, I guess.”
“I’ll steal some food for you, but I don’t want to get the inside slaves in trouble for losing stuff. I can’t take too much.”
“Inside slaves?”
“The cook, the server…you met them at dinner. I think they were diggers, like these kids,” Hailey explained, indicating the girls in the metal house. “But they were brought in to do the household work when they got older.”
“This is a nightmare,” Jane moaned.
“Get some rest, Jane. I’m not leaving this island without all of you. I promise.”
Jane hugged Hailey. “Please make it soon.” Hailey hesitantly hugged her back. With her limbic monitor working, a hug was the last thing on her mind, but she knew it would comfort Jane, so she reciprocated.
“Rest,” Hailey repeated, letting go of Jane and giving her a little nudge toward the door. Hailey disappeared into the darkness jogging unevenly toward the house. The girls were already being loaded onto an open-bed truck. Conley got in the cab while Morrissey closed his door on the scene. Hailey had one chance to avoid having to walk to Conley’s property. She crept to the back of the truck and stepped onto the bumper, holding the bed-wall, crouching out of sight of the driver’s mirrors.
The girls saw Hailey’s gloved fingers holding on and knew she was with them. They collectively sighed with relief. Hailey’s left leg didn’t like the balled-up position, so she shifted her position and held the right side of her body against the back of the truck as she stood on her right foot. She stretched out the injured leg, keeping her head tucked below the upper edge of the bed-wall. Her hip gave her the most grief, feeling more cramped and tired than any other part of her leg.
It’s just pain, she told herself. She had endured pain many times before. Usually, she was in the midst of an adrenaline surge so she didn’t pay much attention to the pain. And when the adrenaline decreased, she could usually find medical people with pain meds. But on the island, she had only the pain; no adrenaline, no meds. It was a distraction, and she didn’t like distractions. Her limbic monitor could handle other distractions, but the LM couldn’t do anything about pain. She sent a hyperwave to Laura: tell the geeks to invent LM for pain. It seemed an obvious implant to invent. Why had no one thought of it before?
The nearest girl put a hand atop Hailey’s clutching fingers. Hailey concentrated on that feeling instead of the pain in her hip. Her left leg dangled along behind the truck.
Creepy Conley
At Conley’s house, the truck slowed and Hailey stepped off the bumper and hid in the shadows. The truck stopped in front of a dismal group of metal buildings almost identical to the ones on Morrissey’s property. He stepped out of the cab and went to the back and spoke to the girls. “What’s your name?” he said to one of them.
“Camille,” she replied.
“You’re the oldest?”
“I’m the oldest,” Sara spoke up bravely.
“Oh.” He looked over Sara’s body and turned back to Camille. “You look older, more… well, Camille, you get to stay in the house tonight. All the rest of you, get to bed. That one over there,” he said, pointing to the center dreary building. The girls hesitated. They did not like the idea of being separated into even smaller groups, and they especially didn’t like Camille being left alone. “Git!” Conley commanded.
The girls climbed out of the truck bed and slowly headed for their new abode, looking back constantly at Camille and the new, creepy master. Conley took Camille’s hand and led her to the main house. They entered through the back door. “Why?” Deepa asked Sara.
“Why what?”
“Why does she get to sleep in the nice house?”
“It’s not a prize,” Sara said sadly, steering her juniors into the metal house.
Inside the back entrance, Conley led Camille toward an upstairs bedroom. “You sleep here. There are comfortable pajamas in the dresser.”
“I have to go to the…” Camille said hesitantly.
“Wash room’s over there,” he said, pointing to a door down the hall. “G’night.” He left her standing in the doorway to her guest accommodations and disappeared into another door at the end of the hall. Camille went to the wash room and emerged several minutes later. She glanced up and down the hall. With a burst of courage, she ran toward the stairs. She collided with a young woman coming up the stairs.
“Who are you?” the young woman asked.
“Camille,” she answered, rubbing her injured shoulder.
“When’d you get here?”
“A few minutes ago.”
“Oh.” The young woman looked at the girl’s innocent face. “How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
“You ever had a boyfriend?”
“Ew, no!” Camille answered. “Boys are gross.”
The woman nodded. “Men are gross, too.” She lowered her voice. “This one, especially,” she said, pointing at Conley’s bedroom.
“I want to go back to my friends,” Camille said, trying to get past the woman.
“You can’t leave,” she said, blocking the way.
“I gotta.”
“No,” she said, grabbing ahold of Camille’s arm. “It’ll be worse if you’re missing when he comes looking for you.”
“Worse, how?”
“He’ll hurt you real bad when he finds you. If you sleep in there,” she pointed to the guest room, “you might get off lucky and only have to kiss him.”
“Ew! I’m not gonna kiss him!”
“Shhh! Doesn’t matter what you want. He’ll kiss you whether you kiss him back or not. He likes being the first to…”
“What?”
“…to kiss a kid.” The young woman looked at the horrified teen. Her face softened. “Come with me,” she whispered. Quickly, the pair hurried down the stairs and into the young woman’s bedroom. “I’m Lila, by the way.”
Hailey had been listening to the instructions Conley had given Camille about the pajamas and the wash room. She knew where Camille was. She looked at the wall outside the bedroom, up to the window she wanted to climb through. On a normal day, scaling the building to the second floor would have been a simple exercise – something she learned how to do in her first month of training under Crash. But Crash didn’t teach her how to do it with three limbs instead of four. She chose, instead, to go in through the front door. It was not locked. Conley obviously felt safe in his secluded little kingdom. She crept through the living room toward the stairs. She heard female voices nearby.
“Cam, you can share with me. Climb in,” Lila was saying. Hailey placed a bug on the wall behind an art piece and monitored Camille’s situation remotely. She changed her plan as her stomach growled. She found the kitchen easily and raided the refrigerator. With a sufficient amount of food in hand to get her through the night, she crept up to the guest room and waited in the dark for Creepy Conley to make an appearance.
Her belly finally full, Hailey stretched out on the bed. Shame to waste a comfortable bed, she reasoned. With her helmet tucked under the bed but within reach, Hailey pulled the sheet over her armor-clad body. She gave in to the fatigue that overw
helmed her and fell asleep. It was at least two hours before a noise woke her and the LM put her in a state of instant alertness. The door of the guest room was opening slowly. Hailey stayed still under the sheet. No light slipped in from the hallway. Everything was dark as Conley crept into the bed next to Hailey. He reached out a hand to her body and was surprised to feel a tough fabric that felt more like armor than pajamas.
Hailey sat up, simultaneously extracting her favorite knife from her suit’s plentiful armory. She held the point of the knife at Conley’s neck. He froze, alarmed by his sudden change in circumstances. “What are you doing here?” Hailey asked.
“This is m-my house,” he stammered.
“Here, in Camille’s room?” she clarified.
“Just checking on the child,” Conley lied.
“Where are your clothes?” Hailey asked derisively. “Don’t shovel bullshit, Conley. I know why you’re here. I like to stop guys like you.” Conley swallowed hard. “You know how I like to stop guys like you?” she asked. He shook his head minimally. Hailey smiled. “I like to get rid of the tools of the trade,” she said, putting her free hand on his neck and moving the knife to his groin.
“No!” he begged, shaking his head vigorously. “Please! No!”
“Do the girls ever say that to you?” Hailey asked. Conley was on the verge of tears. “I’ll bet you’ve seen tears before, haven’t you? You know what, though? Your tears have absolutely no effect on me.”
“You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t –” he yammered.
“Shall we ask someone else?”
“What—?”
“Lila, maybe?”
“No—”
“Conley, stop talking.”
“Please, I’ve got money. What do you want?”
“I want you to stop talking,” Hailey reminded him, tightening her grip on his neck. He opened his mouth, trying to breath, but couldn’t. “Will you stop talking, now?” He nodded, panic-stricken.
She let go of the man and stood up. “Stay,” she commanded. He gasped for air and held a hand to his neck and the other over his jewels. Had Hailey been emotionally engaged at that moment, she would have held onto his manhood and sliced it clean off. Lucky for him, she only cuffed him, hog-tied him, and left him on the bed to shiver without a blanket.
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