The Child Thief 2: Deep Shadows

by Bella Forrest

  Suddenly, I found what I thought might be the place. It appeared to be a large compound with a building on one side and an enormous walled yard on the other. There was nothing around it, though it sat in the middle of the city. And it was labeled with two letters.

  CA.

  Compliance Authority?

  “Guys, I think I might have it,” I breathed excitedly. “Look right here. Don’t move, just look at it with your eyes.”

  I kept my finger on the spot while the others turned their gazes to stare at it, and a moment later they were all nodding as well, a thrill of excitement going through the group.

  I immediately picked up the phone.

  “Gabby, I think we have something,” I told her, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve got a really large plot of land, all of it fenced in, by the looks of it. There’s a building, but mostly it looks like just empty space. It’s labeled ‘CA.’”

  “That sounds like it might be exactly right,” she said, her voice holding a note of hope. “Is that the only place in the city?”

  “You mean you think there might be more than one?” I asked, frowning.

  She snorted.

  “I mean I’m going to ask you guys to get the hell out of there and to a more private location while I search, and I want to make sure that’s the only place I’m searching for in Voceville before you leave those maps behind. I don’t think leaving, going somewhere else to help me search, and then coming back to look at the maps again is going to fall under the heading of ‘subtle,’ do you?”

  “That’s a fair point,” I replied, keeping one finger firmly on the building I’d found while I ran the pointer finger of my other hand through the rows of buildings on my portion of the map. It didn’t take me long to find the other buildings. Five of them, and I never would have noticed them if it weren’t for Gabby asking me to go over them again. They were… tiny. Almost as small as the various shops and personal offices in the same district. They also appeared to be in small-business districts, rather than neighborhoods that housed large office buildings.

  “Would the government have offices in this city?” I asked quietly, confused.

  Jace immediately moved over to where I was and looked at the spots I was pointing to.

  “There,” I said, touching one. I moved my finger over to the other side of my portion of the map and pointed again. “And there. And there are three others.” My finger scanned to the next three, each of them in a different location.

  Each marked with the telltale ‘CA’ in block letters.

  Jace had no answer, and neither did anyone else in the room.

  “Gabby, I’ve got five other small buildings that appear to belong to the same party,” I said. “Think they might be important? They look like they might be offices or something.”

  “If they’re small then they’re not what we’re looking for, so that’s got to be a question for another day,” she replied bluntly. “Take a picture of the larger compound, and the buildings around it. The streets, too, if you can get them, so I don’t have to search too hard. Leave the others for when we have more time.”

  I nodded at her reasoning, got as close to the map as I could with my phone, and started snapping pictures, hoping that I was getting what she’d asked me to get. I also hoped it wasn’t somehow illegal to take pictures of these things. I hadn’t noticed any signs indicating that cameras were forbidden, so I guessed we’d be safe.

  I also didn’t see any street names in front of the compound, but there were plenty of buildings around it. Perhaps Gabby would be able to use the name of one of those buildings to nail down a more specific location. As far as the smaller buildings went, they would have to go on the list of unanswered questions I was constantly keeping track of. Something to wonder about later.

  “Will we need the traffic cams at all if we can get the address?” Jackie whispered.

  “I’m afraid so,” Jace said softly. “The Authority could have a lot of these sorts of compounds around, and we need to know which of them received a delivery via airship. It’s not going to do us much good if we break into a compound that doesn’t hold our friends.”

  I stood up, having taken as many pictures as I thought necessary, and sent them to Gabby via the encrypted app.

  “Gab, I’m sending all these pictures your way. Have a look and let me know if you need anything else.”

  There was a pause long enough that it made me nervous, but then she finally said, “No, you’ve given me everything I need.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Put everything back where you found it, I guess, and get to a place where you can have some privacy. Is there a park nearby? Someplace where you can sit in a wide-open space, so you could see anyone coming toward you?”

  I smiled at the fact that she’d borrowed Zion’s idea, but couldn’t argue with the logic behind it, and started shoving things back onto the shelf. I didn’t think we’d ever be back to this library, but I really didn’t want to make the librarian’s job difficult. And I certainly didn’t want to do anything that might make him follow us.

  “Jackie, is there a park around here?” I asked as I worked.

  She stopped what she was doing and turned to her phone. A few seconds later she nodded.

  “There’s a university not far from here, as weird as that is,” she said. “It has a big quad right in front of it. I think that’ll do.”

  “Terrific,” I said. “How far will we have to go?”

  She got back to work with putting things on the shelf.

  “Only two blocks,” she answered. “It’s really close.”

  I picked up my phone again. “Gab, we’re going to finish putting stuff away here and then get to that quad. I’ll call you when we get there. I assume you have something to keep you busy.”

  “I sure do,” she said. “I’m going to be getting into the system with the traffic cams. By the time you guys are at that quad, I’ll be in. Then we start searching.”

  It took only a few minutes to get from the library to the quad Jackie had spotted, and about thirty seconds after that we were sitting on a set of benches in the middle of it, and I was calling Gabby again.

  “Okay, we’re here,” I huffed, breathless from the fast walk. “What next?”

  “Well, I’m in,” she said, just as breathlessly. “I’m looking at list after list of traffic cams, cities, blocks, quadrants, you name it. Thank God you guys nailed down what city and quadrant we were looking for, or I would have been here for years. There’s no way I would have had this sorted out by Friday at all, let alone tomorrow. Can you put me on speaker? I want everyone to hear this.”

  I did as she requested, and we all leaned protectively toward the phone, keeping an eye on the people around us as we did so. Classes must have been in session, because the quad was empty—but that didn’t mean it would stay that way, and we couldn’t have anyone overhearing this.

  “I’m… looking through the files,” Gabby almost whispered, the spaces between her words growing. “I’m trying to figure out whether I can find a label that will tell me I’m looking at the cams from Voceville. Right now all I’m seeing… Ah, there it is!” she finished triumphantly. “Yes, I see now. I’ve found the cams for Voceville, and they’re divided by quadrant. Looking for the east quadrant, now, and… found them. Based on the pictures you sent me, I think we’ll need the traffic cam that points due north…” Her voice faded out, and I could hear her clicking away at the keys, followed by silence.

  “Okay, I’ve got our building,” she said finally, breaking the tension of the wait. “It’s enormous, and it looks exactly like I’d expect a government building to look, honestly. Completely boring.”

  I exchanged looks with my team, feeling antsy at having nothing to do but sit around while Gabby worked—particularly when we were so pressed for time.

  “Gabby, we’re in a bit of a hurry here,” I said. “Is there anything we can do to help? What can we do to make this go faste
r?”

  “You’re going to be helping,” she said immediately. “I’ve got the building, but there’s no telling when they brought our friends in, and again, it will take ages for me to watch that much footage. We can hope that they moved their prisoners there right away, but there’s no guarantee of that. We need to watch all the footage.”

  “And?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t expecting me to guess exactly what she meant.

  “And I need help watching the footage,” she finished. “I’m going to send each of you a series of videos. Go through them as quickly as you can. They’ll all be of the Authority building, and it’s dead center in the camera’s point of view. You won’t have to search or anything. Just stare straight ahead and use the controls at the bottom to go double or triple time.”

  “And… just look for a random airship coming down?” Ant asked.

  “Exactly,” Gabby answered quickly. “That’s all we need.”

  Well, that did seem simple.

  “Okay, where are our videos?” I asked. I glanced at my watch to see that it was already two p.m. How had so much of the day gone by? We’d only been to the library!

  “If this place isn’t the right one, we’re going to have a tough time getting to another city and then back to the Roundhouse for our meeting. The quicker we know whether we’re on the right path here or not, the quicker we’ll know what’s going to happen with the rest of our day.”

  Gabby didn’t answer, but a minute later messages came through on our encrypted apps, with attachments.

  “Those are several videos each,” Gabby explained. “They’re all at a different time of day and on a different date. Get into the videos and tell me the moment anyone sees an airship.”

  We opened the videos and began watching. They were shot only in black and white and were slightly more difficult if you were looking at a sequence shot at night, but the details were specific enough. I could clearly see the Authority building in front. The camera was pointed directly at it, and though that seemed odd, I told myself that it was probably due to the positioning of the intersection. The structure was very similar to what I’d seen at the library: a plain white building, no windows, no decoration. This one was much larger than the library, by about twenty times if I had to guess, but the style was the same. It didn’t appear to be anything special, and never would have warranted a second look from someone passing on the street.

  Across the front, in bold black letters, were the words COMPLIANCE AUTHORITY.

  I found that strange, considering they were supposed to be a secret agency, or at least not a publicly promoted one. I’d never heard of them before the video we received. Why would they be advertising it in such a way?

  The fact that they were doing so somehow made the building even more intimidating.

  Though I knew we were supposed to be looking for the airship, there was a part of me that instinctively started searching for a way into the property. Was there was a weakness somewhere, or a hole we could take advantage of? If this was the right place, it meant that we were going to be breaking into it on Friday. The thought was terrifying.

  So instead of addressing it, I turned my eyes to the sky above the building and looked for an airship.

  We watched videos for what seemed like forever. None of us spoke, and even Gabby was quiet on my phone, presumably watching her own set. I’d gone through three of the attachments when I started truly wondering what we were going to do if we didn’t find one that contained an airship—or, even worse, what we were going to do if we’d been wrong about the airship in the first place. What if they hadn’t used one? Or what if they had, but then had landed somewhere outside of town, in the countryside, shuffled the prisoners into vans or trucks, and taken them on from there in vehicles?

  If we were wrong about this, I didn’t know what we’d do. I wasn’t sure whether there would be another idea that seemed this straightforward and obvious. At least, I couldn’t think of one.

  Then I saw it.

  It was fuzzy at first, but this video had been shot during the day—early morning, according to the clock in the corner—and the lighting was decent. It started as a speck to the far left of the Authority building, against the horizon. Within seconds, it became clear that the speck was indeed an airship—and it was heading for the Authority building.

  I gasped, but didn’t say anything to the others. I wanted to make sure that this airship was actually going to the right building before I got their hopes up. After all, it was possible it was just an innocent airship, on its way to a completely innocent destination. Perhaps it was just flying over Voceville en route, to maintain clear airspace. Everyone knew the big airships had to stay out of the way of the smaller, swifter, and more dangerous vessels.

  Then it was right above the building we were watching, and it paused, hovering, then abruptly began to lower into the yard.

  By the time it landed, my heart was racing. This was it, exactly what we’d been looking for.

  “Guys, I’ve got it,” I said finally, comfortable about making the call now that the airship was landing.

  Everyone whirled quickly toward me, their phones forgotten, and clamored to stare at my screen.

  “Oh my God, would you look at the size of that thing?” Ant whispered.

  “So like a man to think only of the size,” Jackie said with a snort. “Is it coming down right in the yard of the compound?”

  “It is,” I told her. “I waited to tell you guys until it was landing because I wanted to make sure it was actually going to that building.”

  “And that means that with a slightly different angle, this video might have shown our friends being led out of that airship,” Jace murmured, his breath tickling my ear. “Walking down the gangplank, being led right into the yard and no doubt into the building. If that building wasn’t in the way, we might be able to actually see them.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder, and I reached up and squeezed it.

  “We don’t need to see them, Jace,” I said evenly. “We know they were there, and now we know the location of the jail. And that means we’re going to be able to rescue them. We’re going to be able to see them in person. Friday.”

  I didn’t remember returning to the train station, but I was conscious of the ride home on the train, and it was intense. We carried an aura around us that was made up of both excitement and nerves, both triumph and terror. We knew where we were going now, and what we had to do—though we still had no idea how we were going to do it.

  More importantly, we’d finished early enough that we actually had time on our hands, which was a luxury I almost didn’t recognize.

  “Three hours before we have to meet the others,” Ant said in surprise, after a glance at his watch. “I never would have thought I’d be so happy to have three hours of free time. What are we going to do with ourselves?”

  “I don’t know what you guys are going to do, but I’m going to go right to Jace’s house, lie down, and sleep like the dead for at least an hour,” I told them. “After that, maybe some food and a shower. Then I might revel a little in the fact that we actually did it. We actually did it.” I turned to Jace, torn between grinning in glee and staring at him in fear of what would come next. “We actually know where they are. I didn’t think we’d manage it.”

  He ticked me under the chin. “But we did, and it was, in large part, thanks to Gabby. Without her…”

  “Without her, none of this would have happened,” I said bluntly. “Without her, we would probably all be dead right now, tracked down by the Authority, which we wouldn’t even have known was looking for us. From here on out, I recommend we stop treating her like a sixteen-year-old and start considering her a true member of the team.”

  “Agreed,” Ant said, and Jackie followed suit.

  I leaned back, satisfied—and exhausted. We had the information we needed, and we’d be able to give Zion and the rest of the crew the location we needed so that we could start planning.


  Tonight, we would figure out how we were going to get into that horrible place, and then get everyone out of it alive.

  32

  We spent Wednesday evening and much of the next day planning, arguing, planning, and arguing some more, figuring out what we knew and what we still needed to figure out—and how we were going to use any of it. The fact that we now knew where the Authority’s compound was, and more or less what it looked like, at least gave us a solid starting point that we hadn’t had before.

  The first thing we’d done was send Jace, Ant, and Zion out to do some discreet scouting of the building itself. I wasn’t involved in the trip for a couple of reasons, starting with the fact that I was horrible at sneaking—and even worse at trying to act normal when I was sneaking.

  While they were gone, Ant, Jackie, Alexy, and I huddled up in a private meeting room at the Roundhouse and went through a list of ideas for how we might get into the building. We started with several sheets of paper, where we wrote idea after idea, with everything from walking right through the front door to rappelling down into the compound from the airship, and tightened them up from there until we had several ideas that we thought might work.

  Gabby was left to work on her own, partially due to her geographic location and partially due to the importance of her job. We’d guessed that there would be cameras inside that compound—because it was a prison, and they would inevitably be keeping an eye on their prisoners—and if we were going to move around as quickly as we needed to, the easiest way to do it was by using those cameras. We’d given her the responsibility of figuring it out and left her to get on with it.

  Julia and Marco were in charge of the airship, and had been sent to make sure that it was prepped and ready to go. Zion still hadn’t given them any idea of how long we might have to be in the air, but had reiterated the need for having an airship that we could survive in for several days, be it in the sky or on the ground. Which made me think that he thought we might actually be living in the airship after the raid.