Child of Lies

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  “We will transfer now,” Alice declared and scooped the senator up.

  Seeing that Alice would not be put off any further, Humphrey guided her through the rear door and into one of the side rooms.

  The room he chose was the one he had been locked in just days before. The antiseptic smell of the room brought a wave of fury crashing through Humphrey’s heart. It was there that Dr. Carlhagen had verbally abused him, then smashed him in the legs with his cane. Humphrey wanted to burn the whole place to the ground.

  Alice laid the senator on the gurney and drew the covers over her. Miss Dayspring crowded in to fluff the senator’s pillow.

  Humphrey pointed to a cabinet. “There are gowns in there. Please help her change into one while I go retrieve the Scion.” Humphrey’s stomach flipped as his simple, elegant Plan B came to mind. He took a step backward into the hall, grabbed the edge of the door and pushed it shut.

  Hands shaking, he fumbled with the lock.

  Too slow.

  Alice grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. “What are you doing?”

  She stepped into the hall.

  “Uh, just making sure it wasn’t locked.”

  Humphrey shouted a silent curse in his mind. If he’d gotten it locked, he could have just left all three of them in there and waited them out.

  “What are you waiting for?” Alice demanded. “Let’s go get the Scion.”

  ° ° °

  Humphrey kept his steps short and slow while he and Alice crossed the quad toward the Girls’ Classroom.

  His pace clearly irritated Alice, whose long strides covered nearly twice as much ground as Humphrey’s. “Let’s move, Doctor.”

  He darted a dark glance at her. “It’s bad enough that you are coming with me, but I won’t disturb the rest of the Scions by rushing across the quad as if there is some emergency.”

  They got to Girls’ Classroom and he stopped at the door, positioning himself to bar Alice from entering. He held up his hands. “You must stay outside. If we barge in there and drag Summer out like a criminal, it’s going to cause all kinds of chaos that we do not need.”

  “Your concern about the other Scions means nothing to me.” Alice shoved him aside and went in. He could hear her calling for Summer.

  Humphrey followed after. “I insist that you leave this classroom at once!”

  Alice didn’t listen. She went to every girl old enough to be Summer. “Are you Summer? Are you Summer?”

  Each one shook her head and stepped back in fear. The younger students crowded away to hide behind the older ones. All except Livy, who stood by her desk watching Alice with a look of curiosity on her face. Leslie and Wanda stepped forward. With Belle gone, Leslie was in charge of Belle’s Nine, and with Jacey gone, Wanda was in charge of Jacey’s.

  “Who are you?” Leslie demanded. “And what do you think you’re doing, coming in here like this?”

  Humphrey rushed forward. “There has been an emergency with Summer’s mother.”

  He stared straight at Wanda who, alone among the girls, knew the truth of what the Scions were. Just days before, Jacey, Humphrey and Vaughan had come to believe that upon graduation the Scions were introduced to their parents. That turned out not to be true, but in the interest of keeping the peace and preventing panic, the three of them had agreed not to tell the rest of the Scions the truth. But Wanda knew some of it.

  “Summer’s not here,” Wanda said. “Jacey came to collect her yesterday, and I haven’t seen either of them since.”

  “Who is this Jacey person?” Alice loomed over the girls, hands flexed into claws, as if she considered picking them up and smashing their heads together.

  Wanda looked to Humphrey but kept her mouth shut.

  Humphrey said, “Go ahead and answer the question.”

  To her credit, the red-haired girl stood firmly under Alice’s glare and calmly reported that Jacey had removed Summer from class. It was assumed that they were going to the medical ward and that was all she knew. “We figured that Jacey and Summer spent the night at the hacienda.” She turned a questioning look toward Humphrey. “Isn’t that the case?”

  “No,” Humphrey said.

  “We must find Summer immediately,” Alice said, spinning to face Humphrey. “Did you know she was missing?”

  Her eyes narrowed to bare slits. She towered over him, and though Humphrey was a reasonably accomplished fighter, one clean blow from her and he’d be knocked unconscious, or worse.

  “Obviously not,” Humphrey said. He turned to Wanda and Leslie. “Organize a search. Scour the campus. As soon as you find Summer, escort her to the medical ward.”

  He snapped his fingers at Livy. “Dolphin, run to Boys’ Hall and tell Elias and Sang to organize their search parties. Tell them to search the running paths.”

  Livy darted away, and Wanda and Leslie busied themselves dividing their Nines, who shuffled out of Girls’ Hall in particularly poor form.

  Alice followed Humphrey out, and placed a huge hand on his shoulder. “The only reason this Jacey would have run off with Summer is if she knew Senator Bentilius was coming. How could you let this happen?”

  “I assure you that Summer had no notion of what was going on. And, for that matter, neither did Jacey.” He tapped his lips with his fingers, as if trying to imagine what on earth could have gotten into their heads. Pretending to a hit an idea, he brightened. “Jacey’s the head of Summer’s Nine, and there have been reports of some discipline issues. My guess is that Jacey took Summer out to the East End for disciplinary purposes. It is not unusual to make a Scion spend a night out in the elements doing pointless tasks like carrying rocks up a hill to get through to them. I suggest we return to Senator Bentilius and make sure she’s comfortable.”

  Alice glared at him. “You’re the doctor. You see to the senator. I’m going to turn this campus upside down until I find that Scion.” She stormed off.

  Humphrey let his breath go. It took all of his strength not to slump to the ground and cover his head with his hands. Instead, he stumbled across the quad, watching as groups of Scions searched the buildings, the bougainvillea hedges. Several faces peered down from the top of the bell tower. A girl from Jacey’s Nine even peered into the pit.

  Two boys from Humphrey’s Nine, Kirk and Horace, headed into the mango grove that stood between the dojo and the garage. At least the Scions were putting on a good show of looking, though he suspected Horace intended to loaf somewhere out of sight.

  Humphrey ambled toward the medical ward, not really wanting to go there at all. Wanda caught up to him. “Humphrey, what is going on?”

  “Long story. Summer is in danger from these people.”

  Wanda’s lips parted, but to her credit she kept her composure. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me why.”

  “Like I said, it’s a long story. Make sure everyone searches thoroughly and very slowly.”

  “But we don’t want to find them, right?”

  “Oh, you won’t find them,” Humphrey said. “They’re no longer on the campus.”

  Wanda’s shoulders drooped with relief, but a second later she squared them. Her gaze shifted across the quad where Alice’s form burst from the dining hall, headed toward Boys’ Hall. She shouted at two of her men, ordering them to search the dojo.

  Wanda said, “I’m sure I can talk the boys into doing something about that woman.”

  Humphrey was tempted. With numbers, they could certainly overwhelm Alice and her men, but they bore weapons. It only took one bullet to kill someone. The whole point of protecting Summer was to save a life. The effort would be wasted if one or more of them died trying to delay the search.

  “No,” Humphrey said. “Not yet.”

  A cry rose from the mango grove. “It’s gone! It’s gone!”

  Alice stopped and turned toward the grove. Her voice boomed across the quad like a crack of thunder. “What?”

  Horace burst out of the trees and ran up to her, panting. “The Je
ep! It’s gone.”

  “That idiot!” Wanda hissed.

  Alice’s head swung toward Humphrey. And though he stood nearly fifty meters from her, he thought he could feel the heat of her rage burning his face. She stalked toward him, and at the same time lifted something from her belt to her mouth.

  Humphrey pretended not to notice her, and picked up his pace toward the medical ward. Alice caught up with him, jerked him around with her iron grip. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a vehicle missing?”

  “A vehicle? You mean the Jeep?” He stammered for a moment, at a loss for any reason it might have disappeared.

  “Mr. Justin often takes it off campus,” Wanda said. “Perhaps it broke down. I do recall seeing him walking through the gate a day or two before the storm. I thought it odd.”

  Humphrey stared at the red-headed girl, amazed by the absolute sincerity she infused into her abject lies. “Did you see that? Interesting. I remember him coming to the villa in a bit of a mood. He was quite a sweaty mess. That would explain it.” He chuckled. “That’s Mr. Justin for you. He never likes to burden me with minutiae like misbehaving motor vehicles.”

  Alice’s jaw worked like some great animal crushing a mouthful of bones. “Then it won’t be too difficult to find the vehicle from the air.”

  “From the air, you say?” Humphrey looked at the cloudless sky.

  Alice glanced at a timepiece on her wrist. “Yes. I’ve radioed for the helicopter. It will be here in a few minutes.”

  Humphrey decided that playing dumb was his only remaining strategy. “It’s quite generous of you to go retrieve our Jeep, but what about your search for the senator’s Scion?”

  Alice gave him a flat look. “I suspect I’ll find the Scion with the Jeep.”

  Humphrey straightened and dropped his jaw, feigning shock. “You think Mr. Justin removed the Scion from campus?”

  “Stop pretending I’m an imbecile, Dr. Carlhagen. I don’t know what part you’ve played in this debacle, but two Scions go missing at the same time as a Jeep? I can easily fit the puzzle pieces together. Surely you can, too.”

  The thump of helicopter blades cut through the air and grew louder. Soon the insect-like machine swooped close, passed the bell tower, and descended toward the quad. It had barely touched down before Alice and three of her men ran forward and disappeared into its side. The helicopter lifted off and flew out of sight.

  “What now?” Wanda asked.

  “Get everyone back into the residence halls. I’ve got to go find Mr. Justin.”

  Wanda scurried off and began shouting orders to Scions of every Nine, girl and boy alike. They listened to her, which surprised Humphrey. In just a few minutes, he stood alone upon the quad, and the whole world was silent save the sigh of the breeze rustling through the nearby trees.

  His eyes went to the mango grove and to the gate beyond. He hoped Jacey was lying low.

  24

  A Verbal Hammer

  Crouching among the tall grasses at the windswept edge of the beach, Jacey lifted the binoculars and scanned the coast. A narrow band of sand stretched along this northern shoreline littered with twists of pungent seaweed. At the waterline, waves curled across jagged black rocks and pooled among boulders as tall as Jacey. The water in the curved inlet was relatively calm, protected by a break farther out where whitecaps rolled in and collapsed in ribbons of foam.

  To get to the water’s edge, she and Summer would have to cross an open expanse twenty meters wide. But that’s where Jacey expected to find the crabs they intended to devour for breakfast. After that, they’d follow the coast west and hope to find some sign of Mother Tyeesha’s compound.

  A gust blew from the sea, and Jacey turned her face to greet it, welcoming its cool caress. She would have loved to strip off her clothes and dive into those waters. Not only to get her skin something close to clean, but the salt water might soothe the ceaseless itching of the innumerable bug bites covering her legs and ankles. Both she and Summer had been harried mercilessly in the night by invisible little bugs that left tiny red welts on their skin. The bites itched way out of proportion to their size.

  “We can’t risk much time in the open,” Jacey said, letting the binoculars hang around her neck. “Let’s grab what we can and get under cover.”

  She unfolded one of the plastic ponchos. “We’ll put our catch in this.”

  Summer had made it very clear she wasn’t putting nasty crustaceans in her satchel, which she wore over her shoulder, strap crossing her chest. Jacey had to agree, since it held Summer’s reader, among other bits and pieces Summer thought she might need. If the search for Mother Tyeesha’s compound didn’t pan out, Jacey had a mind to head back toward the Scion School and see if they could get in range of the reader network. Maybe she could get someone to toss food over the fence. That would be the last option, though. She didn’t want to be anywhere near the school as long as the senator was there.

  Realizing there was nothing to do but just go, she stood and ran across the beach, Summer close behind.

  Tiny sand crabs darted away from her and disappeared into pencil-width holes that perforated the short, damp stretch of sand. Jacey didn’t care. She was after more substantial quarry.

  She and Summer kicked off their shoes and walked barefoot across the damp stone, crossing to a tidal pool still filled with shallow water.

  “Found one,” Summer said and snatched up a gray-shelled crab by its hind legs. Not very big, but better than nothing. The pincers snapped and wriggled. Summer tossed the creature into the poncho, and Jacey folded it shut. A moment later, Jacey found another. She’d never enjoyed such hunts, but Sensei had extolled the virtues of fresh seafood in their diet. All Scions went on crab hunts from the time they were Dolphins.

  The girls continued around the tidal pool, occasionally bending to snatch up another wriggling crab. Summer found a few mussels. An octopus squiggled into an impossibly tight hole among rocks. Jacey knew they’d never get it out.

  They came to a jut of rock blocking their way east. Summer climbed atop it to see if more tidal pools lay on the other side.

  Jacey hefted the poncho. She knew most of the weight was inedible chitin, so she wanted a lot more before they headed back to the plantation.

  “There’s something over here,” Summer said. She stood on tiptoes, shading her eyes with one hand. Jacey picked her way up the rocks to join her. Close by on the other side, a dozen birds covered a shapeless hump on the sand, obviously feeding upon it.

  “A dead fish. It’s huge,” Summer said. “Too bad we didn’t find it before the gulls did.”

  “Yeah,” Jacey said absently, lifting her binoculars. She eyed the birds, not really concerned about the fish. “Could we capture one of them?”

  “No,” Summer said matter-of-factly.

  “Stay here,” Jacey ordered, handing Summer the poncho full of crustaceans. She quietly descended the thrust of rock and tiptoed forward, not sure exactly what she planned to do. Her mouth watered just thinking about roasting a bird over a little fire.

  She crouched and picked up a stone, thinking she might try to hit one of them. Maybe if she threw it while they were crowded over their breakfast, she would get a lucky shot. She crept closer, taking great care to place her weight and find her footing before stepping forward. A rock slipped beneath her feet, producing a hollow clank. The birds squawked and took to the air.

  Jacey cocked her arm back, ready to make a desperate throw.

  She froze when she saw what the birds had been feeding upon. It wasn’t a fish.

  It was a person.

  Jacey stepped closer, horror filling her throat, blocking the groan that needed to come out. Her hand went to her mouth to suppress a gag. Behind her, Summer shrieked. Jacey knew who the figure was. She edged around the body, caught a slight glimpse of the bloated and crab-eaten face, before turning to fall on hands and knees, convulsing with sickness. Little came up. She had nothing left in her stomach.

 
; “Who is it?” Summer called, voice rising in panic. Footsteps clanked over stone as she joined Jacey.

  Jacey wiped her mouth and stood, turning away from the corpse. “It’s Nurse Smith.”

  Summer tugged on Jacey’s arm. “Let’s get away from here. Now.”

  Jacey didn’t allow herself to glance back at Nurse Smith. A part of her wanted to study the rest of the beach to find out if what she suspected was true. Captain Wilcox had said that Sensei and Nurse Smith had both been thrown out of the helicopter. If Nurse Smith had washed up, then perhaps Sensei had, too.

  “We have to go,” Summer said.

  The firmness in the girl’s voice caught Jacey’s attention. A second later, she heard what was behind Summer’s urgency. The faint beating sound of the helicopter.

  Jacey darted straight away from the shore and into the tall grass. She didn’t feel much protected by it. Another three hundred meters of grass separated them from the denser rainforest to the south. She stopped, torn for a moment between lying low and making a run for it.

  “Our shoes,” Summer said. “We have to go back for our shoes.”

  “Shush,” Jacey said, kneeling in the grass. She held her breath, tried to will her pounding pulse to silence as she listened. The crash of the waves became a roar in her mind, and she tried to pick out the sound of the helicopter.

  Next to her, Summer kneeled with her hands on her thighs, looking to the sky. “I don’t think it’s coming this way.”

  Jacey waited for another fifteen seconds, then began working her way parallel to the shore, occasionally stopping to peek out until they came even with the spot they had left their shoes. Before she could make a move, Summer darted onto the rocks, grabbed both pairs and sprinted back.

  Jacey wanted to berate the girl, but there was no point. It was clear that Summer was going to do what Summer wanted to do. But Jacey was grateful to have her shoes, which she slipped over her sand-crusted feet.