A Boy Called Hawk (Annals of Altair Book 1)

by Kate Stradling

  He nodded. “That would be the gist of it. So, we’ll be counting on you alone.”

  “I understand,” said Oliver, and Emily wondered at the sheer contempt that radiated from him. “Where’ve you tracked them to so far?”

  Principal Gates shifted his gaze off to one side. “The jeep was abandoned in a small town in Oregon yesterday morning. The children had breakfast there—”

  “Courtesy of Crystal,” Todd interjected sarcastically.

  “Like I had any choice,” she retorted, and an angry blush rose to her cheeks.

  “We’ve been unable to confirm anything more than that,” Gates continued, firmly ignoring the pair. “Ever since the news story broke, we’ve been flooded with reports of sightings from all over the western states, as far east as Kansas and Nebraska, but we assume that the kids have continued in a southerly direction. For now, we’d like you to research as much as you can about the two older boys. All of our resources are at your disposal, such as they are. Try to figure out where they would go and how best we can bring them back into safety. Once we receive concrete information on where they are, we’ll transfer you to that location. Is that satisfactory?”

  The rebellious look that flashed across Oliver’s face said it wasn’t satisfactory at all. Emily wasn’t sure why Principal Gates had bothered to ask his approval, though. He was in no position to decline.

  Oliver apparently knew as much, too. “Fine,” he grumbled sullenly. “The sooner I get started, the sooner I can go home.”

  Article I, Section 4

  Inquisition

  July 2, 5:15pm pdt, Northern California

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Honey asked. Her skeptical gaze flitted over the brownstone building in front of them. It had seen better days. Then again, nearly all apartment buildings had seen better days. After the government took control of such private properties, the upkeep had steadily spiraled downward. The administrators didn’t care about public housing so long as their own living arrangements were satisfactory.

  “1143 East Maple Street was his address as of June,” said Hummer. “He should be in Apartment 3F, but he won’t be home yet.”

  “School doesn’t even get out for another half-hour,” said Hawk with a glance toward the late afternoon sky. A dark shape circled above and fluttered down to land on his shoulder. After a curious moment, Hawk reported. “Revere says there’s a patrol car coming up the next street over. We should wait inside.”

  Had it not been public housing, that might have been easier said than done. An iron gate barred entrance to the building without a security code or key, but closer examination revealed a damaged latch. The gate swung open with no effort whatsoever.

  “Feel secure?” Hummer asked with a sarcastic smile. The four slipped into the ratty little courtyard. Loath to go indoors, Revere took to the air again as the children trotted up the walk and into the apartment building.

  The inside was as dingy as the outside. From an open door down the hallway, a couple of voices talked—the building manager and a tenant, from the sounds of it. Hawk motioned his siblings toward the stairs, and they ascended to the third floor with utmost stealth.

  Apartment 3F was at the end of a corridor, not at all a good location for a fast getaway. “It’s locked up tight,” said Hummer as he tried the door. Four bolts adorned its surface, testament that the occupant was taking no chances with unwanted intruders. “Do you want me to jimmy it open, or should we just wait?”

  “I can get the master keys from the building manager,” Honey volunteered.

  “The fewer people we come into contact with here, the better,” said Hawk. “We’re not trying to make trouble for him. We just want to ask him a few questions.”

  “Who is this guy again?”

  “His name’s Jack Martin. He used to be a journalist up until a couple years ago, but now he teaches at the local public school. He was on a list linked to our files, Hummer’s and mine—Prometheus was keeping track of him.”

  Honey nodded and refrained from asking any further questions.

  “Am I jimmying the door, or what?” said Hummer, and he produced the small packet of tools he always carried with him.

  Hawk glanced at the other doors in the hallway. “Yeah, you’d better. If anyone else comes by and sees us here, we’ll get reported for sure.”

  “Picking a lock’s not much harder than hot-wiring an old car,” Hummer said as he went to work, “but keep a lookout all the same. This’ll take a few minutes.”

  Soon enough, he swung the door open and motioned his siblings inside. Once they had all safely entered, he flipped all the bolts back into place.

  “It’s tidy,” said Honey as she looked around the tiny studio. “One of my handlers used to go on and on about how messy her boyfriend’s apartment always was. I guess I thought all men lived that way.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” said Hawk, and he shoved his hands inside his pockets, intent upon keeping that admonition himself. Honey rolled her eyes but did the same.

  “No pictures on the wall,” said Hummer. “Just a calendar. Looks like he’s never really settled in here.”

  The three older children paced back and forth, shamelessly inspecting the scant evidence that someone truly did occupy this small space. There wasn’t much: a nearly full bookshelf, a plant on the window sill, a stack of papers on the bureau next to the bed. There was no TV, no radio, no computer, seemingly nothing that would connect with the outside world. In the kitchen, the refrigerator contained a few wilted vegetables, four bottles of water, and a jar of pickles. The cabinets were mostly stocked with crackers and generic-label soup cans.

  While Hawk, Hummer, and Honey inspected the premises, Happy climbed onto the twin-sized bed and primly folded his hands into his lap. Although his attention did travel about the apartment, he seemed to have no interest in any one thing.

  Presently Honey joined him. Hawk and Hummer finished their examination of the room as well and stood apart from the younger pair. A key turned in the first lock.

  With that telltale sound, Honey and Happy jumped from the bed. Hawk and Hummer stood protectively between them and the door. The second lock turned, then the third, then the fourth. The door opened, and a faded man shuffled inside, his attention focused on removing his key rather than checking for any uninvited guests. His eyes did look up at last, though, and he froze, half inside and half outside his apartment.

  “Jack Martin?” said Hawk.

  “Oh, no,” said the man. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have to get out of here. I can’t be seen talking to you. They’ll throw me in jail without a second thought! You have to get out of here!”

  Hawk raised his hands defensively. “We just wanted to ask you a couple questions, and then we’ll be on our way. I take it you know who we are?”

  The man raked a harrowed hand through his hair, his glance darting back toward the hallway. “Know who you are?” he echoed almost hysterically. “Of course I know who you are! You couldn’t be anyone but the West kids! You look just like your parents! My life was ruined because of you!”

  Hawk and Hummer exchanged a confused glance. Before they could make any further comment, though, Honey poked her head out from behind them and said, “Mr. Martin, could you please come inside and shut the door?”

  Impulsively he obeyed, but his nervous eyes shifted toward the window and back, as though he was gauging whether to dash that direction and leap down into the alleyway.

  “Happy,” said Honey, “could you please calm down? There’s nothing to worry about. That nice man won’t do anything to us.” Even though she had spoken to her youngest brother, a visible effect enveloped Jack Martin. The tension eased from his shoulders, and he leaned heavily back against the door.

  “What do you kids want?” he asked, resigned to the interview.

  “How did you know our parents?” Hawk bluntly asked.

  “They came to me for help, told me their story, wanted it reported i
n the news. It was a compelling story, so I agreed to write it. My editors wouldn’t publish it. No one would touch it. Two weeks later, I was told that my services as a journalist were no longer needed. I was evicted from my house, downgraded in my pay, and transferred to this forsaken little hole to teach English. They still watch my every move, waiting for me to step a toe out of line again. That’s why you have to leave, now.”

  “You don’t know where our parents are, then?” Hummer asked in disappointment.

  “If I did, I would’ve already told the authorities. They questioned me when your mom and dad disappeared. I have no clue where they are. Is that all?”

  Hawk reluctantly stepped toward the door, but paused on a sudden thought. “That story you wrote for them—what became of it? Do you still have it?”

  “They incinerated it,” said the man in a hollow voice, “along with everything else I’d ever written. I told you they ended my career.”

  “So now you’re beaten? You’d think once they took everything away from you, you’d have nothing left to lose. I guess our parents went to the wrong journalist.”

  For the first time since he had come home, Jack Martin showed something more than fear. His teeth bared in a snarl, and he leapt forward to catch hold of Hawk’s collar. “You think you know everything? You think anyone can stand up to those thugs? Your parents couldn’t. There’s a fifty-fifty chance they didn’t disappear by choice. I’m not going to take that chance. I may be beaten, but I’m still alive.”

  “A lot of good it’s doing you,” said Hawk, unfazed.

  The man shoved him back and staggered to one side, where he collapsed into a chair. “Get out,” he said. “You’re lucky I don’t keep you here and call the cops. I’ll give you a five-minute head start.”

  “If you call them, they’re only going to lock you away for your trouble,” Hawk said.

  “You don’t know that. But they’ll lock me away for sure if I don’t call,” Martin replied.

  Hawk was unsympathetic. “So I guess you just have to decide how much free time you want. I’d skip the country if I were you.”

  “Five minutes,” he repeated stubbornly.

  “Make it fifteen,” said Honey as she ushered Happy toward the exit, “or don’t call at all.”

  “Fifteen seems fair. Or maybe I won’t call.”

  On that note, the four children left the apartment and its shattered occupant behind.

  “Dead end,” Hummer said as they hurried back out to the street.

  “It was a long shot anyway,” Hawk replied. “If I’d known he was such a mealy coward, I wouldn’t have bothered with him.”

  “How many more dead ends do you two have to investigate?” Honey asked.

  “We have a whole list,” said Hummer with an impertinent smile, “and we’ve catalogued ’em by how much of a risk it’d be to contact ’em.”

  “Martin was low-risk, but he was low-return as well,” said Hawk.

  As they exited through the broken gate, Honey took Happy’s hand in hers. “Maybe we shouldn’t bother with Mom and Dad. Maybe we should skip the country. Maybe that’s what they did.”

  Hawk stopped in his tracks and considered her suggestion. “Maybe,” he said at last, “but I can’t believe they’d ever stop trying to find us. We just haven’t connected with the right people yet. Hummer, what do you think?”

  “I want to see my parents again,” he promptly replied, his voice quiet. “What about you, Happy? Do you want to keep looking, or do you think we should give up and look after our own safety?”

  “Happy doesn’t even remember Mom and Dad,” Honey said before the youngest could answer.

  “Isn’t that all the more reason for him to want to find them?” asked Hawk, and the three children turned at last to their youngest brother.

  Happy looked like a cornered rabbit beneath their collective gaze. After an uncertain hesitation, though, he straightened his shoulders and said, “I want to see them. We should keep looking.”

  Honey’s eyebrows shot up, and Hawk and Hummer exchanged an impressed glance. “I think that’s the most you’ve said since we busted you out yesterday morning,” Hummer told him in approval. Happy didn’t respond. He simply brushed past and continued up the road, dragging his sister behind him.

  Article I, Section 5

  Motive and Opportunity

  July 2, 6:37pm mdt, Prom-F

  Emily scrutinized her reflection in the mirror as she washed her hands in the girls’ lavatory sink. For a first day, this had been both eventful and disappointing. She had entertained dreams of counseling with children, of making a difference in small lives, of being looked up to as a source of wisdom and camaraderie. In reality, she was a glorified babysitter, her presence barely even acknowledged by her superiors and blatantly scorned by her charge.

  The door swung open, and Crystal entered, headed straight for the stalls. She paused when she saw she wasn’t alone.

  “Hey, new girl,” she said.

  “Hi,” said Emily in a flat voice.

  “Wasn’t what you expected, was it?”

  Emily scoffed. “No, not at all.”

  “I remember,” Crystal said. “I did my undergrad volunteer work at a public elementary school, and the kids there were awful. I had such high expectations for my Prometheus internship, to be working with smart kids who would actually go somewhere in life. Boy, was I ever mistaken. The public school kids might have been wild and woefully undereducated, but at least they had souls.”

  Oliver being a soulless little monster had already crossed Emily’s mind several times throughout the day, but to hear someone else say it aloud was too much. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” she asked.

  Crystal smiled a brittle smile. “Just wait. You’ve been assigned a doozy, so he’ll break you in right quick. Just a word of caution—the higher-ups claim that they switch handlers so often to give both us and the kids more experience with different personality types. All it really does is prevent anyone from getting unnecessarily attached.”

  “You were attached to Honey, though, weren’t you?”

  A wistful expression flashed across Crystal’s face, an enigmatic mixture of sorrow and longing. “Honey’s different. She’s still soulless, but you have to love her anyway. She demands it, and what Honey demands, Honey gets. You’ll understand if you ever meet her. She keeps everyone so tightly wrapped around her little finger that you actually start to believe your feelings are genuine. She rewires the brain. Kinda makes you understand why Prometheus wants her back, doesn’t it?”

  Emily wanted to say no, but instead she asked, “Is projecting really that powerful?”

  “Honey’s is. Happy, too. If that kid ever masters his abilities, he’ll be able to control entire multitudes. Honey at least has to say something to you. Happy just has to feel it. Crazy what that sort of influence could be used for in the wrong hands.”

  “I guess that’s why it’s so important to return him and his sister to the right hands,” said Emily logically, but Crystal gave her an odd look. “What?”

  “No, nothing. I just sometimes wonder… are Prometheus and the GCA really the right hands? From what I’ve seen so far, they’re purposely breeding a bunch of little sociopaths.” At Emily’s widened eyes, she chuckled. “Don’t look so shocked. I’d never say that out loud if I didn’t know for sure their building surveillance is still shot. Have you ever heard the expression that a guy ‘would sell his own mother’ to get what he wanted?”

  Emily nodded in confusion.

  “Well, these kids don’t have mothers. They don’t have anyone but themselves. No ties, no conscience, if you get my meaning. Two months won’t be anywhere near enough to change that, so don’t get your hopes up. Just do your job and move on. Where is your little monster right now, anyway?”

  “He’s in a classroom down the hall, researching yours.”

  A faint laugh escaped Crystal’s lips. “Best be getting back to him. Good luck, n
ew girl.” Then, she crossed to one of the bathroom stalls and shut herself inside.

  Emily cast an uncertain glance toward the occupied stall before she left the lavatory. Crystal’s cynicism was probably meant as a friendly warning to a less-experienced colleague, but a sinister tone underlaid her message. The Prometheus Institute was a prestigious sub-division of the Government-Civilian Alliance, whose sole purpose was to serve the citizens of the nation. The days of nefarious, covert government organizations had ended decades ago, back when the second Bush left office. In this enlightened age, with more than a century of developmental psychology to call upon, obviously the government would know what they were doing for the good of the children in their charge.

  Besides that, Prometheus kids were all gifted—all the more reason to rear them in the most productive and efficient manner possible.

  “Breeding little sociopaths,” Emily muttered as she walked down the hall. “Ridiculous.”

  She entered the third classroom on the left to discover Oliver exactly where she had left him. The four files of the West children overlapped on the table in front of him, and he was flipping through a new stack of papers.

  Emily donned a cheerful smile. “Sorry I took so long.”

  Oliver didn’t even look up. “Were you gone? I just thought you were being abnormally silent.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from growling. “You knew I was gone,” she said. “Not only did I tell you I needed to use the bathroom, but even if I hadn’t, you’re way too smart not to notice when you’re alone in a room.”

  This time his attention actually lifted from the pages in front of him, and Emily could have sworn a glimmer of satisfaction crossed his face.

  Bull’s-eye. “What’s that you’re looking at?” she asked.

  “I had what’s-her-name print out all of the correspondences between Hawk and his little sister,” he said, much to her surprise.