A Boy Called Hawk (Annals of Altair Book 1)

by Kate Stradling

  “What’s-her-name?” Emily echoed. “You know it’s Crystal. Are you trying to belittle her or just keeping your distance?”

  Oliver seemed surprised to have his words challenged twice in a row. “Take your pick,” he grumbled, and he returned his eyes to the letters he held.

  Emily crossed over next to him and propped herself against the table. Her gaze flitted over the email header of the top sheet. “They wrote to each other, then?”

  “Every week, starting about two months after they all came to Prometheus. Looks like Hawk found Honey listed in the student directory.”

  “You mean the staff didn’t give her address to him? That’s weird, them being siblings and all… What?” Oliver was glaring at her with a withering scowl. “What did I say?”

  He spoke as though talking to a four-year-old. “Obviously they separated them for a reason. Honey and Happy went to Prom-B in Washington while Hawk and Hummer were brought here, to the black hole of Prom-F.”

  “Black hole?”

  “Are you really this dense?” Oliver asked scornfully.

  “Yes, I really am. Explain it to me.”

  “Prometheus-F is for kids who are older than five when they’re enrolled. Hummer was seven, and Hawk was almost nine—another year and they would have left him out of it all together. When you consider that these two had spent seven and nine years growing up in a household that openly flouted the law, with parents that had the gall to name them all after a pack of radical revolutionaries from a dead and bygone era, it’s obvious that they were always a flight risk.”

  “And you figured all of that out from a couple files and a stack of letters?”

  He breathed a heavy sigh, as though her very presence exhausted him. “It’s written in Hawk’s file. The first evaluation they gave him, they said he was a flight risk. He was too attached to his parents, kept asking to see them, kept asking after his siblings—it wasn’t until last year that they actually allowed him and Hummer to share the same dorm room. They assumed by then that he had calmed down.”

  “So he coerced Hummer into it, and they went and kidnapped Honey and Happy,” said Emily, thinking this was the obvious conclusion to his monologue.

  Oliver’s scowl returned. “You really are stupid.”

  Instinct told her to take offense, but logic whispered that she’d succumb to Crystal’s brand of cynicism if she let him get to her. So Emily swallowed her pride and let the insult pass. “Yeah, we’ve established that I’m not anywhere near as smart as the almighty, all-knowing null-projector Oliver Dunn. Why am I so stupid now?”

  He blinked, unaccustomed to her method of handling. “You’re stupid because Hummer and Honey were obviously both willing parties—especially Honey. You think someone like her could be kidnapped if she didn’t want to be?”

  “Oh,” said Emily. “I get it. If someone tried to force her into something she didn’t want, she could tell them to buzz off and they’d leave her alone. I wish I had that ability.”

  He grunted. “A golden tongue? Yeah, I guess she could pretty well rule the world if she wanted to.”

  “So what have you found in the letters? They’re just between Hawk and Honey, right? Did they plot out their getaway?”

  “See for yourself,” he said. He extracted one page from the stack and proffered it to her.

  Surprised at his willingness to let her touch anything that had to do with his current project, she took the paper and scanned its contents. The time stamp was from the previous week. The letter read,

  Dear Honey,

  This past week has been really busy. My chemistry class is giving me a headache, and I’m way behind on my reading. Hummer’s swamped too, but he said to tell you hello and that he hopes you’re doing well. Revere also sends his regards. Maybe you can meet him sometime soon.

  I don’t know if you remember, but my birthday’s next week. I’ll be thirteen. It’s not that big a deal, but Hummer and I have decided to get up really early to have our own private celebration, sometime around 5AM, just when the sun is coming up here, and before all the classes and everything turn the day into its usual humdrum. If you and Happy want to join us, you can wake up at the same time. Then we’ll all be together again, under the same big sky.

  The letter went on to discuss a couple of class activities that Hawk had participated in the previous week, and some of the upcoming events they had to look forward to. It ended,

  Well, I think I’ve rambled on long enough. Have a good week, and I’ll talk to you soon.

  Love, Hawk

  PS—They told us here that there’s a flu virus going around, even though it’s summertime. If you start to feel ill, make sure you go to the infirmary. Happy, too. They’ll be able to save you both.

  “Save you both?” Emily said. “What kind of weird advice is that? I mean, it’s the flu, not a burning building.” She looked up to find Oliver’s steady gaze on her. “What?”

  “So you caught that, did you? You’re about as effective as the computer algorithm that checks all our email. It flagged that letter as containing suspicious content.”

  Emily looked down at the page again, a frown creasing her brow. “I don’t know that it’s so suspicious, just a weird way to tell her to watch her health.”

  With a deft movement, Oliver plucked the page from her fingers. “That’s what the techs who reviewed the letter determined. That’s why no one was able to prevent all of this.”

  “What do you mean? And yes, I know I’m stupid.”

  Oliver actually laughed, if a superior little grunt could be called a laugh. “The whole letter is code. Hawk’s birthday was yesterday. He and Hummer got up especially early—they didn’t go to bed, more like—and at 5AM Mountain Time, they were sneaking onto the Prometheus-B campus to retrieve Honey and Happy from… guess where?”

  Emily’s eyes dropped back down to the page he held. “The infirmary?” she said in disbelief.

  “Oh, very well done. Crystal says Honey took herself and Happy there the night before, claiming that they both had stomach cramps. Sometime between three and four o’clock, she told the nurse to go to bed… in the next wing of the building.”

  “But how could she have possibly known her brothers were coming from that letter? I mean, it’s so convoluted! Are these kids psychically linked or something? Or maybe previous letters—”

  “There’s nothing unusual in the previous letters,” Oliver cut in. “Not that I can see, anyway, not back until March. One of Honey’s letters was flagged then.”

  Emily perked up. “Really? Can I see that one too?”

  He rolled his eyes but pulled the requested page from his pile nonetheless. Emily took it from him eagerly and read over it. The date stamped on the top was March 25 of that year.

  Dear Hawk,

  How are you? Everything here is good. Last week I went on a field trip with a few people from my class. Part of the time we went to New York, and the other part we were in Washington, DC. I had lots of fun.

  Happy is doing well. He still doesn’t talk a lot, but he is very affectionate to me. Living with other kids has made him more sociable, I think. He gets along with everyone now except for his handler. Happy never likes his handler, though.

  I hope you and Hummer are good. Have a good week and write when you can.

  Love, Honey

  “Why did the computer flag this letter?” Emily asked. “Was it because she said that Happy didn’t like his handler?”

  “More likely because the first four sentences of the opening paragraph spell out the word ‘help’ in capital letters,” said Oliver blandly.

  Emily looked at the letter again. Sure enough, “H-E-L-P,” she read aloud. “Although, technically it’s ‘helpi’ if you’re going by the whole paragraph. But she sounds pretty cheerful to be asking for help. Was it really code?”

  “Of course it was really code,” said Oliver scornfully. “It was a poorly wrought code that any idiot could see, and that the computer found v
ery easily.”

  “But it could have been coincidence,” Emily pressed.

  Oliver made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. “Of course there was a slim chance that it was coincidence, but not likely. Even the techs that reviewed it thought it was suspicious.”

  “But they still let the letter be sent on to Hawk? Why?”

  “Probably because they wanted to see how he’d respond,” said Oliver. “The letter itself is harmless if you’re not looking for hidden messages. They probably wanted to see if Hawk was looking for hidden messages.”

  “Did he respond?”

  Oliver’s nose wrinkled in a sneer. “I already told you that none of his letters were flagged until last week. His response to this letter was completely unremarkable, and Honey’s reply after that was as well, and so on and so on. It really is a shame that no one bothered more than a cursory glance at the letters before.”

  “Before?” said Emily with obvious interest.

  “They had a rudimentary sort of code going, so rudimentary that someone should have spotted it long ago. Here, see if you can discover it.” He brandished the pile of letters at her.

  Emily took them with a growing sense of eagerness at the challenge. She loved puzzles more than she cared to admit, and the prospect of cracking a code, however rudimentary it may have been, greatly appealed to her. At the same time, trying to crack that code while a child genius scrutinized her wasn’t such a great prospect. Knowing Oliver, he’d probably sling insults if she wasn’t fast enough. “What are you going to be doing while I look over this?” she asked warily.

  He grunted. “I’m going to try to find out what happened that week in March. Whatever made Honey write that letter triggered this whole debacle.”

  He turned to the computer beside him and began tapping its keys. Emily shifted her own attention to the thick pile of letters and, out of habit, mourned the trees that had been killed to print them all. On the one hand, it was much easier to flip between them in hard copy than it might have been on a computer screen, but on the other, nearly four years’ worth of letters required almost a ream of paper to print.

  The trees were long dead, though. Having paid her brief respects, she buckled down and got to work. The oldest letter, dated from four years previous, on August 4, was from Hawk to Honey, as Oliver had explained. It was extremely short, and its content was the sort of letter Emily would have expected from a nine-year-old.

  Dear Honey,

  They finally let me write to you. Sorry it took so long. I hope you are okay. Is Happy with you? Write back if you can.

  Love, Hawk

  Since the coded message from Honey had used the first letters of each sentence, Emily immediately referenced these. “T-S-I-I-W,” she mumbled. “That doesn’t spell anything. Does it stand for something?”

  “Keep looking,” Oliver peevishly told her.

  She rolled her eyes and set the first letter aside. The next was Honey’s reply. On first glance, Emily was impressed that a then-four-year-old Honey could even type, but she quickly realized that Honey’s assigned child-life counselor (how long would it be before she finally broke down and called the position a “handler”?) probably typed it for her. The letter was almost as short as Hawk’s.

  Dear Hawk,

  I found Happy last week. He’s in the nursery here. He was very glad to see me. They let me visit him a lot. I miss you and Hummer. Please write me again.

  Love, Honey

  “I-H-H-T-I-P,” said Emily. “That doesn’t spell anything either.”

  “Well, they’re not going to be that obvious about it,” said Oliver, exasperated at her lack of progress. “Keep reading.”

  “All right, all right.” She glanced over the next three letters:

  Dear Honey,

  Thanks for your letter. Since Happy’s there, tell him Hummer and I said hello. I hope you are both safe. I think of you both a lot. Well, gotta go.

  Love, Hawk

  Dear Hawk,

  Your letters make me happy. Happy likes them too. I can’t print them, but I recite them to him. He smiles. We miss you.

  Love, Honey

  Dear Honey,

  Today we were assigned new seats in my class. Some of the kids complained, but I didn’t. I’m sitting next to a window now. I can watch the birds. What are your classes like?

  Love, Hawk

  “None of these spells anything,” said Emily slowly, “but…” She looked back at the first letter from Hawk, then the second, then the third. Her gaze flitted up from the page to discover Oliver watching her closely. “Does T-S-I-I-W stand for anything?” she asked with a frown.

  A satisfied smirk flashed across his face. “Probably not.”

  “So it’s just coincidence that in his first three letters, that’s the pattern that all of Hawk’s sentences begin with?”

  “Definitely not. Have you read Honey’s third letter yet?”

  Emily’s eyes shot back down to the stack of letters in front of her. The next correspondence from Honey made her brows arch in surprise.

  Dear Hawk,

  This week I made friends with a girl named Ava. She is very nice. I have three classes with her. I like to talk to her. We have lots of fun together.

  Love, Honey

  “T-S-I-I-W,” said Emily, bewildered. “But what does it mean?”

  “It means that Honey finally caught on to the pattern,” said Oliver. “Go on. Read the next one.”

  A frown creased her brows as she looked down at the next page in the stack.

  Dear Honey,

  I’m glad to hear you made a new friend. Hummer has made a lot of friends too. He really likes his classes. I wish I could spend more time outside. There is a nice raven who sometimes sits outside the window and talks to me.

  Tomorrow some of the kids get to go on a field trip. Someday I hope to go on a field trip too. In my old school, we didn’t have field trips. I think it will be a lot of fun. Write again when you can.

  Love, Hawk

  “There it is, T-S-I-I-W. It moved to the second paragraph,” said Emily, and she eagerly shifted to the next letter, Honey’s response.

  Dear Hawk,

  The kids here go on field trips too. The teachers say I can’t go until I’m older. I almost got them to take me with them. An administrator stopped us, so I missed the bus. I went and played with Happy instead.

  It rains a lot here. Happy gets sleepy when he hears the noise. He tries to stay awake, but can’t. It is very funny to watch him. The whole nursery falls asleep when he does.

  Love, Honey

  “What happened to the T-S-I-I-W?” Emily asked in confusion, and she glanced back up to the previous letter. “Wait, wait,” she said as Oliver opened his mouth to scoff. “I see. She used the same sequence in her second paragraph that he had in his first. I-H-H-I-T. ‘I h-hit’?”

  “It’s a random pattern, not a word,” said Oliver.

  “So Hawk will probably use… T-T-I-A-I in the second paragraph of his next letter,” said Emily. She flipped to that page and, sure enough, there was the predicted pattern. “But I don’t get it—they don’t spell anything. It’s just a random pattern, like you said.”

  Oliver rolled his eyes. “Obviously Hawk must have figured out that spelling things out would be way too noticeable. The beauty of this is that they can write a first paragraph that’s totally natural, and the mimic in the second paragraph switches every time they write to each other.”

  “But they’re not communicating anything secret!” said Emily. “It’s just useless random patterns! It’s more like a game than a code!”

  “It came in handy last March,” Oliver retorted.

  Emily considered this for a long moment. “So what you’re saying is that a nine-year-old and a four-year-old put in place a system of meaningless code just in case they ever needed to communicate some secret in some far-distant future?” she asked skeptically. A sudden idea occurred to her, and she quickly flipped through the
stack. “You said that Hawk’s reply to Honey’s letter last March didn’t raise any flags. That means that when she wrote ‘help’ into the code, he didn’t write it back in the second paragraph?” She found the right letter and read it over. “I’m right—he didn’t use her first letters. He didn’t spell anything else back to her either.”

  “He dropped the code,” said Oliver plainly.

  “But why? If your little sister asked for help, would you just ignore her?”

  His nose lifted in a sneer. “How should I know? I don’t have a little sister.”

  “Neither do I, but if I did, I doubt I’d ignore her plea for help.”

  “He didn’t ignore it. He dropped the code. You might say it was a case of ‘message received, I’m working on it.’ He must have known that they would flag Honey’s letter and that they would watch his response. Everyone knows the Prometheus email system has a filter. The fact that Hawk didn’t respond to his sister’s plea makes it look like he’s keeping in line with the rules, but to her, after years of that little game they were playing back and forth, it must’ve signaled that he would work on something to come and get her.”

  Emily shook her head in confusion. “This just seems like a lot of work for a couple of kids to go through, and a lot of assumptions that they would have to follow. It could have been a miscommunication. He might have just been giving Honey advice to go get help if she got sick,” she added, brandishing the last chronological letter. “How could she have known that he was actually coming for her, and that he would come to the infirmary?”

  “She had nothing to lose,” Oliver said. “So she and Happy spend the night in the infirmary and nothing happens. So what?”

  “It’s crazy! And all of this speculation still doesn’t explain why they all ran away. Where are they going to go? To their parents?”

  Oliver made a disapproving noise. “No one at Prometheus cares about their parents. If it were that easy, they’d have been brought back already.”