A Boy Called Hawk (Annals of Altair Book 1)

by Kate Stradling

  A knowing gleam entered Quincy’s dark eyes. “Why would they even need a null-projector, hmm? Hawk must’ve gotten to his little brother and sister, didn’t he?” Oliver’s brows shot up, as the involvement of Honey and Happy was supposed to be classified, but she merely batted away his surprise. “Hearsay, hearsay. I can’t believe they actually pulled off something that outrageous, though.”

  “You sound like you admire them,” said Oliver suspiciously.

  “Prom-F is a bastion for flight-risks,” Quincy retorted. “It’s heartening to hear that someone actually succeeded. Put away your notepad, Dominic. I’m not going to try anything, and Gates already has suspicions about my loyalty if he’s called Oliver all the way in from Prom-A. Is your handler as useless as mine?” she suddenly asked Oliver.

  Emily stiffened, but Oliver didn’t even spare her a glance. “Pretty much. She asks a lot of questions. Speaking of which, do you know what’s happened to Hawk and Hummer’s handlers? I haven’t heard anything about them.”

  A short, cynical laugh escaped Quincy’s mouth, and her eyes flitted toward Dominic, who looked suddenly nervous. “Officially, I don’t know.”

  “Does hearsay have anything to contribute?”

  She smiled. “Rumor has it they were drugged the night of, and that Principal Gates had them dismissed and discharged from Prometheus the next day for complete and utter failure of duty. By now, they’ve probably been deposited back to wherever they came from, with a mountain of school debt to repay and no visible future in store. It’s kind of sad, since it’s not entirely their faults that they were outwitted by the likes of Hawk and Hummer West.”

  Emily shivered at the girl’s callous words. Service with the GCA was mandatory for anyone who wanted higher education. The cost of a university degree was absolutely beyond the means of ninety-nine percent of the population. Compulsory service was done in waves: during odd semesters and for a year after undergraduate work for those who wished to pursue higher degrees, then for two years after a Master’s was completed, and another five after the PhD. Getting prematurely discharged from the agency nullified any debt forgiveness, plus the unfortunate person would be blacklisted for life from any government jobs.

  Since government jobs comprised roughly eighty-five percent of the economy, this was a crippling punishment.

  “Maybe they can farm some corn in Nebraska,” Oliver said negligently.

  Quincy shrugged. “Or get paid not to farm it in Nebraska.”

  “That is awful!” Emily cried despite herself. “How can you be so coldhearted about the whole thing?”

  The two children exchanged an annoyed glance, but the answer to her question came from Dominic. “Handlers are expendable,” he said. “At least, they are in the eyes of these little brats.”

  “Shut up, Dominic,” said Quincy.

  “So there’s no chance that I can talk to the pair of them, I suppose,” said Oliver. “And the surveillance over the past few weeks may or may not be available.”

  “Hawk certainly did a job on the computer system,” Quincy said, an amused twinkle in her eyes.

  “Really? I figured it was Hummer who did that.”

  She shook her head. “The e-bomb was definitely Hummer, but I’d bet money it was Hawk’s idea. From the outside, Hummer looks like the leader, and he probably is in many ways, but Hawk’s the dreamer, the mastermind. He thinks up things that no one else has ever thought of. I’m sorry he’s gone.”

  “He’ll be back,” said Oliver. “I’ll see to it personally.”

  “No, he won’t.” Quincy’s reply was firm, and a somber expression settled on her face as she stared down at the table in front of her.

  Oliver clenched his jaw. “You don’t think I can find them?”

  “It’s not that. You probably can. But if you do find them, they won’t be brought back here. They’ve already proven that Prom-F can’t hold them, and they’re above the age-limit for re-education anyway.”

  A hush fell between the pair. Neither of them seemed able to make eye contact, as though they each battled with a perplexing problem that could only be solved within the confines of their own thoughts. At long last, Oliver drew himself from his introspective silence and asked, “So when I find them, what do you think will become of them?”

  “Nothing good,” Quincy whispered. Her suspicious gaze darted across the cafeteria as though seeking some invisible menace.

  “They should have thought about that before they ran away,” said Oliver, unwilling to harbor even the slightest pity for the truants or their impending fate. He stood and picked up his tray.

  Quincy’s hand shot out to catch his wrist. “It’s different for them than it is for you or me,” she said firmly. “They have family out there, their little sister and brother, and parents somewhere—”

  Oliver jerked free of her grip, the rash movement jostling the items on his tray. “Somewhere,” he echoed scornfully. “Do you mean they clung to the dream that their parents would someday swoop down and reclaim them?”

  “No,” said Quincy. “I’m saying that their parents never gave them away to begin with.”

  “Ludicrous. Every single one of us has an affidavit in our file, where our parents signed away their rights to Prometheus. I’ve seen mine.”

  “We’ve all seen ours.” Her intent gaze never wavered. “Hawk didn’t talk much about his family, but the one thing he did say, the one thing that’s been burned into my brain ever since, was that the affidavit in his file was a forgery.”

  “Ludicrous,” Oliver said again. “He was dreaming.”

  Quincy shook her head. “He was adamant, Oliver. And he has a little sister who could easily know for sure. You might want to look into how the West kids got here before you start trying to understand why they left.”

  With a growl, Oliver wrenched away from the table and stormed toward the collection of trash cans and recycle bins on the far wall. Emily, after a cursory nod toward the much-maligned Dominic, followed quickly in his wake.

  “Hey,” she said as she joined him in separating their breakfast trash, “what’s gotten you all riled up?”

  “You and your idiotic questions,” he fired back as he slammed his tray on top of a stack.

  Emily knew that wasn’t the truth, though. She’d been mostly silent through the whole conversation. With a wistful sigh, she plucked up her last strip of bacon, which she had purposely saved, and stuck it in her mouth as she finished dividing things.

  The taste was ridiculously good. Silently she thanked the universe for pigs, pig farmers, and pork lobbies.

  Article I, Section 7

  The Bitter Truth

  July 3, 9:42am mdt, Prom-F

  Oliver’s foul mood continued into the morning. He returned to the classroom he had been assigned to conduct more research, and there his frustration only seemed to grow.

  “You know,” Emily said after an hour of nothing more than growls from her charge to break the silence of the room, “sometimes it helps to talk things out when you’re upset.”

  “I’m not upset,” Oliver snarled.

  “Your tone and demeanor indicate otherwise. Look, I realize I’m not anywhere near as smart as you are, but I know a temper tantrum when I see one. I’ll commend you for throwing such a very civil tantrum, but it’s a tantrum nonetheless.”

  “I’m not upset!” Oliver snatched up the wireless computer mouse and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall with a loud crack and landed on the floor.

  Emily silently retrieved the object. Its cheap plastic housing was split, but it was still usable. Probably. Without a word, she returned the mouse to the desk, right next to where Oliver sat fuming. He kept his glare fixed straight ahead, never so much as glancing her direction.

  She looked at the computer screen. Several windows were open, overlapping one another. Due to Oliver’s excessive fit of pique, she had kept her distance and had no idea what he was researching. The windows on the screen were various directo
ries within the Prometheus system. The one on top showed an itinerary for the Prom-B trip to Washington DC back in March.

  “Are you still trying to figure out why Honey sent that SOS?” she asked.

  “SOS?” Oliver repeated sharply. “What’s an SOS?”

  Emily frowned. “It’s a call for help, an old naval code—save our ship, or something like that. Have you really never heard it before?”

  He deigned not to answer. She supposed it was too difficult for him to admit that she knew something that he didn’t.

  “I can’t find anything unusual from that week,” he said belligerently.

  “What about before the trip?”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? The weeks before that are normal too. I even tried to perform a search for any documents with Honey’s name, but there’s a lock on her information, and on Happy’s.”

  She could see why that might upset him. She might have taken it as explanation for his anger had his temper tantrum not started before he ever retreated to this classroom. “But I thought Principal Gates said yesterday that all the Prometheus resources were at your disposal,” she said, playing along.

  “Well, apparently Principal Gates lied,” said Oliver fiercely.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Emily asked. “What did Quincy say to set you off like this?”

  “Nothing has set me off!” he cried, jumping to his feet.

  She simply stared at him. If he was as smart as he claimed to be, his logic would kick in any moment to contradict him. There was no need for her to do anything of the sort.

  Sure enough, he crumpled back into his chair, a hollow look on his face as his eyes fell into a listless stare. “Their parents never gave them away,” he mumbled.

  “What? You don’t actually believe that, do you? You said yourself that Prometheus holds legal guardianship over all the children enrolled at its various campuses. How would the West kids get here if their parents hadn’t sent them?”

  Oliver looked up at her, studied her face for a long moment, and found nothing insincere there. In answer to her question, he turned back to the computer and clicked a couple of the underlying windows.

  For her part, Emily was just glad that the mouse still worked. She didn’t want to witness another flare of temper.

  The two windows stood side by side on the screen, bearing what looked like identical documents. They were legal affidavits, one regarding Jefferson Rush West, and the other Franklin Adams West.

  “Is that the transfer of guardianship?” she asked. “So there’s your proof that Quincy was lying.”

  Still he said nothing. Instead, he did a couple of clicks of the mouse, a copy-and-paste, and duplicated one affidavit in a transparent window. This he fit directly over the other. Only the differing names at the top showed any variance.

  “What’s that supposed to prove?” asked Emily.

  “Look at the signatures at the bottom,” Oliver said in a tight voice.

  At the very bottom, with the names James Michael West and Sara Reynolds West labeled beneath, two signatures stood plain as day. “Both parents signed the affidavit,” said Emily.

  A frustrated sigh twisted from Oliver’s throat. “The signatures are identical on both documents, and on the affidavits for the other two kids. No one signs their name exactly the same twice, let alone four times. There’s always some miniscule variation.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s a forgery,” Emily said carefully. “Maybe they could only be bothered to sign one transfer of guardianship and told the witnesses to use that one signature for all four. I can’t imagine the amount of work that came from having so many kids in one house. They were probably glad to be rid of them.”

  He had visibly wilted as she spoke, until his head rested on the desk.

  “That could be it, couldn’t it?” Emily pressed.

  Oliver didn’t speak immediately, but when he did it wasn’t a direct answer to her question. “The video data from the day the Wests were brought to Prometheus is locked as well.”

  “What?” Emily asked, confused.

  He looked up, his gaze intent. “Children are processed into the Prometheus Institute through one of the GCA offices. Records show that the Wests were acquired in Austin, Texas, and that their enrollment was processed at the office there. When I tried to access surveillance for that day, my clearance code was denied.”

  “Why would you need to access surveillance?”

  “Because it should show their parents bringing them to the office. There should be video record of them signing this affidavit, if they actually did sign it.”

  “And if they didn’t?” Emily asked. “Maybe they gave verbal permission for the affidavit to be signed on their behalf. Maybe they shipped the kids to the Austin office without actually bringing them in themselves. There are dozens of explanations.”

  “But if that’s the case, then why are the surveillance records locked?”

  Emily had no answer to this, except the obvious that Prometheus and the GCA didn’t want random individuals prying through their surveillance video archives. But Oliver was hardly random. “You aren’t going to let this drop, are you?” she guessed. “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you just hack the lock? You’re a genius aren’t you?”

  He caught his breath, his eyes fixed upon her in a wary gaze, as though he thought she was setting some sort of trap for him. Emily huffed in exasperation. “Like I said before, Principal Gates already told you that all their resources would be available to you. If you’re so stuck on this little detail, get it over with and move on. I’m not going to tell on you, if that’s what you’re so worried about,” she added with a self-conscious glance toward the door. There was still no word on when Prom-F’s electronic equipment would be fully functional again, so she had no clue whether her words were being recorded or not. The main building had sustained the most damage, so it would take the longest to fix.

  Even if the surveillance equipment was working, though, Emily didn’t think she’d recommended something so very outrageous. Principal Gates had promised, after all.

  Oliver spared her one final, tentative glance as he turned back to the computer. His initial keystrokes were hesitant, but as Emily walked away to her chair on the other side of the room, they picked up speed.

  Fifteen minutes passed with no sound but fingers against a keyboard. Emily leaned back in her chair and peered out the long window inset into the classroom door. The halls were deserted, as classes were still suspended.

  When would the children resume their studies? Surely the administrators weren’t waiting for Hawk and Hummer’s return.

  A sharp gasp called her attention back to the far side of the room. Oliver sat transfixed, staring at the computer screen. Intrigued, Emily hurried to peer over his shoulder.

  The video quality was grainy, but good enough to see the four children who huddled together on one side of a broad table. They were considerably younger than the photographs that now graced their individual files. The youngest, Happy, was only a toddler, about eighteen months and cuddled fearfully in his oldest brother’s arms. All the children looked afraid, in fact.

  A wide-set man sat on the other side of the table, a set of documents stacked together in front of him. His voice came through the computer’s speakers in a thin, reedy thread. “As you can see, your parents have absolved any responsibility for you children. They’ve willingly signed you over into our care, so you’ll be with us from now on.” He tried to sound pleasant, optimistic, and there was a kindly smile on his face as he spoke, but the underlying atmosphere seemed to indicate that he was fearful of something.

  The oldest, Hawk, had leaned over to examine the signatures, but he shot an urgent glance toward his little sister as the man finished. Four-year-old Honey understood the meaning behind that look, because she immediately piped up,

  “Please tell us the truth.”

  Without an ounce of hesitation, the man said, “The documents are forged. We took you
away from your parents.”

  Almost immediately, the door behind him flew open and two more men launched into the room. “That’s a lie, of course!” the first said.

  “Tell the truth!” Honey cried.

  “We took you away,” said the other. “We had orders, and took you away in the middle of the night.”

  “Then take us back!” said Hawk and Hummer in unison.

  “Yes,” said Honey, “take us back!”

  Chaos erupted in the little room. More bodies crowded through the doorway to pull back the first three, who were rapidly assuring the young foursome that they would return them immediately to their parents.

  Oliver abruptly shut the window, bringing a quick end to the scene. For a long moment, he and Emily both stared in silence at the computer screen.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” said a voice from behind them. They both jumped and whirled to discover Principal Gates.

  When had he entered the classroom? He walked as carefully as a cat on the prowl.

  “Ah, um…” Emily started awkwardly.

  He completely ignored her. “So that’s where your search has brought you so far, is it, Oliver? That was quite an impressive display there, don’t you think? That’s the first time anyone had any inkling that Honey could project, and what a powerful little projector she was at such a young age. She threw their entire office into pandemonium that day. In fact, the surveillance footage had to be locked because even now, years later, her pleas can affect anyone who sees the recording. Except a null-projector like yourself and anyone who watches it with you, of course. What the GCA did wasn’t illegal, by the way.”

  “What?” said Oliver, apprehensive of the man. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s true that the West children were confiscated from their parents,” said Principal Gates, “but it wasn’t done illegally. There was a court order. James and Sara West were determined unfit to raise children, and certainly unfit to raise such gifted children as they had. The only way for those four children to ever reach their full potential was to import them into an environment more suited to their needs.”