A Boy Called Hawk (Annals of Altair Book 1)

by Kate Stradling

  Oliver pursed his lips. “I would never suspect the legality of the GCA’s actions, sir,” he said. “I’m just trying to understand the truants’ purposes for willfully leaving behind a safe-haven like Prometheus.”

  “Of course,” said Principal Gates with an indulgent nod. “And now you know—they probably have dreams of reuniting with their parents. Useless dreams, I might add. James and Sara West disappeared within a year after their children came to the Prometheus Institute. It’s widely believed that they fled the country. Some reports say they’re in Central or South America, living quite nicely in a lawless tropical paradise. I don’t really care where they are. My concern is with the children they abandoned.”

  “That’s my only concern as well,” said Oliver.

  A tight smile flitted across the principal’s face. “Good, good. I came to bring you an update on their whereabouts. They traveled south through Oregon and into California. They visited a man called Jack Martin yesterday afternoon—he’s a school teacher now, but he used to be a journalist. Our people spoke with him last night, but he didn’t know where the children were headed. Our trail ends there. Do you think you can figure out where they would have gone?”

  “What connection do they have to Jack Martin?” asked Oliver. “That name seems familiar to me.”

  “You probably saw it in one of their files. Martin tried to write a smear piece against the GCA a few years ago, using the West parents as his source. The piece with its spurious allegations was never printed, of course, but no doubt Hawk or Hummer thought that Martin might be able to tell them more about their parents. He assures us that he did nothing of the sort.”

  Oliver nodded. “If they’re trying to track their parents, then their trail shouldn’t be too difficult to find. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Good, good,” said Principal Gates again. “With any luck, we’ll have our truants back here by the end of the week.” Then, hands clasped behind his back, he turned and strolled from the classroom.

  Emily sat frozen long after he had gone. She had disliked him from their first meeting, since he seemed completely disinclined to acknowledge her existence, but there was something about his manners, about the way he had entered the room and the information he had given, that left her feeling vaguely unsettled.

  “Hey, idiot,” Oliver said abruptly, “what’s gotten into you? Cat got your tongue?”

  Slowly she turned her head to look at him. “Oliver, just because something is legal, does that make it right?”

  He snorted. “Of course. What’s legal is right, and what’s illegal is wrong. Are you so stupid that you don’t even know that much?”

  “No, I know,” she said, but the image of four children pleading to be returned to their parents seemed impossible to banish from her mind.

  Article I, Section 8

  Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

  July 3, 12:26pm pdt, en route to Las Vegas

  “What are we doing, eighty miles an hour?” Hummer asked scornfully. His gaze was fixed on the window and the dry brown scenery that passed by.

  “It’s probably closer to ninety,” said Hawk next to him.

  Honey sniffed. “Faster than you could drive in that old junker you came to get us in. That thing maxed out at what, seventy?”

  Annoyance flashed across Hummer’s face. “That thing was a mechanical masterpiece.”

  “I just thank my lucky stars it worked long enough to get us away,” she said. In the seat next to her, Happy leaned against the wall, quietly sleeping. “Travel by train is so much less stressful.”

  The two older boys exchanged an uncertain glance. Then, their attention flitted around the sparsely populated car. People were reading books or studying computer screens. Most of them were businessmen and women. The four Wests were the only children on the train, and quite conspicuous in that circumstance.

  “Do you think the conductor’s going to come back to inspect our traveling papers again?” Hummer whispered to Hawk nervously.

  “He won’t,” Honey answered before her brother could.

  “You hand-wrote them,” Hummer argued. “You weren’t even careful about it, just scribbled a bunch of gibberish onto some paper. Your projection’s sure to have worn off by now. If the guy doesn’t come back, then he’s probably reported us.”

  Honey, though, shook her head. “He’s not going to think twice about it. He wanted papers, we presented him with papers. In his mind, his expectation was fulfilled. Even after the projection wears off, so long as a person’s expectation has been fulfilled, he won’t question it.”

  “That may be so, Honey,” said Hawk, “but four children with traveling papers is outside of anyone’s expectations. When two of those children are dead ringers for the kids in a highly publicized kidnapping case, it makes things even more suspicious.”

  “That’s why I got the hat for Happy and the sunglasses for myself,” Honey replied with a smile. The pair of dark glasses perched atop her head did nothing to differentiate her appearance from that of Maddie North, her fictitious alter-ego. Luckily, none of the other travelers seemed to have noticed yet, too engrossed in their own activities to study the world around them. Honey could tell from her brothers’ similar expressions that this was little consolation. “Stop worrying so much. As long as we’re all together, we’ll be fine,” she said.

  Hummer nodded, but Hawk seemed only somewhat assuaged.

  “How’s Revere?” Honey asked to change the subject, and with the obvious intention of lifting her oldest brother’s spirits.

  “He’s fine,” said Hawk. “He’s sleeping, just like Happy.”

  “You know without checking?”

  He shrugged. “We’re in the same vicinity. Besides, I don’t want to lift the curtain on his cage and have anyone else see that he’s not the canary we said he was.” He glanced tentatively back toward the large luggage area at the end of the car, where a covered birdcage stood amid the other baggage. Honey had acquired the cage in her own special way, and Revere had required only a little coaxing from Hawk to enter its confines. The bird trusted far easier than any of the West children did.

  “We have to change trains in Las Vegas, right?” said Hummer. He withdrew from his pocket a folded map, one of the brochures so prominently displayed at the train depot where they had boarded. It showed the western United States and the spider web of train tracks that went from city to city. Generous government grants had worked over the past few decades to expand train travel in the West, but the program hemorrhaged money and the promised high-speed transit had never actually materialized. With the elimination of gasoline-driven automobiles and the takeover of electric vehicles with mileage enough only to cover a localized area, train travel had become the only viable option for long-distance trips.

  The centralized government had minimized those trips, however, by requiring travelers who crossed state lines to carry a domestic passport, a process ostensibly meant to aid national security efforts and prevent domestic and foreign terrorists from moving about the country freely.

  In other words, train stations were often meagerly populated, and the chance of being spotted in one was high.

  “Yeah,” said Hawk. “Our tickets say we have to switch to the 3:15 headed to Phoenix. This train goes through to Denver.”

  “What’s in Phoenix, anyway?” Honey asked.

  “High temperatures and a lot of people.”

  “And another one of your dead ends to look up?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why are we going there?”

  “We’re probably not,” said Hawk truthfully. “It depends on how things look in Las Vegas. If we do get on the Phoenix train, we’ll ditch it in Flagstaff and take something further east.”

  She shook her head. “That makes no sense, just wandering around aimlessly like that.”

  “The longer we’re gone, the better,” Hawk said. “If they keep broadcasting your picture on the nightly news, maybe Mom and Dad will see i
t, or someone they know will see it and recognize you and Happy as their kids. The more publicity that NPNN gives you, the more likely it is that we’ll come across someone not connected with the government, someone who has information we need or who can help us to find it.”

  Honey considered this. “That’s a really big if,” she said uncertainly.

  “As long as we’re away from Prometheus, we’ll be fine,” said Hummer. “They won’t be able to use you or Happy again.”

  “If we’re ever caught,” Hawk added, and a stern note entered his voice, “you have to convince them that we forced you and Happy to come. Claim Stockholm Syndrome or something, but you have to convince them that you always wanted to come back to Prometheus.”

  Sheer disgust covered her face. “Why would I do that?”

  Hawk’s answer was blunt. “If we’re caught, Hummer and I will never see the light of day again. If you’re caught, you and Happy will both get another chance. It’s usually not okay to lie, Honey, but if that situation comes, you lie with everything you’ve got in order to convince them. Do you understand?”

  Honey looked mutinous, but she did not voice her disapproval. Next to her, Happy sighed deeply in his sleep and curled further into his armrest.

  Two hours later, as the train pulled into its Las Vegas terminal, they had to wake the still-sleeping Happy. Several other passengers filed yawning from the car in front of them. Hawk snagged Revere’s cage as he passed the luggage section, and the four children descended to the platform.

  To their dismay, a row of policemen waited at the end of the platform, blocking access to the rest of the station.

  “I told you that conductor would get suspicious,” Hummer muttered as the four children hung back.

  “You don’t know it was him,” Honey retorted. “We just sat on a train for four hours. There were dozens of people who saw us, and any one of them could have made a simple phone call.”

  “Which is why I was opposed to going by train in the first place,” he replied.

  “Shut up,” said Honey. She turned her attention to Hawk. “What should we do?”

  One of the policemen had already spotted them. He spoke to his fellows and pointed their direction, and the group started down the platform. They each had their nightsticks drawn from their belts, a ludicrously unnecessary act, since they were approaching four children.

  “We’ll have to make a break for it,” said Hawk. He set Revere’s cage on the ground and worked at the latch to open its door. The bird cawed a hearty greeting as he hopped out and took to the air.

  “Where’s Happy?” Honey asked in sudden alarm.

  Panic descended upon the three older children as they looked around to discover that Happy had indeed left their side.

  “Oh no!” Hummer pointed down the platform. Six-year-old Happy had made a beeline straight for the approaching policemen. Even more alarming, the other people on the platform walked alongside him in a growing crowd.

  “What is he doing?” said Honey as she broke into a run.

  Her brothers were hot on her heels, but they all slowed as Happy met the group of officers.

  A tremulous feeling enveloped the crowd. The policemen had stopped in utter confusion. Happy stared with unconcealed want in his eyes at the nightstick the front-most man held. A smile brightened the policeman’s face, and he immediately knelt and handed the weapon over.

  Happy promptly whacked him with it, the blow throwing the man off-balance and onto the ground.

  The crowd erupted with nervous energy. The train passengers surged to fight with the policemen over possession of the coveted nightsticks, which were instantly used to prod and poke and whack in a manner that, while dangerous, obviously originated in the mind of a child.

  “Get him out!” Hawk cried. “We have to get him out of there!”

  “How?” Honey asked. “If we get any closer we’re going to join in. I want one of those nightsticks myself already.”

  Hummer cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Happy!”

  His two siblings followed his lead, and their chorus rang out across the terminal. “Happy! Happy!”

  From the chaos, the six-year-old emerged, his clothing disheveled and a broad grin on his face. He tipped his head toward the end of the platform. “Run!” he yelled back.

  “He made us a distraction,” Honey said in disbelief. “Do what he says. Run.”

  The three children darted. Happy joined them as they passed the writhing crowd. The fighting there had become less childish and more intense, but none of them felt any inclination toward entering the fray. Instead, they were possessed with an overwhelming desire to escape, and the passengers seemed all too ready to abet them.

  As they darted through the station, some people moved out of their way while others actively headed off any approaching security. There seemed to be an invisible perimeter about ten feet in any direction around the group of children, a perimeter that no one dared cross.

  “Are we going to Phoenix?” Honey asked Hawk.

  “Can’t,” he replied, breathing heavily. “Let’s get out of here and regroup. Revere says the south exit has the fewest people around it.”

  Above, the black raven circled and careened off to lead the way. The children followed him, across the station and out the doors, past the bus depot and an array of waiting taxis. They veered down an alleyway to another street, which they followed to its intersection.

  “We need to find some place to lie low,” Hummer said between panting breaths. The other pedestrians waiting for the light to turn suddenly crowded around them, seemingly oblivious that they were shielding four children from passersby. “Thanks, Happy, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it.”

  Happy’s brows arched, but he didn’t seem offended.

  “I kind of wanted to avoid the big cities,” said Hawk as Revere landed on his shoulder with a flutter of black wings. “Too many people to notice you.”

  “Too many people to bother with noticing you,” Honey said. “We might be able to blend in here.”

  “There was someone from the list of dead ends in Las Vegas,” Hummer said.

  “It was a family member,” said Hawk. “I didn’t want to bother them.”

  “Who?” asked Honey sharply. The light turned and they began to cross the street with the rest of the pedestrians.

  “Mom’s cousin. His name is Paul Reynolds. He’s Grandpa Reynolds’s brother’s son. He lives in a suburb around here, but I guarantee they’re watching him and anyone else we’re related to. It’s not safe to go looking for him.”

  “Like it was safe to go looking for that journalist, Jack Martin?” Honey asked.

  “He was expendable,” said Hummer in open disdain. “If he’d had any sort of spine, it would’ve been different, but I’m sure they’ve given him the once-over by now.”

  “Twice-over, more like,” said Hawk carelessly. “Anyway, Hummer and I agreed we’d steer clear of family at first.”

  “Happy and I never agreed to that,” said Honey. “Who’s more likely to know where our parents are, some random people they had contact with four years ago, or their own flesh and blood?”

  “There’s an old adage about not fouling your own nest, Honey,” said Hawk.

  The crowd around them had dispersed by now, and the four children walked down the street together in the general direction of the strip.

  “What time’s the curfew here?” Hummer asked.

  Hawk’s answer was terse. “Ten o’clock.”

  The tourist destination, known for its many nighttime attractions, had balked at federal curfew laws a decade or two back, but when the laws had been adapted to stipulate that people only need be off the streets after that hour, the hotels and casinos had embraced it. There was nothing as good for business as having a captive crowd that couldn’t leave your establishment for the next eight hours. Instead of the curfew law killing Vegas tourism, it had augmented it. Some casinos, in a s
how of goodwill to their neighbors, had even built underground corridors for tourists to use after hours to get from one attraction to another. The result was a complete lack of traffic on the nighttime streets with all the same activity within the buildings.

  It was, perhaps, not what the federal government had had in mind, but they were more than willing to turn a blind eye in return for frequent monetary donations.

  “So we have roughly seven hours to figure out what we’re doing here,” Hummer said.

  “I vote for tracking down Cousin Paul,” said Honey.

  A scornful expression flashed across Hawk’s face. “Don’t call him Cousin Paul. You’ve never even met him. Besides, I already told you that he’s probably being watched, and especially so now, since the authorities know we’ve gotten off one train here and didn’t get on another one.”

  “Cousin Paul! Cousin Paul!” Honey chanted.

  Her words worked like a charm. “Yeah, yeah, fine!” Hawk cried. “We’ll go find Cousin Paul! But I’m going alone, do you understand?”

  “Hawk!” said Hummer in sharp protest.

  “I’ll have Revere to look out for any suspicious characters,” Hawk said. “I’m not about to drag Honey and Happy towards a nest of federal agents and government snoops, and I’m certainly not about to leave the two of them alone so that you can come along and watch my back. I’ll go by myself.” Honey opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off before she could say anything. “No arguments. We’re going to find some place to stay tonight, and then you and Hummer and Happy will sit tight and play ‘Go Fish’ or something.”

  Her mouth snapped shut, and a peevish expression settled on her face. Happy looked on curiously, never uttering a word.

  “What if something happens to you, Hawk?” Hummer asked. “What if there really are federal agents and government snoops hanging around, and they catch hold of you?”

  “If that happens, I’ll send you Revere,” he replied. “Then it’s your job to keep the other two safe. I’d recommend heading south, to Honduras or farther if you can make it. Now let’s find a cheap hotel where we can rent a room.”