The Child Thief 4: Little Lies

by Bella Forrest

  Alexy swiveled around, still on her haunches, and stared up at Zion. “I’m giving them the information they need to move forward,” she said simply. “What’s going on up there?”

  He gave her a sharp look, the threat of another dressing down hovering on the horizon, but then he shook his head, as if giving up the fight.

  “We’re here,” he said. “Get them ready. I haven’t seen anyone on our tail, but we don’t have clearance to land in Edgewood. Too risky. We have our stealth shield up, but we can’t stay long, and they don’t want to take the city shield down when someone might be watching. You guys are getting to the ground via rappelling ropes.”

  “Excuse me?” Ant said. “Shield? Rappelling? You do remember we have a seriously injured team member, right?”

  Zion’s expression didn’t soften. “I do. That’s why you’ll be taking a gurney. Now get your gear on.”

  He headed back to the cockpit, and the rest of us turned to Alexy for explanation. The time for talking was evidently over, though. She’d already moved to a set of metal lockers on the other side of the ship and was yanking gear out by the handful.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Zion’s right. The stealth protection will only last until someone with better tech than us starts looking more closely. We’ve got to get you guys into some gear, so we can get Jackie secured and get everyone safely to the ground.”

  She turned to see the seven of us staring at her.

  “Good grief, how did you elude the Authority for so long with these sorts of slow reactions?” she snapped. She jumped to her feet and started throwing the gear she’d taken out at us, shouting instructions as she did so.

  When the first piece of gear hit me right in the chest, I snapped out of my shock and started moving.

  Right. Rappelling out of an airship and into a base that could be full of either friends or… not-friends. People whose idea of a recruitment drive was throwing us into the fire and seeing if we came out on the other side. No problem.

  This was exactly what I wanted to do right now, on an empty stomach, after three days of running for my life.

  5

  The next fifteen minutes were spent in a wild progression of us taking turns dropping out of the ship, courtesy of the harnesses and ropes Zion and Alexy hooked up for us.

  I’d flown through the air, the ground coming up rapidly to meet me, with what looked like an old factory in the distance. Kory, Jace, Ant, and Abe had followed, and then it had been Jackie’s turn.

  We’d gone over this in the ship and decided it was relatively simple: the rest of our team would get boots on the ground first, and then those still in the ship would send Jackie down on her stretcher. We would be at the bottom, ready to catch her.

  It sounded great in theory. In action, it was somewhat different. Because the only lines Zion and Alexy had that were suitable for Jackie’s stretcher were made from some kind of bungee material.

  I looked up and realized she was already coming barely thirty seconds after we’d gotten Kory settled on the ground.

  “Jackie’s on her way!” I yelled. “Go for the corners! That gives us the best chance of getting it unhooked before it rebounds!”

  “Wait, how’re we supposed to know where it’s going to land?” Abe shouted back.

  “Guess!” I screamed, already backing away from what I judged to be the landing spot.

  The boys scattered in different directions.

  Estimating the spot where the gurney would land was more difficult than expected, but we got it mostly right. The only problem was, it landed a lot closer to me than any of the guys.

  I rushed to reach it and grabbed onto the side. The bungee was capable of taking me and the bed back up into the air, and I wasn’t strapped to anything. If I got up there and was shaken loose, it would be a freefall for me.

  Not good.

  I held on as tightly as I could, dragging my feet and trying to get my toes into the dirt. Kory came skidding in a second later, shouting for me to hang on. He grabbed at the bars of the bed on the other side. Then Ant arrived, and his hands flew to the attachment with which Alexy had snapped the bed to the line.

  “Duck!” he screamed.

  He hit the release, and we all threw ourselves to the ground. There was a shockingly loud snap as the line retracted. The bed dropped the last three inches to the ground with a thud, and for a moment there was silence.

  Then I heard rasping laughter and looked up to see that Jackie’s eyes were open inside the visor of the helmet we’d put on her.

  “Are you guys trying to save me or kill me?” she wheezed. “Death by bungee jumping? Really?” Then she pursed her lips, as if considering something, and shrugged. “I guess there are worse ways to go.”

  I laughed and moved to hug her, but got there at the exact same time as Ant, ramming my forehead into his nose. He yelped in pain, and I spared him one glance before I dove in to hug Jackie.

  “I have never been so happy to hear your snark,” I whispered. “How are you feeling?”

  “Mostly like I’ve been blown up, driven through the wilderness in the bounciest truck ever, and then dropped out of an… was that really an airship?” She turned her eyes skyward and shook her head at what she saw there. “What the hell are you guys up to?”

  I was caught between laughing with joy at hearing her voice and crying at the weakness of it. “The short version? Zion met us at the convent and convinced us it was in our best interest to catch a ride on his airship, and now we’re at one of Little John’s bases. Apparently, we’re their new recruits. And they have medical facilities for you.”

  She turned enormous eyes on me, and grinned. “Does that mean we get to be ninjas now?”

  I did laugh then, but a shout from Kory warned me we had another jumper coming in. We needed to get Jackie out of the way.

  I leapt to my feet and went to the head of her bed. Ant took the other end, and we carried the bed as far from the landing spot as we could. By the time we had her settled again and were standing there, huffing and puffing with the effort, the rest of our team was on the ground as well, Alexy not far behind.

  She pulled the helmet off her head, shook out what was left of her hair, and grinned at what must have been eight very shocked expressions.

  “What?” she asked, gazing at us with pure innocence. “I’ve been cooped up for far too long. You really thought I was going to stay up there and let you have all the fun?”

  Then she looked past us, her eyes going dreamy.

  I turned around and immediately understood the look on her face.

  It had been a factory I’d seen when I was falling through the air. Or rather, it might have been one once, but now…

  It had all the usual signifiers, including the enormous blocks of apartment buildings. They’d been built in the standard style of plain brown brick with small windows at regular intervals, and no architectural details at all. Flat-out boring, I’d always thought them, and they were no different here, in the middle of a vast open expanse of scrub and yellow grassland.

  Because we were well and truly out in the wilderness. All I could see for miles was rolling grassland, the kind they showed in the backgrounds of computers at schools, because it was supposed to bring you peace and calm. The wind rushed through the grasses, and I could hear the buzz and chirp of insects and birds, but there was nothing else. No traffic sounds, no creaking factories, nothing. We were alone.

  I frowned, confused, and turned back to the factory campus.

  What was a place like this doing out in the middle of nowhere? Why wasn’t it attached to a city, or at least a small town? I’d seen many factories in my life, and they’d never been isolated like this. Sure, they came equipped with everything the people there might need: apartments, food and water sources, stores for the minimal shopping factory workers could afford. I’d once even seen a factory campus with a movie theater, though that had been an outlier; the owners of most factories generally didn’t care to offer
entertainment to their workers.

  But regardless, they’d always had towns around them made of people who wanted to live outside the factory grounds, and stores or professionals or retailers who wanted to exist outside of the factory’s immediate set of rules and regulations. It was natural: bring a bunch of people to an area, and they’ll expand and grow, and soon there’s a small city where there used to be only fields.

  This factory was sitting out here by itself. It also looked like it had been deserted a long time ago, given the general state of disrepair. Some of the buildings were crumbling, and others had fallen in on themselves. An entire block of apartments had tipped over.

  Even in this state, it took up what must have been over six hundred acres with all the buildings attached to it, and a factory that size should be bustling with people.

  I was looking for any sign of a single soul when I noticed something even stranger. There was something shimmery between us and the factory itself. I hadn’t seen it before because it wasn’t opaque, but when I took a step to the side and looked diagonally, something was definitely wavering in the air, almost like heat waves. It seemed to extend right up over the factory, presumably touching down to the ground on each side.

  How was that even possible? What was it?

  “Is that…” Ant started from where he was still kneeling next to Jackie.

  “A force field?” Abe finished quietly.

  I had a split second to be thankful that I wasn’t the only one who saw it before Alexy snorted.

  “It is. Though I’m not sure why they’ve let it be visible or why it’s showing what it’s showing at the moment. Unless you guys want to stand around staring at it like it’s going to start spouting flames or doing magic, I suggest we take advantage of its protection. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we’ll know what’s going on.”

  She glanced up at the sky, and I followed her eyes, searching. Zion and the large airship were gone—who knew where—and though the sky was clear right now, I also had a newfound fear for what the government might be able to see, even when they didn’t have ships or drones in the area.

  The idea that they were in control of the satellites made everything seem a lot more dangerous. We would never know if, or when, they were watching us.

  “I agree,” I said. I brought my eyes back to Alexy and cocked an eyebrow. “So that thing will offer us protection?”

  She turned and started walking before she answered. “It’ll do better than that,” she said over her shoulder. “But we have to be inside before it can do anything.”

  Ant, Abe, and Kory scrambled to get Jackie’s stretcher up and settled between them, and a moment later we were all hustling after Alexy, doing our best to walk quickly and efficiently through the knee-high, matted grass of the field.

  We were only about five hundred feet from where I thought the force field met the ground, and I was trying to decide what she’d meant when she implied that it was showing something different than usual, when Henry appeared at my side.

  “A deserted factory in the middle of the wilderness and a magical force field, eh?” he muttered out of the side of his mouth. “What the hell did you get me into, Robin Sylvone?”

  “Don’t call me that,” I said, stepping to the side to avoid a particularly large group of thistles. “I haven’t been Robin Sylvone in a long time, and I’m never going back. Just Robin, if you please.”

  He shrugged and made a face, indicating he wasn’t going to argue. “Don’t blame you. I only met your dad the once. I couldn’t help but get the idea he didn’t like me much. And your mom never said anything to me.”

  I laughed before I could stop myself, the nervous energy running through my veins keeping my emotions too close to the surface, and sent him a fond glance.

  “I’m betting he’d like me even less now than he did on the day he kicked me out,” I said.

  Henry shook his head. “They didn’t know what they had when they had it,” he said, his voice sure. “They didn’t know how lucky they were to have you in their lives. And that, I can sympathize with.”

  Now? Really? That was a path I didn’t feel like going down at this moment. Instead, I looked upward to where the strange force field started to curve over the factory.

  “And just for the record, we didn’t get you into anything. You’re the one who decided to come with us. So, I don’t want to hear any complaints about us leading you into danger or anything like that.”

  “Me, complain?” he asked with mock indignation. “Whatever gave you the idea I would do anything like that? I told you I wanted an adventure, didn’t I? And I’m positive I told you I was committed to fighting this government.”

  He put a hand on my arm and drew me to a stop.

  “You’re not the only one who’s lost people who are important to them,” he said softly, and although it could have been a romantic statement, his eyes were full of shadows… and pain.

  He might have been talking about me. But it wasn’t just that. And he wasn’t saying it to try to win me back. At least, I didn’t think he was. What he’d said earlier was right: he had changed since the last time I’d seen him. Something had happened to take the mischievous, childish troublemaker and break him.

  I put a hand on his arm and squeezed, unsure of how to respond, and said simply, “Well then, you’ve come to the right place. Because that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

  I turned to start walking again, and spotted Jace standing about ten feet ahead of us, his eyes on Henry and me. And if Henry’s eyes had been full of pain, Jace’s were full of speculation.

  Before I could say anything, he started walking more quickly to the front of the group. He looked as though he meant to catch up to Alexy, but I knew differently.

  Whatever it was between Jace and me—and I still hadn’t labeled it in my head, not really—there was not going to be room for Henry’s flirtations or interludes. Not until Jace and I had decided what we were to each other. Until then, I at least owed Jace a proper explanation of who Henry was, and my connection to him. He’d gleaned quite a bit based on the snippets of conversation I’d had with Henry since he joined us, I was sure, but we needed to talk one-on-one. Something we’d had zero opportunity to do.

  Unfortunately, no matter how quickly I walked, I couldn’t seem to catch up to Jace or Alexy. I did catch up to Nelson, however, and found myself falling into step beside her with a sigh.

  “How on earth do you suppose they’re doing that?” Nelson asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  I followed her eyes up the walls of the factory, moving from that to the force field, and shook my head. “I have no idea,” I muttered. “But something tells me Little John is bigger than we ever dreamed.”

  Approaching the spot where the force field touched the ground was like approaching an enormous waterfall that stretched as high and wide as you could see—but which you could only see if you were looking at it sideways. It was like a strange filter over the factory on the other side. Alexy and the others were already stopped in front of it, waiting impatiently for Nelson and me to catch up.

  “Could you guys have taken any longer?” she snapped.

  “Excuse me, but we weren’t slouching around an office for the last three days,” I shot back. “Some of us have had injuries, you know.”

  Alexy gave a grudging nod as if my excuse had been a good one, then turned back to the green wall in front of her.

  “Is there a door or something?” Ant asked, looking to the left and right as he shifted his grip on Jackie’s bed.

  Jackie, I noticed, was awfully quiet, and her eyes were closed. She must have passed out again. At least, this time, we were near medical facilities. The moment she was back on her feet, I was going to bring her out here to have a look at the shield over the factory. She was going to flip her lid over it.

  If she got back on her feet. If she recovered at all.

  I shut out the nasty voice in my head and turned back to Alexy, waiting for
her answer to Ant’s question. She was, I was surprised to see, laughing at him.

  “A door?” she asked, giggling. “Why on earth would we need a door?”

  Then she casually stepped through the sparkling green curtain and disappeared.

  6

  After a moment of staring at where Alexy had been, the rest of us rushed to follow her. Unsure as to whether or not we had to go through at a certain point, we lined up in single file and jammed our bodies through in the exact spot where she’d disappeared.

  I didn’t know about anyone else, but when it was my turn, I held my breath the entire time.

  Passing through the shimmering curtain was one of the most bizarre feelings I’d ever experienced. There was a slight tingling in my skin, and everything grew dark for a moment despite the fact that my eyes were wide open.

  Then I ran into Kory, who had stopped dead the moment he was through the curtain.

  “Kory, when there are people coming through behind you, you have to get out of the way,” I grumbled, rubbing my nose, which had come into contact with him first.

  He turned and gave me an abashed look, but then glanced around us, inviting me to see his excuse for myself. I peered around his broad frame and caught my breath.

  I was in a completely different world.

  My first thought was how clean everything was. Immediately on top of that, I realized it looked so clean because everything was new. Then I wondered what the hell we’d just gone through.

  “Alexy, what is that thing?” I asked.

  She gave me a shrug. “A sort of digital curtain, or at least that’s how it’s been explained to me. More reflection and projection than physical barrier. That’s how they can change what it shows. Just a different computer program.”

  She pointed up to the sky above us, and we all looked up, our eyes searching the blue.

  “It may look like it comes from the sky, but it’s actually projecting upward from the ground, from devices that are buried in the dirt. Up there, in the middle of the dome that covers this place, is the central point where all the projections connect.”