The Child Thief 4: Little Lies

by Bella Forrest

  My people. And that was exactly what we were. I’d managed to build a new family with my smaller team in the last weeks… and now that family extended out into the entire Little John organization. A chill spread over my skin, but I shook it off. I didn’t have time to be getting all emotional. Not right now.

  “All right,” Corona said, facing us all, a hint of worry breaking through. “Nathan’s giving some last orders to some of the other teams, and he’ll meet you on the tarmac. We’ve mapped your flight so that you’ll arrive anywhere between two hours to thirty minutes before the shutdown begins. Don’t print the masks until you’re twenty minutes out from Smally. The systems will only be down for twenty minutes, but you’ll be on the move in and around the holding center for longer than that, and your team in particular can’t afford for any Ministry employees to recognize you. Even the nurses there will likely have seen the wanted posters and will have been told to look out for you. Now, report the plan to me step by step. I want to be sure you know your roles.”

  I took a deep breath, knowing the steps by heart. “First, we get into the holding center using the cleaning team disguises waiting for us on the airship. Once inside, we head for the basement and don the new disguises. Wait.” I paused. “What if there aren’t any Authority suits in the basement?”

  It would be so easy for things to go sideways on us at that point in the plan.

  “There are,” Corona said firmly. “We’ve had one of our very rare contacts in Smally set some aside in locker fourteen. And I expect you know the rest by heart and are very tired of going over it. Does anyone have any last-minute questions?”

  There was a short pause, during which everyone shook their heads, and I saw Corona go through a range of emotions, starting with fear and ending with conviction. Finally, she reached out and grasped my arm, squeezing so hard I knew there would be bruises there in the morning.

  “Bring my husband back to me,” she said intently. “I do not want to lose him on this mission, and we cannot afford to let the Authority, or the Ministry, have him. It would destroy Little John.”

  I took a deep, shuddering breath at the responsibility she’d just placed on me but nodded once.

  “I’ll do whatever I must to get him back safely, Corona. You can count on me.”

  “We all will,” Jace said, taking my hand.

  She gave me a nod and squeezed my arm once more, then pointed us toward the car waiting to take us to the airship.

  Our little team stepped out of the door together, and, though I looked back for her, Corona disappeared into the crowds now flooding out of the Hall.

  By the time we got to the car, Savannah, Ajax, Lux, and Rio had appeared out of nowhere and joined us, each wearing plain clothes and carrying a bag, all sporting the same intense expression I suspected we were all wearing at this point. The entire place felt as if the air was thicker than normal, made heavy with the importance and responsibility of what we were about to do. A hush had fallen over the crowd outside of the Hall as they began receiving their instructions for airships and cars, and the city had taken on a deep and thoroughly dark atmosphere.

  I knew the teams were only here at the Hall, but I suddenly felt as if everyone in the city knew what we were about to do and were all sending their utmost in hope and best wishes. I imagined even the school had fallen quiet.

  We clambered into the car, shuffling around so we could all fit, and once we’d fastened our safety belts, the driver took off with a squeal of tires.

  We were on our way to the airship, on our way to the biggest mission we’d run so far—and the most dangerous.

  36

  Nathan was indeed on the tarmac when we arrived, and he hurried us toward the largest of the airships, for once completely silent. He was dressed in black clothing that looked like regular fabric, but then I remembered what Corona had said about him having extra armor built into his clothing. It wouldn’t be much, as anything too fancy would mess with the computer systems the same way the steel-skin suits did.

  Once we were on board the airship, which already had the engines running, Nathan went straight to the cockpit.

  “Who’s the pilot, does anyone know?” Jace asked.

  Alexy shook her head and frowned. “Not personally, but they’re one of the best. They must be if they’re flying instead of Savannah or me.” She shot the other girl a sideways grin.

  A moment later, Nathan was back in the passenger area and giving us orders in his smooth and effortless voice.

  “It will take us six hours to get there, even at our quickest speed and with the most direct route we have. With luck, we’ll arrive two or so hours before the system drops, which will give us a chance to prepare. I assume everyone has their orders in mind already, and is well and truly tired of going over the plan?”

  We all nodded, and Nathan smiled gently back at us.

  “In that case, you’re really going to hate me, because I’m going to insist that we go over it some more, en route, so we can find any holes and fill them before we arrive.” He cast a look at Jace and quirked one eyebrow. “You know the drill, Jace. Would you like to start?”

  “Disguises,” Nathan said sharply, about eight and a half hours later.

  We looked up from our various corners of the airship, jerking ourselves out of whatever we’d been doing, and started to get to our feet. It was dark outside, and I’d been sitting against the wall, dozing, and going through the plan in my mind.

  We hadn’t arrived in the promised six hours, having had to take a long detour around one of the biggest cities in our path to avoid any large passenger craft.

  The fuel issue had been on my mind, but Nathan assured me the ship was equipped to make an even longer journey if necessary. The pilot would be spending the time on the ground refueling by hand, courtesy of the smaller tanks of fuel packed in one of the storage rooms underneath us. That would keep us from having to refuel on the way home, and should, if everything went according to plan, mean we would have a quick and easy exit, and a smooth flight home to Edgewood.

  Edgewood. I’d become strangely attached to the place over the few days we’d been there, and the thought of it made my stomach jump. I thought I was ready for this mission, but now that it was finally happening, now that we were going to get our masks and costumes on, there didn’t seem to be enough air in my lungs.

  We got in line in front of the printer and took our turns before the laser, standing patiently as it created new faces for us.

  “How does it know what sort of face to make?” I asked as the scanner ran up over my eyebrows, my nerves pushing the question out before I could stop it.

  “No talking,” Nathan said. “We don’t want anything about us to stand out to the Ministry employees or to make us memorable. They would definitely remember the faces the printer creates when there’s too much movement. It tends to look like something out of a nightmare.”

  I stilled my face immediately, trying very hard to tamp down the hysterical laughter his description prompted. I had a sudden image of us going in with old-fashioned clown masks on, bright blue eyes and big red noses, and trying to talk the Ministry nurse into believing we were just following the trend of all the best cleaning companies.

  I was officially losing it.

  Once we all had our new faces, Nathan looked around at us—at our pouches of grenades, at the guns on our thighs, and finally at the white coveralls hanging on a rack by the wall of the airship. We bumped to the ground a moment later, the team jostling around to keep their feet under them, and when we finally got our balance he gestured toward the rack of coveralls.

  “Well, suit up,” he said. “We shouldn’t be wearing these longer than it takes us to get to the basement and change, but we won’t have access to our weapons during that time. A necessary evil, I’m afraid, due to the scanners at the front of the holding center. We would never get through with weapons on us.”

  He gestured to several large mechanical cleaning units with variou
s attachments, brooms, mops, and scrubbing brushes poking off them like a porcupine’s quills.

  “Put the packs of grenades inside the vacuum drum along with your guns. It’s designed to get them through the scanners.” He helped remove the lids and place the weapons inside. “You can move them over to your new suits when we’re in.” The final lid clicked into place and he looked us all over. “Try to carry everything like we do this every day. We need to be invisible.”

  We rushed to the rack of jumpsuits and spent several minutes passing around various shapes and sizes until we had the ones meant for us. Thirty seconds after that our hands were full of cleaning tools and buckets.

  Nathan looked around at us, paused for a moment, and then nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  He turned and marched through the open door, and we followed. One glance at Gabby’s face, and then Alexy’s, told me I wasn’t the only one who felt like I was about to throw up. But I also knew none of us were going to let that stop us.

  The pilot had brought us down in a field some distance from the holding center. It would mean we had to walk, but also meant that a lowly cleaning crew wasn’t seen arriving in an airship. We made the walk quickly, no one speaking. I wasn’t sure there was anything left to say.

  As we finally approached the holding center’s parking lot, I couldn’t suppress a gasp. Corona had said Asus and Smally were the same size, built along the same blueprints, but standing there, staring up at the building, I started to doubt her information.

  This center looked an awful lot bigger and, unlike Asus, which had been bright white with “MINISTRY” and the logo across the front in black lettering, this building was painted a black matte. It made it impossible to tell where the building started, and where it ended. Instead, it melted into the darkness as if it was only partially there… or was likely to disappear at any moment.

  “Courage, team,” Nathan said out of the side of his mouth. “It will have the same layout on the inside as the others you’ve seen. This mission is too important for us to get nervous now.”

  He took one step forward, and then another, his steps becoming quicker as he crossed the parking lot, heading toward the door of Smally, and our appointment with the Ministry. The rest of our group scurried along as well, trying not to look up at the looming building in front of us.

  Once Nathan got to the top of the stairs and to the front door of the place, he paused and pressed a button at the side. An intercom buzzed a moment later, and a metallic voice answered.

  “Smally Holding Center, how can I help you?”

  “Monty’s Cleaning Service, and I believe it’s us who are here to help you,” Nathan answered in a voice that sounded way too cheerful to my ears.

  It must have worked on the woman at the other end of the intercom, though, because a second later there was another buzz and the door slid open.

  “Come on in,” the voice said, sounding warmer. “You’ll find the reception desk in front of you.”

  We filed through the door and found that the inside did look like the inside of Asus and Gem. It was, true to form, done all in white marble, with mirrors and black designs here and there. It was also lit by what felt like a thousand light bulbs, and we all paused, thrown off by the sudden transition from midnight on the outside to noon-like lighting on the inside.

  “Over here,” the voice from the intercom called, this time without the metallic ring. “Sorry for the lights, but we’ve got orders to keep the place as bright as possible for the night.”

  “Is there a problem?” Nathan asked, concerned. “Something we should be aware of?” He strolled up to the woman and gave her a charming grin, working his magic on the middle-aged receptionist.

  She smiled back, ducking her head a bit at his flirting, and flushed. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that we… well, the building has some important guests arriving tonight, that’s all. Headquarters wanted to make sure we offered them the most inviting atmosphere possible when they got here.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be very pleased,” Nathan said. “After they’ve gotten over being blinded.”

  The woman twittered with laughter, which made me cringe, and then gestured behind her to the hallway. “You’ll find the layout familiar, I suspect, if you’ve ever been in a holding center before. I’ll have to insist you stay quiet when you’re cleaning the nurseries, as we don’t want the children to be woken up in the middle of the night. Why they scheduled you for a nighttime cleaning, and tonight of all nights, is beyond me.”

  “Nighttime cleanings are less disruptive to daily schedules,” Nathan said with a shrug. “We don’t like it much either, but we don’t make the rules. We’re scheduled to do a deep clean, so we’d like to start in the basement, if you don’t mind, and work our way up.”

  The woman tipped her head in confusion, and my heart leapt into my throat.

  “The basement?” she asked. “Since when do cleaning crews do the basement?”

  And that was it, I thought, panicked. We were going to be told we couldn’t get down into the basement, which would mean we’d have to sneak down, and if we got caught—

  Nathan, bless him, didn’t miss a beat. “Every cleaning crew should do the basement,” he said censoriously. “Do you mean to tell me your previous crews haven’t been doing so?”

  She shook her head, but I could tell that she was already on his side, and I let out a small bit of the breath I was holding.

  Nathan shook his head in a disappointed fashion. “It’s a full-service job. It should be a full-service job. Never fear, if we find the basement is in such bad shape we can’t finish it tonight, we’ll send another crew out tomorrow to have a look.”

  The receptionist heaved a sigh of relief, as if her job had been on the line, and nodded gratefully. “You’re too kind. You’ll find the stairway down to the basement on your right, just inside the door to the corridor. And please let me know if you need anything. You might see a flicker in the electricity in”—she checked the clock on her computer—“fifteen minutes. But it’s nothing to worry about. Just some standard maintenance.”

  Fifteen minutes. We were cutting it pretty close, considering we had to find the basement, get changed, and then find our way to the computer room in that time. My skin started crawling at the thought, but I forced myself to stand still.

  Nathan gave the woman a quick word of thanks and a final smile, then turned and strolled casually toward the doorway into the hall. I followed him, having fallen first in the line, and did my best to walk like I thought a normal cleaning crew employee would. Slouched. Uninspired. Bored. Probably underpaid. And definitely not wanting to be in a holding center in the middle of the night.

  That last part didn’t take too much imagination.

  37

  Moving as one, we exited the foyer through the door she had indicated. From there, it was a quick turn to the doorway leading to the basement. A minute later we were filing down the metal grill stairs, keeping our heads down and pace steady. After all, we had to assume cameras were tracking our every move.

  When we hit the bottom floor, we found it was completely dark in this part of the building. Evidently the “all lights on” policy didn’t extend to the basement.

  “They must not be expecting the visitors to come down here, then,” Alexy said softly. She turned and swept her hand along the wall, and a moment later I heard the flick of a switch. Several sepia-toned strip lights sprang to life above us, allowing a basic view of the basement area.

  Nathan didn’t even pause. He dropped the bucket and mop he’d been carrying, slid against the wall, and reached through the breast pocket of his white coveralls to the suit that lay beneath. A moment later he had a square, silver device in his hand and was sliding it along the wall, moving at a quick pace. When he reached the corner, he turned, still following the wall, and repeated the process on that side of the room.

  The rest of us watched him, dumbfounded.

  “What is he doing, lookin
g for termites?” Alexy hissed out of the side of her mouth.

  I didn’t think that was what he was doing. But it was a good excuse if we got caught doing it.

  By the time Nathan rounded the last corner and walked the last wall, still sliding his square box along, we were starting to go through the motions of getting ready to clean, pushing the buckets into some sort of order and sorting through them as if we were looking for floor-cleaning solution. I didn’t want to think about how awkward and suspicious we’d looked just standing there watching Nathan, but with luck anyone keeping an eye on us would think that we’d been waiting for our boss’s orders or something.

  Then, just as suddenly as he’d started his strange walk, Nathan drew to a stop and turned to us with a wide smile.

  “No cameras or audio recording devices down here,” he said triumphantly. “We’re free to prep unhindered, so let’s get moving with that. Robin, get to the top of the stairs and keep an eye out. An Authority team could be showing up any moment, and we don’t want to be caught by surprise. If you see anything, let me know over the comm. Everyone else, grab a uniform from locker fourteen and get changed. Make it quick. Keep it quiet.”

  The team moved toward the lockers, a sense of urgency in their steps, and I rushed back up the stairway we’d just come down, taking the stairs two at a time, darting upward as quickly as I could, terrified we might have missed something important. What if the Authority’s team had already passed us and were in the center of the building? What if they were up there waiting for us? Or worse, what if they’d already gotten to the executive suites?

  Stop being stupid, Robin, the voice in my head snapped, sounding curiously like Jackie. You were down there for maybe thirty seconds. Get to the top of the stairs and look left and right. There’s no way any team would have made it all the way to the computer room already.