The Lawyers of Mars: Three Novellas
Page 33
There was neither soap, nor shampoo. A hunt through cupboards produced no towels. She let herself drip while she hand-washed her undies, and laid her blouse and slacks out so they wouldn't wrinkle worse than they already were. Back in the bedroom she opened the window to get a bit of a breeze through. Good thing it's nearly summer.
Shivering a bit she crawled into bed to warm up. Sleep was nowhere to be found.
***
Wolfgang had played too many war games, listened to his dad and his fellow retired Army buddies tell stories, and read too much to not realize he was in deep trouble. He'd shifted stuff around surreptitiously as soon as he realized things had gone bad. Pocket knife down the side of his shoe. Three-fourths of his money and cards out of his wallet and down his other sock. Leave the driver's license. ID can be used against you. Leave enough money and cards to look good.
But they hadn't been searched. So he split up his meager hoard between three hides in the room and the remainder he'd keep on his person.
What he most needed was an eight millimeter wrench, to remove the grill from his window. It obviously bolted into anchors set in the concrete. He needed to scout out the grounds, the lights, think about the best way to get over that fence.
Figure out what to do after that. Because the legalities must be murky enough that the company was confident they could kidnap the twenty-seven kids who had been on the bus and not get any grief over it.
News. He needed to find out how to monitor the news. He stretched out on the bed fully dressed. He'd find out what the company line was in the morning. Right now he was going to sleep. One. Two. Three.
He twitched to instant alertness at the first beep of the intercom.
"Good morning students. You will find your new school uniforms and toiletries outside your door. Breakfast will be in half an hour. Don't miss it." The voice was female. Cheerful.
An electronic click sounded and he pulled his door open, and looked up and down the hall. Everyone else was looking around too. The rooms that had had closed doors last night were opening too. The room across from him was one of them.
"Are you from Milwaukee?" He eyed the cautiously cracked door.
It swung open. "Born there. Now I live in Texas. I flew up to Milwaukee yesterday morning, wound up drugged and bused here. You?"
"I live in Milwaukee. I had an appointment at six in the afternoon at Healthy Kids, and wound up drugged and bused."
"My appointment was nine in the morning. I took the Red-eye, and dragged in at three in the morning." The boy, the young man, was brown haired with bright blue eyes, tall and handsome.
"There were twenty-seven kids on my bus, and I heard one of them say there were only four missing. How old are you?" Wolfgang felt suddenly small and scrawny. He'd just started a growth spurt, but he knew he looked like a growing teenage boy, not a man.
"Six weeks shy of eighteen. I suppose they got those of us out of school early in the day, and the rest of you later. I'm Jason."
"Wolfgang." He looked at the pile at his feet. "I guess we'd better get ready for a really interesting day."
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