The Child Thief

by Bella Forrest

  I looked around, slightly dazed, at all the faces. Judging by the similarities between them, I was guessing they were one large, extended family. Eleven were kids, ranging from around one to sixteen, and then there were eight middle-aged adults: four men and four women. Three of the men and one of the women—the large brunette—resembled each other, so I assumed they were siblings, and that the other adults were perhaps their spouses. Then there were four elderly people, including the old guy with the brown cap and cane. Two sets of grandparents, from what I could tell.

  “Uh, hi,” Hux said, gazing around at them. I could tell he hadn’t quite been expecting this kind of reception, either. “Good to meet you… all.”

  I stared at them as well, still shocked. The kids in particular looked intensely curious. So much so that the younger ones were being held back by their parents, as though they were straining to come up and touch us.

  I suddenly felt very much like an animal in a zoo.

  “Who’re you?” Rufus blurted out, twisting a strand of curly hair between his small fingers.

  “Yeah, who’re you and why’re you here?” a little blonde girl with a rather wonky pixie cut piped up.

  “Shush!” a blonde woman, presumably her mother, said. “I told y’all we were expecting visitors! Now all of you kids go upstairs and play!”

  She might as well have said nothing, because none of them budged, not even the three teenagers. Apparently we were far more interesting than anything they had to do upstairs.

  “Go,” the brunette mother ordered, her growly voice returning. She tugged Rufus and his sixish-year-old sister to the door, while the rest of the adults got to work on the others. To my bemusement, even the teens were manhandled out—though the oldest of the teens managed to slip back in just before one of the men closed the door. She was a tall, thin, mousy-looking brunette girl, with freckles and large blue eyes. And for some reason, she seemed to find me particularly interesting, as she perched on the edge of one of the sofas next to her mother and fixed her eyes on my face with almost as intense a curiosity as the younger kids.

  From the way they behaved, you would have thought we were the first people they’d ever come in contact with outside of their family. It occurred to me then that maybe that wasn’t far from the truth.

  The boat shuddered suddenly and started to move again. Hux and I looked to the adults, who were settling themselves among the sofas now that they’d closed the door on the kids, and I noticed that the grandpa with the cane was missing.

  Before we could ask why we were moving, one of the brown-haired men explained, “Best we stay away from ports in general, you know? Don’t worry. We’ll drop you back off as soon as we’re done here. We just don’t like to hang around.” He gave us a dark, knowing look.

  And I looked again to Hux, not feeling at all comfortable about the situation. I hadn’t expected us to be more or less kidnapped on their ship. Judging by the tight expression on his face, Hux wasn’t at ease with it either.

  But apparently it didn’t bother him enough to object.

  “I understand,” he said after a moment. “And I trust that you will return us once we’re through,” he added, and I detected a slight warning in his eyes.

  “Of course!” the brown-haired man said.

  “Then I guess we’ll get down to business,” Hux concluded, shooting me a look that told me he felt things would probably be okay.

  I wasn’t sure what people like these would want with us, but as with Davine and Noreen, we could never be sure. For now, I tried to put it aside and focus on the motley group around us.

  “Hold up,” a black-haired woman wearing a red bandana said, raising a hand. “Surely you’ll be wanting some tea or something first? Wasn’t it a long journey to get here?”

  “Um, okay,” Hux replied, glancing at me tentatively.

  “Okay, thanks,” I added. I didn’t feel like tea, or really any consumable right now, given that we were locked on a boat filled with utter strangers and were sailing away from the shore, but I guessed this woman didn’t get the chance to make tea for guests very often. It just seemed polite to oblige her.

  “Hot tea it is!”

  “And also, how about some introductions?” the blonde woman said, giving us a friendly smile.

  The large brunette woman rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that’s not what they’re here for, Luna,” she said, her tone condescending. “They’re here to talk business, like Mr. X said in the messages.”

  The blonde shot her a sour look. “And I’m sure they can reply for themselves.”

  “Yeah, chill out, Martha,” one of the brown-haired men said, presumably one of Martha’s brothers. “It ain’t often we have guests.”

  Martha gave him a glare, but before she could respond, the one grandfather who was left in the room—perhaps Luna’s father, judging by the same slight hook of their noses—scoffed. “You can talk, Rick. Usually you’re the one pissing your pants over inviting strangers aboard.”

  “Oh, lay off about that already, you old goat,” Rick shot back, looking genuinely irritated. “You admitted yourself I was right to be nervous that time.”

  And then they started bickering, as though they’d forgotten that Hux and I were even in the room. I watched the exchange with a raised eyebrow. They seemed to quarrel as much as the kids, and I had to wonder how on Earth they got by sharing this small space. Because from the vibe I was getting so far, I was taking a guess that they lived on this boat full time, and I was 99.999 percent sure that they were CRAS evaders, just as Hux’s parents had been.

  My eyes wandered to the teenage girl, to find her looking thoroughly unamused. Downright embarrassed, in fact. Her head was dropped in her hands, what I could see of her cheeks flushed a dark shade of pink. And I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like growing up in these circumstances. It had to be a terribly stifling environment for her, as a young woman. If she was in hiding along with her younger siblings, I doubted she ever got to mix with anyone her own age. And even if she did, it would have to be rare.

  Which was perhaps why she had appeared to take a particular interest in me.

  Looking back at the adults, whose bickering seemed to finally be dying down, I supposed this had just become normal behavior for them over however many years they’d been living like this. Maybe this was what living in a small space with all your family members did to you after a while. They likely didn’t realize how odd it looked to outsiders.

  “I’m so sorry,” one of the grandmothers said loudly, her voice cutting through everything else. “Please, do start.”

  The bandana woman returned with two cups of tea at that moment and set them down on a low table beside us, and then Hux sucked in a breath, and began to introduce himself.

  The teen seemed to gather the courage to look up again now that her family’s arguing had stopped, and her eyes once more returned to me, curious. I looked away, as it felt weird for us to be staring at one another, and listened as Hux started explaining the history behind Nathan’s new direction for the platform.

  About halfway through his pitch, to my surprise, the teen got up from her seat and moved over to me, sitting down right next to me on our sofa. I gave her a friendly, if a bit surprised, smile, and she smiled shyly back. Then she leaned in tentatively and whispered in my ear, “You wanna hang out in my room?”

  I stared at her, a bit taken aback by the offer. I found it kind of creepy, to be honest, but looking into her hopeful eyes, I could tell she really didn’t mean it to come across that way. She was obviously desperate for company, and I felt a stab of pity for her.

  Plus, it occurred to me that this would give me a chance to ask some questions. Figure out who these people were, and maybe get information that the adults would be too careful to let slip.

  So I glanced at Hux, who was still busy talking, and then shrugged. I guessed I might as well, as I doubted Hux needed me to sit here the whole time. I wasn’t
exactly doing anything productive right now.

  “Sure,” I whispered back.

  Her eyes glistened with excitement, as though I had just given her a birthday present, and she reached for my hand and pulled me up. I barely had a chance to note Hux’s, or anyone else’s, reaction to her gesture before she’d led me through the door and closed it gently behind us.

  We emerged in a narrow passageway that contained a short staircase leading up to the higher levels. Out here, I could hear the raucous noise of the children upstairs, their footsteps pounding on the ceiling, an occasional shriek tearing through the boat, as they probably ripped each other’s hair out or something. The girl led me along the corridor and stopped about halfway down, in front of what looked like a storage cupboard set beneath the stairs. She opened it and crept inside, turning on a light to reveal a tiny bedroom. A mattress took up most of it, and at the end was a small desk, just about wide enough for her to sit in front of, which held a computer.

  The girl glanced at me hesitantly, as if waiting for my reaction, and I managed to pull an impressed face. “Looks pretty cool in there.”

  She moved her eyes to the computer, shrugging ruefully. “It’s not much, but it’s all my own. Nobody else is allowed to come in here.”

  I smiled. “Well, I appreciate your invite then.”

  She smirked, and then made room for me to step inside. I lowered myself onto the edge of the mattress and sat in a cross-legged position, while the girl sank to the floor in front of her computer. She brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear, smiling at me nervously.

  “So do you all live on this boat full time?” I asked, figuring that was a good, fairly nonintrusive question to start with.

  Her smile soured somewhat. “Yeah. Full time.”

  “For how long?” I asked.

  She sighed, leaning back against the table. “Since forever.”

  I nodded at the confirmation of my earlier suspicion. “And how do you pass your time?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Homeschooling. Just like the rest of my siblings and cousins.” She glanced at her computer. “Well, that and I spend a lot of time with George here.” She stroked the top of the old monitor.

  I smiled. “Oh, you’ve named it.”

  “I’ve named him, yes,” she replied with a grin.

  “And are you some kind of computer genius?” I asked.

  She scoffed. “I wish. But nah. I’m still just learning the basics of coding and stuff.” She paused, then hit a key on the keyboard, bringing the screen to life. It showed a black window filled with lines of green-and-yellow code. “I’m working on something cool, though,” she added with a shy smile.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A network for homeschoolers. It’s still pretty ugly, and I’ve got a lot more work to do on it, but ten people have joined already.”

  She pulled up a dark web browser and navigated to a plain-looking portal under the name of Homeskoolers Unite. The color scheme was a bit all over the place, with lots of pinks and purples, and then some splashes of blues and greens, as if added as an afterthought to make boys feel welcome too. But when she logged in, it looked impressively functional, with all the basic modules of a networking site. The girl was clearly smart and driven, and I could picture her being a valuable member of our group in a few years’ time, if not already. She could offer assistance with running the portal, for one thing.

  She brought up a list of the ten members, all of them with non-identifying avatars and obviously fake names, and pointed to two of the accounts. “I’m friends with these two. Not really sure about the others, though. They’re pretty unresponsive.” She puffed out her cheeks, then navigated to a profile under the name of Gabby Sails. “This is mine,” she explained, bringing up a page with an avatar image of a cartoon-drawn girl who very vaguely resembled “Gabby.”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s impressive. You basically are a whiz.”

  Her cheeks warmed. “Meh. I still got a lot to learn. But yeah, I guess I can do some fairly cool stuff. Mostly, I just wanted to start something where teens like me can hang out. I mean, my family can’t be the only underground homeschoolers.”

  I nodded. “I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.” Wherever Davine and Noreen’s women went with their kids, I was certain they’d have to stay hidden too, which would leave homeschooling as the only option to educate their children. “And all this coding stuff—did your parents teach you, or is it all self-taught?”

  “Self-taught. I took a bunch of free online tutorials in my spare time—still taking them, in fact—and I forced my parents to give me George when I was eight. I’ve been playing around with him ever since. He’s been on the ship for like, two decades or something, but he’s still chuggin’ along.” She gave the monitor a warm smile and another affectionate stroke.

  I nodded slowly, feeling as though I understood much more about Gabby than I had a few minutes ago. This seemed to be her only way of socializing with anyone other than her family. And while I was glad that she at least had some outlet away from the craziness that was the rest of her home, I couldn’t help but feel sad for her. They might’ve all escaped the CRAS, but the kind of life they lived now didn’t seem like that great of an alternative. Better than being separated from their families, yes, but once a child got past a certain age, they needed space to breathe and develop independence. Not to mention, what was Gabby’s future going to be? Would she be stuck here indefinitely, even into her twenties?

  It was an angering reminder of the lengths the CRAS was driving people to, just to keep their families together. We had to find a way to fix this.

  “Do you mind me asking why you don’t just sail off to a different country and start a new life there?” I asked.

  Gabby sighed. “That’s not so easy for people like us. None of my siblings or cousins have any kind of documentation. We’re basically ghosts, and if we suddenly showed up at a port, we’d be asked questions we wouldn’t be able to answer. We could all get deported back to the UNA and handed over to the authorities. It’s just not a risk my parents are willing to take.”

  I nodded, supposing it made sense. Though, how could they even live perpetually on the water? What about fuel, and so on? Satellite Internet charges? Electricity? I guessed they must’ve figured it out somehow; maybe they had a contact or two on the land who was helping them. And as for food, perhaps they lived off the ocean, and/or the adults made occasional bulk shopping trips for groceries on land.

  Whatever the case, I realized they could greatly benefit from this new alliance Nathan was pulling together, too. There were others who had figured out how to hide and live inland—Hux had told me that the women from Davina and Noreen’s organization went somewhere after they gave birth. And that it was somewhere in the country. Did that mean that there could be an entire underground society that we didn’t even know about? Hundreds of people who lived in the country, but off the grid? And if there were, could they help Gabby escape? Could they help this entire family? And once I found my daughter, could they help me? I put it on the list of things to think about later. The adult members of Gabby’s family might be able to hack this lifestyle, but she and her siblings and cousins simply couldn’t live like this forever.

  Gabby returned her focus to the monitor, and I watched as she minimized her social network and went back to the search browser. “There is also another project I’m working on, by the way,” she said, an excited twinkle in her eye.

  “And what’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Learning to be a hacker,” she replied proudly.

  “Whoa. How many other tricks do you have up those sleeves?” I had been right about this girl being driven and smart. And, suspecting she’d wind up helping us sooner rather than later, I made a mental note to confirm with Hux that she would be invited onto the platform with her parents (assuming he decided to invite them, after his discussion with them was done).

  She grinned.
“Not many more.”

  “What do you want to hack?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “There’s a lot of bad stuff going on in the shadow web. People who’ve become criminals for all the wrong reasons.”

  “Oh, I know,” I said, giving her a serious look. I’d stumbled upon enough of those after I discovered the shadow web, myself.

  “So I figured it would be useful if I could cause them a bit of trouble.”

  I frowned. “What sort of trouble?”

  “Oh, like, digging into their admin panels and messing up their databases. Disabling forums, overloading servers, that sort of thing…” She trailed off as she focused on the monitor. “This is one I found the other day,” she said after a minute, bringing up a dark gray login screen. She somehow bypassed it, and the screen that popped up next made my eyes bug.

  “What in the world?” I breathed, gazing at what looked like some sort of auction site. Except the items on offer didn’t appear to be items at all.

  The page was comprised of listings containing descriptions of what I could only imagine were kids, judging by the biometric data detailed there—and an “availability status” was attached to each entry. Of the ten that I could see on this page, five were grayed out as “unavailable” while one was “processing” and the others were a bright green “available.”

  I had come across a lot of forums discussing sketchy stuff, but I had never seen anything like this.

  “Yeah, it was well hidden,” she went on. “I don’t know how anyone would stumble upon it without a direct link. I only discovered it because someone mentioned it on a random forum I happened to be browsing. Some guy thought he was being all clever and cryptic, talking about a place where ‘some people bought potatoes.’ Obviously it was code for something, and I was curious, so I PM’d him and he gave me the link. Looks like it’s run by some kind of shady kidnapping ring,” she concluded solemnly.