"Remember when you told me that a witness saw a fourth child when the three came up missing?" Plovel and I were at it again, cups of strong tea and coffee at our elbows as we read through records.
"I remember," he nodded.
"Here's another one," I said, handing my comp-vid over. "This one said he saw three children playing, when only two disappeared."
"I wish we had a better way of correlating this gibberish," Plovel grumped, taking my comp-vid away and staring at the information.
"Yeah. If I had ASD equipment and the records had been filed correctly to begin with, I'd have this done in three ticks." I looked up to find Plovel staring at me, his mouth open.
"I'm former," I muttered.
"You used to work for the bloody ASD?"
"Yes, and bloody is an apt description," I sighed.
"They kicked you out?"
"No. They'd love it if I signed up for another stint."
"Why are you here again?"
"Well, I was upset with the King of Karathia. After I was upset with Norian Keef. After I was upset with Teeg San Gerxon. After I was upset with Torevik Rath, Lendill Schaff—I guess that's all of them. I'm not upset with Aurelius."
"You just named the Director and Vice-Director of the ASD."
"Yeah. But I'm only married to one of them. Inadvertently, of course."
"You know, I'm not even going to ask which one. And the King of Karathia?"
"I was only engaged to him. That may be off, now."
"Teeg San Gerxon?"
"Also married to him. Inadvertently, of course."
"All right." Plovel breathed a calming sigh. "Shall we get back to it?" We both started reading records of child disappearances again.
"We're quite happy with your progress, Lok. You may be sent out soon on an assignment, just to see how it goes," Lendill nodded to his newest and best Falchani recruit.
"Good." Lok seldom smiled—Lendill was getting used to that.
"Reah, I know your comp-vid came from here and it has a blocking chip in it—the local government doesn't want the people to get feeds from United Bardelus or anywhere else, for that matter. Since you mentioned Teeg San Gerxon earlier, I thought you might be interested in this." He handed his comp-vid over. I stared at the headline for the longest time.
"The Strands escaped?" I think my voice squeaked, I was so shocked.
"Yes. It says here that several were killed when the Strands managed to break out of their prison. With help, obviously."
"Does it say who got killed?" My heart was suddenly doing triple time.
"It doesn't mention names—it just says six. Probably guards and such."
"May I use this?" I didn't wait for permission, I was busily clicking keys, working my way through password after password to get into ASD files. Lendill hadn't locked me out. Yet.
"Here it is," I whispered, scanning the list of names. I breathed the biggest sigh of relief—I hadn't recognized any of them. I'd been terrified that I'd find the reptanoids listed. That would break my heart.
"Nobody you know?"
"No." My heart was stuttering toward a more normal rhythm. I erased the information and handed the comp-vid back to Plovel. "So the local government is looking to control their masses by preventing them from seeing that life elsewhere might be much better?"
"The news vids tell them lies—that life is actually worse in other regions. If Bardelus has a sphincter, Grithis is it."
I hadn't bothered to watch any news vids except those regarding missing children. I was going to pay more attention from now on.
"Somehow, they managed to find the locating chip we planted and deactivated it, but that was after they found their way into this sector," Gavril pointed to the spot on the map. He'd worked this out in advance with Norian and Lendill. They suspected that others might be involved, but even Gavril's compulsion hadn't been able to penetrate the elusive information in Lersen Strand's mind before he'd escaped. Something very powerful had blocked it.
"What's there?" Norian studied the map.
"Hilfri and Bardelus," Lendill said.
"I saw a kid crying in the park on Clover Street," Harne walked into the restaurant yawning. He had a new girlfriend and stayed up late the night before. Figures.
"What was the problem—was he lost?" I asked, ignoring the yawn and the reason behind it.
"No—his mother was with him, taking him to school. He said he didn't want to go by the playground. He said there were ghosts there."
"Ghosts? Really? That's odd," I said. The few times I'd been by the playground, it was usually full, with mothers more watchful now than at other times. The playground seemed a safer place than letting the children run in the streets.
"I couldn't figure it out, either," Harne shrugged and went to get eggs out of the cold-keeper.
"Have any children been snatched from the playground on Clover Street?" I asked Plovel later as he ate his breakfast. I'd pulled the pot of coffee and went to refill his cup myself.
"None that I've run across," he buttered his breakfast roll before spreading it liberally with fresh-made jam.
"Harne said he saw a child crying as he went past it this morning. The child was telling his mother that the playground was haunted."
"That's strange—that playground is generally full when school is out."
"I know."
"I'll go by there today and look around," he said.
"Good. Let me know if you find anything." He nodded, so I took the coffeepot and freshened up other customers' cups as well. Never hurt to play it safe, by paying attention to all the customers as equally as I could. I was trusting Neidles less and less as time went on, and I'd never trusted him from the beginning.
Chapter 4
"There's trouble in Grithis." Lendill passed the comp-vid to Gavril.
"Children disappearing? You think that sounds like Lersen Strand?"
"We don't know who he's allied himself with. How can we know what to expect from them? I'm assuming he's still with his rescuers, anyway."
"He has to be—can't see the Strands doing anything else besides cozying up with other criminals."
"I still don't understand how you didn't get some of this information out of the Strands. I thought your compulsion could cut through steel."
Gavril laughed. A hollow laugh. "Too bad that doesn't work very well on Reah."