The Child Thief Read online

  I’d heard talk of people like Nelson’s team at the factory one day during lunch break—whispers about something called the shadow web, where people were brazen enough to talk negatively about our country and its government. About things they saw as unfair and unjust. About things they wanted to see changed. Things they would never speak about in public, for fear of punishment.

  Having just lost my baby, the idea of connecting with likeminded people—people who might have gone, or be going, through the same thing as me—drew me like a moth to a flame. I needed to talk to someone, anyone at that point, to be honest… to make me feel a little less alone in the deep hole into which I was losing myself.

  So I saved up and bought myself a small, discounted tablet during a sale and managed to convince the person I’d overheard speaking about the shadow web to tell me how to access these clandestine social networks—and install the necessary software to keep my connection untraceable.

  And it was then that I’d discovered a world of freedom. A Wild West, where anything seemed possible.

  The networks were all anonymous; people created fake names and profiles for themselves, so they could interact freely. I read many thoughts and stories that mirrored my own, but what was more… I read about people actually doing things. It took a while to figure out the codenames and words people tended to use on these forums, but thanks to night after night of feverish reading, I started to get it. These people were pushing back against the government—or so they claimed. On some networks, they spoke of things I would never stoop to, like hacking into bank accounts and stealing money and weapons, and other activities, ranging from shady to despicable. I stayed away from those networks, but there were others—one in particular—buried deep within the web, that grabbed my imagination and refused to let go. It was a closed network called Operation Hood, and, once my registration request was finally approved, I discovered a community of people that spoke my language, and appealed to my deepest, darkest desires.

  The network’s mission statement was simple—steal from the rich and return to the poor—and on it I found discussions about stealing children back from their adoptions, and then either smuggling their families to other countries where laws were different, or hiding them in some way.

  At the time, I could hardly believe what I was reading. After all, the amount of risk and danger involved with that kind of operation was insane. Not to mention how difficult it would be to track children in the first place, when the government kept those details under lock and key. Plus, it was basically impossible to leave our country without permission. Not to mention the risk you’d run trying to hide a kid within our country.

  And then, even if they had somehow figured out how to access the records, stealing children from their new families?

  In all, it seemed like the operations would involve a crazy number of infractions, many of which would be excuse enough for our justice system to send you to the morgue.

  Still, the idea sparked a fire in me that I couldn’t put out. A fire that I latched onto for dear life, in fact, because I just knew that it was my way out of the darkness. I needed to contact one of these activist groups from Operation Hood (also known as OH), not only to see if they were real, but to find out if I could get involved.

  I created a profile, claimed the handle RobinHood21 (RobinHood was an annoyingly popular handle within OH), and started contacting people individually. Most were far too cagey to give me details or locations, given that I was a brand new member. I was also careful not to be too precise about my own location. But I finally managed to get a contact, who put me in touch with NellP, who said she managed a team that operated in my approximate area.

  Actually gaining her trust enough to persuade her to take me under her wing was a whole other matter entirely. She’d claimed to be based two cities away and wanted to meet me in a dark alley one Sunday night to see if I was who I said I was.

  I traveled to the location at the specified hour and found her waiting with a gun—and Jackie K. Both wore masks and had a vehicle in which to flee at the first sign of anything shady. But after realizing I was alone, they took me to a little café, where we talked. It took several more appointments before Nelson felt comfortable enough to invite me to meet the rest of her group, and even then, for my first few training missions, they kept masks on around me at all times.

  Then, after a couple of months, I was finally accepted as one of them, and they became more relaxed around me. I’d been on five missions with them since.

  And had discovered just how they were pulling all this off.

  Nelson was not only the manager of our group, but a hacker and programmer who had several sympathetic contacts in high places. She’d never tell any of us who they were, of course, but one of them was supposed to be responsible for helping us slip through the cracks of border control.

  As for tracking children in the first place… to my disappointment, it turned out that Nelson had no way to break into the government’s e-archives. At least, not yet. She was working on it, but it was a highly risky task, as security around those records was dangerously sensitive to attacks or breaches. If the attempt was traced back to her in any way, she’d be as good as dead. She had to play it carefully. But even in spite of all that, I held out hope that she would find a way in. She’d told me that she first joined Operation Hood out of the frustration of losing her own daughter to the CRAS three years ago, so I knew she had the motivation to crack their defenses.

  And if she did, I would stand a hell of a good chance of getting back my own baby… now a toddler.

  The idea made my heart clench whenever it crossed my mind—that I was missing out on the most precious period of Hope’s life. Especially because Nelson had told me she’d never attempt to kidnap a child older than four. As much as their birth parents might want them back, it would be too traumatic for an older child to be suddenly uprooted by strangers from what they’d believed all their life to be their home, especially for the children who hadn’t even been told they’d been adopted. Kids younger than four had an easier adjustment period, but after that, kidnapping just wasn’t a humane way of doing things. I didn’t want to risk putting my daughter through that kind of trauma either, in spite of how much I wanted her.

  So for now, all I could do was be patient and hope I could locate her before the deadline. Nelson’s heart was in the right place—her child was even closer to four years old than Hope—so I had to believe she’d find a way. And I would continue to work and set aside as much money as I could, for when the time might come when I could get Hope back.

  In the meantime, I was at least helping other families, as long as they met certain criteria. The first requirement being that they needed to prepare in advance.

  Parents, or parents-to-be, whose income had dropped dangerously, or was on the verge of dropping, sought out our services over the shadow portal. Nelson and Julia would do a thorough background check on them, to verify that they weren’t moles, and then the parents would transfer a small sum of digital money to Nelson’s anonymous account—just to show that they were serious, and also to help us cover the cost of our operations.

  Then Nelson and Julia set up an initial meeting with the parents, and in cases where the child was born already, the duo inserted a tiny tracking device behind the child’s ear, which allowed Nelson to trace his or her whereabouts for up to eighteen months.

  Next the parents had to figure out a way to cobble together enough money for escaping and starting a new life. Occasionally they could achieve that while the woman was still pregnant or before the Ministry came for their kid, and all they’d ask of Nelson was her smuggling services. But it usually took them longer—around a year after the child was resituated, due to their low earnings. Which meant they required the whole shebang: insertion, tracking, kidnapping, and smuggling.

  Of course, there was only a very small number of families we could help in this way. Each mission came with a risk to our lives—either from the fa
mily whose home we were breaking into, or from the government, which would kill us if we were caught.

  Stealing too many children would also turn the heat up on people like us in general, who were running similar operations in other parts of the country. Right now, the number of children going missing could be put down to other causes, like kidnapping in the dark, criminal sense, and we were careful never to target the same area too many times.

  In addition, the number of parents who actually knew about services like ours, and dared to hire a group like us over the shadow web to begin with, was small.

  Plus, Nelson’s contact could only help a very limited number of people across the border.

  So yeah… I couldn’t see us changing the world anytime soon.

  But it was something, and it made my life feel a whole lot more meaningful, knowing I could prevent the kind of heartache I’d been through in even a handful of others. It brought purpose to my days, and gave me a bitter sense of satisfaction, that I was doing something to rebel against the system that had caused me so much grief. I believed our country’s leadership had taken a wrong turn, somewhere in the past several decades, and even if we never managed to correct it, I knew I wanted to be a small part in trying.

  “Right,” Nelson said, interrupting my train of thought. Her tone turned businesslike as she set her pad down on the table in front of her. “Let’s get this party started.”

  “Yeah, what was that about our target moving?” Abe asked, leaning forward in his seat and adopting a more serious expression.

  “Nothing major, like I said. It just seems that Grammy and Gramps have taken the boy and girl in for a sleepover tonight. The kids shifted to Parkdale City, which is why I called you guys here. It’ll make for a more direct journey.”

  We had a brother and sister to kidnap tonight, which was an unusual case. We didn’t usually take on two at a time, because most biological siblings didn’t end up in the same house, and also, it was more of a challenge. But for whatever reason, in this case, they had been taken together, and given that they were both small—under the age of three—they wouldn’t be difficult to carry, so Nelson had agreed to take the assignment.

  “How do you know it’s Grammy and Gramps?” Marco asked, frowning. He approached the table with two steaming cups and set them down in front of Nelson and Julia, before returning to the kitchenette to continue preparing the others.

  Nelson shrugged. “I guess it could be Uncle and Auntie. Point is, I’ve noticed that the kids travel to Parkdale every now and then, so I’m guessing whoever they’re staying with are relatives.”

  Ant sighed. “Well, I hope they’re old fogeys. They’ll be way easier to rob.”

  Everyone snorted—except for Jackie, who cast the twins a dark look. “Yeah, that would prevent a repeat of last time.”

  And I couldn’t help but share that sentiment. Our last excursion had been dicey, to say the least. We almost got caught, thanks to a surprise alarm nestled at the back of the property’s large yard, which the twins had somehow missed during their initial sweep of the place.

  “Well, tonight should be different,” Nelson said, taking a sip of her cocoa. “I did a scan on the electronics of both houses personally this time, because I knew there was a chance the kids could be at either one. So listen up. We have about an hour before departure, and we’ve got a bunch of stuff to cover. Marco, would you dim the lighting, please?”

  “Oh. So now I gotta play barista in the dark?”

  “Just do it.”

  He grumbled, but moved to switch off the lights. Nelson then projected her tablet screen onto one of the walls and began going over the schematics of the house.

  After an hour of discussion, and finishing up our hot chocolate, we were ready to leave.

  We donned our backpacks and left the meeting room, scaling the staircase to the top floor of the building. Nelson retrieved a key from her pocket and opened a door that led out onto the roof, and we all stepped outside into the cool April night.

  My eyes fell to the far end of the roof, where our ride was waiting: a small, military-grade stealth aircraft, which Marco piloted—and which had been given to us by another of Nelson’s contacts.

  It turned out there were more people in our society who were unhappy with the status quo than I had imagined, including those who were high up enough to have access to this kind of equipment. Which helped kindle that small hope in me that maybe, just maybe, things might change someday.

  For now, however, it was one child at a time. Or two, this evening, as the case may be…

  3

  Marco, the twins, Jackie, and I bundled into the aircraft, leaving Julia and Nelson on the ground. We carried two small drones with us on the ship, one of which the duo would control remotely once we arrived, to help us keep an eye on the surrounding area as we worked. It wouldn’t be a good idea for our entire team to go, especially when it wasn’t even required. And especially Nelson. If something happened to her, it would be bad for all of us. Particularly for me. She was the only person I knew who was even attempting to crack into the government’s archives, and without her, any hope I had of finding my daughter would basically vanish in a puff of smoke.

  So, yeah, suffice it to say I was praying for her long and continued good health, and I was happy for her to stay behind. She did more than her fair share of work in setting up and managing our missions, anyway.

  We tended to limit our excursion teams to five members: Marco, as our ever-trusty pilot, and then the rest of us for the ground team. Only two of the ground team would enter the house, with the other two staying in the aircraft to serve as backup in case anything went wrong. We were all trained in basic piloting, though I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable with anyone in the pilot’s seat except for Marco. Especially me, as I’d had the least experience. It was just important that we all knew some essentials, in case worse came to worst and something happened to him.

  Today, Jackie and I had offered to touch down first. Hopefully, all would go smoothly inside the house, and there would be no need to call on the twins for backup.

  “Everyone buckled in?” Marco called from the cockpit.

  “Yup,” the rest of us confirmed.

  “Okey dokey. Taking off in three, two, one…”

  The engine growled quietly—it was the noisiest the aircraft got during its entire flight process, thanks to its stealthy design—and we lifted off. I watched as Julia and Nelson waved up at us then headed back to the door, their forms quickly becoming small dots as the aircraft rapidly ascended into the sky.

  Once they were gone, I turned to my team. “Any of you ever been to Parkdale City?” I wondered, as I had never been.

  Abe and Ant shook their heads blankly, while Jackie gave a bitter nod. “Yeah. I worked there once.”

  I was tempted to ask for more details, as I always was with these friends-yet-strangers, and had to remind myself of our rule. No identifying information. I was pretty sure that none of our group would intentionally rat a fellow teammate out, even if they were caught, but who was to say what the government would do to us if one of us fell into their clutches? I wouldn’t put torture past our country’s current administration, given their liberal use of other violent methods to combat criminals—as well as the death penalty—if they thought they could extract information about a network of dissidents. Could any of us really withstand that kind of pressure? I didn’t know. I certainly wasn’t sure that I could, and while I was obviously hoping nothing like that ever happened, I slept easier at night knowing none of us could identify the others, even if we wanted to. It was also why none of us were allowed to take photographs of each other. The most we could do was describe general features, which wouldn’t be that helpful. Especially as I was pretty sure that at least some of our team wore wigs and contact lenses whenever we met… Nelson in particular.

  “Let’s just say Parkdale is about as bourgeois as you can get,” Jackie muttered. “Each family has an average of,
like, four kids, or something.”

  I blew out, leaning back in my seat and thinking of my old neighborhood, which had been about as upper class as you could get. There, households probably had an average of seven kids. My adoptive parents had had eight in total, including me, and had been talking about adopting at least one more.

  Having grown up in that environment, I honestly hadn’t thought much of it. It had just seemed normal, until I moved out, was forced to give up my own child, and saw how the lowest rungs of society lived. It was then that I started asking myself why it happened. Why did the wealthier families want so many kids around them, kids who weren’t even their own flesh and blood?

  The news channels had answered that question for me, telling me that the redistribution scheme had gone smoothly because the wealthy had embraced raising children as a responsibility to our nation. They’d seen it as a way to avoid another crisis and to give those born in lower-income families the chance for a better life. But, still, the scheme was optional for them. No household was forced to raise others’ children, and certainly not in the numbers I had seen. Which meant they had to genuinely want them.

  Had the wealthy always wanted this many kids, throughout history? I doubted it.

  It had started to feel to me like the number of children they took in had become something of a status symbol over the years, thanks to the Burchard Regime. Like kids had become collectibles, and adopting them was akin to owning a fleet of cars, or a selection of vacation homes. Especially as nannies did most of the grunt work involved in raising the children.

  It would be unfair to say that my adoptive parents had never shown me love, because they had, but I also couldn’t say that they’d ever had a lot of time for me, in between their own careers and all of their other children, none of whom were biological.

  I sometimes thought of my younger siblings, back home, and wondered how they were getting on now. If they missed me at all. And what my parents had even told them, given that they’d been so keen to hide my pregnancy. I guessed my father would have thought up some good excuse, and that they’d all then just gotten on with life. It wasn’t like they’d been given an option to keep in touch with me, even if they’d wanted to. Plus, they no doubt had at least one other new sibling to distract them by now.