Harbinger

18: OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE!

Having seen Tommy Chang’s cat ears at Poppymeadows, Olivia could not erase the image from her mind. At the Ranch, there had been a big black feral barn cat that always stood aloof from everyone and everything. The other cats would seek out humans, rub against ankles and beg for milk. The black would find a safe perch to watch Olivia at her chores and glare at her when she tried to approach him.

Now that Olivia had seen Tommy’s ears, even though he’d hidden them away under his signature bandana, he seemed very much like the black barn cat. He had said little while she talked to Toad and even less as she gathered up her marines and herded them outside. He tucked himself into corners and watched intently with his golden eyes. Where the other girls who worked Liberty Avenue called him dangerous and unfriendly, Olivia sensed only that he was leery of strangers.

She worked for years to win the barn cat over. The first thing she’d learned was to be patient and give the black tom space. Trying to catch him and hold onto him only made him more feral. She half-expected Tommy to leave immediately but he stayed, watching.

She wanted him to stay. The royal marines had some combat experience but they knew nothing about Pittsburgh. Aiofe knew modern technology but not the city or the darker side of human nature. Olivia had no real reason to trust Gaddy. Toad was a charismatic idiot who could sway people into stupid things. Olivia didn’t want this rescue mission to depend on her skills alone.

Tommy cultivated a dangerous bad-boy image: the black bandana, the tank top that showed off his muscled arms, a corded leather bracelet, knobby jungle boots, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Even the way he lit the cigarette seemed menacing and cool. How did he do that? Did he practice when he was young or was it somehow just ingrained?

And did he have a tail?

Olivia fought her curiosity to keep her eyes off his butt. The jeans he wore weren’t tight enough to make it obvious, although the front suggested that the man was well endowed.

“Jonnie Be Good,” Aiofe was saying into her phone. “Tall. Blond ponytail. He had some kind of crop job done to his ears so they’re pointed.”

“His real name is Jurek Beiger,” Tommy said.

“You got to be kidding,” Toad said.

A dark look from Tommy sent Toad climbing into the back of the cargo truck with the marines for protection. The marines greeted Toad with enthusiasm, pelting him with questions about his loud Hawaiian shirt and plastic flip-flop sandals. (She hadn’t noticed Toad’s footwear but based on the marines’ exclamations, apparently the sandals looked like red lobsters.)

Aiofe repeated the name. “2208 East Street, Pittsburgh, 15212? Okay, thanks!”

“Is there more than one East Street?” Gaddy murmured as she checked her map. “No. Okay. That’s odd.” She pointed down the street that they were standing in. “Well, at the end of this street turn left onto North Avenue, go over I-279 and turn left onto Madison Avenue. Madison becomes East Street.”

“We’re that close?” Olivia asked as she climbed up into the truck’s driver’s seat.

“Maybe,” Gaddy continued to frown at her map. “I’ll go ahead on my hoverbike and check house numbers — if I can find any.”

Tommy pointed at another hoverbike tucked into a narrow alley between two row houses. “I’ll follow you.”

The barn cat was coming too? That surprised Olivia and made her happy.

Olivia nodded, trying not to look pleased. Tommy might find her joy alarming; it would be like rushing the barn cat before it was actually willing to trust her.

Olivia had assumed Gaddy’s “if I can find any” to mean that most of the homes in the area were abandoned and thus without house numbers. As they turned onto East Street, it became apparent that Gaddy had meant “if I can find any houses” as the street seemed utterly devoid of buildings. It made the address of 2208 odd, considering the area was empty.

“Oh, I’ve heard about this,” Aiofe said from the seat beside Olivia. “An old geezer that grew up near here said that there used to be a neighborhood here until the middle of last century. They decided to put this highway in and needed to bulldoze all the houses that were in this valley. He said that when he was growing up, this area was covered with basements left behind after the houses above them had been torn down.”

Half a century had been long enough to erase all evidence of a once-thriving neighborhood. Maples grew thick on steep hillsides, dressing the valley with reds and brilliant yellows. As they headed north toward the Rim, the trees slowly changed from maples to ironwoods. In the distance, the top of the hill had been cleared and windmills churned in the afternoon sun.

“Is that where Tinker domi razed the area?” Olivia asked.

“Yeah, it was a complete hames! No one even knew that she and the Viceroy were back in the city as they hadn’t been in town before Shutdown. She was out at the crack of dawn, swooping down on construction crews with a sekasha at her back, saying that they had to come help her build infrastructure. I got a dozen calls telling me to grab a jo maxi and hurry out to the job site before someone got beheaded.”

The road rounded a curve, revealing a large, beautiful, pale limestone cathedral. Gaddy was coming back toward them; she had scouted ahead. The woman pointed at the cathedral and turned into the parking lot.

“Oh, he didn’t.” Olivia growled in anger, slowing down. “Oh, the bastard! He squatted in a cathedral?”

“St. Boniface — technically — isn’t a cathedral, it’s just a church,” Aiofe said. “It was never the seat of the Pittsburgh bishop.”

“It looks like a cathedral,” Olivia murmured in defiance, still angry that a slimewad like Jonnie Be Good had taken over holy ground.

As she slowed, she noticed that there was a driveway between the church and a second pale limestone building that seemed to be some kind of office or residence for the priest. She pulled to a stop where she could peer down the drive. It led to a small enclosed courtyard with a two-stall carport. She recognized the truck parked in the second stall: it was the pickup with a lift kit that Jonnie had driven to Toad Hall. He’d obviously hidden it from anyone who might drive past the church.

“He’s here.” She pulled into the driveway to block the pickup in.

There seemed to be a third building behind the church. It was made of red bricks, not limestone, but from its shape and bell tower, it seemed to be a religious school or a secondary chapel. She couldn’t tell from the driveway how the three buildings were connected or where the entrance to the red structure was. She had already spotted six different doors to the church and office building. There were sure to be more, not counting all the windows.

Even with twenty marines, it was going to be difficult to keep Jonnie Be Good from rabbiting. She made sure to pocket the cargo truck’s keys. The royal marines had been waiting for orders. Seeing her, they spilled out of the back, surprisingly quiet and tense, like bird dogs before the start of the hunt.

“We’re trying to find a human male,” Olivia said. “He’s tall and blond. He…He…” What was the word for “surgery”? “He cut his ears so he could look more like an elf.”

The marines fingered their pointed ears with various expressions of uncertainty, confusion and horror on their faces. She understood their feelings; it was how she felt about the idea of being transformed into an elf.

“He may not be alone here,” Olivia said. “Your main objective is to stop anyone from fleeing this area.” Olivia pointed at the door from the office building to the courtyard. “Break into teams. Go quietly. Circle the…” What was the word for church? “Circle these buildings.” She pointed at the sprawling church and its various outbuildings. “Make sure no one can escape out a back door. We need whoever is inside alive to question them. Try not to break anything — this is a holy place.”

Maynard’s warning flashed through her mind. She added, “Be careful as there may be traps.”

Dagger took command, splitting the warriors into teams to the four quadrants of the map. “Go, go, go,” the female commanded quietly.

Olivia checked the nearest door, which seemed to be a handicapped entrance into the church. It was neither trapped nor unlocked. She swung around to the front of the church where three sets of double doors faced the street. The middle set were unlocked.

The doors opened to a shadowed narthex with another set of doors leading to a huge nave. She slipped cautiously through both sets of doors. The pendant lights were off. The only illumination came from the high stained-glass windows, filling the space with light and deep shadows. It was at once comfortingly familiar and yet disquietingly strange. It was a massive nave, much bigger than her grandmother’s Presbyterian church. It had a huge domed ceiling inset with stained glass windows. The floor was tiled instead of carpeted. With its randomly colored square pieces of stone, the wide aisle reminded her of stained glass. The altar was heavily adorned with gold leaf. A massive painting of a crowned Jesus, belted in gold, holding a solid gold scepter hung above it. This was a princely Jesus — not her poor carpenter turned rabbi. A phrase in Latin ran along the top of the wall behind Jesus. She didn’t know what it meant. The ceiling was a vast dome covered in mosaics. Saints with gold halos gazed down at her. It was the twelve apostles although Judas the Betrayer had been swapped out for Paul. Somehow the addition of the word “saint” before their names made the disciples distant and unknowable.

Tommy ghosted in after her, followed by Toad, who sounded like a demented penguin in his flip-flops. (And yes, they looked like red lobsters complete with antennae, eyes, nubbly shells, and oversized claws. Why would anyone wear those?)

“Do you think he’s here?” Toad whispered.

“Shh!” Olivia pointed fiercely at the pew nearest Toad. “Sit. Wait.”

Toad sat, looking bug-eyed in surprise. She was vaguely surprised that Toad obeyed her; he normally attempted to walk all over her. The rifle on her back and the marines at her beck and call might have changed his mind.

Olivia caught sight of an unmade bed on the floor behind the altar; all thoughts of Toad vanished. It was a big queen-size air mattress pumped up to nearly two feet thick, with sheets of fairy silk and a faux red fox fur blanket. A can of beer sat next to the unmade bed, sweat beading down its side. Someone had been in bed until recently.

The sight of it made her furious. “All this space! Three buildings’ worth! And he’s sleeping right on top of the altar?”

Tommy wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, that’s Jonnie’s bed. It reeks of him.” Tommy walked in a wide circle, sniffing. “He was here recently. He probably heard us pull up. He’s crawled into a hole. I can’t get a bead on him — too many people.”

“So it’s hide-and-seek?” Olivia said. “Okay, we can play that.”

Olivia’s mother married a man with five other wives. All told there were ten boys and fourteen girls, not counting Olivia. The Ranch overflowed with children but it lacked toys. It meant that playground games were the only distraction. Red Rover. Red Light Green Light. Double Dutch. But in the winter, when snow and sleet kept everyone inside, there was only Hide and Seek.

Since Olivia always started as “It,” she had gotten very good at the game. Of course, this triggered her stepbrothers to insist that she was cheating somehow. What they never realized was all the little tiny clues someone hiding left behind. Dirty footprints on clean floors. Furniture moved ever so slightly from its normal position. Floors whispering that they were bearing a nervously shifting weight. The faint scent of a dirty boy. The gentle sigh of a breath released when the searcher turned away.

The hide-and-seek games at the Ranch had pitted her against her twenty-two stepsiblings. Their family used the rules that anyone who touched home base would be “free” and if Olivia didn’t tag at least one person before they could reach home, she would be “It” a second time. With twenty-two possible full-out panic runs for freedom, she discovered the number one rule for winning: until you had the hidden person cornered, never let them know that they’d been found. Cornering someone required moving quietly, pretending that you hadn’t spotted their hiding place, and taking the appropriate measures to block their escape.

Olivia scanned the area. The outer doors had all been shut. There were two doors at the front of the nave. The left one was closed but the right was open halfway. She walked quietly to the door, keeping to the hinge side. She paused at the doorway to peer through the crack between the hinge and the frame. The sacristy lay beyond, although it seemed as if the priest had taken the vestments when the church was abandoned. There was no place large enough to hide a full-grown man within. She slipped inside, careful not to touch the door that might squeak.

A window looked out over a second courtyard between the church and the mystery redbrick building and a baseball field. Two marines stood staring through the high fence, obliviously mystified by the baseball diamond still visible through the tall grass. They hadn’t noticed the hoverbike parked in the courtyard. To be fair, they hadn’t been warned to keep watch for one.

If Jonnie had heard the cargo truck, he could have realized his pickup was blocked in. He might have headed toward the bike. Had he seen the marines and decided to hide instead? She needed to get between Jonnie and his bike.

Olivia tiptoed through the sacristy. The far door opened to a long dusty hallway. There were three doorways on the left. The passage ended with a stairway down. A sign explained that the stairs led to a basement locker room and the baseball diamond. From what Olivia had seen from the window, going out to the ball field would have trapped Jonnie within the tall fence. He probably hadn’t gone that way.

The first two doorways on the left had beautiful wood paneled interior doors with leaded glass transom windows above them that spilled sunlight into the hallway. They seemed original to the century-old church. The last doorway had an ugly modern exterior steel security door that was so new, Jonnie must have installed it himself. If he’d gone through the last door, he’d be at the hoverbike already.

He was behind one of the wood paneled doors. Which one?

The hallway had a layer of dust bunnies covering the floor. While Jonnie hadn’t cleaned the passage, he used it enough that there were no helpful fresh tracks. As she stood considering the two interior doors, she noticed that more dust motes were dancing in the sunlight coming through the far transom window. Jonnie must have kicked up the dust as he ducked into the room.

If she tiptoed carefully to the exit, she could step outside, wave over the marines, and have them tackle Jonnie.

Squeakie, squeakie, squeakie. Toad came up behind her, his lobster flip-flops making a horrible noise in the silent church.

Olivia motioned him to be still and quiet.

He pulled out his phone, mouthed, “I can call him” and pushed a button.

From the far room, music started to play. “Why did you go out on the road? You were my friend and now you’re dead. You wear the mark of tire tread.”

The door burst open and Jonnie was on the run.

Olivia ran after him. If he got to the hoverbike, he could escape before any of them got to a vehicle to give chase. He was halfway across the courtyard when she reached the door. The marines were turning from the fence, surprised and confused. Jonnie was going to get away.

Like hell he was.

She brought her rifle around, took aim and fired. Jonnie went down with a yelp.

“You shot him!” Toad cried with shock.

“Yes, I did!” Olivia shouted. “If he doesn’t stop running, I’m going to shoot him again.”

That checked Jonnie’s limping run. He swore loudly as he checked his wound. “You stupid bitch! You could have killed me.”

Olivia lowered the rifle slightly and fired a round into the soft ground beside Jonnie. “I might still kill you if you keep calling me a bitch. You’re going to tell me where Peanut Butter Pie and the others are, and you better tell me the truth because you’re not going to the hospital until we find them.”

“I’m bleeding!” Jonnie cried.

“Yes, you are! One tends to do that after being shot!” Olivia advanced on the downed EMT with rifle leveled. “You’re going to be fine unless you keep screwing around with me. Where is Peanut Butter Pie?”

“I had nothing to do with that!” Jonnie cried.

“You brought those men to Toad Hall. Because of you, Joyboy is dead. You know who took the others. Where did they take them?”

“They didn’t tell me that they were going to break down the door like a murder squad. They said that they just wanted to talk to Knickknack about a business project.”

“Where. Are. They?” Olivia closed to just out of lunging distance and pointed the rifle directly at Jonnie’s face. She was aware that the marines had come to flank her but they didn’t have their weapons out. They must have thought she had the situation handled.

“I don’t know!” Jonnie shouted. “They were wussy off-world businessmen — the kind that walk around downtown in their stupid skinny-leg suits looking like dorky schoolboys. You know the type with the waxed-down hair, enough cologne to choke a cow, and their frat-boy rings. I know you know — I’ve seen them cruising Liberty Avenue in their town cars. I didn’t think they would have guns. I didn’t think they would hurt anyone. That was my honey pot. My hoes and my drugs. I wouldn’t have taken them there if I didn’t think they were harmless douchebags.”

“They’re the most dangerous of men,” Olivia said. “The ones that can do anything and walk away clean because people think they’re respectable ‘God-fearing’ men.”

“I thought they were safe or I wouldn’t have taken them to Toad’s,” Jonnie whined.

“Fine, we’ll pretend that you didn’t recognize the top of the food chain when you saw it,” Olivia said. “What did they want with Knickknack? What business project?”

“I didn’t ask. That’s not how it works. I provide what my customers want, no awkward questions asked. They’re here on visas; it’s a ticking clock. They don’t have time to figure shit out for themselves. If they want a bag of weed, I sell it to them. If they want a blonde in a tight red dress at their hotel room at eight, I set it up. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“They told you something,” Olivia growled. “Why Knickknack?”

“They said they just wanted to talk to people who knew how to do magic like Tinker for a business project.” Jonnie laughed. “Like Tinker? Like Tinker? I told them that they were shit outta luck — the creature doesn’t exist. They offered me a bounty if I could produce someone to help them with their project, so I dug around. I told them about Oilcan but he dropped off the face of the planet just before the black willow tore up Reinhold’s. When he popped back up, he either had a dragon or a sekasha with him. I suggested Tooloo — she does some magic out of her store in McKees Rocks, but that didn’t pan out. Every time they went to see her, no one would be at her place except some crazy attack chicken. I even suggested that guy that makes the ironwood furniture but that got fucked up somehow. Then out of the blue, I stop by Toad’s to find out our little Knickknack is a freaking magical genius. He had printed a spell onto these ceramic plates that did some weird voodoo on the saijin seeds so they would grow.”

“You sold out Knickknack?” Toad growled.

“I thought they just wanted to hire him!” Jonnie said.

“Job interviews don’t include the recruiters kicking down your door,” Olivia said.

Jonnie shook his head. “The furniture guy made them jumpy. They wanted to be ready if someone else pulled a gun. I didn’t think they would do anything — they were afraid of a chicken, for Christ’s sake!”

“Who are ‘they’? Where do we find them?” Olivia said.

Jonnie looked away, obviously trying to decide if he could get away with lying. What a man-child.

“You’re going to hide from them the rest of your life?” Olivia asked.

“They found me anytime they wanted something,” Jonnie admitted in a low voice. “I don’t even know how they knew about me in the first place. First time I met them was about two years ago — they came to the station and were waiting by my truck when I got off work. I thought they were cops at first. It really spooked me; that’s why I moved my squat to this place. I didn’t think anyone knew where I lived. How did you find me?”

If Aoife could find Jonnie by asking the city, then anyone with the right connections could find him. They just needed the right name. Aoife and Gaddy came running around the corner with the last of the marines.

“They had all the goods on you and you didn’t even know who they worked for?” Olivia asked with disdain.

“They pay me not to ask.” Jonnie sulked. “That how it works. All I know is their company logo. They put it on everything.”

Jonnie pulled out a ballpoint pen. It was a big fat thing done in matte black, stamped with the golden image of a crowned lion’s head and the word Erobern. She’d seen the logo before, somewhere — maybe on the side of a delivery truck. It was familiar but she couldn’t place it.

Aiofe took the pen from Olivia. “Erobern is German. It means ‘conquer’ but I haven’t heard of any company using that name here in Pittsburgh. It’s possibly a company slogan.”

“They’ve got offices downtown,” Jonnie said. “But I’m not sure where. They just call it ‘the office’ but they’ve made it clear that I’m not to show up there.”

The company wouldn’t be holding whores hostage in their corporate offices. Being that Toad Hall was on the North Side and Joyboy had been found on the opposite bank, miles downriver, it was probable that they stopped along the way to dump Joyboy’s body.

“Does the company have anything downriver?” Olivia said. “Almost to the Rim?”

“Yeah,” Jonnie said as if he hadn’t expected the question. “They’ve got a shipyard down on Neville Island.”

“The old Dravo shipyards?” Gaddy said.

“You know where it is?” Olivia said.

“My grandfather worked for Dravo as a shipfitter until the nineteen eighties,” Gaddy said. “They hired him as a consultant after Startup to build ships to sell to the elves. There was a massive fire at the shipyard a few years after they launched their first boats. It gutted the place. I thought it closed for good after that.”

Jonnie shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it except they retooled the place a little while back and it was supposed to start up production again.”

“They might have Knickknack and the others there,” Olivia said.

They got Jonnie to the back of his pickup and left it to Toad to drive him to Mercy Hospital. Olivia took Jonnie’s phone and then made sure Toad understood that Jonnie wasn’t to be given access to any way of warning the kidnappers.

“We need to scout the area to ascertain the enemy force that is guarding the kids,” Olivia said.

“You really think they’re still alive?” Tommy asked.

“Yes,” Olivia said. “They probably didn’t set out to kill Joyboy; it feels like a random act triggered by an escalation of violence. Once Joyboy was dead, though, how do you get Knickknack to cooperate with you? You take hostages. If nothing else, they’re following the oni blueprint on how to get a working gate. Knickknack is a smart boy, he’s probably stalling in the most cooperative manner that he can.”

“He’s trying to actually build a gate?” Tommy asked with doubt clear in his voice.

“He’s making it look as if he is,” Olivia said. “He probably can’t but he’s not going to tell them that he can’t at this point.”

Tommy tilted his head as if to say, “It’s possible.”

Gaddy took out her map and spread it out on the tailgate of the cargo truck. “This is Neville Island. It’s largely abandoned; the shipyard was one of the last businesses down there still operating.” According to the map scale, the island was nearly five miles long. The narrow strip of land sat in the middle of the Ohio River. “I found Jevin’s body under this bridge across the back channel here. This notch here on the northern bank — that’s the ramp they use to slide the boats down into the river after they’re finished. The fire took out the buildings attached to the shipyard, so I’m not sure what’s there now.”

Tommy grunted. “I was down in this area a couple of times after Tinker first invented the hoverbikes. It was a complete no-man’s-land. Her team had the run of the island. Tinker had set up jumps and such to make an insane course where one missed jump landed you in the river. Everyone was more than happy to move to my racetrack when I set it up. A few days ago, we had a fight with the oni and Iron Mace at the hotel where Oilcan used to live. Oilcan killed Iron Mace at the dam.” Tommy pointed to a line drawn across the main channel of the Ohio River about a mile from the notch. “After the fighting, I was trying to stay out of the elves’ way.” He drifted his finger toward the notch. “I noticed that something was going on here. There were buildings that looked new but what really stood out was the big electric chain link fence all around it and prison-level guard detail. The Wyverns checked to see if the people were humans or oni. There was no mass beheading, so I’m assuming that they were happy with whatever they found.”

A high-security human business site. It sounded like the perfect place to hold whores prisoner.

“We should go to the hotel,” Olivia said. “There was activity there recently. If we’re spotted, then they probably will assume that we’re there because of something that happened during the fight. From there, we can make an attack plan.”

Tommy gave her a surprised look but nodded. “That sounds smart.”

Neville Island looked like something out of a postapocalypse film. Industrial buildings crumbling with disrepair. Weed-choked parking lots. Rusting vehicles with flat tires. Random trash everywhere. A chair. A desk. A filing cabinet. It was like someone put them on the street to take and then abandoned them. Scattered here and there were also remnants of a hoverbike race course. Near the bridge where Joyboy’s body had been found was a large berm turn of packed dirt along with homemade arrows outlining the lip. Anyone who overshot the turn would end up in the river. Part of the sidewalk along the road had dirt jump rhythm section. Beside the driveway to the collapsed hotel was a high tabletop jump. Knowing that Tinker had been thirteen when she invented the hoverbike, the race course construction was even more impressive. It would have required dump trucks full of dirt from someplace, dug up by backhoes and packed down with bulldozers.

It was telling, too, that Tommy had managed to replicate it someplace else and had lured the racing circuit out to it. The man had mad people skills despite his barn cat ways.

The battle at Tinker’s childhood home had leveled the abandoned hotel. It made an impressive mound of debris. There was some yellow tape, fluttering in the wind, put in place by the police or the EIA. Judging by the fresh footprints in the mud, the tape failed to keep the curious from picking through the rubble.

Olivia pulled the cargo truck into the hotel’s driveway, running over the tape. Parking and pocketing the keys to the truck, she pulled the binocular case out of her purse, once again glad that she had thought to steal them from her husband. She looped their strap over her head as she waved the marines out of the truck.

“Secure the immediate area,” she said.

Once the marines were fanning out, Olivia scrambled up onto the tabletop jump to scan the area with her binoculars. The area was as flat as one expected for an island in the middle of a large river that flooded often. It had probably started life as a sandbar in some prehistoric time. While the tabletop gave her a vantage point, there were still dozens of warehouse buildings blocking her view of the entire island.

Gaddy muscled her hoverbike up the steep slope to stop beside Olivia.

“Where is the shipyard?” Olivia asked.

“We’re facing west on Neville Road.” Gaddy indicated the street beside them. She pointed out a dam with two locks along the far riverbank. “To the north, that’s the Emsworth Locks and Dam on the main channel of the Ohio. That’s where Oilcan fought with Iron Mace.” She pointed south to the other side of the island. “Okay, follow Neville Road west and you’ll see that there’s a second dam on the Ohio’s back branch. It’s smaller and it doesn’t have any locks.”

Olivia found it. The road seemed to come within fifty feet of the southern bank at that spot. “I see it.”

“Right there, a second street splits away from Neville Road, goes north, and turns to run parallel to it. That’s Grand Avenue, which always seemed to me to be too fancy a name for such an industrial area. The shipyard is off of Grand Avenue, along the northern bank. Tommy is right; there’s a big new building there, right where the shipyard should be.”

Olivia found the massive steel building, longer than a football field. It was difficult to tell how tall it was as there were no windows to mark off floors. It seemed three or four stories high. A gold crown and the word “Midas” had been painted onto the side of the building.

“I always thought you built a ship outside,” she murmured. “Not indoors.”

Perhaps the shipbuilding was a cover story for something else. There seemed to be smaller buildings beyond the big one but it was hard to tell from their angle. A tall chain-link fence surrounded the buildings.

Tommy popped his hoverbike up to land beside her. Aiofe stayed with the marines, still peppering them with anthropology questions about the Fire Clan in general. Olivia really had to admire the girl for her diligence.

“What is your plan?” Tommy said. “Storm in? Guns blazing?”

Olivia shook her head. By his tone, it sounded like he’d leave if she came up with that sketchy of a plan. The Ranch had police raid drills based on the assumption that the children would be seen as helpless pawns, not well-trained soldiers. She wasn’t sure who had the flawed worldview — the police or the elders. Working backward, it was fairly easy to tell a standard hostage rescue mission required a distraction.

They had too little information, though. They were assuming that the shipyard had been the kidnappers’ destination. That Knickknack and the others had been kept together. That they were still alive and hadn’t done anything stupid and the violence hadn’t escalated after the men moved their hostages. Olivia didn’t want to blindly charge in to discover that there was no one to save. She didn’t want to risk the marines for nothing.

How could they get more information?

“Why don’t the two of you do a lap on the racetrack? Make it seem like you’re just two kids, messing around, but see if you can spot anything that can tell us exactly who is at the shipyard?”

Gaddy laughed. “Yeah, sure, I’ll race against a Delta but I’m not going to win.”