Stop, Thief!

Commuter crowds bustled under the arches of Szélkirály Station’s high ceiling, echoing like an ocean in a marble seashell. Gavin remembered seashells. They littered the beaches of the world he was from, washed ashore by gentle, steady lapping of its shallow, green seas. He remembered his bare feet in the sand, kicking half-buried ammonite shells out of the surf. Running his fingers along their rough, segmented spirals and, if they were reasonably whole, lifting them to his ear to hear the roar of a real ocean. But today, the screech of sneakers on polished floors rang out over the roar as he and a half dozen other stunted shapes plunged through the churning masses below.
They were grubby little things, hair unwashed and uncut, clothing stitched and awfully thin for Reach’s crisp climate. Gavin’s own hair was dark brown and fell to his neck on either side of a fair, rounded face. His shirt and pants were rag-thin and clung to his skin under the fleece vest flapping behind him as he ducked under the elbows of over-dressed grown-ups. He made a game of cutting as close as he could to them, not looking back even when a station attendant in a blue, brass-buttoned uniform called after him, “Hey, you! No running on the platforms!”
Grown-ups never bothered giving chase. They had their own problems, and as soon as what they thought were someone else’s kids were out of sight, they put the little inconveniences out of mind. But Gavin was his own kid, and if grown-ups only noticed him when he was in the way, he’d be happy to take his turn ignoring them. Being so easily written off made it tempting to slip his nimble fingers into a few pockets, but the time wasn’t right just yet. There was a plan in place, and he had to stick to it.
At twelve years old, Gavin was dwarfed by most of the densely-packed crowd, leaving him in a forest of shifting bodies. Unable to see more than a few feet ahead at any time through their overlapping shapes, he zigzagged from one pocket of briefly-open floor space to the next. Then another short outline dashed across his path, and Gavin threw himself sideways to follow its trail. The wake this other boy left cleared a path, and Gavin caught him just as they neared the foot of an escalator.
The crowd pressed even tighter here, everyone trying to squeeze their way into the single-file stairwell. A loose, funnel-shaped approximation of a line had formed which Gavin and the other boy promptly ignored. Just as one square-jawed man with a thick mustache was about to seize his turn, one of the boys bumped into his side. Before he could utter a syllable in protest, the other slipped into the stairwell in front of them and pulled his friend in after. As their stair ascended, Gavin held his breath and listened until the man got on behind them, grunting in resignation.
He relaxed, certain the man wouldn’t raise a fuss, but his mouth stayed taut in a scowl which he ducked his head to hide. If you looked unhappy, people wanted to stop and give you change. Happy made them remember you for making them smile back. If you just kept your head down, Gavin had learned, they’d ignore the gaunt cheeks and slender wrists revealed by too-short sleeves, no matter how long you were in their line of sight. He stole a glance at the other boy to see him doing the same. He was shorter than Gavin, but looked wider wrapped in an overstuffed blue parka. He had Sahara-gold skin, wiry black curls pressed close to his head, and was fidgeting under the puffy coat. Just as their escalator neared the next floor, he looked up, pointed, and slapped Gavin’s arm.
A balcony overlooked the escalator from its side, empty save for one figure: a blonde-haired girl in a baggy orange hoodie, staring out over the platforms below. As soon as they reached the top of the stairwell, the boys broke away from the crowd and bounded over to her. Before they’d even come to a stop, she asked, “How many got through the turnstiles?”
“Eight.” Answered the dark-haired boy. “Réka, Laz and Gáspár all got thrown out, but the rest of us made it, Judy.”
“Red was right, then.” Judy said, not looking up. “If we all rush in at once, security can’t catch everyone without the Super to keep track.”
Judy was smaller than the boys, despite having at least a year on either of them, and she wasn’t especially strong or fast. Gavin and the others sometimes teased her for how much she cared about her appearance; living in New Alexandria’s streets, getting dirty was inevitable, and the chances for a decent bath were so few that most of their little band didn’t even bother. But Judy always washed her face after every meal, no matter how meager they were, and kept her short hair tied back in blue rubber bands. Yet, none of the unruly little urchins ever questioned her as the leader, because she knew how to survive. 
When Gavin first slipped through the cracks between New Alexandria’s starscrapers, becoming another lost boy in the refugee-crowded streets, he was terrified. Left behind on a strange planet by the space freighter he’d stowed away on, too far from home to even comprehend the distance, and too young to know how to buy things even if he had the money, he’d have been dead within a week if Judy hadn’t found him. She knew all the worst-guarded stalls in the Magyar farmers’ markets, that you had to sell flowers far away from the garden you’d picked them in, and how to lift Chatters out of a pocket without tugging at the fabric. And somehow, by means she’d never told any of them, the Superintendent-class AI controlling everything in the city from air traffic to garbage disposal could never see her. Cameras, facial recognition, and biometric scans never caught them when she was around, and without the whole city tracking a young thief’s every move, she opened the doors to many opportunities.
For the first year, it’d been just the two of them. Then came Red, and dark-haired Mickey, and before long they’d put together a little gang of their own. Judy had taught each one everything they needed to know, if they hadn’t learned it from the street already. But while they had more hands in more pockets, it meant the haul was split more ways, and not even Judy was successful all the time. Selling stolen flowers was cute and brought a few credits, but five of them couldn’t live on just that and a half-decent score a week like two kids could, never mind ten. So, by necessity, they’d gone beyond waiting for fat wallets to turn up in the pockets they picked and went looking for bigger marks. That meant bigger risks taken more often, and they couldn’t beat the odds every time. A few friends had been nicked by the police and sent who knew where, but the rest learned in time. Learned what strategies worked and what places yielded the best takes. Places like Szélkirály Station.
“Are they here yet?” the dark-haired boy asked, following Judy’s stare over the rail.
She shook her head. “Not yet. If they ran into trouble . . .”
“Wait, wait. Wait a minute.”
Judy looked up and found, to her annoyance, Gavin wasn’t even looking at them. He was facing the totally opposite way, scanning the crowd with a concerned eye.
“There were nine of us who made it. Where’s Dyne?” he asked.
“Lost, if we’re lucky.” Muttered the dark-haired boy.
“Shut up, Mickey.” Gavin shot back. Mickey rolled his eyes and went sulkily to the rail, keeping a lookout one way as Gavin did the other.
After a moment with their backs turned on one another, Gavin heard Judy exhale and the steady slap of her sneakers approaching. She came to a stop beside him, and in the corner of his eye could see her arms were crossed. Then, one of her hands dropped into her hoodie’s pocket, emerging accompanied by the crinkle of a wrapper.
“Karamella?” she asked. A peace offering. It was one of the few non-essentials she made allowances for, and the only one she allowed for herself. When times were good, she always carried a few on her as bribes to keep the littler kids in line. Offering him one felt like a sting, somehow.
His eyes dropped briefly to his sneakers. “Alright.” He mumbled, plucking the caramel from her palm and slipping it into his own pocket. He’d listen, but he meant to be stubborn.
She joined him in watching the crowd for their late arrival. “He’s not one of us, you know. Every day, he goes back to a warm bed and a hot meal. He thinks it’s all a game.”
“Is that so bad?” Gavin protested. “He doesn’t have any friends to play with in the orphanage, and another pair of hands helps us out, even if they’re just a distraction. Why do you have such a problem with him?”
“Because he actually has a place there, Gav, where he belongs.” Judy rebuked him. “People who miss him when he runs away, and when he goes missing, people look for him. That means they come looking for us. Why do you keep encouraging him?”
She was right. Dyne was another chance for them to all get caught, and if that happened, the best they could hope for was a place in an orphanage like his. But with the flood of refugees fleeing the war in the colonies, all the homes were already overcrowded. They’d be sent all over the planet to find empty spaces, and what then? Nobody adopted the older kids, the ones who knew what their situation meant and would always resent it. They’d be thrown back out into the street one day, but they’d never see each other again.
All Gavin could do was shrug. “No one likes to be left out.”
“Maybe it’s better for everyone if he was.” She said softly. “We get caught on this one, it’ll be juvie, not just the orphanage.”
Gavin sighted down his shoulder to meet her dark blue eyes. “You nervous?” he asked.
“Psh.” Judy grinned, so widely Gavin almost joined in. “Excited, more like.”
“I am.” He said, turning back to the crowd. “Do we really have to do this?”
She pursed her lips, and the humor vanished. “It’s getting colder, Gavin. You know what that means. The markets close up, the tourists go away, and it gets that much harder to survive. Dyne isn’t getting a cut this time.”
Gavin opened his mouth to protest, but Judy cut him off without so much as raising her voice.
“There are more of us this time than last year. Too many. The job pays a lot of credits for a one-time score, and we’ll need all of it to get by. So we can’t afford handouts for a kid who doesn’t have to worry where his next meal is coming from.”
She kept her eyes locked forward, suggesting she’d take no argument on the point. Gavin chewed his lip for a moment, then quietly asked, “. . . so he can come?”
Judy rolled her eyes and exaggerated a sigh. “Like I could stop you, anyway. Here he comes.”
Sure enough, as Gavin looked back, a figure even smaller than Judy burst through the crowd’s gaps and scurried their way. His eyes were slender, with brown eyebrows permanently arched to make him look excited. His tousled hair, unlike theirs, was shiny and clean, and his gray thermal shirt and pants fit neatly. He trotted to a stop in front of Gavin, panting heavily as Judy walked away to join Mickey at the rail.
“Made it!” the five-year-old crowed. “I got distracted at the gift shop . . . they had toy trains.”
Sheepishly, he drew a sleek, plastic monorail car out of his pocket, rolling it over between his hands. As he looked up, proud to show the older kid what he’d got, Gavin grabbed his wrists and pushed the car back into his pocket.
“Dyne,” Gavin hissed, “I told you no stealing until we said.” It was starting to look like Judy had the right idea.
“I know, I’m sorry.” Dyne ducked his head. “But I never get to go on trains.”
Gavin blew out a long breath between his lips, then glanced at the others to be sure they weren’t looking. “Fine,” he said, “just keep it hid, and don’t tell anyone.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the caramel.
The boy brightened and took it, nodding secretively. Then they both turned and hurried over to join Judy and Mickey, and none too late.
“There they are.” Mickey said, pointing.
Below, the scratched tile of Szélkirály Station’s platforms glittered, reflecting the sunlight of Epsilon Indi from skylights overhead. Dark trenches separated them where the Mag-Lev monorails came in to berth, hundred-ton columns of gleaming aluminum gliding seamlessly into the gaps on straight-edged steel beams. As each arrived, their doors opened and expelled more people to swell the crowd, then started soaking them up again a few minutes later.
From above, the kids could see the crowds didn’t move so randomly as they seemed from the ground. There were a finite number of points inside the terminal they streamed to and from, and between the well-worn trails, another trio of kids slipped out from under the ties and business suits. A blond boy and a dark-haired girl, instinctively flanking the taller, stocky boy in the lead, all ‘Bigs’, which they called older urchins. The leader had brown hair cut back in a short mullet, wore a gray wool coat and the same wary scowl Gavin did to deflect attention, but the expression looked more like it was pressed permanently into his rounded jaw than put on as a mask. They were glancing around, different ways like they were watching each other’s backs, but they hadn’t looked up and spotted Judy and her group yet.
“Just in time, too.” Judy remarked. She nodded across the platforms to where another monorail was just coming into the station. “You’re on, Gav.”
Gavin nodded, taking a half-step back towards the escalators. “See you down there. Mickey, watch out for Dyne down there, got it?”
“Why do I have to look after the little kid?” Mickey asked, arms wide as the others turned to leave.
“Cause you’re the second-littlest kid.” Gavin called back, and slipped back through the people streaming off the ‘up’ escalator before Mickey could get a response.
The ‘down’ escalator was just as busy as the one going up, but Gavin didn’t have time or need for a clever entrance this time. He simply slipped between the two, hopped up on the banister, and used the slick chrome sheeting in the middle like a slide, heedless of the startled murmurs he passed as he picked up speed and slid down. His dismount at the end was more stumbling than graceful, but he stayed on his feet and ricocheted off a woman carrying too many shopping bags to chase him, then darted off in a zig-zag towards the monorail platform.
Nearing one end of the platform, a tourist family moved as one out of Gavin’s way, drawing back like a curtain to give him a clear line of sight to the three Bigs. And they saw him. But he’d already turned down the platform and had broken into a sprint by the time the leader yelled, “Get’m!”
As the three Bigs started thundering behind him, the train that had just pulled in opened its doors. Men and women in business suits started filing out of the evenly-spaced doors, and something changed about Gavin’s running. He bumped into people where he could’ve easily ducked around, and kept looking up to glance at faces even with the toughs on his heels. Then, when a knot of men in business suits all walking together stepped out of the next door, Gavin plunged smack into them.
His head collided with someone’s belly, winding them as he rebounded into another. Surprised and irritated grunts came from the suits as they looked down to see what’d happened to their doubled-over colleague, and grabbing the front of the nearest sport coat, Gavin looked back up at the wearer to sputter breathlessly, “Help me!”
A second later, the three coming after him charged into the group, turning the startled pause into a fray. “I’m gonna kill ya!” The blond shouted, and the lead boy made a grab for Gavin, who slipped away before the businessman he clung to could push him off. The arm fell short, and the leader tried to go around the man between them as the other pair shoved suits out of their way. The businessmen spread out as each tried to deal with their own little annoyance.
Suddenly, there were two more stunted shapes as another pair of children slipped out of the monorail, crossing over from the next platform. “Spare a credit?” piped a little girl from behind her fistfuls of daffodils. Another kid bumped into the dark-haired Big girl, and each stumbled into a grown-up. As perturbed grumbling turned to shouts of anger, still two more, Judy and Mickey, melted out of the crowds trying to squeeze past in or out of the Mag-Lev train, adding to the confusion.
The Big leader lunged at Gavin again, but it seemed to fall short for no particular reason. Then, as Gavin slipped behind another tall suit, Judy burst in from the side and shoved the woman, who tripped over the Big’s outstretched leg. She fell to the ground with an indignant shout, and her briefcase tumbled away, sliding across the smooth platform tile straight to Gavin’s feet. Gavin kicked the briefcase up, seized its handle, and was suddenly gone, lost in the crowd again.
Someone whistled, and instantly the grubby children scattered, back in all the directions they came and more. All but Judy. As she turned to run, a hand seized on the arm she’d let trail after her, and yanked her roughly back among the suits. She pulled back fiercely, but the woman she’d bowled over found a grip on her ankle, and held firm.
She tried to kick, but the hand on her wrist held her back and raised her arm high, revealing the stolen Chatterpad she clutched.
“They’re thieves!” its owner growled, and the other suits closed in, furiously demanding where briefcases, phones, and personal planners had gone.
----
Gavin was making a dead run for the end of the platform, certain while nobody looked twice at a rough-edged kid, one carrying a sleek, black briefcase might arouse suspicion. The lead Big was right behind him, but hadn’t so much as made a grab for him since coming within arm’s reach.
Ahead was a row of elevator doors lined neatly up with their platform, and Dyne was loitering innocuously be the one on the end. As soon as he saw the pair coming, with some of the other kids starting to fall in behind them, Dyne slapped the elevator’s call button and ran down the line, hitting every button as he went.
By the time the kids were nearing the elevators, more than half had opened up, and the group split again to take separate cars. Gavin chose the one on the end where Dyne had stopped, and the Big kept right with him. As soon as all three were in, Gavin jammed his finger into the button marked 7 and checked worriedly out the door over Dyne’s head. No sign of the suits. As the silver doors rolled shut, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“That it?” the Big asked, sizing up Gavin’s briefcase.
“It looked like the right one.” He replied, not bothering to look it over. Either it was the right one, or it wasn’t. It didn’t matter at this point. Instead, he smiled at the Big. “Good job chasing, by the way, Red. Really looked like you wanted to pummel me.”
“Yeah. Looked like. Sure.” Red smirked briefly, just as the elevator started rumbling up.
Not so long ago, Red would’ve had plenty of reason to pummel him. At thirteen, just a year older than Gavin, he stood half a head taller and at least that broader at the shoulders, and had been that size for at least a year, back when he was part of Felson’s Filchers. The Filchers were another band of runaways and orphans, led by an old thief who put the bigger ones to use carving out a territory. Judy and Gavin had both been in scrapes with them before, and Red was one of the more dangerous. He wasn’t the ‘Biggest’ Big by far, but he had a way of sizing up a fight and knowing off the bat if he could take someone, and how to turn the odds in his favor if he couldn’t.
Without windows, the elevator car was getting stuffier the longer it traveled, even with only three of them inside, making Gavin anxious. “Thought I told Mickey to look after you.” He grumbled Dyne’s way.
“I can look after myself.” The boy said defensively.
“No you can’t, first of all, and that isn’t the point. The point is he was supposed to be looking. You’ve gotta watch your friends’ backs here.”
“Well I’m not his friend anyway! Don’t get him in trouble.” Dyne shifted anxiously, not looking Gavin in the eye. “It’s okay. I know I’m not the most popular around you guys.”
Gavin paused, turning around to glance at him. Then he removed an arm from around the briefcase and wrapped it around Dyne’s shoulder. “Yeah, well, you’re popular with me.”
Dyne jolted and brushed the hand off like it was a spider, scrunching up his face. “Eugh, don’t do that! You’ve always gotta make it touchy-feely.”
Gavin frowned, hunching his shoulders as he got his grip around the briefcase again. “Well, fine then.” He flicked his gaze over to Red and found him grinning. “What?”
“Nothing, just,” Red chuckled, “he’s right, you do do that.”
Gavin made a disgusted noise, but before he could respond, the elevator ‘ding’ed and the doors rolled open onto a long walkway, across from which was another railed balcony overlooking the platforms, this one from much higher up. Ignoring the view, the boys skipped out of the elevator before it could close again and joined a handful of other kids loitering around who’d already made it up. Their frayed and dirty layers of clothes didn’t match the sleek, black wallets and devices in their hands and pockets.
“What’d we get, guys?” Gavin asked, raising his voice over the appraisals they were already making.
“Wallet.” Said the dark-haired girl who’d chased him alongside Red. “Just a few small bills, but plenty of credit tabs and ID cards.”
“Nice one, Pinch. Lazar pays good for those, he knows how to unlock them. Mickey?”
“Chatter. Not personalized or nothin’, can’t be traced.”
“Cool. I’ll take that.” Gavin bumped the underside of Mickey’s wrist and snatched it out of the air.
“Hey, what the hell?”
“That’s for not watching Dyne. Next?”
Before the next urchin could speak up, the clack of heavy shoes walked up behind Gavin, and a deeper, grown-up voice asked tersely, “Did you get it?”
Gavin spun around to find himself staring evenly at the lower half of a nondescript, black longcoat with hands tucked into the pockets. On top of that was a thin torso, and a gently smiling face behind wire-thin glasses and under a mat of dark hair. Soft smile lines were worn into his pale skin, pointing to tired, grey eyes.
“Maybe.” Gavin replied warily, sliding the briefcase back to Red. He knew from experience the kind grown-ups were often no less dangerous than the ones with clubs or handcuffs. “We’re just waiting until we’re all here.”
The smile widened, thinning out the lips. “Fortunes are made and lost in less time than it takes to ride an elevator, kid. I brought the credits like I said, you want ‘em or not?”
The man was politely patient with the band of adolescents as Gavin looked back at the others, a few quiet murmurs among them. Then Red handed back the briefcase, and slipped sullenly away to the rail.
“Excellent job.” The man praised, pulling out a rather large credit tab and flicking it over for Gavin to catch. He did catch it, but the reflex saw one of his arms unwrap from the briefcase. Almost before he’d known it, the case was out of his other hand, lifted smoothly like the man was taking a weight off his shoulders.
He popped it open quickly to have a look inside, and the smiling lips parted into a full grin. “Congratulations, boys and girls.” He said. “You just made some fat fuck’s stock go up two points. That’s the equivalent of a miracle in the business world.”
Gavin wasn’t about to voice it, but he thought that sounded for a god-awful miracle. Slipping the credit tab into the folds of his shirt, he looked back up at the man half-expectantly, though not sure what he was waiting for. Maybe for him to be first to leave.
Instead, the man matched his gaze, a hint of humor returning Gavin’s stone-faced suspicion. “Keep your face like that, it’ll freeze, you know?” he smirked. “You got a problem?”
“No.” Gavin answered. “I dunno.”
“Know what I think?” he suggested friendlily. “I think you’re not used to somebody giving you something willingly. I could take it back, let you pretend to swipe it off me.”
A puff of air blew out through Gavin’s nose, the only part of a laugh to escape him, and he quickly suppressed the accompanying smile, but the man had already seen it, and winked at him. He was good, whoever he was.
“Hey, Gav,” Red called from the railing, “you need to look at this.”
The man looked up briefly, then back to Gavin. “Well, go on. Hop to it.”
Then, as the man turned and walked away first, Gavin released a bit of breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and hurried over to the rail beside Red, as did all the other kids who hadn’t been called.
“There.”
Red pointed, and Gavin breathed, “Oh shit.”
Far below, the train had at last stopped expelling passengers and new ones were flowing in again. But one knot of people, all in their distinct, black suits, remained where they’d been, clustered around a figure half their size with bright blonde hair, and a man with a light gray coat hanging from squared shoulders and slick black hair. Gavin knew him at once by the mustache large enough to spot from several stories up.
“Detective Harding.” He groaned. “I thought he was promoted too high for us to be his problem.”
“Who? Where?” Dyne hopped anxiously behind them. “Let me see!”
As he tugged at some of the others to get a look, Mickey shoved the little annoyance aside. His face was contorted in frustration, but the chance to lash out let it vent from him, draining his anger in a dejected sigh. “Now what do we do?” he asked. “Judy’s nicked.”
“We’ll get her back, right?” Pinch was looking nervously from one of her fellow urchins to the next. It wasn’t often anything got through her cool.
“We will. Because we have to.”
The growling, deep-rooted determination in Red’s voice was strong enough to gravitate the whole group’s attention. There was an intensity to his slate-gray stare, unwavering, but flickering ever so slightly as he drank in every detail of the scene far below, trying to figure it out like a puzzle that would solve itself if he just looked hard enough. Red’s size could make him imposing, but it wasn’t what unsettled Gavin about him in that moment. All the other kids were concerned, too, but it was because they all knew Judy was their meal ticket. Red, though . . . he was the only one as close to Judy as Gavin was. And lately, it’d seemed like they were getting even closer. The group getting closer should’ve been a good thing. And yet, it worried Gavin for some reason.
The piercing stare swiveled to meet Gavin’s eyes. “Any ideas?”
Gavin swallowed and stared at his splitting sneakers. He wanted to rescue Judy as much as Red did, but getting her out of a policeman’s grip, especially Harding’s? “I don’t see how. I mean, he knows me. And the rest of them saw all of us.”
Red followed his gaze to the floor, like they’d laid the problem out and both of them looking at it helped. In a moment, he suggested, “They didn’t see Dyne.”
“Hey, yeah . . .” Gavin brightened. A plan started to form around that advantage, and he glanced back up. “Red, you’re a genius. I don’t care what Judy says about you. Okay, the three of us are on it, everyone else stay here, and make sure no one skims the credits!”
Gavin swiped Dyne’s wrist and pulled him along, heading back for the elevator.
“She talks about me?” Red asked, jogging after.
----
“I demand you set up a perimeter now, all around the station!” the red-faced middle manager blustered into his face. “Stop every train! Those kids can’t be allowed to leave with it!”
“Yes, yes, you’ve made your demands quite clear for me to understand.” Detective Reginald Harding replied, sounding even less sincere than his thoroughly-posh accent normally did. He was more intent on the grimy, wild-eyed little girl letting her arm hang limply from the cuff linked to his own wrist. She’d ceased fighting back, perhaps realizing the shiny metal bracelet wasn’t just cleaner than her, it was stronger, and so was the dark-haired, early-thirties man it attached her to. 
“You understand nothing. The future of entire companies depends on the contents of that briefcase, and if they blame me for losing it, I . . .” Her tirade gave way to a series of short, terrified breaths, and Reginald waited patiently as a pair of her co-workers helped to steady her.
“I’m sorry, old girl, but I haven’t the authority to raise the whole NAPD over a suitcase.” Reginald submitted gently once she had sufficiently calmed down. “Nor to stop every train in Szélkirály Station. Your best bet, I imagine, would be to apprise the station’s own security of your situation.”
“Fine.” The businesswoman said as she straightened up again, her lips thinning as they pressed together to express her frustration silently. “Fat lot of good the NAPD is anyway, all those refugees clogging the streets.”
With that, chin high, she spun on her high heels and drew her coworkers away down the platform. As the rhythmic clacks of their well-shined shoes receded, Reginald exhaled, giving her slight no more notice than a roll of his eyes. The girl beside him in the ratty orange hoodie, the one who didn’t show up on any cameras, was a much more pressing matter, and he turned his head to regard her without turning his whole body, just so his relative size wouldn’t come off imposing to her.
“So,” he remarked cheerily, “you must have been the one who ended up with the Superintendent’s template keys in all the confusion about it. How on Earth and all her colonies did you manage that?”
She remained silent, already turned away from him to hide her face and now pulling so far she was straying behind Reginald’s back. He took it for shyness around a new adult and continued.
“Terribly messy business, that. It’s given the people who run the city no end of worry, you know, the thought of someone running around with the ability to manipulate New Alexandria itself. Many bad people would use that for rather nasty things, and give you most anything for it.” He untwisted to follow as she went far enough to pull at his arm and started kneeling down to face her at her eye level. “So I’m interested to know, why have you been keeping—”
Moving as she hadn’t expected, Reginald felt just briefly the little girl’s hand tugging at the belt pouch where he kept his handcuff keys. He jerked his cuffed arm immediately to yank her away, in haste and surprise jarring her a little more than he’d meant to. He cut off the curses jumping unbidden to his tongue, contenting himself with no more than an exasperated sigh and held her at arm’s length while he checked the pouch.
“Blast it, girl, I’m trying to go easy on you. Why ever did you have to do that?” he muttered. Finding the pouch unbuttoned and empty, he kept a firm grip on her shoulder and pulled up one of the thin arms hanging by her sides. She glared silently at him, her mouth pinched into a tiny frown as he pried open one of her fists, then the other. Both empty.
Before he could start patting her down to see if she’d hidden them in a pocket, a high-pitched voice piped up behind him, “Lost your keys, mister?”
Reginald glanced over his shoulder to find a boy too young even to match his height crouched, staring at him wide-eyed. He was sure in a moment this boy couldn’t be one of the girl’s gang of thieves; he was far too clean to be living among refugees, and the shaky voice and way he stared said to Reginald he wasn’t used to seeing a grown-up handle a child like that. Definitely not a street child, then.
“Well, hello.” He said, smoothing out his voice as quick as the girl had upset it. “Did you lose track of your mum or dad?”
“No sir.” The boy shook his head. “I was just going to say you dropped them.”
“Did I?” Reginald asked, catching himself play-acting with extra emphasis for the child.
The boy nodded and pointed to a spot near the gap between the platform and the waiting train. “Over there.”
Sure enough, as Reginald followed, he spotted the glinting steel of his keyring, lying where the boy said. “Well, how about that.” Reginald murmured, and looked back him. “Thank you very much, chap. You can run along now.”
Smiling, the boy nodded and did so, wandering away to, Reginald presumed, rejoin his parents. He didn’t really watch him go, as he realized with chagrin the lengths he’d gone to babying the boy while the girl in cuffs could have only been a few years older. Putting on a warm smile again, he began joking, “Goodness, we certainly wouldn’t want me losing those, now would we?”
Picking himself up, Reginald led her gently by the cuffed arm across the platform and leaned over to pick up his keys. His fingers had just brushed them when he realized, seeing them close-up, there should’ve been one more on the ring.
Right as he’d bent over, Gavin darted from behind an info board, the key he’d taken from the ring Dyne swiped in hand. Bent over, Reginald had presented to cuffs within easy reach, and Gavin jammed it into the lock on Judy’s upheld wrist. The detective yelped as he felt the chain cuffed to him fall slack, but had no time to react before Red caught him off-balance and shoved him over. Then all three turned and ran along the platform.
Reginald was back up in a second and coming after them full-pelt, the empty cuff flailing on his wrist, but the youths had a good lead. Or, at least, good enough for Gavin to have time to realize it wouldn’t last.
In a split second, he decided splitting up was their best chance. “Hey, Reggie!” Gavin shouted, spinning on his heel to show his face. Recognition showed in Harding’s face, and Gavin dived through an open door into the waiting train alongside them, but the moment after, Harding’s eyes flicked determinedly back on the other pair. Too late to backtrack, Gavin instead turned and pelted up the center aisle of the train, running parallel with the chase on the other side of its windows.
His speed already lost, Gavin had to pound his every step to keep up, and made no effort dodging the monorail’s close-packed passengers, slamming into them and leaving hurt and angry yells behind. He couldn’t watch his own path so long as his eyes were on the runners outside, and the more he watched, the more Gavin was sure Detective Harding was intent on catching Judy more than Red. With the next door coming up as the train’s intercom announced last call, he made another snap decision.
Putting on a burst of speed to the protest of his legs and lungs, Gavin caught up with his accomplices just as they reached the next door. Judy yelped as Gavin’s hand shot out and yanked her orange hood hard enough to pull her bodily onto the train, and he pushed her stumbling on into the next car without a second’s pause.
Sure enough, Gavin heard the change in Detective Harding’s heavier footfalls as his boots first hit the monorail floor behind them, but in a second, he and Judy had reached the next door. Gavin stopped dead, holding Judy’s wrist to root her with him to the spot.
“What are you doing?!” Judy shouted, wild-eyed as she turned back and saw Harding catching up to them.
“One sec . . .” Gavin murmured.
The passengers were more of an obstacle for Harding than they had been for either of the kids, but he had more strength to push them aside and a booming voice to clear his way with shouts. He neared the halfway point where the distance was the same to either of the nearest doors.
“One sec . . .” Gavin murmured again, and felt Judy tugging at his wrist.
Harding’s eyes fixated on them, facial muscles taut with anger and determination.
“N—” Gavin barely even parted his lips when he realized the doors were already closing, the final boarding call given. For an instant, fear shot through every nerve in his body, knowing he was too late. His own muscles wouldn’t even respond fast enough. Then, a pair of strong arms shot through the closing gap, seizing his shoulder and Judy’s, and pulled.
The pair spilled onto the platform as the doors rattled closed, and Gavin felt the cool of its cement against his cheek. A worn-out sneaker lay close enough to his head to fill his nostrils with the smell of dirt and pleather, and he looked up to find they were both lying at Red’s feet.
Rolling over, Gavin was just in time to see Harding reach the sealed door, and couldn’t hear whatever expletive the detective shouted as the train started rolling away. He just smiled at the baleful stare pointed his way until Harding was out of sight.
“Remind me, what part of the plan was that again?” Red asked as he bent down and offered them each an arm. “Because I don’t think we talked about it.”
Gavin clapped the arm, groaning as he was pulled back to his feet, “I kind of improvised.”
“I could see that.” Judy commented as she was hoisted back up. “What were you waiting for, exactly? Gonna get him to charge past like a bull?”
“I had to be sure he couldn’t double back through the other door fast enough!” he protested. “Then we’d just be stuck with him out here!”
“Whatever.” She said, shaking her head. “Did we make the deal?”
Red grinned, slapping them both on the back. “Yeah we did. We all get to not starve for the winter.”
“Awesome.” Judy replied. “Let’s get out of here, boys. We’ve got a boatload of credits to spend.”