Childtime Institutions (continued)

She might have been pretty; he could not tell. Her face also appeared to be thin, although not as extraordinarily so as the first man. Her features had the fine, smooth lines and curves the Perez associated with femininity, but he knew from unfortunate experience that that was no guarantee.

“He is,” she agreed, although the tenor of her voice gave Perez no better clue as to her true gender.

The second one nudged Brandt with the toe of his boot. Brandt did not stir, even though Perez half-expected his fellow officer to suddenly lunge at their captors.

“He’s still out,” the second man said, pressing harder with his boot against Brandt’s stomach. He chuckled deeply, continuing to prod with his toe at Brandt. “Really out.”

“With as many darts as you stuck him with,” the third one said, “he’ll probably be sleeping it off until next Thursday.”

The second man snorted, kicking at Brandt’s chest now. “I’ll let Doc Car—”

“Be quiet, both of you,” the first man said. He did not raise his voice, Perez noted. Nor did his tone carry even a hint of common, but both of the others dropped into silence.

He strode forward and looked down at Perez.

“Officer . . . Perez,” he began, peering down at Perez’s uniform. “We have something we need you to do for us.”

Perez stared up at him. He bit off his first reaction, which was to tell the thin blonde man to go to hell, and waited instead silently for him to continue. Brandt moaned softly and Perez automatically looked toward him.

“He won’t help us,” the blonde man told Perez. “He doesn’t have the . . . spirit for it.” An odd smile danced across the blonde man’s lips as he said. “But we believe that you might.”

The second, stocky man made a noise.

“Some of us do, anyway,” the blonde man amended.

Perez shot a quick glance toward Brandt, but his fellow officer made no further sound.

A thin, tight smile replaced the one that been present on the blonde man’s face. “We may let him live,” he told Perez. “If you don’t help us, he will die for sure.”

The stocky man chuckled his deep chuckle again. Perez fought the urge to glare at him. At that moment, he simply wanted to deck the man. Perez knew that he was dangerous—he knew that they all were—but his kind he understood and knew how to deal with them.

“What do you want?” Perez asked hoarsely.

“A good question,” the blonde man smiled. His expression reminded Perez of nearly every image of every psychopath that he had ever seen.

The thin blonde man knelt down, but Perez still needed to look up at him in order to see his entire face.

“A very good question.”

Childtime Institutions (continued)

“I told you he was awake,” said one who stood near the front of the trio.

Perez judged him to be just under two meters tall. He was unnaturally thin, with short, close-cut blonde hair with dark ends. His fingers were unusually long and slender, much like Perez imagined a professional pianist’s might be. His eyes seemed unnaturally dark for someone with such fair skin and hair. Perez guessed that they contained either implants or encoded contact lenses.

The man to his left grunted in response. He was several centimeters shorter than the tall blonde man, with glossy dark hair brushed back over his head. He eyed Perez with a narrow-eyed look that the patrolman recognized. Given the chance, the man would like to beat Perez to death. Whether in a fair fight or not, Perez could not tell for certain, but the man had that almost feral look that he had seen too many times before.

Probably hopped up on exadrine as well.

The third member of the group stood between the other two in height. Stockier in build, it took Perez several moments to try to decide whether they were a man or a woman. Even then, he was not certain. A cap with camouflage pattern that matched her fatigues was pulled down tight over her head, hiding her hair. The brim of the cap cast a shadow across her features, making it even more difficult for Perez to tell for sure.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

They were military-style boots—with the emphasis on “style”. The ones that soldiers in the national armed forces wore were far less stylish, but much more durable. Perez doubted that these would last six months, assuming that they ever saw wear even remotely like real combat.

“Play soldiers,” he muttered.

There were, he figured, probably disgruntled rich kids from one of the exclusive secured enclaves on the northwest part of the city. Most of the citizens with any real wealth lived there, except for the even more select few who lived in the rocky hills that overlooked the coast. He wondered what their parents had denied them that had made them decide to become make-believe mercenaries.

Knowing this much, though, helped Perez in understanding how to deal with them. That they came from privileged backgrounds made them no less dangerous. In fact, they might behave even more impulsively from the belief that their social status—and parents’ money—could rescue them from almost any situation.

As they came closer, Perez saw that his guess had not only been right, but dead-on. None of them were older than twenty-five. All of their faces had that clean, scrubbed look that spoke of regular access to good soap and clean water. Very few who lived off the grid could claim that. Perez wondered whether he and Brandt were the first two officers that they had ever taken captive.

And we aren’t . . .

Following that thought to one logical conclusion caused his stomach to form a sudden knot. If this group had been responsible for the other unexplained disappearances . . .

Childtime Institutions (continued)

A new kind of fear gripped him, though. Rumors abounded about what happened to people in government “custody”. Harlin had always heard about them, shook his head in disbelief, and silently prayed that he would never find out for himself. Instead, it seemed, his family would.

Torn between fear for his family and anger, Harlin found himself paralyzed from action. All he knew was that government had taken his family. He still did not know why or where they had been taken. All that Antonovich had confirmed was that they had been taken, but that failed to answer any of his other questions.

He wanted to rage at something—or someone, but lacked any kind of specific target. His frustration with Antonovich was misplaced, he knew. And raging at the “government” would be equally ineffective without a specific person, or at least group, at which he could launch his fury. He pounded his fist against the front door in a steady rhythm. It accomplishment nothing useful in terms of helping him locate his family, but Harlin found that it did calm him a bit.

Flexing his hand, he felt the burning sensation from his punished muscles. Opening his palm, he stared at the phone again. Its display remained maddeningly dark and blank. Even if he wanted to call someone, what could they tell him? The police would likely have no official knowledge of the event, and which government agency should he contact?

His arm dropped to his side as he surrendered to the game that had been set up for him. He could do little, he realized, until someone contacted him. All he could do was to wait . . . and worry.

- X -

Perez’s head throbbed as consciousness painfully returned. His neck and shoulders ached, as did the back of head. He supposed that he should be grateful that he was still alive, but at that moment he was not at all sure that it was worth it. He tried to straighten up and discovered that his hands were bound behind him. Shifting his legs, he found that his ankles were fastened together as well. He turned the best that he could to find Brandt lying beside him about a meter away.

The large man remained still. A bright red streak of blood lined his left cheek. Perez had to look hard to determine whether or not Brandt was still breathing. He was, Perez was finally able to determine, with deep, regular breaths. Perez tried to imagine how hard they must have had to hit Brandt to put him out like that.

Or drugged, Perez realized, remembering the odd projectile noises near their vehicle. They must have been using tranq darts, he concluded.

That meant that whoever held them now had intended to capture them alive. Or, at least, not kill them while they did whatever it was that they had been in the neighborhood to do. That pretty much left out all of the more violent street gangs, he determined with some relief.

That doesn’t mean this batch isn’t just as crazy in some other way.

Almost every neighborhood housed some individual or group that fancied themselves to be some kind of “freedom fighter”. Most of them were harmless, posting the occasional gripe against some government policy or another, even occasionally making some small scene in public. Depending on the location and cause, the police forces were often as likely to ignore these or not. There were a few individuals, though, who resorted to more radical approaches to get their message across. These, unfortunately, Perez felt, gave the entire group a bad reputation. Even though an officer himself, sworn to uphold and protect the citizens and those very same laws, he had to admit that he did not agree wholeheartedly with some of them. He could not imagine himself having to arrest some eighty-year-old for protesting against the scheduled demolition of a building. It could very well happen, though, he knew, depending on the mood and whim of the department on that particular day and time.

Perez struggled to get himself into a seated position. It took some careful contortions and some effort, but he managed it. Once situated onto his backside, he scooted closer to Brandt.

Brandt remained unconscious. The blood that Perez had noticed before still appeared to be fresh. Now, he spied darker, dried patches on his partner’s forehead and cheek. He wondered how hard Brandt had struggled against his captors.

It must have happened here, he reasoned. Brandt had gone down without a sound back at their vehicle.

Perez tried to shift closer, to get a better look, but all he managed to succeed in doing was to nearly topple himself over on top of Brandt. He grunted, trying to find a more stable position, and swore to himself that someone would be wearing the cuffs around their neck as soon as he got the chance.

He looked again at Brandt, who still had not stirred. His breathing continued to be regular, but Perez saw no other movement from his fellow officer. He considered calling out to Brandt, hoping to wake him with the sound of his voice, but then decided against it.

No sense in calling their attention in here, he reasoned, glancing around the room now for surveillance cameras that he suspected had to be there.

He found none, but he knew that meant little. They could either be well-concealed, or there was only one installed, and he had missed seeing them. He glanced around the room again, examining it for any clues as to where they were and who might have brought them there.

The space was almost stereotypical in it plainness. Battered metal racks lined two of the walls. Each contained only a few objects, most of which Perez could not identify from where he sat on the floor. The room was dusty, but not filthy, which told him that it had been swept recently. Not within the past day or two perhaps, but probably within the last few weeks. There was nothing within the space that gave indication as to the identity of its owners.

It might not even be theirs, Perez considered. Maybe some kind of temporary safe house or sanctuary. It did not seem to have been equipped well enough for long-term use. He did realize, though, that he only saw one space. There could be, he considered, several more rooms adjacent to this one, any one of which could be a supply room, pantry, or worse, an armory.

Twisting his wrists experimentally, he heard the chain that connected the cuffs rattle quietly.

They have access to some basic equipment, at least, he thought wryly.

He saw nothing remarkable about the interior of the space, at least in the parts of it that he could see. Twisting his ankles experimentally again, he considered trying to rise to his feet, once he was certain that Brandt was okay. He would not be able to defend well if he encountered anyone, though.

Better than I can from down here.

Leaning over Brandt as best as he could without toppling over, Perez discovered no new bruises or bloodstains on Brandt’s face or his clothing. Whatever they had dosed Brandt with, he was still well under its influence. Turning his head away, a little too quickly, Perez wondered which of the two of them was the lucky one as his head throbbed.

Carefully, he attempted to slide his feet underneath him, enough that he could use them as leverage when he tried to stand. It took him several tries, as his ankles kept getting tangled together. Twice, they slipped out of position, the second causing him to wince when he thought he had dislocated it.

He had just about managed it when he heard rough footsteps enter the space from the other side of the metal shelves. Even before he saw them, he guessed how they would be dressed. He was not disappointed. Both of them were clad in paramilitary camouflage fatigues, but ones too tailored to fit to be standard issue or stolen. The sound of the boots had betrayed them. The footfalls that those thick rubber soles made were distinctive, particularly on gritty surfaces.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

- X -

Harlin found the garage empty. Rather, all of his family’s belongings stored there were present, but there was, once again, no sign of his family. He felt some mild relief at this, as he had half-expected to find their beaten and mutilated bodies dumped there.

Too many bad news reports, he told himself, finding hollow relief in that realization.

He finally convinced himself, after a careful search, that his family’s bodies were not tucked into some crevice between storage bins in the garage. The cabinets were all locked, and none of them looked to have been disturbed, so he did not bother to check those.

Enough is enough, he decided, and headed back into the house.

He closed and, without consciously realizing it, locked the door behind him. Standing there, he surveyed what he could see of the house and considered what to do next.

Call the police?

It seemed like the logical next thing to do, but he was concerned about potentially looking foolish if his wife had simply taken his children to the market and forgotten to leave a note.

“That’s so unlike her, though,” he murmured, recognizing immediately that he was attempting to rationalize the situation.

He swept the room with his gaze once, finding nothing different than he had before. No new evidence of what might have happened presented itself to him, no previously unnoticed clue.

Harlin’s hand went automatically to his chest, over his heart, when an abrupt knock sounded at the door. It was neither loud nor particularly strong, but more than enough to startle Harlin from his reverie.

He held still for a moment to both catch his breath and check his surroundings. Nothing had changed within the house, but there had been a knock at the front door. He was certain that he had not imagined it.

Cautiously, he approached the doorway and peered through the small peephole. The door was still unlocked, he realized, and he felt a little better. Had someone wanted to enter without first asking or announcing themselves, they could have done so easily.

“Stupid!” he mumbled softly.

He frowned as he peered through the tiny viewer. Outside the door stood Pavel Antonovich, their neighbors from the house immediately to their left. Harlin was surprised to see him for several reasons, not the least of which was the unusual timing of his visit when his family was missing.

Were they next door? Harlin wondered.

He had not considered it before as a possibility, for it had not seemed at all likely. During the eight years the Pavel and his family had lived next door to them, they had never once been inside one another’s homes. They had exchanged the occasional polite pleasantries when they might encounter each outdoors, but they knew almost nothing about one another.

That’s not entirely true, Harlin acknowledged silently. He and Sarah knew almost nothing about their neighbors on the left. They did not know how much the Antonovichs might know about them.

Harlin cautiously opened the door and looked down at the stout little man. Before he could speak, though, Antonovich told him, “They are not here. Taken.” His voice dropped to a hoarse breath of a whisper. “Taken.”

Harlin stared down at Antonovich. He tried to comprehend the words that the man had spoken, to put them into some kind of context. Then, a sharp chill washed through him as he understood.

Someone had taken his family.

He continued to gaze down at Antonovich without speaking. Finally, he was able to speak.

“Taken,” he repeated in a whisper. “By who?”

“Them,” Antonovich replied, stating the single word as if it explained everything.

Harlin looked down at him in confusion.

“Them,” Antonovich repeated, a bit more forcefully. It was clear that he thought that Harlin might understand his meaning, along with all of its nuances, with the repetition of the word.

Harlin shook his head slightly, unwilling to accept the most likely explanation. Antonovich held his gaze, as if by his will alone he could get Harlin to understand.

“The government?” he whispered, feeling suddenly very exposed and vulnerable.

Antonovich nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Your government.”

Harlin’s legs began to tremble and he nearly staggered backward, but caught himself. It made no sense. The government had no reason to seize his family. He owed no delinquent taxes, his position in the company gave him no access to any secrets. He was not even certain that his company did not direct business with the government. Of course, he realized, every company did business with the government to some degree. His children, certainly, could have done nothing. And Sarah . . .

He stopped, puzzling that one out for a moment. Sarah had remained at home to care for their children. It had not only been a necessity, as the costs for child care outside the home would have more than exceeded their income. Also, while the company workplace had little room for woman at all, it had almost none for women who might have to divide their time—and their loyalties—between the company and their family.

Could Sarah have done something? he wondered. But what?

“I do not know,” Antonovich said, and Harlin wondered for a moment whether he had described his suspicions aloud.

“They were taken,” Antonovich said. “The white vans,” he went on. “All of them.”

Antonovich turned his head from side to side, glancing along the perimeter of the neighborhood.

“I must go now,” he said. Without giving Harlin another look, he turned and headed down the short paved walkway, back toward his own home.

Harlin watched him go, waiting until the diminutive man had returned to and entered his own house, before he closed the door. He stared down at the worn carpeting, trying to understand. Government agents had seized his family, taking them away—taking them . . . somewhere.

He looked around the room again.

They must have taken them quickly.

The subtle signs of interruption, but the lack of total disorder, could be explained by what Antonovich had told him. The agents had come swiftly, gathered his family, and then left.

Why had no one called him?

He reached down and pulled out his phone. Its list of recent calls showed no incoming calls since the day before. Sarah had not had time to call him, nor had any of the children.

So why hadn’t—

He stared down at the phone in his hand, allowing its screen to go blank from non-use.

Who else would have called him? he realized. He knew none of his neighbors well and none of them, he was fairly certain, knew him—at least not his telephone number. They had all witnessed the event and said nothing—except for Antonovich.

But then how could they? Harlin considered morosely. Even if they could have reached him, it was doubtful that they would have risk either themselves or their families in order to inform him.

He continued to stare down at the phone, wondering whether he should still call the police. More than likely, he presumed, they would be contacting him. He hoped that it would be soon.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

Its long silver chain glistened with reflected light. For a moment, Sarena hesitated to pick it up, but then could not resist. Its length draped over her hand as she lifted it. Beneath it dangled the tiny pendant of a small bird in flight.

A sparrow, Sarena thought, although she really did not know for certain.

It spun as it dangled from the chain, turning slowly from left to right. Sarena found herself drawn to it, but she did not know why. She found the clasp, opened it, and placed the chain around her neck. The tiny bird fell just above the curve between her breasts. That seemed perfect, she decided, and closed the clasp, letting the necklace settle into place.

Turning, she admired it in the tall mirror mounted between two of the chests. Standing there, she felt both more and less naked at the same time. Sarena stared at it for several moments, lost in a mindless reverie.

She did not know what broke her out of it, but she suddenly felt very exposed and very alone. She turned quickly to the bed and pulled the long tunic over her head. She chose the scarf and tied it around her waist, discovering that the cut of the outfit accented the curves of her body. Its neckline dropped lower than she was accustomed to, but then, she realized she had never before owned such clothes or not been concerned foremost about keeping warm. The sparrow remained exposed, which she found that she liked, and decided that the tunic must have been designed that way.

Feeling better now that her nudity was at least partially covered, Sarena began to search the drawers for other items. To her surprise, she discovered almost nothing in the way of undergarments. The few of them that she did find seemed impractical for everyday wear, providing very little in the way of comfort or support. The ones made of a dark leather-like material she did not understand at all.

Although it made her uncomfortable to do so, she opted for no underwear at all, hoping that maybe she could request some more suited to her preferences. Going without them made her feel surprisingly naked beneath her clothes, but she decided that she could tolerate it for a little while.

Maybe . . . she wondered, and was interrupted by a sound at the door.

She heard an audible click. Her throat grew tight and she wondered whether if she was finally being locked inside. She turned as the door swung open. Kayla stood in the doorway, silently appraising Sarena with her eyes. Sabena fought back a shiver. There was something in the young woman’s gaze that made her uncomfortable. She had not quite noticed it before, but Sabena noticed it clearly now.

“You need shoes,” Kayla announced and stepped into the room. The door closed behind her. “And . . .” she paused, silent assessing Sabena again. “A lot more,” she finished with a grim smile. “But let’s start with the shoes.”

Childtime Institutions

They appeared well-made, not like the inexpensive, do-it-yourself furniture that she was accustomed to. The comforter, window curtains—actual curtains—all spoke of wealth and a willingness to spend it.

Moving further into the room, Sarena discovered the small bathroom. It was only slightly larger than the one that she had shared with her entire family, but everything within it was polished and shone. There were no cracked or missing tiles, no stains of mildew and rot, and the rugs on the floor looked as new and even more plush than the carpet beneath her feet. The transparent glass enclosure of the shower was so clean that it was nearly invisible.

She looked around the entire space, trying to absorb it all. There were no windows, but its lighting prevented it from feeling as enclosed as it was. It felt as if natural light streamed in from somewhere above, which, for all Sarena, it very well might be. The room was small, but, if Sarena was right, she would have it all to herself—a luxury that she had never before known.

Sarena’s head buzzed, unable to take it all in. She had seen images of such places on the ‘net and in old magazines. While she could have imagined possibly visiting one during her lifetime, never would she have conceived of herself actually living in one, even by force—particularly by force. She turned, realizing that the door has closed behind her. Panic swelled inside her and she reached for it, tugging on the handle embedded within the door. It opened easily to reveal the empty hallway beyond it. Sarena almost wept with relief without quite knowing why.

And then she understood. She was not trapped her. At least, she was not being locked inside her room like a caged animal. She did not know whether it could happen—or would happen—but for now, she could open the door at her own will. She wondered then if it could be locked. A quick glance did not reveal any kind of locking mechanism, but that did not mean that there was not one. It could be controlled, she knew, from some other location, like the cells in a prison block. That thought sent a new chill of fear down her spine. As lushly furnished as it might be, the place might still be her prison. She just did not know . . . yet.

Turning back toward the bathroom, she eyed the shower, remembering Kayla’s instructions. She suddenly became aware of her own aroma, something which she had come to be able to ignore. Here though, in this clean and decorated space, it seemed like an affront, something that needed to be dispelled and dealt with.

She stepped into the alcove, blinking when the lights flickered into brightness upon her entry. She stood there, allowing her eyes a few moments to adjust against the sudden assault of illumination. The fixture gleamed now even more than they had from outside the space. It felt almost like a sin to disturb or utilize any of them. She felt a growing urgent need, though, not having been allowed to use a toilet since they have been rousted from their beds the night before. She hesitated and then allowed her basic biological needs to win out over awe.

When she finished with that, nervously listening as the flow of the water seemed to echo loudly within the small room, she looked once more at the shower stall. It controls were unfamiliar, but appeared to be obvious. There were three handles, two of which were each marked clearly with either a blue or red ring. She assumed that these meant what they always did and turned the handles. Water began to cascade from the twin shower heads above her, drenching the sleeve of her tattered shirt. She yanked her arm out of the shower, cursing herself for her own stupidity. She should have known better, she knew, resisting the urge to wring the water out onto the plush mat beneath her.

Stepping back from the shower, but with enough presence of mind to close the door so that water would not spray out onto the bathroom floor, Sarena looked for somewhere to put her clothes. There was no obvious place for them, and she did not want to put them back on after showering. She remembered that Kayla had told her that she find clothes for her in the room. Sarena had not seen any, but realized that they must be stored in the closet or chests.

She remained still, trying to decide what to do. The water was already running in the shower, but she did not want to wear anything that she still wore when she was done. Her eyes spied the short stack of towels and she decided that would be enough for the short trip back out into the main area of the apartment.

She undressed slowly, pausing to fold each item of her clothing onto a neat pile. Although she might never wear them again, she did not know that for certain. She wanted them nearby, just in case.

Naked now, she paused to examine herself in the two full-length mirrors mounted in a corner of the alcove. Dirt streaked her skin, but it could not hide the twin swells of her breasts or the unshaven patch of hair between her legs. She had never seen herself that way before, even at the clinic. She found the sight oddly compelling. In her mind’s eye, she could see past the snarled strands of hair and the tracks of grime on her flesh. She wondered, though, if that was who she really was underneath.

She looked down, feeling somewhat ashamed. Such vanity was for other girls, for those who had wealth and power—like those who apparently dwelled here. She knew of her girls her own age who sold their bodies to others so they could look nice and dress pretty, but she the thought of giving herself to someone like that made her feel vaguely ill. That she might now be in such a situation she tried not to consider . . . at least not yet.

After a moment she looked up and turned back toward the shower. She paused, struck by the sight before her.

Steam rose from behind the transparent barrier, misting its surface with fine droplets. Sarena could not remember the last she had taken a hot shower. The water at her family’s home had always been lukewarm at best, and only when the sun heated the exposed pipes through which the water flowed. During the cold seasons, it was almost intolerable. During the winter months, she would go several days at a time without bathing. She could still remember huddling under layers of blankets afterward, trying to recover from the deep chill that filled her body afterward.

Stepping to the shower now, she wondered if she had made it too hot. The air around her felt moist now, but it cooled the moment that it touched her skin. She opened the door cautiously and tentatively reached her hand inside. The water stung and she almost jerked her hand back. She managed to hold it in place, though, to test the true temperature of the water.

It was hot, perhaps warmer than she had intended it to be, but not intolerable. Sarena reached further in and adjusted it, and then let out a relieved sigh when the water’s temperature became much more comfortable. She stepped into the stall and closed the door, breathing deeply, allowing the warm, moist air penetrate her nostrils. She stepped into the spray, feeling as though she could sense every pore on her body as the hot water washed over them.

Inside the shower, nestled on small shelved alcoves, were several containers in varying sizes. Some of these she understood. She knew what body wash and shampoo were, although she did not understand why there was a variety of ones to choose from. She found one labeled “conditioner”, but did not understand what that one was for, so she left it alone.

She was able to wash the grime from her body quickly, allowing herself two uses of a lightly scented body wash from a translucent blue container. Her hair, however, required a great deal more effort. Even when she was sure that its surface was clean, it remained tightly snarled in several places. She winced in pain several times as she attempted to use her fingers to loosen the worst of the tangles. She tried to work quickly, afraid that the warmth of the water might vanish at any moment. Finally, she washed it one more time, hoping that there would be a thick hairbrush in one of the room’s many drawers.

Sarena did not know how long she remained under the shower’s spray. When she finally turned it off, deep wrinkles lined the inside of her fingers and toes. She could not remember that last time she had seen herself like that, except for when she had washed dishes at the hotel restaurant for a short time about two years earlier.

She opened the door and felt an immediate chill. She quickly reached for one of the towels and wrapped it around her, wiping at the water that remained on her skin in order to warm herself. The towel was thick and luxurious, far from the thin and worn scraps of cloth that she had used at home.

It took her only moments to towel herself dry, except for her hair. It required mental effort to convince herself that, yes, she could use another towel for that. If she wanted, she could probably use them all right then and no one else would suffer for it. She dried her hair as best she could and then roughly wrapped the second towel around it. Draping the other towel around her body, she headed back into the main room to locate the promised clothing.

She opened the closet first and then stepped back in astonished surprise to study its contents. Arrayed within it where a variety of tunics and dresses, each sorted by color. The selection included lightweight blouses that looked ideal for warm weather to full-length dresses that Sarena could imagine only being worn to a Governor’s Ball. Just looking at them, she had no idea whether any of them would fit her. None of them, though, seemed appropriate for the moment. Or rather, she had no idea which one might be appropriate. She hoped that Kayla could tell her.

The thought of the young woman made Sarena suddenly feel acutely aware that she wore nothing more than two towels. Glancing through the selections in the closet again, Sarena removed a long, pale green tunic. It looked long enough to hang down to her knees. As she needed, she determined, was some kind of belt or sash to gather it around her waist. She placed it carefully onto the bed and began searching the drawers.

She discovered a wide variety of accessories and jewelry. Overwhelmed by the choices, she could not decide whether to choose a turquoise belt or a pastel rainbow scarf to use with the tunic. The jewelry she chose to ignore, having never owned or worn any, and uncertain what might or might not be appropriate. And then her gaze fell onto a necklace.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

As they walked, she continued looking at each of the doors, and into the occasional alcove, trying to find some clue as to the kind of people who lived here. She was not completely naïve, of course, trying to distance herself from those thoughts, but still she wanted to know something about the people who were about to become her companions.

“This is yours,” Kayla told her, gesturing toward a doorway on their right. It was the second to the last one from the end of the hallway and Sarena wondered whether that had any particular significance to her position there.

“Bathe,” Kayla instructed her, wrinkling her nose noticeably. “You’ll find clothes,” she added. “And then stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

She turned away without waiting to see whether Sarena understood and strode purposefully back down the hallway.

Sarena watched her go for a moment and then turned back to face the door. Staring at it, she discovered that it did not have a handle with which to open it. Her heart sank, realizing that any semblance of privacy was probably gone from her life now. She pushed hard against the dull-surfaced plate where the handle should have been and then stopped in surprise when the door did not open.

Studying the panel, she tried again—with the same results. She peering down the hallway, looking to see whether Kayla was still there, and wondered how the woman would react when she returned to find Sarena still standing in the hallway outside the door, still unbathed and in the same tattered and soiled clothing.

Sarena wondered if Kayla was supposed to have given her some kind of key, but had forgotten to leave it with her in her haste to leave. She turned back to the door, studied it for a moment, and then tried again. Again, the door remained closed.

Experimentally, she pressed harder on the plate, pushing until the tension in her fingers was almost painful. The panel suddenly depressed slightly, something clicked inside the door, and it began to open.

Sarena pulled her hand away as if the door panel had carried a charge. It had not, in fact, shocked her. Instead, it had only startled her with its sudden movement. Cautiously, she took a step backward and then peered into the room through narrow gap between the door and the doorframe.

She could see almost nothing of the room’s interior through the narrow gap. What it mostly revealed was a wall, a neutral beige or white in color, but that was all she could discern of what lay beyond the door. Carefully, she pushed lightly on the door, opening it only a few additional centimeters. The door, though, did not stop. Instead, it opened nearly all of the way, leaving Sarena to stare into what was to be her new home.

The interior was dim and filled with deep gray shadows. The amount of furniture that it appeared to contain surprised, for she had expected little more than a small bed and perhaps small chest of drawers. What she saw instead differed greatly from her vision.

The bed was wider than she had expected. She guessed that the mattress was at least a double in width and wondered why she might need such a large one.

Am I going to be sharing the room?

Although it was possible, that she might have the share the room—and the bed—seemed unlikely to her, based on the general extravagance that she had witnessed so far within the complex. Sarena stepped inside, pausing just inside the doorway, and looked around.

What appeared to be a sizable closet was on the opposite wall from the bed. Two chest of drawers and a smaller cabinet near the bed were the first pieces other furniture that she noticed.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

“Brandt!” he called out, still trying to keep his voice low. When no response came after several seconds, he called out again, raising his voice a bit more. “Brandt?”

Brandt did not answer him, but a moment later something spanged against the rear of the vehicle again. The sound did not reverberate as much this time, giving Perez even less of an idea what it might be.

Rubber bullets?

That seemed unlikely, he decided, but had no better explanation as yet.

“Brandt!” He shouted this time, not caring if he might be heard by someone else.

He tried to peer past the vehicle again, but dared not rise above whatever little cover it seemed to provide for him at the moment. Taking a deep breath, he threw himself into a roll, silently hoping that he had judged the distance correctly.

He hit the side of the vehicle hard, slamming into it with his back. That was how he had planned to learn, but not with quite as much force. It stunned him for an instant, leaving him unable to breathe. He fought back against a surge of panic, fearing that he might not recover before someone took another shot at him.

Something slid along the gravel beneath the vehicle, but did not seem to make it all the through. At least, Perez did not see anything come out on his side. He had a sudden mental image of the car suddenly exploding into flames and wondered whether he might safer away from the vehicle after all.

Too many Tom Cruise movies . . .

He discovered that he was holding his breath and let it out when the vehicle did not ignite around him. As he was still unhurt, he guessed that whoever was aiming at the vehicle was still on the opposite side from him.

“Or reinforcements haven’t arrived yet,” he whispered almost under his breath.

Damn it, he cursed, wondering, Where is Brandt?

Unable to reach the radio inside the vehicle, he reached up and tapped the controls of the one mounted on his shoulder. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it when he all he heard was a wash of static.

Jammed? he wondered, glancing upward. Or those damned cell towers.

The signal towers were supposed to be encrypted and secure. Which meant, Perez knew, that it simply took an additional day or two for some hacker to penetrate them each time the security algorithms were changed. To convert them to scramble signals, rather than to enhance them and pass them on, was one of the first tricks that the hackers had learned.

Right after intercepting and broadcasting phantom calls, Perez remembered.

Unable to signal now for backup, Perez turned toward the edge of the vehicle, silently judging how many centimeters he would have to traverse to get there. It was a short distance, but one during which he would be noisy and vulnerable. There was no easy way to cross silently over the road’s crumbling surface.

Where was Brandt anyway?

Perez tried to shake off the hollow feeling that his partner was not going to be coming to his rescue.

I’m not even sure I can come to my own, he thought wryly.

Another spang, this time across the top of the vehicle, made up his mind for him. Perez gripped his weapons and shuffled, still kneeling, toward the corner of the vehicle. It turned out to be a wise decision, as something ricocheted off the glass of the window right above where his head had been.

He reached the edge of the vehicle safely and then turned and surveyed the area that faced his side of the vehicle. He saw no one out in the darkness.

Which is exactly how they want it.

Perez paused and then looked carefully around the edge of the vehicle.

He saw no one, which disappointed him. He had hoped to at least see Brandt’s body sprawled out on the ground. It was not there, which only made wonder more about where his partner for the evening might be.

Something spinged across the top of the vehicle directly above his head. It skittered across the rough roadway, but Perez could not see what it was or where is eventually landed. There were closing in on him, he recognized, which did not surprise him.

A sound came from behind him: the unmistakable sound of boots on loose gravel. Perez turned automatically toward the sound, expecting to find Brandt there. He barely had time to identify that it was not before the figure reached out and struck him. Darkness consumed Perez almost instantly, giving him a moment to regret that he had seen his girlfriend one more time before he died.

- 9 -

Sarena saw no one else as she passed down the hallway. She found it difficult to believe, for there appeared to be several rooms, that no one besides Kayla lived here. Her reticence at accepting Sarena did not seem to be driven by jealousy. Nor, Sarena considered, did it seem to come from the dissatisfaction of someone accustomed to living alone. The space had clearly been designed to house others.

“Where are they?” she whispered to herself aloud.

“Working,” Kayla answered flatly, with just a hint of diadain.

Sarena did not realize that she had spoken loud enough to be heard.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

“What is it?” he asked. It came out as a hoarse whisper.

“Nothing,” Brandt replied slightly louder, but still far below his usual blustering tone. “Just goddamned nothing.”

He remained standing there, staring into the darkness. He seemed to be mumbling something, but Perez was too far away to hear him clearly. Perez stepped forward and then froze as something whanged off the back of their vehicle. An instant later, he had dropped into a crouch. The bright, needle-thin laser from his gunsight swept across the darkness.

Perez could not see Brandt, but heard movement from behind him that he hoped came from the other officer. His vantage point from where he crouched prevented him from seeing the back of the vehicle. He was too far from the vehicle to use it as an effective shield. It would require him to exercise a serious body roll to reach it, and it would leave him exposed and unable to defend himself until he had regained his equilibrium. Even then, he could not be certain which direction the attack had come from. He might be no better protected than he was now, except that he would now have the vehicle at his back, possibly making him and an even easier target.

Turning his head to the side, he tried to get a glimpse of Brandt. In the bright twin streams of light coming from the headlights, it was difficult for Perez to see anything not directly contained within them. He did not see Brandt. Or, at least, no shape that seemed large enough to have been Brandt.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

Brandt had already opened his door and was climbing out of the vehicle. Breathing in a slow sigh, Perez did the same, although with a great deal less enthusiasm than his partner had displayed. Moving around to the front of the vehicle, Perez found Brandt, standing in the bright wash of light coming the vehicle’s headlights, staring into the darkness ahead. From the way Brandt’s eyes turned from side to side, sweeping the illuminated area with his gaze, Perez could tell that his partner had found nothing.

“I’m going in,” Brandt announced hoarsely. His hand moved down to rest on his weapon, stopping just short of actually drawing it.

Perez mirrored his partner’s actions automatically. “I’ve got you covered,” he responded to Brandt, while not quite sure what he might be covering the large man against. He had still not seen anything.

“Oh god,” he whispered aloud, almost as a prayer. Don’t let it be a cat.

It would not be the first time that an officer on edge had shot and killed someone’s pet in an instant of surprise. Perez had not done it himself, but he had come close on at three occasions. Such reactions could, of course, keep an officer safe and alive—it could also end up costing the city several thousand dollars. Lately, though, judges were becoming less and less likely to rule in favor of the citizen. If people were careless enough to let their pets roam free in a designated curfew zone, then they should not be surprised if they occasionally got fired on by police officers on edge trying to protect their own lives.

Brandt moved a little deeper into the darkness and then swore softly. Perez stiffened at first, ready to bring his weapon up. When nothing happened to Brandt, he relaxed somewhat, but his hand remained on the handle of his weapon.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

Beth carefully stroked Jessica’s hair away from her daughter’s forehead, feeling the heat of the fever beneath her fingers. She looked over at the pillow and felt a small swell of relief when she saw it dotted with only a few dark stains. Jessica’s nosebleed did not seem to be as bad, nor had lasted as long, as Beth had first feared.

Still, Beth told herself. I’d better have it checked out.

She had never seen one accompanied with a fever before. That part of it worried her.

Faint footsteps sounded behind her at the door. She turned to find, as she expected, to find Annalise standing there, Beth’s phone looking unnaturally large in the child’s small hand. Once that she was sure that Beth was looking at her, she held out the phone to her mother.

Beth took it gently, while offering her youngest daughter what she hoped was a faint, but reassuring smile. Annalise did not appear to accept it.

“Is Jessie going to die?” the young girl whispered. The words cracked slightly as she spoke them, as if the young girl had trouble getting them out.

A chill wave of fear and panic washed through Beth. She almost shivered, managing to only barely tremble. She stared back at Annalise, trying to control both her own reaction and how to best phrase her response to her daughter.

“No,” she told Annalise, forcing a confidence that she did not yet wholly feel into her tone. “She’s not going to die,” she went on. “She’s just sick.”

“Granma Eve got sick,” Annalise countered.

She seemed more inquisitive than scared. Beth was not quite sure what to make of that, unwilling yet to just attribute it to childhood innocence.

“Yes,” Beth answered quietly. “Yes, she did.” She took a short, shallow breath as she glanced over toward Jessica before turning her attention back to her youngest daughter. “But she was also very, very old,” she explained, surprised at the flat tone in her voice. “And old people die.”

Bryan’s mother Eve had been very old, even unusually old any more, surviving well into her eighties before the cancer finally consumed her.

Annalise’s gaze fixed on her sister. Beth opened her mouth to speak and then stopped, wondering whether Annalise might see Jessica, almost ten years older than she was as “old”.

I wonder how she sees me then, Beth considered wryly.

She offered her youngest daughter yet another smile, this one somewhat more sincere, if not less laced with deep concern.

“It’ll be okay, honey,” she told Annalise. “Go have a seat at the table,” she instructed her calmly. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Annalise studied Beth’s face, and then Jessica’s resting form, before she turned slowly away and padded back down the hallway. Beth watched her go, silently praying that what she had just told her daughter would be true.

- 8 -

Perez sat quietly in car, grunting only occasionally to ensure that Brandt did not question him too much, as they patrolled the streets that night. The dispatch radio filled the silence with a steady stream of background noise, an ongoing series of requests and updates, but none directed to them. It was a quiet night on their patrol route. That was, Perez discovered, both unusual and not. There sector was not particularly one of the more active hotspots, but things did happen there.

Just not tonight, Perez mused.

Although he was in no particular rush to put himself in danger, almost anything would have been a welcome relief from his partner’s steady stream of political and social opinions. Brandt clearly did not know—or, more likely, simply did not care—that more than a little of what spouted from his mouth would have gotten him knifed—or worse—in many parts of the neighborhood where Perez and his girlfriend lived. His fingers stroked the handle of his weapon for a moment.

Can I make it look like an accident?

He was far from serious in that thought, of course, although it had been known to happen.

Feeling a twinge of guilt at having even entertained the idea for an instant, he moved his hand away from his weapon and instead rested it on the door handle. Beside him, Brandt continued to drive, giving as more attention to the road, to Perez’s relief, than he did to the logic of his arguments.

They were nearly finished with their patrol through one of perimeter neighborhoods when Brandt suddenly slowed the vehicle. Perez pulled himself from his reverie and looked around, seeing only a dark street ahead of them. All of the overhead street lights were out in that immediate area, either from deliberate action on part of the neighborhood’s inhabitants or, equally likely, Perez knew, lack of maintenance from the city. Even through public funds were allocated for public safety, there were some areas where the city work crews refused to enter. Enforcement was almost impossible, with the only other option being that the work crews be assigned a police escort. Since there they were already not enough officers to perform the basic patrol routes, such assignments rarely happened unless one politician or another needed to get some positive press.

“What are you doing?” he asked Brandt, dropping his voice to whisper without realizing it.

At first, Brandt seemed to ignore him. The officer peered into the darkness of the street, looking intently for something visible beyond the range of the vehicle’s spotlights.

“Brandt?” he whispered hoarsely. “What is it?”

“Shh,” Brandt hushed him, turning in his seat as he tried to get a better look at whatever it was that he thought he had seen outside of their vehicle.

Perez grimaced, looking hard into the darkness himself now. He saw nothing unusual, but then he had no idea what it was that he was looking for.

“What did you see?” he finally asking, tired of waiting for his partner to volunteer information.

“Don’t know,” Brandt whispered back. “Something.”

Perez resisted the urge to roll his eyes. While he had seen nothing unusual, he suspected that it had been a dog or some other animal darting off into the night at their approach.

“Something,” Perez repeated, trying not to sound irritated.

Brandt nodded, still staring into the darkness, his head swinging slowly from side to side as he continued to fail to find it.

“It was probably someone’s cat,” Perez offered.

“Too big,” Brandt responded. “I think it was a person.”

Perez checked the clock display. It was past curfew. Anyone still out on the streets without a waiver or not on some kind of official business was technically violating the new statutes. They were, Perez knew, enforced with widely varying levels of regularity and severity.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

Shifting her elbow beneath her, she began to rise. Bryan continued to hold her tightly, preventing her from completing the motion. She paused, surprised by his subtle restraint.

“I get it,” he told her, keeping his voice low. “We’ll figure something out.”

Figure something out!

Beth began squirming underneath him, twisting her body to break free of his hold on her. He resisted at first, but then finally released her. Propped up on her elbow, she stared down hard at him. She could make out the outlines of his face by the shadows visible there. His eyes looked back at her with bright intensity.

“This is our daughter we’re talking about here, Bryan!” Her voice rose, but remained a loud whisper that she hoped would not carry to the children’s rooms. “Our daughter.”

Bryan stared back at her. His expression did not change; his lips did not move. If there was anything that he wanted to say, any response he might have to her statement, he kept it to himself for now.

Beth pushed herself upward, almost sitting upright now. She slapped her husband hard across his chest.

“Bryan!”

He stared back at her without flinching. Beth stared down at her own hand, examining it as if it were not a part of her, as if it belonged to someone else. She had not meant to strike him. She could not even remember thinking about doing so . . . but she had done it.

She continued to stare at her hand for several long moments and then let it drop to her side. She collapsed onto Bryan, landing with her head on his smooth, tightly-muscled chest. She did not start weeping again. She wanted to, but could not find the strength to let the tears loose again. Instead, she sighed deeply and tried not to whimper.

Bryan’s arms enfolded her gently once more. Instead of feeling restrained, she felt warmly cocooned in a safe place. Her mind still struggled with terror over her daughter’s possible fate, but she no longer felt the urge to strike out—at least not at her husband. Exhausted now, she drifted off to a restless sleep.

When Beth woke up the next morning, her eyes felt grainy and raw. Then she remembered the night before and sighed. Bryan was gone, already on his way to work.

Probably already there, Beth concluded, glancing at the display of the clock on her nightstand.

He had managed to leave, as usual, without waking her. When they were first married, this had annoyed her to no end, while Bryan had believed that he were merely being considerate. Emotionally, she had believed a morning farewell kiss to be thoughtful and romantic, while pragmatically it also helped to ensure that she would not sleep past her own alarm.

A few children later, she had come to see it his way. Uninterrupted sleep became a rare and precious commodity. That extra hour or so, when she could get it, sometimes made all the difference in her ability to deal with her day.

Beth stretched, resisting the temptation to rub at her eyes, not wanting to grind the grit back into them. Her eyes also felt swollen, more than was usual in the morning.

Probably all that crying you did last night, she silently chided herself, although she did not feel particularly ashamed about it.

She sat on the edge of the bed, trying to hold back a yawn, remembering what all of the tears had been about. Her fears were no less real than they had been the night before, but they felt a bit less immediate than they had. They had more than two years before Jessica would face the same judgement that Denice had. Far from a lifetime, she knew, but long enough.

Long enough for things to change, she told herself, searching for some hope.

Long enough for what, Beth did not know.

She rose from the bed and shuffled toward the bathroom, her melancholy replaced with her recognition of a more basic and immediate biological need.

A short time later, while she was in the midst of both preparing breakfast and packing lunches, the first of her progeny descended the stairs and entered the kitchen. Beth knew without turning who it was, basing her deduction solely on the sound and cadence of the footfalls.

“Good morning, Ani,” she called out to her youngest daughter. “Pancakes will be ready in a minute.”

Annalise remained still, staying where she was, and made no signs of moving toward the kitchen table.

“Jessie’s sick, mama,” her daughter told her.

Beth looked up from the griddle and studied her youngest daughter.

“What?”

Annalise nodded. “She threw up in the hallway.”

Refusing to surrender to a sense of growing panic, Beth placed the spatula on the counter and turned off the griddle. Wiping her hands absently on her apron, she headed quickly for the stairway.

Entering the second-story hallway, she caught an acrid hint of what was, unfortunately, an all-too-familiar odor. She swallowed hard against her automatic reflexes and then the lumpy, viscous puddle on the carpet less than a meter from the children’s shared bathroom.

At least she tried . . .

She averted her eyes, and then held her breath as she passed the mess, trying not to think of the unpleasant cleaning task ahead of her.

Beth checked the bathroom first, but found it empty. It smelled as it normally did: a slight bit musty with a faint, sharp tang of chlorine. It did not seem as though Jessica had made it there, Beth decided, so she closed the door and headed toward the bedroom that Jessica shared with Annalise.

The door was ajar and Beth saw Jessica sprawled diagonally across the bed, her comforter pulled up haphazardly around her. Her head was turned away from the door, her face buried in her pillow. Beth sat down carefully on the edge of the bed and rested her hand on her daughter’s back. The tightness in Beth’s chest eased when she felt the regular rhythm of her daughter’s breathing.

She reached over and touched her daughter’s forehead. Beth’s fingertips tingled with the heat of her daughter’s fever. Again, she felt relief upon discovering that it was probably due to some illness and most likely not from something foolish that her daughter might have done with her friends the night before.

“Jessica,” she whispered. “Jessie?” she repeated when her daughter did not answer her.

Jessica mumbled something into her pillow.

Beth tried again, resting her hand now on her daughter’s shoulder. “Jessie.” She tugged very lightly, just enough, she hoped, to get her daughter’s attention. “Jessie,” she repeated. “Come on.”

Her daughter’s words were lost in the depths of her pillow.

“Come on, sweetie,” Beth urged her. “Turn over so I can see you.”

Muffled noises sounded again, but this time Jessica began to slowly turn to face her mother. Jessica’s eyes shone brightly, but they did not focus on her mother. Flushed with red, Beth could almost see the heat radiating from her daughter’s cheeks. Her breath stopped, though, when she saw the dark twin streams that issued for her daughter’s nostrils. A fever was one thing, Beth knew, having dealt with her family’s fair share of flu and other school-borne illnesses. But she had never seen one like this.

“Ani,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. Her youngest daughter had followed her back upstairs and had waited in the doorway. “Get me my phone, please,” she told Annalise. “Right now.”

“Yes, mama,” Annalise replied softly, and was gone before Beth could turn to add anything else.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

The kitchen, he thought.

With main living room unoccupied and all of the bedrooms empty, that was the only place remaining inside the house where he might find some clue as to the whereabouts of his family. The only other location was the garage—and he tried not consider that just yet, as his mind threatened him with images of his family’s horrifying fates within that space.

He found the kitchen deserted and no one sat at the small table that sat in the space just beyond it. Through the large bay window behind that, he could see a large slice of the backyard. It too, appeared to be deserted. He leaned forward, taking another step, and was able to glimpse most of the remaining yard area. Empty. He turned his gaze back toward the interior of the kitchen.

Both relief and renewed concern filled him when he saw the dishes on the counter and in the sink. Only a few of them were clean, which meant that Sarah had been interrupted while washing them by whatever had happened there. A small plate remained on the table, he saw now, which meant that someone had been eating there as well. Whatever had happened, wherever they had gone, it must have taken place a few hours ago. He could not imagine Sarah allowing any the children, or herself, any kind of snack so close to dinner time. Harlin looked around, looking for other signs of things out of the ordinary.

Aside from being unexpected, Harlin found nothing unusual about neither the plates nor the food that he found. The plates were the general purpose ones that Sarah used every day and the food seemed to consist of what he might have expected Sarah to serve the children during the day. He had never paid that much attention to it, for he was rarely home during the week to witness what she fed them.

He paused in the middle of the kitchen and breathed a sigh. Despite the additional evidence, he was no closer to understanding where his family might be and why. They had been there, he could tell, for most of the day, but during the past few hours. Something had interrupted Sarah, but he had no new clues as to what that might have been. As far as Harlin knew, there had been no earthquakes or any other kind of event that might have caused them to leave the house suddenly. It had to have been sudden, he decided, for Sarah had not left him any kind of message that might have explained their departure.

Or had she?

He walked through the kitchen and small dining nook again, searching for any sign of a note. He found none, even after checking the floor beneath the table. He had not seen one anywhere else in the house, and he was fairly certain that its out-of-place appearance would have caught his attention. That left, he realized, only the garage as the last location within the house where he might find further signs of his family. His mind whispered insistently to him not to look there, but he forcibly ignored it. Doing that, though, did little to relieve the tight pressure that gripped his chest. Inhaling deeply, he ignored the murmured warnings that continued within his head and headed back through the house toward the garage.

- 7 -

Dinner was a quiet event. Beth attempted to engage the children in conversation, but her heart was clearly not into it. She prompted them for more information if they offered any, but did not press them for it as she might typically have done. If Bryan noticed anything unusual in her behavior, he did not mention it. That was characteristic of him, though. He rarely—very rarely—would have pointed it out in front of the children, unless he felt that she was being either unrealistic or unfair to them. It was not until much later that evening, when they had both come to bed, that he asked her.

She began to tell him, even going so far as to open her mouth to speak, when she broke into tears. He let her cry, holding her gently, whispering reassuring syllables to her until enough of the tension and fear had drained away so that she could speak.

“Oh, I’m scared for her, Bryan,” she said, choking it out in a single breath, afraid that she might start crying again. “Terrified.”

“I know,” he whispered, not needing to ask which “her” she referred to. “I know.”

She stiffened against him for a moment, uncertain whether he fully understood the depth and breadth of her fear for their daughter.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

He also found the master bedroom unoccupied—although in that case the bed remained very neatly made.

Harlin’s eyes noticed one thing, though, that troubled him slightly: one of Sarah’s shoes lay on the carpet a few centimeters from the bed on the side on which he usually slept. The shoe rested on its side and, from where Harlin stood, the one that matched it was nowhere in sight. It was unusual not only in that it was out in the open without its mate, but that it was out on the floor at all. Harlin could remember only a handful of times when Sarah had not kept her shoes neatly stacked in her closet—and all of those had taken place during their much younger days when they were either dating or newlyweds.

His head began to buzz unpleasantly from his swelling uneasiness. He walked over the shoe, picked it up, and examined it, turning it over in his hand. It looked undamaged as far as he could tell. Looking down, he quickly scanned the floor for its mate. He failed to find it. Still holding the shoe, he moved toward the bathroom.

It, too, was empty. Harlin stood, rolling the shoe absently between his hands, trying to understand the situation: the house had been unlocked, his family appeared to be missing, and there were as yet no clear signs as to where they might be—or what might possibly have happened to them.

Harlin placed the shoe lightly down on the bed and headed back into the hallway.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

- 6 -

Harlin moved cautiously further into the house. The curtains, not quite drawn closed all of the way, allowed in plenty of light for him to see by. Although the driveway and front yard had denied that any toys belonged to the household, Harlin saw definite signs of their existence here. One of his daughter’s dolls lay discarded in the main living room. A red toy car, slightly smaller than Harlin’s shoe had rolled under the formal dining table.

On seeing these things, as misplaced as they were from where they belonged, Harlin began to relax. His family still lived here, which ruled out any possible delusion on his part. His key had fit into the lock (even if the door had not been locked), and he remembered giving Jonas that car as a present just that past Christmas. Sweeping his gaze across the visible interior of the house, Harlin looked for other signs of recent activity or habitation. He remained otherwise motionless, listening for sounds or voices coming from anywhere else in the house.

It was too late, he decided, for the children to be napping. There were all rapidly getting to an age where it was getting more difficult to get them to settle down, even to rest, in the afternoon. His wife never napped, unless she was ill, using the time instead to catch up on the housework or, very rarely, just relax with a book.

Hearing nothing from the reaches of the house, Harlin took a deep breath and looked around again, deciding to start first with the bedrooms. If the children were home, that was where they probably were.

As Harlin made his way down the hallway, he tried to remember if there had been some kind of outing or event that he had forgotten about. No reminders had popped up on his calendar—and Sarah was very good about making certain that he did not miss any important family events.

To him only a few moments to find that all the bedrooms were empty. All the beds were made, although the children’s beds were a bit rumpled, either from a half-hearted attempt to make them, or from being used at some point during the day.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

Beside her, she heard the officer the snicker hoarsely. She half-expected him to shove her further along the hallway.

She saw no one else, but her surroundings made her feel even more unkempt and ragged than she already had. This was a clean place, neat and organized place. She did not belong there—and Sarena’s chest tightened as she began to wonder why she had been brought there.

A woman appeared near the end of the hallway. Sarena would not have realized that the woman was there had Sarena not seen her. It was not until she was only a meter or two away that Sarena heard the woman’s footfalls made sounds like whispers in the deep carpeting.

“All yours now, Kayla,” the officer said, stepping aside so that the woman had a clear path directly to Sarena.

The woman paused less than a meter away from her, eyeing Sarena as if she was an exhibit in a professional dog show. Sarena thought she saw a hint of something like disapproval in the woman’s eyes, but was convinced that was entirely it. It did not seem so much directed at her as toward someone, or something, else.

Sarena almost turned her head to see whether it was the officer who had provoked such a reaction, but the woman did not hold onto him with her gaze as Sarena thought she might if she was accusing him of something distasteful. In fact, she barely looked at him at all, Sarena noticed.

“Yeah,” Kayla agreed. Her tone told Sarena little about the woman’s opinion on that. She sounded half-irritated and half-resigned to the situation.

“I’ll go then,” the officer said, sounding both awkward, and a bit snippy, Sarena thought. She wondered whether the officer had expected something else—and, if so, what.

“You do that, Curt,” she told him, no longer speaking directly to him. Her eyes had returned to Sarena. Sarena felt as if she were being sized for clothing or something. “Go hunt something else.”

Curt snorted and then turned, walking the few short steps back to the elevator. The doors had remained open. Once he was inside, the elevator doors closed. Sarena had not seen him touch his control again and wondered whether the woman, Kayla, controlled the elevator.

The woman had made no kind of motion, though, and Sarena began to wonder whether they were being watched. They probably were, she decided, and whoever it was also controlled access to the elevators on this level.

“First thing,” Kayla said. It took Sarena a moment to realize that the woman was speaking to her. “A shower.” Kayla wrinkled her nose, although not exaggeratedly so. “Sooner than right now.”

When Sarena did not move, Kayla demonstrated a faint, but visible, sigh. “This way,” she directed Sarena, and headed back down the hallway.

Sarena hesitated, and glanced back toward the now-closed elevator doors. There was no exit for her there. She turned and looked ahead, realized that her only path for the moment was forward, moving toward whatever her future might now bring.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

- 5 -

Sarena followed the officer, remaining just out of his arm’s reach. He might surprise her with a sudden movement, but she was certain—well, pretty certain—that she could dodge out of his way he caught her. Her punishment for doing so, though, might be worse than whatever he might have originally intended to do to her. Men were like that. She had seen it.

The officer said nothing to her as they moved down the corridor. He glanced occasionally toward her to make certain that she was still there with him, but gave no other indication that she otherwise existed in his world. The hallway he took her down was long. Doors, all of them the same dull gray color, the color of freshly cured concrete, interrupted the walls at regular intervals. Sarena tried to read the numbers, but could not find them, and wondered how anyone knew which door led to which room.

They stopped at the end of the hallway at a different of doors. While still featureless gray, these looked more like polished pewter than the dull gray of the other doors that she had seen. The officer pressed his finger against something on his belt. A deep electronic chime sounded and the doors opened, revealing a brightly lit interior.

Her stomach tightened at the sight of the elevator. Once inside, she would be trapped. Panic rose in his chest. The officer gestured for her to enter, looking impatient. When Sarena hesitated, he looked ready to grab her arm and pull her forcibly inside. Fighting back the building wave of anxiety, Sarena moved past him and entered the elevator. He moved in after, blocking her exit as he tapped the control on his belt again. The doors slid closed and it was all that Sarena could do to prevent herself from trying to dash past him.

He stood almost at attention the entire time that the elevator car was in motion. He remained facing the door, not bothering to check to see where she was. His hand, she noticed, rested on the handle of his weapon. She waited silently, barely daring to breathe while the elevator car moved upward. For some reason, that made her feel better than if it were descending into the lower levels of the structure. Scenes of dungeons and interrogation rooms danced through her thoughts. She pushed them away, telling herself not to be foolish.

No one keeps their dungeon on the top floor of their castle.

She did not know about interrogation rooms, but she suspected that the police those were kept in the basement as well.

The elevator slowed. The officer’s hand tightened on his weapon, which Sarena thought as unusual. This time, he waited for the doors to open, not bothering to once again press the control at his waist. The doors slid open. The officer stepped out of the elevator and moved aside. Sarena walked to the doorway of the elevator and stopped, staring at what she saw beyond it.

The lighting was different here, muted and less harsh than she had experienced in the levels below. The floor was carpeting like a deep plush lawn, but colored a soft ivory instead of green. It was clearly some kind of living space, not like the starkly functional areas she had seen on the lower floors. The area, she sensed, was designed for comfort, not necessarily efficiency.

“Come on,” the officer said, finally speaking. “Get moving.”

Sarena glanced up at him and then down the thickly carpeted hallway. She felt hesitant, as she were intruding somewhere where she knew she should not be. But she was clearly meant to be here, she decided.

They wouldn’t have brought me all the way up here just to punish me.

Although that might ultimately be her fate, nothing in her surroundings radiated that kind of threat. Cautiously, she stepped forward, almost gasping in surprise as the deep carpeting gave beneath her feet. She did not quite stumble, but was afraid for a moment to move, unsure of her footing.

Childtime Institutions (continued)

“We have a problem,” the sergeant began.

His voice almost echoed in the nearly silent room. Perez tried to remember his name, and he sat too far from the sergeant to read the name on his badge. Heads turned slightly and faint whispers rose, ending abruptly when the sergeant opened his mouth again.

“Two of our patrol officers have disappeared,” he said.

Voices around Perez began to rise again.

“Disappeared,” the sergeant repeated. “Dis-a-ppeared,” he enunciated. “Your fellow officers,” he went on. “Without a trace.”

Conversation rose around Perez. He heard the high pitch of rising panic in some of it.

“The fourth pair in two months,” the sergeant amended with emphasis. “Without a trace.”

He tapped a control and the panels behind him filled with images. One of them, Perez saw, displayed scrolling lines of text. Although he could not read them clearly from where he sat, he suspected that they showed either a timeline of the events or a relevant excerpt from the dispatch transcript.

The full impact of what the sergeant had said hit Perez. Eight patrol officers had disappeared during the past two months. Eight. Armed officers.

“So far,” the sergeant continued. “We’ve identified no clues as to how or why. There have been no witnesses—at least none willing to come forth.” He gestured toward the panel that Perez had been studying earlier. “All communications were routine,” he reported. “Until they failed to check in.”

One of the more senior officers seated toward the front of the room raised his hand. The sergeant’s eyes flickered toward her for an instant, but he did not acknowledge her. Perez suspected that he already knew what question she was going to ask.

“All of the . . . disappearances,” the sergeant went on, “happened throughout the city. There’s nothing—so far—to suggest that they are associated with any particular neighborhood.”

The officer’s arm dropped to his lap. Perez took a slow breath. It was the one of the first questions that he would have asked—that, and whether the missing officers had anything in common. He was certain, though, that would have been one of the first things that the department would have investigated. If they had found something, Perez guessed, this briefing would have an entirely different tone and topic.

One of the lieutenants leaned forward and whispered something into the sergeant’s ear. The sergeant listened for a moment and then nodded. There was no change in his expression.

“We’re short on facts,” he announced. “We can’t even tell you what to be on the watch for.” He looked grim—an expression that Perez felt seemed uncharacteristic for the man.

The sergeant’s gaze swept the officers gathered in the room. “Be more than careful,” he said. “Be more than vigilant,” he warned them. “Call in everything,” he told them. “No matter how minor it might seem.” Voices began to rise again. “We’ve brought in relief dispatchers to handle the load,” he said, and the noise level subsided.

“Now get out there,” he instructed them, much his typical gruffness returning. “And be safe.”

Perez rose and looked around, searching for his assigned partner. Although he still could remember his name, he was pretty certain that he would recognize him on sight. It was difficult, though, to make out a single face among the small crowd of uniformed figures. Most of the officers were heading toward the two exit doors, one on each side of the room on either side of the podium. Perez was about to give up, trying to decide which hallway might give him better odds of locating his partner, when someone tapped his shoulder.

Startled, he nearly stumbled over his chair. A low chuckle sounded from behind him. Perez was certain that he recognized its source. His stomach knotted and he tried not to grimace.

“Were you looking for me, Jose?” the voice said.

Perez turned slowly, forcing his expression into a rigid mask.

“No,” he replied flatly, somehow managing to not grind his teeth together as he spoke.

He looked up into Brandt’s face. The other recruit had at least five centimeters on him, as well as weighing in at least an additional twenty kilos. From the first day that Perez encountered Brandt at the academy, he postulated what he, in his head alone, called The Mind-Mass Ratio. His theory went along the lines that a person could have both body mass and brain mass, but there was some biological law that dictated the proper ratio for each. He had never calculated any kind of value for it, although he guessed that a logarithmic scale was involved, but considered Brandt as the prime example to prove his hypothesis.

“Too bad,” Brandt grunted. It would have been stereotypical, Perez thought, for Brandt to also sneer, but that is what he did.

Must have a very limited set of operations.

“Ferrero transferred out,” Brandt told him. “To Tennessee . . . or Minnesota, or somewhere like that.”

Perez nearly bit his lip, failing to see how those states were even remotely related. They clearly were in some way in Brandt’s mind.

“Okay,” he responded cautiously.

“So I’m your partner.” Brandt grinned. The expression completely failed to put Perez at ease. “For today.”

Perez suspected that Brandt meant to imply something ominous with that statement. While it did little to put him at ease, it did give Perez hope that he would only be stuck with the behemoth for a single shift.

And if someone decides we’re the next ones to “disappear” . . .

He hoped his temporary partner’s size would prove to be a sufficient deterrent. Perez tried not think about whether any of the missing patrol officers might have been about the same size.

“For today,” Perez agreed, trying to sound deferential.

Brandt grinned again and aimed a slap at Perez’s shoulder. Fortunately, Perez saw it coming and was able to lessen most of the impact. As a result, he only jerked forward slightly and did not nearly tumble to the floor. Brandt seemed disappointed, but let it pass.

“Let’s move out, partner,” he announced, quite a bit louder than was necessary.

Perez turned away so that there was no way that Brandt could see him sigh.

It’s going to be a long night . . .

Childtime Institutions (continued)

She was not even sure what she planning to make. Her mind, though, seemed to have it under control. It was not until several moments later that she even realized what her hands were doing and paused, a box of dried pasta in one hand, and stared at it in confusion. She did not remember removing it from the pantry, but there it was in her hand. Beth took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then took another one.

When she opened her eyes, she placed the box onto the counter, and then studied the array of ingredients she had gathered. With some relief, she saw that there was all appropriate for a family pasta dinner—except for the diced jalapeños, those did not make any sense at all. With a barely audible sigh, she returned that can to its place in the cupboard, and then began to prepare the meal.

Get a grip, Beth, she scolded herself. It won’t do you any good for the kids to see you like this.

She shot a quick glance toward the living room sofa. Ben remained obliviously immersed in his video game. Nick would know when he got home, even if she tried to hide it. He had always been able to tell . . . even when it was infuriating. She tried to force the images from her mind, those both of Denice and of Lori, and wished that Jessie were home. Not that it would have mattered one way or the other in terms of her daughter’s fate later, but it would have helped her better right then.

She turned on the faucet and, as the large pot filled with water, she wondered what dinner would be like at Sallie’s house—if they could eat at all.

- 4 -

Perez snapped his boots closed and rose, testing their fit. He flexed his arches and then cautiously wiggled his toes, hoping that the salve Merise had given him would prevent his blisters from getting any worse. It had helped with the irritation, but the sensation created by the greasy layer of salve was almost worse than the blisters. Almost.

“Perez!”

One of the more senior patrols officers, Perez thought he had been on the force for about year, nudged him hard against his shoulder. Before Perez could fully react, the man spoke again.

“You coming or what?”

Perez bit back his retort. It annoyed him to be treated like that, but knew that it came with being new to the force. He silently vowed to never treat new recruits the same way after he had gained some experience on the streets—and he wondered whether he would keep that promise. Being on the streets changed people—he had seen it happen. He had watched as friends, fresh new officers on the force, turned into people that he barely recognized any more. Again, he had vowed not to let it happen to him.

I’ll quit the force first.

Again, he wondered whether he would be able to keep that promise as well. He had fought hard to earn his place and rank—low as it was for now. He was not sure that he could abandon them both simply to appease what might be some misguided form of nobility on his part.

He rose hurriedly, making sure that he failed to stumble over his own boots. With a rising sense of panic, he tried to remember who he had been paired with for the night. Sawyer had the night off, so he had been assigned to a different partner for this shift. He had not recognized the name and, since it was not a familiar one from his class at the academy, he had assumed that it was one of the more experienced patrol officers.

Falling into step behind the other recently-graduated recruits, he tried to force his memory to produce the name.

George-something? Jorges? Jorgensen?

No, he realized, none of those were right. He was not even certain that it even contained any of those sounds. His mind did that to him sometimes: teased him with hints about what he wanted to remember, only to finally reveal something that the real answer was barely associated with his vague recollections.

Entering the briefing center, he took one of the seats toward the back of the room. He sat down next to a female recruit that he did not recognize from his class and would have flashed her a quick smile had she even remotely indicated that she was aware of his presence beside her. Her gaze remained directed straight ahead and her expression did not reveal even the slightest flicker of change. Perez gave an inward shrug and turned his attention toward the front of the room.

They had arrived a few minutes early, but one of the things that he had learned very early on was that showing up early would rarely gain you any attention, but arriving late would almost certainly guarantee that you be noticed, often severely and publicly. Perez was not sure which of the two was worse—and vowed never to find out.

A sergeant and two lieutenants appeared at the front of the room. Behind them, the briefing panels lit up. The official insignia normally displayed on them dissolved to reveal a series of statistics. Images appeared next to some of these. What they meant, Perez did not know. He suspected that he, along with the other patrol officers present, were about to find out.

What little hushed conversation that was around him stopped as the sergeant stepped close to the podium. The two lieutenants flanked, looking ominously serious. Their gazes swept across the those gathered in the room, pausing occasionally to settle on a particular person, but never for long enough for Perez to figure out who it might be that warranted those few moments of special attention.