We both stared at the vessel as it floated over the dark waves toward us. Our eyes then moved along the length of the pier, and, given that there was no sign of anyone approaching from that direction, it occurred to me that the people we were waiting for might be on the boat.

I looked to Hux in question, and he shrugged.

We continued watching the small ship as it slowed to a stop, its side brushing gently against the tip of the pier before mooring. Now that it was closer, I could better make out its features beneath the light of the pier’s lampposts. It looked large enough to hold fifteen or twenty people, and had definitely seen better days. Its exterior was rust-ridden, the original dark blue paint barely noticeable, as was the painted sign at the front. The Forebearer, it seemed to read.

The sound of a door opening drew our attention to the superstructure at the top. An elderly man stepped out, his hair shoulder-length and white beneath a floppy brown cap that hung lopsided on his head. He wore a thick, wooly sweater, and seemed to hold a cane in one hand as he hobbled toward the railing to peer down at us.

“Mr. X?” he asked, his voice gruff.

Hux exchanged another glance with me, and I could tell that even he was surprised by the means by which this person had arrived. He cleared his throat and nodded. “Yup.”

The old man nodded back, then retreated into the ship. A minute later, a ramp descended from the belly of the vessel, revealing a dark space behind it, and connected to the edge of the pier.

Hux and I hurried across the ramp and into the open space, which seemed to be some kind of storage chamber, filled with boxes and piles of rope, and reeking of seaweed. The ramp creaked behind us as it closed, sealing us inside the dark chamber, and I shivered as I heard the sound of footsteps overhead.

Who were these people?

A moment later, a trap door opened above us, spilling warm light down into the room and illuminating a winding metal staircase that led upward. To my surprise, a young, curious face gazed down at us through the hole. A boy who looked no older than four, with round, pink cheeks and curly, shoulder-length brown hair.

“Move over, Rufus! You’re hoggin’ all the space!” another child spoke up from behind him, and a small hand closed around Rufus’s left shoulder and pushed him to one side. A girl around age six, with the same curly brown hair and round face, appeared next to him, clearly his sibling.

“Now you’re blocking the way, too!” another child’s voice complained. “I can’t see!” A third face squeezed in beside the first two. Another boy with curly brown hair, who looked about eight.

“All of you out of the way!” a female adult voice growled. One by one, the children were pulled away from the trap door’s entrance, and then a heavyset brunette came into view. She had the same curly brown hair, so I guessed she was their mother. “I’m sorry for that,” she said pleasantly, plastering a broad smile across her face as she met our gazes. “Please come up.”

Hux and I frowned at each other, and then scaled the staircase, with him taking the lead. We emerged into some kind of living area, lined with sofas and carpets and… people. There had to be over twenty of them standing around the room, all of their eyes fixed on us.

I looked around, slightly dazed, at all the faces. Judging by the similarities between them, I was guessing they were one large, extended family. Eleven were kids, ranging from around one to sixteen, and then there were eight middle-aged adults: four men and four women. Three of the men and one of the women—the large brunette—resembled each other, so I assumed they were siblings, and that the other adults were perhaps their spouses. Then there were four elderly people, including the old guy with the brown cap and cane. Two sets of grandparents, from what I could tell.

“Uh, hi,” Hux said, gazing around at them. I could tell he hadn’t quite been expecting this kind of reception, either. “Good to meet you… all.”

I stared at them as well, still shocked. The kids in particular looked intensely curious. So much so that the younger ones were being held back by their parents, as though they were straining to come up and touch us.

I suddenly felt very much like an animal in a zoo.

“Who’re you?” Rufus blurted out, twisting a strand of curly hair between his small fingers.

“Yeah, who’re you and why’re you here?” a little blonde girl with a rather wonky pixie cut piped up.

“Shush!” a blonde woman, presumably her mother, said. “I told y’all we were expecting visitors! Now all of you kids go upstairs and play!”

She might as well have said nothing, because none of them budged, not even the three teenagers. Apparently we were far more interesting than anything they had to do upstairs.

“Go,” the brunette mother ordered, her growly voice returning. She tugged Rufus and his sixish-year-old sister to the door, while the rest of the adults got to work on the others. To my bemusement, even the teens were manhandled out—though the oldest of the teens managed to slip back in just before one of the men closed the door. She was a tall, thin, mousy-looking brunette girl, with freckles and large blue eyes. And for some reason, she seemed to find me particularly interesting, as she perched on the edge of one of the sofas next to her mother and fixed her eyes on my face with almost as intense a curiosity as the younger kids.

From the way they behaved, you would have thought we were the first people they’d ever come in contact with outside of their family. It occurred to me then that maybe that wasn’t far from the truth.

The boat shuddered suddenly and started to move again. Hux and I looked to the adults, who were settling themselves among the sofas now that they’d closed the door on the kids, and I noticed that the grandpa with the cane was missing.

Before we could ask why we were moving, one of the brown-haired men explained, “Best we stay away from ports in general, you know? Don’t worry. We’ll drop you back off as soon as we’re done here. We just don’t like to hang around.” He gave us a dark, knowing look.

And I looked again to Hux, not feeling at all comfortable about the situation. I hadn’t expected us to be more or less kidnapped on their ship. Judging by the tight expression on his face, Hux wasn’t at ease with it either.

But apparently it didn’t bother him enough to object.

“I understand,” he said after a moment. “And I trust that you will return us once we’re through,” he added, and I detected a slight warning in his eyes.

“Of course!” the brown-haired man said.

“Then I guess we’ll get down to business,” Hux concluded, shooting me a look that told me he felt things would probably be okay.

I wasn’t sure what people like these would want with us, but as with Davine and Noreen, we could never be sure. For now, I tried to put it aside and focus on the motley group around us.

“Hold up,” a black-haired woman wearing a red bandana said, raising a hand. “Surely you’ll be wanting some tea or something first? Wasn’t it a long journey to get here?”

“Um, okay,” Hux replied, glancing at me tentatively.

“Okay, thanks,” I added. I didn’t feel like tea, or really any consumable right now, given that we were locked on a boat filled with utter strangers and were sailing away from the shore, but I guessed this woman didn’t get the chance to make tea for guests very often. It just seemed polite to oblige her.

“Hot tea it is!”

“And also, how about some introductions?” the blonde woman said, giving us a friendly smile.

The large brunette woman rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that’s not what they’re here for, Luna,” she said, her tone condescending. “They’re here to talk business, like Mr. X said in the messages.”

The blonde shot her a sour look. “And I’m sure they can reply for themselves.”

“Yeah, chill out, Martha,” one of the brown-haired men said, presumably one of Martha’s brothers. “It ain’t often we have guests.”

Martha gave him a glare, but before she could respond, the one grandfather who was left in the room—perhaps Luna’s father, judging by the same slight hook of their noses—scoffed. “You can talk, Rick. Usually you’re the one pissing your pants over inviting strangers aboard.”

“Oh, lay off about that already, you old goat,” Rick shot back, looking genuinely irritated. “You admitted yourself I was right to be nervous that time.”

And then they started bickering, as though they’d forgotten that Hux and I were even in the room. I watched the exchange with a raised eyebrow. They seemed to quarrel as much as the kids, and I had to wonder how on Earth they got by sharing this small space. Because from the vibe I was getting so far, I was taking a guess that they lived on this boat full time, and I was 99.999 percent sure that they were CRAS evaders, just as Hux’s parents had been.

My eyes wandered to the teenage girl, to find her looking thoroughly unamused. Downright embarrassed, in fact. Her head was dropped in her hands, what I could see of her cheeks flushed a dark shade of pink. And I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like growing up in these circumstances. It had to be a terribly stifling environment for her, as a young woman. If she was in hiding along with her younger siblings, I doubted she ever got to mix with anyone her own age. And even if she did, it would have to be rare.

Which was perhaps why she had appeared to take a particular interest in me.

Looking back at the adults, whose bickering seemed to finally be dying down, I supposed this had just become normal behavior for them over however many years they’d been living like this. Maybe this was what living in a small space with all your family members did to you after a while. They likely didn’t realize how odd it looked to outsiders.

“I’m so sorry,” one of the grandmothers said loudly, her voice cutting through everything else. “Please, do start.”

The bandana woman returned with two cups of tea at that moment and set them down on a low table beside us, and then Hux sucked in a breath, and began to introduce himself.

The teen seemed to gather the courage to look up again now that her family’s arguing had stopped, and her eyes once more returned to me, curious. I looked away, as it felt weird for us to be staring at one another, and listened as Hux started explaining the history behind Nathan’s new direction for the platform.

About halfway through his pitch, to my surprise, the teen got up from her seat and moved over to me, sitting down right next to me on our sofa. I gave her a friendly, if a bit surprised, smile, and she smiled shyly back. Then she leaned in tentatively and whispered in my ear, “You wanna hang out in my room?”

I stared at her, a bit taken aback by the offer. I found it kind of creepy, to be honest, but looking into her hopeful eyes, I could tell she really didn’t mean it to come across that way. She was obviously desperate for company, and I felt a stab of pity for her.

Plus, it occurred to me that this would give me a chance to ask some questions. Figure out who these people were, and maybe get information that the adults would be too careful to let slip.

So I glanced at Hux, who was still busy talking, and then shrugged. I guessed I might as well, as I doubted Hux needed me to sit here the whole time. I wasn’t exactly doing anything productive right now.

“Sure,” I whispered back.

Her eyes glistened with excitement, as though I had just given her a birthday present, and she reached for my hand and pulled me up. I barely had a chance to note Hux’s, or anyone else’s, reaction to her gesture before she’d led me through the door and closed it gently behind us.

We emerged in a narrow passageway that contained a short staircase leading up to the higher levels. Out here, I could hear the raucous noise of the children upstairs, their footsteps pounding on the ceiling, an occasional shriek tearing through the boat, as they probably ripped each other’s hair out or something. The girl led me along the corridor and stopped about halfway down, in front of what looked like a storage cupboard set beneath the stairs. She opened it and crept inside, turning on a light to reveal a tiny bedroom. A mattress took up most of it, and at the end was a small desk, just about wide enough for her to sit in front of, which held a computer.

The girl glanced at me hesitantly, as if waiting for my reaction, and I managed to pull an impressed face. “Looks pretty cool in there.”

She moved her eyes to the computer, shrugging ruefully. “It’s not much, but it’s all my own. Nobody else is allowed to come in here.”

I smiled. “Well, I appreciate your invite then.”

She smirked, and then made room for me to step inside. I lowered myself onto the edge of the mattress and sat in a cross-legged position, while the girl sank to the floor in front of her computer. She brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear, smiling at me nervously.

“So do you all live on this boat full time?” I asked, figuring that was a good, fairly nonintrusive question to start with.

Her smile soured somewhat. “Yeah. Full time.”

“For how long?” I asked.

She sighed, leaning back against the table. “Since forever.”

I nodded at the confirmation of my earlier suspicion. “And how do you pass your time?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Homeschooling. Just like the rest of my siblings and cousins.” She glanced at her computer. “Well, that and I spend a lot of time with George here.” She stroked the top of the old monitor.

I smiled. “Oh, you’ve named it.”

“I’ve named him, yes,” she replied with a grin.

“And are you some kind of computer genius?” I asked.

She scoffed. “I wish. But nah. I’m still just learning the basics of coding and stuff.” She paused, then hit a key on the keyboard, bringing the screen to life. It showed a black window filled with lines of green-and-yellow code. “I’m working on something cool, though,” she added with a shy smile.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A network for homeschoolers. It’s still pretty ugly, and I’ve got a lot more work to do on it, but ten people have joined already.”

She pulled up a dark web browser and navigated to a plain-looking portal under the name of Homeskoolers Unite. The color scheme was a bit all over the place, with lots of pinks and purples, and then some splashes of blues and greens, as if added as an afterthought to make boys feel welcome too. But when she logged in, it looked impressively functional, with all the basic modules of a networking site. The girl was clearly smart and driven, and I could picture her being a valuable member of our group in a few years’ time, if not already. She could offer assistance with running the portal, for one thing.

She brought up a list of the ten members, all of them with non-identifying avatars and obviously fake names, and pointed to two of the accounts. “I’m friends with these two. Not really sure about the others, though. They’re pretty unresponsive.” She puffed out her cheeks, then navigated to a profile under the name of Gabby Sails. “This is mine,” she explained, bringing up a page with an avatar image of a cartoon-drawn girl who very vaguely resembled “Gabby.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s impressive. You basically are a whiz.”

Her cheeks warmed. “Meh. I still got a lot to learn. But yeah, I guess I can do some fairly cool stuff. Mostly, I just wanted to start something where teens like me can hang out. I mean, my family can’t be the only underground homeschoolers.”

I nodded. “I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.” Wherever Davine and Noreen’s women went with their kids, I was certain they’d have to stay hidden too, which would leave homeschooling as the only option to educate their children. “And all this coding stuff—did your parents teach you, or is it all self-taught?”

“Self-taught. I took a bunch of free online tutorials in my spare time—still taking them, in fact—and I forced my parents to give me George when I was eight. I’ve been playing around with him ever since. He’s been on the ship for like, two decades or something, but he’s still chuggin’ along.” She gave the monitor a warm smile and another affectionate stroke.

I nodded slowly, feeling as though I understood much more about Gabby than I had a few minutes ago. This seemed to be her only way of socializing with anyone other than her family. And while I was glad that she at least had some outlet away from the craziness that was the rest of her home, I couldn’t help but feel sad for her. They might’ve all escaped the CRAS, but the kind of life they lived now didn’t seem like that great of an alternative. Better than being separated from their families, yes, but once a child got past a certain age, they needed space to breathe and develop independence. Not to mention, what was Gabby’s future going to be? Would she be stuck here indefinitely, even into her twenties?

It was an angering reminder of the lengths the CRAS was driving people to, just to keep their families together. We had to find a way to fix this.

“Do you mind me asking why you don’t just sail off to a different country and start a new life there?” I asked.

Gabby sighed. “That’s not so easy for people like us. None of my siblings or cousins have any kind of documentation. We’re basically ghosts, and if we suddenly showed up at a port, we’d be asked questions we wouldn’t be able to answer. We could all get deported back to the UNA and handed over to the authorities. It’s just not a risk my parents are willing to take.”

I nodded, supposing it made sense. Though, how could they even live perpetually on the water? What about fuel, and so on? Satellite Internet charges? Electricity? I guessed they must’ve figured it out somehow; maybe they had a contact or two on the land who was helping them. And as for food, perhaps they lived off the ocean, and/or the adults made occasional bulk shopping trips for groceries on land.

Whatever the case, I realized they could greatly benefit from this new alliance Nathan was pulling together, too. There were others who had figured out how to hide and live inland—Hux had told me that the women from Davina and Noreen’s organization went somewhere after they gave birth. And that it was somewhere in the country. Did that mean that there could be an entire underground society that we didn’t even know about? Hundreds of people who lived in the country, but off the grid? And if there were, could they help Gabby escape? Could they help this entire family? And once I found my daughter, could they help me? I put it on the list of things to think about later. The adult members of Gabby’s family might be able to hack this lifestyle, but she and her siblings and cousins simply couldn’t live like this forever.

Gabby returned her focus to the monitor, and I watched as she minimized her social network and went back to the search browser. “There is also another project I’m working on, by the way,” she said, an excited twinkle in her eye.

“And what’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Learning to be a hacker,” she replied proudly.

“Whoa. How many other tricks do you have up those sleeves?” I had been right about this girl being driven and smart. And, suspecting she’d wind up helping us sooner rather than later, I made a mental note to confirm with Hux that she would be invited onto the platform with her parents (assuming he decided to invite them, after his discussion with them was done).

She grinned. “Not many more.”

“What do you want to hack?” I asked.

She shrugged. “There’s a lot of bad stuff going on in the shadow web. People who’ve become criminals for all the wrong reasons.”

“Oh, I know,” I said, giving her a serious look. I’d stumbled upon enough of those after I discovered the shadow web, myself.

“So I figured it would be useful if I could cause them a bit of trouble.”

I frowned. “What sort of trouble?”

“Oh, like, digging into their admin panels and messing up their databases. Disabling forums, overloading servers, that sort of thing…” She trailed off as she focused on the monitor. “This is one I found the other day,” she said after a minute, bringing up a dark gray login screen. She somehow bypassed it, and the screen that popped up next made my eyes bug.

“What in the world?” I breathed, gazing at what looked like some sort of auction site. Except the items on offer didn’t appear to be items at all.

The page was comprised of listings containing descriptions of what I could only imagine were kids, judging by the biometric data detailed there—and an “availability status” was attached to each entry. Of the ten that I could see on this page, five were grayed out as “unavailable” while one was “processing” and the others were a bright green “available.”

I had come across a lot of forums discussing sketchy stuff, but I had never seen anything like this.

“Yeah, it was well hidden,” she went on. “I don’t know how anyone would stumble upon it without a direct link. I only discovered it because someone mentioned it on a random forum I happened to be browsing. Some guy thought he was being all clever and cryptic, talking about a place where ‘some people bought potatoes.’ Obviously it was code for something, and I was curious, so I PM’d him and he gave me the link. Looks like it’s run by some kind of shady kidnapping ring,” she concluded solemnly.

“How many listings are on this platform?” I asked, still gaping.

“I don’t know yet,” she replied. “I’ve only managed to access one page so far, what you see here. I was planning to try to trace the details of the admin of the site, to see if there’s any way I can anonymously rat them out to the government. I’m guessing the kids would be in better hands even with the CRAS.”

I looked at her, once again impressed by her maturity. “That’s really brave of you, Gabby. Are you sure you’re taking proper security measures to make sure nobody can track you down?”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t do anything in the shadows without several layers of encryption.”

“Good,” I said. Even on the ocean, I worried that if she pissed off the wrong criminals, they could find a way of getting to her. Especially if they were making a lot of money through this kind of operation. I wondered what type of person could stoop to running a site like that. Then I realized it could very well be people who weren’t dissimilar to me and my colleagues. Perhaps whose technical operations were even close to Nelson’s, and other groups operating out of OH. The only difference was where the children ended up. People who stole them and then, instead of giving them back to their birthparents, sold them. Which was a sobering reminder that anything in this world could be used for good and bad.

I hoped Gabby would figure out a way to crack it, because people like that needed to be taken down. And with the time and dedication she seemed to have, I wouldn’t put it past her.

But I put thoughts of that site aside for now, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I had in here with her, and a different subject had surfaced in my head—one I’d actually been wanting to bring up the moment she mentioned hacking.

“Do you know anything about the government’s adoption archives?” I asked. She had obviously spent a lot of time browsing the shadow web, or in the shadows, as she referred to it. It seemed possible that she could’ve read a discussion on it or something. Perhaps seen someone else talking about their attempts to crack it.

But she shook her head. “Nope. I think my mom would probably slaughter me if I tried to touch anything even remotely government-related.”

“Oh, yes,” I said quickly. “I’m not encouraging you to try. I just wondered if you might have come across anything.”

“Yeah, I haven’t. Sorry.”

The sound of footsteps outside drew my attention away from the screen and reminded me that Gabby’s elders would likely not approve of what we’d just been discussing.

“Where have you taken her, girl?” I sat up straighter as the familiar voice of the brunette mother drifted in through the cracks in the door. “Few minutes sittin’ with a guest and you run off with her!”

Gabby quickly dimmed the screen and turned to look at me with a heavy sigh. “Looks like it’s time for you to go.”

Her dismay touched me, and I almost wished I could stay a bit longer just for her sake, but I had an idea of how I could ease the blow a little for her. “Hey, are you a member of OH?” I asked.

“Yup,” she replied.

“Add me to your circle, then. I’m RobinHood21.”

Her face lit up like fireworks. “Oh my God, I will. I’m GabbySails! All one word, same as on my network!”

“Thanks. I can give you my number, too, if you have a way to call me,” I added. Honestly, she was a smart cookie, and her computer skills made her the kind of person who could be useful as a contact, especially when the only other tech I was close to was Nelson. Plus, I wanted to know how it went with that kidnapping site.

And if I could help make her life saner along the way, by giving her someone she could talk to, then that was all the better.

“That’s even awesomer!” she practically squealed. “I promise I won’t call you much.”

“It’s fine,” I said, smiling. “I’d like you to let me know how things go with that site, as well as if you come across anything about the archives during your shadow web crawls.”

“Sure thing!”

She gave me a pad and a piece of paper, and I scrawled my number on it. And when I handed it back to her, she pulled me into a hug. I hugged her back awkwardly, given the cramped space, and then she leaned over me to push open the door, and we both made our way out.

Hux and her mother were standing in the hallway, waiting, and the woman gave her daughter a mildly disapproving look. “What were you two doing in there?” she asked with a frown. Hux was looking at me with confusion, too.

“Just hanging out,” Gabby replied with a shrug.

“Yup, just hanging out,” I repeated, keeping to her version of the truth, as she had now confirmed my suspicion that her mother likely didn’t know about her hacking endeavors. “You ready to leave, then?” I asked Hux.

He nodded. “Yeah. All done.”

“Okay, great.”

Then, just as the woman was leading us back to the living area, the hoard of children came spilling down the staircase and swarmed around us.

“You goin’ already?” Rufus asked, wide-eyed, while several of the other kids asked variations of the same question.

“Afraid so,” I replied, ruffling his curly hair.

Gabby kept close behind me as we returned to the trap door, then waited as her mother opened it.

“We should touch the dock in about a minute,” the woman explained. “So head down and wait for the ramp to open.”

“Thanks for your hospitality, ma’am,” Hux said, shaking her hand, and then nodding to the rest of the adults still in the room.

“Thanks, ma’am,” I echoed, shaking her hand as well.

“No, thank you two, for coming,” one of the men replied. “This new initiative sounds like it’ll be real interesting.”

And hopefully also helpful.

Hux nodded, and then the two of us climbed down the ladder, descending once more into the damp gloom.

Gabby and as many of the other children as could fit peered down at us through the hole as we waited for the ramp to fall. I waved one last time to all of them before we walked across the ramp and out of sight. The ramp started withdrawing again almost as soon as our feet had touched the pier, and the ship quickly motored away, back into the darkness.

We watched it go for about a minute in silence, and then Hux turned his back on the ocean. “Let’s head back,” he said.

I nodded, and we took off at a brisk walk down the pier.

“So what did that girl actually want with you?” he asked, frowning. “It was pretty weird the way she pulled you out of the room.”

“Yeah, about that,” I said, having been about to broach the topic with him myself. “Her name’s Gabby, and she seems like a smart kid. She had a computer in that little cupboard room and is in the process of designing her own social network for homeschoolers. She’s also a self-taught hacker.” I proceeded to explain about the kidnapping ring’s site she was attempting to crack, and by the time I’d finished, Hux’s eyes were wide.

“That’s disgusting,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning down.

“I know. I’m hoping she’ll figure out a way to take it down. And back to the subject of Gabby: I think she could be a good asset to the new portal, so if you’ve decided to invite her parents, which I’m guessing you have, I suggest you invite her too. Her handle’s GabbySails.”

“Yeah, I’m planning to invite them. And I’ll send off an invite to her, too.”

“Good,” I said, and then there was a pause as we reached the end of the pier and took off down the station road. “What is their group actually known for in the OH community?” I asked. “I mean, what was it that flagged them as a trustworthy group? How did they earn their reputation?” It was a key piece of information that I hadn’t gotten out of Gabby during the brief time we’d talked. We’d ended up getting too sidetracked with her shadow web projects.

“They help fellow OH members, occasionally,” Hux replied. “From what they told me, it’s mostly people who’re in need of emergency hiding places. They let folks on board their boat temporarily, until the dust settles.”

“Oh, I see. Well I guess that’s brave, to say the least, for them to take that risk of inviting someone into their home.”

“Yes,” Hux replied. “I think their hearts are definitely in the right place. And they do seem brave, if a little eccentric.”

I smiled. “Yeah, well, sharing that small space for decades will probably do that to a person.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Rather them than me, that’s all I’ll say.”

“I’m guessing back where you’re from, you had tons of space to stretch those long legs of yours,” I remarked, my eyes dropping automatically to the lengthy strides he was taking.

He gave me a bemused look, his lips curving in a half smile.

“What?” I asked.

“Long legs?”

I shrugged. “They are long, aren’t they?”

“Yeah… I guess it’s just not a descriptor I’m used to being on the end of, as a guy.”

I smirked. “Well, take it as a compliment.”

“Okay… And to answer your question, yes. I’d sometimes be gone for days at a time, when hunting for food in the winter.”

Our conversation trailed off as we reached the station entrance. We both stopped, and I was turning to look at him, wondering if he had commuted by train today, too, when a ringing suddenly erupted from his coat pocket.

He dipped a hand inside and pulled out his phone, and his face darkened as he glanced at the screen. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and I couldn’t help but feel that this call might be related to the conversation I’d caught him in earlier, the one that had put him in such a bitter mood.

“I’m sorry, Robin,” he muttered. “I gotta take this call now. I’ll… I’ll be in touch about the next visitation tomorrow, in case you want to come again, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, okay,” I replied, then watched as he turned on his heel and swiftly crossed the road, pressing the phone to his ear as he headed into the shadows of the parking lot beyond.

My mind once again mulled over what this whole issue could be about, but thoughts of more important things soon distracted me as I walked back through the station barriers. Like that awful kidnapping site. The fact that such things even existed disturbed me deeply. I couldn’t bring myself to imagine what it would feel like to have my own child listed there. At least under the CRAS, Hope would have been taken in by a responsible family, who might not give her the love she deserved, but would at least look after her, the way the Sylvones had looked after me (until I was seventeen, anyway).

And I wondered how many other sites like that existed. Sites that we didn’t even know about. Especially considering that Gabby’s discovery of this one had been pure dumb luck.

The bitter side of me blamed its existence on the CRAS, wanting to believe that it had encouraged a culture of commodifying children, with so many wealthy people “collecting” them. Even though I knew that wasn’t entirely fair. Evil like this, in one form or another, had existed since the beginning of written history… though I couldn’t imagine that initiatives like the CRAS helped.

But regardless of whose fault it was, the whole subject got me thinking, as I climbed aboard my train and settled into a window seat, that maybe, once we got organized, the portal could have a broader scope. Maybe we could take a leaf out of Gabby’s book and target criminals whenever we came across them.

And then I realized, a few minutes into those musings, that we couldn’t stretch ourselves too thin. There wasn’t an unlimited number of us, nor would we have unlimited resources, and taking on the CRAS alone was a massive task.

We needed focus as a group. So perhaps we were going to have to leave this kind of work to Gabby’s free time after all.

I sighed and leaned back, my eyes glazing over against the lights whizzing past the window, though the subject lingered in the back of my head throughout the journey home.