Chapter 420: Welcome One and All

The girl we added to the group went to say goodbye to all her Scout friends that had come on the waterpark trip. Her troop leaders helped her find some darling dresses. She put one on and put the rest with what little clothes that she brought from home. Everyone ate, changed, and was ready to get on the bus. The only thing was the bus wasn’t there.

“David! Over here,” a man said from over by a tour bus. “Your office called to say that you needed a bigger ride. “This one seats sixty. My company won’t let you drive our busses, so you’re stuck with me. We aren’t going directly to your foster-care complex. They said to have you call in. She said something about kidnapping some hiders, whatever that means.”

Hiders?

Once on the road, I called back to the foster care complex. The woman did mean hiders. There were fifteen kids from seventeen to fourteen that all escaped from their family or foster home. The people kept these kids as if they were prisoners since school ended for the summer. One of them got a hold of our number, so they called to say they were all scared, hungry, dirty, and their clothes were nothing but rags now. Social services and the police were chasing them day and night. Right now, they had managed to find one of three places that the police dogs lost their scent. The kid that called told her where to look for them, but that it had to be me because only I would be able to find them. Others would look right past them without noticing. We did have to hurry because they had to run to another place soon. The police had been getting too close. I had her email me the details for each one.

Ok, no med needs to worry about with these kids.

She called me back to say, “The driver is getting the GPS updated to take you to an intermediate spot away from their location. A quarter-mile from where the kids are hiding is an abandoned RV park. Our database, which I don’t want to know who you are paying to provide us with, confirmed that it has always been off the grid. It has a mini-geothermal power plant that supplies endless hot water to its shower, which you will need. We had biking shorts, shirts, and flip-flops delivered to the shower building to keep from spooking the kids. It has unisex individual shower stalls and changing areas. As the RV park provides soaps and towels, you won’t need to worry about that. Do your thing, David. You are good at it. The kids with you right now will be dropped off at a restaurant to eat and use the bathroom while you go kid hunting.”

I wonder if April wants to go kid-finding with me. It seems to be something I’m doing lately.

We stopped outside an all-you-can-eat America, Asian, and Mexican buffet. It was just before five, but they looked ecstatic to see us pull up. I gave them a high-level overview of these being kids going to my foster care facility. We had another group that I needed to go pick up and come back here for those kids to eat.

“Take as long as you need. We have tablets at the tables, so these kids can play on them while waiting on you. I don’t know where they found to hold up away from everyone trying to take them back, but any you can locate is better off with you than where they lived before. The ones that I have met are polite, smart, well-behaved children that life shit on,” he told me. “You will be doing me a big favor bringing the ones you can get to come with you here to eat. People haven’t been coming in like they were not long ago, and we have food that will spoil if we don’t cook it before tomorrow. Find those kids. We can settle up when you get back.”

The bus driver pulled in front of the gate to the RV park, and I headed toward the prominent shower building. Using the place in my brain, I saw that there was no hot water or power. I wandered around looking for a power source without finding one. Through the implant, I removed the ground I needed to trace the water pipes. I tracked the cold-water pipe to the pump that pulled the water from a well and up into a small water tower. The hot water pipe went off into the woods. My implant-augmented vision began showing signs of people and dogs heading through this area very recently. The dog paw prints showed it had been a few days since they were here. I soon found a path that led to a bridge over the small river. It had razor-wire around the top and sides of the fence all along the length.

It looks like the lock is rusted shut, and the hinges haven’t been usable in a decade.

Along the bank of the river, I did see a lot of paws and boot prints. Among them were bare those from bare feet. Keeping myself from seeing the water in the river, I found out why. Someone had carefully moved rocks around under the surface of the water. They pushed up mud against them to make a thin walkway out into the river a few feet before it snaked around. It ended up at one of the bridge pilings. Out of sight from this side, someone drilled the concrete to put in metal rods that could be used to climb up. They would then be removed on the way up by the last person. I saw them in a plastic milk crate zip-tied to the catwalk under the bridge.

No way dogs can track them that way.

“You need to hurry. A crew has got dispatched to get that gate open to search the other side,” I got sent. “Use heat to break the rust.”

I didn’t need heat. The rubber boot made inside the lock keeps it well oiled. It was only the outside cover that had rusted into place. A hard tug pulled the gate open. At the end of the bridge was the geothermal power plant. That door wasn’t hard to unlock, and this one opened silently. Once it opened, I smelled grease, bleach, and something dead.

They said these kids were hiders, and they meant it.

Not far inside the door was the carcass of some animal. It looked to have been killed and fed upon by wild animals. Someone cut out some meat with a knife. There was another door that I had to unlock as well. It forced air past me out the front door. Once through the door, I closed it and saw battery-powered, low-voltage lights connected to a solar-charging system. I had wireframed everything, so I soon could see all the places that the kids had made to hide in that would require someone tearing the place apart to find if they didn’t know where to look.

“Do you want to buy this property? Seven minutes and six seconds remain for the title to transfer it into your name before the end of the workday,” a message asked me.

That solves one issue, just in time, it seems.

I went back out into the main hallway to meet my unwanted guests.

“Down on the ground. GET DOWN, or we will release the dogs,” a commanding voice yelled.

I turned and told them, “Get off my property. I am the new owner as of today. If you release your dogs, you will be embarrassed. If you do not put down your weapons, I will consider it an act of aggression and thus defend myself.”

You are too excited to get in here to look for the kids. Not about to happen.

They drew down on me and let both police dogs go.

“Oh, who is a good dog?” I asked the two as they excitedly licked my face and barked to get me to pet them.

“I will assume you are too stupid to get it, so let me make this easy. I’m David Jones. Call it in. I will give you five minutes. If you proceed to keep your weapons aimed at me, you will find yourself handcuffed to the fence outside and your guns in pieces at your feet,” I explained.

One of you has a brain! Go, Team!

He did come forward, with his gun holstered, to ask for ID. After having the dogs lay down at my feet, I slowly pulled out my wallet and handed him my driver’s license. He called that in too.

He handed it back to me and said, “Mr. Jones. On behalf of the police department, we are sorry for the confusion. There are fifteen dangerous children on the run in this area that we have been tracking for days. This building is the last location where someone saw them.”

“About that. You guys need to stop believing hearsay,” I told him as I handed him my authorized caregiver card that allowed me to take any child into protective custody, even from their parents, for any reason. “All fifteen children escaped the abuse of their biological or foster families. None of them are violent. If you didn’t listen to the bullshit that you were fed and bothered to do the least bit of checking, you would have found that they are model citizens. All have excellent grades, bust their ass doing all they are ordered to do, attend church regularly, and get regularly praised by their schools for inspiring other children to get their shit together. If you check with your dispatcher, you will find that I have been required to locate and take them into my protective custody. I know the location of each one, and once I get this geothermal power system online, I will be taking them to shower and dress in clean clothes before they join the forty others that I am transporting to my foster care complex. Please let their parents know to expect a summons to appear in the family court to discuss if they will get their children back. The foster parents will be having other discussions with Child and Family Services.”

He called that in too. One of the guys with them wasn’t a cop, but the father of a boy and girl hiding here. He came at me, forgetting about the police dogs at my feet. He charged at me with a shotgun, demanding I give him his kids right now. What he got instead was his shotgun broke into pieces, and two police dogs only keeping from attacking him because I told them to stay.

I know that pisses off both of your handlers.

Getting up into his face, I said, “Don’t ever point a gun at anyone unless you are going to pull the trigger the second you aim it at them. You are trespassing and just threatened me with a gun on my property. Ask the police why you are not dead or wishing you were. I have the details about your behavior toward your children. I really should beat the living shit out of you and your wife daily, for it, for the rest of your lives. I know people who will make you beg to have me do it just because they don’t like what you have done to your children. You took two kids that every parent wishes they could praise themselves for having. They don’t fight, take care of each other, do all the cooking, cleaning, washing, home repairs, and even vehicle maintenance. All you do is sit on your ass, drink beer, and berate them for being too perfect. Answer me this, though, why are you risking your life to get back two children you don’t want and are nothing but a burden to you in your mind?”

“They are my children, and I can damn well treat them any way I want,” he yelled at me.

I smiled as the cop handed me back that foster care provider ID and said, “No, you can’t. They have run away from your home. You came after them with a loaded weapon. Then you come here threatening me on my property with that same weapon shows that returning them to you puts them in danger as far as Child Protective Services is concerned. They have given me the right to make that call. You can come to the foster care complex to argue your case with the family court judge.”

“What gives you that right?” he asked in anger.

“Building a billion-dollar self-sufficient foster care complex complete with schools, a hospital, dental services, and the top people in their fields working for me. I provide the children and staff with everything, including medical care, clothing, food, and even braces, all at no cost to the government. In some cases, a government official chose to pay a portion for a foster child’s care. My facility takes that money and puts it into a high-yield interest-bearing account in the respective child’s name for them to have when they turn eighteen. We have the facilities to permit them to attend any college or university of their choice remotely. If they have completed the state-mandated high school requirements, they can start college at any age. It is their choice to choose to stay at the complex after turning eighteen. We do not turn them out on the streets like most foster care families because the money stops coming for their care. The only change that will happen is in their living arrangements is that they will have to move into the adult apartments, as we cannot permit them to live with those under eighteen.”

He pulled a knife and came at me again. This time I took it away, folded it back up, put it back in his pocket, and then executed one of the moves that temporarily paralyzed his arms and legs. The dogs sat on either side of him, growling.

I turned back to the cops and said, “Will you please cuff this guy and get him out of here before I get annoyed? I have to get this place running so the kids can shower before we leave. They stink, and I don’t want to make the tour bus company have to do whatever it will take to get that smell out of their seats. I want to make this clear. If anyone, police or otherwise, attempts to take these children from my care, I will defend them. No one who might even consider trying is in the same class as those who kidnapped my daughter, and I spent some time on an aircraft carrier training a Seal team to use less energy to do the same offensive and defensive actions. I hear there is a video of me running circles around them, in full gear, carrying a minigun.”

I had the dogs move away, and once cuffed, I undid what paralyzed him.

He turned toward me, and I watched something I said click in his head. The man paled.

“I fucked up,” he said sadly. “I thank you for not doing more than embarrassing me. Please, give my children the loving home I was unable to do. They deserve to have what remains of their childhood to be happy and carefree.”

The cops led him off.

Both handlers were at a loss because the dogs wouldn’t come to them, and when they tried to put them on a leash, the dogs growled at them in a warning.

I looked at their handlers and said, “All the training in the world won’t remove primal instincts. Of all those that came in here today, they saw me as an alpha male and behaved accordingly. I’ve never had a dog, so this was something I hadn’t had to happen to me before, but it was enjoyable.”

The dogs headed right back over to their handlers when I told the dogs to go.

“I would say that was total bullshit, but my K9 hasn’t allowed anyone besides me near him since he was a puppy. I have to sedate him lightly for his vet visits so that he doesn’t bite them. I would have sworn he was your dog, not mine,” he told me as he and the other K9 cop took their dogs with them.

Getting the power back on was as simple as the flipping of a switch. That used the solar power-charged batteries to engage a solenoid that caused a motor to change the magma-heated water from bypass into the turbines. Part of the cooling process sent the hot water down the pipes to the shower facilities. Someone ran them through the walls to heat the building and then a three-hundred-gallon hot water tank. That process cooled it enough to be sent back down into the ground to return the water to become steam again.

Only when I was sure the only person outside the building, for ten miles around, was the bus driver, and he was taking a nap, did I go to get the kids.