Chapter 500: Everything Changes

Where did Trudy go in a hurry? She always sends a text, emails, or tells someone.

I got the kids off to school and hit up Trudy to see what was happening.

She told me she would talk to me later. Right now, she was incredibly busy.

I sent Snowflake into Trudy’s clothes closet to find something to wear to school while I roused Trudy’s overnight guests. They didn’t want to wake up. Being told they wouldn’t get any breakfast if they didn’t hurry got them moving.

They didn’t have cars here when they had come over with Trudy.

I didn’t particularly want to drive a minivan but disliked the idea of driving a Mercedes SUV when I dropped them off in town.

“David,” one of the people from the complex said when they called me. “Can you swing by the juvenile detention building and pick up six kids transferring out here today? They are a bit unrulily. Expect them to give you a hard time before realizing that you are out of their league.”

Snowflake’s braces appointment wasn’t for another hour, and the detention center was on the way.

I didn’t know what the children did, but all of them were in transport jumpsuits and shackles.

“Can you take off the shackles, please?” I asked the deputy that brought out the kids.

She told me, “You can try to catch them when they escape. Two are slippery as eels.”

That explains why they had a box with my name on it and the children’s possessions.

I found “tracker” bracelets in the box, with each child’s name and picture on them. Only someone like me, or the machine at the facility, could remove them. Once on the children, I got ready to take them out to the car.

“Run if you want, but there is nowhere you can go that I can’t track you if you get away from me. I’m a stranger, and you have no reason to trust me. I get it. I’d explain where I am taking you, but you won’t believe me anyway. The sooner we get out of there, the sooner we will get something to eat that doesn’t taste like egg or bacon-flavored oatmeal. If you run, you all will have to wait longer to eat real food.”

Once outside, two kids decided to take flight. I had a grip on the back of their jumpsuits before they took two steps. These two proved adept at getting away as they both got their jumpsuits unsnapped and freed themselves to the waist. A few twists are all it took to get their lower bodies free. One got tangled up in their underwear but didn’t seem to care that they lost it. The other had a t-shirt underneath, which I had grabbed onto when getting the back of their jumpsuit. She wiggled down and out of that before taking off at a full sprint.

I got the other four buckled into the van.

“Aren’t you going to go after them?” one of the kids asked.

I got in the driver’s seat and said, “Yep. It is forty-one degrees outside right now. One is nude, the other in only panties. If they run into a store or restaurant like that, the people will call the police. Not a lot of places they can hide. Why don’t we get you something for breakfast, and then I will drive to pick them up?”

We got the four kids breakfast from the red-headed clown. I got the two kids hot chocolate, and then I had Snowflake use my phone to tell me where the two missing kids were. I used my implant to track them down. When I got close, I had myself see everything as being ninety percent transparent. The kids managed to get a few boxes pulled together that fit together. They stuffed the box with newspaper wads to provide some insulation. Still, the kids had their knees to their chests and arms around their legs, trying to keep warm.

I beeped, rolled down the window, and said, “The van has heat. We got food and hot chocolate. You can come out, or I will drag you out, your choice. I’ll give you a minute to think it over.”

The one that had managed to get loose from her t-shirt had torn her panties. They wouldn’t stay on her, so she let them fall off at some point when she was running away from the detention building. I opened the van door, and she dove into the van to huddle down on the floor at Snowflake’s feet, as that was the nearest heat vent. I got the girl a blanket from the back to pull around and buckled her in.

The final kid learned that Ellen is much harder to catch than them. This one was smart enough to find a side of an apartment building that made it hard to see the kid climbing onto balconies looking for an unlocked door or window. They found an empty apartment that still had heat. I took the elevator up to that floor and used the place in my head to silently unlock the door. Somehow I knew what to do to keep the door from squeaking. The kid either sensed or saw me. They were already out on the balcony, ready to run.

“Look, kid, my adopted daughter spent eleven years living in a forest. The last two were on her own after her father got murdered by his sister. She had to keep away from predators and hunt to survive. I can catch her easily. You don’t have the skills to get away from me. It isn’t worth you getting hurt or dead. It is cold out there, and you’re nude,” I told them. “I’ve got food and hot chocolate in the van for you, but it is getting cold.”

Curse at me all you want in any language. I know them all.

I said the same thing from before in the language the kid used. It made them stop and think for a second, but then they were gone.

I already know the possible places you might go, and only one is in that direction.

Having longer arms and legs let me bounce between two walls to get up the roof of this apartment building. I waited for the kid to get up here. I herded them toward a string of buildings that were an easy jump for the kid. I got over beside the kid before they knew it.

“We have multiple parkour courses at the complex and a bunch of smash rooms,” I told them. “You won’t get away from me, but you can try if it makes you happy. I will run with you to ensure you don’t hurt yourself.”

They flipped me a bird and took off.

I feel like that male skunk from the cartoons chasing the cat with a white stripe down its back.

Twice during the run, I had to put my hand under their butt to give them a push because they tripped themselves up by misguessing the height of the ledge they were going to push off from to jump to the next building. By the sixth building, the kid was out of gas. They didn’t even notice when I got their arms around my neck and arm around their waist. I reversed to the spot where I had bounced between walls to get to the roof. I did the reverse on the way down, but with only one arm. I saw the kids outside the van watching, so I pushed away from the building about thirty feet up in the air. I landed almost silently.

She fell asleep at some point during the run back and held onto me instinctively. A quick headcount showed that I was missing two kids. It was one of the kids from the detention center and Snowflake.

“Where’d they run off to?” I asked.

The girl in the van found some clothes in the back that fit Marlowe, so they went to use the bathroom,” one of the boys said. “Marlowe had to pee badly. You have a lot of clothes back there. Can we see if we can find something to wear too? It isn’t like we can go somewhere you won’t track us.”

They all found clothes and changed out of their jumpsuits. All of them needed the new underwear they got from the bag with underwear in various sizes. The girls opted for tank tops over sports bras. I dressed the sleeping girl I chased down.

“You could fuck her. She would love you forever if you did. She loves sex, which is what got her arrested in the first place,” a boy said.

A girl angrily said, “Her pimp kept her drugged out of her mind on something that made her horny. She didn’t have any clue what those boys were doing to her. When her pimp died, she came off the drugs to find she was the engine in a long train. When she tried to get away, they beat her up and kept using her. The way I heard it, one day, she found a knife and proceeded to stab and slash her way to freedom. They chased her. When they caught her, they beat the crap out of her when not using her for a cum dump.”

“The police found me covered in blood after I managed to hack and slash my way free from those bastards,” the girl told us. “Unfortunately, none of them died. I’ve escaped seven times so far, but the cops keep finding me eventually. They’ve had to keep moving me to different kid jails because some child fuckers get away with everything if I am dead. My caseworker told me that someone was coming to take me to a place where I would be safe, a super-max child prison.”

Snowflake and Marlowe had returned. We loaded up to head to the complex.

As we drove, I told the six kids, “You will hear this again when we get there, but first off, where we are going isn’t jail or prison, but a monstrous foster home. You are now my foster children. The caseworker had the part right about being safer for you than a super-max facility. We aren’t trying to keep you from leaving.”

“What? We can just leave?” a kid asked.

“Sure, if you want. The security measures keep people from getting in to hurt anyone living there. Each non-resident must go through multiple levels of interviews. We know if the person will be allowed to proceed to the fourth level interviewers by the third level. If they get this far, they willingly offer details of crimes these people committed back when they were kids shoplifting a pack of gum or candy bars in primary school. Few get past this point without discussing their crimes in much more detail with law enforcement,” I explained. “We’ve only had three, with something to hide, that managed to lie and cover their tracks well enough to get to the final interviewers. They were all U.S. spies from one of the many three-letter alphabet agencies. After disclosing national security information, their fake identities, safe houses, stash locations, and things they believe they could keep hidden, we told the spies they failed to meet their entrance requirements. The best they got was a moderated video chat, using an old cell phone, with the child or children who they said they were there to see and were happy to have gotten that much. If any children said they didn’t want to talk to that person, their visitors were out of luck. All that time spent getting through the interviews was for nothing.”

“So as soon as I arrive, I can walk right out the gate,” Marlowe asked.

“Not quite,” I started saying before she interrupted.

“I thought so. Always lies,” Marlowe hissed out.

I waited for her to stop cursing before saying, “Every kid we bring there has to go through medical first. We document every scar, bruise, any sign of sexual abuse, take blood, and anything else that the medical team finds. You won’t be able to lie about anything to them, so tell them the truth, no matter how embarrassing, when they ask you about something they found. If they see that you are sexually active, you will have to tell them about it in detail. There is nothing wrong with having sex, provided your body and mind are ready for it. If dad fucked your ass or your mom made you go down on her, and you enjoyed it, then tell the doctor to ask you about it.”

“So, we get poked, prodded, and interrogated by shrinks, and then we can leave?” Marlowe asked.

“Nope. You have to get something to eat in one of the cafeterias. Once you finish stuffing yourself, you will go wherever they have the clothes to get outfitted. That means panties, bras, shirts, skirts, shorts, pants, tops, dresses, pajamas, and whatever else you think you need to feel as normal as possible. These are yours. When you outgrow something, someone takes your too small ones to get donated. They wash them and check the item to ensure it is still in good shape. We send them to homeless shelters, churches, children’s hospitals, and anywhere else that kids might show up that need clothes,” I told them. “From there, you will go to your assigned suite to meet your chaperone and whatever kids happen to be there at the time. If there is more than one bedroom available, you can pick which one you want. All the bedrooms lock from the inside and have their own bathroom.”

“What is the catch? Sweatshop? Slave labor? Scrubbing toilets? Sucking dick?” another kid asked.

“No catch. If you want to suck a dick, then suck a dick, but do it in your room or his. There are little kids here that are still innocent about sex and the ways of the world. We want to keep it that way. They’ve been through enough already,” I told them after I stopped laughing. “You must scrub your toilet and tub, wash the floor, vacuum your room, dust, change your sheets, make your bed, and keep your room neat. There is usually a rotation to clean the kids shared den and the main common area. That means washing and loading someone else’s dishes into the dishwasher and cleaning up their messes.”

“Or make them clean up after themselves,” the girl I had chased down said.

“Exactly. Families work together to keep their homes clean. The kids in your suite are your new family. If you can’t get along with them or have issues with the chaperone that you can’t work out, you can move to another suite after sitting down with a neutral third party to talk through the problems. We have had some bad chaperones. We don’t expect everyone to get along with everyone else. That is why we have smash rooms for those that need to hit something to calm down. There are also doctors from many different backgrounds you can talk with about whatever is bothering you. We’ve had bad doctors here too, and we fired them,” I explained.

They groaned at that thought.

“You also have to go to school or prove that you know what is needed to graduate. School teachers are available around the clock when you choose to do your minimum of thirty hours each week during the school year. If that is in the middle of the night, then that works. We require you to stay for at least a day and give us a chance. We will get you loaded up to head out if that doesn’t work for you. Should that be your choice, you can’t come back without proving you want to be here and aren’t just going to leave again a few days later. To be clear, that doesn’t mean you can’t leave to do something. We have some sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds earning school credit building houses. They train as apprentices under a master craftsman in what interests them. Only child labor laws restrict what training the kids sixteen or older can do and what is considered too dangerous. They have to go offsite because we aren’t building houses at the complex. Everything else that you can learn in a classroom is available in the complex.”

Marlowe asked, “I don’t get it. The kid jail dumped us on you, and this foster care complex sounds like a dream. It appears to have anything I could want, which means it is too good to be true.”

I gave them the short version about Darren and then explained, “I don’t know what happened to get you in my van going to the complex today. I could find out if I wanted to know, but I don’t. Someone felt you weren’t beyond help, so they asked the complex to get you. All anyone can try is to help you put whatever happened behind you to become the best person you are capable of being. We will do our best to remove the biggest hurdles kids have. These include money, a safe place to live, food, clothing, medical, dental, and mental health needs. Sometimes that is removing what remains of the teeth your father didn’t knock out entirely, Marlowe. The dentist will put in posts to mount new teeth. That is unless you volunteer to help the egghead dentists trying to use stem cells and scaffolding to regrow the teeth. Either way, you will have all of those broken ones replaced.”

“That costs thousands of dollars. The government won’t pay to do that,” Marlowe retorted.

I laughed again and then said, “You weren’t listening closely. I pay for everything. Whatever the government decides to pay us for your care goes into an interest-bearing savings account in your name. That is yours when you turn twenty-five, but you will start getting an allowance from it once you turn eighteen if you choose to leave the complex versus stay to go to college here or at one of the other three complexes around the country. All I require is that you must move into one of the apartments in the adults-only building when you turn eighteen. I hear training is needed before you can ask to become a chaperone for one of the suites.”

I took Snowflake to the complex’s dentist section to get her braces on when we got there. A nurse would remove their tracking bracelets. The four kids who got in the van without fuss got dropped off at medical school.