Court

Court's fingers flew over the keyboard. It was a substandard piece of crap, but it was the best they could come up with at short notice. He'd vetoed Lucy acquiring him a better one. He was unsure just how she was going to do it, and he thought they were in enough trouble.

"So? Is everyone okay?" Lucy asked, leaning back on her arms. She blew out a bubblegum bubble, popped it, and sucked the gooey substance back into her mouth.

Court found the whole action almost unbearably distracting. Lucy had only gotten cuter and more adorable since he'd last seen her. He'd always thought she was cute and adorable, but now, it just seemed like it was magnified somehow. He shook his head and dismissed the thought as the laptop finally produced some results.

"Looks like most of us made it to some sort of domicile," he said as he perused the information. Then he frowned. "I don't see Ella's name here anywhere."

That caused Lucy to sit up.

"Then where's Ella?" She pulled out a wrapper and disposed of her gum. "She was supposed to go to that biomom of hers. The lawyer, right?"

"That was the plan," Court muttered, his displeasure evident. "I know I was just a kid, but my skills were awesome even then. They should have shuffled her off without any questions."

He shut the laptop and shoved it under the table. Then he stood up and grabbed Lucy's hand. Since she was sitting on the small hill beside the table, the height difference was just right.

He started walking away, dragging Lucy with him.

"Is there a tracker on your car?" He asked, studiously ignoring Lucy's bewildered look.

"Probably, but my dad won't care as long as it's not traced to him," Lucy shrugged. "He's busy right now anyways."

Court eyed her a second before ducking into an alley. Lucy looked at him with curiosity and then at the mouth of the alley. Several low-key black cars flew by, causing her to frown this time. They converged on the little coffee shop they'd just been at.

"This might be worse than we thought," Court said as they watched a sunglasses wearing suit snatch up the laptop. "I was only in for a couple minutes."

"You need a better computer," Lucy muttered. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You need a university better computer."

"A university?" Court echoed. Then he shrugged. "Which university are we talking about?"

*****

Court walked down the hallway, pushing the janitorial cart. The real janitor was tied up in a closet, happily sleeping with a strange smile on his face. Lucy swore that her little grenade only put the man to sleep and nothing else.

Court found that he didn't care. He was tired of caring about what was going on in the rest of the world. His only priorities now were finding out just what happened to Ella and keeping Lucy happy. He also added figuring out just where his parents were lurking at the very end of his list.

He wasn't interested unless it conflicted with the first two objectives. He had an inkling that it might. Lucy had told him about the attempted abduction, and coupled with the news about Ella's missing status, the coincidence was unsettling. Lucy had ridden herd over the younger kids in their creche. If anyone could demand complete and immediate obedience from them, it was Lucy.

Lucy was keeping watch over the janitor and keeping track of the security. They had decided that taking out both would be too risky. With the help of a tablet and a hacked link to the internal security cameras, she was happily keeping watch. She'd alert him with their communicators if anything went wrong.

Court had expected that the communicators would be confiscated when they'd been rescued all those years ago. None of them had thought that the communicators would sink into their wrists when the first rescuer had breached the creche's walls. As far as he knew, none of the rescued had had their communicators taken.

Court stopped in front of the door to the university servers. He reached into the janitor's cart and liberated the laptop he'd scooped up out of a nearby lab. He'd had to use the little acid spray Lucy had to burn through the security cord, but he refused to think about why she'd be carrying something like that.

He slipped into the server room and paused. There was no alert from Lucy, but the server room wasn't under surveillance, unlike the hallways and certain labs. There might be a tech doing maintenance or someone just goofing off in a quiet part of the building.

Hearing nothing, he plugged the laptop into a server. While he waiting for it to boot up, he glanced around curiously. The servers emitted a low level hum that was slightly distracting. Then he turned his attention back to the laptop once it beeped to let him know it was ready.

Court slowly smiled as he sat down, the laptop balanced on his lap. He held his right hand over it and slowly let himself commune with the small computer. The laptop's screen started flashing as windows started popping up and closing.

"So she's being held in a secure facility with some others," Court said as he slipped into the car.

"But why? She's just a kid," Lucy asked as she started the car and sedately pulled out of the parking lot.

"She's a dangerous kid," Court reminded her. "We're all dangerous one way or another or we wouldn't have made it to Liberation Day."

"Don't remind me," Lucy growled. She eyed the flashing lights flying past her. "Is it just me or are they getting faster?"

"Faster, I think," Court said, leaning his seat back. "There was even an order to 'secure' me in there as well. They'd just figured out where I came from."

"Then it's good that you're no longer there, isn't it?" Lucy grinned. "This is an excellent chance to go talk to Dawnie!"

"Really? Dawnie?" Court sighed. "Fine…let's go talk to Dawnie."