att(pirated)

Ok, I'd be the first to admit it. I think I might have overestimated my ability to conduct a search without the aid of magic.

We'd started the search fairly easily. Me and Ludmila remained in the rough center of our four-man group, with Ms. Anderson on our left and the guard from the gatehouse on our right, both separated by a few dozen meters on either side of us. While the other two members of the search team quickly disappeared into the forest, Ludmila remained practically welded to my side. I didn't know if that was a product of her earlier worries, or if she simply wanted to avoid doubling the number of missing children. But all things considered I wasn't about to try and push my luck by going off on my own. Even if it meant occasionally having to tell her to stop stomping around and making so much noise.

I'd started out with some measure of confidence in my plan. But as half an hour stretched into an hour, and the night fully enveloped the forest, I started to doubt myself. Sure, I'd made it sound as if I knew the secret for finding our missing man. But that relied on actually getting a hint about where he was. And even with all of the advantages I could muster, from my eyes adjusting as well as possible to the darkness to the fact that tonight was a rather brightly moonlit night, I was still struggling to try and find evidence that Jonah had passed through here. All of the plants tended to blend together, and trying to find footprints on the forest's floor was practically impossible. And when we did, either by spotting a broken branch or a particularly disturbed piece of foliage, we had no way to be sure if that had been caused by the missing boy, or by an earlier team barging through the area.

Jonah could be anywhere. He could be up a tree, watching all of us bumbling around below him. He could be tucked away among the roots and the bushes, listening as people stomped by and waiting for gaps to scurry through. He could be somewhere in front of us, sandwiched between two teams, or he could have already left us in the dust. And that didn't consider the possibility that our small four-man team had already missed him.

Think Tanya, think. If I was a potential child soldier, again. And I was trying to hide from an enemy force, what would I do?

Thankfully, this was actually something I had at least some experience with. Not this life, sure. But in my second, back during Operation Shock and Awe, and the 203rd's strike against the Francois command and control facilities. The objective had been a bit different compared to today, I'd been trying to sneak in rather than out, but a lot of the lessons still applied.

Both me and Jonah had drawn out the bulk of the enemy garrison. Both of us had snuck around through the forest before reaching our objective. But what would that objective be? Back during Operation Shock and Awe, the 203rd had been sneaking in to destroy the enemy facilities. But given how Jonah had waited for everyone to leave before he scaled the wall, he hadn't been planning to draw away the guards before going after something at the mansion. He'd wanted everyone out, but had that been so that he could wait for them to get tired and make a mistake? He had to know that the odds were against him. The mansion staff had the manpower advantage, and while Jonah needed to be lucky every time, they only needed to get lucky once.

But Jonah had to know that, right? The plan was too advanced for him to have simply not considered it. So what was the missing piece?

"Stop." A voice ordered me and Ludmila, loud enough for us to hear clearly, but quiet enough that it didn't carry. It was one too young to be carrying such a serious tone, and it caused both of us to instantly freeze in place. Slowly, carefully, I turned to face the voice.

There, standing a few meters behind us, was a figure about my height. Except unlike me, the boy was standing in a nearly perfect shooter's stance. One foot ahead of the other in a boxer's stance, his body turned at a roughly 45-degree angle, both hands supporting a metal object that glimmered slightly in the moonlight.

It was Jonah. And he had both of us at gunpoint.

So he did get the jump on you. Good work Degurechaff, you've gotten rusty. The snide side of my mind hissed as I assessed the situation. Yes, the mystery child had in fact gotten the drop on me, but beating myself up over it wouldn't be productive right now.

"Jonah." I stated, ignoring the firearm in his hands. Even though it was probably nothing more than a 9mm or something, the whole thing looked insanely oversized in his hands. But then again, given my last life I wasn't exactly one to comment on the comparison between a kid and her gun. At least, not without being a hypocrite.

"Tanya." Jonah replied, keeping the handgun pointed in my general direction. The muzzle gently swept from me to Ludmila and back again. I couldn't identify the make or mode, but that didn't really matter much right now. If either me or Ludmila put a foot wrong, even a peashooter would be enough to put us down.

"Jonah. Where'd you find the g-gun?" Ludmila asked, her voice cracking a bit as she recognised the object in his hand. To her credit, as soon as she realized the situation, she reacted as well as she could. As she slowly began edging closer to me, seeking to shield me from the weapon with her body.

"The guard that was with you. He wasn't paying attention." Jonah replied, and I had to force myself not to groan in frustration. Of course the idiot hadn't been checking his surroundings. He'd probably been too busy simmering at the idea of following a child's lead to notice the other one sneaking up on him.

"Is he…" Ludmila began, trailing off well before even mentioning the idea that Jonah could have taken him down.

The boy said nothing. Instead, he just left our minds to wander over just what had happened to the missing soldier.

Oh boy, if he's killed that guard then everything is gonna be a whole lot more difficult.

After a few seconds, Jonah reached behind himself, pulled an object from a hidden bag or something, and tossed it at me and Ludmila without his gun-hand wavering. The silver object glinted in the moonlight as it flew through the air, before landing almost perfectly at my feet.

I looked down at the object, confirmed my suspicions, and looked back up at Jonah with a raised eyebrow. "Tape?"

"Tie her up." Jonah ordered me, gesturing at Ludimila with a curt flick of his pistol. "Ankles and knees first, then tie her arms behind her back."

I was about to argue against this request when Ludmila took a step forward, and started to plead with the boy. "Jonah, don't do this. Please we don't-"

"You don't want to test me right now, Ludmila." Jonah quietly interrupted my caretaker, leveling his pistol towards Ludmila's chest to shut her up. The tactic worked, the argument died on my caretaker's tongue, while his voice remained cold and level. The very same kind of tone you'd often hear from a soldier who was more than willing to act on a threat. "I have been tested several times since I came here, and I've come out ahead every time. Do not test me again."

For a horrible moment, nobody moved. Ludmila and Jonah held each other's gaze for a few seconds, before my caretaker glanced down at me with a mixed expression. She must have been sizing up the small boy, trying to see if he would actually pull the trigger, and if taking the risk was worth it. But after realizing that I was still there, the fight went out of her. Eventually, after a couple of long seconds, she sighed, and sat down on the ground, tucking her legs together so that they'd be easier to bind.

I looked back over at Jonah, who repeated the same pistol-flick gesture as before rather than telling me again to be party to his escape attempt. With no other options, I did as I was told, and started wrapping the duct tape around Ludmila's ankles. I had no idea where he'd gotten the tape from, but I forced the question out of my mind as I got to work. I'd just about finished tying them together when I finally broke the silence. "So, what's the plan?"

That must have taken Jonah by surprise, and he went quiet for a few seconds before deciding to put the question back to me. "Why do you want to know?"

"Maybe I want to join you? Why else would I be out here?" I suggested, hoping for a moment that Jonah would believe that this was all just an elaborate way for me to try and join him on the run.

"Join me? You're the one who showed them where I'd jumped over the wall. You don't want to help me. You're helping them." Jonah stated with a bitter tone, turning my hopes for an easy deception to ash. It didn't take a genius that he wasn't taking my involvement here well. And it was a point that was only further hammered home by the fact that the gun in his hands was no longer leveled against Ludmila. Instead, the weapon was entirely focused on me. Not an ideal situation, but it was one that I'd walked into. So I only had myself to blame.

"But I am helping you. I don't understand what you're doing, and I can see a lot of ways where you could get hurt, or worse." I said, glancing back at the boy as I spoke. It was a bit too dark to fully make out the features of his face, but I could tell where his head was, and from that I could look at the rough location where his eyes would be. The dark played hell with my ability to identify his expressions or body language, so I'd have to play this one by ear and go off what he said and how he said it.

"What don't you understand?" Jonah asked, keeping his voice low and carefully neutral. Either he must have already figured out that I was fishing for information, or he was putting on a professional mask in order to deal with the situation. Either one wouldn't be good news for me. "I don't want to be here anymore. So I'm leaving. Don't try and stop me, ok?"

"You put all this effort into slipping away, but you haven't done anything with it." I stated as I started wrapping the tape around Ludmila's knees, before going through what I'd seen of his actions so far. "You could have used the opportunity to get a head start in the forest, but you waited for everyone else to leave before you made a move. But instead of using the opportunity to try and find something to help you escape, you just scaled the wall and ran."

"Maybe this is my plan." The boy said flatly, and just from his tone alone I got the feeling that I was pushing my luck by trying to figure out what he was doing. And given that I was on the wrong end of a barrel, I dropped that line of thinking.

"Ok, let's say it is. But what about after this? You can't run forever. Sooner or later you're going to have to figure out where you're going to go." I pressed on. There wasn't much point in trying to figure out what Jonah's plan was when I was here to try and convince him to not go through with it. And the only way to do that would be to convince him that whatever he planned to do next wasn't worth it. I'd only get one shot at this. If I had to abandon a line of questioning, my chances of being able to return to it weren't very high. So I needed to get as much information as I could before moving on.

"Anywhere but here!" Jonah hissed, his voice rising slightly as the pistol wavered in his clenched hands. He took a few seconds to calm down, before continuing. "I'll follow the road, or maybe a river. Both of them always lead somewhere, and anywhere is better than here. Maybe I'll find a town or something, and I can find someone there."

"And what makes you think they'll help you?" I asked the golden question. It wasn't one that was loaded in any sense of the word, but it could only lead in one of two ways. If he said that people would help him, then I could point out that they'd try and send him back here. If he tried to go alone, I could break down that argument step by step. And when said nothing for a good few seconds, I took that as proof that he simply hadn't thought that far ahead.

"You're done with her knees. Start tying her arms behind her back." Jonah ordered me to move on after only managing to make a couple of wraps around Lusmila's knees with the tape. Either way, I did as I was told. I bit off the end of the tape, and moved behind my handler to start tying her hands.

"They'll help you by trying to find out where you came from, and trying to send you back there. And where do you think they'll send you?" I continued from where I'd left off. I didn't have much time to keep arguing. But I was banking on the idea that, like a lot of us, Jonah hadn't come from a nice place. It was a sucker's bet, you don't learn how to handle a firearm and how to either kill or disable a threat if you came from anywhere nice. But in the absence of proof, it was still a bet.

And this time, Jonah went silent. I chanced a look at him, just in time to see the handgun quiver in his hand. That was a good sign. It proved that my bet was right, and I was having some effect. I sighed, and I took a gamble. I stopped wrapping the tape around Ludmila's wrists, and fully faced Jonah, giving him my full attention. "Jonah, I don't know where you came from. And I'm not going to ask. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it wasn't a good place."

"They want me to be a soldier. That's why they brought me here." Jonah said, his voice wavering as much as the gun. His mask was either falling apart, or had dropped completely, as I could easily tell the fear in his voice. "Y-you haven't seen what it does to people. How scared they look when...."

Almost instantly, the gun stopped shaking, as the young boy focused himself to bite off the next few words clearly and precisely. "I won't be one. Never again."

Even though the tension in the air was thick enough that you could cut it with a knife, I had the conversation right where I wanted it. Jonah had finally admitted what had him so scared that he'd try his luck at running away. And he'd been the one to admit it, I hadn't needed to force the words into his mouth. That was good.

"You weren't brought here to be a soldier. You were brought here because you're smart. You know how to do things that none of us can do. You're just like us, just with army stuff rather than stuff you'd find in a book." I explained, making it a point to focus on how he was the same as the rest of the kids, rather than on the very real possibility that he'd been dragged in to be groomed into a highly capable killer. Either way, if I could convince him that he had more in common with us than he thought, then I'd stand a better chance at convincing him to stay.

"I'm not smart like you. Like the others." Jonah moped, I was making good progress here. Even though the gun was still leveled at me, his tone was changing. The fight was seeping out of it the longer this conversation went on. I just needed to offer him a better alternative than running away and playing lord of the flies.

Thankfully, I had more than enough help with ways to help him on the education front. And I could solve his loneliness problem too. "Then let me help you. I've already been helping Valerie with some stuff, Christine has been helping me with my biology, and I think that Anders could help you with English. You can stay with us, rather than being alone all the time. You'd like that, right?"

"I…." Jonah started again, before trailing off once more as he considered my offer. For a moment, I thought that I'd managed to get through to him, and I could get back to the mansion before my legs froze off in the cool night air. But as the thought of the warm mansion crossed my mind, the iron tone returned to his voice. "I don't know what might happen to me once I leave. But I know that I'm at just as much risk there, than I am out in the world."

"Why?" I asked. A simple one-word question that I hoped would be enough to get an answer out of him.

"Because it's all wrong! Can't you see it?" The boy hissed once again, though this time from a conscious attempt to stop his own voice from rising any higher. Jonah was just as aware as me that the arrival of any other search teams would only cause more problems. Either way, the rant had started, and he wasn't about to stop it. "This whole mansion is creepy! People don't just take people and keep them locked up unless they want to do something bad to them. It might be big and comfy and have nice food, but that doesn't mean that the mansion is any less of a cage. And then there's all of this crap about how we're meant to all look out for each other and get along, when barely anyone speaks the same language! It's all lies and coverups, and I don't want to be here when we find out just what they're planning to do."

"I don't belong there, and I don't feel safe there. I'm sorry Tanya, but I can't go back." Jonah said with a shake of the head, and a heavy tone that implied that it wasn't up for debate.

"Jonah, please. We're-" I tried, only to stop at the sharp snick of a thumb-safety being disengaged, and the sight of the handgun being leveled at my head. My mind may have been playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn that the edges of the barrel's rifling were caught in the pale moonlight.

"Don't say it. We're not family. I know what happened to my family, and playing make-believe won't replace them." Jonah's voice dropped to a whisper. A painful whisper that left no illusions about what had happened to his family.

"Jonah…" I began, only to trail off as I considered what to do next. At least I could infer what had happened to his family. It brought up a massive sore spot, and everyone calling him their brother probably made it a whole lot worse. But it was also an opportunity. If I could navigate this part, I'd be home free.

"You're right. We'll never truly replace your family. Just like how we'll never truly replace Valerie's family either. Nothing ever will. But running from it won't help you either. Trust me, I know." I started with a mix of a truth and a lie. Sure, running from a major traumatic event like the loss of family members had to be confronted, but I was lying when I said that I knew about it. Being born an orphan twice over meant that I had no real memories of what it was like to lose family members outside a haze of a funeral. The closest I'd come had been Visha and the other members of the 203rd. People who I'd formed incredible bonds with, and simply couldn't replace once they were gone.

But Jonah and Ludmila didn't need to know that.

"We're not a true family, sure. But that doesn't mean that we can't look after each other. We might feel like we're alone some days, and that nothing will ever change. But we're surrounded by people who want to care for us, and we just need to let them." I went on, feeling a little bit awkward to be talking about such woozy stuff as feelings and crap like that. But this was my best opportunity to try and get Jonah on-side. I just needed to get him to accept the idea that there were people at the mansion worth sticking around for.

"Nobody cares." Jonah hissed, before gesturing to my side with the muzzle of his gun. Gesturing towards Ludmila. "Do you really think that she cares? She's just getting paid to act like it."

"Yes!" I raised my voice to just a bit below a yell. I hoped that the fact that I wasn't facing the other search teams would reduce the likelihood that they would have heard me. The last thing I needed was one of them showing up and making the situation more complicated. It was a calculated gamble, but I needed to sell the idea that I considered my handler to be a surrogate mother-figure. "Ludmila is one of the few adults to really care for me. She's nice, and she listens to me, and she has time for me. She cares. And nothing that anybody says is going to change that!"

I heard a small, strangled squeak from my handler, and took that as a cue to tone my reaction down a bit. I couldn't see Jonah's expression, but I took the noise as Ludmila having noticed something in his expression that I'd missed. So I took a few seconds to collect myself, before finally getting to the point. "Jonah, I don't know what happened to you. And I'm not going to ask you about it. But going off on your own isn't gonna fix it. You need people who are willing to be there for you, and who will want to take care of you. And you're not going to find that by running away. So please, let us… let me help you."

For a few moments, the forest was quiet. The light winds through the forest ceased, the animals went silent, and for a brief moment I wondered if my little speech had missed the mark. And given how Ludmila was a bit tied up right now, appealing to Jonah's natural childish desire for a place to fit in was my best bet to avoid a 9mm retirement plan. I watched him for a few seconds, and for a few seconds I was worried that I might not have gotten through to the boy. But those concerns were wiped from my mind as Jonah finally lowered the gun. The fight finally leaving him with a tired sigh and a sudden slumping of his shoulders. "I don't… I don't trust any of this. How can you be so comfortable with all of this Tanya? You're smart, can't you see that this whole situation is wrong?"

"Maybe it is. But it wouldn't make sense for them to put in all of the effort to bring us all here if they were just going to put us in danger. And they wouldn't hurt us when they can do other things, like not giving us nice food or keeping us in our rooms." I pointed out, returning back to a point that had kept me sane for the past few months. Sure, this mansion was practically our version of Alcatraz. But like "The Rock" control over someone's diet was always the cheapest way to enforce discipline.

"But that doesn't mean that there isn't something wrong here. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't run while we have the chance." Jonah suggested, but the fire in his voice was gone. It didn't take a trained psychologist to figure out that it was the last remnants of his irrational escape idea trying to rally against the growing part of his mind that just wanted to go to bed.

"How about this, Jonah. Let's make a deal." I said, switching tact to give Jonah a say in the decision to go back to the mansion. And to avoid the fact that I couldn't refute his point. After all, it's always a lot easier to make someone do something that they've already agreed to. "If you come back to the mansion, I'll do everything I can to help you. I'll help you learn whatever you want, and I'll help you make friends. But if you decide to leave, for whatever reason, I won't get in your way."

"But what do you gain out of this?" Jonah instantly replied, his critical mind realizing that the only reason I'd be proposing this deal would be if I stood to gain something from it.

"You. I get you to not throw yourself into some hairbrained scheme that's liable to get you killed." I answered, before giving Jonah a reassuring smile, and gesturing down to his stolen handgun. "And you defeated the guard without any of us hearing you. That's gotta count for something."

"I didn't hurt him. I took his gun and made him tie himself up. He didn't look very happy." Jonah hastily shook his head, denying the idea that he'd harmed the guy. Personally, I would have given the asshole a kick in the shin or two, but that was purely down to the guy being an ass to me earlier.

Unfortunately for Jonah, trying to reinforce the fact that he'd managed to stick up one of the guards rather than killing him did nothing to make the act seem less impressive. "Even better. If you didn't hurt him, then they can't be angry at you, right?"

"I guess…" Jonah trailed off, reflecting on what he'd done tonight. He sighed and shook his head, and I could practically feel the dread coming off him at the prospect of how the mansion staff might punish him for trying to run.

"They're not going to be happy. But nobody's going to hurt you. They might not give you nice food for a while, or they might make you stay in your room for a bit. But it will pass, and when that's over, I'll be waiting for you." I reassured Jonah, giving him a couple of reassuring claps on the shoulder to try and drive the reassurance home. Though given how I couldn't really read his face, I had no idea if my words were working or not.

Either way, the boy finally nodded at my words, before making his handgun safe. He slowly ejected the magazine from the stolen weapon, before locking the slide back. It took me a few seconds to connect the dots after I didn't see a round fly out of the chamber, but I eventually realized that Jonah had never intended to hurt either me or Ludmila, given how he'd threatened us with an empty chamber. The realization shocked me for a second or two, before Jonah offered the weapon to me, grip-first. "Ok. I'll go back. I don't know how I'm going to deal with being back there, but I'll do it for you."

I simply reached out, and took Jonah's hand before leading him back towards Ludmila. Both to untie her, and so that she'd hear what I said next. "It's alright, I don't really know either. But we can figure it out together. One step at a time."

Jonah simply nodded at my words, and I took that as all the confirmation that I needed that he'd at least partially bought this corny sister act of mine. Even if it was something that would have had the 203rd laughing up a storm.

Deep in the nearby bushes, Ms. Anderson smiled at the turn of events.

The head of subject services at the Henry Estate carefully holstered her own handgun at the bloodless conclusion to subject 20's little escape attempt. Not that it had been much. They'd noticed that something was up the moment some sleeping pills went missing from the nurse's office. And when the guard dogs had all conveniently fallen asleep just before it was time for the subjects to be fed, well at that point the writing had been on the wall. Jonah would have been caught eventually, of that she'd been sure.

But subject three… she was proving to be a very interesting bundle of secrets.

The monitoring team had already informed her that the little Russian had been the first to solve one of the mansion's puzzles. Then she'd gone out of her way to try and find Jonah, even though it would have been easier for her to simply sit in the dining room and rest. She'd also correctly identified that Jonah hadn't been properly socialized, and had reacted in the only way he knew.

And when held at gunpoint, she'd remained surprisingly calm, and managed to talk the boy down in record time.

If all of the subjects were like her… well it would certainly explain why Comte Henry was paying them to make sure that they received the best education and upbringing possible. Sure, for some of the other minders their involvement was more down to personal reasons, but Anderson hadn't let that cloud her perception of the children on the estate. They were the property of the Henry Estate, just another flesh asset of the company. Of course, when you put it like that the whole thing sounded positively horrifying. But that was part of the reason why she got the big bucks. She could look the other way when it came to the unfortunate ethics of what was going on here.

A barrage of raised voices called Ms. Anderson's attention back to the trio, and she looked over in time to see Ms Ludmila sweep her subject into a deep hug. It was a soppy affair, one that she privately disapproved of, given how it could potentially reinforce the emotional bond between subject and handler. But in her heart of hearts she knew just how important it was. For ensuring that the children developed properly, that they were loyal to the company, and that someone would be there to look after them.

She still had nightmares about what had happened at the Arklay School. She wouldn't, she couldn't let that happen again.

Subjects like little Tanya and Jonah needed to be protected. She'd make sure to include in her notes how well both subjects performed, but the little Russian had jumped from a comparatively unremarkable girl in the middle of the pack, to a potential leader all within the space of one night. Her ability to solve problems on the fly, and her ability to connect with people her age was well worth the potential… issues that surrounded her. She was hiding her true skill ceiling, of that Anderson had no doubt. But they had all the time in the world to investigate how deep that rabbit hole went.

Ms. Anderson watched the triumphant trio disappear into the woods, before taking out her notepad and pen, and beginning writing her report.