The city streets were bright and colourful. And loud. Everywhere Alpha Force looked, people swarmed. There was a festival on that started the next day and went on for a week. While it was going to be an experience that they didn't want to miss, it did mean that the streets were crowded and the price of everything shot up.
'China was a great place to come for a holiday,' Hex grumbled sarcastically. Amber grinned and poked Hex in the ribs, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief.
'You should socialise more. Then all the people wouldn't seem so crushing.' She looked around her, searching for the others. Amber grinned again as she spotted tiny, Anglo-Chinese Li and big, Argentinean Paulo battling against the crowds. They pushed their way out of the main crowd and struggled through the smaller groups towards Amber and Hex. Alex popped up in front of them, his blonde hair tousled from his own battles with the mass of people, and they made their way back to the hotel.
Alex woke up and rubbed his eyes. Looking at his watch, he saw it was only 1:00 am. The streets should have been deserted, but he could hear a baby crying. Curious, Alex moved to the window in the corner of the room, making sure he was quiet as he didn't want to wake Hex and Paulo who were sleeping soundly in the other two beds.
Across the road and to his left, Alex saw three people, a woman and two men. He couldn't hear them, but the crying appeared to be coming from a blanket that the woman was holding. In the light of a street lamp, he could see that the woman's face was tearstained and she was gripping the baby tightly. Standing beside her was a man, probably her husband. He was standing straight and tall, with an unreadable expression on his face. The third person, the second man, was grinning as he handed a wad of cash over to the other man. Alex stared at the man's face, memorising every detail, sure that he would need to have a description of him in the near future. The second man reached out his hands and the woman reluctantly placed the blanket clad baby in his grasp. He pulled the edge of the blanket away, and seemed to be checking the infant over. With a decisive nod and a pleased smile, the man walked away, leaving the weeping woman and her pokerfaced husband in the pale glow of the street lamp. Alex crept back to bed, thoughts turning over in his head.
Over breakfast the next morning, Alex told the rest of Alpha Force what he had seen the night before. Hex immediately took his palmtop out of its protective black case attached to his belt and turned the small computer on. Within ten minutes, he had some information on what Alex probably witnessed.
'Baby-trafficking,' Hex announced. He read straight off the website. '"Faced withy the one child policy, many parents in China will sell their baby girls in order to be able to try for a male heir."' Amber was outraged.
'That's awful!' she cried. 'Those poor little babies...' But Hex wasn't finished. His green eyes flashing with anger, Hex read out what else was written on the web page.
'"While authorities have been attempting to close down this trade, there are still some major players out there. There are two main ways that they transport the babies. One is to send them with "mothers": young women who take the infant (on a train mostly) from the parents to the buyer or distributor. The second way is to drug the babies and put them in bags. While the second way allows for more children to be sent at one time, the first is less conspicuous and is the favoured method of transporting the infants."' As Hex finished speaking, a determined silence hung in the air. Without speaking, all five of them had vowed to do something about the baby trafficking.