Heero ended up calling a cab after retrieving his bag from where he'd stashed it behind the cleaners. They were quite far from Maxwell's condemned building, and Heero wasn't sure how much of a head start they would have. Plus, the child was in no condition to walk that far. They climbed into the cab when it arrived. Heero looked to Maxwell to supply the address.
The cabbie looked surprised. "That's not a safe area, especially this late a night. Are you sure you want to go there?"
Heero sighed and passed a fifty through the little window to the driver. "You'll get another when we reach our destination with no more questions."
The driver grunted, taking the note.
Heero kept one eye on wet streets and the other on the kid. Maxwell and the girl had curled around each other. He was stroking her back, trying to calm her. Her tears had mostly subsided, but she refused to let go of her death grip on Maxwell. He could hear the two of them whispering to each other. Again Heero was struck by how young the kid looked. Yet, at the same time, his eyes spoke of someone who had to grow up too fast, who had seen too many things in such a short life.
Heero knew the expression well. He saw it every time he looked in the mirror.
"What?"
Heero was startled out of his thoughts to see Maxwell looking at him, his arms around the girl, a puzzled expression on his face.
"The child… is she… did they…?" He couldn't bring himself to say it.
Maxwell shook his head to Heero's relief. "No, I don't think so. She said they didn't hurt her; she was just scared."
"Good." He turned to gaze out of the taxi window again.
"Heero?"
"Yes?"
He heard the kid take a deep breath. "Thanks. Really. I… I owe you."
"Just keep your promise. We need to leave tomorrow, early."
Maxwell sighed. "I know. They'll be looking for us."
"Aa."
They rode the rest of the way in silence. The little girl eventually fell asleep in Maxwell's arms. Maxwell had the cabbie drop them off several blocks from the building, in case he proved to have a loose tongue later. Heero offered to carry the girl, but Maxwell shook his head. "I've got her."
Heero let the kid lead him through the streets, thankful the rain had stopped again. They took a roundabout route, arriving at the back of the building some time later. Maxwell handed the girl off to Heero this time. Heero held her gingerly in his arms, uncomfortable with his burden. Maxwell knelt on the ground to pry open a window to the basement. He slid inside with ease, turning to hold out his arms for the girl.
Between the two of them, they managed to get the child through the window without waking her up. Heero followed, pulling the window shut behind him.
The basement was a mess, trash and other discarded items everywhere. A rusty bed frame loomed against one cracked wall and the remains of an old furnace stood in one corner, looking like some kind of giant gnome, squatting in the dark. There was a strong, pungent odor hanging in the air so thick Heero almost choked on it.
Maxwell hoisted the girl higher in his arms. "Sorry about the smell. No one wanted to attempt to clean the shit up. Watch your step."
Heero looked down, trying to see the floor in the dark. Shit? He really didn't want to know.
The air was a little fresher in the stairwell, but not by much. There was a faint odor of dried urine underneath a myriad of other smells, but the holes in the windows of the stairwell that weren't boarded up allowed some fresher air in.
Heero followed Maxwell up four flights of stairs. "Does anyone else live here besides you and your… 'kids'?" he asked gruffly, not wanting to leave any witnesses who could set the local authorities and Quinze on their trail.
The kid shook his head. "No. We got pretty lucky when we found this place." He sighed. "I knew we'd have to leave someday. Just didn't think it would be this soon."
"Do you have somewhere in mind to move everyone?"
Maxwell snorted. "Of course. Always have a backup and an escape route. It was one of the first things I learned, living out here." He pulled the door to the fourth floor landing open, gesturing Heero to precede him inside.
The hallway was dark. Heero blinked, momentarily lost. He heard Maxwell come in behind him, the door to the landing swinging shut. He shuffled forward, peering through the dark.
"Which way?" he asked, his voice sounding incredibly loud in the darkness.
"Not one step further," answered a strange voice somewhere ahead of him, followed by the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. Heero froze, reaching back to shove Maxwell behind him.
"Heero…" Maxwell started but was immediately shushed by Heero. He didn't want whoever was in the hallway with him to know exactly where they were.
"Duo? That you?" This time Heero could tell the voice was young – younger than Maxwell at least. He felt Maxwell move from behind him, walking toward the voice.
"Yeah, Pete. It's me."
The voice let out a shrieking "Whoop!" and Heero relaxed slightly as he heard the gun being uncocked.
"Careful, careful! Vy's sleeping," Maxwell hissed.
"Thank god," the other voice said.
Heero walked forward, looking at his watch, its green glow casting an eerie shadow down the hall. Shit. This was taking too much time.
"Maxwell…" he warned, moving up behind the kid, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"I know, I know. Here, Pete. Take Vy for a bit will ya? I gotta get the others packed and ready to go. And I thought I told you no guns!" In the dark Heero felt Maxwell take his hand, pulling him through the dark. Feeling the hand in his own felt… strange. Not unpleasant, no… something else. But he didn't have time to figure out what it was. They needed to be gone, as quickly as possible.
"Aw, it ain't loaded, Duo," the other replied. Heero grunted.
Maxwell pushed open a door. Heero blinked in the dim light, provided by a single, battered campfire-type lantern. He stood next to the door, getting a look at the boy now carrying Vy. He had been right in the estimation of the boy's age. He looked to be no older than thirteen. Fourteen at most.
"What happened with Alex?" the boy – Pete – asked.
Even in the pale light, Heero could see the blood rush from Maxwell's face. Heero took pity on him and answered for him. "He's dead."
"Oh, fuck!"
"Pete! Language!" Maxwell snapped, in what sounded to Heero like an automatic response.
Heero turned to Pete. "How many kids do you have here?" he asked.
Pete shrugged. "Nine. Ten if you count Duo."
"Okay. Here's what you need to do. Wake them up. Tell them to pack up as much as they can carry. Take only what's necessary. You're in charge of them, do you understand?" Heero asked, looking the boy in the eye.
"Who the fuck are you?" Pete asked, mistrust oozing from his voice.
"Pete!" Maxwell rebuked again.
"Duo! Don't lecture me about language. You disappeared last night after finding out Vy was gone, then you come back and say Alex is dead and yer with some guy who starts telling me what to do!"
Duo sighed. "Look, Pete. I'll tell you everything later, okay? Right now we have to get out of here and quickly. This is Heero," he said, gesturing towards the bounty hunter, "and he helped me rescue Vy. He… he's a good guy. You can trust him."
Heero heard the slight tremble in Maxwell's voice. And suddenly he felt like the biggest bastard in the EarthSphere for being there, for planning on taking Maxwell away from these children. But he'd signed the contract and Relena's promise held him bound. He was only doing his job, after all.
Pete gave him one more hard look before backing down. "Okay. I'll go get the others." He turned and disappeared into a back room, where a moment later Heero could hear the sleepy voices of children through the walls.
Heero turned to Maxwell. "Get your stuff, too."
"Yeah, okay," the kid said listlessly, before moving to a torn mattress in the corner.
Heero watched as Maxwell gathered up some clothes, taking time to shed the stolen coat and pull a shirt on over his head. Satisfied that Maxwell was taking care of himself, Heero moved to the back of the abandoned apartment, pushing open the door to the children's room, to check on the progress there.
The room was a flurry of activity. Eight children, most half asleep, were shoving clothing and other necessities into worn backpacks, garbage sacks, anything they could find to hold their things. Pete seemed to be the oldest. There were two girls who looked to be a couple of years younger than him, maybe eleven or twelve, but the other five were very young – much too young to be living in a condemned apartment building with a guy barely out of his own childhood trying to take care of them. Heero wondered where their parents were.
Maxwell appeared behind him in the doorway, the girl child hanging onto his hand, rubbing sleepy eyes. "Pete, did you get Vy's stuff?" he asked, slinging his own pack over his shoulder.
The boy nodded, holding up a sack. "I'll carry it for her."
"Okay. Bekkah, I want you to be in charge of Vy, Leigh and Pidge. Sel, you've got David, Lindz and Jorje. Pete, you're on lookout with me and Heero, okay? We've got to move quickly. As soon as you're done in here, meet at the door."
Heero followed Maxwell into the front room, picking up his own bag. "Where are we going?"
"Out here, you never can stay in a place for too long," the kid said quietly. "You don't ever really get comfortable. When you find a new place, first thing you do is scout out a second place, just in case you have to leave the first place in a hurry."
"And you have this second place? Are you sure Quinze won't be able to find it?"
Maxwell smiled ruefully. "Pretty sure. We found it by accident, scavenging for scrap to sell. We were going to start cleaning it up in a few days, but I guess we'll just have to make do as is for now…" He looked away. "Or rather, Pete and the girls will have to."
The guilt hit Heero again. By taking Maxwell back to earth, he was condemning these children to fend for themselves. He could see that in the few months they'd been together, they'd all formed a close bond, almost like a family, and he was going to be taking their sole provider. He wished, not for the first time, that he'd never gotten into this line of work. But it was all he knew how to do really – bring the bad guys home. The only thing was, he wasn't sure if this time he had the bad guy.
The children quickly gathered in the front room, the smallest ones now wide awake and scared. But none of them were crying. They were made of sterner stuff than Heero would have thought.
Maxwell stood before them, smiling down on the little ones. "Okay, remember when Pete and I told you about the trains?" There were a few reluctant nods of the head. "How would you guys like to take a night time adventure trip to see them?"
At the words "adventure" and "trip," small eyes grew wide and round. One little girl popped a thumb in her mouth, sucking happily as she bounced up and down in place.
"Are you really gonna take us to play with the trains, Mr. Duo?" a small boy asked, eyes aglow with anticipation in the dim light.
Maxwell smiled down at him. "Better than that, Pidge. We're gonna live there for a while."
The children burst into excited chatter. Heero winced. This wasn't a good idea. Children were cumbersome, slow and made a lot of noise. But, looking at the girl, Vy, still clinging to Duo's hand, he couldn't, in good conscience, leave them here for Quinze's men to find them. He would just have to make the best of an already bad situation.
Maxwell let them chatter for only a few moments before he shushed them. "Listen, guys. I know you are all excited about seeing the trains, but this is a 'secret' adventure." The kid's voice dropped to a whisper. "You have to stay quiet as mice. Stay close together, and don't make any noise. There are some bad men who don't want us to play with the trains, and if we make noise or get lost, we won't get to play."
Solemn faces nodded their promise to their de facto leader. Heero was impressed. Whether the children would be able to obey him was yet to be seen. But from the expressions on the children's faces when Maxwell had mentioned the "bad men," Heero had no doubt they knew exactly what he meant. He had to remind himself that these were no ordinary children. They were street kids, tough and intelligent, older than their years. Perhaps they could pull this off after all.
Maxwell herded the kids into their groups. Pete picked up the lantern and led his charges out the door toward the stairwell. Heero stayed at the back of the pack with Maxwell.
"Remember, all the way down," the kid said to the children, closing the door behind them.
Heero was amazed at how quietly eleven people – nine of them children – could move down the stairs. They moved quickly, small feet shuffling down into the darkness. Heero had to wonder how they would escape the building unseen. A gang of children carrying bags and sacks would definitely be noticed. He wondered if there was a back entrance, or if they would be going out the basement window.
As they passed the broken stairwell window between the second and first floors, the squealing of tires from outside made Heero pause long enough to look through a gap in the boards.
Two black cars had pulled up in the street outside. Four men from each car exited, each carrying a weapon of some sort. Most carried guns, but a couple had baseball bats. One looked to be carrying a sword. Heero hissed down the stairs. "They're here!"
He heard Maxwell swear, then urge the children as softly as he could to get down faster. Heero pulled out his knife, wishing, for the first time, that he had taken Alex's gun with him from the cleaners. Or that Pete had bullets for his. There was no way he could take on eight men by himself.
For a brief moment he was horrified that the children were going to stop on the first floor, but to his relief, they continued down into the basement. Good. If they could somehow block the stairwell, they would have a better defense point.
Maxwell herded the children into the boiler room. Heero quickly pushed the door shut, then looked around for something to block it with.
Maxwell and Pete rushed over to the old boiler and began pushing on it. Heero hurried to help. The boiler, if they could move it, would provide adequate cover. But to his surprise the two young men weren't pushing the rusted hulk towards the door. They pushed it away from the wall just enough to reveal a hatch in the floor.
Maxwell pulled the hatch open, revealing some kind of access well. Pete, with the lantern, scrambled down a set of rungs embedded into the side of the well. Maxwell lined the kids up, dropping their bags down into the well before helping the kids onto the ladder.
Above them, Heero could hear the men shouting at each other, running up the stair to the now-abandoned apartment. He turned back to Maxwell and the children, rushing forward to help. Together, though it seemed agonizingly slow, they got all eight kids into the well. Maxwell dropped his pack down the hole, then moved to climb down the rungs. Heero caught his arm.
"Wait. We can't let them find the hatch." He looked around the room, eyes lighting on the boiler. It sat on for raised legs, not very high off the ground, but both he and Maxwell were slender enough, they might be able to shimmy underneath it. "Move the boiler back over the hatch."
Maxwell's eyes grew wide. "We won't be able to close it."
"That shouldn't matter. They may not think to look underneath."
The kid nodded and moved to the boiler. Heero followed, pressing his shoulder against the old heater. Grunting, the two of them moved it the few feet needed to cover the hatch sufficiently to block it from prying eyes. Maxwell dropped to the floor, on his belly, and shimmied backwards underneath the boiler. He hissed as the lower lip caught and scraped his back, but he wiggled until he reached the well, easing himself inside.
Heero kicked trash across the floor to hide the scrape marks. Pulling an old, molding blanket from one corner, he, too, dropped to the ground. It was a tight fit, and he had to bite his lip from crying out when his head hit the bottom lip, but he wormed his way underneath, finding the well and pulling himself into it. He reached up to grab the blanket, pulling it over the hatch as best he could. Hopefully, no one would want to touch the foul smelling blanket or want to pull it out to see why it had been stuffed under an old boiler. Hoping they'd done enough to cover their escape, or at least bide some time, he quickly scrambled down the rungs to join Maxwell and the children at the bottom.