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THE PORTAL into Arcadia was as different from the one in Laughing Mountain as chalk was from cheese. Laughing Mountain had disguised theirs to resemble a simple stone archway. The hexagon shaped Portal on Arcadia’s side was all hardened blue glass and steel. Outside the portal, a shaded overhang was packed with wagons waiting to be loaded for transport to earth.
A month ago, Ivette had said goodbye to her new friend Tally, newly married to Liam Brendan. The uncertain legal status of clones made earth an unsafe place to raise cloned children. Because Earth-Gov required all clone DNA to have markers identifying their maker, any random DNA scan could turn up the fact the babies and toddlers were clones. The debate as to whether or not clones were human and entitled to the same protection under Earth-Gov's laws as naturally born humans was still unsettled. At the moment, the laws leaned in favor of the Clone makers who considered clones their property. Tally and Liam were emigrating to the Forbidden Colony of St. Antoni with their six clone infants, and the woman Liam had hired to help care for them.
The two couples had found the abandoned children, six infants and seven toddlers in the debris of a massacre at a clone breeding farm north of the town of Laughing Mountain.
One of the toddlers, a little blond girl whom Ivette later christened Daphne, tugged at her pants and whispered "hungry". Ivette had looked into those sad blue eyes and her heart had melted. All seven of them were hungry and wet. Mathias had estimated it must have been at least twenty-four to thirty-six hours since the massacre. The children had been left to starve.
"Those monsters aren't getting these kids back," Ivette said fiercely, and Mathias had agreed. When they left the clone farm Ivette and Mathias had become the parents of seven toddlers, three girls and four boys. Tally and Liam had adopted the six infants.
Before they found the children, Mathias had successfully accomplished their mission to implant a virus in the Portal Authorities Search engines to hide Arcadia from them when they looked for new worlds to exploit. As a bonus he had also brought back a crystal with the coordinates for the other Outlawed Colonies. This would enable Arcadia to connect directly with Barsoom, Shangri-La, Lemuria, St. Antoni, and perhaps Halcyon,
The two golf carts from Laughing Mountain, pulling open wagons loaded with toddlers, baby furniture, and luggage looked oddly out of place next to the sleek modern transports waiting outside the terminal.
“Over there,” Ivette told Devon Morton, who happened to be their driver. Devon was fast becoming the colonies go-to guy for anything to do with the Portals. When he realized two of the colonies had sent representatives to plant codes to hide the colonies from Earth-Gov's Portal Authority, he had driven them up into the mountains to the original Portal Authority control center and helped them implant the virus that would block Earth-Gov's search engines from discovering the Colonies affiliated with Laughing Mountain.
Devon stopped his cart next to an empty transport waiting to be loaded. A man in dungarees came up as they parked. “I’m Georgios Martin and this is my sled. Do you need transport?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mathias pointed at the wagon loaded with the baby furniture. “We want to send it to—your mother’s place or directly out to the Lake House, Ivette?”
“My mother’s place, Hayes Compound,” she directed the driver, adding to Mathias, “She still has the codes to the Lake House. It’s mine, but she was taking care of it while I was gone.”
She touched the DNA credit authorization Georgios was holding out. When it cleared, he nodded for a couple of men standing by to load the furniture.
“What about the children?” Mathias asked. “I hate to leave you to handle all this by yourself, but I need to report in.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know. I contacted a taxi service and asked for a multi-person cab. That’s it pulling in now.”
She waved at the taxi. It was a long, sleek, pink skinned vehicle. The driver, clad in a matching pink skinsuit, hopped out and opened the doors. “Pull forward a little please, Devon,” Ivette asked.
She lifted the closest toddler, Donatello, still strapped into his booster seat, over the wagon lip and carried it to the waiting taxi.
“I’m Carolina. Welcome to Red Sky transport,” the driver said, eyeing Ivette’s burden suspiciously.
“Lieutenant Ivette Hayes-Bedingfeld,” Ivette answered. “As soon as I get the children loaded, I’ll give you a credit marker.”
“Er—children? I wasn’t told the passengers were children,” the driver said.
Ivette finished fastening Donatello’s booster seat into the transport and stood up. “Is it a problem?”
“Well—no, but—exactly how many children are we talking about?”
“Seven. Thank you, Devon,” she said as he set Jillian down. Jillian, who disliked being confined in the booster seat, kicked and hollered, “Out! Out!” as Ivette strapped it into place. “Just a little longer, sweetheart, and you can all run around to your heart’s content,” Ivette promised her.
She looked up frowning as she heard Leo’s unmistakable howl of, “Bad! Bad man!” and saw Cosimo take a swing at Mathias who ducked the blow and threw a punch of his own. Cosimo wasn't as lucky; he staggered back when Mathias's fist connected.
“What the devil—” she took a step back toward the wagon but stopped when she saw Cosimo stomp away and Mathias take the boy out of the seat to cuddle him.
“Who was that?” Devon asked, pointing at Cosimo's back.
“Mathias older brother, Cosimo,” Ivette said. “I wonder what he wanted.”
“Sibling fights can be nasty. Is that why Leo says he’s a bad man?”
“Probably,” Ivette replied. “Leo’s an empath. If Cosimo was angry enough to try to hit Mathias, Leo probably felt it. We need to get him a tutor so he can learn how to block negative emotions.”
“Oh,” Devon said. Empaths were becoming more common on earth as their skills were recognized. He kept his inevitable reflections to himself as he returned to the wagon.
By the time he and Ivette had moved all the toddlers except Leo into the waiting cab, Cosimo had disappeared. Mathias lifted Leo’s booster seat and brought it and the boy to Ivette. Ivette strapped the seat into the last place and detached Leo from his stranglehold on his father’s neck.
“What did Cosimo want?” she asked.
“Bad man!” Leo reiterated.
“Yes, darling, he’s a bad man, but your dad will make sure he doesn’t hurt you,” Ivette soothed.
"He didn't like it when I told him we were already married. He said I cheated," Mathias said. "He'll get over it."
“Hurt Daddy,” Leo insisted stubbornly.
“Daddy won’t let him,” Ivette promised.
Devon dumped several duffel bags near their feet. “Here’s the rest of your stuff,” he said. “I’ve got to get back. Keep me posted on the Portal status.”
He gave both of them a hug before getting back into the cart to drive it back through the portal.
Mathias and Ivette slung the duffels onto the roof of the taxi where automatic arms grabbed them.
“I’ve got to report in,” he said, but he pulled her into a deep kiss anyway. “That’s on account,” he said with a grin. “There’s more where it came from.”
Ivette snorted and gave him a playful push. “I can hardly wait,” she retorted. She cast an eye over the children to make sure no one had managed to unstrap themselves and put a finger on the DNA credit receipt her pink clad driver was holding out.
“Hayes Compound,” she said.
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