Among the Brave

Chapter Twenty-Two

The light drew nearer.

“Whisper,” a voice instructed Mark. “Why were you yelling, ‘liber?”

“I thought it might save my life,” Mark said in a hushed tone. “Will it?”

The guard — for it was a guard; a different one, but still in a Population Police uniform — shone the light into Mark’s face.

“How can a word save your life?” the guard asked.

“I don’t know,” Mark admitted.

Trey’s heart sank. He hadn’t explained. Mark didn’t know. But then, it wasn’t like Trey understood much either. He’d just been making guesses in the dark.

“Why that word?” the guard continued. “How did you know the word ‘liber?"

“A friend told me,” Mark said.

‘Who is this friend?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Didn’t this friend tell you to whisper, not to yell?”

“No,” Mark said. “He told me to yell.”

The guard kept his light trained on Mark’s face. He seemed to be studying Mark very carefully.

“You are not one of us,” the guard finally said. “You are a threat, not an ally. I cannot help you.”

“Please—,” Mark said.

But the guard was already walking away, his flashlight directed back toward the stairs.

“I’m begging you—” Mark pleaded. The guard turned around.

“Perhaps your friend is a threat to us too. Perhaps you could tell us his name,” he said.

Trey winced. The guard was bargaining now — bargaining for Trey’s life as well as Mark’s. What would Mark do?

“Why should I care about you?” Mark argued. “Remember? I’m not ‘one of us.”'

The guard shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” he said, and kept walking toward the stairs.

The sound of his footsteps pounded in Trey’s ears like a cadence of doom. Each step made it less likely that Mark could be saved.

At what point would it become impossible? They listened in agony. Then, just as the guard reached the bottom of the stairs, he could contain himself no longer.

“How can you use ‘liber’ as a password if you don’t really believe in freedom?” Trey shouted. “How can you just stand by and let an innocent boy die?”

The guard turned around instantly and scanned the entire basement with his flashlight.

“Where are you?”

For the first time, Trey heard uncertainty in the guard’s voice — maybe even fear.

“You don’t know where I am,” Trey taunted.

The beam of light came to rest on the pile of boxes Trey was crouched behind.

“You don’t know how big he is,” Mark added. “You don’t know how many people are down here. And they’re all on my side.”

Trey was silently cheering Mark on, grinning over the bravado in Mark’s voice. Mark sounded so confident, Trey almost felt like looking around for compatriots. Too late, the fear struck: What would Trey do if the guard stalked up the stairs and came back with a horde of Population Police officers?

But the guard didn’t do that. He didn’t move at all.

“Shh,” he said. “What do you want?”

“To be free,” Trey answered, before Mark could.

“You think yelling about it in the basement of the Population Police headquarters will do any good?” the guard asked.

“It got you down here, didn’t it?” Mark asked.

The guard swept his beam of light all along the boxes. Was it just Trey’s imagination, or did the guard let the light linger longest on the exact spot where Trey was hiding?

“If you’ve got a whole legion of friends down here with you, why do you need me?” the guard countered.

Mark didn’t answer, and Trey was afraid to.

“Why did you come here?” the guard asked. “You and your friend?”

“We were looking for my brother,” Mark said. Tey inhaled sharply. If he’d been Mark, he wouldn’t have answered that question.

“Is your brother a new recruit?” the guard asked. “No,” Mark said. “He was here before the Population Police took over. Do you know what might have happened to him?”

Now Trey was dizzy with fear. Maybe he was hyperventilating. He wanted to shout out to Mark, “Don’t tell him anything else! You might get Lee killed!” But he couldn’t speak.

Then the guard did something incredible. He sat down on the bottom step of the stairs.

“I, too, am worried about someone,” he said softly. “Perhaps…

“Perhaps what?” Mark asked. The guard shook his head. “I can’t trust you,” he said.

“I’m about to be killed,” Mark said. “Don’t you think I’d do just about anything to stay alive?”

The guard gave a little, amused snort, as if Mark had told a joke.

“That’s not what I need. I need someone who’d hold on to principle and loyalty, even if it meant death,” he said. “Not that it matters. I need lots of impossible things. Access to secret records. Fake documents. A car.”

“I have a car,” Mark said. “A truck, anyway.”

The guard snorted again, this time in disbelief.

“You’re in a cage,” he said.

Trey strained to hear over the ringing in his ears. He was definitely hyperventilating. He fought against the urge to black out. He needed to think — and to think clearly All he could hear were the guard’s words, echoing in his mind again and again: You’re in a cage…. You’re in a cage….

“I’m not,” he whispered.

He stumbled out from behind the boxes. Act before thinking — that seemed to be his new motto. Ante cogitaturn, factum. He stood on wobbly legs, but managed to keep his voice steady.

“I’m not in a cage,” he said aloud, and waited for the guard’s beam of light to find him.