Among the Enemy

Chapter Twenty

Mike took Matthias back to the cafeteria for dinner, which turned out to be another hugely filling affair. This time, though, Matthias couldn't sit anonymously at the back of the cafeteria. He sat with Mike and a large, rowdy group of Mike's friends. And it seemed like everyone in the room was watching him.

“Why are those women staring at me?” he finally got the courage to ask when there was a break in the group’s merriment.

This set everyone to laughing again.

"Don't you know how the ladies love a hero?" Mike asked. "You know Tiddy and his big mouth. Before he left this afternoon, he told everyone in the building how you'd saved him from certain death."

"Oh," Matthias said.

"Wish Tiddy'd spread some stories about me," one of the others said wistfully. He was a gaunt-faced boy with a crooked nose and a bad case of acne. He winked at the group of women, but they all turned away, making faces as if they'd smelled something horrid.

Mike and his friends laughed harder.

Matthias sat in the midst of all that hubbub feeling as if he'd been transported into an alien world. The bright, warm room full of delicious smells, abundant food, and riffs of laughter didn't seem real. Not when all the laugh' ing people worked for an agency trying to kill children. Not when Percy and Alia were still out there somewhere in the dark, cold night, probably still in pain.

That is, if they were still alive at all.

They're alive, he told himself fiercely. They've got to be.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nina walk away from the serving counter across the room. The clock on the wall said six forty-five. He shoveled in the last few bites of his noodle casserole and stood up on legs so sore and tired, they barely held him.

"Hey, kid, you going over to introduce yourself to the ladies?" Mike teased.

"No, just to the bathroom," Matthias said. "Then I'm going to bed," he added, in case it took a long time with Nina. He didn't want Mike and the others to become suspicious or to come in search of him.

The group whistled and made more wisecracks that Matthias didn't catch.

Matthias had to trace his way through twisty hallways to get to the silver bathroom Nina had described. Guards peered at him from nearly every doorway, but none of them stopped him. They all seemed to know who he was.

And they'll all remember seeing me come this way, Matthias thought anxiously, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He reached the bathroom a little early, stepped inside, and locked the door as Nina had instructed. That confused him — how was she supposed to get in if the door was locked? Was he supposed to open the door if he heard knocking? Would she dare to call out to him?

A few seconds later, Matthias understood. Nina came crawling out of a heat vent over the toilet.

"Not my favorite way to get around, but this is a good way to keep our movements secret," Nina muttered as she climbed down over the toilet. She brushed dust from her brown braids and her uniform. "Plus, Trey is so proud of himself for discovering the heat duct system, we use it sometimes just to humor him."

Trey was another of their friends. Matthias felt his heart jump a little at the news that he had another ally at Population Police headquarters.

The bathroom was so tiny that Nina had to stand practically on top of Matthias. She surprised him by seizing him in her arms and giving him a big hug in greeting.

"It's so good to see you, Matthias," Nina whispered. "You'll be so much help here. Where are Percy and Alia stationed? I haven't seen them yet. When did you all join up? It'd be so nice to have Alia in the kitchen with me…."

"Percy and Alia didn't join with me," Matthias whispered back. "I don't know where they are." Getting those words past the lump in his throat felt like swallowing stones.

"But how—?" Nina asked.

As quickly as he could, Matthias told Nina everything that had happened since the Population Police arrived at Niedler School. By the end, Nina had tears glistening in her eyes.

"Oh, Matthias, I'm so sorry," she murmured.

"So can you and Trey and whoever else is here smuggle me out so I can go back and find them?" Matthias finished up in a rush. His hopes brimmed over.

But Nina frowned, the troubled look deepening in her eyes.

"Matthias, I don't know how we could do that. This place is like a fortress. Just arranging to meet you here in the bathroom was like planning an invasion. They watch me in the kitchen — they watch everyone. And there are so many guards…."

Matthias was so overwhelmed with disappointment, he could barely focus on Nina's words.

"Do you have a plan?" she asked. "Do you know a way out? You and Percy and Alia were so good at getting us out of that Population Police prison."

"That was Percy and Alia," Matthias said bitterly. "They're the clever ones."

He sank down to the floor in despair. Nina bent over and huddled beside him.

"I'll try to think of something," she said. "You try too. And keep your eyes open." She bit her lip. "When we all joined up, we had so many ideas. We were going to tear the Population Police apart from inside. But it's been so hard— None of us could pick where they assigned us. All of us got such menial jobs. Trey scrubs out the garage when the Population Police mechanics are done working on their cars. I'm in the kitchen. Lee — remember Lee? — he shovels out the stall where the top officers have their own horses."

"Trey could cut the brake lines on the Population Police cars," Matthias said. "Lee could make sure the horses buck everybody off. You could put poison in the food."

Matthias felt evil just making those suggestions. Love your enemies and Killing is wrong echoed in his ears as if Samuel were right there crowded into that tiny room with him and Nina. Matthias was a little relieved when Nina shook her head sadly.

"How could we do any of those things without becom^ ing as bad as the Population Police ourselves?" she asked. "Killing indiscriminately, not caring who dies? And what if we're caught?"

That word—"caught" — seemed to linger in the air, dangerously.

"So you're not doing anything?" Matthias asked.

"We are," Nina said carefully. "I can't tell you what it is. I don't know everything myself. It's. . Mr. Talbot told us that's the best way to run something like this, so if any of us are caught and interrogated and. . and tortured, we won't give away everything." She grimaced. "I shouldn't have even mentioned Trey and Lee. Try to forget what I said about them."

Matthias buried his head in his hands. He didn't care about Nina's secrets. He'd pinned such hopes on this meeting with Nina, but it was worthless. He'd just wasted the entire afternoon, when he could have been finding his way back to his friends.

"Matthias?" Nina was saying. 'There are stories floating around about you. People say you saved Officer Tidwell's life."

"I did," Matthias said. "Sort of."

'And you went in with Officer Tidwell to a meeting with the commander."

"Yeah," Matthias said.

"But nobody sees the commander. Only the other leaders like Officer Tidwell."

"So?" Matthias asked.

"So you've already gotten better access than any of the rest of us, and we've all been here for weeks. I know you want to get back to Percy and Alia but. . maybe you should let someone else sneak out and go help our friends. Or maybe they're just fine now, with Mrs. Talbot and the guy you saw in the tree."

Matthias looked up at Nina, and it was awful, what she was saying. How could he stay here, helping Nina, never knowing what had happened to Percy and Alia?

Someone began pounding on the bathroom door. Nina scrambled up and struggled to jam herself back through the heat vent.

"Just a minute," Matthias called.

He ran water in the sink, hoping that would mask the sound of the vent cover clanging against the wall. As soon as Nina was out of sight, he opened the door.

Tiddy was standing there, beaming.

"Hey, little buddy, I made it back safely. Aren't you glad?"

"Sure," Matthias said.

"Mike said you worried about me all day," Tiddy con' tinued. "The guards told me you were in here. Mike took good care of you while I was away, didn't he?"

"Uh, yeah," Matthias said. He swallowed hard. "Did you — did you, um, take care of all the bad guys?"

"I'd say so!" Tiddy laughed.

Matthias felt a chill traveling through his body. A premonition of horror.

"How?" Matthias asked. "Did you shoot them all? Forty rebels?" Don't say you shot any children, he prayed. Oh, please, not Percy and Alia.

"No," Tiddy said regretfully. "None of those cowards dared to show their faces. But we made sure we wouldn't have any more trouble from that sector. We burned them out."

For the first time, Matthias noticed the smudges of ash on Tiddy's face, the tiny, singed hairs escaping from his cap.

"Burned them out?" Matthias repeated stupidly.

"We burned everything within a fifty-mile radius of that cabin," Tiddy said. "Nobody could have survived that!"