Among the Enemy

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“You idiot! Were you trying to get yourself killed?" Mike's voice.

Matthias moaned and opened his eyes. He didn't feel entirely certain that he hadn't been killed, until his eyes focused in the dim light. He was encased in blankets but seemed to be lying on the floor in a huge room. The ceiling arced high overhead.

"What — don't you like the fancy hospital I brought you to?" Mike asked. "We're in another warehouse, but don't worry — this one's abandoned and in no danger of falling down." He glanced around a little nervously. 'As far as I know."

Matthias squinted, trying to figure out how he and Mike had gotten to this dark, silent place after all the noise and confusion and people running and screaming and bricks falling….

"You. . exploded the other warehouse," Matthias mumbled, remembering. "And all the I.D.'s…"

"Well, imploded, technically," Mike said. "We tried to rig it so the building would fall inward, instead of bursting outward. We were trying to minimize the risk to innocent bystanders. But, yeah, all the I.D.'s were destroyed. The only identity anyone in this country has now is a paper receipt. And everyone has that. Legal citizens. Illegal third children. Wanted criminals. It's going to take the Population Police a long time to sort everyone out. If they ever can."

Mike sounded so gleeful that Matthias winced.

"But you wanted the guard to die?" Matthias asked. 'And the commander?"

"Honestly, I forgot about the guard," Mike said, a troubled look in his eye. "But the commander. . We weren't trying to kill him, but I wouldn't have complained if he'd been standing right in that doorway when the building fell."

Where he probably would have been if I hadn't distracted him, if I hadn't thrown the guard's body at him, Matthias thought.

"Did… did they both die?" Matthias asked.

"Don't know," Mike said. "I pulled you out of the rubble and ran. I have some. . friends who ought to bring me some updates soon."

But Matthias's eyes were closing again. He slid back into a strangely untroubled sleep. I got away from Population Police headquarters. We gave the food away. I did my best to save the guard's life. It's time to rest.

Over the next few days, Matthias slid in and out of consciousness. He woke once feeling warm and cozy, and he discovered that Mike had found or built a small stove that radiated heat into their tiny section of the huge warehouse. The next time he woke, Mike spooned hot, cooked potato into his mouth.

"Smart of you to think to pick up some of the food yourself," Mike said as he fed Matthias. "I left with nothing. Didn't want to think about afterward, I guess. Couldn't believe there would be an afterward."

"Nobody caught us," Matthias said. "We're still alive."

"For now," Mike said, glancing nervously over his shoulder, into darkness. "Still haven't heard from my friends."

When Matthias woke again, sunlight was fighting its way through the dirty glass panes overhead, and Mike was missing. Matthias sat up dizzily, straining sore muscles. He hadn't even thought to ask exactly how he'd been injured. Gingerly, he felt his arms and legs. He discovered plenty of bruises, but none of the bones were broken. His chest ached, though, and when he looked, he saw that he had several extra layers of cloth wrapped around his torso.

"Why? Cracked rib?" Matthias wondered aloud.

And then Mike was there, grinning in the sunlight.

"Don't worry — you're healing fast. And guess what? You're a hero now!"

"Huh?" Matthias said.

Mike sat down on a rusted pipe beside Matthias's makeshift bed.

"I finally got to talk to my contact," Mike said. "You won't believe how everything turned out. We're heroes to the Population Police. They're writing commemorative poems about us. There's even talk of erecting a statue!"

"What?"

"I know — it sounds too incredible," Mike said, so exu-berant that he practically bounced in his seat. "But everyone still believes that bogus story I made up about uncovering the plot to blow up the warehouse and not having time to alert headquarters and just doing everything I could to save the food. Nobody quite understands how you ended up helping me, but they don't care about the details since you saved the commander's life."

"I did?" Matthias asked dazedly.

"Yeah, he and the guard both survived."

Mike's tone was grudging, and Matthias felt confused.

7 didn't want anyone to die. But what if the commander's death had meant that a lot of other people got to live? Matthias wondered. He didn't know what to think about the commander, anyway. How could he have been so nice to me and so cruel in his job?

Mike was still talking.

"At least, you're getting some of the credit for saving the commander's life. There are all these wild rumors going around about how people supposedly saw the ghost of Tiddy with you there at the end, when you were getting the guard out — because how else could a little boy like you carry a two-hundred-pound man?"

Matthias gaped at Mike.

"A ghost? That's crazy," he said indignantly. 'Anyhow, I didn't carry the guard — I dragged him."

"I know," Mike agreed. "But those rumors just make us look better."

Matthias frowned.

"Aren't the Population Police mad at us for giving away all that food?"

"Oh, no," Mike said. "They're proud of us for saving it. Because — get this — people brought it back!"

Mike laughed delightedly, and Matthias was sure he'd heard wrong.

"They brought it back? Why?"

"Because that's what it said on the flyers, that they were just supposed to take care of the food temporarily, until the Population Police could eradicate the threat," Mike said. "So people started returning everything to another warehouse the very next day."

Matthias stared at Mike in dismay.

"But… I wanted the people to keep the food. They were starving!"

"Well, that first group you brought in, I bet they ate the food right away," Mike said. "And the Population Police will never be able to track them down. So that turned out all right."

"But the other people, the ones who brought the food back — how could they be so stupid? How could they ruin our plan like that?" In his indignation, Matthias forgot his sore muscles and his cracked rib and gestured wildly. His arm swung out and knocked against a pile of junk metal, which toppled to the ground with a horrible racket.

Matthias froze, and Mike glanced around fearfully.

"We're still in hiding — remember?" he said.

"But — but—," Matthias sputtered.

Mike glanced around again and seemed to decide no one was going to show up to investigate the noise.

"Try to understand," he said. "People have been living with the Population Police for a long time. It's like they've been trained to believe that the only way for them to survive is to do what the Government says. What good is a bag of potatoes if it means that you'll be hunted down, taken out at dawn, and shot? You see what we're up against, trying to win a little freedom. The people we're trying to win it for don't remember what freedom is."

Matthias shook his head, still angry.

"Then it was all for nothing, what we did," he said.

"You can't believe that," Mike said, and an edge of anger had crept into his voice as well. "We destroyed the I.D.'s, remember? Without destroying the food!"

Matthias looked down at the packed-dirt floor. He didn't think he could explain. Destroying the I.D.'s was complicated — what if the Population Police managed to dig them out of the ruins and continued with Project Authenticity anyhow? What if the Population Police had duplicate records elsewhere that made it possible for them to find and kill all the third children regardless of everything Mike and Matthias and the others had done to stop them?

But giving away the food had seemed simple. That had been his tribute to the memory of Percy, Alia, and Samuel. In their memory, starving people would be fed.

Only it wasn't much of a tribute if the hungry people had just given the food right back to the Population Police.

"I don't know what your life was like before Tiddy brought you to Population Police headquarters," Mike said softly. "But after Tiddy died, after the commander decided you were his surrogate son in Tiddy^ place, you had it made. You could have asked the commander for anything, and he would have given it to you. Most people in a situ^ ation like that would have eaten it up — all the gourmet food, all the luxuries the commander would provide. They would have done everything in their power to keep that cozy life.

"But you didn't," Mike went on, his voice practically a whisper now. "You walked away from all of that to do what you thought was right. You even risked your life to save a man everyone else had forgotten about." He bent his face in close to Matthias's, and his voice became even more intense. "You cannot say that was for nothing."

Matthias shook his head, not to disagree, but because he was confused.

"Every time I try to do something good, it gets messed up," he complained.

"That's life," Mike said, shrugging. "You in for another round?"

"What?" Matthias asked.

"I'm going to wait a few days, make sure everything shakes out," Mike said. "Then I'm going back to Population Police headquarters. Our job isn't done until every last person in this country is free. You coming with me?"

Matthias jerked back so violently, he almost knocked over another pile of junk. Go back to Population Police headquarters? He'd never dreamed that anybody would ask him to do such a thing. He'd never dreamed that it'd be possible to step foot anywhere near a Population Police officer without being arrested and executed on the spot. His stomach churned at the thought of being in the midst of all that evil and intrigue again, of having to smile ador' ingly at the commander while secretly hating everything the commander stood for.

But that wasn't the reason he shook his head at Mike.

"No," Matthias said. "There's something else I have to do."