Among the Free

Chapter Twenty-Two

Luke woke up the next morning still in Jenny's stall. At some point in the night she'd lain down beside him, as if she were trying to guard him. Or hide him.

"You're not just a dumb animal, are you, girl?" Luke muttered, reaching out and stroking her neck. "We'll watch out for each other, okay?"

Luke got up and fed all the horses again. He was glad to have something to focus on, something he knew he had to do. But the sight of all the horses chewing reminded him that he'd had nothing but Eli's dry bread the day before.

Unless I want to eat oats, he told himself, I guess I'll have to go on up to the headquarters building.

That thought actually made the oats look appetizing.

Quit that, he told himself. What wouldjen say if she knew the Population Police were gone, but I was still scared to have the horse stables?

Remembering how filthy he'd looked reflected in Simone's camera lens the night before, Luke took time to clean off his hands and face at the pump by the water trough. Then he threw caution to the wind and put his whole head under the rushing water, scrubbing at his hair with saddle soap. He traded his stained, ripped, inside-out uniform shirt for a long-sleeved T-shirt he found in a stack at the back of the stables where the officers always changed after riding. It wasn't as warm, but no one would recognize it as Population Police clothing.

When he was finished, he stood in front of Jenny's stall.

"I look a little more presentable now, don't you think?" he asked her.

Jenny whinnied and rubbed her face against his shoulder.

"Yeah, I know," Luke said. "Mother would be proud that I thought about washing up. But Jen would know that I was just putting off leaving. Hey — careful there with the oat slobber! I don't want to have to change my shirt again!"

He backed away from the horse's stall and resolutely moved over to the stable door. He opened it a crack and peeked out.

The sun was shining outside, and it was a beautiful day. Somehow it seemed that spring had arrived overnight.

Luke poked his head out cautiously so he could see around the corner of the building. The crowd was still there, out on the great expanse of lawn, but no one was singing and dancing and cheering anymore. People seemed to be talking quietly, some of them just now waking up. At the front, near the gate, Luke could just barely make out a figure with a cam' era on his shoulder and another person talking into a microphone. So the TV coverage was continuing.

Well, at least it doesn't look like the Population Police came back in the middle of the night, Luke told himself as he stepped out of the stable.

The walk to the main building wasn't a long one, but he had to step over numerous bodies in his path — people who'd been so busy celebrating the night before that they'd just fallen over right in their tracks when they got so tired they had to go to sleep.

Lucky for them it's so warm today, Luke thought.

He was glad that he could see their chests moving up and down — glad that he didn't have to wonder if they were dead.

If the Population Police really are gone, if everyone really is free — how long will it be before I stop thinking about things like that? Luke wondered.

He reached the back door of the headquarters building and let himself in. He was in an unfamiliar room lined with aprons hanging from hooks.

"The food's in here," someone hollered at him.

He stepped into a larger room, this one full of tables. It reminded him of the dining hall back at Hendricks School, but there were no cooks bustling about, doling out food. Instead, people were lined up in front of a long countertop stacked with apples and oranges.

"Yesterday there was made stuff, not just fruit," a kid whined in front of him. "Where's the bread? Where are the waffles? Why aren't there doughnuts anymore?"

'All the workers left, remember?" Luke said. "Nobody's here to make bread or waffles or doughnuts."

But he wasn't thrilled about having just fruit for break' fast either. He circled the countertop and headed into the kitchen.

"Nina?" he called softly, remembering that this was where she had worked. He would feel so much better if she popped her head out from behind the row of stainless-steel refrigerators, or sprang out from beyond one of the long cabinets. But the sound of her name just echoed in the silent, empty kitchen.

I didn't really expect her to be here, Luke told himself. She's free now, remember?

He opened one of the huge refrigerators and saw stacks of egg cartons, enormous jugs of milk.

"Can I. .?" he started to ask, then shrugged. The Population Police were gone. Nobody was there to tell him what he could or couldn't do, what he could or couldn't eat.

Luke found a pan and oil and figured out how to turn one of the stove burners on. He hunted up a fork and a bowl and scrambled five eggs together, then poured them into the pan. The eggs solidified quickly, the clear parts turning murky white. The smell of cooking egg rose from the pan, taking him back in time.

Last April: my farewell breakfast. Mother promised the chicken factory forty hours of unpaid work just to get two eggs for me. .

Suddenly he was overcome with homesickness, almost as bad as he'd experienced when he'd first left home to go to Hendricks School. He just wanted to go home again. And if the Population Police were truly out of power, that was possible. Luke's presence wouldn't endanger his family anymore. They wouldn't have to worry about hiding him; he wouldn't have to worry about being seen.

Luke flipped his scrambled eggs.

But who's going to take care of the horses if I leave? he thought. And are the Population Police truly out of power?

The eggs started to burn. Luke slid them out of the pan and onto a plate. He couldn't find any forks in the kitchen, so he went back into the dining room.

"Wow! Where'd you get that?" It was the same kid who'd complained about the fruit before.

"Made it myself," Luke said, feeling a little proud. "There's a lot of eggs and milk in the kitchen."

His words — or maybe the smell of the eggs, wafting through the dining room — set off a mini stampede. People rushed into the kitchen. Luke chuckled to himself as he sat down at an empty table and began to eat.

Just beyond the table, someone had wheeled in a television, hooked up with extension cords to a plug in another room.

"This is breaking news," a man was saying on the TV. Luke recognized the voice: Philip Twinings, the news' caster he'd heard on the radio the night before. On the TV screen, he looked old and decrepit, with white, ghostly hair sticking out from under a tweed hat, and a white beard and mustache covering most of his face.

"Our researchers have been working feverishly through the night, trying to put together the story of this coup," Philip Twinings said. "This has been a most unusual event. History tells us that in most governmental changes, no matter how many people are involved, there's almost always one person who stands out, who leads the charge to strike down the previous regime. Until now, this coup appeared to be an instance of the will of the people over' coming a — am I allowed to say this now? — a totalitarian government. But now, we've uncovered the details of the plot behind the coup… and the mastermind who coordinated it all."

Philip Twinings paused, as if to give the people watch' ing him a chance to gasp in amazement. Luke peered at the TV screen, and then through the window behind the TV Distantly, through the trees, he could see the spot where Philip Twinings was standing in real life, in real time. The cameraman stood in front of Philip, and another figure stood beside him, though still out of range of the camera. Luke squinted. Something about the way the person was standing seemed familiar.

"We here at Freedom News have landed an exclusive interview with that mastermind, who's graciously agreed to talk with us now. I present to you—"

The camera panned away from Philip, then slid over to focus on the person beside him. Luke dropped his fork. He stopped listening to Philip. He didn't have to.

The "mastermind" was someone he knew.