Among the Imposters

Thirty Seven

“Huh?” Luke said. He had not anticipated that turn in the conversation at all.

Mr. Hendricks leaned forward.

“My schools had never been infiltrated before,” he said, with a sharp glance at Mr. Talbot.

Mr. Talbot frowned apologetically

“The Population Police have always pretended that it’s impossible for an illegal child to get a fake I.D.,” Mr. Talbot added. “But after the rally—” His eyes clouded. Luke could see the effort he was making to continue without emotion. ‘After the rally, all the rules changed.”

“So you see, we never expected betrayal,” Mr. Hendricks said. “In the beginning yes, we tiptoed and looked over our shoulders. And, fortunately we kept habits of… strong security. But we were not prepared for the Population Police to plant impostors in our midst, to gather names, to encourage indiscretion.”

Luke frowned.

“But Jason — he said there’d been raids before. He said—” Mr. Talbot had a sarcastic smile on his face. Mr. Hendricks raised one eyebrow.

“My dear boy,” Mr. Hendricks said. “He lied.”

Luke grimaced. He didn’t like them acting like he couldn’t figure that out on his own. But he’d learned a lot from Jason. What was true and what was false? He remembered one of Jason’s other explanations: You can’t be too nice to an exnay … exnays need the kind of friend who can toughen them up. Like I did for you. Luke remembered how many times Jason had made him claim to be an idiot, do push-ups until his arms collapsed, make a total fool of himself. Jason hadn’t been trying to toughen Luke up. He’d been trying to break him down.

But it hadn’t worked.

Luke didn’t know why. He felt breathless, thinking about what could have happened. Suddenly he was mad at Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Talbot, sitting there looking so condescending.

“Why didn’t you know Jason was an impostor?” Luke said. “You should have. He acted so different from everyone else.”

“Yes, and so did you,” Mr. Hendricks replied quickly. “Should we have suspected you of working for the Population Police, just because you liked going outside?”

Luke blinked.

“Yes, we knew,” Mr. Hendricks said. “Just as we knew Jason, as you call him, was forming a club of former hidden children. We’d never seen that happen before, and frankly, we viewed it as a positive development Until you showed us the truth.”

Luke remembered how frustrated and frightened and alone he’d felt, only the night before.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I tried, but nothing worked. Mr. Talbot deserves all the credit.”

“You stopped the infiltrator and knocked him out Then you took him to the nurse who, under the school’s protocol, had to alert me,” Mr. Hendricks said. “She thought he was just another former hidden child, going through some very unusual trauma. But when he muttered, “my phone, my phone”—she got suspicious. We locked all the doors and made a search of the entire school building.”

So that’s what Jason had muttered to the nurse, Luke thought. He was kind of glad now that he hadn’t heard. He had felt panicked enough, as it was.

“Once we confiscated his phone,” Mr. Hendricks continued, “we found out that the last number he called was the Population Police. Meanwhile, your call made George here suspicious—”

“Without spilling everything for the bugs on my phone, thank you very much,” Mr. Talbot said. “Because of your warning, I had time to double-cross the Population Police’s efforts. So we arrested two traitors, instead of six former hidden children. A good trade, in my mind.”

Luke felt dizzy. No matter how many explanations Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks gave him, other questions sprang up in his mind like so many weeds. Both men were watching him.

“Nina,” Luke said finally “Nina was the other traitor.”

“Yes,” Mr. Talbot said.

Luke thought about how, just for a second, he’d mistaken Nina for Jen that first night out in the woods. He’d wanted to like Nina so badly. He’d liked the way she’d laughed. But she’d been a traitor, too.

“What will happen to them?” Luke asked. “Jason and Nina, I mean.”

Mr. Talbot looked away.

“Sometimes it’s better not to know,” he murmured.

That meant they were going to be killed, Luke thought. Killed or tortured to death, which was even worse. He shivered. Was it his fault? Was there some way he could have saved the other exnays without destroying Jason and Nina? No — they were the ones who had chosen betrayal.

“This is a cruel business,” Mr. Talbot said. “Don’t dwell on it.”

In a corner of the room, an old-fashioned clock ticked quietly. Luke gathered his thoughts for his next question.

“But why did the Population Police believe you instead of Jason? If he’d wanted to, that officer could have arrested us all,” Luke said. He remembered how careful Mr. Talbot had had to be, ever since the rally, for fear that someone might connect him with Jen. “I thought you were out of favor at Population Police headquarters right now. No offense, of course,” he added quickly.

Mr. Talbot shrugged, as though being out of favor was as insignificant as a mosquito bite.

“I had the evidence on my side,” he said. “They like evidence. And I have to say, it was a stroke of brilliance to computer-enhance that Christmas picture, to substitute your face over· Jen’s.” He kept his voice even, saying Jen’s name, but Luke noticed that Mr. Hendricks bowed his head, reverently, as though giving in to a moment of silent mourning. Had Mr. Hendricks ever even met Jen? Luke didn’t know, but he found himself lowering his head as well.

“Jen would have liked that,” Luke said. “Using her picture to fool the Population Police.” He swallowed what might have been a giggle. Jen would have been very amused.

“And what better way to remember those we love than by doing what they like?” Mr. Hendricks asked.

Mr. Talbot nodded, silently Mr. Hendricks took over the explanation.

“And, young man, you do not realize the power of the name you have been given. Lee Grant. Your father — the father listed on your school records — is a very important man in our society,” he said.

“But he’s not my father,” Luke said, more forceftilly than he intended. “I’ve never even met the man. And I’m not Lee Grant.”

Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Talbot exchanged glances. Luke wondered if they were deciding he wasn’t so ready, after all.

“But you know how to pretend to be Lee Grant,” Mr. Hendricks said. “That is what matters.”

Luke shook his head impatiently. He’d suddenly had itwith all this double-talk. None of this was real, not the way planting potatoes was, or growing beans. It was easier to be a farmer, to know by looking whether your crops were good or not. Still, another question teased at the back of his mind.

“Why did they do it?” he asked. “Jason and Nina — why did they betray their friends? Their fellow exnays?”

“They were never your friends,” Mr. Hendricks said harshly. “They came to Hendricks and Harlow schools with one purpose, and one purpose only: to seek out and betray all the former hidden children they could. They preyed upon all the exnays’ secret desire to speak their real name, because the Population Police needed the real names to complete the betrayal. Jason and Nina had never been hidden children. They were just plants. Impostors.”

“But the Population Policeman said they were illegals with false documents—” Luke said.

“The Population Police can lie, too,” Mr. Hendricks said grimly “It suits the Government’s purposes to say they are arresting third children rather than traitors.”

Luke tried to absorb this. Nina, who spoke so passionately about the third children’s cause; Jason, who talked about protecting exnays at Hendricks — they had never been in hiding themselves? They only wanted to harm the ones who trusted them most?

This was a level of evil Luke never could have imagined before, back on the farm.

And now Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Talbot wanted him to go to another new place, someplace even more challenging than Hendricks?

“With all due respect to my friend here,” Mr. Talbot nodded toward Mr. Hendricks, “we don’t really know how Jason and Nina came to work for the Population Police, or why they came to these schools. We’re mostly guessing. They’re just kids, after all.”

“‘Just kids?”’ Mr. Hendricks protested. “You think only adults are capable of such villainy? Naturally, adults must have put them up to it, but—”

“I’ll be interrogating both of them tomorrow,” Mr. Talbot interrupted quietly “Let’s just say I intend to discover facts that my Population Police colleagues probably don’t want me to know. It’s likely that those two kids were offered substantial bribes for their work. Or”—he laughed bitterly—”maybe they Were true believers devoted to their cause. Who knows?”

Luke wondered about that. Long ago, when he’d first met Jen, he’d wondered if the Population Law was correct, if maybe he really didn’t have any right to exist, to eat food that might go to others. But Jen had convinced him that wasn’t so, that everyone had a right to live. No matter what. But what if Jason and Nina had truly believed in what they were doing, even among their enemies — just as Mr. Talbot believed in what he was doing double-crossing the Population Police, even as he worked in their headquarters every day?

Luke rubbed his temples. This wore his brain out even more than the history test had. He wished everyone could just be what they were, and not have to pretend.

The clock in the corner began donging, giving off distinguished, silvery peals. Luke read the time effortlessly, without having to count dongs: eight o’clock.

“Well,” Mr. Talbot said, rising, “you’ll need to get your things out of your room before the other boys come out of — what do you call it? Indoctrination? And then I can drive you to your next school tonight. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

“No,” Luke said.

Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks looked at him in bafflement. Then Mr. Hendricks chuckled.

“Oh, so you boys have come up with another name for it besides Indoctrination?”

Luke understood the old man’s confusion. He could go with that, make up some silly name for Indoctrination, pretend that that was all he’d been objecting to. But it wasn’t.

“No,” Luke said firmly. “I mean, I don’t want to leave Hendricks.”

Now Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks absolutely gaped at him, thoroughly aghast. Luke could tell what they were thinking: We gave him a new identity. We gave him a place to hide. We saved his skin today. And now he tells us “no”? How dare he?

Luke gulped. He wasn’t so sure how he dared, either. Only two months earlier, when he’d left home, he’d been a scared little kid afraid even to speak. He’d had a borrowed name and borrowed clothes — nothing but memories to call his own. But those memories were worth something. and so was he. He wasn’t some pawn to be moved across a chessboard, according to other people’s plans.

Luke thought about what he’d accomplished at Hendricks — not just what he’d done to help outsmart Jason, l~ut what he’d done making his garden, trying to make friends, studying for his tests. len. you’d be proud, he thought. He tried to figure out how to explain to Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Talbot.

“I’m glad you want to help me,” Luke started softly “And I’m, um, honored that you think I’m ready to leave. But I don’t think I’m done here. When I came out of hiding I told my parents that I wanted to help other third children. Only, I didn’t know how. But now I do. I want to help them here.”

Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks exchanged glances. Then Mr. Talbot sat down.

“Tell us more,” he said.