Among the Brave

  Then Trey remembered something else.

  “They told about the riots on TV?” he said incredulously. “That’s impossible. They’d never tell about something like that.”

  Trey himself had never seen a television. But he’d heard his father say that it only broadcast propaganda. “Think they’d ever let a TV anchor say anything bad about the Government?” Trey’s father had taunted his mother once. “Think they’d ever say anything that didn’t make it seem like our country is paradise itself?”

  Riots didn’t belong in paradise.

  Mrs. Talbot snorted.

  “Well, not on regular TV, of course,” she said. “The Baron channels.”

  “What?” Trey said. He’d always known that the Government allowed some people to have special privileges. The Barons, as they were called, were rich while everyone else was poor. They had so much food they could afford to throw it away—while everyone else scrambled to get dry crusts or pretended that moldy cheese was perfectly fine. They lived in fine mansions, while everyone else crowded together, entire families in a single room.

  Trey hadn’t known that the Barons even had their own TV channels.

  “You can’t expect us to trust the regular broadcasts,” Mrs. Talbot said defensively. “We Barons need … information that other people don’t.”

  “But how do they do that?” Trey asked. He tried to remember how television signals were transmitted. “How can the signals go to some TV’s and not to others?”

  “Some sort of special cable, I guess,” Mrs. Talbot said with a shrug. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  She seemed relieved to be talking about something ordinary, like TV, instead of death and danger and foiled plans. Trey stood up and began climbing the stairs.

  Surreal, he thought. This entire day has been so surreal I don’t even know what to be afraid of anymore.

  He followed Mrs. Talbot out the basement door and down a long hallway. They reached a huge room full of wide couches and coffee tables. It had probably been an extraordinarily beautiful room originally, but, like the basement, it was a mess now. Only the enormous screen covering a large portion of one wall seemed intact. Mrs. Talbot stepped over ripped cushions and picked up black remote control from one of the coffee tables. She hit a button on the remote, and the screen seemed to come to life, with gray and black and white dots dancing across the surface. It was a fascinating sight, like some of the bizarre artwork Trey had seen in books.

  “See?” Mrs. Talbot said. “The regular stations are off the air. So what else is new.” She flipped through the channels, bringing up momentary darkness, then more patterns of random dots. “Now here’s the first Baron channel.”

  She hit another button, and the screen filled up with a serious-looking man.

  “… continues in virtually all parts of the city,” he was saying. “Our advice to you would be to remain at home until further notice. In other news—”

  Suddenly the man’s voice broke off and his face disappeared, replaced by more of the dots. Trey glanced over at Mrs. Talbot, but she hadn’t changed the channel. She was standing there looking as stunned as Trey felt.

  “That’s odd,” Mrs. Talbot muttered. “They’re usually so reliable.”

  She hit a few more buttons, zipping though channels. None of the stations appeared to be broadcasting. Then suddenly another man’s face appeared, first wavering, with rolling black lines, then solidifying and filling the entire screen. Mrs. Talbot gasped, but Trey was staring so intently at the TV screen that he barely heard her.

  “Good evening, fellow citizens,” the man on TV said. He was wearing a luxurious black jacket, with gold trim on the collar and over the sleeves. “I am delighted to inform you that the old, corrupt Government of General Terus has fallen to the will of the people. General Terus was placed under arrest at seven thirty this evening. I assure you that my squads will restore peace throughout the land quite soon. I am fully in control and I pledge to all of you, my loyal citizens, that I will live up to the trust you have always placed in me. I—”

  Trey missed the next few words, because Mrs. Talbot had begun frantically flipping through the channels again. The man in the gold-trimmed uniform was on every station.

  “—peace and prosperity—”

  “—work together—”

  “—true to the cause I’ve always believed in—”

  With the moments of silence between changing channels, Trey could hardly make sense of the man’s message. It didn’t matter. He’d heard enough. Enough to make him delirious with joy.

  “It happened,” he muttered. Then he screamed, “It happened! I’m free! All third children are free!”

  Mrs. Talbot was looking at him strangely. Of course. She wouldn’t have known that he was an illegal third child with a fake I.D. Trey didn’t care. He wouldn’t have to care ever again about who knew the truth.

  “Young man,” she said, almost sternly. “Don’t you know who that is?” She pointed at the TV.

  Trey stopped shouting long enough to glance at the televised man. He had white hair, a mustache, dark eyes, thin lips. And he didn’t look the slightest bit familiar. Trey was pretty sure he’d never seen so much as a picture of him.

  “No,” Trey said. “But who cares? General Terus is gone.”

  “Oh, you should care, all right,” Mrs. Talbot said. “That man”—and she pointed at the TV screen again, almost accusingly, and her voice shook—“that man is Aldous Krakenaur.”

  “Who?” Trey said.

  “The head of the Population Police,” Mrs. Talbot said.

  And then she bent her head down and began to sob.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Trey went numb.

  Euphoria to horror in one second will do that to a guy, he thought, and was almost relieved that some part of his brain was still available to think.

  He’d always thought he was a pessimist—he’d never fully believed in Lee’s rosy dreams of freedom for all third children. But even Trey had never imagined news this bad.

  “Are you sure?” he asked Mrs. Talbot.

  She stopped sobbing just long enough to give him a withering look.

  “Well, maybe …” Trey was searching for some reason to still hold on to some hope. “Maybe he won’t be any worse than General Terus. I mean, General Terus wanted all third children dead. This guy—what’s he going to do? Kill us twice?”

  Mrs. Talbot wiped her eyes and glared at Trey.

  “Aldous Krakenaur is insane. He hates third children beyond all reason,” she said. “He was always complaining that General Terus didn’t devote enough resources to hunting them down. And now—now there’ll be house-to-house searches. Traffic stopped on every street Identity records scoured for fakes, again and again. No third child will be able to survive.”

  Mrs. Talbot’s words chilled Trey so thoroughly that he almost missed her whispering, at the end, “Maybe it’s good that Jen is already dead.”

  On the TV screen, Aldous Krakenaur was smiling.

  “… And together, we will make our country great again,” he said.

  Mrs. Talbot threw the remote straight at the screen. The glass shattered and sparks flew. Then the screen was dark and dead, finally matching the rest of the destroyed room.

  “Why did you do that?” Trey complained. “Now we won’t know what’s going on.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Mrs. Talbot said. “I know too much already.”

  She collapsed onto the nearest couch and stared vacantly at the broken TV. Trey remained standing, awkwardly. He wasn’t exactly adept at interpersonal relationships under the best of circumstances. What in the world was he supposed to do now?

  He closed his eyes briefly, and everything he’d witnessed that day seemed to replay in his memory Mr. Talbot coming to the door, failing to recognize Trey….

  Or did he recognize me after all? Was he really just trying to warn me away—me and the rest of my “team”? The thought made Trey feel a little better,
even though the warning hadn’t helped. There hadn’t been time to do anything before Mr. Talbot was whisked away …

  A new thought occurred to Trey.

  “Mrs. Talbot?” he said. “I don’t blame you for being upset and all over Aldous Krakenaur. I mean, I’m glad you don’t want him in control. But isn’t this good for your husband? I mean, he works for the Population Police, and Aldous Krakenaur’s in charge of the Population Police…. Mr. Talbot was taken away before the Government changed. Wouldn’t Aldous Krakenaur set him free? Maybe this Krakenaur guy’s already heard about what happened to Mr. Talbot and already sent him home. Maybe Mr. Talbot’s on his way here, right now.”

  Slowly Mrs. Talbot turned her head to stare up at Trey.

  “Aldous always hated George,” she said. “The only thing that kept George in power at the Population Police headquarters was his friendship with General Terus.”

  “Mr. Talbot was friends with the president?” Trey’s voice actually squeaked, he was so amazed.

  “He pretended to be friends,” Mrs. Talbot said. “But now if General Terus is gone … They probably arrested George this morning so he wouldn’t warn the president what was coming.”

  “Well, he can’t warn him now—looks like the coup is over,” Trey said. “So maybe they’ll set Mr. Talbot free because there’s no point in holding him any longer.”

  Mrs. Talbot went back to staring at the broken TV.

  “You’re just a little boy, aren’t you?” she said in an eerily calm voice, as if nothing really mattered anymore. “All the thirds—so naïve. So sheltered. Don’t you know? The only way they’re going to release George is in a coffin.”

  Trey gulped.

  “No they aren’t,” he said, arguing with more conviction than he felt. “You can rescue him. I’ll—I’ll help.”

  What was he saying? What if Mrs. Talbot took him up on his offer?

  “I don’t know where they’re holding him,” Mrs. Talbot said, still in the same dead voice.

  “Then find out,” Trey said. He wanted Mrs. Talbot to stop acting so strange. He wanted her to take control and fix everything. “Don’t you have any friends in the Population Police?” he asked. “Anyone you can trust?”

  At first, Trey thought Mrs. Talbot hadn’t heard his question. Then she slowly answered, “I don’t trust a single soul in this country right now. I don’t even trust you. How do I know you weren’t lying to me about the Grants?”

  “Because I wasn’t,” Trey said frantically. “Because—why would I want to lie?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Talbot said. “I don’t care.” She stood up abruptly, seeming to shake off her stupor. “I’m leaving. Good-bye.”

  She brushed past him. Trey felt like he was being abandoned all over again.

  It’s just like when Mom left me…. He shut out the thought immediately.

  “Wait!” he yelled after Mrs. Talbot. “Where are you going?”

  “That’s none of your business,” she called back over her shoulder.

  “Can I—can I go with you?” It was humiliating even to ask. But no more humiliating than being abandoned in silence.

  “No,” Mrs. Talbot said. She paused in front of the door that led to the basement and on out to the garage. “But I will give you some advice. Don’t hang around here for long. When governments fall … Well, they won’t leave this place empty. Spoils of war and all that.” She looked around, as if noticing the mess for the first time. She reached out to a nearby shelf to touch a delicate crystal vase that had miraculously escaped destruction. Trey decided it must have some sentimental value. Maybe Mr. Talbot had given it to her years ago, and she couldn’t bear to leave it behind.

  Then Mrs. Talbot lifted the vase off the shelf and hurled it to the floor. It smashed instantly into dozens of tiny shards.

  “There,” Mrs. Talbot said grimly. “They’re welcome to it. They’re welcome to it all.”

  She walked out the door and was gone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Trey hid.

  It wasn’t something he thought about. One minute he was standing by the door that Mrs. Talbot had just shut in his face, the next he was cowering in a kitchen cupboard. All the pots and pans from the cabinet had been thrown out on the floor; that’s why he’d noticed it. Otherwise he might have hidden in a closet or under a sofa or behind a bookcase….

  There wasn’t much room in the cupboard, and he’d begun shivering so hard—no, it was really shaking, shaking with fear—that he kept banging his elbows and knees against the hard wood around him. He could have moved to another hiding space, but that would have required more courage and will than he had after being abandoned and left in danger yet again.

  But she was so beautiful …, he thought vaguely, and then was irritated with himself. Why was it any different to be abandoned by a beautiful woman than by an ugly one?

  No, he corrected himself. Mom wasn’t ugly. She was just … defeated.

  He had never thought of it that way before. Mom had lost Dad too, after all. She’d lost her husband, she’d lost all hope—what was there left for her to live for?

  Me, Trey thought fiercely, and it was like he was answering a question about himself, not his mother. It made him stop shaking, momentarily. It made him think that he might be feeling light-headed because of hunger, not just horror.

  I am in a kitchen, he reminded himself. There’s probably food mere inches away. All I have to do is open the door of this cupboard. How stupid and cowardly was he to sit there shaking and starving instead of eating?

  Trey pushed the door of the cupboard open a crack. In the dim light that filtered in from the TV room, he could see a refrigerator. He shoved out one foot and then the other, carefully avoiding all the pots and pans on the floor. He angled the rest of his body out of the cupboard. Crouching, he reached over and opened the refrigerator.

  The sudden bright light scared him, but he reached in and blindly grabbed garishly colored cartons and containers. Then, clutching the food, he dove back into the cupboard.

  There wasn’t room in the cupboard to eat with the door shut, so he risked leaving it open. That way, he could even see what he was eating. A paper carton yielded rice and mysterious vegetables in a spicy sauce, all of which he virtually inhaled. He’d also grabbed three plastic containers of strawberry yogurt. This was harder to eat with his fingers, so he mainly squeezed it into his mouth and then licked out the containers as best he could.

  Like an animal, he thought. I’m behaving like an animal.

  He remembered his father’s view of animals. One night, years ago, Dad had told Trey and his mother about seeing feral cats in an alley on his way home from work. Trey was pretty young then, but he already knew Latin.

  “Feral?” Trey had said. “Like fera, meaning ‘beast’ or feralis, ‘funeral’? Were the cats dead?”

  Dad had ruffled Trey’s hair fondly. Trey’s knowledge of Latin always made Dad fond.

  “Very good, son!” he’d said. “The word can be used in either sense. But in this case, it means ‘wild beast’ Those cats used to be somebody’s pets, but now they’re out living on their own.”

  Trey was intrigued. He’d followed Dad around the rest of the evening, asking questions.

  “How can those cats live on their own?” he asked as Dad took off his good coat—the one with only one patch on the sleeve. “Who feeds them? Who gives them books to read?” In Trey’s world then, books were as important as food. And books were more plentiful.

  “Animals don’t read books,” Dad said. “They aren’t like humans. Animals are only concerned with surviving—with eating and … and reproducing. That’s what separates humans from animals—our ability to think and reason. To do more than just survive.”

  And then Dad had exchanged a significant glance with Mom. That’s what had made the whole conversation stick in Trey’s mind. Trey hadn’t understood that glance.

  But now, remembering, he was ashamed. How ashamed Dad would be if he
could see Trey now, not thinking, not reasoning, just trying to survive.

  But Dad, you never did tell me who took care of those cats, he thought resentfully.

  Trey squashed the three yogurt containers and put them in the paper carton that had held the rice and vegetables. Bravely, he inched his way over to a trash can and threw away the garbage. Then he scurried back to his cupboard and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Okay, I’m thinking now. What am I going to do?

  He felt drawn in so many different directions.

  “Stay hidden,” the boy in uniform had said on the porch. Why? Why hadn’t the boy reported him? Could Trey trust his advice?

  “I’ll do my best to help you,” Trey had promised Mrs. Talbot Was that promise void now because she’d left?

  “I’ll tell Mr. Talbot everything,” Trey had promised Lee. But now Trey couldn’t even remember where he’d left the papers from Mr. Grant’s desk, the ones he’d wanted to show to Mr. Talbot.

  “I’ll watch out for Lee,” Trey had promised Mr. Hendricks before leaving for the Grants’ party yesterday—had that been only yesterday? It felt like a century ago.

  Mr. Hendricks. Of course. Why hadn’t Trey thought of him sooner?

  Mr. Hendricks was the headmaster of Trey’s school. He’d been in a horrible accident as a young man and lost the lower portions of his legs. So he used a wheelchair to get around. Last night, when Trey and his friends had witnessed a murder and were terrified of the muscular killer, they hadn’t even thought of going to a disabled man for help.

  I’m sorry, Trey thought, as if Mr. Hendricks could overhear his thoughts. You’re so much more reliable than Mr. Talbot. Smarter, too.

  All Trey needed was a phone. He’d have to be careful what he said—the Population Police tapped the phone lines—but he could speak in code. And then Mr. Hendricks would have someone come and pick him up, and Lee too when he arrived. It was that easy.

  For a moment Trey thought about waiting in his cupboard until Lee came—let Lee make the phone call. Let Lee figure out how to make “Come get us immediately!” sound innocuous and dull to phone-tapping listeners. Let Lee take care of everything.