Nina reached out and very gently touched Matthias’s check.
“Just what?” Matthias asked.
“Just don’t get caught.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Matthias walked back to his bedroom in a daze, his hands reeking of ammonia. He started to walk in through the commander’s office, then stopped.
“There’s another door, isn’t there?” he asked the guard. “I have to get something from my room, and I don’t want to . . . disturb the commander.”
“Sure,” the guard said. “Over here.”
He led Matthias down a short hallway off to the side. The guard unlocked a door, and Matthias stepped into his bedroom.
“Thanks,” Matthias said. “Should I lock the door again when I leave?”
“It’ll lock automatically behind you,” the guard said.
That’s useful information, Matthias told himself. Start paying attention again.
He walked over to his window and looked out. He was on the second floor, facing a courtyard.
If I need to, I can knot my sheets and climb down. I’ll have to find out which of those windows below would be the safest to enter. That way, I can sneak out and nobody will know.
But he could see the shadows of guards standing by the windows below, their dark shapes humped over like vultures. The old despair threatened to overwhelm Matthias again.
It doesn’t matter, he told himself. Right now, I don’t need to get out without anyone knowing. I need to eavesdrop on the commander. Might as well start now. Unless the guard talked to the commander, he doesn’t even know I’m here. . . .
Blindly, blinking back tears, Matthias stumbled over to the door separating his bedroom from the commander’s office. He pressed his ear tightly against the hard wood. Nothing happened, except that his ear began to hurt. He could hear soft murmurings, but he couldn’t make out any words. The door was too thick.
Then he heard footsteps.
He scrambled away from the door and made a half dive for the bed. He was sprawled half on, half off the bed when the door opened. He buried his head in his pillow to hide his guilty expression.
The footsteps came closer.
“Oh, my dear boy.” It was the commander. He sat down on the edge of the bed and began stroking Matthias’s hair. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”
Matthias moved his head up and down, burrowing deeper and deeper into the pillow. Yes, this was hard. He shoved his hands under the pillow and hoped the commander wouldn’t notice the ammonia smell.
“I don’t think you should push yourself too hard,” the commander said. “Going down to breakfast and then seeing Tiddy’s memorial . . . that’s a lot for one morning. Several people have told me what you did. . . . They were all so moved. Do you know how many caps are down there now? Five hundred.”
Great, Matthias thought. Not only do people watch everything I do, they report everything to the commander.
He wasn’t particularly surprised. How else had the commander known Matthias was back in his room?
The despair came creeping back, ready to drown him. Who was he to think he could outsmart the Population Police? How could he and Nina and Trey and Lee—mere children—do anything when the Population Police had all the power? The Population Police had this grand headquarters, storehouses of food, endless numbers of guards and soldiers stretched out across the entire country.
Matthias was choosing to side with starving people dying on the street.
And God. And goodness. And mercy. And hope.
The words came into his mind so strongly that he almost glanced around to see if Samuel or Percy or Alia were standing right there with him, telling him what to think. At the last minute, he remembered who was sitting beside him. Peeking out from his pillow, Matthias could see the commander’s stiff black uniform, with the row of commendations along his sleeve. Commendations for killing people, probably, for ordering the deaths of children like Matthias.
How can I not fight back?
Matthias got an idea. He turned his head to the side. He hoped his face was red and anguished-looking enough.
“Tiddy wanted me to . . . take classes,” he muttered. “I’m so far behind.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” the commander said. He patted Matthias’s back.
“Could I listen to tapes of the classes?” Matthias asked, trying to make it sound like the idea had just occurred to him. “With headphones, I mean, so I don’t disturb you.”
“Why, that’s a splendid notion,” the commander said. “Of course. I’ll send for that right away.”
When Matthias went downstairs for lunch a few hours later, he had a new note scribbled out to shove into Nina’s hand: Will spy for you. Have headphones. Can you get listening device for me?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Three days passed before Matthias got any sort of answer to his note. He spent the time figuring out the brand-new headphones and shiny, state-of-the-art tape recorder the commander had given him. All the electronic equipment Matthias had ever used before had been salvaged from trash piles—battered, dented, and just one frayed wire away from not working at all. In fact, none of the equipment had been anything but trash until Percy worked his magic on it, splicing wires, taping cracks.
Matthias wished for just a fraction of Percy’s skill. He was going to need it.
When Nina finally palmed a tiny coinlike disk into his hand one night at dinner, he wondered that it came with no directions, no explanations.
“I—,” he began.
Nina glared at him.
“That’s the best soup we have tonight,” she said. “Surely you’re not going to complain?”
Matthias got her meaning.
Late that night he sat fiddling with the bug and his tape recorder. The recorder had a radio with it, and if he found the right frequency, he could set the radio to pick up transmissions from the listening device. Couldn’t he?
He put the headphones on and began turning the dial of the radio.
“I’m alone,” he said aloud, to test the bug. “I miss . . . everybody.”
Only static crackled in his headphones.
“I miss you,” he said again, turning the dial slowly. “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. . . .”
His headphones still weren’t picking up any sound, but he found the soft litany comforting anyhow. He missed Percy and Alia and Samuel. He missed being an innocent little kid looking up to a wise old man who seemed to know everything. He missed playing games with Percy and Alia and curling up with them at night like a litter of puppies. He missed Samuel’s kind eyes and Alia’s shy grin and Percy’s mussed-up hair falling down into his eyes.
“I miss you,” he said again, his voice nearly a sob.
Wait—had the sound come out of his headphones this time?
Just then, his door opened. Matthias quickly slid the bug into his pocket. The motion set off a racket in his headphones. He flipped the switch to turn off his radio.
“Are you all right?” the commander asked, poking his head in the door.
“Uh, fine,” Matthias lied. “Just listening to my tapes.”
He hoped the commander didn’t look too closely. The tape recorder was empty.
“I was afraid you might be lonely,” the commander said gently.
“I was thinking about . . . Tiddy,” Matthias said. It was such a struggle to keep an innocent expression on his face as he stared back at the commander. Because he understood suddenly: Somehow the commander had heard him saying, “I’m alone . . . I miss you.” But he’d been speaking so softly, and if the walls and doors were too thick for Matthias to hear distinct words from the commander’s office, then they were too thick for the commander to hear distinct words from Matthias’s room.
Unless Matthias’s room was bugged, just as he’d angrily suggested to Nina.
Just as he was planning to do to the commander’s room.
Matthias’s head fell forward, and he buried his fa
ce in his hands. He thought maybe he’d given himself away, but when he peeked out through the cracks between his fingers, the commander was still peering at him sympathetically.
The commander thought he was just in despair over Tiddy.
“Do you want to talk about it?” the commander asked, and he did sound like some kindly old grandfather.
Some kindly old grandfather who sends soldiers out to kill innocent children. Some kindly old grandfather who lets food rot while people starve, Matthias thought.
“I . . . can’t,” Matthias murmured. “You tell me . . . about Tiddy before I met him.”
The commander settled into an armchair beside Matthias’s bed. He leaned forward, just the way Samuel used to when he told bedtime stories to Matthias, Percy, and Alia. The memory made Matthias ache, and he almost missed the commander’s first words.
“Tiddy joined the Population Police when he was just a teenager,” the commander said. “Right after the Population Police were formed. Those first few years were . . . chaotic. Some doubted we could ever succeed. But Tiddy was always so optimistic, so eager, so loyal. He was assigned to my detail, and we’d be out making our rounds, looking for criminals, and it’d be tense, stressful work, and Tiddy would be cracking jokes, keeping all of our spirits up. . . .”
Those “criminals,” Matthias reminded himself, were children like him. Tiddy had been cracking jokes on the way to killing people.
The commander leaned his head back and stared off dreamily.
“When I was put in charge of our identification program—did you know that’s what I do?—I requested that Tiddy be transferred to my unit. Just because I liked him. I never thought he’d come up with the most brilliant plan of all.”
Could Matthias get away with asking what the plan was? Would the commander just tell him, flat out, without Matthias having to eavesdrop at all? Could Matthias believe whatever the commander chose to tell?
Matthias was so busy wondering, he missed his chance. The commander was standing up.
“Here,” he said. “I’ll show you pictures of Tiddy in the early years.”
Matthias slipped out of bed and followed the commander into his office. The commander flipped on his desk light, and it made a small oasis of light in the dark, cavernous room. Matthias shivered and leaned in close, looking over the commander’s shoulder. Matthias was near enough to count each individual gray hair springing from the commander’s scalp.
I could hurt him, Matthias thought, strangely. Even kill him. Now, when he’s not looking. When he trusts me . . . Would Nina want me to do that?
Matthias trembled at the thought, at the evilness that seemed to lurk all around him in the dark of the commander’s office.
“Are you cold?” the commander asked. “Here.”
He got up, went into Matthias’s bedroom, and returned with the blanket from Matthias’s bed. He tucked it around Matthias’s shoulders, then sat back down and pulled an envelope from his desk.
“This is Tiddy at his commissioning ceremony,” the commander said, holding out a picture of a very young Tiddy looking very formal. “And afterward,” he added. The next photo showed Tiddy in the center of a group of laughing young men, all tossing their caps into the sky. They didn’t look like soldiers preparing to go out and kill babies. They looked like young men laughing uproariously, without a single care in the world.
Almost against his will, Matthias drew in closer, hypnotized by each successive photo of the life of Population Police Officer Tidwell. But, while he looked, he angled his right side out of the commander’s view. He plunged his hand into his pocket, then groped along the underside of the edge of the commander’s desk. A tiny lip of wood jutted out over the base of the desk. Would the bug stick there without being spotted?
Matthias couldn’t be sure of anything, but he held the bug behind his back and, under the cover of the blanket, peeled off an adhesive strip. Then he stuck the bug under the desk.
Oh, please, Matthias thought, and it was pretty much his first prayer since witnessing Tiddy’s death. But those two small words carried so many hopes: He was praying that the bug would stick, that it’d work, that no one would find it, that he’d hear something that would help him and Nina and Trey.
And maybe he was even praying that the laughing Population Police Officer Tidwell somehow now understood the evil he’d done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Matthias put on his headphones and switched on his radio as soon as he woke up the next morning. At first all he heard was the rustle of papers, presumably as the commander moved them across his desk. He was just ready to give up and go down for breakfast when a sharp voice burst through his headphones: “Commander, my report!”
“Go ahead,” the commander said.
“We are ninety-five percent done with Project Exchange,” the voice said.
“Very good,” the commander said. “When do you anticipate completion of the project?”
“Next week.”
“Wonderful,” the commander said. “Carry on.”
Matthias kept listening, but that was all. He wrote down Project Exchange 95% done—finish expected next week on a scrap of paper and handed it to Nina in the cafeteria a few minutes later when she handed him a bowl of Cream of Wheat. He knew what a dangerous thing he was doing. If the bug was found—if he was caught—he’d probably have no chance to pass along stored-up information to Nina. So he’d have to tell her everything as he learned it.
He had nothing new to report by lunchtime, but Nina surprised him by slipping a note into his hand along with a mug of cider.
That’s very bad news, the note said, when Matthias had a chance to read it back in his room after lunch. The “very” was underlined six times. We have to hurry. Keep listening!!!!
Matthias put his headphones back on immediately, but it was frustrating to sit around straining to hear silence. And it was maddening not to know what Nina, Trey, and the mysterious “others” were hurrying to do.
Samuel, am I doing the right thing? You didn’t believe in getting involved in politics. Is this politics? All I want is to get that food to the starving people. What if there’s something bad in Nina’s plan?
Once, when he’d first met Nina, she had risked her life because she thought that was the only way to save Matthias’s—Matthias’s and Percy’s and Alia’s. But just because Nina was trustworthy then, was she still trustworthy now?
God, why isn’t life as simple as Samuel always made me think it was?
The headphones crackled to life.
“Sir?” This was a young voice. “Officer Jason Barstow reporting to demonstrate the test for Project Authenticity.”
“Of course. Come in.” The commander practically purred.
There was a thud, as if something heavy had been placed on the desk.
“Gotta protect your furniture.” It was the young voice again—Officer Barstow’s.
“I appreciate that,” the commander said, an edge of sarcasm in his tone.
“Now, these cards both look absolutely identical, correct? Both absolutely authentic?” Officer Barstow asked.
“Yes,” the commander said. Several others must have come in to watch the demonstration with him because an echo came through the headphones: “Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . .”
“If you had to guess, which one would you say is fake?” Officer Barstow asked.
A long silence followed. Finally the commander said doubtfully, “This one?”
“Other opinions?” Officer Barstow asked.
Are they looking at I.D. cards? Matthias wondered. The commander said he was in charge of the identification program. . . .
The others in the commander’s office made their choices quickly.
“Ah, so everyone agrees with the commander,” Officer Barstow said. “Let’s see.”
Matthias heard a sizzling sound, then a string of “ooh’s” and “aah’s.”
“So we were all wrong,” the commander said, a s
teely tone in his voice. “Try it again on different cards. Ones I know are fake or real.”
Matthias could picture the commander reaching into his own drawer, throwing down a pile of identity cards on his desk, like a challenge.
More sizzling.
“Yes,” the commander said. “That’s correct. It works. It works perfectly.”
He sounded like he was grinning. A burst of applause roared out of Matthias’s headphones so loudly that Matthias had to pull them away from his ears. But he still heard Officer Barstow’s final words: “It’s absolutely foolproof.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Matthias’s head spun. He took off his headphones, but his ears still rang with the sound of the officials’ applause.
Why are they so excited? Matthias wondered. They’ve been able to find fake I.D.’s before. His weeks in Population Police prison proved that.
“Absolutely foolproof,” Officer Barstow had said. He’d sounded smug and overwhelmingly happy, like he’d just found enough food to feed everyone or figured out a way to end all disease.
No, Matthias reminded himself. This is the Population Police. They’d be overjoyed over some absolutely foolproof way to kill third children.
Third children. Matthias. Nina. Trey. Lee. And all the others.
It wasn’t anywhere near dinnertime yet, but Matthias tore out of his room and raced for the cafeteria. The doors were locked, and a guard stood before them, looking bored.
“I’m hungry,” Matthias announced. “Think there’s any way I could sneak in there and get a snack?”
“Of course n—,” the guard started to snap. Then he looked at Matthias more closely. “Oh. You’re Tiddy’s friend. Sure, go ahead. They’ll do anything for you.”
The guard opened the doors and Matthias slipped inside.
What if Nina’s loaned out to housekeeping detail this afternoon? What will I do then?
But Nina was in the kitchen, chopping carrots alongside several other girls. How was Matthias supposed to get her away to talk to him alone? They should have worked out a code word, he realized. They should have worked out a whole coded language.