Among the Enemy

  So that’s where Matthias was when the four Population Police officers burst out of the woods to the east.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Halt!” the lead officer yelled, even though Matthias clearly wasn’t moving. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Matthias gaped at them. Look surprised but innocent, he told himself. He made himself blink once or twice, slowly. He let them march right up to him.

  “I—,” he started. “I was just—”

  He had to work so hard to keep from glancing over at the man in the tree. He didn’t want to give the man away.

  “Just what?” the officer demanded. He stepped closer to Matthias and glared down his nose.

  Then, before Matthias had a chance to answer, a flurry of gunshots rained down on the four Population Police officers. Three of them fell instantly, but the fourth, the one closest to Matthias, had time to pull a gun out of his shirt. He dived behind Mrs. Talbot’s car and began returning fire.

  And Matthias, standing by himself out in the open in the middle of the gun battle, suddenly understood. The man in the tree had been waiting to ambush the Population Police. He’d been trying to get Matthias out of the way so Matthias wouldn’t get hurt too.

  Matthias turned, ready to run back for the safety of the cabin. Then he froze. Mrs. Talbot was in the cabin. What if he led the Population Police right to her? What if the Population Police officer killed the man in the tree? What would happen to Percy and Alia then?

  Matthias veered away from the cabin and slid down behind the front bumper of Mrs. Talbot’s car. He slithered over to the Population Police officer.

  “There are dozens of them!” he whispered in the officer’s ear. “They’re circling around behind us. Get in the car!”

  The officer gave him a startled look, but when Matthias opened the car door, the officer slipped through it. Matthias shoved him on over to the passenger side and slid into the driver’s seat.

  The Population Police officer and the man in the tree were still shooting at each other. Matthias ducked down low, twisting wires together and praying. He’d seen other boys on the street hot-wire cars. He’d never actually done it himself before, but maybe, maybe . . .

  The engine roared to life, and Matthias stomped on the accelerator. He had to stretch his leg out as far as he could, and still his toes barely touched the pedal. But the car lurched forward. At the last minute, Matthias managed to swerve to miss the side of the cabin, and a few final bullets pinged off the back of the car.

  And then they were out of range of the man in the tree.

  The Population Police officer still kept his gun trained toward the woods. He fired over Matthias’s head, shattering the window. Shards of glass rained down on Matthias, but he only ducked down lower and pressed the accelerator harder. He heard an angry squawk off to the side, behind them.

  “Oh,” the officer muttered. “That one was just a bird.”

  The officer let his body sag back against the leather seat. Matthias could see the beads of sweat along his hairline.

  “You . . . saved . . . my life,” the officer whispered.

  Matthias hadn’t thought of it that way. He felt more like he’d been involved in a kidnapping. He kept his foot on the accelerator, putting even more distance between them and the cabin.

  “That’s . . . not how it usually works,” the officer said. He sounded dazed. “Population Police officers are supposed to fight to the death. Never give up.”

  “I don’t see how it would have hurt the, uh, bad guys if you died,” Matthias said, because he had to say something. It was strange talking to someone he might have wished dead a few minutes earlier.

  The officer wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand.

  “I could say I made an executive decision to go back for reinforcements,” he mused. “Since there were so many rebels.” For a minute, Matthias feared that the officer was making fun of Matthias’s lie: There are dozens of them. . . . But the officer’s expression was serious. Matthias remembered how the bullets had seemed to come all at once. Maybe there really were other men in other trees, he thought.

  “Let me drive now,” the officer ordered.

  Matthias took his foot off the accelerator. He had to slide practically his whole body down under the steering wheel to reach the brake. It was a good thing he hadn’t needed to stop quickly.

  The officer slid over into the driver’s seat, and Matthias opened the door and circled around behind the battered car.

  I could take off running into the woods now, Matthias thought. But would the officer chase me? Would I put Percy and Alia and Mrs. Talbot and the man in the tree in even more danger?

  The officer still had his gun; he was watching Matthias in the rearview mirror. Matthias got back into the car on the passenger’s side.

  What will Mrs. Talbot do without her car? he wondered. Will she and the man in the tree find each other now that the Population Police are out of the way? What if the man in the tree was lying about Percy and Alia being safe?

  Not knowing made Matthias ache all over. Oh, God, protect Alia, oh, God, protect Percy kept running through his mind, to the same rhythm as the wheels.

  The Population Police officer was still watching Matthias, glancing back and forth between Matthias and the road ahead.

  “You know, you never did answer my questions,” the officer said. He was going very fast now, much faster than Matthias would have dared to drive. He kept one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on his gun.

  “Questions?” Matthias repeated.

  “Why were you standing there in the middle of the road?”

  “Oh, I was just passing by,” Matthias said vaguely.

  “Passing by? Out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Matthias heard the suspicion in the officer’s voice; he saw the officer’s blue eyes narrow and his mouth harden into a distrustful line. And Matthias couldn’t help watching the gun. The officer wasn’t pointing it toward the woods anymore. He had the barrel turned almost casually toward Matthias.

  The only thing Matthias could think of was the story Mrs. Talbot had concocted.

  “I was on my way to join the Population Police,” Matthias squeaked.

  The officer laughed, giving off a great guffaw that seemed to roar through the entire car.

  “You? What are you—six? Seven? Eight? Granted, I’ve been away from headquarters for a while, but last time I checked, we weren’t signing up kindergartners.”

  Matthias drew himself up to his full height, which admittedly wasn’t much.

  “I’m thirteen,” he said in what he hoped was a dignified voice. He didn’t know why he picked that age—he didn’t know if the Population Police were any more likely to accept thirteen-year-olds than eleven-year-olds, the age he’d given the last time anyone had asked, back at Niedler School. But he felt like he’d aged a lot in the last few days. He felt thirteen.

  It was an unlucky number, after all.

  The Population Police officer was studying Matthias’s face.

  “My apologies, then,” he muttered. He stopped the car and turned to face Matthias directly. The gun went back down to his side. “Who am I to question the young man who saved my life? I can’t imagine any better start to a Population Police career than the one you just had. In fact, I’ll induct you right now. What’s your name?”

  Matthias had to struggle to remember the name on the fake I.D. he’d taken from the safe in the cabin.

  “Uh, Roger Symmes,” he said.

  “Well, then, Roger Symmes, I hereby inaugurate you into the grand tradition of the Population Police. I believe you’re already in line for a medal for meritorious service. Congratulations.” He reached over and shook Matthias’s hand. And, for a final touch, he took off his own official Population Police cap and settled it on Matthias’s head. It was much too large and slipped down, almost entirely covering his eyes.

  And Matthias, in the midst of still praying, Oh, God
, protect Alia, oh, God, protect Percy, had to force himself not to flinch at the touch of the Population Police officer, of the Population Police cap.

  Oh, God, can you protect me, too? he wondered.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Population Police officer seemed to have satisfied all his doubts about Matthias now. He tucked his gun away out of sight before pressing his foot down on the accelerator again.

  “My name’s Tidwell, by the way,” the officer said. “Friends call me ‘Tiddy.’ ”

  “Tiddy”? Matthias thought. The big, fierce Population Police officer goes by “Tiddy”?

  Without his official cap, Tiddy looked younger, almost boyish himself. His blond hair was cut very short, with razor-sharp precision, and his uniform was still crisply pressed, even after the march through the woods and the surprise attack. But he didn’t have the cold, steely-eyed look of all the other Population Police Matthias had ever seen.

  “Um, Tiddy?” Matthias asked. “Where are we going?”

  “Back to HQ,” Tiddy said. “Headquarters. You’ll get your assignment—further assignment, I should say—and I’ll put in orders for those reinforcements.” He was silent for a minute, then added, “Wish you’d been able to save Hathaway, Grimes, and Sully, too.”

  Matthias guessed he meant the other three Population Police, the men who had died in the first hail of gunfire.

  “Were they your friends?” Matthias asked.

  “Yes,” Tiddy said softly, his eyes carefully trained on the road ahead. “They were.”

  It was strange for Matthias to think of Tiddy, a Population Police officer, missing his friends just as Matthias was worrying about Percy and Alia.

  “You should know,” Tiddy went on, so quietly that he almost seemed to be talking to himself, “being in the Population Police is a dangerous business. It’s not just about privileges and promotions. We’re serving the cause and . . . not everybody understands.”

  “The cause?” Matthias asked.

  Tiddy glanced over at him.

  “You’re thirteen, huh?” Tiddy said. “That’s too young to remember the famines. I was just a boy myself then, not much older than you. We’d always had food. Back then, you could go into a grocery store and there’d be aisles and aisles of every food you could imagine. Even meat—I bet you’ve never tasted meat in your entire life, have you?”

  Matthias shook his head. No. Of course he’d never tasted meat.

  “They had these things called cheeseburgers. . . . Well, never mind. The point is, everyone had plenty of food. You didn’t really think about it. You just ate. And then it stopped raining. It didn’t rain ever. I wasn’t really paying attention, I was just a kid, but the newspeople were always on TV blathering on about ‘The droughts! The droughts! What if the rains never come back?’ This is awful, but me and my friends, we used to laugh about it. It was like the grown-ups telling themselves horror stories, trying to scare themselves. Nobody was really worried. But then those grocery store shelves started emptying out, and people started fighting over what food there was. . . . Everybody would have starved if it hadn’t been for the Population Police.”

  Matthias had heard a story sort of like this from Samuel. But in Samuel’s version, told beside a small fire in the dark tunnel, he always ended by musing, “Was this a judgment on our wickedness, O Lord?”

  And in Samuel’s tale, the Population Police were part of the evil visited on the land, not the people’s salvation.

  “How did the Population Police keep people from starving?” Matthias asked.

  “You don’t know?” Tiddy asked. He shook his head in disbelief. “Look at it this way. If you’ve got one box of rice and ten thousand people, nobody’s going to survive. But if you’ve got only ten people, everyone gets a bellyful. The Population Police just make sure there aren’t too many people. It’s, like, simple math.”

  Not so simple if you’re one of the people who are “too many,” Matthias thought.

  “What’s amazing,” Tiddy continued, “is how people try to get around the rules. Rules that are there for their own good! You know what was happening back at that cabin? People were making fake I.D.’s so they could get extra food. And then they were so greedy that they fought about it and started shooting one another—that’s why there were all those bodies by the side of the road. The Population Police, we were just going in to clean up the mess. But not only did the rebels start shooting at us, did you see that sign? By the bodies? Somebody wrote, ‘The Population Police did this’—like they were trying to blame everything on us. Lies, lies, lies. It’s just so wrong!”

  Matthias froze. Did Tiddy have any idea who had written that sign? No—Tiddy was banging his hand on the steering wheel and his voice cracked with indignation, but he was also nodding his head toward Matthias, like he thought Matthias was completely on his side. An ally. (Well, hadn’t Matthias acted like he was—saving Tiddy’s life, shaking hands over the notion of joining the Population Police? Why would Tiddy suspect Matthias of anything?)

  Something else struck Matthias: Tiddy seemed to truly believe that the rebels, not the Population Police, had killed those seventeen people.

  Matthias opened his mouth. Then closed it. He couldn’t very well tell Tiddy, But you’re the one who’s wrong! I was there the night before last! I saw the Population Police kill the rebels! He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat.

  “I know,” Tiddy said sympathetically. “It’s almost too much to bear, isn’t it?”

  They drove the rest of the way without much conversation. Matthias was worrying about Percy and Alia, and he suspected that Tiddy was grieving for his friends. Matthias watched the scenery flash by—first the countryside, with scant villages, then the streets of a large city Matthias didn’t recognize. He paid close attention. He wanted to memorize the route so he could slip away and hike back to the cabin as soon as possible.

  But when they got to Population Police headquarters—a monstrous building surrounded by a towering stone fence—he was chilled by the sight of guards everywhere. Hordes of them stood by the fence, by the gate, by every door and window. After Tiddy drove in past a guardhouse, a line of guards closed in across the road as quickly as a prison door slamming shut.

  Oh, Percy, Matthias thought, as if his friend could really hear him, all those miles away, even you couldn’t escape from this place.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tiddy parked the car at a reckless angle and hollered over to one of the guards by the front door, “Hey, fill out the paperwork on this car for me, will you? We requisitioned it from the enemy. It didn’t come with a key.”

  Some of the guards chuckled, and Matthias heard one of them snort, “That’s Tiddy for you.”

  “Come on, kid. You stick with me,” Tiddy said to Matthias as they got out of the car.

  “You requisition the kid, too?” one of the guards teased.

  “Nope. He saved my life,” Tiddy said, bounding up to the door.

  “Yeah, sure,” the guards muttered. “Can’t wait to hear that story.”

  Matthias followed Tiddy into the imposing headquarters building and through a maze of halls and stairs the way he had once followed Samuel through the reeking, trash-strewn streets of his city. He didn’t feel like he had much choice. It seemed like he’d cast his fate with Tiddy’s when he’d shoved the officer into Mrs. Talbot’s car. And, strangely, staying close to Tiddy helped staunch the fear pounding in his head: This is Population Police headquarters! Everyone here is evil!

  Then a guard standing before an interior door in a grand hallway planted himself firmly in front of Matthias, blocking his way.

  “Officer Tidwell!” the guard chided, cutting his eyes disdainfully toward Matthias. “Surely you understand that it wouldn’t be proper—”

  “Proper?” Tiddy looked from the guard to Matthias. “Oh, relax. This is our newest Population Police member. He’s been too busy perpetrating acts of heroism to get his uniform yet.??
?

  “Still, to go in there—,” the guard persisted.

  “Oh, very well,” Tiddy said. “Send for a uniform. Size extra small.”

  Tiddy waited with Matthias until someone came with a uniform. It was gray, not black like Tiddy’s. And it was at least three sizes too big.

  “That’s the best they can do down in the uniform room?” Tiddy asked, glancing at the sizing tag. “Oh, well. Just put it on over your clothes. You could use the extra bulk.”

  Matthias pulled the pants over his pajama bottoms. He had to make an extra hole in the belt to get them to stay up. He stuck his arm into the first sleeve. His sweater bunched up and rubbed uncomfortably.

  Oh no, he thought. I was planning to give Alia my sweater, way back before Percy was shot. . . . In his rush to find shelter, tend his friends’ wounds, and go for help, he’d totally forgotten. What if the man in the tree didn’t take Alia someplace warm? What if she freezes to death because of me?

  Matthias’s knees threatened to give out at this horrible thought. He sagged back against the doorway.

  Tiddy gently pulled the uniform shirt the rest of way around Matthias’s body. He pushed Matthias’s other arm through the other sleeve.

  “You don’t have to button it,” Tiddy said. “Come on, it’s time to see the commander.”

  Numbly, Matthias followed Tiddy past the guard and through a doorway that seemed, just by itself, to be taller and wider than most normal houses. The room beyond was so vast and awe-inspiring that Matthias came to a dead halt. A row of ornate chairs led up to a wooden desk that seemed as big as a car. The windows—all ten of them—stretched from the floor to the ceiling and were studded with colored glass.

  And between the windows were black banners, just as tall and even wider—banners showing children dying, Population Police officers cheering.