Matthias forced himself to stare straight back at the commander. But what was he supposed to say? He didn't want to lie or even to back up Tiddys lies indirectly. But he felt a strange sort of loyalty to Tiddy.
"I don't know, sir," Matthias finally said. "They were hiding. There were a lot of bullets, though."
"Cowards," the commander said, biting off the word as if it left a horrible taste in his mouth.
"You see the blood on his sweater, sir," Tiddy said. "It was mayhem."
And then Matthias had to choke back his anger. The blood on his sweater was from carrying an injured Alia, from tending Percy's gunshot wounds. As far as Matthias was concerned, those bloodstains were practi' cally sacred.
But the commander didn't even look. He was sliding papers around on his desk.
"You'll get your troops," he told Tiddy. "Dismissed."
"Thank you, sir," Tiddy said.
He turned and strode away from the commander, down the aisle with all the empty chairs. Matthias had to rush to keep up with him. Out in the hall, Tiddy winked at Matthias.
"That went well, don't you think?" he said.
Matthias waited until they were several paces past the snooty guard. He glanced around to make sure there was no one else within earshot. Then he said quietly, "There weren't forty people shooting at us."
Tiddy shrugged and kept walking. "Sometimes you have to exaggerate a little to get the commander's attention. Besides, how are you so sure there weren't forty? Or fifty? I don't know about you, but I didn't have time to stop and count. Twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred — who cares? This way, I know the commander will give me enough men to take care of the problem in that sector."
Problem? Matthias thought. He was pretty sure Percy and Alia were hiding out with the "problem." What would happen to them? How could Matthias possibly help them when he was stuck at Population Police headquarters and they were so far away?
And then Matthias knew.
'Are you going back right now?" Matthias asked. "I want to come too!"
Tiddy laughed.
"You're an eager one, aren't you?" he asked. "Much as I'd appreciate having you around to watch my back — or steal cars for me — I don't think there's any way I could get approval to take a new recruit with me into that sector."
"But I was just there!" Matthias argued desperately. "What's the difference?"
"Procedure," Tiddy said with a shrug. "Got to follow the rules, you know?"
They were descending a set of stairs, then stringing their way through an array of twisty hallways. Finally they came out in front of another huge door in the middle of a bustling lobby.
"Give yourself six months, maybe a year," Tiddy said. "I'll make sure you're signed up for all the necessary training. If you do well, and if we still have enemies left to fight then, I promise, I'll take you with me every battle I can."
"But—," Matthias protested. Where would Percy and Alia be in six months or a year?
"No 'but's' about it," Tiddy said. "Now, I have to go back to the field, and you get to have a delicious meal courtesy of the Population Police. Honestly, I think you're getting the better end of the deal."
He led Matthias through the doorway, which opened into a huge eating area. Dozens of uniformed men, women, and teenagers were sitting at long tables, hunched over trays. And there were all sorts of heady aromas in the air: freshly baked breads, simmering stews, baked potatoes… In spite of his worries, Matthias couldn't help closing his eyes and inhaling deeply.
"I knew you'd like this part," Tiddy said, chuckling.
He said something to a woman sitting at the end of a serving line at the side of the room, and the woman handed Matthias a tray.
"Fill up your stomach, and I'll check up on you when I get back," Tiddy said. "Ciao!"
Matthias stood there numbly, watching Tiddy walk away.
What do I do now? he wondered. He wanted to chase after Tiddy, but that wouldn't do any good if Tiddy wouldn't take him back to the cabin.
If only Percy and Alia were here to help me think.. Matthias remembered a story Samuel had told him about a strong man who lost all his strength when his hair was cut off. That man had been captured by his enemies too. Matthias felt just as weak and stupid and useless without his friends. How was he ever going to escape from Population Police headquarters and get back to Percy and Alia?
"Bean soup, sir?" someone asked.
Matthias swayed a little. He was hungry. Starving, actually. He hadn't eaten since — when? The broth back at Mr. Hendricks's house? That seemed like several lifetimes ago. Would it be so awful to eat something now, so he'd have energy to think of a plan?
"Okay," Matthias said.
A woman placed a steaming bowl of soup on his tray. Another woman put a plateful of rolls beside the soup, and a girl added a cup of mixed fruit.
Matthias hadn't seen fruit like that in ages, and he loved it.
"Thank you," he said, looking straight at the girl. And then he looked again. The girl had a white papery hat covering her hair and a sanitary mask covering her nose and mouth, but there was something oddly familiar about her brown eyes. She looked like… No, she was—
"Nina?" Matthias whispered.
Chapter Eighteen
The serving girl scowled at Matthias and shook her head — just once, forbiddingly.
"Keep it moving," she said in a harsh tone that didn't disguise the familiar voice.
Matthias wanted to scream out, Nina! What are you doing here? and Please, can you help me get back to Percy and Alia? But he said nothing, only picked up his tray and walked away. He aimed for a table on the far side of the room, where he could sit alone with his back toward the wall.
Where he could watch Nina.
Nina had escaped from Population Police prison with him and Percy and Alia months ago. She'd started at Niedler School when they did but had been called away in early October. Mr. Hendricks needed her help, she'd told them, sounding a little self-important What was she doing working for the Population Police now? Had Matthias and his friends come to the wrong conclusion about her loyalties— had she been on the Population Police's side all along?
Matthias remembered he was wearing a Population Police uniform himself. What if she'd met a fate similar to his, where she'd had to pretend to be on the Population Police's side to protect somebody else?
Then Matthias remembered something Mrs. Talbot had said in the car, in the dark on the way to the cabin: "I believe it's your generation that will win the cause," she'd said, and she hadn't meant the same "cause" that Tiddy talked about, of making sure the numbers of people alive matched up with the amount of food available. She'd been talking about being free, about getting a government that didn't kill its people, didn't consider third children illegal. And she'd mentioned kids joining the Population Police to fight it from the inside….
Matthias wished fervently that he hadn't dozed off dur^ ing Mrs. Talbot's story.
As Matthias watched, Nina scooped up cup after cup of fruit. She seemed to be talking to some of the Population Police officers who came through the line. Maybe even flirting.
Would she do that if she were an undercover agent? Matthias wondered.
Wondering about Nina made Matthias's head ache. He spooned soup up to his mouth and bit off hunks of his rolls, but he barely tasted any of it.
Then, just as he was scraping the bottom of his soup bowl, Nina walked out from behind the serving counter. She carried a dishrag in her hand and began casually wiping the tables where people had already finished eating. Matthias's heart started pounding. Should he move over toward one of the tables where she was working?
She came to him instead.
'Act like you don't know me," she whispered, pushing the dishcloth around on a section of table near him. "Don't even look at me."
Matthias peered down into his soup bowl and said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Nina pretending to scrub and scrub at some nonexistent stain on the table. She had her back towa
rd the rest of the cafeteria, so no one else could see her talking.
"Go into the front bathroom at seven o'clock tonight. Lock the door."
"Front bathroom? Where's that?" Matthias couldn't help asking. But he had his head bent over, pretending to drink milk from a straw, so he didn't think anyone would notice.
"It's the one closest to the front door," Nina said. "It has silver wallpaper."
And then she moved on to another table.
Chapter Nineteen
Matthias might have sat there all day staring after I Nina — or, rather, staring after her while pretending to only be staring off into space. But a few minutes later, an officer in a black uniform pulled up a chair across from him.
"You done eating yet, kid?" the officer asked. "Tiddy told me to watch over you while he's away. I'm Mike."
"Uh, hi," Matthias said. "I was, um, just finishing up." He took the last bite of fruit cocktail and studied Mike while he chewed. Mike was younger and thinner than Tiddy, but he had a similarly friendly manner.
How come none of the Population Police I saw before today ever seemed friendly? Matthias wondered.
He'd never saved a Population Police officer's life before today. He'd never worn a Population Police uniform himself before today.
"We've got an action-packed afternoon ahead of us," Mike said.
Mike's "action" turned out to be mostly a tour of the headquarters and its grounds, but that did, indeed, take hours. Headquarters was a massive building, four stories high and spread out over what seemed to be several acres. The grounds around it seemed more extensive than the city Matthias had grown up in.
"This used to be where some rich guy lived, until the Population Police took over. Can you believe it?" Mike asked as they putt^putted around the property on a golf cart. He got a wistful look on his face. "They say when we get rid of all the rebels — well, not that we're supposed to admit there are rebels, but you know — they say when there's peace, all the top Population Police officers will get houses like this, all their own."
"Really?" Matthias said, thinking, How do you mean, "get rid of all the rebels"? What about children staying with rebels?
"Has Tiddy left for the, uh, dangerous sectors yet?" he asked anxiously.
Mike misunderstood Matthias's anxiety.
"Don't worry about Tiddy," he said. "That guy always comes out on top." Mike shook his head admiringly.
Matthias wanted to say, No, no, it's the rebels I'm worried about. What's going to happen to them? But was he just con^ cerned about the rebels? It seemed strange to save somebody's life, then root against him in a battle. Why had he saved Tiddy" s life, anyway? Looking back, Matthias had trouble understanding why he'd stopped the shoot' out by rescuing a Population Police officer. Why hadn't Matthias just hopped in the car and driven away alone, leaving Tiddy out in the open? Helping the man in the tree to kill him?
Tiddy would have just gone in the cabin to hide. And then Mrs. Talbot would have been in even greater danger.
But it was more than that. It had to do with Samuel telling him, over and over again, "Killing is wrong." Even in the split second he'd had to make a decision back by the cabin, Matthias hadn't wanted to be an accomplice to any more murder. As much as he hated the Population Police, it had bothered him to see the three officers with Tiddy fall down dead.
, "Love your enemies," Samuel had also said. ' So was it okay that Matthias wanted Uddy and the.Irebels to survive?
Matthias closed his eyes wearily, too confused and worried to fake interest in formal gardens anymore.
"Getting tired?" Mike said sympathetically. "You've probably seen enough for one day. We'll just go back and get you signed up for the classes Tiddy says you need to take." He drove the golf cart back to the main building, dead leaves crunching under the tires.
Signing up for classes turned out to be a long, drawn-out affair.
"We don't have any record in our files of a Roger Symmes," the woman behind the counter in the training room told Mike.
“Just a minute,” Mike told her. He drew Matthias over to the side and asked, “Tiddy took your I.D. car when he inducted you into the Population Police, didn’t he?”
"Uh, no," Matthias said.
Mike rolled his eyes. "That Tiddy. Great guy, of course, but he plays fast and loose with the rules. Can I have your I.D. now?"
Matthias had to dig down deep into his inner pocket to find the card. He handed it over to Mike a little nervously. When he'd taken it from the safe back in the cabin, he'd never pictured having to hand it over to a Population Police officer right in the midst of Population Police head^ quarters.
But Mike barely glanced at the card.
"I.D. pictures never do anyone justice, do they?" he asked, then carried it over to the woman at the counter.
Matthias couldn't even remember what the picture looked like. But he knew his birthday had just become January 2, his eyes had just become green when they were really more hazel, and his hometown had just become Terpsiko, a place he'd never been to and wouldn't be able to find on a map if his life depended on it Which it might someday.
Better look that one up, he told himself.
Mike came back from the counter.
"Okay, you're signed up for gun classes, stealth methods, undercover operations, and subduing enemies," Mike said. "Everything starts tomorrow."
Matthias was so tired and worried and overwhelmed, he almost missed noticing the irony of the Population Police teaching him to operate undercover.
But of course he couldn't laugh without giving himself away.
Chapter Twenty
Mike took Matthias back to the cafeteria for dinner, which turned out to be another hugely filling affair. This time, though, Matthias couldn't sit anonymously at the back of the cafeteria. He sat with Mike and a large, rowdy group of Mike's friends. And it seemed like everyone in the room was watching him.
“Why are those women staring at me?” he finally got the courage to ask when there was a break in the group’s merriment.
This set everyone to laughing again.
"Don't you know how the ladies love a hero?" Mike asked. "You know Tiddy and his big mouth. Before he left this afternoon, he told everyone in the building how you'd saved him from certain death."
"Oh," Matthias said.
"Wish Tiddy'd spread some stories about me," one of the others said wistfully. He was a gaunt-faced boy with a crooked nose and a bad case of acne. He winked at the group of women, but they all turned away, making faces as if they'd smelled something horrid.
Mike and his friends laughed harder.
Matthias sat in the midst of all that hubbub feeling as if he'd been transported into an alien world. The bright, warm room full of delicious smells, abundant food, and riffs of laughter didn't seem real. Not when all the laugh' ing people worked for an agency trying to kill children. Not when Percy and Alia were still out there somewhere in the dark, cold night, probably still in pain.
That is, if they were still alive at all.
They're alive, he told himself fiercely. They've got to be.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nina walk away from the serving counter across the room. The clock on the wall said six forty-five. He shoveled in the last few bites of his noodle casserole and stood up on legs so sore and tired, they barely held him.
"Hey, kid, you going over to introduce yourself to the ladies?" Mike teased.
"No, just to the bathroom," Matthias said. "Then I'm going to bed," he added, in case it took a long time with Nina. He didn't want Mike and the others to become suspicious or to come in search of him.
The group whistled and made more wisecracks that Matthias didn't catch.
Matthias had to trace his way through twisty hallways to get to the silver bathroom Nina had described. Guards peered at him from nearly every doorway, but none of them stopped him. They all seemed to know who he was.
And they'll all remember seeing me come this way, Matthias thought anxiousl
y, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He reached the bathroom a little early, stepped inside, and locked the door as Nina had instructed. That confused him — how was she supposed to get in if the door was locked? Was he supposed to open the door if he heard knocking? Would she dare to call out to him?
A few seconds later, Matthias understood. Nina came crawling out of a heat vent over the toilet.
"Not my favorite way to get around, but this is a good way to keep our movements secret," Nina muttered as she climbed down over the toilet. She brushed dust from her brown braids and her uniform. "Plus, Trey is so proud of himself for discovering the heat duct system, we use it sometimes just to humor him."
Trey was another of their friends. Matthias felt his heart jump a little at the news that he had another ally at Population Police headquarters.
The bathroom was so tiny that Nina had to stand practically on top of Matthias. She surprised him by seizing him in her arms and giving him a big hug in greeting.
"It's so good to see you, Matthias," Nina whispered. "You'll be so much help here. Where are Percy and Alia stationed? I haven't seen them yet. When did you all join up? It'd be so nice to have Alia in the kitchen with me…."
"Percy and Alia didn't join with me," Matthias whispered back. "I don't know where they are." Getting those words past the lump in his throat felt like swallowing stones.
"But how—?" Nina asked.
As quickly as he could, Matthias told Nina everything that had happened since the Population Police arrived at Niedler School. By the end, Nina had tears glistening in her eyes.
"Oh, Matthias, I'm so sorry," she murmured.
"So can you and Trey and whoever else is here smuggle me out so I can go back and find them?" Matthias finished up in a rush. His hopes brimmed over.
But Nina frowned, the troubled look deepening in her eyes.
"Matthias, I don't know how we could do that. This place is like a fortress. Just arranging to meet you here in the bathroom was like planning an invasion. They watch me in the kitchen — they watch everyone. And there are so many guards…."
Among the Enemy sc-6 Page 7
