Among the Free (15 page)

Oscar was standing up, probably walking toward the door. Luke wondered if this was what Oscar had meant by holding a trial, judging the Population Police by basic human standards. Maybe he was going to let the crowd in, let them decide what Aldous Krakenaur deserved.

Luke heard the clank of chains.

“Please, I beg of you—”

Luke couldn't see what was happening, but he thought
maybe Aldous Krakenaur had grabbed Oscar's hand to stop him. It was hard to hear over the rattling chains, and Krakenaur seemed to be whispering now. Luke heard the word “negotiate.” He heard “negotiations” and “my loyal followers” and “loyal to you.” But as hard as he listened, he couldn't make out a full sentence, a full thought.

“Well, yes, I suppose that could be arranged,” Oscar said airily, as if he really didn't care. “With the code we talked about before—”

“Yes!” The way Krakenaur said that, Luke could picture him straining against his chains, still reaching out to Oscar. “They're true believers! They'd understand that!”

“And they would stay . . . loyal?” Oscar asked.

“Oh, absolutely!” Krakenaur assured him. “And then you could give me—”

“I'm giving you the opportunity to stay alive,” Oscar interrupted harshly. “That's more than kind of me, I'd say.”

“But after—”

“You've got no right to think about after. You should be thinking of new ways to be useful to me, so I don't decide to throw you out into the crowd,” Oscar said. He paused craftily. “The door to this room has no lock—did anyone tell you that? It's one of those inconvenient little details that comes with taking over a building the previous occupants have left in bad shape. Just like taking over a government the previous leaders have left in bad shape . . . Maybe I should leave you in this room—blindfolded, handcuffed, chained to that chair. Maybe I should just
leave everything to chance, to see if anyone happens to wander in here, happens to see you sitting there—”

“No!” The panic in Krakenaur's voice was almost palpable. “You need me! I can tell you where the extra food is stored! We have plenty of food!”

“That's a start,” Oscar mused. “The rabble like food, all right. And they like me as long as I'm providing it. But I warn you—
I
want more than food. We'll just have to see if your promises pan out.”

Luke heard Oscar's footsteps again, brisk this time. He stopped by the door and seemed to be shutting off the security system. Seconds later, Oscar opened the door and said, “Lock him up in the attic again, Melton. He's earned the chance to see another day. Get him to tell you where the food is, and have someone check it out. And then—come back and fix this lock!”

“Yes, sir,” Melton said.

“Wait!” It was Krakenaur, pleading again. “You can't just—”

“I can do anything I want,” Oscar snarled. “And you can't do a thing about it!”

Oscar's footsteps pounded out the door, followed more slowly by Melton and Krakenaur with his rattling chains. Melton turned out the lights and shut the door firmly behind him, plunging the room into darkness once again.

Luke lay still, blinking furiously, trying to make out shadows and shapes in the relentless dark. Even after he was sure his eyes had adjusted, he could see nothing but an inky
blackness: no light at all. He strained his ears, listening to make sure the footsteps were receding, but the room's soundproofing evidently worked in both directions.

I've got to get out of here before Melton comes back and fixes the lock,
Luke thought.
Before I'm locked in here forever—free and trapped, all at once.

He crawled out from behind the pile of signs, his arms stiff, his legs' numbness giving away to pins and needles again. He tried to remember where each stack of signs had been, so he wouldn't knock anything down.

Nobody would hear you anyway,
he assured himself, but there was a paranoid echo to that thought:
If I left a mess, they'd know someone had been here. Somehow they might be able to link it to me . . .

So what? Why would anyone care? Oscar fought against the Population Police, just like I did.

Are you sure?

Luke stopped with that thought; he couldn't argue with himself and keep moving through the darkness at the same time. He inched forward, swinging his hands out in front of him. Finally his hand brushed a doorknob, and he grabbed onto it.

Go, quick, before Melton comes back!
he ordered himself. But there was a competing fear keeping him from turning the doorknob:
What if someone sees me coming out of this room? What if they report me to Oscar and he figures out I've been eavesdropping? Or—what if they think I've got something to do with all those horrid signs? What if they blame me?

Luke wished he had the courage to smash all the signs to bits before leaving the secret room. That's what Jen would have done. She would have smashed them and then waited until Melton came back just so she could tell him,
I did this. I took care of that part of the Population Police's evil. Let me go talk to Oscar, so I can tell him what I did too.
She wouldn't have stayed hidden while Oscar was talking to Aldous Krakenaur. She would have stalked out and declared,
Listen, I've got a thing or two to tell Aldous, myself.

“I'm not you, Jen,” Luke mumbled. But he managed to hold back the lesser of his fears and open the door.

N
obody stood on the other side. Luke glanced around once, then opened the nearest window and slipped out, pulling the window shut behind him. Standing safely on the ground, hidden by a row of tall bushes, Luke began to feel foolish. If nobody was guarding the unlocked room, nobody would have cared that he'd been in there. He could have walked out the front door of the building and nobody would have even noticed.

Luke fought his way out through the screen of bushes, emerging into sunlight and the same carefree, party atmosphere he'd seen the night before. People were dancing and singing again: “No more Poppies . . . all the food we want . . . ” The crowd had evidently made up new words to the theme song since the last time Luke had heard it.

Nothing about the scene around him gave off even the slightest hint of danger or intrigue, but Luke's heart was still beating hard.

Oscar definitely seemed upset that the door to the secret room didn't lock,
Luke reminded himself.

Stubbornly, Luke circled around to the back of the building again. A girl carrying a plate of biscuits opened the door for him.

“Want one? We've got plenty to share,” she told him, grinning.

“No, thanks. Not now,” he muttered.

He walked on through the dining room, where a huge crowd was singing as they crammed food into their mouths:

No more Poppies

All the food we want

We eat by day

We eat by night

This is

The greatest life!

From the other side of the dining room, Luke tried to retrace his steps through the maze of hallways, trying to follow the same path he'd used before to reach the secret room. Once again, the hallways and the rooms he passed were deserted.

See?
he told himself.
You just overreacted after seeing those signs. Oscar was only worried about the lock because he wanted to have a private meeting with Aldous Krakenaur. And he had to meet with him because . . . because Krakenaur knows things that Oscar needs. Like information about where all the food is stored.

Luke rounded the last corner before the hallway that led to the secret room. And then he stopped.

A man was leaning casually against the wall, turning the pages of a newspaper.

“Oh, hey, I wouldn't go that way if I were you,” he said, straightening up a little. “They found some dangerous chemicals the Population Police left behind in one of those rooms back there.” He tilted his head, indicating the direction of the secret room. “The new government's trying to clear it out but”—he shrugged—“you know. Better safe than sorry.”

“Oh,” Luke said. He hesitated. He was pretty sure the dangerous-chemicals story was a lie, and he wanted to keep going. But the man had his legs stretched out, blocking the hallway. Luke would have to actively shove past him. The man's stance seemed casual, but Luke suspected that his muscles were tensed, and that he was ready to push Luke back if Luke persisted.

“They asked me to warn people if anyone came by,” the man said, shrugging again. “I figured it was the least I could do, given how much food I've eaten since I got here. You want some? I think someone was frying up doughnuts last time I walked through the kitchen. They ought to be done by now.” He pointed off in the direction Luke had just come from. “Just go down that way, turn right, then left . . . ”

“Yeah, thanks. Doughnuts sound good,” Luke said, retreating. He looked back over his shoulder, and the man
was still watching him. “I was really just trying to find the kitchen, but I got a little, um, lost.”

He picked up speed, navigating the maze of hallways as if someone were chasing him. Or as if he were trying to run away from his own thoughts.

Those caught up with him.

Dangerous chemicals? Yeah, right,
he fumed to himself.
That guy was guarding the secret room. He was just doing it from a safe distance so even he couldn't see what he was guarding. There was probably a guard stationed at the front door, too.

But why are they guarding all those old signs? Are those supposed to be evidence for the trial, too?

And when Oscar met with Krakenaur, what were they saying about having negotiations and using a code? Why did it seem like Oscar was . . . bargaining?

Luke was passing through the dining hall again. He barely noticed when someone stuck a doughnut in his hand. He barely heard the song crescendoing through the room: “NO MORE POPPIES! ALL THE FOOD WE WANT!”

He stumbled out the back door, back out into the sunlight. To avoid drawing attention to himself, he went and sat down with the huge crowd forming near the wall, where Philip Twinings and Simone and Tucker were up on a stage, interviewing more people.

I don't know anything about how governments are supposed to work,
Luke told himself.
Maybe that's just how things go when governments change—the new leader meets with the old leader, so they can work out lots of details.
He'd liked it when Oscar had
been mean to Krakenaur, when he'd said, “If you'll notice, you're sitting there in handcuffs and leg irons, and I am the one in charge.” He liked thinking about how Krakenaur was chained up now, hiding in an attic the same way Luke had had to hide from the Population Police.

Luke tried to remember how he'd thought and felt all those years he'd spent in hiding, when he'd known nobody but his parents and his two brothers—all those years before he met Jen and she changed his entire world. He'd felt powerless. Somehow he'd even understood that his parents were powerless too.

Krakenaur didn't act like he thought he was powerless,
Luke thought.
He acted like he still thought he should be in charge.

The rest of the thought came slowly. Just as Luke didn't trust himself to interpret people's expressions and body language, he had trouble reading between the lines of what people said and how they said it. He kept replaying the conversation between Oscar and Krakenaur in his head. Had Oscar sounded a little bit hesitant, a little bit awed, even as he threatened Krakenaur? Had Oscar been trying too hard to sound casual and unconcerned? Why had Oscar allowed Krakenaur to make suggestions, to bargain for his life?

Luke thought about all the times in his life he'd been bullied or beaten up: by his brothers, by other boys when he first arrived at Hendricks School, by the Population Police when he was in their holding camp. None of them
had offered to bargain with him. They'd just punched him, kicked him, bossed him around.

As long as I was powerless, that is. As long as I wasn't threatening to tattle on Matthew and Mark, to bring in Mother and Dad. As long as the boys at school didn't need me to keep their secrets. As long as the Population Police didn't know I could escape.

Now, sitting in a crowd of very happy people celebrating the end of the Population Police, Luke felt a horrid certainty creep over him.

Aldous Krakenaur isn't powerless. He still has some control.

Over Oscar.