Among the Free (10 page)

How long can someone survive without water?
he wondered.
More than a day? A week?
He was too thirsty to remember.

Just as he began to despair of ever finding water, he saw a break in the trees ahead of him. He began moving very cautiously as soon as he caught his first glimpse of a house.
What if it's another place like Chiutza?
he worried.
Or what if it's a village the Population Police are in the middle of subduing?
His throat aching, he hoped for another abandoned village instead—one with deep, still-functioning wells.

And then, when he got to the edge of the trees . . . he couldn't tell. The houses before him were mostly shacks in bad shape, but both Eli's village and Chiutza had been full of broken windows and rotting roofs too. Luke squinted into the glare of the setting sun, reflected off dozens of windows. He couldn't see any people, but he could make out a bucket on a post, hanging beside a spigot at the back of one of the houses.

“Oh, please,” Luke whispered. Did he dare? Now that he could see a possible water source, he felt half crazed with thirst. Dizzily, he crept forward, keeping his step light. If
there were people inside the houses, he had to make sure they didn't hear him.

Luke made it across the entire backyard. His mind was playing tricks on him now, remembering the many times he'd crept from his family's house over to Jen's. He'd been in danger on those trips, too; he'd risked his life for something that wasn't even as essential as water. Or had it been? He'd felt so desperate to get out of hiding, to go outside. He'd needed the hope Jen gave him, the vision she left him with. Luke shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He reached out for the bucket on the post—and knocked it over. It clanged against the side of the house like an alarm, then plunged to the ground.

Luke froze. The sound of the bucket hitting the ground seemed to reverberate off all the trees in the woods.

But no one's coming. Surely there aren't any people here.

Luke dared to peek into an unbroken window. The house was dark inside. He could just barely make out an unmade bed, its surface a tangle of blankets.

See?
Luke told himself.
Abandoned. It just hasn't been very long since the people left.

Luke bent over to pick up the bucket. He was just straightening up when he heard someone behind him yelling, “Hey, you! What are you doing out there? Why aren't you inside watching, like everyone else? Come on!”

Hands clamped around his wrist before he had a chance to run.

L
uke jerked away, but the motion sent him into a fit of coughing. He doubled over, unable to run now.

The hands let go of his wrist and began pounding on his back.

“Hey, you okay? Here, take a drink—”

Through his coughing, Luke heard the spigot turn, the water gush out. He moved his head over and gulped the water straight from the faucet. He got too much at once and began to choke; then he swallowed hard and sipped at it a little more cautiously.

“I guess you were really thirsty,” the voice above him said when Luke finally, weakly, took his head from under the water. Luke caught a glimpse of blue jeans, a sweatshirt, tousled blond hair—it was another boy, about Luke's age.

“Where'd you come from?” the boy asked. “Have you heard the news yet?”

“What news?” Luke asked.

“Then you haven't heard,” the boy said. “Come on—you've got to see for yourself—”

He grabbed Luke's wrists again and began tugging. Luke could have pulled away this time, but he was curious. The boy didn't seem threatening; he didn't seem to want to hurt Luke. If anything, the boy seemed to want to help. Luke couldn't understand that, any more than he could understand why the boy sounded so happy.

No,
Luke corrected himself.
He's not just happy. He's delighted. Overjoyed.
Luke wished his friend Trey were there to supply the proper word. And then Luke knew it:
This boy is ecstatic.

The boy broke into a run, pulling Luke along with him.

They ended up at another house nearby. The boy raced in through the front door.

“Look, everyone,” he announced. “Here's a traveler, wandering by, who doesn't know!”

Luke blinked frantically, trying to get his eyes to adjust. He could make out a whole crowd of people, all gathered around a television in the center of the room. Some of them glanced over at him, and he worried:
Oh no, I'm going to have to make a decision again. Which side are these people on? Is my shirt facing the right way? Should I turn it really fast to show the Population Police insignia?
Luke hugged his quilt tighter around his shoulders, hiding his shirt entirely.

It didn't matter. Most of the people only looked at him quickly and then turned their attention back to the TV.

“What's happening now?” the boy who had discovered Luke asked eagerly.

“Shh,” several people hissed. One man added, “They're just showing—” but then he broke off, too mesmerized by the scene on the television screen to finish describing it.

Luke looked at the TV too. All he could see was a huge crowd of people, much larger than the one in this room. The camera panned past hundreds of faces, it seemed, all of them smiling or laughing or cheering. Then the camera pulled back, and Luke could see that the people were standing in a huge yard or field or meadow. Behind the crowd Luke could see the edge of a brick building.

His heart sank. He recognized the building: It was Population Police headquarters.

Luke had seen TV coverage of crowds cheering for the Population Police before. Last autumn, during one of the lowest points of his life, he and his friends had sat like zombies before the TV at Mr. Hendricks's house. For hours they had watched Aldous Krakenaur, the head of the Population Police, tell his vision of the future to adoring crowds.

“It's all staged,” Luke's friend Trey had argued. “There can't be that many people who love him that much. They're probably being bribed to yell like that.”

“Like, the louder they cheer, the more food they get?” Nina had said.

“Exactly.”

Luke had wanted to believe Trey's and Nina's theories.
He'd never imagined that other people—people just watching the TV coverage, people who weren't being bribed—could stare as raptly as the people in this room were. Now he pictured people all over the country huddled around TVs, all worshipping the Population Police.

Then he heard what the people on the TV screen were shouting.

“The tyrants are gone!”

“We're free!”

“Liberty for all!”

“What—?” Luke burst out.

The boy next to him beamed.

“Isn't it great? The Population Police are out of power. The TV people say it was—how'd they put it?—a ‘peaceful overthrow of the government.' ”

On the TV screen, the camera zoomed in on two people holding microphones. One was a beautiful woman with long blond hair, and the other was a man in a T-shirt and jeans.
No,
Luke corrected himself.
It's just a girl and a boy. They're not much older than me.

“For those of you just joining us,” the girl began, then burst into a fit of giggles.

“Simone!” the boy scolded her.

“I know, I know,” the girl said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and regaining her composure. “It's just, I almost sounded like a real TV reporter there for a minute, didn't I? All the real TV people ran away, 'cause they were scared, I guess. 'Cause they used to work for the Population Police,
and they don't think they'd be very popular right now. So anyway, it's just me and Tucker here telling you all this, and Jacob behind the camera, of course—hey, Jacob, you're doing a great job.”

“Come on, Simone, get to the news,” Tucker complained.

“Okay, okay.” Simone stood up straighter, serious again. “This is the official Population Police Network, Poppy News for short, except I think we're going to have to change that, because the Population Police are
over
. What do you think of ‘Freedom News,' Tucker? Think that sounds good?”

“Simone, please, people are watching . . . ” Tucker was shaking his head and grimacing.

“And they should be,” Simone said, unruffled. “This is just incredible. This is a historic moment, one nobody would believe. I wouldn't believe it if I weren't seeing it with my own eyes—”

“We're at Population Police headquarters,” Tucker interrupted, “where the people have taken over. They took back their own government—”

“Without fighting,” Simone broke in. “No blood was spilled at all.”

“Well, yeah, I think there was some fighting,” Tucker corrected her. “Out in some of the villages. In the countryside. Some people are saying there were battles out there, and the Population Police just ran away. Because, you know, a lot of them weren't really into the whole Population Police thing, they just joined up because
they had to, to get food. So that's what gave the people here the courage to take over the headquarters. Last night, I think, a lot of Population Police workers just left, so the building was practically empty this morning when this crowd showed up. They've been sharing all the food they found here—I had some really good bread, myself—”

“Tucker! You're not being very professional,” Simone complained. “I don't think newscasters are supposed to say what
they
got to eat.”

“But it's an important detail. The Population Police had lots of food here. They were living like kings when everybody else was starving,” Tucker said.

“No more Poppies! No more Poppies!” Someone had started a chant behind Tucker and Simone. “No more Poppies!”

Simone started to say something else, but the sound was overwhelming. After a few moments, she just shrugged and held her microphone out behind her, to capture the cheers.

“Is this . . . real?” Luke asked, still in shock.

One of the men sitting in front of the TV actually glanced away from it long enough to answer.

“All the Population Police officials in our town ran away yesterday,” he said. “That's real enough for me.”

“And the Poppies wouldn't let something like that be on TV if they were still in power,” another man said.

“But—who's in charge now?” Luke asked.

“Looks like Simone and Tucker are, don't you think?” the boy next to him joked.

Luke stared again at the chanting, cheering crowd on the TV screen. Simone and Tucker were clapping along now. Tucker spun Simone around, like they were so happy they couldn't help dancing.

“I have to go there,” Luke said. “I have to see for myself.”

“Oh, me too!” the boy next to him said. “I'll go with you!”

“Ricky Everts, you'll do no such thing!” a woman in the crowd burst out. “It's too dangerous. Any minute now, the Population Police could come back with tanks and guns and—and—”

“I'll take them,” a man said, standing up. “It's like the girl said—something like this, you've got to see for yourself to believe it.”

“Don, you're crazy!” the woman argued. “It's not safe—”

“I've been safe the last thirteen years,” the man said. “Some things are more important than safety.”

He began stalking toward the door.

Luke glanced back at the woman—Don's wife and Ricky's mother, he guessed. Her expression crumpled, and she held her arms out beseechingly. But she made no further move to stop anyone from leaving. Luke wanted to tell her that he understood her fears.
She's right,
he thought.
The Population Police do have tanks and guns. The people only have chants and dances. And hope. And . . . freedom?

He didn't say anything to the woman. He just turned around and followed Don and Ricky out the door.