Among the Enemy

The word they whispered was 'poison.'

I told Nina she should put poison in the food, Matthias remembered. What if she was the one who killed Tiddy?

The thought didn't lead anywhere. It just fell into the huge pool of Matthias's sorrow and grief and guilt. Would Tiddy's death be my fault, then, too? he thought.

One of the masked men came over to Matthias. He peeled Matthias's fingers away from the doorframe.

'Come,' he said.

It was the commander. His eyes were wet. He led Matthias by the hand, up the grand staircase, down the twisty halls. He tucked Matthias into a bed in a small room. He gave Matthias something to drink.

'Sleep,' he said.

The world flickered out.

When Matthias came back to consciousness, it was daylight again, and the commander was sitting beside Matthias's bed.

'He was like a son to me,' the commander said, and Matthias knew he meant Tiddy. 'I always had to… try not to show it.'

The commander stared into Matthias's eyes. Matthias had the feeling that the commander had been there all night, waiting.

'You saved him once,' the commander said. 'I did not thank you enough for that.'

The weight of Matthias's bedding pressed down on him. He felt entombed.

'The scientists figured out what killed him,' the commander said. 'He'd confiscated some fake identity cards. They were coated with poison. Slow-acting poison, so the miscreants had time to get away. So Tiddy's friends got to witness his death.' The commander was whispering now, each syllable like a dagger of pain. 'I — never — should— have — sent — him — back — out — there.'

He lowered his head and began sobbing.

So Nina had nothing to do with Tiddy's death, Matthias thought. Unless the poison I.D. cards were part of the secret project Nina wouldn't tell me about.

Matthias couldn't find it within himself to care one way or another. Not when Percy and Alia were already dead.

He felt the tears start in his own eyes. Wailing, the commander grasped Matthias's hand and buried his face in Matthias's blanket, and the two of them sobbed their hearts out together — the Population Police commander and the illegal boy. Both, in their own way, abandoned.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The weeks that followed were the strangest of Matthias's life. He stayed in the little bedroom just off the commander's office. He spent hours just staring up at the ceiling, thinking nothing. Nobody mentioned the classes he was supposed to be taking, the duties he might carry out.

The commander came in and out of the room and stroked Matthias's hair from his face. When the hollows deepened in Matthias's face, the commander was the one who ordered that someone come in and feed Matthias three times a day. He was the one who ordered a servant to bathe Matthias ever,y morning, to give him clean clothes.

Matthias wouldn't let anyone wash or throw away the sweater he'd been wearing when he'd arrived at Population Police headquarters.

'It's sentimental for him,' he heard the commander tell a particularly determined servant. 'Because of Tiddy. Leave it alone.'

Matthias didn't bother correcting the commander. He didn't see any reason to bother doing much of anything. But in spite of himself, his mind swirled with memories. He remembered telling Mrs. Talbot about Samuel's philosophy of life: 'Governments will rise and governments will fall, and man will do evil to man, and all we can do is turn our hearts to good.'

Matthias couldn't see anymore how Samuel had reached that conclusion.

Don't you know how hard I tried to do good? he thought, wishing he could fling those words at Samuel, at God. But he couldn't feel sure anymore that God listened. I tried to save Percy and Alia on the Population Police truck, and innocent children died. I tried to take Alia to safety, and Percy got shot. I ran for help and lured Mrs. Talbot to the cabin, and now she's probably dead too, killed in the fire with Percy and Alia and the man in the tree. I saved Tiddy's life, only to watch him die hours later. What does any of it matter?

He could hear the drone of voices from the commander's office. They were planning something, probably plotting more deaths. Revenge.

So what? Matthias thought. / tried to do good and ended up killing people. How am I any less evil than the Population Police?

Once, Nina was the servant who came upstairs with the trayful of food. She tried to talk to him. Matthias grabbed a pad of paper and scribbled out, NO! Room is bugged!

He didn't know if it was or not, but it was too painful for him to see the hope in her eyes.

Then let's write back and forth, Nina scribbled back on his pad. You can help—

Matthias tore the page off the notepad, tore it to bits. He shook his head violently.

'They're dead,' he said aloud. 'Don't you understand?'

Nina looked around fearfully. Matthias strode over to the door to the commander's office.

'Sir,' he said, 'can you send this servant girl away? She's annoying me.'

The commander looked coldly at Nina. 'Dismissed,' he said.

Nina scurried out of the room.

That night the commander came into Matthias's room and sat by his bed.

'People don't understand,' he said. 'After a loss like we suffered..'

'No,' Matthias said. 'Nobody understands.'

'You understand me. I understand you,' the commander said.

They sat in companionable silence for a while.

'Tiddy was like a shooting star,' the commander finally said. 'His zest for life was so great.'

A thought flickered in Matthias's mind: Tiddy was a Population Police officer. His job was killing people. How did that show a zest for life? But it was followed by the words, So what? Who cares? Didn't I kill people too?

'We were working on a plan. It was brilliant, the best ever. Now it's almost ready. And Tiddy's not here to share in the glory with me,' the commander said. He stared at Matthias, his red-rimmed eyes burning. 'Come on. I want to show you something.'

Matthias obediently slid out from under his covers and pulled on slippers that had somehow appeared beside his bed. Matthias had never owned a pair of slippers before in his life.

'No, real clothes,' the commander said. 'We have to drive somewhere.'

He waited while Matthias located his uniform shirt and pants. Amazingly, the pant legs and sleeves didn't have to be rolled up so many times; the belt didn't need to be pulled over to the extra hole. Somehow Matthias had filled out and gotten taller while he was lying around being fed and pampered, in mourning. It seemed like another bit of evil on Matthias's part, that he could keep growing after Percy and Alia were dead.

'Perfect,' the commander proclaimed when Matthias was dressed, the starched uniform stiff against his skin.

They stepped out into the hallway. Guards snapped salute after salute as they passed by.

'Someday they'll be saluting you like that,' the commander said. 'Would you like that?'

They stepped out into the night, and Matthias was startled by the frostiness in the air. Hard-core winter had arrived while he'd been grieving.