Among the Enemy

'A bug?' one of the girls said. 'Outdoors? In January?'

Oops, Matthias thought.

But 'I'll go with him,' Nina said, sighing heavily, like it was a big sacrifice. 'I've got to hang out those wet towels anyhow.'

'Be quick about it,' a hatchet-faced woman said from behind Nina. 'No dawdling over some silly insect that doesn't know enough to die in the wintertime.' She punched down a huge lump of bread dough for emphasis.

Nina paused to pick up a big basket of towels, then Matthias followed her out a back door.

'Where's the bug?' she said in a bright, fake voice that was probably mostly for the benefit of the girls and women who might still be able to hear from the kitchen.

'There's one in my room, for starters,' Matthias whis-pered back. 'Not the insect kind. That's why I didn't want to meet anywhere inside. What if there's a bug in the bathroom, too?'

'What if there's a bug on your uniform?' Nina countered. 'What if there's a bug in that tree?' She pointed up at a stunted, leafless branch overhead. 'This is dangerous, us being seen together.'

She plopped down her basket of towels before a makeshift clothesline.

'But I had to tell you what I heard,' Matthias said. Quickly, he reported on the demonstration in the commander's office. The more Matthias talked, the more terrified Nina looked. Her face went pale and drawn. She dropped the towel she'd started to hang on the line. She gasped just at the mention of Officer Barstow's name.

'Are you sure it was Officer Jason Barstow?' she demanded.

'Yeah,' Matthias said.

'But that's my Jason — I mean, the one who tricked me. It was his fault I ended up in Population Police prison. I'd heard he was involved in some big, secret project for the Population Police, but…'

Matthias kept talking. Nina began shaking her head violently when he got to the part about the sizzling sound, the officers' applause.

'No, it can't be true. They can't be ready so soon,' she moaned.

'And they've got our I.D. cards,' Matthias finished up. 'Right? They took mine away when I joined the Population Police — well, a little after that, because Tiddy forgot. Do they have yours and Trey's and everyone else's, too? Do you think they'd use that Project Authenticity test on our cards, even though we're in the Population Police?'

Nina's eyes burned into his.

'Yes,' she whispered.

'Then we've got to run away,' Matthias said. 'Leave the Population Police, go somewhere we can get other fake LD.'s… '

He didn't know how it was possible. Even from the backyard, standing by Nina's clothesline, he could see the enormous wall, the stern line of Population Police guards by the gate.

Nina was shaking her head anyway.

'Matthias, it doesn't matter if we run away or not,' she said sadly. 'They're going to do that new test on every' body's I.D. Everybody's in the entire country.'

Chapter Thirty

Matthias felt no surprise, just a growing sense of dread. The empty tree branches above him clicked together ominously in the cold wind, as if they were counting off the final minutes of his life. His, and so many other children's.

'I think I can tell you this now,' Nina said. 'It's not really so secret anymore. Remember Project Exchange, that you wrote that note about earlier? The project they're supposed to finish next week? The Population Police ordered everyone in the country to turn in every I.D. card. That's what's been happening the past few weeks while you've been…'

'Hanging out with the commander,' Matthias finished for her. 'Getting my food on trays.'

Nina grimaced and nodded.

'People get receipts for their I.D.'s,' she said. 'The Population Police say they'll get their original I.D.'s back soon. But there have been all sorts of rumors going around about what the Population Police intend to do with all those I.D. cards in between. We heard about Project Authenticity, but we weren't sure… we hoped… we didn't want to believe it was true. But you just gave me the proof.'

'Now they can catch every third child who has a fake I.D.,' Matthias said. 'And no third child without a fake I.D. will ever dare to come out of hiding.'

'Right,' Nina said. 'It'll be the Population Police's dearest dream come true.'

Matthias stared out into the frozen landscape, fighting a sense of hopelessness.

'Why are they going to so much bother?' he asked. 'To collect every I.D., from every person in the entire coun-try? Why didn't they wait until they were sure the authenticity test worked, then just go house to house, testing as they went?'

'We think they don't want the word to get out,' Nina said. 'They want to do everybody's at once, so nobody will know ahead of time what's going to happen.'

She bent to pick up a wet towel and flung it over the clothesline. Matthias watched her red, chapped hands fumble with the clothespin.

'But you've got a plan, right?' Matthias asked.

'We did,' Nina said glumly. 'We've had lots of plans since we got here.'

She kept hanging up towels.

'Do you know where the Population Police are keeping all the I.D.'s?' Matthias asked. 'Can't you go and — I don't know — burn down the building or something?'

'We thought of that,' Nina said. 'We thought it was a brilliant idea. But you put a stop to those plans.' She shook her head sorrowfully.

'Me?' Matthias was astonished. 'What did I do?'

'You told us where the Population Police keep their extra food.'

'So?'

Nina turned to face Matthias, tears glistening in her eyes.

'The food and the I.D.'s — they're all in the same place.'

Chapter Thirty-One

For a moment, Matthias didn't understand. He'd had too much to try to make sense of, going back to Tiddy's death, Percy's and Alia's injuries, Samuel's death. No — going all the way back to his parents abandoning him. He still couldn't make sense of the earliest events of his life. How was he supposed to make sense of this?

'We think the Population Police did it that way on purpose. They must suspect there are saboteurs around who wouldn't strike if they feared destroying the food as well,' Nina was saying.

'So the commander was using me, showing me the food,' Matthias said, his panic growing. 'He must suspect — that's why he bugged my room.'

'You can't be sure of that,' Nina said. 'They have bugs in lots of rooms. The Population Police are bug crazy. Anyhow, after you told me about the warehouse, we heard the same story from other sources.'

Matthias shook his head, trying to clear his mind.

'It's just spare food, in that warehouse,' he said slowly.

'Maybe,' Nina said. 'I hear things sometimes, in the kitchen. There was a bad harvest this year — with the Government changing, too many people were out fight' ing and not enough people were out getting crops from the fields. So that food in the warehouse may be… nec^ essary… to get our country through the winter.'

'May be?' Matthias asked.