Among the Free

quivering on fallen leaves early in the day, and he hadn't been desperate enough then to lick it up.

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 some' thing 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.

Chapter Eighteen

Luke 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 sweat' shirt, 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.