Little Brother

“Freegans?”

“Like vegans, but we only eat free food.”

“Free food?”

He grinned again. “You know — free food. From the free food store?”

“You stole this?”

“No, dummy. It’s from the other store. The little one out behind the store? Made of blue steel? Kind of funky smelling?”

“You got this out of the garbage?”

He flung his head back and cackled. “Yes indeedy. You should see your face. Dude, it’s OK. It’s not like it was rotten. It was fresh — just a screwed up order. They threw it out in the box. They sprinkle rat poison over everything at closing-time, but if you get there quick, you’re OK. You should see what grocery stores throw out! Wait until breakfast. I’m going to make you a fruit salad you won’t believe. As soon as one strawberry in the box goes a little green and fuzzy, the whole thing is out —”

I tuned him out. The pizza was fine. It wasn’t as if sitting in the dumpster would infect it or something. If it was gross, that was only because it came from Domino’s — the worst pizza in town. I’d never liked their food, and I’d given it up altogether when I found out that they bankrolled a bunch of ultra-crazy politicians who thought that global warming and evolution were satanic plots.

It was hard to shake the feeling of grossness, though.

But there was another way to look at it. Zeb had showed me a secret, something I hadn’t anticipated: there was a whole hidden world out there, a way of getting by without participating in the system.

“Freegans, huh?”

“Yogurt, too,” he said, nodding vigorously. “For the fruit salad. They throw it out the day after the best-before date, but it’s not as if it goes green at midnight. It’s yogurt, I mean, it’s basically just rotten milk to begin with.”

I swallowed. The pizza tasted funny. Rat poison. Spoiled yogurt. Furry strawberries. This would take some getting used to.

I ate another bite. Actually, Domino’s pizza sucked a little less when you got it for free.

Liam’s sleeping bag was warm and welcoming after a long, emotionally exhausting day. Van would have made contact with Barbara by now. She’d have the video and the picture. I’d call her in the morning and find out what she thought I should do next. I’d have to come in once she published, to back it all up.

I thought about that as I closed my eyes, thought about what it would be like to turn myself in, the cameras all rolling, following the infamous M1k3y into one of those big, columnated buildings in Civic Center.

The sound of the cars screaming by overhead turned into a kind of ocean sound as I drifted away. There were other tents nearby, homeless people. I’d met a few of them that afternoon, before it got dark and we all retreated to huddle near our own tents. They were all older than me, rough looking and gruff. None of them looked crazy or violent, though. Just like people who’d had bad luck, or made bad decisions, or both.

I must have fallen asleep, because I don’t remember anything else until a bright light was shined into my face, so bright it was blinding.

“That’s him,” said a voice behind the light.

“Bag him,” said another voice, one I’d heard before, one I’d heard over and over again in my dreams, lecturing to me, demanding my passwords. Severe-haircut-woman.

The bag went over my head quickly and was cinched so tight at the throat that I choked and threw up my freegan pizza. As I spasmed and choked, hard hands bound my wrists, then my ankles. I was rolled onto a stretcher and hoisted, then carried into a vehicle, up a couple of clanging metal steps. They dropped me into a padded floor. There was no sound at all in the back of the vehicle once they closed the doors. The padding deadened everything except my own choking.

“Well, hello again,” she said. I felt the van rock as she crawled in with me. I was still choking, trying to gasp in a breath. Vomit filled my mouth and trickled down my windpipe.

“We won’t let you die,” she said. “If you stop breathing, we’ll make sure you start again. So don’t worry about it.”

I choked harder. I sipped at air. Some was getting through. Deep, wracking coughs shook my chest and back, dislodging some more of the puke. More breath.

“See?” she said. “Not so bad. Welcome home, M1k3y. We’ve got somewhere very special to take you.”

I relaxed onto my back, feeling the van rock. The smell of used pizza was overwhelming at first, but as with all strong stimuli, my brain gradually grew accustomed to it, filtered it out until it was just a faint aroma. The rocking of the van was almost comforting.

That’s when it happened. An incredible, deep calm that swept over me like I was lying on the beach and the ocean had swept in and lifted me as gently as a parent, held me aloft and swept me out onto a warm sea under a warm sun. After everything that had happened, I was caught, but it didn’t matter. I had gotten the information to Barbara. I had organized the Xnet. I had won. And if I hadn’t won, I had done everything I could have done. More than I ever thought I could do. I took a mental inventory as I rode, thinking of everything that I had accomplished, that we had accomplished. The city, the country, the world was full of people who wouldn’t live the way DHS wanted us to live. We’d fight forever. They couldn’t jail us all.

I sighed and smiled.

She’d been talking all along, I realized. I’d been so far into my happy place that she’d just gone away.

“— smart kid like you. You’d think that you’d know better than to mess with us. We’ve had an eye on you since the day you walked out. We would have caught you even if you hadn’t gone crying to your lesbo journalist traitor. I