Among the Brave (17 page)

“Lots of food rolled under the truck!” he screamed again.

A few members of the crowd joined him, shoving against the truck as well, trying to set it back up on its tires.

“Oranges! Bananas! All under the truck!” Trey yelled. Then he worried that someone might ask him how a banana might roll—or how anything could roll under a truck lying flat on its side. But nobody said anything, except to grunt in exertion. The mob was too hungry for logic. Even more people joined him, pushing and pushing on the truck. With one great shove, they had it upright again.

A cheer burst forth, and everyone instantly fell to the ground, feeling around for the promised oranges and bananas. Everyone, that is, except Trey. He backed away, then took off running down the road, toward one of the curves he’d navigated right before being attacked by the mob.

“Truck alert!” he yelled once he was sure he was out of sight. “It’s—ooh, it looks like a whole truckful of bread. It’s loaded! Come and help stop it! Come and eat!”

For a second, Trey was afraid his trick wouldn’t work Even though the sun was beginning to rise, it was still too dark to see what a truck down the road might be loaded with. But then he heard the trample of feet behind him. He circled around, hiding behind rocks and trees as the mob passed him. Then he took off sprinting toward Mark.

“What?” Mark murmured. “What are you doing?”

Trey grabbed his Population Police shirt back and stuffed his arms into the sleeves, then grabbed Mark under the armpits and dragged him toward the now-upright truck.

“Ooooh,” Mark moaned, the most agonizing sound Trey had ever heard. Then Mark’s body went limp. Had he passed out from the pain? Trey didn’t take the time to check He jerked open the truck door and hoisted Mark into the cab, then slid in beside him.

The keys were still in the ignition. Trey reached for them.

“It may not start,” Mark moaned beside him. So he was conscious, after all. ‘After being flipped like that, some of the wires might have been scrambled, the engine case cracked or something...

Trey turned the key, and the engine sputtered to life.

“Good old Bessie,” Mark muttered. “I’ll never talk bad about this truck again.”

Trey eased off the clutch as gently as possible. He shifted through the gears like a pro.

When he got to fourth gear, he floored the gas pedal, and the truck zoomed toward the dawn, air streaming into the cab from every direction.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

They arrived at the Nezeree prison fifteen minutes later. Trey slowed down approaching the gates.

“We’ll pick up the guard’s friend first,” he told Mark. “I think we have to play by his rules even if.
. .
even if it might be a trick.”

Trey was kind of hoping that Mark would challenge him, offer some other brilliant plan. But Mark just moaned in response. It was light enough now that Trey could see the pallor of Mark’s face, the bloodstains on the shirt wrapped around his leg.

“Maybe the guard’s friend will be a doctor who can set your leg for you,” Trey joked halfheartedly.

“Chains,” Mark muttered.

“Huh?”

“Chains
. . .
under the seat,” Mark said. “Put them around my wrists to make it look like...”

“Oh. So you’ll look like a prisoner,” Trey finished, to spare Mark the effort of talking. After an anxious glance in his rearview mirror to make sure there was no mob ready to pounce again, he pulled over to the side of the road, dug around under the seat, and pulled out a length of chain, which he draped across Mark’s body. Mark held his right hand off to the side.

“What’s this?” Trey said, staring at a painful-looking wound on the palm of Mark’s hand.

“Burns,” Mark said through gritted teeth. “From the electric fence. Got some on my back, too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“No time,” Mark groaned. “Hurry up.”

They was careful not to place any of the links directly on Mark’s leg or burns, but Mark still groaned in pain.

“Heavy,” Mark muttered. Beads of sweat glistened along his hairline, but he was shivering. Trey struggled to remember: Could somebody die from a broken leg? And was Mark still in danger from touching the electric fence the day before?

He pushed those worries to the back of his mind and drove on up to the gates of the prison. They stood between tall walls of chain-link fence topped with loops of razor wire.

“Not another prisoner coming in,” the guard on duty griped when he glanced into the truck.

“No, no,” Trey said soothingly. “I’m picking up one of your prisoners. Then I’m taking both of them to Churko.”

He was relieved that the guard seemed to accept him as a Population Police officer and Mark as a prisoner—in spite of their ragged appearance, in spite of the smashed-up truck. Trey held the authorization papers out the window. The guard looked through them and handed them right back.

“Warden’s office is straight ahead on the right,” he said.

“Thanks,” Trey said.

“Warden’s a stickler for appearances, if you know what I mean,” the guard said.

“Oh,” Trey said.

“I’m just warning you, that’s all,” the guard said. “He likes spit-polished shoes.”

Trey glanced down at the mud flaking off his shoes, the stains and rips arcing across his pant legs.

“Got an extra uniform I can borrow, then?” Trey asked.

The guard shook his head, grinning.

“Good luck,” he said, like it was all a joke.

Great,
They thought.
Mark’s almost passing out from pain, I may be walking into a trap, I still don’t know if I can save Lee and Nina and the others in time—and this guy thinks it’s funny that I’m going to get yelled at for not spit-polishing my shoes.

Or maybe I won’t be able to save Lee and Nina and the others—or Mark—just because my shoes aren’t spit-polished....

Thinking hard, Trey drove on to the warden’s office. It was a small, tidy building, with flowers planted along the walkway. A boy about They’s age—but wearing a much neater uniform—was scrubbing the windows. Behind the office, dozens of official-looking Population Police cars and trucks and buses gleamed in the early-morning sunlight. They looked like they’d each been polished with a toothbrush; they looked like someone had used a ruler to make sure all the vehicles were parked at exactly the same intervals.

Trey let the engine of his truck die several feet back from a concrete divider in front of the warden’s office. It was his best parking attempt yet, but his tires still overlapped the white lines marking his space.

That was the least of his worries.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” They told Mark.

Mark nodded, and seemed to turn a few shades paler.

Trey got out of the truck and walked to the front door of the warden’s office. He rapped his knuckles against the wood frame, trying to make his knock sound precise and official.

“Enter,” a voice called.

Trey took a deep breath, then opened the door and stepped in onto luxurious-looking carpet. A man in a heavily decorated uniform sat behind a huge mahogany desk. Trey reminded himself he didn’t have time to stare at all the man’s ribbons and medals.

“Sir!” Trey barked, snapping his arm into a salute against his capless forehead. “Officer Jackson reporting. Request permission to present papers.”

The man looked bemused.

“At ease,” he said. “Proceed.”

“I must first offer apologies for my appearance, sir!” Trey said.

The man looked him up and down, a slight frown playing across his heavyset face.

“Apologize, then,” he said.

“Sir!” They repeated yet again. “I am a disgrace to the honor of this uniform.” He remembered the excuse the guard had given back at the Grants’ house. “I was subduing a prisoner who had no proper respect for Population Police authority. I know it is no excuse, but that is why my uniform is ripped and I am covered in mud. And I lost my cap. I am deeply ashamed to appear before you like this.”

“Indeed,” the man said. But he was smiling now. “I wish the guards in my unit shared your concerns. You did succeed in subduing the prisoner, though?”

“Yes, sir,” Trey said. On the theory that a smidgen of truth strengthened any lie, he added, “I broke his leg, sir. I believe he may be on the verge of death.”

“Well done,” the man said.

Trey barely managed not to gag with revulsion at that How could this man care so much about spit-polished shoes and so little about a human life?

The man glanced out the window, to where Mark sat in chains.

‘This prisoner is being transferred into my jurisdiction?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Trey said. His arm was beginning to ache from saluting for so long, but he kept it in position. “I am picking up one of your prisoners and taking both of them on to Churko.”

The warden motioned for Trey to give him the paperwork. He looked through the papers, seeming to read each one carefully.

“You’re taking prisoners from Slahood as well? That’s odd...
,“
he murmured.

“I’m only following orders, sir!” Trey said, hoping to distract him.

The warden narrowed his eyes, looking straight at Trey. Trey worried that he had carried his act too far. He’d been trying to behave like a groveling flunky had in a military book he’d once read. How did he know how Population Police officials talked in real life?

Then the warden said, “I like your attitude, young man. Are you a new recruit?”

Just in case the warden had some way of checking, Trey told the truth.

“Yes, sir! I joined up yesterday, sir!” Had it only been yesterday that he’d stood in that long line at the Grant house? It seemed many, many lifetimes ago.

“The new recruits I’ve been sent lack your enthusiasm for our cause. They seem most concerned about eating,” the warden sneered. It seemed like an unfair gibe, considering that the warden must have weighed more than two hundred and fifty pounds—he’d obviously spent a lot of time himself being concerned about eating. “Any chance I could have you transferred to my unit?”

Oh, great,
Trey thought.
I’ve played my part too well.

“Sir?” Trey said cautiously. “I would not want to be disloyal to my current commander. I must finish my assignment before I could think of being transferred.”

“Of course,” the warden said. “I should have known you’d have that response.” He tidied Trey’s papers into a single stack. “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll have one of my guards go pick up the prisoners from Slahood right now. That will save you quite a bit of time. I’ll have another guard retrieve prisoner”—he glanced down at Trey’s forms— “prisoner
908653
from cell block three here at Nezeree. And I’ll have a fresh uniform sent up for you to change into while you’re waiting.” The warden barked a few short commands into an intercom on his desk, and it was all set in motion.

“Thank you, sir,” Trey said, unable to believe his good luck

“And the prisoner in the truck,” the warden said. “I’ll write up an order to have him shot right now.”

“What?” The luxurious room seemed to be spinning slightly. Surely Trey hadn’t heard the warden properly. Surely his brilliant lies hadn’t led to this.

“For attacking a Population Police officer,” the warden said casually “It’s a capital offense, you know.”

And he reached for a pen.

Chapter Thirty

The room was truly spinning now. Mark was the one being sentenced to death, but it was Trey whose life flashed before his eyes. How could he have done this? How could he have rescued Mark—twice—only to see him killed here, now, just as he was about to be reunited with his brother?

“No!” Trey exploded.

“What did you just say to me?” the warden asked, his pen hesitating over the paper.

“I mean, ‘No,
sir'
I mean—” Trey scrambled to think “The prisoner certainly deserves to die. Not because he attacked me, but because he showed no respect for me, as an officer of the Population Police. Still.., the warden at Churko has personal reasons for wanting to... to torture this particular prisoner. And for wanting to oversee his death himself.”

‘Ah,” the warden said. He seemed to be considering. “I see.” He reached for a different paper from one of the stacks on his desk. “Then I’ll order that our infirmary sets his leg and gives him medicine. So that he lives long enough for my colleague at Churko to see him tortured.”

Trey watched in awe as the warden scribbled out an order and summoned an underling over the intercom on his desk