Among the Free Read Online Free Page B

stick. One of the layers led down at an angle; following it, Luke found an opening in the rock that seemed to lead deep into the mountain.
    A cave, Luke thought, struggling to remember definitions and explanations he’d memorized for tests, never expecting the knowledge to have any use in the real world. Caves have a constant temperature, summer and winter. People used to live in caves.
    Luke had found his shelter.
    He crawled in, keeping his head down because the ceiling of the cave was only four or five feet above the ground. But it was warmer the farther he got from the opening. He slid back as far as he could go and still see, and he curled up against a wall of rock. He felt safer than he’d felt at any time since he’d joined the Population Police, maybe any time since the Government had torn down the woods behind his family’s house.
    He was just beginning to drift off to sleep when he heard the gunfire start up again.

CHAPTER SIX
    T he gunshots didn’t sound nearby, but there were so many of them. When he’d been running away from Chiutza, he’d heard a pop! pop! pop!  . . . Three or four shots. That had been frightening enough, and maybe in his fear and desperation he’d miscounted or misheard.
    This gunfire was even more terrifying, because it sounded like dozens of guns all firing at once, and firing again and again and again.
    War, Luke thought, straining again to remember a concept he’d studied in school and never expected to encounter for real. Lots of people fighting.
    Luke’s first instinct was to curl up more tightly in the safety of his cave, his knees against his chin, his body protected by thick rock from any and every bullet. He was willing to slide on into sleep, just so he wouldn’t have to hear the sounds of anyone else’s struggle.
    But then, unbidden, another memory forced its way into his mind: Jen arguing with him the day before she died.
    You can be a coward and hope someone else changes the world for you. You can hide up in that attic of yours until someone knocks at your door and says, “Oh, yeah, they freed the hidden. Want to come out?” Is that what you want?
    She’d been trying to get him to come to the rally with her, the one protesting for third children’s rights. She’d yelled at him that if he didn’t play a role in seeking his own freedom, he’d always regret it: When you don’t have to hide anymore, even years from now, there’ll always be some small part of you whispering, “I don’t deserve this. I didn’t fight for it. I’m not worth it.” And you are, Luke, you are. . . .
    Substitute the word “cave” for “attic” and she might as well be arguing with him now. He shivered with the same kind of chills he would have felt if Jen’s ghost had appeared to him and urged, Get out of this cave this instant! Go and fight in that war!
    â€œStop,” he muttered, pressing his hands over his ears, as if that could shut out a voice he heard only in his own mind. “Why should I listen to you? It’s not like your rally did any good. It only got you killed. Do you want me to die too?”
    But he couldn’t really argue that Jen’s rally had been useless. So much had happened since then. Luke himself would never have gotten his fake I.D. and left home if it hadn’t been for Jen and her rally. He never would have gone to Hendricks School or met any of his friends there. He never would have helped a boy named Smits come to terms with his brother’s death. He never would have infiltratedPopulation Police headquarters, never tried to make a difference in the world, never ended up here in this cave.
    And that’s supposed to convince me? he wondered.
    Still, he took his hands off his ears and crawled back toward the cave’s opening. Peeking out, he could see nothing but trees, a peaceful scene. But the sounds of gunfire were