But in Population Police prison, only moments before Matthias and Percy and Alia thought they were going to be executed, a man had come to them and whispered, "I'm on your side…."

It was tempting to dwell on that moment, to hope for another miracle. But Matthias's memory backed up a little. He frowned at Percy.

"This isn't like the last time," he said slowly. "They aren't arresting us. They didn't even ask to see our I.D.'s."

As far as he knew, Matthias had never had a valid I.D. He didn't know his real name. He didn't even know if he'd been given a name before his parents, whoever they were, had abandoned him. Samuel had always told him and Percy and Alia that they were the lucky ones. They were lucky they'd been abandoned, not killed.

"There are laws in this land," Samuel had told them. "Evil laws. A woman who's had two children isn't allowed to have any more. That's why babies show up on my doorstep…."

Samuel's doorstep had been a concrete block in a dark alley. His home had been an abandoned tunnel that flooded every spring and was cold and dank year-round. But Samuel had never turned away a child, even when hiding children put his own life in danger. He'd taken them in and taught them everything he knew: how to survive on the streets; how to work for good in an evil world; how to make fake identity cards for other illegal children.

What if the Population Police no longer cared about identity cards? What if they'd figured out some other way to decide whether people had the right to live?

"That man in the dining hall said there's a new leader," Matthias said now, trying to puzzle everything out.

"Yeah, a new leader who thinks little kids don't deserve to eat," Percy snorted. "We've got to escape. Don't we have anything sharp at all?"

Hopelessly, the three of them felt around them, as if they really thought a spare knife would be lying on the floor of the truck bed.