UnWholly (14 page)

Next is John, a gum-chewing kid with a restless leg who’s in charge of maintenance and waste management, and finally Ashley, who claims to be very “person centered” and deals with “issues”—and since just about every kid being tagged for unwinding has issues, she’s probably the busiest of the bunch.

“So what’s this about?” Bam asks. “Because I got stuff to do.”

“First off,” Connor tells them, “I met with the ADR dude today. We can expect more of the same.”

“More o’ nothin’ is still nothin’,” Drake says.

“You got it. We’ve pretty much known we’ve been on our own for a while—now it’s official. Deal with it.”

“What about supplies and stuff we can’t scavenge from other planes?” asks John, his leg bouncing more fiercely than usual.

“If we can’t get cash from the front office to buy it, we’ll have to creatively find it.” Creatively finding is Connor’s euphemism for stealing. He’s had to send kids as far as Phoenix to creatively find things the ADR won’t supply. Things like hard-to-find medications and welding torches.

“I just got word that a new jet is being retired here next Tuesday,” Hayden tells them. “I’m sure when we gut it, we’ll find a lot of things we need. Coolant compressors, hydraulic thingamajiggies, and all that other hardcore mechanical blue-collar stuff.”

“Is the baggage compartment gonna be stuffed full of Whollies?” someone asks.

“No plane arrives without mystery meat,” Hayden says. “No telling how many kids there’ll be, though.”

“I hope there aren’t any coffins this time,” Ashley says. “Do you have any idea how many kids had nightmares from that?”

“Oh please, coffins are so last month,” says Hayden. “This time it’s beer kegs!”

“The bigger issue,” says Connor, “is having an escape plan. We can’t rely on the ADR to save us if the Juvies decide it’s time for fresh parts.”

“Why don’t we just bail now,” asks Ashley, “and find a new place to be?”

“It’s not that easy to move seven hundred kids—and doing it would be like sending up a flare to every Juvey-cop in Arizona.
Hayden’s team has been doing a pretty good job tracking the threat level, so we’ll have at least some warning before a raid—but if we don’t have an exit strategy, we’re screwed no matter what.”

Bam throws a glare at Trace, who never says much at these meetings. “What does
he
think?”

“I think you should do whatever Connor tells you to do,” Trace says.

Bam snorts. “Spoken like a true army boeuf.”

“Air force,” says Trace. “You’d be wise to remember that.”

“The point is,” says Connor, coming between them before Ashley can launch into her anger management speech, “that we all need to be thinking about how to kick out of here on a moment’s notice if we have to.”

The rest of the meeting deals with the minutiae of management. Connor wonders how the Admiral could stomach conversations about sanitary napkin supply, when the threat of harvest camp was a clear and present danger every minute of every day. “It’s all about delegation,” Trace has said—which is the real reason why Connor had called this meeting.

“You can all go,” Connor finally tells everyone, “except for Bam and John—we still have things to talk about.”

Everyone files out, and Connor has John wait outside, while he talks privately to Bam. Connor knows what he must do, he just doesn’t want to do it. Some people take joy in dishing out bad news, but Connor was never like that. He knows what it’s like to be pulled up short, to be told that you’re useless, that you’re better off unwound.

Bam stands with arms folded, sweating attitude. “So, what’s up?”

“Tell me about the tainted meat loaf.”

Bam shrugs like it’s nothing. “What’s the big deal? The generator to one of the refrigerators blew out. It’s fixed now.”

“How long was the power out?”

“Don’t know.”

“So you had no clue how long the thing was without power, and you still served the food inside?”

“How was I supposed to know people would get sick? They ate it, so it’s their problem.”

Connor imagines the punching bag and makes a fist with his right hand. Then he looks at the shark, and forces his hand to relax. “More than forty kids were down for over two days—and we’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

“Yeah, right, so I won’t let it happen again.” Bam says it in such a rude tone of voice, Connor can imagine her saying it that same way to her teachers, her parents, the Juvies, every authority figure in her life. Connor hates the fact that he’s one of those authority figures now.

“There won’t be a next time, Bam. I’m sorry.”

“You’re getting rid of me just because of one stupid screwup?”

“No one is getting rid of you,” Connor tells her. “But you won’t be running food service anymore.”

She burns him a long, hateful glare, then says, “Fine. To hell with you. I don’t need this crap.”

“Thank you, Bam,” he says, having no idea what possessed him to thank her. “Send John in on your way out.”

Bam kicks the jet hatch open and storms out. She turns to John, who waits nervously outside, twisted in a full body flinch from her angry exit.

“Go on in,” Bam growls at him. “He’s firing you.”

•   •   •

That night Connor finds Starkey doing close-up magic for a bunch of Whollies beneath the recreation jet.

“How does he do that?” kids ask as he makes bracelets disappear from wrists and appear in other people’s pockets. When he’s done, Connor approaches him.

“You’re pretty good. But as the guy in charge, I should ask you to tell me how it’s done.”

Starkey only smiles. “A magician never reveals his secrets, not even to the guy in charge.”

“Listen,” says Connor, cutting to the chase, “there’s something I want to talk to you about. I’ve decided to shake things up in the Holy of Whollies.”

“A change for the better, I hope,” Starkey says, gripping his stomach. Connor chuckles because he already knows Starkey sees where this is going, but that’s okay.

“How would you like to be in charge of food?”

“I love food,” Starkey says. “And I’m not just saying that.”

“Do you think you can handle a team of thirty and get food on the tables three times a day for everyone else?”

Starkey waves his hand and makes an egg appear out of thin air, then hands it to Connor. He saw the egg trick a few minutes earlier, but now its relevance makes it even more entertaining.

“Great,” says Connor. “Now conjure up seven hundred more for breakfast.” And he walks away, chuckling to himself, knowing that Starkey does have what it takes to make things happen, and make them happen right.

For once Connor’s sure he’s made the right decision.

In the early evenings, when the desert begins to cool, Risa plays piano beneath the left wing of Air Force One. She plays pieces that she knows by heart and pieces from sheet music that have found their way into the Graveyard.

As for the piano itself, it’s a black baby grand Hyundai—which made her laugh when she first saw it. She didn’t think
Hyundai made pianos—but then, why should that surprise her? Multinationals can make anything they want if people will buy it. She once read that Mercedes-Benz had gotten heavy into artificial hearts before the Unwind Accord made such technology pointless. “The Pulsar Omega,” the advertisement went. “Take luxury to heart.” They invested a fortune in the product, only to lose every penny once unwinding began, and artificial hearts went the way of pagers and CDs.

Tonight she plays a forceful yet subtle Chopin sonata. It pours out like a ground fog, echoing within the hollow fuse-lages where the Whollies live. She knows it comforts them. Even those kids who claim to despise classical music have come asking her why she isn’t playing when she’s skipped a night. So she plays for them, but not really, because it’s herself that she’s playing for. Sometimes she has an audience sitting before her in the dust. Other times, like tonight, it’s just her. Sometimes Connor comes. He’ll sit beside her, yet somehow be distant, as if afraid to invade her musical space. The times Connor comes are her favorite, but he does not come often enough.

“He’s got too much on his mind,” Hayden has told her, making the excuses that Connor should make for himself. “He’s a man of the people.” Then he added with a smirk, “Or at least of two people.”

Hayden never passes up a chance to throw a verbal barb about Connor’s uninvited appendage. It ticks her off, because some things are no laughing matter. Sometimes she catches Connor looking at the arm with an expression that is so opaque, it frightens her. Like maybe he’s going to pull out an ax and chop the thing off right in front of everyone. Even though he also bears a replacement eye, the match is perfect, and the source unknown. It holds no power over him . . . but Roland’s arm is different, holding heavy emotional baggage in its powerful grasp.

“Are you wondering if it’ll bite you?” she once asked as he gazed at that shark. Startled, Connor went a little bit red, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Then he just shrugged it off. “Nah, I was just wondering when and why Roland got this stupid tattoo. If I ever come across the person who got that particular brain cell, maybe I’ll ask.” Then he walked away from her, ending the conversation.

If it weren’t for those daily leg massages, Risa would think that Connor has forgotten about her completely. But even those massages aren’t the same. They feel perfunctory now. Like the only reason he’s there is because he made a promise to himself that he would be—not because he truly wants to be.

Thinking about Connor makes her miss a chord—the same damn chord she missed at her life-or-death recital that left her on a bus, speeding her off to be unwound. She growls, then takes her fingers off the keys and draws a deep breath. Her music carries, which means her frustration is being broadcast just as clearly as Radio Free Hayden.

What bothers her most is that she cares. Risa was always able to take care of herself, both physically and emotionally. At the state home, either you developed several layers of personal armor or you were eaten alive. When had that changed? Was it when she was forced to play music as kids were led into the building beneath her to be unwound? Was it when she made the choice to accept a shattered spine, rather than having it replaced by the healthy spine of an Unwind? Or maybe it was before that, when she realized that, against all sense and reason, she had fallen in love with Connor Lassiter?

Risa finishes the sonata, because no matter how she’s feeling, she cannot leave a piece of music uncompleted. Then, when she’s done, she fights the dry, craggy terrain beneath her wheels and rolls toward a certain private jet.

Connor dozes in a chair that’s too comfortable to remain fully awake in, but not comfortable enough to be fully asleep. He’s jarred alert by a thud against the side of his jet. By the time the second one comes, he realizes it’s off to his left. By the time the third one hits, he realizes someone is throwing things at his plane.

He looks out of a window, but in the darkness he sees only his own reflection. Another thud. He cups his hands over his eyes, pressing his face against the glass. The first thing he sees are the curved blue streaks reflecting moonlight. A wheelchair. Then he sees Risa hurling another rock, which hits right above the window.

“What the hell?”

He opens the hatch, hoping she’ll stop the barrage. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” she says. “I was just trying to get your attention.”

He chuckles, not yet getting her frame of mind. “There are better ways.”

“Not lately.”

She moves forward and backward a bit in her chair, crushing a dirt clod that had her tilted at a slight angle. “Not going to invite me in?”

“You’re invited. You’re always invited.”

“Well, then maybe you should have put up a ramp.”

And although he knows he’s going to regret saying it, he says it anyway. “Maybe you should let someone carry you.”

She rolls a bit closer but not enough to close the space between them—just enough to make it painfully awkward. “I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on.”

Risa might want this talk right now, but Connor is in no mood. After firing Bam and John, he just wants to end this day and find dreamless sleep until whatever fresh hell awaits in the morning.

“What’s going on is that I’m trying to keep us all alive,” he says with a little too much irritation in his voice, “and I don’t see that as a problem.”

“Yes, you’re so busy keeping us alive. Even when you’re not busy, you’re busy—and when you do actually talk to me, it’s all about the ADR, and how hard it is for you, and the weight of the world on
your
shoulders.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Risa, you are not the kind of fragile girl who needs a guy’s attention to feel whole.”

Then the moon comes out from behind a cloud again, and he can see tears glistening on her face. “There’s a difference between needing attention and being intentionally ignored.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but his brain fails him. He could talk about their daily circulation massages, but she has already pointed out that even then, he’s mentally checked out.

“It’s the wheelchair, isn’t it?”

“No!” he tells her. “It has nothing to do with that.”

“So you admit there’s a reason.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What then?”

He steps down from the jet. Three steps that separate his world from Risa’s. He kneels before her, trying to look into her eyes, but now they’re hidden in shadow. “Risa, I care about you as much as I ever did. You know that.”

“Care about me?”

“Love you, okay? I love you.” The words don’t come easy for Connor. They wouldn’t come at all if they weren’t true, so that’s how he knows they are. He does love her deeply—that’s
not the problem. And the wheelchair isn’t the problem, and neither is his job of running the Graveyard.

“You don’t behave like a boy when he’s in love.”

“Maybe because I’m not a boy,” he tells her. “I haven’t been for a good long time now.”

She thinks about that, and quietly says, “Then show me how you feel the way a man does. And make me believe it.”