UnWholly (48 page)

“Do you think they’ll just let us die?” Tad asks. “Won’t they try to save us?”

Hayden doesn’t want to answer him, because he knows the answer is no. From the Juvies’ point of view, if they die, all they
lose are kids no one wanted anyway. All they lose are parts.

“With the news vans out there,” suggests Lizbeth, “maybe our deaths will stand for something. People will remember that we chose death over unwinding.”

“Maybe,” Hayden says. “That’s a good thought, Lizbeth. Hold on to it.”

It’s 115 degrees. 8:40 a.m. Hayden’s finding it harder and harder to breathe, and he realizes the heat might not get them at all. It might be the lack of oxygen. He wonders which is lower on the list of bad ways to die.

“I don’t feel so good,” says a girl across from him. Hayden knew her name five minutes ago, but he can’t think clearly enough to remember it. He knows it’s only minutes now.

Beside him, Tad, his eyes half-open, begins babbling. Something about a vacation. Sandy beaches, swimming pools. “Daddy lost the passports and ooh, Mommy’s gonna be mad.” Hayden puts his arm around him and holds him like a little brother. “No passports . . . ,” Tad says. “No passports . . . can’t get back home.”

“Don’t even try, Tad,” Hayden says. “Wherever you are, stay there; it sounds like the place to be.”

Soon Hayden feels his eyesight starting to black out, and he goes places too. A house he lived in as a kid before his parents started fighting. Riding his bike up a jump ramp he can’t handle and breaking his arm in the fall.
What were you thinking, son?
A fight his parents had over custody in the heat of their divorce.
You’ll have him, all right! You’ll have him over my dead body
, and Hayden just laughing and laughing, because it’s his only defense against the prospect of his family collapsing around him. And then overhearing their decision to unwind him rather than allowing the other to have custody. Not so much a decision, but an impasse.

Fine!

Fine!

If that’s the way you want it!

If that’s the way YOU want it!

Don’t put this on me!

They signed the unwind order just to spite each other, but laugh, laugh, laugh, Hayden, because if you ever stop laughing, it might just tear you apart worse than a Chop Shop.

Now he’s far away, floating in the clouds, playing Scrabble with the Dalai Lama, but wouldn’t you know it, all the tiles are in Tibetan. Then for a moment his vision clears and he comes back to the here and now. He’s lucid enough to realize he’s in the ComBom where the temperature is too hot to imagine. He looks around him. The kids are awake, but barely. They slump in corners. They lie on the ground.

“You were talking about stuff,” someone says weakly. “Keep talking, Hayden. We liked it.”

Then Esme reaches over and touches Tad on the neck, feeling his pulse. His eyes are still half-open, but he’s no longer babbling about tropical beaches.

“Tad’s dead, Hayden.”

Hayden closes his eyes. Once one goes, he knows the rest of them won’t be far behind. He looks at the machine gun next to him. It’s heavy. It’s loaded. He doesn’t even know if he can lift it anymore, but he does, and although he’s never used it, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. There’s a safety, easily removed. There’s a trigger.

He looks at the suffering kids around him, wondering where “machine-gun fire” falls on the list of bad ways to die. Certainly a quick death is better than a slow one. He considers his options a moment more, then says, “I’m sorry, guys. I’m sorry I failed you . . . but I can’t do this.”

Then he turns the machine gun toward the cockpit and blasts out the windshield, flooding the ComBom with cool, fresh air.

He wakes up in a comfortable bed, in a comfortable room, with a computer, a late-model TV, and sports posters all over the walls. He’s groggy enough to think he actually might be in heaven, but nauseous enough to know he’s not.

“I know you’re pissed at me, Connor, but I had to do it.”

He turns to see Lev sitting in the corner, in a chair that’s painted with footballs and soccer balls and tennis balls to match the decor of the room.

“Where are we?”

“We’re in Sunset Ridge Homes, model number three: the Bahaman.”

“You brought me to a model home?”

“I figured we both deserved comfortable beds, at least for one night. It’s a trick I learned from my days on the streets. Security patrols are looking for thieves, not squatters. They roll past but never go into model homes unless they see or hear something suspicious. So as long as you don’t snore too loud, you’re fine.” Then he adds, “Of course, we’ve gotta be out by ten; that’s when they open. I stayed too late at a model once and nearly scared a realtor to death.”

Connor pulls himself to the edge of the bed. On TV is a news report. Aftermath and analysis of the AWOL raid at the airplane graveyard.

“It’s been on the news since last night,” Lev tells him. “Not enough to preempt the infomercials and stuff, but at least the Juvies aren’t hiding it.”

“Why would they hide it?” Connor says. “It’s their stinking moment of glory.”

On TV, a spokesperson for the Juvenile Authority
announces that the count of AWOLs killed was thirty-three. The number brought in alive is 467.
“With so many, we’ll have to divvy them out to various harvest camps,”
the man says, not even realizing the irony in using the word “divvy.”

Connor closes his eyes, which makes them burn. Thirty-three dead, 467 caught. If Starkey got away with about a hundred fifty, that leaves maybe sixty-five who managed to escape on foot. Not nearly enough. “You shouldn’t have taken me, Lev.”

“Why? Would you rather be a trophy to go along with their collection of Unwinds? If they find out that the Akron AWOL is alive, they’ll crucify you. Trust me, that’s one thing I know about.”

“The captain is supposed to go down with the ship.”

“Unless the first mate knocks him out and throws him in a lifeboat.”

Connor just glares at him.

“Fine,” says Lev. “You wanna punch me?”

Connor chuckles at that and looks at his right arm. “Careful what you ask for, Lev—I pack quite a punch these days.” Then he shows Lev the tattoo.

“Yeah, I noticed that. There must be a story there. I mean, you hated Roland, right? Why’d you get the same tattoo?”

Now Connor laughs out loud. Hard to imagine that Lev doesn’t even know—but then, how could he? “Yeah, there’s a story,” he says. “Remind me to tell you about it someday.”

Onscreen, they’ve cut live to the Graveyard, where “an unfolding drama” is taking place. One last batch of AWOLs has held off the Juvies by holing up inside an old World War II bomber.

“It’s the ComBom! Hayden held them off all night!” For Connor it’s almost like victory.

The ComBom hatch opens, and Hayden comes out, carrying
a limp kid in his arms. He’s followed by a bunch of other kids, none of them in good shape. The Juvies move in, and so do the media.

“We’re witnessing the capture of the final AWOL Unwinds. . . .”

The reporters don’t get close enough to stick microphones in Hayden’s face, but they don’t have to. In spite of the Juvies’ attempt to spirit him into the transport van, he shouts loud enough for everyone to hear.

“We are not just AWOLs! We are not just parts! We are whole human beings—and history will look back on these times in shame!”

They shove him and the other kids into the van, but before they slam the door, Hayden shouts,
“To the new Teen Uprising!”

Then the van carries them away.

“Way to go, Hayden,” says Connor. “Way to go!”

The news briefly reports on the plane that got away, but as that’s an embarrassment to the Juvies, not much is said. At first they had forced a plane to land in Dallas, thinking it was the AWOL Dreamliner, but it turned out to be a passenger flight from Mexico City. There have been unconfirmed reports of a plane going down in a California lake, but nothing further is said. Connor suspects the plane that went down is the Dreamliner—and as much as he’d like to see Starkey at the bottom of a lake, Connor hopes the storks survived the crash. That would be more AWOLs who got away from the Juvies.

Damn Starkey! He brought the Juvies down on them, then took half the weapons, hijacked their only means of escape, and left everyone else high and dry. And yet as much as Connor wants to blame it all on Starkey, he can’t help but feel the brunt of the blame. He was the one who trusted Starkey to begin with, allowing him to amass power among the storks.

When it’s clear that the news has moved on to other
subjects—weather woes and celebrities behaving badly—Connor turns off the TV. “Nine thirty. Almost time to move on.”

“Actually, there’s one more thing I want to show you before we go.” Lev goes to the room’s computer and pulls up, of all things, a website for hot tubs.

“Uh . . . sorry, Lev, I’m not in the market for a Jacuzzi.”

Lev is stymied for a moment, until Connor notices the mistake. “YouTube has an
e
at the end.”

“Duh!” Lev types it over. “I was never good at keyboarding.”

He tries again and this time gets it right. Lev clicks on a video, and Connor’s heart just about stops. It’s yet another news interview with Risa.

“I don’t want to see it.” Connor reaches to turn it off, but Lev grasps his wrist.

“Yes, you do.”

And although the last thing Connor wants to see is another sales pitch for unwinding, he gives in, bracing himself for whatever he’s about to see.

He can tell right away from the look on Risa’s face that she has a single-minded determination she didn’t have in the other interview he saw.

He watches in amazement as, in less than two minutes, she blasts Proactive Citizenry, the Juvies, and unwinding so completely there’s no doubt which side she’s on. The show’s anchorman is left scrambling to pick up the pieces.

“They were blackmailing her!” Connor feels his eyes get moist. He knew there had to be an explanation, but he had become so jaded against everyone and everything, he was willing to believe that Risa had chosen to heal herself at everyone else’s expense. Now he’s ashamed of himself for thinking that.

“Proactive Citizenry has already released a statement denying it,” Lev tells him. “They claim
she’s
the one who used
them
.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s hope nobody’s stupid enough to believe them.”

“Some people are, some aren’t.”

Connor looks to Lev and smiles, realizing that getting tranq’d kind of put a damper on their reunion. “It’s good to see you, Lev.”

“Same here.”

“What’s with the hair?”

Lev shrugs. “It’s a look.”

They hear a car pulling up in the sales office parking lot. Time to go.

“So what do we do now? Lev asks. “I’m kind of AWOL from the Anti-Divisional Resistance. . . .”

“The ADR has become useless. If the best they can do is send AWOLs to a holding pen for the Juvies, then something’s not working. Someone needs to rethink things.”

“Why not you?” Lev suggests.

“Why not us?” Connor counters.

Lev considers it. “Well . . . you’re a martyr and I’m a patron saint—I can’t think of anyone better! So where do we start?”

It’s a big question. Where do you begin to change the world? Connor thinks he may have the answer. “Have you ever heard of Janson Rheinschild?”

Even before he comes fully to his senses, he knows something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. He opens his eyes to scorching daylight. He’s lying in a ditch. His body aches. One side of his face feels as if it’s on fire.

He was tranq’d. Not just once, but repeatedly, and by his own damn gun! Enough sedatives to knock him out for maybe
twelve hours. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been eaten alive by desert scavengers—but from the pain in his left leg, and bloody holes in his stolen uniform, clearly something tried. Nelson wonders how long he’s been in the sun. Long enough for half his face to be swollen and throbbing from a second-degree sunburn.

He had him! He had Connor Lassiter, and now he has nothing but the tattered clothes on his back. It was the tithe! How could Nelson have been so careless! He should have killed Lev when he had the chance, but out of the kindness of his heart, he had let the boy live.

And here is the result of kindness.

The two will already be far from here, covering their tracks. His laptop held the codes of Lev’s tracking nanites. Without his computer, they’re useless. Nelson will not give up. He will find them. Tracking has always been his specialty, and this setback? It’s nothing! It will only make him more determined, more ruthless in achieving his goal.

He climbs out of the ditch and marches, weak-legged, but strong-willed, like a zombie, toward Tucson. He will catch the Akron AWOL, deliver him to Divan, and be there to witness his unwinding—but the tithe will not meet such a merciful end. When Nelson finds Lev, he will visit upon the boy such wrath it will make the very ground tremble. Of this, Nelson can be sure. Just thinking about it fills him with enough joy and purpose to propel him down the long road to Tucson, and dark destinies beyond.

“Flagstaff doesn’t look much like south Arizona,” says Lev. “Looks more like Denver or something.”

“Denver doesn’t look like Denver,” Connor tells him. “I was
there once. It doesn’t have crazy mountain views like you’d think. The views here are better.” After being so long in the south Arizona desert, Connor is thankful for the dramatic change in scenery. With white-capped mountains to the north and an abundance of pine trees, he knows they can’t be too far from the town of Happy Jack and the dead harvest camp, but he tries not to think about that. The past is the past.

They’ve stopped at a diner on historic Route 66, and, bucking the paranoia that the past year has infused them with, they have dinner in full view of anyone who cares to notice them. No one does.