Unwind

51. Camp

On the existence of a soul, whether unwound or unborn, people are likely to debate for hours on end, but no one questions whether an unwinding facility has a soul. It does not. Perhaps that’s why those who build these massive medical factories try so hard to make them kid-conscious and user-friendly, in a number of ways.

First of all, they are no longer called unwinding facilities, as they were when they were first conceived. They are now called harvest camps.

Secondly, every single one of them is located in a spectacularly scenic location, perhaps to remind its guests of the big picture, and the reassuring majesty of a larger plan.

Third, the grounds are as well maintained as a resort, filled with bright pastel colors and as little red as possible, since red is psychologically associated with anger, aggression, and, not coincidentally, blood.

Happy Jack Harvest Camp, in beautiful Happy Jack, Arizona, is the perfect model of what a harvest camp should be. Nestled on a pine-covered ridge in northern Arizona, the sedating forest views give way to the breathtaking red mountains of Sedona to the west. No doubt it was the view that made happy men of the twentieth century—lumberjacks who founded the town. Hence the name.

The boys’ dormitory is painted light blue, with green accents. The girls’ is lavender, with pink. The staff have uniforms that consist of comfortable shorts and Hawaiian shirts, except for the surgeons in the medical unit. Their scrubs are sunshine yellow.

There’s a barbed-wire fence, but it’s hidden behind a towering hibiscus hedge—and although the Unwinds in residence see the crowded buses arriving at the front gate each day, they are spared the sight of departing trucks. Those leave the back way.

The average stay for an Unwind is three weeks, although it varies depending on blood type and supply and demand. Much like life in the outside world, no one knows when it’s their time.

Occasionally, in spite of the professional and positive attitude of the staff, outbursts do occur. This week’s rebellion is in the form of graffiti on the side of the medical clinic that reads, YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE.

On the fourth of February, three kids arrive by police escort. Two are brought unceremoniously into the welcome center, just like any other arriving Unwinds. The third is singled out to take the longer route that passes by the dormitories, the sports fields, and all the various places where Unwinds are gathered.

Hobbled by leg shackles, constricted by handcuffs, Connor’s strides are short, his posture hunched. Armed Juvey-cops are on either side, in front of and behind him.

All things at Happy Jack are serene and gracious—but this moment is the exception to the rule. Once in a while, a particularly troublesome Unwind is singled out and publicly humbled for all to see before being set loose into the general population. Invariably, that Unwind will try to rebel and, invariably, that Unwind will be taken to the clinic and unwound within just a few days of his or her arrival.

It stands as an unspoken warning to every Unwind there. You will get with the program, or your stay here will be very, very short. The lesson is always learned.

However, this time, what the Happy Jack staff doesn’t know is that Connor Lassiter’s reputation has preceded him. The staff’s own announcement that they’ve taken down the Akron AWOL does not deflate the spirits of the Unwinds there. Instead, it takes a boy who was only a rumor and turns him into a legend.

52. Risa

“Before we begin our session, I feel it’s important to remind you that although you’ve developed a friendship with the so-called Akron AWOL, it’s in your best interests to dissociate yourself from him.”

The first thing they did was to separate the three of them. Divide and conquer, isn’t that the term? Risa has no problem being separated from Roland, but seeing what they did to Connor makes her long to see him even more.

Physically, he was not harmed in any way. It would not do to damage the merchandise. Psychologically, however, that’s a different story. They paraded him through the grounds for nearly twenty minutes. Then they took off his shackles and just left him there by the flagpole. No trip to the “welcome center,” no orientation, nothing. He was left to figure everything out for himself. Risa knew the point wasn’t to challenge him, or even to punish him. It was to give him every opportunity to do the wrong thing. That way, they could justify any punishment they gave. It had worried Risa, but only for a moment—because she knows Connor all too well. He will only do the wrong thing when it’s the right thing to do.

“It looks like you did very well on the aptitude tests, Risa—above average, actually. Good for you!”

After being there for half a day, Risa is still shell-shocked by the general appearance of Happy Jack Harvest Camp. In her mind’s eye she always pictured harvest camps as human cattle stockades: dead-eyed crowds of malnourished kids in small gray cells—a nightmare of dehumanization. Yet somehow this picturesque nightmare is worse. Just as the airplane graveyard was Heaven disguised as Hell, harvest camp is Hell masquerading as Heaven.

“You seem to be in good physical condition. You’ve been getting a lot of exercise, yes? Running, perhaps?”

Exercise seems to be a principal component of the Unwind’s day. At first she assumed the various activities were designed to keep the Unwinds occupied until their number came up. Then, as she passed a basketball game on the way to the welcome center, she noticed a totem pole by the court. In the eyes of each of the five totems were cameras. Ten players, ten cameras. It meant that someone, somewhere, was studying each of the Unwinds in that game, taking notes on eye-hand coordination, gauging the strengths of various muscle groups. Risa had quickly realized that the basketball game wasn’t to keep the Unwinds entertained, but to help put a cash value on their parts.

“Over the next few weeks you’ll be involved in a program of diverse activities. Risa, dear, are you listening? Is any of this going over your head—would you like me to slow down?”

The harvest counselor who interviews her seems to assume that, in spite of aptitude scores, every Unwind must be an imbecile. The woman wears a floral print blouse with lots of leaves and pink flowers. Risa would like to attack her with a weed whacker.

“Do you have any questions or concerns, dear? If you do, there’s no better time to ask.”

“What happens to the bad parts?”

The question seems to throw the woman off stride. “Excuse me?”

“You know—the bad parts. What do you do with the club feet, and the deaf ears? Do you use those in transplants?”

“You don’t have either of those, do you?”

“No—but I do have an appendix. What happens to that?”

“Well,” says the counselor with near infinite patience, “a deaf ear is better than no ear at all, and sometimes it’s all people can afford. And as for your appendix, nobody really needs that anyway.”

“Then, aren’t you breaking the law? Doesn’t the law specify that you have to keep 100 percent of an Unwind alive?”

The smile has begun to fade from the counselor’s face. “Well, actually it’s 99.44 percent, which takes into account things like the appendix.”

“I see.”

“Our next bit of business is your preadmission questionnaire. Due to your unorthodox arrival, you never had the opportunity to fill one out.” She flips through the pages of the questionnaire. “Most of the questions don’t matter at this point . . . but if you have any special skills you’d like to let us know about—you know, things that could be of use to the community during your stay here . . .”

Risa wishes she could just get up and leave. Even now, at the end of her life, she still has to face that inevitable question, What good are you?

“I have some medical experience,” Risa tells her flatly. “First aid, CPR.”

The woman smiles apologetically. “Well, if there’s one thing we have too many of here, it’s medical staff.” If the woman says “well” one more time, Risa may just drop her down a nice deep one. “Anything else?”

“I helped in the infant nursery back at StaHo.”

Again that slim smile. “Sorry. No babies here. Is that all?”

Risa sighs. “I also studied classical piano.”

The woman’s eyebrows raise about an inch. “Really? You play piano? Well, well, well!”

53. Connor

Connor wants to fight. He wants to mistreat the staff and disobey every rule, because he knows if he does, it will get this over with faster. But he won’t give in to the urge for two reasons. One: It’s exactly what they want him to do. And two: Risa. He knows how it will devastate her to see him led to the Chop Shop. That’s what the kids call it, “the Chop Shop”—although they never say it in front of the staff.

Connor is a celebrity in his dormitory. He finds it absurd and surreal that the kids here see him as some sort of symbol, when all he did was survive.

“It can’t be all true, right?” the kid who sleeps in the bed next to his asks the first night. “I mean, you didn’t really take on an entire squad of Juvey-cops with their own tranq guns.”

“No! It’s not true,” Connor tells him, but denying it just makes the kid believe it even more.

“They didn’t really shut down entire freeways looking for you,” another kid says.

“It was just one freeway—and they didn’t shut it down. I did. Sort of.”

“So, then it is true!”

It’s no use—no amount of downplaying the story can convince the others that the Akron AWOL is not some larger-than-life action figure.

And then there’s Roland, who as much as he despises Connor, is now riding Connor’s fame wave for all it’s worth. Although Roland’s in another unit, wild stories are already getting back to Connor about how he and Roland stole a helicopter and liberated a hundred Unwinds being held in a Tucson hospital.

Connor considers telling them that all Roland did was turn them in, but decides life is literally too short to start things up with Roland again.

There’s one kid Connor speaks to who actually listens and can tell the truth from the fabrications. His name is Dalton. He’s seventeen but short and stocky, with hair that has a mind of its own. Connor tells him exactly what happened on that day he went AWOL. It’s a relief to have someone believe the truth. Dalton, however, has his own perspective on it.

“Even if that’s all that happened,” Dalton says, “it’s still pretty impressive. It’s what the rest of us wish we could have done.”

Connor has to admit that he’s right.

“You’re, like, king of the Unwinds here,” Dalton tells him, “but guys like you get unwound real quick—so watch yourself.” Then Dalton takes a long look at him. “You scared?” he asks.

Connor wishes he could tell him different, but he won’t lie. “Yeah.”

He seems almost relieved that Connor’s scared too. “In group they tell us that the fear will pass and we’ll get to a place of acceptance. I’ve been here almost six months, and I’m just as scared as the day I got here.”

“Six months? I thought everyone goes down in just a few weeks.”

Dalton leans in close and whispers, as if it’s dangerous information. “Not if you’re in the band.”

A band? The thought of there being music at a place where lives are silenced doesn’t sit well with Connor.

“They set us up on the roof of the Chop Shop and have us play while they’re bringing kids in,” Dalton says. “We play everything—classics, pop, Old World rock. I’m the best bass player this place has ever seen.” And then he grins. “You should come listen to us tomorrow. We just got a new keyboard player. She’s hot.”

Volleyball in the morning. Connor’s first official activity. Several staffers in their rainbow of flowered shirts stand on the sidelines with clipboards, because apparently the volleyball court isn’t equipped with twelve individual cameras.

From behind them, on the roof of the chop shop, music plays. Dalton’s band. It’s their sound track for the morning.

The opposing team completely deflates when they see Connor, as if his mere presence will ensure their loss. Never mind that Connor stinks at volleyball; to them the Akron AWOL is a star in every sport. Roland’s on the opposing team as well. He doesn’t wilt like the others—he just glares, holding the volleyball, ready to serve it down Connor’s throat.

The game begins. The intensity of play can only be matched by an undercurrent of fear that runs beneath every tap of the ball. Both teams play as if the losers will be immediately unwound. Dalton had told Connor that it doesn’t work that way, but losing can’t help, either. It reminds Connor of the Mayan game of pokatok—something he learned about in history class. The game was a lot like basketball, except that the losers were sacrificed to the Mayan gods. At the time Connor thought it was cool.

Roland spikes the ball, and it hits one of the staffers in the face. Roland grins before he apologizes and the man glares at him, making a note on his clipboard. Connor wonders if it will cost Roland a few days.

Then suddenly, the game pauses, because everyone’s attention begins to shift to a group of kids in white, passing the far side of the court.

“Those are tithes,” a kid tells Connor. “You know what those are, right?”

Connor nods. “I know.”

“Look at them. They think they’re so much better than everyone else.”

Connor has already heard how tithes are treated differently than the regular population. “Tithes” and “Terribles,” that’s how the staff refers to the two kinds of Unwinds. Tithes don’t participate in the same activities as the terribles. They don’t wear the same blue and pink uniforms the terribles wear. Their white silk outfits are so bright in the Arizona sun, you have to squint your eyes when you look at them, like they were adolescent versions of God himself—although to Connor they look more like a little squad of aliens. The terribles hate the tithes the way peasants despise royalty. Connor might have once felt the same way, but having known one, he feels more sorry for them than anything else.

“I hear they know the exact date and time of their unwinding,” one kid says.

“I hear they actually make their own appointment!” says another.

The ref blows his whistle, “All right, back to the game.”

They turn away from the bright white uniforms of the chosen few, and add one more layer of frustration to the match.

For a moment, as the tithes disappear over a hillside, Connor thinks that he recognizes a face among them, but he knows it’s just his imagination.

54. Lev

It’s not Connor’s imagination.

Levi Jedediah Calder is one of the very special guests of Happy Jack Harvest Camp, and he is wearing his tithing whites once more. He does not see Connor on the volleyball court because the tithes are strictly instructed not to look at the terribles. Why should they? They have been told from birth they are of a different caste and have a higher calling.

Lev may still have the remnants of a sunburn, but his hair is cut short and neat, just as it used to be, and his manner is sensitive and mild. At least on the outside.

He has an appointment for unwinding in thirteen days.

55. Risa

She plays on the roof of the Chop Shop, and her music carries across the fields to the ears of more than a thousand souls waiting to go under the knife. The joy of having her fingers on the keys again can only be matched by the horror of knowing what’s going on beneath her feet.

From her vantage point on the roof she sees them brought down the maroon flagstone path that all the kids call “the red carpet.” Kids who walk the red carpet have guards flanking them on either side, with firm grips on their upper arms—firm enough to restrain them, but not enough to bruise them.

Yet in spite of this, Dalton and the rest of his band play like it doesn’t matter at all.

“How can you do this?” she asks during one of their breaks. “How can you watch them day after day, going in and never coming out?”

“You get used to it,” the drummer tells her, taking a swig of water. “You’ll see.”

“I won’t! I can’t!” She thinks about Connor. He doesn’t have this same reprieve from unwinding. He doesn’t stand a chance. “I can’t be an accomplice to what they’re doing!”

“Hey,” says Dalton, getting annoyed. “This is survival here, and we do what we have to do to survive! You got chosen because you can play, and you’re good. Don’t throw it away. Either you get used to kids walking down the red carpet or you’ll be on it yourself, and we’ll have to play for you.”

Risa gets the message, but it doesn’t mean she has to like it. “Is that what happened to your last keyboard player?” Risa asks. She can tell it’s a subject they’d rather not think about. They look at one another. No one wants to take on the question. Then the lead singer answers with a nonchalant toss of her hair, like it doesn’t matter. “Jack was about to turn eighteen, so they took him a week before his birthday.”

“He was not a very happy Jack,” says the drummer, and hits a rim shot.

“That’s it?” says Risa. “They just took him?”

“Business is business,” says the lead singer. “They lose a ton of money if one of us turns eighteen, because then they’ve got to let us go.”

“I’ve got a plan, though,” says Dalton, winking at the others, who have obviously heard this before. “When I’m getting close to eighteen, and they’re ready to come for me, I’m jumping right off this roof.”

“You’re going to kill yourself?”

“I hope not—it’s only two stories, but I’ll sure get busted up real bad. See, they can’t unwind you like that; they have to wait until you heal. By then I’ll be eighteen and they will be screwed!” He high-fives the drummer, and they laugh.

Risa can only stare in disbelief.

“Personally,” says the lead singer, “I’m counting on them lowering the legal age of adulthood to seventeen. If they do, I’ll go to the staffers and counselors, and the friggin’ doctors. I’ll spit right in their faces—and they won’t be able to do anything but let me walk right out that gate on my own two legs.”

Then the guitar player, who hasn’t said a word all morning, picks up his instrument.

“This one’s for Jack,” he says, and begins playing the opening chords to the prewar classic “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

The rest of them join in, playing from the heart, and Risa does her best to keep her eyes away from the red carpet.

56. Connor

The dormitories are divided into units. There are thirty kids per unit—thirty beds in a long, thin room with large shatterproof windows to bring in the cheerful light of day. As Connor prepares for dinner he notices that two beds in his unit have been stripped, and the kids who slept in them are nowhere to be seen.

Everyone notices but no one talks about it, except one kid who takes one of the bunks because his mattress has broken springs.

“Let a newbie have the broken one,” he says. “I’m gonna be comfortable my last week.”

Conner can’t remember either the names or the faces of the missing kids, and that haunts him. The whole day weighs heavily on him—the way the kids think he can somehow save them, when he knows he can’t even save himself. The way the staff keeps waiting for him to make a mistake. His one joy is knowing that Risa is safe, at least for now.

He had seen her after lunch when he stopped to watch the band. He had been searching for her everywhere, and all that time she was right there in plain view, playing her heart out. She had told him she played piano, but he never gave it much thought. She’s amazing, and now he wishes he had taken more time to get to know who she was before she escaped from that bus. When she saw him watching that afternoon, she smiled—something she rarely did. But the smile was quickly replaced by a look that registered the reality. She was up there, and he was down here.

Connor spends so much time with his thoughts in the dormitory that, when he looks up, he realizes that everyone in the unit has already left for dinner. As he gets up to leave, he sees someone lurking at the door and stops short. It’s Roland.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Connor says.

“No, I’m not,” says Roland, “but thanks to you, I am.”

“That’s not what I mean. If you get caught out of your unit, it’s a mark against you. They’ll unwind you sooner.”

“Nice of you to care.”

Connor heads for the doorway, but Roland blocks his path. For the first time Connor notices that in spite of Roland’s muscular build, they’re not all that different in height. Connor always thought Roland towered over him. He doesn’t.

Connor prepares himself for whatever Roland might have up his sleeve and says, “If you’re here for a reason, get on with it. Otherwise, step aside so I can get to dinner.”

The look on Roland’s face is so toxic it could take out an entire unit. “I could have killed you a dozen times. I should have—because then we wouldn’t be here.”

“You turned us in at the hospital,” Connor reminds him. “If you hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be here. We all would’ve made it safely back to the Graveyard!”

“What Graveyard? There’s nothing left. You locked me in that crate and let them all destroy it! I would have stopped it, but you never gave me the chance!”

“If you were there, you would have found a way to kill the Admiral yourself. Hell, you would have killed the Goldens if they weren’t already dead! That’s what you are! That’s who you are!”

Roland suddenly gets very quiet, and Connor knows he’s gone too far.

“Well, if I’m a killer, I’m running out of time,” says Roland. “I better get to it.” He begins swinging, and Connor is quick to defend, but soon it’s more than just defending himself. Connor taps into his own wellspring of fury, and he lets loose a brutal offensive of his own.

It’s the fight they never had in the warehouse. It’s the fight Roland wanted when he had cornered Risa in the bathroom. Both of them fuel their fists with a world’s worth of anger. They smash against walls and bedframes, relentlessly pummeling each other. Connor knows this is not like any fight he’s ever had before, and although Roland doesn’t have a weapon, he doesn’t need one. He’s his own weapon.

As well as Connor fights, Roland is simply stronger, and as Connor’s strength begins to fade, Roland grabs him by the throat and slams him against the wall, his hand pressed against Connor’s windpipe. Connor struggles, but Roland’s grip is way too strong. He slams Connor against the wall over and over, never loosening that grip on his neck.

“You call me a killer, but you’re the only criminal here!” screams Roland. “I didn’t take a hostage! I didn’t shoot a Juvey-cop! And I never killed anyone! Until now!” Then he squeezes his fingers together and shuts off Connor’s windpipe completely.

Connor’s struggles become weaker without oxygen to feed his muscles. His chest heaves against the absence of air, and his vision begins to darken until all he can see is Roland’s furious grimace. Would you rather die, or be unwound?

Now he finally knows the answer. Maybe this is what he wanted. Maybe it’s why he stood there and taunted Roland. Because he’d rather be killed with a furious hand than dismembered with cool indifference.

Connor’s eyesight fills with frantic squiggles, the darkness closes in, and his consciousness fails.

But only for an instant.

Because in a moment his head hits the ground, startling him conscious again—and when his vision starts to clear he sees Roland looking down on him.

He’s just standing there, staring. To Connor’s amazement, there are tears in Roland’s eyes that he tries to hide behind his anger, but they’re still there. Roland looks at the hand that came so close to taking Connor’s life. He wasn’t able to go through with it—and he seems just as surprised as Connor.

“Consider yourself lucky,” Roland says. Then he leaves without another word.

Connor can’t tell whether Roland is disappointed or relieved that he’s not the killer he thought he was, but Connor suspects it’s a little bit of both.

57. Lev

The tithes at Happy Jack are like first-class passengers on the Titanic.

There’s plush furniture throughout the tithing house. There’s a theater, a pool, and the food is better than homemade. Sure, their fate is the same as the “terribles,” but at least they’re getting there in style.

It’s after dinner, and Lev is alone in the tithing house workout room. He stands on a treadmill that isn’t moving, because he hasn’t turned it on. On his feet are thickly padded running shoes. He wears a double pair of socks to cushion his feet even more. However, his feet are not his concern at the moment—it’s his hands. He stands there staring at his hands, lost in the prospect of them. Never before has he been so intrigued by the lines across his palms. Isn’t one of them supposed to be a life line? Shouldn’t the life line of a tithe divide out like the branches of a tree? Lev looks at the swirls of his fingerprints. What a nightmare of identification it must be when other people get an Unwind’s hands. What can fingerprints mean when they’re not necessarily yours?

No one will be getting Lev’s fingerprints. He knows this for a fact.

There are tons of activities for the tithes, but unlike the terribles, no one is forced to participate. Part of preparation for tithing is a month long regimen of mental and physical assessments even before one’s tithing party, so all the hard work is done at home, before they get here. True, this isn’t the harvest camp he and his parents had chosen, but he’s a tithe—it’s a lifetime pass that’s good anywhere.

Most of the other tithes are in the rec room at this time of the evening, or in any number of prayer groups. There are pastors of all faiths in the tithing house—ministers, priests, rabbis, and clerics—because that notion of giving the finest of the flock back to God is a tradition as old as religion itself.

Lev attends as often as necessary, and in Bible study he says just enough of the right things so as not to look suspect. He also keeps his silence when Bible passages become shredded to justify unwinding, and kids start to see the face of God in the fragments.

“My uncle got the heart of a tithe and now people say he can perform miracles.”

“I know this woman who got a tithe’s ear. She heard a baby crying a block away, and rescued it from a fire!”

“We are Holy Communion.”

“We are manna from Heaven.”

“We are the piece of God in everyone.”

Amen.

Lev recites prayers, trying to let them transform him and lift him up like they used to, but his heart has been hardened. He wishes it could be hard enough to be diamond instead of crumbling jade—maybe then he’d have chosen a different path. But for who he is now, for what he feels and what he doesn’t feel, the path is right. And if it’s not right, well, he doesn’t care enough to change it.

The other tithes know Lev is different. They’ve never seen a fallen tithe before, much less one who, like the prodigal son, has renounced his sins and returned to the fold. But then, tithes don’t generally know many other tithes.

Being surrounded by so many kids just like them feeds that sense of being a chosen group. Still, Lev is outside of that circle.

He turns the treadmill on, making sure his strides are steady and his footfalls as gentle as can be. The treadmill is state-of-the-art. It has a screen with a programmable vista: You can jog through the woods, or run the New York Marathon. You can even walk on water. Lev was prescribed extra exercise when he arrived a week ago. That first day, his blood tests showed high triglyceride levels. He’s sure that Mai’s and Blaine’s blood tests showed the same problem as well—although the three of them were “captured” independently and arrived a few days apart from one another, so no connection among the three of them could be made.

“Either it runs in your family or you’ve had a diet high in fats,” the doctor had said. He prescribed a low-fat diet during his stay at Happy Jack, and suggested additional exercise. Lev knows there’s another reason for the high triglyceride level. It’s not actually triglyceride in his bloodstream at all, but a similar compound. One that’s a little less stable.

Another boy enters the workout room. He has fine hair so blond it’s practically white, and eyes so green, there must have been some genetic manipulation involved. Those eyes will go for a high price. “Hi, Lev.” He gets on the treadmill next to Lev and begins running. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just running.”

Lev knows the kid didn’t come here of his own accord. Tithes are never supposed to be left alone. He was sent here to be Lev’s buddy.

“Candlelighting will be starting soon. Are you coming?”

Every evening, a candle is lit for each tithe being unwound the next day. The honored kids each give a speech. Everyone applauds. Lev finds it disgusting. “I’ll be there,” Lev tells the kid.

“Have you started working on your speech yet?” he asks. “I’m almost done with mine.”

“Mine’s still in bits and pieces,” Lev says. The joke goes over the kid’s head.

Lev turns off the machine. This kid will not leave him alone as long as he’s here, and Lev really doesn’t want to talk to him about the glory of being a chosen one.

He’d rather think about those who aren’t chosen, and are lucky enough to be far from the harvest camp—like Risa and Connor, who to the best of his knowledge are still in the sanctuary of the Graveyard. It’s a big comfort to know that their lives will continue even after he’s gone.

There’s an old trash shed behind the dining room that’s no longer in use.

Lev found it last week, and decided it was the perfect place for secret meetings.

When he arrives that evening, Mai is pacing in the small space. She’s been getting more and more nervous each day. “How long are we going to wait?” she asks.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Lev asks. “We’ll wait until the time is right.”

Blaine pulls out six small paper packets from his sock, tears one open, and pulls out a little round Band-Aid.

“What’s that for?” Mai asks.

“For me to know and for you to find out.”

“You’re so immature!”

Mai always has a short fuse, especially when it comes to Blaine, but tonight there seems to be more rumbling beneath the surface of her attitude. “What’s wrong, Mai?” Lev asks.

Mai takes a moment before answering. “I saw this girl today playing piano on the Chop Shop roof. I know her from the Graveyard—and she knows me.”

“That’s impossible. If she’s from the Graveyard, why would she be here?” asks Blaine.

“I know what I saw—and I think there are other kids here I know from the Graveyard too. What if they recognize us?”

Blaine and Mai look to Lev as if he can explain it. Actually, he can. “They must be kids who were sent out on a job and got caught, that’s all.”

Mai relaxes. “Yeah. Yeah, that must be it.”

“If they recognize us,” says Blaine, “we can say the same thing happened to us.”

“There,” says Lev. “Problem solved.”

“Good,” says Blaine. “Back to business. So . . . I’m thinking we go for the day after tomorrow, on account of I’m scheduled for a game of football the day after that, and I don’t think it’ll go very well.”

Then he hands two of the little Band-Aids to Mai and two to Lev.

“What do we need Band-Aids for?” Mai asks.

“I was told to give these to you after we got here.” Blaine dangles one from his fingers, like a little flesh-colored leaf. “They’re not Band-Aids,” he says. “They’re detonators.”

There was never a job on an Alaskan pipeline. After all, what Unwind would volunteer for such a job? The whole point was to make sure no one but Lev, Mai, and Blaine volunteered. Their van had taken them from the Graveyard to a rundown house, in a run-down neighborhood where people who had been run down by life plotted unthinkable deeds.

Lev was terrified of these people, and yet he felt a kinship with them. They understood the misery of being betrayed by life. They understood what it felt like to have less than nothing inside you. And when they told Lev how important he was in the scheme of things, Lev felt, for the first time in a long time, truly important.

The word “evil” was never used by these people—except to describe the evils of what the world had done to them. What they were asking Lev, Mai, and Blaine to do wasn’t evil—no, no, no, not at all. It was an expression of all the things they felt inside. It was the spirit, and the nature, and the manifestation of all they had become. They weren’t just messengers, they were the message. This is what they filled Lev’s mind with, and it was no different than the deadly stuff they filled his blood with. It was twisted. It was wrong. And yet it suited Lev just fine.

“We have no cause but chaos,” Cleaver, their recruiter, was always so fond of saying. What Cleaver never realized, even at the end of his life, is that chaos is as compelling a cause as any other. It can even become a religion to those unlucky enough to be baptized into it, those whose consolation can only be found in its foul waters.

Lev does not know of Cleaver’s fate. He does not know, or care, that he himself is being used. All Lev knows is that someday soon the world will suffer a small part of the loss and the emptiness and the utter disillusionment he feels inside. And they will know the moment he raises his hands in applause.

58. Connor

Connor eats his breakfast as quickly as he can. It’s not because he’s hungry but because he has somewhere else he wants to be. Risa’s breakfast hour is right before his. If she’s slow, and he’s quick, they can force their paths to cross without attracting the attention of the Happy Jack staff.

They meet in the girls’ bathroom. The last time they were forced to meet in a place like this, they took separate, isolated stalls. Now they share one. They hold each other in the tight space, making no excuses for it. There’s no time left in their lives for games, or for awkwardness, or for pretending they don’t care about each other, and so they kiss as if they’ve done it forever. As if it is as crucial as the need for oxygen.

She touches the bruises on his face and neck, the ones he got from his fight with Roland. She asks what happened. He tells her it’s not important. She tells him she can’t stay much longer, that Dalton and the other band members will be waiting for her on the Chop Shop roof.

“I heard you play,” Connor tells her. “You’re amazing.”

He kisses her again. They don’t speak of unwinding. In this moment none of that exists. Connor knows they would take this further if they could—but not here, not in a place like this. It will never happen for them, but somehow he’s content in knowing that in some other place and time it would have. He holds her for ten seconds, twenty. Thirty. Then she slips away, and he returns to the dining hall. In a few minutes he hears her playing, the strains of her music pouring forth, filling Happy Jack with the upbeat, pulse-pounding sound track of the damned.

59. Roland

They come for Roland that same morning, right after breakfast. A harvest counselor and two guards corner him in the dormitory hallway, isolating him from the others.

“You don’t want me,” Roland says desperately. “I’m not the Akron AWOL; Connor’s the one you want.”

“I’m afraid not,” says the counselor.

“But . . . but I’ve only been here a few days. . . .” He knows why this happened. It’s because he hit that guy with the volleyball, that must be it. Or it’s because of his fight with Connor. Connor turned him in! He knew Connor would turn him in!

“It’s your blood type,” the counselor says. “AB negative—it’s rare and in very high demand.” He smiles. “Think of it this way, you’re worth more than any other kid in your unit.”

“Lucky you,” says one of the guards as he grabs Roland by the arm.

“If it’s any consolation,” says the counselor, “your friend Connor is scheduled for unwinding this afternoon.”

Roland’s legs feel weak as they bring him out into the light of day. The red carpet stretches out before him, the color of dried blood. Any time kids cross that terrible stone path, they always jump over it as if touching it were bad luck. Now they won’t let Roland step off of it.

“I want a priest,” says Roland. “They give people priests, right? I want a priest!”

“Priests give last rites,” says the counselor, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “That’s for people who are dying. You’re not dying—you’ll still be alive, just in a different way.”

“I still want a priest.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

The band on the roof of the Chop Shop has begun their morning set. They play a familiar dance tune, as if to mock the dirge playing inside his head. He knows Risa is in the band now. He sees her up there playing the keyboard. He knows she hates him but still he waves to her, trying get her attention. Even an acknowledgment from someone who hates him is better than having no one but strangers watch him perish.

She doesn’t turn her eyes toward the red carpet. She doesn’t see him. She doesn’t know. Perhaps someone will tell her he was unwound today. He wonders what she’ll feel.

They’ve reached the end of the red carpet. There are five stone steps leading to the doors of the Chop Shop. Roland stops at the bottom of the steps. The guards try to pull him along, but he shakes them off.

“I need more time. Another day. That’s all. One more day. I’ll be ready tomorrow. I promise!”

And still, above him, the band plays. He wants to scream, but here, so close to the Chop Shop, his screams will be drowned out by the band. The counselor signals to the guards. They grab him more firmly just beneath the armpits, forcing him to take those five steps. In a moment he’s through the doors, which slide closed behind him, shutting out the world. He can’t even hear the band anymore. The Chop Shop is soundproof. Somehow he knew it would be.

60. Harvest

No one knows how it happens. No one knows how it’s done. The harvesting of Unwinds is a secret medical ritual that stays within the walls of each harvesting clinic in the nation. In this way it is not unlike death itself, for no one knows what mysteries lie beyond those secret doors, either.

What does it take to unwind the unwanted? It takes twelve surgeons, in teams of two, rotating in and out as their medical specialty is needed. It takes nine surgical assistants and four nurses. It takes three hours.

61. Roland

Roland is fifteen minutes in.

The medical staff that buzz around him wear scrubs the color of a happyface.

His arms and legs have been secured to the operating table with bonds that are strong but padded so he won’t hurt himself if he struggles.

A nurse blots sweat from his forehead. “Relax, I’m here to help you through this.”

He feels a sharp pinprick in the right side of his neck, and then in the left side.

“What’s that?”

“That,” says the nurse, “is the only pain you’ll be feeling today.”

“This is it, then,” Roland says. “You’re putting me under?”

Although he can’t see her mouth beneath her surgical mask, he can see the smile in her eyes.

“Not at all,” she says. “By law, we’re required to keep you conscious through the entire procedure.” The nurse takes his hand. “You have a right to know everything that’s happening to you, every step of the way.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“You will,” says one of the surgical assistants, wiping Roland’s legs down with brown surgical scrub. “Everybody does.”

“We’ve just inserted catheters into your carotid artery and jugular vein,” says the nurse. “Right now your blood is being replaced with a synthetic oxygenrich solution.”

“We send the real stuff straight to the blood bank,” says the assistant at his feet. “Not a bit gets wasted. You can bet, you’ll be saving lives!”

“The oxygen solution also contains an anaesthetic that deadens pain receptors.” The nurse pats his hand. “You’ll be fully conscious, but you won’t feel a thing.”

Already Roland feels his limbs starting to go numb. He swallows hard. “I hate this. I hate you. I hate all of you.”

“I understand.”

Twenty-eight minutes in.

The first set of surgeons has arrived.

“Don’t mind them,” says the nurse. “Talk to me.”

“What do we talk about?”

“Anything you want.”

Someone drops an instrument. It clatters on the table and falls to the floor.

Roland flinches. The nurse holds his hand tighter.

“You may feel a tugging sensation near your ankles,” says one of the surgeons at the foot of the table. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

Forty-five minutes in.

So many surgeons, so much activity. Roland couldn’t remember ever having so much attention directed at him. He wants to look, but the nurse holds his focus. She’s read his file. She knows everything about him. The good and the bad.

The things he never talks about. The things he can’t stop talking about now.

“I think it’s horrible what your stepfather did.”

“I was just protecting my mother.”

“Scalpel,” says a surgeon.

“She should have been grateful.”

“She had me unwound.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her.”

“All right, clamp it off.”

An hour and fifteen.

Surgeons leave, new ones arrive. The new ones take an intense interest in his abdomen. He looks toward his toes but can’t see them. Instead he sees a surgical assistant cleaning the lower half of the table.

“I almost killed a kid yesterday.”

“That doesn’t matter now.”

“I wanted to do it, but I got scared. I don’t know why, but I got scared.”

“Just let it go.” The nurse was holding his hand before. She’s not anymore.

“Strong abdominal muscles,” says a doctor. “Do you work out?”

A clanging of metal. The lower half of the table is unhooked and pulled away. It makes him think of when he was twelve and his mom took him to Las Vegas. She had dropped him off at a magic show while she played the slots. The magician had cut a woman in half. Her toes were still wiggling, her face still smiling. The audience gave him thunderous applause.

Now Roland feels discomfort in his gut. Discomfort, a tickling sensation, but no pain. The surgeons lift things away. He tries not to look, but he can’t help it.

There’s no blood, just the oxygen-rich solution, which is flourescent green, like antifreeze.

“I’m scared,” he says.

“I know,” says the nurse.

“I want you all to go to Hell.”

“That’s natural.”

One team leaves; another comes in. They take an intense interest in his chest.

An hour forty-five.

“I’m afraid we need to stop talking now.”

“Don’t go away.”

“I’ll be here, but we won’t be able to talk anymore.”

The fear surrounds him, threatening to take him under. He tries to replace it with anger, but the fear is too strong. He tries to replace it with the satisfaction that Connor will be taken very soon, but not even that makes him feel better. “You’ll feel a tingling in your chest,” says a surgeon. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

Two hours, five minutes.

“Blink twice if you can hear me.”

Blink, blink.

“You’re being very brave.”

He tries to think of other things, other places, but his mind keeps being drawn back to this place. Everyone’s so close around him now. Yellow figures lean all around him like flower petals closing in. Another section of the table is taken away. The petals move in closer. He does not deserve this. He has done many things, not all good, but he does not deserve this.

And he never did get his priest.

Two hours, twenty minutes.

“You’ll feel a tingling in your jaw. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Blink twice if you can hear me.”

Blink, blink.

“Good.”

He locks his eyes on the nurse, whose eyes still smile. They always smile.

Someone made her have eternally smiling eyes.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to stop blinking now.”

“Where’s the clock?” says one of the surgeons.

“Two hours, thirty-three minutes.”

“We’re running late.”

Not quite darkness, just an absence of light. He hears everything around him but can no longer communicate. Another team has entered.

“I’m still here,” the nurse tells him, but then she falls silent. A few moments later he hears footsteps, and he knows she’s left.

“You’ll feel a tingling in your scalp,” says a surgeon. “It’s nothing to worry about.” It’s the last time they talk to him. After that, the doctors talk like Roland is no longer there.

“Did you see yesterday’s game?”

“Heartbreaker.”

“Splitting the corpus callosum.”

“Nice technique.”

“Well, it’s not brain surgery.” Laughter all around.

Memories tweak and spark. Faces. Dreamlike pulses of light deep in his mind. Feelings. Things he hasn’t thought about in years. The memories bloom, then they’re gone. When Roland was ten, he broke his arm. The doctor told his mom he could have a new arm, or a cast. The cast was cheaper. He drew a shark on it. When the cast came off he got a tattoo to make the shark permanent.

“If they had just made that three-pointer.”

“It’ll be the Bulls again. Or the Lakers.”

“Starting on the left cerebral cortex.”

Another memory tweaks.

When I was six, my father went to jail for something he did before I got born. I never knew what he did, but Mom says I’m just the same.

“The Suns don’t stand a chance.”

“Well, if they had a decent coaching staff . . .”

“Left temporal lobe.”

When I was three, I had a babysitter. She was beautiful. She shook my sister. Real hard. My sister got wrong. Never got right again. Beautiful is dangerous. Better get them first.

“Well, maybe they’ll make the playoffs next year.”

“Or the year after that.”

“Did we get the auditory nerves?”

“Not yet. Getting them right n—”

I’m alone. And I’m crying. And no one’s coming to the crib. And the nightlight burned out. And I’m mad. I’m so mad.

Left frontal lobe.

I . . . I . . . I don’t feel so good.

Left occipital lobe.

I . . . I . . . I don’t remember where . . .

Left parietal lobe.

I . . . I . . . I can’t remember my name, but . . . but . . .

Right temporal.

. . . but I’m still here.

Right frontal.

I’m still here . . .

Right occipital.

I’m still . . .

Right parietal.

I’m . . .

Cerebellum.

I’m . . .

Thalamus.

I . . .

Hypothalamus.

I . . .

Hippocampus.

. . .

Medulla.

. . .

. . .

. . .

“Where’s the clock?”

“Three hours, nineteen minutes.”

“All right, I’m on break. Prep for the next one.”

62. Lev

The detonators are hidden in a sock in the back of his cubby. Anyone who finds them will think they’re Band-Aids. He tries not to think about it. It’s Blaine’s job to think about it, and to tell him when it’s time.

Today Lev’s unit of tithes are taking a nature walk to commune with creation. The pastor who leads them is one of the more self-important ones. He speaks as if every word out of his mouth were a pearl of wisdom, pausing after each thought as if he expects someone to write it down.

He leads them to an odd winter-bare tree. Lev, who is used to winters with ice and snow, finds it odd that trees in Arizona still lose their leaves. This tree has a multitude of branches that don’t quite match, each with different bark and a different texture.

“I wanted you to see this,” the pastor says to the crew. “It’s not much to see now, but, oh, you should see it in the spring. Over the years many of us have grafted branches from our favorite trees to the trunk.” He points to the various limbs. “This branch sprouts pink cherry blossoms, and this one fills with huge sycamore leaves. This one fills with purple jacaranda flowers, and this one grows heavy with peaches.”

The tithes examine it, touching its branches cautiously, as if it might at any moment turn into the burning bush. “What kind of tree was it to begin with?” asks one of the tithes.

The pastor can’t answer him. “I’m not sure, but it really doesn’t matter—what matters is what it’s become. We call it our little ‘tree of life.’ Isn’t it wonderful?”

“There’s nothing wonderful about it.” The words are out of Lev’s mouth before he realizes he’s spoken them, like a sudden, unexpected belch. All eyes turn toward him. He quickly covers. “It’s the work of man, and we shouldn’t be prideful,” he says. “ ‘When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but with humility comes wisdom.’ ”

“Yes,” says the pastor. “Proverbs—eleven, isn’t it?”

“Proverbs 11:2.”

“Very good.” He appears suitably humbled. “Well, it is pretty in the spring.”

Their path back to the tithing house takes them by fields and courts where the terribles are being observed and brought to the best possible physical condition before their unwinding. The tithes endure the occasional jeers and hisses from the terribles, like martyrs.

It’s as they pass one of the dormitories that Lev finds himself face-to-face with someone he never expected to see again. He finds himself standing in front of Connor.

Each was heading in a different direction. Each sees the other at the same instant and stops short, staring in absolute shock.

“Lev?”

Suddenly the pompous pastor is there, grabbing Lev by both shoulders. “Get away from him!” the pastor snarls at Connor. “Haven’t you done enough damage already?” Then he spirits Lev away, leaving Connor standing there.

“It’s all right,” says the pastor, his protective grip on Lev’s shoulders still firm as they stride away. “We’re all aware of who he is and what he did to you. We were hoping you wouldn’t find out he was at the same harvest camp. But I promise you, Lev, he will never harm you again.” And then he says quietly, “He’s being unwound this afternoon.”

“What?”

“And good riddance, too!”

It’s not unusual to see tithes unsupervised on the grounds of Happy Jack, although they’re usually in clusters—or at the very least, groups of two. It’s rare to see one hurrying alone, almost running across the fields.

Lev hadn’t lingered long once he got back to the tithing house—he took the first opportunity to slip out. Now he searches everywhere for Blaine and Mai.

Connor is being unwound this afternoon. How could this have happened?

How did he get here? Connor was safe at the Graveyard. Did the Admiral throw him out, or did he leave on his own? Either way, Connor must have been caught and brought here. The one thing Lev had taken comfort in—the safety of his friends—has now been torn away. Connor’s unwinding must not be allowed . . . and it’s in Lev’s power to stop it.

He finds Blaine in the grassy commons between the dining hall and the dormitories, being put through a regimen of calisthenics with his unit. Blaine does them oddly, putting as little force into them as possible, making all his moves low-impact.

“I need to talk to you.”

Blaine looks at him, surprised and furious. “What, are you crazy? What are you doing here?”

A staffer sees him and makes a beeline toward them—after all, everyone knows tithes and terribles do not mix.

“It’s all right,” Lev tells the staffer, “I know him from home. I just wanted to say good-bye.”

The staffer reluctantly nods his approval. “All right, but make it quick.”

Lev pulls Blaine aside, making sure they’re far enough away that nobody can hear. “We’re doing it today,” Lev tells him. “No more waiting.”

“Hey,” says Blaine, “I decide when we do it, and I say not yet.”

“The longer we wait, the longer we risk going off by accident.”

“So? Randomness works too.”

He wants to hit Blaine but knows if he does they’ll probably leave a crater in the field fifty yards wide, so he tells Blaine the only thing he knows for sure will get him to give in, “They know about us,” whispers Lev.

“What?”

“They don’t know who it is, but they know there are clappers here—I’m sure they’re reviewing the blood tests right now, looking for anything unusual. It won’t be long until they find us.”

Blaine grits his teeth and curses. He thinks for a moment, then starts shaking his head. “No. No, I’m not ready.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re ready. You want chaos? Well, it’s coming today, whether you want it or not—because if they find us, what do you think they’ll do?”

Blaine looks even sicker at the prospect. “They’ll detonate us in the forest?”

“Or out in the desert where no one will ever know.”

Blaine considers it for a moment more, then takes a deep shuddering breath. “I’ll find Mai at lunch and tell her. We’ll go at two o’clock sharp.”

“Make it one.”

Lev rummages through his cubby, getting more and more frantic. Those socks have to be here! They have to be—but he can’t find them. The detonators aren’t crucial, but they’re cleaner. Lev wants it to be clean. Clean and quick.

“That’s mine.”

Lev turns to see the towheaded kid with the emerald-green eyes standing behind him. “That’s my cubby. Yours is over there.”

Lev looks around and realizes he’s off by one bed. There’s nothing in the unit to identify one bed, or one cubby, from another.

“If you need socks, I can lend you.”

“No, I’ve got enough of my own, thanks.” He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes to get his panic under control, and goes to the right cubby. The sock with the detonators is there. He slips it in his pocket.

“You okay, Lev? You look kinda funny.”

“I’m fine. I’ve just been running, that’s all. Running on the treadmill.”

“No, you haven’t,” says the kid. “I was just in the gym.”

“Listen, mind your own business, okay? I’m not your buddy, I’m not your friend.”

“But we oughta be friends.”

“No. You don’t know me. I’m not like you, okay, so just leave me alone!”

Then he hears a deeper voice behind him. “That’s enough, Lev.”

He turns to see a man in a suit. It’s not one of the pastors but the counselor who admitted him a week ago. This can’t be good.

The counselor nods to the towheaded kid. “Thank you, Sterling.” The boy casts his eyes down and hurries out. “We assigned Sterling to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re adjusting. We are, to say the least, concerned.”

Lev sits in a room with the counselor, and two pastors. The sock bulges in his pocket. He bounces his knees nervously, then remembers he’s not supposed to make any jarring motions, or he might detonate. He forces himself to stop.

“You seem troubled, Lev,” says the counselor. “We’d like to understand why.”

Lev looks at the clock. It’s 12:48. Twelve minutes until he, Mai, and Blaine are supposed to meet and take care of business.

“I’m being tithed,” Lev says. “Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

The younger of the two pastors leans forward. “We try to make sure every tithe enters the divided state in the proper frame of mind.”

“We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t try to make things right for you,” says the elder pastor, then offers a smile so forced, it’s more like a grimace.

Lev wants to scream at them, but he knows that won’t get him out of here any faster. “I just don’t like being around other kids right now. I’d rather prepare for this alone, okay?”

“But it’s not okay,” says the older pastor. “That’s not the way we do things here. Everyone supports one another.”

The junior pastor leans forward. “You need to give the other boys a chance. They’re all good kids.”

“Well maybe I’m not!” Lev can’t help but look at the clock again. Twelve fifty. Mai and Blaine will be in place in ten minutes, and what if he’s still here in this stinking office? Won’t that be just great.

“Have somewhere you need to be?” the counselor asks. “You keep checking the time.”

Lev knows his answer needs to make sense or they truly will become suspicious of him. “I . . . I heard the kid who kidnapped me was being unwound today. I was just wondering if it had happened yet.”

The pastors look at one another and at the counselor, who leans back in his chair, as calm as can be. “If he hasn’t been, he will be shortly. Lev, I think it would be healthy for you to discuss what happened to you while you were held hostage. I’m sure it was horrible, but talking about it can take away the power of the memory. I’d like to hold a special group tonight with your unit. It will be a time for you to share with the others what you’ve been holding inside. I think you’ll find they’ll be very understanding.”

“Tonight,” says Lev. “Okay. Fine. I’ll talk about everything tonight. Maybe you’re right and it will make me feel better.”

“We just want to ease your mind,” says one of the pastors.

“So, can I go now?”

The counselor studies him for a moment more. “You seem so tense. I’d like to talk you through some guided relaxation exercises. . . .”

63. Guard

He hates his job, he hates the heat, he hates that he has to stand in front of the Chop Shop for hours guarding the doors, making sure no one unauthorized enters or leaves. He had dreams back in StaHo of starting a business with his buddies, but no one loans start-up money to StaHo kids. Even after he changed his last name from Ward to Mullard—the name of the richest family in town—he couldn’t fool anyone. Turns out half the kids from his state home took on that name when they left, figuring they could outsmart the world. In the end, he outsmarted no one but himself. The best he could do was find a series of unfulfilling jobs in the year he’s been out of StaHo—the most recent of which is being a harvest camp guard.

On the roof, the band has started its afternoon set. At least that helps the time to pass a little more quickly.

Two Unwinds approach, and climb the steps toward him. They’re not being escorted by guards and both carry plates covered with aluminum foil. The guard doesn’t like the look of them. The boy’s a flesh-head. The girl is Asian.

“What do you want? You’re not supposed to be here.”

“We were told to give this to the band.” They both look nervous and shifty.

This is nothing new. All Unwinds get nervous near the Chop Shop—and to the guard, all Unwinds look shifty.

The guard peeks under the aluminum foil. Roast chicken. Mashed potatoes.

They do send food up to the band once in a while, but usually it’s staff that carries the food, not Unwinds. “I thought they just had lunch.”

“Guess not,” says the flesh-head. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere in the world but standing in front of the Chop Shop, so the guard decides to draw it out, making them stand there even longer.

“I’ll have to call this in,” he says. He pulls out his phone and calls the front office. He gets a busy signal. Typical. The guard wonders which he’d get in more trouble for—letting them bring the food in, or turning them away if they really were sent by administration. He considers the plate in the girl’s hands. “Let me see that.” He peels back the foil and takes the largest chicken breast. “Go in through the glass doors, and the stairs are to your left. If I see you go anywhere but up the stairs, I’ll come in there and tranq you so fast, you won’t know what hit you.”

Once they’re inside, they’re out of sight, out of mind. He doesn’t know that although they went into the stairwell, they never brought the food to the band—they just ditched the plates. And he never noticed the little round Band-Aids on their palms.

64. Connor

Connor looks out of the dormitory window, devastated. Lev is here at Happy Jack. How he got here doesn’t matter; all that matters is that Lev will now be unwound. It’s all been for nothing. Connor’s sense of futility makes him feel like a part of himself has already been cut out and taken to market.

“Connor Lassiter?”

He turns to see two guards at the entrance. Around him, most of the kids have left the unit for their afternoon activity. The ones that remain take a quick glance at the guards, and at Connor, then look away, busying themselves in anything that will keep them out of this business.

“Yeah. What do you want?”

“Your presence is requested at the harvest clinic,” says the first guard. The other guard doesn’t talk. He just chomps on chewing gum.

Connor’s first reaction is that this can’t be what it sounds like. Maybe Risa sent them. Maybe she wants to play something for him. After all, now that she’s in the band, she has more influence than the average Unwind, doesn’t she?

“The harvest clinic,” echoes Connor. “What for?”

“Well, let’s just say you’re leaving Happy Jack today.”

Chomp, chomp, goes the other guard.

“Leaving?”

“C’mon, son, do we have to spell it out for you? You’re a problem here. Too many of the other kids look up to you, and that’s never a good thing at a harvest camp. So the administration decided to take care of the problem.”

They advance on Connor, lifting him up by the arms.

“No! No! You can’t do this.”

“We can, and we are. It’s our job—and whether you make it hard, or easy, it doesn’t matter. Our job gets done either way.”

Connor looks to the other kids as if they might help him, but they don’t.

“Good-bye, Connor,” says one, but he won’t even look in Connor’s direction.

The gum-chewing guard looks more sympathetic, which means there might be a way to get through to him. Connor looks at him pleadingly. It makes him stop chewing for an instant. The guard thinks for a moment and says, “I got a buddy looking for brown eyes, on account of his girlfriend don’t like the ones he got. He’s a decent guy—you could do a lot worse.”

“What!”

“We sometimes get dibs on parts and stuff,” he says. “One of the perks of the job. Anyways, all I’m saying is I can give you some peace of mind. You’ll know your eyes won’t go to some lowlife or nothin’.”

The other guard snickers. “Piece of mind. Good one. Okay, time to go.” They pull Connor forward, and he tries to prepare himself, but how do you prepare yourself for something like this? Maybe what they say is right. Maybe it’s not dying. Maybe it’s just passing into a new form of living. It could be all right, couldn’t it? Couldn’t it?

He tries to imagine what it must be like for an inmate to be led to his execution. Do they fight it? Connor tries to imagine himself kicking and screaming his way to the Chop Shop, but what would be the use of that? If his time on Earth as Connor Lassiter is ending, then maybe he should use the time well. He should allow himself to spend his final moments appreciating who he was. No! Who he still is! He should appreciate the last breaths moving in and out of his lungs while those lungs are still under his control. He should feel the tension and release in his muscles as he moves, and see the many sights of Happy Jack with his eyes and store them in his brain.

“Hands off me, I’ll walk by myself,” he orders the guards, and they instantly release him, perhaps surprised by the authority in his voice. He rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and strides forward. The first step is the hardest, but from that moment on he decides that he will neither run nor dawdle. He will neither quiver nor fight. He will take this last walk of his life in steady strides—and in a few weeks from now, someone, somewhere, will hold in their mind the memory that this young man, whoever he was, faced his unwinding with dignity and pride.

65. Clappers

Who can say what goes through the mind of a clapper in the moments before carrying out that evil deed? No doubt whatever those thoughts are, they are lies. However, like all dangerous deceptions, the lies that clappers tell themselves wear seductive disguises.

For clappers who have been led to believe their acts are smiled upon by God, their lie is clothed in holy robes and has outstretched arms promising a reward that will never come.

For clappers who believe their act will somehow bring about change in the world, their lie is disguised as a crowd looking back at them from the future, smiling in appreciation for what they’ve done.

For clappers who seek only to share their personal misery with the world, their lie is an image of themselves freed from their pain by witnessing the pain of others.

And for clappers who are driven by vengeance, their lie is a scale of justice, weighted evenly on both sides, finally in balance.

It is only when a clapper brings his hands together that the lie reveals itself, abandoning the clapper in that final instant so that he exits this world utterly alone, without so much as a lie to accompany him into oblivion.

Or her.

The path that brought Mai to this place in her life was full of fury and disappointment. Her breaking point was Vincent. He was a boy no one knew. He was a boy she met and fell in love with in the warehouse more than a month ago.

He was a boy who died in midair, crammed into a crate with four other kids who choked on their own carbon dioxide. No one seemed to notice his disappearance, and certainly no one cared. No one but Mai, who had found her soul mate, and had lost him that day she arrived in the Graveyard.

The world was to blame, but when she secretly witnessed the Admiral’s golden five burying Vincent and the others, she was able to give faces to her fury.

The Goldens buried Vincent not with respect, but with profanities. They cracked jokes and laughed. They covered the five dead boys carelessly with dirt like cats cover their turds. Mai had never felt such rage.

Once Cleaver befriended her, she told him what she had seen, and he agreed that revenge was in order. It was Cleaver’s idea to kill the Goldens. It was Blaine who drugged them and brought them to the FedEx jet—but it was Mai who sealed the hatch of the crate. It was amazing to her that killing could be as easy as closing a door.

After that, there was no turning back for Mai. Her bed had been made; all that remained was for her to lie in it. She knows that today will be the day she climbs in and goes to her rest.

Once inside the Chop Shop she finds a storage room full of surgical gloves, syringes, and shiny instruments she cannot identify. She knows Blaine is somewhere in the north wing of the building. She expects Lev is in position too, standing on the loading dock at the back of the Chop Shop—at least that’s the plan. It is now one o’clock on the nose. Time to do this.

Mai enters the storage room and closes the door. And waits. She will do this, but not quite yet. Let one of the others go. She refuses to be the first.

Blaine waits in a deserted hallway on the second floor. This area of the Chop Shop doesn’t appear to be in use. He has decided not to use his detonators.

Detonators are for wimps. For a hardcore clapper, a single, powerful clap is enough to bring it on, even without detonators—and Blaine wants to believe he’s hardcore, like his brother was. He stands at the end of the hallway, legs spread to shoulder width, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a tennis player awaiting a serve. His hands are held apart. But he waits. He’s hardcore, yes—but he’s not going first.

Lev has convinced the psychologist that he’s suitably relaxed. It’s the best acting performance of his life, because his heart is racing and there’s so much adrenaline flooding his blood, he’s afraid he’ll spontaneously combust.

“Why don’t you go back to the tithing house?” the doctor suggests. “Spend some time getting to know the other kids. Make an effort, Lev—you’ll be glad you did.”

“Yes. Yes, I’ll do that. Thank you. I feel better now.”

“Good.”

The counselor motions to the pastors and everyone rises. It is 1:04. Lev wants to race out the door, but he knows that will just get him another therapy session. He leaves the office with the pastors, who babble about his place in the scheme of things and the joys of tithing. It’s only as Lev gets outside that he becomes aware of the commotion. Kids are all running from their activities and into the commons between the dormitories and the Chop Shop. Have Blaine and Mai gone off already? He didn’t hear any explosions. No, this is something else.

“It’s the Akron AWOL,” he hears one of the kids shout. “He’s being unwound!”

That’s when Lev spots Connor. He’s halfway down the red carpet, marching with two guards right behind him. Kids have gathered in the grassy commons, but they keep their distance as more kids arrive. They’re spilling out of the dormitories, the dining hall—everywhere.

The band has stopped playing in the middle of a tune. The keyboardist—a girl—wails at the sight of Connor on the red stone path. Connor looks up at her, halts for a second, and blows her a kiss before continuing on. Lev can hear her crying.

Now guards, staffers, and counselors converge on the quad in panic, trying to herd this volatile gathering of kids back to their places, but no one will leave.

The kids just stand there—maybe they can’t stop this, but they can witness it.

They can be there as Connor strides out of this life.

“Let’s hear it for the Akron AWOL!” one boy shouts. “Let’s hear it for Connor!” and he starts to applaud. Soon the entire crowd of kids is applauding and cheering Connor as he marches down the red carpet.

Applause.

Clapping.

Mai and Blaine!

Suddenly Lev realizes what’s about to happen. He can’t let Connor go in there! Not now! He’s got to stop him.

Lev breaks away from the pastors. Connor is almost to the steps of the Chop Shop. Lev races between the kids, but he can’t push his way through them. If he does, he knows he’ll detonate. He must be quick, but he must be careful—and being careful slows him down.

“Connor!” He screams, but the cheers all around him are too loud. And now the band has begun to play again. They’re playing the national anthem, just like they do at the funerals of great Americans. The guards and the staff can’t stop this. They try but they can’t—and they’re so busy trying to control the crowd, they let Lev slip right past onto the red carpet.

Now he has a clear path to Connor, who has begun climbing the steps. Lev screams his name again, but Connor still can’t hear. Although Lev races down the path, he’s still twenty yards away when the glass doors open and Connor steps inside with the guards.

“No! Connor! No!”

But the doors close. Connor is inside the Chop Shop. But he won’t be unwound. He’s going to die just like everyone else inside . . . and as if to complete Lev’s failure, he finally takes a look up at the roof to catch the gaze of the keyboard player looking down at him.

It’s Risa.

How could he have been so stupid? He should have known it was her from the way she wailed, and from the kiss that Connor blew her. Lev stands there, petrified with disbelief . . . And then the world comes to an end.

Blaine still stands at the end of the hall, waiting for someone else to go first.

“Hey! Who are you? What are you doing here?” a guard shouts at Blaine.

“Stay back!” Blaine says. “Stay back, or else!”

The guard pulls out his tranq pistol and speaks into his radio. “I got an Unwind loose up here. I need backup!”

“I’m warning you,” says Blaine. But the guard knows exactly how to deal with an Unwind loose in the Chop Shop. He aims his tranq gun at Blaine’s left thigh, and fires.

“No!”

But it’s too late. The impact of a tranq bullet is more effective than any detonator. Blaine and the guard are instantly incinerated as the six quarts of liquid explosive coursing through Blaine’s body ignites.

Mai hears the explosion. It shakes the entire storage room like an earthquake. She doesn’t think about it. She can’t. Not anymore. She looks at the detonators on her palm. This is for Vincent. This is for her parents, who signed the Unwind order. This is for the whole world.

She claps once.

Nothing.

She claps twice.

Nothing.

She claps a third time.

The third time is the charm.

The moment Risa sees Lev standing below, on the red carpet, an explosion rips through the north wing of the Chop Shop. She turns to see the entire wing crumble. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

“We gotta get out of here!” yells Dalton, but before he can make a move, a second explosion roars beneath them, sending the air-vent caps shooting skyward like rockets. The roof beneath their feet cracks like thin ice, and the entire roof gives way. Risa plunges with the rest of the band into the smoky abyss, and in that instant all she can think of is Connor, and how the band never got to finish playing his farewell anthem.

Lev stands there as the glass blows past him. He sees the band fall as the roof collapses. A howl builds up inside him, escaping his mouth, an inhuman sound born of an agony he can’t describe. His world has truly ended. Now he must finish the job.

Standing there before the ruined building, he pulls out the sock in his pocket. He fumbles with it until he finds the detonators. He peels the backs, revealing the adhesive, and sticks them to his palms. They look like stigmata, the nail wounds in the hands of Christ. Still wailing his agony, he holds his hands up before him, preparing to make the pain go away. He holds his hands up before him. He holds his hands up before him. He holds his hands up before him.

And he cannot bring them together.

He wants to. He needs to. But he can’t.

Make this go away. Please, somebody make this all go away.

No matter how hard he tries, no matter how much his mind wants to end this here and now, another part of him—a stronger part of him—refuses to let him clap his hands together. Now he is even a failure as a failure.

God, dear God, what am I doing? What have I done? How did I get here?

The crowd, which had run at the sound of the blasts, has come back. They ignore Lev, because there’s something else they see.

“Look!” someone shouts. “Look!”

Lev turns to see where the kid is pointing. Coming out of the ruined glass doors of the Chop Shop is Connor. He’s stumbling. His face is a shredded, bloody mess. He’s lost an eye. His right arm is crushed and mangled. But he’s alive!

“Connor blew up the Chop Shop!” someone yells. “He blew it up and saved us all!”

And then a guard bursts onto the scene. “Get back to your dormitories. All of you! Now!”

No one moves.

“Didn’t you hear me?”

Then a kid slams the guard with a right hook that practically spins his whole body around. The guard responds by pulling out his tranq gun and shooting the kid in the offending arm. The kid goes to dreamland, but there are other kids, and they tear the gun out of the guard’s hand, using it against him. Just like Connor once had.

The word that the Akron AWOL blew up the Chop Shop zigs like lightning through every Unwind in Happy Jack, and in seconds, disobedience erupts into a full-scale revolt. Every terrible is now a terror. The guards fire, but there are simply too many kids, and not enough tranq bullets. For every kid that goes down, there’s another kid that doesn’t. The guards are quickly overwhelmed, and once they are, the mob starts storming the front gate.

Connor has no understanding of this event. All he knows is that he was led into the building, then something happened. And now he’s not in the building anymore. His face is wrong. It hurts. It hurts bad. He can’t move his arm. The ground feels strange beneath his feet. His lungs hurt. He coughs and they hurt more.

He’s stumbling down steps now. There are kids here. Lots of kids. Unwinds.

That’s right, he’s an Unwind. They’re all Unwinds. But the meaning of that is slipping from him fast. The kids are running. They’re fighting. Then Connor’s legs give out, and suddenly he’s on the ground. Looking up at the sun.

He wants to sleep. He knows this isn’t a good place, but he wants to anyway.

He feels wet. He feels sticky. Is his nose running?

Then there’s an angel hovering above him, all in white.

“Don’t move,” the angel says. Connor recognizes the voice.

“Hi, Lev. How are things . . . ?”

“Shh.”

“My arm hurts,” Connor says lazily. “Did you bite me again?”

Then Lev does something funny. He takes off his shirt. Then he tears his shirt in half. He presses half the torn shirt to Connor’s face. That makes his face hurt more. He groans. Then Lev takes the other half of his shirt and ties it around Connor’s arm. He ties it tight. That hurts too.

“Hey . . . what . . .”

“Don’t try to talk. Just relax.”

There are others around him now. He doesn’t know who. A kid holding a tranq pistol looks at Lev, and Lev nods. Then the kid kneels down next to Connor.

“This is going to hurt a little,” says the kid with the tranq gun. “But I think you need it.”

He aims uncertainly at various parts of Connor’s body, then settles on Connor’s hip. Connor hears the gunshot, feels a sharp pain in his hip, and as his vision begins to darken he sees Lev hurrying shirtless toward a building that’s pouring out black smoke.

“Weird,” says Connor. Then his mind goes to a quiet place where none of this matters.