UnSouled

Connor views some of the ads the communications seem to indicate. If Connor is piecing it all together correctly, then Proactive Citizenry, under different nonprofit names, is behind all the political adds in support of teenage unwinding. That’s no surprise—in fact, Connor had already suspected that. What surprises him is that Proactive Citizenry is also behind the ads against the unwinding of teenagers but in favor of shelling prisoners and the voluntary unwinding of adults.

“Eye-opening, isn’t it? Even if one of those eyes isn’t yours.”

Connor turns to see Cam sitting up in bed, watching him wade through the material. “And this is just the opening of the rabbit hole,” Cam says. “I guarantee you there’s darker, scarier stuff to find, the deeper we go.”

“I don’t get it.” Connor points to the various windows of political ads on the desktop, ads that blast the Juvenile Authority and call the unwinding of kids unethical. “Why would Proactive Citizenry play both sides?”

“Two-headed coin,” Cam says. Then he asks the strangest question. “Tell me, Connor, is this the first time you’ve been pregnant?”

“What?”

“Just answer the question, yes or no.”

“Yes. I mean no! Shut up! What kind of stupid-ass question is that?”

Cam smiles. “You see? You’re damned no matter how you answer. By playing both sides, Proactive Citizenry keeps people focused on choosing between two different kinds of unwinding, making people forget that the real question . . .”

“Is whether or not anyone should be unwound at all.”

“Nail on the head,” says Cam.

Now it makes perfect sense. Connor thinks back to all the things Trace Neuhauser had told him back in the Graveyard about the shrewd, insidious nature of Proactive Citizenry’s dealings. Their subtle manipulation of the Juvenile Authority. The way they used the Admiral to warehouse Unwinds for them, all the while the Admiral—and then Connor—truly believing they were giving safe sanctuary to those kids.

“So whichever side wins, it keeps the status quo,” Connor says. “People get unwound and the Unwinding Consortium still gets rich.”

“The Unwinding Consortium?”

“It’s what a friend once called all the people who make their money from unwinding. The companies who own the harvest camps, hospitals who do the transplants, the Juvenile Authority . . .”

Cam considers it with a single raised eyebrow that throws the symmetrical seams on his forehead out of balance and says. “All roads lead to Rome. Unwinding is the single most profitable industry in America—maybe even the world. An economic engine like that protects itself. We’ll have to be smarter than they are to break it down.” And then Cam smiles. “But they made one big mistake.”

“What’s that?”

“They built someone who’s smarter than they are.”

• • •

Cam and Connor pore over the information for another hour. But there’s so much, it’s hard to pull out what’s important and what’s not.

“There are financial records,” Cam tells Connor. “They show huge amounts of money disappearing, as if into a black hole.”

“Or a rabbit hole,” suggests Connor.

“Exactly. If we can figure out where that money’s going, I think we’ll have the sword upon which Proactive Citizenry will impale itself.” Then Cam gets quiet. “I think they’re funding something very, very dark. I’m almost afraid to find out what it is.”

And although Connor won’t admit it, he is too.

53 • Bam

She carries out orders. She takes care of the new arrivals. She tries not to think about the MoonCrater five. That’s what the media calls the harvest camp workers whom Starkey hung. They’re martyrs now—evidence, according to some political pundits, of why certain incorrigible teens simply need to be unwound.

Two storks were killed and seven injured in the fake battle that Bam waged at the outer gate, for while Bam and her team weren’t actually trying to kill anyone, the guards firing at them were. That they even made it out of there was a miracle. In the end, their assault served its purpose. It appeared to be a botched attempt to break into the camp—until the security force released the dormitory building from lockdown and found what they found.

Five people lynched in the MoonCrater dormitory.

The pictures are as disturbing as anything Bam has seen in history books.

Busy. She must keep herself busy. The storks were separated from the nonstorks right after they arrived back at the mine. This time rather than just leaving the unchosen to fend for themselves in the middle of nowhere, Bam arranged for them to be taken to Boise—the nearest major city. They’d be on their own, but at least they’d have the camouflage of concrete and crowds to keep them hidden. And who knows, maybe the ADR will find them and give them sanctuary. That is if the ADR even exists anymore.

Five people.

The boys’ head counselor, a janitor, an office worker, a chop-shop nurse, and the chef’s boyfriend, who was visiting the wrong place on the wrong weekend.

And now, thanks to the one woman whose life he spared, everyone knows the name Mason Michael Starkey.

“Congratulations,” she told him when she had calmed down enough to speak to him without raging. “You’re now Public Enemy Number One.” To her disbelief, it actually made him smile.

“How could that possibly be a good thing?”

“I’m feared,” he told her. “I’m a force to be reckoned with. They know that now.”

And in the two days since the MoonCrater liberation, the fervent, ferocious, and almost viral support he gets from storks attests to his new larger-than-life status. It’s not just from the Stork Brigade, either. Whole online communities have sprung up out of nowhere. “Storks unite!” they proclaim and “Ride, Starkey, ride,” like he’s some sort of Jesse James robbing stagecoaches. It seems everyone who’s ever known him has tried to hop on his coattails to steal their own fifteen minutes of fame, posting stories and pictures of him, so the world knows every bit of his pre-AWOL life and every angle of his face.

It comes to light that he shot and killed one of the Juvey-rounders who picked him up from his home for unwinding, painting him in an even more dangerous light—and yet incredibly, the more vilified he is by polite society, the more support he gets from the disenfranchised.

Wrap it all together, and Starkey has achieved exactly what he wanted. His name has eclipsed the name of Connor Lassiter.

Because he hung five people in cold blood. Who knows how many it will be next time?

No! Bam can’t let herself think that way. It’s her job to shed light on the positive side. Hundreds of Unwinds saved. A rattling of the status quo. Bam reminds herself that she agreed to be a part of this. Back in the airplane graveyard, Starkey had put his faith in her when no one else would. He chose her to be his second in command in all things—if not his confidant, then at least his sounding board. She owes him allegiance in spite of everything. He’s taken on this mission to be the Savior of Storks, to be a voice for the voiceless, and he’s succeeding. Who is she to question his methods?

But Hayden has been questioning since the moment he arrived, if only to her and only when she will put up with it. He defied Starkey right to his face, though, when he found out about the hangings, refusing to return to the computer, wanting nothing to do with the next liberation. Starkey was furious, of course. He roared like a hurricane, but Hayden, who Bam never thought had much of a backbone, stood up to him.

“I won’t work for a terrorist,” Hayden had told him. “So behead me right here, or get the hell out of my face.” Had it been in front of anyone other than Bam and Jeevan, Starkey might actually have obliged an old-fashioned head rolling, to set an example for the storks. Those of them who still believed Hayden had collaborated with the Juvies would have welcomed it. But then Starkey’s anger suddenly broke and he began laughing, which somehow gave him more power in the moment than his anger had. If you can’t win, then make a joke out of it. That had always been Hayden’s MO, but Starkey had now stolen that from him.

“Never try to be serious, Hayden—it’s too funny.” Then he put Hayden back on food inventory, as if it had been his plan all along. “A menial job for a mediocre mind.”

Well, apparently, Hayden’s mind isn’t as mediocre as Starkey would like to think, because a day and a half later, Starkey sends Bam on a mission to coax Hayden back to the computer room. As if she’ll have any more sway than Starkey. Gentle persuasion is not one of Bam’s gifts—and Hayden has already shown that he won’t be bullied. It’s a fool’s errand, but lately, she’s been feeling very much the fool.

She finds Hayden in the supply room, sitting against a support beam in that central patch of darkness. He’s not doing much in terms of inventory and distribution, it seems. Although he’s writing in the inventory notebook. When the guard on Hayden duty sees her, he stands and hefts his weapon, trying to pretend like he hadn’t been dozing on a sack of rice.

Hayden doesn’t even look up at her as she approaches.

“Why are you writing in the dark?”

“Because I’m such an awful writer, it’s best no one sees it—not even me.”

She steps into the pool of darkness to find it’s not all that dark after all. It just seems that way when coming from the lighter edge. He doesn’t stand up to greet her; he just continues writing.

“So what is it?”

“I’m keeping a journal of my time here. That way, when it’s our turn to hang for the things we’re doing, there’ll be a record of what really happened. I’m calling it ‘Starkey’s Inferno,’ although I’m not quite sure which level of hell this is.”

“They don’t hang people anymore,” Bam points out. Then she thinks of Starkey’s lynchings. “Or at least they don’t hang people officially.”

“True. I suppose they’ll just shell us. Or at least they will if those shelling laws pass.” He closes the notebook and looks up at her for the first time. “The Egyptians were the first to think of shelling. Did you know that? They mummified their leaders to preserve their bodies for the afterlife—but before they sent them on their unmerry way, they sucked their brains out of their heads.” He pauses to consider it. “Geniuses, those Egyptians. They knew the last thing a pharaoh needs is a brain of his own, or he might do some real damage.”

Finally he stands to face her. “So what are you doing here, Bam? What do you want?”

“We need you to show Jeevan how to break through firewalls. You don’t have to do any of the breaking; you just need to show him.”

“Jeevan knows how to defeat firewalls—he did it all the time at the Graveyard. If he’s not doing it, it’s because he doesn’t want to but he’s afraid to tell the Stork Lord.”

“The Stork Lord—is that what the media’s calling him now?