UnSouled

She bumps her head hard on a rock jutting from the low-slung ceiling. She doesn’t even realize where she was going until her head smacks that rock.

“You again?” Hayden says when he sees her. This time, he’s actually loading a cart with food for the evening meal.

Bam turns to his guard. “Go get me something to drink.”

He looks confused. “But all the water and stuff is in here.”

“Fine. Then go get me some sushi!”

“Huh?”

“Could you really be that stupid? Just get the hell out of here!”

“Yes, Miss Bam.” He hurries out, practically tripping over his weapon.

Hayden is amused. “ ‘Miss Bam.’ Sounds like a good name for a kindergarten teacher. Have you ever considered the profession?”

“I don’t like children.”

“You don’t like adults much either. Or, for that matter, anything in between.”

For some reason, that makes tears rise like bile in her, but she bears down and holds them in, refusing to let Hayden see them.

“You’re bleeding,” Hayden says. Concerned, he takes a step toward her, but she waves him off.

“I’m fine.” She touches her head. There’s a small cut where she bumped it on the ceiling. The least of her problems. She’ll make an appointment with the kid with the dental floss. “We need to talk.”

“About?”

She checks to make sure the guard hasn’t come back and they are truly alone. “I promised you’d have my ear. So bend it. Now.”

54 • Force

The raid comes without warning, like a team of Juvie-rounders in the night. A real special-ops team—nothing like the playacting kids Starkey calls special ops. The invaders tranq the storks guarding the entrance to the mine before they can even raise their weapons and flood into the tunnels, tranq’ing anyone who comes into view. Their directive is simple: Get to Mason Starkey.

The commotion wakes kids deeper in the mine in time for them to scramble for weapons, which they’ve learned to use without hesitation and without fear. They bring several of the intruders down, but there are more behind them—and this force is armed with weapons the storks have never seen: squad machine guns that spray tiny tranq-tipped darts at such an alarming rate, they create an inescapable wall of unconsciousness before them. The layers of protection surrounding Starkey peel away until he’s exposed and vulnerable before the invading force.

Starkey swings his own weapon up, but fumbles with it just long enough for his attackers to grab it and grab him.

The entire operation is over in less than five minutes.

55 • Starkey

It was madness to believe he was untouchable. He knows that now. The storks’ hiding place was well concealed, but the Juvies are skilled at ferreting out the most resistant of AWOLs. Starkey struggles, but it’s no use—and his ruined hand is in such pain from the iron grip of his assailants that the rest of his body drains of strength, just as it had when Bam had grabbed him.

All around him in the tunnels are the unconscious bodies of his precious storks with tiny spots of blood dotting their clothes where the tranq darts embedded in their skin. No one’s fighting anymore. Anyone still conscious is on the run. The storks know they are outarmed and outclassed.

“Go deeper into the mine!” Starkey yells to them. “Deep as you can go. Don’t let them take you alive.”

Although he’s terrified, he holds in his heart the anger that he’s wielded so well and the knowledge that as a martyr he will live forever.

Wind whips the entrance of the mine, but it’s not a natural wind. A helicopter darker than the night descends from above, tumbleweeds exploding out from its landing spot, as if racing to escape its crushing weight. This time Starkey has no trick up his sleeve to escape capture, so he embraces it. I am important enough to be taken by helicopter, he thinks.

The door is opened, and he’s thrown inside, landing on all fours. His left hand feels like it will shatter all over again. Why don’t they tranq me? I can’t bear this. I want it over.

He feels the vertical acceleration of the helicopter lifting off, and when he looks up, he sees within this large industrial helicopter a sight he was not expecting. The space, rather than being filled with steel restraining chairs, is richly appointed. It’s a lavish sanctuary of leather, brass, and polished wood, more like the cabin of a yacht than the inside of a helicopter.

A man in dress slacks and a comfortable sweater sits in one of several plush chairs facing a television screen. He pauses the TV with a remote, swivels to face Starkey—and Starkey wonders, as nausea and disorientation fill him, if maybe he was tranq’d after all, and this is a momentary hallucination before he passes out entirely. But his vision holds; the scene before him is real, and his dizziness is nothing more than the motion of the helicopter.

“Mason Michael Starkey,” says the man. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

He has dark hair, graying at the temples. He speaks crisp English with no hint of any regional accent and diction so perfect, it’s unsettling.

“What’s going on?” Starkey asks, knowing he must, even if he doesn’t want to know the answer.

“Not what you think,” the man tells him. “Come sit. We have things to discuss.” He points a remote at the TV, starting a paused recording. It’s a collection of news bytes, all featuring Starkey. “You’re an overnight sensation,” the man says.

Starkey rallies his fortitude and struggles to stand. The helicopter lists slightly starboard, and he has to hold the wall for balance. He moves no closer.

“Who are you?”

“A friend. That’s all you really need to know, isn’t it? As for my name, well, a name is a curious thing. Names can define us, and I do not wish to be defined. At least not in the current context.”

Starkey, however, overheard a name mentioned while he was being captured. In the turmoil, he hadn’t grasped it, but he does remember the first letter. “Your last name,” says Starkey in defiance of the man, “starts with a ‘D.’ ”

The man bristles, but only slightly. He pats the chair beside him. “Please sit, Mason. You never know when we’ll hit some unexpected turbulence.”

Reluctantly Starkey takes a seat. He figures this guy is going to try to offer him a deal—but what kind of deal could it possibly be? They’ve already captured him and the Stork Brigade. Perhaps they think he knows the whereabouts of Connor Lassiter—but even if he did, Starkey’s now a bigger prize for the Juvenile Authority. Why would they even negotiate?

“You’ve created quite a lot of consternation and confusion out there,” the man says. “People hate you; people love you—”

“I don’t care what people think,” Starkey snarls.

“Oh, you most certainly do,” the man says with such condescension, Starkey wants to strike out at him but knows that wouldn’t be wise. “We should all monitor our image in this world. Give it the proper spin to meet our best interests.”

He knows this man is toying with him, but toward what end? Starkey hates this sense of not being in control.

Finally the man turns off the TV and swivels his chair so that he’s fully facing Starkey. “I represent a movement that very much approves of your actions and the apparent madness of your methods because we know it’s not madness at all.”

Again, this is not what Starkey was expecting. “A movement?”

“I’d call it an organization, but just like a name, it would define us far more than would be prudent.”

“You still haven’t told me what you want.”

He smiles broadly. It is neither warm nor comforting. “We want the liberation of harvest camps, and more to the point, the punishment of those who run them. That’s something we’d very much like to see more of.”

This still feels like it must be a trick. “Why?”

“Our movement thrives on chaos because disruption brings about change.”

Starkey suspects he knows what the man is talking about, although he’s almost afraid to say the word aloud. “Clappers?”

He offers that cool smile again. “You’d be amazed how deep the roots of the movement go and how committed people are. We’d like you to join us, if you’re willing.”

Starkey shakes his head. “I will not become a clapper.”

The man actually laughs. “No, we’re not asking you to. What a waste that would be for everyone. We simply want to help you in your efforts in any way we can.”

“And what do you want in return?”

The man turns on the video again. On the screen is a shot looking down the long room of the girls’ dormitory at MoonCrater and the five lifeless workers lynched from ceiling fans. “More iconic images such as you’ve created here,” he says brightly. “Images that will haunt the souls of mankind for generations.”

Starkey considers the scope of the undertaking. The power it will bring for the storks. The notoriety it will bring him. “I can do that.”

“I hoped you would say that. We have a wealth of state-of-the-art weaponry and dedicated, if somewhat fanatical, followers willing to sacrifice themselves to create trigger points of mayhem.” Then he holds out his hand for Starkey to shake—but it’s his left hand held out, not his right. He’s done that intentionally. “Consider us your partner, Mason.” And although Starkey’s left hand is still throbbing with pain, he extends it and lets the man grasp it. He bites back the searing sting, because Starkey knows, when it comes to alliances, it’s the pain that seals the pact.

• • •

The helicopter flight is a journey to nowhere. It circles back when the conversation is over and the partnership has been struck, leaving Starkey off where he was picked up, near the entrance to the mine.

There is a heightened sense of reality to everything around Starkey now. A sense that he’s not so much walking but levitating a fraction of an inch above the ground. As he steps into the cavelike entrance of the mine, everything around him seems to be moving differently—not so much in slow motion, but a sort of lateral peeling, as if the world is parting for his presence. Kids in the mine are beginning to regain consciousness. The fast-acting tranq darts were also short-lived, for the purpose was not to catch the storks but to incapacitate them long enough to pull Starkey out for his summit meeting.

Kids who managed to avoid the darts are doing their best to revive the others. When they see Starkey, they stand in awe. It must be what the kids at Happy Jack felt when they saw Connor Lassiter walking out of the Chop Shop alive.

“He escaped!” they yell, relaying the good news down into the deeper tunnels of the mine. “Starkey escaped!”

Jeevan comes up to him. “What happened?” he asks. “How did you get away? Why didn’t they take us?”

“No one’s taking us anywhere,” Starkey tells him. “We’ve got a lot of work to do—but it can wait until morning.” He orders the unconscious to be covered with blankets and moves through the mine, calming fears and telling everyone to get a good night’s rest. “We have exciting days ahead.”