UnSouled (23 page)

It makes Connor think of his own world and its own oxymoronic nature. A polite, genteel society that claims compassion and decency as its watch cry, and yet at the same time embraces unwinding. He could call it hypocrisy, but it’s more complex than that. It’s as if everyone’s made an unspoken pact to overlook it. It’s not that the emperor has no clothes. It’s that everyone’s placed him in their blind spot.

So what will it take to make everyone turn and look?

Connor knows he’s an idiot to think he can do anything to change the massive inertia of a world hurtling off its axis. Una’s right—he’s no bigger than anyone else. Smaller really—so small that the world doesn’t even know he exists anymore, so how can he hope to make a difference? He tried—and where did that get him? The hundreds of kids he’d tried to save at the Graveyard are now in harvest camps being unwound, and Risa, the one good thing in his life, has gone as far off the radar as him.

With the impossible weight of the world on their shoulders, how tempting it must be for Lev to imagine disappearing here. But not for Connor. It’s not in his nature to be one with nature. The sound of a crackling fire doesn’t calm him, only bores him. The serenity of a babbling brook is his version of water torture.

“You’re an excitable boy,” his father used to say when he was little. It was a parent’s euphemism for a kid out of control. A kid uncomfortable in his own skin. Eventually his parents weren’t comfortable keeping him in his skin either and signed the dread unwind order.

He wonders when they truly made the decision to unwind him. When did they stop loving him? Or was lack of love not the issue? Were they conned by the many advertisements that said things like “Unwinding—when you love them enough to let them go,” or “Corporeal division; the kindest thing you can do for a child with disunification disorder.”

That’s what they call it. “Disunification disorder,” a term probably coined by Proactive Citizenry to describe a teen who feels like they want to be anywhere else but where they are and in anyone else’s shoes. But who doesn’t feel like that now and then? Granted, some kids feel it more than others. Connor knows he did. But it’s a feeling you learn to live with, and
eventually you harness it into ambition, into drive, and finally into achievement if you’re lucky. Who were his parents to deny him that chance?

Connor shifts positions in his bed and punches his swan-down pillow with his left fist, but switches, realizing it’s far more satisfying when he uses Roland’s hand for punching. Connor has built up his left arm so that it’s almost a match to his right, but when it comes to sheer physical expression, Roland’s arm is the one that makes his brain release endorphins when violently used.

He can’t imagine what it would be like to have an entire body wired to wish damage on everyone and everything around it. Sure, Connor had a little bit of that in him all along, but it only came in fits and starts. Roland, however, was a bashing junkie.

Sometimes, when he knows no one’s watching or listening, Connor will say things to his surgically grafted limb. He calls it “talking to the hand.”

“You’re a basket case, you know that?” he’ll say, when the hand won’t stop clenching. Occasionally he’ll give himself the finger and laugh. He knows the impetus for the gesture is his, but imagining that it’s Roland’s is both satisfying and troublesome at the same time, like an itch that gets worse with each scratch.

Once, at the Graveyard, Hayden had slipped Connor some medicinal chocolate to get him to mellow out a bit. Pharmacologically compounded, genetically engineered cannabis, Connor learned, packs a hallucinogenic wallop much more severe than smoking tranq. The shark on his arm spoke to him that night, and in Roland’s voice, no less. Mostly it spat out strings of cleverly conceived profanities—but it did say a few things of note.

“Make me whole again, so I can beat the crap out of you,”
it said, and, “Bust a few noses; it’ll make you feel better,” and “Spank the monkey with your own damn hand.”

But the one that keeps coming back is “Make it mean something, Akron.”

What exactly did the shark mean by “it”? Did it mean Roland’s unwinding? Roland’s life? Connor’s life? The shark was maddeningly vague, as hallucinations often are. Connor never told anyone about it. He never even acknowledged to Hayden that the chocolate had any effect on him. After that, the shark, its jaw fixed in a predatory snarl, never spoke to Connor again, but its enigmatic request for meaning still echoes across the synapses between Roland’s motor neurons and his own.

Roland’s fury at his parents had been far more directed than Connor’s. A nasty triangle of pain there. Roland’s stepfather beat his mother, so Roland pummeled the man senseless for it—and then his mother chose the man who beat her over the son who tried to help her, sending Roland off to be unwound.

Make it mean something . . . .

The fury that Connor feels against his own parents burns like the ever-burning fire pit in the great room, but unlike Roland’s, Connor’s fury is as random as leaping flames in search of purchase. His fire isn’t fueled by their choice to unwind him, but by the unanswered questions surrounding that choice.

Why did they do it?

How did they make the decision?

And most important: What would they say to him now if they knew he was alive . . . and what would he say back?

He’s rushing to Ohio to find Sonia, but in the back of his mind, Connor knows that it also brings him painfully close to home. He wonders if, beneath everything, that’s the real reason he’s making this trip.

So he furiously tosses and turns in a luxurious bed, in a Spartan room, emotionally unwinding himself with his own ambivalence.

26 • Lev

Lev knows staying on the rez ticks off Connor—but hasn’t he earned the right to be selfish just this once?

“You can stay as long as you want to,” Elina had told him.

Pivane, on the other hand, was a little more practical. “You can stay as long as you
need
.” So the question is—how much of Lev’s desire to stay is need, and how much is want?

His side is still badly bruised, and without speed-healing agents—which the Arápache don’t use—his ribs and bruised organs will take time to heal. He can make an argument that he needs to stay that entire time, but he knows Connor won’t hear of it—and his frustration would be justified. They have a mission and can’t be sidetracked by the lures of comfort. What Lev needs is a mission of equal magnitude.

Then, toward the end of their second week on the rez, the entire situation takes a sharp turn that leaves everyone more than a little shell-shocked.

It’s dinnertime. A small gathering tonight—just the three guests, joined at the table by Elina, Kele, and Chal, Elina’s husband, who is finally back from his court case. From the moment he arrives, he treats Lev with lawyerly reserve and courtesy, as if he’s afraid to commit to any specific action or emotion with regards to Lev. “Elina told me everything. I’m glad you’re here,” Chal says when he greets Lev—but whether he means it or is just being obliging is something Lev can’t read in his voice. The man’s response to Connor and Grace is also reserved and measured.

Pivane arrives late for dinner today, wearing a look of concern that diffuses Elina’s irritation. “You need to see this,” he says. First to Elina and Chal, but then he turns to Lev and Connor. “All of you need to see this.”

As everyone rises from the dinner table, Pivane turns on the TV across the great room. He flips through channels until finding a news station.

If there was any question as to what kind of evening this will be, all doubts are chased away by what they see:

Connor’s face is on a screen behind the news anchorman.

“ . . . and the Juvenile Authority, putting an end to rumors and wild speculation, has confirmed that Connor Lassiter, presumed dead for over a year, is actually alive. Lassiter, also known as the ‘Akron AWOL’ was a key figure in the Happy Jack Harvest Camp revolt that resulted in nineteen deaths and the escape of hundreds of Unwinds.”

Connor and Lev can only stare in disbelief. The anchorman continues.

“It is believed that he may be traveling with Lev Calder and Risa Ward, both of whom played prominently in the revolt.”

Risa and Lev’s pictures appear on the screen as well. Not Lev as he is now, but as he was in the old days. Clean-cut, innocent, and ignorant.

“Is this bad?” Grace asks, then answers her own question. “Yeah, this is bad.”

The news cuts to an interview with a pompous representative of the Juvenile Authority, holding a picture of Connor with a grungy-looking guy, who Lev assumes is Grace’s brother. The Juvey rep appears irritated that he must divulge this information, yet needy for the public’s help.

“
Our analysts have determined that this picture is authentic and taken a little over two weeks ago. The young man in this picture, Argent Skinner, and his sister, Grace Skinner, are now missing, and we believe Lassiter either kidnapped them or killed them.”

“What!” It comes out of Connor like a quack.

“Anyone who has any information on this fugitive should contact the authorities immediately. Do not try to approach him as he is considered armed and dangerous.”

Lev turns his attention from the TV to Connor, who is quickly slipping into fury mode. To anyone who doesn’t know him, he would look pretty dangerous at this moment.

“Take it easy, Connor,” Lev says. “They want you to be angry. The angrier you are, the more mistakes you’ll make and the easier you’ll be to catch. The fact that they felt a need to go public with it means they have no clue where you’ve gone, which means you’re still safe.”

But right now, it seems Connor won’t hear anything but the turmoil in his own head. “Damn them! If they could pin the whole goddamn Heartland War on me, they would. Sure, I wasn’t even born then, but they’d find a way to blame me for it!” Connor punches the wall with his grafted arm and grimaces from the pain of it.

“A lie,” Elina says calmly, “is a powerful weapon that the Juvenile Authority certainly knows how to wield.”

Grace looks at each of them, a little bit frightened. “Why’s Argent missing? What happened to him?”

And then from behind them. “Who’s Argent? Is he really dead? Did Connor kill him?”

They turn to see Kele, who, in these reeling moments, had been forgotten.

Lev and Elina’s logic could not calm Connor down, but apparently the fearful look on Kele’s face does the trick.

“No, he’s not, and no, I didn’t,” Connor tells him, his voice a little more under control. “Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s fine.”

Kele seems only half-convinced, and that worries Lev. He
knows the kid is a bit of a loose cannon. While Lev’s presence here is “unofficially” known, no one knows that the infamous Akron AWOL is here as well. Kele had promised to keep his presence here a secret, but could he still, now that the secret looms so large?

“So what do we do?” Lev asks Elina, knowing what she’ll say—or at least hoping.

“You’ll stay in our care, of course,” Elina says.

Lev releases his breath. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it.

“Like hell we will!” snaps Connor.

Lev grabs his shoulder to keep him from storming away. “It’s the smart thing to do. No one out there knows we’re here. We can lie low until we’re out of the news.”

“We’ll never be out of the news, Lev! You know that.”

“But it won’t always be the big story like it is today. Give it a few weeks. And maybe by then we can keep under the radar. Taking off now is the stupidest thing we could possibly do.”

“While we’re sitting here, kids from the Graveyard are being unwound!”

“And how much will it crush their spirit if you’re caught?” Lev points out. “As long as you’re free, they have hope.”

“Cowards hide!” says Connor.

“But warriors lie in wait,” Elina says. “The only difference is whether you’re motivated by fear or purpose.”

That shuts Connor up, at least for the moment. Elina is always good at choking people on food for thought. His eyes burn for a moment more; then Connor drops into a dining room chair, resigned. He looks at his knuckles—
Roland’s
knuckles—which are bleeding and raw. It must hurt, but he seems to draw some satisfaction from the pain.

“They think we’re with Risa,” Connor says. “I wish we were that lucky.”

“If she’s sees the report,” Lev points out, “then she’ll know that you’re still alive—so that’s a good thing.”

Connor throws him a quick and mildly disgusted glance. “Your ability to see the bright side of everything makes me sick.”

The news has gone on to the clapper attack of the week, and Pivane turns off the TV. “How long can we realistically keep Connor’s presence here a secret?”

Lev notices that Kele has taken on a growing look of silent guilt, so Lev asks him point-blank. “Who did you tell, Kele?”

“No one,” he says, and when Lev doesn’t look away, Kele tells the truth. “Just Nova. But she promised not to tell, and I trust her.” Then he adds, “I figured he was safe, since it’s the Juvenile Authority that’s after him, and Connor’s not juvenile anymore, right?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Chal explains. “His so-called crimes happened when he was under their jurisdiction, which means they can chase him into old age.”

Pivane begins pacing, Elina rubs her forehead, as if getting a headache, and Kele looks miserable and forlorn like his dog just died. Lev can already see this beginning to cascade like a rock slide.

“If word does get out,” Chal says, “and the Juvenile Authority calls for us to give him and Lev over, we can refuse. I can make a case for political asylum—and without an extradition treaty, there’s nothing the Juvenile Authority can do.”

Elina shakes her head. “They’ll put pressure on the Tribal Council and the council will give in, like they always do.”

“But it will buy time—and I can keep throwing up roadblocks to stall things.”

And then Grace chimes in. “You know what’s better than roadblocks?” she says. “Detours!”

Lev and the others take it as Grace being obtuse, but Connor, who knows her better, takes it seriously.