UnSouled (27 page)

It was the tithe. That innocent face. Cam knew that face, and not just from the many articles and news reports. This was more.

He was injured.

He needed healing.

I played guitar for him.

A healing song.

For the Mahpee.

Cam had no idea what that meant, only that it was a spark of connection—a synapse within his complex mosaic of neurons. He
knows
Lev Calder—or at least a member of his internal community does—and that knowledge is somehow tied to music.

So now Cam plays.

It’s two o’clock in the morning when he finally gleans enough from his musical memory to understand. Lev Calder had once been given sanctuary by the Arápache Nation. No one searching for him will know that, which means he has the perfect place to hide. But Cam knows. The heady power of that knowledge makes him dizzy—because if it’s true that he’s traveling with Risa and the Connor, then the Arápache Reservation is where they’ll be—a place where the Juvenile Authority
has
no authority.

Had Risa known Connor Lassiter was alive all along? If she had, it would explain so many things. Why she could not give her heart to Cam. Why she so often spoke of Lassiter in the present tense, as if he were just waiting around the corner to spirit her away.

Cam should be furious, but instead he feels vindicated. Exhilarated. He had no hope of battling a ghost for her affections, but Connor Lassiter is still flesh and blood—which means he can be bested! He can be defeated, dishonored—whatever it will take to kill Risa’s love for him, and in the end,
when he has fallen from Risa’s favor, Cam will be there to keep Risa from falling as well.

After that, Cam can personally bring the Akron AWOL to justice, making himself enough of a hero to buy his own freedom.

It’s three a.m. when he slips out of the town house, leaving his semblance of a life behind, determined not to return until he has Risa Ward under his arm and Connor Lassiter crushed beneath his heel.

Part Four

The Scent of Memory

“FOUNDLING WHEELS” FOR EVERY ITALIAN HOSPITAL?

By Carolyn E. Price

Feb 28, 2007

Italy tests out the “foundling wheel,” a concept first introduced in Rome in the year 1198 by Pope Innocent III.

A well-dressed, well-looked after three- or four-month-old baby, maybe Italian, or maybe not, and in excellent health, was abandoned on Saturday evening in the “foundling wheel,” a heated cradle that was set up at the Policlinico Casilino. The foundling wheel was created for women to put their infants in when the child is unwanted or is born into seriously deprived conditions.

The baby boy is the first to be saved in Italy thanks to an experimental system that was devised to stop babies from being abandoned in the street. The baby “foundling” has been named Stefano in honor of the doctor who first took charge of him.

For health minister Livia Turco, the project is “an example to follow.” Ms. Turco’s colleague, family minister Rosy Bindi, wants a modern version of the foundling wheel “in every maternity ward in every hospital in Italy.”

The head of the neonatology department at the Policlinico Casilino, Piermichele Paolillo, notes: “We wouldn’t have been surprised to find a newborn in the cradle, but we didn’t expect to see a three- or four-month-old baby . . . . Who knows what lies behind this episode . . . ?”

Published with permission of
DigitalJournal.com

Full article at:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/127934

The Rheinschilds

Finally a time to celebrate! Tonight the Rheinschilds dine at Baltimore’s most expensive, most exclusive restaurant. This splurge is long overdue.

Sonia holds Janson’s hand across the table. They’ve already sent the waiter away twice, not wanting to be rushed with their order. Bubbles rise in their champagne flutes while the bottle of Dom Pérignon chills beside them. This night must not pass too quickly. It must linger and last, because they both deserve it.

“Tell me again,” Sonia says. “Every last bit of it!”

Janson is happy to oblige, because it was the kind of meeting worth reliving. He wishes he had found a way to record it. He tells her once more of how he went into the office of the president of BioDynix Medical Instruments and presented to him what he considers to be “his life’s work”—just as he had presented it to Sonia a few days before.

“And he had vision enough to see the ramifications right away?”

“Sonia, the guy was sweating with greed. I could practically see fangs growing. He told me he needed to speak to the board and would get back to me—but even before I left the building, he called me back in to make a deal.”

Sonia claps her hands together, having not heard that part before. “How perfect! He didn’t want you to show it to his competitors.”

“Exactly. He made a preemptive bid on the spot—and he didn’t just buy the prototype; he bought the schematics, the patent—everything. BioDynix will have the exclusive rights!”

“Tell me you went straight to the bank with the check.”

Janson shakes his head. “Electronic transfer. I confirmed it’s already in our account.” Janson takes a sip of champagne; then he leans forward and whispers, “Sonia, we could buy a small island with what they paid for it!”

Sonia smiles and raises her champagne glass to her lips. “I’ll be satisfied if you just agree to take a vacation.”

They both know it’s not about the money. As it was once before, it’s about changing the world.

Finally they order, their champagne flutes are refilled, and Janson raises his glass in a toast. “To the end of unwinding. A year from now it will be nothing but an ugly memory!”

Sonia clinks her glass to his. “I see a second Nobel in your future,” she says. “One that you don’t have to share with me.”

Janson smiles. “I will anyway.”

The meal comes—the finest they’ve ever had, on the finest evening they’ve ever shared.

It isn’t until the following morning that they realize something’s wrong . . . because the building in which they work—which had been named for them—is no longer the Rheinschild Pavilion. Overnight the big brass letters above the entrance have been replaced and the building renamed for the chairman of Proactive Citizenry.

30 • Hayden

Hayden Upchurch cannot be unwound. At least not today. Tomorrow, who can say?

“Why am I at a harvest camp if I’m overage?” he had asked his jailers after he had been deposited there along with the rest of the holdouts from the Communications Bomber at the Graveyard.

“Would you rather be in prison?” was the camp director’s only answer. But eventually Director Menard couldn’t keep the truth to himself—the truth being so delectably sweet.

“About half the states in this country have a measure on this year’s ballot that will allow the unwinding of violent criminals,” he had told Hayden with an unpleasant yellow-toothed grin. “You were sent to a harvest camp in a state where it’s sure to pass and will go into effect most quickly—that is, the day after the election.” Then he went on to inform Hayden that he would be unwound at 12:01 a.m. on November sixth. “So set your alarm.”

“I will,” Hayden had told him brightly. “And I’ll make a special request that you get my teeth. Now that you good people have had my braces removed, they’re ready for you. Of course, my orthodontist would suggest you wear a retainer for two years.”

Menard had just grunted and left.

It boggles Hayden that he’s been labeled a violent criminal when all he tried to do was save his life and the lives of other kids. But when the Juvenile Authority has a grudge against you, it can spin things any way it wants.

A year and a half ago, when Connor had arrived at Happy Jack Harvest Camp, he was paraded before all the Unwinds, a humbled, broken prisoner. They thought it would demoralize the other kids, but instead it practically turned Connor into a god. The falling, rising Unwind.

Apparently, the Juvenile Authority had learned from its mistake, and for Hayden they went about things differently. With Hayden’s Unwind Manifesto still getting more hits online than a naked celebrity, they needed to damage his street cred.

Like Connor, they had immediately separated him from the other kids, but instead of making an example of him, Director Menard chose to treat Hayden to steak meals at the staff table and give him a three-room suite in the guest villa. At first Hayden was worried that the man was harboring some sort of
romantic interest—but he had an altogether different agenda. Menard was spreading rumors that Hayden was cooperating with the Juvenile Authority and helping them round up the kids that escaped from the Graveyard. Although the only “evidence” was the fact that Hayden was being treated remarkably well, the kids at the harvest camp believed. The only ones who didn’t fall for it were kids like Nasim and Lizbeth, who knew him from before.

Now when he’s walked through the dining room, the kids boo and hiss, and his escort of guards—who at first were there to make sure he didn’t escape, or tell anyone the truth—now are there to protect him from the angry mob of Unwinds. It’s a masterful bit of manipulation that Hayden might appreciate were he not the butt of the joke. After all, what could be lower than a traitor to the traitors? Now, thanks to Menard, Hayden will leave this world shamed on all possible fronts.

“I won’t bother taking your teeth,” Menard had told him. “But I may put your middle finger on a key chain, to remind me of all the times you’ve flipped it at me.”

“Left or right?” Hayden had asked. “These things are important.”

But as summer pounds inexorably toward autumn and his postelection unwinding, Hayden finds it harder and harder to make light of personal impending doom. He’s beginning to finally believe his life as he knows it will end in the Chop Shop of Cold Springs Harvest Camp.

31 • Starkey

There’s an unwind transport truck on a winding road on a bright August day, and although it’s painted in pastel blues, pinks, and greens, nothing can hide the ugliness of its purpose.

The northern Nevada terrain is arid and rugged. There are mountains that seemed to see where they were headed and gave up before they were fully pushed forth from the earth, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. Everything in the landscape is the neutral beige of institutional furniture.
Now I know why tumbleweeds roll
, Starkey thinks.
Because they want to be anywhere else but here.

Starkey sits shotgun beside the driver of the transport truck. Although today it should be called “riding pistol,” because that’s the weapon he has pressed to the driver’s ribs.

“You really don’t need to do this,” the driver says nervously.

“This thing is bigger than you, Bubba. Just go with it, and you might actually live.” Starkey doesn’t know the man’s name. To him all truck drivers are Bubba.

As they come down into the valley toward Cold Springs Harvest Camp, Starkey gets a good view of the facility. Like all harvest camps, its calculated attention to design is part of the crime, putting forth an illusion of tranquillity and comfort. At a harvest camp, even the building where kids go in and never come out could be as inviting as Grandma’s house. Starkey shudders at the thought.

The builders of Cold Springs Harvest Camp tried to take architectural cues from its surroundings, attempting a natural Western look—but a huge oasis of green artificial turf in the midst of stucco buildings is a glaring reminder that there is nothing natural about this place at all.

Bubba sweats profusely as they approach the guard gate. “Stop sweating!” says Starkey. “It’s suspicious.”

“I can’t help it!”

To the guard at the gate, it’s business as usual. He checks the driver’s credentials and reviews the manifest. He seems not to care, or just doesn’t notice the driver’s perspiration. Nor does he pay attention to Starkey, who is dressed in the light
gray coveralls of an Unwind transport worker. The guard goes back into his booth, hits a button, and the gates slowly swing open.

Now it’s Starkey’s turn to sweat. Until this moment it’s all been hypothetical. Even coming down the valley toward the camp seemed surreal and one step removed from reality, but now that he’s inside, there’s no turning back. This is going down.

They pull up to a loading dock, where a team of harvest camp counselors wait to greet their new arrivals with disarming smiles, then sort them and send them to their barracks to await unwinding. But that’s not going to happen today.

As soon as the back doors of the transport truck are swung open, the staff is met not with rows of restrained teenagers, but with an army. Kids leap out at them, screaming and brandishing weapons.

The instant the commotion begins, the driver leaps from the cab and runs for his life. Starkey doesn’t care, since the man has done his job. The shouts give way to gunfire. Workers race away from the scene, and guards race toward it.

Starkey gets out of the cab in time to see some of his precious storks go down. The east tower has a clear view of the loading dock, and a sharpshooter is taking kids out. The first couple of shots are tranqs, but the sharpshooter switches rifles. The next kid to go down, goes down for good.

Oh crap this is real this is real this is—

And then the sharpshooter aims at Starkey.

He dodges just as a bullet puts a hole in the door of the truck with a dainty
ping.
Panicked, Starkey leaps behind a boulder, smashing his bad hand on the way down, spitting curses from the pain.