UnSouled (35 page)

Nelson is like a boulder in this stream of words. He gets some of it; the rest just flows past.

“What are you doing here?” Nelson finally asks.

“Couldn’t just leave you on the floor to die, could I? We’re a team. Right half, left half, and all.”

“Get out of my sight.”

When Argent doesn’t move. Nelson turns his head to look the other way. Moving his head just the slightest bit makes him feel like he’s on a carnival ride.

“I don’t blame you for being pissed at me,” Argent says. “And maybe you woulda killed me and maybe not. But if I’m gonna be your apprentice, I know I gotta put up with a lot.”

Nelson forces himself to look at Argent again. “What universe do you think you’re living in?”

“Same as you,” Argent says. He looks at the label of the pill vial and puts it on the nightstand, pointedly out of Nelson’s reach. “Whether you like it or not, you need me right now. As long as you need me, you won’t get rid of me. You might even teach me a thing or two about being a parts pirate. One hand washes the other, as they say. And both our hands are kind of dirty. So I stay, and we both get what we need.”

The fact that he is now entirely dependent on Argent Skinner makes Nelson want to laugh, if it didn’t hurt so much to do so. “Are you my male nurse now?”

“I’m what you need, when you need it,” Argent tells him. “Today you need a nurse, so that’s what I’ll be. Tomorrow maybe you’ll need someone to help you set an Unwind trap again, so that’s what I’ll be tomorrow. And when you do track down Connor Lassiter and you need help bringing him down, you’ll be real happy you kept me around.” Then he opens the room service menu. “So, I’m thinking soup for you. And if you’re good, maybe some ice cream after.”

•   •   •

It’s another day until Nelson feels strong enough to move around the suite. He’s given up trying to fight Argent. The kid might be an idiot, but he’s a shrewd idiot. He knows how to make himself indispensable to Nelson—at least for now.

“I know you’ll kick me to the curb the moment you see fit,” Argent tells him. “It’s my job to make sure you never see fit.”

They don’t talk about their mission. Nelson doesn’t ask him for the tracking code because he knows Argent won’t surrender his one bargaining chip until he’s good and ready. Besides, as much as Nelson wants to move forward, he knows he’s in no condition. He has little choice but to convalesce in the presidential suite.

“Being a parts pirate must pay pretty good if you can afford a place like this,” Argent comments more than once, baiting Nelson to talk about his profession. Although making conversation with Argent isn’t exactly on his list of enjoyable activities, Nelson is a captive audience, so he endures it. He even tells Argent some of the things he wants to know, explaining the details of his best traps. The concrete tunnel lined with glue. The cigarette carton on a mattress perched over a pit. Argent hangs so fully on every word, Nelson begins to enjoy bragging about his best catches.

“I once had an AWOL swallow a miniature poison grenade, and I told him I’d set it off remotely if he didn’t turn over his friends. He led five other kids right to me—each one of them a better specimen than him.”

“Did you detonate the grenade?”

“It wasn’t a grenade,” Nelson tells Argent. “It was a cranberry.”

It makes Argent laugh, and Nelson finds that his own laughter is genuine.

Nelson can’t say that he’s beginning to like Argent—there really isn’t much about him to like. But he’s coming to accept the necessity of Argent’s presence. Like the AWOL who surrendered his friends, Argent Skinner has value to Nelson. For his services, Nelson had set the cranberry-eating AWOL free, because, after all, fair is fair, and Nelson has always seen himself as a man of integrity. In the end, Nelson will make sure Argent gets his just reward.

•   •   •

They set out the next day, Nelson feeling stronger, if not fully recovered. The bites are still red and swollen, the burned half of his face still raw and peeling, but at least his fever has broken. He endures the troubled gazes from other hotel guests as he checks out, just as he endured them when he had checked in.

“Are you gonna tell me where we’re going?” Argent asks. Now that Nelson has regained his strength, Argent has gotten shifty and uncertain about his tenure.

“Not New York,” is all Nelson is willing to offer, which sets Argent rambling on about other places he’s never been, but would like to go, fishing for any hints that Nelson might give. “Doesn’t make sense to be going unless we know where we’re going.”

“I know where we’re going,” Nelson tells him, taking great pleasure in Argent’s discomfort.

“After all I done, least you could do is give me a clue.”

Once they cross the Allegheny River and Pittsburgh falls behind them, Nelson reveals at least part of his hand. “We’re going to Sarnia.”

“Sarnia? Never heard of it.”

“It’s in Canada, across the border from Port Huron, Michigan. I’m going to introduce you to my contact in the black market, assuming he’s not on one of his airborne jags. A gentleman by the name of Divan.”

Argent twists his face like he’s smelled something foul. “Funny name. We sold Chicken Divan at Publix.”

“You’d be wise not to insult him. Divan runs the most successful harvest camp on the black market this side of Burma. State of the art. I bring him all the AWOLs I catch, and he’s always treated me fairly and honorably. If you want to be a parts pirate, he’s the man you need to know.”

Argent shifts uncomfortably. “I heard stories about the black market. Rusty scalpels. No anesthesia.”

“You’re talking about the Burmese
Dah Zey
. Divan is the opposite. A gentleman, and an honorable one at that. He’s always done right by me.”

“Okay,” says Argent. “Sounds good to me.”

“And,” adds Nelson, “in return for this show of good faith
on my part, I expect some good faith from you in return. I want the code for your sister’s tracking chip.”

Argent turns his eyes to the road ahead of them. “Maybe later.”

“Maybe now.”

Then Nelson calmly pulls the car to the shoulder of the highway. “If not, I’ll be happy to leave you here, say good-bye, and let you live your miserable life with no interference from me.”

Cars whiz past. Argent looks like he might be ill. “You’ll never find Lassiter without that code.”

“There’s no guarantee your sister will still be with him anyway. If she’s half as annoying as you, he probably ditched her an hour out of Heartsdale.”

Argent considers it. He fidgets with his hands. He picks nervously at the stitches on his face.

“You promise you won’t kill me?”

“I promise I won’t kill you.”

“Left half, right half, right? We’re a team?”

“By necessity, if not by design.”

Argent takes a deep breath. “We’ll meet this Divan guy. And then I’ll tell you.”

Nelson pounds the steering wheel in fury. Then calms down. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it.” Then he pulls out his tranq gun, pulls the trigger, and tranqs Argent in the chest.

Argent’s eyes are wide in shock at the betrayal.

“I can’t tell you how good that felt,” Nelson says.

Argent slumps in his seat, and Nelson is left supremely satisfied. If he must endure the presence of Argent Skinner on his way to finding Connor Lassiter and his stinking tithe friend, then Nelson will endure him. Although frequent unconsciousness on Argent’s part may be required to make life bearable. Nelson smiles. In the end, perhaps he’ll put Argent out of his
misery the same way he plans to kill Lev Calder for leaving him tranq’d on an Arizona road. Or maybe he’ll let Argent live. It’s all within the realm of possibility and all within Nelson’s power. He has to admit even when he was a Juvey-cop he enjoyed having power over life and death. As a parts pirate that feeling is so much more raw and visceral. He’s come to love it. It all comes down to tracking Argent’s sister. Then it’s only a matter of time now until he achieves Lev Calder’s death and earns Connor Lassiter’s eyes. Plus the huge bounty Divan will pay for the rest of him, of course.

Nelson punches his destination into the GPS, and it plots the fastest route to Sarnia. Then, checking his rearview mirror, he pulls onto the freeway in blissful, satisfied silence.

45 • Hayden

Collaborating with the enemy. It’s a crime that Hayden was convicted of in the court of public opinion without the benefit of a trial or the display of a single fact. In the eyes of the kids from Cold Springs Harvest Camp, he is 100 percent guilty, regardless of the fact that he’s 100 percent innocent. He never even gave Menard, or anyone in the Juvenile Authority, a single stitch of information. His only consolation is that it’s just the kids from Cold Springs who hate him. To the rest of the world he’s still the same kid who delivered the Whollie’s Manifesto—and called for a second teen uprising when he was taken into custody at the Graveyard. For once the media did him a favor.

Hayden can’t say he’s unhappy that Menard is dead. The man made Hayden’s plush detention a living hell at Cold Springs, and there were many times Hayden might have killed the man himself if he’d had the means. However, the manner of his death—that cold-blooded execution on Starkey’s
dictatorial order—was far more wrong than it was right. It reeked of cruelty rather than justice. Hayden knows he’s not the only one with such misgivings, but he can’t voice it aloud—not when the survivors of Cold Springs Camp already think that he sold them out to the Juvies.

By the good grace of Starkey, Lord of Storks, Hayden has been allowed computer access in order to help Jeevan find their next target and a path to harvest camp liberation that doesn’t leave a whole lot of dead kids behind.

Their “computer room” is a utility space near the entrance of the mine, still filled with rusty relics. A huge fan and ducts that, in theory, bring fresh air to the depths of the mine. Being so far from anything resembling civilization, Jeevan had jury-rigged a dish hidden in the brush outside the mine’s entrance to tap into some poor unsuspecting satellite and provide them with full connectivity.

So now Hayden’s working for Starkey. It’s the first time he truly feels like he’s collaborating with the enemy.

“If it means anything, sir, I don’t believe what those kids are saying about you,” says Jeevan, who sits behind him, watching over his shoulder as he chips away at various firewalls. “I don’t believe you’d ever help the Juvenile Authority.”

Hayden doesn’t look up from the computer screen. “Does it mean anything to me? I suppose it means all it can mean coming from someone who betrayed Connor and led to hundreds of Whollies being captured.”

Jeevan swallows with an audible click in his Adam’s apple. “Starkey says it would have happened anyway. If we didn’t get out, we’d have been caught too.”

Although Hayden wants to argue the point, he knows his friends are few and far between here. He can’t afford to alienate the ones he has. He forces himself to look at Jeevan and dredge up something resembling sincerity.

“I’m sorry, Jeeves. What happened, happened, and I know it wasn’t your fault.”

Jeevan is visibly relieved by Hayden’s conciliation. Even now, he sees Hayden as some sort of superior officer. Hayden has to be careful not to lose that respect.

“They say he’s alive,” Jeevan says. “Connor, I mean. For a while they even thought he was with us.”

“Yeah, well, I think this is the fifth of his nine lives, so he’s got a few more left.”

That just leaves Jeevan baffled, and Hayden has to laugh. “Don’t think too hard on it, Jeeves. It’s not worth it.”

“Oh!” A lightbulb practically appears over Jeevan’s head. “Like a cat. I get it!”

There are two guards assigned to Hayden now, plus Jeevan. One guard is there to make sure he’s not attacked by angry AWOLs from Cold Springs seeking payback. The second guard is to make sure he doesn’t bolt, since the computer room is so close to the mine’s entrance. Jeevan’s job is to spy on Hayden’s online activities, to make sure he’s not doing anything suspicious. Trust is not a part of Starkey’s world.

“You keep coming back to this one harvest camp,” Jeevan points out.

“So far it has the most potential.”

Jeevan studies the satellite image and points to the screen. “But look at all those guard towers at the outer gate.”

“Exactly. All their security is outwardly focused.”

“Ahh.”

Clearly Jeevan doesn’t get it yet, but that’s all right. He will.

“Tad’s dead, by the way.”

Hayden hadn’t planned on saying it. He hadn’t even been thinking about it. Perhaps the memory was tweaked by the heat of the computer room reminding him of that last awful day in the ComBom. The day that Hayden and his team of
techies would have died had he not shot out the plane’s windshield. There are still dark moments when he thinks he made a mistake. That he should have honored their wishes and let them die rather than be captured.

“Tad’s dead?” The look of horror on Jeevan’s face is both satisfying and troubling to Hayden.

“He fried to death in the ComBom. But don’t worry. That’s not Starkey’s fault either.” He doesn’t know if Jeevan reads the sarcasm—he’s about as literal as computer code. Maybe it’s best if he doesn’t.

“I haven’t seen Trace here. He flew the plane, didn’t he?”

Jeevan looks down. “Trace is dead too,” he tells Hayden. “He didn’t survive the crash.”

“No,” says Hayden. “I imagine he wouldn’t have.” Whether Trace’s death was a result of the crash or secret human intervention is something Hayden supposes he’ll never know. The truth most certainly died with Trace. Or without a trace, as the case may be.

Hayden hears footsteps coming up the steep slope from deeper in the mine. The way the guard steps aside so obediently telegraphs to Hayden who the visitor is even before he comes into view.

“Speak of the devil! We were just talking about you, Starkey. Jeevan and I were reminiscing about your magic tricks. Especially the one where you made a commercial jet disappear.”

“It didn’t disappear,” says Starkey, refusing to be goaded. “It’s at the bottom of the Salton Sea.”