UnWholly (33 page)

It sticks in Connor’s gut just as it did in Trace’s. Connor knows that things haven’t always been the way they are now—but when the world’s been one way for your entire life, it’s hard to imagine it being any different. Years ago, before he was even of unwinding age, Connor got bronchitis, and it just kept coming back. There was actually talk about getting him new lungs, but the problem cleared up. He remembers feeling so sick for so long, after a while he had forgotten what being well even felt like.

Could it be that way for an entire society?

Does a sick society get so used to its illness that it can’t remember being well? What if the memory is too dangerous for the people who like things the way they are?

Connor makes the time to go to the library jet to do some research, but the computers are off-line, so he goes straight to Hayden.

“You’re telling me everything’s down?” he asks Hayden.

Hayden hesitates before answering. “Why? What do you need?” He almost seems suspicious, which is not like him.

“I need to look something up,” Connor tells him.

“Can it wait?”

“
It
can, but
I
can’t.”

Hayden sighs. “Okay, I can get you online in the ComBom—on the condition that you let me do the surfing.”

“What, are you afraid I’ll break the web?”

“Just humor me, okay? We’ve had a lot of computer issues, and I’m very protective of the equipment.”

“Fine, let’s just do this before I get dragged off to deal with someone’s idea of an emergency.”

The kids in the ComBom are noticeably stressed as soon as they see Connor. He had no idea he inspires that level of fear. “Take it easy,” he says. “No one’s in trouble.” And then he adds, “Yet.”

“Take ten,” Hayden tells them, and the kids file out and down the stairs, happy to be freed, at least temporarily, from their stations.

Hayden sits down with Connor, who pulls out the slip of paper Trace gave him. “Do a search on this name.”

Hayden types in “Janson Rheinschild,” but the results are not promising.

“Hmm . . . There’s a Jordan Rheinschild, an accountant in Portland. Jared Rheinschild—looks like he’s a fourth grader who won some art contest in Oklahoma. . . .”

“No Janson?”

“A few J. Rheinschilds,” offers Hayden. He checks them out. One’s a mother with a low-hit blog about her kids; another’s a plumber. Not a single one seems to be the kind of person who would have a bronze statue erected to them, then destroyed.

“So who is he?”

“When I find out, I’ll let you know.”

Hayden swivels his chair to face Connor. “Is that all you were looking for?”

Then Connor remembers something. Didn’t the Admiral talk about events leading to “our twisted way of life” too? What were those things he said Connor should educate himself about?

“I want you to look up ‘the terror generation.’ ”

Hayden types it in. “What’s that? A movie?”

But when the results begin popping up, it’s clear that it’s not. There are tons of references. The Admiral was right—all the information is right there for anyone to find, but buried among the billions of web pages on the net. They zero in on a news article.

“Look at the date,” says Hayden. “Isn’t that right around the time of the Heartland War?”

“I don’t know,” Connor says. “Do you know the actual dates of the war?”

Hayden has no answer. Strange, because Connor can remember key dates of other wars, but the Heartland War is fuzzy. He’s never been taught about it, has never seen TV shows about it. Sure, he knows it happened, and why, but beyond that there’s nothing.

The first article talks about a spontaneous youth gathering in Washington, DC. Hayden plays a news clip. “Whoa! Are those all people?”

“Kids,” Connor realizes. “They’re all kids.”

The clip shows what must be hundreds of thousands of teens packing the Washington Mall between the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial, so dense you can’t even see the grass.

“Is this part of the war?” Hayden asks.

“No, I think it’s something else. . . .”

The reporter calls it “The Teen Terror March,” already putting a negative spin on the rally.
“This is by far the largest flash riot anyone has ever seen. Police have been authorized to use the new, controversial tranquilizer bullets to subdue the crowd. . . .”

The idea that tranq bullets could be controversial sets Connor reeling. They’re just an accepted part of life, aren’t they?

Hayden scrolls down. “The article says they’re protesting school closings.”

That also throws Connor for a loop. What kid in their right mind would protest their school closing? “There,” he says, pointing to a link that says “Fear for the Future.”

Hayden clicks on it, and it brings up an editorial clip by some political pundit. He talks about the struggling economy and the collapse of the public education system.
“A nation of angry teenagers with no jobs, no schools, and too much time on their hands? You bet I’m scared—and you should be too.”

More reports—those same angry kids calling for change, and when they don’t get it, they hit the streets, forming random mobs, burning cars, breaking windows, letting loose a kind of communal fury. In the midst of the Heartland War, President Moss—just a few weeks before his assassination—calls an additional state of emergency, this time ordering a curfew on everyone under the age of eighteen.
“Anyone caught breaking curfew will be subject to transport to juvenile detention camps.”

There are reports of kids who have either left or been thrown out of their homes. “Ferals,” the news calls them. Like
stray dogs. Then comes a shaky video of three kids swinging their hands together. A sudden white flash, and the image becomes static.
“Apparently,”
says the news anchor,
“these feral suicide bombers have altered their blood chemistry, so that bringing their hands together triggers detonation.”

“Holy crap!” says Hayden. “The first clappers!”

“All this was going on during the Heartland War,” Connor points out. “The nation was tearing itself apart over pro-life and pro-choice but completely ignored the problems of the kids who were already here. I mean, no schools, no work, no clue if they’d even have a future. They just went nuts!”

“Tear it all down and start over.”

“Do you blame them?”

Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don’t teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn’t want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn’t want kids to know how much power they really had.

The various links lead Connor and Hayden to an image that’s much more widespread and familiar: hands being shaken at the signing of the Unwind Accord. In the background is the Admiral as a much younger man. The report talks about peace being declared between the Life Army and the Choice Brigade, giving everyone hope for domestic normalization. Nowhere are the teen uprisings mentioned—yet within weeks of the Accord, the Juvenile Authority was established, feral detention centers became harvest camps, and unwinding became . . . a way of life.

That’s when the truth hits Connor so brutally he feels light-headed. “My God! The Unwind Accord wasn’t just about ending the war—it was also a way to take down the terror generation!”

Hayden leans away from the computer like it might start
clapping and blow them all up. “The Admiral must have known that.”

Connor shakes his head “When his committee proposed the Unwind Accord, he never believed people would actually go for it, but they did . . . because they were more terrified of their teenagers than their consciences.”

Connor knows that Janson Rheinschild, whoever he was, must have played into this somewhere, but Proactive Citizenry was extremely thorough in wiping him off the face of the earth.

Mason Starkey knows nothing of Janson Rheinschild, the terror generation, or the Heartland War. If he did, he wouldn’t care. The only teen uprising he has any interest in will involve the Stork Club.

His motives are a complex weave of self-interest and altruism. He truly wants to raise his storks to glory, as long as they all know
he’s
the one who’s done it. Credit where credit is due, and honor to the trickster whose illusions finally become real.

Starkey’s hoping for a silent coup, but is prepared for anything. It will either be gracious, and Connor will see the wisdom of stepping aside for a more able leader . . . or he’ll be steamrolled. Starkey will bear no guilt if it comes to that. After all, Connor, in spite of all his pretenses of fairness, still refuses to rescue storks from their unwindings.

“We save the kids we’re most likely to get away with saving,” Connor told him. “It’s not our fault that storks are in bigger families and more complicated situations.” It was the same excuse that Hayden had given him, but as far as Starkey is concerned, that’s no excuse at all.

“So you’re happy just letting them be unwound?”

“No! But there’s only so much we can do!”

“So little, you mean.”

Connor lost his temper then, which he does more and more often now. “If it was up to you, we’d be blowing up harvest camps, wouldn’t we? That’s not how this battle is going to be won! It will just make them come down harder on every Unwind, every AWOL.”

Starkey wanted to take his argument all the way to the wall and nail Connor to it for letting storks go unsaved, but instead, Starkey backed down.

“I’m sorry,” he told Connor. “You know I get passionate when it comes to storks.”

“Your passion’s a good thing,” Connor told him, “when you keep it in perspective.”

He could have slammed Connor for that, but instead he just smiled, agreed, and left—secure in the knowledge that someday soon Connor would be faced with an entirely new perspective.

•   •   •

While Connor has a history lesson with Hayden in the Com-Bom, Starkey relaxes at the Rec Jet, teaching kids simple card tricks and dazzling them with close-up magic he could do in his sleep. It’s Stork Hour. Seven to eight p.m. Prime time. There’s a nice breeze blowing under the Rec Jet. It’s a perfect time of day. He has one of the storks bring him a drink so he doesn’t have to get out of his comfortable chair. It’s been a hard day dishing slop—and although he doesn’t actually do the dishing, supervision can be a bitch.

Drake, the farm boy who runs the Green Aisle, passes and gives them a dirty look. Starkey glares back and makes a mental note. When he takes over, the new Holy of Whollies will be made up of all storks. Drake will be demoted to picking beans, or cleaning chicken crap. Many things will change when Starkey
takes over, and God help anyone who’s not in his good graces.

“You gonna get off your ass and play me a game of pool?” Bam asks, pointing her cue at him like a harpoon. “Or do my superior skills challenge your masculinity?”

“Watch it, Bam,” Starkey warns. He will not play her, because he knows she’ll win. First rule of competition—never accept a losing proposition. He loses when he plays Connor, of course, but that’s different. It’s intentional, and he makes sure the other storks know it.

Farther down the main aisle, Connor comes down the stairs of the ComBom with Hayden.

“What do you think that’s all about?” Bam asks.

Starkey keeps his opinion to himself.

“I think they’re hot for each other,” says one of the other storks.

Starkey turns to him. “You’re the only one I know who keeps checking out Connor’s butt, Paulie.”

“That ain’t true!” But by the way Paulie goes red, it’s clear that it is.

Finally Starkey stands up to get a better look at the situation. Connor and Hayden say their good-byes. Hayden heads toward the latrine, and Connor goes back to his own little jet.

“He’s been having private meetings with Trace, too,” Bam points out. “But he hasn’t been sharing any secrets with you, has he?”

Starkey hides his fury at being left out of whatever Connor is plotting. “He must be happy with food service.”

“A regular fatted cow,” Bam says with a grin. “Just about ready for slaughter.”

“I will not have you bad-mouthing our commander in chief.”

Bam turns and spits on the ground. “You’re such a freakin’
hypocrite.” Then she goes back to playing pool against kids who never beat her.

Starkey, however, has no need to bad-mouth Connor. Griping is for those without a plan of action—and tonight Starkey has something new up his sleeve. A gift for Connor. It comes in the person of Jeevan, whose skill with computers got him assigned to the ComBom, and who happens to be a loyal Stork Club member. Of course, no one but Starkey knows that fact. “Jeeves” is one of two well-positioned “sleeper agents,” whose allegiance is to him, rather than Connor. And what a gift Jeeves has provided! Starkey’s been saving it for just the right moment. He concludes that now—when Connor seems to be getting his balance back—is the perfect time to unwrap it . . . and while the gift is in his arms, pull the rug out from under him.

Connor sits alone in his jet, staring into space, trying to process everything he’s just learned.
We can’t stop unwinding,
the Admiral once told him.
The best we can hope to do is save as many of these kids as we can.
But somehow, after seeing those old news reports, Connor is starting to feel that maybe the Admiral was wrong. Maybe there
is
a way to end unwinding. If only he can figure out how to truly learn from the past . . .

Connor is still pondering the dark specter of history late into the evening, when Starkey shows up at his jet. Connor opens the hatch for him. “What’s up? Is there a problem?”

“You’ll have to tell me if it’s a problem,” Starkey says enigmatically. “Can I come in?”

Connor lets him in, “It’s been a killer day—this had better be good.”

“There’s a TV here, right?”

Connor points to it. “Yeah, but there’s no line in, and the color sucks.”

“Don’t need a line, and color’s not gonna matter when you see what I’ve got.” Starkey pulls out a microdrive and plugs it into the TV’s data port. “You should sit down.”