UnWholly (31 page)

Headlights approach, and the wind picks up again. They wave their arms and the vehicle, a van, pulls over to the side of the road. A window rolls down, and they hurry to the van.

“My God. What are you two doing out here in this?” says the driver.

“We were on our bikes—we didn’t know a storm was coming,” Lev says.

“Where are the bikes?”

“We left them way back,” Miracolina chimes in.

“We’ll come get them after the storm,” Lev says. “There’s a tornado watch—we just need to get out of here. Can you help us?”

“Of course I can.” He unlocks the car, and Lev pulls open the side door. As he does, the dome light comes on, illuminating the man’s face for the first time. Although the moment calls, quite literally, for any port in a storm, Miracolina can’t help but be a bit troubled by the man’s face as she gets in. There’s something odd about it. Or maybe it’s just his eyes.

Lev doesn’t pay much attention to the driver. He’s just glad to be out of the storm and to have transportation away from his gilded cage. He has lied to Miracolina. He has no intention of letting her turn herself in to the Juvenile Authority. He knows he might not be able to stop her, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try.

A gust of wind almost pushes the van off the road as they drive, and the driver fights it with both hands on the wheel. “Some storm, huh?” The man says as he glances at Lev in the rearview mirror. Lev averts his gaze. The last thing he wants is to be recognized as “that clapper kid.”

“Comfy back there?” the man asks. He hasn’t asked them
where they’re headed yet. Lev runs though his mind the names of towns he knows in the area for when the question is inevitably asked.

Outside the rain slices at the windshield at such a violent angle, the wipers are defeated, and they have to pull over. The man turns to them.

“Tornado watch, you say? Do you suppose we’ll be taken to Oz?” He seems far too jovial under the circumstances.

“The sooner we all get home the better,” Miracolina offers.

“Yes, but you’re not headed home,” he says, the same happy tone to his voice. “We all know that, don’t we?”

Miracolina throws Lev a worried glance. The man has locked his gaze on Lev, and only now does Lev see how very mismatched his eyes are. The sight gives him a chill that has nothing to do with the storm.

“I know you don’t remember me, Mr. Calder, because you were unconscious at our last encounter. But I certainly remember you.”

Lev reaches for the van door, but it’s locked, with no visible way to unlock it.

“Lev!” shouts Miracolina, and when he looks back, he sees the man has pulled out a tranq pistol, which looks extremely large and nasty in such close quarters. Heavy hail begins to pummel the van, and the man must shout to be heard over it.

“The first time I shot you, it was an accident,” he says. “This time it’s not.” Then he tranqs both of them before they can say a word. Lev catches sight of Miracolina’s eyes rolling back and her slumping in the seat before he begins to drown in his own tranquilizer cocktail, spinning down, down, down, while outside the sound of hail gives way to a roar like a freight train barreling through hell.

In a flash of lightning, he sees a glimpse of the tornado. It tears out trees from the side of the road not a hundred yards ahead of him. It tears up the road itself—chunks of asphalt flying into the sky. Something—a piece of road or a tree limb—puts a dent in the roof like the angry stomp of a giant. A side window shatters, and the van is dragged sideways from the shoulder and into the middle of the road.

Nelson feels no fear, only awe. The van begins to lean to the left. He feels the entire vehicle straining in a tug-of-war between the wind and gravity. Finally gravity wins, and the car remains a heavy, earthbound object instead of a two-ton airborne projectile. Then in a moment the tornado is gone, tearing a jagged line toward someone else’s misery. The roar fades, and it’s just a torrential downpour once more.

This, Nelson knows, is his second great defining moment. The first was the tranq bullet that stole his life. But now his life has been spared. Not just spared, but validated, all in the same moment. The capture of Lev Calder is no accident. Nelson has never believed in divine providence, but he is open to the idea of balance, that there is somehow justice in the grand scheme of things. If that’s true, then justice will be visiting him very soon, delivering Connor Lassiter into his waiting hands.

From the
Independent
, a UK news journal:

“HOODIES, LOUTS, SCUM”:
HOW MEDIA DEMONISES TEENAGERS

By Richard Garner, Education Editor, Friday, 13 March 2009

The portrayal of teenage boys as “yobs” in the media has made the boys wary of other teenagers, according to new research.

Figures show more than half of the stories about teenage boys in national and regional newspapers in the past year (4,374 out of 8,629) were about crime. The word most commonly used to describe them was “yobs” (591 times), followed by “thugs” (254 times), “sick” (119 times) and “feral” (96 times). Other terms often used included “hoodie,” “louts,” “heartless,” “evil,” “frightening,” “scum,” “monsters,” “inhuman” and “threatening.”

The research—commissioned by Women in Journalism—showed the best chance a teenager had of receiving sympathetic coverage was if they died.

“We found some news coverage where teen boys were described in glowing terms—‘model student,’ ‘angel,’ ‘altar boy’ or ‘every mother’s perfect son,’ ” the research concluded, “but sadly these were reserved for teenage boys who met a violent and untimely death.”

The full article can be found at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hoodieslouts-scum-how-media-demonises-teenagers-1643964.html

Connor takes out his aggression on the punching bag at least twice a day. He has to. If he doesn’t, he might take it out on someone’s face. The lazy kid who won’t clean the latrines. The moronic girl who smuggled in a cell phone so she could call her friends and tell them where she is. And the kid who makes jokes after every clapper bombing. Connor hits the bag so hard, and so much, it’s a wonder the thing doesn’t burst.

Risa is gone.

It’s been almost a month now. For all he knows she’s dead at the hands of the Juvenile Authority, or Proactive Citizenry, or whoever has their clutches on her. It doesn’t matter that she’s seventeen and disabled—unable to be unwound. The all-seeing government can be very nearsighted when it comes to scrutinizing the actions of its own appendages.

Connor is not the same as he was.

He feels his old patterns and habits returning. The same ones that earned him an Unwind Order to begin with. He thinks back to the days before he was AWOL—when he was just a problem kid. He’s back in that place again, only now he’s a problem kid responsible for hundreds of other problem kids. He can’t help but think that it’s not all him. His anger always seems to settle in Roland’s hand.

“If you want out, no one would blame you,” Starkey tells him over a game of pool one evening. “You should go and try to find Risa. There are others who could take over this place. Trace could do it. Even Ashley or Hayden.” He leaves himself out, far too conspicuously. “Maybe we could put it to
a vote, once you’re gone. Make the whole thing democratic.”

“And you’re already guaranteed at least a quarter of the vote, aren’t you?” says Connor, charging through the bush Starkey keeps beating around.

Starkey doesn’t break his gaze, nor does he deny it. “I could run this place if I had to.” Then he sinks the eight ball too soon and loses the game. “Damn, you win again.”

Connor takes a good look at Starkey, who from the beginning always appeared straightforward and honest. But then, so did Trace. Only now does Connor begin to suspect that Starkey’s motives might be more like designs.

“You’re good at getting food on the table, and you gave the storks some self-respect,” Connor tells Starkey, “but don’t think that makes you God’s gift to Unwinds.”

“No,” says Starkey. “I guess that spot’s reserved for you.” Then he puts down his cue stick and leaves.

Connor mentally smacks himself for being so paranoid. The truth is, he might actually want to groom Starkey to replace him someday—but who is he to be grooming anybody for anything?

Used to be he could share his private insecurities with Risa. She was good at shoring him up by putting Band-Aids on his questionable sense of character long enough for him to heal and get the job done. He could try to confide in Hayden, but Hayden makes a joke out of everything. Connor knows it’s a defense mechanism, but still it makes it hard to talk to him about some things. Now his only real confidant is Trace. Connor hates that Trace remains his closest ally, even after revealing himself as a traitor to both sides. But if Risa was a Band-Aid, then Trace is alcohol on an open wound.

“We’ve all lost people one way or another, and Risa is no different, so stop your bellyaching and do your job.”

“I’m not a boeuf,” Connor tells him. “I wasn’t trained to have no feelings.”

“It’s not that we don’t have feelings, we just know how to harness them and direct them toward specific goals.”

Which Connor might be able to do if he had a goal, but life at the Graveyard feels more and more directionless. A treadmill that hurls kids off when they turn seventeen.

Someone—Connor suspects it’s Hayden—alerts the Admiral that he’s not taking Risa’s capture well, so the Admiral pays a surprise visit.

He arrives at the Graveyard in a black limo waxed to such a smooth sheen it doesn’t collect the dust it kicks up. Connor barely recognizes him when he steps out. The Admiral’s thin. Not just thin but gaunt. His skin, once bronzed from his years in the Graveyard sun, has gotten pale, and he’s dressed not in his medal-covered uniform, but in slacks and a plaid shirt, like he’s out for a round of golf. He still stands tall, though, and has the unmistakable bearing of a commanding officer.

Connor expects the Admiral will tear him a new one, giving him a reprimand more severe than he himself gave Starkey—but as always, the Admiral’s strategy cannot be predicted.

“You’ve put on some muscle since I last saw you,” the Admiral tells him. “I hope to God you’re not shooting up those damn military steroids they have the boeufs on; they shrink your testicles down to peanuts.”

“No sir.”

“Good. Because your genes might actually be worth passing on.”

He invites Connor to join him in his plush, air-conditioned limo, and they sit idling on the runway like the thing could sprout wings and take off at any given moment.

They make small talk just a bit. The Admiral tells him of the Great Harlan Reunion: a huge party with all the people who had received his son’s parts.

“I’ll swear till the day I die that Harlan was there, alive
in that garden, and no one can prove he wasn’t.”

He tells Connor how, when all the “parts” went their separate ways, Emby, his asthmatic friend, had nowhere to go, so the Admiral kept him on and is now raising him like a grandson.

“Not the shiniest Easter egg on the lawn,” the Admiral says, “but he’s very sincere.”

He also tells Connor that due to his damaged heart, the Admiral was given six months to live.

“Of course, that was almost a year ago. Doctors are mostly imbeciles.”

Connor suspects that the Admiral will be alive and kicking for years to come.

Finally he gets down to the real reason for his visit. “I hear that this thing with Risa is getting to you,” the Admiral says, then holds his silence, knowing Connor will eventually feel compelled to break it, which he does.

“What do you want me to do? Just go on like it never happened? Like she never existed?”

The Admiral holds a steady demeanor, in spite of Connor’s frustration. “I hadn’t pegged you as the kind of young man who wastes his time feeling sorry for himself.”

“I’m not feeling sorry! I’m angry!”

“Anger is only our friend when we know its caliber and how to aim it.”

That makes Connor give out a sudden guffaw that’s loud enough for the driver to glance back. “Good one! Someone oughta quote you.”

“Someone did. It’s on page ninety-three of the
Military Academy Freshman Ordinance Manual
, fifth edition.” The Admiral turns to look out of the tinted windows at the activity of the Graveyard. “The problem with all you AWOLs is that you use your anger like a grenade, half the time blowing off your
own hands.” Then he looks at Connor’s arm. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

But now that the Admiral’s attention has been drawn to the arm, he looks at it more closely. “Do I know that tattoo?” Then he snaps his fingers. “Roland. Wasn’t that his name? A real pain in the ass.”

“That’s the one.”

The admiral ponders the shark a moment more. “I don’t suppose it was your choice to get his arm.”

“It wasn’t my choice to get any unwound arm,” Connor tells him. “If I had a choice, I would have refused it, the same way you refused an unwound heart. The same way Risa refused a new spine.” Connor feels goose bumps rise on the arm from the near-arctic chill of the air conditioner. “But now I’ve got it, and it’s not like I’m gonna hack it off.”