UnWholly (45 page)

Bam storms away in frustration.

“At least we got out of there!” Starkey yells after her. “We’re probably the only ones who did!”

Although it’s not going to mean much if they crash.

Kids sit in groups on the floor of the seatless cabin, some of them crying at the ordeal they’ve been put through and the friends left behind.

“Suck it up!” he yells at them. “We’re storks—we’re better than that.” Then he holds up his crushed hand, which is now so swollen and purple it barely resembles a hand at all. “Do you see me crying?” This war wound, he realizes, has already become a symbol of his power and a talisman of respect.

The whimpers subside, but not entirely. The truth is, in
spite of the morphine swiped from the medical jet, his hand still aches too much to have patience for anything or anybody.

“Where are we going?” someone asks.

“A better place,” Starkey says, then realizes that’s what they say when you die.

He storms to the cockpit, and storks clear out of his way. Trace sits at the controls with no copilot, and Starkey begins with a threat.

“If you as much as touch that radio . . .”

Trace looks at him, disgusted, then back to the control panel. “Just because you’re the one leading these kids, it doesn’t mean I want them to be unwound. I haven’t, nor will I notify anyone.”

“Good. Tell me the plan. Tell me what you schemed up with Connor.”

Trace grips the controls to maintain stability as they hit a patch of turbulence. More whimpers from the cabin. Once the turbulence subsides, Trace says, “We’ll be over Mexican airspace in a few minutes, which buys us time, because our military can’t pursue without permission, and theirs won’t until they see us as a threat. Next we fly within a mile of another jet headed north, switch signatures, and when that other jet hits American airspace, they’ll think it’s us.”

“We can do that?”

Trace doesn’t even answer the question. “The plan was to double back into the U.S. and land in an abandoned airfield in the Anza-Borrego Desert, east of San Diego—but there’s a problem with the landing gear.”

Starkey already knows this. They all felt the collision as the plane smashed the truck in its path. Everyone heard something rip loose. There’s no question that there’s damage, but it’s impossible to know how much. All they have is an idiot-light on the control panel that says
LANDING GEAR FAILURE.

“So what do we do about it?”

“We die.” Trace lets the thought linger for a moment, then says, “I can try to set us down in a body of water. I’m thinking the Salton Sea.”

“In Utah?”

“No, that’s the Great Salt Lake, moron. The Salton Sea is a huge dead lake south of Palm Springs. There’s a town there that’s the asshole of the armpit of the world. You’d fit right in.”

Starkey snarls at him, then decides he’s not worth it. “How long?”

“I have to find a passing jet and do the signature switch first. Figure an hour and a half till we’re there.”

“Fine, I’ll tell the others.” He turns to go, then pauses at the cockpit door, looking back at Trace. “And if you call me moron one more time, I’ll blow your brains out.”

Trace turns to him and smiles. “Then
you
can land this plane . . . moron.”

Risa sits in a network studio dressing room, staring at the monitor. The late-night news show on which she and Cam are about to appear has just reported some breaking news: a crackdown on a massive AWOL hideout in Arizona. None other than the airplane graveyard. Kids are already being shipped to harvest camps.

“It is believed that these same AWOL Unwinds are responsible for a rampage of violence in the city of Tucson,”
says the anchorman.
“The Juvenile Authority hopes this raid will allow the citizens of Tucson to rest easy once more.”

How could this happen? After all the horrific things Risa has done for the past two months to prevent this raid—to keep
Connor and Hayden and everyone there safe—the Juvies raided anyway. Maybe it was always going to happen, and Roberta’s bargain was a lie from the beginning. How could Risa have been so stupid as to trust anything that woman said?

The assistant stage manager pokes his head in the door. “Three minutes, Miss Ward.”

Risa never considered herself a violent girl. Sure, she’s always been more than able to defend herself, but she was never the kind of girl to initiate or enjoy brutality. Yet in this moment, she knows she would kill Roberta if she had the means to do it.

Then she realizes she doesn’t have to. In less than three minutes Risa will be broadcasting live to a national audience. She doesn’t have to kill Roberta. She can unwind her. . . .

•   •   •

Bright, unnatural light. A TV studio with no audience. A well-known news personality in a suit and tie, looking smaller and older in person than he does on TV. Three cameras—one on him, one on Risa, one on Cam. As they wait for the show to come back from commercial, News Guy briefs them.

“I’ll be asking both of you questions. First about Risa’s decision to support unwinding, then about the process of rewinding that ostensibly led to Cam’s ‘birth,’ if you will, and finally I’ll ask about your relationship, and how you two found each other. I know they’re all questions you’ve been asked before, but I’m hoping you can give me something fresh.”

“Well, we’ll certainly do our best,” Risa says, with a grin that’s a little too pleasant.

Cam leans over to her and whispers, “We should hold hands.”

“There’s no wide shot,” she points out. “No one will see.”

“We should anyway.”

But this time Cam will not get his way.

The stage manager counts down from five. The red light on camera one comes on.

“Welcome back,” says News Guy. “Considering the current police action in Arizona, our guests tonight have a certain . . . resonance, if you will. A militant AWOL turned unwinding advocate, and a young man who, were it not for unwinding, would not even exist. Risa Ward and Camus Comprix.”

A moment of pleasant welcomes, and he starts his questioning, as he promised, with Risa, but hits her with something designed to throw her off balance.

“Miss Ward, as a former AWOL yourself, what’s your take on the raid in Arizona? Do you support the unwinding of these runaways?”

Nothing he asks can fluster her, because she already knows exactly what she’s going to say. Risa turns to look right into camera two, which has just come on.

“I feel it’s important that I set the record straight,” Risa begins. “I am not now, nor have I ever been, in favor of unwinding. . . .”

Had Roberta been paying attention, things might have gone down differently, meaning they wouldn’t have gone down at all. To her credit, her bargain with Risa was an honest, if intensely manipulative one. She made a few calls, pulled a few strings, and was able to confirm with the Juvenile Authority that there were no imminent raids planned on the airplane graveyard. Should that change, Roberta would be given ample warning—which meant ample time to pull further strings to prevent such a raid. Roberta has never been about deceit. She’s about results.

However, she has been so wrapped up in the media campaign to make Cam the darling of modern times, she’s not aware of the homes set on fire in Tucson, and the brazen youth who set them, claiming to be the avenger of all unwound storks. Yes, the Juvenile Authority was supposed to notify Roberta of the raid through her associates at Proactive Citizenry. But like any spiderlike organization, the fangs of Proactive Citizenry don’t know what the spinneret is doing. Once the news hit the airwaves, of course, her phone began to ring her pocket off—but she’s been too fed up with too many people wanting too much of her time to answer it.

Thus, Roberta does not know about the raid until the interview with Risa and Cam begins. And by then it’s too late.

•   •   •

Roberta sits in the greenroom, the studio’s pleasant little ready room replete with stale danishes and weak coffee, watching a monitor that broadcasts from the studio down the hall. Her expression of horror could curdle the nondairy creamer.

“I am not now, nor have I ever been, in favor of unwinding,”
Risa says.
“Unwinding may be the single most evil act sanctioned by the human race.”

The newsman, famous for being cool under fire, stammers for a moment.
“But all those public service announcements you made—”

“They’re lies. I was being blackmailed.”

Roberta bursts out of the greenroom into the hall and storms toward the studio door. The red light is on. It’s supposed to be a warning not to go in, since the cameras are live, but it’s a warning she has no intention of heeding.

In the corridor around her are a series of monitors broadcasting Risa’s diatribe. Her face is on every screen, looking at Roberta from half a dozen different directions.

“I was threatened and blackmailed by a group called Proactive
Citizenry. Oh, they have lots of other names, like the Consortium of Concerned Taxpayers and the National Whole Health Society, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.”

“Yes, I’m aware of Proactive Citizenry,”
the newsman says,
“but isn’t it a philanthropic group? A charitable organization?”

“Charitable to whom?”

Just as Roberta nears the stage door, she’s intercepted by a security guard.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you can’t go in right now.”

“Let me pass, or I promise you, you’ll be out of work by morning.”

His response is to stand firm and call for backup, so Roberta heads for the control booth instead.

“They claim to control the Juvenile Authority,”
Risa continues.
“They claim to control a lot of things. Maybe they do, and maybe they don’t, but believe me, Proactive Citizenry has no one’s interests at heart but its own.”

The shot cuts to Cam, who looks dumbfounded, or just plain dumb; then it goes back to the newsman.

“So your relationship with Camus . . .”

“Is nothing but a publicity stunt,”
says Risa.
“A publicity stunt carefully planned by Proactive Citizenry to help Cam be accepted and adored.”

Roberta bursts into the control booth, where an engineer works the editing bay, and the show’s producer leans back in his chair, extremely pleased. “This is mint,” he tells his engineer. “The princess of unwinding bites the disembodied hand that feeds her! It doesn’t get any better than this!”

“Stop the interview!” orders Roberta. “Stop it now, or I will hold you and your network liable for everything she says!”

The producer is unfazed. “Excuse me, who are you?”

“I’m . . . her manager, and she is not authorized to say what she’s saying.”

“Well, lady, if you don’t like what your client has to say, that’s not our problem.”

“Your viewers need to ask themselves this,”
Risa says.
“Who stands to benefit most from unwinding? Answer that question, and I think we’ll know who’s behind Proactive Citizenry.”

Then the security guard comes up behind Roberta and manhandles her out the door.

•   •   •

Roberta is relegated to the greenroom until the interview is over and they cut to commercial.

The guard, still on “intruder alert” mode, won’t let her pass. “I have orders to keep you out of the studio.”

“I am going to the restroom!”

She pushes past him and bolts for the studio door. Both Risa and Cam are gone, and the next guests are being miked.

Avoiding the guard—who Roberta knows is fully prepared to tranq her—she turns down a side hallway to the dressing rooms. Risa’s dressing room is empty, but Cam is in his. His coat and tie are strewn on the ground like he couldn’t wait to peel out of them. He sits before the vanity with his head in his hands.

“Did you hear what she said about me? Did you hear?”

“Where is she?”

“Head in the sand! Turtle in its shell! Leave me alone!”

“Focus, Cam! She was on the stage with you. Where did she go?”

“She ran. She said it was over, that she was history, and she ran down the emergency stairs.”

“She
will
be history when I’m through with her.”

Roberta takes the emergency stairs down. They’re on the second floor, and the only place for Risa to go is out into the parking lot, which is mostly empty at this time of night. She can’t have had more than a fifteen-second lead, but she’s
nowhere to be seen. The only person around is their driver, who leans against his limo, eating a sandwich.

“Did you see her?” Roberta asks.

“See who?” he answers.

And Roberta’s phone starts ringing like it will never stop.

Roberta returns from her unsuccessful search for Risa. Cam meets her in the greenroom, where two security guards now wait, eager to escort Roberta out. She’s on the phone, already in the throes of damage control.

“Antarctica,” Cam says. “I should have said something out there, but I froze.”

“What’s done is done,” she says, then growls at a dropped call. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I’ll meet you at the car,” Cam tells her. “My stuff’s still in the dressing room.”

The guards solemnly escort Roberta out of the building, and Cam goes back to the dressing room. He puts on his sports coat and carefully rolls up his tie, putting it in his pocket. Then, when he’s sure Roberta has left the building, he says, “It’s okay, she’s gone.”

The closet door opens, and Risa steps out. “Thank you, Cam.”

Cam shrugs. “She deserved it.” He turns to look at her. She’s breathing rapidly, as if she’s been running, but he knows she’s only been running in her head. “Will they all be unwound? Your AWOL friends?”

“Not right away,” she tells him. “But yes, they will be.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Although she doesn’t look at him when
she says it, like maybe she thinks it somehow is. Like his very existence makes him guilty.