UnSouled
4.5/5
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About this ebook
Connor and Lev are on the run after the destruction of the Graveyard, the last safe haven for AWOL unwinds. But for the first time, they’re not just running away—they’re running towards answers, in the form of a woman Proactive Citizenry has tried to erase from history itself. If they can find her and learn why the shadowy figures behind unwinding are so afraid of her, they may discover the key to ending the unwinding process forever.
Cam, the rewound boy, is plotting to take down the organization that created him. He knows that if he can bring Proactive Citizenry to its knees, it will show Risa how he truly feels about her. And without Risa, Cam is having trouble remembering what it feels like to be human.
With the Juvenile Authority and vindictive parts pirates hunting them, the group’s paths will converge explosively—and everyone will be changed.
Neal Shusterman
Neal Shusterman is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of more than fifty books, including Challenger Deep, which won the National Book Award; Scythe, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Dry, which he cowrote with his son, Jarrod Shusterman; Unwind, which won more than thirty domestic and international awards; Bruiser, which was on a dozen state lists; The Schwa Was Here, winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award; and Game Changer, which debuted as an indie top-five best seller. He is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for the body of his work. You can visit him online at storyman.com.
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Reviews for UnSouled
287 ratings27 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I am completely taken with this series! The originality is mind blowing and the details, while seemingly far from reality, are quite imaginable. The characters are as diverse as ever and have a variety of things to bring to the table, and we meet Grace this time around, who is amazing.
There were a couple of details that I wish we're wrapped up before the end of this book, but waiting will be worth the wait if the first three books are any indication of reading satisfaction.
Thankfully, the next book, UnDivided is expected out in 2014, so we won't have to wait as long has we have in the past for a sequel.
This series has to be read in order. I really can't even imagine trying to get nearly as much out of it without the background stories of these characters and the history of unwinding and the warped society views that come along with it. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Another great addition to this series. Really enjoyed it :)
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Challenging to read what my students like, but this is an interesting series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This series is fantastic. I'm really into Shusterman's work because they are always so different and thought provoking. To think that we might end up like the people in these books. It makes me want to shudder. I struggled a little bit with the previous book before this one because I thought it dragged a little, but this volume picked up the pace a lot. There's another book to finish the series out after this and I'm very excited to get to it. I like the characters, but even more than that, I really like the story. Not in a I-enjoy-the-horrendous-settings type of way but in a this is a thought provoking train of thought being expressed. I do highly recommend this book or any of Shusterman's books.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Really enjoying this series and all of the fascinating discussions you could have about so many topics. Excellent character development and have appreciated the development of the back story on how this world came to be. Will definitely appeal to teen readers, especially the male reader. Still have a hard time understanding on how a parent could choose to have their child unwound no matter how much of little shits they are. Guess that makes me a decent parent. Some fabulous uses of dark humour and again love the moral discussions you could have about this series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neal Shusterman is a wonderful writer and I enjoyed this book enormously. However, I thought this book would be the conclusion and was somewhat disappointed. Would recommend to all audiences.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Book 3 in the Unwind series. After I gave book 1 to my grandson when he was 13...the age of unwinding, I bought the box set for us both to read. But, he had already found the rest of the series and read them! I'm finally getting to them and thoroughly enjoying them!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great story; I love how it was given. Good job writer! If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The airplane graveyard, and the safe space is no more. Many kids were captured or killed and now Connor and Lev are on the run. They are off to find a hidden human who may be just the answer they need to defeat Proactive Citizenry. However, after a dangerous run in with a “fan” in small town America, they pick up a new ally, and a new set of problems.
Risa is trying to live with the changes she didn’t want, and Cam, our parts boy, wants to use his “perfect” self to take down the very people who made him.
These books are amazing. The rights the kids are fighting for, and the answers they find are astounding, and somewhat predictable. Kind of like the Purge movies. An organization making and fighting both sides of a moral war. This book is not as much of a gut punch as books one and books 2, but it is the need continuation to show the readers history, and how they might change it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I love this series. I am ready for the 4th one.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Is an amazing story
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very nicely done! This is the third book in the series,and I am already looking forward to the next one.
It had been a while since I read the second, UnWholly, and the characters were a little fuzzy to me. Shusterman masterfully integrated past action and events for those like me, without being pandering to those who read these books in quick succession. It was just the right amount of memory-triggers. The characters were more fully flushed out, which makes for a very satisfying story. Risa was a minor character in this one, but was robustly written. Connor and Lev, as well as Cam and Roberta, were very nicely rounded out. The addition of Argent and Grace were welcome, and didn't take away from the story (as is apt to happen when it gets character-heavy).
The books ends at a nice stopping point while preserving a palatable cliffhanger. It will be a long wait until the release of UnDivided, the last in the series, October 2014.
Recommended. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow. Seriously. I am convinced this series will go down in history with the likes of 1984, The Time Machine, Brave New World...the fantastic and brilliant list goes on. If you love a series that makes you think, disturbs you, entertains you, and that you can't wait to talk to your friends about, this is it. I finished it a couple weeks ago and I still can't shake it. READ THIS NOW! That wasn't very polite, sorry... PLEASE read this now! You'll be glad you did. I will be waiting in stitches until the next book comes out. Mr. Shusterman, you are a genius.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like the other books in this series, this book is great. It seems to be all about giving each character a reason to make a final stand, thus setting up the next book. And based on all the motives, challenges, and concerns from each of the different characters, the next book will be explosive.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was a solid book. It was a necessary transitional book that made me want to scream and tear out my hair at the end because NOTHING WAS RESOLVED.
We follow book two Unwholly relatively closely in this book. As usual, Shusterman does a great job juggling the different perspectives of all the characters. It transitions the story well without any unnaturalness.
This books was basically trying to converge all the storylines. Connor and Cam meet. We reunite with Risa and Sonia. New characters relevant to the story are introduced. Starkley is emerging as a potentially big bad underling. Eh, and I guess Lev kinda gets his own storyline again.
But at the end, NOTHING HAPPENED. It's like I was waiting for action or a climax and all I got was the revelation that this world has 3D printers. Yay.
Okay, yeah, stuff happened. But it was a character development, really. (Which I am a fan of, yes, but balanced with action! C'mon!) Bah.
The ending made me narrow my eyes a little. Okayyyy. Interesting way to take the book to introduce a real life and current technology: 3D printers. I'm not sure if it's a plus or minus yet because it seems a little too easy. It just irks me a little bit because this is supposed to be a "what-if", dystopian world that has traveled in a different direction. It's clearly sci-fi because even though it boasts "science" with the unwinding, the retaining of memories from different body parts is scientifically debunked already. So I'm just a little startled to see a fictional world collide with our current and real world. I will withhold judgement about this strange collide until the next book though.
I am unwholly displeased that I have to wait for the next book for some lovely action.
A solid 3 stars. Definitely better than the second book, but not as great as the first. Looking forward to the next one in this series.
Recommended for those reading the series. Don't start here. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great wrap-up! It tied all the parts together and got the situation headed into a more positive direction. It was easy to see how society could get caught up in the idea of the science and lose track of how it was changing their ideals and how they view the world. I could see how this may really happen if science ever advanced to that level.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Really loved the first book in the series. Didn't enjoy this one nearly as much, but I suspect much of that is because I waited so long between books that much of the characters, their motivations and circumstances had just escaped my mind. I feel that to really give the book a fair review, I should go back and read book one and two JUST before I'm reading Unsouled.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the third book of the series. The government is allowing parents to sign over their unruly teens to be unwound for their tissue and organs. Our heroes Conner, Lev and Risa are trying to save as many teen from being unwound, while trying to bring down the Proactive Citizenry who created a new being from the best tissue and organs they could get their hands on by any means possible, whether the black market supplied by the parts pirates or harvested from the many harvest camps.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After the destruction of the Graveyard, Connor and Lev are on the run, seeking a woman who may be the key to bringing down unwinding forever while Cam, the rewound boy, tries to prove his love for Risa by bringing Proactive Citizenry to its knees.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Each book in this extended series emphasizes a different aspect of social morality, while very naturally continuing the adventure begun in the first book. Characters grow and change convincingly. Questions deepen. And the inclusion of present-day media quotes together with imagined future ones deepens the immediacy and plausibility of the author’s dystopian vision. Each book has its own beginning (or more than one beginning, as several character arcs are followed), middle and end. Divided characters come together again. Simple characters grow more complex. And the blend of introspection, believable teen and adult behavior, and terror grows ever deeper.
I particularly like UnSouled for its glimpse into the question of what makes us human. For me, memories of Star Trek’s split personalities (does tearing your atoms apart and reuniting them retain the human soul?) blend with new memories of a young man called Cam. For other readers, there will be other parallels, all of them enhanced by a fast-moving, fascinating storyline set in a well-imagined not-too-future world.
Disclosure: I got the set as a present and I love these books. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/53.5 stars
Trying not to give away too much info from previous books to summarize this one… Many of the potential unwinds are on the run. Many of the characters from the previous books in the series are running, or fighting back, or, in some cases, merely mentioned. Some chapters follow the scientists who invented unwinding, though they regretted it once they realized what it was being used for, as that was not its intent (from their points of view, anyway). A few new characters are introduced, ending up travelling along to hide, fight, or chase after those running.
It was good, though I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first two in the series. It did get better at the very end, but it wasn’t quite enough to up my rating. I do love the way the author works in little advertisements in between narrations of the story. Those little advertisements do mean something, as well. The chapters switch on whose point of view we are following; there are a lot of characters and I had a bit of trouble remembering who some of the characters were, in some cases! But, as the story moved forward, I either remembered more, or at least learned enough to follow. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In this book Connor, Lev, and Risa have found answers. They are taking down Proactive Citenzry piece by piece. Cam is trying to take down the company that made him for the hope of Risa loving him. The maker of Proactive Citenzry and unwinding; Justin Rheinshild, is trying to come up with something to replace unwinding. Connor is captured by a big giant fan of his, and locked in his basement. Connor and Lev with the fan of Connor's sister are all forced to take refuge at an Indian society. Cam comes to the Indian society in search of Risa, but only finds Connor and Lev.
This book was better than the first and second book combined. I can't wait for the fourth book to come out so I can read it. My favorite person was Jason Rheinschild. My least favorite person was the big fan of Connor's. My favorite part was when Connor escaped his fan. My least favorite part was when Cam came to the Indian society. I was very interested in the book, because of the excitement it entails. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5After the destruction on the Graveyard Connor and Lev are on the run. Cam is with the Proactive Citizenry, without Risa, and Risa herself is alone and on the run. Connor goes into a super market to buy him and Lev some food and refreshments but as Connor is leaving the store the clerk follows him and puts him in a choke hold, then while Connor is unconscious the store clerk (who we later learn is named Argent) takes Connor to his house and holds him hostage there so he can tell his friends that the famous Akron AWOL is in his house. While Connor is being held hostage, Lev has nothing to do but wait. Eventually Connor escapes Argent with the help of Argent's sister, Grace, and a stolen car. Connor and Grace are trying to get to Akron but on their way, Lev jumps in front of their stolen car and has sever internal bleeding and breaks a few ribs. Meanwhile Risa is wandering the streets trying to go unnoticed but eventually a woman against unwinding takes her in for a few weeks and gives her a makeover so that Risa doesn't look as recognizable. Cam escapes/leaves the Proactive Citizenry in search of Risa and Connor. Eventually Risa, Connor and Cam reunite but Cam is found and taken back by the Proactive Citizenry.
This book was a bit of a drag. It was very slow and not exactly what you would call a page turner. The book was one of those types of stories where everyone is looking for answers and things of the like, but in the end no one really finds any answers. There were some parts of the book that I did enjoy but not enough to even give this book 3.5 stars. As far as suggesting this book to anyone, if you've read the two previous books and want to find our what happens next(even though I just spoiled the whole thing) - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I was once again sucked into this wonderfully horrifying world that Shusterman has created. Following Lev, Connor, Risa and now Cam and Grace through the terrifying adventure they must endure to try to end the injustices that this world has made common. I know how I feel about Connor and Risa and I've come to like Grace as a character almost as much, but Lev keeps throwing me for loops and I'm not sure how to feel about Cam even now. This is definitely a story that will draw you in and rock your world. Any fans of Shusterman or the dysopian genre should give this series a read for sure.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm not sure why I continue with this series, because I seem to find a lot of things to criticize with each book. As with the first two in the series, the storyline is interesting & thought-provoking, but I just don't think the writing is very good. This book in particular took me longer to get through, I think because it was a little more slow-moving than the first two. While I don't particularly mind a story told through various points of view, there were just too many of them in this one. And the "advertisements" scattered throughout the book....not sure that they added a lot. I especially found them annoying being thrown smack in the middle of chapters. I wouldn't have minded them so much if they'd been placed between each chapter -- that would've made more sense.
However, after saying all that, I was intrigued by where the story was heading toward the end of the book, so now I have to know what will happen in the next & will inevitably start it shortly. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5UnSouled is the third book in this series - ***spoiler warning*** for the first two books, Unwind and Unwholly.
Connor and Lev are on the run from the mess that was once the Graveyard. Before he left, Trace had given Connor a bit of information about Proactive Citizenry – the group that seems to be behind quite a lot having to do with unwinding as well as the creators of Camus Comprix, the first person to be made with parts of the unwound – and a mysterious man named Janson Rheinschild. Following that up seems to be all he can think to do, now that Risa is gone who-knows-where. Meanwhile, Cam himself is determined to win Risa's love and trust by demolishing the very organization that made him.
The more I read this series, the more I can believe the premise, that people could get so fed up with “feral” teenagers that they start to think that using them for transplants and saving lives would really be for society's good. In the midst of the future dystopia are real, recent news articles and clippings on related topics, such as black market organ donors and a politician who apparently wrote that he thought there should be a death penalty for rebellious children – not that anyone would use the option, mind you, but that it might scare kids into behaving. This just adds to the believability of what might otherwise sound completely nightmarish and over the top. The various complicated ways in which Proactive Citizenry is working and unwinding has become entrenched in society are further unfolded. I especially enjoyed getting more of Sonia's backstory, that of the woman who first took in Connor and Risa and started them on their way through the safe houses that brought them to the Graveyard. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the series comes together in book four, due to come out next year. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book seemed slower than the preceding novels. Seems like we're building to something big.
I LOVED the flashbacks to the scientific and political beginnings of Unwinding and that that part of the story was told from an adult's point of view. The main characters were either very young or not even born yet when Unwinding started. This part of the story needed to be told by someone who really remembered it.
Every book seems to add more characters but Shusterman is absolutely amazing at really differentiating their voices and experiences that you never mix them up. He also has a trick to quickly remind the reader who each person is. For example, the beginning of Nelson's chapters always mention that he was once part of the Juvenile Authority.
Book preview
UnSouled - Neal Shusterman
Part One
Flightless
Surely this new medical technology will free us rather than enslave us, for it is my firm belief that human compassion outweighs human greed. To that end, I hereby found Proactive Citizenry to be a stalwart watchdog over the ethical use of neurografting. I am confident that abuses will be the exception rather than the rule.
—Janson Rheinschild
I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer
The Rheinschilds
They signed it. The Heartland War is over.
Janson Rheinschild closes the front door, throws his coat on the sofa, and collapses into an armchair, as if all his joints have become internally undone. As if he’s been unwound from the inside out.
You can’t be serious,
Sonia says. No one in their right mind would sign that hideous Unwind Accord.
He looks at her with a bitterness that isn’t meant for her, but it has nowhere else to go. Who,
he asks, has been in their right mind for the past nine years?
She sits on the arm of the sofa as close to him as she can get and takes his hand. He grasps it with a sort of desperation, as if her hand is the only thing keeping him from the abyss.
The new chairman of Proactive Citizenry, that narcissistic weasel Dandrich, called me before they made any official announcement, to let me know the accord was signed. He said that I should know first ‘out of respect.’ But you know as well as I do, he did it to gloat.
There’s no sense torturing yourself, Janson. It’s not your fault, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
He pulls his hand away from her and glares. You’re right—it’s not my fault. It’s our fault. We did this together, Sonia.
She reacts as if he’s slapped her across the face. She doesn’t just turn away from him. She gets up and moves away, beginning to pace the room. Good, thinks Janson. She needs to feel a little bit of what I feel.
I did nothing wrong,
she insists, and neither did you!
We made it possible! Unwinding is based on our technology! Our research!
And it was stolen from us!
Janson gets up from his chair, unable to bear even one sedentary moment. Sitting feels like acceptance. It feels like admitting failure. Next he’ll be lost in that armchair with a drink in his hands, swirling the ice to hear it clink, feeling the alcohol numbing him into submission. No, that’s not him. It will never be him.
There’s some shouting in the street. He looks out the living room window to see some neighborhood kids being rowdy with one another. Ferals,
the news now calls them. Feral teens. Something must be done about the feral teens this war has created,
the politicians bleat from their legislative pens. Well, what did they expect when educational funding was diverted to the war? How could they not know public education would fail? With no schools, no jobs, and nothing but time on their hands, what did they think these kids would do other than make trouble?
The mob in the street—barely a mob at all, numbering only four or five—passes without incident. They’ve never had trouble at their house even though theirs is the only home on the street without window bars and an iron security gate. On the other hand, several of the security doors on the street have been vandalized. These kids, they may be lacking in education since the school closures, but they’re not stupid. They see distrust all around them, and it makes them want to deliver their anger all the more. How dare you distrust me?
their violence says. You don’t know me.
But people are too wrapped up in their own fearful security measures to hear it.
Sonia comes up behind him now, wrapping her arms around him. He wants to accept her comfort, but can’t allow himself. He can’t be consoled or find a sense of peace until he’s undone this terrible wrong.
Maybe it will be like the old Cold War,
Sonia suggests.
How do you figure?
They have this new weapon,
she says, unwinding. Maybe just the threat of it is enough. Maybe they’ll never actually use it.
A cold war implies a balance of power. What do these kids have if the authorities start unwinding them?
Sonia sighs, finally seeing his point. Not a chance in hell.
Now at last he can take some comfort that she understands. That he’s not alone in seeing the murky depths to which this new law could lead.
It still hasn’t happened,
she reminds him. Not a single feral teen has been unwound.
No,
Janson says. Because the law doesn’t take effect until midnight.
And so they decide to spend the rest of their evening together, holding each other close like it’s the last night of civilization. Because in a very real sense, it is.
1 • Connor
It begins with roadkill—an act so random and ridiculous that it boggles the mind to consider the events to which it leads.
Connor should have pulled off the road to sleep—especially on a windy night like this. Certainly his reflexes behind the wheel would be much better in the morning, but the burning need to get himself and Lev to Ohio keeps pushing him harder each day.
Just one more exit on the interstate, he tells himself, and although he had resolved to stop once they crossed into Kansas, that marker came and went half an hour ago. Lev, who is good at talking sense into Connor, is no help tonight, slumped in the passenger seat, fast asleep.
It’s half past midnight when the unfortunate creature leaps into Connor’s headlights, and Connor has enough time only to register a brief impression of it as he jerks the wheel in a desperate attempt to avoid a collision.
That can’t be what I think it is….
Even though he swerves wide, the stupid thing bolts right into the car’s path again as if it has a death wish.
The borrowed
Charger slams into the creature, and it rolls over the hood like a boulder, shattering the windshield into a million bits of safety glass. Its body wedges in the windshield frame, with a twisted wiper blade embedded in its slender neck. Connor loses control of the steering wheel, and the car leaves the asphalt, careening wildly through the roadside chaparral.
He screams and curses reflexively, as the creature, still clinging to life, rips at Connor’s chest with its talons, tearing fabric and flesh, until finally Connor pulls enough of his wits together to slam on the brakes. The abominable creature dislodges from the windshield, launching forward as if shot from a cannon. The car keels like a sinking ship, comes to a sudden stop in a ditch, and finally the air bags deploy, like a faulty parachute opening upon impact.
The quiet that follows feels like the airless silence of space, but for the soulless moan of the wind.
Lev, who woke up the second they hit the thing, says nothing. He just gasps for the breath that was knocked out of him by the air bag. Connor has discovered Lev to be more of an opossum than a screamer. Panic makes him freeze.
Connor, still trying to process the previous ten seconds of his life, checks the wound in his chest. Beneath the tear in his shirt is a diagonal gash in his skin maybe six inches long. Oddly, he’s relieved. It’s not life-threatening, and flesh wounds can be dealt with. As Risa would have said when she ran the infirmary at the airplane graveyard, Stitches are the least of all evils.
This wound will take about a dozen. The biggest problem will be where a fugitive-presumed-dead AWOL can get medical attention.
Both he and Lev get out of the car and climb up from the ditch to examine their roadkill. Connor’s legs are weak and wobbly, but he doesn’t want to admit it to himself, so he concludes that he’s merely shaky from the adrenaline rush. He looks at his arm—the one with the shark tattoo—and pumps the hand into a fist, coopting the brutal strength of that stolen arm for the rest of his body.
Is that an ostrich?
asks Lev, as they look down on the huge dead bird.
No,
snaps Connor, it’s the freaking Road Runner.
Which was actually Connor’s first irrational thought when the giant bird had first loomed in his headlights. The ostrich, which had still been alive enough to rip into Connor’s chest a minute ago, is now very dead. Its torn neck is twisted at a severe angle, and its glassy eyes stare at them with zombielike intensity.
That was some bird strike,
Lev says. He seems no longer fazed by it, just observational. Maybe because he wasn’t driving, or maybe because he’s seen things far worse than a roadkill raptor. Connor envies Lev’s calm in a crisis.
Why the hell is there an ostrich on the interstate?
Connor asks. His answer comes with the rattle of a fence in a sudden gust of wind. Passing headlights illuminate the limb of an oak tree brought down by the wind. The bough was heavy enough to take out a piece of the chain-link fence. Long-necked shapes move behind the fence, and a few ostriches have already come through the breach, wandering toward the road. Hopefully they’ll have better luck than their comrade.
Connor has heard that ostrich farms were becoming more common as the price of other meat soared, but he’d never actually seen one. He idly wonders whether or not the bird’s death was suicide. Better roadkill than roast.
They used to be dinosaurs, you know?
says Lev.
Connor takes a deep breath, only now realizing how shallowly he’s been breathing—partially from the pain, partially from the shock of it all. He shows Lev his cut. As far as I’m concerned, they still are. The thing tried to unwind me.
Lev grimaces. You okay?
I’ll be fine.
Connor takes off his windbreaker, and Lev helps him fix it tightly around his back and across his chest as a makeshift tourniquet.
They look back at the car, which couldn’t be more totaled if it had been hit by a truck rather than a flightless bird.
Well, you did plan to ditch the car in a day or two, right?
Lev asks.
Yeah, but I didn’t mean in an actual ditch.
The waitress who was kind enough to let them take her car said she wouldn’t report it missing for a few days. Connor can only hope she’ll be happy with the insurance money.
A few more cars pass on the interstate. The wreck is far enough off the road not to be noticed by someone who’s not looking. But there are some people whose job it is to look.
A car passes, slows a hundred yards up, and makes a U-turn across the dirt median. As it makes the turn, another car’s headlights illuminate its black-and-white coloring. A highway patrol car. Maybe the officer saw them—or maybe he just saw the ostriches, but either way, their options have suddenly been cut short.
Run!
says Connor.
He’ll see us!
Not until he shines his spotlight. Run!
The patrol car pulls to a stop by the side of the road, and Lev doesn’t argue anymore. He turns to run, but Connor grabs his arm. No, this way.
Toward the ostriches?
Trust me!
The spotlight comes on, but it fixes on one of the birds nearing the road and not on them. Connor and Lev reach the breach in the fence. Birds scatter around them, creating more moving targets for the patrolman’s spotlight.
Through the fence? Are you crazy?
whispers Lev.
If we run along the fence, we’ll get caught. We have to disappear. This is the only way to do it.
With Lev beside him, Connor pushes through the broken fence, and like so many other times in his life, he finds himself running blind into the dark.
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They can’t stay at the ostrich ranch. Lights are on in the farmhouse; more than likely the owner has been notified of the problem on the interstate, and the place will be crawling with farmhands and police to wrangle the birds.
Down a dirt road, a half mile from the farm, they come across an abandoned trailer. There’s a bed with a mattress, but it’s so mildewed, they both decide their best bet is to sleep on the floor.
In spite of everything, Connor falls asleep in minutes. He has vague dreams of Risa, whom he hasn’t seen in many months, and may never see again, as well as dreams of the battle at the airplane graveyard. The takedown operation that routed the place. In his dreams, Connor tries dozens of different tactics to save the hundreds of kids in his care from the Juvenile Authority. Nothing ever works. The outcome is always the same—the kids are all either killed or put in transport trucks bound for harvest camps. Even Connor’s dreams are futile.
When he wakes, it’s morning. Lev isn’t there, and Connor’s chest aches with every breath. He loosens the tourniquet. The bleeding has stopped, but the gash is red and still very raw. He puts it back on until he can find something other than his bloodstained Windbreaker to cover it.
He finds Lev outside, surveying their surroundings. There’s a lot to survey. What at night appeared to be just a lone trailer is actually the central mansion of an entire rust-bucket estate. All around the trailer is a collection of large, useless objects. Rusted cars, kitchen appliances, even a school bus so old it retains none of its original color, not a single window intact.
You have to wonder about the person who lived here,
Lev says.
As Connor looks around the veritable junkyard, it strikes him as disturbingly familiar. I lived in the airplane junkyard for more than a year,
he reminds Lev. Everyone’s got issues.
Graveyard, not junkyard,
Lev corrects.
There’s a difference?
One is about a noble end. The other is about, well… garbage.
Connor looks down and kicks a rusted can. There was nothing noble about our end at the Graveyard.
Give it up,
says Lev. Your self-pity is getting old.
But it’s not self-pity—Lev should know that. It’s about the kids who were lost. Of the more than seven hundred kids in Connor’s care, over thirty died, and about four hundred were shipped off to harvest camps to be unwound. Maybe no one could have stopped it—but it happened on Connor’s watch. He has to bear the weight of it.
Connor takes a long look at Lev, who, for the moment, seems content to examine a wheelless, hoodless, roofless Cadillac so overgrown by weeds inside and out, it looks like a planter.
It has a kind of beauty, you know?
says Lev. Like how sunken ships eventually become part of a coral reef.
How can you be so stinking cheery?
Connor asks.
Lev’s response is a toss of his overgrown blond hair and a grin that is intentionally cheerful. Maybe because we’re alive and we’re free,
Lev says. Maybe because I singlehandedly saved your butt from a parts pirate.
Now Connor can’t help but grin as well. Stop it; your self-congratulation is getting old.
Connor can’t blame Lev for being upbeat. His mission succeeded with flying colors. He walked right into the middle of a no-way-out battle and not only found a way out, but saved Connor from Nelson, a disgraced Juvey-cop with a grudge who was hell-bent on selling Connor on the black market.
After what you did,
Connor tells Lev, Nelson will want your head on a stake.
And other parts, I’m sure. But he’s got to find me first.
Only now does Lev’s optimism begin to rub off on Connor. Yes, their situation is dire, but for a dire situation, things could be worse. Being alive and free counts for something, and the fact that they have a destination—one that may just give them some crucial answers—adds a fair amount of hope into the mix.
Connor shifts his shoulder and the motion aggravates his wound—a reminder that it will have to be taken care of sooner rather than later. It’s a complication they don’t need. Not a single clinic or emergency room will do the work without asking questions. If he can just keep it clean and dressed until they get to Ohio, he knows Sonia will get him the care he needs.
That is, if she’s still at the antique shop.
That is, if she’s even alive.
The last road sign before we flipped the bird said there was a town just ahead,
Connor tells Lev. I’ll go jack a car and come back for you.
No,
says Lev. I traveled across the country to find you—I’m not letting you out of my sight.
You’re worse than a Juvey-cop.
Two sets of eyes are better than one,
says Lev.
But if one of us gets caught, the other can make it to Ohio. If we’re together, then we risk both of us getting caught.
Lev opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again. Connor’s logic is irrefutable.
I don’t like this at all,
Lev says.
Neither do I, but it’s our best option.
And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?
Connor offers him a crooked grin. Make yourself part of the reef.
It’s a long walk—especially for someone in pain. Before leaving, Connor had found some clean
linens in the trailer, as well as a stash of cheap whiskey, perfect for cleaning a wound. Painful, too, but as all the world’s sports coaches say, Pain is weakness leaving the body.
Connor always hated coaches. Once the stinging had stopped, he created a more secure dressing, which he now wears under a faded flannel shirt that belonged to the trailer’s final resident. It’s too warm a shirt for such hot weather, but it was the best he could do.
Now, sweating from the heat and aching from the wound, Connor counts his steps along the dirt road until it becomes paved. He has yet to see a passing car, but that’s fine. The fewer eyes that see him, the better. Safety in solitude.
Connor also doesn’t know what to expect ahead of him in this small town. When it comes to cities and suburbs, Connor has found that most are fairly identical—only the geography changes. Rural areas, however, vary greatly. Some small towns are places you’d want to come from and eventually go back to: warm, inviting communities that breathe out Americana the way rain forests breathe out oxygen. And then there are towns like Heartsdale, Kansas.
This is the place where fun came to die.
It’s clear to Connor that Heartsdale is economically depressed, which is not that uncommon. All it takes these days for a town to give up the ghost is for a major factory to shut down or pick up its skirt and do an international waltz for cheaper labor. Heartsdale, however, isn’t just depressed; it’s ugly in a fundamental way and on more than one level.
The main drag is full of low, flat-faced architecture, all in shades of beige. Although there are farms in abundance that Connor had passed, thriving and green in the July sun, the town center has no trees, no green growth except for weeds between pavement cracks. There’s an uninviting church built out of institutional mustard-colored bricks. The sermon message on the billboard reads WHO W LL ATONE FOR YOUR S NS? B NGO ON FR DAYS.
The town’s most attractive building is a new three-story parking garage, but it isn’t open for business. The reason, Connor realizes, is the empty lot next to it. There’s a billboard for a modern office building to be erected there, which may one day need three levels of parking, but the forlorn state of the lot betrays the fact that the office complex has been in the planning stages for perhaps a decade and will probably never be built.
The place isn’t exactly a ghost town—Connor sees plenty of people going about their morning business, but he has an urge to ask them, Why bother? What’s the point?
The problem with a town like this is that anyone with even a rudimentary survival instinct managed to get out long ago—perhaps finding themselves one of those other small towns in which to live. The kind with the heart that Heartsdale lacks. Left behind are the souls that kind of got stuck to the bottom of the pan.
Connor comes to a supermarket. A Publix. Its blacktop parking lot shimmers with waves of heat. If he’s going to jack a car, there are plenty here to choose from, but they’re all out in the open, so he can’t do it without the risk of being exposed. Besides, his hope is to find a long-term parking lot where a stolen car might not be missed for a day or more. Even if he manages to get away with a car from this lot, it will be reported stolen within the hour. But who is he kidding? A long-term parking lot implies the owners of the vehicles parked there had somewhere to go. The folks in Heartsdale don’t seem to be going anywhere.
It’s hunger, however, that pulls him toward the market, and he realizes he hasn’t eaten in half a day. With twenty-some-odd dollars in his pocket, he reasons that there’s nothing wrong with buying something to eat. It’s easy to remain anonymous in a market for a whole of five minutes.
As the automatic door slides open, he’s hit with a blast of cold air that is at first refreshing, then makes his sweaty clothes cold against his body. The market is brightly lit and filled with shoppers moving slowly through the aisles, probably here to get out of the heat as much as they are to shop.
Connor grabs premade sandwiches and cans of soda for himself and for Lev, then goes to the self-checkout, only to find that it’s closed. No way to avoid human contact today. He chooses a checker who looks disinterested and unobservant. He seems a year or two older than Connor. Skinny, with straggly black hair and a baby-fuzz mustache that just isn’t working. He grabs Connor’s items and runs them across the scanner.
Will that be it for you?
the checker asks absently.
Yeah.
Did you find everything all right?
Yeah, no problem.
He glances once at Connor. It seems he holds Connor’s gaze a moment too long, but maybe he’s been instructed to make eye contact with customers, as well as ask his standard rote questions.
You need help out with that?
I think I can handle it.
No worries, man. Keep cool. It’s a scorcher out there.
Connor leaves without further incident. He’s back out in the heat and halfway across the parking lot, when he hears—
Hey, wait up!
Connor tenses, his right arm contracting into a habitual fist. But when he turns, he sees that it’s the checker coming after him, waving a wallet.
Hey, man—you left this on the counter.
Sorry,
Connor tells him. It’s not mine.
The checker flips it open to look at the license. Are you sure? Because—
The attack comes so suddenly that Connor is caught off guard. He has no chance to protect himself from the blow—and it’s a low one. A kick to the groin that registers a surge of shock, followed by a building swell of excruciating pain. Connor swings at his attacker, and Roland’s arm doesn’t fail him. He connects a powerful blow to the checker’s jaw, then swings with his natural arm, but by now the pain is so overwhelming, the punch has nothing behind it. Suddenly his attacker is behind him and puts Connor in a choke hold. Still Connor struggles. He’s bigger than this guy, stronger, but the checker knows what he’s doing, and Connor’s reaction time is slowed. The choke hold cuts off Connor’s windpipe and compresses his carotid artery. His vision goes black, and he knows he’s about to lose consciousness. The only saving grace is that being unconscious means he doesn’t have to feel the agony in his groin.
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Connor snaps awake, fully conscious, fully aware. No blearyeyed moments of uncertainty; he knows he was attacked, and he knows he’s in trouble. The question is how bad will this trouble be?
The wound on his chest aches, his head pounds, but he pushes thoughts of the pain away and quickly begins to take in his surroundings. Cinder-block walls. Dirt floor. This is good: It means he’s not in a jail cell or a holding pen. The only light is a single dangling bulb above his head. There are food supplies and cases of bottled water piled against the wall to his right, and to his left, concrete stairs lead to a hatch up above. He’s in some sort of basement or bunker. Maybe a storm cellar. That would account for the emergency supplies.
He tries to move but can’t. His hands are tied to a pole behind his back.
Took you long enough!
Connor turns to see the greasy-haired supermarket checker sitting in the shadows by the food supplies. Now that he’s been spotted, he scoots forward into the light. That choke hold I gave you knocks people out for ten, maybe twenty minutes usually—but you were out for nearly an hour.
Connor doesn’t say anything. Any question, any utterance, is a show of weakness. He doesn’t want to give this loser any more power than he already has.
If I held you ten seconds more, it woulda killed you. Or at least given you brain damage. You don’t got brain damage, do you?
Connor still gives him nothing beyond a cold stare.
I knew who you were the second I laid eyes on you,
he says. People said the Akron AWOL was dead, but I knew it was all lies. ‘Habeas corpus,’ I say. ‘Bring me his body.’ But they couldn’t do it, because you’re not dead!
Connor can’t hold his tongue any longer. That’s not what habeas corpus means, you moron.
The checker giggles, then pulls out his phone and takes a picture. The flash makes Connor’s head pound. Do you have any idea how cool this is, Connor? I can call you Connor, right?
Connor looks down and sees that the wound on his chest has been redressed with actual gauze and surgical tape. The fact that he can see the bandage brings to his attention the fact that he’s shirtless.
What did you do with my shirt?
Had to take it off. When I saw the blood, I had to check it out. Who cut you? Was it a Juvey-cop? Did you give as good as you got?
Yeah,
says Connor. He’s dead.
Hopefully his continued glare implies, And you’re next.
Wish I coulda seen that!
said the checker. You’re my hero. You know that, right?
Then he goes off into a twisted reverie. The Akron AWOL blows the hell out of Happy Jack Harvest Camp, escaping from his own unwinding. The Akron AWOL tranqs a Juvey-cop with his own gun. The Akron AWOL turns a tithe into a clapper!
I didn’t do that.
Yeah, well, you did the rest, and that’s enough.
Connor thinks about Lev waiting for him back at the field of junk and begins to feel sick.
I followed your career, man, until they said you died—but I never believed it, not for a minute. A guy like you don’t get taken down so easy.
It wasn’t a career,
Connor says, disgusted by this guy’s particular brand of hero worship, but it’s as if he doesn’t hear Connor.
You tore up the world. I could do that too, y’know? Just need the opportunity. And maybe a partner in crime who knows what he’s doing. Knows how to mess with the powers that be. You know where I’m going with this, right? Sure you do—you’re too smart not to know. I always knew if we’d met, we’d be friends. We’d click—kindred spirits and all that.
Then he laughs. The Akron AWOL in my storm cellar. Can’t be an accident. It was fated, man! Fated!
You kicked me in the nuts. That wasn’t fate; it was your foot.
Yeah, sorry about that. But, see, I had to do something or you’d just leave. It hurts, I know, but there’s no real damage. I hope you won’t take it the wrong way.
Connor laughs bitterly at that. He can’t help himself. He wonders if anyone saw the attack happen. If someone did, they didn’t care, or at least they didn’t care enough to stop it.
Friends don’t tie friends up in a cellar,
Connor points out.
Yeah, sorry about that, too.
But he makes no move to untie him. Here’s the quandary. You know what a quandary is, right? Sure you do. See, if I untie you, you’ll probably bolt. So I have to convince you I’m the real deal. A decent guy in spite of knocking you out and tying you up. I gotta make you see that a friend like me is hard to find in this screwed-up world and that this is the place where you want to be. You don’t gotta run anymore. See, nobody looks for nobody in Heartsdale.
His captor stands and paces, gesturing with his hands. His eyes get wide as he talks as if he’s telling a campfire story. He’s not even looking at Connor anymore as he weaves his little fantasy. Connor just lets him talk, figuring in his verbal diarrhea, he might expel some piece of information that Connor can use.
I got it all figured out,
he continues. We’ll dye your hair as dark as mine. I know a guy who’ll do pigment injections in your eyes on the cheap so they’ll look the same hazel as mine—although I can see one of your eyes is slightly different from the other, but we can get them to match, right? Then we’ll tell folks you’re my cousin from Wichita, on account of everyone knows I got family in Wichita. With my help, you’ll disappear so good, no one’ll know you’re not dead.
The thought of being made to look like this guy in any way is almost as unpleasant as a kick to the groin. And disappearing in Heartsdale? That’s the stuff of nightmares. Yet in spite of everything, Connor dredges up the warmest smile he can muster.
You say you want to be friends, but I don’t even know your name.
He looks offended. It was on my name tag at the market. Don’t you remember?
I didn’t notice.
Not too observant, are you? A guy in your situation should learn to be more observant.
And then he adds, Not your situation here. I mean your situation out there.
Connor waits until his captor finally says, Argent. Like Sergeant without the S. It means money in French. Argent Skinner at your service.
Of the Wichita Skinners.
Argent looks a bit shocked and increasingly suspicious. You heard of us?
Connor considers toying with him, but decides that Argent won’t look kindly upon it once he figures it out. No—you said so before.
Oh, right.
Now Argent just stares at him, grinning until the trapdoor swings open and someone else clambers down the steps. The woman looks somewhat like Argent, but a couple of years older, taller, and a little doughier—not fat, but a bit heavyset and unshapely. Dowdy—if a woman so young could be called dowdy. Her expression is a bit vaguer than Argent’s, if indeed that’s possible.
Is that him? Can I see him? Is it really him?
Suddenly Argent’s whole demeanor changes. You shut your stupid hole!
he shouts. You want the whole world to know who we got visitin’?
Sorry, Argie.
Her broad shoulders seem to fold at the reprimand.
Connor quickly sizes her up to be Argent’s older sister. Twenty-two or twenty-three, although she carries herself much younger. The slack expression on her face speaks of a dullness that isn’t her fault, although Argent clearly blames her for it.
You want to keep us company, then go sit in the corner and be quiet.
Argent turns back to Connor. Grace has got a problem using her indoor voice.
We’re not indoors,
Grace insists. The shelter’s in the yard, and that’s outside the house.
Argent sighs and shakes his head, giving Connor an exaggerated long-suffering look. You see how it is?
Yeah, I see,
says Connor. He logs one more bit of information. This cellar is not in the house, but in the yard. Which means if Connor manages to escape the cellar, he’s maybe a dozen yards closer to freedom. Won’t it be hard to keep it a secret that I’m down here,
Connor asks, once everyone else gets home?
No one else comin’,
Argent says. This was the news Connor was fishing for. He’s ambivalent about it. On the one hand, if there were other members of this household, someone might be rational enough to stop this before it gets any further. But on the other hand, a rational person would most likely turn Connor over to the authorities.
Well, I figured you’ve got a house, so you must have a family. Parents maybe.
Dead,
says Grace. Dead, dead, dead.
Argent throws her a severe warning look before turning back to Connor. Our mother died young. Our father kicked the ghost last year.
Good thing too,
adds Grace, grinning. He was gonna unwind Argent’s sorry ass for the cash.
In one smooth motion, Argent picks up a water bottle and hurls it at baseball speed at Grace. She ducks, but not fast enough, and the bottle careens off the side of her head, making her yelp with pain.
HE WAS JUST SAYING THAT!
yells Argent. I WAS TOO OLD TO BE UNWOUND.
Grace holds the side of her head, but remains defiant. Not too old for parts pirates. They don’t care how old you are!
DIDN’T I TELL YOU TO SHUT IT?
Argent takes a moment to let his fury dissipate, then looks for