UnWholly

by Neal Shusterman

Page 58

 

  Connor had stopped responding in the middle of the battle, and the Juvies had, one by one, taken out the power generators, plunging the ComBom, and every other jet, into darkness.

  By midnight it’s over. Through the windows of the Com-Bom, Hayden can see the heavy transports, the battering ram, the riot trucks, and most of the Juvey squad cars pulling out: Mission accomplished.

  Hayden thinks that maybe they’ve been forgotten—that they can sit it out for a few more hours, then make a break for freedom. But the Juvenile Authority is smarter than that.

  “We know you’re in there,” they shout through a bullhorn. “Come out, and we promise no one will get hurt. ”

  “What do we do?” the kids around him ask.

  “Nothing,” Hayden says. “We do nothing. ” Being that the ComBom was the communications center and brain of the Graveyard, it’s one of the few crafts with all its outer doors in place and in working order. It’s also one of the few crafts that can only be opened from the inside. When the battle began, Hayden had sealed the airtight hatch, leaving them as self-contained and cut off as a submarine. Their only defense is their isolation and a submachine gun Connor insisted that Hayden have. He doesn’t even know how to fire the thing.

  “You’re in a hopeless situation,” the Juvies yell through their bullhorn. “You’ll only make matters worse for yourselves. ”

  “What could be worse than all of us getting unwound?” Lizbeth asks.

  Then Tad, who from the very beginning has been hanging close to Hayden as if they’re joined at the hip, says, “They won’t unwind you, Hayden. You’re seventeen. ”

  “Details, details,” Hayden says. “Don’t bother me with details. ”

  “They’ll storm us!” warns Nasim. “I’ve seen it on TV. They’ll blow off the door and gas us, and a SWAT team will drag us out!”

  The others look nervously to Hayden to see what he’ll say. “The riot police have already left,” Hayden points out. “We’re not important enough to storm. We’re just cleanup. I’ll bet they just left the fat, stupid Juvies to wait for us. ” And the kids laugh. He’s glad that they can still laugh.

  Regardless of IQ and body mass, the Juvies aren’t going away. “All right,” they announce. “We can wait as long as you can. ”

  And they do.

  At dawn they’re still there—just three squad cars and a small gray transport van. The media, which the cops held back through the raid, are now camped out just fifty yards away, their antennas and satellite dishes high.

  Hayden and his holdout Whollies have spent the night dozing on and off. Now the sight of the media gives some of them a surreal sort of hope.

  “If we go out there,” Tad says, “we’ll be on the news. Our parents will see us. Maybe they’ll do something. ”

  “Like what?” asks Lizbeth. “Sign a second unwind order? You only need one. ”

  At seven fifteen, the sun clears the mountains, heralding another scorcher, and the ComBom begins to roast. They manage to scrounge up a few water bottles, but not enough for fifteen kids who are already beginning to sweat out more than there is to take in. By eight o’clock, the temperature hits one hundred, and Hayden knows this can’t last. So he comes back to his favorite question, but this time it isn’t rhetorical.

  “I want you all to listen to me and think about your answer to this,” he tells them. He waits until he’s sure he has all their attention, then says:

  “Would you rather die . . . or would you rather be unwound?”

  They all look to one another. Some put their heads in their hands. Some sob dry tears because they’re too dehydrated to cry. Hayden silently counts to twenty, asks the question again, then waits for the answers.

  Esme, their best password-cracking hacker, is the first to break through the firewall of silence. “Die,” she says. “No question. ”

  And Nasim says, “Die. ”

  And Lizbeth says, “Die. ”

  And the answers start to come faster.

  “Die. ”

  “Die. ”

  “Die. ”

  Everyone answers, and not a single one of them chooses unwinding.

  “Even if there is such a thing as ‘living in a divided state,’ ” Esme says, “if we get unwound, the Juvies win. We can’t let them win. ”

  And so, as the temperature soars past 110 degrees, Hayden leans back against the bulkhead and does something he hasn’t done since he was little. He says the Lord’s Prayer. Funny how some things you never forget.

  “Our father, who art in heaven . . . ”

  Tad and several others are quick to join in. “Hallowed be thy name . . . ”

  Nasim begins to recite an Islamic prayer, and Lizbeth covers her eyes, chanting the Shema in Hebrew. Death, as they say, doesn’t just make all the world kin, it makes all religions one.

  “Do you think they’ll just let us die?” Tad asks. “Won’t they try to save us?”

  Hayden doesn’t want to answer him, because he knows the answer is no. From the Juvies’ point of view, if they die, all they lose are kids no one wanted anyway. All they lose are parts.

  “With the news vans out there,” suggests Lizbeth, “maybe our deaths will stand for something. People will remember that we chose death over unwinding. ”

  “Maybe,” Hayden says. “That’s a good thought, Lizbeth. Hold on to it. ”

  It’s 115 degrees. 8:40 a. m. Hayden’s finding it harder and harder to breathe, and he realizes the heat might not get them at all. It might be the lack of oxygen. He wonders which is lower on the list of bad ways to die.

  “I don’t feel so good,” says a girl across from him. Hayden knew her name five minutes ago, but he can’t think clearly enough to remember it. He knows it’s only minutes now.

  Beside him, Tad, his eyes half-open, begins babbling. Something about a vacation. Sandy beaches, swimming pools. “Daddy lost the passports and ooh, Mommy’s gonna be mad. ” Hayden puts his arm around him and holds him like a little brother. “No passports . . . ,” Tad says. “No passports . . . can’t get back home. ”

  “Don’t even try, Tad,” Hayden says. “Wherever you are, stay there; it sounds like the place to be. ”

  Soon Hayden feels his eyesight starting to black out, and he goes places too. A house he lived in as a kid before his parents started fighting. Riding his bike up a jump ramp he can’t handle and breaking his arm in the fall. What were you thinking, son? A fight his parents had over custody in the heat of their divorce. You’ll have him, all right! You’ll have him over my dead body, and Hayden just laughing and laughing, because it’s his only defense against the prospect of his family collapsing around him. And then overhearing their decision to unwind him rather than allowing the other to have custody. Not so much a decision, but an impasse.

  Fine!

  Fine!

  If that’s the way you want it!

  If that’s the way YOU want it!

  Don’t put this on me!

  They signed the unwind order just to spite each other, but laugh, laugh, laugh, Hayden, because if you ever stop laughing, it might just tear you apart worse than a Chop Shop.

  Now he’s far away, floating in the clouds, playing Scrabble with the Dalai Lama, but wouldn’t you know it, all the tiles are in Tibetan. Then for a moment his vision clears and he comes back to the here and now. He’s lucid enough to realize he’s in the ComBom where the temperature is too hot to imagine. He looks around him. The kids are awake, but barely. They slump in corners. They lie on the ground.

  “You were talking about stuff,” someone says weakly. “Keep talking, Hayden. We liked it. ”

  Then Esme reaches over and touches Tad on the neck, feeling his pulse. His eyes are still half-open, but he’s no longer babbling about tropical beaches.

  “Tad’s dead, Hayden. ”

  Hayden closes his eyes. Once one goes, he knows the rest of them won’t be far behind. He looks at the machine gun
next to him. It’s heavy. It’s loaded. He doesn’t even know if he can lift it anymore, but he does, and although he’s never used it, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. There’s a safety, easily removed. There’s a trigger.

  He looks at the suffering kids around him, wondering where “machine-gun fire” falls on the list of bad ways to die. Certainly a quick death is better than a slow one. He considers his options a moment more, then says, “I’m sorry, guys. I’m sorry I failed you . . . but I can’t do this. ”

  Then he turns the machine gun toward the cockpit and blasts out the windshield, flooding the ComBom with cool, fresh air.

  82 - Connor

  He wakes up in a comfortable bed, in a comfortable room, with a computer, a late-model TV, and sports posters all over the walls. He’s groggy enough to think he actually might be in heaven, but nauseous enough to know he’s not.

  “I know you’re pissed at me, Connor, but I had to do it. ”

  He turns to see Lev sitting in the corner, in a chair that’s painted with footballs and soccer balls and tennis balls to match the decor of the room.

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re in Sunset Ridge Homes, model number three: the Bahaman. ”

  “You brought me to a model home?”

  “I figured we both deserved comfortable beds, at least for one night. It’s a trick I learned from my days on the streets. Security patrols are looking for thieves, not squatters. They roll past but never go into model homes unless they see or hear something suspicious. So as long as you don’t snore too loud, you’re fine. ” Then he adds, “Of course, we’ve gotta be out by ten; that’s when they open. I stayed too late at a model once and nearly scared a realtor to death. ”

  Connor pulls himself to the edge of the bed. On TV is a news report. Aftermath and analysis of the AWOL raid at the airplane graveyard.

  “It’s been on the news since last night,” Lev tells him. “Not enough to preempt the infomercials and stuff, but at least the Juvies aren’t hiding it. ”

  “Why would they hide it?” Connor says. “It’s their stinking moment of glory. ”

  On TV, a spokesperson for the Juvenile Authority announces that the count of AWOLs killed was thirty-three. The number brought in alive is 467. “With so many, we’ll have to divvy them out to various harvest camps,” the man says, not even realizing the irony in using the word “divvy. ”

  Connor closes his eyes, which makes them burn. Thirty-three dead, 467 caught. If Starkey got away with about a hundred fifty, that leaves maybe sixty-five who managed to escape on foot. Not nearly enough. “You shouldn’t have taken me, Lev. ”

  “Why? Would you rather be a trophy to go along with their collection of Unwinds? If they find out that the Akron AWOL is alive, they’ll crucify you. Trust me, that’s one thing I know about. ”

  “The captain is supposed to go down with the ship. ”