UnDivided (33 page)

Connor glances to the intake door of the machine. It could open at any moment. “Let me think!”

“No time! Do this for me. Please!”

Can cold-blooded murder be just? Could it be an act of compassion instead of cruelty? If he does this, will Connor ever be the same? If Starkey's alive, he'll be unwound. If he's dead, it will just be a harvest. Starkey's right—Connor has the power to prevent this from being an unwinding. It's a horrible power. But perhaps a necessary one.

“What if it were you?” Starkey asks. “What would
you
want?”

And when Connor thinks of it that way, his choice is clear. He'd never want to know what lies in store within that awful black box. He'd want to die first.

Before he can change his mind, Connor clamps Roland's hand on Starkey's throat. Starkey gasps slightly, but as he promised, he doesn't resist. Connor squeezes tighter . . . tighter . . . then, the instant he feels Starkey's windpipe close off, something entirely unexpected happens.

Roland's hand unclamps.

“Don't stop,” hisses Starkey. “Don't stop now!”

Connor squeezes his fingers closed again around Starkey's neck. He holds it, feeling Starkey's pulse in the tips of his fingers—and again, his hand inexplicably releases. Connor starts gasping for air himself, not even realizing he was holding his breath along with Starkey.

“You're a coward!” Starkey wails. “You've always been a coward!”

“No,” says Connor, “that's not it.”

And finally it occurs to him what's wrong.

Roland tried to choke Connor with this same arm the day before he was unwound, but he couldn't do it.

Because Roland's not a killer.

Connor slowly looks from his right hand . . . to his left. His own hand. The one he was born with. That's the hand he brings to Starkey's throat. That's the hand that digs in until he feels Starkey's windpipe collapse beneath his fingers. That's the hand that is tenacious and determined enough to do what must be done.

Roland never had it in him to kill,
thinks Connor.
But I do . . .

It's harder than Connor could ever imagine. Tears cloud his eyes. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I'm so sorry.” He doesn't even know who he's apologizing to. He holds eye contact with Starkey, whose eyes begin to bulge and dart in physiological panic. His limbs quiver, his face deepens into bruise shades—yet even so, Starkey forces the corners of his mouth up in a faint grin of triumph.

Just a few moments more . . . just a few moments more . . .

Connor knows the exact moment Starkey dies. Not because he sees it in his eyes but because a vital signs transmitter on Starkey's ankle lets loose a piercing alarm. He pulls his hand from Starkey's throat and, hearing the outer door being unlocked, Connor leaps to the wall of Unwinds, climbs up to his niche, and vaults himself in just as the inner door opens.

First in is a medic, then the man who must be Divan. Connor watches the drama unfold from his perch, trying to slow his breathing so they can't hear him.

“How could this happen?” says Divan. “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?”

“I don't know,” says the nervous medic. “A heart attack maybe? A congenital condition we didn't know about?”

“I've just auctioned him! Do you have any idea how much money I stand to lose? BRING HIM BACK! NOW!”

The medic scurries off and returns with a defibrillator. Five times he tries to revive Starkey, and although his chest arches with each blast of electricity, the end result is the same. Mason
Michael Starkey, the bloodthirsty Lord of Storks, is dead.

Through all the attempts to revive him, Divan paces, and after the final attempt, his fury resolves into direction. “All right, he's dead, but we can still harvest him.”

“Not his brain,” says the medic. “It will already have started breaking down.”

“We'll assess its viability later—but even if we lose the brain, we can salvage everything else if we're fast enough. Set the machine to express mode, skip the anesthesia, and lower the temperature to thirty-six degrees.”

The medic unlocks the control panel and makes the needed adjustments. Then, when the unwinding chamber door opens, Divan physically pushes Starkey's body inside, not waiting for the conveyor belt to do it for him.

The door on the unit closes, the process begins, and the two relax.

“Too bad,” says the medic. “It's almost like he died to spite you.”

“If it was intentional,” says Divan, “then he had help.” Divan raises his gaze to look at the Unwinds in the drum all around him.

Connor closes his eyes and remains absolutely still.

“Get back to the control room. I want you to check the telemetry on every Unwind here,” Connor hears Divan say as they leave. “Find out if anyone's vital signs are unusually elevated.”

•  •  •

They come for him ten minutes later. Three of them: the medic, some random crewman who looks nervous to even be there, and a silent chisel-faced boeuf who looks born to intimidate. Connor is prepared, or at least as prepared as he can be. Hiding near the door just out of view, he blasts them with a fire extinguisher as they enter, and grabs one of their weapons. A tranq gun. They're only armed with tranqs. He fires and
manages to take down the nervous guy before the weapon is knocked from Connor's hands.

Then he dodges the grasp of the others, running for cover on the far side of the unwinding chamber, where the medical stasis coolers are stacked, ready for distribution. This fight is just for show, he knows. Escape is impossible, but if thrashing on the end of the line will give his captors grief, then it's well worth it.

The medic tries to lure him out with poorly delivered lies like, “Divan just wants to talk to you—there's nothing to be afraid of.”

Connor doesn't even engage him in conversation. For a moment he has the mad thought of opening the hinged nose cone, which is right at the front of the unwinding chamber. It's a design feature that assumed a cargo of tanks, not teens. If he opens the nose cone in flight, it will suck them all out into the icy, airless void of thirty-seven thousand feet, and most certainly bring down the plane. The control switch is close enough—and he might do it too, if all the other kids weren't there in the harvester . . . and if Risa weren't somewhere on board.

In the end, Connor is cornered, and they take him down, but not before Connor gets in a few good swings. His attackers don't fight back. Mustn't damage the merchandise. They don't tranq him either—maybe because they weren't entirely lying to him. Maybe Divan does want to talk to him, and talk now, rather than after a visit to Tranqistan.

They cinch his hands together with a cable tie—tight enough to do the job, but not tight enough to cut into his skin—and they take him out, stepping over the body of the tranq'd crewman, who, in a state of slumber, doesn't look nervous at all.

He's brought to a large, fancy room toward the rear of the jet, where Divan waits. There is a troubling collection of faces
on the wall behind him, somehow adding a dark gravity to Divan's presence.

“Hello, Connor,” he says with a calm he did not express upon Starkey's demise. “My name is—”

“I know who you are,” Connor says, then covers by saying, “You're black-market scum, and that's all I need to know.”

“Divan Umarov,” he continues, ignoring Connor. “And you've been quite the irascible camper, haven't you? How on earth did you wake up?”

“His IV must have blown,” says the medic, his eye almost swollen shut from Connor's punch. “The machine's supposed to alert us.”

Behind Divan, Argent fumbles to clean a dining table, clearly too terrified for his own life to even make eye contact with Connor. Does he really think Connor will give him away for waking him, and lose the closest thing he has to an ally right now?

“Wait a second,” says Connor, as if it's a total shock. “Is that Argent Skinner?” He looks at Argent with feigned incredulity. “What the hell is he doing here? And what happened to his face?”

“You shut up!” Argent says, playing into Connor's little theatrical, although a bit less convincingly. “I'm here because of you, so just shut up.”

Divan apparently knows their unpleasant history together—as Connor hoped he would—and accepts that this is the first Connor is aware of Argent's presence on the plane. Argent's breath of relief would have been suspicious if anyone paid him the slightest bit of attention.

Divan looks Connor over. “Am I right in assuming that you dispatched Mason Starkey prior to his unwinding?” And when he doesn't answer Divan says, “Come now, don't you have anything to say?”

Connor shrugs and obliges. “Nice socks,” he says with a satisfied smile.

Divan never breaks eye contact. “Indeed they are. Cervelt. New Zealand deer fiber, a bargain at a thousand dollars a pair.” He returns Connor's smile, leaving Connor feeling far less satisfied.

“Skinner! Bring Connor something to drink. Lemonade.”

Argent, dusting a piano keyboard flinches and hits a few of the keys. On the wall behind him three adjacent faces open their mouths and voice a dissonant chord. Connor swallows, and tries to convince his rational mind that he didn't just see that.

“I'll confess,” says Divan, “I was hoping to spend perhaps a week to build hype among my customers for your auction . . . but now, in light of your interference with Mr. Starkey, I just want to be rid of you.”

He gestures to the boeuf and the medic to take him away, and they step forward, grabbing him. “Where's Risa?” demands Connor. “I want to talk to her. If you're going to unwind me, at least let me say good-bye.”

“Unwise,” he says. “No need to compound her grief.”

Argent brings the lemonade but is literally blindsided by a chair. Bumping into it, he drops the glass on the floor, which calls forth a long-suffering sigh from Divan.

“I'm sorry, sir! I'm sorry!”

“Apologize to Connor; it was his drink.”

“I'm sorry, Connor.”

“It's all good, Argent,” Connor says. “All good.” And he turns his head just enough to hide from Divan the wink he gives Argent.

Divan orders that Connor be not only restrained but kept in isolation.

“Should we now to tranq him?” asks the boeuf in something
resembling English, with an accent much stronger than Divan's.

“No,” Divan tells him, “I can think of no greater punishment than leaving him alone with his own thoughts.”

In his twenty years on this earth, Argent Skinner could never connect his life's aspirations to anything real. As a child, he wanted to be a football star, but lacked the physique, so he lowered his expectations and became a vocal spectator. As an adolescent, he wanted to be a basketball star, and although he had some talent, he lacked the drive to see it through. So he lowered his expectations and accepted the chance to warm the bench for the one season he actually made the team.

It was more than two years after almost finishing high school that Connor Lassiter showed up in his checkout line. During that time, Argent had gotten no closer to his adult life goals than he ever got to his childhood goals. Argent wanted to be rich. He wanted to be respected. He wanted to be surrounded by beautiful women who adored him. But as with everything else, he lacked the vision required to manifest these things, so once more he lowered his expectations. Now all he wanted was a job that gave him enough money to keep his car running, and enough beer so he could hang out with other low-expectation friends and bad-mouth the types of people who got a piece of their dream.

Then Connor showed up, and Argent truly believed, if he could only win Connor over, he could hitch himself up to Connor's shooting star, and blast himself out of mediocrity.

It didn't work out.

Then Argent figured hitching himself up with a seasoned
parts pirate might provide him with a life of intrigue and purpose. After all, he'd already been doing some under-the-table dealing with groceries he'd been pilfering. That could be considered black-market experience, couldn't it? His hopes were high for a future in parts pirateering.

That didn't work out either.

And now he's here. He supposes there are worse things than being in domestic service to a wealthy flesh trader, and once Argent regains face, perhaps Divan will promote him to a less thankless position. But who is he kidding? He has watched Divan and knows how he operates. If Argent screws up badly, he'll be unceremoniously unwound. Otherwise, Divan will do the honorable thing and deliver what he promised Argent—but no more. He'll be left, after his indentured servitude, at some airport somewhere with a new face, a handshake, and the same lack of a future he began with.

How amazing, then, to think that his entire life could change with a single wink.

He was terrified when Connor was brought in to Divan, and was certain that Connor would point the finger at Argent for having woken him in the first place. After all, that's what Argent would have done: deflected the blame. Spread the misery. At first he didn't understand Connor's choice to protect him. He thought it might be a setup for something worse.

Then Connor winked at him as he was being led out, and the wink explained it all. Argent had dreamed of teaming up with the Akron AWOL. He thought there was no hope of that, but that wink says otherwise. It says that they aren't just a team, they're a
secret
team, and that's the best kind. In that instant, Argent went from a flesh dealer's valet to being the inside man! A high-level spy disguised as a flunky!
I need you, Argent
, that wink said.
I need you, and I'm trusting my life to you.

In that wink, both Argent and his hero were redeemed.