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* * *
There was never a job on an Alaskan pipeline. After all, what Unwind would volunteer for such a job? The whole point was to make sure no one but Lev, Mai, and Blaine volunteered. Their van had taken them from the Graveyard to a run-down house, in a run-down neighborhood where people who had been run down by life plotted unthinkable deeds.
Lev was terrified of these people, and yet he felt a kinship with them. They understood the misery of being betrayed by life. They understood what it felt like to have less than nothing inside you. And when they told Lev how important he was in the scheme of things, Lev felt, for the first time in a long time, truly important.
The word "evil" was never used by these people—except to describe the evils of what the world had done to them. What they were asking Lev, Mai, and Blaine to do wasn't evil—no, no, no, not at all. It was an expression of all the things they felt inside. It was the spirit, and the nature, and the manifestation of all they had become. They weren't just messengers, they were the message. This is what they filled Lev's mind with, and it was no different than the deadly stuff they filled his blood with. It was twisted. It was wrong. And yet it suited Lev just fine.
"We have no cause but chaos," Cleaver, their recruiter, was always so fond of saying. What Cleaver never realized, even at the end of his life, is that chaos is as compelling a cause as any other. It can even become a religion to those unlucky enough to be baptized into it, those whose consolation can only be found in its foul waters.
Lev does not know of Cleaver's fate. He does not know, or care, that he himself is being used. All Lev knows is that someday soon the world will suffer a small part of the loss and the emptiness and the utter disillusionment he feels inside. And they will know the moment he raises his hands in applause.
58 Connor
Connor eats his breakfast as quickly as he can. It's not because he's hungry but because he has somewhere else he wants to be. Risa's breakfast hour is right before his. If she's slow, and he's quick, they can force their paths to cross without attracting the attention of the Happy Jack staff.
They meet in the girls' bathroom. The last time they were forced to meet in a place like this, they took separate, isolated stalls. Now they share one. They hold each other in the tight space, making no excuses for it. There's no time left in their lives for games, or for awkwardness, or for pretending they don't care about each other, and so they kiss as if they've done it forever. As if it is as crucial as the need for oxygen.
She touches the bruises on his face and neck, the ones he got from his fight with Roland. She asks what happened. He tells her it's not important. She tells him she can't stay much longer, that Dalton and the other band members will be waiting for her on the Chop Shop roof.
"I heard you play," Connor tells her. "You're amazing."
He kisses her again. They don't speak of unwinding. In this moment none of that exists. Connor knows they would take this further if they could—but not here, not in a place like this. It will never happen for them, but somehow he's content in knowing that in some other place and time it would have. He holds her for ten seconds, twenty. Thirty. Then she slips away, and he returns to the dining hall. In a few minutes he hears her playing, the strains of her music pouring forth, filling Happy Jack with the upbeat, pulse-pounding sound track of the damned.
59 Roland
They come for Roland that same morning, right after breakfast. A harvest counselor and two guards corner him in the dormitory hallway, isolating him from the others.
"You don't want me," Roland says desperately. "I'm not the Akron AWOL; Connor's the one you want."
"I'm afraid not," says the counselor.
"But . . . but I've only been here a few days. . . ." He knows why this happened. It's because he hit that guy with the volleyball, that must be it. Or it's because of his fight with Connor. Connor turned him in! He knew Connor would turn him in!
"It's your blood type," the counselor says. "AB negative— it's rare and in very high demand." He smiles. "Think of it this way, you're worth more than any other kid in your unit."
"Lucky you," says one of the guards as he grabs Roland by the arm.
"If it's any consolation," says the counselor, "your friend Connor is scheduled for unwinding this afternoon."
* * *
Roland's legs feel weak as they bring him out into the light of day. The red carpet stretches out before him, the color of dried blood. Any time kids cross that terrible stone path, they always jump over it as if touching it were bad luck. Now they won't let Roland step off of it.
"I want a priest," says Roland. "They give people priests, right? I want a priest!"
"Priests give last rites," says the counselor, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. "That's for people who are dying. You're not dying—you'll still be alive, just in a different way."
"I still want a priest."
"Okay, I'll see what I can do."
The band on the roof of the Chop Shop has begun their morning set. They play a familiar dance tune, as if to mock the dirge playing inside his head. He knows Risa is in the band now. He sees her up there playing the keyboard. He knows she hates him but still he waves to her, trying get her attention. Even an acknowledgment from someone who hates him is better than having no one but strangers watch him perish.
She doesn't turn her eyes toward the red carpet. She doesn't see him. She doesn't know. Perhaps someone will tell her he was unwound today. He wonders what she'll feel.
They've reached the end of the red carpet. There are five stone steps leading to the doors of the Chop Shop. Roland stops at the bottom of the steps. The guards try to pull him along, but he shakes them off.
"I need more time. Another day. That's all. One more day. I'll be ready tomorrow. I promise!"
