Текст книги "Unwind"

Автор книги: Neal Shusterman

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"But he didn't, did he? And now he won't. Because if he thinks you and I broke up, you're more useful to him if you're on his side. He might still be after you, but from now on, I'll bet he'll be killing you with kindness."

All the emotions rebounding madly through Risa finally come to rest in an unfamiliar place, and tears burst from her eyes. Connor steps forward to comfort her, but she pushes him away with the same force she would have used against Roland.

"Get out!" she yells. "Just get out!"

Connor throws up his hands, frustrated. "Fine. I guess I should have just gone to dinner and not come in here at all."

He leaves and she closes the door behind him, in spite of the line of kids now waiting for the bathroom. She sits down on the floor, her back against the door so no one can get in as she tries to get her emotions under control.

Connor had done the right thing. For once, he had seen the situation more clearly than she—and he had probably ensured that Roland wouldn't physically threaten her again, at least for a while. And yet there's a part of her that can't forgive him for just standing there. After all, heroes are supposed to behave in very specific ways. They're supposed to fight, even if it means risking their lives.

This is the moment Risa realizes that, even with all his troubles, she sees Connor as a hero.

_{25 Connor}

Holding his temper in that bathroom was perhaps the hardest thing Connor had ever had to do. Even now, as he storms away from Risa, he wants to lay into Roland—but blind rage is not what the moment needs, and Connor knows it. Risa's right—a brutal, all-out fight is exactly what Roland wants—and Connor's heard from some of the other kids that Roland has fashioned  himself a knife out of some metal he found lying around the warehouse. If Connor launches at him with a rage of swinging fists, Roland will find a way to end it with a single deadly thrust– and he'll be able to get away with it, claiming it was self-defense.

Whether Connor can take him in a fight isn't the question. Even against a knife, Connor suspects he might be able to either turn the blade against him, or take Roland out in some other way before he has the chance to use it. The question is this: Is Connor willing to enter a battle that must end with one of them dead? Connor might be a lot of things, but he's no killer. So he holds his temper and plays it cool.

This is new territory for him. The fighter in him screams foul, but another side of him, a side that's growing steadily stronger, enjoys this exercise of silent power—and it is power, because Roland now behaves exactly the way he and Risa want him to. Connor sees Roland offer his dessert to Risa that night as an apology. She doesn't accept it, of course, but it doesn't change the fact that he offered it. It's as if Roland thinks his attack on her could be wiped away by feigning remorse—not because he's actually sorry for what he did, but because it serves Roland's needs to treat her well now. He has no idea that Risa and Connor have him on an invisible leash. Connor knows it will only be a matter of time, however, until he chews his way through it.

Part Four

_Destinations

The following is a response from eBay with regard to a seller's attempt to auction his soul online in 2001.

Thank you for taking the time to write eBay with your concerns. I'm happy to help you further.

If the soul does not exist, eBay could not allow the auctioning of the soul because there would be nothing to sell. However, if the soul does exist, then in accordance with eBay's policy on human parts and remains we would not allow the auctioning of human souls. The soul would be considered human remains; and although it is not specifically stated on the policy page, human souls are still not allowed to he listed on eBay. Your auction was removed appropriately and will not be reinstated. Please do not relist this item with us in the future.

You may review our policy at the following link:

http:llpages.ebay.comfhelplpolicieslremains.html

.

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.

 

_{26  Pawnbroker}

The man inherited the pawnshop from his brother, who had died of a heart attack. He wouldn't have kept the place, but he inherited it while he was unemployed. He figured he could keep it and run it until he could find a better job. That was twenty years ago. Now he knows it's a life sentence.

A boy comes into his shop one evening before closing. Not his usual type of customer. Most folks come into a pawnshop down on their luck, ready to trade in everything they own, from TVs to family heirlooms, in exchange for a little quick cash. Some do it for drugs. Others have more legitimate reasons. Either way, the pawnbroker's success is based on the misery of others. It doesn't bother him anymore. He's grown used to it.

This boy is different, though. Sure, there are kids who come in, hoping to get a deal on items that were never claimed, but there's something about this kid that's markedly off. He looks more clean-cut than the kids that usually turn up in his store. And the way he moves, even the way he holds himself, is refined and graceful, deliberate and delicate, like he's lived his life as a prince and is now pretending to be the pauper. He wears a puffy white coat, but it's a bit dirty. Maybe he's the pauper after all.

The TV on the counter plays a football game, but the pawnbroker isn't watching the game anymore. His eyes are on it, but his mind is keeping track of the kid as he meanders through the shop, looking at things, like he might want to buy something.

After a few minutes, the kid approaches the counter.

"What can I do for you?" the pawnbroker asks, genuinely curious.

"This is a pawnshop isn't it?"

"Doesn't it says so on the door?"

"So that means you trade things for money, right?"

The pawnbroker sighs. The kid's just ordinary after all, just a little more naive than the other kids who show up here trying to hock their baseball card collections or whatever. Usually they want money for cigarettes or alcohol or something else they don't want their parents to know about. This kid doesn't look like the type for that, though.

"We loan money, and take objects of value as collateral," he tells the kid. "And we don't do business with minors. You wanna buy something, fine, but you can't pawn anything here, so take your baseball cards somewhere else."

"Who said I have baseball cards?"

Then the kid reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bracelet, all diamonds and gold.

The pawnbroker's eyes all but pop out of his skull as the kid dangles it from his fingers. Then the pawnbroker laughs. "Whad'ya do, steal that from your mommy, kid?"

The kid's expression stays diamond hard. "How much will you give me for it?"

"How about a nice boot out the door?"

Still, the kid shows no sign of fear or disappointment. He just lays the bracelet on the worn wooden counter with that same princely grace.

"Why don't you just put that thing away and go home?"

"I'm an Unwind."

"What?"

"You heard me."

This throws the pawnbroker for a loop for a whole lot of reasons. First of all, runaway Unwinds who show up at his shop never admit it. Secondly, they always appear desperate and angry, and the stuff they have to sell is shoddy at best. They're never this calm, and they never look this . . . angelic.

"You're an Unwind?"

The boy nods. "The bracelet is stolen, but not from anywhere around here."

Unwinds also never admit that their items are stolen. Those other kids always come up with the most elaborate stories as to who they are, and why they're selling. The pawnbroker will usually listen to their stories for their entertainment value. If it's a good story, he'll just throw the kid out. If it's a lousy story, he'll call the police and have them picked up. This kid, however, doesn't have a story; he comes only with the truth. The pawnbroker doesn't quite know how to deal with the truth.

"So," says the kid. "Are you interested?"

The pawnbroker just shrugs. "Who you are is your business, and like I said, I don't deal with minors."

"Maybe you'll make an exception."

The pawnbroker considers the kid, considers the bracelet, then looks at the door to make sure no one else is coming in. "I'm listening."

"Here's what I want. Five hundred dollars, cash. Now. The I leave like we never met, and you can keep the bracelet."

The pawnbroker puts on his well-practiced poker face. "Are you kidding me? This piece of junk? Gold plate, zircons instead of diamonds, poor workmanship—I'll give you a hundred bucks, not a penny more."

The kid never breaks eye contact. 'You're lying."

Of course the pawnbroker is lying, but he resents the accusation. "How about if I turn you in to the Juvey-cops right now?

The kid reaches down and takes the bracelet from the table. "You could," he says. "But then you won't get this—the police will."

The pawnbroker strokes his beard. Maybe this kid isn't as naive as he looks.

"If it were a piece of junk," the kid says, "you wouldn't have offered me a hundred. I'll bet you wouldn't have offered me anything." He looks at the bracelet dangling from his fingers. "I really don't know what something like this is worth, but I'll bet it's worth thousands. All I'm asking is five hundred, which means, whatever it's worth, you're getting a great deal."

The pawnbroker's poker face is gone. He can't stop staring at the bracelet—it's all he can do not to drool over it. He knows what it's really worth, or at least he can guess. He knows where he can fence it himself for five times what the kid is asking. That would be a nice bit of change. Enough to take his wife on that long vacation she's always wanted.

"Two hundred fifty. That's my final offer."

"Five hundred. You have three seconds, and then I leave. One . . . two . . ."

"Deal." The pawnbroker sighs as if he's been beaten. "You drive a hard bargain, kid." That's the way these things are played. Make the kid think that he won, when all the while he's the one who's truly being robbed! The pawnbroker reaches for the bracelet, but the kid holds it out of reach.

 "First the money.

"The safe's in the back room—I'll be back in a second."

"I'll come with you."

The pawnbroker doesn't argue. It's understandable that the kid doesn't trust him. If he trusted people, he'd have been unwound by now. In the back room, the pawnbroker positions himself with the kid behind him, so the kid can't see the combination of the safe. He pulls open the door, and the second he does, he feels something hard and heavy connecting with his head. His thoughts are instantly scrambled. He loses consciousness before he hits the ground.

The pawnbroker comes to sometime later, with a headache and a faint memory that something had gone wrong. It takes a few seconds for him to pull himself together and realize exactly what happened. That little monster conned him! He got him to open the safe, and the moment he did, he knocked him out and cleaned out the safe.

Sure enough, the safe is open wide—but it's not entirely empty. Inside is the bracelet, its gold and diamonds looking even brighter against the ugly gray steel of the empty safe. How much money had been in the safe? Fifteen hundred, tops. This bracelet is worth at least three times that. Still a deal—and the kid knew it.

The pawnbroker rubs the painful knot on his head, furious at the kid for what he did and yet admiring him for the strangely honorable nature of the crime. If he himself had been this clever, this honorable, and had found this kind of nerve when he was a kid, perhaps he'd be more than just a pawnbroker.

_{27 Connor}

The morning after the bathroom incident, they are rousted awake by the Fatigues before dawn. "Everybody up! Now! Move it! Move it!" They're loud, they're on edge, and the first thing Connor notices is that the safeties on their weapons are oft. Still bleary from sleep, he rises and looks for Risa. He sees her already being herded by two Fatigues toward a huge double door that has always been padlocked. Now the padlock is off.

"Leave your things! Go! Move it! Move it!"

To his right, a cranky kid pushes a Fatigue for tearing away his blanket. The Fatigue hits him on the shoulder with the butt of his rifle—not enough to seriously wound him, but enough to make it clear to the kid, and everyone else, that they mean business. The kid goes down on his knees, gripping his shoulder and cursing, and the Fatigue goes about the business of herding the others. Even in his pain, the kid looks ready for a fight. As Connor passes him, Connor grabs him by the arm and helps him up.

"Take it easy," Connor says. "Don't make it worse."

The kid pulls out of Connor's grip. "Get off me! I don't need your stinkin' help." The kid storms away. Connor shakes his head. Was he ever that belligerent?

Up ahead, the huge double doors are slid open to reveal another room of the warehouse that the Unwinds have never seen. This one is filled with crates—old airline packing crates, designed, both in shape and durability, to transport goods by air freight. Connor immediately realizes what they're for—and why he and the others have been warehoused so close to an airport. Wherever they're going, they're going as air cargo.

"Girls to the left, boys to the right. Move it! Move it!"

There's grumbling, but no direct defiance. Connor wonders how many kids get what's going on.

"Four to a crate! Boys with boys, girls with girls. Move it! Move it!"

Now everyone begins to scramble around, trying to team up with their preferred travel companions, but the Fatigues have neither patience nor time for it. They randomly create groups of four and push them toward the crates.

That's when Connor notices how dangerously close he is to Roland—and it's no accident. Roland moved close to him on purpose. Connor can just imagine it. Pitch black and close quarters. If he's in a crate with Roland, then he'll be dead before takeoff.

Connor tries to move away, but a Fatigue grabs Roland, Connor, and two of Roland's known collaborators. "You four. That crate over there!"

Connor tries not to let his panic show; he doesn't want Roland to see. He should have prepared his own weapon, like the one Roland certainly has concealed on him now. He should have prepared for the inevitability of a life-or-death confrontation, but he hadn't, and now his options are limited.

No time for thinking this through, so he lets impulse take over and gives in to his fighting instincts. He turns to one of Roland's henchmen and punches him in the face hard enough to draw blood, maybe even break his nose. The force of the punch spins the kid around, but before he can come back for a counterassault, a Fatigue grabs Connor and smashes him back against the concrete wall. The Fatigue doesn't know it, but this is exactly what Connor wanted.

"You picked the wrong day to do that, kid!" says the Fatigue, holding him against the wall with his rifle.

"What are you gonna do, kill me? I thought you were trying to save us."

That gives the Fatigue a moment's pause.

"Hey!" yells another Fatigue. "Forget him! We gotta load them up." Then he grabs another kid to complete the foursome with Roland and his henchmen, sending them toward a crate. They don't even care about the one kid's bleeding nose.

The Fatigue holding Connor against the wall sneers at him. "The sooner you're in a box, the sooner you're somebody else's problem."

"Nice socks," says Connor.

They put Connor in a four-by-eight crate that already has three kids waiting to complete their quartet. The crate is scaled even before he can see who's inside with him, but as long as it's not Roland, it will do.

"We're all gonna die in here," says a nasal voice, followed by a wet sniff that doesn't sound like it clears much of anything. Connor knows this kid by his mucous. He's not sure of his name—everyone just calls him "the Mouth Breather," since his nose is perpetually stuffed. Emby, for short. He's the one always obsessively reading his comic book, but he can't quite do that in here.

"Don't talk like that," says Connor. "If the Fatigues wanted to kill us, they would have done it a long time ago."

The Mouth Breather has foul breath that's filling up the whole crate. "Maybe they got found out. Maybe the Juvey-cops are on their way, and the only way to save themselves is to destroy the evidence!"

Connor has little patience for whiners. It reminds him too much of his younger brother. The one his parents chose to keep. "Shut up, Emby, or I swear I'm going to take off my sock, shove it in your stinky mouth, and you'll finally have to figure out a way to breathe through your nose!"

"Let me know if you need an extra sock," says a voice just across from him. "Hi, Connor. It's Hayden."

"Hey, Hayden." Connor reaches out and finds Hayden's shoe, squeezing it—the closest thing to a greeting in the claustrophobic darkness. "So, who's lucky number four?" No answer. "Sounds like we must be traveling with a mime." Another long pause, then Connor hears a deep, accented voice.

"Diego."

"Diego doesn't talk much," says Hayden.

"I figured."

They wait in silence, punctuated by the Mouth Breather's snorts.

"I gotta go to the bathroom," Emby mumbles.

"You should have thought of that before you left," says Hayden, putting on his best mother voice. "How many times do we have to tell you? Always use the potty before climbing into a shipping crate."

There's some sort of mechanical activity outside, then they feel the crate moving.

"I don't like this," whines Emby.

"We're being moved," says Hayden.

"By forklift, probably," says Connor. The Fatigues are probably long gone by now. What was it that one Fatigue had said? Once you're in a box, you're somebody else's problem. Whoever's been hired to ship them probably has no clue what's in the crates. Soon they'll be on board some aircraft, headed to an undisclosed destination. The thought of it makes him think about the rest of his family and their trip to the Bahamas—the one they'd planned to take once Connor was unwound. He wonders if they went—would they still take their vacation, even after Connor had kicked-AWOL? Sure they would. They were planning to take it once he got unwound, so why would his escape stop them? Hey, wouldn't it be funny if they were being shipped to the Bahamas too?

"We're gonna suffocate! I know it!" announces the Mouth Breather.

"Will you shut up?" says Connor. "I'm sure there's more than enough air in here for us."

"How do you know? I can barely breathe already—and I got asthma, too. I could have an asthma attack in here and die!"

"Good," says Connor. "One less person breathing the air."

That shuts Emby up, but Connor feels bad having said it. "No one's going to die," he says. "Just relax."

And then Hayden says, "At least dying's better than being unwound. Or is it? Let's take a poll—would you rather die, or be unwound?"

"Don't ask things like that!" snaps Connor. "I don't want to think about either." Somewhere outside of their little crated universe, Connor hears a metal hatch closing and can feel the vibration in his feet as they begin to taxi. Connor waits. Engines power up—he can feel the vibration in his feet. He's pushed back against the wall as they accelerate. Hayden tumbles into him, and he shifts over, giving Hayden room to get comfortable again.

"What's happening? What's happening?" cries Emby.

"Nothing. We're just taking off."

"What! We're on a plane?"

Connor rolls his eyes, but the gesture is lost in the darkness.

* * *

The box is like a coffin. The box is like a womb. Normal measures of time don't seem to apply, and the unpredictable turbulence of flight fills the dark space with an ever-present tension.

Once they're airborne, the four kids don't speak for a very long time. Half an hour, an hour maybe—it's hard to tell. Everyone's mind is trapped in the holding pattern of their own uneasy thoughts. The plane hits some rough air. Everything around them rattles. Connor wonders if there are kids in crates above them, below them, and on every side. He can't hear their voices if they are. From where he sits, it feels like the four of them are the only ones in the universe. Emby silently relieves himself. Connor knows because he can smell it—everyone can, but no one says anything. It could just as easily have been any one of them—and depending on how long this trip is, it still could be.

Finally, after what feels like forever, the quietest of them all speaks.

"Unwound," Diego says. "I'd rather be unwound."

Even though it's been a long time since Hayden posed the question, Connor knows immediately what it refers to. Would you rather die or be unwound? It's like the question has hung in the cramped darkness all this time, waiting to be answered.

"Not me," says Emby. "Because if you die, at least you go to Heaven."

Heaven? thinks Connor. More likely they'd go to the other place. Because if their own parents didn't care enough about them to keep them, who would want them in Heaven?

"What makes you think Unwinds don't go?" Diego asks Emby.

"Because Unwinds aren't really dead. They're still alive . . . sort of. I mean, they have to use every single part of us somewhere, right? That's the law."

Then Hayden asks the question. Not a question, the question. Asking it is the great taboo among those marked for unwinding. It's what everyone thinks about, but no one ever dares to ask out loud.

"So, then," says Hayden, "if every part of you is alive but inside someone else . . . are you alive or are you dead?"

This, Connor knows, is Hayden bringing his hand back and forth across the flame again. Close enough to feel it, but not close enough to burn. But it's not just his own hand now, it's everyone's, and it ticks Connor off.

"Talking wastes our oxygen," Connor says. "Let's just agree that unwinding sucks and leave it at that."

It shuts everyone up, but only for a minute. It's Emby who talks next.

"I don't think unwinding is bad," he says. "I just don't want it to happen to me."

Connor wants to ignore him but can't. If there's one thing that Connor can't abide, it's an Unwind who defends unwinding. "So it's all right if it happens to us but not if it happens to you?

"I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did."

"Ooh," says Hayden. "This is getting good."

"They say it's painless," says Emby—as if that were any consolation.

"Yeah?" says Connor. "Well, why don't you go ask all the pieces of Humphrey Dunfee how painless it was?"

The name settles like a frost around them. The jolts and rattles of turbulence grow sharper.

"So . . . you heard that story too?" says Diego. "Just because there are stories like that, doesn't mean unwinding is all bad," says Emby. "It helps people."

"You sound like a tithe," says Diego.

Connor finds himself personally insulted by that. "No, he doesn't. I know a tithe. His ideas might have been a little bit out there, but he wasn't stupid." The thought of Lev brings with it a wave of despair. Connor doesn't fight it—he just lets it wash through him, then drain away. He doesn't know a tithe; he knew one. One who has certainly met his destiny by now.

"Are you calling me stupid?" says Emby.

"I think I just did."

Hayden laughs. "Hey, the Mouth Breather is right– unwinding does help people. If it wasn't for unwinding, there'd be bald guys again—and wouldn't that be horrible?"

Diego snickers, but Connor is not the least bit amused. "Emby, why don't you do us all a favor and use your mouth for breathing instead of talking until we land, or crash, or whatever."

"You might think I'm stupid, but I got a good reason for the way I feel," Emby says. "When I was little, I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Both my lungs were shutting down. I was gonna die. So they took out both my dying lungs and gave me a single lung from an Unwind. The only reason I'm alive is because that kid got unwound."

"So," says Connor, "your life is more important than his?"

"He was already unwound—it's not like I did it to him. If I didn't get that lung, someone else would have."

In his anger, Connor's voice begins to rise, even though Emby's only a couple of feet away at most. "If there wasn't unwinding, there'd be fewer surgeons, and more doctors. If there wasn't unwinding, they'd go back to trying to cure diseases   instead   of just   replacing   stuff  with   someone else's."

And suddenly the Mouth Breather's voice rings out with a ferocity that catches Connor by surprise.

"Wait till you're the one who's dying and see how you feel about it!"

"I'd rather die than get a piece of an Unwind!" Connor yells back.

The Mouth Breather tries to shout something else, but instead goes into a coughing fit that lasts for a whole minute. It gets so bad, it frightens even Connor. It's like he might actually cough up his transplanted lung.

"You okay?" asks Diego.

"Yeah," says Emby, trying to get it under control. "Like I said, the lung's got asthma. It was the best we could afford."

By the time his coughing fit is over, it seems there's nothing more to say. Except this:

"If your parents went to all that trouble," asks Hayden, "why were they having you unwound?"

Hayden and his questions. This one shuts Emby down for a few moments. It's clearly a tough topic for him—maybe even tougher than it is for most Unwinds.

"My parents didn't sign the order,'' Emby finally says. "My dad died when I was little, and my mom died two months ago. That's when my aunt took me in. The thing is, my mom left me some money, but my aunt's got three kids of her own to put through college, so . . ."

He doesn't have to finish. The others can connect the dots.

"Man, that stinks," says Diego.

"Yeah," says Connor, his anger at Emby now transferred to Emby's aunt.

"It's always about money," Hayden says. "When my parents were splitting up, they fought over money, until there was none left. Then they fought over me. So I got out before there was none of me left, either."

Silence falls again. There's nothing to hear but the drone of the engine, and the rattle of the crates. The air is humid and it's a struggle to breathe. Connor wonders if maybe the Fatigues miscalculated about how much air they had. We're all gonna die in here. That's what Emby said. Connor bangs his head back sharply against the wall, hoping to jar loose the bad thoughts clinging to his brain. This is not a good place to be alone with your thoughts. Perhaps that's why Hayden feels compelled to talk.

"No one ever answered my question," Hayden says. "Looks like no one has the guts."

"Which one?" asks Connor. "You've got questions coming out of you like farts on Thanksgiving."

"I was asking if unwinding kills you, or if it leaves you alive somehow. C'mon—it's not like we haven't thought about it."

Emby says nothing. He's clearly been weakened by coughing and conversation. Connor's not interested in volunteering either.

"It depends," says Diego. "Depends on where your soul is once you're unwound."

Normally Connor would walk away from a conversation like this. His life is about tangibles: things you can see, hear, and touch. God, souls, and all that has always been like a secret in a black box he couldn't see into, so it was easier to just leave it alone. Only now, he's inside the black box.

"What do you think, Connor?" asks Hayden. "What happens to your soul when you get unwound?"

"Who says I even got one?"

"For the sake of argument, let's say you do."

"Who says I want an argument?"

"Ijolé! Just give him an answer, man, or he won't leave you alone."

Connor squirms, but can't squirm his way out of the box. "How should I know what happens to it? Maybe it gets all broken up like the rest of us into a bunch of little pieces."

"But a soul isn't like that," says Diego. "It's indivisible."

"If it's indivisible," says Hayden, "maybe an Unwinds spirit stretches out, kind of like a giant balloon between all those parts of us in other places. Very poetic."

Hayden might find poetry in it, but to Connor the thought is terrifying. He tries to imagine himself stretched so thin and so wide that he can reach around the world. He imagines his spirit like a web strung between the thousand recipients of his hands, his eyes, the fragments of his brain—none of it under his control anymore, all absorbed by the bodies and wills of others. Could consciousness exist like that? He thinks about the trucker who performed a card trick for him with an Unwinds hand. Did the boy who once owned that hand still feel the satisfaction of performing the trick? Was his spirit still inexplicably whole, even though his flesh had been shuffled like that deck-of cards, or was he shredded beyond all hope of awareness—beyond Heaven, Hell, or anything eternal? Whether or not souls exist Connor doesn't know. But consciousness dues exist—that's something he knows for sure. If every part of an Unwind is still alive, then that consciousness has to go somewhere, doesn't it? He silently curses Hayden for making him think about it . . . but Hayden isn't done yet.

"Here's a little brain clot for you," says Hayden. "I knew this girl back home. There was something about her that made you want to listen to the things she had to say. I don't know whether she was really well-centered, or just psychotic. She believed that if someone actually gets unwound, then they never had a soul to begin with. She said God must know who's going to be unwound, and he doesn't give them souls."

Diego grunts his disapproval. "I don't like the sound of that."

"This girl had it all worked out in her head," continued Hayden. "She believed Unwinds are like the unborn."

"Wait a second," says Emby, finally breaking his silence. "The unborn have souls. They have souls from the moment they get made—the law says."

Connor doesn't want to get into it again with Emby, but he can't help himself. "Just because the law says it, that doesn't make it true."

"Yeah, well, just because the law says it, that doesn't make it false, either. It's only the law because a whole lot of people thought about it, and decided it made sense."

"Hmm," says Diego. "The Mouth Breather has a point."