Текст книги "UnSouled"
Автор книги: Neal Shusterman
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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
Epilogue: The Widow Rheinschild
Years before Connor, or Risa, or Lev are even born, Sonia batters the bitter cold of a February day to carry a heavy cardboard box from her car to a storage unit—just one among many anonymous units in a large complex.
Her husband’s funeral was only a week ago, but Sonia’s not the kind of woman to wallow in self-pity for long.
Her storage unit is the largest one offered. Big enough to fit all the furniture, knickknacks, and objects of desire she and her late husband had collected over the years. Truth be told, it was mostly her collection. Janson was not a materialistic man. All he ever wanted was a comfortable chair and a place in history. Well, he was robbed of one and died in the other.
The lock on the unit is covered in frost. Only a week since the movers piled everything in, and already it has the semblance of something ancient. She tries to fit the key into the lock, but her gloves are too thick. In the end she must remove them and bear the cold on her fingers as she inserts the key, turns it, and tugs on the lock.
Everything has been moved to this storage unit. Her house is now empty—but it won’t be for long. It’s been sold to a lovely family, or so she was told by the Realtor. Sonia priced it way under market to make sure it would sell quickly.
As for all the money that was paid to Janson for the rights to the organ printer, she’s chosen to give the bulk of it to Austin’s friends. They say they’re starting a secret organization to fight unwinding. The Anti-Divisional Underground, or something like that. Well, if they can use that money to save as much as a single Unwind from going under the knife, it will be worth it.
With a grunt, Sonia raises the rolling door and is faced with the trappings of her life, everything placed with puzzlelike precision so it all will fit. How odd that the objects of one’s world can all be squeezed into such a compact space. The neutron star of life’s tenure.
Looking on it brings her a moment of despair—but like the snow flurries outside, she doesn’t let it stick. If there’s one lesson she has learned from her late husband, it’s that one cannot let the events of one’s past murder one’s future. And future is all that Sonia has now that her past has been so effectively erased. She actually had to purchase a counterfeit passport and driver’s license, since her real ones were now invalid. She kept her first name, though, choosing to maintain a shred of her identity to spite those who would happily send her sailing into nameless oblivion.
While not bound for oblivion, Sonia is leaving, however. She doesn’t care where—but when purchasing an airline ticket one must have a destination—so before the movers came, she had gone to the globe in Janson’s study. She spun it, closed her eyes, and jabbed her finger at it. Her finger came down in the Mediterranean, on the island of Crete, so that is where she will go. She speaks no Greek, but she will learn, and the island will be the alpha and omega of her life for a good long while.
She searches the jam-packed storage space for a safe spot to leave the heavy box she carries. Its contents are too sensitive to have allowed the movers to handle. This is something she wanted to do for herself. Janson would be glad that she’s doing it, too. She can feel him smiling at her the way he did on that wonderful night of giddy fantasy, when they ate the city’s most expensive meal, drank champagne, and dared to dream that they were moving from the darkness back into the light.
Sonia is wise enough to know that she’s moved through times of light and darkness all of her life. Now is a time of intense darkness—but she cannot let it consume her, as it consumed Janson. In time, perhaps she’ll find herself in a place of light again with the courage and resolve enough to take a stand. To rise up and do something about the road to hell their good intentions have paved—or more accurately, the road that others had paved for them. But that’s for a distant tomorrow. For now she’s tired, and broken and just needs to run away.
At last she finds a suitable spot in the storage unit for the box and sets it down gently, making sure it’s in a place where it can’t fall and nothing will fall on it. Then she looks at the stacks of belongings around her.
“So much stuff,” she says aloud. She could open up an antique shop with all the junk she’s collected! If she ever does come back to the States someday, perhaps she will.
Satisfied, she wends her way to the entrance of the unit, pulls down the rolling door, and locks away her old life for ten, maybe twenty years.
As she drives away, she’s surprised to find herself smiling in spite of everything. Yes, the very organization Janson founded ultimately turned on them to destroy their lives and tried to destroy every last glimmer of hope.
But that’s where they failed.
Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed. The blueprints to the organ printer are gone. So are all the large prototypes. Smashed and melted and buried in some unmarked grave of scuttled technology.
But no one knew about the smaller prototype. The one that gave Austin back his missing fingers—the one that Janson kept hidden in a cardboard box in his study.
Sonia gets on the highway, heading for the airport, and as she does, she turns on the radio, finds a station playing classic rock from her childhood, and she sings along, ignoring the icy winds that rattle the car.
There’s no doubt about it; Janson’s dream is dead . . . but when the time is right and the winds begin to change, even the deadest of dreams can be resurrected.
NEAL SHUSTERMAN
is the author of many critically acclaimed novels for young adults, including the Skinjacker Trilogy,
Downsiders
, the Scorpion Shards Trilogy, and the earlier books in the Unwind Dystology,
Unwind
and
UnWholly
. He also writes screenplays for motion pictures and television shows. The father of four children, Neal lives in Southern California. Visit him at
storyman.com
.
Simon & Schuster, New York
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Also by Neal Shusterman
NOVELS
Antsy Does Time
Bruiser
The Dark Side of Nowhere
Dissidents
Downsiders
The Eyes of Kid Midas
Full Tilt
The Schwa Was Here
The Shadow Club
The Shadow Club Rising
Ship Out of Luck
Speeding Bullet
What Daddy Did
THE UNWIND DYSTOLOGY
Unwind
UnWholly
UnStrung (an e-novella)
THE SKINJACKER TRILOGY
Everlost
Everwild
Everfound
THE STAR SHARDS CHRONICLES
Scorpion Shards
Thief of Souls
Shattered Sky
THE DARK FUSION SERIES
Dreadlocks
Red Rider’s Hood
Duckling Ugly
STORY COLLECTIONS
Darkness Creeping
Kid Heroes
MindQuakes
MindStorms
Visit the author at storyman.com and facebook.com/nealshusterman
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Neal Shusterman
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Book design by Hilary Zarycky based on a design by Al Cetta.
Jacket photographs copyright © 2013 by Jeremy Samuelson/Getty Images
Jacket design by Chloë Foglia
Jacket photographs by Jeremy Samuelson/Getty Images
The text for this book is set in Fairfield.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shusterman, Neal.
Unsouled : book 3 of the Unwind dystology / Neal Shusterman.
pages cm
Sequel to: UnWholly.
Summary: After 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.
ISBN 978-1-4424-2369-5 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-4424-2371-8 (eBook)
1. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 2. Survival—Fiction. 3. Revolutionaries—Fiction. 4. Identity—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S55987Uns 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2013022703
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part One: Flightless
The Rheinschilds
Chapter 1 • Connor
Chapter 2 • Clapper
Chapter 3 • Cam
Chapter 4 • Night Manager
Chapter 5 • Lev
Chapter 6 • Connor
Chapter 7 • Grace
Chapter 8 • Connor
Chapter 9 • Lev
Chapter 10 • Connor
Chapter 11 • Rez Sentry
Part Two: Fine Young Specimens
The Rheinschilds
Chapter 12 • Risa
Chapter 13 • Cam
Chapter 14 • Manager
Chapter 15 • Starkey
Chapter 16 • Risa
Chapter 17 • Argent
Part Three: Sky-Fallers
The Rheinschilds
Chapter 18 • Lev
Chapter 19 • Connor
Chapter 20 • Lev
Chapter 21 • Cam
Chapter 22 • Risa
Chapter 23 • Nelson
Chapter 24 • Argent
Chapter 25 • Connor
Chapter 26 • Lev
Chapter 27 • Starkey
Chapter 28 • Risa
Chapter 29 • Cam
Part Four: The Scent of Memory
The Rheinschilds
Chapter 30 • Hayden
Chapter 31 • Starkey
Chapter 32 • Hayden
Chapter 33 • Connor
Chapter 34 • Una
Chapter 35 • Lev
Chapter 36 • Cam
Chapter 37 • Una
Chapter 38 • Cam
Chapter 39 • Starkey
Chapter 40 • Bam
Chapter 41 • Connor
Chapter 42 • Nelson
Chapter 43 • Argent
Chapter 44 • Nelson
Chapter 45 • Hayden
Chapter 46 • Starkey
Part Five: A Murder of Storks
The Rheinschilds
Chapter 47 • Connor
Chapter 48 • Lev
Chapter 49 • Connor
Chapter 50 • Lev
Chapter 51 • Una
Chapter 52 • Connor
Chapter 53 • Bam
Chapter 54 • Force
Chapter 55 • Starkey
Chapter 56 • Hayden
Chapter 57 • Lev
Part Six: Akron
The Rheinschilds
Chapter 58 • Connor
Chapter 59 • Sonia
Chapter 60 • Risa
Chapter 61 • Cam
Chapter 62 • Connor
Chapter 63 • Grace
Chapter 64 • Cam
Chapter 65 • Roberta
Chapter 66 • Connor
Epilogue: The Widow Rheinschild
About Neal Shusterman
