Текст книги "Undivided"

Автор книги: Neal Shusterman

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

41 • Broadcast

Small bandwidth, tall antenna. Endless cornfields. Corn took over the Midwest. The entire heartland is now genetically engineered maize for the masses.

A team of five pull off a country road. They are armed with weapons originally supplied by the folks who supplied the folks, who pay for the folks, who run the folks behind clappers. Now those weapons are used at crosspurposes to what those wealthy suppliers intended. Whatever they intended.

The team of five always chooses its targets carefully. Smalltime, old-fashioned radio stations broadcasting from a dump on a two-block main street, or better yet, in the middle of nowhere, like this one at the edge of a cornfield. The more isolated the better. By current calculation, it would take the local deputy about nine minutes at top speed, siren blaring, to get to this particular spot from the coffee shop where he’s currently having breakfast.

They drive a stolen van not yet reported stolen. Only way to go. These trying times turn honest kids to crime, and criminals into murderers. Fortunately there are no true criminals in this bunch. Perhaps that’s why they walk in through the front door, instead of sneaking in the back.

“A fine morning to you. I’m pleased to let you know that your coffee break begins early today!”

When you enter a minimally staffed establishment with guns that look like they’ve been ripped off the deck of a battleship, no one fights back. Whether the guns are actually armed is immaterial. In truth, one of them is, but that’s only in case of dire emergency.

“My associate may be smaller than his weapon, but he’s happy about it. Trigger-happy, that is, so I’d avoid sudden movements if I was you.”

Even the armchair special-ops potatoes of the broadcast facility, who fancy themselves the heroes of every TV show they watch, are subdued into stunned silence. They put their hands up, mimicking the way they’ve seen it done by the nonspeaking extras.

“Kindly step into the storeroom—plenty of space for all. Grab a legal pad, if you like, and write a memoir of your harrowing experience at our ruthless hands.”

Someone tries to surreptitiously dial a phone in his pocket. That’s only to be expected.

“By all means, use your phones to call for help. Of course, we’ve blocked outgoing phone signals, but we wouldn’t want to deny you your false sense of hope.”

The intruders lock the radio station staff in the storeroom, and the staff makes the best of their time in the tight quarters. The station manager stews. A secretary cries. Others grab snacks from the shelf and nervously eat, pondering their own mortality.

With the staff locked safely away, the intruders take over the broadcast for a total of five minutes, linking into a radio grid, increasing its effective broadcast range by a thousand miles. Not bad for five AWOLs.

On their way out, they silently unlock the store room, something the station staff discovers about a minute later. They emerge like turtles from a shell to find the station empty of intruders, but still broadcasting. Not dead air, because no radio station should ever suffer the indignation of radio silence. Instead it broadcasts the same signature song Hayden’s guerrilla broadcast team always leaves behind to mark their patronage. Lush tones croon slick on the airwaves.

“I’ve got you . . . under my skin. . . .”

42 • Lev

Days come and go on the Arápache reservation without much fanfare. It’s not that life is simple, because where in a modern world can life be called simple anymore? But it is an unencumbered life. By choosing isolation, the Arápache have successfully protected themselves, remaining safe and sane in a world gone foul. As they are the wealthiest of tribal nations, there are those who call the Arápache Rez the ultimate gated community. They are not blind to the things that go on beyond the gate, but are certainly removed by several degrees.

Naturally any attempt to bring the world a few degrees closer would be met with powerful resistance. Yet Lev truly believed he could make a difference. After all he’s been through, he still cannot come to terms with disappointment. He wonders if that keeps him human, or if it’s a flaw in his character. Perhaps a dangerous one.

With the door locked, Lev stands before a bathroom mirror, in the Tashi’ne home, making eye contact with his reflection, trying to connect with some other version of himself. Who he was, or who he is, or who he might still be.

Kele pounds on the door, impatient as twelve-year-olds tend to be. “Lev, what are you still doing in there? I need in!”

“Go use the other bathroom.”

“I can’t!” whines Kele. “My toothbrush is in this one.”

“Then use someone else’s.”

“That’s gross.”

Kele stomps away, and Lev gets back to the business at hand. The more he studies himself in the mirror, the less familiar his face seems, like pondering a word until the world loses all meaning.

Lev was always at his best when he had something to strive for. A clear-cut and discernible goal, where victory can be measured. Back in his innocent days, it was all about baseball. Catch the ball, hit the ball, and run. Even as a clapper he was an overachiever. A model representative of the cause. Until he chose not to detonate, that is.

With the granite intransigence of the Arápache Tribal Council, he knows he has lost his battle. The Arápache will not enter the war against unwinding. They will continue to object by merely closing it out, rather than taking it on.

Connor called him naïve, and he was right. After all he had been through, Lev was still foolish enough to believe that reason and resolve would prevail. “You are only one boy, with one voice,” Elina told him after his defeat in the Tribal Council. “If you keep trying to be a choir, you’ll lose that voice, and then who will hear you?”

She hugged him, but he did not return the gesture. He didn’t want consolation. It was his anger, and he wanted to own it. He needed to, because he knew that from that anger something new might grow. Something more effective than a pointless petition.

In the days since, Lev has given it much thought—all his thought, really—and has come to a conclusion. What he needs is a new approach that depends on no one but himself. He’s done relying on the help of others, because others are too likely to disappoint. He must, once and for all, take matters into his own hands.

So he examines himself in the mirror, searching for a new resolve, even deeper than before. The things written on Lev’s face are too complex to read. But he knows he can simplify them.

He reaches down to the counter and picks up the pair of scissors he brought into the bathroom. Without hesitation, he shears off his ponytail, dropping it to the ground. What remains is a ragged straggly blond mop. Then he grabs a lock of hair as close to the roots as he can get, and he shears it off. Then he grabs another lock, doing it again and again, until the floor is covered with hair, and his head looks like a hayfield that has just been reaped.

Again Kele bangs on the door.

“Lev, I gotta get in!”

“Soon,” Lev tells Kele. “I’ll be done soon.”

Lev puts down the scissors and lathers up the short, uneven stubble on his head. Then he picks up a razor.

•  •  •

These days it’s mostly young Arápache men planning to leave the Rez that get themselves tattoos. Those who have decided to go out into a larger world but want to take with them a permanent reminder of where they came from. A symbol that they can display with pride.

There are only a few tattoo artists on the Rez, and only one with real talent. The rest are more paint-by-numbers types. Lev visits Jase Taza, the talented one. He waits outside the shop until the last of Jase’s customers leaves.

Jase looks him over as he enters, not sure whether to be troubled or amused. “You’re the Tashi’nes’ foster-fugitive, aren’t you? The one who caught that parts pirate, right?” he says.

Lev shakes his head. “Didn’t you hear? I’m not a foster-fugitive anymore. I’m a full member of the tribe.”

“Glad to hear it.” Then he points to Lev’s shaved head. “What happened to your hair?”

“It became unnecessary,” Lev tells him. It’s the answer he gave the Tashi’nes, and anyone else who asks. His shaved head had troubled Elina, as he knew it would, but she allowed him his choice.

“What can I do for you?” asks Jase.

Lev presents him several pages and explains what he wants. Jase looks the pages over, then looks at Lev dubiously. “You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Jase looks at the pages over and over. “Are you sure you want this?”

“Positive.”

“This much ink, all at once?”

“Yes.”

“It’s going to hurt. A lot.”

Lev has already considered that. “It should hurt,” he says. “It needs to hurt, or it doesn’t mean anything.”

Jase looks around his shop, pointing to his many original designs. “How about a nice eagle, or a bear instead? You’re not Arápache-born, so you can choose your own spirit animal. Mountain lions look good in ink.”

“I already have a spirit animal, and it’s not what I want. I want this.” He points to the pages in Jase’s hand.

“It will take many hours over many days.”

“That’s fine.”

“And you’ll have to pay me for my time—I don’t come cheap.”

“I’ll pay whatever it costs.” The Tashi’nes gave Lev spending money, enough to last a while. It’s more than enough to pay Jase for his talent and his time. After that, he won’t need Arápache currency, because it’s no good off of the Rez.

He hasn’t told Elina and Chal that he’s leaving. He hasn’t told anyone, because anyone he tells will try to talk him out of it or, at the very least, try to discover where he’s going. It’s crucial that no one knows that.

He pulls the money from his wallet and flashes it before Jase. Like everywhere else in the world, money talks.

Their first session begins a few minutes later. He allows Jase full creative expression.

“Where do you want to start?”

“Start at the top and work your way down,” Lev tells him. Then he leans back in the chair and closes his eyes, mentally preparing himself for the ordeal to come. . . .

43 • Risa

Risa wakes to the breathy drone of some machine—a hiss that’s both muffled and loud at once. She’s on a king-size bed in a bedroom finished in polished redwood and brass. She’s dizzy. Queasy. She feels as if the bed itself is shifting beneath her but she knows it’s only the tranqs.

“Take your time,” says an unfamiliar male voice. “You’ve been tranq’d eight or nine times in succession. It will take you longer than usual to recover. Had it been me, I would have done it differently. I would have made it easier on you.”

The man speaks with a pearly lilt and an Eastern European accent. Russian perhaps. No, not quite, but something close.

As her eyes begin to focus, she sees him standing across the room, adjusting his hair in a full-length mirror. Slender, dark hair, well dressed. Risa pulls her knees up protectively, wondering what has transpired during her lapse of consciousness.

He glances over at her, and reading her body language, he chuckles.

“Do not worry,” he says. “No one has harmed you while you slept off the tranquilizers.”

Her head feels full of foam—fizz with no substance. She can only ask the obvious question. “Where am I?”

“Lady Lucrezia,” he answers. “My harvest camp.”

She has enough of the pieces now to pull at least some of it together. The man at the antique shop was a parts pirate, and she is now in the hands of a black marketer. The parts pirate killed Jack—whom Risa promised she’d protect—whom she put directly in harm’s way. And what of Sonia?

“I’m in a harvest camp . . . ,” she repeats, hoping to get more out of him.

“Yes, you and your friend Connor.”

She was not expecting to hear that. She shakes her head, not wanting to believe it. “You’re lying! Connor wasn’t there!”

Her captor looks at her curiously. “No? I thought you were captured together. But then, Nelson didn’t explain the specific circumstances when he left you both with me.”

Nelson? Not the same Nelson . . . But as she thinks of the parts pirate, she realizes that she knew that face—or at least half of it. Suddenly the entire room seems to heave, moving one way while Risa’s stomach moves another. Without warning she’s retching over the edge of the bed onto the floor.

The foreigner sits beside her, gently rubbing her back, and she doesn’t even have the strength to recoil from him. “My name is Divan, and no harm will come to you while you’re in my care.” He gives her club soda to sip from a minibar beside the bed. “So much to take in. No surprise there are things that can’t be held down.” He leaves her with the club soda. “I’ll have someone come and clean it up, not to worry. In the meantime, I have business to attend to. Sleep, Risa. We’ll talk again when you’re up to it.”

He goes to the door, but turns back just before he exits. “If you feel ill again, I find that looking out of a window helps.”

Once he’s gone, Risa moves across the bed, and reaches for a curtain. Pulling it back reveals a window, but not the sort she was expecting. It’s an oval window, and beyond it clouds. Nothing but clouds.

44 • The Lady Lucrezia

Simply put, the Antonov AN-225 Mriya is the largest flying object ever built. The six engines of the massive cargo jet boast more horsepower than Napoleon’s entire cavalry, and when people talk of moving mountains, this is the plane that could do it. Only two of them were ever built. The first is in a Ukrainian air museum. The second is owned by wealthy Chechen entrepreneur Divan Umarov. Currently he is in negotiations to acquire the other one.

From the outside it looks like a 747 with glandular problems, but standing inside the jet’s cavernous cargo hold can be a religious experience, because it rises around you with the breathtaking drama of a cathedral, but can get about eight miles closer to heaven.

The interior of the Lady Lucrezia, as Divan christened her, bears no resemblance to its original hollow shell, however. It was meticulously redesigned to be both a lavish residence as well as a fully functioning harvest camp, landing only to take on fuel and fresh Unwinds from Divan’s international network of parts pirates, as well as to offload the various and sundry products of unwinding, worth so much more than the kids themselves.

Lately, he’s spent more time airborne. Considering the ruthlessness of his enemies, it’s safer to stay mobile as much as possible, and the current cargo, rare as to be almost priceless, requires his personal attention. It is a feather in his cap that he caught Connor Lassiter before the American Juvenile Authority or the despicable Dah Zey. He will remain on board, closely overseeing his business until such time as Connor Lassiter is sold at auction and his parts distributed to satisfied customers.

45 • Risa

When Risa wakes again, she feels a bit stronger. Strong enough to explore and test her immediate surroundings. The bedroom is, of course, locked from the outside. A view from the window reveals that they are still at a high altitude, and it’s the trailing end of twilight, or dawn—Risa has no concept of the actual time, or how many time zones they’ve flown through.

There is a small table across the room with food for her. Light fare: Danish and such. She eats in spite of her resistance to accept anything offered her.

When the black marketer returns, he’s pleased to see she’s eaten, which makes her just want to throw it all up in his face.

“I can give you the grand tour if you like,” Divan offers.

“I’m a prisoner,” she reminds him flatly. “Why would you give a prisoner a tour?”

“I do not have prisoners,” he tells her. “I have guests.”

“Is that what you call the kids you unwind? Guests?”

He sighs. “No, I don’t call them anything. If I did, it would make my work all the more difficult, you see.”

He holds out his hand to help her up, but she will not take it. “Is there a reason why I’m a ‘guest,’ and not one of them?”

He smiles. “You’ll be pleased to know, Miss Ward, that the clients of mine who are interested in you are only interested in you corpus totus. That is, in your entirety. Isn’t it nice to know that of all the souls on board, you are the only one worth more whole than divided?”

Somehow that doesn’t give her much comfort. “What sorts of clients buy someone corpus totus?”

“Wealthy ones with a penchant toward collecting. There’s a Saudi prince in particular who’s been obsessed with you. He’s made overtures in the millions.”

She tries to hide her revulsion. “Imagine that.”

“Don’t worry,” Divan tells her. “I’m less motivated to make a deal than you might think.”

He holds his hand out to her once more, and again she refuses to take it. She does stand up, however, and moves to the door.

“You’ll find the tour very eye-opening, to say the least,” Divan says, unlocking the door. “And on the way you can entertain yourself by scheming ways to escape, and ways to kill me.”

She makes eye contact with him for the first time, a bit shocked, because that is exactly what she was thinking. The look he returns is much warmer than she wants it to be.

“Don’t be so surprised,” he says. “How could I not know what you’d be thinking right now?”

Aside from the constant drone of the engines and the occasional turbulence, it is hard to believe that all this is crammed into a single airplane. The bedroom opens up into a vaulted living area, its geometry determined by the plane’s width and the dome of the fuselage. There are sofas, a dining table, and a multiscreened entertainment center.

“The kitchen and pantry are below,” Divan says. “My chef is world-class.”

At the far end of the room, dominating the space, is something Risa needs time to wrap her mind around. It’s an instrument. A pipe organ—however, instead of gleaming brass pipes, this one has faces. Dozens of faces.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Divan says with pride. “I purchased it from a Brazilian artist, who has apparently made a career working in flesh. He claims his artwork is to protest unwinding, but I ask you, how much of a protest can it be if he uses the unwound for his art?”

Risa is drawn to the thing like a spectator to a car accident. She’s seen this before. In a dream, she thought. A dream that kept recurring. Only now does she realize that the dream had a grounding in reality: something she once saw on TV, although she can’t place exactly when.

“He calls it ‘Orgão Orgânico.’ ‘The Organic Organ.’ ”

Each shaved head rests inert, symmetrically placed above the keyboard, on multiple levels, connected to it by tubes and ducts. It’s the very definition of abomination. Risa finds it too grotesque to even trigger the proper emotion. Too horrifying to feel. Slowly she reaches forward and pushes down on a key.

And directly in front of her, a disembodied face opens its mouth and voices a perfect middle C.

Risa yelps and jumps back, right into Divan. He gently holds her by the shoulders, but she pulls free.

“Nothing to fear,” he tells her. “I assure you the brains are elsewhere—probably helping rich Brazilian children to think better. Although the eyes do open from time to time, which can be disconcerting.”

Finally Risa tries to voice her own opinion, and it’s far from middle C. “This thing . . . this thing is . . .”

“Unthinkable—I know. Even I was taken aback when I first viewed it . . . and yet the more I looked at it, the more compelled I was to have it. Such lovely voices should be heard, yes? And I’m not without a sense of irony. The Lady Lucrezia is my Nautilus, and I, like the good captain Nemo, must have my organ.”

Although Risa has turned away, she finds her gaze drawn back to it, compelled to look on it, terrified of the prospect that it might look back.

“Won’t you play it?” he asks her. “I can’t do it justice, and I understand you’re quite the accomplished pianist.”

“I’d cut off my hands before I touch that thing again. Get me away from it.”

“Of course,” says Divan, ever obliging, but noticeably disappointed. He directs her to a stairwell across the room. “The tour continues this way.”

Risa can’t get away from the Orgão Orgânico fast enough. Yet as Divan said, the image lingers, along with a strange compelling sensation, like standing on a high ledge and leaning over, tempting gravity to steal one’s balance. As horrified as she is by the eighty-eight-faced monstrosity, she’s more horrified by the thought that she might actually want to play it.

They leave the comfort of his flying chalet, moving to the nether regions of the behemoth aircraft, into corridors and gangways without polished wood or leather, only utilitarian aluminum and steel.

“The harvest camp takes up the front two-thirds of the Lady Lucrezia. You’ll be impressed by the economy of space.”

“Why?” she asks. “Why are you showing me all of this? What possible purpose could it serve?”

Divan pauses before a large door. “It is my belief that the sooner you get beyond your initial shock, the sooner you will reach a place of comfort.”

“I’ll never be comfortable with any of this.”

He nods, perhaps accepting her statement, but not its validity. “If there’s one thing I understand well, it is human nature,” he says. “We are the pinnacle species, are we not? This is because we have a remarkable ability to adapt, not just physically, but emotionally. Psychologically.” He reaches for the door handle. “You are a consummate survivor, Risa. I have every faith that you will adapt in glorious ways.” Then he swings the door open.

•  •  •

Risa was, as part of her state home enrichment program, once taken to a factory that manufactured bowling balls, mainly because it was the only factory convenient enough to take state home kids. What impressed Risa most was the complete lack of human involvement. Machines did everything from extruding the rubber core, to polishing the outer layer, to drilling holes to computer-precise specifications.

The moment Risa crosses the threshold, she realizes that Divan does not run a harvest camp at all. He runs a factory.

There are no cheery dormitories, no high-energy counselors. Instead, there’s a huge drum, at least twenty feet in diameter, lining the shell of the airplane, inset with more than a hundred niches. In those niches lie Unwinds, like bodies in a catacomb.

“Do not be deceived by appearances,” Divan tells her. “They rest on beds of the highest-quality silk, and the machine tends to their every needs. They are kept well nourished and spotlessly clean.”

“But they’re unconscious.”

“Semiconscious. They are administered a mild sedative that keeps them in a twilight state, perpetually at the moment between dreams and waking. It’s very pleasant.”

At the far end of the cylindrical space is a huge black box about the size of an old-world iron lung. Risa shuts her thought processes down before she can imagine its purpose.

“Where’s Connor?”

“He’s here,” Divan tells her, gesturing vaguely to the chamber of Unwinds around them.

“I want to see him.”

“Unwise. Another time, perhaps.”

“You mean after he’s been unwound.”

“For your information, he will not be unwound for several days at least. Auctioning off the parts of the Akron AWOL is a major affair—it takes time to get all my ducks in a row.”

She looks at the semiconscious Unwinds all around her and finds herself feeling weak at the knees again, as she did when she still had tranqs in her system. Meanwhile, Divan strolls through the space with carefree confidence.

“The Burmese Dah Zey represents the darkest end of what you call the black market. Slow unwinding without anesthesia, and in unsanitary conditions. Deplorable! I, on the other hand, strive for something better. I give these Unwinds a quality of treatment finer than any officially sanctioned harvest camp. Comfortable repose, electrical stimulation that painlessly tones their muscles, and a continual sense of euphoria as they await their unwinding. Many world leaders have purchased parts from me, although they would never admit it. Including several from your country, I might add.”

The drum suddenly comes to life, and begins to rotate around them, repositioning the Unwinds. A mechanical arm reaches over to check on one of them with the gentle care of a mother’s touch.

“Is the tour over? If it’s not, I don’t care. I’ve seen enough.”

Divan takes her back to the living area, and she casts her eyes away from the organ, although she catches its reflection in a mirror. When they reach her bedroom, someone’s there making her bed. He begins to work faster when he sees them.

“Almost done, sir.”

The man seems frail, and a bit fearful, as if he were caught doing something he shouldn’t. He doesn’t appear to be much older than Risa. When he turns to glance at her, she’s taken aback by his appearance. Part of his face is missing, and in its place is a formfitting biobandage, a paler pink than actual skin, covering his eye socket and most of his right cheek. He looks somewhat like the Phantom of the Opera with only one eye. The left side of his face doesn’t look much better, having several scars that seem somewhat fresh.

“Your henchman, I presume,” Risa says.

Divan is actually insulted. “I am not so arch as to have henchmen. This is Skinner, my valet.”

Risa gives up a bitter grin in spite of herself. “How appropriate that you call him Skinner.”

“Mere serendipity,” Divan says. “That’s his actual name.”

Skinner leaves quickly, obsequiously, closing the door behind him. Then it occurs to Risa that Skinner is also Grace’s last name. Could this be the troublesome brother she kept talking about? The more she pictures the half of his face that she could see, the more she’s convinced there’s a resemblance.

“What do you want from me?” Risa asks Divan, although she’s afraid to hear the answer.

“Something simple,” he tells her. “At least for you. I wish you to play the Orgão Orgânico for me. I have no talent for it, and it begs to be played by one with the skill.”

He lets the proposition hang in the air. Risa can’t dare to imagine herself sitting before the thing.

“No matter how well I play, you’ll tire of the music, and of me,” Risa tells him. “What happens to me then?”

“If our arrangement proves no longer viable, I shall let you go.”

“In how many pieces?”

Divan rolls his eyes at her skepticism. “Risa, I am not a bad man. My business may be unsavory, but I am not. Consider the cattle farmer who raises Kobe beef. Is he to be condemned because his stock must be slaughtered? Of course not! I am no different; I just provide a different nature of product . . . and I provide it in a manner far more humane.” He begins to walk toward her. “Unlike my associate who captured you, I have been able to separate myself from my work.”

She sidesteps, refusing to be made to back up, but still maintaining a safe distance between them.

“Your choices are simple,” he tells her. “You can choose to stay here, or you can choose to be auctioned. Here, I can promise you peace, patience, and respect. Which is more than I can say for the Saudi prince.”

The veiled threat has the desired affect, and in spite of herself, Risa feels a sense of claustrophobia closing in around her. Still, she pulls forth the courage to make her own proposition.

“I’ll do what you want under one condition.”

“Yes?”

“You let Connor go.”

Divan claps his hands together, overjoyed. “Excellent! The mere fact that you’ve entered negotiations is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, freeing Connor is not an option.”

“In that case, you can go to hell.”

Divan is not offended, only amused. “I’ll give you time to reconsider. In the meantime, I have another high-profile Unwind to auction off.”

Risa can’t help but ask, “Who is it?”

“America’s most wanted,” he answers. “I paid Proactive Citizenry a small fortune for him, but the profit I’ll make will be worth it. There are many people out there who would like to own a piece of Mason Michael Starkey.”