Unwind

There's a group of jeering kids near the helicopter, gathered like a rugby scrum, kicking something in the center. Then Co

"It's okay. You're going to be okay." But even as he says it, Co

Cleaver grimaces, his mouth bloody. Then Co

Co

"It's okay," Cleaver says. "This is an okay way to die. Better than suffocating, right?"

Co

"You killed the Goldens! You and Roland!"

"Roland?" says Cleaver. In spite of his pain, he actually seems insulted. "Roland's not one of us. He doesn't even know." Cleaver catches the look on Co

"Oh, crap, he's dead, isn't he," says Hayden. "They killed him! Holy crap, they killed him!"

Co

"Stop it!" screams Co

He reaches up to the wing, grabs a kid's ankle, and pulls him off onto the ground, but he can't do that to every single one of them. So he grabs a metal pole and smashes it against the wing over and over, the sound ringing out like a church bell, until their attention turns his way.

"Look at you!" he screams. "You've destroyed everything! How could you have done this? You should all be unwound, every single one of you! YOU SHOULD ALL BE UNWOUND!"

It stops everyone. The kids on the wings, the kids at the bonfires. The shock of hearing such words from one of their own snaps them back to sanity. The shock of hearing his own words—and knowing that he meant them—frightens Co

The rolling staircase leading to the Admiral's jet has fallen on its side. "Over here!" says Co

A dozen kids, their fury spent, come ru

Suddenly a lever is thrown on the inside, and the hatch begins to swing open. The heat hits him instantly—a blast furnace of heat—and the face at the door is so red and puffy, it takes a moment for him to realize who it is.

"Risa?"

She coughs and almost collapses into his arms, but manages to keep herself up. "I'm okay," she says. "I'm okay. But the Admiral ..."

Together they go in and kneel beside him. He's breathing, but it's shallow and strained. "It's the heat!" says Co

"It's not just the heat," says Risa. "Look at his lips—they're cyanotic. And his pressure is down to nothing."

Co

"He's having a heart attack! I've been giving him CPR, but

I'm not a doctor. There's only so much I can do!"

"M . . . m. . . my fault," says the Admiral. "My fault . . ."

"Shh," says Co

They carry the Admiral down the stairs, and as they do, the kids waiting outside back away, making room for him, as if it's already a coffin they're earning. They set him down in the shade of the wing.

Then kids around them begin to murmur.

"He killed the Goldens," someone says. "The old man deserves what he gets."

Co

The Admiral's hand flutters up. "My . . . my son . . ."

"Emby's his son?" says one kid, and the rumor begins to spread through the crowd.

Whatever the Admiral meant, it's lost now in incoherence as he slips in and out of consciousness.

"If we don't get him to a hospital, he'll die," says Risa, giving him chest compressions once more.

Co

"There's the helicopter," says Hayden, "but considering the fact that the pilot's dead, I think we're screwed."

Risa looks at Co

Co

"You're kidding me, right?"

Co

The three kids step forward and Co

47 First-Year Residents

In her six months working in the emergency room, the young doctor has seen enough strange things to fill her own medical school textbook, but this is the first time someone has crash-landed a helicopter in the hospital parking lot.

She races out with a team of nurses, orderlies, and other doctors. It's a small private craft—four-seater, maybe. It's in one piece, and its blades are still spi

Two kids get out, carrying an older man in bad shape. There's already a gurney rolling out to meet them.

"We have a rooftop helipad, you know,"

"He didn't think he'd be able to land on it," says the girl.

When the doctor looks at the pilot, still sitting behind the controls, she realizes that losing his license is not an issue. The kid at the controls can't be any older than seventeen. She hurries to the old man. A stethoscope brings barely a sound from his chest cavity. Turning to the medical staff around her, she says, "Stabilize him, and prep him for transplant." Then she turns back to the kids. "You're lucky you landed at a hospital with a heart bank, or we'd end up having to medevac him across town."