UnSouled

Audrey just smiles. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, hon.” And she turns to reach for something Risa can’t see.

Now Risa realizes that Audrey’s agenda has nothing to do with helping her. She wants the reward after all! A single call and the police will be here. How stupid Risa was to trust her! How could she have been so blind!

Audrey comes back with a nasty-looking device in her hand. A syringe with a dozen tiny needles at the tip, forming a small circle.

“If you’re not immobilized, you might move during the process—even grab the device reflexively, and that could damage your cornea. Locking you down is for your own protection.”

Risa releases a shuddering breath of relief. Audrey takes it as anxiety from the sight of the injection needles. “Don’t you worry, hon. Those eye drops I gave you are like magic. I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

And Risa finds her eyes welling with tears. This woman truly does mean to help her. Risa feels guilty for her burst of paranoia, even though Audrey never knew. “Why are you doing this for me?”

Audrey doesn’t answer at first. She focuses on the task at hand, injecting Risa’s irises with a surprise shade that Audrey promised Risa would like. Risa believed her because the woman was so overwhelmingly confident about it. For a moment Risa feels as if she’s being unwound, but wills the feeling away. There is compassion here, not professional detachment.

“I’m helping you because I can,” Audrey says, as she works on her other eye. “And because of my son.”

“Your son . . .” Risa thinks she gets it. “Did you—”

“Unwind him? No. Nothing like that. From the moment he arrived on my doorstep, I loved him. I would never dream of unwinding him.”

“He was a stork?”

“Yep. Left at my door in the dead of winter. Premature, too. He was lucky to survive.” She pauses as she checks how the pigments are taking, then goes for a second layer of injections. “Then, when he was fourteen, he was diagnosed with cancer. Stomach cancer that had spread to his liver and pancreas.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Audrey leans back, looking Risa in the eyes, but not to gauge her own handiwork. “Honey, I’d never take an unwound part for myself. But when they told me the only way to save my boy’s life was to basically gut him and replace all his internal organs with someone else’s, I didn’t even hesitate. ‘Do it!’ I said. ‘Do it the second you can get him in that operating room.’ ”

Risa says nothing, realizing this woman needs to give her confession.

“You want to know the real reason unwinding keeps going strong, Miss Risa Ward? It isn’t because of the parts we want for ourselves—it’s because of the things we’re willing to do to save our children.” She thinks about that and laughs ruefully. “Imagine that. We’re willing to sacrifice the children we don’t love for the ones we do. And we call ourselves civilized!”

“It’s not your fault that unwinding exists,” Risa tells her.

“Isn’t it?”

“You had no other way to save your son. You had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Audrey says. “But no other choice would have kept my son alive. If there were any another option, I would have taken it. But there wasn’t.”

She releases Risa’s bonds, then turns away to clean up her injection tray. “Anyway, my son’s alive and in college, and he calls me at least once a week—usually for money—but the fact that I can even get that call is a miracle to me. So my conscience will ache for the rest of my life, but that’s a small price to pay for having my son still on this earth.”

Risa offers her a nod of acceptance, no more, no less. Can Risa blame her for using every means at her disposal to save her son’s life?

“Here you go, hon,” Audrey says, turning her around to face the mirror. “What do you think?”

Risa can hardly believe the girl in the mirror is her. The perm was gentle enough that her hair, rather than being wide and poofy, falls in a gentle cascade of auburn ringlets, lightly highlighted. And her eyes! Audrey did not give her the obnoxious sort of pigmentation so many girls go for these days. Instead she boosted Risa’s eyes from brown to a very natural, very realistic green. She’s beautiful.

“What did I tell you?” Audrey said, clearly proud of her handiwork. “Texture for hair, color for eyes. A wi

“It’s wonderful! How can I ever thank you?”

“You already did,” Audrey told her. “Just by letting me do it.”

Risa admires herself in a way she’s never taken the time to do before. A makeover. That’s something this misguided world is long overdue for as well. If only Risa knew how to make that happen. Her mind goes back to Audrey’s heartfelt tale about her son. It used to be that medicine was about curing the world’s ills. Research money went into finding solutions. Now it seems medical research does nothing but find increasingly bizarre ways to use Unwinds’ various and sundry parts. NeuroWeaves instead of education. Muscle refits instead of exercise. And then there’s Cam. Could it be true what Roberta said—that Cam is the wave of the future? How soon until people start wanting multiple parts of multiple people because it’s the latest thing? Yes, perhaps unwinding is kept alive by parents desperate to save their children, but it’s the vanity trade that allows it to thrive with such gusto.

If there were any other option . . . It’s the first time Risa truly begins to wonder why there isn’t.

23 • Nelson

J. T. Nelson, formerly of the Ohio Juvenile Authority, but now a free agent, considers himself an honest man making due in a dishonest world. Nelson came by his current van legitimately. He bought it in cash from a used-car dealer in Tucson the day after he was so unceremoniously tranq’d by a fourteen-year-old. The tithe-turned-clapper who left him unconscious by the side of the road to be gnawed on by scavengers and, come morning, to fry in the Arizona sun, hadn’t thought to relieve Nelson of his wallet. Thank heaven for small miracles. It allowed Nelson the luxury of remaining an honest man.

The used-car dealer was, by definition, a swindler and was happy to part Nelson from more money than the ten-year-old blue whale of a van was worth—but Nelson didn’t have time to dicker. All the money he had made from his last two Unwind sales went into the purchase, but stealing a set of wheels was out of the question, for when one is involved in such an illicit business as parts pirateering, it’s best to keep oneself legit in other ways. Crimes will compound. At least now he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder for the highway patrol.

When Nelson saw the picture on the news—the one that Argent Ski

24 • Argent

He must be smart. Smarter than anyone gives him credit for. Smarter than even he believes himself to be. He must rise to the occasion . . . because if he doesn’t, he may end up dead.