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The flat, soulless walls of the old industrial buildings just outside the freight yard might give He
Una thinks she knows.
One block over, the industrial zone ends at the Mississippi River, and less than a quarter mile downriver is a stone arch pedestrian bridge. It’s no longer in use, it has no overhead streetlamps. If he can get across that bridge he could disappear into downtown Mi
Una makes her way toward the bridge as stealthily as she can. Then, hiding in the shadow of a mailbox that probably hasn’t seen a letter in years, she waits.
Thirty seconds later he bolts from a side street, making a beeline toward that bridge. She knows she won’t be able to intercept him if she runs, but she doesn’t have to run. It might be dark, but she can see he has his gun out—an ostentatious silver thing that catches the moonlight nicely. Just as he gets on the bridge, she takes aim and fires low. He wails in pain and goes down. Now Una runs down to the bridge to see the damage. She can see him clearly in the faint footlights still speckling the bridge. The bullet got him in the left knee, rendering him virtually immobile. He fires at her, but his aim is off. She’s on him quickly enough to kick the gun from his hand. Then she backs up and raises the rifle.
Panting, spitting, He
“This is about that SlotMonger kid, isn’t it!”
“He had a name!” growls Una, fingering the trigger, tempting herself to pull it. Just give me a reason, she said. But she has plenty of reasons already. “His name was Wil Tashi’ne. I want you to say it.”
He looks down at his shredded knee, and grimaces. “What’s the point? You’re going to kill me anyway. So do it.”
Could anything be more tempting than that invitation? “You have two choices,” she tells the man. “You could try to get away, and I’ll kill you. Or you could surrender and be brought in to face Arápache justice.”
“How about a third choice?” he says . . . and without warning He
When she looks over the side, she sees not water, but a rocky shore. He
Una hears approaching footsteps, and sees Lev coming onto the bridge.
“What happened? I heard gunshots. Where is he?” He glances at the blood on the ground. “You didn’t!”
“I didn’t. He did.” And she draws his attention over the side of the bridge. Lev pulls out the flashlight and shines it down at the rocks, making the scene much clearer. He
Lev lets off a shiver that Una can feel like a shock wave. She knows she should feel revulsion, too, but all she can feel is disappointment that she can no longer exact revenge from the man.
Together Una and Lev go down to the shoreline to confirm that He
“At least we still have Fretwell,” says Lev. “That will be enough.”
“Enough for you to win over the Arápache people,” Una agrees, “but is it enough to get the Tribal Council to take a stand against unwinding?”
“It’ll get them to listen to me,” Lev says. “Then it’s up to me to convince them.”
In spite of the fact that they did no killing today, they both have blood on their hands from dragging He
“C’mon, we’d better get back to Fretwell,” says Lev. “I tied him up, but we should be on our way back to the Rez with him before his tranqs wear off.”
Before they leave, Una takes one last look at the jagged boulder that claimed He
13 • Hayden
Hayden Upchurch watches it grow like a cancer clinging to the walls of the decaying power plant: Starkey’s lethal crusade. It’s ugly and toxic, and it won’t stop devouring all the good that’s left in these kids until there’s none left. Starkey will drag his Stork Brigade through his bloody war front until they are either dead from bullets taken in battle, or dead on the inside from the things they’ve seen and done. Hayden knows that these harvest camp attacks are pointless. The consequence of Starkey’s war on unwinding will not be the glorious vindication of AWOLs and storks, but instead their damnation.
“This is Radio Free Hayden podcasting from somewhere dark and dingy that smells of ancient grease and more recent body odor. If anyone actually hears this podcast, I must first apologize that there’s no visual of me. My bandwidth is the digital equivalent of a mule train. So instead, I’ve posted this wonderful Norman Rockwell image instead of a video. You’ll note how the poor i
Rumor is that Starkey’s benefactors will be supplying clappers for the next harvest camp attack. Will there be anyone left not terrified of kids like them once Starkey is done? Starkey wants that terror—he thrives on it. Yet how could he not realize that the many who might have once been sympathetic to the cause are now turning to the Juvenile Authority for an answer to the violence. The Juvies have an answer, all right: the blessed peace of division. The eternal rest of unwinding. That will be Mason Starkey’s legacy—an end to resistance, an end to rebellion, the absolute silencing of the last generation that could derail the hellish train civilization has boarded.
“I’m sure you’ve seen my brilliant and heartfelt call for a new teen uprising. I have to admit that heatstroke and dehydration from hours trapped in a sweltering World War II bomber turned me into quite the prophet. I’m sure my parents must be proud. Or horrified. Or are bitterly arguing about whether they’re proud or horrified, and have already hired lawyers to resolve the dispute.”
Hayden’s entire recording is in a whisper that sounds much more desperate than he wants it to sound, but he must be quiet. He can only sneak access to Starkey’s “computer center” in the middle of the night. It’s off in a room in the corner of the power plant, but there’s no door, so it’s open to the rest of the plant. He can hear the snoring of the kids, which means any of them who are awake could hear him if he speaks too loudly.
“What did I mean in my rant of solidarity? Well, there are uprisings and there are uprisings. I want to make it perfectly clear about the kind I’m talking about. I am NOT advocating taking the law into our own hands and blowing people away, burning various and sundry vehicles, and being the kind of pissed-off ‘incorrigibles’ who make society think that, yeah, maybe unwinding is a good idea. There are certain people—and I’m not naming names—who think that violence furthers our cause. It doesn’t. I’m also not calling for a flower-child sit-in, or a Gandhi-like hunger strike. Passive resistance only works if the truck’s not willing to run you over—and this truck is. What we need is something in between. We need to be loud enough and forceful enough to be heard—but sane enough that people will listen. The Juvenile Authority would like us to believe that we have no support—but that’s a lie. Even the polls show that the various unwind-related propositions and initiatives on this year’s ballots, as well as the bills slithering through Capitol Hill, are far more marginal than the Juvies will admit. But violence will tip the scale against us.”