Unwind (Unwind Dystology 1)

"Look around you, moron! Does it look like half of us died?"

"Well, I just heard."

"It was just one crateful that died."

"Yeah! Someone says they freaked out and ate each other—you know, like the Donner party."

"No, they just suffocated."

"How do you know?"

"Cause I saw them, man. Right in the crate next to mine. There were five guys in there instead of four, and they all suffocated."

Risa turns to the kid who said that. "Is that really true, or are you just making it up?"

Risa can tell by the unsettled look on his face that he's sincere. "I wouldn't joke about something like that."

Risa looks for Connor, but her view is limited to the few-kids around her in line. She quickly docs the math. There were about sixty kids. Five kids suffocated. One-in-twelve chance it was Connor. No, because the boy who saw into the dead crate said there were guys in there. There were only thirty guys in all. One-in-six chance it was Connor. Had he been one of the last ones in? Had he been shoved into an overpacked crate? She didn't know. She had been so flustered when they were rousted that morning, it was hard enough to keep track of herself, much less anyone else. Please, God, let it not be Connor. Let it not be Connor. Her last words to him had been angry ones. Even though he had saved her from Roland, she was furious at him. "Get out of here!" she had screamed. She couldn't bear the thought of his dying with those being her last words. She couldn't bear the thought of his dying, period.

grunts his disapproval. "I don't like the sound of that."

"This girl had it all worked out in her head," continued Hayden. "She believed Unwinds are like the unborn."

"Wait a second," says Emby, finally breaking his silence. "The unborn have souls. They have souls from the moment they get made—the law says."

Connor doesn't want to get into it again with Emby, but he can't help himself. "Just because the law says it, that doesn't make it true."

"Yeah, well, just because the law says it, that doesn't make it false, either. It's only the law because a whole lot of people thought about it, and decided it made sense."

"Hmm," says Diego. "The Mouth Breather has a point."

Maybe so, but the way Connor sees it, a point ought to be sharper than that. "How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?"

"They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong."

"And what the law says is fine with me," says Emby.

"But if it weren't for the law, would you still believe it?" asks Hayden. "Share with us a a personal opinion, Emby. Prove there's more than snot in that cranium of yours."

"You're wasting your time," says Connor. "There's not."

"Give our congested friend a chance," says Hayden.

They wait. The sound of the engine changes. Connor can feel them begin a slow descent, and wonders if the others can feel it too. Then Emby says, "Unborn babies . . . they suck their thumbs sometimes, right? And they kick. Maybe before that they're just like a bunch of cells or something, but once they kick and suck their thumbs—that's when they've got a soul."

"Good for you!" says Hayden. "An opinion! I knew you could do it."

Connor's head begins to spin. Was it the plane's banking, or a lack of oxygen?

"Connor, fair is fair—Emby found an opinion somewhere in his questionable gray matter. Now you have to give yours."

Connor sighs, not having the strength to fight anymore. He thinks about the baby he and Risa so briefly shared. "If there's such a thing as a soul—and I'm not saying that there is—then it comes when a baby's born into the world. Before that, it's just part of the mother."

"No, it's not!" says Emby.

"Hey—he wanted my opinion, I gave it."

"But it's wrong!"