UnDivided (Unwind Dystology 4)

It never occurs to him that Connor is still awake enough to pull the IV out of his arm.

47 • Connor

The instant Argent is gone, Connor takes action—but even awake and alert, Connor can find no way to give himself an advantage, and no way out of the harvester in one piece. The door through which Argent came and went requires a key. Not a code, or key card, or anything defeatable by technology, but an actual old-fashioned key. Connor might as well be sealed in the Great Pyramid. As for the machine itself, it’s a soulless thing. A black rectangular box suspended from spring-loaded support legs that absorb the unpredictable motion of air turbulence. The thing looks like a spider, a massive daddy longlegs. There’s a control panel, but he can’t figure out how to open it, much less access it.

“Help me! Help me, please! DO something!”

When the girl awaiting unwinding on the conveyor belt gets enough of her wits about her to understand at least part of what’s happening, Connor tries to lift her from the steel sled she rests upon, but she doesn’t budge. He realizes why when he gets too close, and his wrist becomes stuck to the steel. The sled is powerfully magnetized—and once that magnet is engaged, the “long divisions,” as Argent called their iron fiber bodysuits, are locked in place more powerfully than if they had been chained there. It takes all his strength and leverage to free his wrist. In the end, he can only be a witness to the girl’s end, as the belt starts rolling and she’s drawn into the unwinding chamber. The door closes, and the soundproof walls of the machine silence her. There’s a small round window on the side of the machine, but Connor can’t bring himself to look into it. As if anyone would want to see what happens in there.

Fifteen minutes later stasis containers of various sizes begin to roll out of the other end of the chamber and are neatly stacked in the cargo hold by mechanical arms. Her unwinding is complete in forty-five minutes—far more quickly than in a standard Chop Shop. Could this be the future of unwinding? Will machines like this eventually be approved for legal use? The great barrel of Unwinds begins to turn—a wheel of fortune selecting the next unlucky winner.

“Hey! You’re the Akron AWOL! You’re him! You can save me! You have to save me!”

Connor watches the second kid go the way of the first. Again he tries to do something—anything—to stop the process, but the machine ignores him. Connor almost loses a hand himself when the unwinding chamber door nearly closes on it. The harvester doesn’t seem to have a protocol at all for outside interference, or even awareness of it—and although a single security camera constantly sweeps the room, apparently no one’s watching, because Connor’s sure it’s caught him once or twice, but no one has come to investigate. Security here is about as necessary as in a mausoleum. No one’s getting in, and none of the residents will be causing problems.

“Á l’aide! Á l’aide! Je ne veux pas mourir!”

The next victim—a girl who doesn’t even speak English—is pulled into the machine against all of Connor’s attempts to save her. He knows it’s futile even trying, but what else can he do? Then with the first three kids unwound, and the bidders primed, the final specimen of the day is plucked by the hydraulic arms from his niche, and placed before the mouth of the machine. At first Connor thinks what he’s seeing must be a hallucination brought on by the drugs still in his system, but as he draws closer, there’s no mistaking the face. It’s Starkey.

Connor stands there numbly as Starkey regains full consciousness and looks at him much the same way Connor had looked at Argent. Not so much with disbelief, but with a curious detachment from reality.

“You?” Starkey says. “Where am I? Why are you here?”

But he’s quick to figure out his predicament, and the moment he does, Connor turns from sworn enemy into savior. He begins pleading just like the others.

“Please, Connor! However much you hate me, you have to do something!”

Connor actually goes through the motions of trying to free him at first—but only for Starkey’s benefit. He knows that he can’t do a thing. If an escape artist like Starkey can’t do it, what hope does Connor have? Based on what he’s already seen, Connor knows Starkey has only five minutes before he’s unwound, but there’s nothing Connor can do other than stand beside him, keeping him final company. The helpless above the hopeless.

“Fund-raising!” Starkey wails. “The clappers told me I had a new job in their fund-raising division. How could I have been so stupid!”

He struggles, fighting the magnetic restraint just as the other kids did, and in tears he says, “All I wanted was to give storks a fighting chance! And revenge for all the mistreatment and unfairness. I did that, didn’t I? I made a difference! Tell me that I made a difference!”

Connor considers how me might respond, and says, “You made people take notice.”

If he could save Starkey, would he? Knowing all the death and destruction Starkey has caused? Knowing the maniacal direction his vendetta took? How his personal war actually furthered the cause of unwinding? If anyone deserves to be unwound, it’s Starkey . . . and yet Connor would stop it if he could.

He puts a firm hand on Starkey’s sh

oulder. “This is one escape you’re not going to make, Mason. Try to relax. Use this time to prepare yourself.”

“No! This can’t be it! There’s got to be a way out!”

“You’re on a plane in the middle of God knows where!” yells Connor. “You are in front of a machine that can’t be stopped. Use these last minutes to focus, Mason. Use what time you have left to put your life in order!”

And all at once Connor realizes he’s not saying these words just to Starkey—he’s saying them to himself as well. Conner thought that being awake would give him an advantage, but it has only emphasized how dire the situation is. He tries to tell himself he’s been through worse, but there’s an intuition as solid as the airframe carrying them across the sky that tells Connor he’s not getting out in one piece. It’s only a matter of time until he’s the one lying before the mouth of the monster.

Starkey does calm himself. He closes his eyes, takes deep breaths, and then when he opens them again, there’s a sense of resolve that wasn’t there before.

“I know how you can keep me from being unwound,” he says.

Connor shakes his head. “I told you, there’s nothing I can do!”

“Yes, there is,” Starkey tells him with steely certainty in his voice. “You can kill me.”

Connor takes a step back and stares at Starkey, unable to respond.

“Kill me, Connor. I want you to. I need you to.”