At every rescue mission, Connor reads aloud the reasons, and each time he wonders if it’s the same list his parents would have written. This time, the last reason chokes Connor up a bit.
“ ‘Our own failure as parents.’ ”
And then he gets mad at himself. These parents haven’t earned his sympathy. If it’s their failure, then why should their son have to pay for it?
“Tomorrow, when the Juvey-rounders come for him, you’ll tell them that he ran away, and you don’t know where he went. You won’t talk about us, or what happened here today, because if you do, we’ll know. We monitor all the police frequencies.”
“And if we don’t comply?” the father asks, showing the same kind of disobedience he condemned his son for.
“In case you have any thought of reporting this, we’ve uploaded a nice identity cocktail for the two of you onto the net.”
That makes them both look even more ill than they already do.
“What kind of cocktail?”
Hayden’s the one who answers, proud because it was his idea.
“We send out a single code over the net, and bingo, your names become linked to a dozen known clapper cells. Your digital footprint will be so tangled in terrorism, you’ll spend years trying to get Homeland Security off your collective asses.”
The couple nod a solemn acceptance.
“Fine,” the man says. “You have our word.”
The threat of identity cocktails is always very effective—and besides, whether these kids go with Connor or they’re unwound, the parents get what they want. Their unmanageable kid becomes somebody else’s problem. Reporting Connor and his team would just make Noah their problem again.
“You have to understand, we were desperate,” says the mother with a high quotient of self-righteousness. “Everyone told us that unwinding was the best thing to do. Everyone.”
Connor tears up the list of excuses and drops it on the floor, locking eyes with her.
“So, in other words you decided to unwind your son because of peer pressure?”
Finally the two of them crumble, feeling the appropriate weight of shame. The father, who had started out so defiant, suddenly bursts into tears. It’s the mother who holds it together enough to offer Connor one last excuse.
“We tried to be good parents . . . but there’s a point at which you give up trying.”
“No, there’s not,” Connor tells her. Then he turns to go, leaving them with the worst punishment of all: having to live with themselves.
Connor and his team drive off in an intentionally nondescript minivan with a false license plate. Noah Falkowski is understandably grim as he looks out the window, watching his neighborhood go by for the last time. He doesn’t seem to know who they are. He doesn’t seem to care. Connor’s glad Noah doesn’t recognize him. While the Akron AWOL has a legendary reputation in some circles, his face was in the news much less than Lev’s. Plus, with everyone thinking he’s dead, it’s easier to go incognito.
“Relax,” Connor tells him, “you’re among friends.”
“I got no friends,” says Noah. And for now, Connor lets him feel sorry for himself.
- - -
The Graveyard is true to its name this late at night. Airplane tail fins stand as monumental and as quiet as tombstones. Kids are on watch patrol with tranq-loaded rifles, but other than that, there’s no sign that the place is home to more than seven hundred AWOL Unwinds.
“So why are we here?” Noah asks as the rescue party pulls down the main aisle—the busiest “street” of the Graveyard, flanked by a series of large aircraft that make up the core of their living space, each one named by Unwinds who have long since left. Names like Crash Mamma, for one of the main girls’ dorms; the ComBom, a veteran World War II bomber that’s become their computer and communications center; and of course IHOP, the International House of Purgatory, where new arrivals like Noah stay until they’re given a job and integrated into the Graveyard.
“The Graveyard’s where you’ll live until you turn seventeen,” Connor tells Noah.
“Like hell I will,” the kid says. Typical. Connor just ignores him.
“Hayden, get him a bedroll and escort him to IHOP. We’ll see what kind of work he’s suited for in the morning.”
“So what am I, a stinking AWOL now?” asks Noah.
“AWOLs is what they call us,” says Hayden. “We call ourselves Whollies. As to whether or not you stink, I think we all can agree that you need to visit our bathing facilities at your earliest possible convenience.”