This makes Connor a willing part of the system. To know that he actually plays into some unwinding consortium’s plan makes Connor feel dirty—worse than dirty.
And then, when the deeper revelation hits him, it’s like a knockout blow. The final punch that leaves him flat on the canvas.
“How long,” he asks Trace, “have you been working for the Juvies?”
Trace just drives the Jeep, keeping his eyes straight ahead, and doesn’t answer for at least ten seconds. Finally he says, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
14 - Dolores
While World War II aircraft enjoy the privilege of permanent museum displays, Korean War fixed-wing aircraft are mostly unloved and forgotten. Since it was the first war to feature extensive use of helicopters, those are the aircraft that get all the attention.
There’s a sorry bomber from the Korean War that sits two aisles off the main aisle. The Admiral put it there, and although Connor has moved planes around it, Dolores, as she is called, never moves and is never opened. Her hatch has been retrofitted with a key lock, and Connor has the only key, which he wears around his neck like a latchkey child.
Dolores is the arsenal. She’s filled with the kind of weapons that troubled teens should not, under any circumstances, have access to. Unless of course they’re in uniform. The idea that the Graveyard would someday have to defend itself like the Warsaw Ghetto hung over the Admiral’s head, and now hangs over Connor’s. There’s not a day he doesn’t think about it—not a day he doesn’t finger that key around his neck like a cross. Today, however, he visits Dolores for another reason—to defend the Graveyard not from attack, but from infiltration. Today he goes in to find himself a .22 caliber pistol and a cartridge of bullets.
oy is taken away, a price is negotiated, and, as is his custom, Divan pays Nelson in cash from a money clip filled with countless bills. Then he claps Nelson on the back jovially. Nelson gets more respect as a parts pirate than he ever did from his superiors as a juvenile enforcement officer.
“I can always count on you to bring me what I need. Not all my associates are so consistent. Now that the Juvenile Authority is offering rewards for AWOL Unwinds, I find fewer come my way.”
“Goddamn Cap-17 law,” Nelson says.
“Yes. Let’s hope it’s not a sign that society is slipping back to its old, less civilized ways.”
“Not a chance,” Nelson tells him. “People won’t go back there.”
He was just a child when the Unwind Accord was passed and the war ended—but it’s not the war that sticks in his mind from those days. It’s the fear of the ferals. With the failure of the public school system, the nation was overrun by teenagers out of work, out of school, and with nothing to do even before the war. In fact, that fear triggered the war more than anything else. One side claimed the ferals were created by the collapse of family values, while the other side claimed the ferals were a product of rigid beliefs that no longer met the world’s needs. Both sides were right. Both sides were wrong—but it didn’t matter when people were terrified to go into the streets at night from fear of their own kids.
“Unwinding didn’t just end the war,” Nelson points out to Divan. “It ripped out the weeds. Kept them from choking the rest of us out. Fear of the AWOLs will keep both of us in business.”
“I sincerely hope you’re right.” Divan opens his mouth as if to say more, but thinks better of it.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Nothing to trouble yourself with. Just rumors. We’ll talk more upon your next visit. And if you could, please keep in mind that I’m experiencing a shortage of girls. Ones with red hair in particular. Also umbers—either gender. And, of course, I’ll always pay a high price for ‘People of Chance.’ ”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” says Nelson, already scheming a way of fulfilling Divan’s request. He’d yet to capture a Native American kid, but one of these days those so-called “People of Chance” would bust and leave Nelson with not just a winning hand, but an entire winning body.
As he drives back across the bridge and onto American soil, his spirits are high. If Divan has worries, they’re unfounded. Although Nelson has, in recent days, chosen the life of an outsider, he still feels he has a finger on the pulse of the times. With so much of the civilized world employing the practice of unwinding, how could anyone deny that it is a viable alternative for the troubled, the useless, and the unwanted? Like the ads say, “Unwinding isn’t just good medicine—it’s the right idea.”
It was the very rightness of the idea that made Nelson become a Juvey-cop to begin with. The knowledge that he would leave the world a cleaner, brighter place by dredging the dregs from the streets was what propelled him into the police academy. Eventually, though, his ideals were replaced by an abiding hatred for those marked for unwinding. They were all alike, these Unwinds; sucking valuable resources from those more deserving, and clinging to their pathetic individuality, rather than accepting peaceful division. They insisted on living lives no one else felt were worth the effort. As an officer of the law, the rules of conduct held him back—but as a parts pirate, he could take care of business much more effectively. So, as much as he blamed Connor Lassiter for ruining his life, perhaps the boy had done him a favor. Still, it is supremely satisfying to know that the Akron AWOL died an ignoble death at Happy Jack Harvest Camp. It gives Nelson hope that maybe there truly is justice in the universe.
13 - Connor
A retired 787 arrives with only fourteen Whollies packed in empty beer barrels in the hold. Connor wonders if someone in the resistance is just getting bored, or if the barrels were really the most inconspicuous way to ship them. The kids all exit the hold cramped and hunched from the ride, and Connor delivers his usual rallying speech, troubled by the diminishing number of kids in each arriving plane.
Then, after they’ve been brought to the IHOP jet for assessment, and to get them ready for life in the Graveyard, Connor returns with Trace to the 787. It’s the old Boeing Dreamliner, the first one of its kind to arrive at the Graveyard. It was once heralded as the salvation of the aviation industry, and it certainly served its purpose, but there’s always something newer, faster, and more fuel-efficient ready to take any jet’s place.
“She’s still impressive,” says Trace, as they walk through the passenger compartment, which is already sweltering in the Arizona sun. “A classical beauty.”
“You think you could fly this plane if you had to?” Connor asks him as they size up the Dreamliner.
Trace grins. “I’ve been flying Cessnas since I was sixteen, and military aircraft for a year before I joined the ADR, so yes, I could fly a commercial airliner. Hell, I could make it do loop-the-loops.”
“Good. You may need to do loops if we’re being targeted.”
Trace puzzles over this for a second, then grins. “Escape jet?”
“If we gut it, we can fit everyone in. Won’t be comfortable, but it’ll work.”