UnWholly (Unwind Dystology 2)

And then comes the big question. “What about the fifty?”

Finally Connor has to answer. “We’ll be the sacrifices so the others can survive.”

He can actually hear the click in Hayden’s Adam’s apple as he swallows. “So much for a future in broadcasting,” Hayden says.

“Any of you who aren’t up for it, I won’t hold it against you if you leave,” Connor says, but everyone knows that’s like the minister asking if anyone objects to the wedding.

“All right, good,” he says when no one raises a hand. “Each of you put together a team of your most trusted friends who are willing to stand against the Juvies, then let the others know to start running when the alarm sounds, and not to stop running until they’re either caught or turn seventeen.”

“Why wait until the alarm sounds?” someone asks. “Why not abandon the Graveyard now?”

“Because,” Connor points out, “they’re watching our every move now. If they see us starting to bail, they’ll have squad cars lining that perimeter fence before we even get there, and they can pick us off like rabbits—but if all their forces are tied up in a single forward offensive, that’s when we’ll have a back door.”

They all approve of Connor’s logic. He seems to be the only one who knows he’s flying by the seat of his pants.

“How much time do we have?” Ashley asks.

Connor lets Hayden field that one.

“Days if we’re lucky,” Hayden tells her. “Hours if we’re not.”

58 - Trace

While Connor has his summit meeting, Trace breaks all speed limits racing back to the Graveyard. He had been called for an emergency meeting with his “employers,” to confirm that Graveyard AWOLs were responsible for the house fires in Tucson. There was enough evidence to lay the attacks on the Graveyard’s doorstep—it made no sense to deny it. What the suits from Proactive Citizenry wanted to know was why Trace hadn’t told them about these attacks ahead of time. After all, that was his entire purpose there—to let them know everything before it happened. They refused to believe that he had been just as blindsided by it as they were.

“Do you have any idea the position this puts us in?” they asked him. “The Juvenile Authority wants to clean the place out, and with these attacks on civilian neighborhoods, we won’t be able to stop them.”

“I thought you controlled them.”

The suits bristled in unison. “Our relationship with the Juvenile Authority is more complex than your simplistic boeuf understanding.” Then they told him they were ending his assignment, effective immediately.

But to Trace, this wasn’t an assignment anymore. And the time of playing both sides had come to an end.

So, preparing himself for battle, he sped off to the Graveyard like a surfer riding ahead of a tsunami.

Now, at dusk, he screeches to a halt before the locked gate and honks nonstop until the two teen guards on duty come out to see what the commotion is. When they see it’s Trace, they unlock the gate.

“Jesus, Trace, do you want to wake all of Tucson?”

The other kid on duty chuckles. “Ain’t nothing gonna wake Tucson.”

Poor bastards, thinks Trace. They have no idea what’s coming. He looks at the rifles they wield limply, like fashion accessories. “You got tranq bullets in those?” he asks.

“Yup,” says the first kid.

“Replace them with these.” Trace reaches over onto his passenger seat of his Jeep and hands them two boxes of the deadliest military ammunition made. Shells that could take the head off an elephant.

The kids look at the shells like they’ve been handed a newborn they’re afraid they’ll drop.

“Load them quick—and the next time you see someone headed for the gate, shoot first, and don’t stop until you’re out of bullets, do you hear me?”

“Y-yes, sir,” says the first kid. The other kid just nods mutely. “Why, sir?”

“Because the Juvies are right behind me.”

59 - Lev

It’s the fading edge of dusk when Lev and Miracolina arrive on the road that skirts the northern edge of the Graveyard. They’re on foot now. An old rusted road sign points ahead toward what was once Davis Air Force Base. The faint shape of aircraft can be seen rising in the desert more than a mile beyond the fence.