Unwind (Unwind Dystology 1)

Whatever the Admiral meant, it's lost now in incoherence as he slips in and out of consciousness.

"If we don't get him to a hospital, he'll die," says Risa, giving him chest compressions once more.

Connor looks around, but the closest thing to a car on the Graveyard is the golf cart.

"There's the helicopter," says Hayden, "but considering the fact that the pilot's dead, I think we're screwed."

Risa looks at Connor. He doesn't need to read Risa for Morons to know what she's thinking. The pilot is dead—but Cleaver was training another one. "I know what to do," says Connor. "I'll take care of it."

Connor stands up and looks around him—the smoke-stained faces, the smoldering bonfires. After today nothing will be the same. "Hayden," he says, "you're in charge. Get even-thing under control."

"You're kidding me, right?"

Connor leaves Hayden to grapple with authority and finds three of the largest kids in his field of vision. "You, you and you," Connor says. "I need you to come with me to the FedEx jet."

The three kids step forward and Connor leads the way to Crate 2399, and Roland. This, Connor knows, will not be an easy conversation.

47 First-Year Residents

In her six months working in the emergency room, the young doctor has seen enough strange things to fill her own medical school textbook, but this is the first time someone has crash-landed a helicopter in the hospital parking lot.

She races out with a team of nurses, orderlies, and other doctors. It's a small private craft—four-seater, maybe. It's in one piece, and its blades are still spinning. It missed hitting a parked car by half a yard. Someone's losing their flying license.

Two kids get out, carrying an older man in bad shape. There's already a gurney rolling out to meet them.

"We have a rooftop helipad, you know,"

"He didn't think he'd be able to land on it," says the girl.

When the doctor looks at the pilot, still sitting behind the controls, she realizes that losing his license is not an issue. The kid at the controls can't be any older than seventeen. She hurries to the old man. A stethoscope brings barely a sound from his chest cavity. Turning to the medical staff around her, she says, "Stabilize him, and prep him for transplant." Then she turns back to the kids. "You're lucky you landed at a hospital with a heart bank, or we'd end up having to medevac him across town."

Then the man's hand rises from the gurney. He grabs her sleeve, tugging with more strength than a man in his condition should have.

"No transplant," he says.

No, don't do this to me, thinks the doctor. The orderlies hesitate. "Sir, it's a routine operation."

"He doesn't want a transplant," says the boy.

"You brought him in from God-knows-where with an underage pilot to save his life, and he won't let us do it? We have an entire tissue locker full of healthy young hearts—"

"No transplant!" says the man.

"It's . . . uh . . . against his religion," says the girl.

"Tell you what," says the boy. "Why don't you do whatever they did before you had a tissue locker full of healthy young hearts."

The doctor sighs. At least she's still close enough to medical school to remember what that is. "It drastically lowers his chances of survival—you know that, don't you?"

"He knows."

She gives the man a moment more to change his mind, then gives up. The orderlies and other staff rush the man back toward the ER, and the two kids follow.

Once they're gone, she takes a moment to catch her breath. Someone grabs her arm, and she turns to see the young pilot, who had been silent through all of it. The look on his face is pleading, yet determined. She thinks she knows what it's about. She glances at the helicopter, then at the kid. "Take it up with the FAA," she says. "If he lives, I'm sure you'll be off the hook. They might even call you a hero."

"I need you to call the Juvey-cops," he says, his grip getting a little stronger.

"Excuse me?"