A bullet catches the corner of the sliding glass veranda door, but leaves little more than a ding. It’s bulletproof glass. Apparently the builders decided that anyone who would be invited to the visitor’s suite of a harvest camp might be the kind of person likely to get shot at. His only way out is the door to the suite, but it’s locked from the outside.
The sound of gunfire diminishes, until it’s gone entirely—and the sight of kids still running outside tells Hayden that the invading force was victorious.
He pounds on his door over and over again, screaming at the top of his lungs, until someone comes.
It’s a kid at the door, and he looks familiar. Hayden quickly recognizes him as a message runner from the Graveyard.
“Hayden?” the kids says. “No way!”
• • •
He is led by three fugitives he knew from the airplane graveyard out into the common area, where the artificial turf swelters in the midday sun. There are bodies strewn everywhere. Some are tranq’d; others clearly dead. Most are kids. A few are guards. To the left, the harvest camp workers are being bound and gagged. To the right, there are vast numbers of kids racing out the camp’s gate, claiming their freedom. But not everyone is leaving.
The rest are being addressed by someone wearing the pastel-gray coverall uniform of an Unwind transport worker.
Hayden stops short when he realizes who it is.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was holding out hope that it was Connor come to rescue them. Now he wonders if it’s too late to go back to his guest suite.
“Hey,” the kid who unlocked his door shouts. “Look who we found!”
When Starkey lays eyes on Hayden, there’s a moment of fear in Starkey’s eyes, which is quickly engulfed by steel. He smiles a little too broadly. “What was it you always said at the Graveyard, Hayden? ‘Hello. I’ll be your rescuer today.’â??”
“He’s one of them!” someone shouts before Hayden can come up with a clever response. “He’s been working for the Juvies! They even let him pick who gets unwound!”
“Oh, is that the latest news? You know you can’t trust a thing the tabloids say. Next I’ll be giving birth to alien triplets.”
Bam is there—she looks at Hayden, somewhat amused. “So the Juvenile Authority made you their bitch.”
“Nice to see you too, Bam.”
Shouts of “Leave him,” and “Tranq him,” and even “Kill him,” spread through the crowd of Cold Springs Unwinds, but the kids who knew him rise to his defense enough to spread at least a few seeds of doubt. The crowd looks to Starkey for a decision, but he doesn’t seem ready to make one. He’s spared, though, because three strong storks approach with the struggling camp director.
The crowd parts, and someone has the bright idea to spit on Menard as he passes, and pretty soon everyone’s doing it. Hayden might have done it if he had thought of it first, but now it’s just conformism.
“So this must be the guy in charge,” Starkey says. “Get on your knees.”
When Menard doesn’t obey, the three kids manhandling him push him down.
“You have been found guilty of crimes against humanity,” Starkey says.
“Guilty?” wails Menard desperately. “I’ve had no trial! Where’s my trial?”
Starkey looks up at the mob. “How many of you think he’s guilty?”
Just about every hand goes up, and as much as Hayden hates Menard, he has a bad feeling about where this is going. Sure enough, Starkey pulls out a pistol. “There’s twelve in a jury, and that’s definitely more than twelve people,” Starkey tells Menard. “Consider yourself convicted.”
Then Starkey does something Hayden was not expecting. He hands the gun to Hayden.
“Execute him.”
Hayden begins to stammer, staring at the gun. “Starkey, uh—this isn’t—”
“If you’re not a traitor, then prove it by putting a bullet in his head.”
“That won’t prove anything.”
Then Menard doubles over and begins to pray. A man who kills kids for a living praying for deliverance. It’s enough to make Hayden aim at Menard’s hypocritical skull. He holds it there for a good ten seconds, but he can’t pull the trigger.