UnWholly (Unwind Dystology #2)(103)

“Not gonna happen.”

Connor is clearly outnumbered. Starkey’s inner circle of storks advance on him—but Starkey’s not the only one with tricks up his sleeve. Suddenly Hayden and half a dozen others, who’ve been waiting outside, begin piling through the door, firing tranq pistols at every stork in their path until half of Starkey’s inner circle is unconscious on the floor of the jet, and the others drop their weapons.

Connor looks straight into Starkey’s eyes. “Cuff him.”

“With pleasure,” says Hayden, pulling Starkey’s hands behind his back and cuffing them together.

Connor has been foolish enough to trust him, and to believe that Starkey’s ambition was healthy, not blind.

“The difference between me and you, Connor,” Starkey says, still defiant, “is that—”

“—is that you’re in handcuffs and I’m not. Get him out of here.”

Hearing the gunfire of tranq pistols, dozens of kids have gathered in front of GymBo, as they haul Starkey out and down the stairs.

“Put his little mutiny team in the detention jet with two armed guards,” Connor says.

“Starkey, too?” Hayden asks.

Connor knows he can’t put Starkey in the same holding pen as his coconspirators. It would just lead to more plotting.

“No. Lock him in my jet,” Connor orders, and one of the kids holding Starkey throws him to the ground, but Connor pulls the kid back.

“No! We are not the Juvies. Treat him with dignity. Whether he deserves it or not.”

They obey, although no one helps Starkey up. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he has to wiggle and contort himself to get to his feet.

“This isn’t over!” Starkey yells.

“Yeah, that’s what they always say when it is.”

Starkey is taken away, and Connor begins damage control. He tunes in to the rumbles of conversation on the perimeter. Some kids are just wondering what the hell happened, but there are other voices. Disapproving voices. The Stork Club. He wonders how much support Starkey has. It might be a mile wide, but Connor hopes it’s only an inch deep.

“Listen to me, all of you,” Connor says, knowing he has to sell himself as their leader more than ever. “Whether you’re a stork, or a ward, or bio-raised, we have to stand united now. What we do now will decide whether we live or die. The Juvies are about to make a move. We have to work together, unless you want to end up in pieces.”

His speech meets with affirmations and a sense of solidarity until someone in the back asks, “What about Starkey?”

Then everyone waits to see what Connor will say.

“Starkey is one of us,” Connor tells them. “And I won’t let a single one of us be unwound.”

? ? ?

With no one to fly the Dreamliner, there is no escape plan, so Connor calls together Hayden, Ashley, and half a dozen others—some from the Holy of Whollies, and other kids he knows he can trust. They meet in the ComBom—a makeshift war room for an unlikely general—and Connor pulls plan B out of thin air.

“We set up two fronts—here, and here.” He points to a hand-drawn map of the Graveyard. “The Juvies will come in through the north gate. Once they’re in, we drive them right down the main aisle, then ambush from both sides, with about fifty of us.”

“Live ammo?” Hayden asks.

“We hit them with everything we have. Live ammo, tranqs, everything.”

“They’ll have more than us,” Ashley points out. “No matter what we do, they’ll outlast us.”

“Yes, but it’s all about buying time,” Connor tells her. “When our ammo runs low, we retreat to here—behind the fuel tanker, east of the fighter jets.”

“Won’t they corner us?” another kid asks.

“When they start to close in, we blow the tanker and run east.”

“We’ll never make it!” says Ashley.

“Here’s the thing, though. The second the fifty take on the Juvies, more than six hundred fifty will be scattering to the south.” And on the map, Connor draws a dispersal pattern of kids spreading out like a fan toward the remote southern fence. “That fence is full of holes.”

Hayden nods, getting it, and points to the main aisle. “So if the fifty do their job here and then draw the Juvies to the east, keeping them engaged and distracted, by the time they realize everyone else is on the run, they’ll never be able to catch them.”

“They might be able to round up some, but the others will make it. They’ll all be on their own again, but at least they’ll be alive, and whole.”

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.”