He goes to the door, but turns back just before he exits. “If you feel ill again, I find that looking out of a window helps.”
Once he’s gone, Risa moves across the bed, and reaches for a curtain. Pulling it back reveals a window, but not the sort she was expecting. It’s an oval window, and beyond it clouds. Nothing but clouds.
44 • The Lady Lucrezia
Simply put, the Antonov AN-225 Mriya is the largest flying object ever built. The six engines of the massive cargo jet boast more horsepower than Napoleon’s entire cavalry, and when people talk of moving mountains, this is the plane that could do it. Only two of them were ever built. The first is in a Ukrainian air museum. The second is owned by wealthy Chechen entrepreneur Divan Umarov. Currently he is in negotiations to acquire the other one.
From the outside it looks like a 747 with glandular problems, but standing inside the jet’s cavernous cargo hold can be a religious experience, because it rises around you with the breathtaking drama of a cathedral, but can get about eight miles closer to heaven.
The interior of the Lady Lucrezia, as Divan christened her, bears no resemblance to its original hollow shell, however. It was meticulously redesigned to be both a lavish residence as well as a fully functioning harvest camp, landing only to take on fuel and fresh Unwinds from Divan’s international network of parts pirates, as well as to offload the various and sundry products of unwinding, worth so much more than the kids themselves.
Lately, he’s spent more time airborne. Considering the ruthlessness of his enemies, it’s safer to stay mobile as much as possible, and the current cargo, rare as to be almost priceless, requires his personal attention. It is a feather in his cap that he caught Connor Lassiter before the American Juvenile Authority or the despicable Dah Zey. He will remain on board, closely overseeing his business until such time as Connor Lassiter is sold at auction and his parts distributed to satisfied customers.
45 • Risa
When Risa wakes again, she feels a bit stronger. Strong enough to explore and test her immediate surroundings. The bedroom is, of course, locked from the outside. A view from the window reveals that they are still at a high altitude, and it’s the trailing end of twilight, or dawn—Risa has no concept of the actual time, or how many time zones they’ve flown through.
There is a small table across the room with food for her. Light fare: Danish and such. She eats in spite of her resistance to accept anything offered her.
When the black marketer returns, he’s pleased to see she’s eaten, which makes her just want to throw it all up in his face.
“I can give you the grand tour if you like,” Divan offers.
“I’m a prisoner,” she reminds him flatly. “Why would you give a prisoner a tour?”
“I do not have prisoners,” he tells her. “I have guests.”
“Is that what you call the kids you unwind? Guests?”
He sighs. “No, I don’t call them anything. If I did, it would make my work all the more difficult, you see.”
He holds out his hand to help her up, but she will not take it. “Is there a reason why I’m a ‘guest,’ and not one of them?”
He smiles. “You’ll be pleased to know, Miss Ward, that the clients of mine who are interested in you are only interested in you corpus totus. That is, in your entirety. Isn’t it nice to know that of all the souls on board, you are the only one worth more whole than divided?”
Somehow that doesn’t give her much comfort. “What sorts of clients buy someone corpus totus?”
“Wealthy ones with a penchant toward collecting. There’s a Saudi prince in particular who’s been obsessed with you. He’s made overtures in the millions.”
She tries to hide her revulsion. “Imagine that.”
“Don’t worry,” Divan tells her. “I’m less motivated to make a deal than you might think.”
He holds his hand out to her once more, and again she refuses to take it. She does stand up, however, and moves to the door.
“You’ll find the tour very eye-opening, to say the least,” Divan says, unlocking the door. “And on the way you can entertain yourself by scheming ways to escape, and ways to kill me.”
She makes eye contact with him for the first time, a bit shocked, because that is exactly what she was thinking. The look he returns is much warmer than she wants it to be.
“Don’t be so surprised,” he says. “How could I not know what you’d be thinking right now?”
Aside from the constant drone of the engines and the occasional turbulence, it is hard to believe that all this is crammed into a single airplane. The bedroom opens up into a vaulted living area, its geometry determined by the plane’s width and the dome of the fuselage. There are sofas, a dining table, and a multiscreened entertainment center.
“The kitchen and pantry are below,” Divan says. “My chef is world-class.”
At the far end of the room, dominating the space, is something Risa needs time to wrap her mind around. It’s an instrument. A pipe organ—however, instead of gleaming brass pipes, this one has faces. Dozens of faces.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Divan says with pride. “I purchased it from a Brazilian artist, who has apparently made a career working in flesh. He claims his artwork is to protest unwinding, but I ask you, how much of a protest can it be if he uses the unwound for his art?”
Risa is drawn to the thing like a spectator to a car accident. She’s seen this before. In a dream, she thought. A dream that kept recurring. Only now does she realize that the dream had a grounding in reality: something she once saw on TV, although she can’t place exactly when.
“He calls it ‘Orgão Orgânico.’ ‘The Organic Organ.’ ”
Each shaved head rests inert, symmetrically placed above the keyboard, on multiple levels, connected to it by tubes and ducts. It’s the very definition of abomination. Risa finds it too grotesque to even trigger the proper emotion. Too horrifying to feel. Slowly she reaches forward and pushes down on a key.
And directly in front of her, a disembodied face opens its mouth and voices a perfect middle C.
Risa yelps and jumps back, right into Divan. He gently holds her by the shoulders, but she pulls free.
“Nothing to fear,” he tells her. “I assure you the brains are elsewhere—probably helping rich Brazilian children to think better. Although the eyes do open from time to time, which can be disconcerting.”
Finally Risa tries to voice her own opinion, and it’s far from middle C. “This thing . . . this thing is . . .”
“Unthinkable—I know. Even I was taken aback when I first viewed it . . . and yet the more I looked at it, the more compelled I was to have it. Such lovely voices should be heard, yes? And I’m not without a sense of irony. The Lady Lucrezia is my Nautilus, and I, like the good captain Nemo, must have my organ.”
Although Risa has turned away, she finds her gaze drawn back to it, compelled to look on it, terrified of the prospect that it might look back.
“Won’t you play it?” he asks her. “I can’t do it justice, and I understand you’re quite the accomplished pianist.”
“I’d cut off my hands before I touch that thing again. Get me away from it.”
“Of course,” says Divan, ever obliging, but noticeably disappointed. He directs her to a stairwell across the room. “The tour continues this way.”
Risa can’t get away from the Orgão Orgânico fast enough. Yet as Divan said, the image lingers, along with a strange compelling sensation, like standing on a high ledge and leaning over, tempting gravity to steal one’s balance. As horrified as she is by the eighty-eight-faced monstrosity, she’s more horrified by the thought that she might actually want to play it.