The opposing team completely deflates when they see Connor, as if his mere presence will ensure their loss. Never mind that Connor stinks at volleyball; to them the Akron AWOL is a star in every sport. Roland’s on the opposing team as well. He doesn’t wilt like the others—he just glares, holding the volleyball, ready to serve it down Connor’s throat.
The game begins. The intensity of play can only be matched by an undercurrent of fear that runs beneath every tap of the ball. Both teams play as if the losers will be immediately unwound. Dalton had told Connor that it doesn’t work that way, but losing can’t help, either. It reminds Connor of the Mayan game of pokatok—something he learned about in history class. The game was a lot like basketball, except that the losers were sacrificed to the Mayan gods. At the time Connor thought it was cool.
Roland spikes the ball, and it hits one of the staffers in the face. Roland grins before he apologizes and the man glares at him, making a note on his clipboard. Connor wonders if it will cost Roland a few days.
Then suddenly, the game pauses, because everyone’s attention begins to shift to a group of kids in white, passing the far side of the court.
“Those are tithes,” a kid tells Connor. “You know what those are, right?”
Connor nods. “I know.”
“Look at them. They think they’re so much better than everyone else.”
Connor has already heard how tithes are treated differently than the regular population. “Tithes” and “Terribles,” that’s how the staff refers to the two kinds of Unwinds. Tithes don’t participate in the same activities as the terribles. They don’t wear the same blue and pink uniforms the terribles wear. Their white silk outfits are so bright in the Arizona sun, you have to squint your eyes when you look at them, like they were adolescent versions of God himself—although to Connor they look more like a little squad of aliens. The terribles hate the tithes the way peasants despise royalty. Connor might have once felt the same way, but having known one, he feels more sorry for them than anything else.
“I hear they know the exact date and time of their unwinding,” one kid says.
“I hear they actually make their own appointment!” says another.
The ref blows his whistle, “All right, back to the game.”
They turn away from the bright white uniforms of the chosen few, and add one more layer of frustration to the match.
For a moment, as the tithes disappear over a hillside, Connor thinks that he recognizes a face among them, but he knows it’s just his imagination.
54. Lev
It’s not Connor’s imagination.
Levi Jedediah Calder is one of the very special guests of Happy Jack Harvest Camp, and he is wearing his tithing whites once more. He does not see Connor on the volleyball court because the tithes are strictly instructed not to look at the terribles. Why should they? They have been told from birth they are of a different caste and have a higher calling.
Lev may still have the remnants of a sunburn, but his hair is cut short and neat, just as it used to be, and his manner is sensitive and mild. At least on the outside.
He has an appointment for unwinding in thirteen days.
55. Risa
She plays on the roof of the Chop Shop, and her music carries across the fields to the ears of more than a thousand souls waiting to go under the knife. The joy of having her fingers on the keys again can only be matched by the horror of knowing what’s going on beneath her feet.
From her vantage point on the roof she sees them brought down the maroon flagstone path that all the kids call “the red carpet.” Kids who walk the red carpet have guards flanking them on either side, with firm grips on their upper arms—firm enough to restrain them, but not enough to bruise them.
Yet in spite of this, Dalton and the rest of his band play like it doesn’t matter at all.
“How can you do this?” she asks during one of their breaks. “How can you watch them day after day, going in and never coming out?”
“You get used to it,” the drummer tells her, taking a swig of water. “You’ll see.”
“I won’t! I can’t!” She thinks about Connor. He doesn’t have this same reprieve from unwinding. He doesn’t stand a chance. “I can’t be an accomplice to what they’re doing!”
“Hey,” says Dalton, getting annoyed. “This is survival here, and we do what we have to do to survive! You got chosen because you can play, and you’re good. Don’t throw it away. Either you get used to kids walking down the red carpet or you’ll be on it yourself, and we’ll have to play for you.”
Risa gets the message, but it doesn’t mean she has to like it. “Is that what happened to your last keyboard player?” Risa asks. She can tell it’s a subject they’d rather not think about. They look at one another. No one wants to take on the question. Then the lead singer answers with a nonchalant toss of her hair, like it doesn’t matter. “Jack was about to turn eighteen, so they took him a week before his birthday.”
“He was not a very happy Jack,” says the drummer, and hits a rim shot.
“That’s it?” says Risa. “They just took him?”
“Business is business,” says the lead singer. “They lose a ton of money if one of us turns eighteen, because then they’ve got to let us go.”
“I’ve got a plan, though,” says Dalton, winking at the others, who have obviously heard this before. “When I’m getting close to eighteen, and they’re ready to come for me, I’m jumping right off this roof.”
“You’re going to kill yourself?”
“I hope not—it’s only two stories, but I’ll sure get busted up real bad. See, they can’t unwind you like that; they have to wait until you heal. By then I’ll be eighteen and they will be screwed!” He high-fives the drummer, and they laugh.
Risa can only stare in disbelief.
“Personally,” says the lead singer, “I’m counting on them lowering the legal age of adulthood to seventeen. If they do, I’ll go to the staffers and counselors, and the friggin’ doctors. I’ll spit right in their faces—and they won’t be able to do anything but let me walk right out that gate on my own two legs.”
Then the guitar player, who hasn’t said a word all morning, picks up his instrument.
“This one’s for Jack,” he says, and begins playing the opening chords to the prewar classic “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”
The rest of them join in, playing from the heart, and Risa does her best to keep her eyes away from the red carpet.
56. Connor
The dormitories are divided into units. There are thirty kids per unit—thirty beds in a long, thin room with large shatterproof windows to bring in the cheerful light of day. As Connor prepares for dinner he notices that two beds in his unit have been stripped, and the kids who slept in them are nowhere to be seen.
Everyone notices but no one talks about it, except one kid who takes one of the bunks because his mattress has broken springs.
“Let a newbie have the broken one,” he says. “I’m gonna be comfortable my last week.”
Conner can’t remember either the names or the faces of the missing kids, and that haunts him. The whole day weighs heavily on him—the way the kids think he can somehow save them, when he knows he can’t even save himself. The way the staff keeps waiting for him to make a mistake. His one joy is knowing that Risa is safe, at least for now.
He had seen her after lunch when he stopped to watch the band. He had been searching for her everywhere, and all that time she was right there in plain view, playing her heart out. She had told him she played piano, but he never gave it much thought. She’s amazing, and now he wishes he had taken more time to get to know who she was before she escaped from that bus. When she saw him watching that afternoon, she smiled—something she rarely did. But the smile was quickly replaced by a look that registered the reality. She was up there, and he was down here.