“You’ll go to your grave?” says Risa, still outrageously bitter about the whole thing. “That’s just wishful thinking. More likely your memories will get ripped out and planted in someone else’s head!”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he tells her. Then he finally reaches up to touch his swelling eye. He doesn’t seem angry that she hit him. It’s as if the act was well worth the consequences.

Risa feels a buzz in her pocket and pulls out the old flip phone Sonia gave them. Such phones and the fading providers that serviced them were considered “retirement sector technology.” They were perfect for communicating under the radar, because the network was too antiquated for the Juvies to bother with.

“U OK?” reads Connor’s text.

She lets out a breath of relief to know that he hasn’t been caught. “YES, U?” She texts back.

“FOUND THE LAB,” he texts. “MEET U AT CAR.”

And although she doesn’t want to just leave him, she knows further wandering through the hospital will just jeopardize things.

“Is that him?” Beau asks. “What does he say?”

“He says you’re a lousy kisser, and I have to agree.”

Beau gives a halfhearted laugh, maybe thinking that she forgives him a little. Which she doesn’t. She realizes she doesn’t care enough to hate him or to forgive him.

“We’ll take the nearest stairs down,” Risa says, “then slip out a back way—just like you told them we did. We’ll meet Connor at the car.”

He nods, accepting the plan, but then he’s got to go ask, “What if Connor doesn’t show?”

“You want another black eye?” Risa says, and so he backs down from the question, and opens the stairwell door for her.

“Oh, and for the record, I’m not a loser,” Beau tells her. “No matter what my unwind order says.”

20 • Connor

The plan is simple. Plans can be simple when you’re dealing with the human mechanics of an institution that has no reason to expect intrigue and subterfuge. The hospital personnel are more on the lookout for slippery floors that might lead to lawsuits than for AWOLs stealing biomatter. Why on earth would anyone want to do that?

When Risa and Beau were spotted by security, Risa made the right decision to lure security away. It wasn’t like the guard had any idea who they were and what they were up to. Of course, Connor’s instinct was to go after Risa, but he knew it would be the wrong thing to do. That could just result in all of them getting caught. He had to trust that Risa was clever enough to play a successful cat and mouse, even if Beau couldn’t.

Connor now wanders down corridors in the wings that don’t cater to inpatients. It’s mostly deserted on a Sunday. He finds the research building, connected to the rest of the complex by a glass-enclosed skywalk—which would give the world a clear view of him, if anyone in the world was looking. If someone is, he’ll know soon enough.

He finds the lab he’s looking for in the basement. While the rest of the research building is richly appointed, the basement is utilitarian and institutional. Dimly lit corridors floored with puke-colored linoleum tiles. The low-rent district of an otherwise upscale facility. Apparently the rogue research team that insisted on playing with pointless cellular manipulation is kept out of sight as an embarrassment to medical science. Shunned as if they were studying the use of leeches and snake oil.

There seems to be barely any security down here. The lab has a lock with no alarm, and it’s easily picked—and with security focused on Risa and Beau, the basement of the research building is as silent as a morgue, which is probably in another basement not too far away.

He takes a gamble and texts Risa that he’s found the lab, and he’ll meet them at the car. If she’s been caught, that text will give him away to whoever caught her, but he has to have faith that she evaded the slow-moving guard that was in pursuit. He waits for an agonizing few moments until she texts back “K,” then he releases his breath, not even realizing he had been holding it.

He opens the door of the lab and flicks on a light. It’s a simple repository of specimens in glass-front refrigerators. There are racks of test tubes, and petrie dishes growing questionable cultures. There are also specimens sealed in plastic stasis containers, and the sight of them makes Connor shudder. These are the same kind of containers that are used to transport unwound parts. Modern stasis containers can preserve living tissue almost indefinitely. It’s one of the many unwind-related technologies that sprang up after the signing of the Unwind Accord.

Everything is labeled with numbered codes that mean nothing to Connor.

“Adult pluripotent stem cells,” Sonia said. He knows he’s in the right place, but things in this lab are labeled for the researchers, not for an intruder looking to steal something.

He has an expandable tote bag that he can load with as many specimens as he can fit. He decides to take only stasis containers—because specimens in test tubes and dishes probably won’t survive any temperature change in transport. He fills his bag like the Grinch stealing Christmas—then suddenly the lab door opens, and he’s caught red-handed with his hand in the biological cookie jar by a lab tech who is so shocked by Connor’s unexpected presence that he drops the glass vials he’s holding and they shatter on the ground.

“Don’t move,” says Connor, because clearly the man is going to bolt and probably call security. “I’ve got a gun.” Connor reaches into his jacket pocket.

“N . . . no, you don’t,” says the nervous tech, calling his bluff.

So Connor pulls out his pistol, showing that he’s not bluffing at all.

The guy gasps and begins to wheeze, reminding Connor of Emby, his old asthmatic friend.

It then occurs to Connor that this confrontation doesn’t need to happen. As Sonia pointed out, tranqs aren’t just for Juvies anymore. They can be an AWOL’s best friend too.

“Sorry, man,” Connor says, “but I’ve got to send you off to Tranqistan.” And he pulls the trigger—only to find out that his gun isn’t loaded. He looks at the weapon and realizes that this isn’t the gun Sonia gave him at all. This is Beau’s. The one that Risa emptied. Crap.

“Wait! I know who you are! You’re the Akron AWOL!”

Double crap. “Don’t be a moron! The Akron AWOL is hiding with the Hopi. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

“Well, you’re here, so the news is wrong. You’re from around here, aren’t you? They call you the Akron AWOL, but you lived in Columbus!”

What, does everyone in Columbus know that? Is his house like a freaking landmark now? “Shut the hell up, or I swear . . .” Connor considers knocking the guy out. He could certainly do it, but he waits to see how this unfolds before he takes such a drastic move.

The lab tech just looks at him, breathing uneasily, keeping his eyes locked on Connor. No movement on either of their parts. Then the man says, “You don’t want those specimens—they’re already differentiated. You want the ones at the far end.”

Connor wasn’t expecting this. “How do you know what I want?”

“There’s only one thing the Akron AWOL would be looking for here,” he says. “Pluripotent cells. To build organs. It won’t make a difference, though. Organ-building technology was a total bust; all the research led nowhere.”

Connor says nothing—but his silence telegraphs the truth.

“You know something, don’t you?” the lab tech asks, and dares to take a step closer, excitement trumping caution. “You know something, or you wouldn’t be here!”

Connor won’t answer him or let on how troubled he is that his intentions are so transparent. “The door at the far end?”

He nods. Connor makes his way to the far end of the lab, keeping one eye on the lab tech as he removes the containers in his bag and refills it with containers pulled from the last cooler.