“I want to see him.”

“Unwise. Another time, perhaps.”

“You mean after he’s been unwound.”

“For your information, he will not be unwound for several days at least. Auctioning off the parts of the Akron AWOL is a major affair—it takes time to get all my ducks in a row.”

She looks at the semiconscious Unwinds all around her and finds herself feeling weak at the knees again, as she did when she still had tranqs in her system. Meanwhile, Divan strolls through the space with carefree confidence.

“The Burmese Dah Zey represents the darkest end of what you call the black market. Slow unwinding without anesthesia, and in unsanitary conditions. Deplorable! I, on the other hand, strive for something better. I give these Unwinds a quality of treatment finer than any officially sanctioned harvest camp. Comfortable repose, electrical stimulation that painlessly tones their muscles, and a continual sense of euphoria as they await their unwinding. Many world leaders have purchased parts from me, although they would never admit it. Including several from your country, I might add.”

The drum suddenly comes to life, and begins to rotate around them, repositioning the Unwinds. A mechanical arm reaches over to check on one of them with the gentle care of a mother’s touch.

“Is the tour over? If it’s not, I don’t care. I’ve seen enough.”

Divan takes her back to the living area, and she casts her eyes away from the organ, although she catches its reflection in a mirror. When they reach her bedroom, someone’s there making her bed. He begins to work faster when he sees them.

“Almost done, sir.”

The man seems frail, and a bit fearful, as if he were caught doing something he shouldn’t. He doesn’t appear to be much older than Risa. When he turns to glance at her, she’s taken aback by his appearance. Part of his face is missing, and in its place is a formfitting biobandage, a paler pink than actual skin, covering his eye socket and most of his right cheek. He looks somewhat like the Phantom of the Opera with only one eye. The left side of his face doesn’t look much better, having several scars that seem somewhat fresh.

“Your henchman, I presume,” Risa says.

Divan is actually insulted. “I am not so arch as to have henchmen. This is Skinner, my valet.”

Risa gives up a bitter grin in spite of herself. “How appropriate that you call him Skinner.”

“Mere serendipity,” Divan says. “That’s his actual name.”

Skinner leaves quickly, obsequiously, closing the door behind him. Then it occurs to Risa that Skinner is also Grace’s last name. Could this be the troublesome brother she kept talking about? The more she pictures the half of his face that she could see, the more she’s convinced there’s a resemblance.

“What do you want from me?” Risa asks Divan, although she’s afraid to hear the answer.

“Something simple,” he tells her. “At least for you. I wish you to play the Orgão Orgânico for me. I have no talent for it, and it begs to be played by one with the skill.”

He lets the proposition hang in the air. Risa can’t dare to imagine herself sitting before the thing.

“No matter how well I play, you’ll tire of the music, and of me,” Risa tells him. “What happens to me then?”

“If our arrangement proves no longer viable, I shall let you go.”

“In how many pieces?”

Divan rolls his eyes at her skepticism. “Risa, I am not a bad man. My business may be unsavory, but I am not. Consider the cattle farmer who raises Kobe beef. Is he to be condemned because his stock must be slaughtered? Of course not! I am no different; I just provide a different nature of product . . . and I provide it in a manner far more humane.” He begins to walk toward her. “Unlike my associate who captured you, I have been able to separate myself from my work.”

She sidesteps, refusing to be made to back up, but still maintaining a safe distance between them.

“Your choices are simple,” he tells her. “You can choose to stay here, or you can choose to be auctioned. Here, I can promise you peace, patience, and respect. Which is more than I can say for the Saudi prince.”

The veiled threat has the desired affect, and in spite of herself, Risa feels a sense of claustrophobia closing in around her. Still, she pulls forth the courage to make her own proposition.

“I’ll do what you want under one condition.”

“Yes?”

“You let Connor go.”

Divan claps his hands together, overjoyed. “Excellent! The mere fact that you’ve entered negotiations is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, freeing Connor is not an option.”

“In that case, you can go to hell.”

Divan is not offended, only amused. “I’ll give you time to reconsider. In the meantime, I have another high-profile Unwind to auction off.”

Risa can’t help but ask, “Who is it?”

“America’s most wanted,” he answers. “I paid Proactive Citizenry a small fortune for him, but the profit I’ll make will be worth it. There are many people out there who would like to own a piece of Mason Michael Starkey.”

46 • Argent

He must be smart. He must be shrewd. But more than anything else, he must be obedient.

“I pitied you,” Divan told him after the good half of his face had been harvested and given to Nelson. “Anyone else would have unwound the rest of you, but it’s rare that I feel true pity, so I chose to act on it.”

Pity, however, was not accompanied by charity. Rather than replacing the missing half of Argent’s face, Divan had it patched with the biobandage, like spackle over damaged drywall.

“What you need is too expensive to give away for free,” Divan had said. “But if you work for me for six months, you will earn your choice of faces from my supply. Then you can choose to either continue as my valet, or return to the life you led.”

Although Argent didn’t say it, he had no intention of ever returning to the life he had led. A new life, perhaps, in a new city, with a new face . . . but having settled in on the Lady Lucrezia, Argent’s beginning to think his will to live will be so sapped in six months time, he’ll choose to stay. He tries not to think about it; instead, he just busies himself doing his daily tasks, which consist of cleaning messes, washing clothes, and being Divan’s audience for lectures about life. Divan loves nothing more than to hear himself pontificate, and Argent is the perfect audience because he never disagrees, nor does he ever have an opinion of his own. In fact he’s come to see “lack of an opinion” as a key element of his job description.

The arrival of Connor Lassiter, however, has been a major monkey wrench in Argent’s mental gear work.

Argent watched from a window as Nelson made the transfer right there on the runway. The sight of Nelson wearing the good half of Argent’s face as his own was such a violation, it made Argent’s loins feel weak. He thought he hated Connor for what he had done to him, but that pales in comparison to how much he hates Nelson.

He was afraid that Nelson would be invited on board along with his catch, but Divan didn’t do that.

“Nelson is a fine parts pirate—perhaps the best,” Divan told Argent, “but that doesn’t mean I care for his company.”

Even so, Divan promised to personally deliver him Connor’s eyes. As the harvester is fully automated, members of Divan’s staff rarely go inside—even the medic charged with caring for the kids awaiting unwinding rarely goes in, because the machine does all the work.

Lyle, the medic, doesn’t know that Argent replaced his spare key with the spare key to Divan’s private bath. Occasionally, when he knows the harvester isn’t being monitored, Argent sneaks off with his pilfered key and goes down to look at the Unwinds there, imagining their stories, and what their lives were like. Imagining what it might be like to have one of their faces for his own. He’s only three years beyond legal unwinding age, but feels so much older. It will be nice when he can get himself a youthful face again.