The medic unlocks the control panel and makes the needed adjustments. Then, when the unwinding chamber door opens, Divan physically pushes Starkey’s body inside, not waiting for the conveyor belt to do it for him.

The door on the unit closes, the process begins, and the two relax.

“Too bad,” says the medic. “It’s almost like he died to spite you.”

“If it was intentional,” says Divan, “then he had help.” Divan raises his gaze to look at the Unwinds in the drum all around him.

Connor closes his eyes and remains absolutely still.

“Get back to the control room. I want you to check the telemetry on every Unwind here,” Connor hears Divan say as they leave. “Find out if anyone’s vital signs are unusually elevated.”

•  •  •

They come for him ten minutes later. Three of them: the medic, some random crewman who looks nervous to even be there, and a silent chisel-faced boeuf who looks born to intimidate. Connor is prepared, or at least as prepared as he can be. Hiding near the door just out of view, he blasts them with a fire extinguisher as they enter, and grabs one of their weapons. A tranq gun. They’re only armed with tranqs. He fires and manages to take down the nervous guy before the weapon is knocked from Connor’s hands.

Then he dodges the grasp of the others, running for cover on the far side of the unwinding chamber, where the medical stasis coolers are stacked, ready for distribution. This fight is just for show, he knows. Escape is impossible, but if thrashing on the end of the line will give his captors grief, then it’s well worth it.

The medic tries to lure him out with poorly delivered lies like, “Divan just wants to talk to you—there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Connor doesn’t even engage him in conversation. For a moment he has the mad thought of opening the hinged nose cone, which is right at the front of the unwinding chamber. It’s a design feature that assumed a cargo of tanks, not teens. If he opens the nose cone in flight, it will suck them all out into the icy, airless void of thirty-seven thousand feet, and most certainly bring down the plane. The control switch is close enough—and he might do it too, if all the other kids weren’t there in the harvester . . . and if Risa weren’t somewhere on board.

In the end, Connor is cornered, and they take him down, but not before Connor gets in a few good swings. His attackers don’t fight back. Mustn’t damage the merchandise. They don’t tranq him either—maybe because they weren’t entirely lying to him. Maybe Divan does want to talk to him, and talk now, rather than after a visit to Tranqistan.

They cinch his hands together with a cable tie—tight enough to do the job, but not tight enough to cut into his skin—and they take him out, stepping over the body of the tranq’d crewman, who, in a state of slumber, doesn’t look nervous at all.

He’s brought to a large, fancy room toward the rear of the jet, where Divan waits. There is a troubling collection of faces on the wall behind him, somehow adding a dark gravity to Divan’s presence.

“Hello, Connor,” he says with a calm he did not express upon Starkey’s demise. “My name is—”

“I know who you are,” Connor says, then covers by saying, “You’re black-market scum, and that’s all I need to know.”

“Divan Umarov,” he continues, ignoring Connor. “And you’ve been quite the irascible camper, haven’t you? How on earth did you wake up?”

“His IV must have blown,” says the medic, his eye almost swollen shut from Connor’s punch. “The machine’s supposed to alert us.”

Behind Divan, Argent fumbles to clean a dining table, clearly too terrified for his own life to even make eye contact with Connor. Does he really think Connor will give him away for waking him, and lose the closest thing he has to an ally right now?

“Wait a second,” says Connor, as if it’s a total shock. “Is that Argent Skinner?” He looks at Argent with feigned incredulity. “What the hell is he doing here? And what happened to his face?”

“You shut up!” Argent says, playing into Connor’s little theatrical, although a bit less convincingly. “I’m here because of you, so just shut up.”

Divan apparently knows their unpleasant history together—as Connor hoped he would—and accepts that this is the first Connor is aware of Argent’s presence on the plane. Argent’s breath of relief would have been suspicious if anyone paid him the slightest bit of attention.

Divan looks Connor over. “Am I right in assuming that you dispatched Mason Starkey prior to his unwinding?” And when he doesn’t answer Divan says, “Come now, don’t you have anything to say?”

Connor shrugs and obliges. “Nice socks,” he says with a satisfied smile.

Divan never breaks eye contact. “Indeed they are. Cervelt. New Zealand deer fiber, a bargain at a thousand dollars a pair.” He returns Connor’s smile, leaving Connor feeling far less satisfied.

“Skinner! Bring Connor something to drink. Lemonade.”

Argent, dusting a piano keyboard flinches and hits a few of the keys. On the wall behind him three adjacent faces open their mouths and voice a dissonant chord. Connor swallows, and tries to convince his rational mind that he didn’t just see that.

“I’ll confess,” says Divan, “I was hoping to spend perhaps a week to build hype among my customers for your auction . . . but now, in light of your interference with Mr. Starkey, I just want to be rid of you.”

He gestures to the boeuf and the medic to take him away, and they step forward, grabbing him. “Where’s Risa?” demands Connor. “I want to talk to her. If you’re going to unwind me, at least let me say good-bye.”

“Unwise,” he says. “No need to compound her grief.”

Argent brings the lemonade but is literally blindsided by a chair. Bumping into it, he drops the glass on the floor, which calls forth a long-suffering sigh from Divan.

“I’m sorry, sir! I’m sorry!”

“Apologize to Connor; it was his drink.”

“I’m sorry, Connor.”

“It’s all good, Argent,” Connor says. “All good.” And he turns his head just enough to hide from Divan the wink he gives Argent.

Divan orders that Connor be not only restrained but kept in isolation.

“Should we now to tranq him?” asks the boeuf in something resembling English, with an accent much stronger than Divan’s.

“No,” Divan tells him, “I can think of no greater punishment than leaving him alone with his own thoughts.”

48 • Argent

In his twenty years on this earth, Argent Skinner could never connect his life’s aspirations to anything real. As a child, he wanted to be a football star, but lacked the physique, so he lowered his expectations and became a vocal spectator. As an adolescent, he wanted to be a basketball star, and although he had some talent, he lacked the drive to see it through. So he lowered his expectations and accepted the chance to warm the bench for the one season he actually made the team.

It was more than two years after almost finishing high school that Connor Lassiter showed up in his checkout line. During that time, Argent had gotten no closer to his adult life goals than he ever got to his childhood goals. Argent wanted to be rich. He wanted to be respected. He wanted to be surrounded by beautiful women who adored him. But as with everything else, he lacked the vision required to manifest these things, so once more he lowered his expectations. Now all he wanted was a job that gave him enough money to keep his car running, and enough beer so he could hang out with other low-expectation friends and bad-mouth the types of people who got a piece of their dream.

Then Connor showed up, and Argent truly believed, if he could only win Connor over, he could hitch himself up to Connor’s shooting star, and blast himself out of mediocrity.