The room, which Connor had taken little notice of when they arrived, is the standard, unmemorable efficiency sleep space that dots highway off-ramps around the globe. Beige institutional furniture, dark carpet designed to hide stains. Comfortable beds to assure a return visit to the chain. There’s also a computer interface built into the desk—also standard these days. Connor pulls out the slip of paper with the ID and password Cam had given him and logs in, to see if Cam’s information is worth the trouble of having him along.

It turns out that Cam wasn’t bluffing. Once logged in, he’s given access to page after page of files Cam was hiding on the public nimbus. Files that had been digitally shredded but painstakingly reconstituted. These are communications within Proactive Citizenry that no one else was ever supposed to see. Much of it seems useless: Corporate e-mails that are mind-numbingly bland. Connor has to resist the urge to just skim through them. The more he reads however, the more key phrases begin to stand out. Things like “targeted demographic” and “placement in key markets.” What’s also curious are the domains where many of these e-mails are going to and coming from. These messages seem to be communications between the movers and shakers of Proactive Citizenry and media distributors, as well as production facilities. There are e-mails that discuss casting and expensive advertisements in all forms of media. It’s pretty vague—intentionally so—but taken together it begins to point in some frightening directions.

Connor views some of the ads the communications seem to indicate. If Connor is piecing it all together correctly, then Proactive Citizenry, under different nonprofit names, is behind all the political adds in support of teenage unwinding. That’s no surprise—in fact, Connor had already suspected that. What surprises him is that Proactive Citizenry is also behind the ads against the unwinding of teenagers but in favor of shelling prisoners and the voluntary unwinding of adults.

“Eye-opening, isn’t it? Even if one of those eyes isn’t yours.”

Connor turns to see Cam sitting up in bed, watching him wade through the material. “And this is just the opening of the rabbit hole,” Cam says. “I guarantee you there’s darker, scarier stuff to find, the deeper we go.”

“I don’t get it.” Connor points to the various windows of political ads on the desktop, ads that blast the Juvenile Authority and call the unwinding of kids unethical. “Why would Proactive Citizenry play both sides?”

“Two-headed coin,” Cam says. Then he asks the strangest question. “Tell me, Connor, is this the first time you’ve been pregnant?”

“What?”

“Just answer the question, yes or no.”

“Yes. I mean no! Shut up! What kind of stupid-ass question is that?”

Cam smiles. “You see? You’re damned no matter how you answer. By playing both sides, Proactive Citizenry keeps people focused on choosing between two different kinds of unwinding, making people forget that the real question . . .”

“Is whether or not anyone should be unwound at all.”

“Nail on the head,” says Cam.

Now it makes perfect sense. Connor thinks back to all the things Trace Neuhauser had told him back in the Graveyard about the shrewd, insidious nature of Proactive Citizenry’s dealings. Their subtle manipulation of the Juvenile Authority. The way they used the Admiral to warehouse Unwinds for them, all the while the Admiral—and then Connor—truly believing they were giving safe sanctuary to those kids.

“So whichever side wins, it keeps the status quo,” Connor says. “People get unwound and the Unwinding Consortium still gets rich.”

“The Unwinding Consortium?”

“It’s what a friend once called all the people who make their money from unwinding. The companies who own the harvest camps, hospitals who do the transplants, the Juvenile Authority . . .”

Cam considers it with a single raised eyebrow that throws the symmetrical seams on his forehead out of balance and says. “All roads lead to Rome. Unwinding is the single most profitable industry in America—maybe even the world. An economic engine like that protects itself. We’ll have to be smarter than they are to break it down.” And then Cam smiles. “But they made one big mistake.”

“What’s that?”

“They built someone who’s smarter than they are.”

•   •   •

Cam and Connor pore over the information for another hour. But there’s so much, it’s hard to pull out what’s important and what’s not.

“There are financial records,” Cam tells Connor. “They show huge amounts of money disappearing, as if into a black hole.”

“Or a rabbit hole,” suggests Connor.

“Exactly. If we can figure out where that money’s going, I think we’ll have the sword upon which Proactive Citizenry will impale itself.” Then Cam gets quiet. “I think they’re funding something very, very dark. I’m almost afraid to find out what it is.”

And although Connor won’t admit it, he is too.

53 • Bam

She carries out orders. She takes care of the new arrivals. She tries not to think about the MoonCrater five. That’s what the media calls the harvest camp workers whom Starkey hung. They’re martyrs now—evidence, according to some political pundits, of why certain incorrigible teens simply need to be unwound.

Two storks were killed and seven injured in the fake battle that Bam waged at the outer gate, for while Bam and her team weren’t actually trying to kill anyone, the guards firing at them were. That they even made it out of there was a miracle. In the end, their assault served its purpose. It appeared to be a botched attempt to break into the camp—until the security force released the dormitory building from lockdown and found what they found.

Five people lynched in the MoonCrater dormitory.

The pictures are as disturbing as anything Bam has seen in history books.

Busy. She must keep herself busy. The storks were separated from the nonstorks right after they arrived back at the mine. This time rather than just leaving the unchosen to fend for themselves in the middle of nowhere, Bam arranged for them to be taken to Boise—the nearest major city. They’d be on their own, but at least they’d have the camouflage of concrete and crowds to keep them hidden. And who knows, maybe the ADR will find them and give them sanctuary. That is if the ADR even exists anymore.

Five people.

The boys’ head counselor, a janitor, an office worker, a chop-shop nurse, and the chef’s boyfriend, who was visiting the wrong place on the wrong weekend.

And now, thanks to the one woman whose life he spared, everyone knows the name Mason Michael Starkey.

“Congratulations,” she told him when she had calmed down enough to speak to him without raging. “You’re now Public Enemy Number One.” To her disbelief, it actually made him smile.

“How could that possibly be a good thing?”

“I’m feared,” he told her. “I’m a force to be reckoned with. They know that now.”

And in the two days since the MoonCrater liberation, the fervent, ferocious, and almost viral support he gets from storks attests to his new larger-than-life status. It’s not just from the Stork Brigade, either. Whole online communities have sprung up out of nowhere. “Storks unite!” they proclaim and “Ride, Starkey, ride,” like he’s some sort of Jesse James robbing stagecoaches. It seems everyone who’s ever known him has tried to hop on his coattails to steal their own fifteen minutes of fame, posting stories and pictures of him, so the world knows every bit of his pre-AWOL life and every angle of his face.

It comes to light that he shot and killed one of the Juvey-rounders who picked him up from his home for unwinding, painting him in an even more dangerous light—and yet incredibly, the more vilified he is by polite society, the more support he gets from the disenfranchised.