This is the process by which an individual is dismantled. By law, 99.44 percent of a person must be used and kept alive in transplant.

What is unwinding?

America’s second civil war—also known as the Heartland War—ended when the pro-life and pro-choice armies came to this agreement, which made life inviolable from conception to the age of thirteen but allowed for the “retroactive abortion” of troubled teenagers.

What is the Unwind Accord?

When a mother does not wish to keep a newborn baby, she has the legal option to leave the baby on someone else’s doorstep. The baby then becomes the legal responsibility of the people in that home. This is the common term for the leaving of the baby.

What is storking?

When a person is unwound, since virtually all of them is still alive, they are not considered to be dead, but to be living in this state.

What is the divided state?

These are licensed facilities in which Unwinds are prepared for a divided state. While each facility has its own particular personality, they are all designed to provide a positive experience for youth designated for unwinding.

What are harvest camps?

This northern Arizona harvest camp, in a town named after the joyful lumberjacks who founded it, has recently been closed due to terrorist activity.

What is Happy Jack Harvest Camp?

This is a slang term for the clinic within a harvest camp where unwinding is performed.

What is a Chop Shop?

These young terrorists have introduced an undetectable chemical into their circulatory system that makes their blood explosive. They get their name because they detonate by bringing their hands together in powerful applause.

What are clappers?

This is the common term for the law enforcement officers who work for the National Juvenile Authority and are responsible for the policing of Unwinds.

What are Juvey-cops, or Juvies?

The act of chemically rendering someone unconscious by use of tranquilizer bullets or darts. It is the preferred method utilized by juvenile enforcement officers, because using bullets on Unwinds is both illegal and damages their vital organs, thereby reducing their value.

What is tranq’ing?

From the French word for “beef”—and probably the origin of the slang expression “buff”—this is the common term for a soldier, or a muscular teen on track for a military career.

What is a boeuf?

Originally a military term, it means “away without leave” but has more recently been used as a term for runaway Unwinds.

What is AWOL?

This organization fights unwinding by rescuing AWOL Unwinds. However, it’s not as well organized as people think.

What is the ADR or Anti-Divisional Resistance?

This secret (not so secret) sanctuary for AWOL Unwinds is at a massive airplane salvage yard in the Arizona desert.

What is the Graveyard?

Also known as Connor Lassiter, this runaway Unwind from Ohio is believed to be responsible for the revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp, and is presumed dead.

Who is the Akron AWOL?

Derived from the term meaning “ten percent,” this is a child designated from birth for unwinding, usually for religious reasons.

What is a tithe?

This tithe became a clapper who didn’t clap, and by doing so, put a face on the resistance movement.

Who is Lev Calder?

This is the last name given to parentless children raised in state homes.

What is Ward?

A survivor of Happy Jack Harvest Camp, this former state ward became a paraplegic, because she refused to have her damaged spine replaced by the spine of an Unwind.

Who is Risa Ward?

Wishing you a nail-biting, sleep-depriving, thought-provoking read!

Neal Shusterman

Part One

Violations

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

—Albert Camus

1 • Starkey

He’s fighting a nightmare when they come for him.

A great flood is swallowing the world, and in the middle of it all, he’s being mauled by a bear. He’s more annoyed than terrified. As if the flood isn’t enough, his deep, dark mind has to send an angry grizzly to tear into him.

Then he’s dragged feetfirst out of the jaws of death and drowning Armageddon.

“Up! Now! Let’s go!”

He opens his eyes to a brightly lit bedroom that ought to be dark. Two Juvey-cops manhandle him, grabbing his arms, preventing him from fighting back long before he’s awake enough to try.

“No! Stop! What is this?”

Handcuffs. First his right wrist, then his left.

“On your feet!”

They yank him to his feet as if he’s resisting—which he would, if he were more awake.

“Leave me alone! What’s going on?”

But in an instant he’s awake enough to know exactly what’s going on. It’s a kidnapping. But you can’t call it kidnapping when transfer papers have been signed in triplicate.

“Verbally confirm that you are Mason Michael Starkey.”

There are two officers. One is short and muscular, the other tall and muscular. Probably military boeufs before they took jobs as Juvey-rounders. It takes a special heartless breed to be a Juvey-cop, but to specialize as a rounder you probably need to be soulless as well. The fact that he’s being rounded for unwinding shocks and terrifies Starkey, but he refuses to show it, because he knows Juvey-rounders get off on other people’s fear.

The short one, who is clearly the mouthpiece of this duo, gets in his face and repeats, “Verbally confirm that you are Mason Michael Starkey!”

“And why should I do that?”

“Kid,” says the other rounder, “this can go down easy or hard, but either way it’s going down.” The second cop is more soft spoken with a pair of lips that clearly aren’t his. In fact, they look like they came from a girl. “The drill’s not so hard, so just get with the program.”

He talks as if Starkey should have known they were coming, but what Unwind ever really knows? Every Unwind believes in their heart of hearts that it won’t happen to them—that their parents, no matter how strained things get, will be smart enough not to fall for the net ads, TV commercials, and billboards that say things like “Unwinding: the sensible solution.” But who is he kidding? Even without the constant media blitz, Starkey’s been a potential candidate for unwinding since the moment he arrived on the doorstep. Perhaps he should be surprised that his parents waited so long.

Now the mouthpiece gets deep in his personal space. “For the last time, verbally confirm that you are—”

“Yeah, yeah, Mason Michael Starkey. Now get out of my face, your breath stinks.”

With his identity verbally confirmed, Lady-Lips pulls out a form in triplicate: white, yellow, and pink.

“So is this how you do it?” Starkey asks, his voice beginning to quaver. “You arrest me? What’s my crime? Being sixteen? Or maybe it’s just being here at all.”

“Quiet-or-we-tranq-you,” says Mouthpiece, like it’s all one word.

A part of Starkey wants to be tranq’d—just go to sleep and if he’s lucky, never wake up. That way he won’t have to face the utter humiliation of being torn from his life in the middle of the night. But no, he wants to see his parents’ faces. Or, more to the point, he wants them to see his face, and if he’s tranq’d, they get off easy. They won’t have to look him in the eye.

Lady-Lips holds the unwind order in front of him and begins to read the infamous Paragraph Nine, the “Negation Clause.”

“Mason Michael Starkey, by the signing of this order, your parents and/or legal guardians have retroactively terminated your tenure, backdated to six days postconception, leaving you in violation of Existential Code 390. In light of this, you are hereby remanded to the California Juvenile Authority for summary division, also known as unwinding.”