UnBound

by Neal Shusterman

  Jasper turns to see Alph sitting alone, separated from the others, with his hands cuffed behind his head. Jasper approaches, waiting for the moment Alph looks up and sees him. The astonished look on Alph’s face is perfect. At that moment Jasper decides there is no feeling in life better than revenge.

  “Hi, Kevin,” Jasper says with a condescending wave.

  Alph’s astonishment resolves into his cool poker face. “You did this?”

  Jasper shrugs. “I helped,” he says. “School project. Extracurricular actually, but it’ll look good on college applications.”

  Behind Jasper, the Juvey-cops take care of business.

  “Are they all going to the North Detention Center?” he hears one of the officers ask the squad captain.

  “No, North Detention is full up. They’re going to East.”

  Hearing this, Alph looks up at Jasper and smiles. “Oh well,” he says, mocking. “Guess I have detention.”

  “Not you,” says the squad captain. “You’re going to a different facility.”

  The smile leaves Alph’s face even more quickly than it had arrived. “What kind of facility?”

  “For unwinding!” Jasper says brightly. “Haven’t you read about it? Oh, right, you can’t read!”

  Alph squirms like a fish with a hook firmly lodged deep down its throat.

  “I decided to take your advice, Kevin,” Jasper says. “I’m learning to appreciate all the things I have and working hard to become a productive member of society. Out of respect for those of you who can’t. Oh, and here’s the best part! In return for exposing a nest of ferals, and for getting your mom to sign the unwind order, they’ve moved my dad to the top of the list for a heart transplant. Isn’t that great?” Then he leans in a little closer. “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if he got yours?”

  “Nelson!” grunts the squad captain. “Leave the kid alone and get back out to the car. This is a ride-along, not a squawk-along.”

  That’s when Alph makes his move. He rises in a single smooth motion and bolts toward the nearest exit. Jasper acts quickly. He grabs the tranq pistol from the captain’s holster even before the officer can, aims at Alph’s back, and fires. He meant to hit Alph in the same spot that Alph had hit Jasper with the snow globe, but instead the tranq hits him high on the shoulder. Good enough—it does the job. Alph goes down and is out cold in seconds.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” The captain rips the gun away, understandably furious, but Jasper is unfazed.

  “Sorry—he was trying to escape—grabbing the gun was, like, I don’t know, instinct or something.”

  The captain turns to one of the other officers. “Get him out of here!”

  The officer grabs Jasper firmly by the upper arm and briskly escorts him out. They pass Kevin O’Donnell, aka Alph, aka nobody anymore, unconscious on the ground, his forehead bruised from where he hit the concrete. That’s what you get for beating the hell out of me, Jasper thinks. That’s what you get for humiliating me. You think being feral was tough? Let’s see how this works out for you.

  Outside, the officer puts Jasper in the back of the squad car, but before closing the door, he looks at Jasper, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have done that, kid.”

  “What’s the big deal? It was only a tranq gun—it wasn’t like it was gonna kill him.”

  “Kid, you never take the weapon of a peace officer.”

  “Sorry,” Jasper says again, still not feeling any sorrier about it. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  The officer locks him into the squad car, but that’s all right. His work here is done, and he can now be content with his thoughts. Today, Jasper T. Nelson can’t help but feel the call of destiny. And after holding that weapon in his hands, he knows, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that tranq guns will play heavily in his future.

  Unfinished Symphony

  Co-authored with Michelle Knowlden

  Brooklyn Ward moves through the concrete playground like water streaming through a gutter, nearly invisible, carrying flotsam and secrets in her wake. She sees four boeufs from her squad in a pickup game, shouting, the ball hurtling across the court. She melts into the shadow cast by the five-story Ohio State Home 23 and turns the corner to a side yard. She is on a mission. She cannot be seen.

  After making sure no one is there to spot her, she tests the door to the south stairwell. Unlocked. Like Thor said.

  Now to find out what Thor wants her to do before she goes through that door. Taking a breath, she pulls the hood of her jacket over her face and moves across the side yard to the ten-foot wall that stands between the school and the outside world. Her heart is pounding. This is the only part of the side yard that cannot be seen by security cameras, but any teachers or any state ward glancing out of the small windows might see her. She has few friends in the home and fewer privileges after Tuesday’s brawl. With Thor’s help, she hopes that will change.

  She finds a spot in the side yard where she has a good angle on the hallway windows, all the way up to the fifth floor. Someone moves past the window on the fourth floor, but doesn’t look out. If they did, they might recognize her, because that’s Brooklyn’s floor, a long institutional hallway lined with identical dorm rooms. There are nine other girls in Brooklyn’s room: most are still fifteen, but a few have just turned sixteen like her. Most everyone will be in their rooms or the small rec lounge today, since Sunday is the only day they’re allowed real downtime. The girly-girls will be all about boys and gossip and classes and clothes. The boeuf girls will be all about boys and gossip and classes and guns. Even though the girls in her room are the closest thing she knows to a family, she’s in no hurry to get back to the petty squabbles and mind-numbing conversations.

  No one on the fourth floor so much as glances out of the hallway window—but one level up, on floor five, Thor appears. They are partners in this mission, but he sent her down here alone, as he always does—this time, however, he didn’t tell her exactly what the mission was. Today he refused to tell her until she was in position—which means it’s probably something Brooklyn would balk at if she knew in advance. She wonders if Thor realizes how much more excited that makes Brooklyn at the prospect.

  In the fifth-floor window, Thor flashes the sign for “all clear” and then “ground floor.” The next sign she misses. When she signals him to repeat, she reads impatience in his response. He moves his hands a little more slowly, exaggerating the gestures as if to an idiot.

  Headmaster.

  She swallows. Really? He wants her to snoop through the headmaster’s office? She spreads her hands. For what? And he better have a good reason. If she gets caught, it’s over for her.

  She sees his answer—New state reports—then she thinks he signs Rumor. Not specific and not helpful. She cuts off another string of signs that are hard to read from five floors below with an abrupt Okay. Satisfied, Thor leaves the window to return to his room, and Brooklyn crosses the side yard to the unlocked stairwell door.

  She moves through the ground-floor hallway, taking the long way to the headmaster’s office. In the distance she hears the cries of a younger child. The echo is hollow and ghostly. No way of telling exactly where the child is. No one will calm those cries anyway. Not enough staff. Toughen up, kid, thinks Brooklyn, or you’ll get eaten alive.

  From outside comes the atonal sound of bouncing balls on the concrete playground. Then, from farther down the hall, she hears something different.

  The musical tones of a piano.

  A teacher playing? Perhaps, but Brooklyn suspects otherwise. She tracks the sound to one of the music classrooms. As it’s a Sunday, no classes are being taught. No one should be in here today—it’s against the rules. She quietly cracks the door just enough to peer inside.

  Risa.

  She should have known. Risa is Brooklyn’s age, but you wouldn’t know it. She seems to exist in a different place from most StaHo girls. And while other kids are terrified of breaking the rules for fear of getting unwo
und, Risa does whatever she pleases. A lot like Brooklyn—but unlike Brooklyn, Risa never seems to get caught. It’s infuriating.

  And what makes it even more irritating, is that she’s good.

  Brooklyn watches her dainty fingers dancing across the keyboard, playing a piece that seems too complex for two hands. Even though the practice piano is out of tune, Brooklyn finds herself soothed by Risa’s playing, and while part of her wishes that a guard would stomp down the corridor and haul Risa away for discipline, another part of her wishes Risa would just play and play and play.

  Piano—or any other instrument—was out of the question for Brooklyn. She didn’t have the ear or know-how to infuse her playing with passion. In fifth grade Mr. Durkin actually grabbed her recorder and snapped the plastic instrument in half. I felt an overwhelming need to put the poor thing out of its misery, he said, and the other kids laughed.

  But Durkin loved Risa. Risa was chosen for musical enrichment, while Brooklyn was hurled into the mob of kids relegated to “physical refinement.” In other words, they discounted her brain and set out to build her brawn, putting her on track to become a military boeuf. Not that Brooklyn minds the physical focus of her life. She likes sports and strength training, she scores high points in marksmanship—but to know that Risa was seen as somehow better than her still makes Brooklyn stew.

  If it had been anyone else but Risa, Brooklyn might be able to stomach it, but they have a history. A history that goes back nearly sixteen years to their cradle days and exploded seven years later. Perhaps everyone else has forgotten it—perhaps even Risa has—but Brooklyn is not one to let wounds go, no matter how old they are.

  Still, she enjoys Risa’s playing in spite of herself. So she lets the door of the music room stay open a crack and sits beside it, just for a minute or so, listening as Risa performs, taking guilty pleasure each time she stumbles and misses a note in her performance. It’s good to know that little Miss Perfect isn’t so perfect after all.

  Risa ends the piece and begins monotonous scales, and so with Brooklyn’s musical interlude over, she takes the stairwell to the staff offices. Sunday means that the headmaster isn’t in his office, and it’s a good time to snoop. Information is everything. Brooklyn learned that in her intermediate electronic warfare class. But she isn’t using electronics to gather intel now. She will go old-school. Flipping through files, searching the desk, finding information she can use.

  Hearing raised voices, she stalls in the stairwell. Luckily, she hasn’t opened the stairwell door—which creaks badly and is directly across from the headmaster’s office. In small increments she cracks it open, just as she had inched open the music room door to hear Risa play. This time she won’t be hearing a sonata.

  “No more delays, Marshall,” she hears Headmaster Thomas say. “Give me your preliminary metrics now. You have till four thirty for your interim assessments—and I expect a final report one hour after testing tomorrow.”

  Brooklyn holds her breath. A meeting with teachers on Sunday? Even surprise government inspections happen during the week. She shivers, and not just because the stairwell is drafty. StaHo runs on rigid schedules. Departures from normal behavior scream red alert.

  “Before dinner, I want the children in your charge ranked. Reports from floors four and five only. Any questions?”

  Brooklyn does not wait for the questions. Any teachers leaving early will take the stairwell and see her. She eases the door closed, cutting off the voices.

  Quaking, she heads upstairs and into the room of a thirteen-year-old. Even though she throws herself onto his bed, he doesn’t react. Thor leans over his keyboard, his nose almost touching the screen. His room isn’t much larger than a mop closet, but he gets his own room. The luck of being in a protected class.

  Waiting till he realizes that she’s there, she stares at the bookshelf stacked with overdue library books, the laundry bag overflowing with soiled clothes, and a half-eaten sandwich on the nightstand. The only wall decoration is a rusty mallet nicked from the handyman’s tool kit. Thor’s Hammer. She has no idea who started naming all the protected-class kids after gods—but Thor always rolled with it. And besides, when you’re alone in a room in a StaHo, a hammer can ward off the worst kinds of intrusions.

  Her attention drifts back to Thor. He still doesn’t seem to have sensed her presence, and she tires of waiting.

  Stretching till her foot reaches the back of his chair, she gives it a good kick.

  He jerks forward, and then swivels his chair. His fingers fly.

  I knew you were there, B.

  When he signs the letter B, his fingertips curl like a claw, his name for her. She grins. No other kid would dare give her a nickname, but she likes him making a weapon of hers.

  How? she signs, and laughs when he indicates the mirror near his computer, facing the door. She laughs again when he mocks her by thumping his clawed B hand across his forearm. So he’d also felt her enter the room. Thor always knows. She would be suspicious of anyone else so observant—but there’s no one she trusts more than Thor.

  You’re gonna freak when I tell you what I discovered, Brooklyn signs.

  He sighs, spinning his chair closer to the bed. You can’t be in here, B. And I can’t keep wiping the demerits from your records. I told you to talk to me at dinner.

  He signs with an American Sign Language abbreviated by the home dialect all the StaHo deaf kids use. They’ve been friends since she stood up for him on the playground nearly ten years ago, so Brooklyn can extrapolate what she sees into her hearing-world’s English.

  She signs slower than he does, but her fingers jab the air insistently. We need to talk NOW. Teachers met in the headmaster’s office. He wants kids ranked this afternoon. On a Sunday.

  His eyebrows raise. Probably the state wants more data to feed their paperwork monster.

  She knows he doesn’t believe that. After all, he’s the one who suspected something was going on. For just the top two floors? she signs.

  He sucks in a breath and nods. He understands as she does. Only kids thirteen and older live on the top floors.

  Another harvesting so soon? . . . His fingers trail off, and his gaze meets hers.

  Budget cuts? Brooklyn suggests. So StaHo sends another batch of kids to the harvest camps? It’s something they’ve never done before. Keeping the size of the home’s population consistent has always been at issue—around ten kids go every six months or so—but culling kids because of budget cuts? She looks to Thor, hoping he’ll laugh at the very idea or just shake his head at how preposterous it is. But there’s a seriousness to him now that makes her frown.

  They meet eyes, and Brooklyn stops signing. Now she mouths the words for him, slowly. Solemnly. You know something I don’t?

  The teachers make Thor speak in class, or at least they try to. Everywhere else he only signs. Brooklyn never makes him read her lips unless she needs to read him. See his eyes.

  Peace, Brooks, he signs back. I know nothing, but I watch the news. You think you’re at risk?

  She returns to signing. Thor’s always telling her that her signing conveys only words, that she doesn’t have the knack of showing emotion through her fingers. Like what Durkin said about the way she played music. That it sounded like a death rattle.

  Boeufs push the limits. The headmaster can’t complain that I make a good monster. She fingers in her usual boring way, hoping that Thor will miss the bitter twist in her lips and the fear in her eyes.

  And you’re worried that you’ve lost points because of that fight last week?

  She looks from his fingers to his face and feels her mouth drop. How did he know?

  He grins. Don’t underestimate the deaf network, B.

  She shoots back a sign not invented by the deaf. He laughs, but then his face turns more serious. Even boeufs know to kiss up to their lieutenants, B. It’s the one survival skill you lack. Thor taps her arm to make sure she gets the point. I like you, B, because you’re not political. Y
ou say what you mean. You mean what you say. But that won’t win you any friends.

  She mouths at him, The list is about rank, and how you score against the other kids. It is not a popularity contest. Then she signs, Will you find out where I am on the list?

  He leans back in his chair, the metal complaining loudly. She manages a smile, knowing he wouldn’t care even if he heard it. He studies her somberly. Why are you anxious, B? Your grades are fine.

  Maybe she is a little worried about Tuesday’s fight, but he doesn’t need to know that. She shrugs. Yeah, all is good. I just gotta know.

  She feels her forehead crease with uneasiness, and Thor sees it. Now he looks worried too.

  • • •

  When Brooklyn changes for dinner, Abigail, one of her dorm mates, admires her Parana River shirt. Another dorm mate, Naomi, asks where she got it.

  Brooklyn shrugs. “Charity closet. Some church sent a big delivery yesterday.”

  A ripple of excitement moves through the room, like the vapor of lemon-scented soap and mint ChapStick that always hangs there.

  Abigail asks suspiciously why their DormGuardian hadn’t made an announcement about the delivery, and another dorm mate asks how Brooklyn nabbed the shirt when the closet is closed on Sundays.

  “I got it yesterday.”

  “But you said it came in yesterday,” Abigail says. “It takes twenty-four hours to clean and sort them.”

  Brooklyn winks. “So it pays to know someone in laundry, don’t it?”

  Some of the girls laugh, and others stare enviously at the shirt. It’s nice to be the center of attention. The focus of jealousy. She adds generously, “Next time a good haul comes in, I’ll let you know.”

  “You should have told us this time,” Naomi says, disgruntled. “You’re supposed to watch out for your ward sisters.”

  Brooklyn musters a smile, thinking, Yeah, right. In a StaHo, you watch out for yourself and maybe for those in your squad. But mostly yourself, because no one else will.