"He says you're a lousy kisser, and I have to agree."

Beau gives a halfhearted laugh, maybe thinking that she forgives him a little. Which she doesn't. She realizes she doesn't care enough to hate him or to forgive him.

"We'll take the nearest stairs down," Risa says, "then slip out a back way-just like you told them we did. We'll meet Connor at the car."

He nods, accepting the plan, but then he's got to go ask, "What if Connor doesn't show?"

"You want another black eye?" Risa says, and so he backs down from the question, and opens the stairwell door for her.

"Oh, and for the record, I'm not a loser," Beau tells her. "No matter what my unwind order says."

20 * Connor

The plan is simple. Plans can be simple when you're dealing with the human mechanics of an institution that has no reason to expect intrigue and subterfuge. The hospital personnel are more on the lookout for slippery floors that might lead to lawsuits than for AWOLs stealing biomatter. Why on earth would anyone want to do that?

When Risa and Beau were spotted by security, Risa made the right decision to lure security away. It wasn't like the guard had any idea who they were and what they were up to. Of course, Connor's instinct was to go after Risa, but he knew it would be the wrong thing to do. That could just result in all of them getting caught. He had to trust that Risa was clever enough to play a successful cat and mouse, even if Beau couldn't.

Connor now wanders down corridors in the wings that don't cater to inpatients. It's mostly deserted on a Sunday. He finds the research building, connected to the rest of the complex by a glass-enclosed skywalk-which would give the world a clear view of him, if anyone in the world was looking. If someone is, he'll know soon enough.

He finds the lab he's looking for in the basement. While the rest of the research building is richly appointed, the basement is utilitarian and institutional. Dimly lit corridors floored with puke-colored linoleum tiles. The low-rent district of an otherwise upscale facility. Apparently the rogue research team that insisted on playing with pointless cellular manipulation is kept out of sight as an embarrassment to medical science. Shunned as if they were studying the use of leeches and snake oil.

There seems to be barely any security down here. The lab has a lock with no alarm, and it's easily picked-and with security focused on Risa and Beau, the basement of the research building is as silent as a morgue, which is probably in another basement not too far away.

He takes a gamble and texts Risa that he's found the lab, and he'll meet them at the car. If she's been caught, that text will give him away to whoever caught her, but he has to have faith that she evaded the slow-moving guard that was in pursuit. He waits for an agonizing few moments until she texts back "K," then he releases his breath, not even realizing he had been holding it.

He opens the door of the lab and flicks on a light. It's a simple repository of specimens in glass-front refrigerators. There are racks of test tubes, and petrie dishes growing questionable cultures. There are also specimens sealed in plastic stasis containers, and the sight of them makes Connor shudder. These are the same kind of containers that are used to transport unwound parts. Modern stasis containers can preserve living tissue almost indefinitely. It's one of the many unwind-related technologies that sprang up after the signing of the Unwind Accord.

Everything is labeled with numbered codes that mean nothing to Connor.

"Adult pluripotent stem cells," Sonia said. He knows he's in the right place, but things in this lab are labeled for the researchers, not for an intruder looking to steal something.

He has an expandable tote bag that he can load with as many specimens as he can fit. He decides to take only stasis containers-because specimens in test tubes and dishes probably won't survive any temperature change in transport. He fills his bag like the Grinch stealing Christmas-then suddenly the lab door opens, and he's caught red-handed with his hand in the biological cookie jar by a lab tech who is so shocked by Connor's unexpected presence that he drops the glass vials he's holding and they shatter on the ground.

"Don't move," says Connor, because clearly the man is going to bolt and probably call security. "I've got a gun." Connor reaches into his jacket pocket.

"N . . . no, you don't," says the nervous tech, calling his bluff.

So Connor pulls out his pistol, showing that he's not bluffing at all.

The guy gasps and begins to wheeze, reminding Connor of Emby, his old asthmatic friend.

It then occurs to Connor that this confrontation doesn't need to happen. As Sonia pointed out, tranqs aren't just for Juvies anymore. They can be an AWOL's best friend too.

"Sorry, man," Connor says, "but I've got to send you off to Tranqistan." And he pulls the trigger-only to find out that his gun isn't loaded. He looks at the weapon and realizes that this isn't the gun Sonia gave him at all. This is Beau's. The one that Risa emptied. Crap.

"Wait! I know who you are! You're the Akron AWOL!"

Double crap. "Don't be a moron! The Akron AWOL is hiding with the Hopi. Haven't you been watching the news?"

"Well, you're here, so the news is wrong. You're from around here, aren't you? They call you the Akron AWOL, but you lived in Columbus!"

What, does everyone in Columbus know that? Is his house like a freaking landmark now? "Shut the hell up, or I swear . . ." Connor considers knocking the guy out. He could certainly do it, but he waits to see how this unfolds before he takes such a drastic move.

The lab tech just looks at him, breathing uneasily, keeping his eyes locked on Connor. No movement on either of their parts. Then the man says, "You don't want those specimens-they're already differentiated. You want the ones at the far end."

Connor wasn't expecting this. "How do you know what I want?"

"There's only one thing the Akron AWOL would be looking for here," he says. "Pluripotent cells. To build organs. It won't make a difference, though. Organ-building technology was a total bust; all the research led nowhere."

Connor says nothing-but his silence telegraphs the truth.

"You know something, don't you?" the lab tech asks, and dares to take a step closer, excitement trumping caution. "You know something, or you wouldn't be here!"

Connor won't answer him or let on how troubled he is that his intentions are so transparent. "The door at the far end?"

He nods. Connor makes his way to the far end of the lab, keeping one eye on the lab tech as he removes the containers in his bag and refills it with containers pulled from the last cooler.

"One problem," the lab tech says. "Our biomaterial is monitored. If any of it goes missing, it gets reported. Our funding will probably get pulled."

Connor looks to the mess of broken glass by the front door. "What was in those?"

The tech looks over to the broken vials. "Biomatter." Then he nods and grins at Connor, catching on to his train of thought. "A whole lot of biomatter. I'll get hell for dropping that . . . and forgetting to measure how much was lost before I disposed of it."

"Yeah," says Connor, "too bad about that." And he finishes filling the bag. When he's done, he sees the lab tech has taken a position by the door, peering out of the little window like he's Connor's lookout.

"So," says Connor, "I was never here, right?"

The tech nods his agreement. "It's our secret . . . on one condition."

Connor doesn't like the sound that. He braces for some impossible request. "What?"

Then the tech timidly asks, "Can I . . . shake your hand?"

Connor laughs, so unexpected is the request. He's seen starstruck kids, but this guy is at least thirty. Then he sees that his laughter has embarrassed the man.

"Naah, forget it," the guy says. "It was stupid of me to ask."

"No, no, it's okay." Cautiously Connor approaches him, and holds out his hand. He shakes Connor's hand with his cold, damp one.

"A lot of folks don't like unwinding, but no one knows how to stop it, so they don't even try," the man says. And then he whispers, "But if you've got an idea-there are people ready to listen. Not everyone-but maybe enough."

"Thanks," Connor says, glad that he didn't tranq the guy-although he's still furious at Beau for switching guns.

Connor slips out, and the tech gets to cleaning the mess of broken vials on the floor, happily whistling to himself.

"A lot of people want to stop unwinding," the lab tech said. It's not the first time Connor has heard that. Maybe if he hears it enough, he might begin to believe it.

21 * Risa

The ride home from the hospital is a triumphant one. They play music that makes them feel cocooned in normality. Even though it's an illusion, Risa's happy for a respite from being "the one and only Risa Ward."

Connor tells her and Beau about the fanboy lab tech. Connor seems to preen a bit in the light of it, but Risa has always found herself painfully out of her element when faced with such adulation. She never wanted to be some sort of counterculture heroine. All she wanted was to survive. She would have been happy to stay at Ohio State Home 23 playing piano, graduating with unremarkable grades, and then being dumped at eighteen into the grand mosh pit of mediocre mankind, like all other state wards. Maybe she could have gotten herself into community college, working her way through with some service job. She could have eventually become a concert pianist, or, more realistically, a keyboardist in some bar band. It wouldn't be ideal, but at least it would be a life. She could have eventually married the unremarkable guitar player and had some unremarkable kids, whom she would love dearly and would never even think of storking. But her unwind order severed all ties Risa had to the hope of a normal future.

Thoughts of a guitar player bring her musings around to Cam. Where is he now that Proactive Citizenry has him in their clutches again? Does she care? Should she care? What a mixed bag of connections she has. . . . It's as if her whole life has been rewound with the strangest bits and pieces of humanity, from Connor, to Cam, to Sonia, to Grace and all the odd acquaintances in between.

There's no telling what her life will be like a day from now, much less a year from now. That's the best argument for living in the moment, but how can you live in the moment when all you want is for the moment to end?

"You look sad," Connor comments. "You should be happy-for once we did something right."

Risa smiles. "We do a lot right," she tells him. "Why else would random people want to shake our hands?" Or, she thinks, kiss us, and she throws a chilly glance back to Beau in the backseat, who plays the air drums, completely oblivious. Connor hasn't asked about Beau's black eye. Either he doesn't care, or he doesn't want to know. Risa wonders how many girls have thrown themselves at Connor in a similar way, and finds herself pleasantly jealous at the very idea. Pleasantly, because Risa has what those nameless girls could only grasp at: the Akron AWOL all to herself.

Maybe this is better than her dream of normal. Living a high-octane, on-the-edge sort of life has its perks. Namely, Connor.

"Hey, you know that Upchurch dude, right?" Beau asks between drum solos.

"Who?" asks Risa, having no clue what he's talking about.

"You know-Hayden Upchurch. The guy who gave the news a mouthful when he got caught at the Graveyard."

"Oh," says Risa. "Hayden." She had never known his last name-and by the look on Connor's face, he never had either. A lot of Unwinds tried to erase their last name in defiance of parents who tried to unwind them. In Hayden's case, he probably avoided it because it was so easily made fun of.

"What about him? Risa asks, looking nervously to Connor. "Did something happen to him?"

"No-he's just shooting off his mouth again."

The next song starts, and Connor turns the volume down. "How do you know that?"

"Back in the basement, Jake was fiddling with that old computer Sonia lets us use down there, and he says there was something up on the Web. He tried to find it again to show me, but it was gone. He said Upchurch was calling for a teen uprising, like he did when he got caught. I'm thinking it might happen." Beau considers it for a moment more. "If it does, I know a whole lot of kids-not just the kids at Sonia's, but kids back home, too-who'd follow me into battle."

"More likely off a cliff, like lemmings," Connor says.

"Careful," Beau warns, and he pulls out the pistol he had taken from Connor, "or I might tranq you with your own gun, like you did to that Nelson guy."

Risa sees Connor's face go stony, and his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. She touches Connor's leg to get him to relax. To remind him it's not worth it.

"Put that thing away," Risa orders Beau, "before you accidentally shoot yourself."

"Best thing that could happen," says Connor, with a deadpan delivery that could take the bounce out of a basketball. Then he softens. "But I'm glad to hear that Hayden's okay. That is, if it's true."

If Hayden's really AWOL again, hiding out somewhere and calling for kids to take matters into their own hands, Risa wonders how many will be moved to action. There are stories about the first uprising. "Feral" kids took violently to the streets after the school failures. They wreaked havoc coast to coast, spreading terror and fear enough to make unwinding sound like an answer to all their problems. Anger with no direction.

Once the Heartland War ended, no one really spoke about the days leading up to the Unwind Accord. Risa suspects it's more than just bad memories. If people don't think about it, then they can deny their complicity in ongoing institutional murder. Well, thinks Risa, we'll make people remember . . . and we'll give them a path to penance.

It's as they reach the outlying neighborhoods of Columbus that Connor veers out of their lane, nearly slamming into a pickup truck next to them. The guy leans on his horn, gives them the finger, and shouts curses at them that they can't hear but that are easily read on his lips.

"What was that about?" Risa asks, realizing that Connor was distracted when he veered out of their lane.

"Nothing!" snaps Connor. "Why does it have to be about anything?"

"I told you I should be the one driving," says Beau.

Risa drops it, sensing something in Connor that's best left alone-but the moment lingers long after they're past the road sign above the freeway that Connor was staring at with such intensity it nearly got them killed.

22 * Connor

He steps back and allows Sonia to transfer the biomatter from the stasis container to the printer. He doesn't want to touch it.

"The stuff of life," Sonia says as she pours the red, syrupy suspension into the printer reservoir. It's not exactly the most hygienic of transfers, but then, they're in the back room of a cluttered antique shop, not a laboratory.

"It looks like the Blob," Grace comments.

Connor recalls the old movie about a flesh-eating mass of gelatinous space-goo that devours the hapless residents of a town that very well could have been Akron. He watched it with his brother when they were little. Lucas kept hiding his face in Connor's shoulder so he didn't have to look. Like all his memories before the unwind order, it comes with a mix of feelings as amorphous as the Blob.

Risa takes Connor's hand. "I hope it's worth what we went through to get it."

It's just after dark, and it's the four of them: Connor, Risa, Sonia, and Grace. Beau was quickly dispatched by Sonia to resolve some sort of petty territorial dispute in the basement that arose in his absence. "It all goes to hell without you down there, Beau," Sonia told him. "I need you to take charge and bring things back to order." Connor turned away when she said it, because his grin might have given Beau a clue as to how easily he was being manipulated. Beau knew the goal of their mission, but not the purpose of the cells they retrieved.

"Injection for my hip," Sonia had told him, "so I don't need a hip replacement from some poor unlucky unwind."

He had accepted the explanation at face value, partly because it sounded plausible under the circumstances, but mostly because Sonia is an accomplished liar. Probably half of her success as an antiques dealer comes from the lies she tells about her merchandise. Not to mention her success in harboring fugitive kids.

With the magic blob safely in the printer, Sonia turns to them. "So who would like to do the honors?"

Connor, who is closest to the controls, hits the "on" button, hesitates for a breath, then hits the little green button labeled "print." The device clicks and whirrs to life, making them all jump just the tiniest bit. Could it be as simple as hitting the "print" button? He supposes the most advanced of technology all comes down to a human being hitting a button or throwing a switch.