The very idea sends a surge of adrenaline through Starkey's body, finally bringing circulation back to his limbs. But no-as he looks at this teen trying to rein in the chaos, he realizes this couldn't be Connor La.s.siter. This kid does not look the part at all. His hair is tousled, not coolly slicked back, the way Starkey always imagined it would be. This kid looks too open and honest-not quite innocent, but he has nowhere near the level of jaded anger that the Akron AWOL would have. The only thing about him that could even slightly resemble Starkey's image of Connor La.s.siter would be the slight smirk that always seems to be on his face. No, this kid before them, trying to command their respect, is n.o.body special. n.o.body at all.

"Let me be the first to welcome you to the Graveyard," he says, delivering what must be the same speech he delivers to every batch of new arrivals. "Officially my name is Elvis Robert Mullard . . . but my friends call me Connor."

Cheers from the Unwinds.

"Told you so!" says the fat kid.

"Doesn't prove anything," says Starkey, his jaw set and teeth clenched as the speech continues.

"You're all here because you were marked for unwinding but escaped, and thanks to the efforts of a whole lot of people with the Anti-Divisional Resistance, you've made it here. This will be your home until you turn seventeen and can't be unwound. That's the good news. . . ."

The more he speaks, the more Starkey's heart sinks, and he comes to realize the truth of it. This is the Akron AWOL-and he's not larger than life at all. In fact, he barely lives up to reality.

"The bad news is that the Juvenile Authority knows about us. They know where we are and what we're doing-but so far they've left us alone."

Starkey marvels at the unfairness of it all. How could this be? How is it possible that the great champion of runaway Unwinds is just some ordinary kid?

"Some of you just want to survive to seventeen, and I don't blame you," Connor says. "But I know that many of you would risk everything to end unwinding forever."

"Yeah!" Starkey shouts out, making sure it's loud enough to draw everyone's attention away from Connor, and he starts pumping his fist in the air. "Happy Jack! Happy Jack! Happy Jack!" He gets a whole chant going in the crowd. "We'll blow up every last harvest camp!" Starkey shouts. Yet even though he's riled them up, one look from Connor throws a wet blanket over the whole crowd, silencing them.

"There's one in every crowd," says Hayden, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we will not be blowing up Chop Shops," Connor says, looking right at Starkey. "They already see us as violent, and the Juvies use public fear to justify unwinding. We can't feed into that. We're not clappers. We will not commit random acts of violence. We will think before we act. . . ."

Starkey does not take the reprimand well. Who is this guy to shut him down? He keeps talking, but Starkey's not listening anymore, because Connor has nothing to say to him. But the others listen, and that makes Starkey burn.

Now, as he stands there, waiting for the so-called Akron AWOL to shut up, a seed starts to take root in Starkey's mind. He has killed two Juvey-cops. His legend is already set, and unlike Connor, he didn't have to pretend to die to become legendary. Starkey has to smile. This airplane salvage yard is filled with hundreds of Unwinds, but in the end, it's no different from the safe houses-and like those safe houses, here is just one more beta male waiting for an alpha like Starkey to put him in his place.

2 * Miracolina

The girl has known since before she can remember that her body has been sanctified to G.o.d.

She has always been aware that on her thirteenth birthday she would be t.i.thed and would experience the glorious mystery of having a divided body and a networked soul. Not networked in the computer sense-for the pouring of one's soul into hardware happens only in the movies, and never to good results. No, this would be a true networking within living flesh. A stretching of her spirit among the dozens of people touched by her divided body. There are people who say it's death, but she believes it to be something else-something mystical, and she believes it with every ounce of her soul.

"I suppose one cannot know what such division is like until one experiences it," her priest once told her. It struck her as odd that the priest, who was always so confident in church dogma, spoke of uncertainty whenever he talked about t.i.thing.

"The Vatican has yet to take a position on unwinding," he pointed out, "and so until it is either condoned or condemned, I can be as uncertain about it as I please."

It always made her bristle when he called t.i.thing unwinding, as if they were the same thing. They're not. The way she sees it, the cursed and unwanted are unwound-but the blessed and the loved are t.i.thed. The process might be the same, but the intent is different, and in this world, intent is everything.

Her name is Miracolina-from the Italian word for "miracle." She was named this because she was conceived to save her brother's life. Her brother, Matteo, was diagnosed with leukemia when he was ten. The family had moved from Rome to Chicago for his treatment, but even with harvest banks all over the nation, a marrow match could not be found for his rare blood type. The only way to save him was to create a match-and so that's exactly what his parents did. Nine months later Miracolina was born, doctors took marrow from her hip and gave it to Matteo, and her brother was saved. Easy as that. Now he's twenty-four and in graduate school, all thanks to Miracolina.

Even before she understood what it meant to be a t.i.the, she knew she was 10 percent of a larger whole. "We had ten embryos in vitro," her mother once told her. "Only one was a match for Matteo, and that was you. You were no accident, mi carina. We chose you."

The law was very specific when it came to the other nine embryos. Her family had to pay nine women to carry them to term. After that, the surrogates could do as they pleased-either raise the babies or stork them to a good home. "But whatever it cost, it was worth it," her parents had told her, "to have both Matteo and you."

Now, as her t.i.thing approaches, it comforts Miracolina to know that she has nine fraternal twins out there-and who knows? Maybe a part of her divided self will go to help one of these unknown twins.

As to why she is being t.i.thed, it has nothing to do with percentages.

"We made a pact with G.o.d," her parents told her when she was young, "that if you were born, and Matteo was saved, we would show our grat.i.tude by gifting you back to G.o.d through t.i.thing." Miracolina understood, even at an early age, that such a powerful pact was not easily broken.

Lately, however, her parents have become more and more emotional at the thought of it. "Forgive us," they begged her over and over again-quite often in tears. "Please forgive us for this thing we've done." And she would always forgive them, even though the request baffled her. Miracolina always felt blessed to be a t.i.the-to know, without question, her destiny and her purpose. Why should her parents feel sorry for giving her a purpose?

Perhaps the guilt they feel is for not throwing her a big party-but then, that had been her own choice. "First of all," she told her parents, "a t.i.thing should be solemn, not loud. Secondly, who's going to come?"

They couldn't dispute her logic. While most t.i.thes come from rich communities, and belong to the kinds of churches that expect t.i.thing, theirs is a working-cla.s.s neighborhood that's not exactly t.i.the-friendly. When you're like those rich families, surrounding yourself with like-minded people, there are plenty of friends to support you at a t.i.thing party-enough to offset the guests who find it uncomfortable. But if Miracolina had a party, everyone there would feel awkward. That's not how she wanted to spend her last night with her family.

So there's no party. Instead she spends the evening in front of the fireplace, sitting between her parents and clicking through favorite scenes from favorite movies. Her mom even prepares her favorite meal, rigatoni Amatriciana. "Bold and spicy," her mom says, "just like you."

She sleeps that night, having no unpleasant dreams, or at least none she can remember, and in the morning she rises early, dresses in her simple daily whites, and tells her parents that she's going to school. "The van doesn't come for me until four this afternoon, so why waste the day?"

Although her parents would prefer she stay home with them, her wishes come first on this day.

At school, she sits through cla.s.ses, already feeling a dreamy distance from it all. At the end of each cla.s.s, the teacher awkwardly hands her all her collected cla.s.swork and grades, calculated early.

"Well then, I guess that's that," each teacher says in one way or another. Most of them can't wait for her to get out of their room. Her science teacher is the kindest, though, taking some extra time with her.

"My nephew was t.i.thed a few years ago," he tells her. "A wonderful boy. I miss him terribly." He pauses, seeming to go far away in his thoughts. "I was told his heart went to a firefighter who saved a dozen people from a burning building. I don't know if it's true, but I'd like to believe it is."

Miracolina would like to believe it too.

Throughout the day, her cla.s.smates are just as awkward as her teachers. Some kids make a point to say good-bye. Some even give her uncomfortable hugs, but the rest say their farewells from a safe distance, as if t.i.thing is somehow contagious.

And then there are the other ones. The cruel ones.

"See you here and there," a boy says behind her back during lunch, and the kids around him snicker. Miracolina turns, and the boy tries to hide behind his gaggle of friends, thinking he's safe within that cloud of rank middle-school perspiration-but she recognized his voice and knows exactly who it is. She pushes through his friends to coldly face him.

"Oh, you won't see me, Zach Rasmussen . . . but if any part of me sees you, I will definitely let you know."

Zach's face goes a little green. "Get lost," he says. "Go get t.i.thed." But still there's that look of uneasy fear beneath his idiotic bravado.

Good, thinks Miracolina, I hope I've given him a few nightmares.

Her school is a huge one, so even though t.i.thes aren't common in her neighborhood, there are four others, all dressed in white like her. There used to be six, but the oldest two are already gone. These remaining t.i.thes are her true friends. These are the ones to whom she feels a need to say one last good-bye. Oddly, they're all from different backgrounds and faiths. Each is a member of a splinter sect of their particular religion-a sect that takes its commitment to self-sacrifice very seriously. Funny, Miracolina thinks, how these same religions fought over their differences for thousands of years, and yet in t.i.thing, they all come together as one.

"We are all asked to give of ourselves-to be charitable and selfless," says Nestor, her t.i.the friend closest to her in age, only a month short of his own t.i.thing. He clasps her hands, giving Miracolina a warm good-bye. "If technology allows us a new way to give, how could it be wrong?"

Except there are people who do say that it's wrong. More and more people these days. There's even that ex-t.i.the out there-the one who became a clapper, who people hold up as an example. Well, how stable can he be? After all, he became a clapper, for goodness' sake. The way Miracolina sees it, if someone would rather blow themselves up than be t.i.thed, well, that's like stealing from the collection plate, isn't it? It's just plain wrong.

When the school day ends, she walks home just like on any other day. As she comes onto her street, she sees her brother's car in the driveway. She's surprised at first-he goes to school five hours away-but she's happy Matteo's come to see her off.

It's three o'clock, an hour until the van comes, and her parents are already crying. She wishes they weren't, that they could take this as stoically as she, or even Matteo, who spends his time chatting about only the good memories.

"Remember that time we went to Rome, and you wanted to play hide-and-seek in the Vatican Museum?"

Miracolina smiles at the memory. She had tried to hide in Nero's bathtub-this huge maroon stone bowl that could practically fit an elephant. "The security guards had a fit! I thought they'd take me to the pope, and he'd spank me-so I ran."

Matteo laughs. "You went missing for, like, an hour-Mom and Dad were pulling their hair out."

Missing isn't the word for it, though. You don't go missing in a museum-you just get temporarily absorbed by the walls. She remembers moving through the crowds of the Vatican, until she found herself standing in the middle of the Sistine Chapel, gazing up toward Michelangelo's masterpiece, which covered the walls and ceiling. And there in the center was the divine link between heaven and earth. So close was Adam's hand to the hand of G.o.d, both straining to touch each other, but the impossible weight of gravity kept Adam from truly touching the heavens.

She stood there, looking up, forgetting that she was supposed to be hiding, for who could hide in a place that was all about revealed mystery? And that's exactly where her family found her; amid hundreds of tourists, staring up at the greatest work of art ever created by the hand of man-humanity's grandest attempt to touch perfection.

She was only six, but even then, the images of the chapel spoke to her, although she had no idea what they said. All she knew was that she herself was just like this beautiful place, and if someone could go inside her, they would see glorious frescoes painted on the walls of her soul.

The van arrives ten minutes early and waits out front. There's a brightly painted logo on the van's side that reads wood hollow harvest camp! a place for teens!

Miracolina goes to her room to get her suitcase-a small one filled with just a few sets of t.i.thing whites and some basic necessities. Now her parents cry and cry, begging again for her forgiveness. This time, however, it just angers her.

"If t.i.thing makes you feel guilty, that's not my problem," she tells them, "because I'm at peace with it. Please have enough respect for me to be at peace with it too."

It doesn't help matters. It just makes their tears flow in a steadier stream.

"The only reason you're at peace with it," her father tells her, "is because we made you feel that way. It's our fault. It's all our fault."

Miracolina looks at them and shrugs. "So change your mind, then," she suggests. "Break your pact with G.o.d and don't t.i.the me."

They look back at her like she's giving them a glorious gift, a reprieve from h.e.l.l. Even Matteo is hopeful.

"Yes, that's what we'll do!" her mother says. "We haven't signed the final papers yet. We can still change our minds!"

"Fine," says Miracolina. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Yes," says her father with intense relief. "Yes, we're sure."

"Positive?"

"Yes."

"Good, now you can be guilt free." Miracolina picks up her suitcase. "But regardless of what you choose, I'm going anyway. That's my choice."

Then she hugs her mother, father, and brother and leaves without looking back-without even saying good-bye, because good-byes imply an end, and more than anything else in this life, Miracolina Roselli wants to believe that her t.i.thing is a beginning.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

"When Billy's behavior became too much for us to bear, and we began to fear for our own safety, we did the only humane thing. We sent him to harvest camp, so he could find fulfillment in a divided state. But now, with an age restriction preventing seventeen-year-olds from being unwound, we wouldn't have had that choice. Just last week a seventeen-year-old girl in our neighborhood got drunk, crashed her car, and killed two innocent people. Would it still have happened if her parents could have chosen to send her to harvest camp? You tell me."

VOTE YES ON PROP 46! End the Cap-17 law, and lift the ban on late-teen unwinding!

Paid for by Citizens for a Wholesome Tomorrow It's a three-hour drive to Wood Hollow Harvest Camp. The van is all plush leather seats and pop music pumped through expensive speakers. The driver is a man with a salt-and-pepper beard, a big smile, and just enough of a gut to be jolly. Santa Claus in training.

"Excited for your big day?" Chauffeur-Claus asks as they drive away from Miracolina's home and family. "Did you have a big t.i.thing party?"

"Yes, and no," she says. "I'm excited, but no party."

"Aww . . . that's too bad. Why not?"

"Because t.i.thing shouldn't be about me."

"Oh," is all Chauffeur-Claus can say to that. Miracolina's response is the perfect conversation killer, which is fine. The last thing she wants is to recap her life for this man, no matter how jolly he is.

"There are drinks in the cooler," he tells her. "Help yourself." And then he leaves her alone.

Twenty minutes into the drive, instead of turning onto the interstate, they enter a gated community.

"One more pickup this afternoon," Chauffeur-Claus tells her. "Tuesdays are lean, so it's just this stop. Hope you don't mind."

"Not at all."

They stop at a house that's at least three times larger than her own, where a boy in white waits out front with his family. She does not watch as he says his good-byes. She looks out of the other window, giving them their privacy. Finally Chauffeur-Claus opens the door, and in comes a boy with straight dark hair, perfectly trimmed, bright blue eyes, and skin as pale as bone china-as if he had been kept out of the sun all his life to keep his skin pure as a baby's bottom for his t.i.thing.

"Hi," he says shyly. His t.i.thing whites are shiny satin and trimmed in fine gold brocade. This boy's parents spared no expense. Miracolina's t.i.thing whites, on the other hand, are simple raw silk, unbleached so their whiteness won't be so blinding that it draws attention to itself. Compared to hers, this boy's whites are like a neon advertis.e.m.e.nt.

The seats in the van aren't in rows-they all face center, to encourage camaraderie. The boy sits across from Miracolina, thinks for a moment, then reaches across the gap, offering his hand for her to shake. "I'm Timothy," he says. She shakes his hand. It's clammy and cold, like the way your hands get before a school play.

"My name's Miracolina."

"Wow, that's a mouthful!" Then he chuckles, probably mad at himself for saying it. "Do people call you Mira, or Lina, or something to shorten it?"

"It's Miracolina," she tells him. "And no one shortens it."

"Okay, well, pleased to meet you, Miracolina."

The van starts up, and Timothy waves good-bye to his large family still outside, and although they wave to him as well, it's clear that they can't even see him through the dark gla.s.s. The van pulls out and begins to wind out of the neighborhood. Even before they leave the gate, Timothy begins to look uncomfortable, like he's got a stomachache, but Miracolina knows if his stomach bothers him, it's just a symptom of something else. This boy has not found peace with his t.i.thing yet. Or if he had, he lost it the moment the van door closed, cutting the umbilical to his old life. As insulted as she is by his lavish whites and exclusive neighborhood, Miracolina begins to feel sorry for him. His fear hangs in the air around them like a web full of black widows. No one should journey to their t.i.thing in terror.

"So, the ride is like three hours, or something?" Timothy asks, his voice shaky.

"Yes," says Chauffeur-Claus brightly. "There's an entertainment system with hundreds of preprogrammed movies to pa.s.s the time. Help yourselves!"

"Yeah, okay, sure," says Timothy. "Maybe later, though."

For a few minutes, he seems lost in his own thoughts. Then he turns to Miracolina again.

"They say t.i.thes get treated really well at harvest camp. You think it's true? They say it's lots of fun, and we're with tons of other kids just like us." He clears his throat. "They say we even get to choose the day when we . . . when we . . . well, you know . . ."

Miracolina smiles at him warmly. Usually t.i.thes like Timothy go to harvest camp in a limo-but she knows why Timothy didn't, without having to ask. He didn't want to make the journey alone. Well, if fate has brought them together on this momentous day, she will be the friend he needs.

"I'm sure harvest camp will be just the experience you want it to be," she tells him, "and when you choose your date, you'll choose it because you're ready. That's why they let us choose. So it's our decision, no one else's."