Even with Connor taken away by the Juvey-cops, Lucas can't stop himself from wondering about the brother he used to have.
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Lucas Lassiter wakes up and he doesn’t have a brother.
He didn’t have one yesterday, either. Or last week. This should stop being a surprise. Is there a point at which the novelty wears off, really? When you stop forgetting that you haven’t always been an only child? That a few weeks ago, Juvey-cops broke into your house and took your brother, and your parents let it happen because they asked for it in the first place?
Lucas won’t forget. He has promised himself this. There was a boy named Connor Lassiter in this very house, and he tormented Lucas all the time except for when he lost interest, and when he was a good brother who taught Lucas how to ride a bicycle and how to run from guys who were bigger than you. They say Connor ran from the Juvey-cops, that he’s still hidden somewhere no one can find him. Lucas wonders if he remembers Connor’s lessons well enough to do the same thing if he ever had to.
He’s supposed to be moving on. His parents have told him that. The special therapist they hired when it became increasingly clear that Lucas couldn’t just up and forget that Connor used to live right down the hall keeps reminding him that the past is the unchangeable past, but it isn’t. Not to Lucas. Memories of his brother refuse to leave him. For that to happen, they’d have to unwind the parts of his brain, too, the ones that still hold Connor, and they’ve assured him that won’t happen again. No more sons lost to the harvest camps. But they might have told that to Connor, too, and look how that worked out.
Privately, Lucas wonders if he can’t let go of his brother because he’s terrified the same thing that happened to Connor will happen to him. Maybe Lucas will not be good enough either. Maybe he will bomb a math test and his parents will start reconsidering. A botched strikeout in a faulty game and they’ll wonder about the forms they signed in triplicate again. It was easy enough the first time. Surely it would be a simple thing to do it again.
No. No. It won’t happen to him. Lucas is— Lucas is the good one. Yeah, he’s the good one, and Connor wasn’t. Connor got in trouble all the time. Connor stayed out late and picked fights and did everything an under-eighteen shouldn’t. God, it was like—
Like he wanted to be unwound. Like he wanted to die.
But that’s not true. Connor loved living. That’s why he went about his days like even the rules couldn’t stop him from enjoying his life like he wanted. Connor lived more than Lucas will, even if Lucas never gets unwound, even if he survives to a hundred and one. Lucas could do stupid things like go sky-diving and play chicken on the railroad tracks and he’d still never get that vicarious glint in his eyes that Connor had all the time. Connor knew how to live. He hopes whoever gets that grisly chunk of Connor’s brain gets to live like that, too.
Lucas thinks it would be incredible. Like flying. Connor felt more than anyone. That’s why Lucas couldn’t do anything but stand, frozen, on the flight of stairs, as the Juvey-cops hauled Connor away into a small car and took him away forever. Connor was so afraid– it wasn’t right. Lucas couldn’t imagine a world in which Connor was that terrified. So he stood there and did nothing and let his brother go get butchered. They say Connor started running later. Once he remembered how, maybe. Or when he realized no one was going to help him anymore. Not even his own brother.
Lucas had not run. He had stayed on that stairwell, looking uncertainly towards the door, watching the lights of the car drive away. His parents had told him to go to bed, but even after he forced his feet back inside his room, Lucas couldn’t sleep. He lay awake hands folded across his stomach like a corpse, wondering if his brother was dead yet. Wondering how a father decides his boy isn’t good enough to live. Wondering how a mom stops wanting two boys and decides just one will be fine.
And the worst part is, with Connor gone, Lucas still isn’t the most important Lassiter brother. He had assumed that he would be. Which is stupid, and mean, but true. He would be the best. He always had been, historically– fewer fights, higher grades, and of course the fact that he hasn’t yet been unwound is a definite plus in his favor– but it’s still not as certain as he would like. If he does not improve his act, if he does not clearly prove that he is the favorite child and not just the one left over, what will stop Connor’s fate from befalling him? The Lassiters have already unwound one child. They can do it again.
And when his family sits around the table, when his father instinctively puts out a glass of water at an empty chair or his mom starts to make a fourth plate to set out late, they start remembering these things too late. That Connor isn’t coming back. Sometimes they call Lucas down for a meal and they say Connor’s name first. Even after he’s gone, Connor is the one that matters. Lucas is just there in the background. Another option once the first one failed.
One time in history class, they were talking about the royal family, how they’d have the first son to inherit the throne and the second just in case. A spare. Lucas thinks he gets how it feels now. He’s the spare parts, the extra set of bones and blood because the first one didn’t pan out as they hoped. He’d better get his stuff together, because there isn’t another one. Just him, and that’s an awful heavy load to bear. Maybe that’s why Connor went crazy. Maybe that’s why he wanted to stay out late and duck curfew. He didn’t want that title, and now Lucas doesn’t, anyway. Only there’s no one left to save him now.
The other kids ask Lucas about Connor in school. They talk about him a lot, actually. They’re not supposed to. Typically, the way of the world is that a student will be unwound, creating a hotbed of heated rumors about what would happen for a parent to love their kid better in pieces, and then even the most intense whispers die down and it’s like nothing ever happened. The theories about their unwinding get attributed to other kids, and soon people start forgetting if their name started with an R or an S, if he was a Harlan or a Humphrey, if he was ever someone who had gone to their school at all. Unwound not just in body, but in name, too. In memory. In every way that matters.
Connor is the exception. Even weeks later, Connor Lassiter is still the most important topic of conversation. Lucas can’t go anywhere without hearing his name. A few of the braver kids have gone up to Lucas directly to ask about him– does he ever hear from his brother, will Connor come back and kill his whole family out of revenge, does he receive secrets about underground Unwind rings? Lucas says no to all of them, but he’s not sure anyone believes him.
Privately, Lucas cannot decide if he is bothered by the absence of news from his brother or not. He did not help Connor escape. He was unable to do anything but stand there, gaping, as the Juvey-cops loaded Connor into a car and drove him away to die. He has wondered, before, if he would have any idea if Connor was still on the lam at all.
Maybe one day he would walk home after school and meet somebody with Connor’s eyes. He wouldn’t realize the pupils belonged to his brother until one of the eyelids unconsciously winked at him. A last laugh from beyond the knife. Such a Connor thing to do that Lucas can’t believe it hasn’t already happened.
Lucas wants to believe that he’s on Connor’s mind as much as Connor’s on his, but the worst part is, even Lucas can’t believe it’s true. It’s Connor’s world, always has been. Connor Lassiter is in the eye of this world-shattering hurricane, all gusty winds and rushing floods. Everyone around him gets caught up in the current, but there’s no room for anyone else to matter. Even supposedly dead, even on the run, even unwound, they are in Connor’s storm, not the other way around. Even alive, Lucas still isn’t the Lassiter that matters the most.
He should hate it. He does, maybe, but the guilt comes trickling in around the edges of his anger and Lucas starts remembering when he looked up to his brother like a god. On his knees, begging for the effortlessly cool outlaw to glance at him sideways. Just young enough to stop getting on Connor’s radar unless they were right in front of each other. Old enough to know he’d never catch up even if he started running with all his might. Lucas is Lucas. Connor is the Akron AWOL. There’s no beating that.
Lucas goes to bed that night and wonders if any of this will ever be over. There’s no freeing himself from the tidal wave of Connor’s reputation. He’ll die, maybe, or he’ll age out. Lucas wonders if Connor will ever come back to spit in his face or curse him out or just say goodbye for good this time. Maybe Lucas will slam the door. Or he’ll listen. Or they’ll never speak again. Brothers like them aren’t meant to last, and they haven’t by now. Stranded on opposite sides of the country. Feels like they’re on opposite ends of the earth. The Lassiters are gone. Maybe Connor will remain. Lucas is gone already.
He glances at his phone one last time before he closes his eyes and is rewarded with a fresh headline. Akron AWOL seen near Ohio. Lucas can’t even open it. He screams into his pillow, raw and guttural, then snaps his eyes shut and falls asleep like that. When he wakes the next morning, he finds that he’s still cradling his phone as if it were someone real. Someone important.
Like a brother.
unwind tag list: @reinekes-fox, @locke-writes, @sirofreak
Hayden wants Connor. Connor clearly doesn't want Hayden, but he does want Hayden to stop hanging around Roland. Or maybe he just doesn't want them to be together when he's not there.
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Hayden Upchurch is seventeen years old and sick of himself when he realizes he’s in love with his best friend. The one who’s dating his other best friend, that is. The one who would never, ever, fall for someone like Hayden.
He’s had a problem with daydreaming, always has. Feels like the worst part of his heritage– two actor parents, of course he’d come up with a fantasy, everyone around him with a part to play to secure his happy ending. Hayden wants to believe that the world revolves around him and so he does. Even when his parents split. Even when they give him up to be dismembered. Even when he comes in contact with the one boy who finally might put him first, and then doesn’t.
But then again, who hasn’t wanted to be in love with Connor Lassiter? Hayden hasn’t met a single soul in the Graveyard who hasn’t contemplated it at some point. Sure, some make a point of pretending they’d never go there, but they would. They all would. Even Hayden. That’s kind of why this aches so bad. Connor has his pick of anyone in the world, even if he hasn’t put that together yet. He could have anyone, and he doesn’t want Hayden.
The worst part is, Hayden’s pretty sure he could have made it happen were it not for the fact that the good story has already started to play out. Connor chose Risa. Of course he would. It’s a match made in heaven, if there’s any bit of heaven reserved for the bits-and-pieces Unwinds even a mother couldn’t love. Pretty people fall in love with pretty people. Risa’s smart and Connor’s brave. Hayden knew it was over for him the second they showed up together, and with a baby no less. God, it’s like they’re already jumpstarting their iconic unwind celebrity family.
It makes him want to gag, and he probably would, if it weren’t for the fact that he feels more like sobbing instead. Technically, Connor and Risa haven’t announced anything, or done anything for that matter, but they don’t have to. Hayden’s seen enough lovesick glances to know a crush when it’s right in front of his face.
It was one thing when he could hide from the truth of it, tucked away in the darkness of the antique store basement. In the shadows, Hayden could convince himself of anything, even that the Akron Awol might find him hot. And– it’s stupid, right? Hayden knows he’s hot. The PR agent his parents hired for him since the age of five has made sure of that. Yet all it takes is one (honestly, average) teenage outlaw and Hayden’s wondering if his hair has somehow lost its luster or if his eyes are starting to bleach out their blue. Maybe his jokes are falling flat. Maybe he was never funny in the first place. Maybe that’s why Connor wouldn’t look at him unless his feet were on fire or something.
Trapped in the Graveyard, there’s no hiding from the truth. Stuck labeling boxes and unpacking crates, Hayden has the perfect view as Connor and Risa make more excuses to find each other. He’s organizing canned food now, slamming each box down with unnecessary force so he doesn’t punch somebody instead. He has the perfect view through the bars of the storage caddy as Connor benefits from another excuse to visit the medical wing.
Connor has just emerged from the med bay, grinning ear to ear. He shakes his head foolishly as he heads back into the sunlight, as if unable to believe himself. Hayden can’t believe it, either. He certainly can’t believe that he’s still letting himself feel so terrible over the proud smirk on Connor’s face, the pride that certainly means he’s not holding himself back the way Hayden is.
He can’t do this anymore. Slumped against a wall of crates, Hayden’s eye catches a flicker of pink amongst the scores of labels. It’s a heart, part of a logo of some company. Filled with a sudden, irrational burst of anger, he lunges forward and tears the heart away, piece by piece, until blood wells up underneath the edges of his fingertips. He sucks on his index finger to take the sharp prick of pain away, cursing both the can and himself. He could go to medical to get it cleaned up, of course, but then he’d have to see Risa, and that’s out of the question.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
A sudden voice nearly makes Hayden jump out of his skin. He bangs his head against one of the shelves, and straightens up, swearing, to get a good look at whoever’s just surprised him. Oddly enough, it’s Roland. He doesn’t usually bother Hayden, opting instead to save himself the nuisance of Hayden’s endless barbs and digs at his expense, but apparently Hayden’s done something today to warrant the visit. Lovely.
“Jesus,” Hayden mutters under his breath, rubbing the sore spot on his head, “Where’d you come from? Don’t tell me you’ve taken to spawning out of the shadows now.”
Roland just chuckles, face completely deadpan. “I’ll consider it. Why do you look like you just got hit by a bus? I want to know who beat me to it.”
Hayden rolls his eyes. He barely has the strength to deal with his own thoughts. Roland is so far from what Hayden can deal with, it’s not even funny. “Can you just– just fuck off, will you? Go bother one of the little kids and leave me alone.”
He tries to storm off, but there isn’t much room tucked in amongst the crates, so Hayden is only able to stomp a few feet away and stand with his back to Roland, glowering at the jars of green olives in front of him. He can just make out Roland’s reflection behind him in the watery sheen of the glass, the confused furrow of his brow.
“What’s gotten into you?” Roland asks, genuinely curious.
Hayden doesn’t even bother to answer. He reaches out, uselessly straightening the rows of olives in the hopes that Roland will get bored and leave him alone. Strangely enough, Roland doesn’t, and walks closer to Hayden until they’re shoulder to shoulder again.
“Seriously,” Roland says. “I’ve never known anything that could make you shut up. I’m kind of jealous.”
Against his will, Hayden’s gaze betrays him and flits through the gaps in the crates to where Connor still idles near the medical bay. Roland turns his head to follow Hayden’s line of breath and he sucks in a breath as he puts the pieces together far too quickly.
“Oh,” Roland says, voice strangely deep. “Oh, shit.”
Hayden feels as if all the blood in his body has suddenly rushed to his feet. His face must be like bone, stripped of any sign of light. “You shut the fuck up,” he says unsteadily, “You shut the fuck up, I swear to God, I’ll kill you, I swear it. I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll hit you so bad you won’t even walk. Don’t you say a damn thing.”
They both know it’s bullshit, Roland could kick Hayden’s ass in a second. This close, practically breathing down each other’s throats, Hayden can sense all that muscle, vibrating with nerves. Everything in Roland is electric, ready to pounce, but instead, he says raggedly, “I can help with that.”
Hayden blinks in surprise. “You want to help me kill you?”
Roland shakes his head disgustedly. “No, dumbass. I can help you with Connor.”
Hayden just stares. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
Something like a muscle twitch pulls the corner of Roland’s lips up into a half-smirk. “I like getting under his skin. Maybe under his shirt, at least.”
A flash of white-hot courses through Hayden in an instant. He waits for Roland to start laughing, or start swinging, to tell him that he’d been joking, or messing with him, or something, anything, for this situation to make sense. Instead, Roland leans a little closer, expectant, and Hayden realizes that he’s not joking around at all.
“Alright,” Hayden says at last. “What did you have in mind?”
Roland’s teeth bare in a full grin. “I was hoping you’d ask. See, I’ve noticed something about our mutual friend. Connor doesn’t do very well with jealousy.”
Hayden laughs derisively before he can stop himself. “Problem with that one, Roland. Connor isn’t jealous of either of us.”
Roland doesn’t look remotely fazed by this. “Want to bet?”
They both turn as one again to look over at Connor. Stupid, reckless Connor, who’s straightened up to look back at them, who may be seeing two silhouettes behind the storage crates where there should just be one. Connor doesn’t look quite so carefree anymore. In fact, although it may be reaching, Hayden would go so far as to say that he looks quite worried indeed.
Hayden lets out a low whistle. “You actually might be right about that one.”
Roland scoffs. “I’m usually right. You just don’t pay attention.”
Hayden fights the urge to roll his eyes again and only mostly succeeds. “How’d you know?”
Roland initiates an elaborate shrug. “I know what to do when a boy doesn’t give me what I want.”
He’s really close right now, Hayden realizes. He’s not sure when Roland got that close, but Hayden can either stay here or back up, and this closed in surrender doesn’t really seem like an option, so he stays. Roland’s breath is hot on his mouth. They’re still so damn close. This might be what heatstroke feels like. Insanity may set in soon, if it hasn’t already.
“Alright,” Hayden stumbles. “Let’s make him jealous, then.”
Roland’s grin really is sharklike, Hayden decides, but he can’t tell if he’s the prey or Connor. Maybe both. “Great choice.”
Before Hayden can do or say something stupid, Connor appears around the stack of crates, peering at both of them dubiously. “What are you two doing?”
Roland reacts immediately, like he was waiting for it. Probably salivating over their moment of discovery, too, like a dog with the premise of a bone. “Talking, Connor. You’re familiar with it?”
He claps his hand down on Hayden’s shoulder, and Hayden does his best not to startle. He feels like he’s hyper aware of everything going on with his bicep, down to the slightest shuffle of Roland’s fingers against the fabric of Hayden’s shirt, or the heaviness of Roland’s breathing despite doing his best to pretend as if nothing were the matter.
Connor seems to notice it too. His eyes are glued to Roland’s hand on Hayden, and it seems to take him considerable effort to swallow harshly and say, “That true, Hayden?”
Hayden can practically feel Roland’s gaze boring down on him, demanding that he play along. Well, Hayden’s perfectly fine with playing along. It’s supposed to be in his genes, isn’t it? “All good, Connor. Just fucking around on duty. You going to report us to the Admiral?”
He manages to force a chuckle as he says it, and Roland nods along, clearly pleased. Connor swallows again. “Just– get back to work, will you?”
“So bossy, isn’t he?” Roland muses, and it seems like an inside joke between him and Hayden. Hayden laughs because he can, because he should. Connor looks like he’s stopped being able to understand the language they’re speaking.
Roland lets the moment sit a second longer, then tears his hand from Hayden at last and sweeps away, purposely bumping into Connor as he goes. Both Hayden and Connor watch him disappear. Connor turns back to Hayden once Roland is out of view, and says hoarsely, “What was that?”
Hayden can’t answer.
Everything feels different, and does for hours after. Days, even. At meals, Roland appears to drag Hayden away by the arm, and they eat alone together, tucked in a corner of the room where no one else can reach them. They’re always touching, somehow– a shin against a shin, a hand on an arm, fingers grasping the back of Hayden’s neck like the scruff of a dog. He’s going to explode with the force of something great and terrible, but Connor first, because Connor has to see all this happen and not feel it, too, not like Hayden. Hayden gets to feel it all, because Roland asked him, not Connor. It feels fucking fantastic.
It all comes to a head about a week later. Connor’s been strumming with the rage of not being the first choice for several days now. Hayden wants to tell him that he’s being really selfish– how long had Hayden put up with the same thing, anyway, several weeks? Months? Longer than this, at least. Hayden could take it if their situations were reversed. Probably.
Connor’s been trying to talk to Hayden all day, but Hayden keeps dodging him, claiming to be busy or something. At last, when night falls, Connor tracks him down and Hayden runs out of excuses.
“It’s dark,” he tries to claim, Connor’s hand thick and strong on the sleeve of his jacket, “People are trying to sleep, Connor. We can’t disturb them.”
“Fine,” Connor says icily, and all but drags him to one of the grounded planes.
Roland meets them halfway there. Maybe the scent of Hayden’s fear carries across the whole damn Graveyard. Sure feels that way, at least. He says not a word but walks with them, opens the door of the plane. Locks it behind them.
Then they’re all standing in a rough circle, Connor’s hand still stuck on Hayden’s jacket sleeve. “I want to know what this is about,” he says roughly. “And don’t try to bullshit me. You’re doing something.”
Roland folds his arms across his chest, all casual. “We’re doing something, alright.”
Connor almost growls with irritation. “You’re trying to bother me. I get it, I’ve been snapping at everybody. Fine. It’s dangerous out there, I wanted to keep us safe. Sue me, but talk to me, instead of doing this.”
Roland grins. Sharklike again. Like he doesn’t know how to smile any other way. “What are we doing, Connor? You tell us.”
“Us,” Connor seethes. “There’s never been an us. This is what I’m talking about. You keep playing up this– this thing between the two of you. You’re trying to get to me, I don’t know why, but I’m sick of it. Can’t you be normal for once in your lives?”
Hayden can sense the power thrumming through the room, turning the air thick and hot with imbalance, but for once, it’s not on Connor’s side. It feels good to be the one in charge, he has to say. Hayden doesn’t usually like it, but he does now.
“Why would us talking bother you, Connor?” He says, relaxed as anything. “I don’t see what could possibly be the problem. We’re just talking.”
Connor rounds on him. “You’re not just talking, though. I know you aren’t. Maybe you’re trying to get me out or something. I don’t know what you’re doing.”
Roland stalks closer. “It bothers you, doesn’t it? Not knowing what we’re up to.”
“That’s what I just said,” Connor spits out, but he doesn’t sound as self-righteous as he did before. In fact, his voice wobbles slightly on the last syllable, just like it had when he’d caught them the first time.
“I don’t know why it would bother you,” Hayden says matter-of-factly. “To be honest, if you’ve got anything wrong with it, I think you should prove it. Otherwise, I mean, how would we know what you want?”
It’s a good move, Hayden’s proud of it. Even Roland’s grinning, the two of them in on another joke. Connor chafes against that exclusion like a dog at a bit, foaming at the mouth at the thought of them having anything without him.
“What I want,” Connor says slowly, voice thick with it, “is for you two to stop fucking around like this. Stop looking at me like I’m the odd one out. You two hate each other, anyway.”
Roland stalks closer. The way he’s eying Connor is downright predatory. “I think I’m confused. Do you want us to stop, or do you want to be a part of it?”
“I don’t even know what it is,” Connor tries to say, but his voice drops away into nothingness the closer Roland gets to him. Hayden can understand the feeling. He still feels like the floor of the plane isn’t all too steady anymore.
“I think you do,” Roland says. He looms over them both now, less in stature and more in spirit. The span of him could last forever. Enough for Connor and Hayden to share, and a little left over too.
Hayden’s jacket is on the floor, and he only knows it happens at all because of the quick flash of Connor’s hands ripping it off of him in the corner of Hayden’s vision. Roland doesn’t even react to the motion. He just keeps staring at the two of them, grinning, waiting. Then he moves, is on them in an instant, and there’s nothing any of them could have done after that.
Hayden honestly doesn’t know if Connor was there to stop them or join. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Hayden knows how that would-be intervention ended, and it didn’t really seem like Connor was that keen on any of them stopping, for that matter.
He has no idea what’s going to happen after this. Roland’s plan really only went so far as getting Connor to snap, no continuity for the fallout. For once, though, Hayden doesn’t think he needs a plan for how to act, what to do. Maybe he can just make it up as he goes along. Roland and Connor would be down, and nothing else really matters. Everything is business as usual and he feels good. Really good, actually, and if Hayden’s voice is oddly hoarse the next morning, most people have the good sense not to ask why.
Most people, that is. Risa sidles up to Hayden later that day. He’s pretending to organize some cans of food, although he starts pretending extra hard when he notices the suspicious look on her face.
“The windows on one of the planes were quite fogged up this morning,” Risa remarks.
“Planes do that sometimes,” Hayden replies calmly. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Risa casts him a sidelong glance, but when Hayden refuses to extrapolate on that absolute failure of a sentence, she sighs so deeply he’s pretty sure the Admiral could hear it from his office. She looks like she’s going to call him out on this obvious bit of bullshit, but then she spots something across the tarmac and straightens up a little.
“Never mind,” she says, “I think I’ve answered my own question.”
Risa starts to walk away, then pauses as if she’s just thought of something important and turns back to him. “Don’t do anything stupid, Hayden. Or anything else stupid.”
With those inspiring words of wisdom, Risa heads back the way she’d come. Hayden frowns, confused, then tries to figure out what she’d been looking at to change her mind so quickly.
It doesn’t take long to figure it out. Shaded by the metal underbelly of one of the Graveyard’s many planes, two figures stand close together, their shoulders brushing as they whisper. Roland and Connor. Two people who supposedly hate each other, who did hate each other or were at least good at pretending until last night. Now, instead of trying to kill each other, they’re muttering back and forth, all the while both eyeing Hayden with identical, bloodthirsty grins. Like they knew exactly what prey they wanted. Like they already knew it was twitching under their claws.
Oh, Hayden is so fucked. But hasn’t that always been true?
unwind tag list: @reinekes-fox, @sirofreak, @locke-writes
REQUESTS OPEN OMG EVERYONE CHEERED. hi i was thinking.. what if… hmm.. what if.. guardian angel y/n x connor lassiter where in unwind instead of lev saving him after the happy jack explosion its y/n. (they kiss at the end PLEase)
ANYWAYS ILY u survived exams i’m so proud !
'angel ex machina ' - connor lassiter
masterlist
They find Connor Lassiter staring at a billboard. He’s slumped against a wall, eyes hollow and vacant, like nothing in this world could possibly be more fascinating than a couple hundred square feet of boastful advertising. The bright colors seem to laugh at him, tantalizingly out of reach from where he crouches now, separated from the rest of the world by the walls of a harvest camp.
We have guardian angels! Low prices, high protection!
Even if Connor somehow managed to piece together enough cash for their exorbitant prices, it’s obvious that a guardian angel would be wasted on him. Connor is days away from his own unwinding. Not even a real guardian angel could pull him out now, let alone the vapid models in suits they’ve got bedazzling that billboard. Everyone knows you can’t actually hire a guardian angel. They just show up somehow, save your ass however many times you need it, then disappear. There, then gone. Intrinsically a part of your life, and then it’s like you’d never known them at all.
Guardian angels are extraordinarily rare. The closest Connor’s ever come to meeting one is hearing a story his dad used to tell, and even then, Kirk Lassiter had only briefly glimpsed one of his neighbors getting saved from a car accident by one of the angels. Not exactly a core memory for Connor. His mom had never seen one at all.
That’s the way it usually goes. There aren’t that many guardian angels in the world. Rare things, they are. Somehow, they decide that a person is important enough to save, and then they swoop in and do what they do best. That’s usually saving them from disasters– floods, tornadoes, you name it. There’s an iconic photograph of a guardian angel rescuing someone from a burning building that Connor sees annually in his textbooks; something about the wings silhouetted against the flames is irresistible to school publishers. Hayden swears that he heard about somebody who got a guardian angel to do their taxes, but Connor figures that’s another of the boy’s bad jokes. Guardian angels are for real problems, not tax fraud.
Hell, no one even knows what guardian angels look like. There are photographs, sure, but they always turn out strangely blurry, like when the sun’s too bright outside and all you can do is squint. Even the people who’ve seen guardian angels say that their memories faded oddly quickly after the incident. No one can decide if they look like people, if their wings always appear, if they’re even recognizable as guardian angels at all. The only thing the masses can agree on is that guardian angels do exist, and they’ll never be good enough for anyone.
Least of all Connor. He’s harbored a hope that he’d get to meet one at some point, obviously, everyone has. Imagining that you’d be important enough to warrant an angel sent to watch over you is everyone’s secret fantasy.
Connor’s a few hours away from getting unwound, though, so he’s pretty sure that dream will die like the rest of his: unwanted, unclaimed, unfulfilled. He’ll go to pieces as yet another boy who dreamed of being great, another poor soul ignored by the angels. The only difference is that, unlike most of the teenage population, he’s not even mediocre enough to live past sixteen. He’ll be in parts by tomorrow. Then, who knows? Maybe his elbow will go to a kid worthy of an angel. Connor wasn’t, but maybe his unwound pieces will be.
Connor shakes his head slightly to rid himself of the thoughts. He’s not usually like this. He’s not a quitter. He’ll go under the knife protesting his unwinding. It’s just a little difficult to keep up the fighting spirit when he knows that at last, despite all his running and hiding, he’ll be unwound anyway. There’s no fighting the Juvenile Authority. All his great efforts just delayed the inevitable. It cuts him to say it, but it looks like they were right after all.
In an attempt to get his mind out of obviously dangerous waters, Connor rips his gaze away from the offending billboard and glances around him. Only now does he notice another future unwind drawing close to him. Connor stretches and stands, forcing the corners of his mouth to upturn slightly so Y/N, his closest friend here and only ally among the cops and lambs to slaughter, don’t think he’s totally deranged.
“What are you doing?” Y/N asks, coming to a stop by his side.
Connor shrugs listlessly. “Nothing. Drafting my will.”
With anyone else, he’d probably stay silent, but Connor learned a long time ago that trying to hold his tongue around Y/N L/N is a losing game. They met in the basement of Sonia’s antique shop, Y/N having arrived barely a few minutes after Connor and Risa. Talk about a coincidence. They quickly hit it off, and as proof of their friendship, they’ve even ended up at the same harvest camp after it all went south back at the Graveyard.
If Connor were trapped with anyone, though, he’s glad it’s them. Not even Hayden can make Connor laugh as much as he does with Y/N. They understand him in a way that no one else ever has. If he were feeling particularly stupid, he would call it love, but Connor knows better. They’re both about to get stripped to pieces. If he spills his guts now and they friendzone him, Connor will have ruined the best part of his life for nothing.
So he stays silent, and watches Y/N laugh at his joke. “I want your car after they unwind you,” they inform him. “Maybe even the house.”
Connor pretends to be outraged. “Both? That’s absurd.”
Y/N snorts. “Who else would you give them to? The tithe?” Then, in a quieter voice, they glance towards the billboard Connor was staring at, and add on, “Maybe an angel?”
Connor sighs. “They can’t sell real guardian angels. No amount of flashy billboards can hide that.”
Y/N nods. “You’re still tempted, though?”
Connor lifts a shoulder. “Who wouldn’t be tempted? The idea is great. I’d love for someone to save me right now. Or maybe just care enough to try.”
“I care,” Y/N offers.
Connor gives them a wry smile. “I know you do. But you’re stuck in the same mess as I am, so maybe I’ll hold off on believing in your escape plan until you’re out, too.”
Y/N looks at him for a second, too deep for Connor to understand, then cracks a grin. “You should believe in me, Lassiter. I’m tunneling out from under the dorms with just a spoon. I might make it halfway to Florida by the time we get the unwind order.”
Connor scoffs. “That only works in movies. You’d need a miracle to break through an inch of concrete, let alone all the way past the borders.”
Y/N smiles at him, a little secretively, a little knowingly. “I’m pretty good with miracles.”
“Sure you are,” Connor says, stretching his arms to rid himself of an unpleasant pinch in his muscles. “Any chance you can whip one up to save me from my impending doom?”
He isn’t expecting Y/N to respond, obviously, but when their face drops at the sight of something approaching behind him, Connor knows it’s not just from his lack of belief. “I’d have to make it quick, wouldn’t I?” They mutter under their breath.
Connor turns around to see a squad of Juvey-cops bearing down on him. He swears under his breath. “This is it, right? They’re going to take me away?”
Y/N’s face looks ashen and wrong. “I should have saved you. “
“We should have saved each other,” Connor corrects gently. Usually, he isn’t the sentimental type, but as the guards get closer, he can’t resist the urge to lean closer to Y/N and whisper to them, “Hey, I’m glad for the time we had, alright? It meant– It meant a lot to me. You know. If I was going to talk to anyone on my last day, I would have wanted it to be you anyway.”
Y/N sucks in a breath. “Don’t say that.”
Connor stares at them. “Why not? It’s true.”
Y/N looks like they want to argue– why, Connor isn’t sure, but the guilt in their eyes is like nothing he’s ever seen before– but before they can say a word, the Juvey-cops close in around him, cutting Connor off from Y/N like slamming a door in their face. They give him the usual speech about how it’s time for him to be unwound, but Connor can’t find it within himself to pay attention. It’s so typical of him, honestly, to be zoning out during what may be his last hour whole, but all he can think about is Y/N, who disappears into the distance as the cops drag him away, Y/N, who he’s now left here alone, Y/N, who will join him in this fate not long from now.
Connor doesn’t want to be unwound. Obviously. He doesn’t want this, and the sheer force of his not wanting overwhelms him as they lead him closer and closer to the doors of the Chop Shop. A crowd of other unwinds has gathered by the door; apparently the final moments of the Akron AWOL make for some good entertainment. The band is playing. Connor wants to run, run far and fast like he always does, but for the first time in his life he realizes how pointless it is. If he tried to flee, they would catch him. They would drag him back, and it would be like nothing ever happened. There is no way this day ends with anything but Connor in pieces.
Connor forces his legs to move him mechanically towards the Chop Shop entrance. Just before the darkness of the place swallows him whole, something tells Connor to glance over his shoulder one last time and he sees Y/N staring at him beseechingly. He doesn’t know how he’s able to spot them so easily in the crowd, but he can. Like he would know them anywhere. Like doing anything but looking at them is impossible.
Then the guards shove him into the Chop Shop, and Y/N is gone, replaced by the dark certainty of Connor’s unwinding. The hallway seems to stretch out forever, but before Connor can take even one more step, a few very confusing things happen all at once.
First: there’s this shift in the air. Connor can’t describe it. It feels strange and wrong, burning on his tongue like electricity. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and Connor knows at once that something is about to go wrong.
Second: the room erupts in fire and smoke. The bone-rattling boom of the explosion comes later, a little delayed, but Connor sees the white flash of heat and light first. He’s knocked off of his feet, and time seems to slow down. The entire world is gone, replaced only by Connor, floating hazily through the smoky air, and the blossom of fire around him, searing off everything else.
Third, and most confusing of all: out of nowhere, Y/N is right in front of him. Y/N, yes, but Y/N different somehow. It takes him a moment to realize why. Their eyes glow white, brighter even than the explosion, and their skin is radiating off this cool, pearlescent light. He has no idea how they could have possibly gotten in front of him so fast. He has no idea how they’re seemingly immune to the heat and force of the explosion around them.
Y/N reaches for him, pulling Connor into their arms. Their head presses against his, and they whisper quietly, forcefully, “Be safe, Connor.”
The command reverberates through Connor’s entire body. He doesn’t even remember hitting the ground, and when the explosion clears, he’s– He’s fine, actually. Nothing hurts. When Connor stares at his body, he’s utterly unharmed. Not even a scratch on his skin. He is totally untouched by the explosion that has just decimated the entirety of the Chop Shop.
Connor looks around him and realizes that Y/N is sitting in front of him. They’re both on the grass outside the Chop Shop, although he doesn’t remember getting there. Y/N is unharmed also, although Connor can say for certainty that there is still something wrong about them. It takes him a moment to get his scattered thoughts in order, and then he remembers. Y/N’s eyes wink pearlescent at him from a few paces away, and he knows.
“You’re a guardian angel,” Connor stammers out.
Y/N nods. “I am.”
Easy as that. They say it like it’s nothing. Like Connor hasn’t just had his life saved by a supernatural being currently sitting criss-cross applesauce in front of him on the waving grass. He’s had a lot of time to wonder what it would be like to meet a guardian angel, but it never would have occurred to him that one would have been in his life this entire time without him knowing.
Connor stares unseeingly at them. Try as he might, he can’t force himself to believe that Y/N is anything other than, well, Y/N. His friend. His best friend. The person he’s been crushing on since they stumbled into him by accident in the dark of Sonia’s basement. He remembers the flighty beat of their heartbeat when they were in his arms then, and he remembers what it felt like when they embraced him again in the smothering heat of the Chop Shop inferno. All Y/N. All an angel.
“You were trying to save me,” he begins, then stops. That really sums it up.
“I was,” Y/N agrees. “It was always about you, Connor.”
The idea doesn’t compute to him. “Then why wait until now to save my life? Why not make sure the Juveys never found us out in the first place?”
Y/N tilts their head to the side, considering this. “The job of a guardian angel is to save their primary assignment, sure, but also to minimize suffering wherever they go. I knew the Chop Shop explosion would happen if I didn’t save you. This needed to happen so everyone else here could be rescued. Worse things would have happened if I didn’t interfere now. It may not seem that way, but it is.”
Connor can practically feel gears in his head spinning. “So you knew how this would end the whole time?”
“I knew the great catastrophes of your life,” Y/N corrects. “I knew many paths you could take. This was the big risk, though. I didn’t get to see any more after that. Now I know just as much about your future as you do.”
Connor whistles under his breath. “That’s comforting.” Then, a terrible thought occurs to him. “Wait, that means I was your assignment. Like a job? Were you ever really my friend at all, or was that just something you had to do to complete your assignment?”
Y/N rears back as if hurt. “I have always been your friend. Guardian angels aren’t supposed to ever reveal themselves. I was actually meant to never talk to you until I saved you.”
“What changed?” Connor asks. He can’t stop himself.
Y/N smiles softly. “I saw you. You looked like someone fun.”
“Someone fun,” Connor echoes. He tries to think about his life, if anyone could see that and decide he was someone worthwhile. Someone fun. Someone an angel could watch and want to befriend. A warm feeling blossoms in his chest. Pride, maybe. Or the realization that the one secret he’s been keeping may go both ways after all.
“Yeah,” Y/N says, growing a little embarrassed. “I like you. My bad.”
Connor laughs. “That’s not bad. I like you too, by the way. In case you didn’t see it when you were receiving visions about my life.”
Y/N’s eyes dart up to his. “Really?”
“Really,” Connor says. “What, you didn’t know?”
Y/N shakes their head. “Like I said, I could only see what happened to you up to the Chop Shop exploding. Everything after that is a mystery.”
“Well,” Connor says, drawing closer to them. “I’m glad I get to surprise an angel once in my life.”
Before Y/N can ask him what he means, Connor kisses them, and after a moment of shock, they kiss him back. He’s not sure if he’s the first person in the world to have kissed an angel before, but he wouldn’t mind having that accolade under his belt. Just so long as he gets to be the person to kiss an angel two times, or three. Or forever.
requested by @julysn, i hope you enjoy!
unwind tag list: @reinekes-fox, @locke-writes, @sirofreak
seven devils all around me - connor lassiter x roland taggart
Connor Lassiter is stuck in the basement beneath an antique store. Roland Taggart is waiting for him.
masterlist
They take the Unwinds away one by one.
It makes it better, somehow. The waiting. Better and worse. Better, because this means they’ll each individually move faster than if everyone was removed from the cellar underneath Sonia’s antique shop in one great, easily distracted group. Better, because there’s a slimmer chance of everyone getting caught by vengeful Juvey-cops if there’s just one feral moving at a time than a group of a dozen dead kids walking.
Worse, because it means that the familiar faces are disappearing slowly but surely. The idea exists that they are being taken somewhere safe, but no one can be certain. All Connor Lassiter knows is that the few people in this world that he even halfway trusts are vanishing into the hands of khaki-uniformed strangers. Every few days, someone else goes up the trapdoor and back into the light, and their numbers shrink down to dust, a not-quite friend group being wound down into a mere handful of uneasy souls.
At first, it didn’t trouble Connor all that much. He pictured it like a doctor’s waiting room: no matter how long he waited, they’d all be seen eventually. A couple of the kids he barely knew were taken first, which didn’t matter, but then he got to know the rest better and their loss hurt more than when he didn’t remember their names, so. That’s what he gets for trying to make friends, apparently.
As their numbers seriously started to thin, though, Connor started getting shifty again. All of a sudden, there were four. Connor and Risa (the baby removed first, probably less out of moral obligation than the need to get the wailing infant out of that tiny space), joined at the hip ever since they crossed paths while running away. Also remaining in the darkness is Hayden in the back, trying out his sarcastic jokes on an ever-shrinking group of people, and, because the universe apparently cannot hate Connor enough, Roland.
Risa goes next. Connor expected to feel more unsettled by her disappearance after so much time spent watching each other’s backs, but instead the first uncharitable thought in his mind is that at least he won’t be glared at every time he says something wrong. He’s not a flawless human being, even if Risa seems to expect that he’ll be just as perfect as she is.
About half a week later, soldiers in khaki come back down the stairs. Connor waits to see which one of the three remaining unwinds they’ll bring out. It must be him or Roland. Connor’s more of a high profile figure at this point, but Roland’s been here longer, and if they’re trying to get the kids who’ve been waiting for greater intervals, they’ve got to take him out first. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, though.
To Connor’s surprise, the guards instead point to Hayden and gruffly tell him to get a move on. The blond pumps a fist in mock celebration, then glances between Connor and Roland. “Try not to tear each other to pieces, will you? Leave that for the Juveys.”
With those words of wisdom, Hayden heads for the door, not inclined to loiter in the dark basement any more than he has to. Connor can’t blame him. If he had the chance to get out, he’d sprint up those stairs in a heartbeat.
The guards replenish some of the supplies in the basement, then leave at last, shutting the trapdoor behind them with an ominous thud. Connor is left with the chilling realization that Hayden was the last person who could possibly stand between him and Roland. Now that Hayden’s gone, nothing can stop Roland from finally acting on the hatred that’s been simmering between both of them from the second Connor got here.
Connor can’t believe they’d actually leave him here with Roland. When you have two guys who obviously hate each other’s guts, you don’t abandon them to each other. It reminds Connor of a riddle he heard when he was a kid– a chicken, some corn, and a fox stuck on one side of a river, a raft only big enough for two passengers, and a hapless farmer forced to figure out the order in which to ferry his passengers across so nothing gets eaten. Whoever’s playing the game with their lives has obviously fucked up this round, but unlike in a riddle, there are no second tries. Connor is left to get consumed by the fox eyeing him coldly from the other side of the basement.
Above him, the footsteps of the guards and Hayden bleed away, softened by antique rugs and then gone for good. Most days, Connor likes to pretend that he can hear trucks coming and going. It makes him believe that maybe there is a plan for all of them after they leave, that they won’t just be dumped somewhere alone again.
Today, though, he hates it. Hates them for leaving them here. Shouldn’t they know better? Even Hayden managed to figure that out in the span of a second. Any soldier with a week of experience should be able to tell that you don’t stick the two kids who hate each other the most in a dark basement with only the other for company. Already, Connor’s eyes are adjusting to the gloom again, but he doesn’t like the sight any better than he did on his first day.
“So,” a cold voice rings out across the semi-darkness. “They actually left us here alone. Didn’t think they’d do it.”
Connor scoffs, trying not to let any sign of apprehension slip through. “What, you got bored of my lively personality?”
“Humor doesn’t suit you, Connor,” Roland drawls. “Hayden got away with it because we liked him better than you. You can’t hide behind him any longer, though. It’s just us down here. Just you and me.”
“Charming,” Connor mumbles. “But it’ll be over in a few days. Then one of us will be alone. I hope it’s you.”
Something almost like sympathy twists at Connor’s gut as he says it. Even though he despises Roland, the thought of being alone down here in the dark and depressing basement is a fate he would kill to avoid. If he’s thinking that, though, Roland probably is too. And if Connor is willing to kill to not be the one left behind, Roland must be foaming at the mouth at the thought of it.
Roland chuckles. The sound issues across the basement until it coasts up to Connor, making the hair on his arms stand up with a rush. They’ve positioned themselves to be as far apart as possible, but their placement on opposite sides of the basement means that they’re constantly staring each other dead in the eyes. One blink, one glance away, and one of them could be on the other in a heartbeat. So they keep staring, and no one moves. There are no more bodies to keep between them. Just Connor, and Roland, and the awful distance between.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d love it if they left me here? Bet it would make you feel awfully safe if I was locked up all the time. You think you’re a big man, Connor, but you’re scared of me.”
Connor scoffs and looks away. There’s a little too much knowledge in Roland’s gaze, and it sharpens to a knifepoint between Connor’s brows. In his peripheral vision, Connor can see Roland shifting slightly, jutting his chin up. Proud. Correct. Despicable.
“I’m not scared of you. Guys like you are a dime a dozen. If I wanted a greasy thug, I’d go to a gas station.” Connor spits out.
Roland stands in one swift motion, like he’s been yanked up by an invisible hand. Connor’s head jerks back up, but he’s looked back too late– Roland is already moving. The pretense is gone. Whatever they do here, they’ve been building up to it since the first day.
At first, Roland just hovers on the balls of his feet, leaning casually against the wall behind him. The basement is not tall, and he has to bend slightly so his head doesn’t scrape the ceiling. This gives the impression that Roland is leaning towards him, close enough to reach. Close enough to snap his jaws shut around Connor’s throat.
“You are scared,” Roland breathes triumphantly. “You’re so obvious. Even if you left me here, you’d never stop being scared. You’d go all across the world and you’d never stop thinking about me. I’d be a bigger part of you than anything.”
Connor shakes his head. “You’re wrong. You’re nothing to me.”
“I don’t believe you,” Roland hisses, and he’s across the basement in a second. Connor doesn’t even see him move. He blinks and the other boy is standing right in front of him, the tips of his shoes nudging Connor in the sides. He has Connor bracketed just slightly, hardly touching him but making it obvious that Connor cannot move without Roland’s express permission.
“You can’t do that,” Connor says. He feels like a little boy, whining about someone stealing his toy. “You know the rules.”
Roland actually rolls his eyes. “There’s nobody down here, remember? They can’t see us.”
The rest goes unspoken. Nobody is here. Nobody would know. And nobody would tell. Certainly not Connor. That would mean admitting that he let one boy bother him to the point of telling, and even if they fight, Connor’s not a coward. He’s going to handle this himself.
He tries to stand, but Roland’s hand flashes out to grab him, pushing him down to the ground again by the shoulder.
“Get your hands off of me,” Connor spits.
“Make me,” Roland says, all teeth. He pinches Connor’s shoulder as he says it, further proof of what they both know by now to be true: Roland does what he wants, when he wants. And Connor won’t do a thing to stop it.
“You’re crazy,” Connor says, leaning away from Roland. Maybe the guy will back off if Connor pretends he doesn’t care. “Did you get hit on the head recently? Be honest.”
“It’s sweet of you to ask,” Roland simpers. He sinks to one knee so he can get a better read of Connor’s disgust, and they’re practically breathing each other in now, barely a millimeter between them. “Of course, it’s not your job to worry. Not mine, either. It’s not my head anymore, is it? Belongs to the Juveys. Who knows who’ll get my brain? Maybe you might end up with a piece or two.” He knocks his fist against Connor’s temple, less like a punch, more like a tap against an unlocked door. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Not knowing who was flirting with your girl, me or you? Or maybe my brain’s too good for you. Maybe you’d get my arm instead.”
Connor tries not to let his disgust at the idea show, but he’s not entirely successful. His dislike must be obvious, because Roland flashes him a dark grin, the expression broad and all-consuming. “What, you don’t like the ink?”
“I’m not a big fan of dolphins,” Connor hisses back.
Irritated, Roland snaps his jaws, teeth crashing together just a hair’s breadth from the tip of Connor’s nose. He doesn’t flinch, thankfully, but his eyes track the movement nonetheless, which makes Roland’s victorious smile loom again as if he had moved after all.
“See?” Roland says, smooth and slow. “Scared. I see you.”
“You wish,” Connor retorts. “I’d be more scared of a spider.”
“Prove it, then,” Roland tells him. He’s so assured of himself that he even leans back a little, resting casually where he kneels on the cold floor of the basement right in front of Connor. He truly doesn’t believe that Connor could do a damn thing to him that matters.
He’s wrong, though. Connor can. Roland is expecting a fight, or an insult, something he can counter, but that’s the wrong move. Mama may have raised a boy she could give away for forms signed in triplicate but she sure as hell didn’t raise a fool, so Connor knows he must do something terrible, something worse, something to ruin this dark place forever. There’s one last trick up Connor’s sleeve, but it’s the wrong move, it’s the wrong path to start because once he starts going he’ll never stop. He should back off now, but he’s just like Roland in that aspect– could never back down, could never do anything but hurl himself directly into trouble– there is simply no other option– no choice–
Connor’s mouth collides with Roland’s so harshly that their teeth crush together. He has the brief thought that he’d like to do that again, leaving the other boy bloody and bruised, and a sharp spike of something hot but not entirely unpleasant courses through him at the thought. Connor’s hand locks onto Roland’s throat a moment later, fingernails scrabbling for purchase before sliding down to grip the neck of his t-shirt. Maybe he should have gone for the throat first instead of the mouth, but that wasn’t the part that mattered. It was an afterthought. Throttle the boy, but not before you make him yours.
Roland lets out a surprised choke of air, just enough for Connor’s stomach to twist with satisfaction at getting the other hand, before he kisses Connor back with the same force if not more, enough to knock Connor’s head back against the wall. Connor gasps at the impact, giving Roland enough purchase to start pushing him into the ground again. Roland would bury him beneath the earth if he could, Connor thinks. He would erase all evidence that Connor had ever existed. Only Roland would know that he had been there at all.
He’d like that too, Connor thinks with a shiver. Having that power over Connor. Owning him in every way that matters. Absolutely evil, but Connor is worse, because he has seen all of that and liked it. And allowed it to continue. And started it first.
Roland pulls away just a little, leaving both of them panting for breath. He kneels over Connor like a wild animal, and there’s a spark of something new in his eyes. It might be respect. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Lassiter.”
“You don’t know anything,” Connor growls, and forces them back together. One of his hands is bunched in the material of Roland’s shirt, the other reaching up past the throat to knot in Roland’s dark hair. He’s seen it from across the basement for days now, how it seemed to suck in all the light that touched it. He’s wanted to touch it, too, for a very long time. Connor tugs on the roots, jerking Roland’s head back, exposing the veins pulsing against the skin. If he only had a blade– but he is the blade now, he is the weapon. Connor could kill him right now, and he wouldn’t even need a knife.
The thought shocks him out of whatever trance made him do this. Connor pushes him away, suffering for purchase against the dirty floor until he picks himself up and flings himself across the basement, ending up where Roland had been just minutes before. They stare at each other again, so far from where they started, but somehow exactly in the same position. Two lions stuck in a cage, pacing, circling, until one lunges to draw blood and they engage once more.
“This won’t happen again,” Connor informs him. Even he doesn’t believe it.
Roland laughs pityingly. “You tell yourself that. We’ve got plenty of time before they let us out. You’ll get bored. Face it, Connor. You can never let me go.”
Connor shakes his head resolutely. This was a breach of judgment, a one-time slip. A mistake that won’t repeat. But he can still taste Roland’s breath on his tongue, and he can see where Roland’s dark hair is mussed from his hands, and Connor knows– he knows that he is wrong. That it will happen again. And he will start it, or Roland will, or both of them. It won’t matter. In the dark of the basement, where no one knows they’re alive, they can do whatever they want. This is what Connor wants. He's in a position to take it, so he will, again and again until they pull him out.
Then, who cares. He doesn’t have to think about that. He doesn’t have to think at all.
Roland grins. He’s won this round. Connor will have to beat him at something else, find a way to expose his throat to the cold, violent air or otherwise make him weak. He still has two hands and a pulse. He’ll find a way to get back on top.
Until then, Connor doesn’t have to remember a thing. The darkness swallows everything anyway. No point in looking.
a/n: for u babe @nealshustermanbrainrot
unwind tag list: @reinekes-fox, @sirofreak, @locke-writes
Anyways, post undivided/unbound, grace and argent reunion fic please? Like, after the events of Unbound, Grace and the rest of the main gang meetup again and they’re all hanging out on some unknown port. Meanwhile Argent’s there running errands for Divan. The two bump into each other and hurt/comfort reunion ensues!! Also I wanna see Argent grovel for Grace’s forgiveness hehehe (Also the Grace Redemption Arc continues wooo)
'one more game to play ' - grace skinner
masterlist
Grace Skinner is doing well, all things considered. She is not dead. No one wants her dead, either, except perhaps some of the adults down at the park, the ones who sit in front of their chess boards rain or shine in search of a good opponent. It’s not Grace’s fault if they fell for her strategical schemes. Perhaps they should practice more.
Aside from the chess players, though, Grace is fine. She’s doing well as a new entrepreneur of tissue synthesis technology. Her friends, for the most part, are still whole, although Connor Lassiter has a new crop of scars that he doesn’t seem all that keen to show off. They’re getting better, slowly, and everything is fine.
It’s like a game that Grace can play, and she’s excellent at games. Whenever she catches herself slipping, she thinks about good things, like the health of her friends and the success of her latest enterprise. She takes walks. She clears her head, and she doesn’t think about what she shouldn’t. There are topics that are off-limits. Grace knows the rules, and she follows them.
Right now, she’s on her way to meet up with some of her friends. They’ve arranged for everyone to gather at a nearby pier. Apparently, the sea air will do them some good. Plus, the fresh breeze tends to restore all of them to finer spirits. Farther away from the city, they won’t be exposed to things that bring back bad memories, like the precise scent of smoke that burns down an antiques shop, or the routine shuffle of police footsteps outside a hiding place.
No, no. Grace reroutes her thoughts again. She was close there, but she won’t lose the game. She’s been playing it steadily for a while now. They all have. They stick to their houses or go somewhere so far away that no one even knows who they are, but it’s just different versions of the same idea. Different rulebooks, maybe, or different players, but the same damn thing in the end.
At the crosswalk in front of her, two children carefully walk into the road, eyes wide to avoid any cars. There isn’t that much traffic this time of day, but the older one still takes the hand of the younger anyway, ushering them across with far more gravity than the situation perhaps requires. She sees their faces, a boy and a girl, maybe siblings. Grace can remember when she had a brother who would do the same thing for her, before–
Her breath catches in her throat, and Grace remembers.
She’s lost the game again.
Grace doesn’t realize she’s stopped walking until she starts attracting funny looks. Quickly, she starts moving again, picking up the pace. She doesn’t want to be late to the meetup. Tardiness will attract questions, like just what she was doing to cause her to be distracted. Grace is always precise, perfectly on time. She doesn’t usually make mistakes like this. She doesn’t usually lose the game when she’s so certain about winning.
She keeps walking, passing the two maybe-siblings and leaving them far behind. They don’t matter. They’re just kids. Grace is older than them by many years and many memories. She does not have to look at them and wish that she could have her brother back, even for the time it took to cross the street, even for one half-moment when she could just talk to him and say–
Something, maybe. Grace doesn’t even know. She doesn’t have to know. Grace doesn’t know where Argent Skinner is and she probably never will. Connor told her that her brother was alive, but even he didn’t know where Argie had ended up. Her brother is pretty good at keeping to himself, even if he’s better when he has someone to talk to. That person used to be Grace. She doesn’t know who’s taken her place, but she hopes they’re good enough.
Most of her friends have arrived by the time Grace shows up at the pier. She waves hello to the ones she knows best, and casts a hopefully warm glance towards the ones that are more like acquaintances. Connor gestures for her to join him and Risa in a lively debate; apparently, they encountered an open-ended riddle while traveling here, and wish to have her input.
The discussion is broadened to the group at large, and in between trying to figure it out, people start talking about where they’ve been and what they’ve been up to since the last time they were all together. Hayden’s trying his hand at public speaking, although he says it feels different when many people are actually watching him instead of just listening along. Lev has been working with Miracolina on how to prepare past tithes for the future they never planned on reaching. And Grace, of course, has the organ printer. All good things.
Still, she can’t help her gaze from drifting listlessly from the many faces on the pier back towards the bustling business of the port. Grace likes spending time with her friends, really she does, but having this many people here gives her the expectation that she’s got to perform for them in some way, be a better version of herself without quite knowing how, and it tends to stress her out a little. Looking at the bricks of the low buildings, watching the cars driving back and forth across the roads, is a lot easier to focus on than the discordant harmonies of so many voices.
Grace can feel her pulse starting to come back down again, and then she sees a silhouette slipping out of an open door. Their back is to her, so she can’t make out their face, but the advantage of spending one’s entire life around one single person is that you tend to remember them, and Grace swears she knows this person perfectly. The swing of his arms as he walks, the absentminded tilt of his head. This– this is Argent. Impossibly, it’s Argent. Grace’s brother. The reason she has to keep distracting herself from the awful truth that the closest part of her family is gone.
Grace’s breath catches in her throat. Truth be told, she didn’t even know if Argent was alive. He certainly hadn’t reached out to her, but then again, he would have no way of doing so. Vividly, Grace’s mind flashes back to a terrible night in Ohio, when she had seen a man she had thought was Argent, only to see part of her brother’s face on a different guy’s body. What if this is the same thing all over again? What if he really was unwound, even despite being old enough to avoid the limit, and one recipient just happened to get all of her brother.
Grace should look away and spare herself another horrorshow. She can’t take another brother-based heartbreak, that would go beyond losing the game to losing herself. Still, the silhouette mocks her silently as it walks away. It looks an awful lot like Argent, doesn’t it?
She can’t take it anymore and murmurs an excuse to her friends before heading off back down the pier towards the town. The young man who could be Argent Skinner isn’t walking all that fast, ambling in the vague direction of his destination, wherever that may be. By contrast, Grace is setting new records for speed walking, fists pumping as she hurries towards her supposed brother.
Just before she reaches him, Grace hangs back a little, giving herself time to judge the situation. If she’s wrong, she’s wrong now, and she’ll know it. However, the more Grace looks, the more she’s certain that this is indeed Argent. She steadies herself slightly, curling her hands into tight fists, and says uncertainly, “Argie?”
The figure stands stock-still, all momentum blown out of him like a limp sail on dead seas. Slowly, he turns around. There’s a moment before he completely faces Grace, a moment in which time feels as if it takes twice as long to pass. The instant of hesitation lasts for infinities, and then the figure stands directly in front of her and she knows– she knows it’s her brother. Knows it like breathing, like plotting out the winning move in a chess match. This is Argent, and she is Grace, and they are back together again.
For a while, they don’t say anything at all, just taking in the sight of each other. At last, Grace understands just what was done to her brother– half of his face is still scarred, as it was when Connor Lassiter attacked him when escaping his capture, but half of it is even more so damaged, still vaguely pink and irritated from the lingering aftereffects of a biobandage.
“Your face,” Grace says uncertainly, then immediately wishes she hadn’t.
Argent’s hand rises up instinctively– not to the fresh scars, as Grace had assumed he would, but to the old ones, the wounds Connor had given him. It’s as if he’s afraid that the other side of his face, too, would be ripped away when he least expected it. Dear God. What have they done to him?
“Never trust a parts pirate,” Argent growls.
So that’s what had happened. It makes sense that the man with Argent’s face that Grace encountered before he burned down the antique store would be a parts pirate. It also makes sense that Argent had tried to trust one. Lonely, hopeless Argent, who kidnapped the Akron AWOL then lost it all because he just had to post a selfie of the two of them together, who had joined up with a disreputable parts pirate because he wanted some grand expedition of revenge. Faceless Argent, who bears a countenance of wounds marking both times he learned his lesson.
Argent squints at her. “How could I? You left home and so did I. ‘Sides, I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me, on account of you running off with Connor and me trying to hunt you two down.” Upon seeing Grace’s crestfallen face, he adds hastily, “That didn’t mean I didn’t want to, though. Christ, Gracie, you’re my sister. That might not mean a whole lot at times, but I’ve felt rough about it ever since. Seeing you is good, though.”
“Thanks,” Grace whispers. All of a sudden, she feels eleven again, never quite saying the right thing to her cooler brother, not enough to make her one of his friends but enough to be a sister, as always. Well, maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world. Being a sister. It means she would feel less alone than she had before.
“I owe you more than that,” Argent confesses. “I’ve treated you something awful, haven’t I? Enough to make you run off with Connor and not come back. I’ve overlooked you, Gracie. I’ve treated you badly. It just tore me up inside, thinking that maybe you’d get hurt because of stuff I did. Say you’ll forgive me, won’t you?”
Grace hesitates a bit, mulling his words over, then nods at last. “I do forgive you, Argie.”
Her brother’s face washes over in relief. “I’m mighty glad to hear that, I have to say.”
She chuckles. “I’m mighty glad to hear you apologize. Thought you never would.”
“So did I,” he admits.
They stand for a few moments in awkward silence, not sure what to do now that the obvious has been taken care of. Then, in a sudden flash of reality, Grace remembers the group still bunched out on the pier. “A couple of us are hanging out past the docks. Do you want to join us?”
There’s a careful light behind Argent’s weatherbeaten eyes. “Are you sure? I reckon they might not be the happiest to see me right now.”
“Don’t mind that,” Grace says with a wave of her hand. “You saved Connor when he was unwound, right? He told me about that.”
“The Akron AWOL is saying I saved his life?” Argent asks, unconsciously puffing out his chest a little.
“He is,” Grace confirms. “Come on, you can hear him say it for yourself.”
With that, she turns and starts walking back towards the pier. A few moments later, she hears Argent following her. He catches up when they’re about to cross the street, insisting on going a half step earlier so he can watch for cars. Grace instantly remembers the younger pair of siblings she’d seen just an hour or so earlier. She’s got her brother back, she realizes with piercing clarity. They’re together again, the two Skinners, watching out for each other once more.
Connor Lassiter thought he'd stop hearing the Graveyard's piano once Risa Ward left. Y/N L/N may prove him wrong. It does not hurt him as much as he thought it would. Far from it, actually.
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Connor Lassiter almost thinks he’s hallucinating when he first hears the piano.
It’s not that he’s so far removed from any semblance of humanity that the possibility of culture and art is obscene; despite what Proactive Citizenry would like to argue, AWOLs aren’t gremlins nor creatures of destruction only. Connor can stand to hear a melody. He just isn’t used to it. Not here.
Certainly not since Risa was abducted. The piano did not desiccate into ash and dust when she left, and the fact that she’s being held hostage somewhere unknown to Connor does not glue all the keys in place nor stop them from being played. Every Unwind here has the capability to bang out a tune if they so desire. They just don’t, either out of respect to Risa’s memory or perhaps a lingering fear that someone will see a prodigy in their fingers and try to carve the skill out of their digits themselves.
Connor stands motionless in the shadow of a grounded jet, listening to the chords echo off of the rusting metal. It kind of feels like he’s being haunted by the Ghost of AWOL Girlfriends Past, even though he and Risa never agreed on anything of the sort. However, referring to the lingering feeling of wrongness nestled between his lungs and ribs as just, like, the Ghost of Crushes He Thought He Had but Maybe That’s Just What Happens When The Only People You See On A Daily Basis Are A Tithe, Roland, And One Token Girl, is way too many words.
So, Girlfriends Past works. Kind of. Not really. What does work properly around here, though? The Graveyard lives up to its name. Kids come here carrying with them only the memories of when they understood what was going on around them. You can find a job to do, and you can like it enough to make the days pass by until you survive to seventeen, but it’ll never fit you like anything did before you came here. Functionality is best. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to keep you alive.
Connor thinks this mysterious piano player might have to agree. He can hear occasional slip ups in the music, nothing too jarring but still there if you care to listen. He is, of course, hanging onto every note like it’ll save him from all of the Juvey-cops combined, so he listens.
This, if nothing more, is how he knows it isn’t Risa. Risa always stopped when she made a mistake, every single time. Even if it was something as simple as a skipped rest or one forgotten flat. It was like she was looking for excuses to point out her imperfections, subconsciously proving that StaHo Ohio 23 was right to kick her out.
By contrast, this latest would-be maestro just doesn’t care. They could actually be flawless, or they could just be human. Either way, the melody keeps going. Connor decides that he likes it better that way, which is pointless, because the music doesn’t need his approval. It’s also kind of mean to Risa’s legacy, but Connor’s mind is still Connor’s with or without Risa there, and he likes the melody with accidental sharps instead of flats regardless.
Impulsively, Connor slips out from his hiding place underneath the jet, searching around for the distant sound of chords until they get louder. It reminds him of being at a public pool when he was younger, playing a game with his brother. Marco. His footsteps seem to crash through the relative quiet of the Graveyard; everyone else has ceased work for the evening, but he’s here anyway. Polo. The piano sounds out a path for him to follow.
He takes one last turn and then it’s there right in front of him. The piano has gotten a little dustier since it first appeared out of nowhere in the airplane junkyard, but they’ve all attempted to clean it off every now and then. A figure is seated at the bench, and after a moment of squinting, Connor recognizes them. Y/N, Y/N L/N. They’d arrived recently, all things considered. They never knew Risa but they know him. Isn’t that better?
They lay off playing abruptly when Connor steals too close. “Sorry,” they murmur, eyes wide, “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Connor shakes his head quickly. “No, no. Keep going.” He realizes belatedly that sounds a little harsh. “If you want to, of course.”
They crack a cautious smile. “You sure? I can pick up another time if it’s disturbing people’s work or sleep.”
Connor glances back at the slumbering hulks of metal and flight machinery behind him. “No, I think they’ll be glad for it. It’s been a while since we’ve heard someone play.”
Y/N’s expression turns bleak. “Yeah, I heard about that. Risa Ward used to play this piano, right?”
They start to draw their hands back from the keys. Connor reaches out an arm, as if to physically drag them to the ivories once more. “She used to, but you do now, right? Don’t let her stop you.”
Y/N blinks up at him, and Connor is starting to wonder if he can perhaps call a parts pirate to just take him away now forever when they smile again, cautious and sweet, and put their fingers back on the keys. Good.
Connor leans against the curve of the piano, and he lets the music vibrate through the instrument and into him. If he tries, he thinks he can feel it pressing against his bones, his blood, his organs, invisible surgeon’s hands not trying to dissect him, just to remind him that he is still alive. This is almost the opposite of unwinding. It feels as if he is being put back together.
A few minutes, or perhaps centuries of unadulterated time, later, Connor registers that the music has ceased. He’s not sure how long ago Y/N stopped playing, nor when his eyes closed, but perhaps everything has always just been in his head, anyway.
He looks over at Y/N, who is looking at him, and he is struck by the magnitude of all the things he wants to say. He should compliment them on their skill, or at least appreciate their courage for playing when people like him could hear, but instead of anything good or at least neutral, he coughs once, and asks, “Am I being weird?”
Y/N laughs, easy and clear. “No, you’re not. Really, you’re not,” they add, upon Connor’s face twisting doubtfully. “I’m glad to know someone likes it. It would be more weird if everyone thought I was terrible but they were all too afraid to say something about it.”
Connor chuckles. “Well, there’s no chance of that, trust me. If they try to complain, I’ll fight them off.”
Y/N grins. “Well, if you’re going to be my guard, you might as well stay. You can sit, if you want,” and they gesture to the empty space next to them on the piano bench.
Connor stares uncomprehendingly at the open spot, and then moves cautiously to sit down by their side. They almost touch, and the ghost of that would-be contact makes him feel far more alive than if their shoulders were pressed all the more firmly together.
“Another song?” They ask him.
“Please,” he answers, and the fingers are placed upon the keys once more.
Connor tilts his head back, staring up at the sky. He imagines what it would feel like to leave this body, this world, behind, and soar all the way up to the sky. He could leave these fears and dangers behind, these rumors of parts pirates and Juvey-cops and parents who did not want him enough to keep him. Listening to Y/N’s music, he thinks he is halfway there already.
unwind tag list: @schroedingers-kater, @locke-writes
everything is blue • conrisa space au • Chapter Seventeen: Returning the Favor
Risa Ward escaped a shuttle destined for her certain, painful death. Connor Lassiter ran away from home before it was too late. Lev Calder was kidnapped. All of them were supposed to be dissected for parts, used to advance a declining galaxy, but as of right now, all of them are whole. Life will not stay the same way forever.
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Connor Lassiter stares at Death. Death stares back at Connor Lassiter.
Dorian Heartland is not an easy man to look at. Connor doesn’t like doing it, but taking his eyes off of this infernal creator for even one moment could offer Heartland a chance to take Connor’s pupils for his own, so he refuses to budge his gaze even one millimeter.
All this does, though, is to give Connor a good look at everything that makes Heartland so horrifically wrong. He can see in the stiffness of Risa’s posture, the flightiness of her breath, that she’s caught on to who this is too, although by this point that would almost be impossible to avoid. Dorian Heartland is like no other man Connor has ever met before, though that might be because Dorian Heartland is no longer made up of any of his original birth parts, nor the secondary parts that replaced him, nor the ones that swapped him out after that. Connor can’t even begin to fathom what iteration of lungs he must have inside someone else’s ribcage– is the fourth generation of blood pumping through his veins, perhaps? The fifth?
Connor wonders what parts Heartland will take from Connor as some sort of grisly hunting trophy. The eyes, maybe. Everyone likes the eyes. Snatching his heart would be a particularly satisfying touch, too. If Connor wasn’t so disgusted by the idea of harvesting someone else’s bits and pieces to keep himself intact, maybe he, too, could see the allure in holding Heartland’s brain in his head, clenching the pink matter between his knuckles and knowing that someone else’s entire life and soul was in his hands.
Well. His and Roland’s. Connor is no better than this grave robber. Even though the switching out of arms was unintentional, Connor still bears the limb and tattoo of another teenager. Does that make him any closer to Heartland? Will it spare him from Heartland’s punishment? No and no, but it does paint a rather more confusing portrait. It would be easier if Connor were totally blameless, of course, but no one in this galaxy ever is. The same chain that breaks our wrists will help us up one day, and then it will kill our best friend and worst enemy in turn. All Connor can do is hope to stay alive, but even now, that seems like one last possibility that’s slipped out of his reach.
Heartland smiles indulgently, taking in the startled looks on their faces. “Now, now. Don’t give yourselves an aneurysm trying to figure out how I tracked you down. I need all of your brain matter to be as functional as possible. You won’t believe the number of potential buyers who have been contacting me in the hopes of getting a piece from the two of you.”
“I’m trying extra hard now,” Connor says dryly.
Heartland has the nerve to roll his eyes like a petulant teenager. Connor wonders if that motion is uniquely Dorian, or if it’s from an actual AWOL who’s still not past his rebellious teenager phase even if he’s landed in the body of someone like Heartland. Regardless, the sudden movement makes Heartland’s whole face bulge unevenly as different sections of skin resist tension with varying rates of success, old and young parts making themselves known. For a moment, Connor swears he can see every piece of Heartland for what it is, can map every seam and stitch, and then the man’s face returns to neutral again and the effect is undone.
“Don’t be sulky, Connor, it does you no good.” Heartland admonishes him.
Connor folds his arms across his chest. “Oh, so you’re going to lecture me before you rip off my limbs? How charitable of you.”
“I’m not ripping off your limbs, that would be my expert team of surgeons,” Heartland clarifies. “Besides, ripping is entirely too gory of a description. Distribution is a perfectly reasonable procedure. The galaxy has ensured that it’s completely scientific, with as little pain to the distributes as possible. You simply must get your mind out of the gutter. Speak elegantly or don’t speak at all, Connor. I don’t want that tongue to be corrupted more than necessary.”
Beside him, Risa narrows her eyes at the man. “Was that little flower bed over there produced in the name of elegant speech, or did you just want an excuse for other people to talk about unwinding without putting words in your mouth?”
She jerks her chin towards a display somewhere beyond them. Connor thinks he remembers her coming from that direction when she’d run over to tell him that they had been caught. He wishes fleetingly that he had been closer, that he’d never suggested splitting up at all, that they had just put themselves first like every other soul in the galaxy seems wont to do, but the dreams evaporate in time, leaving him only the stark reality of having been caught in the pointless effort of trying to save lives.
Heartland chuckles, evidently remembering what Risa’s talking about. “Oh yes, the flowers. The last band of upstarts had the same reaction. I love it when we’re all on one page.”
Connor frowns, wondering if some other group of runaway unwinds had made it here before them to be the ‘band of upstarts’ Heartland referred to. He hadn’t seen anyone in the airspace above them when he landed, and certainly Connor would have heard if someone sprung Heartland’s trap a few standard hours ago, but then it occurs to him that Heartland isn’t mentioning events earlier that day at all.
No, Heartland is recollecting the last group of kids who tried to act as heroes for the galaxy. Connor hasn’t heard of any in a while, but even without the Collective’s propensity for propaganda whitewashing everything into blank silence, the last batch of would-be saviors would have been around decades ago. Heartland could be referring to infinite rounds of kids who didn’t want to die, all stretching back for centuries.
How many unwinds have stood in this exact spot? How many generations of children have tried to kill off Heartland or his policies but failed? Connor and Risa are far from the first, nor, judging by the fact that they’ve already been caught, will they be the last. This cycle will go on forever, as surely as a thousand suns rise and set across the galaxy, as certainly as the never ending rotation of fresh organs from the body of a child into the frame of an adult. Teenagers will rise out of obscurity, challenge the notion that the young should die for the wastefulness of the old, and then they will be struck down all because one man has cheated them of their last resource: time.
Of course Dorian Heartland wins every round. He has the luxury of knowing the full story every time. Heartland knows how the rebellions start, so he can crush them in their infancy. He knows how the last stragglers turn into martyrs, so he can lay expert traps and avoid their attempts to save their friends. Starkey’s little attack may have caught him off-guard, and Connor may have been able to run from him once, but now Heartland has had time to consider their strategies and plan accordingly. Dozens of Connors have tried to make a stand, and Heartland has killed them every time. What is Connor now but one more replacement? Heartland is swapping out another one of his parts: the rebel, the fighter, the loose end in his plans. He’s done it before. He’ll do it again.
Connor feels his stomach roll, low and heavy. He wants to scream and scream until the sickness leaves his body and goes into Heartland, until Dorian Heartland of old-Earth and always having enough remembers what it’s like to crave survival more than anything else.
Instead, he rocks back and forth on his heels twice, trying to force himself to stay under control. He’s got to stall so he has time to plan. Connor can hear slight rustling on the paths surrounding them. The other park visitors are conspicuously not looking their way, leading him to believe that they’ve been planted here to alert Heartland to their eventual presence without tipping off Connor and Risa that anything was wrong. That means everyone here will try to stop them if they run, plus more soldiers are likely on the way. There’s a clear opening somewhere behind Heartland, a path out of the park and into the surrounding streets, but they’d have to get past Heartland first.
In order to give himself an opportunity to conjure up an escape plan, though, Connor needs what he has always lacked: more time. He stares at Heartland, and asks, “How did you find us, then? Did you put a tracker in my blood while you had me in your hospital?”
Heartland scoffs. “And risk damaging the product like that? Certainly not. I will admit, you had me worried when you threw yourself from the window, but as it turns out, I didn’t have to worry. You wanted yourself intact as much as I did.”
Risa scowls protectively. “Don’t act as if you cared about his survival. You just want his pieces.”
Heartland turns to her with an affronted stare. Immediately, Connor wants to say something stupid so the man will focus on him instead. Nothing good comes of Heartland’s gaze, Connor can say that for certain.
“Oh, and you care so much more? Risa Megan Ward, abandoned to a State Home when you were a child. You value the Akron AWOL more than I do? Not just because his survival ensures that you’ll end up alive?”
Risa meets his gaze coolly. “You’re wrong,” she says simply. “I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you. Connor trusts me and I trust him.”
Her expression is completely certain, but Connor swears he still sees her relax microscopically when he adds on, “You can’t turn us against each other, Heartland. Save your tricks for someone who cares.”
Heartland just shrugs. “You’d be surprised how many battle-scarred partners in survival will abandon each other for the opportunity to live. It’s worked before.”
Not for us, Connor thinks decisively. Like every other AWOL before him, he believes at once that the two of them will be the first to actually make it work.
Dorian Heartland ignores this, unaware or perhaps simply not caring that yet another round of teenagers believes that they can save themselves. He’s seen it often enough that it probably doesn’t even register. “No, Connor, I couldn’t track you. I simply had to lay a trap. I was going to ransom your friends from the Graveyard so you’d come to me, but you beat me to it.”
Connor realizes he’s referring to the massacre at the harvest colony. “That wasn’t us,” he blurts out before registering belatedly that he probably shouldn’t give away more than Heartland expressly tells him.
Heartland, however, doesn’t seem surprised by this. “Oh, I know. My men arrived perhaps a few standard hours after you left. They checked the security holos and saw both the attack and your shocked reaction. I must admit, however, that I already guessed it wasn’t you. You two didn’t seem the type for tasteless bloodshed.”
“As opposed to the tasteful bloodshed of unwinding?” Connor fires back. He can see Risa eyeing the exits as well. She’s always been good at planning; so long as he keeps Heartland talking, he gives her more chances to save them. If there’s one thing Connor can do, though, it’s talk. This is fine. It has to be.
Heartland sighs. “You must let go of this unnatural fear of yours, Connor,” he chides. “You don’t run around screaming at cosmic pilots for transcending humanity by exposing people to the horrors of spaceflight, do you? Even though the risks from accidentally entering a wormhole or dying star are far more gruesome than a clinical distribution.”
Connor stares at him, bewildered. “Those aren’t even remotely the same thing. Get better metaphors.”
“If you insist,” Heartland remarks, looking vexingly unbothered by this, “I’ll tell my surgeons to have my next cranial implant come from a writer or a poet. Will that make you feel better?”
Connor wants to tell Heartland in no uncertain terms that something that would make him feel better would involve Connor’s fist going somewhere very nonclinical indeed, but Risa places a gentle hand on his arm, a quiet reminder to cool it, and he manages to swallow back the anger before it consumes him entirely.
“So,” Connor says, fighting the urge to scream, “The trap. It didn’t work.”
Heartland arches a brow dubiously. “Of course it did. You’re here.”
Connor shakes his head, exasperated yet again by the man’s wording. “No, no. The trap with the Graveyard kids. We’re going chronologically. It failed because everyone in the colony was taken.”
“Did it?” Heartland remarks. “Because I still have all of my distributes back with me.”
Too late, Connor realizes that he’s misread the situation again. “Starkey already came back here,” he whispers quietly. “You got them back.”
“Of course I did,” Heartland says mildly. “He fell for the same lie you did. Funny, no matter the technique– blood or bargaining– both of you dropped all of your good sense the moment you heard there were distributes about to die.”
Risa lets out a slow gasp. “You have everybody?”
Strangely enough, Heartland wavers slightly before he answers. “Yes.”
“No,” Connor guesses. “You don’t. Someone escaped. He’s got a big group, someone could have slipped through the cracks.”
At the bright flash of warning in Heartland’s eyes, Connor knows he’s struck it right. Risa grins. “Starkey got away didn’t he? Little starspawn always puts himself first.”
Heartland’s mood has gone sour, and when he starts to move forward, Connor knows that the time for monologuing is over. “It doesn’t matter. He can’t run far. I have you, I have his supporters. All of you will be in pieces by the end of the week. A few hours in between captures makes no difference to me.”
Connor grabs Risa’s hand, throwing himself forward towards the gap he’d seen earlier. Immediately, a few passersby try to block their passage, but they’re both running now, as fast as they can. Connor knocks into somebody as he hurtles back through the park, but he doesn’t check to see who it was. Anyone who isn’t Risa is an enemy now, and anyone in their path will be trampled on their way to freedom.
Something whistles over Connor’s shoulder and buries itself in a nearby synth-hedge. He recognizes the slim dart as he passes, calling out to Risa in between gasps for air, “They’re shooting tranqs at us! Be careful.”
“Always am,” Risa growls under her breath, pulling him around a tight corner.
The tall gate marking the entrance of the park is within sight, and Connor puts on an extra burst of speed, willing them to get there. They can lose the guards in the streets if they have to, but right now, with everyone so close behind them, there’s no way they could last forever.
As he thinks this, Connor hears a tranq gun fire somewhere behind them, plus the whistle as the dart flies through the air. A quiet thunk sounds, and since Connor can’t feel any pain, he assumes it’s another miss, right up until the point when Risa stumbles and starts to fall.
Immediately, he starts to panic. Connor catches her before she hits the ground. As he helps her up, his hands brush the dart sticking out of her shoulder. “No,” he mutters urgently. Connor needs Risa to be able to run. It’ll be tricky to carry her unconscious body as he sprints through the city, trying to shake the Juvey-cops, but Connor has made the last year or so banking on similar impossibilities. For Risa, he might as well stop distribution altogether while he’s at it.
Clutching Risa to him, Connor stumbles through the gate. They’ll get out, they have to. Risa’s body slides from his arms the second before he’s past the twin iron bar doors, though. Already over the threshold, he spins around to retrieve her, but the doors of the gate slam shut in his face. Belatedly, he realizes that Risa is the one who pulled herself free, and it is Risa now who is locking the gate between the two of them, making sure that no one else can get out. More specifically, she is ensuring that Connor cannot get her back.
Connor tugs desperately at the metal bars of the gate, but they don’t budge. Risa has grabbed a synth-vine from the ground and is knotting it around the handles, taking extra precautions to avoid them opening.
“No!” He screams, voice raw. “Don’t you do this to me, Risa. Don’t you leave me. You promised.”
Connor feels like a child begging for something he can’t have. You promised. But they had promised, both of them, they’d sworn they’d either make it out of this alive or die together. Yet here Risa is now, locking herself and the Juveys on the other side of a wall from him.
Risa tries to answer, but already, her words are slurring, her movements impeded as the tranq works its way through her system. “You– you can’tttt– get both of us outt,” she tells him. “Save yoursellllfff, Connnnnnor. Like you did for meee.”
Connor yells that he won’t do it, he won’t, but the Juveys are upon her already, dragging Risa’s unconscious body back from the doors. It’s too late to save her, and as a gate farther down the length of the park opens up, spilling out cops onto the street about half a block from Connor, he knows that he can’t waste her sacrifice, either.
So, hating himself with every step he takes away from her, Connor turns and runs down the street, pushing himself faster and faster. Connor swears that half of his life has been running at this point. He wonders if he’ll ever stop. He wonders if he will ever forgive himself for not being the one to sacrifice himself for Risa again. He wants to tell her that he wasn’t worth this, not at the cost of her, but she can’t hear him anymore.
Connor skids down a series of alleyways. There are guards everywhere, it feels like, breathing down his back and drawing closer to him with every step he takes. Connor pulls himself up a rickety fire escape so he can use the roofline to skirt over a high gate. After that, it’s easier to drop into a new set of alleys, to cling to the shadows, to shove a hand over his mouth to muffle the wild gasps for breath as the cops go thundering past. Connor’s good at hiding, but hiding won’t save anyone but himself.
Connor sags back against the grimy wall of the back alley as reality comes crashing in again. Risa is gone. The Deadmen who managed to escape their harvest colony when Starkey saved them have been captured once again. Connor is well and truly on his own. What can one boy do to save all of his friends from dying?
Heartland would tell him nothing. Connor’s brain is telling him nothing too, but his heart whispers a different story. He can’t give up hope, not now. Hundreds of AWOLs are counting on him to break them out. Even if it kills him, Connor can at least try.
He pokes his head out of the shadow, risking a glance into the relatively dim light of the alleyway. He doesn’t hear anything, nor see any crowds of Juvey-cops waiting on him, so he creeps out a little farther, taking careful, treacherous steps down the alley and into the sun again.
Connor emerges onto a quiet scene. He can see streets unfurling somewhere in the distance. In between them, an abandoned court for some sports game that was too expensive to make it over to the OH-10 sector. Connor pads onto the smooth ground. He can’t tell what material it is, just firm enough to make him feel like the ground is solid beneath his feet, but giving just enough that he won’t risk injury.
Is this what it means to live at the heart of Centerworld? Forget the synth-gardens and false flowers; they can create entire worlds for themselves, custom-tailor planets and star systems to fit their plans. No wonder Heartland could get away with rewriting his physical body. There is no limit to innovation here, and no limit to how much they’ll strip away from the outer systems to make that happen.
Connor makes it halfway across the court before someone calls his name.
“Connor. Long time, no see.”
The words make the hairs on the back of Connor’s neck stand up. He hasn’t heard that voice in a while, but he’d recognize it anywhere. Even from somewhere behind him in the creeping metal tunnels of the Graveyard. Even glitchy and broken up from a security holo. Even now, on a planet that belongs to neither of them.
Starkey.
Connor turns around slowly, hands raising from his sides to be ready for whatever trouble is about to come his way. “What do you want?”
Starkey chuckles. His hair has gotten brighter since Connor saw him last; lighter, closer to gold than red, like a fire that’s heightened to an inferno. Connor certainly feels as if he’s a bit of pitch and charcoal, crumbling away to ash. How is it fair that Starkey had time to sit around and re-dye the locks while Connor was hurling from star system to star system in an effort to save the people he holds dear? It’s impossible. This confrontation was not supposed to happen yet. Connor needs to direct all of his focus towards saving Risa. There is no room in his plan for tangling with Starkey.
Starkey, like usual, does not seem like he cares much about what Connor wants. “That’s rude, you know. I thought you’d have kinder words for an old friend.”
“We’re not friends,” Connor spits. “Not since you had your little show on that harvest colony.”
Starkey’s grin broadens, clearly delighted. “You saw that? I was wondering if you would. Do you have any constructive criticism? I mean, you’re the king for taking down Juveys, you did do it first, but I think I did mine with a bit more flavor. You were never willing to commit. You can’t save the unwinds without willing to do whatever it takes.”
“And butchery is whatever it takes?” Connor asks dryly. “Funny, I thought that’s what we were trying to stop in the first place.”
Starkey’s incandescent smile flicks out in a second. Connor still feels like the manic grin was creepier than the dead stare, though. At least now, Connor knows what’s coming. They’re not friends and they never have been. The sooner Starkey put away the adoring fan image, the better.
“Don’t tell me you miss the doctors who would have unwound us,” he hisses. “They wanted us in pieces, Connor. They would have taken your organs in a heartbeat, and they sure as sunfire wouldn’t be crying for you like you are for them. Niceness won’t get you anywhere. They don’t have a moral compass, so why should I?”
“It’s not just the distributors you have to win over, it’s the entire galaxy.” Connor tells him. “Can’t you see that? No one will agree to stop distribution if they’re terrified of us. We have to convince people in every single star system that we deserve saving, but so long as you’re bombing out harvest colonies, that’s not going to happen. You have to play the long game.”
Starkey’s eyes flash, and Connor is briefly reminded of the flare of the exploding engines back on the Graveyard right before the whole place went nuclear. “No, Connor, you’re the one who doesn’t get it. They’ll only respond to shows of force. If we stay quiet, we’re easy to ignore. Look, right now I’ll give you the opportunity to take it back. This is your chance for redemption. You’ve been afraid of getting your hands dirty for too long. I’ve never been scared. There are no shades of gray, just black and white. You’re with them or you’re with me. Pick who you want to be, Connor, but either way, you’re not walking out of here as anything but one of my men.”
Connor’s breath feels harsh in his lungs, grating against his ribcage. He can’t join Starkey, he can’t, but what if this is the only way? “One of your men? I wasn’t aware you had an army.”
Starkey’s lip curls. “We’re better than that. They’d follow me everywhere. See, I watched you, Connor. I watched you for a year in the Graveyard. I saw what you did. Those kids loved you, even though you didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t wrap my head around why they’d willingly devote themselves to someone who clearly wasn’t willing to go all the way, but then it hit me. Everyone loves a hero. So I made myself one.”
The dots are connecting in Connor’s head, but the picture they reveal is far more terrible than he’d ever envisioned. “That’s why you sent that message through Hayden’s radio frequency, isn’t it? It wasn’t an accident, you wanted the Juvey-cops to find us. You wanted a showdown.”
“Of course I did,” Starkey sneers. “I’d been planning it for weeks. No accident there. The second the Juveys were sighted, I directed all of my closest followers plus a few extra kids towards one of the shuttles that was still docked in the Graveyard. We got out before shots were even fired. After that, it was easy to track down the harvest colony. Once I swooped in and saved the day, they loved me more than they’ll ever love you. Best decision I ever made.”
Connor wants to kill him. “Sentencing hundreds of kids to distribution, destroying the Graveyard, killing the Admiral– that was the best decision you ever made? People died in the riots. Dozens have already been unwound. All so you could get some hero worship.”
Starkey just shrugs. “Every battle has its casualties. We’re still alive, aren’t we? I knew you would pull through anyway. I hate to say it, but I was counting on it. I always use you to spring the trap. I slipped up this time, I tried to free the kids first, but next time I’ll let you challenge that weirdo before me so I can get it right.”
“What do you mean, next time?” Connor asks, voice tightening. “Just what are you planning?”
Starkey spreads his arms theatrically. “I’m ending it. No more distribution. It was one thing to take out a harvest colony, but with the amount of explosives I’ve got on my ship, I could take out this whole damn city.”
Connor tenses up. “You’re not just targeting the distributors. You want to kill the civilians, too.”
Starkey chuckles remorselessly. “Of course I do. You think I give a damn about Centerworld? Look around you, Connor. Look how much they have that we don’t. This is what they deserve. It’s what we deserve. We’re going to bomb them to pieces. Maybe then they’ll have a deeper appreciation for what it’s like to be unwound.”
“No,” Connor breaks out. “You can’t. He captured Risa. I have to get her back first.”
Starkey lifts a shoulder. “I don’t care, I’m not stopping for one girl. Now come on. You’re either with me,” he says slowly, drifting closer to Connor again, “or you’re against me. Make your choice.”
Connor shakes his head. “I’m not joining you, Starkey. If you’ve been watching me this long, you know there’s no way I’d do anything to risk Risa. You killed my friends. You’re no better than the rest of them.”
Starkey’s face shuts down. “Actually, I was about to say the same thing about you.”
Connor sees the flash of Starkey’s hand to his belt right before the first shot rings out. Connor only just manages to drop to the ground and catch himself in a tight roll to the side. He hears the bullet whistle over his head and realizes that Starkey isn’t bothering with tranqs. Only one of them will be leaving this place alive, and since Starkey is the one with the gun, it isn’t looking great for Connor.
Another shot goes in the ground just a few inches from Connor’s head. He springs to his feet, racing towards the nearest exit. Already, the sound of gunfire is attracting attention: a few heads poke out of nearby windows, and Connor can see the distant silhouettes of passersby pointing out the two of them.
“Stop this,” Connor urges. “I’m not your enemy, you idiot. You’re going to get the Juveys on us again.”
“They’ll only find your body,” Starkey challenges, and fires again.
Swearing violently, Connor throws himself around a corner. The bullet hits the wall, sending forth a shower of sparks and loose debris.
“Come out, Connor, come out,” Starkey calls, his tone a mocking sing-song beat.
Obviously Connor is not about to do this, so he drifts further down the side of the wall. Starkey is just on the other side of him, about to fire again and end it for real, and then his eyes widen and his mouth goes slack with shock.
Too late, Connor peers past him and sees that Juvey-cops have broken into the scene. One is lowering a tranq gun. As Starkey slumps over, Connor can see the dart embedded in his back. Quickly, the cops rush over and restrain him, hauling the boy to his feet. Starkey tries to fight back, but the tranq is slowing him down and it’s easy for the Juvey-cops to get him under control.
Starkey locks eyes with Connor as they drag him away. All of a sudden, his jaw unhinges and he starts to scream at the top of his lungs, spittle flying from his mouth with the force of his yells. “Wait, stop! He’s the one you want, not me! Connor Lassiter is right in front of you. You can get the fucking Akron AWOL. Kill him! Kill Connor! He’s your enemy. He’s the one you want.”
Connor’s eyes widen, and he presses himself further into the shadows. Starkey redoubles his efforts to break free, writhing in the arms of the Juvey-cops even as they pull him farther from Connor. “Get Connor!” Starkey screams again. “You don’t even want me. I didn’t do anything to you. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. Fuck the Juveys. Fuck Centerworld. I’m just a kid.”
Nausea threatens to black him out, and Connor has to press a hand against his mouth to bring himself under control. Starkey disappears down the street, but the rest of the Juveys don’t follow him out of the court. Instead, a few exchange glances, then start to head Connor’s way, evidently wanting to see what Starkey was talking about just in case.
Sunfire. Not what he wanted. Connor turns to run for what might be the hundredth time today, but he has no idea where to go. He’s out of the alleys now. All that’s left is the street lined with luxurious houses, and anyone watching from their gilded windows could tell the Juveys where Connor went. He starts moving anyway, a brisk walk turning into a jog, but there’s nowhere to hide out here.
So he thinks, at least, until a hand latches onto his and starts to drag him away. Connor’s first instinct is to fight, but then he realizes that this mysterious stranger is leading him farther from the cops, not towards them, and he slackens his grip. He doesn’t recognize the teenager, nor the one who joins them half a block down, nor the one at the door of a house who ushers them all through the door and into the relative safety of the building.
Connor does, however, recognize the blond tween who’s waiting for him inside. It’s been a long time since they crossed paths, but when Connor gapes at the boy in front of him, the name that rises to his lips is still the correct one:
“Lev?”
unwind tag list: @reinekes-fox, @sirofreak, @locke-writes
everything is blue • conrisa space au • Chapter Ten: Still Here
Risa Ward escaped a shuttle destined for her certain, painful death. Connor Lassiter ran away from home before it was too late. Lev Calder was kidnapped. All of them were supposed to be dissected for parts, used to advance a declining galaxy, but as of right now, all of them are whole. Life will not stay the same way forever.
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At first, Risa can’t even think because of the screaming. She cries and shouts until her vocal chords are raw; past that, even, because when she looks up in a daze some time later, she wouldn’t be surprised if she’s lost the ability to speak altogether. This doesn’t hurt her as much as it should. Who would she speak to if not Connor?
Connor. Connor is gone. It’s been more than a year since she first met the boy, and she was kind of counting on the fact that she wouldn’t ever have to be without him. Connor is her one constant. When she’s on the run from the Juveys, when she’s hiding in the Graveyard, when any trouble comes her way, Risa has always had Connor. Always, until now.
Risa gives her grief one last moment to consume her, then forces herself to snap back to reality. Connor is tenacious. He’ll have found a way out. Connor will have tracked down another hidden escape pod or else made one himself out of spare parts. Maybe he’ll even have forced his way onto one of the Juvey-cop warships and masterminded his way into a one-man coup. He’ll come to her in command of a fully armed battalion, and brush it off as just a bit of fun in his free time.
The thought makes her laugh, and it is this last bit of hope that makes Risa surge forward and take hold of the controls once more. Yes, Connor will have found a way to survive, and he’ll find a way to her again. Until then, Risa must manage to make it out of this tiny escape pod and onto a planet so they can meet up, because they will, and then everything can be okay again.
Risa turns her attention back to the control panel before her. Admittedly, she’s not the best pilot, but escape pods were designed with the knowledge that most people using them had already managed to grievously mess up their original ship, so the layout is exceedingly clear. An infant could manage to make this work, so at this point, it’ll be more embarrassing than anything if Risa can’t figure it out.
In the chaos back on the dying Graveyard, they had set a destination in the navigation interface, but she doubts Connor remembers it. They hadn’t had the time to leisurely peruse their options for the best scenery and general tourism, after all. She’s fairly sure that Connor had just picked the first option that came up on the loading screen. Seeing as Risa still has no clue where they are, and thus has no preference to be sent anywhere else, she decides to stick with that for now.
Risa leans back in her seat, trying to get her bearings. The escape pod has rotated such that she can’t see the Graveyard anymore. Instead, the only sight around her is space, wide and desolate. Connor’s always had a fondness for it, she knows that, but to Risa the vision of that many stars just makes her think of all the places she could hide, all the people she wouldn’t know about. The galaxy is huge. What are the odds that Connor finds her again even if he does manage to make it off of the Graveyard in time?
The fear from earlier threatens to cascade over her again, but Risa puts herself on mental lockdown. She won’t think about it. She can’t. The only option is to assume that Connor survived. She’ll have time to grieve later, but she won’t have to.
A beeping from the nav panel draws her attention back from the precipice, and Risa’s stomach lurches when she realizes it’s flashing red in an alarm signal. Squinting at the fine print, she reads the warning in full, but what she sees only makes her stress heighten, fissuring into her brain like a needle. She had assumed that the rogue chunk of ceiling debris that had put an end to Connor’s escape pod back on the Graveyard had left her pod intact, but it must have clipped the pod after all because the readout indicates that her fuel tank has been steadily leaking this whole time. It’s already half empty now, and she’s definitely not halfway to her target planet, at least according to the live map on the nav readout.
Swearing softly, Risa pokes cautiously at the nav screen until she can find a menu. It’s not too late to change her destination, so she probes around until she finds another option that’s closer to her. It’s quite small, more like a moon than a full-blown planet. More than that, it’s not where Connor sent her, but it’s not like Risa has much of a choice at this point. She’s sure he’d prefer her to land on a different world than to run out of fuel in the middle of empty space and die out in the endless cold.
The pod flies. The fuel continues to drip out somewhere behind her. As both the journey and the power source come increasingly near to the end of the line, Risa grips the armrests of her seat, fingernails digging into the smooth silicate material. There’s absolutely nothing she can do now but sit and wait for either a semi-smooth landing or no landing at all, but the powerlessness does nothing to calm her nerves.
All this time, Risa has always had an option, something she could do: run away, choose Connor, flee to the Graveyard, find an escape pod, but now, in the face of yet another danger, Risa’s hands are tied. Either she dies or she doesn’t, but it won’t be by Risa’s actions. Some would call that a relief, but to Risa it just feels like a cop-out. Shouldn’t she always be able to do something? Dying from a power out of her control after everything she’s been through would be obscene.
She nears the small planet. As the pod enters the atmosphere, its surface starts to heat up. The torn edge of the fuel tank doesn’t take kindly to the sudden air compression. Sparks flare along the metal seams of the pod, sparks that lengthen into ribbons of white hot flame. Risa shuts her eyes and begs anything out there– the stars, the suns, even the Collective in all its self-righteous tyranny– that she will survive this. Her last moments cannot be in a tight metal coffin. Not when there’s nobody here beside her.
A click, a shudder, a jolt; Risa’s fingernails dig so hard into her palms that she’s certain they’ll bleed, but instead of tearing into pieces, the escape pod’s landing gear begins to move into place. The pod’s acceleration abruptly staggers when a parachute unfurls from the top. When Risa dares to crack open her eyes, she sees not the assumed inferno of her death but thick clouds gently drifting past her, which give way to long expanses of flat brown and gray land, like the grain of synth-lumber.
Risa was hoping that the tendrils of flame still playing upon the side of the pod would die out as the metal adjusted to the atmosphere, but no such luck. The second the escape pod touches down with far more shaking than Risa would like, she immediately unbuckles her harness and slams the button for the exit hatch until it creaks open. What lies before her is an empty clearing of barren ground, surrounded on all sides by the rocky fingers of a few occasional stone outcroppings. Not exactly hospitable, but better than the pod.
Dizzy from the shaky landing, Risa stumbles over the mouth of the hatch, head spinning. Peeking out the door, Risa’s heart chills when she realizes that the flames are almost at the cracked fuel container. She has to get away in case it explodes, but walking feels impossible. Risa makes it out of the pod, the landscape swimming before her, and immediately trips on the uneven ground. She struggles to pick herself up, but the fabric and ropes of the parachute have tangled on the ground in front of her, and Risa just can’t figure out how to liberate her ankles from the mess of cloth.
Tugging fruitlessly at the material, Risa’s gaze is jerked away when she spots movement at the corner of her eyes, more than just the black dots swimming in front of her vision with each unsteady breath she draws. She pulls harder at the ropes, but the knots around her legs refuse to come undone.
The shadow in her peripheral vision lengthens into the silhouette of a person. Frantic, Risa tries to stand again, but she falls again before she can get higher than her knees. The figure surges forward and Risa flinches away, certain it’s going to kill her. It stops a few feet away, cocking its head in confusion and what Risa swears is indignance. The way it moves is strange, a little too quick and unpredictable to be fully human. It looks like a person, certainly, but there is something about it that most certainly isn’t right, something that Risa’s addled brain can’t quite piece together at the moment.
It crawls forward on its hands and knees, but slow and deliberate, as if keen to prove it’s not a threat. It raises its hands in surrender, and when Risa doesn’t move anymore, it flicks out a knife and starts to saw at the web of ropes from the parachute. Risa holds deathly still, all too aware that one false move could liberate her legs not just from the clutch of the material but the rest of her body, but the humanoid doesn’t hurt her, not in the slightest. Once she’s free, it puts away the blade with an odd flicking motion, and Risa realizes belatedly that the knife wasn’t a knife at all, but somehow a part of its finger.
Risa coughs, trying to clear her dusty, aching throat. “Who– who are–”
She’s interrupted by the shrieking of collapsing metal from the pod, and both she and the figure turn in unison to watch the fuel container finally give in to the relentless surge of the fire. The figure’s eyes widen, and it lunges forward, grabbing Risa in its arms before sprinting away. It moves fast, too fast, and picks her up as if she were no trouble at all. They’re across the clearing in what feels like a matter of seconds, and the creature huddles behind the cover of a rock face, Risa still cradled in its embrace. She draws one shaky, terrified breath, and then an explosion booms across the space they’d just crossed, shaking the rocks with the force of its fury.
Well, Risa thinks wryly, There goes my future as an escape pod pilot. She wants to think more about the implications of losing her only way out, but for some reason thoughts are very difficult to form right now. The edges of her vision are fuzzy and getting fuzzier. The thing in front of her frowns, starts to position its mouth as if it wants to ask her something, but Risa never gets to figure out if it can. Instead, she’s dropping deep into endless blackness, and Risa Ward feels no more.
She is not dead. That would be unfair. After everything, Risa will not die of exhaustion or trauma from a damaged escape pod or even the destruction of an explosion so nearby. It takes her a while to wake up, though. Her body needs the rest, and wants to cling to unconsciousness for as long as it can before forcing itself to face reality once more. Still, it takes some time before her eyes open completely. There is still much to do, many things to learn, and plenty of ground to cross.
When Risa comes to, she is not alone. It takes her a moment to realize that this is abnormal. She has been placed on her back on smooth ground, and is being watched by a person leaning against a rocky overhang. No, not a person; Risa remembers now, and more than that, she’s able to recognize why this being had unsettled her before the explosion. It’s not that the creature before her isn’t human, it is. Just not completely human.
The figure eyeing her with the same placid gaze is a conglomeration of parts. Many are from humans. Different humans, but humans nonetheless. Both of its eyes are different colors, different shapes. The hands folded neatly in its laps are host to fingers of a variety of shapes. They don’t all line up neatly. The hair on its head switches from burnished copper to dark brown to thick curls. The seams of the different pieces are smooth, practically nonexistent, even where– even where the flesh ends and the metal begins. The figure isn’t just made up of different people, it’s also made up of different materials, flesh and bone but also smooth polymers and curving metal plates. It makes this humanoid a–
“Cyborg” Risa says, surprising herself, “You’re a cyborg.” An amalgamation of living pieces and metal. It might even be made of redistributed limbs, parts of unlucky ferals that ended up in creatures like this instead of supposedly extending the greater life of the universe or whatever lie the Collective likes to push.
Most people would be annoyed if she called them out like that. Instead, the figure just inclines its head in one steady, sedate motion. “Yes,” it says, “I am a cyborg. Android. Robot. Gizmo. Gadget. Not all of those at once, of course, but they’re roughly correct. Almost certain. Not quite true. You can call me what you please.”
Risa sits up a little, frowning at the torrent of words that pour from the cyborg’s mouth. “Do you have a name?”
It tilts its head to the side, considering this. A string of small lights on a metal panel near its left temple turns a deep yellow, almost gold. “I have been called Camus Comprix.”
Risa arches her brow. “You have been called that? Were you involved in the decision?”
Something that could objectively be called a smile graces the cyborg’s face. Its lips turn up, but there is no warmth in the expression. “I was made in a laboratory. Not all decisions involving me, involved me.” It pauses, making the lights by its temple flash a pensive orange, then adds on, a little hastily, “Although I have sometimes thought of myself as Cam.”
“Cam,” Risa repeats, “I like it.”
Cam flashes her a grin of perfectly even teeth. “What is your name? Common practice dictates that questions someone asks should be asked back to them. It is as if we only want to know about others what we most want them to know about ourselves.”
“Or they just want something to call you,” Risa comments.
The lights on Cam’s temple turn green. “Or that.”
He looks at her inquisitively, and Risa remembers to actually answer the question. “My name is Risa. Risa Ward.”
“Ward,” Cam muses. “Patient. Protege. Dependent. Who do you depend on, Risa Ward? You came down in a pod. Do you not depend on anyone anymore?”
His manner of questioning is far more forward than anyone Risa’s met. She has the brief, involuntary thought that if Cam was ever allowed in a room with Hayden, they would be able to draw out anyone’s secrets in mere moments, but the accompanying agony of thinking of any friend she can’t see face to face makes her quickly tuck the idea back away in the darker crevices of her mind.
“I try not to, but that doesn’t always work out for me,” Risa admits. “I’m looking for a friend of mine, actually. We were both on this big star cruiser together but it– I had to leave. I don’t know when he’s coming, but he will be. I need to meet him.”
Cam’s gaze turns from quizzical to piercing. “This was close by, wasn’t it? Local. Nearby. I detected many ships going towards a cruiser just a few standard hours ago.”
Risa leans forward, unable to hide her desperation. “You can sense ships up there?”
Cam nods. “Telescopic lenses. I can see what happened. Spot it. Sight it. That’s how I knew to come find your pod. You were one of the last ones that left, and the only one that came over here. So far, at least.”
Risa’s fingers knit together. “Can you see all of the pods? Did any leave after me?”
As a cyborg, even with all of his organic parts, a being like Camus Comprix will never entirely be able to replicate human emotion. Still, the expression that flickers onto his face reminds Risa a little too much of regret.
“None left after you,” Cam tells her. “If any pods were left, they were not able to escape the inferno that consumed the cruiser.”
He looks as if he’d like to add on several more adjectives about the explosion, but bites his tongue so as to not release the stream of synonyms into the air, clearly out of respect for Risa.
It wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t hold them back, anyway. Risa can hardly hear a word he says afterwards. She’s reeling in shock and deep, grave agony. The Graveyard blew up. She had thought that the Juvey-cops would have left it intact so they could search the place more thoroughly, but the cruiser had been in the process of tearing itself to pieces when her pod launched. It would have been simple for any one of the complex systems to misfire and put the rusting skeleton out of its misery.
Although it seems foolish, Risa can’t help a brief twinge of loss for the ship. That’s yet another home she’s lost, never to see again. Her med bay, kept carefully organized for so many months, is so much space dust now. Every corridor she learned by heart, every secret room she explored with Connor. Her bunk, her desk. It’s all gone now.
More engulfing than the loss of the Graveyard, though, is the loss of Connor. Connor Lassiter is a lot of things, capable of infinitely many daring tasks and expert close calls, but an explosion like that– the Juveys would be lucky if they got out of the danger zone, and they were on fully stocked warships. Connor just had his skin and bone.
Risa is still vaguely aware of Cam somewhere in front of her, watching her closely, so she slowly folds all of her grief back into her heart, tucking it away until the rocks and stones around her come back into focus again. At some point, Risa will be alone again, and then she can let the grief consume her as she pleases. Until then, she’ll just have to keep going.
Roughly wiping the tears from her face, Risa straightens up. “The cruiser is gone, then. Fine. I need somewhere else to go than just this clearing. Is there a city nearby? I didn’t see one when I landed.”
Despite his smooth exterior, Risa swears Cam freezes in place. “There is,” he says at last, “But– it’s not– There are no humans on this planet, Risa. It was never designed with people in mind.”
At first, the thought doesn’t even register. “It’s all natural? That’s impossible. I thought the Collective wiped out all wildlife generations ago.”
The lights at Cam’s temple burn a low, dark red. Anger, maybe, or even the faintest pinpricks of shame. “They did. This small of a moon, though, it would never take to settlers. Not enough space. This town’s not big enough for the two of us. They built the labs instead. They made us, but we didn’t pay off the way they hoped. No cash cow. Didn’t make a killing. No bread on our table. They packed up and moved on. Now we’re all that’s left.”
Risa’s starting to put the pieces together. “Wait, so there are more of you? More cyborgs? And when the scientists who made you changed their minds about what they wanted, they just abandoned you on this moon?”
“Eureka,” Cam says glumly.
Risa blows out a low breath. “That’s terrible. Are they at least sending supplies?”
The raw skepticism on Cam’s face tells Risa all she needs to know. “So the city–”
“It’s nothing,” Cam supplies. “Rusting buildings. Everything is falling to pieces. I’ve maintained myself the best over the years, so I take care of the rest when I can. It won’t last forever, though. Already, they’re falling apart. It’s certainly no place for a human to stay.”
Risa feels a swarm of guilt press against her throat. “What about you, then? There’s nothing here. You can’t hold out forever.”
Cam’s eyes are unsettlingly empty. She hadn’t realized how hard he was trying to keep up his expressions, to stay human, until he let it go. “I shut down. Lights off. Case closed.”
They drift into uneasy silence for a while, musing on that, and then Cam stands up abruptly, his knees and joints flexing seamlessly like they ran on gears instead of muscles. Which, being unable to guess at his innards, Risa reckons they might.
“I will take you to the city,” he announces. “A few of the labs are still intact. None of us like going in there, so they’re in pretty good condition. You might be able to send a signal there.”
Risa nods, taking the hand he offers so she can stand as well. “You’re willing to do that for a stranger?”
“You are not a stranger anymore, Risa Ward,” Cam informs her. The lights at his temple blink a lovely emerald green. “You are my friend.”
The journey is tedious. At this point, Risa’s starting to think that the scientists who abandoned Cam and the rest of the cyborgs must have designed this planet in a lab, too. The ground is perfectly flat, everything coated with a thin film of dust that clings to her shoes with each step she takes. Occasional rock formations pepper the landscape, but for the most part, it’s all the same. In the distance, Risa can make out the skyline of what must be the city Cam was referring to. It’ll probably take at least an hour of walking to reach it, but the air is cool and she’s got interesting company, so the time won’t drag.
Cam asks about how Risa came to be in the pod, and she ends up telling him everything. At first, she had wondered if that was the best idea, but it’s obvious that he would have no way of getting her in trouble for it. Since Cam is pretty much the only thing keeping her alive at this point, she figures a bit of small talk can’t hurt.
It is somewhat fascinating to get to spill her life story like this. Risa’s been around the same people for a year now, give or take the slow rotation of kids in the Graveyard as some age out and others are brought in. Her circle of friends already knows who she is, so she’s never had to explain herself.
Cam, however, is a fresh start, a clean slate. He has no idea who she’s supposed to be, only who she is right now. In a way, it’s kind of nice to be able to decide who she is again. Risa is more than just the smart one, the one who makes the plans. And she’ll prove it now, by making such colossally stupid mistakes that no one would ever think about connecting the past Risa with whatever she is right now.
Cam doesn’t know about her inner turmoil, though. He just knows that she’s Risa, and she’s got plenty of new stories to tell that he hasn’t heard yet, so right now she’s, like, the greatest thing ever. He seems particularly delighted by the idea of the Graveyard, and keeps asking about just how many people were there, just what it was like to wake up in the morning and be surrounded by all that noise. When she describes the gentle din of laughter and conversation that used to fill the halls during break hours, Cam actually closes his eyes and inhales deeply, like he could travel there just by breathing in her words, a figurative file transfer.
“But it’s gone now,” Cam mumbles, brow furrowed. “It blew up this morning.”
“Yes,” Risa whispers. Its absence still haunts her like a phantom limb.
“I can see why you were upset.” Cam tells her. “It sounds like an excellent place to be. So many friends. Allies. Compatriots. All with their own stories to tell about escaping distribution.”
Risa nods. “I am sad to leave it, and not just because it was how I stayed alive. But there’s also–”
“Connor,” Cam supplies. The topmost light in the string by his temple burns scarlet before quickly clearing again.
“Connor,” Risa repeats. Even saying his name hurts. She’s fully aware of the fact that she could go to this city of cyborgs to send out a signal only to be picked up by the Juveys, but even the remote possibility that Connor might hear her is enough.
Cam is silent for a while. “You have other friends than Connor, yes? You will try to reach them, too?”
“I will,” Risa concedes. “Hayden’s probably listening, if he made it out. But Connor is the one I want to find the most.”
The corner of Cam’s mouth flickers into a disappointed frown, and he says no more on the subject. They talk about the city, the lab building they’re trying to find, but the reverence with which Cam had spoken of the Graveyard is gone.
As they draw closer to the city, Risa starts to spot more and more evidence of its decay. They pass the first body about ten minutes out from the border, but a few more appear as they draw ever nearer. Just as Cam said, every slumped figure belongs to a cyborg. Some seem as if they’ve fallen just that morning. Others show signs of having given out quite some time ago, the rotting chunks of mismatched flesh completely erased to reveal solid metal and polymer structures beneath their multicolored skin.
Cam looks away when they pass each one. It occurs to Risa that this is probably like stumbling upon the bodies of his friends. “How many cyborgs are here?”
“The records indicate somewhere around a hundred,” Cam recites. “I have no idea if that number is true. Many of us spread out when the scientists left, though most stayed in the city proper. The rest could be anywhere on the planet. I know the ones who let me help, but many would rather no one saw them go to pieces.”
The shadows of the city fall upon Risa’s feet, and she cranes her neck to stare at the crumbling buildings. There are a few skyscrapers in the very center, but the exteriors are in poor condition. The rest of the buildings around the base of the towering structures are far worse for wear, as if every available material has been harvested long ago. Risa can see houses with missing front doors and broken windows like gap teeth. Everything that hasn’t been nailed down was taken away a long time ago to maintain cyborgs that still corrode by the day.
Cam takes her on a looping, backstreets way to the center. “It’s best if we stay out of sight as much as possible,” he tells her. “It’s too dangerous to go by night, but I don’t know how the rest of us would take to the sight of a human. Keep close to me.”
She follows him down narrow alleys, occasionally hovering in the shadows of a building while they wait for a cyborg or two to pass by before skirting around an intersection. They do their best to move quietly, but Risa swears she can still feel eyes watching her as they plunge further into the rotting city.
Once, they turn a corner to find a cyborg sitting on the ground, leaning against a wall and staring directly at them. Its hair is long and greasy, falling in many-hued sections far past its shoulders. Both of its feet are metal, although the left one is missing several toes, so Risa cannot tell for sure if they were once flesh or merely metal that got lost over the years. She has the absurd mental image of an arguing husband and wife from one of those sitcoms some of the faculty members loved to watch back at the StaHo– Honey, have you seen my toes? I swear I put them right here– and has to bite her lip to avoid hysterical laughter.
The cyborg watches them go, but doesn’t make a move. Even still, they pick up the pace, and don’t let up until several blocks are between them and the metal-footed cyborg. The sun is still relatively high in the sky overhead, albeit sinking more quickly than Risa would like, but the streets still seem gray and uninviting. Everything seems faded and worn, like old holos of neighborhoods that have long since been demolished.
Waiting under a tattered storefront awning for a pair of cyborgs to limp past the street beyond, Risa pivots in a slow half circle to get a better look at her surroundings. There’s a large poster on the wall of a nearby building, and she squints to get a better look. She’s actually seen this before, she thinks, or at least a holo-copy of it in one of her classes in the State Home. It’s an old political design from the early days of the Collective, featuring a man in an old-timey suit holding a test tube and grinning proudly. The text reads, Saving Our Worlds– And Our Neighborhoods!
Risa had to analyze variations of that image plenty of times in history classes, so she’s able to identify the man pictured as Dorian Heartland, the guy who created the Proactive Citizenry. He was a huge supporter of distribution, so obviously he’s not her favorite historical figure, but the guy had a chokehold on the up-and-coming Collective. Without him spreading his pro-distribution propaganda, especially with his massive financial backing, there’s no way distribution would have caught on as fervently as it did.
“Why do you have that sort of stuff out here?” Risa asks in a low whisper, jerking her thumb towards the poster.
Cam follows her line of sight and shrugs, both shoulders rising exactly the same distance in one perfectly orchestrated move. “The Collective payroll made this city. They might just want us to remember their beliefs.”
She wants to ask more about just what that might entail, but he’s already moving on, gesturing for her to stay close, so she brushes it off and keeps going. They’ve got more pressing issues to deal with than the all-encompassing spread of Collective propaganda, namely getting Risa off of this planet before someone or something finds out she’s not supposed to be there.
Risa almost thinks that they might make it to the lab buildings without incident when Cam makes a detour away from the skyscrapers when they’re just a few blocks away.
“What are you doing?” She hisses as they twist farther down sidestreets.
“There’s someone I need to see first,” Cam whispers back. “Trust me, it won’t take long.”
It’s not as if Risa has any other great prospects at the moment, so she fights the urge to scream or run and goes after him. After glancing around to make sure they aren’t being followed, Cam pulls her into a ramshackle building that, according to the long-dead neon sign on the front, was once a beauty parlor.
“Do you want to get your nails done?” She asks Cam, bewildered.
He just chuckles. “I’m seeing a friend. Although I’m sure she’d love to give you a manicure if you asked. She’s very eager to practice her craft.”
Cam shuts the door behind them, reaching somewhere to the side to turn on the lights, which only flicker on with great reluctance. “Audrey?” He calls. “It’s Cam, and I’ve brought a friend.”
There’s a shuffling sound from one of the back rooms, and while the owner of the sound comes over, Risa takes the time to study the building they’re in. This is indeed a beauty parlor, albeit a very dilapidated version. There are old, cracked mirrors in front of high chairs, each one supported by a desk containing broken hair curlers, dusty makeup brushes, and other basic supplies. A cabinet at the close end of the room does indeed hold rows of nail polishes, but judging by the rather volatile smell coming from some of the broken lids, Risa isn’t sure that she trusts her fingers anywhere near the shades.
“Why is there a beauty parlor here?” Risa whispers to Cam. “No offense, but it doesn’t really match the vibe of the rest of the city.”
“Appearances are very important,” Cam mumbles back. “They wanted us to feel like we were real people.”
The last sentence is muttered with undisguised disgust. How infuriating, to be placed in a mock city by your creators like dress-up dolls only to be abandoned the second they were interested in better toys. No amount of hair dye nor dried-up mascara will disguise the fact that this is no real place to live.
The owner of the shop bustles in at last. Her ear-to-ear grin is only highlighted by the lurid pink of her lipstick. Her hair has been carefully teased into a big updo, although it’s starting to deflate unevenly, giving Risa the impression that the cyborg is slowly tilting over. Her entire left arm is replaced with robotic pieces, and even the metal parts change color and texture from shoulder to wrist, matching the patchwork of skin tones on the rest of the cyborg’s body.
“Camus,” the cyborg says reverently, “You’re back! Oh, I knew you couldn’t stay away forever. What can I get for you, sweetheart?”
Cam chuckles as she wraps him in a hug. The cyborg’s metal joints creak alarmingly, but neither of them pay it any attention. “I’m not here for me, Audrey. I wanted to introduce you to a friend.”
Risa’s eyes widen as the sheer force of Audrey’s cheer is directed towards her. “It’s nice to meet you,” she begins smoothly, but she’s interrupted by Audey eagerly beaming towards her.
“Oh, what a dear! Cam, if anyone else in this whole city came up to me with a human girl I’d be absolutely dumbfounded, but this makes complete sense. You’re just quick like that, my boy. Always on top of the trends.”
Risa frowns, not aware that finding a human who crash-landed on your planet was considered a popular trend. Cam looks as if he’s trying not to laugh, and quickly steers Audrey’s attention back to him by speaking up. “Actually, I was hoping you could do us a quick favor. This is Risa. She needs to meet up with some of her friends, but she’s on the run. You wouldn’t be able to help disguise her a little bit, would you?”
Audrey claps her hands together. “A project! I love it. How much can I do?”
“Very little,” Risa rushes to say. “I’m perfectly fine the way I am. I just don’t want to be immediately recognized, that’s all.”
A disappointed frown tugs Audrey’s fuschia lips down into a depressed crescent. “Are you sure? I would love to do a full makeover. It’s been so long since I had a willing customer.”
From the way she’s eyeing Risa, it’s unclear whether that means there haven’t been customers or that there haven’t been victims. Either way, Risa’s not entirely thrilled with it. She sends a pleading look towards Cam, but he just smiles placatingly. “This is a good thing, Risa. If the Juvey-cops are after you like you say, you need a disguise. Camouflage. To go incognito.”
Audrey nods, her head jerking up and down like a puppet on a string. “Very true, Cam. Very true. I’ll go get my things, sweetheart. You’ll be thrilled with the final look, I guarantee it.”
As Audrey disappears into the back of the shop again, Risa turns to Cam. “This is why we’re here? You wanted me to get a disguise?”
“That, and I wanted to say goodbye,” Cam says. His face is quiet, but the lights at his temple are a soft, somber blue. “I’m not coming back to the city when you leave.”
“You’re coming with us,” Risa says, trying not to sound surprised. “No, that makes perfect sense. I couldn’t just abandon you after you helped me like this.”
“I’m not coming with you,” Cam specifies. “I’m just going offworld.”
Risa frowns. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“All of the cyborgs in this city have tags embedded subcutaneously,” Cam says conversationally. “I believe I removed mine, but I can never be sure. I will not risk your endeavor by allowing them to track me while I travel with you. All I ask is for one pod so I can make my way in the worlds. I would like to see the galaxy. I can be a tourist. A traveler. An adventurer.”
Risa nods. “Of course. Anything.”
Cam turns to her with the most hopeful expression when she says this that Risa, for the first time all day, is quite grateful to see Audrey hurrying back into the room, arms laden with supplies. Risa takes the excuse of helping to take some of the products from Audrey to escape the soft, naked longing in Cam’s eyes, and when they’re finished setting everything out, Cam has managed to focus again.
Risa is steered into one of the high styling chairs under the room. Every time she moves, dust is sent showering to the floor beneath her, but Audrey seems not to notice. She bustles around Risa, peering at her face from a position so close that Risa can feel the cyborg’s breath hot on her cheeks. If the proximity weren’t unsettling enough, the fact that each inhale and exhale, no matter when Audrey is moving or speaking, is exactly the same duration, only adds fuel to the fire.
“I think I’ll touch up your hair,” Audrey announces at last. “Lighten it up a little, at least. You’d be surprised what a change of color and texture can do to transform somebody. And then we’ll probably do a pigment injection, too. Just in case.”
Risa freezes. “A what?”
“Pigment injection,” Audrey says crisply, picking up a syringe from the pile of goods she’s assembled and waving it happily at Risa. “It’ll change your eye color. Loads of people have it done.”
Risa wants to ask whether that means actual human beings or cyborgs, because the difference is quite important to her. The syringe looks nasty, with the tip bearing at least a dozen miniscule needles arranged in a circle.
She swallows faintly. “What about if we just do the hair?”
“Nonsense,” Audrey says breezily. “You want to be disguised, don’t you? This’ll work like a charm.”
Risa glances at Cam for backup, but he’s wandered off to the far side of the salon, peering with great interest at a panel of old styling holos. So much for sticking by her no matter what.
Audrey hovers right in front of her, flesh and metal fingers curled so tightly around the handle of a hairbrush that Risa is stunned it hasn’t snapped off yet. “Can I start then, dearie? Can I start?”
Risa nods, but Audrey remains in place, practically vibrating from tension. “Yes,” Risa says, when it becomes clear that Audrey is waiting for approval, “You can start. Go ahead.”
The cyborg sags forward in relief. “Thank you, dearie. Thank you.”
And so begins the strangest makeover of Risa’s life. Technically, it’s the only makeover of Risa’s life, but even without prior experience Risa knows this is uncommon. All of Audrey’s tools bear the marks of age; the brushes are all missing bristles, the combs have teeth knocked out of them like they’ve lost a fight, and even the blow dryer has to be whacked repeatedly against the table before it turns on all the way.
Audrey’s hands shake the whole time, no matter how the cyborg tries to contain herself. At first, Risa is afraid for her hair, but it becomes clear that even with the loss of motor control, Audrey’s makeover skills are nothing to doubt. Even still, receiving the pigment injection takes more than a little bit of trust on Risa’s end.
At the end, though, Audrey wheels Risa’s chair around to face one of the cracked mirrors and Risa is greeted with the sight of a figure that logically has to be Risa but seems like a different girl altogether. The reflection’s hair is lighter, closer to auburn, and falls in highlighted curls past her shoulders. Her eyes are green, but not piercing. The shade oddly reminds Risa of the lights on Cam’s temple when he’s pleased about something, which is a comparison she probably shouldn’t have made, but she can’t help it.
Audrey is poised by Risa’s shoulder, grinning hopefully. “What do you think?”
“It’s lovely,” Risa says honestly. “You’re excellent at this.”
Audrey beams proudly. “Oh, you’re too sweet. I can tell why you and Cam get along.”
Upon hearing his name, Cam wanders back over to rejoin the group. He stares at Risa’s changed countenance, mumbling the expected compliments to Audrey’s labor when asked but refusing to look away. Risa feels her cheeks heat up and breaks the staring contest first by gazing pointedly at the ground until he turns away.
Audrey claps her hands together, sending a low metallic thunk through the quiet salon. “That was so much fun! Cam, dear, you’re next. What’ll it be?”
Cam laughs, the sound clipped and punctual. “I don’t need anything, Audrey. I think we’ll be on our way now, actually.”
Audrey’s face falls. “Really? I can’t convince you to stay any longer? At least tell me you’ll be back soon. I miss your company whenever you’re out.”
The cyborg’s hands sag by her sides, and Risa can’t help but feel a rush of compassion for her. Looking at Audrey in the middle of this desiccating salon, she’s forcefully reminded again of an abandoned dollhouse. Audrey has been placed here with her disintegrating tools and products, a stylist with no clients on a planet with no escape. At some point, the last of her mechanical parts will fail her, and then the salon owner will join the salon in the empty ashes of what had once been a grand experiment.
Cam’s smile is only a smile in name, his eyes bleak and despairing. “Of course, Audrey. I’ll be back soon. Don’t wait up.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Audrey assures him, “I’ll just tend to the other clients, then.”
The worst part is that she’s not even sarcastic, but genuinely hopeful that there will soon be others. It hasn’t occurred to her yet that no one else is coming. It hasn’t occurred to her that no one ever will.
Cam takes one last despairing look around him, then ushers Risa out of the salon and into the cold air of the city once more. Even when they’re out of Audrey’s lonely clutches, though, the grief on Cam’s face refuses to lessen.
“She’s been getting worse as of late, but Audrey has always been a good friend to me,” he whispers. Cam glances back at the shop behind them a few times as they go, like he’s trying to convince himself not to return.
“And she’ll still be your friend,” Risa says soothingly. “No one would blame you for wanting to leave. If she knew, she would be happy for you.”
Cam’s expression drops. “Would she?”
Risa can’t answer that, so she waits for them to cross the street before changing the subject. “So, how did Audrey come to be in charge of the salon? Are there other stylists in the area? How’s the competition?”
Cam doesn’t laugh, but the lights at his temple shift from desolate gray to a lighter yellow. “No one else, just Audrey. We were all put here with a task in mind. There’s a doctor, a teacher, a baker. They made the streets and shops and made cyborgs for each task. They wanted to make a real town, and that needs a lot of different types of people.”
Risa glances around at the shuttered windows and locked doors. “I can see that. Where’s your place?”
“I don’t have one,” Cam says coldly. “This isn’t my home.”
Risa frowns. “I don’t get it. If you take care of the others like this, and you’ve got friends like Audrey, why wouldn’t you stay in the city all the time?”
Cam’s face twists. “They don’t like me as much,” he admits. “Said I was too different. Too human.” From the way he says it, Risa can tell it’s not a good thing. “They let me visit in short intervals, but they always get uneasy when I stay too long. I think I remind them too much of the scientists.”
What a terrible fate. Not human enough for the scientists to stay. Too human for the other cyborgs to want him around. Constantly bouncing back and forth between the city and the outskirts, allowed to stay only to help but never to linger. No wonder he wants to leave; Risa is surprised he even takes care of the others despite them consistently rejecting him. That shows his humanity more than anything.
“Well,” she says slowly, “It’s a good thing we’re getting out of here, isn’t it?”
Cam’s lips start to prick up again. “It is.”
They make it to the lab buildings at last. Cam shows her how to sneak in through a back entrance. Although most of the other structures in the area have been pillaged for spare parts, the lab complex is almost pristine save for a thick layer of dust covering anything. Cam tells her that the other cyborgs are afraid of what happened within these walls, which keeps out intruders. It’s a good sign for the two of them, although there’s no guarantee that anything in here actually works.
They search the building methodically for some sort of comms center, anything that might be capable of producing a transmission that could travel beyond the reaches of this star system. It takes at least an hour or two, but eventually they track down a room filled with banks of equipment. Risa’s no expert on communication systems, but after all the time she’s spent around Hayden, her knowledge is at least passable, and that’s good enough for her.
Risa pauses before she begins her transmission. “How do I know this won’t just bring the Juvey-cops down on our heads? They’re probably scouring the galaxy for kids from the Graveyard.”
Cam tilts his head to the side, considering this. “You said that your friend Hayden did a lot of work with communications. Did he have a channel he used? A signal, just for him? If you know the code, we can put it in and send transmissions only on its line. Connor could pick it up too if he remembers it.”
“That’s a good idea,” Risa muses. It takes her a little bit to remember Hayden’s signal, but she manages to plug in the necessary codes soon enough. After that, all that’s left to do is record.
Risa raises the receiver to her lips, breathes out slowly, and presses a button to start. “Hey, Connor. This is Risa. If you can hear me– well, you’re alive, and that’s a relief. I made it out, but I’m stuck on a planet somewhere near the Graveyard. My pod was damaged and I can’t leave, but I can’t stay here, either. I don’t know your situation, but I need you, Connor. I’m on–”
She pauses for a moment, turning to Cam, who’s doing his best to seem as if he isn’t hovering on her every word. “Where are we, again?”
“Molokai,” he supplies. “Outer edge of the H-I star sector.”
Risa flashes him a grateful smile, which Cam eagerly reciprocates, then repeats the name into the receiver. “I’m on Molokai. Find me, Connor. Please.”
Risa stalls on the line, trying to think of something, anything else to say, but the words don’t come. She has no use for long, extended sentences. Either Connor is out there somewhere, alive and able to find her, or she’ll never see him again. Regardless, one more paragraph from her isn’t going to affect either of them all that much.
She presses the button to end the transmission with one trembling finger. Wherever he is, she hopes that Connor can hear her. Maybe he’s coming. Maybe, after all of this time, she can still have him. Only time will tell.
a/n sorry again for the delay, hope you enjoy this chapter! aaa i have been waiting to write about cam FOREVER i was looking forward to this since like chapter three lmao
unwind tag list: @schroedingers-kater, @sirofreak, @locke-writes
