Unwind

Then Lev does something funny. He takes off his shirt. Then he tears his shirt in half. He presses half the torn shirt to Connor's face. That makes his face hurt more. He groans. Then Lev takes the other half of his shirt and ties it around Connor's arm. He ties it tight. That hurts too.

"Hey . . . what . . ."

"Don't try to talk. Just relax."

There are others around him now. He doesn't know who. A kid holding a tranq pistol looks at Lev, and Lev nods. Then the kid kneels down next to Connor.

"This is going to hurt a little," says the kid with the tranq gun. "But I think you need it."

He aims uncertainly at various parts of Connor's body, then settles on Connor's hip. Connor hears the gunshot, feels a sharp pain in his hip, and as his vision begins to darken he sees Lev hurrying shirtless toward a building that's pouring out black smoke.

"Weird," says Connor. Then his mind goes to a quiet place where none of this matters.

Part Seven Consciousness

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us . . . Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

66. Connor

Connor regains consciousness with nothing but hazy confusion where his thoughts ought to be. His face aches, and he can see out of only one eye. He feels pressure over his other eye.

He's in a white room. There's a window through which he can see daylight.

This is unquestionably a hospital room, and that pressure over his eye must be a bandage. He tries to lift his right arm but there's an ache in his shoulder, so he decides it's not worth the effort just yet.

Only now does he begin to piece together the events that landed him here.

He was about to be unwound. There was an explosion. There was a revolt. Then Lev was standing over him. That's all he can remember.

A nurse comes into the room. "So you're finally awake! How are you feeling?"

"Good," he says, his voice little more than a croak. He clears his throat. "How long?"

"You've been in a medically induced coma for a little over two weeks," says the nurse.

Two weeks? With a life that has been lived day to day for so long, two weeks sounds like an eternity. And Risa . . . what about Risa? "There was a girl," he says. "She was on the roof of the Chop—of the harvest clinic. Does anyone know what happened to her?"

The nurse's expression doesn't give anything away. "That can all be sorted out later."

"But—"

"No buts. Right now you need time to heal—and I have to say, you're doing better than anyone expected, Mr. Mullard."

His first thought is that he hasn't heard her right. He shifts uncomfortably.

"Excuse me?"

She fluffs his pillows. "Just relax now, Mr. Mullard. Let us handle everything."

His second thought is that he's been unwound after all. He's been unwound, and somehow, someone got his entire brain. He's inside someone else now. But as he thinks about it, he knows that can't be it. His voice still sounds like his voice. When he rubs his tongue against his teeth, those teeth are still the ones he remembers.

"My name is Connor," he tells her. "Connor Lassiter."

The nurse studies him with an expression that's kind, but calculated—almost disturbingly so. "Well," she says, "as it so happens, an ID with the picture charred off was found in the wreckage. It belonged to a nineteen-year-old guard by the name of Elvis Mullard. With all the confusion after the blast there really was no telling who was who, and many of us agreed that it would be a shame to let that ID go to waste, don't you agree?" She reaches over and adjusts the angle of Connor's bed until he's sitting up more comfortably. "Now tell me," she asks, "What was your name again?"

Connor gets it. He closes his eye, takes a deep breath, and opens it again.

"Do I have a middle name?"

The nurse checks the chart. "Robert."

"Then my name is E. Robert Mullard."

The nurse smiles and holds out her hand to shake his. "A pleasure to meet you, Robert."