Once he puts this podcast out there, there will be no turning back. No changing his mind. He will have shown his hand. Starkey could very well find out. He probably will, and pretty quickly, too. Will Starkey kill him for it, he wonders?
“So whether you’re a stork, or an AWOL, or a kid frightened for your own future—or an adult scared for your kids’ futures—we DO have an opportunity to deal unwinding a mortal blow. We just have to figure out how to do it. I wish I knew the answer, but I’m not brilliant enough to figure it out on my own. So I’m putting the call out to you. Any of you. All of you. What do YOU think we should do? Contact me at [email protected] with your own brilliance. All ideas will be considered. Even the stupid ones. This is Hayden Upchurch signing off. Stay sane, and stay whole.”
His finger hovers over the “send” button, and hovers some more. He can’t seem to make his finger move, and he marvels at how one’s entire life can come down to the pressing of a single button.
Then Hayden hears a noise. Something shuffling behind him, and he spins in his chair.
A rat—please, God, let it be a rat!
But it’s no rat. It’s Jeevan.
Hayden’s heart misses a beat, then compensates with a powerful pump that he can feel pulse through his neck and into his eyeballs.
“Up late, Jeevan?” He tries to be nonchalant, but the kid’s not buying it. Jeevan, at only fifteen, is Starkey’s technology wunderkind—but back in the Graveyard, he used to do his magic for Hayden. So to whom is he more loyal? Hayden knows that Jeevan has been giving Starkey less than his best—working much less efficiently and skillfully than Hayden knows he can. It’s a form of resistance, but being resistant and turning against the “Stork Lord” are two different things.
“I heard it,” Jeevan says, taking a few steps closer. “I heard all of it.”
Hayden takes a slow silent breath before he speaks. No point in mincing words now. “Are you going to tell Starkey?”
Jeevan doesn’t answer. Instead he says, “We’re going the day after tomorrow, did you know? The next harvest camp attack. There are kids betting on how many of us will get killed this time. Whoever gets closest to the actual death count wins. Unless they’re one of the ones killed, of course. Then it goes to the next closest who actually survived.”
“Did you bet?”
Jeevan shakes his head. “No. Because if I’m right, I’ll somehow feel I was partially responsible.” For a moment Jeevan seems much younger than fifteen. And much older at the same time. “Do you think that’s stupid?”
“If it is, Jeeves, it’s outweighed by a far greater stupidity than yours.”
They both look at the computer screen and the Norman Rockwell image that seems simultaneously innocent and sinister. “The Juvies will find that podcast, you know,” says Jeevan. “They won’t be able to trace it, but they’ll take it down before it has the chance to spread.”
“I know,” says Hayden. “But if just a handful of people hear it, I’ll be happy.”
“No, you won’t. You want everyone to hear it. It’s just not going to happen, though.” Jeevan shivers a bit, and holds his arms. Only now does Hayden realize how cold the night has gotten. “You need to find a way to make it kill-proof,” Jeevan says. “You know, make it reproduce and shift locations on the web so that they can’t take it down.”
“Kind of like digital Whac-a-Mole.”
Jeevan takes a moment to process that. “Oh yeah, right. Whac-a-Mole. Funny.”
“So . . . can you make that happen?”
“Maybe. Or maybe you need to do an old-fashioned radio broadcast. They can’t shut that down until it’s already out there.”
The idea of a real broadcast is appealing to Hayden. The trick would be getting a signal that’s far-reaching enough.
“You haven’t uploaded it yet,” Jeevan says.
Hayden shrugs. “Yeah, well, follow-through has always been my weak point.”
Jeevan looks at the screen. Hayden is usually good at knowing what people are thinking, but tonight, he has no clue what’s in Jeevan’s head. Well, whatever he’s thinking, it must resonate with Hayden’s thoughts, because Jeevan reaches out and does what was so hard for Hayden. He clicks on “send.”
They both watch in silence as the podcast uploads. In a few moments it’s done. A click of a button to change the world, or end his life, or both.
14 • Groundskeeper
A gardener by trade, he took the job because it was a job. The pay was decent, there were good benefits, and it included room and board. “You’d be an idiot to turn it down,” his wife had told him. “So what if it’s at a harvest camp? I won’t mind living there if you won’t.”
Without a degree in horticulture, a steady job at a well-funded institution was probably the best he could hope for.
“And anyway,” as his wife had pointed out, “it’s not like you’re unwinding anyone.”
That’s true enough. In his five years working at Horse Creek Harvest Camp, he’s had very little contact with the kids. The camp is too regimented for that. The Unwinds are always being efficiently shuttled from one activity to another. Sports activities to gauge their physical prowess and to build muscle mass so their parts will be more valuable. Intellectual and creative endeavors designed to measure, and improve upon, their mental skills. The Unwinds of Horse Creek are kept far too busy to notice a gardener.