Unwind

35. Lev

Where Lev was between the time he left CyFi and his arrival at the Graveyard is less important than where his thoughts resided. They resided in places colder and darker than the many places he hid.

He had survived the month through a string of unpleasant compromises and crimes of convenience— whatever was necessary to keep himself alive. Lev quickly became street-smart, and survival-wise. They say it takes complete immersion in a culture to learn its language and its ways. It didn’t take him very long to learn the language of the lost.

Once he landed in the safe-house network, he quickly made it known that he was not a guy to be trifled with. He didn’t tell people he was a tithe. Instead, he told them his parents signed the order to have him unwound after he was arrested for armed robbery. It was funny to him, because he had never even touched a gun. It amazed him that the other kids couldn’t read the lie in his face—he had always been such a bad liar. But then, when he looked in the mirror, what he saw in his own eyes scared him.

By the time he reached the Graveyard, most kids knew enough to stay away from him. Which is exactly what he wanted.

The same night that the Admiral and Connor have their secret conference, Lev heads out into the oil-slick dark of the moonless night, keeping his flashlight off. His first night there he had successfully slipped out to find Connor, in order to set him straight about a few things. Since then, the bruise from Connor’s punch has faded, and they haven’t spoken of it again. He hasn’t spoken much to Connor at all, because Lev has other things on his mind.

Each night since then he’s tried to sneak away, but every time, he’s been caught and sent back. Now that the Admiral’s five watchdogs have left, though, the kids on sentry duty are getting lax. As Lev sneaks between the jets, he finds that a few of them are even asleep on the job. Stupid of the Admiral to send those other kids away without having anyone to replace them.

Once he’s far enough away he turns on his flashlight and tries to find his destination. It’s a destination told to him by a girl he had encountered a few weeks before. She was very much like him. He suspects he’ll meet others tonight who are very much like him as well.

Aisle thirty, space twelve. It’s about as far from the Admiral as you can get and still be in the Graveyard. The space is occupied by an ancient DC-10, crumbling to pieces in its final resting place. When Lev swings open the hatch and climbs in, he finds two kids inside, both of whom bolt upright at the sight of him and take defensive postures.

“My name’s Lev,” he says. “I was told to come here.”

He doesn’t know these kids, but that’s no surprise—he hasn’t been in the Graveyard long enough to know that many kids here. One is an Asian girl with pink hair. The other kid has a shaved head and is covered in tattoos.

“And who told you to come here?” asks the flesh-head.

“This girl I met in Colorado. Her name’s Julie-Ann.”

Then a third figure comes out from the shadows. It’s not a kid but an adult—midtwenties, maybe. He’s smiling. The guy has greasy red hair, a straggly goatee to match, and a boney face with sunken cheeks. It’s Cleaver, the helicopter pilot.

“So Julie-Ann sent you!” he says. “Cool! How is she?”

Lev takes a moment to think about his answer. “She did her job,” Lev tells him.

Cleaver nods. “Well, it is what it is.”

The other two kids introduce themselves. The flesh-head is Blaine, the girl is Mai.

“What about that boeuf who flies the helicopter with you?” Lev asks Cleaver. “Is he part of this too?”

Mai gives a disgusted laugh. “Roland? Not on your life!”

“Roland isn’t exactly . . . the material for our little group,” Cleaver says. “So, did you come here to give us the good news about Julie-Ann, or are you here for another reason?”

“I’m here because I want to be here.”

“You say it,” says Cleaver, “but we still don’t know you’re for real.”

“Tell us about yourself,” says Mai.

Lev prepares to give them the armed-robbery version, but before he opens his mouth, he changes his mind. The moment calls for honesty. This must begin with the truth. So he tells them everything, from the moment he was kidnapped by Connor to his time with CyFi and the weeks after that. When he’s done, Cleaver seems very, very pleased.

“So, you’re a tithe! That’s great. You don’t even know how great that is!”

“What now?” asks Lev. “Am I in, or not?”

The others become quiet. Serious. He feels some sort of ritual is about to begin.

“Tell me, Lev,” says Cleaver. “How much do you hate the people who were going to unwind you?”

“A lot.”

“Sorry, that’s not good enough.”

Lev closes his eyes, digs down, and thinks about his parents. He thinks about what they planned to do to him, and how they made him actually want it.

“How much do you hate them?” Cleaver asks again.

“Totally and completely,” answers Lev.

“And how much do you hate the people who would take parts of you and make them parts of themselves?”

“Totally and completely.”

“And how much do you want to make them, and everyone else in the world, pay?”

“Totally and completely.” Someone has to pay for the unfairness of it all.

Everyone has to pay. He’ll make them.

“Good,” says Cleaver.

Lev is amazed by the depth of his own fury—but he’s becoming less and less frightened of it. He tells himself that’s a good thing.

“Maybe he’s for real,” says Blaine.

If Lev makes this commitment, he knows there’s no turning back. “One thing I need to know,” Lev asks, “because Julie-Ann . . . she wasn’t very clear about it. I want to know what you believe.”

“What we believe?” says Mai. She looks at Blaine, and Blaine laughs.

Cleaver, however, puts his hand up to quiet him. “No—no, it’s a good question. A real question. It deserves a real answer. If you’re asking if we have a cause, we don’t, so get that out of your head.” Cleaver gestures broadly, his hands and arms filling the space around him. “Causes are old news. We believe in randomness. Earthquakes! Tornados! We believe in forces of nature—and we are forces of nature. We are havoc. We’re chaos. We mess with the world.”

“And we messed pretty good with the Admiral, didn’t we,” says Blaine slyly.

Cleaver throws him a sharp gaze, and Mai actually looks scared. It’s almost enough to give Lev second thoughts.

“How did you mess with the Admiral?”

“It’s done,” says Mai, her body language both anxious and angry. “We messed, and now it’s done. We don’t talk about things that are done. Right?”

Cleaver gives her a nod, and she seems to relax a bit. “The point is,” says Cleaver, “it doesn’t matter who or what we mess with, just as long as we mess. The way we see it, the world doesn’t move if things don’t get shaken up—am I right?”

“I guess.”

“Well, then, we are the movers and shakers.” Cleaver smiles and points a finger at Lev. “The question is, are you one too? Do you have what it takes to be one of us?”

Lev takes a long look at these three. These are the kinds of people his parents would hate. He could join