UnDivided (15 page)

Divan sits across from him once more. “Well, you have something important to tell me, do you not? I feel it's only fair for me to share something important with you first. So we might be on even ground.” Then he leans back and crosses his arms. “So, shall we discuss your sister?”

Argent had it all worked out. He was going to ask for money before giving away the code to access Grace's tracking chip. And maybe a car. He was going to ask for a supply contract with Divan so he could go out on his own as a parts pirate.

But Divan's openness—it changes everything. Argent knows he should be horrified by the four men ensconced around them, but instead, all he feels is admiration for Divan. The man didn't kill his enemies; he subdued them. He didn't give in to the evil methods of the Dah Zey; instead he set himself as the world's last defense against them. Argent realizes he can't make demands of this man. Only by his willingness to give, will Argent receive.

“R-O-N-A-E-L-E-one-two-one-five,” Argent says. “It's Grace's middle name spelled backwards, and her birthday. Code that into the InStaTrac website, and if the chip is still active, it'll give you her location down to the inch. When you find her, I guarantee you'll find Connor.”

Divan pulls out a pen and pad, writes the information down, then calls for a servant to come take it, instructing him to give it to Nelson immediately.

“Once we've got a location, Nelson and I should leave right away,” Argent suggests.

“Ah, well—I'm afraid the unintended consequences of your own actions preclude that,” Divan says. “I'm speaking of that picture you posted of yourself and Connor Lassiter.”

Argent grimaces. He's done stupid things in his life, but that may have been the stupidest—but who could blame him: He was starstruck by being in the presence of his then-hero.

“Your actions resulted in alerting the world that Lassiter is still alive, and has made tracking him down a race between the Juvenile Authority and our friend Jasper. Then, of course, there's fact that you withheld this information about your sister from him, which he is very sore about. It makes a continued partnership between the two of you untenable.”

Argent swallows hard. His hands shake a bit, and he tells himself it's because of the espresso.

“Fine, so I won't go with him. I'll go out alone—I'll bring you back tons of AWOLs. You saw how good I am at it, right? I could be one of your best suppliers!”

Divan sighs. “I'm sure you could be. However, my arrangement with Jasper makes that impossible as well.”

“Wait—what arrangement?”

But the sympathetic look on Divan's face makes the truth all too clear. Whatever that arrangement is, it doesn't involve things ending well for Argent. He tries to rise—as if there were somewhere to run—but he can't get up. He can't even feel his legs. He tries to lift his arms, but they just hang scarecrow-limp by his side. It takes all his effort just to remain upright in the chair.

“Never trust espresso,” Divan tells him. “Its bitter taste can mask a multitude of things. This time, it masked a powerful muscle relaxant—a natural compound—designed to calm you and ease your handling.”

Argent glances to the dull-eyed bonsai over Divan's shoulder. “Are you going to make me one of them? I won't make a good potted boy,” Argent pleads.

“Of course not,” Divan says with compassion that must be well practiced. “That's only for my enemies. I do not see you as an enemy, Argent. You are, however, a commodity.”

Argent loses the battle with gravity, and falls to the soft grass. Divan kneels beside him. “Your name means ‘silver,' but sadly, as an Unwind, I suspect you'll be worth little more than brass.”

And then something Divan had said when they first sat down comes back to him. Divan spoke of the six Unwinds that Argent provided. Argent is the sixth. Divan does not do anything by mistake.

Servants arrive to take Argent away. “Please,” he says, his teeth locked and his voice beginning to slur. “Please . . .” But the only answer he receives are the dispassionate stares from the bonsai . . . and as he's carried off, Argent holds on to the last glimmer of light left to him. Whatever happens now, he knows he'll receive mercy. Divan is all about mercy.

BELGIUM FIRST COUNTRY TO ALLOW EUTHANASIA FOR CHILDREN

By David Harding /
New York Daily News

Saturday, December 14, 2013 2:43 PM

Belgium has voted to extend euthanasia laws to cover children.

The Belgian Senate backed the plan on Friday, which means the controversial law will now cover terminally ill children.

It means Belgium is the first country in the world to remove any age limits on euthanasia. The country first adopted euthanasia in 2002, but restricted it to those over 18. . . .

Any child seeking euthanasia under the law must understand what is meant by euthanasia and the decision must be agreed by their parents.

Their illness must also be terminal.

Belgium recorded over 1,400 cases of euthanasia in 2012. . . .

The full article can be found at:
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/belgium-country-euthanasia-children-article-1.1547809#ixzz2qur84gzr

Meals with Roberta on the veranda. Always so formal. Always so genteel. Always a reminder to Cam that he is forever beneath her thumb. Even when he's miles away at West Point, he knows he will still feel her manipulations. Her puppeteer's strings are woven through his mind just as effectively as the “worm” that makes him forget that which is truly important.

During breakfast, a few days before he's scheduled to leave, he asks her the question point-blank. The question that sits between them at every meal like a glass of poison that neither is willing to touch.

“What was her name?”

He doesn't expect an answer. He knows Roberta will evade.

“You're leaving for a grand new life soon. What's the point?”

“There's no point—I just want to hear you say it.”

Roberta takes a small bite of her eggs Benedict and puts down the fork. “Even if I tell you, the nanites will break the synapses and rob the memory within seconds.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Roberta sighs, crosses her arms, and to Cam's amazement, says, “Her name was Risa Ward.”

. . . but the moment the words are spoken, they're gone from his mind, leaving him to wonder if she had told him at all.

“What was her name?” he asks again.

“Risa Ward.”

“What was her name?”

“Risa Ward.”

“WHAT WAS HER NAME?!”

Roberta shakes her head in a belittling show of pity. “You see, it's no use. Best to spend your time thinking of your future, Cam, not the past.”

He looks at his plate feeling anything but hungry. From deep within him comes a desperate whisper of a question. He can't even remember why he's asking it, but it must have some significance, mustn't it?

“What . . . was . . . her . . . name?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Roberta says. “Now finish up—we have a lot to do before you leave.”

The girl who Cam can't remember is running for her life.

It was a bad idea—actually, a whole series of them—that brought her to this circumstance. Only now does Risa comprehend how monumentally bad those ideas were, as she races from armed security guards in a massive research hospital complex. There are windows, but they only look out on other wings of the complex, so there's no way to get one's bearings. Risa is convinced they're running in circles, spiraling toward inevitable doom.

•  •  •

There was little choice but to go on this fool's mission.

If the organ printer arrived as stillborn technology when they made their grand play, then all their efforts will have been for naught. It was crucial that they find a way to test it, for only by demonstrating what it could do, would the world sit up and take notice.

“Making sure it works should have been
your
job,” Connor pointed out to Sonia as they discussed it in a relatively private
corner of her basement. “You've been sitting on the thing for thirty years—you could have checked that it worked before you brought us into it.”

Sonia glared at him. “So sue me,” she said, and then added, “Oh, that's right, you can't—because for the past two years you've had the legal status of a canned ham.”

Connor matched her glare, dagger for dagger, until Sonia backed down. “I never thought I'd get the chance to bring it out again,” she said, “so I never bothered.”

“What changed?” Connor asked.

“You showed up.”

Although Connor couldn't get why that should matter, Risa did. It's their notoriety that makes all the difference. They have become the royalty of AWOLs. Attach their names to something, and suddenly people listen, whether they want to or not.

“OSU Medical Center,” Sonia said, “is one of the only research hospitals in the Midwest that does curative biological research. Everyone else is just trying to figure out better ways of using parts from Unwinds. Plenty of funding for that—but try to fund alternatives, and you get nothing but tumbleweeds.”

“OSU? Connor said. “As in Ohio State University? As in, the one in Columbus?”

“You got a problem with that?” Sonia asked. Connor gave her no answer.

She went on to tell them of one rogue doctor who was still seeking cures for systemic diseases, the kind that can't be cured by transplantation. “And guess what's at the heart of that research?” Sonia asked mischievously. The answer, of course, was adult pluripotent stem cells—the very sort of cells needed for the printer.

They had to talk Sonia out of going after the cells herself. A few days before, she had twisted her ankle and bruised her hip in a fall that no one had seen, probably back at her home. She
tried to downplay it, but clearly she'd been in pain ever since. She couldn't go, but someone had to.

They discussed the possibility of sending some of the kids from the basement to retrieve the biomatter, but they didn't discuss it for long. This batch of AWOLs wasn't exactly the secret-mission type. Risa hated to judge any AWOLs the way the world judged them, but these poor kids had none of the skill sets needed to pull it off, and a grab bag of personal issues that would do nothing but hinder them. The kids in Sonia's basement would be liabilities on this mission. All of them, that is, except for Beau. For all his cockiness, he was capable—but was he capable enough to pull this off? Risa didn't think so.

“I'll go,” Risa offered. Bad idea number one.

“I'll go with you,” Connor chimed in. Bad idea number two.

Sonia raged about it, insisting that they'd be recognized, and that, of all the people who
shouldn't
go, Connor and Risa topped the list. She was, of course, right.

“Well,
I
ain't going,” Grace was quick to announce. “I've had quite enough excitement over the past few weeks, thank you very much.” To Sonia's absolute chagrin, Grace had appointed herself as Sonia's personal caregiver, minding that she didn't fall again.

“I don't need a nursemaid!” Sonia kept telling her, which just doubled Grace's resolve.

Risa knew a team of two was iffy. They needed at least one more as a fail-safe. And so Risa suggested that Beau be added to team. Bad idea number three.

“Are you kidding me? You want to ask Beau to come?” Connor said back in the basement. He raised his eyebrows at Risa. “Beau? Really?” He was amused, and it ticked Risa off.

“We're going to have to interact out there—we need at least one face that people aren't currently wearing on T-shirts.” Connor couldn't argue with that logic.

Beau, of course, was thrilled to be included, although he tried to feign being blasé. “I'll drive,” he proclaimed.

“You'll sit in the back,” Connor told him, then handed him an old GPS he had pulled from a bin of marginal technology in Sonia's shop. “We'll need you to navigate.”

Risa had to grin at the way Connor put Beau in his place without making him lose face.

It was Sonia's idea to arm them all with tranq-loaded pistols. Risa couldn't stand the things, because they reminded her of the Juvies. She hated the idea of using the Juvenile Authority's weapon of choice.

“Tranqs are quick, effective, and leave no mess, and even a peripheral hit does the job,” Sonia told her. “That's why the Juvies use them.”

Risa was quick to remove the tranqs from Beau's gun when he wasn't looking. The last thing she or Connor wanted was a trigger-happy Beau.

That was this morning. Now as they run through the hospital complex, Beau insists he knows where he's going even though neither of them has a clue about the mazelike facility. The blueprint they studied in preparation was hopelessly out of date and didn't include the newer buildings, or renovations in the older ones.

It's Sunday, and the particular office wing they've barged into is full of empty waiting rooms with generic art prints on the walls. Another place that's not on the map they studied.

“This way!” Beau says, and although Risa's sure it's going to take them back where they've been, she goes along, because at this point, any direction seems as good as another. She can only hope that Connor, wherever he is, hasn't been caught.

Connor took a different passageway—one that theoretically leads to the research wing of the massive complex. They hadn't planned on splitting up, but Connor had already turned
a corner when a hospital rent-a-cop spotted Risa and Beau. Since the guard hadn't seen Connor, it seemed the clear choice to Risa that she and Beau act as decoys, luring the somewhat hefty guard away. The trick is to stay far enough ahead not to be caught, but close enough so that the guard doesn't give up the chase and go for donuts in the cafeteria, maybe encountering Connor along the way. The guard, however, is determined, and soon he's joined by a slimmer, faster comrade. That's when things begin to get serious.