Part One
Violations
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
—Albert Camus
1 - Starkey
He’s fighting a nightmare when they come for him.
A great flood is swallowing the world, and in the middle of it all, he’s being mauled by a bear. He’s more annoyed than terrified. As if the flood isn’t enough, his deep, dark mind has to send an angry grizzly to tear into him.
Then he’s dragged feetfirst out of the jaws of death and drowning Armageddon.
“Up! Now! Let’s go!”
He opens his eyes to a brightly lit bedroom that ought to be dark. Two Juvey-cops manhandle him, grabbing his arms, preventing him from fighting back long before he’s awake enough to try.
“No! Stop! What is this?”
Handcuffs. First his right wrist, then his left.
“On your feet!”
They yank him to his feet as if he’s resisting—which he would, if he were more awake.
“Leave me alone! What’s going on?”
But in an instant he’s awake enough to know exactly what’s going on. It’s a kidnapping. But you can’t call it kidnapping when transfer papers have been signed in triplicate.
“Verbally confirm that you are Mason Michael Starkey.”
There are two officers. One is short and muscular, the other tall and muscular. Probably military boeufs before they took jobs as Juvey-rounders. It takes a special heartless breed to be a Juvey-cop, but to specialize as a rounder you probably need to be soulless as well. The fact that he’s being rounded for unwinding shocks and terrifies Starkey, but he refuses to show it, because he knows Juvey-rounders get off on other people’s fear.
The short one, who is clearly the mouthpiece of this duo, gets in his face and repeats, “Verbally confirm that you are Mason Michael Starkey!”
“And why should I do that?”
“Kid,” says the other rounder, “this can go down easy or hard, but either way it’s going down.” The second cop is more soft spoken with a pair of lips that clearly aren’t his. In fact, they look like they came from a girl. “The drill’s not so hard, so just get with the program.”
He talks as if Starkey should have known they were coming, but what Unwind ever really knows? Every Unwind believes in their heart of hearts that it won’t happen to them—that their parents, no matter how strained things get, will be smart enough not to fall for the net ads, TV commercials, and billboards that say things like “Unwinding: the sensible solution.” But who is he kidding? Even without the constant media blitz, Starkey’s been a potential candidate for unwinding since the moment he arrived on the doorstep. Perhaps he should be surprised that his parents waited so long.
Now the mouthpiece gets deep in his personal space. “For the last time, verbally confirm that you are—”
“Yeah, yeah, Mason Michael Starkey. Now get out of my face, your breath stinks.”
With his identity verbally confirmed, Lady-Lips pulls out a form in triplicate: white, yellow, and pink.
“So is this how you do it?” Starkey asks, his voice beginning to quaver. “You arrest me? What’s my crime? Being sixteen? Or maybe it’s just being here at all.”
“Quiet-or-we-tranq-you,” says Mouthpiece, like it’s all one word.
A part of Starkey wants to be tranq’d—just go to sleep and if he’s lucky, never wake up. That way he won’t have to face the utter humiliation of being torn from his life in the middle of the night. But no, he wants to see his parents’ faces. Or, more to the point, he wants them to see his face, and if he’s tranq’d, they get off easy. They won’t have to look him in the eye.
Lady-Lips holds the unwind order in front of him and begins to read the infamous Paragraph Nine, the “Negation Clause.”
“Mason Michael Starkey, by the signing of this order, your parents and/or legal guardians have retroactively terminated your tenure, backdated to six days postconception, leaving you in violation of Existential Code 390. In light of this, you are hereby remanded to the California Juvenile Authority for summary division, also known as unwinding.”