UnBound (37 page)

Dagmara gapes at him. He's joking. He must be. He wouldn't unwind his own nephew. What sort of monster would do such a thing?

“While I would love to continue this chat, Dagmara, I'm afraid we're out of time,” Divan says. “We've just crossed into Chinese airspace at an altitude of about 2,300 meters. We're no longer headed toward Burma, but west. Of course, at this low an altitude it will be a bumpy ride once you reach the Chinese mountain ranges, but not to worry—the autopilot will steer you clear of the higher peaks.”

Dagmara struggles to grasp the things that Divan is telling her. Chinese mountains. 2,300 meters, Autopilot. And Malik. None of it seems real to her. It's all a hallucination brought on by the tranqs. Please let it be so. Please let it be so.

“I'll be leaving you now, dear sister. “Saying ‘sayonara,' as it were. You see, there are two parachutes on board. One for me and one for my valet.”

“Wait—you're just going to leave me here?”

“I leave you with my prize possession: the Orgão Orgânico
.
As long as you keep playing, the plane will fly true. At least until it runs out of gas, but her tanks are massive. You've got at least twenty hours left, maybe more.”

Then Divan removes his finger from the key. The face stops wailing, closes its mouth, and the plane begins to drop.

“Better play, Dagmara.”

In a panic Dagmara looks at the keyboard and quickly launches into her go-to piece as she had when she first arrived—Bach's “Toccata and Fugue in D-minor.” The chorus of disembodied voices fills the space.

“Very good!” says Divan, as he strides away “Keep playing, Dagmara. Keep playing!”

“Divan!” she calls. “DIVAN!” But he's gone.

And so she plays for her life, buying herself the seconds and the minutes and the hours until there is nothing but soulless voices and fumes.

Being ejected out of the Sayonara Hatch is like being launched from a cannon into an ice-cold sky. He tumbles in an uncontrolled plummet. He has no experience or skill at skydiving. He's just happy he remembers to pull the rip cord to open the chute. At last Argent lands shivering in a patch of snow on a hillside and tumbles to a stop. Divan arrives a few moments later, twenty yards away, perfectly controlled and landing on his feet. He disconnects from his parachute and comes over to help Argent release himself from his.

“Well, that was exhilarating,” Divan says.

“Yeah right,” says Argent, a little too riled to be respectful. “Almost dying is always fun.”

Divan chuckles.

“So what now?” Argent asks.

“I have friends in China, and I've already alerted them. They'll zero in on our beacon. We won't have to wait here for long.”

Argent suspects Divan has friends everywhere. Except for maybe Southeast Asia. Then Divan pulls something out of his backpack—the only object he salvaged from the plane—and hands it to Argent. It's a biological stasis cooler about the size of a lunch box.

“What's . . . inside?” Argent asks.

Divan sighs. “The only part of Malik I didn't sell. His best part, actually.”

Argent doesn't dare open it. He knows what it is. “And it's . . . for me?” Argent asks, scarcely willing to believe it.

“It's an elegant solution, don't you think?” Divan says. “It fulfills my promise to you, and allows me to see my nephew's handsome face once more, without having to suffer the rest of him.”

Argent holds the box closely. He feels awful, he feels grateful, he feels damned, and he feels blessed. How could something generate so many conflicting emotions? He decides to go with the positive ones, because the negative ones will surely drive him mad. “Thank you,” he says.

“I do believe Malik is better off living divided,” Divan says. “It's certainly better than the life path he was on.”

He tells Argent that he'll arrange a private procedure to graft his new face once they arrive in Beijing.

“And then you're free, Argent. I will have you taken to wherever you want to go.”

Argent looks at Divan, holding eye contact—something he never before had the courage to do. “What if I don't want to go? What if I want to keep working for you?”

“Well then, I'll pay you a wage worthy of your loyalty.” Divan looks up at
Lady Lucrezia
's vapor trail, slowly being torn apart by crosswinds. “When the plane finally does goes down, we'll all be taken for dead. I intend to take advantage of that. Leave my business. Retire under an assumed name. Of course, I'll always need a valet.”

They sit down and wait for the arrival of Divan's “friends,” who will most likely come by helicopter. And as Argent ponders the electrifying prospect of his new future, a question comes to mind.

“Where will we go?” he asks. “Where do you want to retire?”

“Well,” says Divan, “faking one's death does require a level of continued anonymity.” He feigns to consider the question, but clearly he's thought about it before. “Did you know that with all that I possess, I've never owned a yacht? It has been a long-standing dream of mine to own one, and sail the Mediterranean—sticking only to the smaller, less traveled ports, of course.”

“Sounds like a plan,” says Argent, already settling in to the idea.

After all, what are the chances of running into someone they know?

Also by Neal Shusterman

NOVELS

Bruiser

Challenger Deep

Chasing Forgiveness

The Dark Side of Nowhere

Dissidents

Downsiders

The Eyes of Kid Midas

Full Tilt

The Shadow Club

The Shadow Club Rising

Speeding Bullet

THE ACCELERATI TRILOGY

(with Eric Elfman)

Tesla's Attic

Edison's Alley

Hawking's Hallway

THE ANTSY BONANO SERIES

The Schwa Was Here

Antsy Does Time

Ship Out of Luck

THE UNWIND DYSTOLOGY

Unwind

UnWholly

UnSouled

UnDivided

UnStrung (an original novella)

THE SKINJACKER TRILOGY

Everlost

Everwild

Everfound

THE STAR SHARDS CHRONICLES

Scorpion Shards

Thief of Souls

Shattered Sky

THE DARK FUSION SERIES

Dreadlocks

Red Rider's Hood

Duckling Ugly

STORY COLLECTIONS

Darkness Creeping

Kid Heroes

MindQuakes

MindStorms

MindTwisters

MindBenders

Visit the author at
storyman.com
and
facebook.com/nealshusterman

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Unstrung
copyright © 2012 by Neal Shusterman

New stories copyright © 2015 by Neal Shusterman

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