There’s an unwind transport truck on a winding road on a bright August day, and although it’s painted in pastel blues, pinks, and greens, nothing can hide the ugliness of its purpose.
The northern Nevada terrain is arid and rugged. There are mountains that seemed to see where they were headed and gave up before they were fully pushed forth from the earth, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. Everything in the landscape is the neutral beige of institutional furniture. Now I know why tumbleweeds roll, Starkey thinks. Because they want to be anywhere else but here.
Starkey sits shotgun beside the driver of the transport truck. Although today it should be called “riding pistol,” because that’s the weapon he has pressed to the driver’s ribs.
“You really don’t need to do this,” the driver says nervously.
“This thing is bigger than you, Bubba. Just go with it, and you might actually live.” Starkey doesn’t know the man’s name. To him all truck drivers are Bubba.
As they come down into the valley toward Cold Springs Harvest Camp, Starkey gets a good view of the facility. Like all harvest camps, its calculated attention to design is part of the crime, putting forth an illusion of tranquillity and comfort. At a harvest camp, even the building where kids go in and never come out could be as inviting as Grandma’s house. Starkey shudders at the thought.
The builders of Cold Springs Harvest Camp tried to take architectural cues from its surroundings, attempting a natural Western look—but a huge oasis of green artificial turf in the midst of stucco buildings is a glaring reminder that there is nothing natural about this place at all.
Bubba sweats profusely as they approach the guard gate. “Stop sweating!” says Starkey. “It’s suspicious.”
“I can’t help it!”
To the guard at the gate, it’s business as usual. He checks the driver’s credentials and reviews the manifest. He seems not to care, or just doesn’t notice the driver’s perspiration. Nor does he pay attention to Starkey, who is dressed in the light gray coveralls of an Unwind transport worker. The guard goes back into his booth, hits a button, and the gates slowly swing open.
Now it’s Starkey’s turn to sweat. Until this moment it’s all been hypothetical. Even coming down the valley toward the camp seemed surreal and one step removed from reality, but now that he’s inside, there’s no turning back. This is going down.
They pull up to a loading dock, where a team of harvest camp counselors wait to greet their new arrivals with disarming smiles, then sort them and send them to their barracks to await unwinding. But that’s not going to happen today.
As soon as the back doors of the transport truck are swung open, the staff is met not with rows of restrained teenagers, but with an army. Kids leap out at them, screaming and brandishing weapons.
The instant the commotion begins, the driver leaps from the cab and runs for his life. Starkey doesn’t care, since the man has done his job. The shouts give way to gunfire. Workers race away from the scene, and guards race toward it.
Starkey gets out of the cab in time to see some of his precious storks go down. The east tower has a clear view of the loading dock, and a sharpshooter is taking kids out. The first couple of shots are tranqs, but the sharpshooter switches rifles. The next kid to go down, goes down for good.
Oh crap this is real this is real this is—
And then the sharpshooter aims at Starkey.
He dodges just as a bullet puts a hole in the door of the truck with a dainty ping. Panicked, Starkey leaps behind a boulder, smashing his bad hand on the way down, spitting curses from the pain.
The storks are spreading out. Some are going down, but more are gaining ground. Some use the counselors as human shields.
I can’t die, Starkey thinks. Who will lead them if I die?
But he knows he can’t stay crouched behind a boulder either. They have to see him fighting. They have to see him in charge. Not just the storks, but the kids he’s about to set free.
He pokes his head up and aims his pistol at the shadowy figure in the tower, who is now firing at kids running across the artificial turf. Starkey’s fourth shot is lucky. The sharpshooter goes down.
But there are other guards, other towers.
In the end, salvation for all of them comes from the kids of the camp itself. The grounds are filled with Unwinds going about their daily activities—sports and dexterity exercises all designed to maximize their divided value and physically groom them for unwinding. When they see what’s happening, they abandon their activities, overpower their counselors, and turn an attack into a revolt.
Starkey strides into the midst of it, amazed by what he’s witnessing. The staff running in panic, guards overpowered, their weapons pulled from them and added to the storks’ growing arsenal. He sees a woman in a white coat race across the lawn and behind a building, trying to use a cell phone—but the joke’s on her. Even before the storks ambushed the transport truck, Jeevan and a team of techies had jammed the two wireless towers feeding the valley and took out the landline. No communication of any sort is getting in or out of this place unless it’s running on two feet.
The rebellion feeds itself, fueled by desperation and unexpected hope. It grows in intensity until even the guards are running, only to be tackled by dozens of kids and restrained with their own handcuffs. It’s like Happy Jack! thinks Starkey. But this time it’ll be done right. Because I’m the one in charge.
Overpowered by sheer numbers, the staff is subdued, and the camp is liberated in fifteen minutes.
Kids are overwhelmed with joy. Some are in tears from the ordeal. Others tend to dead and dying friends. Adrenaline is still high, and Starkey decides to use it. Let the dead be dead. He must focus them now on life. He strides out into the middle of the common area, beside a flagpole poking out of the artificial turf, and draws their attention away from the human cost of their liberation.
He grabs a machine gun from one of his storks and fires it into the air until everyone is looking his way.
“My name is Mason Michael Starkey!” he announces in his loudest, most commanding voice, “and I’ve just saved you from unwinding!”
Cheers all around, as it should be. He orders them to separate into two groups. Storks to his left, the rest to his right. They are reluctant at first, but his storks wave their weapons and make the order stick. The kids divide themselves. There seem to be about a hundred storks and three hundred other kids. No tithes, thankfully. This is a titheless camp. Starkey addresses the nonstorks first, gesturing to the main entrance.
“The gate is wide open. Your path to freedom is there. I suggest you take it.”
For a moment they linger, not trusting. Then a few turn and head toward the gate, then a few more, and in an instant it becomes a mass exodus. Starkey watches them go. Then he turns to the storks who remain.
“To you I give a choice,” he tells them. “You can run off with the others, or you can become part of something larger than yourselves. All your life you’ve been treated like second-class citizens and then handed the ultimate insult. You were sent here.” He gestures wide. “We are all storks here, condemned to be unwound—but we’ve taken back our lives, and we’re taking our revenge. So I ask you—do you want revenge?” He waits and receives a few guarded responses, so he raises his voice. “I said, do you want revenge?”
Now primed, the answer comes in a single chorus blast. “Yes!”
“Then welcome,” Starkey says, “to the Stork Brigade!”