Unwind

A nurse comes into Connor’s room and tells him that he has been in a coma. She calls him Mr. Mullard. Connor thinks that he has “been unwound, and somehow, someone got his entire brain. He’s inside someone else now. But as he thinks about it, he knows that can’t be it. His voice still sounds like his voice” (318). He tells the nurse his name is Connor. She tells him his ID says Elvis Robert Mullard, but the ID’s picture has been burned away. She also tells him that they couldn’t save his arm, but he was able to get a transplant. “She leaves him alone with the arm. His arm. An arm that bears the unmistakable tattoo of a tiger shark” (319).

The surviving clapper admitted to the incident at the harvest camp. Risa, one of the survivors, is “riddled with steel pins like a human voodoo doll” (320). She visits Connor and tells him she is paralyzed. He suggests that it is fixable. She agrees, but points out that it would require a transplant from an Unwind, which is something she doesn’t want. She further explains, “They can’t unwind me now—there are laws against unwinding the disabled” (321).