UnSouled Read Free Page B

there’s nothing wrong with buying something to eat. It’s easy to remain anonymous in a market for a whole of five minutes.
    As the automatic door slides open, he’s hit with a blast of cold air that is at first refreshing, then makes his sweaty clothes cold against his body. The market is brightly lit andfilled with shoppers moving slowly through the aisles, probably here to get out of the heat as much as they are to shop.
    Connor grabs premade sandwiches and cans of soda for himself and for Lev, then goes to the self-checkout, only to find that it’s closed. No way to avoid human contact today. He chooses a checker who looks disinterested and unobservant. He seems a year or two older than Connor. Skinny, with straggly black hair and a baby-fuzz mustache that just isn’t working. He grabs Connor’s items and runs them across the scanner.
    “Will that be it for you?” the checker asks absently.
    “Yeah.”
    “Did you find everything all right?”
    “Yeah, no problem.”
    He glances once at Connor. It seems he holds Connor’s gaze a moment too long, but maybe he’s been instructed to make eye contact with customers, as well as ask his standard rote questions.
    “You need help out with that?”
    “I think I can handle it.”
    “No worries, man. Keep cool. It’s a scorcher out there.”
    Connor leaves without further incident. He’s back out in the heat and halfway across the parking lot, when he hears—
    “Hey, wait up!”
    Connor tenses, his right arm contracting into a habitual fist. But when he turns, he sees that it’s the checker coming after him, waving a wallet.
    “Hey, man—you left this on the counter.”
    “Sorry,” Connor tells him. “It’s not mine.”
    The checker flips it open to look at the license. “Are you sure? Because—”
    The attack comes so suddenly that Connor is caught off guard. He has no chance to protect himself from the blow—and it’s a low one. A kick to the groin that registers a surge ofshock, followed by a building swell of excruciating pain. Connor swings at his attacker, and Roland’s arm doesn’t fail him. He connects a powerful blow to the checker’s jaw, then swings with his natural arm, but by now the pain is so overwhelming, the punch has nothing behind it. Suddenly his attacker is behind him and puts Connor in a choke hold. Still Connor struggles. He’s bigger than this guy, stronger, but the checker knows what he’s doing, and Connor’s reaction time is slowed. The choke hold cuts off Connor’s windpipe and compresses his carotid artery. His vision goes black, and he knows he’s about to lose consciousness. The only saving grace is that being unconscious means he doesn’t have to feel the agony in his groin.
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    PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
“I used to make jokes about clappers until three of them senselessly targeted my school and detonated themselves in a crowded hallway. Who would have thought that the simple act of bringing your hands together could create so much misery ? I lost a lot of friends that day.
“If you think there’s nothing you can do to stop clappers, you’re wrong. You can report suspicious teens in your neighborhood, since it’s been documented that most clappers are under twenty. Be aware of people who wear clothing too heavy for the weather, as clappers often try to pad themselves so that they don’t detonate accidentally. Also be aware of people who appear to walk with exaggerated caution, as if every footfall might be their last. And don’t forget to lobby for a ban on applause at public events in your community.
“Together we can put an end to clappers once and for all. It’s our hands against theirs.”
    —Sponsored by Hands Apart for Peace ®
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    Connor snaps awake, fully conscious, fully aware. No bleary-eyed moments of uncertainty; he knows he was attacked, and he knows he’s in trouble. The question is how bad will this trouble be?
    The wound on his chest aches, his head pounds, but he pushes thoughts