So before we dive in, I’d like to do a quick recap about what these books really are.

Although the book claims there was a big fight between prolife and prochoice people to kick this mess off, the actual book is written from the perspective of someone who is really obviously prolife and doesn’t seem to have any idea what prochoice people believe. This is not to say the prolife side is portrayed positively but it’s a dystopia based around the idea of what if the prolife side went too far and were evil like those horrible prochoice bastards. It’s sort of like if someone wrote a story where women could choose to do anything they wanted to their unborn children, like have them blinded or chunks of their brain removed so they’d be as smart as cats or altered so they’d only live to age three, and also free abortions any time you felt like it even up to the point of actual labor, which is a really bizarre but not totally baseless extension of the idea the mother should get to choose what happens in her body, and then said it was a compromise between the prochoice and prolife people who are both just as terrible even though nothing I just said has anything to do with what the prolife lobby wants and a bunch of what I said are things that would horrify them far more.

The book is written with the idea that abortion is just about murdering kids for the lulz and the only reason for not sucking it up and being a mommy is that liberalism has sold you on the idea that you’re a victim and can just abandon your sacred responsibility to be a childish leech on society. Its idea of being far and balanced is wondering if creating a world of hideous child neglect is worse than aborting the children and coming up with an epic shrug.

I myself am pro-abortion. I think abortions are great, be they for the health of the mother, birth control, or mercy for those who wouldn’t survive birth itself, and I view stopping abortion as saying you want women to die horrible deaths for having sex and leave behind broken families because that is objectively what happens when abortion is prevented. You are not banned from disputing this in the comments, but there is a really good chance I will respond with vitriol to you.

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

As you can see, we’ll be doing more of those quote things.

This one, like so many, sounds really profound but can’t sustain any actual thought about it. People also deal with an unfree world by focusing on the specific problem rather than broad-spectrum rebellion. I do think general rebellion has its use – but generally, it’s limited to that of altering the signal/noise ratio so the other people can slip by. You still need people with an actual gameplan.

Also, last book and presumably this one too was actually super negative about rebellion, so…

Anyway, like the last, this book opens with a rebellious boy whose parents have decided to get rid of him. Unlike Connor, this kid didn’t see it coming despite being much, much worse than him, but that’s not immediately obvious and what plays out here works well.

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.

Now, Risa, when threatened with unwinding, says she’s willing to become a “boeuf” and we learn those kids are actually raised special for it. That strongly implies they’re generally orphan kids. And the only other time we hear about orphan kids, it’s the guy working at the harvest camp. Why are the people closest to unwinding working for it? I mean, sometimes you get people feeling that a horrible system is okay because they survived it, so maybe the survivors of state orphanages feel like the kids with homes are spoiled brats who deserve it, but you’d think they’d have lost so many friends to it along the way that the whole thing would be tainted to them.

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 book’s going to obsess over that idea for a while. Can’t say what the author was thinking there, but it’s kind of gross.

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.

This is a great paragraph that’s going to be completely contradicted by the rest of this chapter.

It’s funny, actually – the books don’t seem to put much focus on parents falling for it. Connor’s behavior upon finding out marked him as having something terrifyingly wrong with him. The closest is the brain ghost kid – he had problems and his home life was strained. You can see how his parents would consider it, would debate it, would go back and forth on if it was right, would stew on how they weren’t sure what to do and how everyone said he’d be happier like that…

“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.

This whole thing all sets up the character well. We have a kid who seems like a regular rebellious teen, whose family has just decided they’re sick of ordinary human behavior and they’re doing to kill him for being so inconvenient. Even his bit about his parents’ faces is so incredibly mild – they’ve betrayed him horribly and he should get every chance to go out screaming curses at them. This isn’t Connor finding out months in advance and deciding to fuck with their heads for shits and giggles, it’s a kid who never believed this could happen and has just been pulled from his bed.

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.”

But back to my favorite thing to hate on, yes, this language is all just a jab at abortion. When you built into your dystopia that killing fetuses is wrong and you have to wait for them to be teens, it doesn’t make any sense to have the legal justification be about retroactive abortion. But retroactive abortion is the insane prolifer’s very favorite attempt at trying to make the prochoice side sound even more insane to everyone else too, so here it is.

Also once again, no sign there’s monetary compensation to the parents despite that being such an obvious thing and raising the question about what exactly the money flow for all this is. I wouldn’t think “heartland America” would be happy with this money just going straight into government coffers.

Oh hey, maybe that’s where the compromise really was. The Republicans get to ban abortion and the Democrats get government funding through organ sales.

“Any rights previously granted to you by the county, state, or federal government as a citizen thereof are now officially and permanently revoked.”

“Unless you survive until eighteen, in which case you get them back, or if you’re crippled at any point, in which case they’re back immediately. Uh, hm, that kind of isn’t what “permanently” means, is it?”

“Congratulations, Mr. Starkey,” says Mouthpiece. “You no longer exist.”
“Then why are you talking to me?”
“We won’t be for much longer.”

Which is all a wasted opportunity. The idea unwinding makes you an actual nonperson is an interesting one, although technically they only said he’s not a citizen rather than that he doesn’t exist. It does have an interesting synergy with the fact it seems at eighteen, they can’t charge you for stealing yourself back when your organs were government property. You can’t commit crimes if you don’t exist.

Since apparently the real purpose of this is something something mumble teens something, that loophole may be intentional, since it lets the government just avoid the whole issue of adult unwinds in a way they couldn’t if they tried to bring anyone to court over this.

Starkey sees anguish on their faces, or maybe it’s relief, it’s hard to tell. He hardens his own emotions, hiding them behind a mock smile.
“Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!” he says brightly. “Guess what just happened to me? I’ll give you twenty guesses to figure it out!”
His father takes a deep breath, preparing to launch into the Great Unwinding Speech that every parent prepares for a wayward child. Even if they never use it, they still prepare it, running the words through their minds while on lunch break, or while sitting in traffic, or while listening to some moronic boss blather on about price points and distribution, and whatever other crap that people in office buildings have meetings about.

This is where it’s about to go off the rails. Bear in mind seconds ago Starkey was explaining that like all kids, he never thought his parents would actually do this. Now he’s saying that also, all parents have a practiced speech. I’m willing to go with him talking for all kids, but he just admitted he had no idea what his own parents thought, let alone the ability to know what every last one thinks. Or else the narration itself is breaking into what’s supposed to be a POV bit.

What were the statistics? Starkey saw it on the news once. Every year the thought of unwinding passes through the mind of one in ten parents. Of those, one in ten seriously considers it, and of those, one in twenty actually goes through with it—and the statistic doubles with every additional kid a family has. Crunch those juicy numbers, and one out of every two thousand kids between the ages of thirteen and seventeen will be unwound each year. Better odds than the lottery—and that doesn’t even include the kids in state homes.

Getting worse. Now we’re being told that one in ten thinks about it per year and one in a hundred seriously considers it. Add to the fact there’s plenty of variation in how much investment someone needs in an idea before they start rehearsing speeches, and yeah, I don’t think every single parent has a prepared statement.

But anyway, numbers! I suspect this also doesn’t count tithes, since that decision has to be made at birth (except for how also it’s never followed up on if you just don’t arrive), but I’m sure they’re a drop in the bucket compared to the deluge of state kids getting murdered. Anyway, according to the census, in 2000 there were 24.3 million kids age 12-17 in America. I have no idea what the total population of Unwind-America is – normal projections are for a small increase, but the banning of abortion and the overflowing orphanages and the schools being stocked for babies suggests it’s much higher – but let’s just see what the low estimate would get us. 24.3 million divided by 2000 = 12150 kids. 12150 kid parts a year. And yet somehow a kid with bad lungs can only get a single asthmatic lung as a replacement.

(Also weren’t these about the odds given in Battle Royale?)

Hm. Since the real purpose of all this is something about adults evil teens good, maybe all that stuff about how it’s not murder because all your parts stay alive is bullshit and most of these just get dumped off the coast to feed the sharks. Sharks are endangered, so it’d still be for a good cause.

Now for the full derailment:

His father, keeping his distance, begins the speech. “Mason, can’t you see that you left us no choice?”
The Juvey-cops hold him firm at the bottom of the stairs, but they make no move to get him outside. They know they must allow the parental rite of passage; the verbal boot out the door.
“The fights, the drugs, the stolen car—and now being expelled from yet another school. What’s next, Mason?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Dad. There are so many bad choices I can make.”
“Not anymore. We care enough about you to end your bad choices before they end you.”

Starkey is not, in fact, getting unwound for being sixteen. He’s getting unwound for committing numerous crimes. Kids are sent to juvie in our world for much, much less (I’m wondering if maybe the author doesn’t realize stealing a car is considered a really serious offense? also, if the author forgot that last book claimed the world has criminalized even really mild drugs so that should be a huge, huge thing) and this world doesn’t even have that option.

The reader’s supposed to just go, “Well, obviously murdering children is super wrong, duh!” but at the same time the book keeps trying to pretend it’s got legitimate worldbuilding where people believe this isn’t murder and that kids are happier like that, then tries to bridge the gap with some sort of innate moral sense bullshit where people should just instinctively know all that’s a lie and if they don’t they’ve evil.

Now, the list of this screams acting out, doesn’t it? But – you act out for a reason, right? So why was he doing it? If it was attention, it’s odd that he never considered doing everything he thought would cause trouble might make his parents unwind him. He seems to have issues with being storked, so it may have been a subconscious test, of pushing because he thought they didn’t really love him and wanted to be proven wrong, but – there’s none of that actually given here. He’s been causing trouble and then he’s shocked his parents do this despite apparently keeping up with the statistics that all point to his situation being particularly high risk.

It’s just that his mom is a bad woman who doesn’t love children like she’s supposed to.

“No! You can’t do this!”
His sister, Jenna—his parents’ biological daughter—stands at the top of the stairs in teddy bear pajamas that seem too old for her thirteen years.
“Go back to bed, Jenna,” their mother says.
“You’re unwinding him just because he was storked, and that’s unfair! And right before Christmas, too! What if I had come storked? Would you unwind me also?”
“We are not having this discussion!” yells their father, as their mother begins to cry. “Go back to bed!”
But she doesn’t. She folds her arms and sits at the top of the stairs in defiance, witnessing the whole thing. Good for her.

And that’s all there is from her sister. I mentioned in the previous book how incredibly traumatic this would be for siblings to go through. But this seems to be it from her – as part of the kids vs adults pandering, the kid knows this is wrong and the other kid appreciates how she knows this is wrong, but it doesn’t appear to actually go anywhere.

Was there favoritism? His opinions on his sibling begin and end at “good for her”, so he says nothing on his end, and her argument is this is only happening because storked, but we just saw him doing the rebellious teen who gets in trouble then acts unrepentant and insists he’ll keep doing it, which seems like ample reason in this universe. The language the adults use matches up with sending a kid to juvie/military school/those especially nasty places that rely on abusing the kids into compliant PTSD balls, and in our world that’s considered an understandable decision when dealing with a kid who’s completely out of control to the point they’re a danger to themselves. And if those things do exist, it sounds like they’ve been already tried, since he’s just been expelled from yet another school, which sounds like his parents have tried all their non-murdery options. Sure, in our world we understand that this doesn’t mean the murder option is therefore okay, but in our world we do think abusing kids into PTSD balls is suddenly okay when you’re out of other ideas. Every other kid in the last book had a backstory that made it clear their parents actually did not want them and had made little to no effort to deal with them, but his parents obviously have.

His mother’s tears are genuine, but he’s unsure whether she’s crying for him or for the rest of the family. “All these things you do, everyone told us they were a cry for help,” she says. “So why didn’t you let us help you?”
He wants to scream. How could he possibly explain it to them if they can’t see? They don’t know what it’s like to go through sixteen years of life knowing you weren’t wanted; a mystery baby of uncertain race storked on the doorstep of a couple so sienna-pale, they could have been vampires. Or to still remember that day when you were three years old and your mom, all doped up on pain medication from your sister’s cesarean delivery, took you to a fire station and begged them to take you away and make you a ward of the state. Or how about knowing every Christmas morning that your gift is not a joy, but an obligation? And that your birthday isn’t even real because they can’t pinpoint when you were born, just the day you were left on a welcome mat that some new mother took too literally?

See, a more nuanced book could do some good things with that. He somehow knows that his mom is doing it while out of her mind, but at the same time that isn’t a relevant factor in hating her for it. Why does a three year old understand this instead of just “one time Mom wanted to get rid of him”? (Or at all, really – I mean, he was three.) Someone must have explained later why it happened and that his mom didn’t really mean it and he just doesn’t care, and the book wants us to agree – that the pain medication was just her admitting it and thinking the dropping off thing could actually work, rather than an actual extenuating circumstance that is still totally understandable as something that’d scar a kid for life. As a result, it comes off as grudge-holding rather than lasting trauma.

Given this is a book about how abortion isn’t at all necessary, I also wonder if this is a jab at the idea pregnancy and childbirth are really rough on women and not something they should be forced into by saying she’s still totally responsible for her actions and the villain for this.

(On the other hand, hey, apparently my crack theory about how somehow storking prevents you from getting ditched at the orphanage is true!)

And what about the taunts from the other kids at school?
In fourth grade Mason’s parents were called into the principal’s office. He had flipped a boy off the top platform of the jungle gym. The kid had suffered a concussion and a broken arm.

Oh, also the mixed race non-“sienna” kid is a psychopath.

Note the lead-in here. It’s not that he lost his temper. He doesn’t understand what he did wrong. He thinks the fact the other kid calls him Storky makes this okay.

“You could have killed that boy,” his father had reprimanded. “And why? Because of words? Words don’t hurt you.” Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain. He would have gladly taken a concussion and a broken arm if he never had to be singled out as a storked child ever again.

Incidentally, I know these days there’s a lot about how words hurt, and like vaccination, I think it’s a matter of forgetting where we started, which was of kids beating each others’ faces in and generally treating violence as normal. Of course adults know words upset you. That’s why they have nursery rhymes and stuff telling you not to be upset. But you can get over that in a way you can’t get over being dead. It’s a relative thing, and people arguing words hurt just as much should be more grateful they live in a time and place where bullying doesn’t involve beating you with sticks or stoning you and every now and then whoops killed that kid, sorry.

In the end, he got sent to a different school and was ordered to have mandatory counseling.
“You think about what you did,” his old principal had told him.
And he did what he was told, like a good little boy. He gave it plenty of thought and decided he should have found a higher platform.
So how do you even begin to explain that? How do you explain a lifetime of injustice in the time it takes the Juvey-cops to herd you out the door?

So yeah.

Now, the thing here is that he does end up being basically evil Connor, so I’m not sure how much is supposed to sound reasonable and what should be the red flag. On the other hand, he’s basically Connor except not white, so quite possibly it’s supposed to sound reasonable except for the fact he’s of one of the lesser races and therefore evil. Also he’s adopted unlike Connor and while the setup seems to be sympathetic to that, the fact is he’s still evil Connor and his background of being adopted is given as why he’s who he is, while Connor managed to hold to proper virtues about finding harmless bodymodding abhorrent because the author thinks it’s gross despite the fact it made no sense for his background. Good people are totally unaffected by their backgrounds in favor of being whatever good should be.

My best guess is that the author is trying to say that no one, even bad kids, deserve to get killed, but that’s really muddied when dealing with a character that’s fine with killing others. Possibly he didn’t understand that Connor was already a spiteful little shit and was worried that the message came off as only kids like Connorsue, praise be his name, shouldn’t be unwound. If that’s the case, well, it’s a good sentiment wrecked by the terrible execution of everything the author touches.

“I’m sorry, Mason,” his father says, tears in his eyes as well. “But it’s better for everyone this way. Including you.”
Starkey knows he’ll never make his parents understand, but if nothing else, he’ll have the last word.
“Hey, Mom, by the way . . . Dad’s late nights at the office aren’t really at the office. They’re with your friend Nancy.”
But before he can begin to relish his parents’ shocked expressions, it occurs to him that this secret knowledge could have been a bargaining chip. If he had told his father he knew, it could have been ironclad protection from unwinding! How could he be so stupid not to have thought of that when it mattered?
So in the end he can’t even enjoy his bitter little victory as the Juvey-cops push him out into a cool December night.

See? He’s Connor 2.0 hitting all the same sort of beats but doing it differently. That last exchange isn’t even as spitefully evil as Connor was. (Also, his ability to think about how he should have been more practical is the polar opposite of Connor deciding to stick around just to fuck with his parents.)

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Also, we have these things sprinkled into the chapter to further screw up the message. It’s a society that’s blanketed in propaganda saying this is a kindness.

The general attitude seems to be that ultimately, nothing is an excuse. Believing this is the best thing isn’t, being loopy from meds isn’t, etc. Be like Connorsue, OOC in your virtue.

We learn that Starkey scored in the top ten percentile in your early childhood exams.” which probably isn’t actually that impressive unless they’re not including the state ward kids.

The mouthpiece shakes his head in disgust. “What a waste.”
“Not really,” says Lady-Lips. “Plenty of folks will get the benefit of your smarts, Mr. Starkey.”

More screwed up worldbuilding. The second piece of this is the party line, so why would anyone think otherwise? Hell, the first book -repeatedly mentioned the fact that one of the perks of the whole “divided state” thing was that the kids’ abilities would be passed on to better other people and getting magical leprechaun music powers is what the novella hinges on.

Starkey insults the guy for how his lips obviously come from a woman and starts chatting about fast food.

No answer from the front seat. Not that he expects one, but it’s always fun to mess with law enforcement and see how much it takes to irritate them. Because if they get ticked off, he wins. What’s that story about the Akron AWOL? What did he always say? Oh yeah. “Nice socks.” Simple, elegant, but it always undermined the confidence of any figure of false authority.

That’s right, just when you think it’s finally fucking over.

Starkey explains that somehow, everyone knows all about the Arkon AWOL as just because the government is evil and forces people to aid in child harvesting or else they’ll be arrested too doesn’t mean they would do anything to restrict their press (except that time they totally did as a plot point last book), and anyway that AWOL guy is so cool he loves him. Starkey then proves he really is a much better planner than Connor:

as he wriggles his handcuffs down to his left shoe— just low enough to fish out the knife from the lining. The knife he’s saved for special occasions like this.

So, he didn’t think he’d be unwound, therefore he must be talking about getting arrested by the cops at all, even though it sounds like all they can do is dump him back at his house.

Talking about fast food gets them to go there, where Starkey is shocked they don’t get him what he asked for too. Whatever, I’ll assume he’s a bit off from getting woken in the middle of the night.

The night shift cashier at the drive-through window is a girl Starkey knows from his last school. As he sees her, a whole mess of emotions toy with his brain. He could just lurk in the shadows of the backseat, hoping not to be seen, but that would make him feel pathetic. No, he will not be pathetic.
If he’s going down, then it will be in flames that everyone must see.
“Hey, Amanda, will you go to the prom with me?” He shouts loud enough to be heard through the thick glass barrier.
Amanda squints in his direction, and when she realizes who it is, she turns up her nose as if she’s smelled something rancid on the grill.
“Not in this life, Starkey.”
“Why not?”
“A, you’re a sophomore, and B, you’re a loser in the back of a police car. And anyway, don’t they have their own prom at the alternative school?”
Could she possibly be any denser? “Uh, as you can see, I’ve graduated.”
“Pipe down,” says Mouthpiece, “or I’ll unwind you right into the burgers.”
Finally Amanda gets it, and suddenly she becomes a little sheepish. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, Starkey. I’m really sorry. . . .”
Pity is something Mason Starkey can’t stand. “Sorry for what? You and your friends wouldn’t give me the time of day before, but now you’re sorry for me? Save it.”
“I’m sorry. I mean—I’m sorry that I’m sorry—I mean . . .” She sighs in exasperation and gives up, handing Lady-Lips a bag of food. “Do you need ketchup?”
“No, we’re good.”
“Hey, Amanda!” Starkey shouts as they drive away. “If you really want to do something for me, tell everyone I went down fighting, will you? Tell them I’m just like the Akron AWOL.”
“I will, Starkey,” she says. “I promise.”
But he knows she’ll forget by morning.

And here we’re reminded the author is really not a big fan of the female half of his species.

I don’t much mind him deciding to make this awkward – he’s made it clear he’s going to do anything he can to fuck with anyone he can at this point, and it’s understandable. But the narration makes it clear the girl’s evilly stuck up and also stupid, then cuts her off in the middle of her apology to go back to her life because she’s such a shallow jerk, then claims she won’t even remember something this traumatic in a few hours.

They then head to the jail. He explains that he’s totally been to the juvenile wing of the place a whole bunch, and he’s seen the special ultra secure box they keep the unwinds in and knows no one gets back out.

But he’s not there yet. He’s still here, in the car, waiting to be transferred inside. Right here is where the hull of this little ship of fools is thinnest, and if he’s going to sink their plans, it has to happen between the car and the back door of the county jail.

The interesting thing here is that Connor 2 is way more competent. I’m not sure if this is just a matter of a writer being better doing things the second time around, or if it’s that he’s not in love with this one so he doesn’t assume we are as well, so he knows to show some actual positive traits to make up for it.

As they prepare for his “perp walk,” he thinks about his chances of breaking free—because as much as his parents may have imagined this night, so has he, and he’s made up a dozen valiant escape plans. The thing is, even his daydreams are fatalistic; in every anxiety-filled fantasy, he always loses, gets tranq’d, and wakes up on an operating table.

But also he was sure it would never happen to him in the first place, somehow?

Lady-Lips grips Starkey’s fat file in his other hand.
“So,” says Starkey, “does that file show my hobbies?”
“Probably,” says Lady-Lips, not really caring either way.
“Maybe you should have read it a little more closely, because then we’d have something to talk about.” He grins. “You know, I’m pretty good with magic.”
“That so?” says Mouthpiece, with a twisted sneer. “Too bad you can’t make yourself disappear.”
“Who says I can’t?”
Then, in his finest Houdini fashion, he raises his right hand, revealing the cuff no longer on it. Instead, it dangles free from his left hand. Before they can even react, Starkey slides the penknife he used to pick the lock out of his sleeve, grips it in his hand, and slashes it across Lady-Lips’s face.

And look, a taunt that actually makes sense rather than socks bullshit.

He takes off, but finds the place is a long twisting area and then the cop is waiting at the other end, and he realizes that yeah, he’s probably not the first kid to run for it and they’ve got more experience at catching than he does escaping.

What follows is a pretty good scene ruined by the moralizing twist at the end.

“You’re through, Starkey!” He crushes Starkey’s wrist enough to dislodge the knife and brandishes a tranq gun with trigger-happy fury. “Down on the ground, or this goes in your eye!”
But Starkey does not go down. He will not humble himself before this legalized thug.
“Do it!” says Starkey. “Tranq me in the eye and explain to the harvest camp why the goods are damaged.”
Mouthpiece turns him around and pushes him against the brick wall, hard enough to scrape and bruise his face.
“I’ve had enough of you, Starkey. Or maybe I should call you Storky.” Then Mouthpiece laughs, like he’s a genius. Like every moron in the world hasn’t already called him that. “Storky!” he snorts. “That’s a better name for you, isn’t it? How do you like that, Storky?”
Blood boils hotter than water. Starkey can vouch for that, because with adrenaline-pumped fury, he elbows Mouthpiece in the gut and spins around, grabbing the gun.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
Mouthpiece is stronger—but maybe animal-style beats strength.
The gun is between them. It points at Starkey’s cheek, then his chest, then to Mouthpiece’s ear, then under his chin. They both grapple for the trigger and—Blam!
The concussive shock of the blast knocks Starkey back against the wall. Blood! Blood everywhere! The ferrous taste of it in his mouth, and the acrid smell of gun smoke and—
That was no tranq bullet! That was the real thing!
And he thinks he’s microseconds away from death, but he suddenly realizes that the blood isn’t his. In front of him, Mouthpiece’s face is a red, pulpy mess. The man goes down, dead before he hits the pavement and—
My God, that was a real bullet. Why does a Juvey-cop have real bullets? That’s illegal!
He can hear footsteps around the bend, and the dead cop is still dead, and he knows the whole world heard the gunshot, and everything hinges on his next action.
He is partners with the Akron AWOL now. The patron saint of runaway Unwinds is watching over his shoulder, waiting for Starkey to make a move, and he thinks, What would Connor do?
Just then another Juvey-cop comes around the bend—a cop he has never seen and is determined to never see again. Starkey raises Mouthpiece’s gun and shoots, turning what was just an accident into murder.

This is Evil Connor, remember. He goes on to think that this pleases Saint Connor’s ghost, but the real Connor is actually all about not making waves because the real evil is strong opinions, you see.

I guess one thing you can say for the author’s prolife leanings is he does seem to actually value life as opposed to only fetuses, but it results in him saying that fighting back is just as evil. In this particular case, the kid is acting in self-defense. It is not evil to shoot people trying to kill you, let alone people who make a living killing people. It is especially not evil to shoot people trying to kill you when the only reason you’re even able to shoot them is because they’re the ones who put the lead bullets in the gun. But the author says it’s murder.

Connorsue, of course, was never in this position. When he fires the gun, it’s tranq darts, and the part where he causes car crashes and kills totally unrelated people doesn’t seem to count. It may be related to the weird view this series has about choice and responsibility – it doesn’t seem to accept that there’s degrees and that nothing really happens in a vacuum. Evil Connor CHOOSES to fire the gun knowing it’s got real bullets. Connorsue only CHOOSES to run into the road, any crashes are either an accident with no possible blame to assign or the driver’s own CHOICE in not trying hard enough not to crash.