Last time, Everything changes the day the fire nation Girl Scout comes.

“You know I’m against unwinding, but the ADR is a little too antiestablishment for me,” Dan tells Lev as he serves up scrambled eggs. “I’m too old to rage against the system. I just whine at it.”

“I’m against slavery, but the underground railroad is just, you know, a bit much.”

We’re assured that Lev knows he does a little more than that. He speaks out against unwinding to anyone who will listen as if this changes the basic “I’m against it but not to the point of actually taking any concrete action” thing.

Remember, all rebellion is illegitimate, obey your betters!

Despite having just established this asshole is no one to go to for advice, Lev asks what the pastor thinks he should do. The guy says to clean his room and otherwise worry about fourteen-year-old stuff.

Most fourteen-year-olds aren’t actively trying to fix the world. Cut yourself some slack and try dealing with normal fourteen-year-old things.

“You know, like the constant gnawing knowledge that society is okay killing you!”

Normal fourteen-year-old things in this world is how your best friend doesn’t show up to school one day and no one will tell you why. That the majority of the police force are there specifically to hunt kids.

Lev is not feeling concern about some worthy cause well away from him. For that matter, neither is the pastor! It’s woven into every moment of their society.

Like I said last time, it’s not wrong for Lev to worry about his own life a bit, but the advice is pretty suspect given it’s coming from someone who won’t actually get involved because he’s too busy flashing his independant cred.

Anyway, it’s then the scout shows up. He says she seems old for a cookie seller (the official websites claim all age levels sell cookies – I’m not sure if in practice the older ones are less interested or if it’s that there’s more younger girl scouts than older ones or if the author’s just misremembering).

I’m helping out my younger sister, if you must know.

I suspect this is just here as a lie – we’ll see more in a moment – but I’d take it as true. I think her actions here make far more sense if she had a younger sister.

Last book, one of the three clappers thought of his older brother, who’d been a clapper before him. Another of the clappers was motivated by the senseless death of another kid she loved. And this is a world where far more children will have a sibling die.

What makes a suicide bomber? What reason pops up especially often with female ones?

“Okay, so two of the peanut butter ones, and a box of Samoas.”
“Yum-yum!” she says. “The Samoas are my favorite too.” She hands him the boxes. “That’ll be
eighteen dollars—are you sure you don’t want any Thin Mints? They’re our bestseller!”

So that’s six dollars per box, which is one or two dollars more than the current cost. I just looked up historical prices and while the person was a bit unclear about their data, assuming the box size increase that happened was never reversed, then cookies were originally .50, and that was at the start of the 1920s. So, in a bit less than a hundred years, the price increased by $3.5 – $4.5. Between 1995 and 2007, 12 years, it went up one dollar overall. Let’s increase that to twenty years for a really conservative estimate/to allow for the possibility this is one of the years the price dips a bit lower than normal, even though price increases usually aren’t linear, and also assume the total increase is two dollars.

Barring catastrophic deflation, Unwind takes place in the 2050s. And we know the setup for Unwind had to happen at least a generation ago. That means it’ll be happening in a decade or so.

Maybe Trump does become president?

Anyway, as Lev is looking to see if he has money in his wallet – why does a fourteen year old not only have but habitually carry a wallet, and why would anyone who can’t even go out to buy stuff? – she starts doing the “hey, don’t I know you?” thing the kid earlier did.

she puts her hands on her hips, continuing to look him over.
“A clapper who doesn’t clap. Kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?”
…
Her eyes are locked on his now. “A clapper who doesn’t clap. I imagine that would really tick off people in high places. People who put their time and money into making sure every clapper mission goes off without a hitch.”
Lev suddenly gets a feeling in the pit of his stomach that goes straight down to China.
“They’re very proactive, these organizers, and a clapper who doesn’t complete his mission gives all of us a bad name.”

This is a pile of retcon. Maybe some people reading the books told the author they respected the clappers for at least doing things so he had to invent another mysterious conspiracy despite last book it either being an actual chaos-murder cult or so loosely organized no one gives a shit if a chaos-murder cultist runs on of the cells.

But there’s another option, which is that this sounds super cool and if you’re going to die, who the fuck cares about the truth?

Here’s what I think – she was the good child. Her younger sister wasn’t. Maybe the kid was actually trouble, but I think protective older sister of a struggling younger one fits best. Maybe her sister just had mediocre grades. As soon as the kid turned twelve, they ordered her killed.

There isn’t very much you can do when you’re just fourteen, but you can set off the bomb someone else gives you.

Why Lev and not her parents? The latter’s not too hard to understand – we know clappers generally seem to pick high traffic areas, so there must be some degree of encouragement away from direct revenge, and also isn’t doing something with the intent of making your parents sorry such an angry child thing to do? Their previous little straight-A Girl Scout, the one they trotted out and bragged and bragged about while telling her little sis to stay in the room when company’s around, blew herself up in an act of terror. What better fuck-you than that? Bet you wish you still had a spare daughter now, don’t you?

But why Lev? What about Lev is the problem? It makes sense that if there was a Clapper High Command somewhere, they’d care, but it doesn’t make sense one exists in the first place – and even if there was, she’s the one willing to actually do this. She must hate Lev.

Well, let’s remember what actually happened at the harvest camp. Two kids blew themselves up, killed lots of murderous adults, and gave space for a riot and presumably a great deal of escapes. One kid did not do any of that. One kid, in the belly of the beast, decided not to harm it. One kid made everyone think hard about unwinding – but only because HE was the good child. The nice one. A tithed kid, who everyone was always kind to. The one who always behaved, and who, in the end, decided not to fight back and let them do what they wanted with him.

He did get unwinding seventeen year olds banned, but kids whose parents keep them seventeen years probably actually did something to convince their parents that they should be unwound. What good does that do the kids whose parents always wanted to kill them as soon as they could?

Now imagine this – when she asks why now, why it had to be now, they say, because what if tomorrow they banned all unwinding, what would we do about her then? The orders don’t even go through for three months, and then they’re kept at the camps for days or weeks or even longer, for those whose parts aren’t in demand at the moment…All those seventeen year olds sent back and with their parents now unable to do anything about it! That’s why we had to do it right away.

What would you do if you heard that?

Lev hops behind the couch – sure is great he got solely cosmetic side-effects from the clapperjuice – and so is basically fine. Despite shouting a warning beforehand to the others who weren’t even in the same room, the adults are mangled. Pastor Dan is dead, which you know fine whatever it takes to stop the puns. His brother gets a beam through his gut but is still alive.

With all his strength, Lev lifts the beam. Marcus screams in pain, and Lev, holding the beam up with his shoulder, pushes Marcus out of the way, then lets the beam go.

Right so first off don’t remove things from injuries, that usually makes things worse, and second off I’d just like to repeat my bit about total lack of real consequences from supposedly deadly clapperjuice. It sounds like it actually turned him into a tiny Hulk.

He then dials 911 and they come and his brother comes to long enough to say that “Let them do it, Lev. I don’t wanna die. Please, Lev,” Marcus begs. “Let them give me unwound parts. . . .”
Lev squeezes his brother’s hand. “Okay, Marcus. Okay.” And he cries, thankful that his brother didn’t just condemn himself to death, and hating himself for feeling that way.

And it’s a shame the author doesn’t focus his fair and balanced at this. This is an actual meaningful conundrum. This is all of modern life, just made more obvious and closer to home.

Anyway, later the police come by to ask what he knows about this.

“Did you know the girl who perpetrated this attack?”
“No.”
“Did you recognize her from your clapper training?”
“No.”
“Was she a part of your clapper cell?”
“I told you I didn’t know her!”
And of course, the stupidest question of all:
“Do you know any reason why they would target you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? She told me it was retribution for not clapping—that the people in charge weren’t
happy.”
“And who are the people in charge?”
“I don’t know. The only ones I ever knew were a bunch of other kids who are dead now because they all blew up, okay? I never met anyone in charge!”

And okay, the police might just ask because they don’t want to be the idiots who didn’t ask when there was information there, but, here’s the thing.

Lev is the only kid who didn’t clap, and as one kid explodes due to being shot which is their first and only resort as far as dealing with kids goes, we can assume they didn’t ever actually catch kids mid-clap, so what he told them during the original interrogation is all they know about how clappers work. They can’t be asking him stupid questions like this when his original testimony is the only reason they know clappers have cells or train people.

Prior to Lev, the sum total of things people knew about clappers was:

They explode seemingly at random.
They are kids.
They do it by clapping.

(Also Lev’s either lying or there’s yet another retcon – the cell leader was an adult. He did die, but Lev has no way of knowing that. It would make sense he’d lie, though, because he can’t point the police in the direction of the Graveyard where that adult was. Of course, in that case he should be thinking Connor still has a secret clapper cultist hanging out trying to get kids to sign on, and I’d think he’d find that a bit worrying.)

One of the nurses takes pity on him and tells him what’s happening to his brother against orders.

“He had a lot of internal damage. But luckily, we happen to have one of the best-equipped organ lockers in the state. He received a new pancreas, liver and spleen, and a sizeable segment of small intestine. He had a punctured lung, and rather than letting it heal, your parents opted to replace that, too.”

And here’s another place to actually make a point on – there’s suggestions adult organ donations are actually outright banned. That lung isn’t going to be allowed to heal and then used for a new person, it’s going into the incinerator with the rest.

But…who’s making these choices, exactly? It’s not clear if the parents are making the choice or simply footing the bill If his brother was semi-lucid with all those organs wrecked, it seems they could’ve done the necessary transplants then asked him about the optional ones.

But if he brother is accepting optional transplants, then he seems grossly OOC, unless we’re meant to see him asking for the organs so he doesn’t die as a sign he’s just straight up evil now. In for a penny, in for an extra ten pounds of organs, as they say.

The nurse is generally really sympathetic toward him, but it’s hard to say if she actually cares or she just has good bedside manner. All she does is say sorry a bunch of times about sad stuff. She offers to bring his parents in, he asks if they’ve actually asked after him, she apologizes that they haven’t, he says then no, he doesn’t want them.

The nurse pats his hand and offers him an apologetic smile. “Sorry there’s so much bad blood there, hon. I’m sorry all this had to happen to you.”

In the context of what all “this” is, it’s really odd she’s phrasing this like it’s an act of god. There isn’t “bad blood” between them at all. That implies mutual disagreement. His parents are angry he didn’t die.

He references the clappers, and we similarly get, “Once you get wound in with bad people, the unwinding never ends.”

All she’s doing is giving the least controversial opinions possible. She goes on to profusely apologize for her poor word choice.

And I guess that this is a good skill – you don’t want to get political opinions from your nurse – but it stands out particularly after we met the other nurse angry about how the runaways were selfishly hoarding their organs. Lev is at the center of the organ shortage and terrorist bombings issues, both of which hospital workers should have strong opinions on.

He tries to go visit his brother that night, only to find his parents still there.

“He’s in an induced coma. They said they’ll keep him like this for three days, so the nanos can speed the healing.”

Which may be suggesting that he’s been unconscious this whole time and it’s just the parents making the decisions, but in that case, why did he think he needed to tell Lev to let them give him organs? Maybe he wasn’t expecting his parents to show up at all, but it was pretty predictable they did and you’d think he’d be able to see that.

His parents then blame him for everything and say their family is shamed.

Lev can’t maintain his silence. “Then maybe you shouldn’t surround yourself with people as judgmental as you.”

I mean it’s not a “nice socks” but that’s still one shit accusation. Judgemental people tend to have too high standards. They’re harsh over ordinary human failings. It’s not a good word when you’re trying to make the point that the morality of all this is completely backwards.

His father looks to Marcus again. “Your brother will come home with us,” he decrees. And since any guts that Marcus now has have been paid for by their father ’s money, he won’t have much of a choice.

It’s pretty unclear how this can be true.

I guess this gets back to how the worldbuilding makes little sense. If you said, clearly, that the idea is that underaged parts belong to whoever breeds or buys, then it would make sense that letting someone else buy you organs meant they literally owned that percentage of you. If the society puts most of the emphasis on age, then those parts will eventually age up to the point they belong to themselves just like your original body does – this setup would be a bit like indentured servants becoming free after several years. If society puts most of the emphasis on ownership, on the other hand, then once bought the parts might no longer be considered to age, in which case it’s the model of having to buy back your freedom.

All of that extra explanation would make this seem plausible. It’s not like this setup is impossible or anything. It’s just that no one seems to have any interest in this stuff. Everything seems to be functioning like our world except when not. And in our world, if you pay for a hip transplant for a family member, nothing stops them from flipping you a double bird as they walk out.

Now, if we ignore the “won’t have much of a choice” and look at this on an emotional level…it still doesn’t work. Sure, you generally would feel indebted and not like doing the double bird walkout thing, except this is like if you woke up to find out your parents paid triple to encrust it with platinum from warzone mines when you’d spent the last year of your life campaigning against how the company props up warlords. The parents may not view this as deliberate spite given that they believe tithed organs really are better, but if we’re talking emotions, it’d make far more sense for him to think of it like that, especially with the extra lung.

Anyway, his father explains that he’s literally dead to them and go away. Lev wanders off and spies on the rest of his family in the waiting room.

he sees one of his sisters bend down and pick up a baby. It’s a new nephew Lev never even knew he had.
And the baby is dressed all in white.

That’s a great moment.

But like everything, it doesn’t feel right.

If Lev’s family didn’t care about him at all, rather than blaming him, this works perfectly for that.

But, while it does make sense that people like Lev’s family might want to double down on their intense support of the status quo after this disaster, but the whole point of Lev is that tithing a child can go so horribly wrong. No one questioned that Lev’s family liked tithing kids. They totally tithed him. There is the little issue that his pastor claimed that he told the family about it not going to plan and they mutually agreed to let Lev live, which would obviously look bad, but it’s also incredibly easy to claim that they did no such thing and the pastor lied to them and made the decision entirely on his own. (Also, I’m not sure it’s even still canon at this point.) All in all, it seems like not tithing makes more sense, especially when there’s two family members who might jump the fence one night and tell the kid that actually, there appears to be no legal claim on tithed kids and they don’t have to be unwound at all, and then the kid runs away to become a clapper and shame the whole family again.

If, instead of them being cartoonish monsters, we got the slightest explanation of how they felt shamed, if we learned there were whispers about how the family had regretted tithing him and that’s what did it, if those whispers had included the fact that, of all the many non-tithed older children they had, why, not one of them had tithed a child of their own…then it’d be a clearer point that his family cared about looking good to other people and was doing this to make up for him.

But anyway, Lev runs back to his room to sob – and apparently the real issue is solely that he takes this to mean he’ll never be allowed back into the family, which, Lev, I think “these people plan to murder another child just as they tried to murder me and don’t even view us as people” is a bit more than just that you’re staying disowned. I mean, the disowning is awful enough that you can cry a lot over it, it’s just that this seems to be way worse than you’re saying.

This also makes the nurse thing particularly weird. She knows who Lev is, and she must have seen that there was at least one baby in tithe colors. Even if she only asked Lev’s parents in, odds are they’d have told him. Does she just not think about those things? Does she secretly hate him but was just doing a very good job of hiding it?

Lev wakes up to find Sitting in a chair near the foot of his bed is a woman a little too well-dressed to be part of the hospital staff. Another woman! Bets on if she’s secretly evil?

She’s also connected to a mysterious pile of anonymous money – the Cavenaugh Trust. Supposedly, a single wealthy family was concerned about “wayward youth” in a way other than the usual murdery way, perhaps because it actually predates that. Anyway, she offers for him to come live under their roof saying the cops are fine with it.

Lev pulls his knees up beneath his covers and shrinks away from her. He doesn’t trust well-dressed people who make offers with strings attached. “What kind of services?”
She smiles at him warmly. “Just your presence, Mr. Calder. Your presence and your winning personality.”

So is she evil? Is she? Guess!

He thinks back to the days after he left CyFi, and before he arrived at the Graveyard. Dark days, to be sure, but punctuated by a bit of light when he found himself on a reservation, taken in by People of Chance. The Chance folk had taught him that when you have nothing to lose, there’s no such thing as a bad roll of the dice.

Doesn’t this sound nothing like what happened in UnStrung?

Looking at the publication dates, UnWholly was released in August and UnStrung came out July 24th of the same year. Given UnStrung was an ebook and so didn’t need to have the standard print run, I’m thinking this was actually written first, then the novella was written and released to help build hype for this book. It’s a lot longer than the usual ones, so that seems a bit of a stretch, but it’s also cowritten, which could well mean the original author wrote up a plot summary of “Lev goes to reservation, something something, he becomes a clapper!” and had the other one write Unwind fanfic based on it while he busied himself finishing up UnWholly.

We end with Lev agreeing and saying he wants to change his last name to be anything other than his current one, which is really a gesture that only makes sense when you’re trying to get away from something and not after everyone’s made it clear they already consider you gone, but sure, have fun with your pointless gesture that’s doing what they want.