Changes: UnBound

Revision as of 00:46, 31 December 2015


UnBound
Author:	Neal Shusterman
Publication Date:	December 15, 2015
Published By:	Simon & Schuster
Publication Order
Preceded by UnDivided	Followed by N/A

UnBound is a collection of short stories and novellas in the Unwind Dystology. Some stories are prequels, some take place in the midst of the series' time span, and some take place after the end of UnDivided.^[1] It was released on December 15, 2015.^[2] It also included the novella UnStrung.

Neal co-wrote some stories with other writers, including Michelle Knowlden, Terry Black, and his sons Jarrod and Brendan.

Synopsis

UnBound is a collection of short stories and novellas in the Unwind world. But it won't wrap things up! Some stories are prequels, some take place in the midst of the series' time span, and some take place after the end of UnDivided.

UnBound includes the back stories and futures of some of the main characters from the Unwind Dystology, and also introduces some completely new characters and their stories.

Stories

UnSchooled

This is a story giving insight into J.T. Nelson's backstory, telling his life as a child in the Heartland War.

As a child, Nelson envied the feral children and tried to impress Alph, the leader of one of the nearby gangs who had taken over an old theater. Alph told him off, saying he should be grateful for what he has, and beat him as a warning to never come back.

Meanwhile, Nelson's father was suffering from heart problems, but he was behind a whole list of people waiting for a heart transplant before him. Things looked dire for him.

A few years later, after the Unwind Accord was passed, Nelson convinced Alph's (real name Kevin) mother to sign to allow him to be unwound. He told the police of their location, and the police raided the theater of Alph's gang. Alph was captured, and while trying to run away, Nelson took a nearby Juvey-cop's tranq gun and shot him down.

Because of Nelson's efforts, his father was moved all the way to the top of the list for heart transplants and was saved.

Unfinished Symphony

This story captures the events leading up to Risa Ward's unwinding sentence at Ohio State Home 23. The story centers around Brooklyn Ward, a girl who, unlike Risa who has taken the arts path, is training to become a military boeuf.

It is revealed that Brooklyn considers Risa to be her long standing nemesis, because of a time when they were younger, when Brooklyn accused Risa of stealing her shirt and Risa spat in Brooklyn's face in response. It is also clear that Brooklyn has always been jealous of Risa and her musical talents. Even so, after Risa makes efforts to be exceedingly nice to Brooklyn, Brooklyn realizes that it may be time to move on from their previous spat.

When Brooklyn's deaf best friend, Thor, reveals that all of the wards will be tested, and the 21 wards who score the lowest will be unwound due to budget cuts, Brooklyn knows she must ace her tests- both physical and mental, and be on her best behavior; something which isn't her strong suit.

Thor hacks into the system to see Brooklyn's results. Due to a sabotaged weapon and a uncalled for fight, Brooklyn finds out she was one person away from being safe, and that she will be unwound. Thor says he can save her by switching her name with Logan's, Brooklyn's dim-wittted squad mate, or Risa's, who bombed her piano recital. At first, Brooklyn wants to switch her name with Logan's, but after her previous spat with Risa is brought up later that day, she makes the decision to tell Thor to switch her name with Risa's.

UnDevoured

This story focuses on Roland's back story. It consists of two separate stories interwoven.

The first consists of memories from Roland's childhood. When he was eight, his abusive stepfather coerced him into jumping off a pier, with the promise that if Roland did it, he would follow. When Roland's nerves got the best of him, his stepfather picked him up and threw him off the pier. When Roland emerged and looked up to wait for his stepfather to join him, he saw his stepfather was too much of a coward and a liar to join him.

To prove he was nothing like his stepfather, he returned to the pier when he was eleven, this time with his sister. He tried to force her to jump off the pier, making the same promise of joining her that his stepfather did. He eventually threw her off the pier, but unlike his stepfather, mustered up the courage to jump in after her.

Later, when he was thirteen, he was swimming in the water and his sister watched from the pier, when suddenly he was attacked by a shark. He got pulled further and further from the pier, until eventually nobody could hear his cries for help. After many futile attempts at trying to escape the shark's attention, Roland finally managed to kill the shark.

The second story centers around Roland at age seventeen. After losing a wrestling match to Zane, an all-state wrestler, and thus not gaining a spot on the varsity wrestling team, Roland vowed to make Zane pay. To rile Zane up, he kissed Zane's girlfriend. When Zane found out, he punched Roland, and Roland suggested a rematch for the match Roland had lost. Zane accepted, but let his emotions get the best of him, and thus Roland won and took his varsity position.

UnClean

This story takes place after the Heartland War, but before unwinding was deemed illegal. It deals with Heath Calderon's plan to end unwinding.

When Heath was younger, his liver failed and his family sold his brother to black market unwinders in order to buy a new one for Heath. Heath resented him for it and ran away, vowing to come up with a way to end the evils that took his brother.

Teenagers with fatal diseases, such as cancer, can not be unwound as whoever received their parts would be subjected to the disease as well. Heath finds a way to hide these diseases and plans to send these teenagers back to be unwound as tithes. He predicts this will bring enough chaos that unwinding will be ended once and for all.

Anissa Pruitt is an AWOL who helped Heath decide where he could start his plan, not knowing his evil intentions. Anissa had told Heath to conduct his research in an old fire station in an abandoned town, abandoned because of the raging fire that had burned underneath it in the town mines for long enough for it to become a safety hazard. She chose this place because her dad was a firefighter, before he died because he was unwilling to amputate one of his limbs to survive, knowing that to replace it he would have to use an unwind part.

Heath tells Anissa of his plans and she feels betrayed, as she thought Heath was a good person. Heath locks her up and sets out to send his first batch of disease ridden unwinds to harvest camps. Moments after he sends them off, a clapper arrives and detonates the fire station.

The explosion has unforeseen consequences; it opens up the mines and burns everything in sight. The van with Heath's unwinds crashes, and one of them, Jobe, gets out, vowing to do something useful with his few minutes of life he has left. He hears cries for help, and goes to check out what the problem is. He soon finds Anissa is still trapped in her cell, and uses his last dying breaths to save her.

Now safe, Anissa frantically puts on a fire proof suit, just in time before the ground collapses and she finds herself in the burning mine, and she is not alone. Someone is chasing her.

After a painful journey through the mines, barely escaping her follower, she eventually makes it to safety. Right behind her, she sees her chaser tumble out of the mines, critically injured. She has a choice: she can leave safely and leave him to die, or she can risk her life and call for help. She thinks of what her father would do and realizes the choice is obvious.

UnStrung

A short while after leaving Cy-Fi, Lev is still haunted by their time together, finally concluding that he does not want to be unwound. He then climbs up a reservation wall in Colorado and soon awakes inside a Hi-Rez, a rich ChanceFolk (Native American) reservation, that provides sanctuary for AWOL children, as the ChanceFolk tribes never signed the Unwind Accord. There, he is taken in and sponsored by the Tashi'ne family, a very highly regarded family in the reservation.

Lev meets Wil Tashi'ne, a boy who is slightly older than him, who is a brilliant guitar player and is an exceptional music therapist. It is Wil's playing that makes Lev feel like he has finally gotten a home. Even though Wil is so good, Lev isn't allowed to clap for him because Wil isn't allowed to accept applause. Wil shares with him that he secretly dreams of getting applause and being able to accept it wth a clear conscience one day.

Wil refuses to play for his dying grandfather to ease his death, claiming using his gifts in this situation isn't right. But Wil eventually agrees to play for his grandfather when he realizes his grandfather really has no hope left to survive. His grandfather's dying request is that Wil takes Lev on a vision quest, a journey young members of the tribe undergo to find their "spirit animal" or their guide.

On Lev's vision quest, things take a turn for the worse. Their group gets ambushed by parts pirates, who plan to illegally unwind them and sell them for a profit. Wil thinks fast and offers himself up in exchange for everyone else being able to go free. At first, the parts pirates are unsure, so Wil starts playing the guitar, and the parts pirates are impressed. Lev realizes what is going on and realizes this is Wil's last change to recieve applause and claps for him. Soon, others in the group join in. The parts pirates agree to Wil's deal and take him, leaving everyone else alone.

Everyone blames Wil's unwinding on Lev, since he was the outsider, and the Tribal Council forces him to leave the reservation. Even so, Lev has found a new purpose. He realizes the power of applause and decides he wants to use the force of clapping to change the world.

Unnatural Selection

This story focuses on the Dah Zey, a Burmese group notorious for their inhumane unwinding tactics and solid perseverance.

Colton ran away from home after his brother, Ryan, was unwound. Since then, he has lived in Thailand, a place where unwinding is banned.

When he meets an AWOL, Karissa, the two bond until Karissa lures him into the clutches of the Dah Zey. At the harvest camp, Colton shares a cell with three boys: Jenson (a tough guy with a temper), Gamon (a cry baby), and Kemo (a boy who was supposed to become a monk); and a girl, Pravda (who is convinced the Russian military is going to save her).

When Jenson beats Gamon up, their entire cell gets in trouble for "damaging Dah Zey property". They get taken to a place known as the "Haunted Mansion" which is where the harvest camp's doctor, Doctor Rodín, conducts his business. He decides to show them his experiments. He shows them Kumal, a boy who has hands for feet, and Marisol, a girl with multiple eyes and four arms. He then takes Jenson to punish him, and tells him he is going to be his next experiment. He lets the others off with a warning.

The next day Pravda is unwound, and is replaced in their cell by none other than Karissa, who claims she only turned in unwinds to keep her sister, Marisol, alive. She doesn't know Marisol has become one of the doctor's experiments. Karissa tells them of an escape tunnel in the center of the Haunted Mansion and they devise a plan to escape.

The next day Colton volunteers himself for experimentation, at the hopes that he can find the tunnel and get his friends and himself to safety. He successfully finds the tunnel, and with the help of Kumal, is almost able to get them all to safety. At the last minute, Colton realizes they forgot Jenson, and goes to rescue him. He finds Jenson, and too poor of a state to leave with them. Jenson begs Colton to kill him, but Colton can't do it. He hears a gunshot and runs to his friends' aid.

Meanwhile, the guards have found out the escape plan and Colton's cell mates and Kumal are shooting the guards down. Gamon dies, but Colton, Kemo, Karissa, and Marisol make it to safety. Kumal doesn't make it in time, but manages to kill the doctor.

The four who escaped end up getting to safety. They eventually split up, and Colton gets a job helping to capture parts pirates.

UnConfirmed

This story takes place after the end of UnDivided.

The newly rich, Grace Skinner invites Hayden Upchuch over to her mansion to ask him for help finding her brother, who has gone missing ever since the Lady Lucrezia crash landed in the mountains. They end up talking about Risa and Connor.

They talk about how during Risa and Connor's first public appearance, there was a shooting, and Risa and Connor were ushered off into hiding. No one had heard from them since.

Grace theorizes they are on some kind kind of boat sailing across the Mediterranean, maybe trying to save other places from unwinding. She theorizes Connor offered his family a choice- to go home and pretend they never reunited or to join him in hiding. Grace says they probably chose to join him, because they sold their house recently and hadn't been heard from since. Grace guesses Risa's family is with them too. She says that proof for her theory will be if there is a Lucas who was just enrolled in a Mediterranean private school.

After agreeing to help her find her brother, Hayden searches for a Lucas in a Mediterranean private school. He finds a Lucas Saltries, and realizes Saltries is an acronym for Lassiter. Thus, it can be assumed that Grace's theory was correct.

UnTithed

This story takes place after Miracolina left Lev in UnWholly.

Miracolina has been working in a homeless shelter. She has also been helping to rescue unwinds on the side. One day while working, she meets a boy named Bryce Barlow, who she is sure is an AWOL. She follows him after work and convinces him that she can give him a safe haven.

She takes him to a safe house, run by a man and wife named Jack and Jill. The only other person who knows about their operation is Jill's brother, Griffin. After Bryce is in safely, Jack tells Miracolina that someone keeps giving away the location of the safe houses, and warns her not to bring them any more AWOLs until the source of the problem is found.

Meanwhile, Bryce recognizes Griffin as a parts pirate and tries to sneak out. Miracolina catches him and once he tells her what he knows, she agrees to help him catch Griffin. They record him making a deal with another parts pirate, and race to show Jack and Jill the evidence, but Griffin intercepts them. He pulls out a gun and chases them around the house, but they are able to tranq him. They tie him up and find Jack, informing him of the situation at hand. Jack and Jill thank Miracolina and find a new safe house for the AWOLs. Bryce stays behind, claiming he always did better on his own, but the rest of the AWOLs make it to safety.

Rewinds

This story takes place after UnDivided. It features Camus Comprix and his island of rewinds in Molokai.

Under the supervision of Dr. Pettigrew, Cam has been aiding the rewinds' recovery. He has let each rewind choose their own name; the two most notable are Keaton and Dirk.

Keaton regards Cam as his hero, and when he first talks to Cam, keeps mentioning Rubik's Cubes. Thus, Cam gifts him his very own cube, which Keaton then struggles to solve.

Dirk is described as soulless. Although Cam denies it at first, it is clear that this rewind lacks a soul and has no hope for living in peace.

Keaton and Dirk each have an umber arm that come from the same unwind, so Dirk claims they are like brothers. Keaton denies this, as Dirk is so cold and empty.

One day, Keaton is talking to a girl on the other side of the wall that separates their compound from the real world. Suddenly Dirk comes screaming in about prom, and scares the girl away. Keaton tells Dirk he hates him, then goes inside.

That night, Dirk wakes Keaton up and Keaton has no choice but to follow him. He knows Dirk is up to no good, but he hopes he can help stop him before it is too late. When Dirk tries to leave the compound, Keaton tries to convince him not to, but Dirk attacks him and knocks him out.

Dirk goes to find the girl from earlier. He finds and attacks her, yelling about prom again. Someone comes to her aid, and Dirk flees. Soon the whole town forms a mob to capture Dirk.

Meanwhile, Keaton wakes up and realizes he has to find Dirk, so he leaves the compound as well. People mistake Keaton for Dirk, and capture him, tying his limbs to four different cars. They plan to stretch him to death, an ancient form of torture.

Cam and Una, who is also living in the compound, arrive just in time to tell the mob that they have the wrong person. The mob releases Keaton but they still have no idea where Dirk is. Keaton realizes Dirk has no idea they are on an island, so he has no idea that all roads lead in a circle. So Cam sends guards one way and him, Una, and Keaton go the other way, hoping to trap Dirk along the way.

They eventually find Dirk, who is armed, but Dirk gets upset and runs to hide in a small shack. Cam isn't sure what to do, but Keaton says he will handle it. Keaton goes in to talk to Dirk, but Dirk is too upset. Keaton asks Dirk for the gun, claiming he will help him get the revenge he wants on Cam and the mob, but instead takes the gun and kills Dirk.

There is a funeral for Dirk but only Cam and Una show up.

When they return to the compound, Keaton tells Cam he left him a gift. Cam goes to check it out, and finds the Rubik's Cube, completely solved.

Unknown Quantity

This story features Divan and Argent after UnDivided.

Divan's sister, Dagmara, his nephew, Malik, and a Dah Zey agent, Sonthi, come aboard the Lady Lucrezia with a sinister plan in mind.

Sonthi has come to ask Divan to join forces with the Dah Zey. The Dah Zey want access to Divan's efficient unwinding technology, UNIS. In exchange, they promise Divan handsome profits. Divan refuses his offer.

Meanwhile, it is found out that Malik is next in line for Divan's harvest camp. If Divan strikes the deal with the Dah Zey, Malik could be head of the Dah Zey one day. This is something Dagmara and Malik want.

Malik's greed coerces him to beg Argent to see UNIS in action. Argent refuses. Later, Dagmara orders Argent to poison Divan.

Argent tells Divan of both these events. Divan says he will deal with Malik, but tells Argent to poison whoever he chooses. Argent poisons Sonthi.

Divan tells Malik he will show him UNIS in action, and tricks Malik into being unwound.

Later, Divan realizes his pilots and chef are also traitors and kills them. He activates autopilot, which is controlled by his organ.

His sister comes down and Divan tells her of the events that have passed and says he and Argent are escaping on the only parachutes, and the only way Dagmara can survive is if she keeps autopilot on by playing the organ until the aircraft runs out of gas.

Argent and Divan escape and Divan gives Argent Malik's face, telling him he can be free now. Argent decides to keep working for Divan, and they decided to get a boat and sail the Mediterranean.

Characters