Mr. Durkin does not come. This hurts Risa most of all.

She sleeps in a guest room in the home's welcome center, then, at dawn, she's loaded onto a bus full of kids being transferred from the huge StaHo complex to other places. She recognizes some faces, but doesn't actually know any of her travel companions.

Across the aisle, a fairly nice-looking boy—a military boeuf by the look of him—gives her a smile. "Hey," he says, flirting in a way only boeufs can.

"Hey," Risa says back.

"I'm being transferred to the state naval academy," he says. "How about you?"

"Oh, me?" She quickly sifts through the air for something impressive. "Miss Marple's Academy for the Highly Gifted."

"She's lying," says a scrawny, pale boy sitting on Risa's other side. "She's an Unwind."

Suddenly the boeuf boy leans away, as if unwinding is contagious. "Oh," he says. "Well. . . uh . . . that's too bad. See ya!" And he leaves to sit with some other boeufs in the back.

"Thanks," snaps Risa at the scrawny kid.

The kid just shrugs. "It doesn't matter, anyway." Then he holds out his hand to shake. "I'm Samson," he says. "I'm an Unwind too."

Risa almost laughs. Samson. Such a strong name for such a mealy boy. She doesn't shake his hand, still annoyed at having been exposed to the handsome boeuf.

"So, what did you do to get yourself unwound?" Risa asks.

"It's not what I did, it's what I didn't do."

"What didn't you do?"

"Anything," Samson answers.

It makes sense to Risa. Not doing anything is an easy path to unwinding.

"I was never going to amount to much anyway," Samson says, "but now, statistically speaking, there's a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless."

The fact that his twisted logic almost makes sense just makes her angrier.