UnSouled Read Online Free PDF

remaining as an empty shell.
    By the time he was recruited, the clapper had lost his ability to care. It had been pounded out of him on every level. He had been perfectly ripe for picking.
    “Come with me,” the recruiter had said. “I’ll teach you how to make them pay.”
    By “them,” he meant everyone. The universal “not me” who was responsible for ruining his life. Everyone else was at fault. Everyone must pay. The recruiter understood that, and so the deal was made.
    Now, two months later, he walks gingerly with the girl of his dreams into a neighborhood sports club in Portland, Oregon. It’s far from Las Vegas, far from what had once been his life before that. The farther the better. This new life, brief though it may be, will be bright. It will be loud. It will beimpossible to ignore. This random target was chosen for them by someone farther up the clapper chain. Funny, but he never thought of clappers as being so organized—but there is definitely a structure and a hierarchy behind the chaos. It gives him some comfort to think that there’s a method behind the madness.
    His is a cell of two. He and the girl have been prepped, primed, and pointed by a gung-ho trainer who must have been a motivational speaker in a previous life.
    “Randomness will change the world,” they’d been told. “Your act will be smiled upon years from now—and in the meantime, your revenge will be sweet.”
    The clapper cares less about changing the world and more about revenge. He knows he would have died ignobly on the streets, but now at least his bitter end will have meaning. It will be under his control by the sheer power of his applause. Or is he just deluding himself?
    “Are you ready for this?” the girl asks as they approach the gym.
    He doesn’t share his doubts with her. He wants to be strong for her. Resolute. Brave. “Maximum carnage,” he says. “Let’s do this.”
    They go into the gym. He holds the door for her, and she smiles at him. Such smiles and gentle moments between them is the furthest their relationship will ever go. They wanted more, but it was not to be. Their explosive blood had made intimacy an impossibility.
    “Can I help you?” asks the guy at the front desk.
    “We’d like to talk to someone about a gym membership.”
    “Excellent! Let me get someone to help you.”
    The girl takes a deep, shuddering breath. The boy holds her hand. Gently. Always gently, because you don’t always needa detonator to set yourself off. The detonators make it quick and clean, but accidents do happen.
    “I want to be with you when we . . . complete our mission,” she tells him.
    “Me too, but we can’t. You know that. I promise I’ll be thinking about you.” Their orders are to be at least ten meters apart. The farther apart they are, the more effective they’ll be when their mission completes.
    A ripped dude with an expensive smile approaches them. “Hi, my name is Jeff. I’m the new member coordinator. And you are?”
    “Sid and Nancy,” the clapper says. The girl chuckles nervously. He could have said Tom and Jerry; it didn’t matter. He could even have given their real names, but fake names somehow add to the authenticity of the deception.
    “Come on. Let me give you both the grand tour.” Jeff’s wholesome smile is reason enough to blow the place sky-high.
    He leads them past the manager’s office. The manager, on the phone, glances out at the clapper, catching a moment of eye contact. The clapper looks away, feeling read. He feels as if every stranger he sees can read his intentions, as if his hands are already spread wide, ready to swing together. But the manager has a real air of suspicion. The clapper moves out of his sight range quickly.
    “Over here we have our free weight area. Our resistance machines are to the right. All state of the art, of course, with holographic entertainment consoles.” Neither of them is listening, but Jeff doesn’t seem to notice. “Our aerobics