“Do you know all their names?”
“Do you dream their dreams?”
“Do you feel their unwindings?”
“If you’re made of the unwanted, what makes you think you’re any better?”
The questions come so fast and with such intensity, Cam can feel his mind begin to rattle itself into fragments. He doesn’t know which one to answer—if he can even answer any of them.
“What legal rights should a rewound being have?”
“Can you reproduce?”
“Should he reproduce?”
“Is he even alive?”
He can’t slow his breathing. He can’t capture his own thoughts. He can’t see clearly. Voices make no sense, and he can see only parts, but not the larger picture. Faces. A microphone. Roberta is grabbing him, trying to focus him, trying to get him to look at her, but his head can’t stop shaking.
“Red light! Brake pedal! Brick wall! Pencils down!” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Stop?” It’s a plea to Roberta. She can make this go away. She can do anything.
“Looks like he’s not wound too tight,” someone says, and everyone laughs.
He grabs the microphone one more time, his lips pressed against it. Screeching. Distorted.
“I am more than the parts I’m made of!”
“I am more!”
“I am . . .”
“I . . .”
“I . . .”
And a single voice says calmly, simply, “What if you’re not?”
“ . . .”
“That’s all for now,” Roberta tells the jabbering crowd. “Thank you for coming.”
- - -
He cries, unable to stop. He doesn’t know where he is, where Roberta has brought him to. He is nowhere. There is no one in the world but the two of them.
“Shhh,” she tells him, gently rocking him back and forth. “It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”
But it does nothing to calm him. He wants to make the memory of those judgmental faces go away. Can she cut it out of his mind? Replace the memory with some random thoughts of another random Unwind? Can they do that for him? Can they please?
“This was just a first salvo from a world that still needs to process you,” Roberta says. “The next one will go better.”
Next one? How could he even survive a next one?
“Caboose!” he says. “Closed cover. Credits roll.”
“No,” Roberta tells him, holding him even more tightly. “It’s not the end, this is just the beginning, and I know you’ll rise to meet the challenge. You just need a thicker skin.”
“Then graft me one!”