Cam hasn’t considered this before. It’s hard enough to put thoughts into words, without thinking about how those words are coming out. “Well, I suppose that all depends on which brain cells I’m wrangling.”
“So then your verbal eloquence came hardwired?”
Again, the kind of question he’s expecting. “If I were a computer, it would be hardwired, but I’m not. I’m a hundred percent organic. Human. But to answer your question, some of my skills came from before, others have come since, and I’m sure I’ll continue to grow as a human being.”
“But you’re not a human being,” someone shouts from the back. “You might be made from them, but you’re no more human that a football is a pig.”
Something about this statement—this accusation—cuts him in an unguarded place. He’s not prepared for the emotion it brings forth.
“Bull seeing red!” Cam says. It comes out before he can funnel it through his language center. He clears his throat and finds the words. “You’re trying to provoke me. Perhaps there’s a blade you’re hiding behind your cape, but it won’t keep you from getting gored.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I don’t know—was that an insult?”
Murmurs from the crowd. He’s made it interesting for them. Roberta throws him a warning glance, but Cam suddenly feels the rage of dozens of unwound kids swelling in him. He must give it voice.
“Is there anyone else out there who thinks that I’m somehow subhuman?”
And as he looks out to the thirty reporters, hands go up. Not just the big-haired woman and the heckler from the back, but others as well. As many as a dozen. Do they really mean it, or are they all just matadors flapping the cape?
“Monet!” he shouts. “Seurat! Close to the canvas, their work looks like splotches of paint. But at a distance you see a masterpiece.” Someone controlling the media screens pulls up a spontaneous Monet, but rather than punctuating his point, it makes his comments seem contrived. “You people are all small-minded and have no distance!”
“Sounds like you’re very full of yourself,” someone says.
“Who said that?” He looks around the crowd. No one will take credit. “I’m full of everyone else—and that’s spectacular.”
Roberta approaches and tries to take over the microphone, but he pushes her away. “No!” he says. “They want to know the truth? I’m telling them the truth!”
And suddenly the questions come like bullets.
“Did they tell you to say all this?”
“Is there a reason why you were made?”
“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.