UnSouled (Unwind Dystology 3)

Unfortunately, Roberta knows exactly what the word means.

“October tenth,” Cam says quickly, before Roberta has a chance to commandeer the conversation. “My birthday will be October tenth—Columbus Day.” What could be more appropriate than a day commemorating the discovery of a land and people who were already there and didn’t need discovering? “I will be eighteen on the tenth of October.”

“Splendid,” says Roberta. “We’ll throw you a party. But right now we have another party that requires our attention.” She gently takes him by his shoulders, forcing him to face her, and she adjusts the angle of his tie the way she might straighten a picture on the wall. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important this gala is.”

“You don’t, but you will anyway.”

Roberta sighs. “It’s not about damage control anymore, Cam,” she tells him. “Risa Ward’s betrayal was a setback, I’ll admit, but you’ve moved past it with flying colors. And that’s all I’ll say on the matter.” But apparently not, because she adds, “Public scrutiny is one thing, but now you are under the scrutiny of those who actually make things happen in this world. You cut a striking image in that tuxedo. Now show them you are as glorious inside as out.”

“Glory is subjective.”

“Fine. Then subject them to it.”

Cam looks out of the window to see their limousine has arrived. Roberta grabs her purse, and Cam, always the gentleman, holds the door for her as they leave Proactive Citizenry’s lavish Washington town house and head into a steamy July night. Cam suspects that the powerful organization owns residences in every major city throughout the nation—maybe throughout the world.

Why has Proactive Citizenry put so much of their money and influence behind me? Cam often wonders. The more they give him, the more he resents it, because it makes his captivity increasingly apparent. They have elevated him on a pedestal, but Cam has come to understand that a pedestal is nothing more than an elegant cage. No walls, no locks, but unless one has wings to fly away, one is trapped. A pedestal is the most insidious prison ever devised.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Roberta asks coyly as they pull onto the beltway.

Cam grins, but doesn’t look at her. “I think Proactive Citizenry can afford more than a penny.” And he shares none of his thoughts with her, regardless of the cost.

It’s dusk as the limo rides along the Potomac. Across the river, bright lights already illuminate the monuments of DC. Scaffolding surrounds much of the Washington Monument, while the Army Corp of Engineers struggles to correct the pronounced tilt it’s taken on over the past few decades. Bedrock erosion and seismic shift has given the city its own leaning tower. “From Lincoln’s chair, it leans to the right,” political pundits have been known to say, “but from the Capitol steps, it leans to the left.”

This is Cam’s first time in DC—but he has memories of being here nonetheless. A memory of riding a bike down the paths of the National Mall with a sister who was clearly umber. Another memory of a vacation with parents of Japanese descent, who are livid that they can’t contain the irascible behavior of their little boy. He has a color-blind memory of a huge Vermeer canvas hanging in the Smithsonian—and a parallel memory of the same work of art, but in full color.

Cam has come to enjoy comparing and contrasting his various recollections. Memories of the same places or objects should be identical, but they never are, because the various Unwinds represented in his brain each saw the world around them in very different ways. At first Cam had found this confusing and disconcerting—a cause for panic and alarm—but now he finds it curiously illuminating. The varied textures of his memories give him mental parallax on the world. A sort of depth perception beyond the limited point of view of a single individual. He can tell himself that and it would be true—yet beneath it, there is a primal anger brewing at each point of conversion. Each time merging memories contradict, the dissonance reverberates to the very core of his being, as a reminder that not even his memories are his own.

The limo turns up the semicircular driveway of a plantation-style mansion that is either very old or very new but made to look old, like so many things are. Town cars and limos line the driveway. Valets scramble to park the cars of the nonchauffeured guests.

“You know you’re in the highest echelon of society,” Roberta remarks, “when having to valet park a car is an embarrassment.”

Their limo stops, and the door is opened for them.

“Shine, Cam,” Roberta tells him. “Shine like the star you are.”

She gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek. Only after they step out and her attention is on the path ahead of them, does he wipe off the remnants of the kiss with the back of his hand.

* * *

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“Is it true what they say about you?” the pretty girl asks.

She wears a dress that’s a little too short for an event filled with gowns and tuxedos. She’s one of the only people Cam’s age at the gala.

“That depends,” he tells her. “What do they say?”