UnSouled (Unwind Dystology 3)

“There are no sides!”

He pulls away, ready to swing his hands together . . . but suddenly not as ready as he was a moment ago. “You’re ADR?”

“I can help you!”

“It’s too late for that!” He can feel his adrenaline surge. He can feel his heartbeat in his ears and wonders if a pounding heart is enough to detonate him.

“We can clean your blood! We can save you!”

“You’re lying!” But he knows it’s possible. They disarmed Lev Calder, didn’t they? But then the clappers came after him and tried to kill him for not clapping.

Finally one of the various self-absorbed weight lifters notices the nature of the conversation and says, “Clappers?” and backs away. “CLAPPERS!” he yells, and makes a beeline to the door. Others quickly size up the situation, and the panic begins—but the manager doesn’t take his eyes off the clapper.

“Let me help you!”

Suddenly an explosion rocks the gym, and the cardio deck comes crashing down upon the first floor. She did it! She did it! She’s gone, and he’s still here.

Bloody people stumble past him coughing, wailing, and the manager grabs him again almost hard enough to detonate him. “You don’t have to follow her! Be your own man. Fight for the right side!”

And although he wants to believe there is a right side—that this hint of hope is real, and not false—his head is as confused as the burning rubble still raining down around him. Can he betray her? Can he close the door that she opened and refuse to finish what she has begun?

“I can get you to a place of safety. No one has to know you didn’t detonate!”

“Okay,” he says, making his decision. “Okay.”

The manager breathes a gasping sigh of relief, letting him go—and the instant he does, the clapper holds his hands wide and swings them together.

“Nooo!”

And he’s gone, along with the ADR organizer, the rest of the gym, and any question of hope.

3 • Cam

The world’s first composite human being is in black-tie attire.

His tailored tuxedo is of the highest quality. He looks handsome. Impressive. Imposing. He looks older in the tux—but as age is a fuzzy concept for Camus Comprix, he can’t quite say how old he should look.

“Give me a birthday,” he says to Roberta as she works on his tie. Apparently of all the sundry bits and pieces of kids in his head, not a single one of them knew how to tie a bow tie. “Assign me an age.”

Roberta is the closest thing he will ever have to a mother. She certainly dotes on him like one. “Choose your own,” she tells him as she tucks, tugs, and tightens the bow tie. “You know the day you were rewound.”

“False start,” Cam says. “Every part of me existed before I was rewound, so it’s not a day to celebrate.”

“Every part of everyone exists before they are presented to the world as an individual.”

“Born, you mean.”

“Born,” Roberta admits. “But birthdays are random. Babies come early; babies come late. Defining one’s life by the day one was cut from an umbilical cord is completely arbitrary.”

“But they were born,” Cam points out. “Which means I was born. Just not all at the same time, and to multiple mothers.”

“Very true,” says Roberta, stepping back to admire him. “Your logic is as impeccable as your looks.”

Cam turns to look at himself in the mirror. The many symmetrical shades of his hair have been cut and combed into a perfect style. The various skin tones bursting forth from a single point in the center of his forehead only add to the stunning nature of his looks. His scars are no longer scars, but hairline seams. Exotic, rather than horrible. The pattern of his skin, his hair, his whole body is beautiful.

So why would Risa abandon me?

“Lockdown,” he says reflexively, then clears his throat and tries to pretend he didn’t say it. Lockdown is the word that comes out of him lately whenever he wants to purge a thought from his mind. He can’t stop himself from saying it. The word brings an image of iron blast doors falling into place, locking the thought in, refusing to give it purchase anywhere in his mind. Lockdown has become a way of life for Cam.