UnSouled (Unwind Dystology 3)

Cam gives him a Cheshire smile. “Like a rug,” he says. “I believe there’s a brain bit in my right frontal lobe that’s a BS detector, and it’s pinging in the red.”

“Believe what you want,” Connor says with no choice but to stick to his story. “Una will keep you locked in this basement as long as she feels like it, and when she lets you go—if she lets you go—you can tell Proactive Citizenry whatever you want; they still won’t find us.”

“Why are you so convinced I’ll crawl back to them? I already told you, I hate them just as much as you do.”

“Do you expect me to believe you’d bite the hand that made you?” says Connor. “Yes, maybe you’d do it for Risa, but not for me. The way I see it, you’ll go to them, and they’ll take you back with open arms. The prodigal son returns.”

And then Cam asks a question that will linger in Connor’s mind for a long, long time. “Would you ever go back to the people who wanted to unwind you?”

The question throws Connor for a loop. “Wh—what has that got to do with anything?”

“Being rewound was a crime every bit as heinous as unwinding,” Cam tells him. “I can’t change the fact that I’m here, but I owe nothing to the people who rewound me. I would uncreate my creators if I could. I was hoping Risa would help me do that. But in her absence, it looks like I’ll have to rely on you.”

Although Connor doesn’t trust him, there’s a deep and indelible bruise to his words. His pain is real. His desire to bring down his creators is real.

“Prove it,” Connor says. “Make me believe you want to tear them down as much as I do.”

“If I do, will you take me with you?”

Connor has already realized they have little choice but to take him, but he plays this hand close. “I’ll consider it.”

Cam is silent for a moment, holding emotionless eye contact with Connor. Then he says “P, S, M, H, Y, A, R, E, H, N, L, R, A.”

“What?”

“It’s a thirteen-character ID on the public nimbus. As for the password, it’s an anagram of Risa Ward. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”

“Why should I care what you have stored on the cloud?”

“You’ll care when you see what it is.”

Connor looks around the cluttered basement, finding a pen and a notepad among the debris on a table. He tosses them to Cam. “Write down the ID. Not all of us have photographic memories stitched into our heads. And I’m not guessing at passwords, so you’ll write that down too.”

Cam sneers at him, but obliges the request. When Cam is done, Connor takes the paper, putting it in his pocket for safekeeping, then locks Cam in the basement and returns to Una’s apartment.

“I’ve decided to take Cam with us,” he tells Lev and Grace, neither of whom seem surprised.

50 • Lev

He breaks the news to Connor in the morning—just a few hours before Pivane is due to take them to the car that’s waiting for them outside the north gate. He thinks Connor will be furious, but that’s not his reaction. Not at first. The look on Connor’s face is one of pity—which Lev finds even worse than anger.

“They don’t want you here, Lev. Whatever fantasy you’ve got in your head about staying here, you’ve gotta lose it. They don’t want you.”

It’s only half-true, but it hurts to hear all the same. “It doesn’t matter,” he tells Connor. “It’s what I want that matters, not what they want.”

“So you’re just going to disappear here? Pretend you’re a ChanceFolk kid, living the simple life on the rez?”

“I think I can make a difference here.”

“How? By going hunting with Pivane and reducing the rabbit population?” Now Connor’s voice starts to rise as his anger comes to the surface. Good. Anger is something Lev can deal with.

“They need to start listening to outside voices. I can be that voice!” he tells Connor.

“Listen to yourself! After all you’ve been through, how can you still be so naive?”

Now it’s Lev’s turn to get angry. “You’re the one who thinks talking to some old woman is going to change the world. If anyone is deluding themselves, it’s you!”

That leaves Connor with nothing to say, maybe because he knows Lev is right.