UnSouled (Unwind Dystology 3)

They must travel by night, because a carload of young people is always suspect. At night it’s easier to hide their identities, and the highway patrol will leave them alone as long as Connor doesn’t speed or do anything to draw attention. Also, the car is a purple sedan. Not exactly low profile. Another reason why driving at night is called for.

“It was the best we could do,” Elina told them as they saw them off. The Tashi’ne family had said their good-byes at Una’s shop—and Una had volunteered to drive them to the car that was waiting just outside the northern gate of the reservation. It was the only way to keep Cam’s presence a secret from them.

Lev’s farewell to Connor was subdued and stilted, neither of them very good at saying good-bye.

“Do good. And stay whole,” Lev had said to Connor.

Connor had thrown him the slightest of grins. “Get a haircut,” he said, “by the next time I see you.”

It’s midnight when they cross from Colorado into Kansas. Cam and Grace are both in the back—Connor not trusting Cam enough to let him ride shotgun, but also not trusting him enough to leave him in the backseat by himself. With an unpleasant blast of déjà vu, Connor sees the sign for the Heartsdale exit and the approximate spot where he hit the ostrich. The bird is long gone, but Connor still grips the wheel, in case another one launches a suicide run into their path.

“Homesick, Grace?” he asks, as they near the town.

“Home always makes me sick,” she says. “Drive on.”

Connor finds himself holding his breath as they pass the exit, as if the place will reach out tentacles and drag them in. Once they’re past, the air in the car seems to lighten. Connor knows it’s just his imagination, but he’s grateful for the sense that their journey is back on track.

While Connor wants to drive through the night, drowsiness overtakes him a little after three in the morning.

“You can let me drive,” Cam says. “There are a few excellent drivers in my internal community. I’m sure I can rally them to do the job.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Putting Cam in control of anything is still far beyond Connor’s level of trust—and anyone who talks about an “internal community” really shouldn’t be behind the wheel of an automobile anyway.

They pull off in the town of Russell, Kansas, in search of an inconspicuous place to spend the night. Most hotels require interaction with people, and any interaction will mean trouble, but like most interstate towns, there’s an iMotel in Russell that dispenses its room keys via vending machine. All it requires is an ID and cash. As they stand before the vending kiosk, Cam grabs Connor’s ID to look at it and is irritatingly amused.

“â??‘Bees-Neb Hebííte.’ There’s a mouthful.”

“He’s the bees knees!” says Grace, and laughs.

Connor grabs the ID back and inserts it into the slot. “If it does the job, it’s the best name in the world.” Sure enough, the vending kiosk accepts the ID without a problem. Connor feeds in some of the money the Tashi’nes provided, and they have their room for the night. No worry, no hassle. They hunker down in a room with two beds that they’ll have to share, but since only two of them will be asleep at any given time, the arrangement is just fine.

“You want me to keep an eye on Cam till dawn so’s you can sleep?” Grace asks Connor, and although Cam protests that he doesn’t need to be guarded, Grace sets herself up in a chair by the door, so even were she to doze, Cam would have to go through her to escape, and amuses herself by watching old war documentaries on the History Channel.

“I’d think you’d be more interested in the Game Show Network,” Connor says innocently. “I mean, the way you like games.”

Grace glares at him, insulted. “Those shows are all dumb luck and dumber people. I like watchin’ wars. Strategy and tragedy all rolled up in one. Keeps your interest.”

Connor falls asleep in minutes to the faint sounds of twentieth-century artillery barrages. He wakes a few hours later to the sun streaming in through a slit in the curtains and the TV playing old cartoons almost as violent as the war documentaries.

“Sorry,” says Grace. “I couldn’t close them tighter than that.” Connor can hear activity in the rooms around them. Other muffled TVs, showers turning on and off, doors slamming as travelers leave to wherever it is they’re going. Cam sleeps, without a care in the world it seems, and Connor relieves a grateful Grace, who takes Connor’s space on the other bed and is snoring in a matter of minutes.

The room, which Connor had taken little notice of when they arrived, is the standard, unmemorable efficiency sleep space that dots highway off-ramps around the globe. Beige institutional furniture, dark carpet designed to hide stains. Comfortable beds to assure a return visit to the chain. There’s also a computer interface built into the desk—also standard these days. Connor pulls out the slip of paper with the ID and password Cam had given him and logs in, to see if Cam’s information is worth the trouble of having him along.

It turns out that Cam wasn’t bluffing. Once logged in, he’s given access to page after page of files Cam was hiding on the public nimbus. Files that had been digitally shredded but painstakingly reconstituted. These are communications within Proactive Citizenry that no one else was ever supposed to see. Much of it seems useless: Corporate e-mails that are mind-numbingly bland. Connor has to resist the urge to just skim through them. The more he reads however, the more key phrases begin to stand out. Things like “targeted demographic” and “placement in key markets.” What’s also curious are the domains where many of these e-mails are going to and coming from. These messages seem to be communications between the movers and shakers of Proactive Citizenry and media distributors, as well as production facilities. There are e-mails that discuss casting and expensive advertisements in all forms of media. It’s pretty vague—intentionally so—but taken together it begins to point in some frightening directions.

r’s expression hardens. “Fine. Do whatever the hell you want. I don’t care.” Which he obviously does. Then he tosses a card at Lev, which he fumbles a bit before catching.

“What’s this?”

“Read it. It was supposed to be your new identity once we left the rez.”

It’s a fake Arápache ID, with a bad picture of him he doesn’t remember taking. The name on the ID is “Mahpee Kinkajou.” It makes Lev smile. “I like it,” Lev says. “I think I’ll keep my new identity. What name did they give you?”

Connor looks at his own ID. “Bees-Neb Hebííte,” Connor says. “Elina says it means ‘stolen shark.’â??” He looks at the shark on his arm for a moment and opens his fingers, releasing his fist.

“Thank you for getting me out of the Graveyard,” he tells Lev, his anger resolving into a reluctant acceptance of the situation and maybe a begrudging respect for Lev’s choice. “And thanks for saving me from the parts pirate. I’d probably be shipped around the world in pieces by now if it weren’t for you.”

Lev shrugs. “It’s nothing. It wasn’t so hard.” Which they both know isn’t true.