This line of questioning was addressed in the mock conferences, and Cam knows his answers by heart. “Everyone feels like they’re one of a kind, don’t they? That makes me no different from anyone else.”

“Mr. Comprix—I’m an expert in dialects, but I can’t place yours. You keep shifting in and out of vocal styles.”

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.

He grabs the microphone one more time, his lips pressed against it. Screeching. Distorted.

“I am more than the parts I’m made of!”

“I am more!”

“I am . . .”

“I . . .”

“I . . .”

And a single voice says calmly, simply, “What if you’re not?”

“ . . .”

“That’s all for now,” Roberta tells the jabbering crowd. “Thank you for coming.”

- - -

He cries, unable to stop. He doesn’t know where he is, where Roberta has brought him to. He is nowhere. There is no one in the world but the two of them.

“Shhh,” she tells him, gently rocking him back and forth. “It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”

But it does nothing to calm him. He wants to make the memory of those judgmental faces go away. Can she cut it out of his mind? Replace the memory with some random thoughts of another random Unwind? Can they do that for him? Can they please?

“This was just a first salvo from a world that still needs to process you,” Roberta says. “The next one will go better.”

Next one? How could he even survive a next one?

“Caboose!” he says. “Closed cover. Credits roll.”

“No,” Roberta tells him, holding him even more tightly. “It’s not the end, this is just the beginning, and I know you’ll rise to meet the challenge. You just need a thicker skin.”

“Then graft me one!”

She chuckles like it’s a joke, and her laughing makes him laugh too, which makes her laugh only louder, and suddenly in the midst of his tears he finds himself in a fit of laughter, yet angry at himself for it. He doesn’t even know why he’s laughing, but he can’t stop, any more than he could stop crying. Finally he gets himself under control. He’s exhausted. All he wants to do is sleep. It will be that way for him for a long time.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

“Have you ever stopped to think about all the people helped by Unwinding? Not just the recipients of much-needed tissues, but the thousands employed in the medical profession and supporting industries. The children, the husbands and wives of people whose lives are saved by grafts and transplants. How about soldiers wounded in the field of duty, healed and restored by the precious parts they receive? Think about it. We all know someone who has been positively touched by unwinding. But now the so-called Anti-Divisional Resistance threatens our health, our safety, our jobs, and our economy by disregarding a federal law that took a long and painful war to achieve.

“Write to your congressperson today. Tell your legislators what you think. Demand that they stand up against the ADR. Let’s keep our nation and our world on the right path.

“Unwinding. It’s not just good medicine, it’s the right idea.”

—Paid for by the Consortium of Concerned Taxpayers

Cam is in full mental and emotional regression. All kinds of theories for his backward slide are postulated and debated. Perhaps his rewound parts are rejecting one another. Perhaps his new neural connections are overloaded with conflicting information and have begun to collapse. The fact of it is that he has simply stopped talking, stopped performing for them—he’s even stopped eating and is now on an IV.

All nature of tests have been done on him, but Cam knows the tests will show nothing, because they can’t probe his mind. They can’t quantify his will to live—or lack of will.

Roberta paces in his bedroom. At first she showed great concern, but over the past few weeks, her concern has mildewed into frustration and anger.

“Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

He responds by tugging his IV out of his arm.

Roberta comes to him quickly and reconnects it. “You’re being a stubborn, obstinate child!”

“Socrates,” he tells her. “Hemlock! Bottoms up.”

“No!” she shouts at him. “I will not allow you to take your own life! It’s not yours to take!”

She sits in a chair beside him, calming herself down. “If you won’t live for yourself,” she begs him, “then do it for me. Thrive for me. You’ve become my life, you know that, don’t you? If you die, you’ll be taking me with you.”

He won’t look her in the eye. “Unfair.”

Roberta sighs as Cam watches the relentless drip, drip, drip of the feeding tube that’s keeping him alive. He’s hungry. He’s been hungry for a long time, but it’s not enough to motivate him to eat. What’s the point in maintaining your life when it’s in question whether you’re even alive at all?

“I know the press conference was a mistake,” Roberta admits. “It was too soon—you weren’t ready—but I’ve been out there doing some pretty effective damage control. The next time you face the public, it will be different.”

Only now does he meet her eyes. “There won’t be a next time.”

Roberta smiles slightly. “Ah! So you can put together a coherent thought.”

Cam squirms and looks away again. “Of course I can. I just choose not to.”

She pats his hand, her eyes moist. “You’re a good boy, Cam. A sensitive boy. I will make sure we don’t forget that. I’ll also make sure you get whatever you want—whatever you need. No one will force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I don’t want the public.”

“You will when it’s yours,” Roberta tells him. “When they’re trampling one another just to get a look at you. Not as some oddity, but as a star. A celebrated star. You need to show the world what I know you’re capable of.” She hesitates for a moment, preparing to tell him something. Perhaps something she’s afraid he’s not ready for. “I’ve been giving this a great deal of thought, and I believe what you need is someone to go out there with you. Someone who has completely accepted you and can draw the public’s curiosity in a more positive way. Dampen their judgment.”

He looks up at her, but she dismisses the idea before he can even propose it. “No, it can’t be me. I’m seen as your handler. That won’t do. What you need is a pretty little planet revolving around your star. . . .”

The idea intrigues him. It makes him realize that he hungers for more than mere sustenance. He hungers for connection. He’s seen no one his age since his creation. His age, he’s decided, is sixteen. No one can tell him any different. To have a companion—one who was born, not made—would bring him one step closer to being truly human. Roberta has calculated right this time. This gives him a fair measure of motivation. Once more he reaches for his IV line.

“Cam, don’t,” pleads Roberta. “Please, don’t.”

“Don’t worry.” He disconnects the IV and gets out of bed for the first time in weeks. His joints ache almost as badly as his seams. He walks to the window and peers out. He wasn’t even aware of the time of day until now. Dusk. The setting sun hides behind a cloud just above the horizon. The sea shimmers, and the sky is a brilliant canvas of color. Could Roberta be right? Could he have as much of a claim on this world as anyone else? Could he have more?