“Yes, you’re itching, but it’s not poison ivy,” Cam tells him. “I’m sorry that you itch all over. That’s just the way it is.”
Then a single tear forms in the rewind’s darker eye, coursing down the rough ridge of a scar, until spilling into his ear. “Back of my jersey? Card in my wallet? There, on the birthday cake, in blue?”
“No!” says Cam, surprised by his own anger. “No, I don’t know who you are. I can’t tell you your name. No one can!” He finds his hand that holds the syringe is starting to quiver. Best to do it quick. End it now. So why is he waiting?
“The fly . . . the fly . . .”
And the desperation, the absolute helplessness in the rewind’s eyes is too much for Cam to bear. Cam knows what must be done . . . but he can’t do it. He can’t do it. He pulls the syringe away, capping it, furious at his own compassion. Does this mean I’m truly whole? he wonders. Is compassion a virtue of a soul?
“It’s all right,” Cam says. “The spider won’t get you.”
The rewind’s eyes get a little bit wider, not with fear, but with hope. “Slide into home? Run scores?”
“Yes,” Cam tells him. “You’re safe.”
67 • Roberta
Sometimes we must kill our babies. It’s a basic tenet of every creative or scientific endeavor. Become too attached to any single aspect of one’s work, and one risks failure. Such is the result of not being able to see the forest for the trees.
Hope for Cam’s future had been shaky since that troubling meeting they had with Cobb and Bodeker back in Washington. The one where Cam became violent—if not in action, then in thought—and although they appeared to accept the cover story of Cam being sequestered in Molokai this whole time, Roberta suspects there’s a mole within the staff who informed the senator and general that Cam was AWOL.
“We’ve decided that it’s too unstable for our purposes,” Bodeker told her earlier today. He always refers to Cam as “it,” which has always annoyed Roberta, but now she’s beginning to understanding the practicality of his approach. “We’d prefer that our entire investment go into the reintegrated infantry.” That’s Bodeker’s euphemism for the rewind army they’ve commissioned. Roberta’s understanding is that this reintegrated infantry will be carefully introduced to the public as “Team Mozaic,” an even more euphemistic term to offer up the rewinds in the most appealing light.
As for Cam, he was like a toe dipped into the hot water of a bath. The public was intrigued by him, dazzled even. Thanks to Cam, they’ve come to feel that the water is fine. Now all that remains is for the public to be eased into the bath in calculated measures, lest they balk at the heat. Skillfully spun, Team Mozaic will become an accepted facet of the military, without anyone realizing exactly how it happened.
“You are to be commended for your vision,” Bodeker told Roberta, “but Camus Comprix is no longer a part of our equation. Its job is done.”
Roberta doesn’t know why she feels such regret. It’s the way of all things. The beta test must always give way to the final product. True, the final product has fewer bells and whistles, but that should not concern her. Accommodations must always be made.
And so, when security calls that evening to notify her that, once again, Cam has managed to break into the reintegration unit, her course of action becomes clear. She puts on a linen blazer—insanely heavy for the tropical heat, but it has an outer pocket that’s deep enough to conceal any number of things. Roberta knows what must be done. By no means will this be easy, but it is necessary—and what kind of visionary would she be if she didn’t take all the necessary steps to see her vision through?
• • •
Roberta arrives at the reintegration building to find several guards and med techs standing around the door to the rewind ward, practically twiddling their thumbs in embarrassment. They all back away from the door when they see her coming.
“What’s the situation?” she asks.
“He’s just sitting there,” says one of the med techs, and off of her dubious expression, he says, “See for yourself.”
She peers through the small window in the locked door. Sure enough, Cam is sitting on the floor in the middle of the long room, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking gently back and forth. She pulls out her key card.
“It’s no use,” says one of the guards. “He’s locked everyone out.”
Nevertheless, she swipes her card, and the lock disengages. “He’s locked all of you out,” she says. It’s clear he’s been waiting for her, and her alone. “Get back to your posts,” she tells them. “I’ll handle this.” Reluctantly, the others leave, and she pushes open the door, cautiously stepping in.
The room is awash with the white noise of medical monitors, and the hissing ventilators of the fresher rewinds who are still intubated. The room smells of Betadine antiseptic, and the vague vinegary odor of bandages overdue to be changed. She must remember to crack the whip at the nurses and med techs.
“Cam?” she asks gently as she nears him. He gives no response. He doesn’t even look up.
As she gets closer, she can see the bag beside him. There’s a syringe on the ground with a cloudy liquid. The needle is capped. For a moment she fears the worst, and looks around at the rewinds. She doesn’t spot any monitors that show distress, but perhaps he defeated the life-signs monitors, as well.
Then, as if reading her mind, he says, “I couldn’t kill them. I came here to do it—but I couldn’t.”
She knows she has to be careful with him. Handle him with kid gloves. “Of course you couldn’t,” she says. “They’re your spiritual siblings. Ending their lives would be akin to ending your own.”
“Spiritual,” he echoes. “I didn’t realize that word was part of your lexicon.”
“I don’t deny the spark of life,” she tells him. “But it’s forever debatable what that spark is, and what it means.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Finally he looks at her, his eyes red and pleading. “I know too many things that I don’t want to know. Can you take them away, the way you took her away?”
“That depends on the nature of the things in question.”
“I’m talking about Proactive Citizenry, and the truth about it,” he tells her. “I broke into their computer network, and I know everything. I know that Proactive Citizenry controls the Juvenile Authority. And that they want to increase the scope of unwinding so all those condemned kids can be rewound into this army you’re creating.”
Roberta sighs. “We don’t control the Juvenile Authority, we just have considerable influence.”
“ ‘We,’ ” says Cam. “So it’s back to ‘we’ again. Not ‘they.’ You must be out of Proactive Purgatory.”
“I’ve always been appreciated, Cam,” she tells him. “My work speaks for itself. It always has.”
“Does your work involve clappers?” he asks. “You’re aware that Proactive Citizenry created them as well, aren’t you?”
She knows denying it will only jam a wedge in their rapport, and right now she needs that rapport. She needs for him to trust her unconditionally. So she breaks with all protocol, and tells him the truth.
“First of all, that’s not my department. And second, we didn’t create them. Clappers were blowing themselves up long before we had anything to do with them. Proactive Citizenry merely gives them money and direction. We shape their violence toward a purpose—so that it serves the greater good.”
He nods, accepting, if not entirely approving. “There certainly are historical precedents for manipulating the public through fear.”
“I prefer to see it as opening people’s eyes, so they continue to see the sense in unwinding.”
Cam looks down again and shakes his head slowly. “I don’t want my eyes opened—I want them closed. I don’t want to know any of this. Please, can you tweak me again, Roberta? Can you give me a new worm to make it all go away?”
She kneels beside him and puts her arm around his shoulder, pulling him clos
e. “Poor Camus—you’re in such pain. We’ll find a way to make that pain go away.”
He rests his head on her shoulder. She can feel his relief. It’s as it should be. As it must be. “Thank you, Roberta. I know you’ll take care of me.”
She reaches into the pocket of her blazer. “Haven’t I always?”
“I know you’ve been there for me,” he says. “When my thoughts went astray, you fixed them. When I ran away, you found me and brought me home.”
“And I’m here for you now,” she says as she pulls out her pistol. The one she always keeps in her nightstand, but until now, has never needed to use.
“Promise me you’ll fix it all.”
“I promise, Cam,” and she brings the muzzle of the gun to his forehead, knowing that this will fix it all. “I promise.”
Then she pulls the trigger.
68 • Cam
Cam couldn’t be sure where this would end until he saw the metallic flash of the gun when she pulled it from her pocket. Now, as she speaks calming words to him, and brings the pistol to his forehead, he closes his eyes. He suspected it might come to this, but he didn’t want to believe it. Now he has no choice.
He’s made his decision. He won’t stop her. He won’t resist. He allows her to complete her deadly intention.
The trigger engages.
The hammer releases.
It flies toward the chamber, and strikes it.
But instead of a gunshot comes a harmless click. Still, that tiny, impotent sound tears through Cam’s brain just as effectively as a bullet. Roberta has failed him. He’s not surprised, but he’s deeply disappointed.
Before Roberta has a chance to react, he wrenches the gun from her hands.
“Do you really believe I’m such a pathetic wreck that I’d sit here and let you kill me?”
He stands up, and Roberta, off-balance in her murderous crouch, stumbles, breaking a heel before rising to face him.
“Your gun hasn’t had real bullets since we got here. I made sure they’d be as false as you are.”
“Cam, please—let me explain.”
“You don’t need to,” he tells her. “Your actions speak louder than your lies—they always have. But there’s something I need to explain to you.” He waves the gun, using it to point around the room. “This room is full of surveillance cameras. If you’ll notice, several of them have been repositioned to this very spot, providing various angles of what just transpired here. The rest are still positioned on the rewinds . . . and every single camera is currently streaming live to the public nimbus.”
She gasps audibly. Roberta Griswold is speechless! It’s so wonderful to see her speechless that Cam smiles, feeling every seam on his face tingle with triumph. “I’ve already confirmed that the feeds have been picked up by the media. Of course, it wouldn’t do to have just silent video feeds. That’s why I rigged your phone to stream audio as well. Everything you’ve just said—about Proactive Citizenry building this army—about how they fund and ‘direct’ clappers—it’s all public knowledge now, being heard by thousands, maybe millions, as we speak. You wanted to reach the world with your work. Well, my dear sweet mother, you’ve just succeeded.”
She opens and closes her mouth a few times, like a goldfish that has leapt out of its bowl. “I don’t believe you,” she finally says, but her voice is shaky. “You’re not that underhanded!”
“I wasn’t at first,” he admits, “but I’ve learned from you.” He looks to the rewinds on either side of them. “I couldn’t bring myself to kill them, but they don’t have to die to kill the program, do they?”
That’s when her phone rings.
Cam winks at her. “The backlash is already starting. Go on, answer it—the call will stream live too, and I’m sure there’s plenty of people tuned in who want to hear what your bosses have to say about all this.”
She pulls out her phone and checks the number. Cam doesn’t know who’s calling, but whoever it is, it must terrify her, because she drops the phone and crushes it beneath her one good heel.
“End transmission,” Cam says, with a raised eyebrow. “But that’s all right, the damage has already been done.” He takes a moment to eject the gun’s clip and pulls from his pocket a fresh cartridge filled with real bullets. He snaps it in place with a click far more satisfying than the impotent sound of the hammer when the gun was to his forehead.
“Can you hear it crumbling, Roberta? Not just your work, but those alabaster pillars that hold up Proactive Citizenry—the ones you were all so arrogant to think could never fall? And all because of you. I can’t even imagine what they’ll do to you. Not just the public, but your associates in Proactive Citizenry.”
Then he tosses the loaded pistol to her.
“But you’re in luck. Those cameras are still streaming, which means the show’s not over.” Then he nods. No more gloating. Now he gives her a solemn acknowledgment of her final responsibility to the world, and to herself. “Give them a proper ending, Roberta.”
Then he turns and strides to the door without looking back.
69 • Roberta
She watches him go, then just before he leaves, she aims the gun at the back of his head. She holds it steady . . . but doesn’t fire. If she kills him now, it will only be worse for her. So she lets him leave. The door closes, and she’s alone.
No, not alone—because she’s surrounded by the fruits of her labor. Fifty hideous rewinds that will now be a part of no army. There will be no careful introduction of them to the public—no spin doctors can repair this and make it look any less horrible than it is. The public will see their creation as an atrocity, not as an opportunity. These rewinds will be shunned, Roberta will be despised, and Proactive Citizenry will hang her out to dry, if they let her live at all.
Cam was right to give her the gun. It was an act of bitter mercy, because in one way or another her life is over.
And so, with the eyes of the world watching, Roberta Griswold drops to her knees, puts the muzzle of the gun to her temple . . .
. . . and holds it there.
Holds it there . . .
Holds it there . . .
Until she realizes it’s no use. She can’t summon the courage to pull that trigger. And that’s how they find her when they finally come to take her away, kneeling with a gun to her head, consumed by waves of dread yet unable to save herself from a fate worse than death, which is surely coming for her like a tsunami across the sea.
70 • Grace
“My name is Grace Eleanor Skinner, but you can call me Miss Skinner, or Miss Grace, but the Miss is a must, because that’s respect, and you gotta show me respect because of what I’m bringin’ ya.”
John Rifkin, vice president of sales, sits in a big leather office chair. Not so fancy a chair that it reeks of money, it just reeks of office. His desk is nice too, but she can tell it’s been put together with an Allen wrench. These are all good things, as far as Grace is concerned. The company needs to be hungry. The company needs to be just right.
The man seems amused by her presence in his office. That’s okay. They let her get as far as his office because the man’s underlings thought it might be an entertaining moment in an otherwise dull day. They have no idea.
“So what’s in the box, Miss Skinner?”
Grace carefully begins to take out the pieces and lay them in size order on the desk, from left to right. The man swivels in his chair, maintaining a slight grin. Maybe he’s thinking this is a practical joke. That’s fine, as long as he lets it play out.
“It looks like the broken parts of a printer—and an obsolete one at that,” says John Rifkin, vice president of sales, using that condescending tone people reserve for children and low-cortical adults. “As I’m not a collector of such things, I think you may be in the wrong place.”
“Nothing wrong about it. I came to your company because there are six companies bigger and more successful than yours that make medical machines. I looked it up.”
&nb
sp; John Rifkin, vice president of sales, seems slightly taken aback. “You looked it up?”
“Yes, I did. Also, unlike those other companies, Rifkin Medical Instruments has no ties to Proactive Citizenry.”
“No, we don’t. Which is probably why we’re number seven,” he says, irritated by his own admission.
“I also looked you up,” continues Grace. “The company’s got your name—Rifkin Medical Instruments—but someone without your name is now its president, which tells me you’ve got fangs for that job, and could use a boost up the ladder, am I right?”
Now he gets uncomfortable. “Who put you up to this? Is it Bob? It’s Bob, isn’t it?”
“There ain’t no Bob, there’s only me.” Then she gestures to the array of parts before her. “This here is an organ printer. It’s kind of unwound right now, but it’s the real deal.”
John Rifkin relaxes a bit, and offers her something of a superior smirk. “Miss Skinner, organ printing was debunked as a fraud years ago. It was a nice idea, but it didn’t work.”
“That’s what they want you to think,” she whispers. “But Janson Rheinschild knew better.”
Suddenly he’s sitting up straight, like a kindergartner on his first day of school. “Did you say Janson Rheinschild?”
“You heard of him?”
“My father did. The man was a genius, but he went crazy, didn’t he?”
“Or he got driven that way. But not before he built this.”
Now John Rifkin is interested. He begins tapping his pen on the table, finally considering that maybe Grace is worth taking seriously. “If Rheinschild built that, why do you have it?”
“Got it from his widow. Old woman in Ohio, ran an antique shop.”
He grabs his phone.
“Don’t bother, she’s dead. Big fire. But of everything in her shop, I knew she wanted me to save this, so I did. And I’m here to give it to you.”
He reaches for one of the parts, but hesitates, and asks, “May I?” Grace nods, and he gently picks up the printing part, turning it over in his hands to explore it from every angle. “And you say it once worked.”