Part 14 (2/2)
”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.”
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