Текст книги "UnSouled"

Автор книги: Neal Shusterman

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

61 • Cam

This changes everything.

The fact that Risa is now smack in the middle of it all forces Cam to have to reevaluate his goal as well as his methods to achieve them. As a fugitive himself, he needed this shaky collaboration with Connor. Survival demanded it, and although in his heart he knows Connor is an enemy, he can only have one enemy at a time, and right now, it’s Proactive Citizenry.

Cam has to admit that from the moment he met Connor, he was as fascinated by him as much as he despised him. The way he showed compassion—even empathy—when Una did not. Connor probably saved his life that day at the sweat lodge. Had the roles been reversed, Cam would not have done the same. It made Connor worthy of study.

The plan, from that moment on, was to get to know Connor—and to use him to help bring down Proactive Citizenry. Then, once Roberta and all of her high-and-mighty cronies have been hobbled, Cam would know Connor well enough to hobble him as well. He must clearly understand the pedestal that Risa has put the Akron AWOL on before he can engineer the pedestal’s collapse, leaving Connor Lassiter as nothing in Risa’s eyes.

But now that Risa is actually here, Cam feels like he’s been reduced to being an ape having to pound his chest before her to win her affections. Is that all it comes down to, then? Primitive mating rituals sublimated to appear civilized? Perhaps—but Cam knows he’s a step forward in human evolution. A composite being. He has faith that his internal community will galvanize to outshine Connor at every turn. But why does it have to be now?

Sonia does not bring them down to the basement with the AWOLs-in-hiding.

“They’ll tear this one apart the second they see him.” She points her thumb at Cam like she’s hitching a ride.

“Talking about someone in the third person is rude,” Cam tells her coolly.

“Really?” says Connor. “When you’re a hundred people, wouldn’t third person be a compliment?”

Cam is fully prepared to snipe back at Connor, but he catches Risa’s gaze and chooses not to. Let her see him as the model of restraint.

Sonia then takes a moment to look at Connor. “You don’t want to be in that basement either with all those ogling eyes. You’ve probably had enough hero worship to last a lifetime.”

“I haven’t,” chimes in Grace, who must feel like a mortal among gods.

“Consider yourself lucky, then,” Sonia tells her. “In these times, the less noticed you are, the better your chances of living long enough to see things change.”

“Well said!” Cam offers, but Sonia only scowls at him.

“Nobody asked you.”

She takes them to the back alley where an old Suburban in need of major washing waits, and she ushers them all into it. Although Cam makes every effort to sit beside Risa, Grace barges her way in right after her in a “ladies first” sort of way and sits beside her. Risa makes eye contact with Cam and gives him a purse-lipped grin as if to say, “Better luck next time.” He can’t read her at all. He doesn’t know whether she’s relieved that Grace is there or disappointed. He glances at Connor, who appears not to care where he sits. Appears. That’s the key word with Connor. He’s extremely good at hiding what goes on in that perplexing space between his ears.

Being the last one in, Cam tries to sit shotgun, but Sonia won’t allow it. “There’s less of a chance you’ll be seen in the back, since those windows are darker. And besides, your ‘multicultural’ face is too damn distracting for an old woman trying to drive a large vehicle.” So the shotgun seat is left empty, and Cam ends up sitting in the back with Connor.

“So where are we going?” Connor asks.

Risa turns around to answer and offers him a grin. “You’ll see.”

Cam can’t tell if it’s the exact same grin she offered him a moment before, or if there’s more warmth to it. He can’t stand not knowing. The frustration of it makes his seams begin to itch. He knows it’s all in his mind, but the crawling of his seams feels very real. The unspoken, undefined relationship between Risa and Connor is maddening.

Sonia drives with the practiced caution of the elderly, yet still manages to hit every bump and pothole in the road and issues forth curses that could make a longshoreman blush. Five minutes later, she pulls into the driveway of a modest two-story home.

“Did you warn her?” Risa asks as they come to a stop.

Sonia puts the car in park with a decisive thrust. “I don’t warn,” Sonia says. “I act, and people deal.”

Cam idly wonders if Roberta will be like this if she lives long enough to be that old. It gives him an unexpected and unwanted shiver.

Once out of the Suburban, Sonia quickly leads them to a side gate, where a shih tzu has already begun barking and shows no sign of ceasing anytime soon. “We live in a backdoor world,” Sonia tells them, “so move your collective asses before the neighbors get nosy.” Sonia opens the gate, ignoring the dog, which tries to nip at everyone’s heels at once, in futile defense of its territory.

“One of these days,” says Sonia, as she leads them to the backyard, “I’ll punt that fool dog into Central Time.” And off of Grace’s concerned look, Risa assures her that Sonia doesn’t mean it.

With a high wooden fence around the perimeter of the yard, the back door is much less conspicuous than the front. Sonia raps loudly, and then raps again, not patient enough to wait for it to be answered. Finally a woman comes to the door. She seems to be in her midforties and is holding a toddler wearing a Minnie Mouse dress. A stork-job, Cam figures. Middle-aged people always seem to get babies dropped on their doorsteps these days.

“Oh good Lord. What now?” the beleaguered woman asks.

Then Connor gasps. “Didi?” he says, looking at the toddler.

Although the little girl regards him without a hint of recognition, the woman holding her appears both pleased and taken aback at the same time by the sight of Connor. “I changed her name to Dierdre.”

“Well, I still call her Didi,” says Risa. “You remember Hannah, don’t you, Connor?” Risa says, clearly a prompt to save him the embarrassment of not remembering the woman’s name.

When the woman looks at Cam, her face blanches, and Cam can’t resist saying, “Trick or treat,” although Halloween is months away.

Hannah puts Dierdre down and tells her to run inside and play, which she is more than happy to do, and the shih tzu, still unable to stop itself from barking, follows her just far enough to guard the threshold between the kitchen and the dining room.

“You’re full of surprises, Sonia,” Hannah says, her eyes still locked on Cam. Then she herds them all in before they draw unwanted neighborhood attention. Cam finds the house a little too warm, but maybe it’s just in contrast to the chill of the overcast day.

“I spend my days helping Sonia,” Risa says, “but Hannah’s been kind enough to let me spend my nights here for the past few weeks.” Now that they’re safely inside, she introduces the rest of them to her, saving Cam for last, rather self-consciously calling him “the one and only Camus Comprix.”

“Are you ADR?” Cam asks as he shakes Hannah’s hand.

She eyes him with the same suspicion that everyone does. Everyone who isn’t starstruck, that is. “No. I was never a part of the Anti-Divisional Resistance. I’m just a concerned citizen.” Then she turns to Sonia. “We should talk. Alone.”

Hannah pulls Sonia into another room. She spares a glance back at them and says, “Risa, keep an eye on Dierdre. The rest of you, make yourselves comfortable,” then adds, “But not too comfortable.”

Risa, now their temporary hostess, escorts them into a living room filled with the primary-colored detritus of preschool toys strewn haphazardly on the floor. Dierdre ignores the visitors, content to throw plastic blocks in the direction of the dog, who retrieves them, no longer interested in territorial defense.

The room has many clocks. Hannah must be a collector. They all show different times, as none of them are wound or plugged in. Well, almost none. There’s one clock ticking, but Cam can’t figure out where the sound is coming from. How appropriate, he thinks, that the house of an AWOL sympathizer is all about the importance of time, yet the timepieces are all at odds with one another.

Risa draws the curtains as they settle into their new holding pattern until Sonia and Hannah’s summit meeting can bring about a decision as to what to do with them. “So,” says Risa with an absolute awkwardness that is completely unlike her, “here we are.”

“And here be dragons,” Cam says, he himself not even knowing exactly why he says it or what it means. All he knows is that in some odd way, it’s true. He knows that Risa is still trying to process his and Connor’s presence here. She doesn’t even ask how they’ve come to be together, which tells Cam that she’s so far from dealing with it, she doesn’t even want to know.

They all sit spaced apart on a sectional sofa and the two chairs facing it, trying to keep this from feeling as awkward as it is. Grace is the only one who doesn’t sit yet. She wanders around the room, seemingly immune to the tension, examining photographs and knickknacks and digging her hand into a jar of Jolly Ranchers on a shelf too high for Dierdre to get at.

Cam wishes he could dig into at least one part of himself that retains that much innocence. Not even the tithes he has residing within him are naive enough to feel safe in Hannah’s comfortable living room. The memory bits of his tithes are more about feeling superior, so all he can dredge forth from them is aloofness. That’s not going to endear him to Risa.

“Hannah’s the teacher who saved Connor and me from the Juvey-cops when we were first on the run,” Risa explains.

“Oh,” says Cam impotently. “Good to know.” All her explanation does is reinforce the history Risa has with Connor. Cam hates having to hear it.

Grace, happy to fly beneath the radar of conversation, lines up her cache of candies on the living room’s coffee table. The bowl of Jolly Ranchers is still half-full, and the sight of it sparks absurd discord in Cam. Option Anxiety, he’s come to call it. “One man’s meat,” he mumbles to himself, but realizes it’s loud enough for the others to hear, so he explains. “It’s not just taste buds that create a preference for flavors,” he tells them. “My internal community is always at odds when it comes to things like those candies. A part of me loves the green apple and another the grape. Someone has a particular affinity for the peach ones—which they don’t even make anymore—and someone else finds the whole concept of Jolly Ranchers nauseating.” He sighs, trying to dismiss his pointless Option Anxiety. “Bowls of mixed things are the bane of my existence.”

Connor looks at him with a blank zombie stare that must be well practiced. “You talk as if someone actually cares.”

Risa offers that slim grin to Cam again. “How can people be interested in the inner workings of your mind, Cam, when they can’t figure out the inner workings of their own?” It sounds like a sideways snipe against Connor, but then she gently pats Connor’s hand, turning a perfectly good snipe into a playful barb.

“Why don’t you choose a flavor for me?” Cam asks Risa, trying to be playful too, but Risa avoids the issue by saying, “After the trouble Roberta went through to find you such nice teeth, why rot them?”

“I got my favorites, but that don’t matter,” Grace announces. She indicates her well-spaced row of candies and puts a definitive end to the subject by saying, “I always eat them in alphabetical order.”

Cam decides to obey the sense memory that doesn’t like hard candy and doesn’t take any.

“How are your friends at Proactive Citizenry?” Risa asks Cam tentatively.

“They’re no more my friends than they are yours,” he tells her. He’s about to tell her that he’s turned on them and has given up the shining spotlight to help her, but Connor steals the reveal from him.

“Camus showed me some damaging evidence we can use against them.”

Cam regrets having shared it with Connor at all. Had he known he’d come face-to-face with Risa here in Akron, he would have saved it all for her. Now he resents Connor for even knowing.

“And there’s more,” Cam adds. “You and I can talk later,” he tells Risa.

Connor shifts uncomfortably and turns his attention to the pictures around the room. “My guess is that Hannah is divorced or recently widowed. There are pictures of a man with her in some photos, including one with Dierdre—but Hannah’s not wearing a wedding ring.”

“Definitely widowed,” says Grace without looking up from her candy organization. “You don’t keep pictures out of a guy you divorced.”

Connor shrugs. “Anyway, it looks like she’s really taken to raising this Dierdre as her own.”

“She has,” Risa admits. “It was a good choice for us to leave her with Hannah. Not that we had much of a choice.”

The direction of the conversation makes Cam uncomfortable. “Exactly whose kid is it?”

Connor smirks at Cam and puts one arm around Risa. “Ours,” he says. “Didn’t you know?”

For a moment Cam believes him, for he knows Risa has many secrets yet to be discovered. Cam is disheartened until Risa slides deftly out of Connor’s embrace.

“She was a storked baby that Connor picked up from a doorstep,” Risa explains. “We took care of her for a brief time; then Hannah volunteered to take her off of our hands before we were shuttled to the next safe house.”

“And did you find motherhood an interesting experience?” Cam asks, relieved enough to be amused at the thought.

“Yes,” says Risa, “but I’m in no hurry to repeat it.” Then she stands, moving away from both Cam and Connor. “I’ll see what’s in the refrigerator. You must be hungry.”

After she’s gone, Connor’s demeanor changes a bit. He becomes dark. A brooding gray like the sky outside. “You’ll keep your eyes and your hands off of her. Is that clear? You will not cause her any more grief than you already have.”

“Ah! The green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on!” Cam says. “She told me you were the jealous type, but you’re a weak and pale Othello.”

“I’ll unwind you with my bare hands if you don’t leave her alone.”

That makes Cam genuinely laugh. “Your pointless bravado will be your downfall. All that arrogance with nothing to back it up.”

“Arrogance? You’re the one who’s full of himself! Or full of others, I should say.”

It’s like a sword has finally been drawn in the duel. Grace looks up from her Jolly Ranchers, even Dierdre and the dog, way across the room, seem to tune in. How will Cam respond? Although the wild parts of himself want to lash out in anger, he reins them in. Anger is what Connor wants. It’s what Connor knows how to deal with. Cam won’t oblige.

“The fact that I’m physically, intellectually, and creatively better than you is not arrogance or conceit; it’s a simple fact,” Cam says with forced calm. “I’m the better man because I was made to be. I can’t help what I have any more than you can help what you don’t.”

They hold hard gazes until Connor backs down. “If you want to joust over Risa, now’s not the time. Right now we all need to be friends.”

“Allies don’t gotta be friends,” Grace points out. “Take World War II. We couldn’t a’ won it without Russia, even though we hated each other’s guts then.”

“Point taken,” says Cam, once more impressed by Grace’s unexpected wisdom. “For now, let’s agree that Risa is off-limits. A demilitarized zone.”

“You’re mixin’ your wars,” Grace says. “The Demilitarized Zone was Korea.”

“She’s a person, not a zone,” says Connor. Then he goes over and plays with Dierdre, putting an end to all negotiations.

“You’re forgetting,” Cam says to Grace, who also noted the documentaries that so absorbed her at the motel, “that the United States and Russia almost nuked each other to smithereens after World War II.”

“I’m not forgettin’ nothin’,” Grace says, returning to her candies. “When the two of you really go at it, I expect I’ll build myself a bomb shelter.”

62 • Connor

This changes everything.

Connor’s initial thrill at seeing Risa is quickly crushed under the weight of the reality. Not the reality of Cam, but the reality of their situation. Now that Risa is with them, she’s no longer out of harm’s way. Connor had longed for her—there is no question about that. For all these months, he has ached to hear her voice and to be comforted by her words. He longed to massage her legs even though he knew she was no longer paralyzed. His feelings for her have not changed. Even when he thought she had betrayed the cause and had become a public voice in favor of unwinding, he knew deep down she could not be doing it of her own accord.

Then, when she came on live television to reveal it was a sham and thoroughly slapped down Proactive Citizenry, he loved her even more. After that, she vanished into hiding, just as completely as Connor had—and there was comfort in that. He could look out into the night and know she was out there somewhere, using her formidable wits to keep herself safe.

Connor, however, is anything but a safe harbor now. With what they mean to expose about Proactive Citizenry—and what he might potentially learn from Sonia—she is in much greater danger in his company than not. His journey is now into the flames, not away from them—and of course she’ll want to go with him. And Cam’s words still echo in his mind.

“I’m the better man because I was made to be.”

For all of his handpicked intelligence, Cam is an imbecile to think jealousy is what this is all about. Yes, Connor admits that a certain amount of jealousy is there to cloud things, but competing for Risa’s affections feels like a petty endeavor compared to Connor’s need to protect her from both himself and from Cam.

As Connor plays with Dierdre on the living room floor, he tries to let his anger dissipate. It won’t help the situation. Giving into his jealousy will only distract him.

Dierdre lies back and puts her feet in Connor’s face.

“Tricker treat! Smell my feet!”

Her feet smell like the baby food she must have stepped in, orange globs of sweet potato marring the pattern of ducklings swimming all over her socks.

“Nice socks,” Connor says, still amazed that this was the same baby he took from the doorstep of the fat, beady-eyed woman and her fat, beady-eyed son.

“Ducky socks!” says Dierdre happily. “Fishy arm!” She touches the shark on his arm with a sticky index finger. “Fishy arm. Army fish!” And she giggles. The giggle opens an escape valve in Connor; his frustration is soothed by Dierdre.

“It’s a shark,” he tells Dierdre.

“Shark!” repeats Dierdre. “Shark shark shark!” Dierdre snaps a woman’s plastic head on a little plastic body of a firefighter. “Your mommy see the shark there? She mad at it?”

Connor sighs. Little kids, he’s decided, are like cats. They always like to hop in the laps of people who are allergic. Connor wonders if Dierdre has any clue that the topic she just put in his lap is enough to make him break out in hives.

“No,” he tells her. “My mommy doesn’t know about the shark.”

“You’ll get in trouble?”

“No worries,” Connor says.

“No worries,” Dierdre repeats, and snaps a tire on top of the little plastic figure’s head, making it look like an oversized Russian hat.

Dierdre doesn’t know that there’s a letter in a trunk in Sonia’s back room. There are actually hundreds of letters. All written by AWOLs, all written to the parents who gave them over for unwinding. From the moment Connor saw the trunk earlier that day, he’s been imagining what it would be like to hand deliver that letter and watch from a hidden location as his parents read it. Just thinking about it now causes Roland’s arm to tighten into a fist. He imagines punching through a windowpane, grabbing the letter back from them before they can read it—but he chases the thought away, consciously releases his fingers and directs the hand to get back to the business of preschool play.

Roland’s hand snaps together Legos just as efficiently as Connor’s natural hand, proving it can create as well as it destroys.

•   •   •

Sonia’s powers of persuasion must verge on superhuman, because Hannah consents to keeping them all under her protection.

“Grace can bunk with Risa. You boys can share my sewing room. There’s a daybed in there—you’ll have to either share it or slug it out,” Hannah tells them. “I’ll make this very clear. I am not a safe house. I am doing this just because it’s the right thing to do—but do not take advantage of my good nature.” She goes on, instructing them to stay away from windows and hide if anyone comes to the door.

“We know the drill,” Connor is quick to tell her. “It’s not like we’re new to this.”

“Some of us are,” Cam says, and indicates Grace. “From what I understand, you dragged her into this.”

“I dragged myself,” Grace tells him, keeping Connor from being drawn into a battle with Cam, “and I can hide as good as anyone.”

Satisfied that the situation is under control, Sonia leaves. “Gotta feed the gremlins in my basement before they get restless,” although Connor knows from experience that they’re always restless.

A storm hits twenty minutes later—a steady stream of rain and distant lightning that threatens to draw closer but never does. Hannah orders in pizza for dinner—a bit of absurd normality in the midst of their situation.

The sewing room is upstairs with the rest of the bedrooms. A tiny space with a frilly daybed that insults the very concept of masculinity.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Cam offers, making sure Risa can see his selfless generosity. Risa’s response is to grin at Connor. “He beat you to it.”

“Yeah,” says Connor. “I’ll have to be quicker next time.”

Cam, still locked in competition mode, is not amused. For the rest of the day Risa does her best to avoid being in the room with both of them at the same time, and since Cam won’t let Connor out of his sight, their only interactions with Risa are her quick forays into their cramped room with blankets, towels, and toiletries. “We keep a collection of stuff for the kids in Sonia’s basement,” she says as she hands Connor toothpaste and Cam a toothbrush.

“So are we supposed to share it?” Cam asks with an annoyingly rakish grin.

Risa, flustered, apologizes. “I’ll find another one.”

Connor has never seen Risa flustered. He would dislike Cam all the more for making her so—but he knows it’s not Cam, but the combination of the two of them. Connor wonders how Risa would be with him were the presence of Camus Comprix not a factor.

He finds out after dinner, while Cam’s taking a shower.

Grace has taken to entertaining Dierdre. The giggles from the nursery attest to her success. Connor struggles to find a comfortable position on the dusty daybed. When Risa appears at the doorway, she just stands at the threshold. The sound of the shower down the hall makes it clear that Cam won’t be back for at least a few minutes.

“Can I come in?” she asks tentatively.

Connor sits up on the bed, trying to be less fidgety than he feels. “Sure.”

She sits on the room’s only chair and smiles. “I’ve missed you, Connor.”

This is a moment Connor has longed for. A moment that he’s held in his mind to keep him going—but as much as Connor wants to return her affection, he knows he can’t. They cannot be together. He cannot draw her back into this battle now that she’s safe. But neither can he push her toward Cam.

So he clasps her hand, but doesn’t hold it all that tightly. “Yeah,” he says. “Same here.” But he says it without the conviction he really feels.

She studies him, and he hopes she doesn’t see through his cool facade. “All those things I said—the commercials, the public service announcements in favor of unwinding—you know I was being blackmailed, don’t you? They were going to attack the Graveyard if I didn’t do it.”

“They attacked the Graveyard anyway,” Connor points out.

Now she begins to get concerned. “Connor, you don’t think—”

“No, I don’t think you betrayed us,” he tells her. He can’t mislead her about his feelings that much. “But a lot of Whollies died that night.” What he really wants to do is take her into his arms and hold her tightly. He wants to tell her that thinking of her is the only thing that kept him going. But instead he says, “They died. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Next you’ll be blaming me for Starkey.”

“No,” says Connor. “I blame myself for that.”

Risa looks down. For a moment he sees tears building in her eyes, but when she looks up at him again, her expression is hard. Her vulnerability is once more protected by armor. “Well, I’m glad you’re alive,” she tells him, taking her hand back from him. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“As safe as can be expected,” says Connor, “considering I have a rogue parts pirate, Proactive Citizenry, and the Juvenile Authority after me.”

Risa sighs. “I guess we’ll never be safe.”

“You’re safe,” Connor says before he can stop himself. “Do yourself a favor and stay that way.”

Now she looks at him with suspicion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ve settled into this life with Hannah and Didi. Why throw it away?”

“Settled in? I’ve been here two weeks! That’s hardly settled in—and now that you’re here—”

Connor never considered himself much of an actor, but now he feigns irritation for all he’s worth. “Now that I’m here, what? You think you’re going to join me in raging against the machine? What makes you think I want that?”

Risa is speechless, as he hoped she would be. With the first emotional punch thrown, Connor follows up with “Things are different now, Risa. And what we had at the Graveyard . . .”

“We had nothing,” Risa says, saving him the pain of yet another lie—replacing it with a different kind of pain. “We just got stuck smack in each other’s way.” Then she stands up just as Cam makes his appearance at the door. “But we’re not in each other’s way anymore.”

Cam has a beach towel wrapped around his lower half, but his upper half is on display. The perfect package of six-pack abs and sculpted pecs. He came in here like that on purpose, Connor decides. Because he knows Risa is here.

“What did I miss?”

Risa puts her hand unabashedly on his chest, tracing the lines where his flesh tones meet. “They were right, Cam,” she says gently. “Those seams healed perfectly. No scars at all.” She smiles at him and gives him a peck on the cheek before she strides out of the room.

Conner hopes her sudden attention to Cam is merely a jab against him, but he can’t be sure. Rather than thinking about it, Connor looks to his grafted arm, letting it draw his focus. He’s conscious to keep the fingers from contracting into a fist. Some people wear their emotions on their sleeves. Connor wears his in the skin of his knuckles, pulled tight in a gesture both offensive and defensive. He concentrates on the shark on his wrist now. Its fiery unnatural eyes. Its oversized teeth. The muscular curve of its body. Such an ugly thing, yet disturbingly graceful. He hates it. In fact, he’s come to love how much he hates it.

Cam closes the door and immodestly exposes the rest of himself as he dresses, as if Connor cares. He’s all smiles the next time he looks at Connor, as if he knows more than he does.

“No surprise which way the wind is blowing when it comes to Risa,” Cam says.

“The wind’s gonna blow sand in your eyes if you’re not careful,” Connor responds.

“Is that a threat?”

“You know what? You’re not half as smart as you think you are.” Then he goes to take his own shower—a cold one that can hopefully numb the heat in his head.