Текст книги "UnWholly"
Автор книги: Neal Shusterman
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
48 • Risa
Once their appearance with Jarvis and Holly is over, Risa holds Cam’s hand until they are backstage and out of view of the audience. Then she releases it in disgust. Not disgust at him, but at herself.
“What is it?” Cam asks. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong.”
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
She looks for the bathroom but can’t find it. This blasted studio set is a maze, and everyone from the interns to the crew stares at them as they pass, as if they’re royalty. These people must get celebrities on this show every day, so what makes them any different? But she knows the answer to that: After a while a celebrity is just a celebrity, but there is only one Camus Comprix. He is the new golden child of humanity, and as for Risa, well, it’s “gilt” by association.
Finally she finds the bathroom and locks herself in, sits on the toilet, and buries her head in her hands. To have to defend unwinding—to have to say that the world is a better place because innocent kids are being unwound—shreds her inside. Her self-respect, her integrity are gone. Now, not only does she wish she hadn’t survived the explosion at Happy Jack, she wishes she had never been born at all.
Why are you doing this, Risa?
It’s the voices of all the kids at the Graveyard. Why? It’s the voice of Connor, accusing her, and rightfully so. She wishes she could explain her reasons to him, and the deal with the devil she made with Roberta. A she-devil with the power to build herself a perfect boy.
And perfect, he very well may be. At least by society’s definition. Risa can’t deny that with each day, Cam grows more and more into his potential. He’s smart and strong, and has the capacity to be profoundly wise when he’s not being profoundly self-centered. The fact that she’s starting to see him as a real boy and not a piecemeal Pinocchio bothers her almost as much as the things she said today on camera.
There is an urgent banging at the bathroom door.
“Risa,” Cam calls, “are you okay? Please come out, you’re scaring me.”
“Leave me alone!” Risa shouts.
He says nothing more, but when she finally leaves the bathroom five minutes later, he’s still standing there, waiting. He would probably have waited all day and all night. She wonders whether such unyielding resolve came from his parts, or if it’s something he’s developed on his own.
She suddenly finds herself bursting into tears and throwing herself into his arms, not even knowing why. She wants to tear him to bits, yet she desperately wants him to comfort her. She wants to destroy everything he represents, and yet she wants to cry on his shoulder because she has no other shoulder to cry on. Around them, people ogle them, trying to be inconspicuous about it. Their hearts are warmed by what appears to be the embrace of two souls in love.
“Unfair,” he says. “They shouldn’t make you do these things if you’re not ready to do them.” And the fact that he, the subject of all this attention, understands her, empathizes with her, and is somehow on her side, confuses everything inside her even more.
“It’s not always going to be like this,” Cam whispers to her. She wants to believe that, but right now she can only imagine it being worse.
49 • Cam
There are things that Roberta hasn’t told him. Her control over Risa is more than a mere matter of wills. It’s not as simple as gratitude for a new spine, because Risa isn’t grateful at all. It’s very clear that her spine is a burden she wishes she didn’t have to bear. Then why did she consent?
Every moment they’re together the question hangs heavy in the air, but when he broaches the subject, all Risa says is, “It was something I had to do,” and when he tries to probe deeper, she loses patience and tells him to stop pushing. “My reasons are my own.”
He wants to believe that he’s the reason why she’s doing all the things she’s doing—all these things that clearly go against her grain. But if there are any parts of him that are naive enough to believe that she’d do these interviews and ads for his sake, they are outnumbered by the parts of him that know better.
Their appearance on Brunch with Jarvis and Holly made it painfully clear that whatever pain Risa is feeling over her part in all this runs very deep. The fact that she allowed him to comfort her didn’t change that. If anything, it made him feel a responsibility to get to the bottom of it—not just for his own sake, but for hers. For how could anything between them ever be real without a full disclosure?
It all comes down to the day she signed that consent form—but asking Roberta about it is a useless endeavor. Then Cam realizes he doesn’t have to . . . because Roberta is the queen of surveillance videos.
“I need to see the surveillance records from April seventeenth,” Cam tells the security guard he’s most friendly with—the one he plays basketball with—after they return to Molokai.
“No can do,” he tells Cam, right off the bat. “No one sees those without permission from you-know-who. Get her permission, and I’ll show you whatever you want.”
“She’ll never know.”
“Don’t matter.”
“But it’ll matter if I tell her I caught you trying to steal from the mansion.” That makes the guard stutter. “Allow me,” Cam says. “You say, ‘You son of a bitch, you can’t do that,’ and I say ‘Yes, I can, and who do you think she’ll believe, me or you?’ ” Then Cam hands him a flash drive. “So just put the files on this, and everyone’s life will be easier.”
The guard looks at him incredulously. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
And although Cam knows who he’s referring to, he says, “I’ve got lots of trees, you’ll have to be more specific.”
That evening the drive turns up in his desk drawer, packed with video files. He doubts he’ll have a basketball partner anymore, but it’s a small sacrifice to make. When it’s late enough to know he won’t be interrupted, he loads the files onto his personal viewer—and witnesses something he was never supposed to see. . . .
50 • Risa
April 17. Almost two months ago. Before the interviews and the public service announcements, before the operation that replaced Risa’s severed spine.
Risa sits in her wheelchair in a sparse cell with nothing to occupy her time but her own thoughts. A consent form folded into a paper airplane lies on the floor beneath a oneway mirror.
She spends her time thinking about her friends. Of Connor, mostly. She wonders how he’ll fare without her. Better, she hopes. If she could only get word to him that she’s alive, that she hasn’t been tortured at the hands of the Juvies—and that she’s not even in their hands, but in the hands of some other organization.
Roberta comes in, as she did the day before, with a new consent form. She sits down at the table and slides the consent form and a pen toward Risa again.
She smiles at Risa, but it’s the smile of a snake about to coil around its prey.
“Are you ready to sign?” she asks.
“Are you ready to see me fly another paper airplane?” Risa responds.
“Airplanes!” says Roberta brightly. “Yes, why don’t we talk about airplanes? Particularly the ones in the aircraft salvage yard. The place you call the Graveyard. Let’s talk about your many friends there.”
At last, thinks Risa, she’s going to question me. “Ask whatever you want,” she says. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t trust a thing I say.”
“No need to ask you questions, dear,” Roberta says. “We know all we need to know about the Graveyard. You see, we allow your little AWOL sanctuary to exist because it serves our needs.”
“Your needs? You’re telling me you control the Juvenile Authority?”
“Let’s just say we have substantial sway. The Juvenile Authority has wanted to raid the Graveyard for quite a while, but we’re the ones holding them back. However, if I give the word, the Graveyard will be cleaned out, and all those children who you fought so valiantly to save will be transported to harvest camps and unwound.”
Risa can sense the rug being pulled out from under her. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? I believe you know our inside man. His name is Trace Neuhauser.”
The news completely blindsides her. “Trace?”
“He’s provided us with all the information we need to make a takedown of the airplane Graveyard quick and painless.” She pushes the consent form just an inch closer to Risa. “However, it never needs to happen. None of those AWOLs need be unwound. Please, Risa. Accept a new spine, and do all we ask of you. If you do, I will personally guarantee that all seven hundred nineteen of your friends will be unharmed. Help me, Risa, and you’ll save them.”
Risa looks at the paper, seeing it in a terrible new light. “What types of things?” she asks. “What types of things will you ask me to do?”
“It will begin with Cam. You will put aside your feelings, whatever they may be, and learn to be kind to him. As for what other things we may ask of you, you will know when it is your time to know.”
She waits for Risa’s response, but she has none. The shrapnel of this bombshell has yet to come to rest.
Risa’s silence seems to satisfy Roberta, so she stands, leaving Risa with the form and the pen. “As you pointed out before, I won’t take away your choice—it remains in your rights to refuse . . . but if you do, I hope you can live with the consequences.”
• • •
Risa holds the pen in her hand and reads the document for the fourth time. A single page filled with incomprehensible legalese. She doesn’t need to decipher the fine print—it’s pretty obvious what it says. By signing it, she gives her express permission to replace her damaged spine with a healthy one, harvested from an anonymous Unwind.
How many times has she imagined what it would be like to walk again? How many times has she relived that moment at Happy Jack Harvest Camp when the roof collapsed and crushed her back, and wondered what it would be like to have that moment erased?
The way Risa saw it, however, the cost of the new spine would be her soul. Her conscience couldn’t allow it, not then, not ever. Or so she thought.
If she looks at the big picture and refuses to sign it, she makes a personal statement against a world that’s lost its way . . . but no one will ever know, and her statement will cause hundreds of her friends to be unwound.
Roberta claims that Risa has a choice, but what choice does she really have? She holds the pen firm, takes a deep breath, and signs her name.
51 • Cam
Roberta is overjoyed by the response to the Jarvis and Holly appearance. She’s already fielded dozens of interview requests.
“We can afford to be choosy,” she tells Cam the morning after he views the surveillance video. “Quality versus quantity!”
Cam says nothing, and Roberta is so wrapped up in her own plans, she fails to notice that Cam isn’t himself.
You will put aside your feelings, whatever they may be, and learn to be kind to him.
He takes his frustration out alone on the basketball court, and when that doesn’t calm him down, he takes it to the source. He searches the sprawling manor for Risa. He finds her in the kitchen, making herself a late-morning sandwich. “I get tired of being served all the time,” she says casually. “Sometimes all I want is a PB&J that I make myself.” She holds out the sandwich to him. “You want this one? I’ll make another.”
When he doesn’t take it, she looks at his eyes and sees how off he is. “What’s the matter? Have a fight with Mommy?”
“I know why you’re here,” he tells her. “I know all about your deal with Roberta, and your friends at the Graveyard.”
She hesitates for a moment, then begins to eat her sandwich. “You have your deal with her, I have mine,” she says in a peanut-butter-muffled voice. She tries to walk away, but Cam grabs her. She quickly pulls out of his grasp and pushes him against the wall. “I’ve come to accept it!” she yells at him. “So you might as well too!”
“So was it all just pretend? Was being nice to the freak just a performance to save your friends?”
“Yes!” snaps Risa. “At first.”
“And now?”
“Do you really think so little of yourself? Do you really think I’m that good of an actress?”
“Then prove it!” he demands. “Prove that you feel anything but contempt for me!”
“Right now that’s all I feel for you!” Then she storms out, hurling her sandwich into the trash.
Five minutes later, Cam swipes a pass card from an inattentive guard and uses it to get past the security door into the garage. Then he steals a motorcycle and takes off down the winding path out of the estate.
He has no destination, just a burning need for acceleration. He’s sure there is at least one speed freak in his head, maybe more. He knows several of his constituents drove motorcycles. He takes every turn too fast until he finally gets to the town of Kualapuu, giving satisfaction to every self-destructive impulse that resides within him. Then he takes a turn too sharply, loses control, and flies from the bike, rolling over and over on the pavement.
He’s hurt, but he’s alive. Motorists stop and get out of their cars to help him, but he doesn’t want their help. He gets to his feet and feels a sharp pain in his knee. His back feels shredded; blood from beneath his hairline clouds his eyes.
“Hey, buddy, you okay?” yells some tourist. Then he stops short. “Hey! Hey, it’s you! You’re that rewind kid! Hey, look, it’s that rewind kid!”
He hurries away from them and gets on the motorcycle again, riding back the way he came. By the time he arrives, there are already police cars out front. Roberta sees him and runs to him.
“Cam!” she wails. “What did you do? What did you do? My God! You need medical attention! We’ll get the doctor right away!” Then she turns angrily to the house guards. “How could you let this happen?”
“It’s not their fault!” yells Cam. “I’m not a dog that got off its leash, so don’t treat me like one!”
“Let me look at your wounds. . . .”
“Back off!” he yells loudly enough for her to actually back off. Then he pushes past everyone, goes up to his room, and locks the world out.
A few minutes later there’s a gentle knocking at his door, as he knew there would be. Roberta, trying to handle her volatile boy with kid gloves. But it’s not Roberta.
“Open up, Cam, it’s Risa.”
She’s the second-to-last person he wants to see right now, but the fact that she came surprises him. The least he can do is open the door.
She stands at his threshold with a first aid kit in her hand. “It’s really stupid to bleed out just because you’re pissed off.”
“I’m not ‘bleeding out.’ ”
“But you are bleeding. Can I at least take care of the worst of it? Believe it or not, I was the chief medic at the Graveyard. I dealt with stuff like this all the time.”
He opens the door wider and lets her in. He sits at his desk chair and allows her to clean the wound on his cheek. Then she has him take off his torn shirt and begins cleaning his back. It stings, but he bears it without wincing.
“You’re lucky,” she tells him. “You have lacerations, but none of them need stitches, and you didn’t tear any of your seams.”
“I’m sure Roberta will be relieved.”
“Roberta can go to hell.”
For once Cam agrees with her. She takes a look at his knee and tells him that whether he likes it or not, he’s going to need to have it x-rayed. When she’s done assessing his wounds, he takes a good look at her. If she’s still angry at him from before, it doesn’t show. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Going out like that was stupid.”
“It was human,” she points out.
Cam reaches out and gently touches her face. Let her slap him for it. Let her rip his arm out of its socket, he doesn’t care.
But she doesn’t do either of those things. “C’mon,” she says. “Let’s get you over to your bed so you can get some rest.”
He stands but puts too much weight on his knee and almost goes down. She holds him, giving him support, the way he once gave her support on the first day she walked. She helps him all the way to the bed, and when he flops onto it, her arm is looped around him in such a way that she’s pulled down onto the bed too.
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for everything,” she tells him. “Save it for your more important screwups.”
Now they lie side by side on his bed, his aching back stinging even more pressed against the blanket. She could get up, but she doesn’t. Instead she rolls slightly toward him and brushes her fingers across a scrape on his chest, checking to see if it needs a bandage, then determining it doesn’t.
“You’re quite the freak, Camus Comprix. How I got used to that is a mystery to me. I did, though.”
“But you still wish I was never made, don’t you?”
“But you were, and you’re here, and I’m here with you.” Then she adds, “And I only hate you sometimes.”
“And other times?”
She leans toward him, thinks about it for a moment, then kisses him. It’s more than a peck, but only slightly more. “Other times, I don’t.” Then she rolls onto her back and stays there beside him.
“Don’t read too much into this, Cam,” she tells him. “I can’t be what you want.”
“There are lots of things I want,” he points out. “Who says I have to have all of them?”
“Because you’re Roberta’s spoiled little boy. You always get whatever your rewound heart desires.”
Cam sits up so he can look at her. “So unspoil me. Teach me to be patient. Teach me that there are some things worth waiting for.”
“And some things you might never have?”
He thinks about his answer, then says, “If that’s what you have to teach me, then that’s what I’ll have to learn—but what I want most is something I think I can have.”
“What might that be?”
He takes her hand and holds it. “This moment, right now, in a thousand different ways. If I can have that, then the rest won’t matter as much.”
She sits up and pulls her hand away from his, but only so she can brush it through his hair. She seems to be just looking at the wound on his scalp, but maybe not.
“If that’s really what you want most,” she says gently, “maybe you can have it. Maybe we both can.”
Cam smiles. “I’d like that very much.”
And for the first time since being wound, he feels tears welling in his eyes that he knows are truly his own.
Part Six
Fight or Flight
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52 • Lev
Lev is woken by a burst of ice water in his face. At first he thinks he’s out in the storm again. A tornado was coming—did he get hit by a tree? He has to get up. Must keep running. Running.
But he’s not in the storm. He’s not outside. His focus is blurry, but he can see enough to know he’s in some sort of room, looking at a dirty wall. No, not a wall, a ceiling. A water-stained ceiling. And he’s lying on a bed. And his hands are tied above his head. Tied to the bed frame. His mouth tastes like battery acid, the air smells like mildew, and his head pounds, pounds, pounds. Now he remembers! He was in a van with Miracolina. Hail was pummeling the van. Then they were tranq’d by—
“Awake?” Nelson says. Lev remembers his name now. Nelson. Officer Nelson. Lev had never seen the man’s face, but his name was in the news almost as much as Lev’s. He doesn’t look much like a Juvey-cop now.
“Sorry for the water alarm. I’d have given you a wake-up call, but there’s no phone service here.”
On a bed next to Lev is Miracolina, still unconscious. Like him, her hands are tied to her bed frame with plastic cable ties.
Lev coughs up some water. Nelson sits a few feet away, his legs crossed, holding his tranq gun.
“You know, I’ve been staking out the Cavenaugh mansion for days. Just had a hunch. See, everything pointed to a major safe house in the area, but no one could nail down the location. But the Cavenaugh estate—there’s that guard gate made to look abandoned that’s not abandoned at all. And all those state-of-the art surveillance cameras in the trees that border the property. I didn’t know the resistance had that kind of money!”
Lev says nothing, but Nelson doesn’t seem to care. Apparently he’s just happy to have a captive audience.
“So, imagine my surprise when I find you and your friend practically gift-wrapped by the side of the road!” Nelson pops the clip from his tranq gun, slides out the dart bullets one by one, then reloads it, snapping the clip back in. On the other bed, Miracolina groans, finally beginning to stir out of her deep sleep.
“Here’s what I think.” Nelson leans closer to Lev. “You were escorting this poor little AWOL girl to the Cavenaugh mansion and into the arms of your scofflaw friends, but on the way you got caught in the storm. Am I right?”
“Not even close,” Lev croaks.
“Ah well, the particulars don’t really matter. The point is, you’re here.”
“And where is here?”
“Like I said,” says Nelson, waving the gun, “the particulars don’t matter.”
Lev looks over toward Miracolina again. Her eyes are half-open, but she’s still not entirely conscious. “Let her go,” he says. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
Nelson smiles. “How noble of you—thinking of the girl before yourself. Who says chivalry is dead?”
“What do you want?” Lev asks, his head aching too much to dance around the point. “I can’t get you your job back, and it’s not my fault Connor tranqed you, so what do you want from me?”
“Actually,” says Nelson, “it is your fault. If you weren’t being used as a human shield, none of us would be here today.”
Lev realizes how true that is. Had he not inadvertently taken Nelson’s bullet meant for Connor, then both of them would have been unwound on schedule.
“So, shall we play?” Nelson asks.
Lev swallows, and his throat feels like it’s coated with wood shavings. “What’s the game?”
“Russian roulette! My clip is loaded with five tranq bullets and one nickel-plated lead shell with an explosive tip. I can’t recall in what position I put Mr. Bad Bullet—I was too busy talking to you to notice. I will ask you questions, and if I don’t like an answer, I shoot.”
“This game could last for days if I keep going unconscious.”
“Or it could be over very quickly.”
Lev takes a deep breath and tries not to show any more fear than he has to. “Sounds exciting. I’m in.”
“Well, it’s not quite the thrill of clapping, but I’ll try to keep you from getting bored.” He takes the safety off the weapon. “Question one. Is your friend Connor still alive?”
Lev suspected he might ask this, so he does his best to lie as honestly as he can. “I’ve heard the rumors too,” he says, “but I’m out of that loop. He was taken away, bloody and unconscious, from Happy Jack, and I was arrested. Beyond that, I have no idea.”
Nelson smiles at him, then says, “Wrong answer,” and swings the gun toward Miracolina.
“No!”
Nelson fires without hesitation. Miracolina arches her back as she’s hit, releasing a semiconscious gasp, then falls silent. Lev’s heart feels like it’s about to explode, until he sees the tiny telltale tranq flag sticking out of her shirt.
Nelson stands and shakes his head at Lev. “I’d better like your next answer.” Then he leaves, closing the door.
