There is one thing they all share other than the commonality of their randomness. Each of them has a mark on the right ankle. At first he thinks they’re tattoos, but when he looks closer he sees that they’re actually seared into the skin. They’re brands. And they say PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY followed by a serial number. The one Cam examines is numbered 00042. The presence of three zeroes suggests they will eventually number in the tens of thousands.
I am the idea, thinks Cam, but they are the reality. And finally, he sees his place in all of this. He will be the face the world sees. The one they become comfortable with. The public image of the military rewind. He’ll be an officer, lauded and honored, and as such, he will not only open the door, but also pave the way for an army of rewinds. Perhaps it will start small. A special force called upon for a key maneuver somewhere in the world, for there are always American interests to protect somewhere, some violent insurgency that must be addressed. REWINDS SAVE THE DAY! the headlines will read. Just as people became complacent and comfortable with unwinding, they will do the same for rewinding. What a fine thing, people will say, that the unwanted bits of humanity can be reformed and repurposed to serve the greater good. Like the way unwanted pork parts can be ground and pressed and reformed into a tasty pimento loaf. Cam would be sick to his stomach, but he feels he doesn’t have the right, because now, more than ever before, he truly has the sense that his stomach is not his own.
“Cam?”
He turns to see Roberta standing at the entrance. Good. He’s glad she’s here.
“You didn’t have to sneak in here. I would have shown you, if you had asked.” Which is, of course, a lie—she already told him her work was top secret. His instinct is to point an accusing finger for the blatant hubris of what she’s done here, but instead, he plays his emotions close, hoping she doesn’t see the bile collecting within him, and he tells her calmly, “I could have asked, but I wanted to see them on my own terms.”
“And how do you feel about what you see?” She watches him closely, so he buries his fury and revulsion. Instead he allows only an acceptable amount of ambivalence to bubble to the surface. “I knew I wasn’t the be-all and end-all of your work . . . but to see it is . . .”
“Distressing?”
“Sobering,” he says. “And maybe a little enlightening.” He looks to the closest rewind, who stirs slightly in preconscious slumber. “Was an army always your plan?”
“Certainly not!” she says, a bit insulted by the suggestion. “But even my dreams must give way to reality. It was the military who expressed an interest in what we could do, the military who could afford to fund it. So here we are.”
And then Cam realizes that he’s the one who made all this possible. He’s the one who romanced General Bodeker and Senator Cobb. Of course, the military doesn’t need rewinds who can speak nine languages, recite poetry, and play the guitar. It needs rewinds who follow orders. Nonentities who are legally considered “property,” who don’t need to be paid, and who have no rights.
“You look pensive.” Roberta comes closer to get a good look at him. He doesn’t flinch or crack in the least.
“I was thinking how brilliant it is.”
“Really?”
“Soldiers who have no families to go back to? Whose entire identity begins with their military service? A stroke of genius! And I’ll bet you can tweak them the way you tweaked me—to find their greatest satisfaction in their service.”
Roberta smiles, but hesitantly. “I’m impressed that you’ve grasped the scope of this so quickly.”
“It’s . . . visionary,” Cam tells her. “Perhaps one day I’ll be the commanding officer of all my rewind brethren.”
“Perhaps you will be.”
He turns and walks casually to the door. Roberta walks beside him, watching him, always watching him. “Now that you know, you can put it to rest, and get on with your life. And it will be a glorious life, Cam. They need it to be. You must be seen as a prince among peasants, and General Bodeker knows that. You will want for nothing. You will be treated with respect. You will be happy.”
And so he beams for her, to project the impression that he already is happy. Roberta once told him his eyes came from a boy who could melt a girl’s heart with a single glance. She probably never considered how effectively they could be weaponized against her.
“It’s dawn,” Cam says. “I don’t know about you, but I’m up for an early breakfast.”
“Splendid. I’ll let the kitchen know when we get back to the mansion.”
As they leave, Cam turns to take one last look at the room full of preconscious rewinds.
These truly are my brothers and sisters, he thinks. And they must never be allowed to be born.
Part Four
This Lane Must Exit
HEADLINES . . .
National Geographic, May 4, 2014
SWAPPING YOUNG BLOOD FOR OLD REVERSES AGING
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140504-swapping-young-blood-for-old-reverses-aging/
BBC News–Scotland, June 24, 2014
WOMAN TO BE FIRST IN UK TO HAVE DOUBLE HAND TRANSPLANT
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-27999349
ABC News, September 25, 2013
DOCTORS GROW NOSE ON MAN’S FOREHEAD
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/09/25/doctors-grow-nose-on-mans-forehead/
The Boston Globe, March 19, 2008
EX-DOCTOR CONFESSES TO STEALING BODY PARTS
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/19/ex_doctor_confesses_to_stealing_body_parts/
The Huffington Post, July 6, 2013
HUMAN HEAD TRANSPLANTS NOW POSSIBLE, ITALIAN NEUROSCIENTIST SAYS
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/06/head-transplant-italian-neuroscientist_n_3533391.html
25 • Starkey
Safe within the isolated power plant, Mason Michael Starkey luxuriates in his particular addiction. He knows he’s a junkie now. The chemical receptors of his brain have tuned to the ecstasy of power. It pumps through his veins, feeding his body and spirit so that he thrives in the kind of glory he never dared to imagine in the days before his unwind order. He should thank his adoptive parents for signing it, and setting in motion the gears that have turned him into something far better than what he was. The wayward stork has now become for all storks the new symbol of liberty.
Especially now that the old one has seen better days.
“Did you hear? They’re sending the Statue of Liberty’s old arm on tour,” Garson DeGrutte told him, “like they did with King Tut, and all that crap from the Titanic. Like people are gonna pay to see an old copper arm.”
“People will,” Starkey said, “because people are nuts. They’ll hold on to bits of the past like they’re still worth something.” Then he looked Garson in the eye. “What would you rather have: shreds of the past or the whole of the future?”
“You know my answer!” Garson said.
As should be the answer of every member of the Stork Brigade. The future—Starkey’s future—is like Fourth of July fireworks: bright and bold, loud and dramatic, but deadly for those in the trajectory of the blasts. The Juvenile Authority fears him, the world is talking about him, and with the shadowy support of the clappers, there is no limit to the heights to which his fireworks will soar. It’s true that revolutionaries are always vilified by the societies they seek to take down, but history has a different perspective. History calls them freedom fighters, and freedom fighters have statues erected to them. Starkey is determined that his will be made of metals far finer than copper.