“To see you, of course,” Risa tells him. “Cyrus told me you’d be here.” Then she turns to CyFi. “Hi, Cyrus. Good to see you again.”
“Wait a second,” says Lev. “You two know each other?”
But before Risa can answer, a guitar begins to play, and Lev gasps—almost going into a coughing fit again—because he recognizes the music right away. That’s Wil playing! Lev turns to see Camus Comprix sitting in the center of the circle—one of the few grooms actually wearing a tuxedo. More so than ever, he expresses Wil’s soulful music so perfectly, Lev could swear Wil is really there.
In a moment Una comes down from the main house, flowers and ribbons woven into her long hair and wearing a traditional native gown. She doesn’t smile, but maintains an unreadable expression that speaks of more emotions than can possibly mix.
She enters the circle, and in front of the minister, Cam takes Una’s hand. But when the time comes, it’s someone else, a man with Wil’s voice, who speaks the vows, and Una looks into the eyes of yet another when she says hers. And although she exchanges rings with Cam, when the minister says, “You may now kiss the bride,” that honor goes to someone else entirely. Lev finds his internal compass spinning, and he wonders how something can be so beautiful and so horrible at the same time.
“That’s going to be one crowded wedding bed,” says Connor, and Lev can’t help but laugh, but he quickly settles back toward somber. This commune, this wedding—it’s all collateral damage from unwinding. Even if the impossible happens, and the Unwind Accord is overthrown, they’ll all still be tallying the psychological cost for years to come.
“I wanted to show you this,” Risa tells him as Una and her entourage of grooms lead the way to the main house for a small reception. Risa holds out her right arm to show that there’s a name tattooed on her wrist.
“You too, huh?” It doesn’t surprise him. It’s become the thing to do. Everyone is getting the name of an Unwind inked on their right arms. The idea is that it’s in a place where they will see it every single day. The running gag is that Washington politicians should get them tattooed in their colons.
“Is Bryce Barlow someone you knew?” Lev asks.
Risa looks dolefully at the name on her wrist. “Just like the names on you, he’s a boy I’ll never meet.”
“Did you hear the latest?” Connor asks. “Someone’s proposing they build a memorial out of the old arm of the Statue of Liberty, and engrave it with the names of everyone who’s ever been unwound by the Juvenile Authority.”
Lev shifts Mahpee on his shoulder and smiles at both Connor and Risa, trying to take a mental snapshot of this moment, so he can save it forever. “I hope they do,” he says. “And I’m glad our names won’t be on it.”
77 • Cam
The groom who got the ring moves through the reception, listening to other people’s conversations.
“If Parental Override passes the Senate, I hear the entire Tribal Congress is threatening to secede from the union—not just the Arápache,” says a woman Cam thinks has Wil Tashi’ne’s liver. “That’s dozens of Chancefolk tribes. We could have a second Heartland War on our hands.”
“It’ll never happen,” says the taller of CyFi’s fathers. “The president has vowed to veto if it passes.”
Several of the wedding participants—ones who share parts of Wil’s cerebral cortex—bond over connected memories. Cam wonders if they have a grand feeling of Wil’s presence among them. For Cam, with all of the anxiety of the day—slipping a ring on Una’s hand, and her slipping a ring on his—he can’t be sure what he feels. He knows he experiences Wil’s presence every time he plays guitar, though. For him, that’s enough.
He tries to join the meeting of the minds, but as always, the instant he enters the conversation, the whole focus shifts to him.
“I think it’s great what you did, Camus. Can I call you Camus?”
“Those bastards at Proactive Citizenry really had it coming.”
“That awful woman should be locked up for life.”
He politely excuses himself and slips away, listening in on conversations, hoping they don’t see him and shift their conversation to him. Once upon a time, all the attention might have swelled his head, but his head has been swollen and deflated so many times, he’s become immune.
Connor, who’s been eyeing him since the reception began, finally makes an approach, looking a little pained and awkward as he does. “Empathy,” Connor says, then clears his throat. “What I mean to say is that I get it now, and I just wanted you to know.”
Cam has no idea what “it” he gets, until Connor explains his run-in with a little kitchen gadget named UNIS, and his whole dicing/slicing/rewinding experience. And then Connor asks him a question that perhaps no one else would understand. No one but Cam.
Connor grabs his arm, and looks into his eyes. “How do you fill it?” Connor asks. “How do you fill the . . . the space?”
And to Cam’s own amazement, he has an answer. “Bit by bit,” he says, “and not alone.”
Connor holds his arm for a moment more, letting that sink in, then walks away satisfied. In that moment, Cam realizes that he can’t hold on to any of the hatred he had for Connor. Now he can only admire him. All context of their rivalry is gone. He wonders why he ever disliked him at all.