The choke hold knocked him out for a good twenty minutes. Now he's no longer on the airfield tarmac. Nor is he anywhere familiar at all. Nelson regains consciousness to find himself lying in a claustrophobic space larger than a coffin, but much, much worse.

"Hello, Jackass Dirtbag," says a perky computer voice. "Welcome to your divisional experience! I am your fully automated Unwinding Intelli-System, but you can call me UNIS."

"No! It can't be!" He tries to lift his arms and legs, but they won't move. He seems to be wearing that same gunmetal-gray bodysuit the Unwinds wore. Only now does he realize it's made of metallic filaments, and he's magnetically fixed in place.

"Before we get started, Jackass Dirtbag, I have a few questions to make this a smooth and positive transition into a divided state."

"Is anybody out there! Somebody let me out of here!" He's able to tilt his neck just enough to see someone peering in through the small window of the unwinding chamber. "Divan, is that you? Help me, please!"

"First, let me confirm your comfort level," says UNIS. "Please rate your current level of comfort on a scale of one to ten, ten being least uncomfortable."

And then he realizes with more than a little dismay who the observer is.

"Argent!" he yells. "Argent, you can't do this!"

But Argent offers nothing but a stoic cyclops stare.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that," says UNIS. "Please rate your current level of comfort on a scale of one to ten, ten being least uncomfortable."

"Argent, I'll do anything! I'll give you anything!" But Nelson knows what Argent wants. He wants the right half of his face back. Now.

"All right," says UNIS, "I'll assume you're sufficiently comfortable. I see that my controls are set for an express unwinding without the use of anesthetic plasma. That means we can begin right away!"

"What? What was that?" Adrenaline panic makes his whole body begin to quiver. "Wait. Stop! Halt!"

"I regret, Jackass Dirtbag, that without anesthesia, you shall be experiencing extreme discomfort, beginning with your wrists, elbows, ankles, and knees, then quickly moving inward. This is perfectly normal for the machine's current setting."

As the process begins, Nelson locks on Argent's impassive eye, and suddenly realizes that not only is Argent going to unwind him, but he's going to watch every last minute of it. And he's going to enjoy it.

"To take your mind off of your discomfort," says UNIS, "I can project a variety of scenic vistas for you. Please choose from the following: mountain flyby, ocean tranquility, vibrant cityscape, or landmarks of the world."

But all that comes from Nelson is a shrill, bloodcurdling wail.

"I'm sorry," says UNIS, "that's not a valid response."

65 * Broadcast

"This is Radio Free Hayden broadcasting live once more, until we get chased away from the station. Today I have something special to share with my listeners. This comes from an article in a major national newspaper. Other articles just like it popped up in print and online everywhere this morning. Of course, some papers buried the story on page twelve beside mattress sale ads, but kudos to those who ran it front page, with a nice headline, like this one: ARPACHE TO GIVE ASYLUM TO UNWINDS.

By a unanimous vote of the Arpache Tribal Council yesterday, the nation's wealthiest and most influential Chancefolk tribe has officially announced it will give protective sanctuary to all Unwinds seeking to remain whole. A spokesperson for the Juvenile Authority has stated that they do not recognize the tribe's right to grant sanctuary to AWOLs, and vows to retrieve any fugitive Unwinds from Arpache territory. Chal Tashi'ne, an attorney for the tribe, responded by saying, "Any incursion by the Juvenile Authority on sovereign tribal land shall be seen as an act of war against the Arpache people, and will be met with deadly force.

"Regardless of what side you're on, you've got to admit it took a lot of guts for a Chancefolk tribe to spin the wheel and go all in. If the Juvenile Authority thinks a tribe of once-great warriors is going to blink, they're in for a surprise.

"And so, this week's song-you know the one-goes out to our Arpache friends. Hopefully, we'll see one or two of you at our rally in November. But until then- "I've got you . . . under my skin. . . ."

66 * Cam

Pretty purple monkshood accents the ornamental gardens of Proactive Citizenry's Molokai complex. The gardeners wear gloves, not only to protect themselves from the thorns of the rosebushes, but because of the monkshood, which they know is chock-full of aconite, a deadly poison that shuts down the respiratory system. It's the roots of the plant that are the most dangerous, especially when boiled and distilled down into a concentrated toxin.

Once more, Camus Comprix defeats the security system of the Molokai complex by tapping the security computer on the wrong shoulder and making it look the other way. It's night now. Not too late, just about ten o'clock, but late enough that activity in the medical research building is at a minimum. They never figured out how he compromised the video surveillance system that first time, so he does it again-now toward a different end. He's delayed the signal by fifteen minutes. That's how long he has to do the job before anyone sees what's going on.

He slips into the ward of preconscious rewinds unobserved, carrying in his hands a bag with syringes and vials of his special aconite elixir. When it's injected directly into the port of their intravenous PICC lines, they'll die within a minute. Once he gets into a rhythm, he estimates it will take him twelve minutes to euthanize all fifty.

Cam thinks he has it all under control. He's sure his plan can't go wrong. But then he makes a crucial mistake. Rather than beginning at the far end of the chamber, where the freshest rewinds lie, still heavily bandaged and nowhere near consciousness, he begins closest to the door, where the bandages have been removed and the rewinds are further along. Much further along.

As he fills the first syringe with the deadly liquid, he happens to glance down at the rewind.

And the rewind is looking back.

He studies Cam with a kind of vigilant terror, like a rabbit a moment before it bolts. Cam is hypnotized by two entirely mismatched eyes. One green, the other so dark brown it's almost black. The lines of scars across his face are like the roads of an old city-random, and senseless. His hands-one sienna, one umber-test the bonds that tie him to the bed.

"The fly?" he says, pleading. "The fly? In the web? The fly?"

It would make no sense to most, but Cam knows the way a rewind thinks. He understands the strange connections its patchwork brain must make in order to communicate, leaping over the concrete, grasping only upon impressions. Metaphors. Of the many languages Cam knows, this one came first. The inner language of the rewound mind.

Cam knows the reference. An old movie. The head of a man on the body of a fly. It said, "Help me," as it struggled in the spider's web. "Help me, help me," and then it was devoured.

"Yes," Cam tells him. "I'm here to help you. In a manner of speaking." He presses air out of the syringe, the muddy poison fluid squirting just a bit from the needle tip. He finds the injection port and readies himself to end this poor rewind's life.

"Hike in the woods," the rewind says. "I told you to wear long pants. Pink lotion everywhere."

"Yes, you're itching, but it's not poison ivy," Cam tells him. "I'm sorry that you itch all over. That's just the way it is."

Then a single tear forms in the rewind's darker eye, coursing down the rough ridge of a scar, until spilling into his ear. "Back of my jersey? Card in my wallet? There, on the birthday cake, in blue?"

"No!" says Cam, surprised by his own anger. "No, I don't know who you are. I can't tell you your name. No one can!" He finds his hand that holds the syringe is starting to quiver. Best to do it quick. End it now. So why is he waiting?

"The fly . . . the fly . . ."

And the desperation, the absolute helplessness in the rewind's eyes is too much for Cam to bear. Cam knows what must be done . . . but he can't do it. He can't do it. He pulls the syringe away, capping it, furious at his own compassion. Does this mean I'm truly whole? he wonders. Is compassion a virtue of a soul?

"It's all right," Cam says. "The spider won't get you."

The rewind's eyes get a little bit wider, not with fear, but with hope. "Slide into home? Run scores?"

"Yes," Cam tells him. "You're safe."

67 * Roberta

Sometimes we must kill our babies. It's a basic tenet of every creative or scientific endeavor. Become too attached to any single aspect of one's work, and one risks failure. Such is the result of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Hope for Cam's future had been shaky since that troubling meeting they had with Cobb and Bodeker back in Washington. The one where Cam became violent-if not in action, then in thought-and although they appeared to accept the cover story of Cam being sequestered in Molokai this whole time, Roberta suspects there's a mole within the staff who informed the senator and general that Cam was AWOL.

"We've decided that it's too unstable for our purposes," Bodeker told her earlier today. He always refers to Cam as "it," which has always annoyed Roberta, but now she's beginning to understanding the practicality of his approach. "We'd prefer that our entire investment go into the reintegrated infantry." That's Bodeker's euphemism for the rewind army they've commissioned. Roberta's understanding is that this reintegrated infantry will be carefully introduced to the public as "Team Mozaic," an even more euphemistic term to offer up the rewinds in the most appealing light.

As for Cam, he was like a toe dipped into the hot water of a bath. The public was intrigued by him, dazzled even. Thanks to Cam, they've come to feel that the water is fine. Now all that remains is for the public to be eased into the bath in calculated measures, lest they balk at the heat. Skillfully spun, Team Mozaic will become an accepted facet of the military, without anyone realizing exactly how it happened.

"You are to be commended for your vision," Bodeker told Roberta, "but Camus Comprix is no longer a part of our equation. Its job is done."

Roberta doesn't know why she feels such regret. It's the way of all things. The beta test must always give way to the final product. True, the final product has fewer bells and whistles, but that should not concern her. Accommodations must always be made.

And so, when security calls that evening to notify her that, once again, Cam has managed to break into the reintegration unit, her course of action becomes clear. She puts on a linen blazer-insanely heavy for the tropical heat, but it has an outer pocket that's deep enough to conceal any number of things. Roberta knows what must be done. By no means will this be easy, but it is necessary-and what kind of visionary would she be if she didn't take all the necessary steps to see her vision through?

Roberta arrives at the reintegration building to find several guards and med techs standing around the door to the rewind ward, practically twiddling their thumbs in embarrassment. They all back away from the door when they see her coming.

"What's the situation?" she asks.

"He's just sitting there," says one of the med techs, and off of her dubious expression, he says, "See for yourself."

She peers through the small window in the locked door. Sure enough, Cam is sitting on the floor in the middle of the long room, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking gently back and forth. She pulls out her key card.

"It's no use," says one of the guards. "He's locked everyone out."

Nevertheless, she swipes her card, and the lock disengages. "He's locked all of you out," she says. It's clear he's been waiting for her, and her alone. "Get back to your posts," she tells them. "I'll handle this." Reluctantly, the others leave, and she pushes open the door, cautiously stepping in.

The room is awash with the white noise of medical monitors, and the hissing ventilators of the fresher rewinds who are still intubated. The room smells of Betadine antiseptic, and the vague vinegary odor of bandages overdue to be changed. She must remember to crack the whip at the nurses and med techs.

"Cam?" she asks gently as she nears him. He gives no response. He doesn't even look up.

As she gets closer, she can see the bag beside him. There's a syringe on the ground with a cloudy liquid. The needle is capped. For a moment she fears the worst, and looks around at the rewinds. She doesn't spot any monitors that show distress, but perhaps he defeated the life-signs monitors, as well.

Then, as if reading her mind, he says, "I couldn't kill them. I came here to do it-but I couldn't."

She knows she has to be careful with him. Handle him with kid gloves. "Of course you couldn't," she says. "They're your spiritual siblings. Ending their lives would be akin to ending your own."

"Spiritual," he echoes. "I didn't realize that word was part of your lexicon."

"I don't deny the spark of life," she tells him. "But it's forever debatable what that spark is, and what it means."

"Yes, I suppose so." Finally he looks at her, his eyes red and pleading. "I know too many things that I don't want to know. Can you take them away, the way you took her away?"

"That depends on the nature of the things in question."

"I'm talking about Proactive Citizenry, and the truth about it," he tells her. "I broke into their computer network, and I know everything. I know that Proactive Citizenry controls the Juvenile Authority. And that they want to increase the scope of unwinding so all those condemned kids can be rewound into this army you're creating."

Roberta sighs. "We don't control the Juvenile Authority, we just have considerable influence."

"'We,'" says Cam. "So it's back to 'we' again. Not 'they.' You must be out of Proactive Purgatory."

"I've always been appreciated, Cam," she tells him. "My work speaks for itself. It always has."

"Does your work involve clappers?" he asks. "You're aware that Proactive Citizenry created them as well, aren't you?"

She knows denying it will only jam a wedge in their rapport, and right now she needs that rapport. She needs for him to trust her unconditionally. So she breaks with all protocol, and tells him the truth.

"First of all, that's not my department. And second, we didn't create them. Clappers were blowing themselves up long before we had anything to do with them. Proactive Citizenry merely gives them money and direction. We shape their violence toward a purpose-so that it serves the greater good."

He nods, accepting, if not entirely approving. "There certainly are historical precedents for manipulating the public through fear."

"I prefer to see it as opening people's eyes, so they continue to see the sense in unwinding."

Cam looks down again and shakes his head slowly. "I don't want my eyes opened-I want them closed. I don't want to know any of this. Please, can you tweak me again, Roberta? Can you give me a new worm to make it all go away?"

She kneels beside him and puts her arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. "Poor Camus-you're in such pain. We'll find a way to make that pain go away."

He rests his head on her shoulder. She can feel his relief. It's as it should be. As it must be. "Thank you, Roberta. I know you'll take care of me."

She reaches into the pocket of her blazer. "Haven't I always?"

"I know you've been there for me," he says. "When my thoughts went astray, you fixed them. When I ran away, you found me and brought me home."

"And I'm here for you now," she says as she pulls out her pistol. The one she always keeps in her nightstand, but until now, has never needed to use.

"Promise me you'll fix it all."

"I promise, Cam," and she brings the muzzle of the gun to his forehead, knowing that this will fix it all. "I promise."

Then she pulls the trigger.