"Welcome back," says News Guy. "Considering the current police action in Arizona, our guests tonight have a certain . . . resonance, if you will. A militant AWOL turned unwinding advocate, and a young man who, were it not for unwinding, would not even exist. Risa Ward and Camus Comprix."

A moment of pleasant welcomes, and he starts his questioning, as he promised, with Risa, but hits her with something designed to throw her off balance.

"Miss Ward, as a former AWOL yourself, what's your take on the raid in Arizona? Do you support the unwinding of these runaways?"

Nothing he asks can fl.u.s.ter her, because she already knows exactly what she's going to say. Risa turns to look right into camera two, which has just come on.

"I feel it's important that I set the record straight," Risa begins. "I am not now, nor have I ever been, in favor of unwinding. . . ."

74 * Roberta

Had Roberta been paying attention, things might have gone down differently, meaning they wouldn't have gone down at all. To her credit, her bargain with Risa was an honest, if intensely manipulative one. She made a few calls, pulled a few strings, and was able to confirm with the Juvenile Authority that there were no imminent raids planned on the airplane graveyard. Should that change, Roberta would be given ample warning-which meant ample time to pull further strings to prevent such a raid. Roberta has never been about deceit. She's about results.

However, she has been so wrapped up in the media campaign to make Cam the darling of modern times, she's not aware of the homes set on fire in Tucson, and the brazen youth who set them, claiming to be the avenger of all unwound storks. Yes, the Juvenile Authority was supposed to notify Roberta of the raid through her a.s.sociates at Proactive Citizenry. But like any spiderlike organization, the fangs of Proactive Citizenry don't know what the spinneret is doing. Once the news. .h.i.t the airwaves, of course, her phone began to ring her pocket off-but she's been too fed up with too many people wanting too much of her time to answer it.

Thus, Roberta does not know about the raid until the interview with Risa and Cam begins. And by then it's too late.

Roberta sits in the greenroom, the studio's pleasant little ready room replete with stale danishes and weak coffee, watching a monitor that broadcasts from the studio down the hall. Her expression of horror could curdle the nondairy creamer.

"I am not now, nor have I ever been, in favor of unwinding," Risa says. "Unwinding may be the single most evil act sanctioned by the human race."

The newsman, famous for being cool under fire, stammers for a moment. "But all those public service announcements you made-"

"They're lies. I was being blackmailed."

Roberta bursts out of the greenroom into the hall and storms toward the studio door. The red light is on. It's supposed to be a warning not to go in, since the cameras are live, but it's a warning she has no intention of heeding.

In the corridor around her are a series of monitors broadcasting Risa's diatribe. Her face is on every screen, looking at Roberta from half a dozen different directions.

"I was threatened and blackmailed by a group called Proactive Citizenry. Oh, they have lots of other names, like the Consortium of Concerned Taxpayers and the National Whole Health Society, but it's all smoke and mirrors."

"Yes, I'm aware of Proactive Citizenry," the newsman says, "but isn't it a philanthropic group? A charitable organization?"

"Charitable to whom?"

Just as Roberta nears the stage door, she's intercepted by a security guard.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't go in right now."

"Let me pa.s.s, or I promise you, you'll be out of work by morning."

His response is to stand firm and call for backup, so Roberta heads for the control booth instead.

"They claim to control the Juvenile Authority," Risa continues. "They claim to control a lot of things. Maybe they do, and maybe they don't, but believe me, Proactive Citizenry has no one's interests at heart but its own."

The shot cuts to Cam, who looks dumbfounded, or just plain dumb; then it goes back to the newsman.

"So your relationship with Camus . . ."

"Is nothing but a publicity stunt," says Risa. "A publicity stunt carefully planned by Proactive Citizenry to help Cam be accepted and adored."

Roberta bursts into the control booth, where an engineer works the editing bay, and the show's producer leans back in his chair, extremely pleased. "This is mint," he tells his engineer. "The princess of unwinding bites the disembodied hand that feeds her! It doesn't get any better than this!"

"Stop the interview!" orders Roberta. "Stop it now, or I will hold you and your network liable for everything she says!"

The producer is unfazed. "Excuse me, who are you?"

"I'm . . . her manager, and she is not authorized to say what she's saying."

"Well, lady, if you don't like what your client has to say, that's not our problem."

"Your viewers need to ask themselves this," Risa says. "Who stands to benefit most from unwinding? Answer that question, and I think we'll know who's behind Proactive Citizenry."

Then the security guard comes up behind Roberta and manhandles her out the door.

Roberta is relegated to the greenroom until the interview is over and they cut to commercial.

The guard, still on "intruder alert" mode, won't let her pa.s.s. "I have orders to keep you out of the studio."

"I am going to the restroom!"

She pushes past him and bolts for the studio door. Both Risa and Cam are gone, and the next guests are being miked.

Avoiding the guard-who Roberta knows is fully prepared to tranq her-she turns down a side hallway to the dressing rooms. Risa's dressing room is empty, but Cam is in his. His coat and tie are strewn on the ground like he couldn't wait to peel out of them. He sits before the vanity with his head in his hands.

"Did you hear what she said about me? Did you hear?"

"Where is she?"

"Head in the sand! Turtle in its sh.e.l.l! Leave me alone!"

"Focus, Cam! She was on the stage with you. Where did she go?"

"She ran. She said it was over, that she was history, and she ran down the emergency stairs."

"She will be history when I'm through with her."

Roberta takes the emergency stairs down. They're on the second floor, and the only place for Risa to go is out into the parking lot, which is mostly empty at this time of night. She can't have had more than a fifteen-second lead, but she's nowhere to be seen. The only person around is their driver, who leans against his limo, eating a sandwich.

"Did you see her?" Roberta asks.

"See who?" he answers.

And Roberta's phone starts ringing like it will never stop.

75 * Cam

Roberta returns from her unsuccessful search for Risa. Cam meets her in the greenroom, where two security guards now wait, eager to escort Roberta out. She's on the phone, already in the throes of damage control.

"Antarctica," Cam says. "I should have said something out there, but I froze."

"What's done is done," she says, then growls at a dropped call. "Let's get out of here."

"I'll meet you at the car," Cam tells her. "My stuff's still in the dressing room."

The guards solemnly escort Roberta out of the building, and Cam goes back to the dressing room. He puts on his sports coat and carefully rolls up his tie, putting it in his pocket. Then, when he's sure Roberta has left the building, he says, "It's okay, she's gone."

The closet door opens, and Risa steps out. "Thank you, Cam."

Cam shrugs. "She deserved it." He turns to look at her. She's breathing rapidly, as if she's been running, but he knows she's only been running in her head. "Will they all be unwound? Your AWOL friends?"

"Not right away," she tells him. "But yes, they will be."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Although she doesn't look at him when she says it, like maybe she thinks it somehow is. Like his very existence makes him guilty.

"I can't help what I am," he tells her.

"I know . . . but today you showed me you can help what you do." And then she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. He feels it like an electric shock in all the seams of his face. She turns to go, but he can't let her. Not yet. Not without saying- "I love you, Risa."

She glances back at him and offers nothing more than an apologetic smile. "Good-bye, Cam."

And she's gone.

It's only after she leaves that the anger begins to rise in him. Not just a spike, but an eruption, and there's nowhere for it to go. He takes the chair and hurls it against the vanity mirror, smashing it. He hurls everything that's breakable against the walls and doesn't stop until the security guards burst in on him. It takes three guards to restrain him, but still he's stronger. He has the best of the best in him-every muscle group, every synaptic reflex. He tears free from the guards, bolts down the emergency exit stairs, and meets Roberta in the limo.

"What took you so long?"

"Solitude," he says. "I needed some time alone."

"It's all right, Cam," she tells him as they drive away. "We'll get past this."

"Yes, I know we will."

But he keeps his true thoughts to himself. Cam will never accept Risa's good-bye. He will not let her disappear from his life. He will do whatever it takes to have her, to hold her, to keep her. He has all of Roberta's resources at his fingertips to get what he wants, and he's going to use them.

Roberta smiles at him rea.s.suringly between phone calls, and he smiles back. For now Cam will play the game. He'll be the good rewound boy Roberta wants him to be, but from this moment on, he has a new agenda. He will make Risa's dream come true and take down Proactive Citizenry piece by b.l.o.o.d.y piece.

And then she will have no choice but to love him.

Part Seven.

Landings.

Our country is challenged at home and abroad . . . it is our will that is being tried and not our strength.

-PRESIDENT JOHNSON on Vietnam and the school campus war protests, 1968.

I have every faith that this devastating national conflict shall be resolved, and that the accord between both sides shall also serve as an ultimate solution to the feral teenage problem. But until that glorious day, I am inst.i.tuting an eight p.m. curfew for anyone under the age of eighteen.

-PRESIDENT MOSS on the Heartland War, two weeks prior to his a.s.sa.s.sination by militant New Jersey separatists.

76 * Dreamliner.

In Southern California, far south of the glitz of Hollywood and far east of the suburban sprawl of San Diego, lies an inland sea as forgotten and as unloved as a state ward AWOL or a harvest camp stork. Hundreds of thousands of years ago it was the northern reach of the Sea of Cortez, before that sea even had a name. But now it's little more than a giant landlocked salt lake, slowly drying into desert. Too saline for vertebrate life, its fish have all died. Their bones cover the sh.o.r.es like gravel.

At ten minutes to midnight, a plane once heralded as the dream of aviation before it was replaced by newer dreams descends toward the Salton Sea. It is flown by a young military pilot with far more confidence than experience. Barely clearing the mountains around the lake, the jet comes in for what airlines ridiculously call "a water landing."

It does not go well.

77 * Starkey.