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“Absolutely not! And if you try, I’ll rip your lousy tongue out and sell it to the highest bidder.”
He guffaws at that. “Point for Bam! You truly do excel in disturbing imagery. Someday I may want to study under you.”
She shoves him—not hard enough to knock him down, but enough to push him back and off balance. “What makes you think I’d want to hear anything that comes out of your mouth? And what makes you think you know better than Starkey? He’s doing amazing things! Do you have any idea how many kids we saved today?”
Hayden sighs and looks to the stacks of canned food he’s been counting, as if each can represents another kid saved. “I won’t begrudge Starkey the statistics of salvation,” he tells her. “But I wonder what it will mean in the long run.”
“It means all those kids won’t get unwound.”
“Maybe . . . Or maybe it means they’ll be unwound more quickly once they’re caught—along with every other kid awaiting unwinding.”
“Starkey’s a visionary!” she yells. Her voice is so loud, she hears it echoing from the stone around her. She wonders who might be listening. In these tunnels there’s always someone listening. She forces herself to use her indoor voice, although it comes out in an angry hiss. “To Starkey, it’s not only about taking down harvest camps. It’s about making a stand for storks.” She slowly strides toward Hayden as she speaks, and Hayden moves away, trying to keep a healthy distance between them. “Can’t you see he’s igniting a stork revolution? Other storks who think they have no hope—who know they’re second-class citizens—will rise up and demand fair treatment.”
“And he’ll do this by terrorist attacks?”
“Guerilla warfare!”
By now she has Hayden backed against the wall, and yet he appears at ease. Instead she feels like the one who’s cornered.
“Every outlaw is eventually brought down, Bam.”
Bam shakes her head, forcing the thought into submission. “Not if they win the war.”
He slides away from her, to the other side of the room, and sits on the stack of chili cans. “Although it unsettles the stomach as much as this chili will, I have to give you at least some benefit of the doubt,” he says. “It’s true that history is full of self-important madmen who managed to claw their way to power and lead their people successfully. Offhand I can’t think of any, but I’m sure they’ll come to me.”
“Alexander the Great,” Bam suggests. “Napoléon Bonaparte.”
Hayden tilts his head slightly and narrows his eyes, as if trying to visualize it. “So then, when you look at Mason Starkey, do you see any of the qualities of Alexander or Napoléon—aside from being short?”
Bam hardens her jaw and says, “I do.”
And there’s that slithery smirk from Hayden again. “I’m sorry, miss, but if you want the part, you’ll have to do a much better job of acting than that.”
Although Bam would like to knock out a few of Hayden’s perfectly straightened teeth, she won’t let her anger rule her now. Not after seeing how Starkey let his anger take control today. “We’re done here,” she tells Hayden, deciding not to wait until his guard returns.
Hayden’s smirk broadens into a condescending smile, which is even more infuriating. Maybe she’ll punch him after all. “But you haven’t heard the best part yet,” he says.
She should just leave now, before she becomes the butt of yet another one of his personal jokes, but she just can’t do it. “And what might that be?”
Hayden stands and saunters toward her—which means that maybe he’s going to say something that won’t risk losing him some teeth. “I know you and Starkey are going to continue to liberate harvest camps, for better or for worse,” he says. “That being the case, I’d like to help keep more of your storks alive. Remember, I was the head of tech at the Graveyard. I know a thing or two that could help.”
Now it’s Bam’s turn to smirk. She knows Hayden too well.
“And what do you want in return?”
“Like I said before, all I want is your ear—and not in an unwinding sense.” Then he gets quiet. Serious. She’s never seen Hayden serious. This is something new. “I want your promise that you’ll listen to me—really listen to me—when I have something to say. You don’t have to like it; you just have to hear it.”
And although she had refused the same request five minutes ago, this time she agrees. Even though she feels like she’s making a deal with the devil.
41 • Connor
Were Connor to come face-to-face with Camus Comprix under any other circumstances, he would hate the Rewind with every measure of his soul. Connor certainly has reason to despise him. For one, Cam is the darling of Proactive Citizenry. He’s the shining star of all those who promote unwinding as a natural and acceptable consequence of civilization. Second—but even more important to Connor—is Cam’s connection to Risa. Just imagining the two of them together—even if Risa was being blackmailed to be with him—draws his hand into a fist so tight his nails cut into his palm. It’s Connor’s jealousy and Roland’s anger all rolled up into that powerful hand. No, there would be no hope that Connor and Cam could be anything but bitter enemies under any other circumstances.
However, the circumstance of their first encounter gives Connor some unexpected and unwanted pause for thought.
It begins with Una.
It’s Connor, Lev, and Grace’s eighth day holed up in her small apartment. With the announcement that Connor attacked a harvest camp in Nevada, word from Chal is that the Hopi are not too keen on giving him fictitious asylum. Even though the news recanted the accusation the next day, Chal is still having trouble making the deal, which means they’re in a holding pattern here for who knows how long.
