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She raises her eyes to burn him a glare—but she doesn’t seem to have the strength for it anymore. She casts her eyes down again.
Connor turns to the Rewind, to find his eyes locked on Connor, practically drilling into him. Connor tightens the grip on the rifle in his lap.
“Why are you here?” Connor asks. “How did you even know to come here?”
“I have enough of Wil Tashi’ne’s memory to know that this is where your friend the clapper would run to hide,” he says. “And I think you know why I’m here. I’m here for Risa.”
Hearing her name coming from his mouth brings Connor’s blood toward a boil. She hates you, Connor wants to tell him. She wants nothing to do with you. Ever. But he sees and smells the Rewind’s urine-stained pants and remembers the helplessness of the Rewind’s captivity, so much like his own in Argent’s basement. Sympathy is the last thing Connor wants to feel, but it’s there all the same, undermining his hatred. Desperation just about oozes out of the Rewind’s seams, and as much as Connor wants to add to this creature’s pain, he can’t find it in himself to do it.
“So, you’re going to blackmail her into being with you, like before?”
“That wasn’t me! That was Proactive Citizenry.”
“And you want to bring her back to them.”
“No! I’m here to help her, you idiot.”
Connor finds himself mildly amused. “Careful, Pork-n-beans—I’m the one with the rifle.”
“You’re wasting your time,” pipes in Una. “You can’t reason with him. He’s not human. He’s not even alive.”
“Je pense, donc je suis,” the Rewind says.
Connor doesn’t speak French, but he knows enough to decipher it.
“Just because you think, doesn’t mean you are. Computers claim to think, but they’re just mimicking the real thing. Garbage in/garbage out—and you’re just a whole lot of garbage.”
The Rewind looks down, his eyes glistening. “You don’t know a thing.”
Connor can tell he’s struck a nerve in the Rewind—this whole subject of life. Of Existence with a capital E. Again, Connor feels that unwanted wave of sympathy.
“Of course, Unwinds aren’t legally alive either,” Connor says, making Cam’s argument for him. “Once an unwind order is signed, as far as the law is concerned, they’re nothing but a bunch of parts. Like you.”
The Rewind lifts his eyes to him. A single tear falls, absorbed by the knee of his jeans. “Your point?”
“My point is, I get it. Whether you’re a pile of parts, or a sack of garbage, or a full-fledged person has nothing to do with what I, or Una, or anyone else thinks—so do us all a favor and stop making it our problem.”
He nods and looks down again. “Blue Fairy,” he says.
“You see!” snaps Una. “He is like a computer—he spouts garbage that makes no sense.”
But Connor finds himself making an unexpected leap of insight.
“Sorry, Pinocchio, but Risa’s not your Blue Fairy. She can’t turn you into a real boy.”
Cam looks at him and grins. Connor finds the grin disarming, which makes him grip the rifle more tightly. He will not be disarmed in any way.
“How do you know she hasn’t already?”
o;Then you’ll be left here to die,” Una says.
“Better that than this!”
There’s only one door, but the apex of the dome is in disrepair and full of holes. Carefully, quietly, Connor climbs the curving surface of the stone and mud structure until he can peer through a gap where the stones have given way.
His first impression hits a chord in him as resonant as any instrument Una could build. He sees a young man about his age with odd multitextured hair of different shades. He’s tied to a pole, struggling to pull himself free. By the smell of the place and the look of him, he’s been here for a while, in this helpless, hopeless situation, without even the freedom to relieve himself anywhere but in his clothes.
Connor’s immediate gut reaction is identification. This prisoner is me. Me being held in Argent’s basement. Me desperately trying to escape. Me struggling to hold on to hope. The sense of empathy is so strong it will flavor everything that transpires between them.
