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rsquo;s not sure how to feel about that.
The doctor takes it upon himself to introduce Risa, stealing CyFi’s thunder. He offers Risa up in the best possible light. A loyal member of the ADR forced by the enemy to testify against her own conscience. “She believed that by doing their bidding, she was saving hundreds of kids from being unwound,” the doctor explains, “but in the end she was double-crossed, and those kids are now in harvest camps awaiting ‘summary division.’ Risa is a victim of the system, as we all are, and I, for one, welcome her with open arms.”
Those gathered applaud, although there’s still some reluctance. Risa supposes that’s the best she’s going to get.
The meal is brisket and flavorful home-grown vegetables. It’s like Sunday dinner among a big family. Everyone eats with minimal conversation until CyFi says, “Yo, maybe you all oughta introduce yourselves.”
“Names, or sharings?” someone asks.
“Sharings,” someone else answers. “We might as well tell her the Tyler.”
CyFi begins. “Right temporal lobe.” Then he looks to his left.
Reluctantly the man next to him says, “Left arm.” He holds up his hand and waves.
Then the woman beside him says, “Left leg below the knee.” And around the table it goes:
“Right eye.”
“Left eye.”
“Liver and pancreas.”
“A substantial part of the occipital lobe.”
Part after part is announced until it comes all the way around the table, back to Risa. “Spine,” she says awkwardly. “But I don’t know whose.”
“We could find out for you,” the woman who received Tyler’s heart offers.
“No, that’s all right. I’d rather not know,” Risa tells her. “At least not now, anyway.”
She nods with understanding. “It’s a personal choice—no one will pressure you.”
Risa looks around the table. They’re all still eating, but now the attention is focused on her.
“So . . . every single piece of Tyler Walker is at this table?”
CyFi sighs. “No. We don’t got spleen, left kidney, intestinal tract, thyroid, or any part of his right arm. And there’s also a bunch of smaller brain bits that didn’t have enough of him to feel the pull—but about seventy-five percent of him is here around the table.”
“And the other twenty-five percent can take a flying leap,” says left-auditory-tract man. Everyone laughs.
Risa also learns that the garish decor in every room is also for Tyler. He had an overwhelming attraction to shiny things. Stealing them was part of the reason he was unwound.
“But everything here is bought and paid for,” the Tyler-folk are quick to tell her.
“Does the Tyler Walker Foundation pay you all to stay here?”
“More like the other way around,” the doctor says. “Sure, when we first heard the idea, we were all dubious”—his eyes go a little euphoric—“but when you’re here, in the presence of Tyler, you realize you don’t want to be anywhere else.”
“I sold my home and gave everything to the foundation,” someone else says. “They didn’t ask for it. I just wanted to give it.”
“He’s here with us, Risa,” CyFi tells her. “You don’t have to believe it, but we all do. It’s a matter of faith.”
It’s all too strange, too foreign for Risa to embrace. She thinks of the many other “revival communes” that have sprung up, thanks to the Tyler Walker Foundation. Their existence is another unexpected consequence of unwinding—a convoluted solution to an even more convoluted problem. She doesn’t fault CyFi or any of these people. Instead she blames the world that made this place necessary. It galvanizes her more than ever to bring an end to unwinding once and for all. She knows she’s only one girl, but she also knows she’s a larger-than-life icon now. People love her, fear her, despise her, revere her. All these elements can make her a force to be reckoned with, if she plays her cards right.
That night, before everyone goes to bed, there’s a ritual that CyFi lets her witness.
“We played with a bunch of ideas—silly stuff mostly—like lying on the ground in the shape of a body, in our respective positions. Or huddling together in a little room, all squeezed in like clowns in a car, to reduce the space between us. But all that crap just felt weird. In the end we settled upon this circle. Simpler is better.”
