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There’s something odd happening on the train today, however. Something entirely unheard of on public transportation. People are talking. Not people who know one another either, but total strangers. In fact, a stranger sitting across from her looks up from his newspaper and says to anyone who’s listening, “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad for yesterday’s clapper attack downtown.”
“Well, I can’t exactly say I’m glad,” says a woman who rides standing and holding a pole. “But I’m certainly not shedding any tears.”
“And anyone who survived ought to go to prison for life,” adds someone else.
The real estate agent finds, oddly, that she’s compelled to join in. “I don’t even think it was a real clapper attack—it was just made to look like one,” she says. “There are plenty of people angry enough to want to blow Proactive Citizenry sky-high.”
“That’s right,” says someone else. “And if Proactive Citizenry controls the clappers, why would they target their own headquarters? It must have been someone else!”
“Whoever did it oughta be given a medal,” calls someone from the front of the train car.
“Well, violence is never justified,” says the standing woman. “But what goes around comes around, I say.”
The real estate agent has to agree. The way the supposed charity manipulated the Juvenile Authority, bought politicians, and pushed the public to support unwinding . . . Thank God it’s all come to light before this year’s elections! Unable to contain her own righteous rage, she turns to the intimidating man in a hoodie beside her, a person whose existence she would have ignored a few days ago. “Have you seen the images of those poor rewinds they were making in Hawaii?”
The man nods sadly. “Some people say they oughta be euthanized.”
The suggestion makes the woman uncomfortable. “Don’t they have rights? After all, they’re human beings, aren’t they?”
“The law says otherwise. . . .”
/> The real estate agent finds herself clutching her purse close to her, as if it might be taken away—but she knows it’s not her purse she’s worried about losing.
“Then the law needs to change,” she says.
• • •
The construction worker’s been unemployed for months now. He sits in a coffee shop scouring want ads. His first interview in weeks is that afternoon. It’s with a company contracted to build a harvest camp in rural Alabama. He should be thrilled, but his feelings are mixed. Why do they even need to build another harvest camp? Didn’t some company just announce that there’s a way to grow all sorts of organs? If it’s true, then why cut up kids? Even bad kids?
It’s just a job, he tries to tell himself, and I’ll be gone long before any kid is actually unwound there. And yet, to be a silent partner with the Juvenile Authority . . . A week ago he might have thought nothing of it, but now?
At the table next to him, an older man looks up from his laptop, shaking his head in disgust. “Incredible!” he says. The construction worker has no idea exactly which incredible thing he’s speaking of—there are plenty to choose from these days. The man looks at him. “Been five years, give or take, that I’ve had this unwound liver here. But truth be told, if I had it to do all over again, I’d quit drinking and make do with the one I was born with.”
The construction worker offers him an understanding nod, and takes a moment to consider his own options. Then he pulls out his phone and cancels his job interview. It might hurt today, but he knows he won’t have any regrets five years down the line.
• • •
The accountant arrives home after his workout too late to say good night to his kids. He lingers at the door to their room, watching them sleep. He loves them dearly—not just his natural one, but the one who arrived by stork as well. The news and conversations of the day have gotten him thinking. He would never unwind his kids—but isn’t that what every parent says when their children are still young? Will he think differently when they become defiant and irrational, making infuriating choices, the way most kids do at some point in their lives?
He senses a change in himself. An awakening of sorts, brought on by all the events around him.
Had it just been the boy who was shot . . .
Had it just been the discovery of those military rewinds . . .
Had it just been the announcement of the organ printer technology, which had apparently been suppressed for years . . .
Had it been any one of those things, it might have piqued his attention for a day or two, then he would have gone on with life as usual. But it wasn’t just one thing, it was all of them at once—and as a number cruncher, he knows that numbers don’t always “crunch.” Sometimes they multiply, exponentiate, even. Taken together, these seemingly unrelated events have stirred in him something huge.
His wife comes up beside him, and he puts his arm around her. “Hey, isn’t there supposed to be some sort of rally against unwinding in Washington in a few weeks?” he asks.
She looks at him, trying to gauge where this is coming from. “You’re not thinking of going, are you?”
“No,” he says. And then, “Maybe.”
She hesitates, but only for a moment. “I’ll come with you. My sister can watch the kids.”
“I think they’d rather be unwound.”
