"The only angry person in this room is you," Miracolina says, with antagonizing calm. "And there are plenty of angry kids here. Why else would your portrait get vandalized?"
"Forget about that!" shouts Lev. "We"re talking about you!"
"If you don"t stop yelling, I"ll have to ask you to leave. In fact, I think I"ll ask you to leave anyway." She points to the door. "Leave!"
"No."
So she picks up a hairbrush and throws it at him. It beans him on the head and ricochets to the wall, where it wedges behind the TV.
"Ow!" He grabs his head, grimacing. "That hurt!"
"Good, it was supposed to."
Lev clenches his fists, growls, then turns like he"s going to storm out, but he doesn"t. Instead he turns back to her, unclenching his fists and holding his palms out to her, pleading like maybe he"s showing off his stigmata. Well, there might be blood on his hands, but it sure isn"t flowing from his palms.
"So is this how it"s going to be?" he asks. "You"re just going to stew and b.i.t.c.h and make things miserable for everyone here? Don"t you want something more out of life?"
"No," she tells him, "because my life ended on my thirteenth birthday. As far as I"m concerned, from that moment on I was supposed to be a part of other people"s lives. I was fine with that. It"s what I wanted. It"s what I still want. Why do you find that so hard to believe?"
He looks at her for a moment too long, and she tries to imagine him all dressed in white as a t.i.the. She could like that boy; still pure and untainted. But the kid before her now is a different person.
"Sorry," she says, not sorry at all. "I guess I failed deprogramming school." She turns her back to him and waits a few moments, knowing he"s just standing there, then turns again-only to find that he"s not. He has left, closing the door so quietly she didn"t hear.
27 * Lev
Lev sits in on yet another meeting of the t.i.the rescue staff. He doesn"t know why they include him; Cavenaugh never listens to what he says. These meetings truly make him feel like a mascot, a favorite pet. This time, however, he"s determined to make them listen.
Even before they begin, Lev speaks loudly enough to get everyone"s attention, stealing the floor from Cavenaugh before he has the chance to take it. "Why is the portrait of me back in the dining hall?" he asks. "It was already vandalized once-why put it back?" The question quiets everyone down and brings the room to order.
"I ordered it restored and returned," says Cavenaugh. "The comfort and focus it provides the ex-t.i.thes is invaluable."
"I agree!" says one of the teachers. "I think it draws their focus toward the positive." Then she punctuates her remark with a brownnosing nod toward Cavenaugh. "I, for one, like it and approve."
"Well, I don"t like it, and I don"t approve," Lev tells them, for the first time voicing his feelings out loud. "I shouldn"t be some sort of G.o.d-thing. I shouldn"t be put on a pedestal. I"m not and never have been this image you"re trying to make me."
There"s silence around the room as everyone waits to see how Cavenaugh will react. He takes his time and finally says, "We all have our jobs here. Yours is very clear and very simple: to be an example for the other ex-t.i.thes to follow. Have you noticed kids have been letting their hair grow? At first I thought your hair would be off-putting, but now they are modeling themselves on you. It"s what they need at this juncture."
"I"m not a role model!" Lev yells. He stands up, not even realizing he"s come to his feet. "I was a clapper. A terrorist! I made awful decisions!"
But Cavenaugh remains calm. "It"s your good decisions we care about. Now sit down and let us get on with this meeting."
Lev looks around the table but sees no support. If anything, he sees them all tallying this outburst as one of his bad decisions, best forgotten. He boils with the same kind of anger that once turned him into a clapper, but he bites it back, sits down, and remains silent for the rest of the meeting.
It"s only as the meeting breaks up that Cavenaugh takes his hand. Not to shake it, but to flip it over and scrutinize his fingers-or more specifically, to look under his fingernails.
"Best clean those a little better, Lev," he says. "Spray paint comes out with turpentine, I think."
28 * Risa
Risa does not have an Easter social. She can"t even be sure which day is Easter-she"s lost track of the days. In fact, she can"t even be sure where she is. At first she"s held by the Juvenile Authority in Tucson, then transferred in a windowless armored vehicle to another detention facility about two hours away-in Phoenix, she presumes. Here is where they send in interrogators to ask her questions.
"How many kids are in the Graveyard?"
"A bunch."
"Who sends your supplies?"
"George Washington. Or is it Abraham Lincoln? I forget."
"How often do you receive new arrivals?"
"About as often as you beat your wife."
The interrogators are infuriated by her lack of cooperation, but she has no intention of telling them anything useful. Besides, she knows they"re asking her questions they already know the answers to. The questions are merely tests to see whether she"ll tell the truth or lie. She doesn"t do either. Instead she makes a mockery of each interrogation.
"Your cooperation might make things easier on you," they tell her.
"I don"t want things easy," she responds. "I"ve had a hard life. I"d rather stick with what"s familiar."
They let her go hungry but don"t let her starve. They tell her they have Elvis Robert Mullard in custody and they"re cutting him a deal for information-but she knows they"re lying, because if they had him, they"d know it"s not Mullard at all, but Connor.
This is how it goes for two weeks. Then one day in walks a Juvey-cop. He aims a gun at her and unceremoniously tranqs her-not in the leg, where it would hurt the least, but right in the chest, where it stings until she loses consciousness.
She awakes in a different cell. A little newer and larger, perhaps, but still a cell. She has no idea where she has been transported this time, or why. This new cell is not at all designed for a paraplegic, and her captors have offered no help since she arrived. Not that she"d accept it if they did, but it"s as if they want her to struggle over the lip of the bathroom threshold, or onto her bed, which is abnormally high-just enough to make getting into it an ordeal.
She suffers a week of food brought in by a silent guard in a rent-a-cop uniform. She knows she"s no longer in the hands of the Juvenile Authority, but who her new captors are is a mystery. These new jailers ask no questions, and that concerns her the same way that Connor is always concerned by the fact that the Graveyard has never been taken out. Are they so unimportant in the grand scheme of things that the Juvenile Authority won"t even torture her to get the information they want? Have they been deluding themselves into thinking they"re making a difference?
All this time she"s forced out thoughts of Connor, because it simply hurt too much to think about him. How horrified he must have been when she turned herself in. Horrified and stunned. Well, fine, let him be; he"ll get over it. She did it for him just as much as she did it for the injured boy, because as painful as it is to admit, Risa knows she had become just a distraction to Connor. If he"s truly going to lead those kids in the Graveyard like the Admiral did, he can"t be giving Risa leg ma.s.sages and worrying whether her emotional needs are being met. Maybe he does love her, but it"s obvious there"s no room in his life at this moment to pay it any more than lip service.
Risa has no idea what her future holds now. All she knows is that she must focus on that future and not on Connor, no matter how much that hurts.
A few days later Risa finally has an actual visitor: a well-dressed woman with an air of authority.
"Good morning, Risa. It"s a pleasure to finally meet the girl behind the hullabaloo. "
Risa immediately decides that anyone who uses the word "hullabaloo" cannot be her friend.
The woman sits down in the single chair in the cell. It"s a chair that has never been used, because it"s not exactly designed for a paraplegic. In fact, it seems specifically designed not to be accessible to Risa, like most everything else in her cell. "I trust they"ve been treating you well?"
"I haven"t been "treated" at all. I"ve been ignored."
"You haven"t been ignored," the woman tells her. "You"ve just been allowed some time to settle. Some time alone, to think."
"Somehow I doubt I"ve ever been alone. . . ." Risa throws a glance to a large wall mirror, through which she can occasionally see shadows. "So am I some sort of political prisoner?" She asks, getting right to the point. "If you"re not going to torture me, do you just plan to leave me here to rot? Or maybe you"re selling me to a parts pirate. At least the parts that work."
"None of those things," says the woman. "I"m here to help you. And you, my dear, are going to help us."
"I doubt that." Risa rolls away, although she can"t roll very far. The woman doesn"t get up from her chair. She doesn"t even move; she just sits there comfortably. Risa wanted to be in control of this situation, but this woman keeps control with her voice alone.
"My name is Roberta. I represent an organization called Proactive Citizenry. Our purpose, among other things, is to do good in this world. We seek to advance the causes of both science and freedom as well as to provide a sense of spiritual enlightenment."
"And what does that have to do with me?"
Roberta smiles and pauses a moment, holding her smile before she speaks. "I"m going to have the charges against you dropped, Risa. But more importantly, I"m going to get you out of that wheelchair and give you a new spine."
Risa turns to her, filled with more mixed emotions than she can sort right now. "No, you will not! It"s my right to refuse the spine of an Unwind."
"Yes, it is," Roberta says, way too calmly. "However, I firmly believe you will change your mind."
Risa crosses her arms, her belief more firm than Roberta"s that she won"t.
She"s given the silent treatment again-but they must be getting impatient, because it"s only for two days this time instead of a week. Roberta returns and sits once more in the chair designed for people who can walk. This time she has a folder with her, although Risa can"t see what"s inside.
"Have you given any thought to my offer?" Roberta asks her.
"I don"t need to. I already gave you my answer."
"It"s very n.o.ble to stand on principle and refuse an unwound spine," Roberta says. "It does, however, represent a wrongful mind-set that is neither productive nor adaptive. It"s backward, actually, and it makes you part of the problem."
"I plan to keep my "wrongful mind-set" as well as my wheelchair."
"Very well. I won"t deny you your choice." Roberta shifts in her chair-perhaps a little irritated, or maybe just in antic.i.p.ation. "There"s someone I"d like you to meet." Then she stands and opens the door. Risa knows that whoever it is has been waiting in the other room, watching through the oneway mirror.
"You can come in now," Roberta says cheerfully.
A boy steps in cautiously. He seems sixteen or so. He has multicolored skin and multicolored streaks in his hair. At first she a.s.sumes it"s some sort of extreme body modification, but she quickly realizes it"s more than that. There is something profoundly wrong about him.
"Hi," he says, and smiles tentatively with perfect teeth. "I"m Cam. I"ve been looking forward to meeting you, Risa."
Risa backs away, her wheelchair b.u.mping the wall. Now it strikes her exactly what she"s seeing-exactly why this boy seems so "off." She has seen a news report about this creation. Her flesh starts to crawl. If it could, it would crawl right through the air vents to escape what she"s seeing.
"Get that thing away from me! It"s disgusting! Get it away!"
His expression mirrors Risa"s horror. He backs away and hits the wall as well.
"It"s all right, Cam," Roberta says. "You know people always have to get used to you. And she will." Roberta offers him the chair, but suddenly Cam doesn"t want to be there, he wants to escape just as much as Risa does.
Risa looks to Roberta so she doesn"t have to look at Cam. "I said get it out of here."
"I"m not an it," Cam insists.
Risa shakes her head. "Yes, you are." She still won"t look directly at him. "Now get it out of here, or I swear I will rip every stolen part out of its body with my bare hands."
She tries not to catch his gaze, but she can"t stop herself. The thing has begun to cry tears from someone else"s stolen tear ducts, and it just makes her angry.
"Dagger plunged deep," he says. Risa has no idea what he"s talking about but doesn"t really care.
"Get it out of my sight," she yells at Roberta, "and if you have any decency in you at all, you"ll kill it!"
Roberta looks at her sternly, and then turns to Cam. "You can go, Cam. Wait outside for me."
Cam quickly, awkwardly, leaves, and Roberta closes the door. Now she"s fuming. If Risa can take anything positive out of this, it"s that she"s gotten the better of Roberta.
"You"re a cruel girl," Roberta says.
"And you"re a monster to create a thing like that."
"History will be the judge of who we are, and what we"ve done." And then she puts a piece of paper down on the table. "This is a consent form. Sign it and you can have a new working spine by the end of the week."
Risa picks it up, tears it to shreds, and throws the pieces in the air. Roberta must have been expecting this, because she instantly pulls out a second consent form from her folder and slaps it down on the table.
"You will be healed, and you will make up to Cam for how badly you"ve treated him today."
"Not in this life, or any other."
Roberta smiles like she knows something Risa doesn"t. "Well then . . . here"s hoping you have a sudden change of heart." Then she exits the room, leaving the pen and the consent form on the table.
Risa looks at the consent form long after Roberta has gone. She knows she won"t sign it, but the fact that they want her to intrigues her. Why is it so important to them that her broken body be repaired? There"s only one answer to that: For some reason Risa is much more important than she ever dreamed she was. Important to both sides.
29 * Cam