UnSouled

CyFi answers her question before she asks it. “We’re fully sustainable. We don’t slaughter our own meat though, ’cept for the chickens.”

“Who, may I ask, is ‘we’?”

“The folk,” CyFi says simply.

“ChanceFolk?” Risa guesses—but looking around, none of the people here look Native American.

“No,” CyFi explains. “Tyler-folk.”

Risa doesn’t quite catch his meaning yet. It seems quite a lot of the people she sees have grafted bits about them. A cheek here, an arm there. It isn’t until she sees one bright blue eye that perfectly matches someone else’s that it begins to dawn on her what this place is.

“You live in a revival commune?” Risa is a bit awed and maybe a bit frightened, too. She’s heard rumors of such places, but never thought they were real.

CyFi grins. “The dads were the first to call it a ‘revival commune’ when we got started. I kinda like it, don’t you? It sounds kinda . . . spiritual.” He gestures to the cottages and land around him. “Most everyone here got a part of Tyler Walker,” CyFi explains. “That’s what the Tyler Walker Foundation is all about. Putting together places like this, for people who feel the need to reunite the Unwind they share.”

“Cyrus, that’s twisted.”

CyFi doesn’t seem fazed by her judgment. “A lot less twisted than some other things. It’s a way to cope, Risa—cope with something that never shoulda happened in the first place.” Then his jaw tightens, his gaze turns dodgy, and she knows it’s Tyler talking now.

“You go put yourself in a room with the arms, legs, and thoughts that belong to that spine of yours, and you’ll look at this place a whole lot differently.”

Risa waits a moment for Tyler to go back to drafting behind CyFi again, as CyFi’s much more pleasant to talk to.

“Anyways,” says CyFi, not missing a beat, “this place was the first, but now we’ve set up more than thirty revival communes across the country—and there’s more on the way.” He folds his arms and smiles proudly. “Pretty cool, huh?”

Out in front of one of the cottages, Risa spots the doctor who’s been tending to her wrist. CyFi calling him “a pair of lungs,” suddenly makes more sense now. The man is throwing a ball with a young boy who is clearly his son.

“So people just dropped everything and came here with their families?” Risa asks.

“Some brought families with them; others left families behind.”

“All to join the cult of Tyler Walker?”

CyFi takes a moment before answering. Maybe it’s a moment to keep Tyler from shouting out something they might both regret. “Maybe it’s a cult, and maybe not—but if it fills a need and doesn’t hurt anyone, who are you to judge?”

Risa holds her tongue, realizing the more she talks the more she insults her host.

CyFi is happy to change the subject. “So, how’s the Fry?”

“Excuse me?”

He rolls his eyes, like it should be obvious. “Our mutual friend. How is he? Do you hear from him?”

Risa is still at a loss.

CyFi looks at her incredulously. “The one, the only Levi Jedediah Small-Fry Calder. He never told you he knew me?”

Risa finds herself stuttering. “Y-you know Lev?”

“Do I know Lev? Do I know Lev? I traveled with him for weeks. He told me all about you and Co

“He didn’t blow himself up.”

He snaps his eyes to her. She doesn’t know whether it’s CyFi or Tyler. Maybe it’s both of them. “Of course he didn’t! You think I don’t know that?” CyFi takes a moment to mellow. “Do you have any idea where he is now?”

Risa shakes her head. “There was an attack on his home. Last I heard he went into hiding.”

CyFi purses his lips. “Poor little Fry. Hope he turns out less screwed up than the rest of us.”

Risa knows that, as horrifying as it was that Lev had become a clapper, she would have been unwound long ago if his clapper friends hadn’t taken down Happy Jack Harvest Camp. “Small world, isn’t it?” she tells CyFi. “Lev’s still here because of us—but we’re both here because of him.”

“See, we’re all interco

As they pass the last of the cottages, a middle-aged woman with no outward surgical signs smiles warmly at Risa from her porch, and Risa smiles back, finally begi

They round back toward the main house, and Risa’s wrist begins to ache, reminding her that she’ll have to take it easy for a while. Her ru

FOLLOWING IS A PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT

“This is actor Kevin Bessinger, asking you to vote no on Initiative 11. Initiative 11—the ‘pound-of-flesh’ law—is not what it appears. It says it will allow for the voluntary shelling of inmates—in other words, the removal and disposal of their brains, followed by the unwinding of the rest of their bodies. It might seem like a sensible idea—until you read what the initiative actually says.

“Initiative 11 states that shelling would be voluntary—but it also allows prison administrators to override that and mandate the shelling of any prisoner they choose. In addition, it brings into the mainstream the unethical black-market practice of selling unwound parts at auction. Do you really want our lawmakers in the black market?

“Vote no on Initiative 11. The pound-of-flesh law is not a solution we can live with.”

—Sponsored by the Coalition for Ethical Unwinding Practices

Di

“Twice a week we have a special di

Risa’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 di

“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.”