UnSouled

Cam gets up off the dusty ground and pulls himself into the chair, rubbing his jaw. “That grafted arm of yours has its own set of talents, doesn’t it? And is that someone else’s eye, too? That puts you two steps closer to being just like me.”

Co

“You have nothing but a name and a city,” Co

“A code name, huh?”

“Of course.” Co

Cam gives him a Cheshire smile. “Like a rug,” he says. “I believe there’s a brain bit in my right frontal lobe that’s a BS detector, and it’s pinging in the red.”

“Believe what you want,” Co

“Why are you so convinced I’ll crawl back to them? I already told you, I hate them just as much as you do.”

“Do you expect me to believe you’d bite the hand that made you?” says Co

And then Cam asks a question that will linger in Co

The question throws Co

“Being rewound was a crime every bit as heinous as unwinding,” Cam tells him. “I can’t change the fact that I’m here, but I owe nothing to the people who rewound me. I would uncreate my creators if I could. I was hoping Risa would help me do that. But in her absence, it looks like I’ll have to rely on you.”

Although Co

“Prove it,” Co

“If I do, will you take me with you?”

Co

Cam is silent for a moment, holding emotionless eye contact with Co

“What?”

“It’s a thirteen-character ID on the public nimbus. As for the password, it’s an anagram of Risa Ward. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”

“Why should I care what you have stored on the cloud?”

“You’ll care when you see what it is.”

Co

Cam sneers at him, but obliges the request. When Cam is done, Co

“I’ve decided to take Cam with us,” he tells Lev and Grace, neither of whom seem surprised.

50 • Lev

He breaks the news to Co

“They don’t want you here, Lev. Whatever fantasy you’ve got in your head about staying here, you’ve gotta lose it. They don’t want you.”

It’s only half-true, but it hurts to hear all the same. “It doesn’t matter,” he tells Co

“So you’re just going to disappear here? Pretend you’re a ChanceFolk kid, living the simple life on the rez?”

“I think I can make a difference here.”

“How? By going hunting with Pivane and reducing the rabbit population?” Now Co

“They need to start listening to outside voices. I can be that voice!” he tells Co

“Listen to yourself! After all you’ve been through, how can you still be so naive?”

Now it’s Lev’s turn to get angry. “You’re the one who thinks talking to some old woman is going to change the world. If anyone is deluding themselves, it’s you!”

That leaves Co

“How can you walk away,” Co

“Do you really think anything you or I can do will change that?”

“Yes!” Co

“Then you don’t need my help. I’ll just be an anchor around your neck. Let me do something useful here instead of just tagging along.”

Co

“What’s this?”

“Read it. It was supposed to be your new identity once we left the rez.”

It’s a fake Arápache ID, with a bad picture of him he doesn’t remember taking. The name on the ID is “Mahpee Kinkajou.” It makes Lev smile. “I like it,” Lev says. “I think I’ll keep my new identity. What name did they give you?”

Co

“Thank you for getting me out of the Graveyard,” he tells Lev, his anger resolving into a reluctant acceptance of the situation and maybe a begrudging respect for Lev’s choice. “And thanks for saving me from the parts pirate. I’d probably be shipped around the world in pieces by now if it weren’t for you.”

Lev shrugs. “It’s nothing. It wasn’t so hard.” Which they both know isn’t true.

51 • Una

Una thought she’d be relieved that her obligation to Pivane was now over and her uninvited house guests would be leaving. However, the prospect of being alone with the knowledge of where Wil’s hands have gone and where all his talent resides—a knowledge she can share with no one—is a difficult burden to bear. Things may go back to the way they were, but for Una, they will never be normal again.

She wishes her parents were here, or Elder Le

The Tashi’nes are expected to come at nightfall, removing her guests and leaving her in ambivalent solitude. Now Cam will be going as well. She had thought she would be asked to sequester him a little while longer before flinging him back into the world, but he’ll be gone with the others.

She busies herself that afternoon working on a new satinwood guitar, bending and bracing the sides by hand; then just before dark, she hears music coming from the basement. She knows it must be Cam, and try as she might, she ca