UnSouled

Were he more shallow, he could be a very happy man—after all, he’s got millions in his bank account. He and Sonia could go anywhere they want and live out their lives in extravagant luxury . . . . But what would be the point? And where can they go that they won’t be reminded of the darkness they leave behind?

Unwinding is spreading. China was the first to jump on the bandwagon, then Belgium and the Netherlands and the rest of the European Union. The Russians claimed to have come up with the idea themselves, as if it were something worth claiming, and in third-world nations, where laws change as quickly as governments, the black-market trade in human organs has grown into a major industry.

And what of his attempt to change all that? What of his “life’s work that would end unwinding”? After one final attempt to get some answers out of BioDynix Medical Instruments, he was slapped with a cease-and-desist lawsuit and a restraining order that prevents him from coming within one hundred yards of any BioDynix employee.

Every day, the very existence of their basement reminds him that Austin—whom Janson and Sonia had come to care about like a son—is gone, and as if this cake needed any further icing, both he and Sonia have been virtually unwound themselves. Before Janson had been ousted from Proactive Citizenry for actually wanting to do some good in the world, they were working on digital footprint removal. It was supposed to be a way to protect one’s privacy on the web by removing unwanted and unauthorized references and pictures of oneself.

But like everything else, Proactive Citizenry found a way to weaponize it.

Now any and all references to Janson or Sonia Rheinschild have been eliminated from the digital memory of the world. Not only don’t they exist, but according to public records, they never existed. Those who know them will eventually forget them, and even if they don’t, those people will eventually die. Janson’s and Sonia’s footprints on this earth will be washed as clean as a beach at high tide.

And so Janson Rheinschild sits alone in his chair, turning all of his anger, his disillusionment, and his disappointment inward, until finally he feels his heart seize in his chest, knotting in the lethal cramp of cardiac arrest.

And he’s glad for it. He’s grateful that at last the universe has chosen to show him some mercy.

58 • Co

The sign on the highway reads WELCOME TO AKRON, THE RUBBER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. The dark, threatening skies feel anything but welcoming. Co

“The scene of the crime,” comments Cam from behind Co

Grace, still beside Cam in the backseat, is content to decipher personalized license plates and analyze them. “SSADAB. Dumbass spelled backward. ‘♥&SEOUL.’ Some Korean guy who got an Unwind’s heart.” Grace seems immune to the heightened level of tension in the car until they approach a highway patrol car parked on the shoulder.

“Go slow! Go slow! Go slow!” she says.

“Don’t worry, Grace,” Co

The woods are now broken by suburban subdevelopments, and as the road rolls by, Co

“Do you know what you’re looking for?” asks Cam from the backseat. “Akron’s a big town.”

“Not so big,” is Co

Co

“I imagine you must know Akron pretty well.”

“Not at all,” Co

That makes Cam laugh. “And yet they call you the Akron AWOL.”

“Yeah, fu

“Center-North!” Co

“Center-north what?” Grace asks.

“That’s the name of the school. Center-North High. I knew I’d remember it eventually.”

“We’re going to a school?”

“That’s ground zero. We’re looking for an antique shop near the school. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“You sure about that?” asks Cam. “Memory’s a fu

“Only yours,” says Co

The school looks exactly the same. Three stories of institutional redbrick that somehow looks as intimidating to him as the Texas School Book Depository had when Co

It’s midmorning on a Tuesday, so school is in session. It’s just about the same time of day that the fire alarm went off and all hell broke loose. Co

“Anything specific we should be looking for?” asks Cam. “Any defining characteristics of this antique shop?”

“Yeah,” Co

He wonders what Sonia will do when she sees him. Then a horrible thought crosses Co

Co

“Not much of a driver, are ya?” says Grace, then turns to Cam. “Did you know he almost killed Lev?”

“My driving’s fine,” Co

“So drive around the school in a spiral that gets bigger,” suggests Grace. And then she adds, “Although since the streets ain’t round, it’s kinda a square spiral.”

“That’s called an Ulam spiral, by the way,” Cam says. “A way of graphing prime numbers. Not that you would know that.”

Co