Back to one of the comparatively better characters. We start with Cam is putting on his special anti-scar medicine.
He can feel the tingling as the engineered microorganisms in the cream do their job.
“Believe it or not, the stuff is actually related to yogurt,” the dermatologist told him. “Except, of course, that it eats scar tissue.” It also costs five thousand dollars a jar, but, as Roberta has told him, money is no object when it comes to Cam.
So it’s apparently flesh-eating bacteria, but unlike normal flesh-eating bacteria, it’s difficult to grow.
It’s unclear when they need this because they’re obviously capable of reattaching things without severe scarring all the time.
He gets into fancy clothing and He fumbles with the tie. While his brain knows how to tie it, his virtuoso fingers obviously had never learned to do a Windsor knot. He must focus and overcome the frustrating lack of muscle memory.
So close to making sense.
What if “muscle memory” meant “we included the chunk of the brain that went with this body part” rather than “magic brain cells that live in your extremities”? It would then make sense that jamming way too much stuff into him would lead to issues like this.
His hair is just about an inch long now. A virtual coat of many colors; streaks extending out from the focal point of multiple skin tones on his forehead. Blond runs down the middle, blending to amber on both the left and right. Shades of red and brown arc back from his temples, then give way to jet black above his ears, and tight, dark curls at his sideburns.
He’s an anime character now.
“All the famous hairstylists will be trampling one another to get to you,” Roberta said.
Continuing the evil watch, I wonder if this is a part of her evil. There’s a lot about how his outfit is carefully calculated and we then learn that she’s wearing something designed to look nice but keep the focus on him, and maybe the moral is people who care about celebrity level fashion are bad? I’m just guessing by the fact that how often do you have “famous hairstylists” actually show up without them being savaged by whatever story they’re in.
“We didn’t want you to be overwhelmed by your first press conference, so we limited it to thirty.”
His heart beats heavily, and he must take a few deep breaths to slow it down. He doesn’t know why he should be so nervous. They have prepared him with three mock press conferences already, where questions were hurled at him in multiple languages. In each one of those he did just fine—and this time it will be only in English, so he has one less variable to worry about.
Sadly, we don’t get to see those practice ones. I guess it’s better to claim they did make an attempt to make the upcoming disaster seem less totally obvious, but things are going to melt down in a totally obvious way so, what exactly were they practicing? Just his fluency? Why were they doing that if it wasn’t important? If we saw him able to handle himself then, it’d make what’s coming seem like a far more understandable mistake.
Roberta gives from Jurassic Park and ever other movie ever about villains doing genetic engineering:
“Since time immemorial, mankind has dreamed of creating life,” Roberta begins
…
“But the great mystery of life itself has been elusive,” Roberta continues, “and every dream of creation has ended in humbling failure. There’s a good reason for that. We can’t create what we don’t understand, so until we understand what life is, how can we ever create it? No—instead it is the task of science to take what we already have and build on it. Not create life, but perfect it. So we put forth the question, how can we recombine both our intellectual and physical evolution into the finest version of ourselves, the best of all of us combined? As it turns out, the answer was simple once we knew the right question.” She pauses to build the suspense. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Camus Comprix, the world’s first fully composite human being!”
We’re supposed to believe they spent time selecting exactly the right tie for Cam to wear (The tie’s muted colors, yet bold, fractal pattern, were specifically chosen to project a sense of aesthetic composition; a subliminal suggestion that an artistic whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.) but no one thought to focus group how people feel about WE SPIT IN GOD’S FACE!!!!!!!! beforehand? I’m creeped out and I’m someone who’d have gone to Jurassic World the week after the movie takes place.
Anyway now that Robeta’s made it clear Cam will change sex and lay millions of face-ripping eggs only to eventually be stopped by a bigger Cam with tiny arms, he enters.
In the charged silence, he leans toward the microphone and says, “Well, I have to say, you’re a very well put-together group.”
Chuckles all around. He’s surprised by the amplified timbre of his own voice, a resonant baritone that sounds more confident than he actually is.
They apparently did the practice runs without a microphone.
He answers a couple questions and then:
“So then your verbal eloquence came hardwired?”
Again, the kind of question he’s expecting. “If I were a computer, it would be hardwired, but I’m not. I’m a hundred percent organic. Human. But to answer your question, some of my skills came from before, others have come since, and I’m sure I’ll continue to grow as a human being.”
“But you’re not a human being,” someone shouts from the back. “You might be made from them, but you’re no more human that a football is a pig.”
Something about this statement—this accusation—cuts him in an unguarded place. He’s not prepared for the emotion it brings forth.
“Bull seeing red!” Cam says. It comes out before he can funnel it through his language center. He clears his throat and finds the words. “You’re trying to provoke me. Perhaps there’s a blade you’re hiding behind your cape, but it won’t keep you from getting gored.”
Now my main point here is what sort of softballs did the practice runs involve, but specifically here – jesus christ, we still have bullfighting? Because bulls charging a red cape is something well known, but most people don’t actually think about how bullfighting involves more than just dodging an angry animal and bullfighting isn’t even completely outlawed yet, and that number must be going down every year we get further away from it. For there to be any chance one of the unwound kids had this much knowledge about the subject, bullfighting must still exist and probably has had an upswing in popularity so that kids know about it again – especially because someone just doing historical research on the subject should’ve also learned that bulls are colorblind.
Cam suddenly feels the rage of dozens of unwound kids swelling in him. He must give it voice.
And how could you not think this was an issue? They seem to have had their pick of kids, could they not screen out the discipline problems first?
He asks if they think he’s subhuman and, showing they were also shit at screening the press conference, a dozen people raise their hands, so more than a third of the people there are that against this. He gets mad.
“Sounds like you’re very full of yourself,” someone says.
“Who said that?” He looks around the crowd. No one will take credit. “I’m full of everyone else— and that’s spectacular.”
This is the usual “monster is sad people don’t like it” thing, and you know what’d have been more interesting? He’s made of these sort of people. If the idea of him is so horrifying that even their hand-picked press conference is full of people who find this disgusting, why wouldn’t the kids feel the same knee-jerk horror at the very idea? What he’s being told should cut because it’s what the ghosts in his head already believe. Why is he being presented like he’s a blank slate in personality when all of that should’ve made it through too?
And then everyone starts shouting questions:
“Do you know all their names?”
“Do you dream their dreams?”
“Do you feel their unwindings?”
Guys, you already spackle your brains with their cells.
Cam actually feels like he’s a whole transplant from a sister setting. The shock and confusion people feel at him seems like it comes in part because of what had to be done to make him…except everyone’s totally fine with that. I’d guess the earlier neuro-weave ad was meant to be foreshadowing that a full person assembled from bits was possible, but instead it just shows how no one would find this shocking when they’re already willing to do that to themselves. There’s no “why are you using up so much precious brain goo?”, no “what about that Harvard kid who needs a liver?” or anything else that would actually matter to them.
“If you’re made of the unwanted, what makes you think you’re any better?”
Your entire culture revolves around how much you want to jam bits of kids into yourself! We’ve just spent chapter upon chapter on how very, very wanted the parts of these kids are. We just had a crazy guy rambling about how he was getting innocence by transplant. Last book was all about how the divided state was somehow still alive but just a blissful state of chillness. Cam should be proof that dividing and rearranging child bits makes for a better individual so go sign Timmy up for unwinding today don’t wait do it now!
“What legal rights should a rewound being have?”
Teenage organs are property of whatever adult owns them. As Cam is made entirely out of teenage organs, he presumably belongs to whoever bought them just as standard children belong to their parents and then to the government and then to the various people who bought their chunks. Upon hitting adulthood, he belongs to himself. We don’t even have to quibble about how his parts are probably all different ages and so when does that happen because I’m sure the issue of wanting to unwind a kid who got a transplant from an older kid has already come up and there’s some legal standard for how you determine age.
“Can you reproduce?”
“Should he reproduce?”
This is the sort of hilarious stupidity I expect in our world, but in Unwind’s universe, as we discussed last book, they, like the noble savage of so many books, use every part of the kid. I’m not sure why so many people want to staple a twelve year old’s balls on, but they absolutely do. And while my skin may crawl thinking of that person going on to reproduce when they themselves believe that your body parts are magically connected and the kid is still experiencing what happens to his balls the whole time, everyone else seems fine with it so I’m left to assume that women do have sex with those people and at least some of them get pregnant. Like the issue of when Cam hits age of basic human rights, someone had already had the court case over what the legal status of transplanted balls is. Not only is this not shocking, they should already know even the mundane details.
“Is he even alive?”
You nutjobs think a kid is still alive after you staple his parts to different people and throw his brain in a blender to be used as spackle. Not only would you never ask this question but it wouldn’t even occur to you.
Shortly after we’ll be getting another ad:
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
“Have you ever stopped to think about all the people helped by Unwinding? Not just the recipients of much-needed tissues, but the thousands employed in the medical profession and supporting industries. The children, the husbands and wives of people whose lives are saved by grafts and transplants. How about soldiers wounded in the field of duty, healed and restored by the precious parts they receive? Think about it. We all know someone who has been positively touched by unwinding. But now the so-called Anti-Divisional Resistance threatens our health, our safety, our jobs, and our economy by disregarding a federal law that took a long and painful war to achieve.
“Write to your congressperson today. Tell your legislators what you think. Demand that they stand up against the ADR. Let’s keep our nation and our world on the right path.
“Unwinding. It’s not just good medicine, it’s the right idea.”
—Paid for by the Consortium of Concerned Taxpayers
And you see? The children aren’t unwanted and their butchery isn’t anything people are ashamed of. Cam is weird but all the stuff that’s most shocking to us is literally business as usual for this universe.
Anyway Roberta manages to stop the press conference and he cries with her for a while. She insists, though, that this was just a setback because people aren’t ready yet but they will be. Cam responds by deciding not to eat or ever speak again.
Roberta paces in his bedroom. At first she showed great concern, but over the past few weeks, her concern has mildewed into frustration and anger.
“Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
He responds by tugging his IV out of his arm.
Roberta comes to him quickly and reconnects it. “You’re being a stubborn, obstinate child!”
So here, she’s being the bad mom – he’s sad and she’s yelling at him for it and being bossy. But on the other hand, she’s totally right that he’s just throwing a really extended and dangerous tantrum. Is this meant to be a notch against her, or is she supposed to seem good here and the fact she’s terrible is to come as a surprise?
Roberta sighs as Cam watches the relentless drip, drip, drip of the feeding tube that’s keeping him alive. He’s hungry. He’s been hungry for a long time, but it’s not enough to motivate him to eat. What’s the point in maintaining your life when it’s in question whether you’re even alive at all?
You’re a disgrace, Cam.
Anyway, she says that she has a new idea and it’s to get him a girlfriend.
what you need is someone to go out there with you. Someone who has completely accepted you and can draw the public’s curiosity in a more positive way. Dampen their judgment.”
He looks up at her, but she dismisses the idea before he can even propose it. “No, it can’t be me. I’m seen as your handler. That won’t do. What you need is a pretty little planet revolving around your star. . . .”
The idea intrigues him. It makes him realize that he hungers for more than mere sustenance. He hungers for connection. He’s seen no one his age since his creation. His age, he’s decided, is sixteen. No one can tell him any different. To have a companion—one who was born, not made—would bring him one step closer to being truly human.
Now, you remember he saw that picture of Risa at the start…