“Quiet, Pork-n-beans,” Connor says. “I’m not talking to you.”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Una admits quietly, looking down at the dirt floor of the sweat lodge. “I’m still not.” Instead of talking about the Rewind, she talks about Wil again. How he would tune and test all of her guitars before they were sold. “He put his soul into his music. I always felt that a tiny bit of him was left resonating in the instrument after he played it. Once he was gone, the guitars never felt the same. Now when they play, it’s only music.”

“So you thought you’d make our friend here your little guitar slave.”

She raises her eyes to burn him a glare—but she doesn’t seem to have the strength for it anymore. She casts her eyes down again.

Connor turns to the Rewind, to find his eyes locked on Connor, practically drilling into him. Connor tightens the grip on the rifle in his lap.

“Why are you here?” Connor asks. “How did you even know to come here?”

“I have enough of Wil Tashi’ne’s memory to know that this is where your friend the clapper would run to hide,” he says. “And I think you know why I’m here. I’m here for Risa.”

Hearing her name coming from his mouth brings Connor’s blood toward a boil. She hates you, Connor wants to tell him. She wants nothing to do with you. Ever. But he sees and smells the Rewind’s urine-stained pants and remembers the helplessness of the Rewind’s captivity, so much like his own in Argent’s basement. Sympathy is the last thing Connor wants to feel, but it’s there all the same, undermining his hatred. Desperation just about oozes out of the Rewind’s seams, and as much as Connor wants to add to this creature’s pain, he can’t find it in himself to do it.

“So, you’re going to blackmail her into being with you, like before?”

“That wasn’t me! That was Proactive Citizenry.”

“And you want to bring her back to them.”

“No! I’m here to help her, you idiot.”

Connor finds himself mildly amused. “Careful, Pork-n-beans—I’m the one with the rifle.”

“You’re wasting your time,” pipes in Una. “You can’t reason with him. He’s not human. He’s not even alive.”

“Je pense, donc je suis,” the Rewind says.

Connor doesn’t speak French, but he knows enough to decipher it.

“Just because you think, doesn’t mean you are. Computers claim to think, but they’re just mimicking the real thing. Garbage in/garbage out—and you’re just a whole lot of garbage.”

The Rewind looks down, his eyes glistening. “You don’t know a thing.”

Connor can tell he’s struck a nerve in the Rewind—this whole subject of life. Of Existence with a capital E. Again, Connor feels that unwanted wave of sympathy.

“Of course, Unwinds aren’t legally alive either,” Connor says, making Cam’s argument for him. “Once an unwind order is signed, as far as the law is concerned, they’re nothing but a bunch of parts. Like you.”

The Rewind lifts his eyes to him. A single tear falls, absorbed by the knee of his jeans. “Your point?”

“My point is, I get it. Whether you’re a pile of parts, or a sack of garbage, or a full-fledged person has nothing to do with what I, or Una, or anyone else thinks—so do us all a favor and stop making it our problem.”

He nods and looks down again. “Blue Fairy,” he says.

“You see!” snaps Una. “He is like a computer—he spouts garbage that makes no sense.”

But Connor finds himself making an unexpected leap of insight.

“Sorry, Pinocchio, but Risa’s not your Blue Fairy. She can’t turn you into a real boy.”

Cam looks at him and grins. Connor finds the grin disarming, which makes him grip the rifle more tightly. He will not be disarmed in any way.

“How do you know she hasn’t already?”

“She’s pretty amazing, but not that amazing,” Connor says. “You want magic, talk to Una. I’m sure the Arápache are more tuned in to magical stuff than the rest of us.”

Una stiffens and frowns at him. “I don’t have to take insults from a runaway Unwind.”

“I was actually being sincere,” Connor admits. “But I’m happy to insult you, if that’s what you want.”

Una holds her glare a moment more before returning her gaze to the ground.

“You said you want to help Risa,” Connor asks the Rewind. “Help her how?”

“That’s between me and her.”

“Wrong,” Connor tells him. “I’m between you and her. You talk to me, or you don’t talk at all.”

The Rewind seethes, breathing through his nose like a dragon about to flare. Then he backs down. “I can help her bring down Proactive Citizenry. I have all the evidence she needs. But I won’t share it with anyone but her.”

The Rewind seems sincere—but Connor knows he’s not the best judge of character. He made a crucial mistake trusting Starkey. Connor won’t make the same mistake again. “You expect me to believe that? Why would you bring down the people who made you?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Are you going to tell him?” Una asks Connor, her patience failing. “Or do you intend to string him along all day?”

“Tell me what?” Cam looks back and forth between them.

Connor thought he’d relish giving him the news, but now it just feels empty. “Sorry to disappoint you, Pork-n-beans . . . but Risa’s not here.”

The despair in the Rewind’s eyes is as soulful as any legitimate human being. Connor wonders if maybe the Blue Fairy paid him a visit after all.

“But . . . but . . . the news said she was traveling with you!”

“Yeah, the news also said I attacked a harvest camp in Nevada. You of all people should know not to trust the media.”

“So, where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Connor tells him, then adds, “But if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

The Rewind stands in frustration. “You’re lying!” Connor rises just as the Rewind lunges toward him. Connor levels the gun at his chest, and he stops in midlunge.

“Just give me a reason, Pork-n-beans!”

“Stop calling me that!”

“He’s telling the truth,” says Una. “It’s just him, Lev, and some low-cortical girl. Risa Ward wasn’t with them when they showed up.”

It’s more information than Connor wants him to know, but now he seems to accept the truth. He drops to the ground, putting his head in his hands.

“Sisyphus,” he mumbles. Connor doesn’t even try to figure that one out.

“You realize I can’t let you go. I can’t take the chance that you’ll tell the authorities where we are.”

“I’ll tie him up again,” says Una, advancing toward the Rewind. “No one comes out to this old sweat lodge anymore.”

“No,” Connor decides. “We’re not doing that either. We’ll take him back with us to your place.”

“I don’t want him there!”

“Too bad.” Connor looks at both of them, judging their frame of mind as somewhat stable, and he clicks the safety back on the rifle. “Now, we’re going to leave here and walk to Una’s place like three old friends back from an afternoon of hunting. Are we clear?”

Both Cam and Una agree reluctantly.

Then he turns to the Rewind. “Whether you deserve dignity or not, I’m going to give you some.” And although Connor finds this hard, he says, “Should I call you Camus?”

“Cam,” he says.

“All right, Cam. I’m Connor—but you already know that. I’d say ‘pleased to meet you,’ but I don’t like to lie.”

Cam nods his acceptance. “I appreciate your honesty,” he says. “The feeling is mutual.”

•   •   •

Pivane is there when they get back to the shop. Connor hears his deep voice upstairs talking to Lev as they enter.

“He can’t know about Cam,” Una says. “The Tashi’nes must never know about Wil’s hands. It will destroy them.”

The way it destroyed you? Connor wants to say, but instead he just says, “Understood.”

Una sends Cam down into the basement. He’s too weary and spent to protest.

“I’ll wait here and make sure he stays put,” Una says. “Can I please have my rifle back?” And when Connor hesitates, she says, “Pivane will have a lot of questions if he sees you coming upstairs with that rifle.”