Unwind: UnWholly Part 20

He turns his head toward the voice a little too sharply, and the room spins around him. An aftereffect of the explosion. His ears are still ringing, but at least the flutter in his left ear has settled down.

Sitting in a chair near the foot of his bed is a woman a little too well-dressed to be part of the hospital staff.

"Are you FBI? Homeland Security? Are you here to ask me more questions? Because I don't have any more answers."

The woman chuckles slightly. "I'm not with any government agency. I represent the Cavenaugh Trust. Have you heard of it?"

Lev shakes his head. "Should I have?"

She hands him a colorful brochure, and as he looks at it, he gets a s.h.i.+ver.

"It looks like a harvest camp brochure."

"Hardly," she says, clearly insulted. The right response, as far as Lev is concerned. "To put it simply," she tells him, "the Cavenaugh trust is a whole lot of money, set aside by what was once a very wealthy family to help wayward youth. And we can think of few youth as wayward as you."

She gives him a twisted little smile, thinking herself funny. She's not.

"Be that as it may," she says, "we understand you have no place to go once you're released, and rather than leave you at the mercy of Child Protective Services, who certainly cannot protect you from any future clapper attacks, we are prepared to offer you a place to live-with the full approval of the Juvenile Authority, of course-in exchange for your services."

Lev pulls his knees up beneath his covers and shrinks away from her. He doesn't trust well-dressed people who make offers with strings attached. "What kind of services?"

She smiles at him warmly. "Just your presence, Mr. Calder. Your presence and your winning personality."

And although he can't think of anything that his personality has won, he says, "Sure, why not?" Because he realizes he has absolutely nothing left to lose. He thinks back to the days after he left CyFi, and before he arrived at the Graveyard. Dark days, to be sure, but punctuated by a bit of light when he found himself on a reservation, taken in by People of Chance. The Chance folk had taught him that when you have nothing to lose, there's no such thing as a bad roll of the dice. And then something occurs to him. Something that has been in the back of his mind for a while, but today has risen to the forefront.

"One thing, though," Lev says.

"Yes?"

"I want to have my last name legally changed. Can you do that?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Of course, if that's what you want. May I ask what you would like to change it to?"

"It doesn't matter," he tells her. "Just as long as it's not Calder."

22 * Trust

There's a home on a street in northern Detroit. It is now the official legal residence of one Levi Jedediah Garrity. It's a small home, but adequate, and comes through the generosity of the Cavenaugh trust, dedicated to helping wayward youth. There is a full-time valet to take care of Lev's needs, and a new tutor to take care of his lessons. The trust has even planted a permanent rent-a-cop out front to deter any unwanted guests and suspicious solicitors. No clappers are getting anywhere near the front door here.

It would be a perfect situation for Lev, except for the fact that he doesn't actually live there. True, there's that subcutaneous tracking chip embedded in his neck that swears he does, but the chip was easily compromised. Now the chip can ping out a signal from wherever they want Lev to appear to be.

No one knows he's being brought to the Cavenaugh mansion, almost forty miles away.

The Cavenaugh mansion is a behemoth of a building resting on seventy-five secluded acres in Lake Orion, Michigan. It was designed to look like Versailles and was built with motor money in the days before the American automotive industry had done its own version of clapping and applauded itself into nonexistence.

Most people don't know the mansion is still there. They're mostly right, because it's barely there at all. Exposure to the elements all these years has left it one storm short of surrender.

The mansion served as the Midwest headquarters for the Choice Brigade during the Heartland War, until it was captured and became headquarters for the Life Army. Apparently both the Lifers and Choicers saw great value in having their own personal Versailles.

The place was under attack constantly until the day the Unwind Accord ended all battles, putting forth the worst possible compromise and yet the only one both sides could agree to: sanct.i.ty of life from conception to thirteen, with the option of unwinding teenagers whose lives were deemed to have been a mistake.

For many years after the war, the Cavenaugh mansion lay crumbling, too expensive to repair yet too large to tear down, until Charles Cavenaugh Jr., to a.s.suage his guilt at still having old money in new times, donated the mansion to a trust fund, which was owned by another trust fund, which was laundered through yet another trust fund, which was owned by the Anti-Divisional Resistance.

23 * Lev

Charles Cavenaugh Jr. meets Lev personally at the entrance of the crumbling mansion. He's dressed like he's too rich to worry about how he's dressed. Even with the Cavenaugh family fortune long gone, Lev figures there must be enough residual wealth to keep at least his generation living elite. The only thing that betrays his allegiance to the resistance is his thinning hair. Nowadays the rich don't have thinning hair. If they do, they just replace it with someone else's.

"Lev, it's an honor to meet you!" He grasps Lev's hand with both of his, shaking it firmly and maintaining a steady eye contact that Lev finds awkward.

"Thanks. Same here." Lev isn't sure what else to say.

"I was so sorry to hear about the loss of your friend and your brother's injuries. I can't help but think if we had approached you earlier, the tragedy never would have happened."

Lev looks up at the mansion. Barely a window is intact. Birds fly through the jagged, broken panes.

"Don't let it fool you," Cavenaugh says. "She still has some life in her-and the way she appears is actually an a.s.set. It's camouflage for anyone who tries to look too closely."

Lev can't imagine anyone looking too closely. The place is on seventy-five fenced-in acres, in the middle of a weedy field that was once a lawn, which is surrounded on all sides by dense woods. The only way to even see the mansion would be from above.

Cavenaugh pushes open a rotted door and leads Lev into what was once a grand foyer. Now the foyer has no roof. Two sets of stairs climb to the second floor, but most of the wood on the stairs has caved in, and weeds grow through cracks in the floor, pus.h.i.+ng up the marble tiles, making it randomly uneven.

"This way." Cavenaugh leads him deeper into the ruined building, down a dim hallway in equally awful condition. The smell of mildew makes the air feel gelatinous. Lev is about to conclude that Cavenaugh is a madman and run in the other direction when the man unlocks a heavy door in front of them, swinging it open to reveal a grand dining hall.

"We've restored the north wing. For now it's all we need. Of course, we've had to board all the windows-lights at night in an abandoned ruin would be way too conspicuous."

The place is nowhere near in the condition it must have once been in. There's still peeling paint, and water stains on the roof, but it's far more livable than the rest of the sprawling estate. The dining hall has two mismatched chandeliers that were probably salvaged from other areas of the mansion. Three long tables and benches suggest that a lot of people are served their meals here.

At the far end of the room is a huge fireplace, and above it a full-length portrait, larger than life. At first Lev takes it to be a painting of one of the Cavenaughs as a boy, until he looks more closely.

"Wait-is that . . . me?"

Cavenaugh smiles. "A good likeness, isn't it?"

As he crosses toward it, Lev can see how good a likeness it really is. Or at least a fine rendering of how he looked a year ago. In the portrait, he's wearing a yellow s.h.i.+rt that seems to glow like gold. In fact, the portrait is painted so that his skin gives off a sort of divine radiance. The expression on his painted face speaks of wisdom and peace-the kind of peace Lev has yet to find in life-and at the base of the portrait are t.i.thing whites metaphorically trampled beneath his feet.

His first reaction is to laugh. "What's this all about?"

"It's about the cause you fought for, Lev. I'm pleased to say we've picked up where you left off."

On the mantel just below the portrait are everything from flowers to handwritten notes, to bits of jewelry and other trinkets.

"These things spontaneously began to appear after we put up the portrait," Cavenaugh explains. "We didn't expect it, but maybe we should have."

Lev still struggles to process this. Again, all he can do is giggle. "You're joking, right?"

Then off to his right, at a doorway to an adjacent hallway, a woman calls out to them. "Mr. Cavenaugh, the natives are getting restless. Can I let them in?"

Lev can see kids craning to see around the rather heavyset woman.

"Give us a moment, please," Cavenaugh tells her, then smiles at Lev. "As you can imagine, they're very excited to meet you."

"Who?"

"The t.i.thes, of course. We held a contest, and seven were chosen to personally greet you."

Cavenaugh talks like these are all things Lev should already know. It's all too much for him to wrap his mind around. "t.i.thes?"

"Ex-t.i.thes, actually. Rescued before their arrival at their respective harvest camps."

Then something clicks, and it dawns on Lev how this is possible. "Parts pirates-the ones who target t.i.thes!"

"Oh, there are certainly parts pirates," Cavenaugh says, "but to the best of my knowledge, none of them have taken any t.i.thes. It's a good cover story, though. Keeps the Juvenile Authority barking up the wrong tree."

The idea that t.i.thes are being rescued rather than sold on the black market is something that has never occurred to Lev.

"Are you ready to meet our little squad of amba.s.sadors?"

"Sure, why not."

Cavenaugh signals the woman to let them in, and they enter in an orderly procession that doesn't hide the high-voltage excitement in their step. They're all dressed in bright colors-intentionally so. Not a bit of white in the whole bunch. Lev just stands there dazed as they greet him one by one. A couple of them just stare and nod their heads, too starstruck to say anything. Another shakes his hand so forcefully Lev's shoulder has to absorb the shock. One boy is so nervous, he stumbles and nearly falls at Lev's feet, then goes beet red as he steps away.

"Your hair is different," one girl says, then panics like she's gravely insulted him. "But it's good! I like it! I like it long!"

"I know everything about you," another kid announces. "Seriously, ask me anything."

And although Lev is a bit creeped out by the thought, he says, "Okay, what's my favorite ice cream?"

"Cherry Garcia!" the kid says without the slightest hesitation. The answer is, of course, correct. Lev's not quite sure how to feel about it.

"So . . . you were all t.i.thes?"

"Yes," says a girl in bright green, "until we were rescued. We know how wrong t.i.thing is now."

"Yeah," says another. "We learned to see the way you see!"

Lev finds himself giddy and caught up in their adoration. Not since his days as a t.i.the has he felt "golden." After Happy Jack, everyone saw him either as a victim to be pitied or a monster to be punished. But these kids revere him as a hero. He can't deny that after all he's been through, it feels good. Really good.

A girl in screaming violet can't contain herself and throws her arms around him. "I love you, Lev Calder!" she cries.

One of the other kids pulls her off. "Sorry, she's a little intense."

"It's okay," Lev says, "but my name's not Calder anymore. It's Garrity."

"After Pastor Daniel Garrity!" the know-it-all kid blurts. "The one who died in the clapper blast two weeks ago." The kid is so proud that he has all the information down, he doesn't realize how raw Dan's death still is for Lev. "How's your broken eardrum, by the way?"

"Getting better."

Cavenaugh, who has been standing back, now steps in to gather them and send them on their way. "That's enough for now," he tells them. "But you'll all get your chance to have a personal audience with Lev."

"Audience?" Lev says, chuckling at the thought. "Who am I, the pope?" But no one else is laughing-and it occurs to him that his inside joke with Pastor Dan has actually become a reality. All these kids are Leviathan.

Sixty-four. That's how many ex-t.i.thes are being sheltered and given sanctuary in the Cavenaugh mansion. It gives Lev a hope he hasn't felt since the pa.s.sage of the Cap-17 law, which turned out to be as many steps backward as it was forward.

"Eventually we'll give them new ident.i.ties and place them with families we trust to kept their secret," Cavenaugh tells Lev. "We call it the Wholeness Relocation Program."

Cavenaugh gives Lev the grand tour of the reclaimed north wing. On the walls are framed photos and news clippings about Lev. A banner in one hallway proclaims they should all LIVE LIKE LEV! His giddiness begins to turn to b.u.t.terflies in his stomach. How can he live up to all this buildup? Should he even try?

"Don't you think it's kind of . . . overkill?" he asks Cavenaugh.

"We've come to realize that by pulling these kids from their t.i.thing, we've removed from them the focus of their lives; the one immutable thing they believed in. We needed to fill that s.p.a.ce, at least temporarily. You were the natural candidate."

Stenciled on the walls are quotes and expressions attributed to Lev. Things like "To celebrate an undivided life is the finest goal of all," and "Your future is 'wholly' yours." They are sentiments he agrees with, but they never came out of his mouth.

"It must feel strange to be the focus of such lofty attention," Cavenaugh says to him. "I hope you approve of how we've used your image to help these children."

Lev finds himself in no position to approve, or disapprove, or even to judge the wisdom of it. How do you judge the brightness of a light when you're the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts. All he can do is go with it, and take his place as some sort of spiritual figure. There are worse things. Having experienced several of them, there is no question that this is better.

On his second day there, they begin to arrange his personal audiences with the ex-t.i.thes-just a few a day so as not to overwhelm him. Lev listens to their life stories and tries to give advice, much the same way he did for the incarcerated "divisional risk" kids he used to visit on Sundays with Pastor Dan. For these kids, though, no matter what Lev says, they take it as divinely inspired. He could say the sky is pink, and they would find some mystical, symbolic meaning to it.

"All they want is validation," Cavenaugh tells him, "and validation from you is the greatest gift they could hope for."

By the end of the first week, Lev has settled into the rhythm of the place. Meals don't begin until he arrives. He's usually called on to say a nondenominational grace. His mornings are spent in audiences, and in the afternoon, he's allowed time to himself. He's encouraged by Cavenaugh and the staff to write his memoirs, which feels like an absurd request of a fourteen-year-old, but they're completely serious. Even his bedroom is absurd-a kingly chamber far too large for him, and one of the few that has an actual window to the outside that isn't boarded over. His room is larger than life, his image larger than life and death combined, and yet all these things only serve to make him feel increasingly small.

And to make it worse, at each meal he is faced by that portrait. The Lev they believe he is. He can fill that role for sure, but the eyes of that portrait, which follow him through the room, carry an accusation. You are not me, those eyes say. You never were, you never will be. But still flowers and notes and tributes appear on the mantel beneath the painting, and Lev comes to realize that it isn't just a portrait . . . it's an altar.

During his second week, he's called in to greet new arrivals-the first since his own arrival. They're fresh off the hijacked van, and all they know is that they've been kidnapped and tranq'd. They do not yet know by whom.

"It would be our wish," Cavenaugh tells him, "that you be the first thing they see upon their unveiling."