Free UnDivided by Neal Shusterman Page A

reason.
    He loves being on Molokai—perhaps because it is the unloved sibling of the Hawaiian island chain. Once a leper colony, now just a curiosity, it’s the home of a huge compound owned and maintained by Proactive Citizenry. The cliffside mansion, Cam has learned, is only a part of the compound. Like everything else about the organization, its sphere of influence extends far beyond first impressions.
    â€œYou’re not eating, Cam,” Roberta says as she comes out to join him across the table. Roberta—his creator, or builder—whatever term one gives to the individual who conceived of you. Perhaps, then, it should be “mother,” though he’s loath to use the word.
    â€œI was waiting for you.” He looks at the unappetizing appetizer before him. “And anyway, I have too few fans of foie gras in my internal community. I’ll wait for the prime rib.”
    â€œSuit yourself.”
    â€œIf I could suture self, I wouldn’t have needed you.”
    She gives him a weak Ha-ha roll of her eyes and begins to daintily manipulate the unpleasant-looking duck liver onto her crostini. As he recalls, to cultivate foie gras, ducks are force-fed until they’re morbidly obese, and their livers swell to near-exploding. Such wonderful tricks the human race has learned! Cam returns his gaze to the sea.
    â€œGeneral Bodeker is preparing quite the welcome for you at West Point next week.”
    â€œNo speeches I hope?”
    â€œOnly informal. Toasts at meet-and-greets. He’ll be out in a few days to brief you on the details.”
    â€œWhy can’t the military just tell people things?” Cam says. “Why must they brief ?”
    â€œI thought you, of all people, would appreciate linguistic formality.”
    â€œDon’t you mean ‘you of many people’? It would be beyond hyperbolic to suggest I am made of all people.”
    Cam’s impending West Point experience—his entire life, it seems—has been spelled out for him. He’ll be whisked through officer training, all the while posing for photo ops, and becoming the “Face of the Modern American Military,” whatever that means. He hated the idea at first, but he’s had a pronounced change of heart.
    He must admit, the formal dress uniform looks great on him. It makes him look important. Part of something greater than himself. He imagines all the high-level people he’ll brush elbows with—not just as a novelty, but as a proud officer of the United States Marine Corps—for they said he could choose his branch, and he chose the Marines. He thinks of his glorious future, and he’s overjoyed. Yet not.
    He finally turns his gaze from the ocean. “Let’s talk about the person you’re making me forget. Let’s talk about the girl”
    Roberta finishes her foie gras, unfazed. “You know I won’t discuss it, so why ask?”
    â€œBecause the closest I’ll ever come to remembering is forcing you to remember.”
    Their server comes to take away the appetizers, and brings the prime rib. Cam finds he’s hungry for it, but not hungry enough to start right away. “I can still feel the worm in my brain.”
    â€œIt’s not really a worm. It’s just a clever bit of nanotechnology, and anything you’re feeling is just in your imagination.”
    He begins to cut his meat, imagining how his piecemeal brainhas been routed by the army of microscopic nanites crawling along his axons, leaping between dendrites, all tuned to seek out very specific memory patterns. The moment his conscious thought hits upon the targeted memory, it gets zapped. No mess, no bother. For the first few days after the procedure, Cam was plagued with that tip-of-the tongue feeling, reaching for a name and a face he thought he remembered a moment ago, but was then gone. The feeling has lessened, but the nagging sense of absence has remained. Well, not