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"What is it?" Lev asks
"Janson Rheinschild!"
"But you already told ital existence, so what’s the point in looking?"
Connor continues to ply the search engines, getting the keyboard slick with french fry grease "You gave me an idea"
"Me?"
"The hot tub website The typo"
"Are you gonna ain?"
"No You gotta have skills to ured there’s a code-eating worm on the net that chewed up every reference to Janson Rheinschild, but it’s only looking for his na every possibleof his name"
Lev sold"
Connor orders a second burger and spends twenty er, he’s ready to give up hopethen suddenly there’s a glint of that gold Lev was talking about, and it turns out to be the mother lode
"Lev--take a look at this!"
Lev comes around to his side of the booth, and they look at a news article dated o The article is from a small local paper somewhere in Montana where Rheinschild once lived Apparently they kept tabs on one of their favorite sons, but consistently nchild"
Connor and Lev read the article in stunned disbelief Rheinschild, a research scientist and inventor, was ih to ot erased like a shunned pharaoh froyptian obelisk
"My God!" Connor says, "This guy pioneered neural bonding and regeneration--the very technology thatpossible! Without Rheinschild, transplants and grafting would be back in the Stone Age!"
"So he was the ht at the beginning of the war--before anyone even thought of unwinding"
Connor plays a video embedded in the article, and they watch an intervieith Rheinschild, a ns that it was before unwinding
"We can’t even begin to know the uses of this technology," Rheinschild says with an exciteine a world where loved ones who die young don’t really die--because every part of the It’s one thing to be an organ donor, and another to know that every single part of you will save someone else’s life That’s a world I want to live in"
Connor shivers, for the first ti the air-conditioned chill of the diner The world Rheinschild described is a world Connor would want to live in toobut that’s not the world they ended up with
"Of course there are going to be ethical questions," Rheinschild goes on to say, "which is why I’ve started an organization to study the ethical issues inherent in this sort ofit, will be a watchdog to y A conscience to "
Connor stops the video, trying to process it all "Holy crap! So he founded Proactive Citizenry to protect the world from what he created!"
"And it became the very monster he was afraid of"
Connor thinks back to so he learned in school Oppenheiainst it in the end and becareatest opponent What if Rheinschild was the sa, then was silenced--or worse--was silenced before he even had the chance to speak out Not even the Admiral reone or was prevented froainst the Unwind Accord
Lev reaches over and starts the video again--just a fewon about the glorious future he envisioned "This is just the beginning If we’re able to regenerate nerve tissue, we can regenerate anything--it’s just a matter of ti face, and Connor can’t help but feel tre, who paved a road to a place beyond hell with his good intentions
"That’s pretty wild," says Lev, "but how can knowing all this stop unwinding? Isn’t that what you said, that finding out about this guy can change life as we know it, or so like that? Even if everyone knew about hi"
Connor shakes his head in frustration "There’s got to be so"
He scrolls down to the end of the article, where there’s a picture of Rheinschild and his wife in a laboratory--apparently they worked as a team When Connor reads the caption beneath the photo, his stoht lose both of his Best in the Southwest burgers
"It couldn’t be"
"What is it?"
Connor can’t speak for a ain "His wife Her naet it--and why should he? He was never in that first safe house with Connor and Risa Sonia was the name of the old woman who ran it Over the years she must have rescued hundreds, es the picture on the screen, and the more he looks at Mrs Rheinschild, the more certain he is
It’s the same Sonia!
What was it she said to hiht all of our lives Right now, I’ht Connor had no idea the burden of darkness sheall these years
"I know that woo We’re going back to Ohio"