Unplugged (12 page)

“Listen.” My mind was electric with thoughts about what it must be like to be the son of a man like Emory
Specter, a man who so easily used a funeral to further his politics and who was about to enact the most massive change both worlds had ever known—all without giving citizens a say in their fate. “If revenge has anything to do with your father . . .” I hesitated, trying to decide if I truly meant what I was about to say, knowing that I couldn't let the words out unless I was willing to follow through. When I was sure how I felt, I went on. “Then I'm willing to help.”

The boy watched me like I was a strange creature, turned mythical by an App before his eyes. “Be careful what you offer. You might not like what it brings you.”

“I mean it,” I said fiercely.

Slowly, the boy extended his hand. “My name is Trader,” he said carefully.

I took it. “It's nice to meet you,” I said, just as carefully.

He stared at our clasped hands. Opened his mouth to say something else, when the front door was flung open and Lacy Mills sauntered on through.

“WELL, IF IT
isn't Little Miss Righteous,” Lacy said.

“Hi, Lacy.” I wished I could make her walk back out the door so there was enough time to hear what Trader was about to say. A moment later, Adam walked through the door, and not long after, Sylvia. We all nodded hello. Like me, they were dressed in standard-issue casual attire—black long-sleeved shirts and black jeans.

But Lacy had gone all out. She'd obviously downloaded a Manga App. Her hair was a long inky black, as black as Trader's. Her eyelashes were thick and curled up like soft sparkly fans against snow-white skin. Everything about her was exaggerated, either overly big or overly tiny. Her lips, her eyes, and her chest were huge, yet her shoulders,
waist, and legs were impossibly narrow. She looked like a cartoon, albeit a gorgeous one. Her dress was an ethereal green, almost entirely sheer, opaque only in the most strategic of places. Its skirt was a series of delicate petals that fell to the middle of her thighs.

Lacy turned to Trader. “Can we get on with this, please?” She sounded bored, but the look in her eyes said otherwise.

Trader gestured for us to follow. He led everyone up the stairs to the second floor of the house. Lacy went first, then Adam and Sylvia. Before I joined them, I looked around once more at the entryway and the living room. This house would be the last thing I saw in this world. How sad. If I had a choice, the last thing I'd want to see was Inara. I followed the sound of voices down the hall. Everyone was gathered in another room where everything looked broken and neglected. A bare bulb dangled from the ceiling, giving off a dim glow. In the center were four ordinary chairs arranged in a tight circle, close enough that whoever sat in them could link arms. The only thing that distinguished them was that they weren't falling apart.

Adam was pacing, as usual. “So? What happens now?”

We all turned to Lacy.

Lacy rolled her eyes. “That's not
my
job.”

Trader stepped into the center of the circle. “Once you
unplug, you're going to be disoriented,” he warned. “Be ready for that.”

“Someone will be there to care for us, right?” Sylvia asked.

Trader nodded. “Each of you has been assigned a Keeper . . . of sorts.”

“Who exactly—” Sylvia started.

But he silenced her with a glare. “You'll find out soon enough. More important will be remembering that real bodies are different than virtual ones. You have to be very careful. And not all Real World citizens are friendly—some of them won't want to help you. In fact, they'll want the opposite.” Trader's eyes shifted to mine. “You must be prepared to defend yourselves.”

Adam and Sylvia erupted into hushed whispers.

“Defend ourselves from what?” I asked.

Before he could say anything, Lacy got between us. Her Apps were already draining away, her eyes growing smaller again, her hair changing back to its standard red color. Lacy glared at Trader. “I'm not paying you to answer lowly Singles' questions. Do your job. It's time for us to go.”

Her words quieted us.

“Everyone pick a chair,” Trader said. “It doesn't matter which one.”

Adam and Sylvia sat down next to each other. Lacy claimed the vacant chair beside Adam. This left only one
between Lacy and Sylvia, and I took it.

Adam's right knee bobbed up and down. He was grabbing the back of his neck again. “Now what?”

Trader ignored him. His eyes had grown vacant. When they returned to alertness, he said, “Now this.”

App icons appeared in the atmosphere, one in front of each of us. They turned slowly as they hovered.

I should have known. Of course unplugging would involve an App.

Lacy laughed. “Oooh!” She sounded delighted. “One last download before we go!”

They weren't at all typical, though. They didn't shimmer or glitter or even have an enticing image to tempt us. They were dark. Like small lumps of coal. Even though they floated like normal Apps, they seemed heavier, like they would seep into us slowly, instead of racing through our code. Like they might contain poison.

“Where did you get these?” I asked Trader.

“I designed them myself,” he said, sounding proud. Then, “It's just about time.”

A number—sixty—appeared in the center of the circle.

It immediately began counting down.

Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.

This was happening fast.

We looked at one another. Adam seemed surprisingly calm, but Sylvia was breathing quickly. Lacy's Apps had drained entirely and she'd returned to her standard
virtual self. Without all the downloads to transform her features, she looked remarkably . . . normal. Like she might be any other girl in this City.

Fifty-two.

My virtual heart sped. In a few moments I would no longer exist in this world. I wouldn't live in Singles Hall. I wouldn't wake up and go to school like always. My best friend wouldn't pester me about downloading all of her favorite Apps.

But soon I'd be waking up in the same world as my mother and my sister.

“It's like with any other App,” Trader was saying, but I found it impossible to turn away from the black hovering sphere to look at him. I could barely focus on anything else. “It will download into your code. All you have to do is reach out and touch it.”

My hand moved out toward the icon, my finger unfurling until it met the surface of the App. A current shivered through me, then that familiar icy feeling began to seep into my code. Instead of enjoying it like I normally did, I felt uneasy, like something was wrong.

Like I—Skylar Cruz—was being erased.

“Be warned,” Trader went on. “This App can have strange effects. You may enter the Real World in a dream state, and it may seem endless, but try to stay calm.” He came and stood in front of me. “Eventually it will seem like a lucid dream,” he said. “And you can take control
of it. You should think of it like a game,” he added, a whisper in my ear. “You must play like your life depends on it.”

Trader's words reverberated through me. The download made my head spin, but my legs, my arms, everything else felt like lead.

“What's wrong with mine?” Sylvia's voice wavered across the room. She sounded fearful. “It's . . . it's like the icon is repelled by me! It isn't working!”

I managed to raise my eyes enough to see Sylvia frantically grasping at her App. It darted away, zipping right, then left. Trader was at her side, trying to fix the glitch.

“Sylvia.” I said her name, doing my best to focus. Wanting to help. Her name came out slow and thick.

Trader was shaking his head. He looked down at her. “I'm sorry.”

“What's wrong?” I managed, my words distorted.

“She doesn't have a body to unplug,” he said. “The App won't connect her to it because her body isn't there.”

There came a loud wailing as Sylvia began to weep. “Zeera,” she cried, over and over again. Then she got up from her chair and ran from the room.

Adam looked at me through blurry eyes. The App made it impossible to go after her. I was nailed to the chair. But that didn't stop me from filing away the name.
Zeera
.

Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.

The download ran through every bit of me now. I felt its temperature shift from cold to warm, then burning. My gaze went to Lacy's feet—or where her feet should have been.

Little by little, she was disappearing.

The same thing was happening to Adam.

I tried to wiggle my toes but I couldn't.

Even Lacy's eyes held fear. She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Don't let go,” she whispered. “Please.”

Lacy seemed human, like the little girl I'd seen call to her parents, only to be ignored, so sad to be abandoned. “I won't,” I told her. Just as the light began to dim and a strange buzzing sounded in my mind, I added, “You don't have to be afraid. We're in this together.”

Her grip on me tightened.

Nineteen.

I could feel someone behind me. Trader crouched to my level. “Be careful, Skye,” he whispered.

I was too woozy to respond.

Fourteen.

Right then, an image flashed before me.

Inara.

The atmosphere was flickering in and out.

But I knew that face. I'd always know it. My mind must have conjured up the closest thing I had to safety and security to help ease the transition. My own virtual sister.

“Skylar,” she said, but so loudly her voice seemed to fill the room.

Something was wrong. She sounded scared. If my mind conjured Inara to make me feel safe, then why did she seem so frightened?

“Skye,” she cried out again.

There it was, the fear. And disbelief. I wanted to respond but words wouldn't form in my mouth. My tongue, my lips were frozen.

“Don't do this!”

Ten.

I tried to lift an arm but I couldn't.

There was a bang and then a thud.

“Let go of me,” she yelled.

“You can't be in here,” said a different voice now.

Trader.

He'd responded to Inara as though he could see her. Which meant that she wasn't present only in my mind.

Inara was actually here.

“Get out of my way,” she said, closer now.

But my brain was already shutting down.

Seven. Six.

The world grew dark, like someone had turned off the lights.

“No, Skye!”

I heard the words, but they were so far away.

Faintly, so faintly I thought I must be dreaming, there
came a pressure on my shoulders. I forced my eyes open.

Inara's bright green ones blinked back at me.

She was right there, but I couldn't reach her.

My arms were gone.

I wanted to say something. I wanted so badly to tell Inara everything, and I knew in that moment I'd made a mistake keeping this secret from her. My true sister, more real to me than the biological one I hoped to find when I unplugged. With all the energy I had left, I opened my mind and chatted her one last time.

I'm sorry,
Inara
.
So sorry
.

Three. Two.

It was time.

I began to fall.

All of us did.

But Inara managed to get in a few final words of her own.

“You betrayed me, Skylar,” she whispered in my ear.

Then, just like that, I was gone.

HANDS.

There were hands.

So many of them at my feet, my legs, my middle, my shoulders, my neck, my head. Hands pushing and prodding and shifting me like I was a sack of bones, an inert object, like I was not even human.

I wanted to scream
NOOOOOOO
at the top of my lungs and I wanted to fight them off. Fear built like a sharp knife emerging from within, the point of it lodging in the center of my throat so I couldn't swallow. I wanted to shout my name at them, whoever they were, the owners of these hands, to push away whatever force
was holding me under, yell loudly and piercingly,
STOP TOUCHING ME!

But I couldn't.

The hands slid away, and for a moment, there was peace.

It was then that I realized what this must be.

Trader had spoken of dreams before we unplugged.

This was a dream.

Then, “Careful,” I heard. “We don't want anything to break.”

And then, after this . . .

There was . . .

Nothing.

I was cold.

So cold.

And dizzy.

Swinging through the air. The breeze, the movement.

Was I on a swing?

There was a noise in my brain, a constant clicking, a chattering in my head, like someone had entered my mind and was chipping away at the code like it was made of granite. But no, the sound was coming from my mouth. At first I didn't understand, then it came to me.

Teeth.

This had happened once before, the chattering, when
I encountered a blizzard in a game and I could barely see, but I'd plowed forward anyway and the App, to make it seem realistic, to make it seem real, sent this noise reverberating through my code because it would happen in a real body that was freezing in the snow.

Was I in the real body? Was this what it was like?

Was I freezing in the snow?

The swinging, suddenly it stopped.

Everything grew so still.

But the fear, the fear grew.

I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything, not even lift a finger or open my eyes to see. Maybe, just maybe I was still in the App World, still disappearing, or in some strange purgatory between worlds.

Yes.

Yes.

I was still between worlds.

The dream world.

With this thought, the fear subsided some, drained slowly, like an App seeping from my code.

But yet . . . there was stone.

I felt stone.

Cold and hard against my back.

I was sure of it.

And ropes—I thought there were ropes—sliding out from underneath me.

And then, then, all of a sudden, again I felt . . .

Nothing.

There came a great crash and a long rumbling sigh, then another, and then again, as though the noise wanted to rock me this way and that, a baby in its arms. The word
ocean
floated across my mind like a tiny vessel heading in toward shore.

Everything was so calm.

I was full. I was nurtured. I was loved.

The Real World was a womb in a great expansive sea. It was the sun high above in the sky, warming the skin and bathing the body with protective light. I could see nothing but I could feel . . . everything. I soaked up the heat, drank in the sweet smell of the air, the breeze that wafted gently against my skin. And my skin, it was so smooth and soft and alive.

I was
alive
.

And then, I felt something new.

A presence. A cool shadow.

“It seems to be waking up.”

It?

“That's impossible. It's just the move. The body is confused. The plug is in perfect condition.”

“Put an end to its confusion. I can't have interruptions.”

That first voice, the voice of a woman, it reached into me like a long curl of black smoke seeking to fill my lungs.
Then hands. Hands again, hands at my shoulders, my arms, my legs, holding me down.

NO!
my mind protested again.

I am a girl! A human girl! Not just a body! Not just an it!

These thoughts shouted inside my head.

A jagged pain sheared across my arm.

It's just a dream
, cried my brain.
Just a dream.

But then a great piercing noise filled the air, the world all around.

A scream.

It was coming from my throat.

It sounded so . . .

So real.

I was dreaming again.

In the dream I was lying on a narrow slab of stone. I could feel it against my skin, rough and cold and hard. I tried to open my eyes. Overhead, there was blinding light. Everything filled with glowing spots. Burning orange clouds floated across blackness. Quickly, I closed them again. I heard a murmuring, the murmuring of people gathering in large numbers, talking in low voices, a crowd near me yet set apart. The noise was a great tapestry of words whose threads I could not separate. The last time I'd heard such vast whispering was at the seventeens' funeral, with Inara.

Was I dreaming about the funeral? Would I turn my head and see my virtual sister next to me? The possibility sent a pounding through my chest, a pounding so intense it thumped like it would burst away from my body. Or through
it.

It was a heart.

A
heart
.

My real heart?

The heart in the dream was loud. It filled my brain, my mind. My ears. So much throbbing. In between the rhythmic beats, I heard those voices. They were everywhere, all of them strung together and coming at me like a rushing river that tripped and skipped over the pulsing of my heart.

Snatches of speech.

“. . . the New Capitalists.”
Thump.
“Win . . .”
Thump.
“Freedom . . .”
Thump.
“App World tyranny . . .”
Thump.
“Crisis . . .”
Thump.
“I bid you, come and see . . .”

Wait. No.

These weren't snatches of speech.

They were snatches of
a
speech.

I listened harder, tried to decipher their meaning, any meaning at all, but I couldn't stop that constant noise from pulsating through me and interrupting the words. Maybe if I could manage to see, I would be able to calm down. Yes. I needed to see where I was. That would change everything.

Once again, I let my eyelids slide open.

It took a long time for the spots to fade, for my sight to adjust to the brightness. Too long. I might have been lying there for hours before I was able to focus on the great expanse of blue above me, so big and vast and infinite, but most of all, so
so
blue
.
I nearly smiled.

Blue like the sky
.

I was looking at the sky.

The real sky.

I was certain of it.

What else could this beautiful roof overhead be?

Now I did smile. Wide and full of joy.

But then I turned my head, turned it ever so slightly toward the murmuring, the whispering that hung around me like a cloud of gnats, and I knew, or, at least, I thought I knew that I'd yet to awaken. There was no way I'd come to from the dreams Trader told us about, because what I saw was impossible.

A thousand pairs of eyes blinked back at me.

Maybe more.

The murmuring shifted until it became a great buzz.

And my smile fell away.

The crowd stared as though they'd never seen a girl before, their faces blank with shock. They were maybe twenty feet away, gathered behind a long curving panel of glass that was anchored to the ground by metal posts. They were dressed in a pale shade of blue, everything
about them so still, the glass wall shielding them from the breeze whipping across what looked to be a long, barren peninsula, jutting out into nothingness. I was raised up and apart from them. A sliver of ice pierced me, followed by a fear that was cold and vast and consuming. And then came the shame.

“Don't worry,” said a voice from my side of the glass. “The shift in location is a natural shock to her system. The body is merely adjusting.”

Were these words for me?

I didn't dare move. I lay there, frozen, afraid to cause another stir. Let them think I didn't understand. Let them believe I was dreaming.

I
was
dreaming—wasn't I?

The crowd, the way they stared, reminded me again of the seventeens' funeral. Could this be my own funeral? Was I a hologram, floating above everyone, as Rain had been just days ago? Was that why I was so high up? Had I died in the process of unplugging?

The crowd's sheer numbers hooked into me next. There were thousands of them, and only one of me. It was as though I'd downloaded some nightmarish version of Odyssey, but driving the momentum of the landscape and the challenges was fear—my fear of the unknown, of unplugging, of being trapped and unable to move. Terror and dread created so much vulnerability, so much weakness.

But then, what else had Trader said before we unplugged?

Think of it like a game.

Play like your life depends on it
, he'd said.

I'd learned long ago that I could let a game play me, or I could play it.

A calm spread across me like a healing salve. In a game I could do anything. In a game I could advance. I could get to the next level.

In a game I could
win
.

The prize was getting to the Real World at last.

I lifted my head. Just to see what would happen. If I was going to advance, first I had to figure out the rules.

Looks of astonishment met my eyes. The crowd seemed to see a ghost. I considered their faces differently this time. I sat up now, only a little, to gauge their reaction, a clockwork girl moving in fits and starts. The noise of the crowd shifted along with me, its tenor higher and wider.

“Did you see that? She moved!”

“Is she awake?”

“But she can't be!”

Strength laced itself through my veins, knotting together until it had woven itself into something tough, something durable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that a long sliver of slate had come loose on the dais where I lay, the perfect weapon. The crowd's attention briefly turned
back toward the voice giving the speech, as though their gaze could will an explanation for the girl who seemed to rise from the dead. I shifted my hand ever so slightly, until my fingers curled around the loose stone's edge, dislodging it.

The audience turned to me again.

Slipping through them would be impossible, and going around the glass to get past them impractical. Their attention was fixed on me like voyeurs' on someone famous. I searched their faces for signs of familiarity, to see if maybe Adam or even Lacy was among them, wondering if all of us were trapped in the same strange and terrible dream, but there was no one else I knew. If I couldn't move through the crowd or around them, I would have to escape by going the other way.

The way of the sea.

I could hear it behind me, the steady crash of it beyond the peninsula. What's more, I could smell it. It called out to me.

But then something else called out to me—someone.

“Skylar!” she screamed over the wind.

I turned toward the voice. A girl with cropped hair that peaked in spikes. The feeling that I should trust her—that I
must
—spread through me.

In games I had allies, and here was one. I was sure of it.

Then others began to emerge.

One, two, then five, then ten, pushing their way
to the edges of the crowd to places where the glass no longer provided a barrier. It was like they were marked with a sign that only I could see, alerting my instinct to trust. Guards emerged too, coming alive like wooden toys. They wore the same pale blue as everyone else, but their clothes were fitted, and on their feet were thick-soled boots. But it was what they wore at their waists that made them seem like guards. Guns. They had guns. The guards began to fan out from the crowd in a wide curving arc. Some of them moved toward the girl, who continued to yell.

“We're here for you,” she shouted. “You are not alone! Be brave,” she cried when the soldiers seized her.

But the others began to move as well—there were too many allies for the guards to subdue, and the guards seemed as surprised as everyone else by what was happening.

I sat up all the way now, the sharp stone cutting into my palm, assessing the distance between the dais and the ground below. It was covered in golden grass, burned from the sun. The crowd turned frantic, people shoving, fighting, faces pressed against the glass. I was about to jump when my attention caught on a quick movement to my near left.

I turned.

Everything seemed to slow right then.

A woman stood off to the side, alone in front of a
podium looking out at the crowd only a few paces away. She, too, wore the same pale blue.

There was something familiar about her. The woman stared at me in shock, and I wondered if she, too, thought I was a ghost.

“Don't,” she mouthed, shaking her head, a mixture of fear and sadness in her eyes. And shame—there was shame in her expression. “Please,” she added.

Her voice seemed to reach inside of me. A deep ache yawned and grew until I was nearly consumed with it.

For a moment, I couldn't breathe.

Everything was silent. The crowd held its breath alongside mine.

Then suddenly the game picked up again, time returning to its regular speed, the audience coming to life with shouts and screams. This must be a test, I thought, a test where, at the end, I would get to see my family again. The Real World must be close now. The game was enticing me to move forward.

So forward I would go.

“Run!” someone screamed. It was the short-haired girl's voice again, this time closer. She must have gotten free from the guards.

I braced my body against the stone dais, ready to spring, when one of the guards leapt over the glass wall and two more pushed their way through the angry crowd and around it, headed my way. It was only a second before
one of them was on me, throwing himself up toward the place where I was perched. Whether he intended to knock me off or trap me or even kill me, I wasn't sure.