Unplugged (13 page)

I waited until he had nearly reached me.

Then I plunged the dagger of rock into the guard's chest and moved out of the way. His eyes bulged, a split-second look of shock in them, before he let go a howl so high and horrible it could spur the dead to action. He fell down hard, twisting across the narrow stone.

Then came the blood. So much blood.

Had I ever seen so much blood before in a game?

I couldn't move, fixated on the velvet ooze spreading across fabric and rock and skin—my skin. The girl, the one who'd called out to me to run, was now below me, gesturing frantically for me to join her on the ground. The other guards were nearly on me, murderous looks on their faces, guns in their hands, the metal caught so strangely by the light of the sun. My heart sped. I'd lost my chance to flee.

Then a new voice called out to them.

The voice of the woman behind the podium.

“Don't hurt her!”

The guards froze.

Everyone else did, too.

Now was my chance.

I slipped off the dais to the ground with a heavy thump, and raced toward the edge of the peninsula, the
ocean beyond its cliff. There was no time to think
okay
or
yes
or
no
, no time to consider how high or how dangerous, or even ask if I might die. There was only enough time to reach the edge before the guards would overtake me and throw myself into the great expanse of churning blue sea that stretched out toward the horizon.

So that's what I did.

It's just a game
, I told myself over and over as I flew toward the jagged edge that zigzagged along the cliff, the soft grasses giving way to loose rocks. I didn't look back, not once, even as the shouts behind me got closer. Suddenly I was six paces away, then five, then four, three, two.

One.

And I leapt.

I flung my body out to the sea, a human stone set loose from a slingshot.

Before gravity took me in its grip and dropped me toward the earth, I saw exactly how far I had to fall. It was as though I'd thrown myself from the ledge of a thirty-story tower, one built on a series of sharp rocks jutting out into the sea like an arrow. The fear, angry and terrible, reared up in me again, threatening to take back control of my mind and my limbs. It wanted to win me over.

But I couldn't let it.

Getting to the Real World depended on my passing this test.

This was just a challenge I needed to clear, one last App working its way through my code that would eventually drain away. That was all this was and nothing more.

Gravity sucked at my feet.

I plummeted toward the sea.

My insides seemed to rise to my middle, my stomach pushing into my lungs, my skin wanting to pull itself up and over my neck and face as though it were a piece of clothing that could be removed. My vision filled with the vast deep blue of the water, of the ocean about to meet my body.

Blue like the ocean
, went my memory, my mind.

Blue like me.

I remembered the ways in which I'd felt at home in the sea, as though my legs were meant more for swimming than walking, how I never felt more myself than when I was diving low and fast under the water. My instincts took over just as my body neared the end of its drop and I straightened, toes pointed, arms above my head and hugging my ears, all of my muscles perfectly tight, bracing for impact.

My feet pierced the surface.

The slap was a shock, skin and bone meeting rock.

The rest of me disappeared under the water with a great splash. I kept my muscles tight to manage the blow but the impact knocked my head backward like a punch, even as I continued downward, the ocean gripping my
feet and pulling me into its darkness. Water rushed into my nose, a million tiny bubbles blurring my vision. I kept my lips shut tight, holding my breath. If I opened my mouth, this game would be over.

Finally, the downward momentum slowed.

I was able to move my hands, and I pushed them through the water. On my way toward the surface, the sharp edge of a rock slashed across my leg.

The pain was blinding.

Then came the blood.

A cloud of it billowed up around me like red smoke expanding outward until the ocean consumed it. A steady stream poured from a long gash open along my thigh. Mrs. Worthington's voice broke into my brain.
Bodies are so easily shattered.

My lungs burned with lack of oxygen.

Soon I'd run out.

I looked around underwater, but the ocean was too dark to see anything clearly. A purple fish darted by me and then another, their shiny scales skimming across the back of my hand.

Frantically, I propelled myself upward, knees bending and kicking, leaving behind a long trail of blood. I pushed harder, swimming toward the murky light above, a light that brightened the higher I went, my lungs screaming. The sun shining through the water was my guide, my hope, and I noticed the white bottom of a boat just a little
ways off. I darted as fast as I could toward its shape, hoping it was empty.

I broke the surface, gasping.

“There she is! Hurry!”

So it wasn't empty after all.

My eyes stung, my throat burned, my lungs were on fire. My muscles were rubbery and tight all at once. Before I could swim away, the boat was coming toward me, a series of figures hanging off the bow, reaching for me.

“Quickly!” one of them shouted.

Then the boat was upon me. There were arms reaching out, hands, so many hands, grabbing at my arms, my shoulders, my back, dragging me up until I was over the edge, coughing and dizzy, water streaming off me, streaming everywhere, and blood, too. I didn't know how many people were there in the boat, but one of them, a boy, pulled me close, my hair soaking his shirt through.

“How did you do that?” he asked. He sounded incredulous.

I looked up at him. I took in his eyes, his face, his tousled dark hair. I spoke, my voice so hoarse it nearly had no sound.

“I know you,” I said.

And then the App, the game, the dream—whatever this was, this purgatory between worlds—it finally drained away.

Ten days later

EVERYTHING WAS DARK
and blurry and my head hurt like someone was slamming it with download flashes. I wanted to cry out but my mouth wouldn't make a sound, like someone had glued my lips together. My throat burned as though it were on fire and my arms felt like rocks, my legs aching and throbbing. My nails were knives digging into tender skin.

My skin.

I was here. I was real.

I'd made it.

My nails cutting into flesh and the pain it produced was proof of this.

“Stop that. Skylar, don't pinch. You'll make yourself bleed.”

What?

My jaw moved side to side and up and down, stretching my tongue. I tried to form words, but it felt as though I was made of rubber, the way everything was twisting this way and that, my throat too hot and sore to produce sound. Why did my throat hurt so much? I lifted my arms, my hands, heavy and solid and clumsy, up and up and out until they hit a wall. But it wasn't a wall in front of me. There was a triangular bump on it and coarse hair tangled together like rope on top and skin, more and more skin, someone else's skin,
not my skin
this time.

A face.

There was a flash of light.

I tried my eyes once more but all they saw were distorted images, squiggly lines and shades of gray.

“I'm glad you're waking up. You've been asleep for a long time. Your body needed to recover.”

It was the same voice again, a woman's voice. Smooth and deep and rich.

She came closer. I could hear her breathing. Real ears were so sensitive, like antennae that picked up on everything whether I wanted them to or not. My heart beat quicker now, each pulse accompanying the two syllables that repeated over and over in my brain.

Mo-ther. Mo-ther?

Could it be she was already here? That we were together?

My hands went out to explore the wall that was really a face. I willed all my energy to my eyes, opening them. Little by little, things came into focus, like an infinitesimal number of pixels arranging themselves into a three-dimensional hologram. The light was dim, but I was finally able to make out the other person in the room.

First I saw the color of the woman's skin, which was dark, dark like the earth that has baked in the sun. I tried to fix the blur, tried to make the image of her nose and cheekbones and mouth become sharp, and eventually I got a clearer picture. This woman, with her dark skin and golden-colored eyes, her bone structure, strong and beautiful. She wore a smile on her face.

There was no doubt now. This woman was not my mother.

There was nothing familiar about her. Nothing at all.

“Skylar,” she said to me then. “Don't worry, you're safe,” she went on. “I am your Keeper.” And when I didn't respond—I didn't because I couldn't speak, not yet—she added, “Welcome to the Real World.”

I TRIED TO
sit up. I couldn't. My brain swam with dizziness and my head throbbed. It wouldn't stop pounding. I focused my eyes on the outline of a chair near the bed. It was too dark to see anything else clearly in this tiny room.

The Keeper put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Touch in the Real World was heavier, sturdier, but not in a bad way.

“Don't push yourself,” she said.

My mind reached into the past, searching for information about my presence in this room, about how I got here, but the search turned up nothing, my memory a vast desert of smooth white sand. I was so tired, too, everything
about me aching and sore. Was this what it was like to live in a real body? Pain with every movement? Exhaustion so consuming I could barely open my eyes or form a single comprehensible word?

What was I not remembering?

It was as though my mind had been erased, all except for a series of long, strange dreams.

A crowd, a speech, an ocean, a boat.

The Keeper adjusted the bedspread that covered me. Smoothed it out with her dark-skinned hand, folding over the edge until it made a sharp crease. “What are you thinking, Skylar? I can tell your brain is going. The words are all right there. Try to let them out. Use your mouth. Your tongue. Your breath. It will come. You can do this. You've done it before,” she added.

I have?

My mind seemed disconnected from my body and all of its parts. I moved my head up and down and my jaw open and shut, trying to speak, blowing air out of my mouth. “Hvvvvvv.” My lips vibrated against each other, my throat dusty with pain.

“You're almost there.” The Keeper reached for a small, square towel and wiped my forehead. “In the App World you use your mind to speak, but here you use your mind in conjunction with your body. Let go. Speaking is instinctual.”

The suggestion of instincts seemed to flip an invisible
switch. Sounds, syllables began to form in my mouth, my voice rough and hoarse, like I'd scraped the insides of my throat. “Hv. Hv. Hv.
Have
. Have.
How
.”

The Keeper's eyes were wide. “You can do this. What are you trying to tell me? What do you want to know?”

Energy shot through my thighs to my toes, my knees twitching and shaking, every muscle in my body throbbing.

“Do you want to get up? We make sure all the body's muscles are movement ready before Service.” The Keeper hesitated. “At least we did until the border closed. Lucky for you, that was very recent.”

The word
border
lodged in my brain and opened a geyser of memory. The border had closed. Service was canceled. I'd unplugged illegally. Trader, Lacy, Adam, Sylvia.
Not
Sylvia. Rescuing Rain from the Real World. That was what I'd needed to remember.

Yet.

Something was missing.

Something important.

The reservoir dried up, the geyser petering out.

“Huh, huh,
how
,” I tried again, stuttering along. I tested my lips, my tongue, my vocal cords, until eventually I got the words I wanted so badly out of my mouth and I got them right. “How long
have I been dreaming?”

The Keeper's eyebrows arched. She studied me. “I don't
know,” she said slowly, carefully, a strange look on her face.

“What aren't you telling me?” I asked, the words falling freely now, the sounds rolling across my tongue and dropping from my lips.

“That's enough for today,” was all the Keeper replied. She moved away in the darkness. “You need your rest.”

“My mother,” I said, the next time the Keeper entered the room. My body still ached as though it were laced through with a permanent App Hangover—and maybe that's all this was—the effects of a lifetime of downloads suddenly stripped away. My mind kept shutting down with sleep, leaving large swaths of time painted black. I couldn't manage to make my legs work so I was left to lie there, waiting for the Keeper to return, testing my memory, poking through all the holes.

The Keeper sat down on the bed, sending creases into the blanket. “You've been through a lot.”

“Help me find my family,” I said. “Please.”

The Keeper looked away. I tried to get her attention, but my limbs were too unsteady. But then I stretched and reached, and this time my fingers grazed the skin of the Keeper's hand and she turned back.

“I'd like to help,” she said. “But it's . . . complicated.”

I grabbed the Keeper's arm. My fingers curled around it tightly this time. “What's complicated?”

The Keeper hesitated, like she was trying to determine something. Then, “No one can find out that you're here,” was all she said, before she got up and left the room.

“Do you know who I am? Who I
really
am? Tell me and I'll give this to you.” Trader held an App away so I couldn't reach it. He watched me, his eyes vulnerable even as he tried to bribe me. There was a smile on his face, like he was only playing.

I heard my own laughter. It was so loud in my brain. “Of course. You're Trader.” I stretched my arms as high as I could, nearly touching the App, but Trader held it higher. He was shaking his head.

“I know who you are,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “I'm Skylar. Now let me have the App!”

“No.” Trader lowered his arm. Leaned toward me. “There is more to you than you realize, just as there is more to me. And I know the
real
you.”

I stared at him, confused. “This is the real me,” I said.

Out of nowhere, someone else appeared.

Rain Holt.

“I need to understand,” Rain said, his mouth so close I could feel his breath. “How did you do it?”

“Don't trust him, Skylar,” Trader said.

“What—” I started, but then I heard a third voice.

“Skye?”

Inara.

“You betrayed me,” she shouted in my head. “I'll never forgive you. You should have trusted me. You shouldn't have lied.”

I woke from the dream, gasping, my own hands clutching my throat.

I felt something at my lips, smooth and rough at once, tiny dents across its surface. The smell was tangy. I opened my eyes.

The Keeper smiled in the dim lighting. “Eat. You need your strength.” She held the food to my lips.

My stomach ached with emptiness, a real physical ache that gaped in my center. My lips parted until my tongue, with a mind all its own, brushed along the object's edge. Before I could stop myself I closed my mouth and teeth around it and began to chew.

“Hmmmm.”

“Strawberries,” the Keeper said.

I gobbled up one, then another, my hand digging greedily into the bowl. I couldn't stop. They were unlike anything I'd ever downloaded. The sweetness, the tart bite of the seeds, the burst of juice when my teeth crushed the flesh—it was so different from what I'd eaten in the App World. A memory flashed as I swallowed another one. Mr. and Mrs. Sachs talking about pizza and peaches. How virtual food couldn't compare to the real thing. And
of course, this made me remember Inara.

Her words as I was leaving.

Her words in my dream.

You betrayed me.

The Keeper was about to say something else when a loud knock came from the other room, a rich hollow banging against rough wood. She got up and walked away to answer it, taking the strawberries with her.

I sat up, alert. Listening.

There was another knock, a short, thick thud.

Someone else was here.

My skin tingled and my heart started thumping so hard I thought it must be audible. I leaned forward, my eyes locked on the narrow view I had into the next room, watching as the Keeper pulled open a heavy wooden door. The arc of sunlight revealed was blinding, and I waited for my eyes to adjust.

“You shouldn't have come,” I heard the Keeper whisper.

“I had to. You saw what she did! She shouldn't even be here.”

The voice was a man's voice, a young man really, or maybe a boy. The sound was familiar. The Keeper and the visitor talked back and forth, too quickly and softly for me to catch all the words.

Gripping the bed for support, I willed myself first to my hands and knees. When I felt steady enough, I put my feet on the floor, the muscles in my legs full of protest.
Bracing myself, I began to straighten up, pushing my body into the wall. Everything about me hurt.

But finally, I was standing.

A wave of dizziness passed over me, the world spinning. It felt as if I was teetering on the ledge of a great tower. Instead of fear or vertigo, there came a thrill, a palpable awareness of the air touching my skin and the rough stucco wall along my back. I swayed, one hand flat on the bed, trying to steady myself. I shifted and, hanging on to whatever I could, moved forward. Curling my fingers around the edge of the doorframe, I pulled myself into the other room.

The boy was speaking. “My father—” he began.

The talking stopped. The Keeper and the visitor froze, watching me.

“Skylar,” the Keeper said uneasily. “You're up.”

I didn't respond. My attention shifted to the visitor.

He was of medium height, maybe a head taller than me. He wore jeans, the threads fraying at the very bottom, and on his feet were sandals, the kind with the thong between the toes. His T-shirt was black, his hair was dark brown and messy. It fell over his brow in waves and down around his ears and the back of his neck. The color of his skin was much lighter than the Keeper's but definitely not Caucasian 4.0, which made me wonder whether anyone actually had that skin tone in the Real World. His face was caught in the glare of the light, so I
couldn't quite make out its features.

Then he shifted slightly.

My heart rose into my throat. “You pulled me into a boat,” I said. “You held me in your arms in a dream.”

The boy brushed past the Keeper and planted himself in front of me. I reached out to him—I needed to see if he was real—and in doing so let go of the wall behind me.

“We need to talk,” he said, reaching back. My fingers grazed his cheek, just as his hand landed on my arm, strong and sure.

“You're Rain Holt,” I said. “The
real
Rain Holt.” Before he could respond, before I could say anything else, my unsteady body went tumbling to the ground.