Unplugged (15 page)

I bit my lip. Focused on the curve of the water glass on the table, the way it caught the light. “What do you mean?”

The Keeper picked up her fork again. Took several more bites of her salad, the crunch of it the only sound in the room. Then she sat back in her chair. “The Keepers have split in two over control of the plugged-in bodies.” She clasped her hands and placed them in her lap. “There is a large and powerful group that struck a bargain with Emory Specter, and who've promised to maintain and protect the bodies of citizens in the App World until every last person is unplugged. They call themselves the New Capitalists. The Real World has been dealing with an economic crisis for some time now, and the New Capitalists vowed to solve it, you could say.”

My heart was beating faster. We were finally getting somewhere. “This is the first I've heard of any New Capitalists.”

The Keeper pushed her bowl away. Like it no longer appealed to her. “Their ideas are rather”—her eyes blinked up at me, then away—“drastic. There's a group of us against them. We've started to organize.” She got up to clear her dishes from the table. “Some of the seventeens that got left here have joined with us. Rain Holt is one of them,” she added casually over her shoulder.

My eyebrows arched at the mention. I got up and
followed the Keeper to the sink, my bowl in hand. “I thought you didn't like him.”

The Keeper dropped her silverware into the metal basin and it hit the bottom with a loud clatter. “Rain Holt is . . . necessary. He has connections that are useful. That we wouldn't have access to otherwise.”

I set my bowl on the kitchen counter. The mention of connections reminded me of Lacy. I wondered where she was right now and when I would see her again. “The rich always do.”

The Keeper started piling the dishes underneath the faucet and poured liquid soap over them. Then she turned on the hot water. She seemed lost in thought. I watched as soap bubbles spread across the surface of everything. I reached out and laid a hand on a large bubble that had formed over the top of a glass and it popped.

The Keeper scrubbed at the residue on a dish. Then she handed me the plate to dry. Her eyes were ringed with purple. “I know you're eager to see your family, Skylar. But I want to make sure you're ready for whatever happens. The Real World is a complicated place, far more so now than when you plugged in. There are changes that you may find difficult to accept.”

I rubbed the dishrag in circles along the smooth white surface, then set the plate carefully on top of the stack of clean ones, wanting her to tell me more. “What are you trying to say?”

The Keeper handed me a glass. When I grasped it, she held on. Her fingers were wet and soapy from the water in the sink. “If I were you,” she said, her eyes intense on mine, “I'd be very careful. If your family knew where you were, the outcome would not be good. You'd be in danger. Ask Rain, he'll tell you—” she started, lips parted, about to say something else, but then she closed her mouth, her sentence unfinished.

She let go of the glass.

I felt like I'd been punched. How could my mother and sister be a danger? How could I give up on my plans to see my family? I searched for the right words to respond, but they didn't come. In the silence, the Keeper turned away, dried her hands, and set the towel on the counter. Then she went into the living room. Before she disappeared, something slipped from the cuff of her sweater and settled soundlessly into the thick carpet. I saw the bright glint of silver.

A key.

When I was sure she was gone, I picked it up and tucked it away.

ADAM WAS RUNNING.

I could see him far off ahead, his bare feet slapping against the ground, sending clouds of dirt billowing up with each step. Or maybe it was sand. It was white and powdery. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt. I watched him approach a hill covered with tall grass, nearing a bend. Once he rounded it, I wouldn't be able to see him anymore, and I wanted to go to him, to shout his name and get his attention, but I couldn't move or speak. A seagull called out overhead.

Adam stopped suddenly, just before he was about to disappear. He turned back, both hands beckoning me toward him. “Come on, Skye! Hurry!”

His words sped toward me so fast I thought they might knock me over. I tried to reply, but I didn't seem to have a voice, couldn't control my body, my arms and legs held in place, refusing to move.

Adam waited, watching me. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Don't be scared!” he shouted. “You won't go through this alone!”

Go through what?
I wanted to yell.
Have you seen my mother?
I tried to call.
My sister?
Each word echoed in my heart.
Then I felt a new presence. Breathing, long and slow and steady. I turned around and jumped back, startled.

The Keeper. She was standing so close, shaking her head. “I'm afraid for you, Skylar,” she said. “The Real World is dangerous for a girl with your face.”

“What's wrong with my face?” I asked her, this time able to speak.

“Ask your sister.”

“Ask her what?”

The Keeper didn't answer. She continued shaking her head, watching me with pity, or maybe sadness. I gripped her shoulders with my hands. Leaned toward her and screamed with all my might. “Tell me what's wrong with my face! Tell me what's happened to Jude!”

My eyes flew open, my breath ragged.

I looked around.

I was in my tiny room, lying sideways across the narrow bed. I'd fallen asleep on top of the sheets.

The word
face
reverberated around me, followed by
Jude
. Maybe I'd yelled out loud in my dream. Sweat covered my skin, soaked my nightclothes and the hair at the back of my neck. I swung my legs around to the floor, the cool wood a relief against the bottoms of my feet. I leaned forward, rubbed my hands across my eyes, my cheek, my mouth, my brow. Everything felt normal, but the dream left me shaking.

I got up and traded my nightshirt for a tank top and leggings. Slipped my feet into the sandals the Keeper had given me to wear around the house. Gathered my hair into a knot to get it out of my face. Then I took the key from the place I'd hidden it under the mattress. The edges were jagged in my hand.

Bad dream or no, it was time to get out of here.

I crept into the living room and went to the door I knew led to the outside. I tried the key in the lock, hoping it would work, but it didn't fit.

I'd have to go out another way.

I went to the only other door where I thought the key might work—the one that opened on to the rest of the mansion. When I reached it, I stopped.

Everything was so silent.

The Keeper had to be asleep.

This time the key slid easily into the lock. I heard the bolt open, and pulled the key out again, tucking it into the band of my leggings. I turned the knob on the door,
and it swung wide, the hinges moaning low and mournful. Somewhere in one of the rooms ahead, there had to be a way outside. The Keeper might not think I was ready to go into the Real World, but I knew that I was.

Quietly, I closed the door behind me and headed deeper into the mansion.

For the first few minutes I stumbled around in the darkness. I walked through the first room, then the second, trailing my finger along the backs of dusty chairs and couches covered in old white sheets, my eyes passing across tall gold lamps and delicate china vases. Everything was covered in grime.

Then a breath escaped me into the thick, musty air, and I halted.

I'd come upon a woman.

Dead. Headless.

Dressed for a ball.

I flipped a switch on the wall and a light came on.

The stark white glow of the woman's skin was pale—too pale, even for someone used to the standard Caucasian 4.0 of App World citizens. I went to her lifeless form, touched the smooth round top of the neck.

A mannequin.

The gown she displayed was unfinished. Pins, blackened with age, still held pieces of it together, ribbons streamed down the side, and a long measuring tape was draped across one shoulder. Yards of satin with a
structured skirt that belled wide enough for someone to hide underneath it. The color was impossible to discern, the fabric faded until it was nearly gray. I reached out to touch it, but my finger poked right through the delicate material—it was so old it was nearly disintegrating. I snatched my hand back, not wanting to do any more damage. Even though this place was abandoned, it felt wrong to spoil what was here any further. These were the remnants of someone's life. A woman's life.

I turned.

Hanging along the far wall were more ball gowns, some of them big and elaborate like the one on the mannequin, and others elegant slim attire for a dinner or maybe a cocktail party. These were grayed with age, too, and sagging heavily, as though it wouldn't be long before they would give up trying to stay on their hangers.

They must have been beautiful once.

Inara would love this.

This thought crept through my mind, a painful whisper.

I tore my gaze from the dresses. Swallowed around the thick lump that formed in my throat. I was wasting time. The possibility of escape, of gulping real fresh air into my lungs, pressed in on me. There was a door at the other end of the room and I went to it, passing through without looking back, continuing on through the mansion, trying to get my bearings. I moved down a long,
narrow hallway and descended a series of three steps where the floor dipped. Like the other rooms, this one was dark. There were no windows and the curtains were shut tight. Great swaths of wallpaper, once grand and colorful, had peeled away near the ceiling, hanging overhead like ragged archways. The floor creaked underfoot, the wood dull and caked with grime when once it had surely shined. At the far end of the hall there was another set of doors, tall and ornate. I wondered if they led somewhere special, into the parts of the mansion where the family who originally owned it used to live and entertain their guests a century ago.

I stopped before a different door that was cut into the wall to my left. For some reason I longed to go through it.

My heart pounded.

It was like my body, my mind—maybe both—knew something I didn't.

I opened it, the hinges creaking through the silence, and flipped another switch on the wall. Everything was bathed in the soft light of a chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling. Like the other rooms, this one was packed full of furniture covered in cloths to protect it, everything dusty and grayed, but there was one new thing that drew my attention. A tall mirror was propped against the far wall. Its frame, once gilded, was blackened with age, some of the carvings along its edge broken, flowers missing petals, or half a leaf. My mind caught on what the
Keeper had said in the dream about my face.

I went to the mirror and stood before it, the surface smooth and silvery like water, like someone had recently cleaned it.

I stared and stared.

There was a familiarity in the wide mouth I saw there, the small nose, the curve of the jaw. The cheeks had a rosy flush and the lips were full, the skin smooth, the same golden tone people had after they downloaded the Caribbean Vacation App. It was the eyes that told me the truth, however. I zeroed in on their blue color, like the sky in my name. Almond shaped. I would always recognize those eyes. I ran a finger down my cheek and the girl in the mirror did too.

“That's me,” I whispered, watching how the words happened on my lips.

I hadn't seen my real face since I plugged in. Until the dream last night I hadn't really wondered what I looked like, whether the appearance of my body would be that much different from the virtual self I was used to at home.

It was.

Similar enough that I recognized myself, but different all the same.

It's strange how the real body can make a person seem . . . changed.

There was nothing wrong with my face. Nothing extraordinary about it either. It was just a face, like any
other. I was just a girl, like any other. And the dream was just that: a dream. A strange one, but still a dream.

Quickly, so quickly it passed through me like the faintest of breaths, I wondered how anyone would want to disown the body, be liberated from it. But to be released from the burden of the body was the mark of total transcendence at home. What I used to believe everyone in the Real World aspired to as well.

I turned around and walked back into the hallway. This time I went through the ornate set of doors I'd noticed before, wanting to see where they led.

Soon I was in a ballroom. Whoever used to live here must have once worn those elaborate gowns in here, while people drank and ate and gossiped and fell in love until the wee hours of the morning. The opulence of this place was stunning. Filigreed moldings, once painted gold but now tarnished and falling apart, lined the walls and fixtures. The air smelled vaguely sharp and sweet, like the remnants of spilled perfume. The scent seemed fitting, since I was sure elegant, perfumed ladies once twirled across this floor, leaving trails of jasmine and lilac in their wake as they danced. A great chandelier had crashed in the center of the room, a mountain of glass rising up from the floor. The heap of crystal was taller than me, its round metal top bent inward, five thick broken chains dangling from it helplessly. The ceiling was far away, maybe three stories up. Painted across it were frescoes of angels
cavorting with women and men. Hands, feet, the tail of a cloak or the tip of a wing had peeled away.

I thought of Inara again.

If she were here, she'd wish for an App that would let her fly up and examine the scenery above, studying the angels, just as she would have wanted to try on each and every dress I'd seen in the other room. The lump that had earlier formed in my throat seemed to lodge in my center, squeezing against my heart.

I missed her.

But now she hated me.

Other thoughts jostled for attention. My mother, my sister, my reasons for being in the Real World. A pale glow seeped across the floor to my right, spilling from the edges of four tall brocade curtains that cloaked the enormous windows. The sun. It must be rising. To my left, I could see the outline of a series of boarded-up glass doors. Tiny triangles of soft white light spilled through their gaps, sending dusty rays across the room.

The outside.

Finally.

I rushed to the doors like someone was chasing me, pulling and pulling at one of the wide wood panels with my hands, trying to rip it free. A long, sharp splinter broke from the edge, stabbing deep into the side of my finger. I yelped, jumping back. My breaths came in ragged gasps as I stared at the wooden needle piercing that tender flesh,
watching as blood bubbled up around it and turned it black.

I closed my eyes and yanked at the splinter.

“Yuhhhhh,”
I screamed, the pain of it thick and throbbing. I pulled the splinter out and tossed it onto the floor. I went into the next room and grabbed a sheet from one of the chairs. It dragged behind me as I returned to the boarded-up door. Using my teeth, I tore two strips from it, wrapped them around my hands to protect my skin, the blood from my finger dotting the fabric.

No matter what I did, the door wouldn't budge.

I went to retrieve a long iron poker I'd seen a few rooms back, lying next to a stone fireplace that took up an entire wall. The metal was heavy and cold as I carried it. I wedged it between the board and the outside door, pulling on the end. The nails groaned and squealed against the force. Then there came a great crack. All but the very edge of the wood broke away.

The door was comprised of a series of small rectangular glass windows, blackened with layers of dirt. One of the panels at the bottom was broken. I crouched down on my hands and knees, bending my head low.

Air.

It tickled my skin, a million tiny hairs on end all across my arms. I closed my eyes, letting it rush across my cheek, the wind winding gently through my hair. I inhaled, long and deep. The tangy smell of salt, of seaweed, hit hard.

The ocean?

I opened my eyes and took another breath.

Yes. It had to be. I knew that smell, knew it from the Apps and from my dreams, from the time I was small and my mother and sister and I spent our days by the sea. The smell was like its own strange memory, one without words but still powerful. All this time with the Keeper, I'd been next to the ocean, this place I so longed for in my heart that it seemed to sing to me in my dreams. I peered through the opening in the glass, wanting evidence of the sand and the waves, but from this crouched position, it was difficult to see much. There was grass, though. I saw the beginnings of what looked to be a lawn, wild and unkempt and moving in the breeze. It led up to a series of steps and some sort of white marble esplanade that extended all the way to the door. Vines grew across it in places, cracking through its surface. I held my breath and tried to listen, hoping to hear the waves, but there was nothing. Just the
shhhh
of wind across the grass.

I got up, brushing the dirt from my hands and knees. Once I passed through this door I would be in the world. I would be able to search for my family, to find Adam and even Lacy if I needed to, and Rain—I would find him first, so I could make him tell me what the Keeper wouldn't. Everything I wanted awaited me just a few steps away. I closed my eyes. Gripped the knob.

But then I thought about the cuts and bruises I'd gotten
when I unplugged, the intense dream I'd had before waking up here. A crowd. A cliff. A dive. A boat. The long splinter I'd removed from my hand caught my eye, and I thought of the dagger I'd plunged into the heart of that guard. And the blood, all that blood that spilled from his body.