Unplugged (17 page)

I sat up on the dais.

Studied it.

There was the place in the rock where I'd loosed the knife. I'd plunged that stone dagger into a guard, a person, a flesh-and-blood body with the capacity to be hurt, to shatter, to be wounded beyond repair. To be struck dead.

I stared at my hands. They were so small. Lines cut across my palms and the tender sides of my fingers, some of them so tiny they were nearly imperceptible, others deep and wide like gullies in my skin. Horror spread through me. In what I'd thought was a game, a dream, had I become a murderer? I swallowed back something acidic. Maybe I
was
a criminal. Maybe that was why the Keeper said I was unsafe, why she came to me in my dream to warn me about my face, because people in the Real World knew it, because I was a wanted girl. Maybe that was why Jonathan Holt appeared to me in Odyssey, because he knew I was a threat to others. Maybe my mother and
my sister wouldn't want to see me because they were ashamed of who I was and of what I was capable of doing. Maybe they'd been there that day. Maybe this was what the Keeper meant when she said I should rethink finding my family. Maybe they'd turn me in to the authorities because they'd seen what I was capable of with their own eyes.

I climbed down from the dais and started to run.

I barely remember seeing anything at all as I flew from the peninsula toward the city, barefoot, sandals gripped in my right hand, tunic rippling and rising to the tops of my thighs as my legs pumped, one in front of the other. That stark, rough arrow of land at the point of the island couldn't recede fast enough. The trees that walled the city were ahead of me one moment, then behind me the next. I didn't even notice passing through them, or crossing the first wide empty boulevard that circled the city's outskirts, my body overtaken by something else, maybe instinct, capable of flight when it was required.

Something strange was happening inside of me.

My brain guided my feet, just like Lacy's App had guided my virtual self through Loner Town. But to where? To my mother and sister? It was like that GPS was still working, like somehow it hadn't dissipated once the download was over and had traveled with me as I crossed from one world to the other. Had Lacy tampered with our brains to make this happen? Was it happening with Adam too?

I slowed my pace, panting. Slipped my sandals back onto my feet.

Had someone been experimenting on me?

Could the plugs have . . . changed me? That night at Appless Bar, Lacy had spoken of rumors that being plugged in was altering our brains and our relationships to our bodies.

Could she have been right?

I stopped next to a tiny, narrow house that once must have gleamed a bright shiny green, but now the paint was nearly chipped away. My lungs burned like someone had tossed a lit match inside them, my breaths heaving as I gulped the warm air. I started along the sidewalk, my eyes on the Water Tower, which touched the blue of the sky. I gave my entire body over to whatever was happening in my mind, let my brain guide my feet and my direction. The moment I'd set eyes on that dais a hole had burned through my center, hollowing everything out.

Grass grew up through the cracks in the concrete, the bottoms of my sandals thwacking the pavement. There were potholes in the street the size of craters and I sidestepped them to avoid tripping. Eventually the wooden houses gave way to taller and taller structures. The closer I got to the city center, the more it seemed to wake from the slumber of its outskirts, the windows of the buildings clean and gleaming as opposed to grimy and boarded up, the flowers and greenery pruned and thriving as opposed
to wild and overgrown. Solar panels flashed as they drank in the light and windmills rose up everywhere like dandelions in a vast city field. The stormy, briny smell of the ocean permeated the streets, the breeze thick with it. Soon I began to see people. At first it was just a couple here and there like on the cliff. A man way ahead crossing the street. Two women holding hands, heading into a small park thick with trees. But then I turned a corner and suddenly there were people everywhere. Behind me. In front of me. To my left and my right. Not a single one had a face or body altered by an App. There were no supermodels walking down the street or kids caught mid-download as they turned into dragons. People actually looked one another in the eyes as they passed. They paid attention to each other, nodding their heads, some of them saying hello.

My hand automatically reached for the scarf, pulling it up over my hair and across my face.

I searched the crowd for anyone I might recognize, for one of the seventeens who got left on this side of the border, but so far there was nothing. A number of women wore scarves around their heads and pulled up over their faces, the men with wide masks across their noses and mouths. Most everyone I saw wore the same uniform as my Keeper, but there were also women in long, sleeveless dresses smiling up at the sun, and men in short-sleeved T-shirts and loose pants, the exposed parts of their skin a
golden tan. Children ran around in shorts and shouted to one another. Everyone, regardless of their attire, wore the same thong sandals, as though these were the only shoes left in this world.

All that talk of division among the Keepers, of war, yet these people seemed happy.

The city was at peace. Idyllic even.

Not a single car rumbled down the street or honked its horn. Everyone was walking. I was taking this in when someone bumped into me so hard I nearly fell down. My heart raced, my pulse signaling danger.

An old man reached out his arm to steady me. He had wild gray hair and a long gray beard. “Excuse me,” he said.

I jerked away from him, heart still pounding. “It's okay,” I managed, my words muffled by the fabric across my mouth. He cocked his head. Deep lines were etched into his face, around his eyes and across his forehead. I relaxed a little, wishing I hadn't been so rude.

“You seem lost,” he said.

I shook my head. “I'm headed to the library,” I said, startling myself as these unplanned words leapt from my mouth. Once they were out, I knew they were true. That was where my feet had been taking me. I wondered what I'd find there.

“You're not far.” The man turned and pointed. “Four blocks that way, then it will be on your left. You can't miss
it. There's a park behind it. Sea serpents guard the front. Not real ones, though. Don't worry.” I think he smiled underneath that thick gray beard.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Have a good day.” He bowed his head a bit and seemed about to move on, but then he placed a hand on my upper arm, his fingers curling around it, and looked at me again, really looked. Peered into my eyes. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

For a second, I froze. Then quickly I said, “No,” jerking out of his grip and hurrying away, crossing the street into the shade. I glanced back and saw him standing there, watching me make my way down the block. The heads of others turned as I rushed by. I reached the next corner, my lungs working hard. My body was sweating underneath my clothing and I didn't like the stickiness covering my body. I raced down three more blocks and stopped.

Next to me was a park full of parents and children playing.

“You're it!” shouted a little girl before she ran from the others and hid behind one of the tall leafy trees that lined the perimeter, its branches bending and reaching toward the sky. Keepers sat in pairs on stone benches, some of them with their arms around each other. A couple of girls, maybe not much older than me, were in bathing suits, lying out on towels in the sun. Mrs. Worthington would faint if she saw the risks they took with their skin. A few
people with their heads covered scolded them as they walked by.

Beyond the park was the library. It spanned the length of a block, and was much shorter than the buildings around it, but it seemed more immense somehow, and certainly far more beautiful. It was constructed of white marble, and laced along its walls were huge arching windows. The sun gleamed bright against the glass. I made my way to it, up the long block and around the corner toward the front. I saw the two sea serpents guarding it, just like the man had said. The sea dragons roared up over the crests of marble waves, their claws curling out above the water, their backs and the tops of their heads a line of razor-sharp scales. Their teeth were bared. They were at once magical and fearsome, as though to remind everyone that what lay within these walls was the stuff of myth. Immense winding trees grew on either side of the dragons and a wide staircase led up to an entrance marked by columns.

Just like in the crowded park, people sat on the steps out front, eating and enjoying the sun. A few boys played around one of the sea dragons. I could hear the way they roared, trying to mimic the animal's sound. People passed in and out of the library's doors, many of them clutching thick bound volumes of paper in their hands or under their arms.

Books. The old kind.

I'd never seen one before—not a real one. Not even as a child.

By the time I was born, books had become obsolete. With the invention of the plugs, stories and knowledge were downloaded instantly to the brain via the Apps. It hadn't occurred to me that real books might still exist. Maybe with the technology ban in the Real World, the Keepers had no other choice but to resort to the old ways of learning.

I pulled the tunic away from my body and shook it, trying to create a breeze over my sweaty skin. Then I started up the steps one at a time. They were smooth and slippery under my feet. At one point I crouched down to slide my hand along the surface, which felt like hardened liquid under my palm. A huge bug crawled out of one of the cracks in the stairs, all legs and wavy antennae, and my hand retracted.

“It's just a beetle,” said a woman sitting to my right, eating her lunch. She laughed. “It won't hurt you.”

“I know.” But I couldn't stop staring at it. This morning the song of the crickets and now this. We didn't have bugs in the App World. They were considered an unnecessary nuisance and one of the many things we'd overcome by plugging in. I tore my eyes from it, glancing at the woman, nervous she was studying me like the old man had, but she'd gone back to eating her sandwich. I continued the rest of the way up the steps, and took a moment to lean
against one of the pillars, suddenly overwhelmed. It was one thing to wander the mansion, and another to walk around all of New Port City.

A murmur rippled across everyone around me.

I looked up, searching for the source of the disturbance.

A group of women and men dressed in blue uniforms and heavy-soled black boots were walking down the street in front of the library, their footsteps loud against the concrete. Guards. I remembered them from the peninsula, the color of their clothing a blue I normally adored.

They were stopping people randomly. Talking to them.

Staring at them.

I swallowed hard. It was one of them that I might have killed. I watched now as a male guard halted a woman dressed like me, with a scarf around her head and across her face. She shook her head. She obviously didn't want to do whatever they'd asked. The man in the guard's uniform placed his hand on something at his waist.

A gun.

The murmurs around me grew more pronounced.

The woman reached for the end of her scarf, unraveling it from her face. It fell away, gently floating to the ground. The guard studied her. Got close to her face, then stepped away, the heel of his black boot grinding the scarf into the concrete. Another guard, also with a gun at her hip, came over to consult. They both stared at the woman
as though she were an object they might like to buy, or a display item in a museum.

The woman began to cry.

Finally, the guards shook their heads and moved on.

The crowd on the steps seemed to hold their breath until the group of men and women in blue disappeared down the street. Then they let out great sighs of relief. A man went to the crying woman and picked up her scarf from the ground. He brushed it against his pants, trying to clean off the dirt. The woman, still weeping, turned in my direction. It was then that I could better take in her age, her face, her overall appearance. She was younger than I'd imagined. Long black hair, golden skin. She wiped her eyes with her hands. Even from the place I stood I could see that they were a bright, piercing blue.

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

My stomach, my heart, my insides seemed to fall through my body to the ground.

The girl, she looked like me.

AROUND ME, PEOPLE
returned to their lunches and chatted once more with their neighbors. The stream of Keepers heading in and out of the library started up again. My heart began to slow. The resemblance I shared with the girl in the street was probably a coincidence. We had the same features, but aside from that, we looked nothing alike.

I joined the crowd heading inside the building. Got behind a man holding the hand of a small child. He opened the door for his son. Then he looked at me. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” I was nervous, but he turned away quickly and I walked on through.

The library was bustling. People walked about with purpose, traveling up and down the staircase to my left. The sound of paper rustling was everywhere. Long rectangular tables stretched across the room in lines, reading lamps spaced along the surface. Keepers sat before them, books open, noses buried. One of them kept running her finger from left to right, left to right across the page.

The windows edging the top of the building invited the sun through the glass in beautiful, thick rays. The ceiling was so high I could picture birds in flight, zooming across and tucking themselves into the rafters. There were paintings, too, like in the ballroom of the mansion, frescoes with scholars wrapped in colorful robes splashed across the walls. While above me was an open, airy world of beauty and light, down below past the crowded tables was a jumbled maze of towering shelves, metal ladders attached for climbing. Someone teetered atop the highest rung of one of them, reaching for a book. She grabbed it and remained at that same height reading it, as though she did this all the time, as though she knew no fear of falling.

A woman in gray came up to me. Her skin was as dark as my Keeper's, her hair pulled back from her face. She was smiling. “Can I help you find something?”

“I'm just looking,” I said from behind my scarf.

“Well, I'm here if you need anything,” she said, and
turned to answer someone else who'd come up to her with a question.

I headed toward the maze of shelves, waiting for my internal GPS to kick in. Maybe it had stopped working. I didn't feel pulled in any direction, really. Well, that's not true. I felt pulled in
every
direction. Toward all the books. They covered every surface, overflowing, like someone had tried to store all the texts of the Real World in this one place. They were lined up neatly side by side and shoved haphazardly into wobbling stacks, wedged into every available nook. Some had toppled to the ground in places, creating hills that dotted the walkways. There were even piles on the floor. So many stories and so many words, each one individually set out in lines on pages to be digested one by one.

It seemed so odd. Such a slow way of learning.

Apps sped life up, changing things constantly, updating and altering people and objects so they were no longer recognizable. Icons whizzed by your ears and eyes and bumped up against you, but here everything just waited there, solid and patient, for you to notice it.

I sat down on the floor, the smooth stone underneath me, stretched out my legs, and rested my back against a tightly packed shelf. I plucked the first book from the top of a nearby pile and weighed it in my hands. It was heavy, the cover hard enough that I could knock on it like it was
made of wood. Then I remembered it
was
made of wood.

Across the spine, the words
The Subtle Knife
were stamped in gold.

I opened it.

There were so many pages packed together. I couldn't imagine having to read them all, one by one. I ran my hand across the paper. It was creamy and soft, not at all like the sharp edges of an information download hitting the brain. I flipped forward and there they were, more words, hundreds of them strung together in line after line. I pulled the scarf from my face and began to read aloud.
“
‘And Lyra realized with a jolt of sickness what was happening: the man was being attacked by Specters.'” I started at the name.
Specter
. Brought the book closer. Read on as this demon-like creature sucked the soul out of a man until he was lifeless, though not dead. Cut the spark right out of his eyes.

Maybe that was how Emory Specter got his name.

A man who severed us from our bodies until all the spark from our minds had gone out, as though the soul was always a virtual thing that didn't need the body, that could be projected elsewhere and still thrive.

“Excuse me,” said a voice from above.

Two feet were planted on the floor next to me. Black, thick-soled boots. The book in my hands fell to the ground with a thump. I looked up. My instincts had been right.
My mind and my body did know how to find things, find people, even when I wasn't trying, even when it was my family I wanted instead.

Rain Holt was standing there, staring down at me.

Nearly all my memories of Rain from the App World were of him hanging out with people like Lacy Mills or Lila Dellman, living his ridiculous, rich-boy life. But I did have one other one—a single experience that was different from the rest. It nagged at me now.

I'd been gaming at the time. I'd downloaded the Mount Everest App, partly because it required so little capital and partly because I loved climbing. Originally, it was supposed to be this wildly popular Adventure App, but it ended up a spectacular failure. Reaching the summit took perseverance and a willingness to be alone with your thoughts. Getting to the top might offer a thrill, but the getting there made people give up. Plus, it was snowy and dark a lot. That's why the App was so cheap.

One time I was picking my way through the snow and ice on the side of the mountain, careful to manage my breathing, when I saw that I wasn't alone.

There was a boy up ahead.

I was surprised to see someone. In an attempt to fix the existential-angst problem of the App, the designers made it so you could scale the mountain with other people.
You'd see whoever else was playing at the same time as you. Even this update wasn't enough to save the game, and I almost never saw anyone else when I was in it.

He was all bundled up, sitting on the very tip of this ice ledge that stuck out from the mountain, his legs dangling over an abyss so vast and deep that if he slipped—even though it was just an App—the drop alone would definitely rattle his code for a good long while. I was afraid to startle him, so I stayed put. I figured I'd wait until he came down from the ledge before heading past. I didn't mind. The sky was a bright, cold blue, and the sun reflected off the snow and ice in such a way that all the nearby mountains were shining. After a while, I began to wonder if the boy was thinking of jumping. Suicide was impossible in the App World, but there were approximations of it, and word got around when people tried. But eventually, the boy got up and moved away from the edge of the ice, and finally, off the ledge altogether.

He stopped when he saw me there.

We nodded at each other as he passed, and that's when I realized two things.

The boy was Rain Holt—there was no doubt about it. I'd recognize him anywhere, even buried under all that gear. To meet up with him in a game like this was startling enough, but it was the second thing that surprised me even more.

His eyes were wet with tears.

Then he went on his way and I went mine.

Rain paled as he took me in, sitting there on the floor. His face flickered with recognition.

My memories of him warred with one another. The Rain I knew best—that all of us knew best—was the playboy prince. But I couldn't shake that other boy I'd seen on the mountain. Technically, it was only one tiny instance against the backdrop of so many other things. Yet there was something that made it significant at this very moment, here in the library. Maybe it explained more about Rain than all the other memories combined. I'd never told Inara about meeting him in the game, partly because I knew she'd roll her eyes and say the opportunity was wasted on me, that she should be so lucky as to meet Rain alone like that. But even telling my best friend seemed wrong. I had no allegiance to Rain, but I could tell when I'd witnessed something private.

Rain's eyes darted everywhere before he crouched down next to me. “What are you doing here?” he hissed in a tone that said it was Rain the Crown Prince in front of me.

I felt a flicker of disappointment. “How about we start with introductions? I'm Skylar Cruz,” I said overly politely. “And you're Rain Holt.”

There was a stack of books in Rain's arms and he set
them aside. I saw how Rain's eyes were big and green, with brown flecks, like the grass and the earth.

“You shouldn't even be in this world,” he said.

I jerked backward, stung. The pads of my fingers pressed hard into the cold floor, as though I could push through it. “I'm here in this world because of you,” I told him. “I'm supposed to convince you to go back to the App World,” I added, nearly choking on this absurd string of words.

Rain started, seemed repulsed by my mention of home. He turned away, staring down the length of the aisle. “Lacy doesn't get to decide my future.”

I blinked at him. “You know about Lacy?”

Rain shifted, his eyes sweeping all around us. “Your Keeper is crazy to let you out,” he answered, avoiding my question.

I lifted my chin. “My Keeper doesn't know where I am.”

Rain's brow furrowed. His lips parted slightly. He shifted closer, until his face, his mouth, was only inches from mine. He studied me, as though he was looking for something in my face.

Maybe there
was
something wrong with it.

“If your Keeper didn't send you, then how—” Rain started, when someone passed through the aisle. He put a finger to his lips. “Let's go somewhere private,” he whispered. Then he held out his hand to help me up off the
floor. Stretched his fingers toward me. “It's not safe for us to talk here.”

I stared at him. Rain Holt, the
real
Rain Holt, was offering to take my hand. This should be happening to Inara. Someone who could appreciate the gesture.

But it was happening to me.

“Come on,” he said, impatient. “And cover your face.”

Reluctantly, I pulled the scarf across my nose and mouth and slid my hand into his. Rain's palm was warm with the heat of the day, but something about his skin sent a shiver through me. The touch was over in a second. When I was standing he let go, beckoning me to follow.

“Tell me something first,” I began, choosing my next words carefully. “When you said I shouldn't be in this world, what did you mean?”

Rain turned back, his eyes on me. They traveled from my toes over my legs and torso up to my face. Then he cleared his throat. “My father was the one who planted the idea with Lacy to unplug. He knew he could use her. Lacy is . . . lonely. And more complicated than you might imagine.”

As we stood there, watching each other, I considered Rain's words about Lacy, how I'd seen glimpses of another Lacy underneath all that meanness, a version of Lacy I might even be able to relate to someday. I nodded at Rain in reply. Wondered how much history he and Lacy really shared.

“The mind is easy to hack when you're the Prime Minister,” Rain went on, returning to the subject of his father, his voice hushed. “A lot of things are easy, like communicating with your son between worlds and trying to get him to come home.” He dropped this like it should be obvious. “Lacy got in touch with you because that's what my father wanted,” he added. “Because he needed you for his plans, too.”

I shook my head. That the Prime Minister would need Lacy seemed plausible, but that he would need me seemed outlandish. “You make it sound like I'm supposed to be here.”

Rain looked away. He shifted from one foot to the other. “Skylar, my father sent you to this world to die.”

I tried to swallow. My throat was full of dust. “Your father wanted me dead?”

Slowly, he turned back. “Not exactly. It was more . . . he knew that unplugging would likely lead to your death.” There was apology in his eyes. “That you're still alive is unexpected. I've wondered if my father is relieved or more concerned about the repercussions of it.” He drew in a deep breath and continued on. “Me and some of the other seventeens went to the cliff that day to see if we could help, but when we got there, you were already in the process of rescuing yourself.” The way Rain stared now, with approval, maybe even admiration, seemed to shine a light on me.

This Rain reminded me of the boy from the mountain.

I suddenly understood what Inara meant when she talked about the power he held over her. I could see it so clearly, how this could happen, how he could do that to a girl. I did my best to shake it off. I didn't like the thought of being under Rain Holt's spell. I had my family to find, and I didn't need to get caught up with the boy whose father apparently wanted to kill me.

But when again Rain said, “Come with me and we'll talk,” and extended his hand, this time I didn't hesitate. I reached back and let him take mine into his.

Gently he pulled me forward.

Rain took me to a room with a sign outside that said
Rare Books Collection
. The smell was musty and old. More dusty books were packed floor to ceiling. It felt like we'd traveled back to another time. There was a table at the center of everything.

I pulled out a chair and sat down. Stared at the rough wood. “I saw your father before I unplugged during Odyssey. The same game where I saw you.” I raised my eyes to meet Rain's. “It wasn't my imagination. That really happened.”

Rain nodded.

“What does your father have against me? I've never done anything to hurt him.” I wanted to add,
or hurt anyone
, but that wasn't true anymore, so I swallowed those words back.

Rain leaned against the table. His fingers curled around the edge. There were cuts and scrapes along his skin. “His original intent wasn't to hurt you. But it became clear that if you were allowed to unplug, you'd be in danger. That you probably wouldn't make it through . . . the process.” Rain ran a hand down the side of his face. He suddenly seemed tired. “What you did on the cliff surprised everyone.”