Unplugged (18 page)

I closed my eyes a moment. “I wanted it not to be real. I was hoping it was a dream.” I slumped in the chair and thought back to that first day. The dais, the audience, the dive into the water. I remembered the feel of Rain's arms pulling me into the boat. My wet hair soaking his shirt through. “I thought I was in a game. I thought I was still between worlds.”

Rain's lips were a straight line, his brow furrowed. “Adrenaline is a powerful thing. When it kicks in, it allows the body to do all sorts of things it's supposedly not capable of doing.” His eyes held mine. “But it still doesn't add up. You shouldn't have been able to find your way to me today without the Keeper telling you where I am, either.”

I got up and went to the wall of shelves behind me. A row of books covered in animal skins—leather, I think it used to be called—stared out at me, and I shivered with disgust. I ran a finger across their spines and it came away black with dust. “I killed someone,” I whispered. “Was it
adrenaline that helped me stab a guard in the heart?”

Rain stood behind me. “You did what you had to,” he said. “If you hadn't stabbed that guard, you might not have survived. We barely got to you in time.”

“You keep saying we. Who's we?” I asked. “Are you a New Capitalist?”

“No,” he responded forcefully, the single word echoing against the bookshelves. “At first they wanted me on their side.” Rain adjusted the neck of his shirt. The heat was stifling. “They showed you to me once, while you were plugged in. Left me there with you so I could consider their plans. That must have been when you were playing Odyssey. I was standing there when you opened your eyes. It was like you knew I was with you.” The tired look fell away from Rain's face. “Like you'd woken from the plugs, but without anyone unplugging you first.” Rain hesitated. “My father wanted to make an example of you.”

I wrapped my arms around my head and groaned in frustration. “That doesn't make any sense. I'm just a Single. Singles don't matter to anyone.”

Rain's eyes were sad. “Not here,” he said. “And in the Real World you're important to the New Capitalists. To those of us who are against them. People know who you are, Skylar.”

I placed both hands flat against the table and leaned into them for support. Looked up at Rain. “Is that why I was up on that cliff with all of those people watching? Is
something wrong with me?” I thought about what I'd seen before entering the library, a chill flowing across my skin. “Are there guards looking for me? On my way here, they were marching down the streets, checking people. There was this girl. They made her take off her scarf and she . . . she looked like me.” I resisted the urge to wrap my arms around my middle.

Rain's eyes bored into me. “What happened on the cliff was a public event. A celebration thrown by the New Capitalists. All of New Port City was there.”

I swallowed. “The whole city?”

He nodded. “Yes. They, ah, they came in shifts.” He put out a hand to steady me, as though he expected I might fall. “The New Capitalists struck a deal with Emory Specter. It has to do with the plugged-in bodies. The Race for the Cure.” Rain looked at me like I should understand what he meant by now, but I didn't. Not at all. I couldn't speak. “You were chosen as their example,” he went on. “They needed a body to display, a body that was symbolic of their deal with the App World. You were up on that dais because the New Capitalists put you on exhibit.”

The room seemed to spin. “I was an exhibit?”

“You asked before if there was something wrong with you, but there's nothing wrong, Skylar,” he said. “Haven't you looked in the mirror? Seen the real you?”

I nodded. “I did. Today.”

“So then you know,” Rain said.

I raised my shoulders in a single shrug. “Know what?”

Rain looked at me like the answer should already be obvious. “That you're beautiful,” he said simply.

I laughed. “Me?” I thought about what I'd seen in the mirror this morning. The only remarkable thing had been that the girl looking back at me was real. I shook off Rain's comment. “Even if I was, what would beauty have to do with anything?”

“Everything.” Rain gripped my arm. He watched me as he spoke. “There are markets for bodies overseas, and the New Capitalists are about to launch the first one of its kind here. The deal with Specter allows them to sell the bodies of the plugged-in to boost the economy. Yours was to be the first.” Rain hesitated a moment. Then, “Skylar,” he went on, “they were going to auction you to the highest bidder.”

THE BLOOD SEEMED
to drain from my body. It rushed toward the bottoms of my feet. My eyelashes were wet against my cheeks. “I can't breathe,” I said. The walls were closing in. I shook off Rain's hand. It felt as though someone had downloaded an illegal Torture App into my mind. The door was right in front of me and in one second I would open it and be through. All I wanted was to get out of this musty room.

But Rain got there first. “If you go out like that, people might recognize you. It's too dangerous.”

I stood there, frozen. Now I understood why the Keeper didn't want me outside, why she was so reluctant to allow Rain to see me. She was protecting me from what
he might reveal, saving me from people who wanted to sell me for profit. Guilt flowed through me like a download. She must be so worried. I slunk back to my chair.

Rain joined me at the table. “I know this is a lot to take in, but you're not alone. Your Keeper has sworn to protect you.” Rain leaned forward. “And there's me, Skylar, and the other seventeens. We'll keep you safe. Hidden.”

I sat there a moment, contemplating this. “What if I don't want to stay hidden?”

He frowned. “You heard what I said. Imagine what the New Capitalists would do if they found you.”

I looked Rain in the eyes. “I know you have your own agenda, but you need to understand that I have one, too.” The wheels were turning in my mind. “The New Capitalists were going to sell me to the highest bidder, which is not only utterly ridiculous, it's criminal.” I shook my head in disgust. “What more information could I possibly need to realize I'm against them and everything they stand for?”

Rain opened his mouth, then closed it again. The air rushed from his lungs. He seemed to be debating something. “But it's not that simple,” he began. “There are things you don't . . .” He trailed off, uncertain.

I didn't wait for Rain to say what was on his mind. I wanted to get this out before I decided against it. “I'll make you a deal,” I told him. “If you help me find my family, if you help get them to safety, far away from the New
Capitalists, then I'll help you with whatever it is you and your friends are planning. Wouldn't it benefit your cause to reveal I was alive and well and fighting on your side?”

Rain took a step backward, leaned against the wall behind him. He shook his head. He seemed stunned by the offer. “But Skylar, that's—”

“Just hear me out,” I interrupted. I wouldn't let him say no. He had resources and I wanted access to them. “You tried to rescue me, which means I can trust you. And if you're against the New Capitalists, that means we're already on the same side. Consider the possibilities.”

Rain wouldn't look at me. He studied the calluses on his hands, the cuts and the scrapes. “It would be dangerous.”

“Up on the cliff, I showed I can take care of myself.”

“Yes, you did.” Rain started to pace back and forth across the room. It made me think of Adam, made me wish to see him, someone I knew was a friend. I could almost see Rain's thoughts spinning now, the way his eyes burned. “And it's true, we could use you. You could help us.” Rain's voice rose in excitement. “Once people hear you're on our side it would give us the advantage. There are Keepers who haven't chosen their allegiance yet and we need them with us.” The skin on Rain's face was flushed and his hand waved through the air as he talked. “And the rebellion we're planning involves more than
just the Keepers. It involves citizens in the App World and some of the seventeens who got left behind.”

I closed my eyes. The possibility of seeing people from home washed over me. That most of them were Singles like me was heartening. “Can I see them? The seventeens?”

Rain was nodding, more to himself. “Yes, you could. And we'd be able to do some tests.”

My eyebrows arched. “Some tests?”

“Just trust me,” he said. “I'll explain on our way out there. We have a place where everyone is gathered. A secret place.”

I got up from my chair. Rain and I watched each other from opposite sides of the musty room as I tried to decide on my answer. “All right,” I said finally. “I'm in.”

A slow smile spread across Rain's face.

“All right,” he said. “Me, too.”

I took a step closer.

So did Rain. “I'll come for you at your Keeper's in the early morning, before the sun rises. It will be easier for us to get out of the city that way. Less conspicuous.”

I took another step, so Rain and I were face-to-face. “Okay. But let's be clear. I'll join your cause, and in exchange, you'll use your resources to help find my family.”

Rain's smile slipped. He hesitated a moment. But then whatever had given him pause fell away and he nodded.

This time, I was the one who reached out my hand. “Deal?”

Rain held my gaze. Clasped my hand in his. “Deal.”

The library was still bustling as we moved through it, people coming in and out of the doors, the sun shining through each time someone opened one of them. I turned to say good-bye to Rain, but he was so close behind me we nearly crashed into each other.

He frowned. “I'll walk you back to the Keeper's. She must be worried sick about you. She's going to be angry, too.”

I let the scarf slip lower so I could speak. “I got here on my own. I can get back on my own too.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You're stubborn, you know that? If you're not careful, that's going to get you in trouble.”

“No, I'm determined to find my family,” I corrected. “They're two different things. And it's my determination that's going to help your cause.”

He shook his head. Then he shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.”

I studied Rain again, the way his eyes flashed when he spoke to me. This was the Rain Holt I'd seen on the mountaintop, the Rain who would stand up to his father and rescue me, the one who'd rebel against the horrifying plans of the New Capitalists. It was so easy to get caught
up in his words and his passion. For a brief moment, I saw what made the Under Eighteens swoon over him at home.

“You're not at all how I imagined you'd be,” I said.

Exhaustion flickered across Rain's face, so quickly I almost missed it. Then a lopsided grin appeared to replace it. “I probably don't want to know what you imagined about me from the App World, do I?”

“No, actually.” I shook my head, my hand already grabbing the end of the scarf to pull it higher across my face. “You don't.”

I managed to get back to the mansion without anyone paying me undue attention. My eyes wanted to close even as I put one foot in front of the other. It was strange how the body could command rest, protesting further use by beginning to shutdown, the mind powerless to its needs. I passed the brightly colored roses, the trees with leaves like teardrops falling toward the ground, and the sea, the smell of it drenching the air. As I neared the door I had slipped out earlier today, I saw the Keeper waiting for me. She was pacing back and forth. I started across the wide marble esplanade.

When she saw me her face lit up with relief, and then darkened with anger. “Where have you been?” she demanded. Her typically neat braids, usually pulled up and away from her face, were frayed and falling
everywhere, and her chest rose and fell quickly with great heaving breaths. “I've been so worried! It's dangerous for you in the city. You could have been captured!”

“I'm fine,” I told her quietly, caught between regret and guilt. I stopped in front of her, trying to decide what to say next. A bird chirped overhead, the only sound other than the leaves rustling in the breeze. The sun was shining on my face as it dropped low in the sky, making way for evening. “I'm sorry I took your key, but I wish you hadn't felt like you had to lock me in.” I looked at her, my eyes wide and honest. “I also wish you had enough faith to tell me the truth about my place in this world.”

“You saw Rain,” she said. The anger on the Keeper's face began to break apart. “I was protecting you, Skylar.” Her voice wavered. “You're only a girl,” she added. “I wanted to give you time to adjust to your body, even if it was only a little bit.” She regarded me for another moment, her eyes shining like glass. Then she threw her arms around me in a hug. She held me tight, sniffling. “I'm so glad you're okay.”

Slowly, I extended my arms around her.

“Come inside,” she said after a while, letting me go. “You need your rest.” She turned and headed toward the door.

I hung back a moment, not quite ready to shut myself away. I watched the sky turn red and pink as the sun
disappeared below the horizon. Not blue like me, not like me at all. For some reason, this thought was a relief.

Hands. There were hands on my skin, my body, pushing me. Shoving me. Hands again. I remembered them from before.

“Don't touch me!” I screamed.

“It's okay,
shhhhhh
, it's okay,” came a soothing voice. “It's just me, Skylar. It's only me.” The hands slipped away—the Keeper's hands. They'd been on my shoulders, shaking me awake. I opened my eyes. The Keeper turned on the lamp next to the bed, the sudden brightness startling.

“What's wrong?” I asked, squinting, my voice hoarse.

“Nothing's wrong.” She sat down on the bed, smoothed the blanket with her palm like always, a gesture of comfort I was growing used to. “You were dreaming. Do you want to talk about it?”

I took a deep breath, the air seeming thicker for some reason. I shook my head. “No. I'm all right. What time is it?” I asked. It felt as though I hadn't slept at all.

“Four thirty in the morning.” The Keeper was about to say something else when I saw we had company.

Rain appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. “Good morning.” He sounded too awake for this hour. “We should get out of New Port City before the sun rises.”

I pulled the sheet up to my neck. “I need to get dressed.”

He nodded, and the Keeper ushered him into the other room. She shut the door behind her, but then—ever so slowly and silently—I opened it a crack so I could hear what they were discussing.

“This is happening too quickly,” the Keeper was saying. “You're pushing her.”

“No,” Rain said. “This was Skylar's decision.”

“Do you really think that's wise?” the Keeper asked.

“Yes. She can do a lot of good for us.”

“Does she know . . . ?”

“Not yet.”

The Keeper whispered something else, too low for me to catch.

By the time I finished dressing and emerged from my room, the Keeper and Rain were standing side by side, not looking at each other. I put a hand on the Keeper's arm. “I know you want to protect me, how much you worry, but I'll be fine.”

She glanced sideways at Rain. “I'm going to make myself some tea to calm my nerves,” she said, and headed off toward the kitchen. When she passed Rain, she added, “I don't like this.” I heard the sound of the faucet and rushing water as she filled the teakettle and set it onto the stove to heat.

Rain's eyes went to the scarf dangling in my hand. “You won't need that today.”

I set it aside on the couch. Then I stopped in the
kitchen. “We're leaving,” I said to the Keeper. Rain had already slipped outside.

She took down a cup and saucer from the cabinet. “Be careful,” she said.

“Don't worry. Everything will be fine,” I told her. Just before I walked through the door, there came the sharp shriek of the kettle, that awful sound echoing loud and high in my ears like a warning, and I hoped the words I'd spoken to her were true.