Unplugged (23 page)

“So,” I said, trying to think of what to talk to him
about. “Did we know each other in the App World before you unplugged?”

“No.” He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. It's just strange to see you here so . . . so alive and animated. I'm Rex,” he added.

“Skylar,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

I felt awkward. I didn't like being famous, as Adam put it. I was grateful to see Rain heading toward us, a beer in one hand, my drink in the other.

He handed it to me and nodded hello to Rex. Then Rain gestured toward the crowd next to the bonfire. “Let's go meet a few more seventeens.”

Rex raised his hand in a wave as we walked away.

Over the next hour I met nearly everyone on the beach. Some I recognized from the App World and others I'd lived with for years in Singles Hall, but we'd never formally crossed paths. As the night wore on and my second drink disappeared, I searched the crowd for Zeera, but didn't see her anywhere.

At one point, Jessica leaned in. “So what do you think of Rain?”

The two of us stared at him across the sand, standing in the middle of a group of girls who were hanging on his every word.

I shrugged. “Rain Holt is Rain Holt,” I said, like it didn't faze me. But that wasn't exactly true. Even saying
his name made my skin flush red. I took another sip of my drink, hoping to hide this. “What about you?”

“He's not what I expected,” she began. She got a wry smile on her face. “Definitely dreamy, you know? Most of the time he seems like a totally different person from the Rain I knew on Reel Time. But then he'll do or say something that absolutely reminds me who he really is.”

I laughed. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded. Soon we were talking and laughing as the evening grew dark, Jessica giving me the rundown on who among the seventeens had kissed so far, and who had crushes on who else but hadn't yet gotten together. It felt good to talk to another girl, one I could imagine becoming my friend eventually. “I know I said this earlier,” I said, changing the subject to a more serious topic. “But I'm grateful for your help on the cliff. You risked your life for me.” I drained the last sip of my drink. “I hope I can repay the favor someday.” As I spoke these words, I realized they were true—that I
wanted
them to be true.

Jessica leaned forward, her long brown hair swinging. “It's okay, Skylar.” Two rosy dots appeared on her cheeks. “Singles get one another's backs, right?”

“Yes,” I said, and meant it with my whole heart. By the time I made my way to Rain again, the alcohol was buzzing through my veins, making me giddy. Beyond the light of the bonfire, shadows moved toward the ocean, people
stripping off clothing and leaving it behind on the sand.

“You were talking to Jessica a long time,” Rain said when I reached him.

“I like her a lot,” I said, but my attention was still on all the people heading toward the water. “They're going to swim naked?”

Rain laughed. “It's called skinny-dipping. People do it all the time at these parties. There's nothing like being in a real body and jumping in the ocean on a warm evening.”

“But does it have to be naked?” Even as I expressed my doubt, I could already imagine the appeal and freedom of it.

Rain shrugged, his eyes flickering in the light of the bonfire. “Sure, why not?”

“You sound like you know from experience,” I said.

“I've done it once or twice,” he said. “There was at least some truth to the Rain Holt in the App World. I'm still a thrill seeker. I'm surprised you don't want to join them.”

The crowd of swimmers kept growing in number. There were shouts and laughter as people splashed and jumped in the waves. “Before I would have probably loved it.”

“Before what?” he asked.

“Before I found out I was put on exhibit without my consent or even my knowledge. Before I learned I was an object to be displayed.”

“You're not an object,” Rain said quietly.

The shouts and laughter got louder. Other people paired off, walking away down the beach, their heads bent close together. “Is nudity required to swim?”

Rain laughed. “I can promise you there are plenty of people wearing bathing suits.”

“Good, because I'm going in.” I pulled off my tank top and threw it onto the sand. Then I unbuttoned my jeans and slid out of them, leaving them in a pile at my feet. I started toward the water. The cool night air on my skin gave me goose bumps. I turned back to Rain. “Are you coming or what?”

He tugged his shirt over his head and let it fall to the sand.

My eyes slid across his shoulders and chest.

Then I forced myself to look away.

A wave coming in to shore washed over my feet, the cool water making me shiver. I waded up to my knees. Even when I was gaming, I'd never gone swimming in the dark. I knew I should feel afraid, that we were more vulnerable at night without the sun to reveal the dangers in our midst, but for some reason I wasn't. The ocean was gentle, even the sound of the waves soft and hesitant, the tide low and peaceful. The moon above reflected off the surface, swaying and rippling across a slice of water that stretched all the way to the horizon. The ocean swirled around my legs, swelling to the middle of my thighs and
subsiding back to my knees. I waded farther and farther out, away from everyone else who was swimming. Soon the water was up to my chest and I was barely able to stay on my toes. The waves wanted to lift me off the ground, so I dove under. The ocean was black around my body, as though I'd submerged myself in a pool of ink.

Then I did something I never did while gaming.

I lay back in the water and relaxed all my muscles, my head just skimming the surface, letting myself float, the waves gently bobbing me up and down, the water lapping against my skin. When I opened my eyes, the night was big and alive and bright with stars. The moon cut a crescent light above. A sense of peace spread from my body to my mind and filled my senses. For the first time I could understand how everything was connected. How
I
was connected. The way the body tied me to the world and reality, to the stars in the sky and the shimmering ocean buoying my back. How I was more than just a brain used to project a virtual image into another world.

I didn't want the feeling to end.

But then I sensed I was being observed. I looked up, pulling my head from the water with a loud splash. Rain was standing a couple of feet away, the ocean rising to his shoulders and falling back to his chest as waves rippled by. The lights of New Port City sparkled far behind him.

I closed the distance between us. “Were you watching me?”

His skin glistened in the moonlight. “I didn't want you to float out to sea.”

A gentle wave lifted us off the bottom, then set us down closer together. I laughed. “Sure.”

“You're shivering,” he said. “We should get out. Tomorrow will be another long day.”

I sighed. “You're probably right.”

We walked toward the beach in silence. Water from my hair cascaded down my body. I gathered it into my hands and tried to wring it out like I would a towel. The air chilled my skin and now my teeth were chattering. As we headed toward the pile of clothing we'd left behind, sand caked my feet and ankles. I stared down at my tank top and jeans. There was no point in putting them on. They'd only get soaked.

“Here,” Rain said, grabbing his shirt and holding it out. “Wear this.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but it'll be drenched the moment it hits my skin.”

He shook it. “Take it anyway,” he said.

So I did, watching as Rain walked off to say hello to someone nearby. I slipped my arms into it and fastened the buttons up the front one by one. The fabric clung to my body in places, wet all the way through, but it was true—I felt better with it on than not. I extended my arms, studying the way the too-large sleeves belled away from my skin and wrinkled around my wrists at the cuff. There
was something intimate about wearing a boy's shirt. About wearing
Rain's
shirt. I didn't remember an App for that at home.
There should be one
, I thought. Then I pushed the thought away and started up the beach toward the dunes.

“Hey, wait up,” Rain called just as I'd reached the top.

“I didn't want to bother you,” I said.

“Well, I didn't want to miss the chance to say good night.”

We descended the other side of the dune toward the house in silence, and in no time we were almost to my room. We stopped at the bottom of the steps that led from the sand up to the door. It was cool on my feet. I knew this was my chance to ask Rain more about his father and his father's plans, but now that I had my opportunity, I didn't want to spoil the moment, or the peaceful end to this evening. “Good night then,” I said, but I didn't turn to go.

Neither of us did.

Rain didn't speak. Didn't move. He just stood there looking at me, like he was debating something. I combed my fingers through my tangled, wet hair, unsure whether I should hop up the steps and head inside, or if there was something else I was supposed to do or say. Or that Rain was waiting for me to say. I bet Inara would use this chance to flirt, to win Rain's attention and, at the very least, a kiss. She would never waste the opportunity to capture Rain's heart, even for only a minute.
All
boys are an occasion for romance
, Inara always said. But I wasn't Inara. And I reminded myself that I barely knew Rain, and that most of what I did know of him—from the App World, at least—I'd never liked, that no matter how different he seemed here, he still had another side to him.

“Aren't you cold?” I finally asked, breaking the silence.

“No,” he said.

I waited for him to go on, but he didn't. I started up the steps. “Okay, well—”

“Don't go.” Rain put a hand on my arm and stopped me.

My eyebrows arched. I glanced at his fingers. I was shivering, but I wasn't cold. His hand fell away from my arm. Rain stared at his fingers, turning them over, flexing them, as though touching me had changed them. Then his eyes returned to mine. There was something in them that took me a moment to recognize, and as I did, my heart sped.

Want. They were full of want.

Rain touched a finger gently to my chin.

I held my breath. I wasn't sure what would happen next, but I couldn't believe this was happening at all. I closed my eyes.

But when I opened them again, Rain's hand fell away.

The moment had passed.

His gaze was steady. “You should probably get some rest.”

“I should.”

“Good night, Skye,” he said.

I watched Rain walk down the path and disappear over the dune, my hand on the place where his fingers had touched my face. My skin was still warm.

I WAS IN
the room again, the one filled with weapons.

“Who's there?” I called, banging against the door. “What do you want from me?”

There was no answer.

I pushed against the walls, testing every spot I could reach, trying to find a way through. I'd gotten halfway around the room when the screens buzzed. I stopped to watch what would happen next. The static grew louder. I covered my ears with my hands. My head hurt with the noise, like my mind might explode. Just when it became nearly intolerable, the sound stopped and the screens flickered gray. From the biggest one came a blinding flash of light. I rubbed my eyes, waiting for the spots to fade.

That's when I saw the image.

A face.

I went to the screen and placed my hand on it. “Trader? Is that you?”

His dark eyes blinked back at me. “Do you trust me, Skye?” he asked.

The very next second every other screen in the room flashed. This time I was quick enough to cover my eyes. When the light returned to normal, I pulled my fingers away.

“You betrayed me,” said a thousand Inaras all at once, her face repeated again and again, as big as my body and as small as the pad of a fingertip.

“I didn't,” I pleaded. “Inara, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to—”

The sound of knocking interrupted my cries. I looked around, searching for its source. The knocking grew louder. Meanwhile, the Trader image and the Inaras started speaking over one another in between all that banging.

“Do you trust me, Skye?”

“You betrayed me.”

“You betrayed me.”

“You betrayed me.”

“Do you trust me, Skye?”

I screamed, eyes shut tight. “Please stop!”

And suddenly, it did.

All that was left was the knocking.

I opened my eyes. I was in my room at Briarwood, lying in the great white bed, my legs twisted in the sheets. When I'd gone to sleep the bed was neatly made, my body barely a small hill marring the order, but during the night I'd pulled the sheets free and now they were hanging down onto the floor, along with the pillows I'd pushed away. Sweat covered my skin.

The knocking continued.

“Skylar?” said a girl's voice. “It's me. Zeera.”

I sat up, unsteady, still shaken from the dream. It had been so real, as though it actually happened. As though people were still poking around in my brain. I got out of bed and stumbled toward the door, opening it.

Zeera was standing there. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes. I think so.” My hair hung in my face. I tried to rake my fingers through it, but it was knotted. I must look like a disaster. “Sorry. I was having a nightmare.”

Zeera glanced beyond me toward the bed, at the pile of sheets and pillows on the floor. She nodded, looking at me like she knew exactly how this felt. “I just wanted to make sure you were up in time for breakfast,” she said. “Just walk out the way you came in, take two rights, go down the long hallway, then hang a left.”

“Two rights, long hallway, then a left,” I repeated.

She nodded. Then she closed the door behind her.

I stripped off the clothes I'd worn to bed and stepped into the shower, letting the cool water flow over my body and soak my tangled hair. Despite the nightmare, I couldn't help marveling at this tiny luxury. When I was small and in the Real World, I'd only taken baths. My first shower was at the Keeper's house and I could've stayed in it all day, this rainstorm that you can control. I dried off quickly and raked a brush through my wet hair, yanking at it when the bristles hit a knot. The Keeper was so much better at this. When she brushed my hair it felt like I'd downloaded one of those Spa Apps Inara's mother liked so much.

Inara.

You betrayed me
, went my brain, echoing her voice from the dream.

I stared at my face in the mirror.

Tired eyes stared back.

When—
if
—I ever saw my best friend again, would she look at this face and only see someone who'd deceived her?

I stepped away from my reflection and got dressed. I was out the door before my mind could decide on an answer.

It was easier that way.

Two rights, long hallway, and a left
, I told myself as I walked away from my room, trying to fill my thoughts
with something other than the dream. Soon my mind turned to Rain, to our last moments on the beach before we'd said good night, and I felt my cheeks flush. My heart fluttered.
You like him
, it informed me. But then my brain kicked in and shoved those feelings away.

Romance should be the last priority on my list.

I stopped midstride and looked around. I was no longer following Zeera's instructions to the cafeteria. Or at least, my body wasn't. I seemed to be going down, down, down underneath the earth, the halls I followed sloping gently into a series of ramps. I took a step forward, then another, allowing that internal GPS, or whatever it was, to kick in again in my brain.

I decided to follow it.

Eventually I came to one final ramp. At the end of it was a great silver door, similar to the one that led to the weapons room. Huge round bolts framed it. I backed against the wall as someone else approached from down another corridor. I heard a door sigh open. I watched as the woman went inside.

Before the door could close, I slipped in behind her.

A soft glow lit the darkness.

The woman was already gone.

I looked around. The room was cavernous. There came a familiar sound, too, a rushing in, then a retreat, a rushing in, then a retreat, the rhythm of the sea ebbing and flowing, bringing with it the briny smell of salt.
The ocean must be close. Once my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I looked up. It wasn't just that the room was cavernous. The room was actually a cave built into the rocks. The stone glistened with wet, the air humid and heavy. I returned my attention to the ground. At first I thought I was seeing things, hallucinating this vision before me, but it wasn't long before I knew it was all too real. This giant cave housed a library of sorts, with row after row of shelves. But stacked on those shelves were not books.

They were coffins.

Coffin after coffin after coffin, floor to ceiling, coffins everywhere I turned, lit up from the inside by a light source I couldn't pinpoint. They were made of a thin, crystal-clear glass.

My heart raced.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, a chill sweeping across my skin. I knew right then what I was seeing.

These were the plugs.

Inside each box was a cradle for the body, designed to rest the legs and the arms, with a special spot for the head that connected to the brain, projecting the virtual self into the App World. The idea that I had spent over eleven years of my life housed in one of these glass coffins was nearly incomprehensible. They were both disturbing to behold but also strangely beautiful.

All of them were empty of bodies.

But they seemed . . . ready to house bodies. Ready to house lots of them.

Why hadn't Rain showed me this place yesterday?

What was he planning that he hadn't told me about yet?

The soundtrack of the ocean was steady all around. I walked down another of the rows, at the very end of which was a single coffin set apart from all the others. When I got close enough for a better look, I halted.

I'd been wrong before.

Not all of the boxes were empty.

Inside this coffin was the body of a man. I pressed my hand against the glass where he lay. My jaw fell open.

The man was Jonathan Holt.

I was staring at Rain's father. That's why he was set apart.

The resemblance was obvious. I could see Rain in the curves of the face and the strong jaw. His limbs and muscles were completely relaxed, his breathing gentle and slow, eyes closed. I took in Jonathan Holt, the man who was willing to let me die. He seemed so peaceful. I crouched down and peered closer.

Was Rain afraid of me knowing his father was here?

I took a step back. Then another.

I wanted to turn away. It felt wrong to watch him when he was unaware. A violation of privacy. Was I any better right now than the Keepers who had made my body
available for the entire city to see, to inspect, to witness?

But in the midst of these dark thoughts, a hopeful one struck.

I began to run from coffin to coffin, down row after row, peering through the glass, hoping to find that at least one of them held another body—a very particular body. I don't know how many boxes I saw before I gave up.

Inara.

She wasn't here.

My entire body slumped. I knew it was unlikely I'd find her, but still, for a moment I'd hoped. Shoulders hunched, I headed back the way I'd come. I needed to leave, needed to find Rain. Questions piled onto other questions. My stomach churned. It was only when I passed through the thick metal door into the bright corridor that I felt like I could breathe again. I started up the series of ramps that led to the ground floor. My footsteps, soft against the tiled floor, were the only sounds for a while. But as I neared the top of the last ramp, I heard voices coming from around the corner.

A boy and a girl. Whispering. Then laughter—the girl's laughter. Giggling.

I hung back. Thought of what Jessica had told me last night about which seventeens had gotten together with which others. About Adam and Parvda. I didn't want to embarrass anyone by showing up unannounced and catching them making out when they thought they had
privacy. The whispering continued, followed by more laughing.

I could be here all day.

Maybe they were so taken with each other they wouldn't notice me go by. I crept forward a little, then a little more. As I got closer, I began to hear snatches of their conversation.

“She doesn't know. Not a thing.”

“How—”

“I missed you so much.”

“I'm such a good little actress, aren't I?”

“—her sister—”

And then, a name that rooted me to the floor. “Skylar.” Followed by the girl's laughter. “She still thinks you're going to help her find her family?”

My skin raced with static. I leaned against the wall to steady myself, and crossed my arms around my middle, hugging it. I couldn't get air into my lungs. If I was still in the App World, I would literally light up with electricity. I could almost hear it crackling in my ears. Quietly, and ever so slowly, I emerged from my hiding place. I already knew who I'd see, but still, I couldn't quite believe what my ears were telling me. I needed proof from my own eyes.

There he was, his back to me.

Rain.

Leaning against the wall. His body framed by the girl's long flowing hair.

Copper colored and bright in the light.

Lacy Mills was up and about as though she'd been walking around for ages. Her hand rested on Rain's arm with the kind of familiarity that only comes from being together in a romantic way.

I swallowed. Lacy and Rain were a couple.

I'm such a good little actress
, she'd said.

Yesterday was all an act?

An act to convince me that Lacy was helpless? That she meant nothing to Rain? And that Rain might actually like me, Skylar Cruz?

Lacy's fingertips slid up Rain's arm, her nails glittering green. Rain leaned forward a little, maybe to hear whatever she whispered to him now.

Maybe to kiss her—I couldn't quite tell.

My face burned with a fierceness that set my skin on fire. Shame consumed me. I was so stupid. Stupid enough to think that someone like me, a nobody Single, might catch the eye of Rain Holt. And he'd let me think this too. He knew it all along, knew what he was doing, knew that he was luring me in, knew exactly how to do it. He used me, was still using me to his own end, whatever that was. He was never going to help me, had planned on betraying me from the very first moment. And I'd let him. I'd let him get in the way of searching for my family, the very thing I'd come here to do. The boy on the mountaintop, that version of Rain, evaporated in an instant, replaced by the one
I'd known ever since I'd plugged in. The playboy all the girls loved and swooned over. He had been that Rain this whole time, and I was foolish enough to think he might be more than that. That I might be more than who I'd always been in the App World too.

Well, I'd learned my lesson.

I breathed deep, in and out. Watched them there.

I would never trust Rain again.

They still hadn't seen me.

I needed to get away without them noticing. I couldn't bear it if they did. Lacy had humiliated me with that act yesterday. It was just the kind of thing I'd expect from Lacy. Before I'd met Rain Holt in the Real World, I would have expected the same from him too.

Tears pressed into my eyes.

I'd really believed that here he was different.

Silently, I backed away. I was nearly to the end of the hall where I could turn the corner and be safely out of sight when Lacy shifted, enough so that I could see her face. Yesterday, when she'd been in bed, she'd seemed so different from the sparkling, made-up Lacy I was accustomed to from the App World. But now I saw her with new eyes, saw how her freckles highlighted an unusual sort of beauty, how her face came alive while she talked to Rain, how she mesmerized him. She'd only seemed different yesterday because I'd allowed myself to think that maybe in the Real World being Skylar Cruz meant something
significant, that my body was capable of great things, and that on top of this, here, people thought I was beautiful.

Rain Holt had seemed to think I was beautiful.

But now I knew the truth. Now I knew better.

Liar.

Right then, right when I was about to disappear around the corner, Lacy shifted once more.

This time, her eyes settled on my face.

They were triumphant.

She didn't even flinch, seeing me there.