Unplugged (24 page)

Her smile grew wider and wider until her teeth gleamed from it.

And, knowing I was watching, she leaned forward, leaned toward Rain, into what would surely become a kiss.

I closed my eyes. I couldn't watch.

Finally, I slipped away.

I emerged from the mansion and ran down the beach. Unlike yesterday, when everything seemed magical, today I barely noticed the crash of the waves or the ocean rippling across the sand. My mind kept going over what I'd just seen, these images on repeat. The parking lot and then Rain's car came into sight over the edge of the dune. Regardless of what I'd just witnessed, one thing hadn't changed. The real Skylar Cruz might not be able to capture the heart of Rain Holt, but she—her body, her mind, at least—was capable of many things.

Like hotwiring a car.

Stealing it.

And driving it back to the city.

I ran straight up to Rain's precious car, opened the door, and went to work. Let my body take over my mind, drawing on those skills I'd learned while gaming at home, and setting my hands to work on those wires. Soon the car roared to life, and I was headed back the way we'd come. At first I swerved left and right, unable to keep the wheel steady, but it didn't take long before I gained control and was speeding fast and sure toward the skyline of New Port City and the bridge that connected it to the mainland.

When I arrived at the mansion on the edge of the sea, I turned off the car. I was about to go inside to see the Keeper when I thought better of it. Could I really trust her? Could I ever really trust anyone?

What if I never found my family?

Would I always be alone in this world?

I got out and stared at the wide marble esplanade on the grounds, at the faded glory of that beautiful house. Of the roses growing wild all over. Then I turned my back on it, on the Keeper, too, and headed into the city.

THE SUN DISAPPEARED
behind a series of heavy rain clouds.

The Water Tower loomed before me, cutting away an impressive swath of sky, catching the gray light and turning it into a dark, moving liquid. It seemed to shift and sway. People were coming in and out of it nearly constantly. I went inside the entrance behind a Keeper in a flowing green dress. Even the handles on the doors seemed made of delicate coral. On any other day I would be awed to experience the real version of this virtual skyscraper I'd always loved, but now I was numb to the momentousness of the opportunity. There was too much on my mind.

That's why I'd come here.

To think. To get my feelings in order.

The lobby walls were an aquarium of fish. Yellow, purple, blue, striped, and spotted, some with teeth sticking up from ugly jaws. They swam in and out of holes in the rocks, disappearing behind swatches of seaweed. Bright orange and pink anemones grew up from the bottom of the tank like fields of flowers. I watched them for a moment, fixated, until a long shadow that had been lurking way back in the shadows darted forward, its rows of tiny triangular teeth bared as it leapt at the glass.

At me.

I didn't move.

It swam away.

I continued through the lobby. A woman glanced at me twice on her way out of the building, her eyes settling on mine. But then she broke the stare and headed off. A shiver of fear passed over me as I realized I didn't have my scarf. I hadn't had it with me all morning, not when I drove back to New Port City either. I let my hair fall forward, forming a curtain on either side of my face.

Should I go back?

No, I decided.

I stepped into the stream of people moving toward a bank of elevators. The silver doors opened and I was pushed inside by the force of the crowd. The doors shut and my heart clenched. I counted fifteen people packed
around me. Was this contraption safe? Could it hold all of us? Maybe I should have taken the stairs.

Too late.

The elevator began to rise.

It stopped and one man got off. Then we were moving upward again, the screen at the top counting each floor.
Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.
When the number hit twenty-nine, the door opened and two women left. Floor by floor, I watched the count climb higher, the elevator emptying out as we went. Soon there was only one woman left besides me. We reached the seventy-fifth floor and stopped.

The woman glanced at me. “It doesn't go any farther. You're out of luck if you want to go to the top. The viewing deck is closed for repairs.”

“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I didn't know.”

She stepped off the elevator, her arm blocking the doors from closing. “Come on, or it's just going to go back down with you in it.”

I exited and found myself standing in a nondescript, white-walled space surrounded by other elevators. “Thanks.”

She pointed down the hall. “If you head there and turn left, there's a makeshift viewing deck. It's still quite impressive, though you can only see north,” she added with a smile. Then her face clouded over. She stared at me a beat too long, before turning around and walking away.

I stood there, unsure what to do. I didn't come here to see the seventy-fifth floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sign for the stairwell. Maybe I could continue up through there. The door opened with a loud creak, then swung shut behind me with a heavy slam. Heading toward the lower floors wouldn't be a problem, but going up was another story. A wire gate stretched from floor to ceiling, blocking passage toward the seventy-sixth floor. Posted on the side was a sign that said
No Entry Beyond This Point
. The word
DANGER
shouted in red letters above it. A chain looped around the latch, sealed shut by a heavy lock, but the wire didn't reach across the entire opening. There was a triangle of space just below the ceiling of the next staircase and above the handrail. This was only a small obstacle, to be overcome by hopping up on the lower railing and pulling myself over the higher one. The only difficulty, of course, was that I was in a real body, and at home I'd always been in an indestructible virtual one, enhanced by gaming perks. I could feel my arms twitching at my sides, my muscles and limbs anxious to get going.

I decided to listen to my body.

I kicked off my sandals and hopped up onto the lower rail, my feet balanced along the rung like it was a tightrope, reaching for the higher one where the triangle of space would just allow me to slither through. Muscles straining, I climbed as far as I could, but eventually had
to pull myself up and over the rest of the way. After a few seconds of struggling, my waist was even with the bar and soon I was through the opening to the other side.

The floor was thick with dust. Above me there was darkness, but I'd gone to the top of the virtual version of this place so many times I knew it as well as I now knew the contours of my own real body. I started up, plunging myself into the shadows, my left hand feeling for the wall and my right sliding up along the rail. When I reached the top-floor viewing deck, I was winded, but not as much as I would've thought. For a split second my gut clenched in warning, my brain conjuring the last time I'd climbed this building in the App World, how Jonathan Holt had appeared to me in a hologram. There was the gun, the storm, Inara's despair. And Rain, waiting for me at the top.

I shook off the unease.

The moment I stepped through the door, relief swept over me.

The sun shined bright through an opening in the clouds, streaming through the dust on the windows of the top-floor lobby. I pushed my way outside to the viewing deck, and relished the breeze so high up on this sweltering day. Everything was just as I remembered it from the App World, except that here debris littered the ground everywhere I turned. A few broken planters, broken glass,
and the remains of what must have been benches. The biggest difference, though, was that the deck was fenced in on all sides by tall iron posts that curved inward. At home, the Water Tower had been a popular launching site for flying and rappelling and parachuting toward the ground, but this one seemed designed to prevent fragile human bodies from throwing themselves to their deaths. I did a lap, careful not to trip on any rubble or cut myself on the broken glass sticking up from the ground. My left hand brushed across the iron posts, hot from the sun.

The view was spectacular, and to have this place all to myself, incredible.

I peered through two of the posts on the south side of the deck. The city was an island surrounded by ocean. There was a series of bridges, and the lonely tops of skyscrapers farther south. On the north side I could see all the way to the peninsula that had been my welcome to the Real World. Down below people were tiny specks on the ground as they went about their business. I'd come here to think about all I'd learned since unplugging, but now, my mind resisted. The impulse to climb to the other side of the fence in front of me, reaching upward toward the sun, was powerful. I even found myself wedging my foot high between the iron posts before I caught myself and stopped. My mind was flooded with thoughts of Rain and the moment I thought we were about to kiss. All over
again, my body responded in a way that my mind was powerless to resist.

The body, the real one, had urges and desires all its own.

It made me feel out of control.

But then, what would desire be if we could control it?

Something else. Not desire at all.

I willed myself away from the fence and took another lap around the viewing deck. It was strange to think that the last time I'd been here I was a virtual self playing Odyssey. It felt like a hundred years ago. I looked out over the west side of the tower, locating the mansion where I lived with the Keeper. It was so small from this high up.

Then I turned east.

A metal chair was pressed against one of the walls of the viewing deck. It wasn't broken or damaged. It seemed brand-new. What's more, there were discarded apple cores, stems of grapes, and the withered tops of strawberries strewn in a pile next to it. A large green hat with a wide brim was placed neatly on the seat.

The top of this building might be sealed off to visitors, but I wasn't the only person who'd enjoyed the view from the deck. Someone had been coming here. A lot. Most of the apple cores were shriveled and brown, nearly burnt from the sun's harsh heat, but a couple of them were fresher than the others. They'd been left behind more
recently, maybe even as recently as yesterday.

I heard the sound of a door opening.

Then footsteps.

And I froze.

They came to a stop behind me, the only sound the sharp intake of breath amid the low whistle of the breeze. The occupant of the chair was back.

My hands balled into fists as I turned around. I put a hand to my chest. “Inara?”

I was looking into the eyes of my best friend in both worlds, eyes I knew almost as well as my own. She was tinier than I was accustomed to, everything about her more delicate, almost childlike. But her blond hair was the same—no, it was far more beautiful now that it was real. It was long and wavy and curled down around her shoulders to her waist. Inara's mouth gaped wide, like she might be seeing a ghost.

I tried to swallow, but I couldn't.

She blinked once, then again. Like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She held a tiny device with a button on it. I watched as she pushed it. “I knew I'd find you here eventually,” she whispered. Before I could respond, she threw her arms around me in a hug. A key dangled in her hand, cutting into my back.

A key to the locked gate?

But how? Why?

I pulled away. “It's really you,” I said. There was a moment's hesitation, then joy flooded me. Inara and I would have a second chance!
I
would have a second chance, at least, to make things up to her for leaving. “I've missed you so much.”

“This was always your favorite place in the City,” she said, but she wasn't smiling now. After our embrace, the joy of our reunion seemed absent for her. “I knew you couldn't resist the real thing for long.”

My own smile faltered. “You know me better than anyone.”

Inara's eyes were glassy. A tear slipped down her cheek. “Then why didn't I guess you were about to unplug? I thought of you as my sister, Skylar. And then you abandoned me like I didn't matter at all.”

“I would never do that, Inara,” I said, but even to me the words were hollow.

“But you did,” she said. “You chose your
other
sister over me. I thought you saw me as your real sister. You never did though.”

“That's not true.” I swallowed. “It was never a competition.”

She laughed, her face streaked with tears. “Wasn't it, though? Isn't it still?”

I looked at her strangely. Something was off. I could hear it in her voice. Inara had a tell when she was lying.
She laughed a certain way, with a higher pitch. It wavered too much, like she was nervous. And her eyes kept darting everywhere. “How did you get here? Who helped you unplug?”

“You really have no idea what you've done, do you?” she said, sounding choked. “To me, my family, my parents, who treated you like their own daughter. I was forced here, Skylar—at least that's what my parents believe. But honestly, a part of me wanted to come. Even though you lied to me, left me without saying good-bye, you're still my sister. The
only
sister I've ever had. And then another part of me wanted to get you back, but now that I'm here . . .” A sob choked her throat.

“What aren't you telling me, Inara?” I asked.

“It will be easier on everyone if you go willingly,” Inara said between sobs.

My heart sank like a heavy stone. “Go where?”

There came the sound of footsteps—many footsteps—on the roof. A line of guards emerged through the door behind Inara, guns cocked.

They were pointed at me.

“Inara,” I whispered, my heart pounding with fear. “What did you do?”

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, her eyes on the ground. When she looked up again, her gaze shifted to something behind me.

I turned to look.

At first, I saw only more Keeper guards, their guns pointed at my head.

But then Trader stepped out from behind one of them. Of everyone I'd seen first in the App World and now here, Trader looked the most similar to his virtual self. Nearly identical, down to the inky black of his hair and eyes. My brain worked overtime trying to understand what was happening, making me dizzy. My heart was breaking inside my body. I grabbed one of the iron posts surrounding the viewing deck to steady myself.

“You told me to trust you,” I said to him.

His eyes were pained. “This isn't what you think, Skylar.”

“You did this to Inara, didn't you,” I said.

Trader grimaced. Then he walked by me to stand next to her. She looked into his eyes for a moment and something passed between them. “He got caught up in your wake, too, Skylar,” she said sadly. “Just like me.”

The guards closed in on me from all sides.

One of them clamped onto my shoulder. I struggled and fought, kicking and punching, but it was no use. There were too many of them. One of my kicks finally connected, but not with one of the guards—with Inara. She dropped to the ground with a surprised yelp, landing on a piece of broken glass. There came a loud sob, and when she pulled herself back to her feet, blood streamed
from her arm, a long cut like a sliver of moon just below her elbow. Trader went to help her, to console her, but she moved out from under his reaching arm. Pushed through the Keeper guards so she could whisper one last thing before they took me away.

“You betrayed me and now I betrayed you,” she said, but she was weeping. “I thought it would be more satisfying to finally say that. But it's not. It's not at all,” she added, looking into my eyes.