Unplugged (25 page)

Hers were full of pain.

I WAS RUNNING.

Running through the unlit streets of Loner Town. Footsteps came after me fast. I turned back but couldn't make out a thing, not even a shadow. Panic rose into my throat and I could feel my nails turn to claws. Suddenly I was flying across the sidewalk on all fours, my feline eyes cutting through the darkness. I spied an alcove and leapt into it, transforming back to my virtual self the second my heart began to slow.

I peered beyond the wall shielding me.

Trader was standing there. “Skylar, let me explain,” he said. “Remember that I'm out for revenge against my father. But sometimes revenge is complicated.” He took my hand.

I watched him do it, unable to move. My brain reached for a memory. But of what? I was forgetting something—something important. My limbs felt locked. Like someone else was controlling them. Suddenly Trader faded away, and Loner Town with him.

There came a blinding light.

I tried to scream—I thought I had—but my voice was so far away. My eyes wouldn't open. Their lids felt heavy, weighted down, like someone was holding them shut. I raised my hands to my face but someone else—someone I couldn't see—grabbed them and pulled them away. Just then, I managed to open one eye, only a crack. There was that glaring light again, but there was movement, too, a figure flashing across my vision, and the glimpse of a face—brief, but it was there. I worked at my lips, my mouth fuzzy and dry, trying to make them form the word I wanted to say. It came out a mumble, a single syllable muffled by the rubbery state of my face, but still, I spoke it.

“Mom?”

Someone was clawing at my face.

No, at my eyes.

One eyelid was pulled up.

I saw only bright colors.

My head was pounding.

I tried to open my mouth. It felt wired shut.

“She'll keep for another while,” said a man's voice.

“Are you sure?” someone asked, this time a woman.

Something pinged in my brain.

Familiarity.

Do I know you?
went my mind.

But the words—like before, they wouldn't come.

“Put her back under,” said the woman.

Who are you?
I screamed inside my head.

There were hands again, pressing at my face.

A sharp pain in my arm.

Then . . .

Nothing.

“Rain, stop!”

I was laughing.

He was laughing too. His eyes were bright with happiness. “Do you really want me to?” he asked. His hands were on my shoulders.

“No,” I whispered. “No, I don't.”

I looked around. We were surrounded by water. Bobbing up and down in the waves. Floating over the swells as they rolled into shore. I looked toward the beach and saw the compound peeking up from the dunes. Relief reached every part of me like a potent drug.

“I'm so glad I'm here,” I sighed. “But how did I get here?”

Confusion crossed Rain's face. “You never left.”

“What do you mean? I was taken—” I started, then stopped.

Rain was shaking his head. “You've been with me all along.”

“That's impossible.” The dread crept back. I fought it off, I'd fight it as long as I could. I studied Rain as though he might disappear at any moment. Hesitant, I reached out my hand to him. Pressed it flat against his chest.

I could feel his heartbeat.

It pounded.

Rain stared at my hand like he couldn't believe it was there. When he looked up again, when he looked at me once more with those soulful eyes, for the first time I saw in them all that I'd ever hoped for: the want was there, just like before, but laced through it as delicate and intricate as a snowflake was love.

I could see it. It was as real as the Real World itself.

I pressed the rest of my body to him, I wrapped my arms around his back, his neck, my fingers winding through his hair, and felt his heartbeat speed even faster against my chest. Or maybe that was my heart going so quickly. We were so close it was difficult to tell.

Our mouths nearly touched.

I could feel his breath, warm and sweet.

“I'm going to kiss you, Skylar,” he said, and I could feel his lips moving. “I've wanted to do this for so long.”

“Me, too,” I whispered back.

I closed my eyes and I waited, ready to lose myself in this.

My first real kiss.

But something was wrong. There was a tightening against my wrists and my ankles, a taut pressure, my limbs pulled apart like wishbones.

“I think she's waking up,” came that same male voice again.

“Well, put her out,” was the cold reply.

“No,” I said. “No, no, please!”

This was all a dream.

Only a dream.

A memory of Lacy flashed—of Lacy and Rain.

Together.

“No!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

But nobody heard me.

It was all inside my head.

When I came to I was lying in a bed, tucked under the covers.

I sat up. The thick blanket slid to my waist. I stared at my arms, at the bedspread, at everything around me. Then I took my forefinger and thumb and pinched the skin at my neck hard, digging in my nails as far as they would go.

Pain seared from the spot.

I drew my hand away. There was blood at the end
of my fingertips. I placed them in my mouth, the taste metallic.

I was awake for real this time.

I slipped out of bed.

My clothes were gone, replaced by a short sleeveless slip. The air was cool and I shivered. My cheeks burned at the thought that someone had stripped me of my tunic while I was unconscious. Then I almost laughed at such modesty. For years this body hadn't been mine, locked in one of those glowing glass boxes I'd seen at Briarwood, bathed and fed and exercised by Keepers I could not see, my body theirs to control. To display. Like some toy rag doll. What I hadn't known had allowed me to live blissfully at ease as a virtual self, but my new consciousness about what this bliss entailed now robbed me of that fragile peace. How could I have so easily surrendered control of this body?

Never again. Not if I could help it.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I looked around. This room was the size of some of the ones I'd seen in the mansion. Maybe this
was
a mansion, one of the others I'd seen along the cliff. It was decorated like a palace. The bed had a great canopy that rose up over it, with ornately carved posts at each of the four corners. A crystal chandelier the size of a small car cascaded down from the center of the ceiling. It seemed dangerous, like it was placed there to crush whoever dared stand beneath it. Keeping
to the edges of the room, I moved away from the bed. My feet sank deep into the plush carpet. I tried the door, but it was locked. There was a lamp next to a sitting area, the couch and two chairs upholstered in rich brocade, their legs sloping down to curved feet. I reached underneath the shade for the switch. Soon a soft glow fell across everything.

And I realized something.

Every single thing around me—from the wallpaper to the fabric on the furniture to the canopy over the bed and the sheets tucked across it—was decorated in shades of blue. In any other circumstance I would have loved it. It was as though someone had designed this place especially for me, as though on some level they hoped I'd be happy here. The perfect prison.
Blue like the ocean and blue like the sky, blue like the sapphire color of your eyes
, I sang to myself softly.

But why go to such trouble?

Then something else occurred to me.

Inara knew that rhyme and all about my favorite things, Inara, my best friend, who'd just turned me over to the authorities. If she was willing to do that, then why not something so small as giving over a favorite color? Or a bedtime song for a child from a mother?

You betrayed me and now I betrayed you
, she'd said.

I took another turn around the room, examining everything. Sunlight peeked out from heavily curtained
windows. It was daytime, but of which day? I had no idea how much time had passed while I was unconscious. I drew back the drapes. I'd been right about the mansion. There was no doubt that I was in one. The grounds stretched out far and wide until they reached the cliff with the ocean beyond, the view from here spectacular. But it was the trees that stole my breath, the ones dotting the lawn. The leaves. They were no longer the bright, heavy green of summer. Oranges and yellows and fiery reds swam across my vision, blurring together.

I swallowed.

Fall had begun.

I had been unconscious long enough for one season to give way to another.

I ran to the door, panicked, and tried the handle once more, pulling on it, turning it as hard as I could, but it wouldn't budge.

“Somebody help me!” I screamed. “Is anybody out there?” I listened for a voice, for footsteps, for any sign of life, but there was nothing. I pounded against the door until my hand was raw with pain. “I need to get out of here,” I yelled, my voice hoarse.

Still there was no answer.

I pressed my forehead against the wood and waited for my heart and lungs to slow. When I pulled back I saw there was a note tacked up on the door at eye level. My eye level exactly.

Skylar
, it began.
Please dress for dinner. You'll find appropriate attire in the closet next to the sitting area. If you're hungry, there are snacks laid out for you in the next room.

I looked around. The door which I had thought went to the bathroom must lead somewhere else. Maybe from there I could get out. I went to it and threw it open. There was a tiny round table covered with a cloth the color of the sky. At its center was a silver candelabra, tall bright flames spindling up from the nine candles that I'd counted. Around it were plates laden with sweets and fruit.

Nothing tempted me. Not even a little.

There were two more doors, neither of which led out of here. One opened to an opulent bathroom with a tub nearly big enough for swimming set underneath a series of windows. There were mirrors everywhere, my face reflected back to me from every angle. I blinked, studying myself. My cheeks glowed with health and my hair was clean and styled. Someone had been caring for me. They'd even taken the time to wash and curl my hair and apply rose-red lipstick to my mouth before I'd woken up.

I shivered.

Then I went to the other door. It opened the closet mentioned in the note. My jaw dropped when I saw the lone item inside, the dress that awaited me for dinner.

It was like something from a fairy tale.

Something magical and impossible created from an App.

Like everything else, it was blue, sapphire blue, the same color as my eyes. It seemed spun out of air. The top was strapless and the bodice tiny, but the skirt belled and cascaded and bustled with layers of delicate silk.

Please dress for dinner
, the note had said.

I slipped it off the hanger. There must be a hundred buttons. One by one, I undid them, until the dress gaped open like an invitation. Then I pulled the thin night slip over my head, casting it aside, and stepped into the dress's center.

What else was I going to do?

I redid the buttons. It fit perfectly, as though I'd been measured for it. When I fastened the last one I went inside the mirrored bathroom, my steps heavy with the weight of so much fabric, and stared at my reflection. It was the kind of dress that girls my age dreamed about. I didn't know gowns like this existed in the Real World.

Inara would have loved it.

Maybe she picked it out
, went my mind.

I blinked at myself once more, then turned away.

That's when I noticed the camera—no, the cameras, plural. Tiny round lenses in each corner of the ceiling, the kind I'd seen in the weapons room out at the compound. I swallowed. I was being watched. Every move I made, viewed by some unseen person. Every glance, every
gesture. My cheeks burned as I thought of how I'd just undressed. I began to check the other rooms, the closet. They were everywhere. There was even one mounted into the head of the bed, pointed down toward my body while I slept.

Slowly, I made my way to the door to study the note.

Just then, I heard the bolt slide open in the lock.

I stepped back, looking around for anything that might serve as a weapon, but the door was opening before I could find one.

A woman stood at the entrance of the room, older than me, but not as old as my Keeper. Her brown hair was done up elaborately, her face aglow with makeup, and her ears and neck and wrists dripping with diamonds. She was dressed in a gown of light-green taffeta.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Why are you holding me here?”

But she didn't say anything. She just looked at me like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Then, finally, she spoke.

“You really don't recognize me?” the woman said.

That voice again. The familiar one.

Then I zeroed in on her eyes.

“Jude?”

“HELLO, BEAN,” SHE
said with a smile.

But the smile was sad.

“You really are lovely,” she sighed. “Just beautiful.”

My arms twitched at my sides. I wanted to throw them around Jude's neck. But I held back. “I've missed you, Jude.”

She nodded, blinking, her eyes fluttering rapidly. Then she entered the room and shut the door behind her quietly. “Aren't you a vision in that dress!” Her tone was of forced cheer. She adjusted her skirts and looked around a moment, at the bed, the couch, and the chairs, before her eyes landed on me again. “Do you like your room? I
designed it just for you. The gown, too. All in your favorite color.”

“You mean you haven't forgotten me?” My voice wavered.

Jude hesitated, like there was something stuck on her tongue. “Of course not, Bean. You're my sister.”

I didn't wait any longer. I couldn't. I threw my arms around Jude's neck and squeezed her tight. My sister, here, now, in the flesh. I could barely believe it. But then I remembered how I'd been unconscious for weeks, maybe months. That I seemed a prisoner in this palace.

Jude's arms stayed at her sides.

I pulled back. “Are you here to help me? To get me out of here?” I asked. “Inara—where is she? Is she all right?”

Jude stepped away, green taffeta glistening like grass in the morning dew. Turned her head so she didn't have to meet my eyes. “The situation is complicated.” She laughed, but it was a choked laugh, like something was stuck in her throat. “This is all my fault. Bean. I'm . . . I'm so sorry,” she added in a whisper.

I looked at her. She still wouldn't meet my eyes. “What are you sorry for?”

“For the way things have turned out,” she said. “For having to involve your friend.”

I took a step back, and nearly stumbled over the arm of a chair. “How have things turned out, exactly?”

My sister didn't respond. She raised her left arm. A velvet pouch dangled from her wrist. She slid it off and drew open the string, peering inside, shaking it. Then she tipped it over and blue sapphire jewels spilled into her hand. She smiled at me, again with sadness. “The perfect finishing touch, don't you think?” She held them out.

I didn't take them.

What game was Jude playing at?

“You want me to do it?” she asked. My sister pulled up my wrist and lifted my hand so she could fasten the sapphire bracelet. The jewels were enormous, the size of gum balls. They made my wrist seem thin and delicate. Breakable. Jude stepped around the bell of the dress, careful not to pierce the edge of the fabric with her heels. When she reached my back, she lifted my hair and clasped the necklace in place. “For a long time I was angry after you plugged in,” she began. “I hated Mom for choosing you over me. Things were so hard for us. We were just lowly Keepers. Expendable. Replaceable. We had nothing.”

The mention of our mother made my heart leap, but I held my breath and submitted to Jude's attentions, allowing myself to be decorated like some mannequin. She combed her fingers through my hair, running her hand across the waves. A part of me reveled in this gentle affection, even as wariness settled into my muscles, making them tense.

“I cared for you on the plugs, you know,” Jude went on. “I fed you and bathed you. They let me volunteer to be your Keeper because you're my family.”

“Oh, Jude,” I said, all the air escaping my lungs in one long
whoosh
. I turned to face her again, my hair sliding through her fingers until there was nothing in them but air. I stared into her familiar eyes, took in the curve of the hands that had pushed me on a swing when I was young.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Bean, try to understand; the lot we Keepers have, the terrible working conditions, the danger of our jobs, the fact that no one in the App World has ever cared what happened to us as long as we supported their virtual lives—over the years it's created a lot of resentment. We're like janitors of bodies, doing all the dirty work behind the scenes.”

My heart broke for my sister. “I'm sorry, Jude. That sounds awful.”

She nodded.

I took her hands. Looked at her hard. “But what are you trying to tell me? What are we doing here . . . in this . . . this place? All dressed up?”

She slid from my grip. “I'm afraid to tell you,” she said, her voice small. “I'm afraid you'll hate me.”

I shook my head. “I could never hate you.”

“You say that now.” Jude went to the window and looked out. Then she took a deep breath and began to
talk. “For a long time we Keepers held on to the promise that eventually we would enjoy the privilege of an easy, virtual future. We believed that someday our work and dedication to maintaining the App World would pay off.” Jude went to the window and opened the drapes. She stared out into the early glow of the evening. “Then some of us realized the day we hoped for would never come, that we'd never be allowed a virtual life of our own. The government's promise to us had always been a lie.” Jude paused a moment, inhaling the fresh air. “So we decided to rebel.”

As she spoke, I thought about the rebellion Rain was forming, how my sister considered herself a rebel too.

Everyone was rebelling against something.

“I'm still listening,” I told her.

“We knew about the Race for the Cure,” she went on. “One day, while I was laboring on the plugs, I had an idea, one that coincided with something everyone in the App World wanted badly, and one that would help solve the economic crisis here.” She stepped away from the window and began to pace the room, the skirts of her gown rustling with each step. I watched her move back and forth. “It was because of this idea that I came in contact with Emory Specter.” She looked at me imploringly. Long eyelashes fanning wide dark eyes.

My heart seemed to stop then. This was sounding all
too familiar. “You're one of them, Jude. You're a New Capitalist,” I said.

She swallowed. Then she straightened suddenly, her back, her shoulders. “Yes.” There was a regal quality in her that I'd never noticed before.

I pressed myself against the wall for support. I didn't trust my legs to hold me up. “Tell me that the idea you're talking about isn't the idea to sell the bodies, Jude.”

“Just hear me out,” she said. “Let me explain.”

I covered my face with my hands. I couldn't look at her anymore while I listened.

“Emory Specter listened to all I had to say. He was fascinated by my idea to fix the finances of the Real World, while liberating citizens of the App World from their bodies. And then, well, he quite literally promised me a new future, and one for our mother, and for so many of the other Keepers who had been suffering. After all those years, we would finally be free. And I would be the person leading them in this effort.” She glanced away. “It turned out that Emory Specter and I had more in common than I ever could have imagined.”

I let my hands slide down my face. Peered at my sister over the tips of my fingers.

“I'm not just a New Capitalist, Skylar,” she added, using my real name for the first time since she'd appeared at the door, as though she needed to provide distance between us. “I'm in charge of the movement.”

My hands fell to my sides. “You?”

“Don't sound so shocked.” Jude lowered her eyes. Studied the floor. Smooth white marble with tiny black diamonds spaced throughout. Cold. “Emory proposed a deal,” she said. “All I had to do was make one simple sacrifice, to prove that I could do what it took to be a true leader, a bringer of change. He explained how his own difficult choices had resulted in his rise in the App World.” She raised her eyes to mine again. They were dark with guilt, flickering shadows cloaked in the night.

My heart was in knots. My stomach filled with dread, a black fog spreading. The sun was dropping toward evening, the light from the window disappearing. My shadow began to fade from the floor, evidence of my existence ebbing away.

“The deal was this,” Jude said. “If I was serious about my idea, I would have to show I was capable of making hard decisions, just as he had.” She hesitated, the room falling silent. She seemed even to stop breathing.

The black fog reached my lungs. I buried my hands in folds of blue silk, clutching at the skirt of my dress. I knew, I already knew. Jude didn't have to say it, so I did it for her. “He made you prove yourself by showing you were willing to sell my body. Your own sister.” I began to comprehend what this meant, all of its implications, and I was shattered by them. “Mom,” I croaked. “She was just going to let you?”

“Oh, Bean,” Jude sighed, going back to her nickname for me, her whole demeanor changing to the way it was before. “When the borders closed, you were never supposed to wake up. You weren't supposed to know a thing, not ever. Then that day on the cliff . . . I saw your escape. I had no idea that you could . . . that you . . .” She trailed off. Sighed. “Your body is capable of far more than anyone ever thought. The bodies of all the plugged-in are capable of more than we'd ever dreamed of. The way the plugs have altered your brains . . .” She trailed off. Her voice had grown tight. “After the guards found you up on the Water Tower, we tried to keep you unconscious. And we did for a long while.” She laughed softly. “But your body, it just doesn't want to stay under. It's like . . . it's always wanting to shift between states. Between worlds.”

A strangled sound emerged from my throat. I could barely process anything she was saying. “You were the one who put me on display? You were really going to let them . . . sell me?”

Jude blinked. She was wringing her hands again, walking a few steps, then stopping, turning around, and walking a few more. “I could have hidden myself from you tonight, could have hidden this whole situation, but I didn't. I couldn't
miss the chance to see you again.” Jude beckoned me to the sofa that swirled with shades of blue, like a tornado at the center of the sea. Her heels clicked against the stone floor. She sat down and I joined her. The
blue of my own dress melted into the couch, but the green taffeta of Jude's seemed to stand up against it in protest. “Unfortunately, the changes in the plugged-in bodies, the skills people have developed through virtual living, have made their bodies even more valuable. Yours especially.” Her last two words were barely a whisper. Then the taffeta of Jude's dress seemed to collapse along with her face, crumpling toward the couch, having lost its battle with gravity. “I'd been having second thoughts for a while, but then seeing the way you fought to be conscious, I realized I couldn't go through with it.” She sighed. “But I waited too long, Bean. You've become important to the rest of the New Capitalists, to the changes people have been waiting for. They want their symbol. And you are it.”

My nails dug into the arm of the sofa. “But you can't sell bodies, Jude, not mine or anyone else's. We're people! You're selling people.”

Anger replaced the sadness in Jude's eyes. “These
people
in the App World? They couldn't care less about their bodies. They gave them up for a virtual life without looking back, perfectly happy if we disposed of them like trash. Why shouldn't we take advantage of their stupidity and carelessness? Why shouldn't we capitalize on their updated brains?”

I studied my sister. “Because it's wrong, Jude. No—”
Wrong
was not what I wanted to say. It wasn't strong enough. “It's evil.”

Her brow furrowed. “No, it's smart. Besides, their former owners won't have any idea what's happening. They'll live on happily in their little App World playground, none the wiser.” Jude got up again and circled the room, talking as she went. “To think that we Keepers would sacrifice our entire lives on behalf of the App World, without the hope of change or of ever joining them! At best we're like the coal miners of old, but at worst, we're no more than slaves.” She stopped in front of me, her eyes hard. “We're done being slaves. Selling bodies is our way out of the life we've been subjected to. The Body Market will function as reparations of a sort. Payment for our services after all these years.”

Oh my god.

The Body Market?

“Don't look so shocked,” Jude said, her eyes on my face. “It's not without precedent. China has been raising bodies to sell for parts for years now. And Russia has been selling live people—something we would never do. But the technology is such that a fully functioning body and brain, emptied of its personality but still full of all those skills, is a precious commodity in the Real World. In Europe and India, they've found ways to extend life nearly indefinitely by downloading someone's brain into another, younger body, and of course there are plenty of people who are looking for parts. There's also reanimation, which is popular in more than one Eastern nation.
This Body Market was inevitable. It's how we're all going to survive.”

I wanted to say something, anything that might soften my sister's resolve. I got up and went to her now, placed my hand on her arm. I looked into her eyes pleadingly. “There has to be another solution. Another way to resolve the economic crisis that's led to this . . . this rift between worlds.”

She stared at my fingers like they might not be real. The color of our skin was different. Hers was far lighter than mine. “Do you think we didn't already try negotiations? That we didn't search for another way?” She moved away, and my hand was left grasping for air. I wrapped my arms around my body, a chill settling over my bare shoulders and arms. The light from the window had disappeared, and with it, both of our shadows. “The only way to change our future is to think like the rich. Our worlds turn on capital and people's endless capacity to spend it on things they desire. We realized that with all of these bodies, we were sitting on a gold mine. We'd just failed to extract the goods for our own profit—until now.”