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.”
Jude sounded so convinced. However misguided she was, I could see how she could easily become a leader. Someone to whom other Keepers listened. “Bodies aren’t the same as gold,” I said. “People don’t put them up for sale.”
She picked up a tiny blue china cat from the table in the sitting area, turned it over in her hands, then set it back down. Looked up. “Tell me. When Emory Specter announced the Race for the Cure had been won and that bodies would be removed from the plugs and destroyed, how did people react? Did they weep and mourn? Did they even care?”
I looked away. I could almost hear the cheers and applause from the funeral. It was such a vivid memory. Even though Jude’s words chilled me, in the most messed-up way, a Body Market made total sense. “No,” I said quietly. “People were . . . excited. Relieved. They cared only insofar as they would be liberated from the body, and soon. The only life for them is a virtual one.”
Jude nodded. “To the App World, bodies are a burden, something to be transcended, to be left behind. But here, bodies are this world’s most abundant natural resource. Why shouldn’t we exploit it? Why destroy something that has such value to us and to the rest of the world?”
“You really believe this is the right thing to do,” I said.
“Yes,” she stated with conviction. “I wish you hadn’t gotten caught in the middle. If only you hadn’t unplugged . . .” She trailed off.
“But I did. And I’m awake.” My voice rose in anger. “So now what? What are you trying to convince me of? Am I supposed to be sympathetic and let you sell me?”
All the air went out of her. “No,” she whispered.
“No?” I asked, surprised that this was her answer. “Then what?”
She reached for my dress, fingered the fabric, let it go again. “There is to be a masquerade ball tonight in your honor, and to celebrate the opening of the Body Market—that’s what these gowns are for. There are buyers from all over the world who’ve come to see you. The masks are to protect the privacy of a few of our more skittish guests.” Jude’s breathing was labored. “Everyone is here to preview the merchandise before we plug you back in.”
Nausea grew in my middle. Disgust crawled over my skin.
Jude shook her head. “But I can’t go through with it. Not now.”
Relief quickly replaced the nausea. I stared into my sister’s real face. Saw the lines that had grown around her mouth and her forehead. The way her eyes left purple shadows on her skin. “We’ll do this together, then. We’ll leave, instead of going to the party. We’ll escape. That would make a statement, wouldn’t it? If the leader of the New Capitalists didn’t show up tonight?”
She hesitated. Gripped her taffeta skirts hard, so hard I wondered if her nails would break through the fabric. “It won’t stop the Body Market from opening, if that’s what you were thinking. Eventually a new leader will rise and take over.”
“So what do we do then, Jude?”
She blinked. “I don’t know, Bean.”
“Let me help.”
She shook her head. “There’s a cost to starting a revolution, and then abdicating responsibility.”
My heart pounded. “What sort of cost?”
She met my eyes. The color drained from her face. “The deal I made with Emory . . . it was your life, or mine.”
I shivered. “What do you mean?”
“He said to become a leader means to take a great risk, to put one’s life on the line. And that if I backed down, Mom and I would not only lose everything, but that . . . I would be put to death.”
“What?” I looked at her, stunned. “He can’t do that!”
She laughed bitterly. “Of course he can. He’s the most powerful man in both worlds and he can do whatever he wants. Besides, the first thing I learned about becoming a leader is that the second you do, there are already others planning for the day when they will take that power away and become leaders themselves. There are plenty of New Capitalists waiting for me to fail.” A faraway look appeared in her eyes. “I can’t disappoint Emory.”
I took her hand in mine. “We should run. Please, Jude.”
“No,” she whispered. “If I run, it will only be worse when they find me. And don’t forget Mom. What do you think they’d do to her once I’m gone?”
I wiped tears from my eyes. There were things I needed to say to Jude, that I needed her to hear no matter what came next for us. “You said that you were angry for a long time about Mom plugging me in and not you. But I want you to know that all my virtual life I’ve been grateful to you, Jude. I’ve thought about the sacrifices you and our mother made to give me a future in the App World. I longed for the day when I could thank you for all that you’ve given to me, when I could see you both again, know what you’d become, and have the chance to be a part of your lives again, to see what those lives were after all these years and maybe to stay permanently.” My voice cracked. “I always wondered if my life should be in the Real World, with my family. But I guess now I have my answer, don’t I?”
“Oh, Bean,” Jude sighed.
My shoulders slumped, my lungs empty of air, my heart e
mpty of hope. My mind was racing, my brain leaping from one possibility to the other, trying to come up with an alternative to my situation, to our situation, but finding none. I thought about all the hopes I’d had before unplugging, about the reunion I would have with Jude and my mother, about how all that hope had been for nothing; how I’d betrayed my best friend’s trust and then gotten her into this mess, too. I thought about the deal I’d made with Rain, only to find that he’d tricked me, too. That he’d made me think he might care for me, and even made me start to fall for him, when the whole time he’d been with Lacy, and in the end, all he’d done was make me feel like a foolish girl with a crush. It was then that I made the decision I knew was the only one I could make.
I looked up at my sister now. “If you were to sell me,” I began, slowly, “what exactly would the buyer do with my body?”
She stared into my eyes. “Why, Bean?” she whispered, shocked. “Why would you want to know something like that?”
“Just tell me.”
Jude studied me like I was some strange creature she’d never seen before. “We don’t really know what she—or he—will do once the body is officially exchanged, the paperwork signed, etc. That’s up to the buyer and I suppose it will depend on the country of purchase.”
I swallowed. “And you’re sure I wouldn’t know a thing? I’d be plugged back in to the App World and live on virtually like I’d never left?”
She nodded. “Yes. But what are you saying?”
My stomach churned and roiled. I grabbed the nearest edge of the bed, wrapping my hand tight around the carved wood. Then I took a deep breath. Straightened my back and held my head high. “I’ll do it. I’ll go to the party tonight. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.” My throat was dry. “You made sacrifices for me your entire life. So did Mom. Now it’s my turn.”
Unplugged Page 26