Suddenly bullets were everywhere.
Jessica dropped to the ground ahead of me.
And I screamed.
There was a pause in the shooting as the guards reloaded.
I ran to help her, but she was already dead, shot in the head. Her lifeless brown eyes looked up at me.
“Skye, come on!” Rain urged.
“Jessica,” I said, unable to turn away from her, unable to let go of her limp body, but then the shooting started again. I got up to run, and I stopped. I blocked Jessica and Rain with my own body, since my sister had ordered that I not be damaged. “We can’t just leave her!”
“We have no choice.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me away.
I took one last look at Jessica, this girl who I thought would become my first real friend in this world, before leaving her behind. “Stay ahead of me so you don’t get hurt,” I yelled up at Rain. I saw Adam and Parvda reach the exit.
Adam turned back, hesitant.
“Go on,” Rain urged him. “Make sure the van is ready! We’re coming!”
They slipped through the doors.
We were nearly there when a group of guards appeared on our right. We would never reach the exit in time. Without thinking I grabbed one of the knives at my waist and threw it. It hit one of the guards, a woman, straight in the heart. The others seemed stunned, watching as she slid to the ground, her eyes going vacant.
I’d killed her.
I’d killed a real live human being for the second time.
But it was the first time I was aware while doing it.
This wasn’t a game anymore.
I grabbed another knife and threw it, then another and another until they were all gone, watching as the guards went down one by one. Rain had been right. Our skills from gaming transferred. Even the killing one.
Rain’s jaw fell open as he looked at the bodies lying on the ground.
Meanwhile, the others were getting closer behind us.
“Skye, we can make it,” Rain said. “Hurry!”
We stepped over the guards. Rain was through the door to safety and I was about to join him when I heard a familiar voice screaming and I came to an abrupt halt.
One of the guards approached.
He had Inara in a headlock. He dragged her along as she whimpered and cried. There was a gun pointed at her head. He stopped before he got to the first dead guard, maybe ten yards away. My sister was right behind him. Her hair had come loose and her dress was ripped. Gone was the allure of calm that had surrounded her and gone was any of the sympathy she’d shown me earlier. Her eyes were filled with hatred. “How dare you ruin this for me! You’ve already ruined enough, and I won’t let you take this too.”
The guard shifted Inara into my sister’s grasp, and Jude pressed the gun hard into Inara’s temple as she screamed in fear.
“Jude, let Inara go,” I said. “None of this is her fault.”
“I know, isn’t it tragic? She and I have so much in common. You’ve nearly ruined both of us.”
“Please,” I begged. “She’s my best friend.”
My sister laughed. “Not from what I hear.”
“Skye, help me,” Inara pleaded. Her voice was small and frightened.
“Your choice is simple.” Jude’s eyes were wide, as though proclaiming innocence. “Turn yourself in, or watch your friend die.”
My eyes darted between Inara, the gun, and my sister, looking so smug, sure that she’d won. As my hands clutched at what was left of my dress, I discovered something.
A third option.
There was one knife left, one that I’d missed. It was still hidden in the folds of the tattered skirt.
I sighed heavily, dramatically, as though I was acquiescing to my sister’s wishes, and in the process my hand closed around the handle. I’d always been good with knives, but there was no room for mistakes here. Inara’s life was at risk. Mine, too. And I’d have to be fast.
“Skye, don’t do it, don’t surrender,” I heard Rain say behind me. He must have come back through the door when I didn’t emerge.
“I have to,” I said, spinning around to face him, taking this opportunity to ready the knife. “Inara needs me.”
Rain’s eyes flickered to it. Then very slightly, he nodded.
I would aim for Jude’s left shoulder.
I didn’t have it in me to aim for her heart.
“Hurry up, Skylar,” Jude said. “I want this over. Now.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
Then, as I was turning back, I raised the knife.
And I threw it with all my might.
I watched it leave my hand and fly across the room. It seemed to travel in slow motion. My sister’s face went slack with shock as her eyes saw the blade. Her arm loosened and Inara slipped to the ground. Just as the knife was about to reach its target, at the very last second, Jude moved. She crouched in an attempt to protect herself.
But she calculated badly.
Moved left instead of right.
The knife hit its mark.
It plunged straight into the side of Jude’s face.
She let out a bloodcurdling scream.
The guards went to her.
Trader appeared behind them. “I’ve got Inara! I’ll take her to safety! Get out while you can,” he shouted to me, but his words seemed so far away.
Blood was everywhere.
My sister’s face was covered in it.
“We have to go, we have to go, we have to go now,” someone was saying urgently behind me. The words were distant and I couldn’t make myself react. Jude’s scream echoed in my head.
I thought it might echo there forever.
Then Rain stepped between me and the guards who were helping my sister, between me and Trader, who was helping Inara up. They began to run, Trader yanking Inara along behind him. Neither of them looked back. “Skylar. Wake up.” Rain grabbed my arm and dragged me from the room, out the door into the cool night air.
Time blurred.
The smell of burning was everywhere.
A van pulled up and I let myself be lifted inside. I felt the vehicle lurch forward. Around me were Adam and Parvda, Zeera and Rain. Not Jessica. Never again Jessica. In my daze, I noticed someone else in the passenger seat, a girl with long copper hair. She turned around and blinked at me in the darkness.
“What’s Lacy doing here?” I managed to ask.
“A lot has happened while you were gone,” said a familiar voice, and I saw that the Keeper was at the wheel. She kept glancing at me in the mirror. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I told her, my tone flat. “I’m fine.”
But was I? Were any of us?
As if to confirm this, Lacy reached back—I thought for me, at first—but then I realized she was reaching for Rain’s hand. A look passed between them as he took it. “You’ve got her,” she said to him. “Just like you said you would. It’s going to be okay. Everything will be okay.”
He nodded. They let go of each other’s hands.
Lacy turned to me. “I know we’ve never been friends, Skylar, but I was worried about you, too. I didn’t mean to betray you.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.
Lacy settled into her seat again, facing front.
No one else spoke.
People had died tonight, and I had killed them.
I’d come to the Real World with so many hopes.
But now I was a murderer.
A war had begun tonight.
And truly, I was in the middle of it.
They woke me when we reached the ocean.
One by one, we stumbled from the van.
I went to the Keeper and, wordlessly, threw my arms around her. “I didn’t know if I’d see you again.”
Her arms tightened around me. “I was so worried about you.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
&
nbsp; We let each other go and started toward the path in the dunes. Rain waited for us at the top.
“It isn’t your fault,” she said as we walked. “This is much bigger than you, Skye. I’m sorry you’re caught in it.”
“We all are,” I said. “Aren’t we?”
She nodded. Then the Keeper took off to join the others.
I met Rain at the top of the dune and saw the long, curving stretch of beach ahead. I thought about Inara and me on our last virtual day together when she’d landed us by the ocean and the sand. I remembered the tiny sailboats and our race to the island. I remembered how exhilarated I was to be swimming. It was only a couple of months ago now, but it seemed like a hundred years. So much had happened since then. So many terrible things. One last time, I turned to look at the faint outline of skyscrapers in the distance, stretching up toward the sun. The city we’d fled.
But it was only for now. We’d be back.
There was so much more to come.
“Skye,” Rain said. “We should go.”
I nodded. “You go catch up to the others. I’ll follow in a minute. I need some time alone.”
“Okay,” he said, a little reluctantly.
But then he left.
I watched Rain walk away, pick up his pace until it became a jog and he joined the group, fitting himself between Adam and Lacy. I descended the dune and didn’t stop until my toes met the ocean. Then I walked deeper and deeper, and when the water had risen all the way up to my waist I dove into the sea.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The idea for this novel goes all the way back to a wonderful Descartes lecture given by Tony Dardis, a professor and colleague from Hofstra University, on Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, for a funky great books-like course we sometimes team teach (with many other profs) at the Honors College there. I feel indebted to my time teaching at Hofstra for sparking so many of the big questions that have inspired my thinking and the ideas in this novel (and subsequent novels in the trilogy), and to Warren Frisina, the dean of the Honors College, for having me teach in this wonderful program.
I am grateful for the careful attention and editorial feedback (and the perseverance!) of Tara Weikum, my editor at Harper, for whom I feel so much gratitude, not to mention a slight bit of jealousy since a lot of her editing took place in Hawaii. Everyone at Harper who has worked on and supported Unplugged, especially Ro Romanello, Elizabeth Ward, Joey Jachowski, Andrea Pappenheimer, and the marketing, sales, and production teams (especially design!), who have made this process so much fun. I am also grateful to Sarah Barley for all her time and editorial feedback on Unplugged during the time when she was still at Harper.
And as always, I want to thank my friends and fellow writers for their input, feedback, and moral support as I’ve worked on this novel, most especially: Rebecca Stead (for our magic lunch, when what was one novel suddenly turned into a trilogy), Marie Rutkoski, Daphne Grab, Eliot Schrefer, Cheryl Klein, and Alvina Ling. My agent, Miriam Altshuler, is the best, best, best and always has been, and this book wouldn’t exist (it really, really wouldn’t) without her ongoing support and commitment to me as her author and to all the work that I do. Y, por supuesto a Daniel Matus, la persona que vivió este proceso desde el principio, en este lado del Atlántico y en Barcelona, para tu apoyo y amor y un montón de conversaciones mientras bebíamos vino español, siempre estaré agradecido.
EXCERPT FROM THE BODY MARKET
Keep reading for a glimpse at
THE BODY MARKET,
the sequel to
UNPLUGGED.
Nature teaches me that my own body is surrounded by many other bodies, some of which I have to seek after, and others to shun. And indeed, as I perceive different sorts of colors, sounds, odors, tastes, heat, hardness, etc., I safely conclude that . . . some are agreeable, and others disagreeable, [and] there can be no doubt that my body, or rather my entire self, in as far as I am composed of body and mind, may be variously affected, both beneficially and hurtfully, by surrounding bodies.
—René Descartes,
“Of the Existence of Material Things and of the Real Distinction Between the Mind and Body of Man,”
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
1
Sleeping beauties
I ADJUSTED THE scarf around my head.
Only my eyes were visible.
I stepped into the crush of tourists heading inside. A great canopy stretched over us, blocking out the cold winter sun. The floor was polished marble, and it shined so clean and new it was slick as ice. To my right, people emerged from the lobby of the tall, glittering hotel, with its carefully trimmed topiaries lining the entrance.
All around me were voices.
They were speaking in languages I didn’t understand. I wished for an App to translate what they were saying and then almost laughed. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Apps were a part of everyday life. An entire world away from the one I was in now. Literally.
I concentrated on the man next to me as we inched forward under the canopy. He held the hand of a woman, maybe his wife. They were nearly the same height, both shorter than me, their hair black as ink, their eyes slanted. I listened to the sounds coming from their mouths, their accents, the tonal cadence of their words. Even with all my gaming and paying attention in Real World History, I couldn’t translate the meaning, but with a little effort I could recognize the language.
They were speaking Japanese.
I listened to the others milling around me now, all of us trying to get closer to the reason we’d all come. In the span of five minutes I heard a total of seven different languages. First there were the young men speaking in French, and then a large group shuffling along whispering to one another in Chinese. There was the tall blond couple talking intimately in Dutch, and another nearly shouting in Spanish. I heard snatches of Italian but I couldn’t tell from which direction they’d come, and the same went for the female voice talking in German. Even more languages swirled in the air around me that I couldn’t quite place.
People had dressed for the occasion.
Many of the women had chosen smart skirted suits, spindly heels on their feet and lavish thick coats to protect them from the cold, jewels drooping from their ears. But there were also a few in colorful saris and even more with veils that revealed only their eyes. The men seemed to have coordinated with one another, deciding to don formal black suits and boxy wool coats. The world’s wealthiest had spared no expense, traveling far and wide for this momentous occasion. My flight from the ball and the fire had certainly made a dent in my sister’s plans, but in the end it had only delayed the inevitable. I tried not to think too much about the price that had been paid that night.
Moving forward was all that mattered.
That’s why I was here.
Rain didn’t think it should be me. He thought that it was too dangerous given my relationship to this place and its founder. But it was because of that relationship that it needed to be me. And then, Rain wasn’t high on my list of trusted advisers at the moment. He’d hidden the truth about my sister, and he’d openly lied about Lacy.
He didn’t get to tell me what to do anymore.
I wasn’t here for him. Not for his battle.
I was here for mine. I wanted to see for myself the fate I’d so narrowly escaped.
The full extent of the exhibits was a winding labyrinth that covered entire city blocks and extended down, down, down under the earth. The tourists were anxious to get started, excited for the preview they’d been promised. The priciest merchandise trotted out and featured to entice and seduce, the rest of it stored away in the underground caverns, waiting and ready. An entire city’s worth of goods. We shuffled along together, slowly moving forward in the line. Some people had their heads buried in a map, trying to pinpoint where we were in relation to the various displays.
Finally, we rounded the corner.
At the end of the aisle, someone had constructed a dais made o
f gleaming white marble. A set of stairs covered in lush red carpet led up to the star attraction. People stood within the space marked out by velvet ropes to get a closer look. I got in the back, and soon dozens more tourists took their places behind me. Slowly, we snaked our way through the maze. At least thirty minutes passed before I reached the bottom of the staircase. By now I could see the ends of the long glass box. It was illuminated from the inside. Everything around it was dark, so as to highlight the preciousness of its contents.
Step by step, eventually I was next.
The two tourists ahead of me—a man and a woman speaking Chinese—talked excitedly as they strode forward. I watched as they circled the box, whispering, pointing things out to each other. They glanced back at me and nodded, just before funneling through the velvet ropes toward the exit.
Then it was my turn.
I stepped up to the box and forced myself to look long and hard at what lay before me.
At who.
Jude was trying to punish me for my escape.
And she’d done an excellent job.
I pressed my hands against the glass, even though the sign warned me not to. I took in the delicate limbs, the elegant fingers painted a pale pink for the occasion. The way the chest gently rose and fell, shifting the covering that lay across the lower and upper halves of the body. Lips painted red and eyes closed peacefully. Long blond hair fell across the forehead and down along the shoulders and arms, curled and impeccably styled to show off its lustrous shine. The skin was smooth and unblemished, or nearly so.
A tiny scar curved underneath the elbow.
You had to know it was there to see it.
You had to know it was there to even look.
I stared at the body of Inara, my best friend since I was small, on display for all the world to see.
To admire. To envy.
To covet and to buy.
Trader had failed in his attempt to help her escape, and soon Inara would be sold to the highest bidder.
The Body Market was open for business.
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