I was about to give up when something changed.
A rush of warmth shot through Trader’s hand, the blood returning, circulating underneath his skin.
I squeezed tighter. “Trader? Trader, can you hear me?” As I sat there, staring at his face, I watched as the breath suddenly returned to his lungs, like a dead body coming back to life. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, as if he was running.
Then, with a gasp, his lips parted.
Trader’s eyes fluttered open and he sat up.
For a moment, neither one of us spoke.
Trader regarded me as though I was something out of a dream, something he didn’t quite believe was real, a ghost hovering before him. But then he seemed to shake the feeling away and, finally, he spoke two words to me.
“Hello, sister.”
26
Skylar
shifty
“SO IT’S TRUE.” I watched as Trader stretched his arms and legs like he was waking from a very long nap. Which I suppose he was.
“You found my note,” he replied vaguely.
I pulled the knife out of my pocket and held it in the palm of my hand. “Obviously. But why was this with it?”
Trader stood up. “I didn’t have any tape. Or a thumbtack.”
I got up and followed him across the room. “Are you really going to joke right now?”
Trader was sorting through the things on the counter of his workstation, one after the other. “I’m not joking. It’s what was available. Well, that and I thought it would get your attention. It felt so . . . symbolic.”
I pressed my hands into the cold surface. “You definitely have my attention. I’m listening.”
Just then, Kit appeared in the doorway. “Hey,” he said to me, expressionless, but his attention was on Trader. “Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “Really.”
Trader’s eyebrows arched. “New boyfriend?”
I glared. “None of your business.”
“Ooh!” Trader laughed. “Did Rain get pushed out of contention? I wouldn’t feel bad if that were the case.”
I moved so I was blocking his view of Kit. “Trader,” I warned. “I’m not here to discuss my love life.”
He was smirking. I wanted to hit him.
Maybe this was what it felt like to have a brother.
“Skylar,” Kit said from behind me, saving me from finding out. “I’ll be in the other room. Just yell if you need anything.”
I didn’t turn around. “Will do,” I called back. To Trader I prompted, “You were saying?”
He picked up a tiny device from the table, half the size of the ones in my pocket, powered it up, and set it onto the counter again. “Honestly, I’m not sure where to begin. So much has happened since we last saw each other,” he added wryly.
I studied Trader. Again I searched for a sign in his face that would confirm beyond a reasonable doubt that we were siblings, but I saw no resemblance. In fact, I saw only traces of Emory there, just as I had the first time Trader and I met in the App World. “You called me sister,” I prompted.
Trader peered over the screen. Something beeped. He seemed so unconcerned. “I did,” he said. “But you said it first. So I guess now you know.”
That sinkhole pulled at my stomach again. My brain couldn’t seem to comprehend this could be true. “Emory Specter is my father, just as he’s yours.”
Trader bobbed his head once. “Sadly for both of us, yes.”
“And your mother?” I asked next. “Is she the same as mine?”
Trader’s expression faltered. “I don’t know who my mother is. In that, you are lucky.”
I went to approach him, but he moved away. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the notion that not only did I have a brother, but that brother was Trader. “Why didn’t you tell me when we were in the App World?” I asked. “You had so many chances.”
“I wasn’t sure back then,” he said. “I had my suspicions, but . . .” He trailed off, his attention going to the little screen on the counter again. He peered over it.
“But what?” I pressed.
He closed his eyes a moment, seeming exhausted suddenly. Then he took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to do that to you, if it wasn’t true. I hate my father, and when you and I met, you already hated him too. You had this idealistic hope for a family who loved and missed you in the Real World and I didn’t want to upend it. It’s nice to feel idealistic.” The smug amusement I was used to seeing in Trader returned and he cocked an eyebrow at me. “Still feeling idealistic these days?”
I laughed, but bitterly. “Obviously not. I mean, could it get any worse?”
“It depends on how you look at it.” His tone sounded light. “At least you now have a brother with no interest in profiting off you. That’s one positive, right?”
My eyes narrowed. “I have a brother who helped my best friend from the App World turn me over to my sister, Jude. To our sister, Jude.”
Trader’s expression darkened. “Either choice I made in that situation was a bad one. But I was always going to help get you out, Skylar. I was never going to let our dear sister sell you to the highest bidder.” He walked over to a set of chairs on the other side of the room. They were metal and seemed functional but uncomfortable, like everything else in this place. They faced a tall panel of glass that looked out onto the rocks and the ocean. Trader gripped the back of one of them and gestured for me to take the other. “Listen, I wasn’t sure if you were my sister until the night of the party.”
I sat down and Trader took his place next to me. “Well, now we’re both sure.” I wondered where in our DNA we shared similarities, and what those similarities were. “Does Emory Specter know that I’m his . . . daughter?” I nearly couldn’t even articulate this, it made me so repulsed.
Trader nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
I stared out the window. A wave crested and crashed onto the rocks, followed by another. The wide and flat ones closer to the house were coated in a layer of ice. Winter could be brutal in the Real World, but there was something comforting about being by the sea, no matter the weather. “And he knows about you, right?”
“Yup,” Trader said. “But as I explained when we first met, if you happen to be Emory’s illegitimate son, it’s best to stay off his radar. Dear ol’ Dad sees his children as useful pawns.”
I huffed. “Like father, like sister, apparently. At least where Jude is concerned.”
Trader’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, I’m sure Jude will find out soon enough that she’s another pawn in Daddy’s plans, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
“I do.” He sounded so sure. “But let’s talk about me and you, Skylar. That’s what you came here to discuss, right?”
I turned away from the view of the sea and let my eyes settle on Trader. “All those years in the App World I lived as a Single, when I had a brother nearby.” I thought about Kit and Maggie, and the bond he spoke of between them, about how strong it was. “We could have helped each other. We could have kept each other company.”
“I might not be the best company for you. Or anyone,” Trader added.
“Why not?”
Trader shifted in his chair so he was leaning as far away from me as he could get. “I don’t like relying on anyone else, and I don’t like it when they rely on me either. Unless it’s for the right price.”
Those words seemed like something I’d hear from Kit. But I didn’t believe it—not entirely. I’d seen how Inara and Trader were together. She meant something to him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”
Trader stared at the waves as they crashed against the rocks. “I don’t care if you buy it or not. It’s just how it is.”
I let out a frustrated breath. “Listen, if it’s our father who’s facilitated the selling of bodies via the App World and our sister who came up with the idea, don’t you think we share some of the responsibility to fix what they’ve done?”
; Trader laughed. “First of all, absolutely not, and second of all, I’m not sure it’s that simple, Skylar. Just because they’re family doesn’t make us responsible. Besides, there are citizens in both worlds who agree that what they’re doing is not only okay, but makes sense. Lots of people.”
I shook my head. “Maybe. But citizens in the App World only know half the story.”
“Trust me,” Trader said. “My entire life I’ve trafficked people back and forth, and I’ve lived in Loner Town. Most App World citizens plug in and never want to look back. They don’t care about what’s going on over here.”
I wrapped my fingers around the seat of the chair, squeezing hard. My knuckles turned white. “But what if they found out their body wasn’t going to be destroyed, and instead would be, I don’t know, sold for parts? Or used so that someone else’s personality and memories could be downloaded into their brain? Don’t you think that might make them pause? Maybe reconsider whether they wanted to hang on to their bodies? Or, at least, reserve the right to decide what happens once they’re removed from the plugs?”
“Glad to see you’ve retained some of your idealism.” Trader stood and opened a tiny window high up in the wall. Cold air rushed over us, but it felt good, and it smelled like the sea. Trader sat back down. “Some of them might want that right, but I think a lot wouldn’t care. They won’t even notice their body is gone, so how could they miss it?”
“We’ll tell them!”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Trader was shaking his head. “Besides, you don’t just pull people back from living their cushy little virtual lives to inform them of something so utterly sinister, do you? Maybe they’d rather not know.”
I was shaking my head. “Maybe not everyone cares what happens to their body, because they’ve moved on. But I do think everybody deserves a choice about what happens to it, that every single person, whether plugged in or not, has the right to decide about their body’s fate. And to make that choice, somebody needs to inform them of what Jude and”—I swallowed, my next words getting stuck in my throat—“our father plan to do.”
Trader rolled his eyes. “I stand corrected. You’ve retained all of your idealism.”
“But don’t you think that’s fair?” Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Or I suppose you only help people for money. I’m sure Rain could sweeten the deal for you.”
Trader shifted uncomfortably. He suddenly couldn’t stop fidgeting. Bouncing his knee. Tapping his leg. “There is one person I owe. And who wants no part in the Body Market.”
My eyes flickered back to him. “Oh?”
“Inara,” he admitted quietly.
“I knew you cared about her,” I said. “We share that in common then.”
Trader leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “We do.”
I studied him a long while. “Are you in love with her?” I asked carefully.
He sat up again. Then he shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. Then he put his head in his hands. “Yes,” he mumbled into them, this one word from his mouth full of anguish.
“Tell me,” I prodded, gently.
At first Trader was silent, but eventually he began to talk. “Remember when she showed up while you were unplugging?”
“Yes,” I said. How could I forget?
“She was so distraught that somehow I found myself wanting to make her feel better, to take all that pain away.” He raised his head again. “So I promised her I’d help her unplug to go and see you, if she wanted.”
My jaw gaped open. “Seriously?”
The expression on Trader’s face was sad. “I’m not always a mercenary, Skylar.”
“Go on.”
“But I also didn’t want her to get herself killed, so I made her wait.”
My eyebrows arched. “I’m glad you cared about the well-being of at least one of us.”
Trader looked defensive. “I knew you’d survive, Skylar. I figured if we shared the same genes then there was no way you wouldn’t make it through.” He waited for me to respond, but when I didn’t, he went on. “It wasn’t long before our sister got to Inara and her family, and she didn’t have a choice but to unplug so she could get to you and turn you in to Jude. So I promised I’d go with her and protect her, which is how I ended up here.” He smiled a little. “I don’t know what it is about her, but I can’t help caring what happens to her.”
“I understand,” I said. “I feel the same way.” I reached over and placed my palm gently on his shoulder. “We’ll get her back. We have to. I can’t accept the alternative. I won’t accept it.”
The two of us were quiet, the only sound the muffled crash and roar of the ocean outside.
After a while, Trader turned to me. “Why did you really come here? It wasn’t just for a reunion with your long-lost brother.”
“Well . . . ,” I started.
He laughed. “See, we all have agendas.” Now he was smirking. “Even you.”
“Yeah, so if my agenda happens to help you get Inara back, are you still going to complain about it?”
His smile faltered. “I always planned on getting her back. I just hadn’t gotten that far yet. The App World keeps spinning regardless of what happens here.”
“When I walked into this room today, that’s where you were, right? The App World?”
He nodded.
Something occurred to me. “Have you tried looking for Inara there?”
Trader covered his face with his hands again. It was strange to see him so anguished. “I can’t find her. I’ve looked everywhere. No one knows where she is. Her parents are worried sick.”
The rhythm of the sea outside the window was worsening as nausea spread through me. “But I thought that the people who were part of the Body Market were still plugged in to the App World. That’s what Jude promised.”
He let his hands fall to his side. “Well, she lied. Or maybe Inara is a special case where both of us are concerned, and Jude is only doing this to Inara to punish us.”
I stood so I could shut the little window. The chill in the room was becoming unbearable. “I have an idea where she might be.” Trader looked at me hopefully. “But I’m going to need your help, which brings me to the other thing I came here to ask. How do you go back and forth between worlds?”
“I’m good with coding,” he said, then seemed to hover on the edge of something else.
“And?” I prompted.
Trader shrugged. “I’ve just always been able to.”
“Do you think other people can too? Maybe even on their own?”
Trader looked interested. “Explain.”
“Well,” I began. “Jude claimed that my body didn’t want to stay plugged in, that I was able to resist the plugs and ‘shift.’ Then there was this boy in the Body Market who just . . . woke up.” My heart beat a little faster. “Being plugged in changes our brains and gives us new skills and abilities—that much we know for sure. So is it possible that someone would develop the skill to . . . move back and forth between worlds at will?”
Trader got up. “That’s an interesting theory, Skylar.”
I stood, too. My heart pounded harder. “But is it just a theory?”
Trader walked over to the cradle at the center of the room and I followed him. Now that it was empty I could really study it. It wasn’t as sleek as the ones in the cavern under Briarwood, but all that mattered was that it worked.
He crouched down next to it. Ran a hand across the headrest. “There’s a glitch that runs through the App World. It operates almost like a wormhole. I learned how to exploit it, so I could move back and forth. I’ve long suspected that other people might find it, even by accident, and develop the ability to travel between worlds on their own. I bet that’s how the boy woke up—maybe he was dreaming about being in the Real World and tapped into the glitch. That’s how you get to it. It’s probably what allowed your body to resist the plug at Jude’s mansion.” Trader looked up at me. “It’s interesting she used
that word to describe it—shift.”
I crouched next to Trader so we were eye to eye. “Why?”
“Because that’s the word I’ve always used—I call it shifting. I wonder what Jude knows about the glitch . . . if she knows . . .” Trader trailed off.
I reached out and touched the makeshift cradle, the part that held the torso in place. “Is it dangerous to use it—this glitch? Has it ever . . . hurt you?”
Trader turned to me. “Why?”
I inhaled deeply. “Because I’d like exploit it, too. I want to know if somehow I’ve developed this ability to go between worlds.” I met his eyes. “Let’s see if I’m able to shift.”
He watched me intently. “Because you want to go back to the App World and tell people about the Body Market.”
“I think it’s what’s right,” I began. “But I also want the chance to search for Inara.” I paused. “And I think that finding that glitch and figuring out how shifting works might be the key to liberating everyone’s bodies. Can you help me?” I searched Trader’s face for signs of willingness. “What do you think? There’s money if you—”
Trader put up a hand to stop me. “Forget about the money. Inara’s a priority in this plan, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Trader’s eyes brightened a little. “All right then,” he said. “Count me in.”
27
Rain
lies
“DID YOU FOLLOW me, Lacy?” I asked.
Lacy put on her best Who, me? face, which on the real Lacy looked far more innocent than the one I’d grown used to in the App World. “So what if I did? I have a right to know what’s going on with you, Rain.”
I walked away without looking back.
She caught up. “Who’s in that room?”
“Nobody,” I lied. “It’s just storage.”
“I heard voices.”
“I was talking to myself.”
Lacy got in front of me and halted. She crossed her arms. “Do you have a secret girlfriend or something?”
The Body Market Page 17