But sometimes, when we were lucky, love settled like gold dust onto the skin of the body and made us shine like not even the latest, most glorious App ever could. It nestled inside of us like a lazy, sleeping kitten, like it might never rise or find any other place so comfortable as us. Sometimes love made our bodies its home, maybe not forever, but at least for a while, and through the meeting of seeking fingers and the touching of lips and hands that wandered here and there we could breathe love in like it was air, let it melt onto our tongues like it was sweet, sweet ice cream, let it wash over our bodies like a warm summer’s rain. At least for a time. At least as long as it lasted.
For this, we were alive.
For this, one day we would die.
For this, fear and fragility and impermanence existed.
For this, bodies were worth keeping, despite everything.
These were the thoughts that bloomed in every part of me when, in the very early hours of the morning, Kit and I finally, after all this time, drifted off to sleep.
39
Kit
trade
WHEN I WOKE up, she was gone.
Skylar was gone.
My heart lurched. We didn’t even say good-bye.
I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. For a long time, I stood in my kitchen, trying to warm myself, unable to stop shivering. Guilt bloomed like a gunshot wound throughout my chest.
Was I really going to do this?
I went to my room and opened the drawer where I kept my shirts, digging around underneath them until I came up with what I wanted. My sister stared up at me from the photo. I slipped it into the pocket of my jeans. When I went to retrieve my winter jacket, I noticed a tiny note gently balanced on top of the doorknob. I picked it up.
I love you, Kit. Skylar
I stared and stared at those words. I stared until a strip of light the color of rust streaked the horizon and my heart started beating again in my chest. I should’ve left thirty minutes ago. I eased the note into the same pocket as the picture. Then I walked out the door into the freezing cold and started up my motorcycle. Riding wasn’t the same without Skylar, I thought to myself, as I took off along the sea.
I knew exactly where to go.
I’d known all along.
I parked my bike in an alley, walked right up to the front door, and knocked.
Jag answered immediately. He stood there, nearly as big as the doorway, staring at me with cold eyes. “What do you want?”
“I’ve come to free my sister,” I said, unflinching.
He laughed, but not kindly. He pretended to look behind me. “I don’t see the merchandise. No merchandise, no trade.”
Was I really going to do this? I asked myself again. After last night?
I took a deep breath, and let it out. Then I spoke the words I’d never be able to take back. “I have information to barter with,” I told Jag. “Information about a rebellion Skylar is leading.”
Jag laughed again, this time in disbelief. His thick body shook with it. “What makes you so special she would tell you her plans?”
I dug in my pocket and produced the note.
Jag read it.
He stopped laughing and stepped aside.
I didn’t need any more of an invitation. Without another word, I walked through the doorway and into the darkness behind him.
40
Skylar
false starts
WE MET BEFORE dawn in an abandoned building just outside the Body Market. The nearby hotel was a looming shadow against the dark sky, the glass windows reflecting the lingering moon. My group consisted of Adam and Parvda, two seventeens, both girls I’d only met once before, and Trader.
He eyed me as I propped my bicycle against the wall. “Nice wheels.”
“I like them,” I said, slipping the hood from my head.
Trader gave me a knowing look. “There’s something different about you this morning.”
Red crept up my neck to my face. I did my best to cover it up. “Risking one’s life will change a girl.”
Trader put an arm around me and pulled me close, with an affection that surprised me. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you today.”
I looked up into his black eyes. For once, they were sincere. “I actually believe you.”
“Good, because it’s true,” he said quietly.
Everyone gathered together, and I learned that the other seventeens’ names were Shereese and Niki. They’d just come back from scouting the best way into the market.
Niki checked her tablet. Her long braids brushed her shoulders. “The market opens in fifteen minutes for viewing, but the bidding and buying don’t start until ten a.m. That gives us three hours.”
Shereese was the tallest person here. She towered over everyone, all lean muscles and sleek limbs. “We think the best way in is through the side entrance. It won’t be as busy as the front one, but it will have enough activity that we can blend in. Then we’ll head to the spot we picked out underground for you.”
“They seem to have a storage space of sorts,” Niki said, picking up where Shereese left off. “There are a few spare plugs, I guess you could say, which makes our job easier since we don’t need to kick anybody else out.”
I nodded, but the idea of “spare plugs” worried me. “Are they spare plugs or are they empty ones, because the bodies were already sold?”
Shereese shrugged. “Could be, but we don’t have time to worry about that.” She glanced at her tablet. “We’ve got to get moving.”
Trader grabbed a black bag off the ground and said something to Parvda. Everyone began to file out of the building into the cold dark streets, but Adam hung back.
“You okay?” he asked.
I shrugged on the hood of my coat, pulling it around my face. “I’m fine. I just wonder what this morning will bring.”
“Well, let’s go see,” he said.
The two of us slipped into the darkness with the others.
The Body Market was just as I remembered it.
Lush red carpet. Gleaming glass. Guards everywhere, eyes vacant, though I was certain they were watching. Even this early in the morning there was an air of excitement, Body Tourists from all over the world streaming inside, speaking so many different languages, eager to start the buying that brought them here, dressed and ready for the market to reopen.
My stomach churned, taking it all in.
We moved through the aisles with the rest of the crowd, winding our way down below. I followed Shereese and Niki, and Adam, Parvda, and Trader hung back. The sheer number of bodies around us was enormous. There must be tens of thousands. Shereese and Niki led me to a door in the far corner of one of the lower floors, nearly hidden in darkness. We looked around to make sure no one was watching us and went inside.
There were glass coffins with nothing in them, save the cradle for plugging in.
“You ready, Skylar?” Niki asked, all business.
I took a deep breath and nodded. Shereese popped open the latch and I climbed inside, setting my arms and legs gently into the rests. Maybe Rain was doing the very same thing right now out at Briarwood. It was a relief to think he would meet me once I got to the App World, that I wouldn’t be all alone today. I was just laying my head back when Trader and everyone else came through the door. But the second my head hit the cradle, a wave of exhaustion flowed through me, followed by shards of fear and doubt.
Should I have gone straight to bed last night? Or was it simply the upcoming task of shifting that sapped my body of its energy?
Trader stared down at me, tablet in hand. “It’s time, Skylar.”
“I know,” I replied, my voice hoarse. Then I took a deep breath. “I want this over with.”
Trader nodded and attached a sensor to the underside of the headrest, the one that tracked my brain waves and would amplify the power of the App. Without waiting for him to tell me we were ready or that I could go, I closed my eyes.
My
last thought was of Kit, his face, his eyes, his mouth so close to mine.
And then I fell under.
I stood on a cliff.
Snow was falling. Lightly. Gently.
I put out my hand and waited for the cold specks to melt against my skin. The cool and ice in my palm made me smile. When I looked up again, the snow fell harder, so hard it was like a blizzard, a harsh wind searing through my thin clothing, sleet pelting my face.
I searched and searched through the driving snow.
Wanting him to appear.
The faint outline of a boy took shape, not far away.
I pushed against the wind and the ice, trying to get to him.
The moment I got close, he disappeared.
My heart hurt so much it left a hole in my chest.
I put my hands to my face.
My cheeks were wet, soaked, I thought from the snow.
But then I realized they were streaked with tears.
I opened my eyes.
I tried to sit up.
I couldn’t.
My wrists and ankles were tied down.
I was lying flat, on a soft red carpet. I could feel the cushion of it along my spine, at the back of my legs and underneath my shoulders. I yanked hard with my hands but it was no use. I couldn’t break free.
That’s when I heard the whispering. At first, I couldn’t hear what was being said or who was saying it. Then I began to hear bits and pieces.
Bid . . . pricey but . . . how much? . . . sister . . . so many uses for a body like that.
My head throbbed, my limbs cried out. Everything hurt from the strain of listening, from the strain of fighting against the bonds that held me tight to the ground. I was able to budge only enough so I could shift my face toward all those whispering voices.
An enormous crowd looked back at me.
Hundreds. Maybe thousands.
They hushed as they met my gaze.
The blood rushed through me, loud in my ears.
The Body Market. I am being sold on the Body Market.
I’d failed. Failed. My sister won and this was my punishment.
Then someone in the crowd began to call my name. Again and again.
“Skylar! Skylar!”
They yelled, they chanted.
My name, again and again, and I was powerless to do anything.
Trapped.
About to be sold.
I started to scream.
Air, I couldn’t get any air.
Then a burst of it filled my lungs and I gasped it out like it was water trying to drown me. My throat was raw, everything was raw. My skin and my muscles felt battered. My eyes flickered open.
“Sis?” Trader looked down at me. His eyes were worried.
“Is it over?” I croaked. Pain shocked my brain. I saw stars, my vision streaked with colorful lightning, followed by the hot burning pink of sunset. Trader didn’t speak. Instead he placed his tablet before me so I could see the time. Only ten minutes had passed. There was an urgent message on the screen from Zeera. I lifted my head. Shereese and Niki were whispering to each other in the corner. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. Your body, your brain . . . maybe this is too much for it to handle. This is the third time you’ve tried to shift in just a couple of days. I’ve never even done that.”
Adam appeared at my feet. “Maybe we should message everyone that there’s been a change of plans.”
“It would have to be that our plans are over,” Trader said.
“No,” I protested. “No way. Let me try again. Maybe it was just a false start.”
Adam was shaking his head. “Skylar, you could get hurt. I knew this was a bad idea. You could be damaging your brain.”
I laid my head back against the rest, blinking up at the ceiling. “I don’t care. Tell Zeera everything is fine.” I squeezed my eyes shut. By now I knew how this worked, so before anyone could tell me not to, once again, I fell under.
I stumbled along the shore, kept stumbling, tripping over rocks and slipping on kelp, the world spinning.
Why couldn’t I stop spinning?
The sky was a strange shade of yellow, so bright it hurt my eyes. There was a terrible smell in the air. I sniffed at it. Rotting fish. I kept pushing forward along the cluttered beach, but it seemed I was going in circles. I was lost.
And this was an island.
My entire body was exhausted. I wanted to lie down on the beach and go to sleep.
But wait . . . I’d been here before.
I looked at the tall trees at the center of everything, and as I did, it started to rain. There was something I needed to remember, something pushing at the edges of my brain, wanting my attention.
Inara, went a whisper, somewhere deep inside of me.
I went plowing through the brush, shaking away the water soaking my hair, my face, until I made it to the clearing. There, underneath the biggest tree, sat Inara, just as I remembered from Odyssey.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Am I dreaming?”
She looked up. “Skylar, I need you.” She blinked her big eyes. “Come and find me beyond the room with the doors.”
The room with the doors, repeated my mind.
My brain suddenly lit up, and so did the sky.
The rain stopped, the sun came out, and the landscape began to change.
I was walking through a dream and I needed to take control of it. And when I did, I’d find my way into the App World.
The App World. I’m going to the App World.
That’s what I needed to remember.
Cool relief showered my tired mind, my tired limbs.
Just before the landscape could shift away, I looked at Inara. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there soon,” I told her.
This time, when I walked forward, I did so without stumbling, I did so with full awareness of why I was here. I walked and walked, watched the sky as it changed colors and the ground as the sand gave way to a narrow street, which eventually became a floor that looked like it was made of wood. Soon, tall walls rose up around me.
I’d found the room with the doors.
Once more, there was a different number. I was prepared for this, but what I wasn’t prepared for was how different in number they’d be.
There were too many to count. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.
Door upon door upon door.
A fun house of doors that wasn’t fun at all.
Was my mind playing tricks? How in both worlds would I find the door to Jonathan Holt’s office? My heart sped, panic clawing at my insides, and the doors seemed to multiply as I stood there watching. I ran from one to the other and the next, doors of all colors and sizes, doors made of concrete, of wood, of soft thatched grass, of glass, and even one of storm clouds. I turned this way, then that, dizzy and lost.
All over again, I was losing my grip on the dream.
I halted, midfrenzy, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Focused on the one door I needed, Jonathan Holt’s office door.
You can do this, Skylar.
When I opened them again, the endless doors were still everywhere around me, but they were blurry and out of focus. All except for one.
Straight ahead, I saw a door that was remarkably familiar. It was metal, maybe steel, and looked as thick as the door that led to a vault. As thick as the door that led to the weapons room at Briarwood. In fact, it looked exactly like the weapons room door. I shook my head. I bet Marcus Holt had designed both. He’d built a weapons room for himself in the Real World and then duplicated its design in his new and improved virtual one. People were predictable. They might cede an entire life and their bodies with it for the promise of a virtual existence, yet then spend so much of that virtual existence trying to get back what they once had in the Real World they’d left.
I went to it now and placed my hand against the cold smooth metal. Closed my eyes, concentrating, then pushed hard.
The heavy door swung open.
A rush of cold air like winter met me on the other side. I stood in the threshold a moment between worlds, between the dreamy land where the shift took place and the virtual reality that lay on its other side. I extended my arm across the border, marveling at the way I immediately changed once I reached the App World. The part of me that remained in the room with the doors still had the same golden-brown skin I’d grown used to on my real body. That part of me was flush with color and life. Whereas the arm I’d extended into the App World lost its color altogether. It was faded and pale, the basic virtual self always awaiting the magic of an App.
As I stood there, my head began to throb.
Maybe the body, regardless of its makeup, didn’t like being suspended between worlds. I took one last look at the part of me still vibrant with color and then shut the door to Jonathan Holt’s office behind me.
I was in.
I looked around.
Where was Rain?
The Prime Minister’s office was enormous but uncluttered. A large imposing desk was placed at one end of it, a long table with chairs in the middle, but otherwise, it was empty. Sleek but lonely. The room seemed designed to have the qualities of a basic virtual self, so it could show off the presence of the latest in Apps. One entire wall was made up of floor-to-ceiling windows, and I went to them, stalling, hoping Rain would appear soon. The Water Tower stood directly outside, blue and moving, so like the real one, but now I could see differences that gave this one away as just a copy, the way the edges of the building curled ever so slightly, the color of it exceedingly bright, every detail exaggerated just enough that someone with a careful eye would know that what they were seeing wasn’t reality.
Maybe this was one of the dangers of the Real World.
If you spent too much time there, you’d begin to see the cracks in this one.
Voices floated up from the ground below.
I strained to see where they came from.
A parade of people walked alongside the park.
Protests? In this tony part of town?
Time to focus, I reminded myself.
Rain had yet to arrive, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I turned away from the windows and went to the place in the wall he’d told me about, where Jonathan Holt’s personal App Store was hidden. It looked like nothing was there. Just gray, cold concrete.
The Body Market Page 24