The Mind Virus

by Donna Freitas

  “We are!” Sylvia urged.

  I zeroed in on Zeera. “I thought you would help me.”

  “I plan on it. I’m going to. But I think Rain’s right. The App World is too dangerous.”

  I shook my head. I really was alone. More than ever. I made my way around the setup of chairs on the terrace, my skin slick with water. I couldn’t get out fast enough.

  “Skylar, don’t leave,” Sylvia was saying.

  But I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to speak. I was afraid I’d say something I’d later regret. Instead, I opened the screen door and disappeared inside the mansion again, leaving them with only their tablets and the thunder and lightning and the incessant sound of the rain for company.

  9

  Ree

  hello?

  I DIDN’T KNOW how much time had passed since my mother, well . . .

  The sound of her screams still pierced my ears. It was worse than with Char. I wished I could erase the memory. Go back to the days of being one among the many popular girls at High School 4.0, my social success due to my sarcastic wit and not how my basic self took to various Appearance Apps. I had more important things to do than waste time exaggerating my looks.

  Char never understood that about me.

  Neither had my mother.

  My code skidded with guilt. Even though we didn’t get along, I’ve felt sad, tragic, even, about her absence. I’ve missed her more than I ever thought I would. Virtual tears kept running down my face. It frightened me, being without her, alone and trapped in this apartment.

  A lion blinked at me from my wall. Its mouth yawned wide and a great roar filled my room. The safari theme I’d downloaded last night turned out to be loud and not at all soothing like the sounds of the ocean or the breeze running through the trees of the other Interior Decorator Apps. Besides, how long could a girl really tolerate sleeping in a flimsy tent? The App totally promised a “High-End Glamping Experience,” but the simulation of mosquitos buzzing during the night went a bit too far for my taste.

  I went out onto the terrace.

  Perfect virtual weather again today. How shocking.

  I rolled my eyes.

  At nobody.

  My mother’s lounge chair sat empty, taunting me. It had deflated, the App she’d used to turn it into a bobbing raft-like bed long drained away.

  I cupped my hands over my mouth. “Hello,” I called out to the App World. I looked up at the terrace above ours, where I could see our neighbor. He was leaning over the railing and staring straight at me. I wished I’d bothered to go upstairs to introduce myself back when I could, but it’s not like people ever cared to do that around here. He was actually a very good-looking Over Eighteen. More than once I’d fantasized about him rescuing me from this hellhole, leaping over the edge of his terrace onto mine, riding a gleaming white Arabian stallion, dressed as a medieval knight like in that game I used to play based on that story, you know, the one with the rock and a sword stuck in it?

  “Hello!” I shouted at him again. “Hello?” I screamed.

  His eyes were certainly on me, but he obviously couldn’t see me. He blankly watched the floor of the terrace like I wasn’t standing there at all.

  So much for my knight-in-shiny-armor fantasy.

  Or was it shining armor?

  “Gahhhh!!!!” I yelled. Even the right words failed me. “You can’t hear anything I say, right? Right? Right!” I shouted at the boy. “Because by the way, I think you’re, like, really, really, really hot even without any downloads! If you could hear me right now, I’d actually introduce myself and invite you over to be my Boyfriend 12.5! And do you know how many people at my High School 4.0 would have wished for an invitation like that? You should feel impressed with yourself, honestly!”

  Eventually, he went back inside his family’s apartment, totally unaware that he had an exceptional girl admirer one floor down.

  I sighed. Looked around some more.

  In the next terrace over, our other neighbors, a couple, were outside downloading decorative plants. I’d never met them either. It’s not like my mother and I ever needed anything from them, like in the olden Real World days when people supposedly would go to each other’s houses to ask for, I don’t know, a vat of sugar. Apps provided for everyone’s needs, so there was no point in getting to know the people around you. “Yoo-hoo,” I called out to them. “You both should know that your basic selves are, like, way better looking than those weird Alien Apps you think make you look more interesting!”

  For the rest of the morning I kept shouting things at people I could see on the nearby terraces. When that got boring, I lay down on the floor, staring up at the Sunlight 8.0, which was a pretty pale yellow. And when I eventually got sick of lying there sky-gazing, I practiced walking on the terrace railing, which I was getting pretty good at, since being a prisoner in your own home can make you get good at lots of things. When that got boring, I hopped down and actually sat on my mother’s deflated and sad lounge chair, studying my toes.

  Which totally needed a Manicure App.

  The last one I downloaded had nearly faded and my nails had only these sad little turquoise chips of polish left.

  But then, why would I even care about my appearance?

  Not only couldn’t I leave, not only was my mind-chat permanently out of order, but absolutely no one could hear or see me. I could cover myself in dirt and leaves! I could yammer on all day, telling people what I really thought of them, confessing my most embarrassing secrets to everyone in the vicinity, to no avail! The government seriously thought of everything when they shut my mother and me away in our luxury apartment.

  Well . . . except . . . maybe . . .

  Last night, the buzzing of the mosquitos around my tent and the pitter-patter of elephant feet tramping around outside got so loud they’d pulled me out of shutdown. I’d been groggy, listening to the incessant scream of various flying bugs. Hearing them was frightening, but I was still too sleepy to put an early end to the safari download and call up a more peaceful scenario. For some reason I’d started to think about how I hadn’t gamed in a while and how much I used to love my Atari Old School Adventurer App and the way it made my arms and legs look like boxy squares that jerked awkwardly.

  That’s when an idea had occurred to me!

  I’d nearly forgotten it until now.

  With a quick double-clap of my virtual hands I called up my App Store.

  At first it swarmed with Interior Decorator Apps, since I’d been in a redecorating phase. I chased those away with a few angry swipes, until the ones I was looking for began to emerge from the dark, forgotten recesses of my Store. They were skittish. The way they played hard to get, hovering just out of reach, their icons giving me sad faces, almost made me feel guilty for ignoring them for so long.

  I studied the Apps, trying to decide which one to try first.

  The icon for Safari Adventure eyed me shyly, but I shook my head and it darted away. I’d heard enough lions roaring and animals stampeding through the jungle to keep me for a few lifetimes. If I didn’t find a way out of this apartment soon I was going to go crazy and end up like some sort of weird virtual Miss Havisham, like in that novel I’d had to download to my brain once for Retro American Literature.

  Hmmmm.

  What about Moon Jumper?

  Or Space Racer?

  The Game of Facebook: The Beat-All-Your-Friends Popularity Contest?

  Queen Bee or Queen Bitch: High School Popularity Contest?

  The Bachelor, Under Eighteen, 49.0 Edition?

  Real World Perils 75: Dystopian Terror?

  All of these were Social Games, with multiplayer platforms. There were so many to choose from—Worldpocalypse 99.0, and Pandemic: The End of America, and Queen of the App World. The list went on and on. There were games for playing house, games for racing, games of Olympic competition, games of virtual world domination, and tons of games to compete to see who was the most successful, the most beautiful,
the most amazing among all the people you know.

  How had I not thought of these games before?

  I couldn’t get beyond the hall outside my apartment, leap from the terrace, or get anyone in my vicinity to hear or notice me. But would the same restrictions be applied within the parameters of a download? What if I entered a game and saw someone else? Would they be able to see me and interact like they should if the game was working properly? And if so, could I finally find a way out of this endless era of domestic discontent?

  I reached for the Gaming App I’d settled on, the icon shivering and shaking way, way out in the farthest reaches of my Store. As though it didn’t want me near it. As though it wasn’t supposed to be there at all.

  “Hello,” I said sweetly as it leapt even farther afield. “You’re going to help me break a few government rules, aren’t you now?” I tried to coax it closer. Was it actually avoiding me or was I imagining this? “Did somebody tell you not to let me download you, hmm?”

  Or maybe the problem was simpler. Maybe its feelings were hurt. Apps were known to be emotionally unpredictable and prone to pouting. They were coded to provoke guilt in their users and to toy with our emotions so we’d put more and more capital into them.

  “Here, kitty, kitty! Don’t be scared,” I said, my spirit fingers waving at it like I’d downloaded one of those annoying Cheerleading Apps that Char and I used to be obsessed with when we were tens. “Come to Ree!”

  The icon with its mug, bubbling over with beer, crept a little closer.

  “That’s it!” I coaxed. “Come here! I won’t bite!”

  The second it was within reach my arms shot out, hands closing over it, trapping it like a bug in a jar. Or a virtual girl in a virtual City at the center of a virtual world.

  “Gotcha,” I said, and for the first time in a long, long while, I smiled.

  10

  Skylar

  unlikely allies

  “I NEED YOUR help,” I said.

  Lacy’s back was to me, her fiery copper hair grown so long it reached the middle of her back. She was getting food in the cafeteria. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She didn’t turn around. She gripped the sides of the tray, nails glittering green like always, clicking against the plastic. “You have not come to me asking for help. I am certain I just misheard you.”

  I walked around to her other side so she had to look at me. Lacy might seem like the last person I should go to for anything, but I had a feeling she would come around. I’d thought about going to Trader, but he’d grown protective of me too, lately, and I worried he would say no and tell Rain about my plan. Besides, I knew what would interest Lacy about what I wanted to do. “Lacy, no, you didn’t misunderstand. I know that you and I aren’t friends—”

  “—have never been friends nor ever will be friends,” she spat, her eyes as fiery as her hair. “You stole my boyfriend.”

  I breathed slowly. I didn’t want to fight. “Whatever happened between you and Rain is about Rain, not me.”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s a lie and you know it. The least you can do is be honest about the facts. You owe me that much. And the facts are this: with Rain, it’s always about you. It’s been about you for over a year, and if you haven’t figured this out then you are stupider than even I ever realized.”

  I considered her words. “I don’t know why Rain is so focused on me.”

  She laughed, short and loud. “Well, there’s something we agree on.” She took off toward the tables, all of them empty at this late hour of the afternoon. “Why are you here?” she called back. “Just tell me.”

  I joined Lacy at her table. “There’s something going on in the App World and I’m going to—” I stopped, my next word hovering there, right on the tip of my tongue, and yet I hesitated to say it. Why I was here, what I was planning to do, why I needed Lacy’s help to do it.

  Shift.

  I wanted to shift. I hadn’t done it, not once, since the Body Market. I hadn’t wanted to, didn’t want to, really ever again. Because there was so much in the App World I never wanted to deal with. Because of the dangers in crossing the border and the toll it had taken on my body and my brain. But there were things I needed to know—that someone needed to find out. And if I had to go alone, I’d go alone. Shifting wasn’t the ideal option, but it seemed like the best one to avoid detection.

  Besides, Adam was in the App World.

  What if something had happened to him? What if he was in trouble?

  I’d never forgive myself. And Parvda would never recover if she lost him. She’d never get over not plugging in to go and find him.

  Lacy picked at the food on her tray. “What, Skylar,” Lacy said, growing impatient. “What are you going to do? Spit it out, please. I haven’t got all day.”

  “I’ve decided to shift. To the App World,” I blurted, as if there was any other place where I might shift.

  “Of course you have.” Lacy rolled her pale-green eyes. She pushed her tray away, then crossed her arms and studied me. “But why would you need my help? You can shift all by your unattractive, lonesome self. That’s how you got to act all heroic before, remember? Why everybody was so impressed with you.” She sounded honestly unable to wrap her red head around this.

  “I need someone to monitor my vitals when I shift. And . . . I need you to run interference if anyone comes looking for me,” I added.

  “Like who—Rain?” The words dropped from her like acid.

  I remembered to breathe. “I figured you would be glad to have the chance to talk to him while I’m not around. You know you’re dying for it,” I said, before I could think better of it.

  Lacy’s face flashed. “You’re such a—”

  I put up my hands to signal for peace. “I’m sorry,” I said, before she could start name-calling. Lacy closed her mouth tightly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I came here for your help, not to fight or go over old grievances.”

  “What’s an old grievance to you is still a new grievance to me,” she whispered. I could hear the hurt in it.

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “And I’m sorry for that, too.”

  Maybe this was a bad idea—no, a terrible idea, to come to Lacy for help. The anger between us was so raw, our history fraught from the beginning. Lacy once had all the power while I had none, and then, after we got here, that power shifted from her to me. Sometimes I wondered why she was still here, why she hadn’t risked returning to her lavish life with her richer-than-rich family in the App World. But of course I knew why. It was because of Rain. Everything she did was always because of him.

  As I looked at her now I saw something else in her eyes—something other than anger. The pain in them was real and it was deep. I’d seen glimpses of this same Lacy here and there, even in the App World, when I’d watched clips of her childhood that revealed the many ways that her parents had failed her, abandoned her, really. When I saw evidence of this Lacy, the Lacy that Rain and Zeera were always trying to convince me was there, I sometimes wished we could be friends. Or had hope that someday maybe we’d find our way there.

  So, despite everything, I decided to trust her. “Listen, is there any way the two of us can start over?”

  Lacy laughed. She pulled her tray closer again and began to eat the chips next to her sandwich. “No. Way,” she said, as they crunched in her mouth. “Not gonna happen. Like, ever.”

  “Okay.” It was time to admit defeat. “This was a bad idea. Forget I came here at all,” I got up from the table. I was already heading toward the door of the cafeteria when Lacy spoke.

  “Wait,” she called out to me. “Skylar, wait! Please.”

  I halted.

  “I’m willing to help you,” she went on, “to monitor your vitals while you shift, run interference with whoever comes looking for you. . . .” She trailed off.

  “If?” I supplied, turning to face her.

  “I’ll help you if . . .” She closed her eyes, wincing a bit. “If while you�
��re plugged in, you really wouldn’t mind if I talked to Rain. For real.”

  Lacy’s eyes stayed closed. Her cheeks flamed as red as her other features. She was embarrassed to say all of this.

  I tried to consider what Lacy wanted. There was a part of me that already knew she might be willing to help me shift for exactly the reason I’d spat out earlier—to get me out of the way for a while so she could corner Rain when I wasn’t around. It wasn’t as though she had to babysit me the entire time I was in the App World—just check on me now and then. But it was one thing for Lacy to take advantage of me being gone, and another for me to expressly agree to her doing just this.

  Could I do something like that?

  There was no doubt in my mind that I’d been uncertain about Rain ever since we’d gotten together in February. But did I really want to risk whatever it was that we had by allowing Lacy to step in like that? Because while I knew my feelings for him were complicated, I also had little doubt that his feelings for Lacy were complicated as well—complicated enough that he might end up choosing her in the end.

  Lacy’s lashes fluttered open. Her eyes had pooled with tears.

  “Okay,” I found myself agreeing. “In exchange for helping me, you can go . . . be with Rain. Talk to him about whatever you want, without me in the way.”

  She breathed in and out, in and out, and eventually the fire in her skin paled. “You need to realize that my intentions aren’t just friendly. I love Rain. And I think he loves me back. Sometimes. Or at least, he used to. I need to know if things are over forever and I should move on . . . or if there’s something still between us. If I should have hope.” Lacy wilted, right before my eyes, all the venom and fight going out of her. “And I don’t want to do this behind your back. I’m tired of us fighting over him. I’m tired of him choosing you over me. If he and I are going to be together again one day, I want it to be because I’m the girl he wants. Not because I stole him back from you with lies.” She rolled her eyes, but more at herself than at me. “I can’t believe I’m telling you these things. Or even that I’m saying them out loud.”