As the girl rambled, she stood blocking the person who was standing on the other side of the threshold.
“Come in,” she chattered happily, and finally stepped aside.
That was when I got my first good look at her newest caller.
Now it was my jaw that fell open.
“Skylar?” Adam said.
PART TWO
13
Kit
addictions
“MY SISTER WILL get over it eventually.”
I sat up. My entire body ached. My head pounded. I couldn’t see. But I knew whose voice was speaking. I’d gotten used to hearing it these last months. “Trader,” I managed, his name slurred and thick on my tongue.
“She still cares about you,” he went on. “I can tell.”
Trader’s features began to take shape as my eyes adjusted to the light and my surroundings. “Skylar is with someone else,” I said.
He pushed his black hair away from his face, only to have it flop back down. “She is, but she isn’t.”
I tried to get up, but everything hurt. My muscles refused movement. “What does that even mean? She is, but she isn’t?”
Trader crossed the room and crouched down next to me. “It means that my sister and Rain have a lot of history and he’s always there for her. Skylar knows she can rely on him, so she does. She cares about him, but whatever went on between the two of you is different.”
I managed a laugh, but the effort nearly choked me. My throat was raw. “Yeah, different as in over.”
Trader’s moody eyes were steady. Maggie used to complain that I was brooding, but no one’s really seen brooding until they meet Trader. “No,” he stated, like this was an accepted and universal fact.
I tried to get up again and this sent my head spinning. “Skylar hates me.”
Trader laughed. The sound made me wince. “It’s quite the opposite. You’re stupid if you think otherwise. Skylar has been moping for months about you, but unless you do something about it soon, she’s going to move on. And then it will be too late.”
I studied him, despite the pounding at the base of my skull. “You really believe that?”
“I do. And even though having a sister is new to me, I find myself wanting her to be happy.” He laughed again. “I guess that means even I can surprise myself.”
“Huh,” I said, too tired to muster anything more coherent. But the heart inside my chest spoke otherwise with this new information, which had been conveyed with sincerity from the unlikeliest of sources. I let my head fall back.
Trader blinked at me from above. “I can tell you something else that you better listen to carefully, Kitto.”
If I didn’t feel so broken, I’d reach up and punch him in the face. He’d taken to calling me this nickname, and I loathed it. No matter how many times I told him to shut up and stop calling me that, he kept doing it. But he was letting me hide out in his place, which I appreciated. “What else can you tell me, T?” I asked.
He tapped the rest supporting my head. His hand swept across the contraption where I lay, immobilized. “If you keep doing this to yourself, you’re not going to be around much longer and then you’ll never get to make my sister happy. You don’t want that now, do you?”
Something about hearing concern from Trader’s mouth, Trader, who wasn’t exactly a font of responsibility and virtue, jolted me enough that I managed to get up—slowly, carefully, and with a serious dose of pain throughout my limbs, my neck, my head. The effort paid off and soon I was standing.
“Good boy,” Trader said.
I busied myself pulling a sweater over my head. It was freezing in here. “You’ll stop with the patronizing remarks if you know what’s good for you.”
Trader leaned back his head with laughter. “Yeah. Like you’re in any shape to be sparring. Not after what you’ve been doing to yourself.” He shook his head in disapproval, his eyes darkening. “Idiot.”
I shrugged. “I’m fine,” I said.
But we both knew this was a lie.
“Remember when you said you’d never plug in. Ever,” Trader reminded me.
The two of us stared down at the cradle. It looked like something out of a horror film. “I thought I never would either.” My heart still pounded in my chest, making me dizzy. “But that was before Skylar.”
The house had grown dark.
Shadows fell across everything. A wave crashed outside and receded, until the roar of another one replaced it. I wandered around the room in circles, my bare feet scuffing against the cool wood of the floor. I forced my attention away from the cradle as long as I could, tried to ignore it. Tried to pretend it wasn’t there.
But it called to me.
Eventually, I couldn’t bear it any longer and my eyes went to it.
Trader had left hours ago, but his warnings echoed inside my head. He was right. I was being reckless. I knew what I was doing to myself wasn’t good. Eventually, my body would give out from the abuse. I’d never imagined that coming to stay at this broken-down house would mean I’d start playing around with that Shifting App, but with the nights too long to do nothing, it wasn’t that surprising that I’d found a new vice. Unlike with the whiskey, this addiction made me hate myself.
Trader had been right. I’d sworn I’d never plug in.
Yet lately, plugging in to the App World was the only thing that kept my mind off Skylar and the stupid decision I’d made, going to Jude instead of trusting that Skylar would keep her word and get Maggie free. I’d screwed up everything and I wanted to forget it.
Lucky for me, there was an App for that.
Lucky for me, there were several. Dozens. Thousands. And so far I’d only sampled a paltry few, courtesy of Trader’s endless stash of capital at his house.
The cool night air floated through the open windows. The metal of the cradle was cold to the touch. My fingers ran across it. I wondered what Skylar would think if she came and found me plugged in. Would she even care? Seeing her nearly ended me. I’d imagined running into her a million times, I’d played out what would happen in my head over and over—what I wished would happen. Then I saw her like some dream and it wasn’t at all like I’d imagined. In the fantasy she forgives me. In the fantasy, just by seeing me she can’t help doing this because she can’t help remembering what we had. Or what we’d started to have.
The reality of our meeting was something I could barely stomach.
Skylar couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
The memory of her turning her back made me physically wince.
Trader’s other words echoed inside me now.
Not the words of warning, but the ones about how Skylar still cared for me, how she’d been moping around without me. How even though she was with Rain, her heart was still mine. Maybe I should’ve gone after her that day I saw her. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to get her to stay, to talk to me. To hear me out.
I looked at the tattoo on my forearm. Even in the darkness it glowed, still bright with newness. I stared until the lines and colors blurred together and I couldn’t recognize their shapes. There were nights when I’d regretted the decision to ink such a permanent reminder on my skin. Even Maggie warned me against doing such a thing. But I’d wanted the reminder because I wanted to punish myself by having a symbol of all that I’d lost right on my own body.
With this thought, I laid myself back into the cradle and picked up the little tablet next to it. With a few taps the Shifting App began to download and soon I was drifting off into a virtual sleep where everything, all that pain and grief, would soon be forgotten.
Long live the Mind Eraser App, went my brain.
And then I was gone.
14
Skylar
a diamond among apps
“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Adam asked.
I stared, unsure how to answer. I’d grown so used to seeing the Adam of the Real World that it was a shock to see him here. I’d nearly forgotten the virtual version of A
dam. For one, his skin color was different. Instead of dark and rich, here he was pale and washed out, the standard tone of everyone in the App World, myself included. But now that I’d become accustomed to the differences among real bodies and real skin, it seemed wrong. Like the App World had taken something fundamentally Adam away, in exchange for him plugging in and getting to enjoy the downloads that virtual living promised.
I looked at the other girl in the room, then back at Adam. “I could ask you the same thing.” The name Parvda hovered on my lips. “Why in both worlds are you in this apartment?”
The girl was still laughing. Cackling, really.
I could already tell she and I were unlikely friends. Surely her parents were the type who’d fed her ideas about Singles living off the state, Singles eating up money and donations from families like hers. This apartment was more opulent than the Sachses’ place. She probably took everything for granted. There were permanent virtual enhancements downloaded to her basic self, too, the kind that Lacy had when she was in the App World that kept a girl a cut above, appearance-wise, from everyone else. I wondered if she even remembered the downloads or if her parents had downloaded them to her when she was too young to realize.
“This is so freakin’ surreal,” the girl said. “Skylar Cruz in my house!”
Hearing my name sent tension through my code, my virtual skin going taut. If I was still in the Real World I would have goose bumps. I turned to her. “You already know my name. So what’s yours?”
“Ree,” she said. “It’s Ree.” She glanced at Adam, her eyes darting back and forth between the two of us. “You already know him, I guess.”
I crossed my arms, eyeing Adam. “I do. But how you two met is a story I’d like to hear.”
Adam was silent. He wouldn’t look at me.
But Ree was more than willing to fill me in. “We met in Greek Life, College Edition. And now he’s here to save me,” she added, as if this was evident and totally normal. “You two are the only people who can see me, for some reason.”
I nodded, taking this in. “A college party. Right. And he’s here to save you. And we’re the only people who can see you. Hmm-hmm.”
“It’s all true,” she said. “And I’m guessing you’re here to save me, too.” Pure happiness danced in her eyes. “I can’t even believe that all these months I’ve been by myself, no hope in sight, no one to talk to or hear me, and now the Real World cavalry has come to get me out of this place.”
My mind kept snagging on the weirdness of finding Adam in some random girl’s apartment, the idea that he’s been meeting girls like Ree at App World Gaming parties while Parvda was weeping in bed at Briarwood. But I made myself focus on what Ree was saying, trying to reconcile it with the prison door I’d walked through to get into her apartment. “We’re the only ones who can see you? Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m relieved you can. I’ve been stuck here forever, invisible, until you guys came along.”
“You’re imprisoned?” I asked her.
Ree nodded, her face still giddy. Champagne bubbles were bursting around her in the atmosphere. “The government has me caged because of what I saw and what I know. They promised my mother and me unlimited free downloads. But a girl can only download so many Apps by herself without going a little crazy, you know?” I opened my mouth to answer, but she got there first again. “Though you probably wouldn’t really know about that, would you? Having been a Single your whole virtual life and all. It’s a pity you would miss out on that . . . that . . .”—her face was alight with the search for the right word—“utter and transporting joy of the unlimited and unending download fest!”
“A terrible pity,” I agreed, and wondered if she noticed the irony.
She waved her arm through the atmosphere. “Maybe you can still experience it!” She called up her App Store. It was enormous. The Apps filled the entire living room, leaving almost no room for Adam and me to stand. “I wonder if I can transfer my unlimited downloads to you. I mean, it’s not like we’re in a rush, right?”
“I don’t think now is the time,” Adam said, finally speaking a few words.
His virtual skin was the color of cherries, a strange hue on someone who, in the Real World, had the fortune of never having to worry about his cheeks visibly flushing red. I remembered another time I’d seen Adam turn this shade, but it was out of anger, not shame, because Parvda had been left on the other side of the border in the Real World. I think I preferred the Adam who raged on Parvda’s behalf, as opposed to the Adam who was embarrassed to be caught meeting girls at college parties and showing up to their apartments afterward.
“Yes,” I said. “I appreciate your offer, Ree. It’s very sweet.” I eyed Adam. His gaze fled the moment it locked with mine. “But I think now is the time for my friend Adam and me to do some catching up. And then we’ll figure out what’s going on with you and see if we can help. Right, Adam?”
Adam was staring across the room. Anywhere but at me. Hands dug deep into his pockets. He shrugged. “Sure, Skylar.” He sighed heavily. “I suppose we should talk.”
“Is there a place—” I started, but when I turned back to Ree her mouth was hanging open, eyes full of alarm.
She put a hand on my shoulder, the feel of it strange. Almost fizzy. “I know you guys want to talk.” Her fingers curled tighter, though her eyes weren’t on me. “But I think now is not the time for you to catch up.”
I tried to follow her gaze. Her attention seemed caught on one of the Apps, but there were so many in the room, bouncing up and down and lunging at her, it was difficult to determine which of the thousands she could possibly have her eye on.
“Don’t you see it?” Her voice grew hushed.
“Don’t we see what?” Adam asked. “It’s impossible to focus in this storm of icons.”
“After all this time,” she whispered. “I’ve been waiting for it and here it is, finally!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. The atmosphere was so thick with Apps I nearly couldn’t see the furniture. If Adam wasn’t so close I might lose him in the teeming clouds.
Ree pointed.
I searched through the jumping mass of icons. “Which one?” I asked, getting desperate.
Ree seemed in a trance. “Just look. Once you see it you can’t unsee it.”
This time I started with the tip of Ree’s pale finger and followed its trajectory carefully, passing the familiar icons with angel’s wings and Apps for temporary changes in appearance, beautiful and grotesque. For a split second I was impressed by the number of Gaming Apps that flooded Ree’s Store, and wondered if I was wrong before and she and I could have been friends, or even would have. I moved on and on until finally I saw what had caught Ree’s eye.
I gasped. “What is that? I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Ree was nodding. “I know. It’s difficult not to stare.”
The two of us stood there, transfixed.
Soon Adam joined us. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
“Stunning,” I agreed.
The three of us moved toward it, the other Apps jumping aside as we pushed through the throng, making a path toward the one that held us.
We stopped in front of it.
It was black, or maybe gray, a dark diamond gift box polished and cut with expert skill. It shone and sparkled and caught the light like the most precious of jewels. It put the Tiffany App to shame.
I wanted it.
I needed it.
It called my name. Beckoned me. It was nearly impossible to breathe.
Jealousy flooded my code. This was Ree’s Store, not mine.
I reached out to it anyway.
It was a witch casting a spell.
I was about to touch it when Ree’s arm came down across mine—hard and fast—swiping my hand away. “Ow!” I cried, turning to her. “That hurt!”
Ree stared at me, her eyes serious. “Not as much as touching that App would have.”<
br />
I snapped back to reality. “What do you mean?”
Adam tore his gaze away from it. “Hurt her how?”
The three of us stood in a tiny triangle, the App in question floating a safe distance away from our virtual selves.
“That App is poison,” Ree said. “Downloading it will”—she looked left, then right, then up and down, as though worried someone else was in the room, listening. She leaned closer.
Adam and I did, too.
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Downloading it will virtually kill you.”
15
Skylar
bits and pieces
THE THREE OF us circled the poisonous App, careful not to get too close.
At certain angles the sparkle was blinding.
It shone blues and pinks, greens and yellows.
Could it really cause virtual death?
Those two ominous words circled inside me, round and round, sickening my code.
I used to think virtual death was impossible. Or at least, very, very rare. Lacy had threatened us with it when we first met, warning that if Adam, Sylvia, or I told anyone we were about to illegally unplug, we’d be virtual goners. But I don’t know if Lacy knew what she was talking about back then and if her threats had any substance. Before, when I was a Single, virtual death was something that only happened when the real body died on the plugs, and on the plugs real bodies lasted a long, long time. But then the Race for the Cure was won and even that rare, eventual kind of death was eradicated, at least on a virtual level.
At least, that’s what everyone was told.
Was it all lies?
The images of all those dead bodies in my mother’s lab returned to me now.
Could this App have something to do with the people who were dying on the plugs?
With the virus?
“How do you know what this App does?” I asked Ree. “If it causes virtual death, then you must never have downloaded it.”
The Mind Virus Page 10