“I do hate it,” Kit said. “And I won’t be sorry to see it go if it does.”
Parvda and Zeera gasped.
“Don’t say that,” Parvda said. “Not while Adam is still there.”
“I didn’t say that I hated the people in it and I wanted them dead. Just the world itself.”
Andleeb adjusted her scarf. “For some citizens, their real identity and their identity in the App World are so intertwined they’re one and the same. If the App World dies, they’ll die with it.”
I thought of Jude, who’d had her body destroyed. And all the others whose bodies were gone. “And for many, regardless of the how intimately their identity is tied to their virtual existence, if the App World dies they’ll die with it because they’ll have nothing to unplug to.”
The weapons room grew quiet.
Rasha spoke first after the silence. “Let’s not forget the people who do have bodies to reclaim, and the ones who already have reclaimed them. There’s hope for a lot of us. And that hope rests on Skylar’s Keeper’s plan today. We need to do our best to get all of New Port City on board or else . . . or else I have no idea.”
“We’re doomed?” Zeera suggested, but she wasn’t making a joke.
“I’m still not sure her Keeper’s idea is a good one,” Rain said. “She is making a big bet, and a very, very risky one.”
I took a deep breath. “Yes, it’s a gamble. But it’s also the right thing to do. Our worlds need this. It’s the only way to restore some order and . . .” I searched for the right word.
“Some faith,” Kit supplied. “The people of New Port City need faith in each other, in us. This is a way of asking for it. The only way, I think,” he added.
“It’s getting late, guys,” Sylvia said.
Zeera tapped her screen. “She’s right. We need to get moving.”
The eight of us inhaled a collective breath.
Rasha and Andleeb were the first to leave. “See you all soon. Fingers crossed.”
Before the rest of us could make our exits, Rain posed one last question.
“Has anyone seen Lacy?” he asked.
There were shrugs and people shaking their heads all around.
I left the room quietly, before a lie was required of me.
The cliff was the same as I remembered it.
And yet it was different.
Like so many things lately.
It rose up from the rocks and the ocean, the roar of the waves providing a distant soundtrack. The sun was behind the clouds, the sky gray and brooding and crisp with the air of fall. The peninsula was barren as before, except for the large expanse of grass that covered it. The podium was still there as well, but gone was the curving glass wall that separated the people of New Port City from the stone dais that jutted up at the center of everything, the glass wall that had separated me from everyone present the day that Jude put me on display, heralding the official arrival of the New Capitalist movement and all that it promised, including the Body Market.
Shortly after the hour passed eleven, people began to arrive.
There were the refugees who’d left the mansions and apartments where they’d made their makeshift homes, walking on foot from the outskirts of the city, following the line of Keepers who claimed a lifetime on this series of islands connected to the mainland by bridges. There were those of us who’d come from Briarwood, seventeens, now eighteens, abandoned to the Real World when the borders closed, and those who’d unplugged illegally and crossed despite this. Andleeb and Rasha arrived, with Sylvia and a few select others helping her ferry refugees from the camp on the beach. I recognized some of Jude’s people, New Capitalists—even they still called themselves this—led by Jag and several of the guards who’d worked alongside Jude.
Soon I saw my mother making her way across the grounds. Zeera, Kit, Trader, and Inara trailed after her. Followed by Rain.
And Jonathan Holt.
He’d emerged from seclusion. He’d barely appeared in public at Briarwood since Rain had unplugged him in February. I was grateful he’d somehow convinced his father to be here today. His role would be an important one.
“Skylar, sweetheart,” my mother said when she reached me. “But are you sure?”
“No.” I tried to ward off a shiver as the appointed hour crept toward us. “But I think it’s the right thing to do.”
“It may be, but I’m not sure it’s going to end up helping the App World.”
“We’ll have to hope that people see why they should help. Why they must.”
“Oh, darling,” she sighed. “You’re young and idealistic, but you have to know that the right thing for you may not be the right thing for others. Not everyone is going to want to be so altruistic.”
“But maybe enough will,” I said.
She squeezed my hand. “Let’s hope so.”
As these words emerged from my mother’s mouth, I noticed signs going up, posters and banners dotting the crowd, an assortment of now-familiar slogans painted on them.
REFUGEES GO HOME!
GO BACK TO YOUR APPING LIFE.
STOP CLOGGING OUR CITY!
DOWN WITH APP WORLD CITIZENS!
THE REAL WORLD DOESN’T WANT YOU HERE!
My only consolation was the absence of signs that made claims about body snatchers among us.
Andleeb broke away from her group and came over. “This is not good, Skylar.”
“Just wait,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “We haven’t yet said a word to them about the situation. Today is our chance to address everyone.”
“And it’s their chance to address each other as well,” she said darkly.
A ripple went through the crowd.
My Keeper was making her way up to the podium.
I breathed deep.
It was time.
She nodded my way and I nodded back.
Kit and Maggie, Parvda and Rain, Zeera and Sylvia, Trader and my mother, everyone I’d grown close to in this world, gathered together now as we waited for her to speak.
My Keeper’s voice rose loud and strong. “Thank you for coming,” she began, and launched into a series of formal greetings, noting each group that was present. At the mention of the refugees, there were a number of boos and jeers. She called for quiet and, eventually when the noise died down, she turned to the matter at hand.
“A difficult question has been laid before us and the time has come to face it and answer with honesty. Are we, the Keepers of the Real World—those of us who were left behind because we had no other choice and those of us who made the choice to remain in New Port City in order to preserve the old ways of living in our bodies—willing to welcome back those people who abandoned our world for a virtual life? Are we willing to help reintegrate those refugees already here and the others who still may come? Or will we abandon them in their time of need as they abandoned us?”
The crowd erupted into hushed murmurs and whispers.
My breath caught, my heart knocking against the cage of bones surrounding it. I’d prepared myself for my Keeper’s question, for the quandary she put before all the people of New Port City—the choice, not the requirement—that one feasible and reasonable option would be for the Keepers to let the App World and its residents die, if it was truly dying without our intervention or assistance. My Keeper believed that only by offering a real choice to the people, a true one, and abiding by their will whether we liked their decision or not, might we have a chance to help those who remained vulnerable in the App World.
The matter of helping and intervening—or not—was to be put to the residents of New Port City as a vote, a democratic vote today. I’d known this was the right thing from the moment she suggested it. It was a brilliant plan, really, and the only one that might ease the incredible tension that had grown and crested among the Keepers of New Port City because of the refugees.
My Keeper was wrapping up her remarks.
She turned the podium over to Andleeb, who
would make a plea on behalf of the refugee community. When she was done, she would offer the podium to whoever wished to speak next. We would stay all afternoon and into the night if need be, until anyone with words to say had spoken them and was heard by all. One by one, people emerged from the crowd, some of them moved by Andleeb’s words, some of them by my Keeper’s foresight that New Port City had needed this forum, but many of them angry by the changes here, by all that had transpired, urging people to turn away from these “others” who suddenly needed our help.
“Why should any of us care if the App World is dying? They reap what they sowed,” bellowed one man to great applause.
“They barred us from a virtual life,” said a woman who’d gone up to the podium to cheers from the crowd, which only seemed to grow larger and larger as the day wore on. “Now it’s our turn to bar them from a real one!”
My heart sank at these statements and their strong approval.
But we’d committed to this process. It was too late to back down.
When Jag spoke on behalf of the New Capitalist movement, the crowd went silent, surprised, I was sure, to hear his plea to welcome citizens of the App World into this city again.
Finally, after it was evident that no one else was going to approach the podium, Jonathan Holt made his way there, steps uncertain, everything about him slow, careful. He seemed an old man after merely a few months in the Real World, his decline swift and unyielding. I saw Rain wince as he watched his father stumble.
Jonathan Holt reached the podium after what felt like an eternity.
“Greetings, everyone,” he began. “Many of you only know my name but would not have reason to recognize me. I am Jonathan Holt, former Prime Minister of the App World.”
Surprise and anger swelled across the crowd.
“And I’m here today,” he went on, “to apologize for all the wrongs you’ve suffered at my hands.” The surprise grew more pronounced. He bowed his head. “Now I must ask for your forgiveness on behalf of every current and former citizen of the App World who needs you more than ever. And please, let me be more specific: I am not just asking, I am here to beg.”
Rain’s eyes were steady on his father’s as he spoke to the crowd, as he groveled, pleading with them to hear his apology, to believe in his remorse, and to somehow move beyond the urge to punish a world full of virtual people for the actions of a mere few, like himself, who’d held all the power.
Tears sprung to my eyes as I listened, not only because Rain was forced to see his father, once a great man, brought so low, but because in Jonathan Holt’s words and demeanor I could still see traces of the former leader in the emotion of his speech.
I hoped that enough people in the crowd were as moved as I was.
Then, at last, after Jonathan Holt ceded the podium, it was my turn.
After one final glance at Kit, I took a deep breath and climbed onto the dais.
The very same place I’d once lain out on display, and where I’d risen up and grabbed a dagger of stone, plunging it into the body of a man. A living, breathing man, whose existence I’d ended with a single, violent gesture.
I was here today as someone very different than before, and it felt important to be standing on this spot as the girl I was now. Back then, back before, I was full of energy and life, of hope and yearning, even as I was also full of fear and confusion. But today I was someone who’d killed, who’d been betrayed, who’d made so many mistakes, who’d won certain battles but had lost so many others. As I rose from my crouch to stand tall and face the people of New Port City, I now knew love, real love, the complicated, layered kind that disappoints as much as it exults, and friendship, too. Right then, my eyes locked with Inara’s. She stood off to the side, not far away, and as we looked at each other, she nodded. I drew strength from knowing she was close and from her encouragement as I began to speak.
I told the crowd so many things.
About the people dying on the plugs. Rumors of viruses and the potential obliteration of an entire world. About the Death App and the holes in the City. About what we would likely need to do if these rumors, these theories, proved to be a reality. That I knew that the citizens of New Port were already struggling to accept and integrate the App World refugees, and that they would have to decide how they felt not only about the presence and future of the refugees already among us, but about the many, many others who might soon need our help. All this truth fell from my mouth and floated out to the people of New Port City, like fall leaves caught by the wind, piling up as I spoke.
The breeze whipped my hair, knotting it.
My heart pounded, my muscles tense.
Soon I came to the end. Said all that I could.
All that was left now was one final plea.
“Today, democracy returns to the Real World,” I said. “It’s up to you to decide the fate of this city. Will it open itself up to welcome strangers as its own people, or will it, too, like the App World, close its borders to those in need?”
34
Lacy
origins
I NEVER THOUGHT I’d come back here.
Not to the App World—I always imagined I’d come back here.
I stretched out one long, shapely leg, admiring the perfection of its skin, virtual skin, my true skin, taking in the shining edge of the scandalously short Luna Lazy dress I’d downloaded the second I woke up. The thrill of it, the sheer and total relief of the App coursing through my code, was beyond all I could have imagined after so much time in the vastly imperfect and deficient Real World.
But by here, I meant the Mills family penthouse.
The door to it, covered in virtual jewels because my parents were ridiculously showy, blocked my entry no matter what I did. I practically offered the lock pad my virtual eyeball for entry and it still rejected me. My parents may have barred me from home, but they forgot to clean out my capital account, I was pleased to see, which is why everything about me still shimmered and tingled from that glorious download shower I took the moment I arrived in the lobby of our apartment building. How I’d made it nearly a year without any Apps was beyond me.
Love could make you do unbearable and shocking things.
I shivered.
Then I smiled.
I’d never felt better in my entire virtual life.
Skylar went overboard warning me about the price of shifting, about the harms that could come to the body, about Death Apps and dead bodies on the plugs, on and on and on about the darkest things, to the point where I’d nearly regretted accepting her help crossing the border undetected. Now that I was back, now that I was gloriously virtual again—now that I was me again—the real virtual Lacy Mills!—all those warnings and worries faded like a tired old App draining from my code.
Virtual Lacy was invincible.
Virtual Lacy could do anything!
I laughed, basking in the sound of that familiar but long-lost code-induced giggle of mine.
Virtual Lacy was going to save the App World from ruin!
Or virtually die trying.
This thought made me shiver too. But not the good kind this time.
“Lacy,” said a hushed whisper from down the hall, breaking the silence. “Is that you?”
I turned and looked at the slim virtual man in a shiny red business suit looking back at me like he was seeing a ghost, thinking that the salvation and future of the App World, courtesy of Lacy Mills, was about to get started. “Hi, Daddy.”
35
Skylar
democratic process
THE VOTING LINE snaked on for what seemed like forever. It wound up and down the peninsula and all the way back to the trees that separated this place from New Port City.
My Keeper and a few others, including my mother, received the ballots. The rest of us, everyone from Briarwood, all the refugees, looked on, doing our best to pass the time and tolerate the anxiety of whatever the citizens of the Real World decided, however they chose to vote about their futu
re and its relationship to everyone else. Only those who were born here were allowed to participate in the voting process.
This was also the right thing, and I knew this to my very core. What was happening today, now, was about restoring power and voice to the people who’d stayed behind in the Real World, either because they weren’t economically well-off enough to pay their way, or because they had rejected that life. These were the people who’d gotten stuck taking care of a world that had rejected them, barred them, shunned them. They’d been robbed of a voice for far too long, subject only to the wishes and rule of those who governed the City.
Today was about restoring power and voice in the form of a vote.
But my mother had also been correct in saying that not everyone would agree what the outcome of this vote should be, and this, frankly, scared me. The fate of everyone in the App World hung in the balance, and it depended on the capacity of the people of New Port City to decide to help those who had treated them as though they did not matter, and despite so much division between our worlds for so long. How the tables had turned. The once powerful citizens of the App World were now dependent on the forgiveness and mercy of those they’d treated as lesser, as disposable.
I watched as Kit stepped up to cast his vote.
After what seemed like hours, the last people to vote were those who’d overseen the process, my Keeper and, finally, my mother.
Then, the count started.
The moon shone high overhead by the time it was finished.
Much of the crowd had stayed, hovering, waiting. Some people went home, for dinner I supposed, and trickled back to continue the wait. Finally, after what felt like a hundred years, my Keeper made her way to the podium one more time.
Everyone hushed.
“The outcome was very close,” she began. “Separated only by a few votes. Eleven, to be exact.” She took in a deep breath. So did the rest of the crowd. “But I am proud to announce that today New Port City has proved itself to be a place that throws open its doors, its homes, and its hearts to those in need from wherever they may arrive, even if that place is a virtual world that many of us have only dreamed about visiting but will never see during our lifetimes. Or, perhaps, nobody will, ever again.”
The Mind Virus Page 21