Unplugged

by Donna Freitas

  I walked home in a daze. Even the stars couldn’t distract me from the thoughts spinning through my mind. Service was canceled. Seeing my mother and sister had been canceled. Finding out who I was for real had been canceled. When I reached Singles Hall, the tall toothpick structure shined with lights in the round windows along its facade. I went inside, my eyes falling across the familiar, brightly colored chairs rising up from the floor like giant bubbles, the great glass dome overhead open to the sky. Normally I found comfort in these things, but all around me was chaos.

  Adam Sheridan was making a huge scene in the lounge.

  “It isn’t fair!” His voice boomed. He must have downloaded an Amplifier App. He seemed bigger, stronger, and taller than normal. Adam was a Single like me, so he was fairly alone in the App World. But I didn’t think he had much family left in the Real World to go back to, either. “They can’t do this to us! Service is a basic right! They can’t prevent the others from plugging back in!”

  Some of the other Singles cheered.

  But a lot of them were silent.

  Adam’s skin was turning red. His hands balled into fists, like he was about to hit someone. “Our seventeens must be allowed to cross back! We will not stand for this!”

  There were a few weak cheers, and that’s when I remembered. Adam had a girlfriend who’d unplugged for Service. Parvda was her name. With the border closed, he’d never see her again. I watched as Adam collapsed into a ball with his head in his hands. Flames shot up from his virtual body and everyone rushed to get out of his way.

  It was rare to see so much rage.

  I had nearly turned to tears an hour ago, and I wondered how many others would succumb to some similar show. The way our code reacted to intense feeling made us so vulnerable, so naked. I pushed through the circle around Adam, got in front of him, and stuck my hand into the fire, placing it on his back. It burned for a minute but I knew the feeling wouldn’t last.

  Someone whispered behind me, “Why is she doing that?”

  I crouched next to him. “Adam, if you need to talk . . .”

  His hands slid from his face. His mouth was an angry red slash. “Leave. Me. Alone.”

  I got up, stumbling backward. “I was just trying to help. I . . . I didn’t mean . . .” I closed my mouth. Adam was glaring at me. “You know what? Whatever.” I turned away. The crowd of Singles around Adam had already moved on, distracted by something else.

  All over the lounge people were downloading footage from the Cloud. Live holograms of the Holts were projected into the room. There was Lady Holt, the Prime Minister’s wife, her face streaked with tears. She walked quickly down one of the boulevards in the Loop, the neighborhood where Inara lived, the collar of her coat pulled high around her neck and face. A crowd of voyeurs trailed after her, whispering and pointing.

  “Please.” She pulled the collar higher. Her voice cracked. “My son.”

  Lady Holt could beg for privacy, but there was no hiding for the famous in the App World. People were always making up new aliases so no one could search for them, but celebrities and government officials could never get away with it. Especially not the Holts.

  In a separate hologram, Jonathan Holt was sitting at a restaurant by himself, staring into space, maybe waiting for his wife to arrive. Other diners shouted angrily about the safety of our bodies on the plugs.

  One man shook his fist. “We should have freed ourselves from the Keepers a long time ago!”

  “The Race for the Cure needs to be won!” yelled a woman from halfway across the room.

  But another man approached the Prime Minister’s table and stuck out his hand. “Good job closing the border.”

  Jonathan Holt half stood, seeming dazed. He grasped the offered hand.

  The man smiled, showing teeth as bright and white as his suit. “We’ve already got enough poor virtuals looking for handouts. We don’t need any more Singles draining the economy.” Another man lined up behind him to say more or less the same thing. He wore a suit too, gray like the kind Mr. Sachs put on to go to the bank. Jonathan Holt didn’t smile back at the men. He seemed appalled. But then, he still shook those hands.

  I looked around at the other Singles. Most of them were silent as they watched people lining up to congratulate the Prime Minister on his decision, but Cecily Gomez was as red as Adam had been before he turned to flames.

  “At least we’re honest,” she yelled at the hologram. “More honest than the rich!”

  “They act like we’re Lawless,” said Jayson Venice before storming away. The Lawless refused to obey the edicts intended to give our world order and structure. They lived in a part of the City called Loner Town.

  “I’m bored,” said a male voice to my left.

  I turned and saw a large group of Singles surrounding the hologram of a boy, tall and lanky, dressed in the uniform of the Under Eighteens who go to Founders, the school for the children of the most prestigious families in the App World. His dark hair was messy and fell around his face in waves. He leaned against a wall in the courtyard, slouched in his jacket with its golden crest, hands shoved in his pockets.

  It was Rain Holt, the son left on the wrong side of the border.

  Rain was the obsession of every girl and guy I knew for as long as I could remember, the dream boyfriend, the star celeb, the crown prince of everyone from the twelves all the way up to the nineteens. There were people who would hand over their last bit of capital for the chance to have five minutes alone with him. Inara was always downloading Apps that promised a girl all she needed to know to capture his attention.

  Back when she and I were thirteens and Rain was a fourteen, we were voyeuring along with the rest of his millions of fans. He was at this super-exclusive club called Skydive; its claim to fame that it was so high up in the atmosphere it made you feel like you were partying on the moon. To get home you had to download an App that allowed you to jump back to earth. It cost a fortune in capital to get in the door, never mind to get back home again later.

  “I can’t believe he’s out with her,” Inara had sniffed as we watched.

  Rain was on a date with this starlet, Lila, who’d gotten famous by being the first fourteen to open her mind to anyone and everyone—she literally gave people access to every single thing that went through her brain, every observation, every nasty thought she’d ever had about the girls around her. It was because of Lila that Total Access became a trend—that’s what people called it when you left your mind transparent. No one else ever managed to get as famous as Lila though. Being first has its rewards in the App World.

  Lila and Rain were on the dance floor, not saying much. Just sort of swaying.

  Inara was not having it. “All they’re doing is posing for voyeurs. She’s pathetic.”

  Rain never cared enough to make the effort to pose, I thought to myself, but didn’t mention this.

  The two of us sat there on her family’s living room couch, waiting for something interesting to happen. Mrs. Sachs had downloaded us these spheres of molten chocolate, and we were popping them into our mouths one after the other. Devil’s Drops, they were called. I’d started to tune out, but then there came a sharp intake of breath from Inara.

  “He’s going to kiss her,” she whispered. “I hate that girl. Why does she get to be so lucky?”

  The two of us watched as Rain and Lila got closer and closer, until they tilted their heads and their lips met. The lack of gravity was making it hard for them to keep their mouths together, and they kept floating away from each other. Lila actually grabbed Rain’s head to stop it from happening. Soon they were making out for all their voyeurs to see.

  Inara’s sigh was long and heavy. “I wish there was an App to make me stop caring about Rain. Loving him is like, written into my code or something.” She reached out to touch the hologram and it disappeared. “I can’t watch anymore. It’s too upsetting.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I did the only thing I could think of, which wa
s to put my arm around Inara. She rested her head on my shoulder. Eventually we turned our talk to other things, and ate Devil’s Drops until there weren’t any more left.

  My eyes swept across the lounge. A lot of Singles were downloading footage from Rain’s life before he unplugged. Holograms of him were popping up everywhere. Rain walking down the street with a bunch of kids from Founders; Rain at yet another of the hottest clubs in the City; Rain standing there, brushing his hair from his face again and again.

  Some of the Singles wept.

  Rain was the most searched-for boy in all the Cloud. People would tune in, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would notice them watching. The thing with being a voyeur was that you could see the person you searched, but they could see you as well. With celebrities, so many people watched at a given time it was nearly impossible for them to pick you out from the crowd. But there were these magical stories of some beautiful famous boy or girl suddenly noticing one of their voyeurs. Really seeing them. And just like that, this unknown gets plucked from oblivion, chosen to be special. Lots of Under Eighteens fantasized this would happen to them with Rain.

  I suppose now it never could.

  “I’m bored,” Rain said again as the hologram clip automatically replayed.

  I’d seen this particular footage before. It was from nearly a year ago. It had gone viral in minutes because the content was scandalous. This time, I watched alongside everyone else in the lounge.

  A crowd of girls surrounded Rain in the school courtyard, their eyes made up to match the abundant, colorful roses climbing trellises and canopies overhead. Their uniform skirts showed off long, thin legs, and they had the supermodel-high cheekbones that only ran through the codes of the richest of the rich. For that kind of perfection, you needed enough capital to buy Appearance Surgery Apps that only had to download once and the changes stayed forever. A group of guys stood off to Rain’s side, watching him with envy, yet trying to pretend they weren’t. They, too, slouched along the wall.

  A girl with long red hair examined her green sparkly nails, looking just as bored as Rain. It was Lacy Mills, daughter of Bryce Mills, CEO of the pornography App industry, a man simultaneously loathed and lauded. “Let’s download something super edgy the second school lets out,” she said.

  Rain didn’t even look at her. “No.”

  The other girls laughed, like he was joking.

  Lacy looked up at him. “What do you mean, no?”

  “I’m sick of Apps. They’re all the same.”

  A pretty, dark-haired girl reached out and ran a finger down Rain’s cheek. “That’s not what you said the other night.”

  The other girls laughed again, though Lacy’s eyes flashed with jealousy.

  “I’m serious,” he said.

  The laughter died away.

  Rain turned. Stared straight into the paparazzi cam that followed him everywhere. It was supposed to be invisible, its lens as tiny as the point of a pin, but somehow Rain knew exactly where to look. “In fact, I’ve made a decision and I want the entire App World to know.”

  The girls hung on his every word.

  The boys stopped pretending not to listen.

  “I’ve decided to do my Service,” Rain said. “The day I become a seventeen, I’m going to unplug.”

  “But you can’t do that!” the dark-haired girl cried.

  “Why would you unplug?” Lacy’s long nails sliced green through the atmosphere. “Service is for Singles. For people who can’t afford to get out of it. For the poor.”

  The group of guys came closer. One of them sneered. “Is there something you’re not telling us, Holt? A little hollow sound in Daddy’s capital account?”

  “Service is supposed to be for everyone,” Rain said, unflustered. “For all Under Eighteens who want a taste of the Real World.” He looked straight into that lens again. “And I. Want. My. Taste.”

  The clip buzzed and fizzled, then immediately started from the beginning again.

  More Singles gathered to watch the replay.

  At the time this first broadcast, nobody could believe the son of the Prime Minister had just announced he would unplug. Lacy Mills was right: only the poor return to the Real World, and when we go, it’s because we want to see family or because we lack the capital necessary to sponsor our release. Nearly all the Singles in this room had stories like mine—brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers they hadn’t seen since they were three or seven, family that some were too young to even remember. Service affected us the most.

  Rain Holt had no such excuse.

  Surely he had some hidden agenda with this stunt.

  No one ever got an answer that made any sense, though. Jonathan Holt’s only comment was that he would miss his son while he was away. I wondered if Rain was punishing his family by making his plan public before they could talk him out of it. He had to know that once the word was out, it would be more scandalous for his father to stop him from unplugging than to allow him to go ahead. If the Prime Minister tried to prevent his son from doing Service because it was dangerous or because it was something only poor Singles did, he would have enraged his more socially conscious supporters.

  A flash of anger burned in my middle. “Serves him right,” I said to no one in particular.

  A nearby Single, Sateen, turned to me. She had long blond hair like Inara, but she was plainer, less glitzy. “What did you say, Skye?”

  The hologram of Rain had just reached the part where Lacy Mills was studying her sparkly nails. “Rain unplugged because he was bored,” I said. “Because he’s so rich he had nothing better to do than disappear for a while. He’s so arrogant. I’m glad he’s getting punished.”

  Sateen studied me. “You don’t mean that. He’s still a boy with a family he won’t get to see again. He’s just like us.”

  I shook my head. “Rain Holt is not like us.” Sateen’s eyebrows went up. “You heard all those men congratulating Jonathan Holt for closing the borders. They want to keep more people like us from coming here. Unplugging for me was never a joke. Service was the only way I could ever see my mother and sister again.”

  Sateen put a hand on my arm. “You’re upset, Skye. Tonight has been a disappointment and a shock for a lot of us. I understand why you’re angry, but don’t take it out on someone else’s suffering.” She was being so rational and reasonable. So kind.

  Her words took some of the sting out of my anger, but not all of it. “Rain Holt isn’t capable of suffering. He’s always so . . . unaffected.” I crossed my arms. “I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for him, okay? If that makes me a bad person, then so be it.”

  “You’re not a bad person,” Sateen said. “But neither was he.”

  I closed my eyes a moment. Tried to block out the holograms flashing and talking everywhere I turned. “I need this day to be over. I’m going to my room to shutdown for the night.”

  Sateen gave me a sympathetic smile. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “Right,” I said, but I doubted this. How could I feel better when my only opportunity to see my family again had just been rescinded? Before Sateen could move away I stopped her. “I’m sorry for your loss, too.”

  Her brow furrowed. “My loss?”

  “Now you won’t get to unplug. You won’t see your family either.”

  Sateen’s face brightened. “Actually, I was dreading Service. I’m so relieved about the Prime Minister’s announcement. Can you imagine—an entire year without Apps and the virtual comforts of home? I was only doing it because of the obligation, and lucky for me, that obligation is gone, and the guilt along with it!”

  I took a step back, off-balance. “Oh. I . . . I . . .”

  “More Singles feel this way than you might think,” she said when I didn’t finish. Then she took off in the other direction.

  “I’m bored,” said the hologram Rain for the fourth time, or maybe the fifth. I covered my ears even though it was useless. The sound of Rain’s voice rever
berated through my head.

  I needed to get out of here.

  I was about to leave the lounge when another hologram caught my attention and I slowed to watch. I couldn’t help it.

  Rain was gaming with friends, dressed as an archer, moving through a forest of tall thin trees covered in a ghostly white bark, his bow and arrow ready. I knew exactly where he was and what was about to befall him. The game was one of my favorites. A lot of people my age preferred Appearance and Personality Apps, but I liked the ones that would allow me to run fast like a gazelle or swim deep and far in the ocean like a fish. I loved a good Surfing App when I felt like having fun, and I had sharp instincts for danger, and for the right way to go in a maze or on unfamiliar terrain.

  In the hologram, Rain dodged a snow-white tiger roaring toward him. The animal turned to dust after Rain effortlessly shot it in the back with an arrow. A big part of me longed to see him fail in a game where someone like me excelled. More beasts awaited him, too. They would come quickly now.

  A branch snapped. Then another.

  Rain turned toward the sound.

  Again, he seemed to stare straight into the tiny camera lens.

  Straight at all of us, watching him.

  Or maybe not all of us.

  My heart quickened.

  For the second time that night, I had the uneasy feeling that one of the Holts was looking at me. That of all the millions of voyeurs, Rain Holt was seeing me. Logic told me this was as impossible now as it was before, even more so because this hologram was a memory. Rain couldn’t pick me out from the crowd because this wasn’t happening live.

  Yet as I stood there locked in his gaze, it certainly seemed real.

  There came the loud crack of another branch.

  Rain turned toward it and the feeling evaporated.

  3

  The last children

  THE NEXT MORNING a crowd awaited us outside Singles Hall. The throngs began their assault as soon as I walked through the doors into the sunlight.