We were safe, we were together.
Finally.
When she pulled back to look at me, I glanced up at Rain, who was still standing there, taking in this reunion he’d orchestrated. Gratitude flooded every part of me, and as it pulsed across my skin, I did something I never thought I’d find myself wanting to do again. Even as my eyes caught the glare of the colorful blue glass on the table next to me, a glare that reached straight inside to the very center of my heart, slicing through it, I reached out and wove my fingers through Rain’s, and then I smiled.
Excerpt from The Mind Virus
Keep reading for a glimpse at
THE MIND VIRUS,
the conclusion to the
UNPLUGGED
series.
Let us pass, then, to the attributes of the soul. . . . If it be true that I have no body, it is true likewise that I am capable neither of walking nor of being nourished. Perception is another attribute of the soul; but perception too is impossible without the body . . . I am—I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. . . . I am, however, a real thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing.
—René Descartes,
“Of the Nature of the Human Mind; and That It Is More Easily Known Than the Body,”
Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
1
Ree
virtual mortality
“A LIFE ON the Apps is the only life for me.”
That’s what Char kept saying, over and over. Ever since that chick Skylar gave her emergency broadcast. Char was lying on her back in the grass of Main Park, staring up at the Night Sky 3.0. This one featured the Southern Cross, and it sparkled above us like a shining sword. Honestly, I preferred Night Sky 5.0, because Orion was more my thing.
It was a beautiful evening, regardless, like all evenings here.
Same as usual, in other words.
The only difference was that this evening was the day after half the City had unplugged at once. Half the people we knew in this world were, poof! Gone.
“Like, who cares about a clunky chunk of flesh when I have the entire virtual world at my fingertips?” Char went on, laughing, her voice alternately a shriek and a cackle, sounding like she’d downloaded one of those Wicked Witchy Apps when on the outside she was all Betty Boop and Pinup Girl, her plump, red heart-shaped lips all pouty and pursed. “Can you believe that Harry left? I mean, how dare he! I was totally going to Kiss App him at some point.”
I closed my eyes, brain-blocking her. I didn’t want her to know my thoughts at the moment, which weren’t pretty. I let them flow freely now, in the newly locked safety of my virtual head.
Yeah, that’s easy to say when your daddy got rich on Pharmaceutical Apps and you have an endless source of capital.
Why am I friends with you again?
Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are sometimes?
I opened my eyes again and let Char back in. If I kept her from poking around in my head much longer, she’d guess I was having nasty thoughts about her.
Char swiped a finger across the atmosphere and her App Store gathered around her like a cozy bowl of candy. Char’s icons always came in bright shades of pink and yellow and green and purple and blue. They squeaked and giggled and played with her hair and tickled her ears. One of them even settled happily into her cleavage, and she smiled down at it like a dear friend.
She turned to me, head lolling to the side, her shiny black locks sultry and smooth. “What next, Ree? How shall I celebrate my continued virtual existence? Hmmm?” She put out a hand and a crowd of Apps settled into her palm like pastel-colored insects, looking at her adoringly, hoping to be chosen. “Ree? Ree! Are you listening to me!”
I crossed my legs, the grass tickling my thighs. They were bland and pale next to Char’s rosy, flushed virtual skin. “I’m listening,” I droned. “Why don’t you try something new for a change?”
Char’s pout grew even more pronounced. “What do you mean, for a change?”
I sighed. “I mean, why don’t you pick Personality over Appearance?”
She glared. “I care about more than Appearance Apps.”
“All right. So prove it,” I dared.
Her long-lashed, dark-lined eyes narrowed. “You could use a Personality App today.”
“You first,” I said, crossing my arms to match my legs. “Then me.”
Char turned her attention back to her Apps, trying to choose. She sat there pondering, lying back on her elbows, legs crossed, one red-heeled foot bouncing in the atmosphere in a classic pinup pose, like she had all the time in the world, when suddenly an App I’d never seen before rose up out of the swarm. “Oooh! What’s that?” she cooed.
The two of us stared at it in awe.
Even I was captivated.
It took the shape of a present and glittered with every color in existence. It didn’t flirt or cajole, it just hovered in the air like a Queen Bee who knew all she needed to do was stand there and wait to be adored by admirers.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I admitted.
“I don’t care what it is, Ree, Personality or Appearance or whatever else it could possibly be, I’m picking it.”
“I thought we had a deal,” I said, but only halfheartedly. In truth, I wanted Char to download this App. I wanted to see what would happen when she did.
She didn’t even bother to reply.
Char just reached out a long, red-lacquered nail and touched it.
The second her fingertip met the icon, she gasped. Her Pinup features immediately began to transform, fading away. Char’s wide dark eyes lolled back into her head with pleasure.
Or, at least, that’s what I thought at first.
Quickly, far more so than was normal, Char changed back into her basic virtual self. I waited, impatient to see what new and exciting features would replace the basic ones. Her arms and legs began to twitch, just a little. But then they began to jerk. Char’s elbows slipped out from under her and her head crashed to the ground.
I scurried over and lifted it, cradling it in my hands. “Are you okay?”
“Let me go,” she growled.
I lay her head back on the grass and moved away, watching as Char’s virtual skin now turned from Caucasian 4.0 to a dark shade of gray. Something was wrong. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. “Wait a minute,” she choked out.
It sounded like someone was strangling her. “Char?”
“Ree,” she coughed.
Her skin was an ugly purple now, all of it like a bluish bruise covering her virtual self. Then, right before my eyes, her skin began to slip from her body like one of those Real World animals I downloaded once that shed their skin every so often, emerging renewed. But Char wasn’t looking renewed. She was looking like . . . she was looking like . . .
Death.
But that was impossible.
Death was impossible. Death had been overcome.
Her eyes kept going in and out, like someone suffering a brain stall.
I leaned over her. “Char, what do I do?”
A scream lodged in Char’s throat. She gasped, working her lips, trying to form words, her breathing hoarse and hiccupping. Finally, she managed a single word.
“Poison,” she wheezed.
“Poison?” I said, reaching for her, but afraid to touch her, too. “The App was poisoned?”
By now a crowd had gathered around us. People stopped to watch the scene Char was making as she twitched and jerked and choked in the grass. Parents out with their children for a nighttime stroll, Lullaby Apps tinkling softly above their carriages. Businessmen on their way home through the park. A crowd of young women heading to the bars for the evening, decked out in pricey Model Apps. A gang of fifteens, covered in tattoos and chains, trying to look badass but tittering and giggling un
derneath all those downloads, stood off to the left. As they watched, their laughter disappeared, their hands going to their mouths in horror.
I looked from one group to the other, waiting for them to do something.
No one stepped forward.
In fact, most of them began stepping away.
“Can’t anybody help us?” I cried out.
Not a single person answered. Everyone seemed frozen.
As I sat there next to my friend, I watched the virtual Char I’d known my entire life slip away entirely, until all that was left was a giant string of tiny numbers, tightly wound, weaving in and out of themselves again and again.
There was nothing left of Char but code.
The numbers began to break apart. Disintegrate like ash.
And then, suddenly, they disappeared altogether.
Char was gone.
Vanished from the atmosphere, as though she was never there at all.
At first, everyone around me was silent. A collective shock fell across the park, across those of us who’d witnessed Char’s quick and ugly demise.
I scrambled to my feet, unsure what to do. Who to call. What came next.
Then, one of the models, a tall, bone-thin girl in a too-short dress, teetering on spiky heels made out of lightning bolts that flashed as she moved, began screaming.
“Virus! Virus!”
That was when everyone turned and ran.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo credit Allen Murabayashi
DONNA FREITAS is the author of Unplugged as well as several other young adult and middle grade novels, including The Possibilities of Sainthood, The Survival Kit, and Gold Medal Summer. Donna is also a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson’s MFA program and at Hofstra’s Honors College. Her nonfiction book The Happiness Effect happens to be based on research about young adults and social media. Donna lives in Brooklyn, where she likes to spend most of her time unplugged. You can visit her online at www.donnafreitas.com.
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BOOKS BY DONNA FREITAS
Unplugged
The Body Market
CREDITS
COVER ART © 2017 BY COLIN ANDERSON
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE BODY MARKET. Copyright © 2017 by Donna Freitas. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958059
ISBN 978-0-06-211863-9
EPub Edition © March 2017 ISBN 9780062118653
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FIRST EDITION
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