The Mind Virus

by Donna Freitas

  Ree swatted at the Apps that buzzed about her head, her ears, diving at her nose and mouth. “Get away!” she cried. She couldn’t call off her App Store without calling off the Death App, too, so there were icons racing and jumping around everywhere. They were nearly attacking Ree, they were so impatient. “Obviously I haven’t or I’d be floating high up in Heaven 6.0, which, by the way, is apparently just a vacation resort for a bit of peace and quiet and not a place where anyone is supposed to end up permanently.” An App dove through her hair and she waved it away. “Have you guys ever been there?”

  “No,” Adam said. “Vacations like that always required too much capital.”

  Ree actually had the decency to turn a little red. “Sorry! I don’t mean to keep acting all privileged in front of Singles.”

  I turned my attention from the glittering App to study Ree. There was a look of sincerity in her eyes. Maybe I’d judged her too hastily. “It’s fine,” I said. My gaze automatically drifted back to the jeweled box hovering between us. It was magnetic. It wanted us to touch it, yet it also wasn’t like the rest of the icons, desperate and needy for us to download it. In a certain way, that was part of its appeal. “Just tell us what you know about this App.”

  “Well,” Ree began. “I call it the Death App, and its existence is why I’ve been jailed here by the government for months and months. The fact that I know it exists, and that I’ve seen what it can do.” Her voice dropped an octave on her last few words.

  Adam didn’t take his eyes off the Death App when he spoke. “If you’ve seen someone download it, that means you’ve watched someone virtually die. Right?”

  “Two people, unfortunately,” she said. “My best friend first, and then my mother. The second you touch it, it starts to, I don’t know, maybe destroy your code? The download makes you shriek in agony and . . . and . . .” Ree took a breath, gathering herself to go on. “And then it blackens your virtual skin until . . . well, it looks like you’re roasting and burning . . . my friend Char was like . . .” Ree hiccuped, a strange sort of choking noise. “She was seriously charred, and that is definitely not a joke. Then you eventually sizzle into oblivion.” She snapped her fingers in the atmosphere. “Poof! You disappear. And you don’t come back, trust me. My mother’s virtual death was recent. Maybe, like, just a week now? But Char’s happened ages ago.”

  I swallowed. Underneath the bright excitement on Ree’s face were traces of loneliness, of grief and loss, something raw and frightened. Traumatized. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful.” I thought back to when I’d left Inara behind in the App World, when I’d crossed the border, and how upset she was that I’d lied to her. How much I’d missed her later on—and she was still alive. It had been awful to lose my relationship with Jude and to nearly lose the one I had with my mother, and both of them were still around too. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to watch someone I cared about die. Even a virtual death must be horrible to witness. “You must be devastated.”

  “It’s been . . . more difficult than I would have imagined.” A swarm of icons had gathered in front of Ree’s face, so thick it was impossible to read her expression. She screamed in frustration and with one powerful swipe of her hand, lashed out, and they fled, leaving her alone temporarily.

  “You can call off the App Store,” I told her. “We can look at the Death App again later.”

  “You don’t understand.” Ree walked over to the wall and stood against it, so at least the icons couldn’t come at her from behind. “If I call it off, we might never see it again. I’ve been trying to get this Death App to appear for ages, and this is the first time.”

  “But you can’t stay like this either,” Adam reasoned. “The Apps are only going to get worse. Soon they’ll cover you head to toe.”

  Ree shot a puff of air at an icon lingering near her mouth and it floated away backward, only to zip right back to her lips, nearly touching them. “Gross! Get away!”

  “Call it off,” I said. My eyes lingered on the Death App, marveling at its gloomy beauty. For a split second, I thought of Kit. “We’ll figure out how to call it up again. I promise.”

  Ree led us onto the enormous terrace outside her apartment. “Let’s have a bite to eat while we do our explaining and getting to know one another.”

  She called up a feast of virtual food, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since Mr. and Mrs. Sachs threw a special party for their friends and allowed Inara and me to crash it. There were bowls of glowing fruits, so ripe and juicy they were nearly bursting. There were pizzas and dishes piled with pasta and towers of sandwiches stuffed with strange-looking vegetables. Lined up alongside everything else were tiny tubs of gelato in a variety of neon flavors. At the center of the table stood a tall, thin, nine-tiered wedding cake decorated to resemble a fountain, bright-blue waves of moving icing cascading down the side and running over the top of the table, some of them reaching all the way to the ground. They gurgled and splashed noisily.

  I hadn’t eaten App World food in ages. It all looked so delicious.

  But while I knew I would enjoy trying the buffet of delights Ree had offered us, I also knew that none of it, not even the fanciful cake, would compare to what I’d eaten in the Real World. There was nothing like real food. Mr. and Mrs. Sachs had always been right about that.

  The memory of the Death App flashed in my brain.

  To how many people had it appeared? Could it hold the answers my mother was searching for in the Real World? About rumors of a virus?

  Ree stood back, admiring her choices. “I haven’t had guests in ages. All these free downloads and no one to share them with! I haven’t had a feast like this in months.”

  I tore my eyes from the virtual food. “You’ve been locked in this apartment alone for months?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t alone at first. My mother was with me.” Ree’s face paled to gray and her eyes filled with virtual tears. “I actually miss her. I never thought I would, but I do. She probably disappeared into virtual oblivion believing I hated her. I certainly acted like I did while she was still alive.”

  “I’m sure somewhere she knew you still loved her, no matter how you acted or treated each other while you were together.” I said this, then wondered how much my words were spoken to comfort Ree or to comfort me about Jude.

  Ree motioned for Adam and me each to sit in front of one of the place settings on the table. “That’s a nice thought, but she and I treated each other pretty badly. Maybe too badly for our relationship to ever be redeemable.”

  Of the three chairs, Adam chose the farthest from me.

  “No relationship is ever beyond repair,” I said, realizing again how this claim could apply to so many people and situations in my life, too. My relationship with Jude, with Rain. Even with Lacy. My relationship with Kit, too. Maybe Kit more than anyone else.

  Ree took her plate and piled it with a mishmash of things that, if put together in the Real World, would make a person sick. But here no one got sick and you could mix gelato with pizza and they would taste good together. “I guess if anyone had a reason to be optimistic about family relationships it would be you, wouldn’t it?” The fountain cake kept dripping onto the terrace floor, but Ree didn’t seem to notice. “You must seriously hate your sister.”

  Hearing Ree casually mention Jude and toss off how she knew the history between us made me wince. I’d just met her, and not only did she know who I was, but she knew all about my family. As did everyone else in the City, I supposed. That was the price of fame, as Rain was always reminding me. Other people obsessing over your life.

  Had he noticed I was gone yet? Was he right now talking to Lacy? Were they having their heart-to-heart? Jealousy flashed through my code, searing it a bit, but then it passed.

  “No, I don’t hate Jude,” I answered, my voice as steady as I could make it. “Let’s go back to the Death App and why you haven’t left your apartment.”

  “I already told you,” Ree
said, her mouth still full. She swallowed. “It wasn’t by choice. The government jailed me because of what I know and what I’ve seen.”

  I put some food onto my plate to be polite. A glistening slice of pizza and a sandwich layered with something green and something blue. Then I picked up a tiny bright-yellow tub of ice cream and wondered if it might be lemon. “You really can’t leave?”

  Ree stared at me, the exasperation clear on her face. “No! Believe me, I’ve tried everything, and nothing, absolutely nothing, has worked. Until I met your friend Adam.” She gestured at him with her fork. “He came here to try and help break me out. He’s the first person other than my mother that I’ve talked to since this whole jailing business began. The first person to even see me or hear my voice and acknowledge my existence, App knows why. And I only met him because it occurred to me to go through the Gaming Apps to contact someone. It’s, like, the only loophole I’ve found. That’s how scared the government is that I’ll tell people what I know.”

  Adam still hadn’t touched anything. He kept glancing at me. “Yes, Skylar. That’s why I’m here. The only reason. To help Ree. I promised I’d help her.”

  “It’s been total solitary confinement for me,” Ree confirmed. “Until now, with you both! But what if the government is listening and they know you’re with me? They’ll come for me and for you and then we’ll all be stuck.”

  Adam leaned back in his chair. “That would not be good.”

  My mind began to do the math. People were dying in the Real World on the plugs. The government had sequestered Ree because she knew about this Death App. There were rumors of a virus. If the government was that worried about word getting out, then why wouldn’t they be listening? Why wouldn’t they have this apartment bugged? This thought chilled me so thoroughly my fingers frosted over the metal tub of ice cream in my hand.

  This meant Emory Specter likely already knew I was here.

  Or if he didn’t, he certainly would figure it out soon.

  “We need to go,” I said to Adam, getting up so quickly I knocked over my chair, which crashed to the terrace floor behind me. “Now. She’s right. It’s not safe for us.”

  Ree stood too, tipping over her plate. Fountain cake spilled onto the floor in a great sugary splash. The blue of it was too blue, like the fluorescent blue of chemicals that should never be allowed to enter the body. She wore a look of panic. “But you can’t go! Not yet! I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sure it’s safe. No one is listening. I was just being melodramatic!”

  “You weren’t,” I said to her, then to Adam. “Let’s go see Rain’s father. He’ll want to know what is happening.”

  Adam looked at me like I was mad. “Rain’s father? But he’s—”

  I put a finger to my lips. “—exactly who we need to talk to.”

  Adam stood up from his seat. “Skylar, wait—”

  “Now,” I urged. I searched his eyes. “Please, Adam. Please.”

  He glanced at Ree uneasily. Then he shrugged, in apology, I supposed. He followed me across the terrace and we made our way through Ree’s living room.

  She followed close behind us. “Don’t leave me,” she begged. “Come on!”

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’ll be back.”

  Then Adam and I passed easily through the front door and into the hallway.

  When Ree tried to follow, she was held back as though by an invisible string tugging at her back. And with one single step forward on our part, Ree suddenly vanished. As if she’d never been there at all.

  16

  Ree

  disappeared, officially

  SKYLAR AND ADAM were gone for only a few minutes when they came for me.

  The government.

  Well, Mrs. Farley. But she was the government. She put me here, trapped me, then disappeared without another word. Who knew if she was aware that my mother was gone? She didn’t even have the decency to knock. Maybe she hadn’t needed to the first time either, but had just done it for show. To freak my mother and me out a little bit less.

  I guess Skylar had been right, and the apartment might have been a tad bit bugged.

  “And I thought you’d be satisfied with unlimited downloads,” a voice said from behind me. Her voice.

  I spun. I’d been staring out onto the terrace through the screen door, trying to organize my thoughts, going over how I’d been alone for what felt like forever and then I’d had two visitors at once, one of them super famous, both of whom could finally see me, and somehow they slipped through my fingers without actually helping me get out of this overcoded hole. I gaped at Mrs. Farley now, wanting words to come from my mouth, but instead I only sputtered.

  “Silly me,” she said. “You had to be one of those girls.”

  Finally, I composed myself enough to speak. “What do you mean, one of those girls?” I asked. I tried to stay calm. I would have preferred the very cute Adam to fill the role of rescuer, but I couldn’t be choosy at the moment, and I was fairly sure Mrs. Farley had the power to end my captured misery, since she was the one who started it.

  She blinked from behind her big owl-eyed glasses, a fashion choice, since everyone in the App World had perfect vision. She cocked her head to the side, her tall updo tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Mrs. Farley wore a tweed jacket and matching skirt, which made her look like a frumpy grandmother, except for the part where the color of her suit was a mash-up of neon-pink, bright-green, and yellow threads. It made me dizzy to stare at it. “The kind of girl that can’t be satisfied by downloads alone.”

  “You think that’s a bad thing?” I grabbed for the screen door handle. I wanted the option to get away quickly, even if I still couldn’t get past the terrace.

  “It’s inconvenient,” she said. Then she promptly walked up to me and peered around my back, a blur of bright and rosy colors. “Going somewhere?” She laughed.

  I let my arm fall to my side and shrugged. “I thought I might need some air.”

  “Well, I’m not one to stop anyone from taking in the fresh atmosphere!” She popped open the door and stepped outside. Turned and looked at me expectantly. “Young Ree, did your mother not teach you that it’s rude to keep your elders waiting?”

  My virtual heart skidded at her mention of my mother. Slowly, I put one foot onto the terrace, followed by the other. The mess from the feast was melting onto the floor, ruined and ugly. A river of too-bright blue. To the left, my mother’s sad and empty lounge chair was conspicuous. Mrs. Farley’s stare followed mine. “Missing someone?”

  “Yes. But you were already aware of that, right?”

  She nodded. “It’s strange when someone virtually dies. But your mother’s death was a convenience for all of us. Wasn’t it?”

  I winced, my code squeezing itself into thin ribbons inside me. I’d known somewhere that my mother was really and truly dead. But I hadn’t allowed myself to be 100 percent certain about it. I’d given her a slim chance of being around somewhere in the virtual ether, somewhere from which she could return with the right trick of a download. Hearing Mrs. Farley confirm she was gone for good made me hurt all over, like I’d just fallen from the top of a building without an App to protect me. I glared at her so hard I wondered if my eyes might be turning red with rage. “A convenience? How nice for you. But don’t assume it’s what I wanted.”

  “I know.” Her smiled was satisfied. “But for us, it’s far better when someone dies among the already sequestered, so I don’t have to go through the mess of cleaning up after a more public death, like with your friend Char. It was very nice of your mother to go so quietly and privately. She made my life so much easier!” Mrs. Farley took off her big owl glasses. “Don’t lie to yourself, Ree, or to me. You didn’t like your mother much, and now you’re free of her. Congratulations.”

  These words stung. I turned away and went over to the paltry remnants of the feast to distract myself, calling up a Cleaning Service App to take care of the mess. What was left of the
fountain cake was vaporized into nothing in the atmosphere and the ice cream and everything else began to disappear, and Mrs. Farley spoke again after a brief silence.

  “It looks like you were having a party,” she observed. “Which is strange, since I set everything up so there would be absolutely no visitors, which I’m sure you already know well.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said dully.

  “Of course you do. You managed to find a way to invite guests, which is mystifying. Very particular guests. Which is why I’m here, after all.”

  I shrugged, my back still to her. “Why don’t you do what you came for, then, and shore up the apartment’s prison defenses so no one else can ever come see me again.”

  She laughed and I heard the click of her heels on the terrace as she approached me. “But I’m not here to do that.” The toes of her shoes squished into the bright-blue frosting that had escaped the Cleaning App. “Had your guests not been in your apartment, we never would have known about their presence in the City. They managed to cross the border without detection!”

  Stupid, stupid me. I felt a bubble pressing against the walls of my throat, making it difficult to swallow. “How lucky for you.”

  “Yes. Very.”

  Skylar and Adam may have abandoned me, but I still felt guilty that I was the reason they might get in trouble for being here. “So what now?”

  “I’ve come to take you somewhere else,” Mrs. Farley said.

  The bubble expanded. I coughed, grasping my virtual throat. As much as I’d longed to leave this place, this was not how I imagined doing it.

  “I’m taking you to a far more secure prison.” Mrs. Farley informed me, her voice low and smooth. “And this time there won’t be any downloads around to cheer you up. It’s just so unfortunate that you couldn’t play by the rules, isn’t it now?”

  She let this question hang in the air.

  It formed a loop and dropped right around my neck like a noose.