The Mind Virus

by Donna Freitas

  PART THREE

  36

  Skylar

  virtual togetherness

  “SHE ASKED ME not to tell you,” I said. “She made me promise.”

  Rain halted ahead of me and turned around. “Skylar, what do you know?”

  “I know that she loves you very much. And that she can be brave.” I hesitated, but then went on. “And I know that you love her.”

  Rain lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  He glanced up, and our eyes met. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded.

  “You love him,” he stated.

  I nodded again.

  Rain sighed. “Are we friends then?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I hope so, too,” he said. Then, “Please tell me that she’s all right.”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Skylar! Just tell me what she’s doing.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. She made me promise, and you of all people know about promises.” But the look on his face was of such pleading, such desperation, I couldn’t help adding, “She’s in the App World—that’s all I’m telling you!”

  The noise from Rain’s throat was anguished.

  “Lacy can take care of herself and you know it,” I reassured. “She’s fine.”

  I hope.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “We need to get there. Now.”

  Everyone was gathered together around the plugs when we arrived.

  Sylvia and Zeera, Parvda and Rain, my mother, Trader, even Inara.

  We would all go. Kit, too.

  I didn’t know what to make of meeting the virtual him. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of meeting my virtual mother either.

  Zeera grimaced in the glowing light of the plugs. She was preparing the Shifting App—something I’d hoped I’d never have to use again. But shifting was the best way to enter the App World undetected.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Inara asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said.

  Inara glanced at me, worried. “But why can’t we each shift on our own? Why does Skylar have to be the one to lead us into the App World?

  Zeera looked up. “It’s the only way to guarantee we’ll all arrive at the same time and place. And we also know she can do it. We don’t have time to test another way.”

  My Keeper put a hand on my mother’s shoulder. “I’ll be monitoring Skylar the entire time.” She looked around the room at each one of us. “I’ll be monitoring all of you.”

  Zeera began showing her how to use the tablet and work the Shifting App.

  “Are you sure that everyone needs to go?” my mother asked. “We know it’s dangerous to plug in at this point. Maybe—”

  “Everyone has people in the App World they need to see,” I reminded her. “Plus, I’d rather not go alone,” I admitted.

  Kit crossed his arms. The edge of his new tattoo was visible as his shirt rode up his forearm. “You won’t be. I wouldn’t let you be.”

  “Who knows?” Trader laughed weakly. “We may get good news and not the terrible kind we’re anticipating.”

  I eyed him. “You didn’t see that hole in Loner Town.”

  His expression darkened, but he forced the smile on his face to stay put. He turned to Zeera and my Keeper. “Are you two ready?”

  My Keeper nodded. “Zeera is a very clear teacher. So that’s a yes.”

  Without another word, I slid myself into the glass box we’d designated as mine and settled onto the cradle.

  And, one by one, they joined me.

  This time, as with the others, I dreamed of Kit. Snow fell from the sky, but each flake, when it landed, seeped into my skin like ice-blue ink. Soon my arms were covered with inked-on snow, just like it covered the ground. Strangely, I didn’t feel cold. Instead, with each new tattoo I grew warmer, happier.

  “Kit?” I called out.

  I was standing there admiring the new wintry scenes on my arms, wondering if he would call back to me, when I remembered why I was there, that I had to take control of the dream and conjure the room with the doors. One foot in front of the other, I began to make my way through the steep drifts. With each step I was more alert to my surroundings, more aware that this was not a moment for me to enjoy but one with a very particular purpose.

  People were depending on me. Waiting.

  As the snow drifts diminished, the warm, happy feeling abandoned me as well, replaced by a shivering and shuddering all the way to my bones. The lighter the snow, the colder I became, until the snow disappeared but I was still freezing. I looked around and found myself in the room full of doors. I rubbed my hands over my arms, trying to warm up, a dark, hollow feeling opening inside me as I saw that the beautiful snowflakes tattooed on my skin were gone. I wandered from door to door aimlessly. Lost. A tall blue one, painted like the ocean. A round arched one made of stone that looked medieval. There were so many, all of them different.

  “Sis, are you okay?”

  I turned, teeth chattering. The virtual version of my brother was standing there. “I think so,” I told Trader. “I’m just so cold. Are you?”

  “No, I’m fine. I worry about you, though. Shifting doesn’t seem to—”

  Right then, Inara appeared, with a great sigh of relief and a smile on her face. I was thinking how strange but how nice it was to see the virtual Inara again, to feel the familiarity of this, when Sylvia, Zeera, and Parvda appeared, the three of them clutching each other. I was tempted to fold myself into the middle of them, hoping for warmth, but then my mother appeared.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” she said. “Well, this is strange, isn’t it?” She kept staring at her hands, her arms, the rest of her virtual body.

  “Hi, Mom.” I couldn’t stop staring either. She was my mother, but she was someone else. Technically, she looked like my mother. She had the same hair color and style, the same eyes, just like mine, even the same height and same shape of her face, oval and long. But her virtual skin was washed out, washed of its normal golden hue, and it made her seem less living, less alive, like a vampire had drained her of blood and left behind a shell.

  “I always wondered,” she whispered. “But I don’t really know how to feel about this, this . . . me. I nearly don’t feel anything, like I’ve been flattened out.” She shook her head, her arms, like she could shake off the virtual and replace it again with the real.

  “It’s just for a short while,” I told her.

  “One can hope,” she said. “I always wondered about you, too, sweetheart.” She peered into my face, my eyes. Looked me up and down. “At least now I can say I’ve known what my virtual daughter was like all those years.”

  Before I could respond, Rain appeared.

  Then, finally, the last person we were waiting for arrived.

  Kit came from down the hallway, walking toward us, passing door after door on his way, a virtual version of Kit I never dreamed I’d meet, nor had I really desired to. His face was basically the same, recognizable at least, but—as with everyone else—this Kit was like a pale copy of the real person.

  He didn’t stop walking until he was standing in front of me.

  At least his eyes were identical to the ones I knew.

  “It’s nice to meet you, virtual Skylar,” he said softly.

  I nodded.

  In that moment, I made a decision.

  We would get back—we all would—so we could continue with our lives, our real lives, not this imitation of life so many of us had settled for throughout our childhood. I wanted a real life, a peaceful real life, and I wanted to try to have that life with Kit. We just needed to get through this next part in one piece.

  “Everyone ready?” I asked, unwilling to delay a moment longer.

  I’d already spied the door where we were headed.

  I went to it, my friends, Kit, my mother, Rain, trailing after me. We passed a door made of rainbows,
diaphanous and glowing, another covered in spikes and signs that said Keep Out, doors of wood and doors of water and even doors that looked to be made of the earth itself, flowers and weeds and bright-green grass growing up out of them. Then I reached the door that had caught my eye.

  Somehow I knew, I just knew to the center of my code, that this was the place. It was like a sixth sense, the kind of certainty you could download with the App of that same name, one that plagued you with a sense of déjà vu, a sense of dread, of disaster just before it hit. The Sixth Sense App was all make-believe, of course, but now, the suspicion that beyond this door would be the end of our worlds as we knew them, not to mention a series of virtual confrontations that made me dizzy and nauseous to think about, was all too real.

  “This is it,” I said. It was covered in sparkling Tiffany jewels, as ostentatious and over-the-top as the person who lived behind it. My mother kept twitching nervously, like her virtual self couldn’t quite adjust to leaving its real body behind. Rain’s eyes were worried, searching alongside Parvda, who was chewing the inside of her virtual mouth nervously. Inara and Trader stood off to the side, close, her hand in his. And Zeera and Sylvia were paired up too.

  Only Kit spoke. “Where is it that we’re going, exactly?”

  I put my hand on the knob, which was comprised of a single gigantic, diamond, and answered Kit’s question. “My father’s house. He might be waiting for us. He always seems to know things before they happen.”

  We arrived just in time for the emergency broadcast.

  This, none of us were expecting.

  The moment the last one of us was through the door, the atmosphere crackled and popped and a hologram appeared. We were in a hallway of some sort. It led to a glowing room at the other end. At first I couldn’t tell who it was that was speaking. The hologram lacked a sharpness, a definition, for a few long seconds, static sounding loudly, and I wondered if this might be because of the virus in the App World, that it was affecting everything now, even communications. But then the shape of the person grew clearer.

  A collective gasp rippled across a number of us.

  “Mother?” Rain breathed.

  Lady Holt, regal and elegant, beautiful and captivating, stood there looking out onto the citizens of the City from wherever she stood. She seemed to home right in on her son. But there was no flicker in her gaze, no hint of recognition. Maybe it was just a trick of the atmosphere.

  “Citizens of the App World,” she began. “I know you are used to seeing my husband in this role, but today you will have to adjust to me in his place. I’ve appeared to inform you of the gravest news. As I’ve sure you’ve noticed, there have been many changes in the City these last months. Holes in the atmosphere that we’ve been unable to fix—holes that grow more numerous and bigger by the virtual day. There have even been disappearances among us that surely have affected many of you. Now, you all have a difficult decision ahead of you. We all do. The App World is dying,” she said, without pause or hesitation, though after these words she stopped speaking, maybe to let such a statement sink in for her listeners. “And it’s dying quickly. A virus has spread, and we have very little time left.”

  So it’s all true, I thought.

  We waited for her to continue, my eyes drifting beyond her image to what was behind her—no, who was behind her. I thought I saw Ree. And then beyond Ree, I thought I saw . . .

  My father? And Jude?

  My gaze shifted down the hall to that glowing light at the end of it. I pointed, silently, and the others followed my gaze.

  There was an intake of breath. Lady Holt was about to continue.

  “More details are forthcoming, but right now you must gather together with your loved ones and begin your good-byes. Difficult questions will have to be answered. Not everyone can be saved. You will each have to decide: Will you go back to the Real World? Or will you stay behind to go down with the ship?” Lady Holt paused, these two dark questions heavy in the atmosphere. When she spoke again, it was only to close her remarks. “I’ll be back soon. But until then, I bid you good day,” she finished, and the hologram blinked out.

  37

  Ree

  reunions

  LADY HOLT’S VOICE died out.

  I started to clap.

  But I was the only one. The echo of it danced off the cavernous walls of Emory Specter’s throne room—not a place I ever thought I’d voluntarily return to, yet here I was. Lady Holt had been convinced that we needed the Defense Minister in on the plan.

  Everyone else in the room had doom written all over their virtual faces.

  So, the world was ending. Yes, this was a tragedy. But on another level, it was also incredibly exciting! When else was a girl around to witness the end of times? If this was the apocalypse, I’d been given a front-row seat! If only my mother were here. She would have loved to witness the spectacle of it. Char, too. She’d be so jealous if she knew what I was up to!

  “What now?” Emory asked Lady Holt.

  As though she was the authority in the room, not him. And not that crazy chick Jude, who’d wanted to sell our bodies to the highest bidder.

  I knew Lady Holt was the right person to handle everything! I reached up and patted myself on my shoulder, still primly clad in a pink tweed suit jacket.

  “We give everyone time for the news to sink in, since this is a lot to process.” Lady Holt sent a nasty glare at him and I almost clapped again. “You never were good at, well, people, Emory. You’re so puffed up all the time and so tone-deaf to emotion you never stop to consider what people actually need.”

  He puffed up now, as if to prove Lady Holt’s point, clearly readying himself to offer some ridiculous emotionally tone-deaf response—as she might put it—when there came a clatter from down the hall. The three of us turned toward it.

  People began to appear out of nowhere. Exciting people!

  It was like something out of those old-timey movies, back when the Real World was all there was.

  The drama!

  First, Prince Rain Holt entered the room, in the virtual flesh. He ran to his mother and she swept him into her arms, crying out, “My baby, I’ve missed you!” Then came a bunch of people I didn’t know, who stood there looking a bit clueless. On their heels entered a woman who waltzed right up to Emory Specter and that Jude chick and crossed her arms, standing there before the two of them, glaring. And after her came Skylar Cruz.

  Of course she was here.

  She strode up to Emory Specter and the body-seller lady as well, unafraid, and planted herself next to the old woman. “We’ve come to help,” was all she said.

  Emory Specter seemed ready to explode with anger, but Skylar stood her ground. “You’ve come to help?” he raged. “Well, welcome then, daughter of mine,” he went on, though he did not seem at all welcoming and, instead, very, very sarcastic. “It’s so nice of you to offer, since it’s your fault we’re in this mess in the first place.”

  38

  Skylar

  brain powered

  I TRIED TO unhear my father’s words.

  The App World is dying, and it’s my fault.

  Emory Specter stood there looking at my mother and me, his face reddening with rage, in a familiar bright-red suit—he’d worn something similar at the App World funeral for the seventeens left on the other side of the border. Maybe he had dozens of suits like this.

  “Hello, Skylar. Hello, Mother,” Jude said.

  Virtual living seemed to suit her. She’d lost the angry glint in her eyes, there was color in her cheeks, and she looked relatively normal. She hadn’t gone crazy with downloads or permanent enhancements. The dress she wore was simple. Black, long, with capped sleeves and a narrow red trim along the neck and hem.

  Most interesting of all, she didn’t seem angry at us like her father.

  Our father, I meant.

  We were in some sort of throne room. It was cavernous, as big as the space below Briarwood, but far glitzier. The throne itse
lf was jeweled in much the same way as the door we’d entered. The pillars, walls, and floors were just as ornate, with dozens of patterns and decorations and fancy stones that met the eye all at once. Stranger still, Ree was standing there gaping at all of us, her outfit so prim and proper, clearly an attempt to match Lady Holt’s style, though she hadn’t quite figured it out. The ample cleavage she showed undermined the look. Seeing Ree made me glance at Parvda and wonder where in this world Adam was.

  “How is it my fault?” I finally managed to ask Emory.

  Emory crossed his arms to match my mother’s. “By allowing a mass exodus from the App World, you weakened the entire fabric of it. You destabilized the App World. You might’ve saved some bodies from your sister’s market”—he took a moment to glance in Jude’s direction—“but in the process you jeopardized everyone here.”

  “That’s a lie, Emory, and you know it,” my mother said. “The Cure is at fault. I’ve been investigating this issue for months.” My mother kept staring at Emory in his fiery red suit like she didn’t know what to make of him. I wondered whether—hoped that—when my mother was with him, he had been different than he was today. I couldn’t imagine them together, just as I still couldn’t wrap my mind around Emory Specter as my father. I kept wishing she’d tell me that he wasn’t.

  My mother opened her mouth to say something else, but I put out a hand for her to wait.

  “Is it a lie?” I asked.

  Emory kept contorting his lips as he considered his answer. “Well. Maybe.” Then he sighed. “Fine, it wasn’t the Shifting App, but that Shifting App certainly did not help matters.” He began to walk in a circle, stopping in front of Rain. “If this one over here had paid more attention to his grandfather’s legacy, he might’ve stopped this situation before it began.”

  “Emory,” Lady Holt warned.