The Mind Virus

by Donna Freitas

  I was glad so many other people were willing and able to spend their last moments like me, not paralyzed by grief or fear, but instead enjoying the true meaning of virtual living, our reason for being, by engaging in the activity that brought us all together:

  Apping!

  The entire City was out and about, Apping like their lives depended on it. Apping like there was no tomorrow.

  Because there wouldn’t be!

  I wandered among the revelry. The frenzy. It really was rather manic. The streets were like carnivals, bursts of color, beauty, and strangeness. People flew, they danced, they gorged themselves on weird-looking food. Icons filled the atmosphere like festive tiny balloons.

  Fireworks lit up the virtual sky, the great big booms from the explosions nearly constant.

  The Moon 11.5 and the Sun 8.5 were out at the same time.

  I wasn’t sure if the jumble of day and night was intentional, or was a result of the App World breaking down, the virus spreading, a sign of the doom that was about to befall us.

  I angled my vision just so for a moment, and then wished I hadn’t. More and more holes had appeared in the atmosphere. A man who’d downloaded some sort of Sinatra App was crooning as he walked down the street, no one paying him any real attention since they were all so absorbed in themselves. I watched as he tumbled through one of the holes and disappeared like his virtual self never existed in the first place.

  My hand went to my mouth.

  Where did he go? Was he virtually dead?

  I forced myself to move on, but when I rounded the corner, things only got worse.

  The carnival atmosphere was no longer so carnival-like. The neighborhood I was passing into had more of a, well, maybe a serial-killer vibe of sorts? Or maybe a violent-criminal one? Plus, the buildings were deteriorating by the minute. You could practically see them crumbling from one second to the next. Maybe this was what inspired the unleashing of so many people’s baser instincts. Maybe they felt like, since the world was ending anyway, they had nothing to lose. Quickly, I made a left so I could head back to the happier Appers. It seemed like the safer move. Plus, I didn’t want my last hours as a virtual girl to be so . . . ugly. So unseemly!

  I reached Main Park and sat down on a bench.

  Images of Char and my mother popped out from my head and floated in front of my virtual eyes, unbidden. I waved them off like pesky icons. I suddenly didn’t want to be in the City anymore, surrounded by these memories, not even for one last night.

  Maybe the Real World wouldn’t be so horrible.

  Maybe I’d make new friends. Find a new family.

  Maybe I wouldn’t be so alone.

  This thought perked me up a bit, gave me a sense of direction for the hours ahead. I searched the sky, the atmosphere, for an App that would download me some friends for the night, a party maybe, or even a harem of virtual boyfriends. I refused to spend my last remaining virtual moments by myself, and instead would live by Char’s inspiring mantra, one that I knew by heart, since she was always repeating it to herself over and over and over.

  If your real virtual friends abandon you for some reason, just download some more!

  It was fitting that Char’s wisdom should send me off into possible oblivion, since it was her actual virtual oblivion that got me here to this place, somehow pulled into this apocalyptic drama of our world.

  There.

  The very icon I needed!

  The Homecoming Queen App. It was perfect. Not only would I look glorious and get to wear a glittering tiara as the clock wound down on the City, but it came with an entire homecoming court of ladies and their dates, plus my very own king! Hopefully, none of them would fall through any of the holes in the fabric of the App World as we danced the night away.

  But at least there would be plenty of them if a few didn’t make it.

  I reached upward to catch the rhinestone-encrusted App. The second my finger touched it, my code was flooded with the kind of relief only a download could offer.

  40

  Lacy

  finally

  “YOU CAME FOR me!” I clapped my hands with surprise. Happiness. With pure and total joy, as bright and shiny as the green glitter makeup I’d downloaded. “We have so much to celebrate! My idea was not only totally brilliant, but it worked! The Shifting App is adapted and ready!”

  Rain stood in the doorway of my apartment. “You shouldn’t have shifted without telling me,” was all he said.

  Well, my parents’ apartment, since technically I no longer lived here.

  Daddy made that clear in our time together. So sweet, like always.

  At least soon neither one of them would live here anymore. Served them right.

  Except for the relief written all over his face, Rain looked every bit the prince and playboy I fell in love with, or lust with, or whatever you call what happens when elevens develop their first crush and it turns out to plague them for the rest of their virtual lives and eventually becomes a connection they cannot shake, even in the real body.

  “And of course I came for you,” he said more softly.

  I was tempted to shimmy right up to him and plant a giant kiss on his face. It had been sooooo long since I’d gotten to virtually kiss Rain. Like ages. Like, years and years.

  Also, after tonight, I might never have another chance.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  My virtual mouth seemed tongue-tied, words tangled in my code, unable to free themselves into the atmosphere. Instead I crossed the distance between us and decided to plant that big kiss on his endlessly kissable virtual lips. Afterward, as his eyes widened, my speech was restored. “Don’t I look all right?” I answered him finally. “Don’t I look absolutely amazing?” I went on, laughing. “I certainly feel amazing. You chose me!” I couldn’t help saying this. My arms were still linked around the back of Rain’s neck.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Over Skylar,” I clarified, blinking prettily.

  “I know what you meant, Lacy.”

  Insecurity rattled through my code, and I unclasped my hands, letting them slide away. “Are you upset? Do you regret your decision?”

  “No, Lacy, no.” He was shaking his head. “And that’s great news that the App is ready. But you took a risk, and what’s more, you came back here. I know how you hate seeing your parents, never mind asking your father for something. They were always so awful to you.”

  I shrugged and turned on my spiky green stilettos, grinding them into the ugly unfamiliar carpet my mother must have downloaded recently. “Well, seeing Daddy was horrible as usual. But he helped me get the job done, which is amazing, don’t you think?” I didn’t wait for his answer, because obviously it was amazing. “I had to promise him things, of course. That I’d ensure no one unplugged his body if he still had one and that I wouldn’t let him die and all that, since I know people in the Real World,” I rambled on. I swiveled again and looked at Rain. “Skylar did tell you everything, didn’t she? I figured eventually she’d say something.”

  Rain nodded. “Skylar didn’t say anything until about an hour ago.”

  Huh. Skylar actually kept her word. Impressive.

  I teetered back over to where Rain stood, still in the open doorway. My fabulous green dress swished as I walked. I’d downloaded about a thousand different ones before I found this absolutely perfect one on a Roaring Twenties App. It had fringe and feathers and it was a total masterpiece of high vintage fashion that flattered my incredible virtual legs. “The App World may disappear into oblivion, but at least you and I have something to go back to in the Real World. We do, don’t we?”

  Rain bent his head toward mine. “Yes. We do.”

  Were there really bells ringing in the atmosphere right now, or was I imagining it, my joy was so complete?

  I smiled up. “So why don’t we enjoy one last night of debauchery, for old times’ sake? What do you want to do on our last virtual night in this world? We can do anyt
hing you want! We can go to your favorite clubs! We can fly to the moon and bungee jump off it! We can—”

  “Honestly,” Rain cut in, “I just want to spend it alone with you.”

  Virtual tears sprung to my green eyes, hearing him say this. It was the kind of thing I’d longed to hear ever since my heart began beating out his name, Rain Holt, Rain Holt.

  “I couldn’t think of a better way to pass the hours,” I told him, wondering if he could hear the way my virtual self sang his name from every fiber of my code. “Alone with the only virtual boy I’ve ever loved. And the only real boy too,” I added, because it was true. And when I put a hand on his chest, and rose on my tiptoes to plant another kiss on his virtual lips, I was nearly certain that I could hear Rain’s own heart beating Lac-ee, Lac-ee, too, in response to mine.

  41

  Skylar

  transcendence

  KIT WAS WAITING there for me at midnight.

  A series of rainbows arched to the ground all around Main Park. Glittering droplets of water hung in the atmosphere. Children with their parents marveled at this wondrous vision.

  I saw him before he saw me.

  I took this moment to study the virtual Kit. I knew this Kit was an imitation of the real boy with the tattoos, the motorcycle, the dark and sad past, that I was seeing a copy of Kit just as he was seeing a copy of me. But the virtual Kit still made my pulse leap, reached into me in a way that I could not ignore, and made the virtual me feel realer, fuller, more alive.

  I loved him.

  “You’re here,” he said when he saw me.

  “You always sound so surprised,” I said.

  A group of boys flew past us on snowboards and skateboards. My hair went everywhere with the force of them. “I’m always worried you’ll change your mind about seeing me.”

  Fireworks exploded overhead, the atmosphere crackling with loud booms. “I won’t.”

  We started to walk amid the noise. The frenzy.

  “Did you say your good-byes to Jude?” Kit asked.

  I nodded. “It was strange, after everything she’s done, everything we’ve done to each other.” I stepped sideways to avoid a tiny hole in the atmosphere. “But she seems all right. She’s made her peace.”

  Kit looked around at the celebratory scene unfolding everywhere we looked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of these people felt that way. They seem to live for their Apps.”

  I kicked at an icon that kept diving at my feet. “I’m sure some of them do. A lot of them.”

  “It’s going to be difficult when the unplugged wake again in the Real World,” Kit said.

  The thought of what lay ahead, the end of the worlds as we knew them at least for the time being, sapped my energy. “Let’s stop thinking about that for now. For the rest of tonight, I think we should just worry about us.” I glanced around at the giant party that lit up the park, the buildings, listened to the shouts, the cries, the laughter. “There are places I want to show you before all this goes away.” I looked into Kit’s eyes. “I thought I’d hate seeing the virtual you, but instead, I’m grateful. You know the real me, but I want you to know the virtual me, too, what that Skylar used to be like.”

  “Okay,” he said. “So show me.”

  I took him to see my school, to the building where Inara lived and where I’d spent so much of my time in this world. We went to see the Water Tower, the virtual version of it, and I remembered what a virtual landmark it had been for me. We admired the famous skyscrapers from all over the world that were replicated here in the City. I took him on a whirlwind tour through my favorite landscapes in Odyssey, after which we drank virtual whiskey at a bar Kit wanted to try. As the night wore on and we were on our way to our final destination for the evening, Kit’s eyes darted everywhere, at the chaos all around us. The App World had never been like this, not even after Jonathan Holt made the announcement about the borders closing. People were Apping like I’d never seen, one download after the other, their basic selves transforming once, twice, three times in succession over the span of only a minute or even less. Icons buzzed around us like festive gnats, promising glorious possibilities for our minds, our virtual bodies, our abilities, our personalities.

  But I couldn’t care less about downloading a thing right now.

  Kit and I stopped in front of a single tower, modest next to all the others, with portholes for windows, no longer lit up against the virtual night. It looked abandoned.

  “This is Singles Hall,” I told him. “Or at least, it was. I thought I would show you the place where I grew up. My old room. Whatever is left of it, at least.”

  The two of us looked upward.

  Tomorrow, this world will be gone. So many memories with it. An entire City, the virtual dream of entire generations, vanished like it was never there.

  What mattered most would survive, though.

  Kit and I. What we had. That would go on. Because that much was real.

  “I was thinking,” I started, before we went in. “It’s just,” I began again, then stopped. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to say. Everything about my virtual self felt strange. The sensations I was feeling in my code, the pulsing of my virtual heart, the way blood seemed to rush through me even though here I had no veins. All of these were tricks of technology, programmed into the code of each citizen of the City to remind us of the reactions of the real body, to make us feel as though we were just as real as before we entered this virtual world. But now, maybe because I knew what it was like to experience these sensations naturally, they somehow felt just as real to my virtual self. It was as if the real and the virtual had meshed together.

  “You were thinking what, Skylar?” he prompted.

  How could I explain?

  Kit was standing so close.

  We had our own virtual world, just the two of us, even as the entirety of the City jostled and celebrated and wept all around us.

  “Well,” I tried, once more, hoping that this time I could find the right words. “I think maybe love has the power to change our makeup, our chemistry, our flesh and blood and bone and our codes. I think love transcends worlds.”

  Kit took one of my hands, his gaze steady. “I know what you mean,” he said.

  And I knew, I trusted, to the very center of my being, that he really did.

  42

  Skylar

  apocalypse now

  IT STARTED BEFORE it was supposed to.

  The entire App World was shaking.

  People all around were screaming.

  IT’S HAPPENING!

  THE END!

  EVACUATE NOW!

  I could hear them roaring outside Singles Hall.

  Alarm crossed Kit’s face, his coloring turning as white and stormy as a blizzard’s. “It’s too soon.”

  We were in the empty lounge. The chairs, the tables, the once bustling front desk were blurry from all the movement.

  I grabbed onto an armrest, trying to steady myself. “Our mind-chats!”

  I’d forgotten to turn mine on.

  I opened myself to all incoming communication and waited for instructions, but there was only static, interrupted by the occasional clip of a word or syllable. Get . . . hel . . . shut . . . ord . . . Then nothing. Kit grabbed my arm and held on, pulled me away as a piece of the ceiling crashed two feet away from us, the rubble disintegrating and leaving behind another hole in the atmosphere.

  “What are we going to do?” Kit shouted.

  The two of us jumped to the side as another piece of the ceiling fell, nearly taking my left arm with it. “I think we should try to get back to the meeting place from last night,” I yelled over the din.

  A hologram, jagged, crackling, appeared suddenly above one of the couches, so blurry it was impossible to see who was speaking.

  We ran closer.

  And for one lucky minute, the City stopped quaking and steadied itself.

  The hologram grew clear.

  It was Emory Specter. Al
ongside him were my mother, Lacy, and Rain.

  “We had to begin the reboot of the App World prematurely,” Emory said. “A result of the virus coursing through the fabric of our City. There’s not much time, so listen carefully.” A rumble shook the floor beneath us, the hologram disappearing for two long seconds before calm returned along with the image of Emory and everyone else. “Everyone needs to get into their assigned quadrants immediately—check your mind-chats for the location and the order of shifting—and find their group leaders.” Kit was to go in the third group, on the side of Main Park closest to Loner Town. I would to be stationed not far from Singles Hall. I breathed deep. I’d be going last, of course. “At the appointed time the Shifting App will appear before everyone,” Emory was explaining. He sounded almost excited. “When you touch it, the process of unplugging will begin, and hopefully this City will last long enough to get you to the other side. Hurry! Good luck, everyone. Hope you make it to the other side! And for the rest of us going down with the ship, good-bye from all of us! For now, at least!”

  The hologram blinked out.

  For one blissful second, the entire App World was still.

  The City was without sound, without screams, without signs of imminent destruction.

  Then the moment passed.

  “Kit,” I yelled, yanking his arm as hard as I could toward the front desk as half the ceiling caved in, nearly blocking the exit.

  The two of us ran outside, just as the glass doors shattered, leaving a wide black hole where the entrance to Singles Hall used to be. Then the rest of the building crashed to the ground and was gone, swallowed by blackness.

  A collective scream broke through the roar of the shaking.

  The streets were brimming with citizens of the City. Women, children, couples embracing, families huddled together in fear. Their downloads drained away until all that was left were basic selves, pale as sheets, frozen in shock.

  “Skylar,” Kit said, holding me close, whispering in my ear. “I’ll see you in the Real World. Promise again that you’ll be okay.”