The Mind Virus

by Donna Freitas

  I gripped him tight, the world falling down around us. “I promise. Promise me back.”

  He didn’t speak, but just before we pulled apart, he said, “I love you,” and was off, racing through the thick crowd and down the street.

  I pushed through the people, trying to make my way to the spot where I was to meet my group. Kit’s words rang through me, giving me heart. When I arrived I climbed the gates of the park and stood there, looking out, trying to keep steady amid the shaking. There must be hundreds, thousands of people, and I was responsible for all of them.

  Thunder ripped across the sky, the atmosphere growing dark and heavy with clouds.

  Rain poured down on us.

  “We’re all going to virtually die,” a young woman cried.

  Others nearby shouted their agreement.

  Were we?

  “Try to stay calm,” I called out to everyone.

  Just as I said this, a man in the group pointed upward, and everyone’s gaze followed, peering through the massive drops that fell. Gasps ripped through the atmosphere.

  The tops of the trees in Main Park.

  They were disappearing.

  Fading away, until they were just gaping holes in the atmosphere.

  “It won’t be long now,” I promised, doing my best to sound calm, to sound reassuring that everything would be okay.

  But would it?

  43

  Lacy

  rose-colored glasses

  DESPITE EVERYTHING, DESPITE the fear and terror everywhere I turned, I felt oddly calm.

  Maybe this was what it was like to be happy.

  Maybe happiness created a protective shell around you.

  I certainly felt invincible after my night with Rain. I guess love could do that to you. Make you hopeful even when the world was tumbling to the ground around you.

  I looked around. Things sure were tumbling to the ground all right.

  My group was waiting for me at the base of the Water Tower.

  Even with the world ending, there were shouts of delight.

  At least, that’s what I thought at first.

  I’d just reached the place where I could address everyone, reassure them that all would be well, when a truly terrifying sight met my eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that a tidal wave was rippling across the City, but a tidal wave of buildings. They swelled, rising high into the atmosphere, before dropping carelessly to the hard ground, where they shattered, sending thick clouds of dust into the atmosphere.

  Everyone was screaming now.

  It was headed straight for us.

  I looked above me.

  The Water Tower swayed and shimmied, the fish on its surface darting away.

  “It’s going to fall,” a man to my right was shouting.

  People ran in all directions.

  A pressure was growing inside me—it was hard to describe—like my entire virtual self and mind were squeezed into a vise. Like a faulty App was running through my code that was meant to make me taller and thinner but was somehow flattening me out instead. Even speaking grew difficult, like the code in my virtual body was becoming viscous and slow, too thick to function. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold out.

  I couldn’t move. None of us could.

  Was this—

  No—

  With every last ounce of energy in my code, I opened my mind to Rain.

  I love you. You and only you. Forever and for always.

  There came a second, a blissful second, when Rain’s voice resonated throughout my being.

  Lacy, he began. I—

  I was floating. I was warm. I was happy as I waited for him to finish his thought.

  And then—

  44

  Skylar

  decreation

  FINALLY, THE SIGNAL came.

  The Shifting App appeared before each one of us. It was nearly identical to that icon that had started this long and difficult journey for me, what felt like forever ago now, the one Trader had offered each one of us—Lacy, Adam, Sylvia, and me, when we were to cross the border to the Real World, all of us with hopes for our time there. History was about to repeat itself, but on such a grand scale I couldn’t fathom what would happen on the other side of this.

  If there was to be another side.

  I poised a finger in the air, barely an inch from the dark, foreboding icon hanging before us. A rumbling started beneath our feet, but I kept my eyes steady on the App, refusing to take in the doom above and below, to the left and right. I knew the City was nearly gone, the park likely to go with it any second, plunging us into a black hole of nothingness and oblivion. “On the count of three everyone reach out and touch the App,” I shouted. The roar grew louder and louder. I worried no one could hear me. “One,” I screamed. “Two!” My virtual lungs were burning.

  Then, with all my might, one last syllable.

  “Three!”

  PART FOUR

  45

  Skylar

  whole again

  I SAT UP.

  Stretched my fingers. Wiggled my toes.

  Breathed.

  Blinked.

  Looked around.

  I was in Kit’s bedroom. In Kit’s bed.

  Alone.

  But alive.

  Alive.

  I pulled the covers away. Stared at my knees. Began to bend and stretch my legs, my arms. Put a hand to my head. Slowly, I swung my legs around and placed my feet on the floor. Stood. Waited.

  I waited for the dizziness, the nausea, that terribly sick feeling I always got after unplugging to come over me, to nearly knock me down with pain and agony. And yet, I felt . . . fine. I took another step and waited.

  Still . . . nothing.

  A tremendous sense of relief flooded my every cell.

  A strange peace came over me, over every inch of skin, every bit of my body, my heart, my soul. I felt nothing but rested. Nothing but . . . whole.

  I felt whole. Whole in a way that I hadn’t felt in ages.

  Whole in a way that I’d never felt in my entire life.

  Not virtually, and not as a real person either.

  It was as though for months, for years, even, I’d been split somehow, like there were two of me living in a single brain, a single body. A single person, but one always pulled in two directions, the center of a perpetual tug-of-war between two disparate places. A person at once real but also virtual, always both, but never quite one or the other.

  The strangest part was that I hadn’t realized any of this until now, only after this tug of division had vanished. The split sense I’d carried within me had been so embedded, so normally a part of who I was, that I didn’t notice it there, didn’t notice it dragging on me until it was gone.

  I was lighter. Unburdened. Everything about me seemed . . . new. Brighter. Shinier.

  The feeling made me want to run, to laugh, to swim across the ocean.

  To celebrate.

  But I should be in mourning.

  A whole world was gone, maybe gone for good, and many of its people with it. My sister. My father. Others I didn’t even know about yet. So why did I feel so . . . so good? So alive? More alive than ever before? Why did my body feel so . . . relieved? Had the App World and the Real World been pulling me apart, not allowing me to ever truly be whole?

  Could it be that other people felt this relief, this peace, as well?

  Maybe for the first time ever, I could truly be myself. I could figure out who Skylar Cruz was without a division between worlds settling a dark cloud over everything. Over me.

  There were clothes folded on a chair next to the door. I pulled on the pants and the sweater to ward off the cold. Beneath everything was a scarf—Kit’s scarf, the one I’d always loved, that I’d stolen from him, then buried away somewhere in Briarwood so I didn’t have to look at it. I wondered how it had gotten here. Only Parvda knew about it.

  She must have given it to Kit.

  I wrapped the scarf arou
nd my neck. This meant she was all right.

  But who else was all right?

  And how long had I been out this time?

  Last time I’d shifted on behalf of others I’d been out for days.

  I threw open the door to Kit’s room and stuck my head out, hoping to see him there, sitting next to the stove drinking his homemade whiskey or sitting on the old couch reading a book. But he wasn’t anywhere in the room.

  “Skylar,” Maggie said, turning to me. “You’re awake!”

  Her voice was enthusiastic. But she didn’t smile.

  My heart thudded. “Where’s Kit? Where is he? Is he . . . did he . . .” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  Maggie rushed over. “No, no! Skylar, no. He’s fine. Kit’s perfectly fine.” She took my arm and led me to a chair. Pushed me down until I was sitting. She bent forward and peered into my eyes. “He’s all in one piece, I promise. One hundred percent all right.”

  I nodded slowly. Began to breathe again. “Then where is he?”

  Maggie stood straight again. She hesitated. “Out.”

  The way she said this, it sounded like she was hiding something. “Doing what?”

  “You’re meant to rest,” she said.

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Kit brought you here to recover.”

  I stood up from the chair. Looked Maggie in the eyes. “I’m recovered.”

  “Skylar,” Maggie sighed. “Please, just be patient. Kit will tell you everything when he gets back.”

  “But what is there to tell?” I asked, exasperated.

  “Let me make you some tea,” she tried.

  “I don’t want tea! Who’s all right and who . . . who isn’t?”

  “That’s not for me to say. And besides, I don’t know all the details.” Maggie turned her back on me and went into the kitchen. She grabbed a kettle, filled it with water, and put it on the stove to heat.

  “I don’t even drink tea.”

  “Then I’ll make you coffee,” she said. Then she sighed. “Fine, I’ll tell you one thing, because it feels cruel not to, but the rest you’ll have to get from Kit.”

  I joined her in the kitchen. Leaned against the counter, watching as she scooped coffee, waiting for her to go on.

  “Your friends are fine, Skylar. They’re all fine.”

  I swallowed. Happiness seeped back into me like a download spreading its cool relief throughout my code one last time. “Thank you for telling me that,” I said.

  Maggie didn’t look at me. Her gaze was on the kettle, but she nodded.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” I told Maggie, after I’d sipped coffee for a while. “To help me pass the time while you’re avoiding telling me what I need to know.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Oh?”

  I took a deep breath. “How long will your brother be gone?”

  “Maybe until this evening, if I had to guess,” she said.

  I explained to Maggie what I was thinking. “Is that enough time to get it done?” I asked.

  She looked thoughtful. “Well, it’s enough for the first pass. There would have to be others. Maybe three or four. Are you really up for that?”

  “I am,” I told her, feeling more sure about my decision as every moment passed.

  “All right then. Have a seat.”

  Maggie went into Kit’s room, and when she came back she held a great wooden box in her arms. She opened the top of it and began to take out a series of strange pens. She laid them neatly across the table. Then, when she was ready, she spoke. “Roll up your sleeve, Skylar,” she said. “So I can get to work.”

  By the time Kit walked in the door, Maggie had finished. The two of us were seated at the table in the kitchen, drinking small sips of Kit’s whiskey. Maggie had planted a half-full glass of it in front of me and said, “For the pain,” after she’d put her pens away. But then she’d poured some for herself and joined me as I drank the strong liquid.

  “Kit,” I said, getting up.

  He smiled when he saw me there, a smile of relief, I thought, but also a smile of sheer happiness. “You’re awake.”

  “She has been for hours now,” Maggie said, getting up herself. She went into the kitchen and busied herself with the dishes. “You two should talk,” she called over her shoulder. “You have a lot to catch up on.”

  Kit arched his eyebrows and gestured toward his bedroom.

  The two of us went inside and closed the door behind us.

  The second it clicked shut, Kit put his arms around me and pulled me close. “How are you feeling?” he asked, when we finally let go.

  “Strangely, better than ever,” I said.

  Kit hadn’t stopped smiling. “I know what you mean.”

  I smiled back. “Do you?”

  He nodded.

  I sat on the bed. Then I pulled the sweater I wore over my head and set it aside, so only the tank top I’d slept in remained. Kit’s eyes grew wondrous.

  “Skylar,” he breathed. He came over and sat down next to me.

  I held out my arms to him.

  He bent closer to study the scene Maggie had inked onto my skin. It started at the base of my left wrist, then continued over onto my right shoulder, starting at the top and making its way down to my forearm.

  “Maggie did this,” Kit said, as his eyes made their way across everything. “It’s beautiful.”

  I nodded. “She’s talented. I knew I was in good hands.” I joined Kit in looking at her artwork. At my left wrist, the beginning of an ocean wave rose up and crested across my elbow, sending droplets of spray upward, droplets that—when they reached the top of my right shoulder—transformed into sparkling snowflakes that fell onto a solitary tree, descending down my other arm. The tree in the yard outside Kit’s cottage. “I wanted to mix the sea, which feels like it’s mine, with the tree in winter. Which feels like it’s ours,” I added.

  “I love it,” he said, his gaze returning to mine. “Thank you.”

  I folded my hands in my lap. “It barely hurts.”

  “I wondered. It’s a lot for one day.” Kit got up and moved toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” I’d waited and longed for us to have a moment’s peace. “Come back. We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “I know. But your mother made me promise to let you rest,” he said.

  This perked me up. “You’ve spoken to her?”

  “Yes, she’s fine. Busy with everything. Everyone.” I opened my mouth to ask, What, exactly, is she busying herself with? Kit got there first. “Busy with everything you’re not supposed to worry about at the moment.”

  “But—”

  Kit was shaking his head. “No, Skylar, don’t even think about it. I wasn’t even supposed to wake you until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  I let out a breath. “All Maggie would say is that my friends are fine.”

  “The world will still be here tomorrow. You can worry about it and everyone else in it then.”

  I looked up at him, allowing myself to accept this. To let myself be taken care of for once. “So I’m not expected anywhere?”

  “No.”

  I patted the bed next to me, gesturing for Kit to join me again. “Okay. I won’t worry about anything else until tomorrow.”

  He sat. “Good. Tomorrow we’ll talk about everything.”

  “Then tonight”—I leaned closer, my eyes on Kit’s, my eyes only for him—“is just for us.”

  46

  Skylar

  reunions and good-byes

  WHEN I WOKE the next day, I had visitors.

  My Keeper. My mother. Adam and Parvda.

  Kit had gone early to Briarwood to tell them I was up and about.

  “Mom,” I exclaimed when I saw her there, standing awkwardly by the couch, and I hugged her. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “We do, sweetheart,” she replied. “But there’s time. We have all the time in the world now.”

  “Adam,” I squealed. “
Parvda!” They were holding hands and smiling.

  I laughed. I hugged each one of them, long and tight, relieved that for my friends, for my mother, things had ended up all right, that they were with me now in Kit’s cottage as though we gathered here all the time. Maggie made everyone coffee, and my Keeper filled me in about the state of New Port City, how her fellow Keepers had risen to the occasion of tending to such an enormous influx of refugees, how the Real World was spreading out again to rural towns and other once abandoned places—out of necessity, out of the desire to return to the homes that people had occupied before they left for a virtual future. It had been hard, she explained, and it would be hard for a long time to come. Many families sustained great losses during the evacuation. But people were doing their best to cope, to move forward, to try and live in honor of those who did not make it back.

  “Where’s Rain?” I asked eventually, realizing that no one had said a single word about him since they’d arrived.

  That was the moment that everyone’s faces fell.

  The memorial was small. Intimate.

  Just friends and loved ones.

  We gathered on the beach, the little group of us.

  We held champagne flutes in our hands.

  Rain was the last person who spoke. His words were brief, but heartfelt, punctuated only by the soft shhhhh of the waves coming in to shore.

  Maggie had said that my friends were all fine. What she didn’t say was that someone who she thought was not my friend wasn’t.

  “Lacy would never want us to lie and say something simple like, she was loved by all,” Rain began, and was met with sad laughter. “But I think it would be true to say that we all grew to like her, and at least one of us grew to love her.” A tear ran down his cheek. He brushed it away. “And I think she would want us to remember her not so much as loved by everyone, but as a sparkling, glittering girl who could never be forgotten. Certainly not the virtual version of Lacy, but not the real version either.” There were murmurs of agreement. “She died as she lived, with drama and flair and without fear, wearing the best dress she’d ever downloaded in her life—her words to me.” Everyone chuckled again. Rain raised his glass.