The Mind Virus Read online

  Though I was doing my best to wrap my head around being with him.

  I smiled at Rain now. “Thank you for this.” I gestured with the coffee cup before I took a sip. I’d grown pretty addicted to my jolt of caffeine. Lately, I needed a jolt to get myself moving for the day. Now I understood why so many of the Over Eighteens, especially the parents, would download the various Caffeine Apps—the Espresso, the Latte, the Extra-Dark Diesel Fuel—throughout the morning. These last months it felt as though there was some sort of permanent glitch in my code. Zeera worried there might have been permanent damage done to me, to my brain, from all that business with the Shifting App. I pushed this uncomfortable thought away.

  Rain was watching me.

  “What?” I asked him.

  His eyes shifted to Parvda, who’d burrowed deeper under the covers. “Nothing. I was just thinking. We really should talk. You know, about what’s going on in New Port City.”

  Everything in me tensed. “I know. I know, I know.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else but I got there first.

  “Rain?”

  He smiled a little. “Skylar?”

  “Would you stay with Parvda for a bit? I want to go for a walk. Maybe a swim.”

  Rain’s smile faltered. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “I’ll see you later,” I said, without looking at him. I got up from the bed and slipped outside through the screen door. It was only then that I felt like I could breathe again.

  There was laughter. Words and talk that floated along the breeze and across the sand to the place where I stood, staring at the ocean, water streaming off me from my swim.

  I turned.

  They didn’t see me at first.

  Trader and Inara were stumbling along, hugging each other, smiling rapturously, oblivious to the rest of the world. They were about to crash into me before they noticed I was there. At least one couple I knew was happy.

  “Hey, Sis,” Trader said, and they halted. His cheeks bloomed bright against the pale color of his complexion.

  Inara’s face was lit up with joy. “Skylar!” She gave me a quick hug.

  “Hi, guys.” Things had thawed quickly between us after I found Inara’s hiding place in the App World and facilitated a Real World reunion between her and my brother. They weren’t quite back to how they used to be before I unplugged, but they were getting there. She turned her attention to her feet as she scraped them across the sand, writing her name with her toes. I joined her and wrote mine next to it.

  Trader rolled his eyes, but he was beaming. “Cute.” His black hair shone in the sunlight, and his dark eyes were alive. Inara’s return to the Real World, her sheer presence, transformed him. Trader’s mood had always been dark, as dark as his features, yet lately, with Inara, he’d become a different person.

  I liked this new Trader.

  He was turning out to be a nice brother. Nicer than I could have predicted.

  “You went swimming,” he said. “Isn’t the water freezing?”

  I shrugged. “It is, but I don’t care. I bet I could even swim in winter.”

  Trader laughed. “I’d pay good capital to see you do that.”

  I squinted into the sun. “Watch out or I’ll hold you to it.” I nudged Inara. “Remember when you made me download the Arctic Explorer App and the Teeny Tiny Bikini App at the same time and dared me to go swimming in one of those little ice-cap fishing holes? I nearly became a virtual popsicle.”

  Inara looked up from the sand, where she’d been drawing a gigantic flower around our names. She chuckled. “I remember.” She wandered off a bit, bent down to pick up a coin of mother-of-pearl, and used it to decorate the inside of the first a in Inara.

  Trader leaned close and started to whisper. “Skylar, I’ve been hearing rumors, and they aren’t good.”

  The warmth of the brief moment shared with my old best friend left and the breeze felt cold against my skin. “About what, this time?” I shivered. “How I ruined so many people’s lives? How unbearable it is to be in the real body?”

  Trader glanced at Inara, who’d wandered a few steps farther down the beach. She was crouched low, searching the sand for more shells. “No,” he said. “These rumors are about the App World—about the people still living there.”

  I didn’t flinch at this. The borders might be more dangerous than ever to cross, but Trader always found a way to get information from the other side. “What about them?”

  “There’s talk of a virus.”

  My stomach clenched. “A virus in the City?”

  Trader’s head bobbed slightly, his eyes going to Inara once more. Her parents were still there.

  “But I thought viruses were impossible. I thought the code for the App World was virus-proof.” Mrs. Worthington, all of our teachers when we were growing up, everyone in the government, had bragged about this, though they’d always carefully avoided using the word virus when discussing it. App World living was eternally safe from such threats, they’d always claimed.

  Inara stood and started back toward us.

  Trader bent closer. “It might just be a rumor. And if it’s not a rumor, it’s probably just a tiny bug. Nothing really bad.”

  “Yeah, probably,” I agreed, even while my heart did flips at the center of my chest. “Those are pretty,” I said to Inara as she returned, her palm full of pearly shells.

  Trader held my gaze. “Where are you off to?”

  I tried to read his expression. There was worry in his eyes, more than his words let on. “I want to check on the App World refugees.”

  Trader and Inara turned, their eyes following the curve of beach toward the camp. Tents flapped in the wind, the canvas a blinding white in the light. “Those refugees need a real place to live,” Inara said. “They can’t stay in tents forever. At least the others have moved into the abandoned buildings in New Port City.”

  “Yes, though they aren’t doing much better than the ones who are here.” I closed my eyes against the glare, against the weight of being responsible for the well-being of so many people. It made me exhausted to think about it. “There isn’t nearly enough housing for all of them.” I sighed. “One thing at a time, I guess.”

  The two of them nodded, but stayed silent.

  We all knew the refugee crisis was growing and expanding by the day. And it wasn’t just the coming cold we had to worry about.

  “It will get figured out,” Inara said eventually. “Somehow.”

  Trader opened his mouth to speak, but Inara got up on her toes and whispered to him. He closed his mouth again. After another moment of silence, he spoke. “We’re headed down the beach, Skylar,” he said. His dark eyebrows arched. “See you later?”

  “Definitely,” I said, already on the move. “Bye, guys,” I called over my shoulder. I could barely hear their responses over the sound of the waves and the wind. Gray clouds hung heavy above. Maybe it was going to storm.

  The camp was enormous. Sprawling.

  It reached all the way down the beach as far as the eye could see and kept going around the curve and went on from there. On and on and on. Enough refugees had crossed the border to repopulate several Real World cities, and this was only one of the camps. Refugees had taken over entire mansions in New Port City, abandoned buildings, apartments, whatever they could find. They were everywhere and they’d maxed out the available housing. These refugees were the ones who hadn’t been so lucky.

  Soon I could see the tent that had grown the most familiar over the last few months. Scarves bright with greens and reds and purples hung down over the openings, some patterned with polka dots and others with paisley swirls and flowers.

  “Rasha? Andleeb?” I called when I was close.

  Andleeb poked her head through the dripping fabric. “Hi, Skylar,” she said, smiling.

  “Welcome back to our humble abode,” Rasha’s voice greeted me.

  These two sisters, with their big dark eyes and deep olive skin that turned golden
in the sun, had been a bright spot in my life ever since the three of us met. They wore head scarves that covered their thick black hair when they left their tents, but not because they were in hiding as I once was. It was a custom of the women in their family, they’d explained, before they’d plugged in, one that they’d restored since they’d returned to the Real World. The App World had prohibited the practice of such old traditions because they got in the way of the ideal of sameness, broken up only by the Apps. Andleeb and Rasha had resented this prohibition. Their parents were still living virtually in the City. They hadn’t wanted to leave, so the two sisters were here on their own.

  “And where is your . . . friend today?” Andleeb asked, with a grin. “I was hoping you’d come by with him again.”

  “My sister’s been in love with Rain Holt forever,” Rasha said.

  Andleeb elbowed her. “I have not. I just like looking at him.”

  My smile grew tight. “You’ll have to be satisfied with just me. Sorry to disappoint.”

  “We’re not really disappointed, don’t worry,” Rasha said.

  I looked around their cramped tent. Their sleeping bags were laid out over a sheet of plastic along the canvas that made up the floor. We’d distributed these sheets as an added precaution against the rain. I knew they did their best to keep things neat, but after months of living like this, everything was damp and dirty. I pushed away the thought that it might storm again soon. “I wanted to check in and see how you were doing.”

  The sisters’ smiles faltered.

  The lashes framing Rasha’s eyes fluttered. “Have you made any progress in figuring out where to put the rest of us?”

  “We’re working on it,” I said, thinking we really needed to work faster. It was unacceptable to allow people to live in these conditions.

  Andleeb smoothed the edges of her quilt with her fingers. “We’re all right for now,” she started. “But a lot of people regret their decision to cross the border. There’s tension brewing.” She stared at me hard. “Everyone is grateful, Skylar, that you told us the truth about the Body Market. But some people want to go back to virtual life. For good.”

  My cheeks grew hot. We’d given people a choice and the refugees had unplugged of their own volition, but the fact that so many of them were suffering, that so many were unhappy, that so many were considering plugging back in, was my fault. They felt that we’d misled them or worse, that they’d followed me willingly from a virtual life they’d wanted into a real life they didn’t.

  Now all they felt was regret.

  And what else could I really expect? They’d made a snap decision. In a matter of minutes, they’d chosen to leave the life they’d always known. In truth, they should be able to plug back in if that was their choice. At least they would still have control over their bodies. But what if it was no longer safe to plug in?

  “Thank you for being honest with me,” I said finally. “But I have one more question. How much longer do you think the refugees in this camp will give the Real World a chance?”

  Andleeb and Rasha looked at each other.

  Then Rasha spoke. “Maybe a couple of weeks? It’s going to get colder and the weather more . . . difficult, so if our living conditions don’t improve, maybe less?”

  I nodded. “Then I guess we’ll need to change things sooner.”

  As I made my way out of the camp, I saw a group of App World children gathered at the water’s edge. They stared at the ocean, the way it swept in and out, the water rolling tiny pebbles up the sand and washing over their feet. Seeing the awe on their faces, the way they shrieked with delight as the cold surf splashed along their ankles, put a small smile back on my face. It helped me forget that it would probably rain again this evening.

  One of them, a tiny girl, maybe six years old, saw me there and whispered to the others. The rest of them turned and watched me approach.

  I waved.

  They waved back.

  “Hello,” I called to them.

  “Hi, Skylar,” they chorused over the wind.

  A couple of other children ran down the beach, their skinny legs a blur, as though they hadn’t plugged in as babies and instead had grown up using their legs like Real World kids did. The youngest of the refugee children had taken to the Real World like an App to someone’s virtual code. They’d adapted quickly—they’d done everything quickly, really. Walked. Talked. They were eating and running around like they’d always lived here.

  Anyone who was an eight on up to an adult was another story.

  They were having a lot of trouble adjusting to life in their real bodies. Many of them couldn’t walk yet and some of them refused to get out of bed, as though their limbs were too heavy to move. We’d done our best to help them in groups—there were simply too many to do much one-on-one physical therapy.

  Then, almost all of them were going through major App withdrawal, their brains accustomed to the near-constant downloads rushing through their codes like a drug. It was well-known that the more years a person lived virtually in the City, the more difficult it was for their body to adjust to being unplugged. This was why Service had always happened before a person became an eighteen. Even though I’d known this—even though everyone who unplugged knew this—it was startling to see the suffering people endured. Many of the parents of these children were nearly catatonic, their brains refusing to adjust to life without an App fix. It was only recently that some of the older adults were coming out of their stupors, opening their eyes to the Real World and starting to live on a more normal schedule of day and night, of waking and sleeping.

  Their suffering is my fault.

  I shook my head, wishing I could shake off thoughts like this that plagued me. “Maybe you guys should go for a swim,” I said to the children cheerfully.

  “We don’t know how,” said the biggest of the boys, who was maybe seven or even eight.

  “We’re not allowed to,” said another. “My parents say that swimming in the real body is dangerous. When you swim in the real body, water fills up your mouth and your lungs and then you die a horrible death.”

  I tried to laugh this off. I’d grown used to listening to people’s recitations of all they’d learned about the body in the App World. I’d learned the very same warnings and could recite them by heart, myself. “Well, only if you try to breathe underwater,” I explained. “But I promise you that swimming is fun and you’re going to love it once you learn. I’ll teach you next summer if you want. The water is going to be too cold for it very soon anyway.”

  The boys seemed disappointed.

  One of them frowned. “Are we really going to be here for that long? A whole year without Apps?”

  His question made me feel tired again. Everyone talked to me, looked to me, as if I somehow had all the answers to people’s lives and their futures. The rumor of a virus, however small, seemed to echo over the breeze and I wilted even more. I opened my mouth to respond, but the tiniest girl in the group seemed like she might burst if she didn’t speak soon enough.

  “I can’t swim but look what I can do!” Her words spilled over one another, her wide blue eyes blinking.

  “Show me,” I said, encouraged by her enthusiasm.

  Without another word she began turning cartwheels, perfect cartwheels, all the way down the beach. I shook my head. App World kids might be afraid of the water, but some of them could do . . . this. The girl must have turned twenty cartwheels before she stopped and ran back to us.

  “You must have downloaded a lot of Gymnastics Apps,” I said. “That was impressive.”

  Her chin tilted slightly upward. “The Nadia App was my favorite,” she said proudly.

  “So you’re old-school, huh?”

  She smiled. “I learned about her in Beginners’ Real World History, the Sporting Update. She was the best a long, long time ago, back before there were Apps and they had this event called the Olympics.”

  “I remember that update,” I said. “I downloaded it to
o, when I was your age.”

  The girl’s face fell. “But now that I’m here, I won’t be able to learn anything else. I’ll be doing cartwheels forever. And then I’ll die and turn into dirt.”

  My brow furrowed. “That’s not true—at least not about the cartwheels, not if you work hard at learning other things. And you’re not going to die for a long, long time. Why would you say that?”

  “Because the real body is a clumsy prison,” she recited. “And it gets broken”—she paused to snap her fingers, an impressive skill for someone who’d only been in her real body for a few months—“like that!”

  The other boys in the group nodded.

  I glanced up at the sky above us, all that vast blue from earlier replaced by gray. “I know you all learned this in App World School 2.0—”

  “—2.5,” one of them chimed.

  “Sorry, 2.5,” I continued. “But the body can do amazing things. And it’s true, the body can get hurt, but you’ll learn to take care of it. It’s not so bad. Really.”

  One of the boys whispered to another.

  The girl scowled. “Skylar isn’t lying to us. She wouldn’t! She’s the queen.”

  I started at this. “What did you say?”

  The tallest among the boys shrugged. “She called you queen. Some of the people here say it.”

  “You’re Queen Skylar,” said another boy.

  Now I laughed a real laugh. “Well, that is sweet, but I’m not a queen.”

  The tall boy snickered. “They don’t always say it in a nice way.”

  “Yes they do,” said the girl. She pointed behind me. “And he’s the king. He was a prince at home but here he’s a king. That’s what my mother told me.”