Middle Ground (2 page)

Noah whistled through his teeth. “Impressive.”

Clare shrugged. “It beats those awkward online interview dates any day,” she said.

We all shuddered at this. My parents didn’t allow me to date, but I knew there were hundreds of match sites. They claimed they could pair you with your soul mate in thirty days or less, or your money back. They could go as far as genetic profiling, so you could see blueprints of your future kids. We wanted fast love. Drive-through dating. And we got it.

“I refuse to use dating sites,” Clare announced. “Technology can now bring us love for six hundred dollars?”

“A lot of my friends like them,” Pat said.

“It’s because it’s set up like a video game,” Clare said. “You have to make it to level ten before you can virtually meet. And you have to rack up points in order to advance to the next dating stage.”

Pat smiled. “Exactly. It’s like playing online soccer, except I’m trying to score with a girl.”

“Romantic,” I said. “Don’t worry, Clare. Someday you’ll get swept off your feet.”

“More likely by a train than a guy,” she said with a shrug, as if this were her fate and she’d already accepted it. “We haven’t heard from you in a while,” Clare mentioned to Pat. I knew what she was referring to. Since he had moved to L.A. to help manage Noah’s band, he’d dropped his friends back in Oregon.

Pat shrugged. “I’m taking a break from all that,” he said.

“You’re not going to fight digital school anymore?” I asked.

His hazel eyes met mine. “It’s not the most dire concern in my life.”

“Not when there’s excellent music to produce,” Noah added.

“So you’re just giving up?” Clare asked.

Pat flashed her an annoyed frown. “No, I’m just not that dedicated. I have other goals besides racing to save America’s youth from a world of digital prison,” he said. Pat always had a sarcastic side, especially when he was in the presence of me and Clare, but he’d never spoken against fighting DS before.

“What if Justin needs your help?” I pressed.

Pat checked a message on his phone. “I’m not off the schedule completely. You can call me a seasonal employee. I help out when we’re understaffed.” He met my eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, DS sucks, but now that I’m out of it, it doesn’t seem as bad. School’s just a part of life. You survive the monotonous boredom, you get out and move on. It’s like your mandatory torture years.”

“That’s not why we’re fighting it,” Clare argued.

Noah’s eyes were skeptical. “Hey, rebel twins, a lot of people actually like digital school. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

He looked from me to Clare and laughed at our identical frowns.

“DS is easy,” Noah said. “You don’t have to waste time getting places. You don’t have to put up with all the drama being face-to-face creates. You don’t even have to get out of bed. I spent my entire high school career in my pajamas.”

“Thrilling,” I said. “There’s a word for not getting out of bed all day. It’s
depression.
”

“You have more time to do the things you want,” Noah argued. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s a trap,” I said. “People don’t know how to exist outside of it, that’s the problem. People might not be experiencing drama, but they’re also not experiencing anything else. It’s taking over our entire culture.”

“Hey, Debby Downers, can we talk about something fun?” Pat asked. “Besides, Maddie, it’s not like you’re committed to fighting DS,” he reminded me. Just as he spoke, the limo turned the corner onto Third Street, and a neon billboard sign for Club Nino blinked down at us. A long line stretched along the side of the building, and the crowd turned to gape at the limo when we slowed down in front of the entrance. Some people were already poised to take videos, hands up and phones ready. Noah opened the door and we were greeted by a short bouncer in a suit and tie who held a scanner in his hand like a gun ready to fire at anyone who dared question his guest list.

“Bouncers,” Pat mumbled under his breath. “They think they own the city.”

The bouncer asked us if we had reservations, and judging from his deadpan expression, we could have shown up hovering in a spacecraft and he wouldn’t have been impressed.

I started to shake my head but Pat announced we needed four seats.

“We’re at capacity,” the bouncer said. “You’ll have to get in the back of the line.”

Pat shrugged. “All right, if you want to turn down a member of the Managers. It might hurt your image, but that’s your call.”

A few girls in the front of the line had already recognized Noah and started yelling his name. When he turned to wave he was greeted with shrieks and a swarm of lights from camera phones. A dozen glittery dresses bounced up and down.

“Come on,” Pat said, and pulled at Noah’s sleeve. “Isn’t your music label throwing a party tonight?”

The bouncer’s tight frown relaxed. “Wait, let me see what I can do,” he said, his tone changing from snobbery to flattery in less than a second. “I might have a few VIP seats open.” He typed on his screen, mumbled orders into his earpod, and, after scanning our fingerprints, ushered us through a side door and then up a flight of metal stairs. Noah turned and waved once more to his fans and was answered with shrieks so loud it made Clare cringe next to me.

“I think the trick to getting celebrity treatment is to actually be a celebrity,” I told her as we walked inside.

A security guard led us down a narrow hallway. The ceiling lights were a frosty yellow and I looked down at a see-through plastic floor, lit up underneath with colorful rotating lights. Techno music seeped through the walls, and bass pulsated the ground. I grinned and thought maybe the hundred-dollar cover charge was worth it.

When we pushed open a heavy door into the main dance room, my smile quickly vanished.

Club Nino looked like a dark movie theater. Seats took up the entire space, and the room was packed full of people staring up at an empty black screen that filled the front wall. Their eyes were hidden behind silver glasses and all of them wore thin metal MindReaders. People were rocking and laughing and nodding their heads to the music but I couldn’t figure out what was so entertaining. I turned and grabbed Clare’s hand.

“What is this?” I yelled to be heard over the music, and a staff member tapped my shoulder and pointed to a screen on the back wall listing all of the club rules, the first being
NO TALKING
. I frowned back at her. What kind of a club didn’t allow you to talk? With a hundred-dollar cover? I felt a pang of guilt that Noah had just dropped four hundred bucks to take us out when I would have been happier watching them play video games at home. At least we could have had a conversation.

An usher escorted us to four open seats in the back of the room. The seats had enough space between them so people could get in and out and waitresses could drop off drinks without obstructing anyone’s view. We sat down in the cushiony armchairs and I watched Pat to follow his lead. He opened a flap on his armrest and took out a pair of glasses, so I did the same. I put them on and jumped in my seat. Like magic, the screen at the front of the room filled with people.

A laser light show showered over the dance floor, where a pack of glittering digital bodies moved to the music. Groups of people flirted and mingled around the club. I blinked at the movie-screen party happening in front of me. Clare nudged my arm and motioned for me to put on my MindReader, hanging on a hook on the side of the chair. I slid on the silver headband and adjusted the sides until the small foam edges fit snug against my temples. I opened up the other armrest and pulled out a thin flat computer screen that automatically snapped on with my touch. A young woman appeared on the personal screen, tall and gangly and beautiful. She wore a long, silky red dress and sat on a slender white couch. She smiled and as words traveled out of her mouth, they were spelled out on the screen like a cartoon caption.

Welcome to Club Nino
the caption read, and she waved at me. I waved back, as if she could see me. She talked me through the instructions after offering to skip ahead if I already knew how to log on. After I set up an account, she leaned back on the couch cushions, clasped her hands in her lap, and told me it was simple. My thoughts would appear on this personalized screen and I could press Send to enter them into Club Nino (the huge wall screen in front of me) or delete the words if I didn’t want people to read them.

Try it!
She encouraged me with an inviting smile.

This is stupid,
I thought. I smiled as my thought illuminated on the screen in front of me. I pushed Send and looked up to see my message floating on the bottom edge of the giant screen, but I didn’t have a body, so the words hung suspended in the air.

I stared at my message and wondered why I was invisible. I could see Clare out on the screen, and Pat and Noah, who were already surrounded by a pack of women. My instructor must have sensed my distress. She appeared on my computer and calmly explained I needed to add my image to the wall screen. She told me to imagine what I looked like and my body would appear.

I scanned the crowd at Club Nino. Some people had decided to go naked, although their privates were blurred out. The guys were all muscular and athletic (or maybe they just fantasized they were). Most people did opt for clothes, and judging from the looks of them, I was attending a virtual fashion show. There wasn’t an overweight, unattractive person on the screen. Every girl had glitter highlights, gleaming skin, and makeup. Some girls had styled their hair in twists and braids; others left it long and shiny. One girl had straight platinum-blond hair that fell all the way to her ankles, nearly sweeping the floor. I wondered if that impeded her dance moves. Even some of the guys had glitter highlights. One word:
lame.

Everyone dressed in the latest trends: plastic, shiny pants for the guys and metallic denim jeans and neon-colored spandex tops for the girls. It was the best-looking room of people I’d ever seen, but no one stood out. They blended together like a catalog. Even Clare had dusted some glitter makeup on her face that I know wasn’t there earlier and she suddenly changed her dress color from black to neon pink and made herself about four inches taller.

What’s wrong with being ourselves?
I thought, but I deleted the comment. I knew the problem: it was boring to be ourselves because we came flawed and ordinary. We all wanted superpowers and stage presence. Each of us wanted to turn heads and leave an impression. Technology allowed that—it made us architects. I decided the only way to entertain myself was to add some shock value to the atmosphere.

I closed my eyes and imagined how I looked in the morning, with no makeup on, in my sweatpants and a holey T-shirt. As I visualized it, my body appeared on my personal screen. I looked tired and my eyes were a little puffy and I had ratty bed hair. Perfect. I laughed at my image, and, for a final touch, I added some leopard slippers. I hit Send and my body was teleported to the giant screen, larger than life, like I was suddenly a movie star.

Nice look, Maddie, but don’t you think you’re being a little vain?
Noah said to me. He walked over and stood by my side, where his comment floated between us in the same cartoon caption the model spoke with.

Suddenly, a stranger approached me.

I didn’t know sweatpants were in style,
he said with a grin.

He was a little shorter than me, with brown hair and glasses. He was wearing a gray button-down shirt and dark slacks. At least they weren’t plastic.

Sweatpants are the new denim,
I thought.

He smiled.
You want to dance?

I frowned up at the screen while my body stalled.

What?
I asked him.

Dance,
he said, and pointed to the crowd in front of us to remind me we were at a dance club.

I blinked back at him, stupefied. I watched people move on the floor in front of me. Couples grinded. Some people were break dancing. There was a stage you could jump on and stand above the crowd, and it was full of women. They shook their chests and hips to an audience of guys goggling below.

The guy reached out and grabbed my hand to pull me closer. I immediately thought I didn’t like that and yanked my digital hand away.

Sorry,
he said.
I was just trying to show you.

Let’s take it slow,
I thought.
I’m a digital-dance virgin.

He grinned and told me it was easy. I watched with amusement as his body awkwardly moved next to me. I laughed out loud as his feet and arms bounced to the music while I stood next to him, still and rigid as stone. I pressed Delete over and over at all the sarcastic thoughts filling my personal screen so he couldn’t read them:
Are you dancing or doing jumping jacks? Wow, I’ve never seen anyone hop up and down like that before. Where did you learn your moves, whiteboyscantdance.com?

He inched (jumped) his way closer to me, but I backed up.

It’s nice of you to give the socially challenged guys a chance,
Pat said as he came up behind me.

Stay out of this,
I thought back.

The music switched from techno to hip-hop and before I knew it I was being nudged into a mosh pit with my new bouncy dance partner. I almost lost my body in the pack of people leaping around me. I closed my eyes and focused on the beat and mentally convinced my feet to move to the music. My digital friend smiled and nodded to encourage me. I started jumping in the air with the crowd, and my dance partner was so overcome with excitement, he picked me up and threw me over his head. I watched with alarm as my body was caught and passed over the crowd.

This was not okay, even in a digital world.

I tried to get down, but the crowd was loving it. I noticed a dozen other people around the dance floor being body-passed. I narrowed my eyes as a guy ran his hand up my thigh when he passed me over his head, and I started to kick and squirm until the crowd finally got the hint and dropped me. I fell hard to the ground, right on my butt, and just watching it made me flinch in my seat.