GIRL, UNPLUGGED

YA Novel Chapter 9 | 11 Minute Read

This is Chapter 9 of a YA novel. To see where the story began, check out the GIRL, UNPLUGGED table of contents post, or head to the GIRL, UNPLUGGED section of the Story Hoarder Substack page to see all the chapters.

This is an 11 minute read.

created by Nicole Rivera using Canva Pro

CHAPTER 9: Commuter Communications

We went downstairs leaving Dr. Davies upstairs to continue his study of whatever had happened to my entire life in what felt like the blink of a computer cursor. Downstairs, Dr. Smithe told us to, “Get home safe,” not wasting any time as he walked out the door. At the same time Val went to look for a wheelchair in a closet kept on hand in case of emergencies.
I stopped in the bathroom which I was very grateful to find had a window. The sunlight landed right on the mirror illuminating the entire room. The last thing I wanted to do was paw around in the dark to find the toilet or how to flush it. Not that it mattered, everything was state-of-the-art in this bathroom, which meant, of course, that none of it worked. The toilet was one of those that — on a normal day — would flush when you stood up and, in case that didn’t work, there was a tiny black button to press to flush it. No surprise, the button didn’t work. What was worse, though, was the fact that the sink was one of those “magic” ones too. No amount of waving my hands in front of the sensor would give me any water. I said a quiet thank you to my mom who always had me carry a small package of baby wipes in my backpack for all types of bathroom emergencies. I wiped my hands off and threw the wipe in the pail.
“Oo, can I have one of those?” Rainbow asked, seeing me through the mirror in front of the malfunctioning sink she was pleading with.
I didn’t think twice. I pulled another wipe out of the package and handed it to her. As Rainbow thanked me, I put the package back in my bag and noticed how much thinner it felt. I made a mental note to replenish them as soon as I got home, thinking of how many places I knew with these suddenly pointless state-of-the-art facilities.
When we left the bathroom I saw Val rolling a wheelchair down the hallway toward Rose. “Normally these aren’t allowed off-premises, but — you know — whatever.” Val shrugged. “Exigent circumstances and all that.” She rolled the wheelchair behind Rose. “Look… I’m sorry about before.” She shook her head as she stepped away from the chair before looking back at the stairwell we all just came down.  “Dr. Davies is probably gonna fire me for that later — he told me to go home— but I’m totally stressing right now. My phone just up and died on me. Of course I didn’t get the insurance, and — you know — it’s not like I live with my parents anymore. This is all on me. I hate this stuff. I don’t think I did anything to make it break, but I’m totally failing life right now, because, well, really —the worst part of it all is — I was in this really intense conversation with my boyfriend.” She swallowed hard.  “Or maybe not my boyfriend anymore. I don’t know,” she tossed her head back and looked up at the ceiling as if she could force the tears back into her head. “It was just bad timing and all.”
Rose nodded slowly while lowering herself into the chair. Then she leaned her head back to face Val, before rolling her head slowly back to face those of us in front of her. “Someone tell her. Put her out of her misery.” Her voice was cracking and she looked paler than I remembered her looking when she arrived.
“Everyone’s phone died,” Terrell said. “It’s some big thing going on. You’re not failing life. And I don’t think you’re fired, we’re all leaving.”
Val wiped her eyes sloppily as she turned toward Terrell, “For real?”
Terrell produced his phone so Val could see for herself. “For real.”
“Oh my god! I have to find Frankie!” Val was all smiles as she squeezed Terrell’s arm. Then, placing one hand over Rose’s hand she said, “Good luck, Sweetie! I really hope you get better soon.” Then she turned, reached behind the front desk to grab her bag, and left.
I felt my phone in my pocket and wished that reaching for it could actually make a difference. I wished that I could reach out to my peeps with a blog post explaining what happened, send it out to them, and relieve just the tiniest bit of stress, just like I had when I handed Rainbow that baby wipe, just like Terrell had when he told Val what had really happened. Val’s problems weren’t solved – she still had to find her boyfriend, her phone was still fried – but she was so happy with a little bit of knowledge. They say knowledge is power and, in that moment, it felt that way. 
Mrs. Krimble watched Val go and then turned to us and said, “We need to go too. We can take turns pushing Rose.”
Daria was already behind Rose hanging her backpack behind Rose’s on the handle of the chair. “I got it for now.” Daria looked defeated. Nothing like the energetic, caffeine-pumped face of Daria’s Days. I wondered if she would remain so subdued until she found her way back to power, or if Rose was the key to her identity.
After everyone finished with the bathroom, Mrs. Krimble opened the doors to the museum and held them open for all of us. “Head toward the subway first,” she said pointing toward the street where Rose was dropped off, only a couple of hours ago, by the Access-a-Ride car. “Nothing lost by checking it out.”

Maybe if I blurred my eyes and didn’t look at the details of the scene in front of me I could have believed it was a typical afternoon in Manhattan. There were people on the sidewalk, there were cars in the street, conversations were happening, and the bustle of the busy city simmered there beneath what was actually happening. Looking closely, though, the oddities were un-ignorable. This wasn’t a typical put-your-head-down-and-get-where-you’re-going New York City sidewalk — people were tapping strangers as they walked by, asking questions, gathering in groups, comparing electronic devices, pointing to the street, and, in general, attempting to work together.
“Here they come!” a woman’s voice shouted from down the block. I looked to see where she was and I saw a mass of people erupt — no, ooze — from the subway station we were headed for. The woman standing at the top of the stairs clapped as they walked by her. Each commuter exiting the train went through the same transition as they emerged from the station squinting in the sun. Too many of them pulled phones out of their pockets, and bags attempting to make a call, send a text, or to find out what was happening. They stepped out onto the sidewalk in tight postures of annoyance, inconvenience, and stress. As they tinkered with their uncooperative tech they turned their heads left and right looking confused by their destination. One guy came out of the train cursing, racing to the top of the stairs, rudely pushing others out of his way without a care in the world. He rushed to a taxi pulled up to the curb. He leaned into the window and asked, “Penn Station?”
I couldn’t hear what the driver said to him, but, whatever it was, it forced the guy to stand back, look around, and take note of what was going on around him. “This is ridiculous!” he said, reaching into his pocket pulling out a large smartphone replicating the confusion we had all suffered in the last hour. Again, forced to look around at the world around him, his shoulders tensed as he engaged in an animated conversation with a couple of other commuters as they came to their own conclusions about the weirdness of this new world. Nothing appeared to be calming him, he was still agitated. He bounced from person to person and it did not look like any one of them had the answers he was looking for.
It reminded me of Val and how she reacted to Rose because she was unable to understand what was actually going on. She thought she was all alone in her world unraveling and the minute Terrell told her about our shared misery, it helped. None of the people on the street had any idea what was happening. None of them had Mrs. Krimble, or Dr. Davies, or Dr. Smithe with them. I had information that none of these people had. Maybe I couldn’t blog about it, but I could tell them. I could share my knowledge. I was so good at sharing information…before…
Sharing information was so much simpler just a couple of hours earlier. I was so cavalier with it — throwing it all around the Internet, barely taking the time to tag a specific person who needed it — the true value of information was lost on me. On that street, in this new world, the weight and value of  information seemed to grow exponentially before me. It had to be shared person to person, face to face. It was suddenly so intimate. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it, but I wished someone was. The beautiful flow of ideas, opinions, information, and entertainment had been stagnated.
The traffic on the street in front of me was a different kind of standstill. There was only one vehicle moving. It was a van that I think was supposed to be some shade of green. It was the kind of rusting, pathetic car that gets passed down from generation to generation and no one says thank you for. It looked like it had magical powers the way it was moving on the street where no other car could. It slowly proceeded through an entanglement of raised hoods, confused drivers, and lots of shouts. Some people were trying to push their cars, but I didn’t see where they could go.  As we got closer to the street, one man stood up, covered in sweat, from pushing his black BMW, and shouted to the approaching van, “How’d you fix it?”
He didn’t fix it! I wanted to scream out. I wanted Brenda to tell him all about Dark Times.
“Never broke!” the passenger said with a shrug. “How much you pay for that POS?”
The man with the BMW stood tall and said, “Maybe I’ll just leave this POS right in your way. What do you think about that?”
The shouting grabbed Mrs. Krimble’s attention just as the passenger of the van was threatening to get out and go face-to-face with the BMW man.
“Stay here,” Mrs. Krimble said as she power-walked to get ahead of our group. Then she stretched her right arm out to the side as if doing so created a magical barrier which we couldn’t pass.
I wish I could say that the magic worked for me. It normally would have, but as the men in the street became more and more animated, as the Penn Station guy riled up the people on the sidewalk, as one blonde woman screamed something about how she needed to pick up her special needs son at exactly 2:15, and when another woman began to mutter something about a targeted attack – as it all hit me like a barrage of unwanted pop up ads blocking my view from my illegally downloaded file of the unaired Barista Boys pilot, I had the overwhelming need to clear the screen one ad at a time. 
I stepped away from Murph and my class, ignoring Mrs. Krimble’s imaginary barrier, and walked past a cab that I would have assumed was parked on the side of the street for some off-duty down time if it weren’t for all of the other cars in the same immobile position. I saw the Penn Station guy next to the cab again, looking as frustrated as ever. His furrowed brow was damp with beads of sweat that were not warranted on this comfortable October afternoon. He had begun to fumble with a backup phone battery he dug out of his attache case. “Excuse me, sir,” I said in a squeaky, unpracticed voice. 
I can’t say that I was surprised to find that he was annoyed by my interruption. His head snapped sideways and he glared at me, “Walk away, little girl. I don’t have the time or the patience–”
“T-that’s not going to work,” I said, looking down at my feet halfway through the sentence. Murph came up beside me.
“What are you doing?” he whispered while grabbing my hand.
It was a good question. A question I hadn’t bothered asking. What was I doing? I could tell myself and Murph that I was trying to help – and I was – but it was something more than that. I needed to say something. Not just to this guy who had no interest in what I had to say, but to each and every one of the people around us who didn’t seem to know what was going on. I needed to put the information out there, if no one wanted to listen maybe I could be okay with it. What if talking to people was just like blogging? What if I let my words float out in front of them with no expectations? Sure, they had to see me, but maybe I didn’t have to make eye contact, maybe I didn’t have to care if they answered. Maybe I could just engage with those who comment…
“He doesn’t know,” I said to Murph. “None of them do… like Val.” 
“What do you mean?” Murph asked.
“I mean, we can tell them what’s wrong,” I said.
“What the fuck?” the guy screamed, ripping the backup battery off of his phone forcefully and chucking it into the street. “What a piece of shit! This is not happening,” he looked up and down the street not looking like he was actually absorbing any of the world around him. “Someone has to be fucking kidding me! Someone has to be– ” Then he reached out and grabbed Murph’s shoulder, “You! Lemme borrow your phone, kid.”
Murph winced under his grasp. “I-I can’t.”
“No shit about what your mama told you about strangers, kid. This is a fucking emergency!” There was a wild look in the guy’s eyes which made me wonder what kind of trouble he was in.
“I’m sorry –” Murph began, but the guy shook him.
“I’m not looking for apologies! I’m looking for a –”
“They’re all dead!” I screamed – which, upon reflection, was probably not the best choice of words to yell on a NYC street full of people on the hingepoint of panic. I felt the attention of the world turn in toward me and it was nothing like a blog post suddenly being noticed. It was humming, expectant, demanding, and terrifying. I had one hand on the tensed arm of the man – I didn’t even remember reaching out to do that – and felt his muscles relax the slightest bit when I spoke.
“W-what?” the guy asked in a suddenly shaky and soft voice. Fear replaced his fury. I had no idea what this guy was going through, but it suddenly felt like so much more than a rough commute.
“The phones,” I said. “A-and the backup batteries, and the lights, and the stupid automatic toilets and sinks… you know, all the electric stuff is fried.” I swallowed and took a deep breath when I saw the man blink hard as if trying to decide if I was a hallucination of his. I took another calming breath before continuing, using every ounce of willpower within me to maintain something close to eye contact. “There was a storm on the sun and it messed us all up.” Then I remembered Brenda understanding all of this in an instant because of a TV show, so I asked him, “Have you seen the show Dark Times?”
Then the guy looked me up and down, and then turned to Murph. He shoved him out of his hands. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He spun around, spotting our class, Mrs. Krimble’s scene on the street, and then he looked back at the crowd near the subway. “What is this, some kind of guerilla marketing for a goddamned television show?” He stormed away toward the gathering commuters near the subway. I saw the blonde woman who was worried about picking up her kid look up at him as he approached. He engaged her in some conversation pointing me out and then walking away, heading downtown, probably planning on walking down to Penn Station after all. The blonde wiped the tears from her eyes and then made her way toward Murph and I. I gave her a small sympathetic smile and relaxed. She must have known the show. She must have understood what the other guy couldn’t have. Her face was still blotchy from the crying she had done, but her emotions had held when she stood before me. 
“I watch Dark Times,” she said with the hint of a tremor in her voice. She must have been coming to grips with our new reality. “You tell your boss, I’ll be ready to sue the pants off of him and the entire network after this!” And then she slapped me across my cheek while screaming, “You can’t play with people’s lives!”
I thought there was thunder overhead. I was sure I was struck by lightning. I have never experienced anything so loud and so painful in the same instant. Murph rolled me into a hug, shielding me from everything in the world around us, but my fear was stuck inside with me. That was not what was supposed to happen. That woman was supposed to be relieved now that she knew what was going on. That guy was supposed to understand there wasn’t any point in going to Penn Station. These people were supposed to say, “Thank you, Natalie. Thank you for sharing what you learned about our situation,” and then move along. I felt the fabric of Murph’s shirt scrape against the heat of my wounded cheek and I started to cry. The tears coasted along the stinging flesh in hot rivers bringing no kind of relief. Murph was saying something to me, or something to someone else, but all I heard was the muffled syllables reminiscent of the adults in that old Christmas movie my brother, Rog, loved to hate. 
Rog.
Thinking of Rog brought a whole new surge of emotions as I thought about him trying to interact with this harsh, unfiltered world, raw with emotion and reaction with no room for someone like me. I prayed Rog was already home, or just stuck in school with his friends and not out on the streets with panicked people. 
“Are you ok?” Murph said as he pulled away enough to let the painful light of the sun enter into the safe haven of his arms. I shook my head. My voice was broken. I had said enough. 

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First, thank you for reading this part of my novel GIRL, UNPLUGGED. A new chapter will be posted on Wednesday. A new short story will be posted on Friday.

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