Glitch (12 page)

Adrien turned to look at me, the fight draining from his face. “No. There has to be another way. Some of the research labs must have the kind of air-filtration systems she’d need. Or we could build—”

“Enough!” his mother said sharply. “We don’t have time for this.” She looked at Adrien. “Don’t get your hopes up, but the Rez has been building a Foundation for glitchers. Maybe they could modify it to be air-safe for her. But it won’t be ready for months.” Her voice softened again. “You could go back for her then.”

“Okay, what about allergy shots? We could—”

“Immunotherapy takes months to work, years sometimes, and with all the different kinds of molds she’s allergic to, it would still be a long shot.”

I cleared my throat. “If I went back—is there a way for me to pass the diagnostic tests without showing up anomalous?” They both paused to look at me.

“With the memory disrupter in place, nothing that’s happened could be recorded or found on your memory chip,” his mother said, scrutinizing me as if for the first time.

“No,” I said, “but everything else will. The glitching, the drawings and the tele … What did you call it again?”

“Telekinesis,” Adrien said, turning to me with an ashen face, “but Zoe, you can’t go back. It’s too dangerous.”

I turned back to Sophia. “Can we fool their diagnostic equipment?” I asked stubbornly.

“Yeah. We have subware that can mimic memory info so they aren’t tipped off. But Zoe—”

“If someone could get the immunotherapy treatments to me there,” I said slowly, “then I could escape again when this Foundation is ready.”

I paused, an image flashing in my mind that sealed the decision. Markan. My chest flooded with hope. “And I could get my brother out, too.”

“Is he glitching?” Adrien’s mother asked.

“No, but he might when he gets older. And I can’t leave him there. Not knowing what I do now.”

Adrien was quiet. He paced for a little bit, one hand massaging his forehead, before finally stopping and nodding. “It could work, I guess. If we drop you back, they’ll know something anomalous happened to you, but with the drive removed, even you won’t know exactly what it was.”

“And I won’t remember…” I trailed off, looking down at the ground. “Is there a way to download the info onto an external memory drive so I’ll still have it? So I can remember … you know, about the immunotherapy stuff and why I need to do it?”

“Too risky,” his mother said immediately. “In the wrong hands, that drive would reveal compromising information about Adrien and me and the Rez. I can’t let that happen.”

“That’s why I’ll be there at school with you,” Adrien said, “and I’ll help you remember.”

“No you will not!” his mother exploded, grabbing Adrien’s arm roughly and yanking him away from me. “This has gone on long enough. I’m fine with getting her a supply of medicine, but
you
are staying here. We’ve taken far too many risks already.”

Adrien yanked his arm back from her, his eyes flat. “Nothing has changed. I probably shouldn’t have taken her away from the Academy. I see that now. But even this was meant to happen. The other visions will come true, too, even if I can’t see how—”

“Enough!” Sophia’s frizzy ropelike hair flew around her as she advanced on him. “She’s shunting allergic to the world! Get it through your head! She’s not the one you were hoping for.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” He took a step toward her. “I’m not trying to hurt you, but I
am
going back.”

“But how?” I asked in a whisper. “They’ll figure out we were together—that you were the one who took me away.”

He shook his head. “Not if I’m sick with Flu 216. I’d be out for a week without suspicion. We’ll stop at Sanjan’s on our way back, so he can infect me with the samples I know he keeps.”

“No,” his mom said. “I won’t let you. I’ll tell him not to give it to you.”

“Mom,” he said, more gently. “Even if they don’t believe she’ll become our future leader, they know she’s telekinetic. To you, she might just be one girl, but the Rez will see she’s too valuable to lose.”

His mother took a few steps back, her face shifting. She stared at him for another long moment; then she spun on her heel and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

The silence was heavy after she left. I stood near the wall, stunned by all that had just happened.

“I’m sorry about that,” Adrien finally said, breaking the quiet.

“Is what she said true? That you’ve had visions of me as some sort of leader of the Resistance?”

“Sorry.” He walked across the room to me. “I know it’s a lot to take in. This whole day must seem like one long nightmare. But you’ll wake up. Once we remove the memory disrupter, you won’t remember any of it.”

“How is that supposed to make me feel better?” My voice rose in pitch. “I only found out today that a Resistance even exists, and you think I’m going to take it over one day?” It was all too much. All I’d wanted was to
feel
things and understand what was happening to me. But he was saying someday everyone was going to be looking to me for answers?

I squeezed his hand. “Maybe your mom is right. I’m nobody. I’m not a leader. I’m not meant for any of this.”

“You’re not nobody,” he said, covering my hand. “And it’s not about that. Even if you don’t become some great godlam’d leader, I’d still come back with you.”

“You would? Why?” My voice trembled. My face suddenly felt hot.

“Because…” He pulled back and cleared his throat. “Because I care about you.”

“You do?”

“I didn’t come to the Academy because I care about the future of the Rez. I mean, yes, it’s incredibly important. And that’s what I told the local cell leaders, so they’d arrange it for me. I came because I’d seen you, even gotten to know you through the visions. I couldn’t
not
know you.”

My heart started beating faster at his words. He wanted
me
? Just me, not my Gift?

“Experiencing the world through your eyes, feeling your first emotions with you.” He shook his head in wonder. “You were the first beautiful thing I’d seen after a couple of really dark years. You made me realize I’d taken for granted how beautiful life can be. I’d just been working so hard, killing myself with discipline to be a good soldier, deadening anything that made me feel emotion because I thought it made me weak. But then I started having the visions of you and…” He gulped hard before looking back up at me. “It changed me—
you
changed me—and it showed me just how much we’re fighting for. Not just because I was angry at what they’d done to us. Not just because I wanted revenge for my dad. But because there’s goodness and beauty in the world, and that alone is worth fighting for. Maybe even worth dying for. The way you made me feel, even before I ever met you, it’s—”

He ran a hand through the hair at the back of his head. “God, here I go again. Giving too much information. Look, I know you just met me and that this is the worst possible timing, and I don’t expect you to feel the same way—”

“Wait,” I said.

He glanced up at me, his face wide open and full of tentative hope. I grabbed his hand again, so many emotions rising up and tumbling over themselves inside of me, I couldn’t begin to sort them out.

“I want to feel that way,” I said, my voice oddly high. “I want to feel those things. For you. And—”

I thought about everything that had happened since I’d met him, how I’d instinctually trusted him from the start, how his touch calmed me and made me feel safe, even in the most tense situations. How his face had lit up earlier when he was talking about beauty. How intensely
connected
I felt with him, and how he made everything inside of me twist and turn.

“—and maybe I already do,” I finished slowly.

He stood frozen for a second, stunned. Then, those green eyes trapping mine, he put his hand on the side of my face. He pulled me closer until his lips breathed me in, until we were sharing one breath.

My whole body sank forward into his arms. His lips moved against mine, exploring my mouth so gently. I tried to mimic his movements—slowly, uncertainly, until I didn’t have to think about it at all. It just felt
right.
He let out a soft moan at my reaction and cupped his hands behind my head, pulling me closer until I couldn’t tell where my mouth ended and his began. A liquid sensation swooped throughout my stomach. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt and it kept growing, the vibrating heat expanding outward. I was surprised I was still able to stand.

Until Adrien’s hand brushed against the memory disrupter in my neck.

I froze. My heart sank back down from its floating heights, and I pulled away. All the happiness I’d just been feeling was suddenly sliced through by a horrible, sour ache. I looked sadly into his face. Circumstance was betraying us, and there was nothing we could do to fight it.

“I won’t remember any of this. I won’t remember you.” The cutting loss of the thought felt almost like a physical pain. I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew I’d only just found it—found him—but being with him felt like the single most significant thing that had ever happened to me. It wouldn’t be imprinted on my memory chip, but it seemed too important a thing to be removed so simply, so permanently. Adrian said that our humanity was a precious and unbreakable thing, but how could that be if it could be stolen away with a single piece of hardware? It wasn’t fair!

I tried to bury my thoughts so I wouldn’t lose this moment here with him. I couldn’t think about the future or the past. All I could do was be fully present right now. I reached up a finger to trace his full lips. Tears gathered in my eyes. “You’ll just be another subject in the crowd. I won’t know you. I won’t remember how to do this—” I lifted my lips to his.

He finally pulled away, sounding out of breath. His eyes blazed into mine with an intensity I’d never seen before.

“Listen to me, Zoe,” he said, his hands resting firmly on my shoulders. “We will find each other. I will get your medicine to you. And we’ll escape that shuntin’ place for good this time. I’ll teach you how to kiss all over again. I know it.”

“Because you’ve seen it in a vision?” I asked.

He looked down. “No, not exactly,” he said. “But there are other kinds of faith than the kind I have in my visions. This is too strong, too real. We’ll find it again.”

I hugged him hard, nestling underneath his arms, my ear to his chest, wishing we could stay there forever, that I never had to leave. “You promise?”

“I promise,” he whispered in my ear, holding me tight against his chest and stroking my hair.

We stood there like that for a long time, until he finally pulled away. “I gotta go make some arrangements for us to get back into the city and get my pretend parents—they’re spies for the Rez,” he said in answer to my questioning face, “to call the Academy and say I’m sick right when school opens tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back to the apartment before they come to check me out. The sooner we get back, the less suspicion there will be.”

“But Flu 216 is so dangerous,” I said. “People die sometimes. If you died because of me…” Guilt choked me. I thought of those beautiful eyes turned lifeless. The thought made me nauseated. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Stop that.” He took my chin and lifted my eyes to his. “No one’s going to die. Sanjan will make sure to give me the mildest strain. I’ll be fine.” He said it with such confidence I could almost believe it.

He led me to the couch. “Try to get some sleep. It’s three in the morning and I’m sure it will take me a few hours to arrange everything. I’ll just be in the next room if you need anything, ’kay?”

“Okay.” I tried to sound strong, confident. Tried not to be weak and pull him onto the couch with me and make him swear to never let me go. But he said we’d be together again. He’d promised. The idea of trust was brand new to me, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to trust him.

He smiled and kissed me gently, then went into the other room, turning the light off as he went. I tucked the blankets up around me tight and tried to sleep.

*

I woke up to Adrien caressing my brow. I sat up, dreamy and smiling, then remembered with a crushing blow that I was going to leave him. But just for a while, I reminded myself. And we wouldn’t really be apart. He’d be at school with me. We’d be together, even if I wouldn’t know it or remember him.

“It’s time,” he said. I nodded and rubbed my face as I got to my feet. My eyes still felt swollen and tired. My whole body ached but the sleep had helped.

Adrien led me into the adjoining room that looked like a combination office and lab. A med table was lodged in one corner and a short middle-aged man stood in front of it.

“Zoe, this is Dr. Chol.”

“Greet—I mean, hi, Dr. Chol,” I said. I was surprised at his last name—only officials had real last names instead of just work designations.

He smiled and shook my hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

I felt my face flush, remembering what Adrien had said about his visions of me as a leader. Did this man Chol think that was true? Did he expect that of me?

“Come on, have a seat,” Adrien said. “Chol’s our resident head doctor. He’ll fix up your hardware so after you pull out the drive, you’ll be connected to the Link and the glitching will be masked.”

Chol sat down on a chair in front of me. His hair was graying around the edges but his skin was smoother and less worn-looking than Adrien’s mother’s. “We’ll be going in manually, since your access port is already occupied. You’ve seen these before, right?”

He gestured to a pair of half-tube forceps and a six-inch-long snaking metal probe on the table.

I nodded. I’d had similar procedures done my whole life when new hardware was inserted as I’d grown up, but the probe had never seemed quite so big before.

“I’m going to insert the subware right at one of the back corridors of the already existing hardware, so it shouldn’t look anomalous if they run a scan.”

He picked up the intimidating instrument and clicked on an ancient video monitor on the table that I guessed he would use to navigate. “Okay. You ready?”