Glitch (15 page)

I frowned, looking at the face I’d drawn. Markan looked older in the picture than he was in real life—his cheekbones were sharper, all the baby fat gone. He kept showing up in my dreams—sometimes in this new drowning dream, or in the old dream of the glitching boy being chased down. Always with Markan’s face staring straight at me in absolute horror. And why did I wake up feeling like it was all my fault?

*

“Greetings, Zoel,” Maximin said as I sat down at lunch a few days later. I almost smiled at his predictability. I waited patiently for him to request my help with the lesson.

“Greetings, Maximin.”

“Would you be amenable to tutoring me after school? I have received authorization for you to come to my housing unit after school hours.”

My fork paused midway to my mouth. I kept the surprise off my face. I guess I’d heard of other students doing this. It was just so completely against my mission to stay below the radar, out of suspicion.

But I had no logical reason to say no. “Yes, I would be amenable,” I finally managed to say.

“I will meet you after school then at the Central Subway System entrance.”

“Okay,” I said, still a little stunned. We spent the rest of lunch studying but I was uneasy now that my routine had been disturbed. If abnormal things kept on happening, how could I pretend everything was normal?

We went to a different subway line than the one I usually took. Other than a few voices here and there, the almost fifty people waiting were silent. I didn’t know why the silence sounded so loud today—it had been like this my whole life. But then, everything felt new again without the shield of numbness the Link provided. I’d been glitching the entire day. As I looked at the blank faces around me, I thought about the three whole weeks I’d spent as a walking drone, just like all of them. It made me shiver.

“Are you cold?” Maximin asked. He stepped closer.

“Just a draft,” I said, pulling back a little bit from his chest. I knew the proximity meant nothing to all the people around me, but I’d noticed lately that touching other people made me feel different emotions. When I brushed up accidentally against my parents or Markan at home, it felt nice, as if somehow their touch could ward off the bad dreams. It was illogical, I knew, and I was sure I was just so eager for any sign that I was not completely and utterly alone. There could be no real comfort in the closeness of my family unit, but I still felt it all the same.

Maximin leaned in close and I could smell the musky scent of his soap. It made me feel strange inside and I pulled back. It wasn’t just the normal strange feeling of being close to someone. There was something else I couldn’t quite define—something that made me uneasy. We were a wrong fit, like unmatching puzzle pieces.

After about half an hour, Maximin announced his stop was next. He lived farther from the school than I did, but the tunnel from the subway platform to his housing grid looked exactly the same as mine. Same low-ceilinged space, same gray concrete dirtying around the edges, leading to the same bay of elevators that led up and down to units in the eight-level housing blocks. Monotony was the rule, even in city design.

I glanced over at Maximin and was surprised by his steady gaze. I almost frowned at how long he’d kept his eyes on me before he looked away.

“Here we are.” He touched a finger to a small panel beside one of the middle elevators and we waited in silence. I looked around at the others waiting—they were mostly adolescents, our age or younger, returning from the Academy.

The elevator pinged at Maximin’s floor and we stepped off. I followed him down the hallway to his apartment and watched him wave his wrist in front of the sensor beside the door, and I realized that Maximin and I would be alone in his home. Adults usually worked eleven or twelve hours a day, especially when they were still young enough to be productive and not tire easily.

In less than a year, I would be just like them. After finishing at the Academy, I’d get my final V-chip and begin working at one of the bioengineering firms, slowly progressing through the ranks as my knowledge base and ability were tested each year. That is, if I didn’t get deactivated first. And what if I never got caught, and I became another adult drone, incapable of ever feeling again? I’d be safe, but was that even worth it anymore? Whittling away my life every day, completely empty inside as I worked until I was exhausted, slept, and then woke up the next morning just to do it all over again? And then one day I would be genetically paired with another person, someone who felt nothing, thought nothing, had never known beauty or fear or joy.

That future stretched out before me, a lightless road that was my only reward if I managed to keep my anomalies undetected.

An angry heat rushed to my face. No. I couldn’t do it. That wouldn’t be my life.

Escape.
The word whispered with a red thrumming energy through my mind.

My glitches were more unpredictable than ever. The sensations during glitches were overwhelmingly strong and I couldn’t always mask them. At the same time, there were more eyes scrutinizing me than ever before. All this added up to an invisible noose around my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. It would cinch closed eventually.

I had to stay completely off the radar for as long as it took until I was no longer under constant observation from the Chancellor, the Monitor boy with his aquamarine eyes, and the patrolling Regulators. Then I would need to find somewhere to hide, to disappear, to glitch freely and live undetected for as long as possible until my inevitable capture and deactivation. I wasn’t sure any of this was possible, but I suddenly knew I had to try.

I was so wrapped up in my distressing thoughts that I was completely unprepared when Maximin closed the apartment door behind us and spun around quickly to face me. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest.

“Zoel, I was so worried when you disappeared,” he whispered fiercely. “I’m so happy you’re back.”

He put his lips to my ear and his lips fluttered down my jawline. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to do this.”

He dropped his lips to my mouth.

“MAXIMIN!” I PUSHED BACK
in surprise before his lips could touch mine. My mind immediately hummed with fear and confusion. “What are you doing?”

He smiled, dimples I never knew he had appearing on both cheeks. My mouth dropped open slightly. “Zoel, I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, ever since I noticed you’d started glitching too.”

My chest cinched up in fear, my mind racing through every possibility. Was this a test? Was I being watched right now? I looked down the narrow walls of his entryway before looking back warily at him. My eye paused on a black circle installed on the hallway ceiling.

The look on Maximin’s face made me soften. This was
Maximin
, not some spying Monitor.

Still, I held my features in a calm, blank expression, willfully quieting the energy racing up and down my arms as I gestured robotically to the hall.

“Let’s go to your personal quarters,” I said.

He nodded and grabbed my hand to pull me down a short hallway. His house was set up like mine, only in reverse—the tiny entryway led to narrow hallways with four small off-shooting rooms to the left instead of the right and a bathroom at the end. We turned in to the second sleeping compartment.

He slid the door closed behind him, still smiling. His gray shirt looked out of place next to his flushed cheeks and bright brown eyes. He looked so animated and alive, I barely recognized him.

“And it’s Max, not Maximin,” he said, still not letting my hand go.

I felt excitement rise up inside even though I knew I ought to be cautious. But it only made sense—there was no other explanation for the expression on his face. It was impossible, too incredible to be true, but at the same time I wanted to believe him more than anything.

“When did you start glitching?” I asked, still torn between caution and hope.

“Three months ago.” He sat on the edge of the desk that was underneath his loft bed. He gestured for me to take the chair. I looked around—his room looked exactly like mine, down to the same shade of gray painted on the wall.

“About a month before you did,” he said. “I was so scared at first but then when I saw you get this alert look on your face at school sometimes, I knew I wasn’t alone. That’s why I asked you to tutor me in the first place, so I could be close to someone else who was glitching.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” I sat down in the chair, overwhelmed by the implications of what he’d just said.
Not alone.
Wasn’t that what I’d been wishing for?

I studied Max’s face again, unsure whether I could truly trust what I saw. He had a sharp, aware look on his face—the same expression I’d always hoped to see in my brother.

I squeezed his hand.

“I was going to tell you but I could never find the right moment. And then when you disappeared…” He shook his head. “Zoel, you don’t know—”

“Zoe,” I interrupted. “I want to be called Zoe.”

“Zoe. I like it.” Max smiled briefly. “Anyway, I was so terrified to lose you when you disappeared. I kept thinking, maybe if I’d told you sooner, maybe it would have made a difference.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t remember anything about what happened to me—where I went, or who I was with—I have no idea.”

“And they didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary when you came back? When they ran the diagnostics?” He watched my face carefully.

I shook my head. “No. Nothing. When I got back, I wasn’t glitching anymore, at least not for a few weeks. So whenever they’d run the tests, everything looked fine. But…” I swallowed hard, afraid to voice the fear I’d been working so hard to bury. I cleared my throat. “Now that I
am
glitching again, next time I have a diagnostic, I’ll test anomalously.”

“I’ll help you.” Max’s narrow lips tightened, making his face look suddenly intense. His hand gripped mine harder. “I won’t let them do anything to you.”

I smiled sadly. It felt nice to have someone want to protect me, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“Max, if I get caught, there’s nothing you can do.”

He smiled sideways at me and leaned in close. “Not necessarily.”

“What do you mean?”

“Zoe, don’t you see?” He laughed; then his eyebrows lowered. When I didn’t respond, he looked unsure.

“I thought if you were glitching like me, that meant we had other things in common as well.” He paused, swallowing. “The … powers?”

“Wait,” I said slowly. “Are you saying you can move things with your mind?”

“What?” He seemed confused.

I kept my mouth tightly closed, suddenly afraid I had betrayed too much, too soon. Moments later, a look of amazement crossed Max’s face.

“Whoa!” His eyebrows shot up high. “That’s not what I meant. Well, I guess it makes sense that we might change in different ways. I have another power.”

“What is it?” I was full of relief, and both thrilled and scared to know the answer. Talking about any of this felt dangerous. I wondered if it was foolish that, after being so cautious, I’d suddenly opened up to Max without any hesitation.

“Okay, don’t be alarmed. I’m going to show you what I can do.” He closed his eyes and sat perfectly still for a moment. Then the air around him seemed to shimmer, reflecting the light.

In the time it took me to blink, Max was gone and the Chancellor was sitting in his place.

I fell backward off the chair, my breath coming out in a strangled gasp. It
had
been a trick. The Chancellor must have had a subprogram installed at my last diagnostic to trick me into talking to Max, revealing my secrets.

I scrambled back against the wall in my panic. If I could just get past her, then I might be able to get out the door and—

I looked back up at the person leaning on the table. Suddenly it was Max again, and he was laughing.

“Stop it—” I said, my voice hysterical. How was she doing this to me? I grabbed the back of my neck to see if there was anything in my port. “Get out of my head!”

“Zoe.” The person who looked like Max seemed alarmed. “It’s just me, it’s just me, okay?” He leaned closer and I flinched, my heart monitor beeping.

“Zoe it’s me, it’s Max,” he said again, his face concerned. He reached out to put a hand on my arm, then thought better of it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. The Chancellor wasn’t actually here. I just took her shape. Zoe, it’s still me.”

I was huddled on the ground with my hands up, but something in the tone of his voice made me stop and look at him. “But—” I searched his face. It looked like him, so real, but I didn’t know what to trust anymore. Water streamed down my cheeks.

“Oh no, Zoe,” Max said, his eyebrows bunched up high. “I didn’t think it would scare you. I didn’t think about it. You’re safe. I promise.”

I got back to my feet and edged closer to Max, still cautious. I kept one eye on the door, ready to dart past him and escape. It did look like him, but still, what he was suggesting …

“This is—”

“Impossible?” he said, smiling now, his face relaxing. “I know. But it’s true.”

I sat down on the chair by Max and reached up tentatively to touch his face, still half afraid. “Do it again,” I said, my voice shaky. “But not the Chancellor this time.”

He grinned, and a second later a girl was sitting in front of me with pale skin and dark curly hair pulled up into a hair clip. It took me a second for recognition to register.

“It’s me!” I finally exclaimed. I watched my face break into a smile. I leaned forward in curiosity. We had little use for mirrors in the Community. My lips were fuller than I’d imagined and my cheeks were rounded. But my nose was bigger too. I frowned, leaning in to examine myself more closely. Max changed back to himself, grinning widely.

I lifted a hand to my cheek and nose without thinking, still lost for a second in the memory of my face. Then I realized the ramifications of what Max said he could do and looked up at him sharply.

“But how?” I asked. “What I can do with my mind, it’s improbable, but it still feels like it’s within the realm of possibility, at least if you stretch certain theories on the transference of energy. But this.” I shook my head and traced the line of his blond eyebrow with my forefinger. “Your body actually changes shape? How is that possible? The amount of energy necessary for the cellular reproduction—”