Glitch (22 page)

Still, I felt anxious just watching her. My eyes flicked over to the Regs-in-training, trying to see if any of them were giving any attention to the restless girl. Their faces were impassive. It was impossible to tell what they were thinking. Besides, it was more the job of Monitors to look for more subtle anomalies, and Monitors could be anywhere.

I glanced around the room, trying to be unobtrusive as I did. The last thing I needed while worrying about Molla was to look anomalous myself. But the thought that any of the students I went to the Academy with every day could be a Monitor, secretly working for the officials … it sent a shiver of fear through me.

After a few more minutes, in spite of my fear, I stood up and made my way toward Molla. Just like Adrien had said, this girl didn’t have long before she was found out. We had to get to her first. The flood of students exiting blocked my way, though, and by the time I got to the column she’d been standing in front of, she was gone.

The rest of the day was just as disappointing. She wasn’t in any of my classes, since she was a year behind me. I caught sight of her once in the hallways but it wasn’t as if I could push my way through the stream of students to get to her without attracting notice. I went to each class more frustrated than the last. But then I finally found my moment. Right before my last session of the day, I saw her slip into the bathroom. This was the best opening I was going to get.

I hurried as quickly as I dared across the hallway and into the bathroom after her. I peeked under the stalls. Only one set of feet. I went into the stall beside her and quickly popped the cap off the marker I’d brought from home. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and scribbled a quick message on it:
You’re not alone. We will contact you again soon. Until then, stay calm and stop fidgeting all the time! Flush after reading.
I shoved the paper under the stall and hissed, “Molla!”

I saw her feet hesitate. Then slowly her hand came into view and she took the paper. After another minute, the toilet flushed again and I breathed out. Good. I unlatched the door and walked to the sink. I glanced at her. Her face was pale and she was staring at me, her eyes so wide they looked like they might pop out of her head. Then she turned and bolted from the room.

I started to call after her, but another girl came in. I put my hands under the spout and pretended I’d been washing them. I stood there, my hands under the water longer than necessary to hide their trembling. Max was right. This was a huge risk. I hadn’t thought about what I’d do if Molla didn’t believe me, or if she was caught and reported me. I hoped she’d flushed the note I’d given her like I’d instructed, but then she’d run away. What if she’d run straight to the Regulators?

I forced my back ramrod straight and walked out to the hallway. I made my face blank through the rest of the day, secretly terrified that I’d jeopardized everything. I wanted to signal to Adrien, to let him know what had happened. I’d wanted so badly to help, to
do
something, but on my first try I might have ruined Adrien’s entire mission.

That night at home, I waited impatiently until I saw the ceiling tile shift. I let out the tense breath I’d been holding and whispered the Link release words.

“I tried to talk to Molla,” I burst out in a vehement whisper as soon as I saw the shadow of his torso coming down through the hole in the ceiling. I was sitting on my bed waiting for him and I got up on my knees to talk to him as he settled beside me. “But I think I did it wrong. She ran away! What if I made everything worse? What if we’re all in danger now?”

“Zoe.” Adrien took my chaotically waving hands and shook his head. “You did fine. You made first contact. That’s cracking huge. It’ll make her more careful and hopefully she’ll be less afraid the next time we approach her.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” he said firmly. “Risks are part of everything we do. But we’re fine. We’re safe. Besides, with my Gift, I’m sure I’ll get a vision if we’re about to get cracked. Don’t worry about it.”

“Do you always?” I asked anxiously. “Get visions before something happens?”

I could see his thick lips curving up in the dim light from the night pod light by my bed. “How do ya think I lasted this long? It’s why the Rez sends me in on the long-term missions. I can see danger coming before it shunts things up.”

I sat a moment, taking in all he’d said. It was comforting to know we weren’t just barreling into a dangerous future completely blind. Still, it seemed too good to be true. “But do the visions always come true?”

“It’s too soon to tell for some of them, but I think so.” He sat back against the wall and I could see the outline of his silhouetted face. “Most of them have been fulfilled, but others haven’t happened—least I don’t think they have. I just know things
will
happen, not
when
or even
how.
I’m trying to hone it so I can get a clearer sense of timelines. It’s not perfect, but I’m getting better and better at it.” He smiled.

I looked at him quizzically. “How can you hone it? My powers just seem to
happen.
”

He nodded. “It was like that for me at first too. But I started to practice focusing the visions whenever I have them. Sure it’s cracking frustrating ’cause I have to wait for them—I can’t
make
them happen. But when they do, I try to slow them down, notice details—anything to get more control over it instead of it just crashing over me. The visions are getting more detailed too since I’ve been working on it.” He moved a little closer on the bed. “It’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. You should be practicing your telekinesis.”

I shuddered, thinking about it. It seemed to take all of my energy
not
to use my power. It was volatile, unpredictable, like a caged monster underneath my skin. It felt like only a matter of time before it hurt someone, or got me caught. So I kept it locked up tight inside, hidden behind my mask with the rest of my emotions.

“Think how much better it would be if you could call on it when you need it, like Max does with his,” Adrien said.

“It just always seems so risky when he uses his power.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Adrien said, and I thought I detected some disapproval in his face. “Max takes a lot of risks, from what I’ve seen. But if you just practiced here at home where no one can see you, you could get to be in control of your powers. I could help you.”

“It only happens when I’m not thinking about it,” I said. “Like a reflex. And even then, it doesn’t always react the way I intend. Like on the train.” I swallowed hard. The pain of that night rose up and almost choked me. “People
died
that day because of my powers.”

“No, Zoe, you’ve got it all wrong,” his voice was low, but insistent. “People
survived
that day because of your powers. All the people on the train lived because you were able to set the train back on the cracking tracks.
I
survived that day, and it wasn’t even the first time you’ve saved my life!”

I couldn’t decipher the look on his face. It was so frustrating not understanding emotion. His features changed before I could even try to figure it out.

“Do you mind just giving it a try?” he asked. “We’ll start small, like with that pillow.”

I nodded reluctantly, and he settled in next to me, both of us facing the pillow at the top of my bed.

“Now, it sounds like for some reason your power works best when you’re in an emergency. It could be fear, or adrenaline, or some other reaction that allows you to access that power. Maybe with the right trigger, we can channel that so you’ll be able to call on it whenever you want.”

I nodded, my eyes never straying from the pillow. I stared at it intently, memorizing its shape and willing it to lift off the bed. I squinted my eyes shut, teeth clenched in concentration. I waited for the high-pitched buzzing that usually seemed to accompany my power.

Nothing. I kept pressing, my eyes boring holes in the pillow as I summoned memories of fear and dread and channeled it through my eyes toward the pillow.

Suddenly, Adrien picked up the pillow and tossed it in my direction. I gasped in surprise, then felt the soft thud of the pillow hitting my face.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“I thought maybe some element of surprise would help you.”

We stared at each other. Adrien looked at me, taking in my tousled hair and confused face, and his face slowly spread to a wide-eyed grin. His shoulders started to shake with silent laughter. Soon I joined him, my laughter muffled into the pillow he had thrown at me.

Adrien wiped at his eyes. “Okay, so that strategy clearly doesn’t work. Maybe we have to try something more dangerous next time.”

“If you wanted to scare me, a pillow is probably not the best choice.”

“Okay, we’ll try something else next time,” Adrien said, still laughing. “It was a good first practice, though. Just remember, Zoe. Keep trying. Find out whatever it is that gives you that power, and hold on to it.”

“But when I use my power, I can never direct it the way I want to.” I felt frustrated all over again. “It’s unsafe. There’s no way I can control it and keep it from hurting anyone.”

“That might be a risk you’ll just have to take. It’s the only way you can get better at it. See if you can access that power first, and then we’ll worry about controlling it.”

The smile slipped from his face and he became serious once again. “There’s something else I need to tell you, too. About when you were away. I didn’t want to talk about it in front of Max the other night.”

“What?” I immediately frowned. “Is it something bad?”

His brows furrowed. “Sanjan—our crank who specializes in this kind of stuff—he said it shoulda been impossible for you to have an allergic reaction like you did without being exposed to it before. Maybe someone from the outside had some mold gnange on their clothes and you came into contact with them. Though secondhand exposure isn’t usually enough to do it.” He shrugged.

“Molds.” I sat back, frowning in thought.

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, the attacks would get worse every time you’re exposed. But!” He brightened, reaching back into the ceiling to pull down an aluminum case. “There’s some medicine we can try. It’s called immunotherapy. I brought it with me when I came back. It’s gonna mean regular injections, though.”

“For how long?”

“It could take months. But if we do the injections regularly, we might weaken the allergy enough to be able to get you out of here safely.”

I let go of the curl I’d been twirling. “Are you sure it will work?” My eyes flicked back up to him.

“I hope so.” He paused a moment before opening the aluminum case and just watched me. “Do you trust me? You did once. I hope you can again.” He seemed to see the hesitation in my eyes and ran his hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t wanna pressure you but the sooner we get started, the sooner we can see if it’s having an effect and start planning the escape.”

A thrill rushed through my body at the word
escape.
I nodded.

“Good. Then as soon as your allergy is neutralized, or the Rez can find a safe place for you to live with the allergy, we’ll take whatever other glitchers we’ve found and get the godlam’d hell out of here.”

“And one day when my allergy isn’t a problem anymore, then I can help other people escape.”

A smile played at the edges of his lips. “You wanna join the Rez?”

“Of course! What else would I do once we escaped? I want to help Molla. And I want to stop the … the…” I threw my hands up in the air. “I don’t even have a word bad enough for the Uppers who’ve done this to us.”

“Godlam’d shunting bastards is my name of choice.”

I laughed a little. “Okay.” My gaze switched to the aluminum case still by his side. “So where does this injection go?”

His eyebrows rose. “Yeah? You sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said, getting caught for a moment in the bright aquamarine of his eyes. We had so little color in our world, his eyes seemed doubly extraordinary against the gray of the walls and his uniform. Then there was how, when I looked at them, something inside my chest seemed to loosen, like a melting ice cube in a hothouse.

“Great.” He grinned. “Roll up your sleeve.” He clicked open the case and pulled out a small tube, about the size of a marker, and took a cap off the end of it. Two tiny needle tips pointed out the end.

“This is a cocktail of all seven allergens. But just tiny trace amounts to start immunizing you against them. We build up your tolerance bit by bit, then next time you’re exposed to the real thing, hopefully it’ll be harmless.”

I held out my arm and he leaned close with the needles.

“Just a tiny prick.” He bit his bottom lip as he concentrated. He took my upper arm in his cool hands to steady it, then inserted the needles. I winced but he quickly pulled back.

“All done. We’ll do these for a while, then we’ll test some skin and blood samples to see if it’s working.”

“You have contact with the Resistance while you’re here?”

“Of course. There are the people posing as my parents. And there are more of us hidden in all the sectors. They’ll help us coordinate an escape as soon as we’re ready.” He closed up the aluminum case and got to his knees, lifting it back up through the ceiling. “Okay, well, good night, Zoe.” His face seemed to soften as he said it.

“Oh wait,” I said, putting a hand on his leg to stop him. “What do we do about Molla? How do we get to her without arousing suspicion? We can’t let them get her. We can’t let her be … deactivated.” I whispered the last word.

He nodded, suddenly serious. “It’d be too dangerous trying to bring her here. We saw what happened last time with your brother coming in. Though…” He paused, thinking. “I’m surprised they’ve allowed you and Max to study together so much—school officials are usually very wary of letting people congregate.”

“Why?”

“Well think about it. All that’s keeping them in control is a tiny, minuscule piece of hardware in people’s heads.” He reached over and tapped the side of my head with a finger. “When you imagine the sheer cracking number of people they’ve enslaved, and the number of glitchers that has been growing with every generation, there’s something going on.”