“No!” I screamed, but it was too late. She was already gone. The wail of my scream was swallowed in the roaring wind.
The buzzing from fear and anger I’d been barely holding in seemed to explode outward from my body as I lost control. I felt the energy pulse out, but couldn’t stop it. In the space of a single heartbeat, I saw the other Regulators finally making their way across the train car toward the open space, but it didn’t matter—my power had already ripped away the rest of the panel and sent the glitching Regulator plunging into the darkness of the tunnel.
The tenor of my scream changed as I realized what I’d just done. But I didn’t have time to feel the full horror of it, because the train car suddenly rocked violently to the left, sending all of us sliding into the opposite wall.
My head banged painfully against a pole as we flew past and then other bodies piled up against mine until I felt suffocated. I managed to push some of them off me, enough to realize that the entire train car was tilted sideways. I could tell from the unnatural angle of the car that one of our rails must not even be touching anymore. The body of the Regulator must have gotten caught underneath the train and derailed us.
Someone grabbed my arm and pulled themselves toward me.
“Zoe!” Adrien’s voice screamed above the chaos. “We’re about to lose traction and jackknife!”
I nodded. My head was a tornado of thoughts and sensations, but I focused in on one thought: I was the one who’d thrown the Regulator’s body under the train. I had to fix what I’d done. A high-pitched scream ripped its way out of me, in harmony with the buzzing in my head.
In one painful instant I felt my mind split. I was expanding outward and it was like I could feel all nine of the cars in the subway train. We were the second to last in the line but if we kept pulling the rest sideways off the track with our momentum, Adrien was right—we’d fishtail and all the cars would crumple into one another like an accordion. I took another deep breath and pushed with all my might, envisioning a huge counterweight on the train rails that weren’t touching, pulling us back down to the track.
Sparks flew as we suddenly made contact again and the cabin righted itself. Another person flew toward the gaping hole in the side of the train, but I caught them just in time, flinging them backward. My head was too cloudy and confused to be delicate about it.
The lights in the cabin flickered back on as the train slowed. Blood was everywhere. Several other people had been crushed by the weight of the heavy Regulators who’d been thrown off balance just like everyone else. At least one person was slumped against the wall, eyes staring forward, unmoving. All the heart monitors around me were sounding, mine included.
I lifted a hand weakly to the painful spot on my forehead as I took in the surreal scene all around me. I leaned over and threw up. When I took my hand away from my head, I saw it was covered in blood. The red was so bright against the gray of my shirtsleeve.
“Beta Ten Gamma Link,” I whispered. Then I passed out.
Chapter 13
I WOKE UP in a strange medical center a day later, the Scheduled Subject Downtime program blaring in my brain. Community first, Community always. Three long tones sounded, drowning out space for any other thought. The Community Creed repeated. The Community Link is peace. We are humanity sublime because we live in Community and favor above all else order, logic, and peace. Community first, Community always.
The harsh tones sounded in my head again, I knew the noises were supposed to be soothing or numbing, but they only exacerbated my headache. I looked around at the small, cold cubicle. I couldn’t hear much of anything beyond the horrible Link tones and mind-numbing mechanical voice that repeated the mantra over and over.
A thermal blanket covered my body. I was sure it was keeping my body at the exact correct temperature, but it felt suffocating. Between the invasion of the Link in my head and the sense of being strapped down to the bed by the blanket, I felt trapped. I wanted to scream and drown out the sound of the Link with my voice. I was the only one allowed inside my head!
Then I remembered—I had the passwords to get release. I started to whisper in a hoarse, rasping voice, “Beta Te—”
A doctor stepped through the curtain. I turned to look at him and as I did, I felt the pull of the cable attached to my neck port. My eyes widened.
I was plugged in. I was plugged in, and I’d almost whispered the words to disconnect me from the Link. The anomaly would have been recorded on the equipment.
Stupid! Now was not the time to be so careless. Who knew what else had shown up on the machines while I’d been unconscious.
The doctor wore the dull gray-red uniform of his profession. I wondered morbidly if doctors wore red so the blood of their patients wouldn’t stain their clothes. He was tall and lean, with brown hair and a disproportionately long nose. He didn’t speak to me, but only picked up the tablet at the base of my bed. He touched the screen. Every second he spent clicking through the information and not speaking seemed like an eternity.
I cleared my throat. “What is your assessment of my condition?”
“Mild concussion, eight deep lacerations, internal contusions.” His voice was cold, uninterested. “Internal hardware has not suffered any damage. Cellulo-reproductive acceleration gel has been applied to all lacerations. Healing rate is within normal parameters.” He finally looked up from the chart to me. “However, having accessed your historical bioinformation, I find anomalous activity.”
Panic started to rise up in my throat like bile, but I choked it down. The last thing I needed now was for the monitor to go off when he was right here. He pulled back the thermal blanket. I felt chill bumps rise all over my arms at the rush of cooler air.
His fingers were cold as he touched the small aluminum circle embedded in my chest. I had to stop myself from cringing. He clicked the top off of the coinlike circle and pulled a rodlike instrument from the belt around his waist.
He touched the tip of the instrument to one of the tiny circuits. I felt a small shock that made an involuntary tremor run through my body. Was that was supposed to happen? Or did it prove I was anomalous?
Whatever it meant, the doctor’s face remained unreadable. He reattached the tool to his belt and left the room without another word. I looked down at my heart-monitor flap, still open to the air. I felt horribly exposed, but I didn’t want to rearrange the covers over myself and look even more anomalous. Why didn’t he say anything else before he left? What had the instrument showed? Could he tell something was wrong with me? The word he’d used echoed in my head, managing to drown out the Link: anomalous.
I repeated the Community Creed along with the Link voice in my head to keep myself calm. The doctor finally came back into the cubicle, carrying a tiny box. I was full of questions, but managed to keep my mouth shut. He opened the small case and pulled out a tiny piece of hardware.
Was this the device that would deactivate me? I swallowed hard, trying to take in every feeling and sensation of this moment in case it was my last.
“Commencing monitor battery replacement with neo-alloy battery, part number X89.” His voice sounded lifeless. I held my breath as he pulled out the sliver of hardware.
Just a battery replacement! Relief swept over me. The monitor let out a high-pitched squeal, but the doctor was not perturbed. He slid in the new battery and the noise stopped.
“Replacement battery X89 complete.” He must be talking to a voice-recording device that kept patient records, because he barely seemed to notice I was even there. “Release scheduled for six p.m. today.”
He clicked the top of my heart monitor back closed and left without ever looking into my face. The trembling I’d been holding back the entire time started in earnest. The doctor had treated me like a piece of equipment. If I’d been more broken, if there had been more extensive damage than just a concussion and easily healable lacerations, he would have deactivated me with the same indifference.
He had neglected to cover
me again with the blanket. With shaking hands, I pulled it up to my chin. It had seemed suffocating before, but now it seemed only a paltry shield against a creeping, horrible cold.
I had the strangest longing for my mother, wishing she were here to push the hair back from my face and tell me everything would be okay. But of course, she wasn’t. I was sure my parents had been alerted to what had happened but they had work of their own to do. Why would they wait around with me and watch me sleep? It would be unproductive, illogical. Instead, I waited alone in the empty space, repeating the Community Creed to keep my heart monitor quiet, trying to hold my feelings in check, until I was released five hours later.
* * *
I had to take the subway home. My heart rate sped up as soon as I stepped into the subway car, in spite of how sluggish and exhausted I still was. The inside of the train looked just as normal and benign as the one I’d stepped into two days ago. I blinked and remembered the spattered blood. The crumpled bodies with beeping heart monitors strewn all over the ground.
I forced my eyes back open and worked on breathing normally. My whole body still ached. My hand went numb from gripping the pole tightly the entire way home.
When I got into the apartment, I heard the rhythmic noise of footfalls on the treadmill in the front room. I paused, watching Markan’s arms pump calmly while he ran. He didn’t look up or acknowledge me. I stood for another few moments, hoping he’d see me, but he just stared blankly at the wall. Zoned out to the Link. My parents weren’t home either. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but I guessed I’d ridiculously hoped for some kind of welcome. Something to let me know that they’d been worried about me or missed me, or even that they had noticed my absence.
I’d expected coming home to my family quarters would make me feel better, that I’d feel that sense of safety and belonging that I sometimes did. But home was just a lie I’d made up to make myself feel better. The realization was as chilling as the empty hospital cubicle had been.
I slid the door to my tiny room shut and sank down to the floor, finally crying the exhausted tears that I’d had to hold back while I was at the hospital. I took the pills the doctors had sent me home with and slept through the next day.
I woke to someone shaking my shoulder. I blinked slowly.
“Max!” I sat up quickly and threw my arms around him. The movement sent an ache through my side from the still-healing lacerations, but I didn’t care.
“Why are you here?” I finally asked, still not letting go of my grip.
“I came as soon as I could,” he said, pulling back. “I tried to see you at the hospital, but I couldn’t figure out their security system in time.”
“You tried to see me?” I asked in surprise. It was so reckless of him, but then I thought of waiting all alone in that horrible hospital room. Someone had wanted to come, someone cared about me, was thinking about me. I wasn’t just another drone to be poked and prodded. Not to Max.
I hugged him hard again. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said into his chest. His arms around me were like walls—real protection, real connection. Friend. I’d read about the word in the archive texts, but now I knew what it meant.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I finally pulled away and looked at him. He’d climbed up to the loft bed and was sitting on the edge, legs dangling over the side. I stretched my limbs. I was drowsy, but I could already tell my body hurt less.
“I’m okay. Better.”
“What happened on the train?” Even though we weren’t hugging anymore, he’d taken my hand in his and was tracing patterns with his thumb. Every touch was a point of connection whispering: Not alone, not alone, not alone. “There’s been no news on the Link about it and all I can get from my other sources is that there was some malfunction on the train. The camera went out with the lights, so I couldn’t get my hands on any recordings.”
I wanted to berate him for taking risks again but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I told him about the young Regulator glitching.
“It was like Adrien knew what was going to happen,” I said. “We have to contact him.”
“No way. I don’t trust him,” Max said darkly, dropping my hand. “How could he know what was going to happen unless he had a hand in it? Maybe he did it to force you to reveal your powers.”
“How can you say that?” I pulled back. “This was the second time he’s helped me!”
“You didn’t need his help when you were called over the Link for the diagnostic.” He clenched his hands into fists. “I had everything taken care of already. You don’t even know for sure if what he did would’ve gone undetected in the scan.”
“Max,” I shook my head, “I thought you’d be excited. This means there’s someone else out there like us. Maybe he has, you know—” I leaned in. “The powers like we do. This was what we wanted, to find more people like us.”
“It’s what you wanted.”
I looked at him, confused. “Don’t you, too? Now that you see how important it is?”
He shook his head. “With just the two of us, we’d be safer. We could avoid detection more easily.”
“But for how long? The train accident was just one example of a hundred ways things could go wrong. We need more people on our side.”
“Why? What do you think this is going to turn into, some army or something?” He was upset but I didn’t understand why.
“No, of course not!” I felt exasperated. “That’s not what I meant.… I just…” I trailed off.
“You just want to go around recklessly involving other people and endangering us,” Max said.
I sat still, breathing hard. Why was he being so difficult? I was suddenly tired again and wetness pricked at my eyes.
“Oh no, Zoe, I shouldn’t have said that.” He put a hand gently on my arm. “I know you’ve just gone through something horrible. The thought that I wasn’t there to help you…” His brown eyes were intense as they searched mine. “You’re everything to me, you know that, don’t you? You’re all that matters, all I think about. Everything I do is to try to keep us safe.”
“I would never do anything to put us in danger,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I just thought he might be able to help us.”
“Us,” he said, more gently now. “There’s an us?”
I blinked, confused. “Yes, of course.”
“What I mean is, I want there to be an us. I want us to be together. You know, together. You getting hurt again—” He shook his head and swallowed before looking back into my eyes. “It made me realize I never want to live without you. I can’t.” He took my hand. “When we’re old enough, I’m sure I can use my powers to arrange for us to be marital partners.”
“Marital partners?” I asked, stunned. “You mean staying here and getting the adult V-chip installed? But we’d never glitch again!”
“Zoe, relax.” He waved a hand. “I’ll find a way around the hardware and the system.”
“Even if we could uncover a way around the chip,” I said, slow horror gripping me at the ramifications of staying in the Community forever, “being marital partners would mean they’d create children for us.”
I thought of the little girl who’d danced on the platform and imagined her growing colder and less human every time a new V-chip was installed. Just the thought made me feel like throwing up. I thought I’d saved her that day on the train platform. But had I? She would still grow up and forget what it had ever felt like to feel.
“I don’t want to procreate,” Max laughed, not seeming to sense my dark mood or thoughts. “I just want you. For myself.” He leaned in and his voice got suddenly low.
“Don’t you understand? I want to spend my life with you. I want you to be there when I go to bed at night and when I wake up in the morning.”
“Oh.” I thought about it. I didn’t know how Max thought we could stay in the Community our whole lives and somehow be safe. But then, the way he talked about it—waking up next to som
eone every morning. Not being alone. Ever again. I slowly smiled.
I still felt a nagging sense of worry about Max’s confidence. It seemed too simple, even reckless. On the other hand, it gave me a flush of happiness to be wanted. My own parents didn’t even want me. Not really. I was just part of their Community duty. They didn’t miss me when I was gone or care that I’d been hurt. Max wanted to be family with me. Being family had to mean even more connection than just being a friend.
“Yes, I’d like that,” I finally said. “I’d like to be family with you.”
“Good.” He grinned and let out a big breath I hadn’t noticed he was holding. He pulled me closer, his lips immediately on mine. He held me tight and then swung his legs up onto the bed to lie down beside me.
“I want to be the one to protect you,” he said into my ear. His hands moved down from my neck to tuck themselves securely around my waist. “You know I can protect you, right?”
“I never said you couldn’t.” I separated from him and propped myself up on my elbow. His blond hair was mussed and I smiled and reached over to smooth it down.
He grinned, his dimples catching in the light.
“So do you have notes and homework for me?” I asked, feeling an uncomfortable blush in my cheeks at the way he was looking at me. “Or was that just an excuse to come over?”
“Yes, I brought notes,” he laughed. “I already synced my tablet to yours while you were sleeping.”
“Well let’s do some homework so if anyone walks in we won’t look anomalous.”
“You shouldn’t be studying right now. You need to rest. I just had to see you and let you know I can take care of you.” For a moment he stared beyond me at the wall. “I’m making sure of it.”
“What?” I sat up in alarm. Something about the way he said it filled me with dread. “What do you mean, Max? How are you making sure of it?”
Glitch (Glitch - Trilogy) Page 15
