Glitch (26 page)

“Everything hurts so much since I started glitching,” I finally whispered, wiping my eyes with my forearm. “I feel like I’m full of all these pulsing pieces barely contained by my skin, like a rip might start in one place and then it would all fly apart.” I broke off, staring up at the ceiling and shaking my head. “I just mess everything up. I can’t do this right. I don’t know how to be human. I’m doing it wrong. I just can’t—”

“I’m sorry, Zoe.” Adrien gently put one hand behind my head and tugged it forward until his forehead touched mine. “I’m so sorry. But hurt is
part
of being human.”

“But is it worth it?” I looked into his green eyes, so close to mine. “What if the Community is right? Wouldn’t it be better to never feel hurt or pain? Aren’t we better off without it?”

His brows came together, his whole face softening. “Zoe, I know it hurts right now, but believe me, it’s worth it. I know all you’ve seen is the bad side of emotion lately, but I promise you, you’ll find the other side of it too.”

I pulled away. “What, like pleasure?” My voice cracked. “That’s all Max can think about.”

“No, not just pleasure. There’s other things, like, I mean—” He paused, looking away from me at the wall. “Like love.” His voice was soft. “It’s a word that has so many different meanings. Especially with family. No matter how much they hurt you.” He leaned his head back against the wall, staring out into space.

“Love doesn’t sound like a very good thing then,” I said. “It seems highly illogical. My brother got killed because he loved me.”

“No.” His voice was adamant. “It wasn’t love that killed him. It was this shunted-up system.”

His eyelashes glinted in the dim light and his voice was intense. “Love between two people can make life worth living. Real love between two people…” He gulped suddenly and looked down at his hands. “It’s like this amazing explosion of joy. It’s way deeper than just normal happiness. It fills you to the very core, makes you whole.” He coughed a little. “At least that’s what, you know, what people say anyway. And friendship is a kind of love, too.”

I thought back to my fight with Max. “Max doesn’t seem to think friendship is enough.”

“Well,” Adrien said reluctantly, the warm openness of a few moments ago hardening. “I guess it’s probably hard to deal with all the intense emotion and sensation, suddenly and all at once. He’s never been taught how to cope with it. It’s gotta be overwhelming for him.”

“He doesn’t seem overwhelmed. Just angry.”

Adrien shrugged, smiling even though his eyebrows looked heavy and sad. “Anger’s part of it too. It’s a powerful emotion. All these emotions both of you guys are having—you were supposed to learn how to deal with them as you grew up, but you were robbed of that chance. What you feel for each other, I’m sure it’s really powerful for both of you. And he’s a teenage guy, so…”

He scratched his head and looked away from my gaze. “So you know, it’s tough.” He reddened suddenly.

“Why?”

Adrien let out a short, strangled laugh that sounded different from his normal laugh. “It’s just a little different for boys. I mean, a lot of the time, even guys I know who’ve never been cracking chipped, all they can think about is…” His face turned red, “is, well, um. The passions.”

I blinked. “Really? Do you?”

His mouth dropped open a little and he got even redder. “I mean, sure, yeah, you know, sometimes. Not all the time,” he finished hurriedly.

I looked at him strangely, sniffling and wiping my nose one last time. “No, I
don’t
know what you mean.”

“Why is your face becoming discolored?” I asked, mystified. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, his laugh high-pitched and odd-sounding again. His eyes widened and he made a little choking noise. He scratched the back of his head again and looked away.

“Really, why is your face that color?”

He laughed. “Just ’cause I’m embarrassed. I’m even embarrassed telling you I’m embarrassed!”

“Why?”

“This is a crackin’ intimate topic, I guess.” Adrien’s face went a little rigid. “But listen to me, Zoe. Don’t let that shunter Max pressure you to do anything.”

“But you just said it’s not wrong!”

“It’s not.” He stopped short, looking down. “If both people want it. You want to make sure it feels right.”

“Feels right?” I threw my hands up in frustration. “I’m never going to get this.”

“Sure you will,” Adrien said, smiling. “I’ll teach you.” Then his face went red again. “I mean, I just meant—I could teach you about emotions and help explain what emotion words mean.”

I pointed. “Red face means embarrassed. I’m a quick learner.”

He laughed, his face finally relaxing. His laughter sounded more normal again, and the rich sound of it made the heavy ache inside me hurt less.

“I like it when you laugh,” I said. “And I’d like it if you kept teaching me.”

“Okay.” He smiled at me but with a different smile than the others he’d used. It felt like a private smile, just between the two of us. Something inside my chest seemed to warm at the sight. Max might have been my first friend, but now I felt like Adrien was my friend, too. Friendship felt really nice. Maybe Adrien was right. Maybe you could pile up enough good emotions to help outweigh the bad.

“Come on, let’s get your injection, then we’ll practice getting control of your telekinesis again. The more control you get over your gift, the more you’ll be able to stand up against them, to stop what happened to you and Daavd from ever happening to anyone else.”

I nodded, feeling a determination settle over me. I knew what he was offering me—a way out of my guilt, a way to funnel my pain. But even more than that, I kept saying I wanted to help others, to
do
something, but I hadn’t been willing to develop my most powerful asset. I steeled myself. It was time for that to change.

“HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED
any anomalous events?” The Chancellor’s hawk gaze pierced me, like she could see right through my brain to my glitching V-chip.

I breathed evenly, then answered, “No, Chancellor.”

She leaned forward, the wrinkles around her eyes crinkling as she stared hard at me. There was something about her gaze, like her eyes were boring deep inside my head and tugging at something familiar at the back of my mind. The hair on my arms stood up.

“Tell me about the anomalies you experience.” Her voice was gentle, but there was an intensity to her face, and an impatience beyond what I had ever seen in her before.

I stared back, suddenly nervous. I had clicked myself back into the Link, but I still felt like she could tell something was off about me. I willed myself to remain calm. “I have experienced no anomalous events.”

Her eyes became slits and her nostrils flared.

“Tell me about other students who experience anomalies.”

“I don’t know of any students experiencing anomalies,” I lied, smoothing the nervous hitch in my voice.

Her jaw clenched. She looked livid and got up to come around her desk. She leaned her face into mine. I could smell her sour breath, she was so close.

The high-pitched sound started as a quiet purr in my brain. It came more quickly since I’d been working on it. It sparked to life like an eager flame, but unfortunately, was still just as unmanageable. So far I was still unable to control or direct it. I felt the power build up under my skin, bursting down the sides of my arms and aching to come out through my fingertips. My eyes widened infinitesimally as I tried to slow its progression. Not here. Not now.

I made my gaze rest on the floor, soaking up the Link information playing at the edges of my vision, trying to swallow the power back down. I thought about anything other than the Chancellor only an inch away from my face. Or I tried at least. I managed to diminish the buzzing, but the fear was still too palpable. I could lose control any moment. With a sharp stab in my stomach, I realized she knew something. Somehow, she knew something about what was going on with me.

Think numb thoughts. Think numb thoughts.

I made my face a mask. Slightly disinterested, passive and compliant. The studied blankness I had perfected.

She pulled back all at once and went back to sit in her chair. A strange smile played at the corner of her lips.

“You are dismissed, Zoe,” she said, waving her hand and looking away.

I stood up and turned slowly, methodically.

One foot in front of the other. Don’t look back.

I walked through the door and it closed with a hiss behind me.

The Chancellor had never been so insistent before. What had changed? What did she know? It had been so many weeks since she’d even called me in, but I’d been foolish to think I was safe. The thought sent a slice of cold dread through me.

Then, suddenly, my breath caught in my throat.
Zoe.
The Chancellor had called me Zoe. My mind raced. How had she known to call me that name? I must have just misheard her. I was so paranoid all the time, I was imagining things to be anxious about.

That night I sat up against the wall of my quarters with my knees pulled up underneath my chin, waiting anxiously for Adrien to come. We’d been working on my gift every night, even though I still couldn’t seem to control it. I’d managed to levitate a shoe and knock my pillow off the bed, but it was still erratic and imprecise. It was so frustrating. Adrien kept telling me we had to keep trying, but I just felt like a failure.

But I had to keep training. It was the only tangible thing I could do to combat the painful thoughts of Daavd—my determination to help others like him in the future. My daytime life at the Academy was just something I did robotically. All I could think about was getting home for my night training sessions with Adrien.

I stared at my blanket in the darkness while I waited, willing the ceiling tile to move. Nothing. The time seemed to pass with excruciating slowness. Finally, just when I was getting a crick in my neck from looking up for so long, I heard the distinctive metal scratching of the tile shifting.

Adrien’s long legs came down onto the bed and immediately I felt a swell of relief. Adrien would make everything better. He always knew how to fix things.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“Sorry,” he said. “I had to sneak out and contact the Rez after school. I just got back.”

“Why? What did you need to talk to them about?”

He sat down, not looking at me. “I needed them to check my hardware.”

My stomach churned with worry at his strange mood. He was always so calm, so confident. This nervous Adrien scared me.

He grabbed my hand and smiled weakly. “Hey, it’s nothing to worry about,” he said quickly, finally meeting my eyes and holding my gaze. “Everything’s fine. They checked me out and it’s all normal.”

“What made you think something was wrong in the first place?”

He looked away. “The Chancellor called me into her office today.”

My monitor started buzzing. “She called me in, too.”

He looked up at me in surprise.

“She knows something, doesn’t she?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice but didn’t quite manage it.

“No.” He let go of my hand and settled himself across the bed from me. “It doesn’t mean anything. She’s been calling you in for routine checkups and interviews since you got back. And from what I can tell, she’s calling all of the student body in one by one to interview, looking for anomalous behavior.”

“But why would she do that if she didn’t know something?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know. Come on, it’s time for your allergy therapy.”

I nodded, but frowned as he took the familiar device out of the case.

“Did they get my results back from the blood sample yet?”

He shook his head. “Not yet, but we should know something soon.”

I rolled up my sleeve. He gave me the injection and I watched him as he put the equipment away. He seemed distant, his eyes slightly unfocused.

“Something’s just not right.” I said. “The sooner my allergy results come in and we can organize our escape, the better. I don’t think I’ll be able to breathe until then.” I paused, noticing Adrien’s unusual stillness.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said quietly. “Is it about the Chancellor?”

For a second he closed his eyes, then he smiled softly at me. “You’re the one person I can’t lie to. You know me too crackin’ well.”

Part of me wanted to ask him why that was. How could I know him so well when I’d only just met him? And why did I also know it was completely true? Instead, I asked, “So what’s wrong?”

He shook his head uneasily. “That’s just it. I don’t know. I can’t remember. I mean, I have this feeling that everything was fine but when I try to remember the specifics of my interview with the Chancellor, it gets all fuzzy. Was it like that for you?”

“No.” I frowned. “I can remember everything. Do you think they installed some kind of memory disrupter in your head? One that even the Rez techs can’t detect?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible. If we can trick their tech, surely they can trick ours.” He let out a loud breath, sounding frustrated. “But they would have to know I was part of the Rez for them to even bother. And if they knew that, why wouldn’t they just grab me and take me to a shunting interrogation facility?”

“But you still feel like something’s wrong?”

He put his arms behind his head and leaned back into the wall, looking at the ceiling. “I just feel like there’s something else, something that’s hovering at the edge of my brain. It’s like all the puzzle pieces are there but I can’t quite put them together.”

He shook his head like he was clearing his thoughts. “I had a vision right after I left the office, so maybe it was just some pre-vision cloudiness.”

“Has that happened before? With the memory loss?”

“Maybe. Having the visions—how they manifest—it’s been changing as I grow into the ability.” He dropped his arms, seeming restless. “I just don’t know. And I hate not knowing.” He looked unsure, afraid almost.

“Hey.” I moved closer to where he was sitting. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”