She held my gaze for another too-long moment before nodding to the door. “You may leave.”
I turned on my heel and tried to walk as calmly as I could manage out the door and down to the elevator, pausing to slow my heart rate and quiet my monitor. Glitching like that in front of the Chancellor herself. This was becoming far too dangerous.
What was wrong with me? What I’d told the Chancellor had been the truth—I didn’t remember anything before I was discovered walking down a Surface road. But now that I was no longer Linked, reliving the memories of walking down the dusty road in the bright orange suit filled me with terror. I’d been on the Surface! I shuddered, remembering the huge open sky over my head. How did I get there? A chill raced down my spine. And why was I still alive?
Every step I took felt like walking farther and farther into enemy territory. But there was no option for retreat. No safe place, no refuge for me. I was knee-deep and surrounded on all sides.
My lungs tightened in my chest at the thought. Panic bubbled up even as I tried to swallow it back down. But still, my breathing became shallower. I looked around. Even in this empty hallway, my skin crawled with the sense that I was being watched.
I glanced up almost involuntarily at the ceiling and saw the small black circles embedded every ten paces. Something about them tugged at the edges of my mind and made me feel uneasy. I didn’t know why. But what if … What if it was a memory from my time away? But that was impossible. None of it had been stored on my internal memory chip because of the disrupter.
Panic spiked at the reminder, sending shooting sparks up and down my arms. Before I could control it, several loud pops sounded and thin tendrils of smoke escaped out of the black circle directly above me. I looked up in surprise, then spun around sharply as I heard the sound behind me. One by one, each of the black circles behind me down the hallway let out a pop, hiss, and cloud of smoke.
I swiveled back around and headed away as quickly as I could. I needed to get out of here, now.
Stupid, stupid, I chided myself. All I wanted was to avoid drawing any attention to myself and after three weeks without a single glitch, I was suddenly out of control and creating all kinds of anomalies.
I tried to quickly and calmly remove myself from the hallway before I was spotted. I couldn’t be connected with what just happened. Just as I was about to round the corner, I heard loud footsteps behind me. It took every ounce of self-discipline I had not to look backward.
It was probably just another Academy student. Nothing to worry about.
Except that the footsteps sounded heavy. Really heavy. Metal-reinforced-feet kind of heavy.
It must be a Regulator. At this point he must be walking right through the smoke spilling from the black circles on the ceiling. He had to have noticed, and as I was the only person around, he would know I must’ve had something to do with it.
I quickened my footsteps down a narrow gray hallway, hoping to make it to the next cross tunnel at the end before he rounded the corner.
“Halt, subject.”
I should have paused and stayed calm. I should have answered his questions and pretended to be a bystander who’d just happened to be walking down the hallway when the ceiling equipment shorted out. I should have, but I didn’t.
I ran.
I sprinted down the adjoining hallway, hoping the surprise from my illogical behavior might make the Regulator pause to reassess protocol procedures. Foolish, since in the end it would only mean that they’d have more evidence of anomalies against me.
But I’d already bolted and there was no going back now. I forced myself not to look over my shoulder, even though I heard his heavy footsteps start again behind me. If he was able to do a scan and get facial recognition, I’d be cracked for sure. I had to get out of his range. I ran faster, pouring my panic into my feet. Behind me I could hear the loud clang of the Regulator’s boots as his pace sped up to match mine. I turned in to another snaking hallway, knowing it was only a matter of time before he caught up with me or I ran into someone else who would note me as anomalous. But then I realized where I was, and why there were no other subjects around, and an idea sparked.
I turned sharply around another corner and paused for just a moment to pull a hair tie from my pocket before sprinting down the hall. I gathered my fluffy flying hair into a tight bun. I could still hear the hydraulic hiss of the Regulator’s boots as he pounded his way into the hallway behind me. I hoped he hadn’t seen me too clearly.
I took the left branch into another hall and stopped short. A herd of students filled the width of the hall, filing slowly past me in the direction of the cafeteria. Lunchtime. I forced myself to breathe normally and keep my heart monitor still. I stiffened my back into the ramrod posture of all subjects and eased into the crowd. Over my shoulder I heard the Regulator reach the end of the hall behind me, but I kept walking steadily forward, not daring to look. Students flanked me on all sides, a slow tide of gray bodies sweeping down the hallway.
Inside, my mind was screaming to run, escape, but I forced my limbs to move slowly. I kept my face perfectly still as I passed by the Regulator. He was scanning the crowd along with the rest of the nearby Regulators, but his eyes passed right over me.
For the first time, I was glad for the monotony, glad we all looked exactly the same. Maybe I did have a place to hide after all. In plain sight, camouflaged by looking exactly like every other drone around me.
* * *
“Greetings, Zoel,” Maximin said when I sat down at my customary place at table 13. I was still glitching, and my nerves were frayed. I was glad to see a familiar face, and when he requested assistance with neurochem, I wanted to hug him for being something normal and reliable. But my mind was still wrapped up in the terrifying events of the morning.
Not to mention I still had no idea what had happened during my disappearance. I’d not only found myself on the deadly Surface, with no explanation, but somehow the diagnostics had not discovered anything anomalous in me? Not the glitches, not my ability, nothing? Or had they discovered it all and fixed me? In that case, after three weeks of silence, why was I broken again?
“Zoel?” Maximin asked.
I looked back over at him, realizing I hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
“Pardon my lapse in concentration.” I counted to ten over and over in my head to calm down. I clicked through my text tablet to get to the lesson we were studying, but my mind was racing. Nothing made sense.
I took a long sip of the fruit supplement on my tray. The thick fruity concoction shocked me with its flavor. My eyes widened momentarily, and I barely recovered enough to keep a surprised gasp to myself. I looked at the smooth pink liquid in the stainless-steel cup, trying to identify each individual taste. Peaches. Maybe mango, too. I inspected the liquid closer and saw tiny black seeds. Strawberries. That was the other flavor. Every taste was suddenly and overwhelmingly strong.
“Zoel?”
I chided myself internally. I was completely shaken up today, but I had to go back to basics. Just as I’d practiced for so long, I had to remember that the first rule of glitching was to keep it hidden.
But to make matters worse, the dark-haired boy with aquamarine eyes was back. The same one I’d thought could be a Monitor. It seemed like everyone was watching me more closely since my disappearance, right when my glitches were suddenly the most difficult to keep under control.
I searched my memories. His case of Flu 216 had caused an Academy-wide priority vaccination. Could it be just a coincidence that it happened at the same time as my disappearance? I didn’t know what to believe anymore, but I knew I had to stay away from him. I couldn’t trust myself to hide my glitches anymore, and even though the boy didn’t turn his eyes to me once during the entire class, I had the prickling sensation that he was acutely aware of my every breath.
I was glad when we were released from classes and I was able to make my way to the subway station, away from such constant observation. I
longed for the peace and quiet of my personal quarters. I could have sworn that when I’d first started glitching, everything had gone slower. It had been a gradual awakening to feeling and sensation and emotion.
This time I felt like I’d just been dumped in a tub of ice water. I didn’t know if it was just because it had come back all at once, or if something had gotten knocked loose in me while I was away. The glitches were sudden, random, and more intense than anything I’d felt before. I had no idea why, which made it all the more terrifying. I couldn’t afford to attract any more attention than I already did, but I couldn’t even trust my own body not to betray me.
The train ride back to my quarters set my teeth on edge. The screeching as the train rounded each corner made me jolt in surprise. It felt like the train was skidding and sparking on the edge of my jarred nerves. Bodies were all packed in tightly together, swaying in unison to the rhythm of the train. It was suffocating. I wanted to close my eyes and stop up my ears. I needed to escape, to hide. But there was nowhere I could go. Nowhere I was truly safe.
Home.
I was surprised at the overwhelming emotion I felt at the word. Walking in the door, I felt the stinging in my eyes and leaned my head back against the doorframe for a moment, taking in a breath of relief before heading to my quarters.
“Greetings, Zoel,” my brother said when I passed by his room.
“Greetings, Markan,” I said, stopping at his door. He’d been sitting in the chair at his desk underneath his loft bed, staring blankly at the wall. I recognized the pose. It was the default position for Scheduled Subject Downtime. In the afternoons after Academy, calming Link harmonic sounds played, putting subjects in a kind of trance, a scheduled break to support efficiency and productivity. Looking at him made me swallow hard. He looked peaceful. But at what price?
I barely stopped myself from going into the room and putting my arms around him. The impulse made me pause. I didn’t know why I thought that touching a person could bring comfort, but I felt sure of it.
“Are Mother and Father home?” I asked, wanting any excuse to linger and talk to him.
“No. They don’t arrive home until ten p.m. You should know that.”
I nodded. “Of course.” I couldn’t stop looking at him. He seemed to have grown in the past month. His shoulders seemed wider. At thirteen, I supposed I could expect his physical appearance to change rapidly as he entered puberty. But no sign of any glitches yet, and no guarantee they would ever come. Each year edged him closer to adulthood, and the impossibility of ever glitching or feeling emotion. And then he’d turn eighteen and be lost forever. The thought pulled at something in my chest.
“Do you require something?” Markan asked.
“No,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I finish with the treadmill so you can do your evening session before dinner.”
He nodded and then moved his attention back to the wall, or rather, the Link. I took one last lingering look, then went into my tiny, compact room and changed.
Before I headed out to the treadmill, I shut the door to my room and reached my fingers into the slit in my mattress.
My drawings were gone.
Panic spiked in my chest. They couldn’t be gone! I hadn’t been deactivated, or taken away. I reached farther into the mattress. Still nothing. I frantically lifted the mattress to look underneath, all the while my mind racing, each thought worse than the last. If they’d been found—
There they were! My searching fingers grabbed on to the crinkling papers that were piled under the mattress at the foot of the bed. I slumped against the wall in relief, then felt like laughing and crying at the same time.
But my relief was short-lived—it was the wrong spot for my drawings. I was always so careful to hide them in the mattress. I strained to remember my last drawing session. I was almost sure I’d put them back in the right place. What if … what if someone had found them?
I shook my head and banished the thought. That was ridiculous. I wouldn’t be here if any of my drawings had been found. There was no way they’d have allowed me to live. I must have been careless somehow. All this fear and pressure and strain was making me crack around the edges.
I took several deep breaths, hoping to stop the panic from setting off my heart monitor, but I couldn’t stop the alarm going off in my head. Nothing made sense anymore. The feeling I had when I entered our house unit, the safety and comfortable familiarity, was gone.
I lifted a hand to the wall separating my room from Markan’s. I was sure there could be so much more to him than a body staring blankly at a wall, but I wasn’t sure if I’d survive long enough to see it.
I swiped at my stinging eyes, hid the drawings, then went to exercise. For as long as I could, I had to at least pretend that nothing was wrong. It felt good to run, to feel the pounding rhythm of my feet hitting the track. It made me feel alive and, at the same time, calm inside. For the first time since I’d glitched this afternoon, I was able to let go, just for a moment, and forget about whatever had happened when I’d arrived at Room A117 three weeks ago.
* * *
I woke up in the middle of the night to the beeping of my heart monitor. I must have still been glitching in my sleep. I scrambled out of my blanket. It took me several horrifying moments to realize I was in my room, not drowning in a raging tide of water. I sat up and put my back against the cool wall, gulping in breath after breath. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my forearm. After another couple of minutes, my heart calmed down and I closed my eyes, trying not to relive the terror of flailing uselessly in water.
Markan had been there too, drowning with me, begging for my help, but I couldn’t do anything. I just watched helplessly, trying to keep myself above water while he sank underneath. He never came back to the surface, and it was my fault. Horror and guilt were thick in my throat. I swallowed hard and went to the bathroom to get a glass of water.
Dreams. Nightmares. Darkness. I’d forgotten about those parts of glitching. I didn’t miss them. The Link directed REM patterns and sleep cycles and no one ever experienced disrupted sleep.
I rubbed my face in both of my hands once I was back in my room. Ugh, how had I done this before? How had I kept all this to myself and managed to stay sane? Even in my sleep I wasn’t safe. Then I frowned, thinking about the dream—there’d been so much water rushing by, more than I’d ever seen in real life. I closed my eyes and tried to envision the scene again but the memory of it was fading.
I climbed back in bed and tried to get back to sleep, but it was impossible. I got out of bed quickly and pulled out a clean paper bag from our bimonthly Materials Allotment and the marker I stowed under the foot of the mattress. The drawings could be dangerous, I saw that now. I’d find a way to destroy it or get rid of it after, but I still had to get the image out of my head and onto paper. I lay down with my head near the tiny night auxiliary light cell in the wall so I could see the paper. I concentrated hard, determined to learn something—anything.
I sketched out the mass of flowing water. A couple of times, I was remembering it so clearly, I felt bowled over by the sensation of being soaked through, shivering in terror. But then I tried to pull back from the scenario, to see from the outside rather than from within. I needed to simply record every detail about the scene. I kept going, trying not to think, only to draw in the dim light. When I finally stopped, I’d covered one entire side of the crumpled bag. I put the marker away and laid it down to try to figure out what the images meant. Mostly the page was covered with the roiling mass of water, edged only by the circular walls.
There was a figure in the water—it was Markan but at the same time, it wasn’t quite Markan.
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 s
traight 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.