I felt my body being hauled backward—Adrien must be trying to pull me to safety but I didn’t let myself even spare a backward glance. Almost there … Almost there, three more, two, one …
“Zoe!”
All as one, I crushed the twelve tiny fingernail-sized embedded V-chips and all the minuscule alloy webs attached. Adrien pulled me out of the way just as the Regulators, carried forward by their momentum even as their eyes widened suddenly with self-awareness, toppled over one another like dominoes into a pile of muscle and metal right in front of us.
We stood, torn and bleeding, amazed at the rubble before us. I looked down at my own hands in shock.
“What did you do?” Adrien whispered over my head and only now I realized his arms were wrapped around me, again trying to shield me with his body.
I looked up weakly. “I freed them,” I said. “Come on, help me walk. Let’s get out of here.”
“Zoe.” Adrien’s jaw was dropped open. “How did you— What did you—”
“Help me up,” I said again, and he must have heard the pained note in my voice.
He helped me stand, and my legs felt like jelly. It felt so strange to be back in my body after encompassing the whole room. The hum was gone completely, and I felt like it would be a while before I’d be able to call on it again. Adrien started leading us around the mountain of confused Regulators but I stopped him and turned. They were young enough, they should survive the destruction of their internal hardware. I could only hope that with their V-chips completely destroyed they would be stable, not like the young glitching Regulator on the train months ago. I watched them warily, but they were all calm, if a bit dumbfounded.
I was exhausted, but I tried to put as much force as I could in my voice. I looked at them, one with blood dripping down the side of his bionic head implant, another missing at least half his left hand. I thought about apologizing, but I knew the word sorry wouldn’t have any meaning to them.
Instead, I said, “You are free from the Community now. Come with us if you want to stay free.” Then I turned back to Adrien, so tired I barely cared if they took my offer or not.
“Get us out of here,” I said. He nodded and led us up through more hallways. Most of the Regulators followed too, offering their wrist chips to gain access to the entire facility. The hulking young men were silent, but when I gave orders, they followed them. I guessed they were used to being ordered around and I was the closest thing to an authority they had now.
As we waited for the elevator tube that Adrien said would lead us out, he suddenly went rigid beside me. I’d been leaning on him for support so heavily, I almost fell down, taking him with me. A young Regulator caught both of us and steadied us.
“What’s wrong with him?” Molla shrieked. I hadn’t looked at her in a while but I guessed she wasn’t taking all the terror and near-death experiences very well.
“He’s having a vision,” I said, slumping against the wall for support. Adrien’s body relaxed after a few moments.
“What is it?” I asked, closing my eyes and hoping it wasn’t something else horrible. The Chancellor had said she’d made my allergies worse. What if he saw me get to the Surface and go into an allergy attack that would kill me? But when I opened my eyes, I saw him grinning.
“It’s my mom. She’s tracked down some of the Rez and they’re coming. But we can’t go up that way.” He nodded at the elevator as the door pinged and slid open. “The Chancellor will have set off the alarm by now. I saw a safe way out, though, and the Rez will meet us there.”
“But how could your mom know where we’ll be?”
He took my arm and helped me stand. “She must have had a vision, too.”
“Good.” I was breathing hard from the exertion of staying upright. “Because I don’t think I’m going to be taking on any more Regulators any time soon.”
He laughed and kissed my temple, then we led our unusual group down several perpendicular tunnels, the Regulators’ wrist access chips still opening up every door in our path. The Chancellor must not have figured out what I’d done. How could she have? I barely believed I’d been able to do it. They opened the last door and there was only darkness beyond.
“It’s the service stairwell,” Adrien said. “We can get one of the Regulators to carry you up the stairs—it’s three stories up. But I want you to stay here until I come back with the biosuit for you so you don’t have an allergy attack.” He saw my confusion. “I saw my mom carrying one in my vision.”
“But the biosuits only have enough oxygen for a few hours. What will happen then?”
Adrien swallowed, his eyes uncertain for a moment. “I don’t know yet. But right now we don’t have any other choice.”
We looked at each other wordlessly, and then I nodded.
“Take Molla and Juan with you,” I said, grabbing his arm as he turned to go. I leaned in and whispered, “They’ll probably be hysterical about going to the Surface like I was the first time. This will give them a few extra minutes to get used to the idea.”
He nodded.
I went over to take Molla’s hands. She seemed almost catatonic, staring blankly off into space.
“Adrien’s going to take you up now, okay, Molla?”
She didn’t respond.
“Max,” I said, turning to him, though I couldn’t quite bear to look him in the eye now that I’d learned the truth of all he’d done. “Can you help?”
“Molla,” Max said, his voice stronger than it had been.
“Molla, find all the extra trackers they embedded in Zoe,” he said. He was looking at the floor
At the sound of Max’s voice, Molla’s eyes seemed to clear a little. She looked at Max and he nodded, so she reluctantly turned to me. Her gaze narrowed as she scanned me head to toe. “Here.” She pointed behind my left ear. “Here and here and here.” She pointed at my right shoulder, right hip, and left ankle.
“Is that all?” Max asked.
She nodded.
“Go with Adrien now,” he said. “Do whatever he says and don’t worry about being on the Surface. I promise you it’s safe.”
“But I want to stay with you, Max.”
“Go,” Max ordered, somewhat harshly, but then his voice softened. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She nodded again, looking slightly less skittish.
Adrien took Molla’s arm and led her through the doorway up into the darkness. Juan followed behind.
After they were out of sight, Max’s gaze shifted to me. We stood, surrounded by five of the tall, silent Regulators. I looked away uncomfortably, my arms crossed. I might not have wanted to leave Max at the mercy of the Chancellor, but that didn’t mean I could forget what he’d done.
“Molla seems to forgive you,” I finally said, my voice sharp.
He shook his head. “She just doesn’t believe it yet. She doesn’t believe I never loved her, or that I was willing to throw her to the Chancellor without a second thought—just for the chance of getting to run away with you.” The pitch of his voice raised. “I’d do it all again.”
“But she’s pregnant,” I said, turning to him face-to-face, the pain and anger at his betrayal bubbling up now that I really had the time to think about it. “How could you leave her?”
“I didn’t know she was pregnant,” he said, looking down.
“Would it have changed your mind if you had?”
“No.” He met my gaze steadily. “I still would have left her because all I ever wanted was you. You were the first person I felt anything for after glitching. I loved you before I even knew the name for it. Everyday I’d sit beside you, inhaling your scent, looking at your beautiful face. Every night, dreaming about you. You eclipsed everything else. It was you. Always you.”
“All you wanted was the power the Chancellor promised you,” I said, angry and sad.
“If that were true,” he said with a dark laugh, “I would never have left her, never tried to save us. She promised me the world, al
l the power, all the pleasures I could ever want, and I was willing to give it all up.”
He took a step closer to me and I flinched. Two Regulators moved silently in front of me, blocking Max.
“But at what price, Max?” I said, my eyes filling with tears. “You were willing to sacrifice Molla and Adrien, to leave them behind to the Chancellor’s monstrous plans. If you thought I could have lived with that, you never really knew me at all.”
“You were never going to know,” he whispered softly. “I was going to protect you from it all. We were going to live a life beyond your best dreams, you and me together forever. It would have been perfect. But then Adrien came and he was all you could see.” His voice turned bitter. “You were supposed to be mine.”
I shook my head at him incredulously. I’d been so reluctant to believe the truth when the Chancellor told me, but it had all been true. Every single horrible detail. And still, he wasn’t repentant. He didn’t even think he’d done anything wrong.
“Maybe you’ve told these lies to yourself so many times you believe them,” I hissed, suddenly furious with him. “But I was never going to love you in the way you wanted me to. And the fact that you would have lied and manipulated me, allowing us to be free and happy at the expense of others, trying to force me into feeling something for you—you’re no better than the Chancellor. And now…”
My voice broke but I kept his gaze, even as the tears spilled over. Max had been working with the Chancellor for months, spying on all of us, lying to us, willing to leave everyone behind— Oh god, Markan— My stomach dropped out from under me. I felt like sinking to the ground. We might make it out of the city, but the Chancellor would have Regulators right on our heels. We wouldn’t be able to get to my brother.
I shook my head at Max. He’d ruined all our plans. Without him my brother could have been safe. “I might be able to forgive you,” I said, my voice still trembling with anger, “maybe even someday trust you again, but you’ll never get what you want. I will never love you, Maximin.”
Max opened his mouth, taking a step backward as if I’d hit him. All his masks were gone and I could see the real Max, the hurt and shock and confusion on his face—like a little boy learning what pain felt like for the first time.
I instantly felt sorry, but before I could say anything, I heard rapid steps on the stairs behind us. I turned to see Adrien, biosuit in hand, and my body melted in relief and tiredness. It was almost over. Max and I could work out all this later when things had calmed down and we’d both had some rest.
I stepped into the biosuit and Adrien helped me secure the helmet.
“Come on,” Adrien yelled. “Let’s get out of here. You and you.” He pointed at two Regulators. “Carry her up.”
A burly brown-haired Regulator swept me up into his arms. His blue jumpsuit was in tatters, so my face was pressed up against the hard alloy of his metal-reinforced chest. He nodded to another one of the Regulators, who came up beside him.
“Come on, Max.” My voice was muted through the helmet, but still loud enough to be heard. I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open any longer, but I managed to wave weakly at him to follow.
His jaw tensed and I saw him swallow hard. His fists were clenched at his sides. “No, actually, I think I’ll stay,” he said calmly.
“Max,” I said impatiently, looking awkwardly over the shoulder of the man carrying me. “Don’t be a fool. She’ll deactivate you.”
He stood up and backed away from the Regulators, a bitter smile on his face. “No, I don’t think she will,” he said.
“Wait!” I said, suddenly realizing Max was being serious. I was angry with him, sure, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my best friend. I was already forced to leave Markan behind, I couldn’t leave Max too. “No, you have to come! Max!”
Max gave a slight, hard smile. “And do what? Join your little band of Resistance fighters? Spend every day watching someone else live the life I always wanted with you? Don’t think so.” He half-turned, then paused.
“But, watch out for yourself, okay?” His voice had softened ever so slightly. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. The Chancellor’s going to crush the Uppers, and then the Resistance. They’re nothing compared to the power she’s gathering.”
He stared at me a moment longer, all the pain and anger and betrayal reflected in the pool of water floating in his eyes.
It felt like I was losing a part of myself. Max.
“Come on,” Adrien yelled down to the Regulator holding me. “We have to go now or we’ll never get out.”
The man nodded once and then we were moving, my body jarring with every step, before I realized what had just happened.
“Wait, I—” I yelled, struggling to be let down. But the Regulator holding me just kept going.
“Max!” I screamed again, straining in the Regulator’s arms, my heart sinking with every step we took away from him. “Max!”
I tried to look back, reaching out in the direction of Max’s retreating back, but soon all I could see was the solid darkness in the stairwell. The sound of heavy feet on the stairs surrounded me, and then, before I would have thought possible, the door at the top was opened and moonlight filled the night sky. It was the first time I’d ever seen the moon but all I could think about was the stubborn boy we’d left behind at the bottom of the stairs.
Chapter 24
THE BUMP OF THE ROUGH ROAD jolted me against the door. Adrien reached over to steady me. I stayed by the window, staring numbly out at the slowly lightening earth. It was almost morning. The group had split up at a hastily arranged transfer spot, and Adrien, his mom, several of the ex-Regulators, and I were all in the back of a supply van heading south.
We were safe for now, but in the quiet van, everything that had happened that night kept whirling around and around in my mind like a fan blade: After all my promises to myself, there’d been no way to escape with Markan. How long would it be before we could reinfiltrate the city to get him out? And Max. What would become of him? Would he go back to the Chancellor? Was she hurting him even now as we drove away to safety? Or had she instantly put him under her compulsion, making him do whatever she told him to without question?
“Hey.” Adrien’s voice broke into my thoughts. “You’ve got that look on your face again—the one that says you’re worrying about all the things you can’t control.”
“I just can’t believe he didn’t come,” I whispered, still staring out the window. My voice sounded strange coming through the face mask.
“Max made his own decisions,” Adrien said, “and he’s the one who has to live with them.”
I shook my head, wanting to argue, but Adrien put his hands on both sides of my face mask and turned my head gently away from the window to face him.
“We’re out. We’re safe.” His voice was rough and earnest and suddenly I could see that the past few days had taken their toll on him as well. “Can’t that be miracle enough for today?”
The blue-green of his eyes caught the first rays of the morning sun, shining brilliant like a beacon. The radiance of color and life in his eyes made my breath catch in my chest. I suddenly thought of all the things he’d taught me about the world, and about love, joy, and pain—about what it meant to be fully alive, for better and for worse.
I nodded. “Yes,” I said, my voice high and almost breaking. “It’s more than enough.”
I managed a wan smile, then settled my head down against his chest, snuggling underneath the crook of his arm as well as I could in the bulky suit. He put his arm over me, rubbing my back occasionally.
“Look.” He pointed out the window at the sun. “Your first dawn. In the Old World, they used to think dawn was a symbol of hope.”
I entwined my gloved hand with his, looking out at the rolling hills as the rays of sunlight splashed outward, slowly erasing all the night’s dark shadows.
I didn’t know what kind of future we could possibly h
ave in such a dangerous world. I didn’t know if I’d be able to survive on the Surface, if we’d be able to find a safe place for me to live free of allergens and the Chancellor’s detection. I was told the Rez had spent weeks preparing a temporary space for me to live, but everyone’s faces go blank and tight whenever I ask if we’ll make it there in time. If we do, I still didn’t know if we would be able to save Markan, or Max. I didn’t know what to expect from the Resistance, or its band of glitching misfits. I didn’t know if it would ever be possible to stop the Chancellor or upend the Link system so people in the Community could be free forever.
For the moment I felt safe, but the battle was only just beginning, and not even Adrien could tell me how it would end. I turned from the window, choosing to focus on the things I did know. I loved Adrien, he loved me, and for now, that was enough.
“Hope, huh?” I thought about it, then slowly nodded. “I think they were right.”
Zoe might be free, but she is far from safe.
The next book in this action-packed series will keep you guessing at every turn.
OVERRIDE
Zoe thinks she’s escaped, but she’s about to face a greater danger than she’d ever imagined. Joined by new team of powerful teen glitchers, Zoe should be stronger than ever, but her powers are failing her. And as the Chancellor’s greatest enemy, there’s a target on her back, and not everyone on her team can be trusted.
“A taut, irresistible novel, Glitch delivers a pitch-perfect blend of action, romance, and twists that take your breath away.”—Andrea Cremer, New York Times bestselling author of the Nightshade series, on Glitch
Available February 2013
St. Martin’s Griffin
www.stmartins.com
www.heatheranastasiu.com
Copyright © 2012 by Heather Anastasiu
Chapter 1
MY HEART POUNDED in my ears. The low humming sound, muffled by the wall, was just loud enough to hear over my shallow, panicked breaths. I sat up on my loft bed and paused to listen before carefully easing myself down the ladder. The pads of my bare feet landed on the cold floor. There was barely enough space for me to stand up in the eight-by-six-foot room, but in order to reach the far wall I had to squeeze between the treadmill that pulled down from the wall and the shower/toilet combo at the foot of my bed.