Glitch (36 page)

“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.

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 have 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.

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

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.

I moved silently. Only two people at the lab knew I hid right behind their walls, and today couldn’t be the day the rest of them found out. My life depended on it. The Resistance had been careful enough to erase the tiny alcove from the schematics. Officially, the room, just like me, didn’t exist.

I paused with my ear inches from the wall. In the three months I’d spent hidden in this confined space, I had come to know every sound. Learning them was a matter of habit almost as much as it was a matter of survival. I paused, focusing intently on the rhythmic
click-click-click
. I leaned my forehead against the wall, letting out the breath I held. Just an ordinary sound, a normal shift in the perfectly regulated air systems. I should have known. I was in one of the few places with the kind of heavy air-filtration systems I needed to survive. It worked like clockwork, and without it, almost any Surface allergen would kill me quickly, thanks to the Chancellor.

I closed my eyes and my heart rate slowed. It was remarkable how quickly I could move from alarm to complete relaxation and back again. Another matter of habit.

I climbed slowly back up to my bed, feeling anxious. This alcove might be my safe haven, but sometimes it felt like a prison. The bed was too short to stretch out and the ceiling too low to sit up completely. The confinement was strangling. Sometimes I’d look at the walls and they seemed nearer than before, like the room was closing in on me, inch by inch.

I slept during the day, for as many hours as I could, but time still stretched out endlessly. Lately I’d begun parsing the days into manageable thirty-minute pieces to make the long and painful monotony less overwhelming—half an hour drawing, jogging on the treadmill, unfolding and then refolding my clothes, pacing back and forth across the narrow floor, counting the objects in my room, studying the Resistance’s history texts—the real histories, not the lies we learned in the Community. And training, endless training.

In the early mornings I’d spend countless more half-hours staring at the cool slab of ceiling above me, watching as the thin string hanging from the air duct blew back and forth in the allergen-free air. In my mind I replayed the past over and over and wondered how it could have turned out differently.

I closed my eyes and swallowed. I just had to make it long enough to get there.

It was maddening to sit here knowing Adrien and the Rez were out there fighting the Chancellor and the Community while I was stuck caged in this tiny room. My fingers itched to unleash the power locked inside me and fight to protect the people I loved. I was tired of being the helpless prisoner. I wanted to feel like I had some control again. But I couldn’t even control my power anymore. When we escaped the Community, I had reached into people’s bodies and crumpled the miniscule hardware in their brains. I had ripped heavy lock-down doors off their tracks. But now …

Every day I trained. I sat in the tiny space and worked and strained until I wanted to cry out in pain. But it was no use. I’d stare at my tablet for ten minutes straight, willing it to move just an inch, but it wouldn’t budge. Not because the power wasn’t there. Exactly the opposite—there was too much of it. I could feel it building up inside of me even now, pressing against the backs of my eyes and making my hands twitch.

I was having one of those restless early mornings. I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at the drawings papering the wall by my bed. Mom, Dad, my younger brother Markan. The people I’d left behind. And the people I’d lost. Max.

I reached out and touched the picture of Max’s face. I’d tried to capture how he looked when I first knew him, when everything had been simpler and we’d been friends. We’d been drones together, subjects in the Community where we were tightly controlled by emotion-suppressing hardware. It was a dangerous place for anyone who managed to break free, but somehow we’d found each other. We’d protected each other as we explored the new unnatural powers that developed as a side effect of the hardware glitches. I’d trusted him, before I even fully understood what that word meant.

But that was all a long time ago now. That was before I’d known that someone you think you know can look you in the face and tell you lies.