Override (Glitch)

by Heather Anastasiu

  “No!” I screamed.

  For a split second I saw the choice laid out before me. I could use the last tiny bit of telek left in my body to kill Chancellor Bright, but Taylor and Adrien would both fall to their deaths. Two lives lost in exchange for taking down the Chancellor forever. It was what Taylor would have wanted. She’d spoken so often of the need to be willing to sacrifice the lives of the people I loved for the good of all.

  But I wasn’t her. The second Adrien disappeared off the edge of the roof, I knew that there’d never really been any choice. He was my life.

  I sprinted toward the spot where he’d jumped and dropped on my stomach to look over the edge. Adrien plummeted down, growing smaller every millisecond as the Chancellor’s transport took off behind me.

  “Adrien!”

  The Chancellor was wrong. I would give up my life for his. I let go of my mast cells completely and cast the telek down toward him like a lasso. He bobbed forty stories below, held only by the invisible line of my power.

  I hauled him back up, trying to ignore my swelling tongue and keep only the projection of him in my mind.

  Twenty stories.

  Ten.

  My throat had swollen all the way back up by the time he was only one floor away. Just a little farther. My body was on fire. It didn’t matter.

  But then the projection cube in my mind started blinking in and out. Adrien dropped a few feet as I lost control before I caught him again. I tugged him back upward and reached out, leaning farther off the building. Bright spots appeared at the edges of my vision.

  My gloved fingers scrabbled to get a solid grip on his ankles, but right as I did, the projection cube blinked out completely.

  He slipped an inch, and I poured every inch of strength I had left into holding on to him.

  It wasn’t enough.

  We only managed a second of equilibrium, me holding tight to his leg before I was yanked forward by his weight off the building.

  And then we were both free-falling.

  Terror spiked. Every millisecond we flew through the air, I knew I was supposed to be doing something. I was supposed to save Adrien.

  The wind was like a freight train in my ears and every millisecond the ground rushed closer. I tried to reach out with my telek. But I’d used every drop of energy trying to grab Adrien at the top of the building. My throat closed up and my tongue swelled.

  I had nothing left.

  There was nothing I could do.

  Strange disconnected images flashed in my mind. Adrien’s bright blue-green eyes. The first time we’d met in the crowded Market Corridor. Our first kiss.

  Any moment now, we’d hit. I closed my eyes and gripped Adrien’s leg harder. At least we’d be together at the end.

  But suddenly our momentum slowed down, like we’d landed on a sea of cotton. I opened my swollen eyes in confusion. Blinding blue light surrounding us, cradling us on all sides. I didn’t know when I’d last taken a breath. Had I died?

  “Get them inside!” someone shouted. “The armada’s right behind us!”

  The blue light dissipated around us. In my disorientation, I watched in bewilderment as Saminsa pulled Adrien to his feet. Buildings rose up on all sides, and the Rez’s transport was parked in the center of an intersection.

  Rand saw me and grinned. “Did you miss us?”

  Cole jumped out of the transport while Xona held a rocket launcher over her shoulder and fired at a group of Regs running down the street toward us. Cole scooped me and Adrien up, one in each arm, just as the explosion lit up the street behind us.

  “Saminsa, more Regs are coming, we need another orb!” Cole called as he deposited us inside the back of the transport.

  Saminsa immediately raised her arms and blue light exploded from her fingertips. It looked like the same light that had created the otherworldly net to catch us, except this time it expanded outward. Before the orb could encompass the entire transport, a Regulator came from nowhere and leapt toward the still open door. Xona was reloading and couldn’t fire. Cole threw himself in front of her as red light exploded from the charging Reg’s laser weapon.

  The instant before it hit, Saminsa’s blue orb expanded and made a shield. The laser fire hit the barrier just an inch from Cole’s face and dissipated harmlessly, absorbed by the blue light. Xona stared up at Cole in disbelief as Rand slammed the back of the transport shut.

  “Go, Henk, get us out of here,” Tyryn said, looking out the window. “Two more armada ships are flying in from the north.”

  My muscles started shuddering again. I was on the edge of consciousness, darkness threatening to swoop in. Tyryn’s face was suddenly over mine. “We brought another epi infuser,” he said, pushing my hair back from my face.

  I felt a bite of fire in my chest. I jerked away from the hands holding me down as the blaze spread through my whole body. I wheezed and clutched my heart, and for the first time in who knows how many minutes, air whooshed through the small space that had opened in my throat and into my lungs.

  Tyryn helped me lean back. I gasped and finally got a full breath. The transport jarred beneath us as we launched off the ground.

  “There’s three of ’em now!” Henk shouted.

  I felt the momentum as our transport rose straight up into the air. Nausea and dizziness swarmed me, but I managed to keep my eyes open. As we lifted past the top of the buildings, I saw three fully loaded armada transports waiting in the air. They launched another volley of laser fire. The lasers rippled harmlessly into the blue orb still surrounding our vehicle.

  “This one’s disintegrating,” Saminsa yelled from where she stood in the center aisle.

  “Attack as soon as she releases it!” Henk said.

  City and Rand lined up shoulder to shoulder and lowered the long window running along the side of the transport. Air rushed in as soon as it was open.

  “Now!” Saminsa called, shifting her body forward. The blue orb expanded like a spherical wave outward. City sent a giant spiral of electricity in its wake. Right as the blue orb dissipated, City’s electricity circled around one of the attack transports, slowly weaving into a web. Sparks and explosions crackled through the air.

  Rand held out his arms too, and the air wavered like water as he sent out an intense wave of heat. The outer hull of the attack transport closest to us began to melt.

  Saminsa launched a small burning blue orb toward the third transport, and it hit with an explosion that rocked the whole thing backward. It toppled into the transport Rand was working on, sending them both spiraling into the buildings below. The next moment, the transport City attacked dropped from the air like a dead weight too.

  Bright explosions burst from below us where the transports had hit, but Henk already had us speeding toward the horizon before I could even get a good look.

  City closed the window, letting out a loud whoop. “Did you see that?”

  Ginni laughed and hugged her. Rand grinned and clapped Saminsa on the back. “That was amazing!”

  My mind was clearing a little now that the epi had taken effect. I pulled my tired body over to where Adrien was buckled in near the front of the transport.

  I hugged him hard, fat tears seeping out of my swollen eyes as I thought about General Taylor and how close we’d all come to suffering the same fate. “We’re safe.” I clung to his skinny frame. “We made it.”

  He didn’t hug me back.

  “Adrien?” I pulled away.

  That was when I finally looked into his eyes.

  And knew something was horribly wrong.

  His eyes had no vibrancy. Even the normal bright blue-green hue seemed leeched out of them.

  “Adrien?” Even though he was looking straight at me, I wasn’t sure he saw me at all.

  “Adrien?” My voice raised to a hysterical pitch. “Adrien, you’re scaring me.”

  He continued to stare ahead dumbly.

  I grabbed his hand and put it to my beating heart. “It’s Zoe, talk to m
e.”

  “Zoe,” he echoed, his voice hollow and lifeless. “Why didn’t you save me?”

  Chapter 29

  ADRIEN SAT ON JILIA’S MED TABLE as she finished her diagnostic. His mother sat beside him, squeezing his hand. Deep brown circles ringed his eyes, and I couldn’t look away from the barely healed scars lining his head where his skull had been cut open.

  “Adrien,” Jilia said, her tone falsely bright as she lowered the imaging panel. “You’ve done very well. Please go back to your dorm room and rest now.”

  He stood up and did what she said. All he ever did now was follow orders. Nothing else. He’d stand for hours if no one told him to sit down.

  Rand was waiting to escort Adrien back to his dorm room.

  “What is it?” Sophia asked the doctor anxiously.

  Jilia swallowed, then pulled out a projection tablet that loaded a 3-D image of Adrien’s head.

  “He’s had multiple operations. From the bit that he is able to remember and relate, the Chancellor had him under compulsion for over a month. Until he had a vision of what he thought was Zoe’s death.” She looked at me. “He foresaw you going into the allergy attack with no one there to save you. He knew if he told the Chancellor, he’d be telling her how to kill you. His determination not to harm you somehow enabled him to finally break her control over his mind. He began successfully fighting back and refusing to tell her his visions anymore. That was when she started in on the surgical options.”

  I felt numb as she spoke. This had happened to him because of me.

  “What, as some kind of torture?” Adrien’s mother asked, stricken.

  “She did torture him at first to try to get the answers out of him.” Jilia looked down. “But in the end, she lobotomized him. She cut out portions of his brain, including almost the entire amygdala. He has his memories, but can no longer attach emotion to them. Or to anything he experiences. After the operations…” she swallowed again. “After the last operation it appears the Chancellor’s compulsion did indeed work on him again. But he’d stopped having visions altogether.” She looked at me. “The only reason the Chancellor even kept him alive was as collateral against you. She knew that he had to be alive for Ginni’s power to locate him, so she could draw you into the trap.”

  “Is he ever going to be my Adrien again?” Sophia asked. I held my breath while I waited for Jilia’s answer.

  She looked at the floor again.

  “Tell me!” Sophia said.

  “The developments in organ-regrowth technology have been promising over the last fifty years, but no one has ever succeeded at regrowing entire portions of the brain. Any replication processes will be long and slow. We’ll begin right away, but I can’t make either of you any promises. I’m so sorry.”

  I stepped back, stunned.

  “But you’re a healer,” Sophia shouted. “Can’t you do something?”

  The sorrow on Jilia’s face clear. “I’m sorry, Sophia.” She reached out to put a hand on Sophia’s shoulder, but Sophia ripped her arm away from the contact. She spun and hurried from the room, I think so we wouldn’t see her cry.

  I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had to get out of here too. Sophia was gone when I got to the hallway, and my steps echoed loudly in the empty space. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Regardless of everything Jilia had said, I knew Adrien and I were destined to be together. There was supposed to be a happy ending. Adrien and I, standing in the sunlight at the end of the war. But then again, Adrien had never told me that’s how it would end. In the vision he’d shared with me, I was in the sunlight, but I’d been all alone. And I’d been running toward danger, not celebrating victory.

  I stopped when I came to the T in the hallway, looking up in surprise when I realized my feet had carried me to Adrien’s dorm. I stood outside the door for a moment, preparing myself for what was on the other side, then pushed the button and stepped in.

  Adrien sat at the study table, staring at the wall. My heart tightened in my chest at the sight of him. He looked so broken, but the strong cut of his nose and his rugged jaw were still so familiar. This was the boy I loved. Jilia had to be wrong. Even if the Chancellor had removed part of his brain, surely Adrien was still in there somewhere. We were more than our physical parts, more than our electrical synapses or brain tissue; that was what Adrien always said. That’s what Cole had taught me. We had souls.

  I sat down in the chair opposite him and reached for his hand. He let me take it. Maybe if we touched for long enough, it would spark him back to life. The memory of the diagrams Jilia had shown us popped up in my mind, but I expelled the images.

  This was Adrien. My Adrien. Our love could surmount anything. He’d proven it already when he’d thrown off the yoke of the Chancellor’s compulsion. It shouldn’t have been possible, but his love for me was stronger even than her ability. He could find his way back to me again, I knew it.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  He didn’t look up at me. His hand was limp in mine. “The doctor says I am unwell.”

  “You’re going to be fine.” I tried to smile, but I was fighting back tears. “We just have to give it some time.”

  He didn’t say anything or nod.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I leaned in.

  “Yes.”

  I swallowed, gripping his hand tighter. “Why did you go on that raid? Why did you leave the Foundation at all after you’d seen the visions of what would happen to you?”

  “I had other visions, of you and me together at the Foundation. Several of them had not yet occurred, so I deduced that my capture would not be until later.”

  I felt hope flower in my belly. “So they’ll still come true?”

  He shook his head, but it looked like a mechanical movement, sharp jerks back and forth. “No. It was not me that I saw. It was Maximin wearing my face.”

  The bloom inside me wilted, replaced by an involuntary shudder. It was cruel and unfair. All those moments that should have been Adrien’s and mine had been shared instead with Max. I felt another rush of choking hatred for Max. He’d been locked up in a room on the lower level and was kept under constant supervision. It was far better than he deserved. If Sophia or I had our way, he wouldn’t be treated so humanely.

  “You thought you had more time,” I said, my heart breaking.

  “That is not the only reason,” he said. “I could not interfere with the causality chain. If I did not rescue Saminsa on the raid, she would not have been able to save you when you fell from the roof.”

  “You idiot,” I said, feeling guilt burn through my veins like fire. He’d gone because of me. Risked his safety for me. And worse, the only reason Saminsa had even needed to save me was because Adrien had gotten captured. If he’d only stayed home, none of it would have mattered. In trying to make sure one vision happened, he’d caused the circumstances leading up to it.

  I swallowed down my grief. At least he was responding to me. That was what I needed to focus on.

  “Do you know who the red-haired glitcher was in that hallway?”

  “He creates hallucinations based on a subject’s fears and desires,” Adrien explained in a completely blank monotone. “While your mind was busy in the world he created around you, the weapons from the ceiling were supposed to take you down. But you detected them and the gun he had with him as well. The Chancellor was afraid if she sent out more soldiers to kill you, you’d sense them with your telek in spite of the hallucinations. So she sent me out to kill you instead by taking off your helmet. As I had foreseen.”

  “She said you saw me die.” My voice was quiet.

  “I saw flashes of you writhing on the ground, and then not moving at all. I assumed that indicated your death.” His voice was still so empty and cold. He talked about my death with the same emotion as one might when discussing the components of a propulsion engine.

  “Do you feel anything?” I asked, desperate for some spark of the old Adrien I’d known.
/>
  He raised his head, and his eyes met mine for a moment.

  This was it. This was the moment our souls would recognize each other and I’d see the light come back into his eyes.

  I clutched his hand tighter.

  See me, I wished silently. Look into my eyes and remember.

  “No,” he said. “I do not feel anything.” His gaze was just as empty as my brother’s had always been under the control of the V-chip.

  No. I couldn’t lose him like this. I would make him remember. I scooted my chair closer to his, ignoring the screech of the chair legs scraping across the ground. His eyes did not follow me, but instead stared at the spot I had previously been.

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see his hollow stare. I touched my lips to his.

  He didn’t respond. I kissed deeper, harder, pouring all of my desperation into it and willing him to remember.

  His lips didn’t move.

  I pulled back and searched his eyes. He still wasn’t looking at me.

  And I knew.

  We hadn’t saved him, not really. We’d brought back his body, but that was all. The Chancellor hadn’t given me a choice after all. She knew I was going to lose both Taylor and Adrien either way.

  My body trembled as I stepped back. “You should get some rest,” I said. “Everything will turn out okay.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt.

  And then I fled from the room. The tears I’d been holding back before now flooded my cheeks.

  My arm com buzzed.

  Compound-wide meeting in the training room, attendance is mandatory.

  I swiped the tears from my eyes and took a deep breath. The last thing I wanted right now was to be around other people, but I knew everyone was afraid for the future of the Rez. The General had been killed and the Chancellor had escaped again. We needed solidarity more than ever right now. I changed directions and headed toward the training center.

  By the time I got there, half the room was filled. All the Rez fighters from the lower level were there. Even the Professor stood in the corner. He looked just as bad as I felt, with his disheveled tunic and red-rimmed eyes. His grief was so thick it seemed to cloud the air around him.