Override g-2

by Heather Anastasiu

  A sudden explosion of pain across my cheek startled me back into my body. Adrien’s mom had slapped me. I blinked and looked at her as she raised her arm to strike me again. Tyryn grabbed her, trapping her arms against her chest to hold her back.

  “I knew you’d get him hurt!” she shrieked, fighting to get free from Tyryn. “I tried to keep him away from all this. But he wouldn’t listen, because of you!”

  Everyone’s attention was turned toward us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max disappear. Literally disappear.

  One moment his body had been clearly there on the ground, and the next there was only air. I gasped and lurched forward to the space where he’d just been.

  Tyryn turned to his com again. “Lockdown! Full facility lockdown,” he said. It lit up everyone’s forearm panels and came over the loudspeaker. “Intruder alert. I repeat, intruder alert. Everyone rendezvous at the training center and await further instructions.”

  Tyryn ran out the door, Rand and Juan on his heels. I raced after them.

  “Max can make himself look like anyone, so don’t get separated,” I shouted. “And he can somehow make himself invisible now too. Make sure to com me if you bump into something that shouldn’t be there.” It felt ludicrous even as I said it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Jilia had said that most glitcher powers expanded as we grew into them. In a way it made sense. His power manipulated the minds of the people around him. Instead of making you see another person when you looked at him, now he could make you see nothing at all.

  We turned a corner and saw City, Xona, and Ginni sprinting toward us.

  “Stop right there!” Tyryn yelled to the approaching girls. “Don’t move!”

  Xona stopped immediately, grabbing the elbows of the girls on either side of her. “What is it?” Xona asked from about fifteen paces away.

  “It’s Max,” I said hurriedly. “He’s infiltrated the Foundation. He could be impersonating anyone.”

  “Have you been out of one another’s presence for even a moment?” Tyryn asked, eyeing each of them intensely.

  Ginni and Xona exchanged a look, then stepped back from City.

  “What?” City asked in an affronted voice. “You think I’m him?”

  “We just met you in the hall.” Xona’s voice was cold. “You were alone.”

  “We don’t have time. Show us your power!” I yelled over the both of them.

  City turned back to my group and huffed. She raised her middle finger, electricity exploding from the single fingertip in a spiral up to the ceiling.

  “It’s not her,” I shouted, sprinting forward again, passing them and heading toward the central exits. My mind raced. The compound might be in lockdown, but if Max had been here for a month and a half already, he could have found a way to subvert the security system.

  Then I frowned. I was sure I knew something about the security at the Foundation. The more I thought about it, though, the less I could remember. It was like the thought teased at the edges of my mind, but whenever I tried to look at it directly, it was gone. But obviously Max must have encountered some problem too, or else the Chancellor would have already come for us.

  My mind flashed to every time Max had held my hand or kissed me since the raid, pretending to be Adrien. I felt sick to my stomach. I forced my legs to keep moving forward. As I turned into the foyer leading to the elevator, I saw General Taylor standing right inside the barrier security door. Her hair was still wet from the wash-down chambers.

  “Don’t move!” I shouted.

  Taylor swirled around to me, surprise on her face. “What’s going on?”

  She took a step toward me, but I held up a hand. “Stay back.”

  Footsteps filled the space behind me as Tyryn, the Professor, and a group of Rez fighters came in.

  “Stop,” I said over my shoulder. “It could be Max.”

  “What’s going on here?” the General asked. “I came back as soon as the remote alarm for my office was triggered and now the compound’s on lockdown? I barely made it inside myself before the security door shut.” She glared expectantly at all our uncertain faces. “Well?”

  “Max would have to come this way to escape,” I said, eyeing Taylor. “Which is conveniently right when she shows up. The security door could have trapped him inside before he could leave.”

  Taylor’s face became rigid. “Max. You mean Maximin? The shape-shifter who works for the Chancellor? He is the security breach?”

  The Professor stepped forward again. I put a hand on his sleeve to stop him, but he pulled away. “Ask her something only the real General would know,” I said. “And Tyryn, restrain her while he does it.”

  “How quick you are to fulfill your destiny,” Taylor said with a bitter smile at me. “I leave for a day and suddenly you’re the one barking orders?”

  My face reddened.

  Tyryn pulled Taylor’s arms behind her back while the Professor leaned in to ask his question. He spoke quietly in her ear, so we couldn’t hear.

  She pursed her lips. “Top of my left thigh,” she said, not bothering to whisper. “Now let me go!” She pulled against Tyryn.

  The Professor nodded.

  As soon as Tyryn let her go, she straightened her tunic. “Now report about Maximin.”

  “He infiltrated six weeks ago,” Tyryn said. “So far we haven’t yet ascertained if he has been able to communicate with the Chancellor.”

  “We’ve got to get this door open.” I pounded the door in frustration. He could be long gone already. “His powers changed. He can make himself invisible now. He could have gotten through the security door before it closed and run right past you without being seen.”

  The General turned to Tyryn. “The whole Foundation could be compromised. Get our best techers to the security hub. Maximin will have covered his tracks, but see if there’s any trace of his outgoing communications. Anything. And get someone up here to open this door!”

  Tyryn nodded, turning back to his com to relay the order. Taylor turned to me.

  “Didn’t you report seeing Maximin during the raid?” Taylor asked. “You said he was tied up when you left him behind!”

  Her words stopped me short. “His powers are way more extensive than I ever knew. I don’t know if he was keeping it from me or if they hadn’t developed yet last year.” My mind raced, working it out. “His power affects the minds of the people around him. If he can make himself disappear completely, then he can probably project his face onto other people’s. That boy I saw could have been anyone.”

  I breathed out and closed my eyes. I kept seeing the building collapse after we escaped. Where had Adrien been when it fell? Did he survive? Max said the Chancellor wanted Adrien’s power. She was the one who’d rigged the building to explode. That had to mean she would have protected him somehow. Max would have the answers.

  I turned back to the door and tried to project my telek beyond it to see if I could feel the shape of Max’s body, but my mind was too chaotic. I barely made it halfway up the elevator shaft before it cut out again. I took a deep breath. I had to get to the centered, calm place where I could access my power steadily.

  A boy with round cheeks and unkempt dark hair ran in. He seemed somehow familiar, but I couldn’t remember his name. He inserted a drive into the wall near the door projection panel. The heavy door slowly began moving in its tracks just as I got hold of my telek again.

  “Stop!” I suddenly screamed and ran forward. The boy jumped, pulling out the drive so that the door closed again.

  “What is it?” the boy asked nervously.

  I closed my eyes, centering myself and managing to calmly call my telek. Something didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t pinpoint what.

  “There are only ten of us in this room,” I finally said, blinking hard and trying to sift through my confused overlapping senses, between what I saw and what I felt.

  “And?” Tyryn asked, shifting so his hand was on his weapon.<
br />
  “I feel eleven bodies.”

  Chapter 26

  “WHERE?” TAYLOR ASKED. Everyone swung around to look at the people around them.

  I closed my eyes, trying to feel out the shape I’d sensed a moment ago. But there was too much movement in the room. I couldn’t track down which one was Max.

  “Everyone stop moving!” I shouted in frustration.

  They stilled, but then I was thrown by the entire lack of movement. Where did he go?

  I opened my eyes and tried to match up the objects I sensed with the things I saw. I gasped. “There!” I pointed. “Hunched by the door!”

  He bolted toward the hallway at the sound of my voice.

  I ran after him. I sent my telek ahead and locked on to him as he sprinted down the hallway. It was easy now that there was no one else around. I expanded outward as we ran, keeping the projection of the whole corridor in my head. My fury focused my telek. I was single-minded. When Max ducked into the training center, I easily followed him.

  I knew what he was doing—trying to get lost among the shapes of all the other people—but I wouldn’t let him. Jilia and City looked up in surprise as I ran past, but my focus was only on Max. He was still invisible to everyone else, but I’d locked my telek around him. I knew when he looked over his shoulder. I could feel the adrenaline pulsing off him. I could probably use my power to stop him mid-step, but I didn’t dare do anything that might split my focus.

  He made it out of the training center right as I got close. The door dropped shut behind him, and I slammed into it with my full body, unable to stop in time. The pain disrupted my telek for a second. I impatiently clicked the door open, the whole time feeling beyond it. I locked on to him again as he slipped through the next door into the equipment room. He was probably counting on me continuing to chase down the hallway, not realizing he’d stopped to hide. He’d either underestimated me or was too desperate to think straight. All he’d really done was trap himself.

  I opened the equipment room door, then tore it off the tracks and lodged it mangled sideways into the door frame so it wouldn’t open again. Max wasn’t going anywhere.

  “What have you done?” I screamed, barely conscious of the wild rage in my voice.

  Only silence greeted me, but I could feel his form huddled in the far corner. I lifted my arms and shook the shelves around him with my telek.

  He flattened down on the ground.

  I lifted one arm, teleking a net around him and then hefting him upward by his neck. I heard a gasp of pain and walked closer, my arm still raised.

  He flickered in and out of invisibility, probably from the shock of pain, and I could once again see his face. His hands were at his throat, trying to pry the invisible grip of my power off him. I threw him against the wall hard and pinned him there. I tightened my fingers, cinching his throat closed and lifting him higher off the ground.

  “No more games. No more manipulation. Just the truth.” My voice was ice. “What has she done with him?”

  I dropped him to the ground so he could answer. He doubled over gasping for breath. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice raw. “I only know she always planned to keep him alive. She needed his visions. I was just supposed to switch places with him, drop him in the bomb-safe bunker, and then get on the transport with any survivors so I could infiltrate the Rez.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Look, Zoe, you gotta believe me. I’ll tell you everything now, I swear.”

  I scoffed. “Believe you? You’re the Chancellor’s spy. You helped her try to kill me during the raid!”

  He bobbed his head and looked down. “I asked the Chancellor to use her compulsion to make me stop loving you. And she tried. For a while it worked. I hated you. But then,” he looked back up at me, “when I saw you again at the raid and the Chancellor wasn’t around to compel me, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let you die. I cut the fuse that led to the explosives in the second half of the building. I’m trying to tell you I’ve changed.” His voice was pleading. “Coming back here with you, getting away from the Chancellor’s compulsion, I feel different. I see now that I was wrong—”

  “Liar. You’re only saying that now because you’ve been caught!” I yelled. “Did you manage to get any messages to the Chancellor?”

  Max paused, breathing heavily like he was trying to get his emotions in check. “I tried. I planned to use my own Link signal to contact the Chancellor until I found out that part of the security system here jams all wireless signals. I started looking for other ways to rig the system, but there’s a glitcher boy who’s always in the security hub. Any headway I’d make in my plans to get a message out, I’d forget the next day because of him. I started writing everything down.”

  Max rubbed his throat and took a deep swallow. “But I was never a very good techer and Simin had insane redundancies for monitoring outgoing packet streams. I couldn’t find a way to get past them, especially while he was there and always watching.”

  “What about the secret security project you were working on?” I asked, trying to reign in my anger and keep my voice as calm and reasonable as possible.

  “There never was any project. I just made that up as an excuse for why I was busy all the time. I couldn’t handle being around you at first. I was still so angry.”

  “And the kitchen fire,” I said, clenching my hands into fists. “That was you, wasn’t it? Not Saminsa.”

  He nodded. “A diversion. I tried to get a message out while everyone was distracted. But Simin had the system locked down while we were at lunch. He trusted me enough by that point to share the security codes, but like most things he told me, I forgot them before I had a chance to write them down. Then I learned that you were able to Link yourself at night when you sleep. I knew it had to mean they’d opened up a wireless channel just for your Link frequency. I came up with the idea of piggybacking off your signal. There was a transmitter hidden in the necklace I gave you that copied the frequency.”

  A rush of hatred choked me in spite of my determination to stay calm. He’d used me. Used my weaknesses and my trust. And then let it all fall on Saminsa. I ripped the necklace off and flung it to the floor.

  “And then you dared to pretend to be him. All this time. You let me kiss you. That date—” I shuddered even thinking about it and rubbed my lips harshly, as if I could scrub away all traces of him. I felt like mud had been wiped over every inch of my skin he’d touched. I squeezed my eyes closed. To think that I’d mourned him when I thought he’d died. Everyone else could see what I’d let myself be blind to—there had never been any redeeming qualities in the monster in front of me.

  “But I couldn’t bring myself to send the message, Zoe. I took the data from the necklace and was about to send the Chancellor a message. But then I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it, don’t you get it? I still love you.” He leaned toward me. I held up a hand, wrapping my power around him like a straight jacket to keep him away from me.

  “Why did you blame it on Saminsa then?”

  Max sighed, looking defeated. “Simin came in and saw the code ready on the screen, so I had to blame it on someone.”

  I gritted my teeth, trying to hold in all the pain. I tried to get to the peaceful place, tried to touch the shining calm like I was able to do in meditation practice. But all I could feel was rage.

  “Is that all?”

  He nodded. “I swear, Zoe, that’s all.”

  I grabbed him roughly by the arm and dragged him up off the floor. “If you try to get away again, I’ll kill you.”

  Max’s eyes widened. He looked at me like he didn’t know me, and it was true—he didn’t. I realized in that moment I was capable of much worse, and that if something happened to Adrien, I might even enjoy it.

  He nodded slowly.

  “Good.” I forced him ahead of me with my grip like a steel band around his arm. The telek sang in my mind, a harsh screaming harmonic. I spoke into my arm com, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. “I’ve go
t him. Meet me in the Caf.” I pushed the mangled equipment room door out of the way and steered Max out into the hallway.

  Hurried footsteps pounded down the hallway toward us. I looked up just as a shrill voice called. “Max! Max!”

  Molla, stomach protruding far in front of her, was running straight toward us.

  “Stop,” I said, putting out an arm to keep her back with my power. Molla struggled like a wild animal against the soft invisible barrier my telek created. I heard more footsteps behind me and saw Cole and Juan running after her.

  Tears gleamed in Molla’s eyes. “They said you’ve been here all this time…”

  “I’m sorry,” Max said, his eyebrows knit in what looked like genuine remorse. But I knew him too well now. He slipped on masks like others did a fresh tunic. “I tried to talk to you, but you always turned me away.”

  “Because I thought you were Adrien!” she shouted. “You didn’t come back for me, did you? You came for her.” She spun on me, hatred in her eyes. “Why is it always her?”

  She launched herself at me, but Cole and Juan caught her and held her tight. She struggled against them.

  “Calm down, Molla, please,” Max said, pleading. “Think of the baby.”

  Juan looked at Cole. “Can you take her out of here?”

  Cole nodded and swept the weeping girl up into his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” Max called after her.

  Juan looked at Max with loathing, pulling out a syringe from his pocket. “Jilia gave me this. He deserves much worse.”

  “I’ll hold him still.” I turned to look at Max and poured my telek over him so he couldn’t move while Juan stepped closer and inserted the needle in his neck. “Take him to the Med Center and let Jilia know that Saminsa was innocent.”

  “Wait, Zoe, I’m so sorry,” Max said. “You have to believe me, I’m so sorry—”

  He slumped to the ground.