Shutdown

by Heather Anastasiu

  Then I moved on to the Regs lined up behind them, poised to attack in case the glitchers failed. Their standing in such orderly ranks was actually a help to me as I reached through each body, counted down their vertebrae, and all at once, snapped their spines where I knew they could survive until spinal reattachment surgery was done. They immediately toppled to the ground in a single wave. I flew through the doorway and over all the slumped bodies.

  I wanted to stop so badly to see if Markan was among them. But I was exhausted and battered. Blood from my broken nose dripped into my mouth, the wound in my back had bled through the bandages, my right arm was broken, and the burns on my leg and torso screamed in pain with every move I made. Still, I had to keep going and find the Chancellor. I’d come this far and there was no going back. I cast my telek outward, hoping I could sense the shape of her body. Maybe now that I’d taken out most of the glitchers and Regs, she’d be easy to find. I dropped down to my feet and searched both the floors above and below with my telek.

  And then my heart lurched in my chest.

  There were hundreds upon hundreds of Regulators all around me. They filled the two elevators and all four stairwells, all heading to the ground floor with their heavy hydraulic-reinforced legs pounding out a terrifying rhythm.

  In the seconds before they burst out the doors at the end of the long wide hallway, I felt the shape of the building in my mind. It went down six floors, so deep that my telek became too fuzzy along the edges to tell if the Chancellor was down there. Even if I sensed the shape of a body, what if she’d already escaped and simply left a body double behind?

  I hadn’t seen or heard any transports taking off, though, and she had to know she’d be a vulnerable target if she tried to escape like that. I could easily bring a transport crashing to the ground before she ever made it out of my telek range. No, she would have stayed here and burrowed deep into the ground like the snake that she was. She’d trust in her army to protect her. It was how she operated—compelling others to do the dangerous work in her stead so she never had to get her hands dirty.

  Either way, there was no way I’d know for sure until I stood over her dead body, just as Adrien’s vision foretold. I tried not to think about the other fork he’d seen, the one where she stood over me.

  I snapped the cables on the elevators right before the doors opened and sent them tumbling down six stories. A loud crash echoed up the elevator tunnel right as the doors at the end of the corridor flew open. I could sense Regulators charging down the side hallways toward me from all sides of the mazelike central level. They’d make it to the main corridor where I stood in less than a minute. No more time for thinking.

  I closed my eyes and reached out with my good arm as if to guide my mental aim at the Regs pouring from the stairwell in front of me. At first I tried counting down their spines like I had with the others. I took down ten that way, then twenty, then forty. The downed Regs clogged the doorway from the stairwell, but I could feel more and more in the other hallways coming for me. As soon as they rounded the corner, they’d have a clear shot.

  There were too many. My breath came in and out in panicked gasps. I looked left and saw Regs make it around the corner and raise their laser-leaden arms. I only managed to avoid being hit straight in the chest by flinging a couple of downed Regs into the path of the oncoming fire.

  There was no time to be delicate with the lives of the Regs attacking me anymore. So much was happening, I couldn’t even spare the emotion to feel bad about it. I just started twisting their necks so hard a couple of heads came completely off. They thunked to the floor until they were kicked by the Regs charging by, like some macabre version of a children’s ball game.

  I swallowed down my horror at the gruesome sight and focused instead on disabling the attackers right as they turned the hallway corners and could get off a straight shot at me.

  But while I was staving them off and piling up a mountain of bodies, I wasn’t getting any closer to my goal. Splitting my focus in so many directions and using so much of my power at once was exhausting me quickly. A few moments here and there I even started to feel lightheaded from the pain and exertion. I couldn’t keep this up forever. The stairwells were choked with Regs, there was no way I’d be able to get down that way.

  Then I looked at the elevator doors right beside the stairwell. Of course. I could easily drop down the six-story opening and get to the Chancellor with only minimal obstruction.

  If I could get to the elevators.

  I simply didn’t have enough left in me to keep taking out Regs from every direction simultaneously. I had to switch tactics if I was going to survive this.

  I yanked ten of the fallen Regs closer and then held them shoulder to shoulder around me, creating a monstrous shield out of their dead bodies. I stacked up another layer of ten outside those, then let go of my focus on all the Regs coming at me from behind.

  I heard laser fire start to rip into the bodies at my back. The armor coating the Regs had could withstand laser blasts only up to a certain point. But with enough concentrated fire, they’d start to disintegrate. I had to work quickly. I flew forward, making sure to keep my shield intact around me. With fewer targets to focus on, I was able to move faster down the long corridor. I reached the elevator doors and wrenched them open with my telek.

  I leapt down the opening, letting my shield of dead Regs fall behind me. I dropped quickly and then slowed my speed. Shunt, I’d forgotten the elevator was still lodged in the bottom of the shaft from where I’d crashed it earlier. I was going to have to waste more energy getting through.

  I could feel the Regs above me pushing through the open elevator doors. I took them out as quickly as I could, hoping I’d clog up the opening so no more could get through. But all I managed to do was send several Regs tumbling through the opening. I caught them right before they fell on top of me. The elevator doors from other levels were opening too, with more Regs leaning down to fire at me. I yanked them through as well, snapping their necks as they fell. I kept them suspended overhead, building another shield.

  I tried to split my focus again to rip off the ceiling of the elevator below me. But I was already so depleted, the exertion sent a searing pain through my head. I roared in anger and pain and managed to tear away a small portion of the elevator’s top. I quickly disabled the Regs who’d survived the fall, then dropped through the opening. The elevator was little more than a steel cage. The huge bodies of the fallen Regs covered every inch of ground. I was forced to step on top of them while I pushed the elevator door open.

  As much as my body begged me to stop and rest, I forced myself to keep moving. My eyes stung and when I wiped at them, my hand came away covered in blood from a head wound I hadn’t even realized I had. I blinked several times as black spots darted across my vision. I grabbed the doorway of the elevator to steady myself. The anger had drained out of me. Grim determination was all I had left. I winced in pain as I dragged myself out of the elevator and into the small six-by-six-foot concrete entryway that led to a door of triple-layered reinforced steel. I could feel more Regs on the other side of the thick door, but thankfully, it didn’t feel like many, only about forty.

  Still, at this point, forty seemed like two hundred. I sagged against the concrete wall while I crushed, twisted, and snapped all of their necks until I finally felt no more movement. There were only two figures left standing, huddling at the end of the corridor beyond the door. I could tell by the shape of them that neither was a Reg. The Chancellor must be keeping a glitcher with her. I shuddered, knowing that if she kept a glitcher as a personal bodyguard, it wasn’t anyone I wanted to face.

  I tossed the smaller body against the wall and yanked the weapons out of the Chancellor’s hands before I started working on the door. If I’d been at full strength, I could have ripped it off without a thought. As it was, I had to take almost half a minute pouring my telek outward and then yanking several times before it burst free.

  I stepp
ed through, careful to keep most of my weight on my unburned leg. The Chancellor cowered at the end of the small hallway, her eyes wide as she watched me approach. I froze her hand as she reached to push a button on the wall console behind her. She was probably trying to open the reinforced doors from the other stairwells so the Regs could come and save her. I kept her completely immobile. Being so close to my goal sent a surge of adrenaline through me.

  I pulled the huge metal door behind me shut with my telek, lodging it slightly off kilter so any Regs who managed to make their way down here would have more difficulty getting it open again. It wouldn’t stop them, of course. Nothing would stop a Reg on a mission. Even with the rush of adrenaline, my power was almost depleted; I wouldn’t be able to hold them off.

  But I’d have enough time to kill the Chancellor before they got through. After that, nothing mattered. I would die, but that had always been an inevitability, even if I’d never wanted to face it. After all, Adrien’s vision hadn’t extended beyond the moment he saw me standing over her. My mind was strangely calm now that I was here at the end of things. Without the Chancellor and her compulsion power to turn Rez operatives against their own comrades, the Rez could rebuild again in secret. Adrien would be safe. He’d find a way to survive.

  Cole was always talking about redemption. Maybe this could be mine. Even if it didn’t atone for all the people who’d been hurt or killed because of me—I thought of all the dead bodies piled up in the building above me—I could still hope that this sacrifice was one that mattered.

  I turned to finally face the Chancellor. She stood against the far wall, her body still paralyzed by my control. I locked eyes with her as I limped forward, stepping around all the fallen Regs between us. Neither of us said a word. I stopped a few feet away from her. Without anyone to control with her power, she looked so small, so ridiculously impotent. Her cheeks were pale. Her hair that was normally slicked back so perfectly in a tight bun had come loose and hung across her face in stringy chunks.

  I reached my telek fingers through her chest and lifted her up by her spine. The boy on the ground beside her was faced away from me, but he twitched as if in pain.

  I looked back at the Chancellor, suspended in the air. I thought I’d feel some great rush during this moment—finally having her under my control. But all I felt was a weary determination to finish it. Just as I was about to snap her spine and be done with her forever, she screamed, “Stop! You cannot kill me without killing your brother!”

  Her words brought me up short.

  No.

  The boy on the ground twisted again, and I could see his face as he blinked and slowly sat up, clutching his head.

  Markan.

  Chapter 26

  “MARKAN?”

  Could it really be him? I blinked hard, not trusting my eyes. This might be a hallucination. The person beside the Chancellor could just as well be a mind-worker as it could be my brother. She’d used one on me before, and I knew just how lifelike the hallucinations could feel.

  I closed my eyes and felt out the contours of the boy in front of me. The details of the face matched exactly what I saw, the rounded nose and sharp cheekbones. He’d grown. I hadn’t seen him in over a year. He’d been still so much a boy when I’d last seen him but now he was clearly edging toward manhood.

  “We have to get you away from here!” I reached for him.

  “Stay close to me,” the Chancellor ordered and he remained unmoving on the ground. She laughed. I glared at her with hatred. She would not laugh for long.

  I slammed her hard against the wall. Markan’s body contorted and he screamed in pain, just like the Chancellor did.

  “What I said was true,” she said, looking at me through her stringy hair as she gasped for breath. “Another glitcher has an ability that has linked your brother’s life thread with mine. If you kill me, you kill him. Will you have another brother’s death on your conscience?”

  It was a lie. I couldn’t trust a thing she said. I tightened my hold on her and squeezed her throat shut so she couldn’t spout more poison. She was so fragile. It would be nothing to snap her neck and watch the life drain out of her eyes. I cinched my grip tighter still. Her hands went to her throat and Markan’s did the same. His eyes bulged wildly, and it made my heart stutter. The Chancellor could just be compelling him to act that way, I tried to reassure myself. Still I lessened my grip so she could breathe, and Markan’s breathing seemed to ease as well.

  “You’re only saying that to save yourself!” I yelled at her. “You will die today for your crimes.”

  “Then you’ll kill your brother as well,” she wheezed out, her voice raspy from my earlier crushing grip. “And I will have a sweet death, knowing this will haunt you forever. You’ll never know peace. The murder of both of your brothers will be on your head.”

  “Stop talking!” Doubt began to creep in. Because what if it wasn’t a lie? Glitcher Gifts were all so varied, what if one of them did have the power she spoke of? I loosened my grip on her and lowered her to the ground.

  The Chancellor, always so attuned to watching her manipulation at work, took advantage of it. “Markan, attack your sister. Kill her.”

  Markan pulled a laser weapon out of his boot and got to his feet.

  “No!” I put up my hand, freezing them both where they stood. I ripped the gun out of his hand and flung it behind me. Now that Markan was standing, I could tell he’d gotten so much taller in the past year and a half since I’d last seen him. He was fourteen now, almost fifteen.

  What was I going to do if what the Chancellor said was true? Adrenaline had carried me through the last few minutes, but it began to fade. I sagged against the wall as the pain throbbing in the background now came sharply to the forefront again.

  The Chancellor eyed me critically. “You don’t look so good, Zoe. I must admit, I am surprised you made it this far. I used the telepathic twin’s connection with his brother to locate you on the transport. I was sure I’d be able to kill you then and there. But you’ve always had an uncanny ability to survive.”

  So that was how she’d found us. It was an oversight on our part. Thinking back, it was clear that we should have kept Jare sedated or at least blindfolded. But there was nothing we could do about it now. So many mistakes. Especially the most glaring mistake of all: not going back for my brother before it had all come to this.

  “But it looks like it’s all taken its toll,” the Chancellor went on. She pointed at my blood-soaked tunic where Adrien had stabbed me and the blood still seeping from my head wound. “Just how much blood have you lost? Look at you. You’re so exhausted you can barely stand on your own feet.”

  The pounding of the Regs battering against the wall behind us got louder.

  “And listen to that.” A cold grin etched itself on her face. “Seems like the Regulators are breaking through your paltry barriers. You won’t be able to hold them off for much longer. In fact, I imagine you’re going to pass out very soon.” She leaned in and I immobilized her again with my telek. “Stop fighting it. If you give in now, I’ll have Markan grant you a quick death. I promise that I’ll spare the ones you love. I’ve already sent a transport to pick up your friends. They’re on their way back here as we speak.

  “What I told you all those months ago is still true,” she went on. “All I want is a world in which glitchers rule according to their superior Gifts. There will be no more war. Let that thought bring you peace.”

  The screech of twisting metal made me snap my head around to look behind me, just in time to see Regs breaking through the door from the stairwell. My face scrunched up in pain as I held them back, snapping necks and crumpling their arm weapons before they could fire. Between keeping my brother and the Chancellor still, forcing my mast cells in check, and holding the wave of Regulators at bay, the last ounces of energy I had were fading quickly.

  I looked back at the Chancellor, then over to my brother’s face. I had to kill her. My brother was mindless u
nder her control. Wasn’t that in itself something like death? And even if it wasn’t, surely the sacrifice of one boy’s life was worth it to rid the world of the Chancellor forever. I had to harden myself against thinking of him as my brother. He was collateral damage, just like all the Regs I’d already killed today.

  There was no other choice.

  Tears poured out of my eyes as I again reached for the Chancellor’s neck in a stranglehold. Her eyes widened in shock. She’d been so sure I wouldn’t do anything to harm my own brother.

  I wanted to close my eyes as Markan began to gasp like the Chancellor. But I couldn’t. I watched my brother. His face, even changed as it was, was still so familiar to me. Memories rose up until I was tumbling through them: every morning sitting at the table with Markan, and how, after I’d started to glitch, I would sometimes sneak into his room to watch him sleeping. I’d always had an overwhelming urge to protect him.

  And then there were the memories of my other brother. The one I’d betrayed as a child. He’d haunted my nightmares ever since. I’d called out his name to the Regulators and he’d gotten killed even though all he was trying to do was save me from the Community. Because he loved me. Yet here I was now, about to let another brother die.

  Only this time I’d be actively murdering him.

  Cole’s words suddenly rang in my ears about hearts of stone being turned into hearts of flesh. Could I really allow my last act on this earth, before my strength failed and the Regs stomped toward me, be the murder of my own brother? Would I let the Chancellor take this last bit of humanity away from me right at the end?

  And I knew I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t let Markan die even if I knew it meant damning the rest of the world to slavery. It was simply a thing I could not do. I thought of Xona’s and Tyryn’s promises to each other. Well, this was the thing that I had sworn. I’d sworn to protect Markan. It was my deepest promise to myself, the absolute truth that I’d built the rest of my life around after I’d started glitching: I would do everything in my power to save the lives of the people I loved.